This article needs to be updated.(October 2024) |
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. [1] Other people and groups have also been targeted, such as the Sikhs, [2] who are commonly mistaken to be Muslims by their attackers. [3] [a]
On 25 October, a man broke into a Jewish family's home in Los Angeles yelling "Free Palestine" and "Kill Jews". [4]
On 3 November, CNN reported on the arrest of 20 year-old Jordanian national for plotting a terrorist attack against the Jewish community in Houston, Texas. [5]
Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish man, was fatally injured in a dispute between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrators on November 5 in Westlake Village, Los Angeles County, California. Initial reports indicated that he fell and hit his head on the ground, and may have been hit by a megaphone used by a pro-Palestine demonstrator, although police did not initially confirm that. As of November 7, a suspect was detained and later released. [6] [7]
On 4 February, a Palestinian migrant ripped two pro-Israel flags from a home in Hewlett, New York. When the homeowner confronted him and attempted to take back the flags, the man punched him and put him into a chokehold while yelling pro-Palestine phrases. When the homeowner could no longer fight back, the man stomped on the flags and stole them. The man was arrested later and charged with a hate crime. [8] [9] [10]
On 18 October two Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue in the Mitte neighborhood of central Berlin. One person was arrested. [11] On 21 October an explosive device was detonated near the Israeli embassy in Cyprus, four men of Syrian origin were detained. [12]
On 4 November, a Jewish woman was stabbed in Lyon, France and a swastika was graffitied on her home. [13]
On 11 December, a 16-year-old was arrested by Austrian police for planning to attack a synagogue in Vienna. [14]
On 31 January, a potentially dangerous device was found near the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, prompting a large evacuation in the surrounding area. The incident was investigated by the national bomb squad. [15]
In France, sites vandalized include schools, nurseries, and The Wall of the Righteous, a memorial that honors individuals who saved Jews during the Nazi occupation of France. [16] The incident was described as antisemitic by French President Emmanuel Macron, President of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France Yonathan Arfi, and the Union of Jewish Students in France. [17] On 17 May 2024, a synagogue in Rouen was set on fire by an Algerian arsonist, damaging the synagogue significantly. [18] [19]
On March 2, 2024, an Orthodox Jew was stabbed by a 15-year old in Zürich, Switzerland. [20] The teen later said that he was doing the attack on behalf of Al-Aqsa, alluding to Jihadist concepts. [21]
On 3 June 2024, a suspect of foreign nationality was detained in Romania after throwing Molotov cocktail outside Israeli embassy in Bucharest which caused no damage and casualties. According to the embassy he was of Syrian origin and allegedly threatened to ignite himself. [22]
On 4 July 2024, Greek anti-terrorism police arrest seven people, including foreign nationals, over arson attacks against an Israeli-owned hotel and a synagogue in central Athens. [23]
On 7 November, there was an attempted arson attack against Congregation Beth Tikvah synagogue and a Jewish Community Center in Montreal. [24] [25]
On 9 November in Montreal, two Jewish children's schools, Talmud Torah Elementary and Yeshiva Gedola, were targeted with gunfire overnight, leaving bullet holes. [26] [27] On 12 November, Yeshiva Gedola was struck with gunfire for a second time. In a press conference that day, Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante said, "The Jewish community in Montreal is currently under attack." [28]
Shortly after midnight on 27 November, a Jewish community center belonging to the Jewish Community Council of Montreal was attacked with a Molotov cocktail. [29]
Since 28 October, a wave of antisemitic attacks occurred in the North Caucasus region of Russia. [30]
On 8 October, a police officer fired his gun into a group of bus passengers in Alexandria, Egypt. [31] The attack occurred during a trip past Pompey's Pillar. [32] Two Israeli tourists and an Egyptian tour guide were killed, while another Israeli was moderately wounded. [33] The suspect was subsequently taken into custody. [34]
On 17 October the El Hamma synagogue in El Hamma, Tunisia, a historic synagogue and the burial site of 16th-century Kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Ma'aravi, was severely damaged during anti-Israel riots, with hundreds of people filmed setting fire to the building. [35] [36] [37] On the same day, the Or Zaruah synagogue in Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, was attacked by a mob chanting "murderous Israel" while waving Palestinian flags. [38] [39] [40]
