In the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, an uptick in Islamophobic comments and sentiment has been observed, in both Israel itself and countries all over the world. [1] [2] [3] [4]
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In the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, an uptick in Islamophobic comments and sentiment has been observed, in both Israel itself and countries all over the world. [1] [2] [3] [4]
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On 9 October, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip as "human animals", following their massacre of 1200 Israelis, sparking controversy. [5] [6] [7]
Hundreds of far-right Israelis reportedly tried to break into Palestinian students' dormatories at the Netanya Academic College in Israel while chanting "Death to Arabs". Reports of the students instigating the mob's reactions were ruled out by police. [8] Others facing suspensions from their educational instructions after being accused of "support for terrorism" due to social media posts expressing support for civilians in Gaza. [9]
On 1 November 2023, during a rally, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath said, "The solution to the Taliban is Bajrang Wali's mace. We are seeing how Israel is currently working to crush the Taliban mentality in Ghaza. They are taking the correct measures to ensure their targets are finished." [10] [11] In Indian politics, the term "Taliban" is largely synonymous with Islamic extremism in general, and has been used as an expression to deride Indian Muslims.
In November 2023, the French Council of the Muslim Faith stated that it had received threats in the wake of the October 7 attacks. [12] The council also claimed that 14 mosques had been vandalized. [12]
In the United Kingdom, Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana called for a ceasefire, to which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told her to call Hamas and the Houthis to deescalate the situation. Sultana responded shortly after that, "This is an Islamophobic trope – as if by being Muslim, I am responsible for Hamas and the Houthis." [13] [ when? ] In February 2024, hate crimes against Muslims in the UK had risen by 140 percent compared to the year prior. [14] Tell MAMA reported that anti-Muslim hate incidents had risen by 335 percent since the start of the conflict. [15] In March 2024, the UK government pledged $150m dollars for additional security for Muslim sites following a surge of anti-Muslim attacks. [16]
On 30 April 2024, Human Rights Watch released a report which said that the government of Germany was "falling short in protecting Muslims and people perceived to be Muslims from racism amid rising incidents of hate and discrimination" and that the "absence of a working definition of anti-Muslim racism and a lack of official data on incidents and of investment in institutional support for victims are among the impediments to an effective response." [17]
On 11 October, a group of pro-Israeli activists were accused of assaulting three Palestinian- and Arab-American men in Brooklyn, New York. [18] [19] According to the NYPD, the assailants shouted anti-Muslim slurs during the attack. [20]
On 14 October, an Illinois man stabbed a 6-year-old Muslim Palestinian-American boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, and his mother, Hanaan Shahin. [21] [22] The boy died, and his mother was hospitalized. [23] The attack was deemed a hate crime by law enforcement and was subsequently charged as such. [24] [25]
On 31 October, NBC News reported that "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that it received 774 requests for help and reports of bias incidents from Muslims across the United States from Oct. 7 to Oct. 24, a 182% jump from any given 16-day stretch last year." [26] On 9 November, CAIR reported that it had received 1,283 complaints in the months time between 7 October and 7 November. [27] On 16 February, CAIR reported that it had received 3,578 hate crime complaints in the last three months of 2023. [28]
On 1 November 2023, the Biden Administration said it was trying to combat the increase in Islamophobia. [29] [30] In March 2024, the U.S. president condemned "the ugly resurgence of Islamophobia in the wake of the devastating war in Gaza". [31]
On 26 November 2023, three Palestinian students were shot in Vermont. [32] [33] [34] The incident was suspected to be a hate crime.
