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After Hamas attack, Arab Americans fear return to post-9/11 prejudices

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Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="New York City police officers, including officers from the department" s="" Counterterrorism="" provide="" security="" at="" the="" Islamic="" Cultural="" Center="" of="" New="" York="" as="" people="" arrive="" for="" Friday="" prayers="" in="" on="" March="" EPA-EFE="" JUSTIN="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/overseas/10/18/20231018-new-york-city-police-epa.jpg"/><figcaption>New York City police officers, including officers from the department&#x27;s Counterterrorism Unit, provide security at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York as people arrive for Friday prayers in New York, New York, USA, on March 15, 2019. EPA-EFE/JUSTIN LANE, file</figcaption></figure></div>WASHINGTON — In the days following Hamas&#x27; bloody attack on Israel, many Arab and Muslim Americans have worried over signs of a return to the atmosphere of suspicion that hung over their communities in the United States after 9/11.Those fears were brutally underscored when a little boy of Palestinian origin was stabbed to death in Illinois.Six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 times on Saturday by his family&#x27;s 71-year-old landlord, according to police, who charged the assailant with hate crimes.The man shouted, &quot;You Muslims must die&quot; at the child&#x27;s mother, who was seriously injured in the attack, according to text messages the mother sent to the murdered boy&#x27;s father while in the hospital and cited by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/overseas/10/17/23/growing-anger-in-israel-over-the-plight-of-hostages">Growing anger in Israel over the plight of hostages</a></li></ul>According to police, Wadea and his mother &quot;were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.&quot;President Joe Biden, who has given his unwavering support to Israel, said he was &quot;shocked and sickened&quot; by the assault, and stressed his rejection of Islamophobia.The little boy &quot;paid the price for the atmosphere of hate and otherization and dehumanization,” said Ahmed Rehab, head of the CAIR office in Chicago.&quot;We&#x27;ve warned about not recreating the same mistake we had in the post-9/11 environment,&quot; he said. &quot;But here we are.&quot;<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/10/16/23/muslim-boy-in-us-killed-in-attack-linked-to-israel-hamas-war">Muslim boy in US killed in attack linked to Israel-Hamas war</a></li></ul><div>Anxiety</div>Sarah Suzuki Harvard, 30, grew up in Plainfield, Illinois, where Wadea Al-Fayoume was killed.&quot;We&#x27;re returning to the Islamophobic levels of 9/11 — and it&#x27;s only going to get worse,&quot; she said on X, formerly known as Twitter.The former-journalist- turned-comedian, whose father is Moroccan and mother is Japanese, told AFP she remembers a difficult environment in the years following the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington, and the &quot;harassment&quot; she witnessed as a child.The situation was so bad, she said, that her family decided to change their last name to avoid discrimination.When she learned of the little boy&#x27;s murder, she said she felt &quot;so much pain and heartache.&quot;&quot;Then I was scared, because my family lives there,” she said.&quot;I texted my dad: &#x27;Please be careful when you go to the masjid (mosque). I love you. Make sure you tell my aunt and uncle.&#x27;&quot;Zenjabela, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Palestinian descent who preferred not to give her full name, said she had felt &quot;hostility&quot; directed at her in recent days, adding she had seen people in her neighborhood being verbally abused for saying &quot;as-salaam alaikum&quot; -- a Muslim greeting that means &quot;Peace be upon you&quot; in Arabic.&quot;I&#x27;ve never felt so much anxiety about perception of Muslims and Palestinians and Arabs in general,&quot; she told AFP.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/10/16/23/no-aid-into-gaza-as-desperation-mounts-for-millions-trapped">No aid into Gaza as desperation mounts for millions trapped</a></li></ul><div>&#x27;All anti-Semitic&#x27;</div>Against this backdrop of rising tensions, some US elected officials have released statements that many have called inflammatory.&quot;The United States should have no part in providing aid to Gaza for the same reason the US didn&#x27;t provide aid to Nazi Germany. Aiding Gaza will only prolong the rule of Hamas,&quot; Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas posted on social media.Florida&#x27;s governor Ron DeSantis, who is running in the Republican party&#x27;s presidential primary election, declared the United States could not accept any refugees from Gaza because &quot;not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic.&quot;&quot;How incredibly destructive and dangerous that rhetoric is,&quot; Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN.&quot;We just had a six-year-old boy stabbed 26 times... because of rhetoric like that,&quot; she said. &quot;It is unacceptable. It is reckless and no leader in the United States of America should be amplifying a message like that.&quot;<figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eQzYzZvIH28?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>Aya Hijazi, a 36-year-old American social justice activist born to an Egyptian mother and a Lebanese father, said she feels &quot;silenced and demonized.&quot;&quot;Basically, it&#x27;s kind of like you have to prove that you&#x27;re not a terrorist,&quot; she told AFP.&quot;I love to wear the keffiyeh,&quot; the black and white scarf that symbolizes the Palestinian cause.But, she said, &quot;now I think twice and three times&quot; before putting it on.&quot;I&#x27;m a mother now,&quot; said the Virginia resident. &quot;Am I endangering my daughter?&quot;<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/10/16/23/actions-of-hamas-do-not-represent-palestinian-people-abbas">Actions of Hamas &#x27;do not represent Palestinian people&#x27;: Abbas</a></li></ul><div>© Agence France-Presse</div>

'We're returning to the Islamophobic levels of 9/11 — and it's only going to get worse.'