A fatal stabbing in Illinois, a gun pointed at protesters in Pennsylvania, vandalism at synagogues and harassment of staff at a Palestinian restaurant all are raising fears that the war between Israel and Hamas is sparking violence in the United States.
The
tensions follow a familiar pattern of crimes against Jewish and Muslim
communities rising when conflict erupts in the Middle East and Americans have
been killed or taken hostage.
“We have
a two pronged threat to American faith communities,” said Brian Levin, founding
director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State
University, San Bernardino.
While
it’s too soon to say with certainty whether anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish crimes
have increased during the war, hate crimes overall increased in the U.S. last
year. In its annual report released Monday, the FBI estimated that hate crimes
increased by 7% to 11,634 cases in 2022 compared to the previous year. With
1,124 incidents, anti-Jewish attacks were the second most reported hate crime,
after anti-Black cases. There were 158 reported incidents of anti-Muslim
attacks, and 92 reports of anti-Arab cases, according to the report.
Civil
rights organizations, however, believe that even before the Hamas attacks in
Israel, crime data didn’t reflect reality due to a lack of participation by
local police departments and internalized fear among the Muslim population,
said Robert McCaw, director of governmental affairs for the Council on
American-Islamic Relations. In 2021, the Othering & Belonging Institute at
the University of California, Berkeley, released a study in which 85% of those
who were subjected to Islamophobia said they did not report it to authorities.
“The
true number remains to be seen,” McCaw said.
In one
of the most troubling recent incidents, a landlord in Plainfield, Illinois, is
accused of attacking a Palestinian American tenant and her son with a knife on
Saturday, purportedly because of their Muslim faith, stabbing the 6-year-old
boy to death and injuring the mother. The sheriff, prosecutors and family all
said the boy and his mother were targeted for being Muslim. More specifically,
prosecutors said the landlord was “angry ... for what was going on in
Jerusalem” and his wife told police her husband feared they would be attacked
by people of Middle Eastern descent.
In
Pennsylvania, a man was charged with felony ethnic intimidation after police said
he pointed a gun and yelled slurs at attendees of a pro-Palestinian rally near
the state Capitol on Friday. In Boston, the word “Nazis” was spray-painted
across the sign for the Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace.
“There’s
a lot of fear. There’s a lot of anxiety and uncertainty in everything that’s
happening,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director for the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee. He said the group has received more than 100
reports including verbal harassment, threats, intimidation and physical
attacks.
“It’s
very reminiscent of the early days of post-9/11, where people didn’t want to go
outside, they didn’t want to send their kids to school,” he said. “They’re just
worried about being in public and being approached.”
In Dearborn,
Michigan, which has the nation’s highest Muslim population per capita,
community and faith leaders met outside the city’s police department Monday.
The city has seen multiple threats of violence in recent days, including from a
man accused of asking on social media if anyone in metro Detroit wanted to “go
to Dearborn & hunt Palestinians.”
“We have
to understand that these issues that are overseas are not just overseas, they
are very much also issues here,” said Imran Salha, the imam of the Islamic
Center of Detroit.
Historically,
anti-Jewish hate crimes have increased during violent Israeli-Palestinian
conflicts, said Levin, a professor emeritus at California State.
In March
1994, there was a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes from 79 incidents to 147 a
month after an American Israeli extremist opened fire on Palestinian Muslims in
a mosque, he said, citing FBI statistics. In October 2000, anti-Jewish hate
crimes in the U.S. surged from 81 to 204 compared to the month before after a
series of violent protests in Arab villages in northern Israel. Levin observed
a similar trend in May 2021, particularly in cities with significant Jewish
populations such as New York and Los Angeles.
In
California last week, flyers spreading anti-Jewish rhetoric were left in
neighborhoods and on vehicles in the city of Orange. And in Fresno, police said
a man suspected of breaking windows and leaving an anti-Jewish note at a bakery
also is a “person of interest” in the vandalism of a local synagogue.
Julie
Platt, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, said synagogues and
Jewish community centers around the country have been strengthening their
security programs, but that she does not want to see members of her community
duck for cover.
“I think
the whole point of this is to terrorize us psychologically,” she said. “As long
as I hear of no credible threats, I believe we should live our Jewish lives.”
Several
Palestinian Americans interviewed Friday in a Brooklyn neighborhood with a
large Arab population said the atmosphere has been tense in the last week.
Jumana
Alkaram said she has not been personally threatened but that: “I know if I was
to demonstrate my heritage or the Palestinian flag there would be some type of
threat. Because the majority has the support of Israel and don’t have the full
legit story about what’s happening in Gaza.”
In New
York City, a Palestinian restaurant, Ayat, was forced to disconnect its phone
after receiving “nonstop” threatening voicemails, according to co-owner, Abdul
Elenani. The storefront features a mural of a crying Palestinian and its menu
includes calls to “end the occupation.” On Friday, a man entered the dining
room shouting “terrorist” at the people behind the counter, Elenani said.
Still,
the hostile reception was overshadowed by the support he has received from his
neighbors, many of whom are Jewish and share his views about minimizing
civilian deaths, he said.
“In New
York, we all live together, we work together, we grow together,” Elenani said.
“And we all want this violence to stop.”
***Ramer
reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti
in Dearborn, Michigan; Deepa Bharath in Los Angeles; Jake Offenhartz, Noreen
Nasir and Ayesha Mir and in New York; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;
and Jim Salter in St. Louis, contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-muslim-jewish-hate-crimes-3528a67cdf4e6799355be0da9a3c0634
***More:
https://counciloncj.org/homicide-other-violent-crimes-decline-in-u-s-cities-but-remain-above-pre-pandemic-levels/