The South Florida Muslim Federation stated the Marriott Coral Springs Hotel and Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale had abruptly cancelled their conference after receiving 100 calls baselessly claiming the organization supported anti-Semitism and terrorism. [35]
Stuart Seldowitz, a former-Obama Administration official, was arrested and criminally charged for harassing a halal food vendor in New York City, [36] [37] but the charges were dropped after a judge instead offered him a 26-week anti-bias programme. [38]
In September 2024, U.S. Senator John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana accused Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, of supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, leading Berry to state, "I didn’t expect a direct racist attack". [39] The same month, a cartoon in the Detroit News depicted Rashida Tlaib with an exploding pager following the 2024 Lebanon pager explosions. [40] In response, Tlaib stated, "This racism will incite more hate + violence against our Arab & Muslim communities". [41] The Council on American–Islamic Relations called on the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt to be fired after she joked "Do you want a beeper?" when asked about perceptions that Israel was weaker after the 7 October attacks. [42] Ryan Girdusky, a conservative commentator, was banned from CNN after telling Mehdi Hasan "I hope your beeper doesn’t go off" after Hasan stated he supported Palestinians. [43]
In October 2024, Ahmed Ghanim, an Arab American Democratic politician, stated that he was forcibly removed from a Kamala Harris rally in Michigan, stating, "They keep saying they want the Muslims and the Arabs, but we aren’t even welcome at an event". [44]
In October 2024, a 23-year-old woman was indicted for second-degree assault as a hate crime, third-degree assault as a hate crime, and second-degree aggravated harassment for a unprovoked attack with pepper spray on a Muslim Uber driver on the Upper East Side in New York City. [45]
On 28 January, 2024, assailants threw rocks at a mosque in Mississauga, Ontario, leading Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to call the acts "cowardly, disturbing, and unacceptable". [46] In February 2024, Trudeau condemned vandalism at the Islamic Centre of Cambridge in Ontario. [47]
Between October and December 2023, Australia experienced a surge in both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas on 7 October. [48] [49] The Islamophobia Register Australia recorded 133 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 6 November 2023, including spitting attacks, threats to mosques and Muslim schools, graffiti, property damage, hate mail, verbal abuse, and online abuse. By comparison, the average number of weekly Islamophobic incidents prior to 7 October averaged 2.5 per week. Executive director of Islamophobia Register Australia, Sharara Attai, said that she believed that the number of Islamophobic incidents was higher than 133 and that Islamophobia and other hate crimes were often under-reported. [49] In addition, the Victorian Police recorded 12 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 9 November, resulting in one arrest. [49]
By 2 December, the number of Islamophobic incidents recorded by the Islamophobia Register had risen by 13-fold to 230 incidents over a period of seven weeks. [48] Notable incidents included a young Christian boy being called a "terrorist" for his Palestinian ethnicity, [50] Muslim women having their hijabs yanked off, and Arab and Muslim Australians being doxed, receiving death threats, and dismissed from their jobs for expressing pro-Palestinian viewpoints or attending pro-Palestine rallies. [48]
In mid November 2023, New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and The Disinformation Project reported a surge in both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in New Zealand following the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. Islamophobic content surfaced on both social media and gaming platforms. According to Disinformation Project researcher Kate Hannah, Muslims and Palestinians were often conflated with Hamas. Similarly, the DIA's digital violence research team also reported a surge in online content referencing the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) chairperson Abdur Razzaq also reported a surge in online content calling for attacks on mosques following 7 October. [51]
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas, is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation with a military wing called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.
Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin was a Palestinian politician and imam who founded Hamas in 1987. He also served as the first chairman of the Hamas Shura Council and de facto leader of Hamas since its inception from December 1987 until his assassination in March 2004.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. It is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with regional offices nationwide. Through civil rights actions, media relations, civic engagement, and education, CAIR works to promote social, legal and political activism among Muslims in America.
Nihad Awad is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948, when about 200,000 of the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as refugees. Since then, Israel has been involved in about 15 wars involving organizations in the Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing 2023–2024 war (41,000) is higher than the death toll of all other wars in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict combined.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) is a non-profit Canadian Muslim civil liberties and human rights advocacy organization. The organization was established in 2000 to focus on combatting Islamophobia, hate and racism through legal action, public advocacy, education, and media representation. NCCM's mission is "to protect Canadian human rights and civil liberties, challenge discrimination and Islamophobia, build mutual understanding, and advocate for the public concerns of Canadian Muslims."