On 7 May 2024, Israeli-Canadian businessman Ziv Kipper, head of Egyptian food exporter OK Group, was fatally shot in Alexandria by a group named "Vanguards of Liberation - the Martyr Mohammad Salah group," a reference to the Egyptian police officer who fatally shot three Israeli soldiers. The group, who described Kipper as a Mossad agent, said the murder was in retaliation to "massacres in Gaza" and the Rafah offensive. [41] [42] [43]
On 13 October an Israeli diplomat was stabbed in Beijing, China, [44] for which a foreign suspect was arrested. [45]
On 8 November 2023, two men were arrested by Brazilian police in São Paulo following a warning from the Mossad that Hezbollah was planning an attack against the country's Jewish community. Searches were also conducted in Brasília and Minas Gerais in connection with the alleged plot. [46]
Outside Chicago, Illinois, a man while reportedly yelling "You Muslims must die" stabbed a 32-year-old Palestinian-American woman, seriously injuring her, and stabbed her six-year-old son 26 times to death. Detectives said the man targeted the family because they were Muslim, and he was upset about the conflict. [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]
On October 19, a man in Dearborn, Michigan was arrested by local police after posting on Facebook a credible threat proposing acts of violence against Palestinian-Americans in Dearborn, which has the largest population of Arab Americans in the United States. The man had posted an open invitation to "hunt Palestinians" and claimed to be part of a Jewish group protecting Israel. [52]
In October 2024, a 7-year-old Yemeni American girl was stabbed in the neck at a park in Detroit, Michigan. [53] The alleged perpetrator's family stated they believed he was experiencing a mental health episode, and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office stated it did not have evidence that the incident was a hate crime. [53] The victim's mother, however, stated she believed the stabbing was a possible hate crime. [54] According to the family, the girl and her grandmother were the only Arabs in the park at the time of the attack. [55] The Council of American Islamic Relations and Arab-American Civil Rights League both called on the incident to be investigated as a hate crime. [56] [57]
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Los Angeles called for an investigation to be opened by the University of California, Los Angeles after a group of men entered a space used by students watching a webinar of an ongoing panel titled "The Crisis in Palestine". The men reportedly damaged students property, verbally assaulted them calling them "terrorists" and physically threatening them before campus security removed them from the area. One of the group was allegedly spotted later at a on-campus vigil for Israel. [58] [59]
On 4 November, an Arab Muslim student at Stanford University in California was hit by car driven by a white man who yelled, "fuck you and your people." The incident was investigated as a hate crime. [60]
Chapters of CAIR have reported other instances of Islamophobia since the war began with two alleged assaults' in Brooklyn, New York City and an individual who pointed a gun at pro-Palestine demonstrators outside of the Pennsylvania state capitol. [61] On October 28, a Princeton University staff member who took issue with a message assaulted a student at a protest. [62]
On 25 November, three Palestinian college students from Brown University, Haverford College, and Trinity College in Burlington, Vermont were confronted and shot and wounded by a white man, leaving one of the students in critical condition. [63]
On 4 January 2024, an imam in New Jersey was killed. [64] On 19 January 2024, Columbia University students reported that a hazardous chemical was sprayed at or near student protesters, while a pro-Palestinian divestment now rally was held. At least ten protestors reported physical symptoms with three seeking medical attention. The substance was identified by some protestors as Skunk, manufactured by the Israeli firm Odortec and has been used against demonstrators in the West Bank. [65]
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. [66] In Brooklyn, a group of unknown individuals were being investigated after they made anti-Palestinian comments toward a couple and punched them in the face multiple times. [67]
In February 2024, a 23-year-old Palestinian-American man was stabbed after attending a pro-Palestinian rally in Austin, Texas. [68] Police called the stabbing a potential "bias-motivated incident". [69] In a statement relayed by his father, the young man stated, "Mr. President, Mr. Joe Biden, I blame you for what happened to me." [70] The stabbing was deemed a hate crime. [71]
In June 23, 2024, a Jewish woman in Euless, Texas attempted to drown a 3-year-old Muslim Palestinian child after making racist statements to the child's mother. [72] [73] [74] She is currently out on a $25,000 bond for attempted capital murder and $15,000 for injury of the child. [75] The representative for Euless, Salman Bhojani - who is Muslim himself - condemned the incident, saying "Hate has no place in Euless, District 92, or anywhere in our great state". [75]
