WASHINGTON: Discrimination and attacks against American Muslims and Arabs rose by 7.4 percent in 2024 due to heightened Islamophobia caused by US ally Israel’s war in Gaza and the resulting college campus protests, a Muslim advocacy group said on Tuesday.
The Council on American Islamic Relations said it recorded the highest number of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab complaints — 8,658 — in 2024 since it began publishing data in 1996.
Most complaints were in the categories of employment discrimination (15.4 percent), immigration and asylum (14.8 percent), education discrimination (9.8 percent) and hate crimes (7.5 percent), according to the CAIR report.
Rights advocates have highlighted an increase in Islamophobia, anti-Arab bias and antisemitism since the start of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.
The CAIR report also details police and university crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on college campuses.
Demonstrators have for months demanded an end to US support for Israel. At the height of college campus demonstrations in the summer of 2024, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned, and student protesters were suspended and arrested.
Human rights and free speech advocates condemned the crackdown on protests which were called disruptive by university administrators. Notable incidents include violent arrests by police of protesters at Columbia University and a mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“For the second year in a row, the US-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States,” CAIR said. Israel denies genocide and war crimes accusations.
Last month, an Illinois jury found a man guilty of hate crime in an October 2023 fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy.
Other alarming US incidents since late 2023 include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York and a Florida shooting of two Israeli visitors whom a suspect mistook to be Palestinians.
In recent days, the US government has faced criticism from rights advocates over the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student who has played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
Israel-Gaza war behind record high US anti-Muslim incidents, advocacy group says
https://arab.news/c5p4a
Israel-Gaza war behind record high US anti-Muslim incidents, advocacy group says
- Muslim advocacy group says it recorded over 8,600 incidents in 2024
- Rights advocates have noted rising Islamophobia, antisemitism since start of Israel-Gaza war
Israel says carrying out ‘large-scale strikes’ on Tehran
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it launched “large-scale strikes” on Tehran on Monday, two days since the start of a US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
“The Israeli Air Force... has begun an additional wave of strikes against the Iranian terror regime at the heart of Tehran,” the military said in a statement.
Israei's new “large-scale” strikes followed mile fire from Iran that injured three people in Jerusalem late on Sunday.
“A direct impact of a munition was identified on one of the main roads in Jerusalem,” police said in a statement, sharing footage showing officers at a highway section littered with rubble.
Israel’s emergency medical service Magen David Adom said three people were injured, including a 46-year-old man with moderate shrapnel wounds.
The medical organization earlier said several others were treated for light injuries at the site.
AFP journalists heard a series of loud blasts above the city, after the Israeli military said it had detected missiles launched from Iran.
Israel’s Kan public television and Channel 12 broadcast footage showing police officers and rescuers deployed in areas where visible damage could be seen, one “in the center of the country” and the other in the Jerusalem area.
In the Jerusalem area, the footage showed a road strewn with debris and rocks.
In the center of the country, damaged cars could be seen.
Military censorship prohibits the media from disclosing the exact locations of the impact sites.
In other developments:
• The European Union has warned of the cost to the Middle East of a long war, and said it was reinforcing its naval mission in the Red Sea with additional vessels as Iran’s retaliation to US-Israeli strikes threatens maritime traffic, a European diplomat said.
Two new French ships will join the EU’s Aspides mission, bringing to five the number of warships taking part, the diplomat told AFP.
• Gulf states vowed to defend themselves against Iranian attacks, including by “responding to the aggression” if need be, after the Gulf Cooperation Council convened via video-link to formulate a unified response.
• Top US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio will make the case Tuesday to Congress for the attack on Iran. Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and military chief General Dan Caine “will brief the full membership of both chambers of Congress,” White House spokesman Dylan Johnson said.
• Container shipping company Maersk said it was halting passage through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz for “safety” reasons.
The Danish group was the latest of several shipping groups to make similar announcements after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards declared the strait closed on Saturday.
• Seven people were injured in the Jerusalem area following the latest salvo of missiles fired from Iran, Israeli firefighters said.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had agreed to let the United States use UK bases to fire “defensive” strikes aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and their launchers. But in a video address posted to social media, he added: “We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and we will not join offensive action now.
• Iranian media reported that a police station in a city on the outskirts of Tehran had been hit, killing an unspecified number of people, with others reportedly trapped under debris. “According to initial reports, a number of citizens were martyred and some were trapped under the rubble,” the Tasnim news agency reported.
• Iranian news agency ISNA reported that Gandhi hospital in northern Tehran had been targeted by strikes. The Fars and Mizan agencies published a video, presented as being from inside the facility, showing debris on the floor among wheelchairs.