Ma'an News Agency is a large wire service created in 2005 in the Palestinian territories. It is part of the Ma'an Network, a non-governmental organization media network created in 2002 in the Palestinian territories among independent journalists throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It has partnerships with eight local television stations and twelve local radio stations. Ma'an News Agency publishes news 24 hours a day in Arabic, Hebrew and English, and claims to be one of the largest wire services in the Palestinian territories, with over three million visits per month. Ma'an News Agency also publishes feature stories, analysis and opinion articles. The agency's headquarters are based in Bethlehem and it has an office in Gaza.
Ayman Mohyeldin is an Egyptian-born political commentator based in New York for NBC News and MSNBC. Previously the anchor of an MSNBC weekday afternoon show, Ayman Mohyeldin Reports, he currently hosts Ayman on weekend evenings on MSNBC, and Fridays on Peacock. He previously worked for Al Jazeera and CNN. He was one of the first Western journalists allowed to enter and report on the handing over and trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity. Mohyeldin has also covered the 2008–09 Gaza War as well as the Arab Spring.
Ismail Haniyeh was a Palestinian politician who served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from May 2017 until his assassination in July 2024. He also served as prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority from March 2006 until June 2014 and Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip from June 2007 until February 2017, where he was succeeded by Yahya Sinwar.
American Muslims often face Islamophobia and racialization due to stereotypes and generalizations ascribed to them. Due to this, Islamophobia is both a product of and a contributor to the United States' racial ideology, which is founded on socially constructed categories of profiled features, or how people seem.
Islamophobia in Australia is distrust and hostility towards Muslims, Islam, and those perceived as following the religion. This social aversion and bias is often facilitated and perpetuated in the media through the stereotyping of Muslims as violent and uncivilised. Various Australian politicians and political commentators have capitalised on these negative stereotypes and this has contributed to the marginalisation, discrimination and exclusion of the Muslim community.
Zainab Chaudry is an American Muslim civil rights and political activist. She is the Maryland Director for the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Anti-Palestinianism or anti-Palestinian racism refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination directed at the Palestinian people for any variety of reasons. Since the mid-20th century, the phenomenon has largely overlapped with anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians today are Arabs and Muslims. Historically, anti-Palestinianism was more closely identified with European antisemitism, as far-right Europeans detested the Jewish people as undesirable foreigners from Palestine. Modern anti-Palestinianism—that is, xenophobia or racism towards the Arabs of Palestine—is most common in Israel, the United States, Lebanon, and Germany, among other countries.
The year 2023 in Israel was defined first by wide-scale protests against a proposed judicial reform, and then by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, which led to a war and to Israel invading the Gaza Strip.
Since 7 October 2023, numerous violent incidents prompted by the Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Israel–Hamas war have been reported worldwide. They have accompanied a sharp increase in global antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as anti-Israeli sentiment and anti-Palestinian sentiment or broader anti-Arab sentiment. Other people and groups have also been targeted, such as the Sikhs, who are commonly mistaken to be Muslims by their attackers.
Following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, there has been a surge of antisemitism around the world. Israeli Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer has stated that Israel is bracing to expect a large wave of Jews migrating to Israel due to the rising antisemitism around the world.
On 19 October 2023, part of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City, in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, was damaged during an Israeli aistrike, killing at least 18 Palestinian civilians during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. Over 450 Christian and Muslim Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip had been sheltering there.
The outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war led to an increased dislike of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government from Israeli citizens due to a perceived failure of leadership on the issue, with increased calls for Netanyahu's resignation.
Following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, there has been a surge of anti-Palestinianism, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia. Palestinians have expressed concerns over increased anti-Palestinianism in mass media and anti-Palestinian hate crimes. Human rights groups have noted an increase in anti-Palestinian hate speech and incitement to violence against Palestinians.
The Israeli government's response to the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel has multiple aspects, including a military response leading to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. In October, the Knesset approved a war cabinet in Israel, adding National Unity ministers and altering the government; Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz froze non-war legislation, establishing a war cabinet with military authority.