In Europe, many Muslims fear anti-Muslim reprisals due to the Israel–Hamas war and concurrent Islamic terrorist attacks (such as the Arras school stabbing and Brussels shooting, which occurred in October 2023); the war and the attacks have emboldened some far-right voices in the western world that assert Muslims as a fifth column and an internal enemy to Europe's security. [76]
A homeowner in Sydney was threatened with a bomb attached to his car after flying a Palestinian flag in front of his home. [77]
On February 25, 2024, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the United States Air Force, died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. Immediately prior to the live-streamed act, Bushnell said that he was protesting against "what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers" and declared that he "will no longer be complicit in genocide", after which he doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire. [78] As he burned, Bushnell repeatedly shouted "Free Palestine" while one Secret Service officer pointed a gun at him and two others attempted to extinguish him. [79] [80]
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents. FBI data shows that in every year since 1991, Jews were the most frequent victims of religiously motivated hate crimes. The number of hate crimes against Jews may be underreported, as in the case for many other targeted groups.
Antisemitic incidents escalated worldwide in frequency and intensity during the Gaza War, and were widely considered to be a wave of reprisal attacks in response to the conflict.
Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hatred, hostility, harm, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group. Some of the first Jewish settlers in Canada arrived in Montreal in the 1760s, among them was Aaron Hart who is considered the father of Canadian Jewry. His son Ezekiel Hart experience one of the first well documented cases of antisemitism in Canada. Hart was repeatedly stopped from taking his seat in the Quebec legislature due to his Jewish faith, as members claimed he could not take the oath of office, which included the phrase "on the true faith of a Christian".
Sergeant Almog Shiloni of the Israel Defense Forces was killed on 10 November 2014 after he was stabbed multiple times at Tel Aviv HaHagana Railway Station. He died in hospital from his wounds. Shiloni was off-duty, but in uniform and armed at the time.
On 3 October 2015, a Palestinian resident of al-Bireh attacked the Benita family near the Lions' Gate in Jerusalem, as they were on their way to the Western Wall to pray. The attacker murdered Aaron Benita, the father of the family, and injured the mother Adele and their 2-year-old son Matan. Nehemia Lavi, a resident who heard screams and came to help was also murdered and his gun taken by the assailant. The attacker, 19 year old Muhanad Shafeq Halabi was shot and killed by police as he was firing on pedestrians.
An increase of violence occurred in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict starting in the autumn of 2015 and lasting into the first half of 2016. It was called the "Intifada of the Individuals" by Israeli sources, the Knife Intifada, Stabbing Intifada or Jerusalem Intifada by international sources because of the many stabbings in Jerusalem, or Habba by Palestinian sources. 38 Israelis and 235 Palestinians were killed in the violence. 558 Israelis and thousands of Palestinians were injured.
The 2017 Temple Mount crisis was a period of violent tensions related to the Temple Mount, which began on 14 July 2017, after a shooting incident in the complex in which Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli police officers. Following the attack, Israeli authorities installed metal detectors at the entrance to the Mount in a step that caused large Palestinian protests and was severely criticized by Palestinian leaders, the Arab League, and other Muslim leaders, on the basis that it constituted a change in the "status quo" of the Temple Mount entry restrictions.
Antisemitism is a growing problem in 21st-century Germany.
On the night of December 28, 2019, the seventh night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, a masked man wielding a large knife or machete invaded the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, Rockland County, New York, where a Hanukkah party was underway, and began stabbing the guests. Five men were wounded, two of whom were hospitalized in critical condition. Party guests forced the assailant to flee by wielding chairs and a small table. Three months after the stabbing, the most severely injured victim, Rabbi Josef Neumann, aged 72, died of his wounds.
The Maghain Aboth Synagogue attack plot was a plan by 20-year old Amirull Ali, a member of the Singapore Armed Forces, to stab three members of the Maghain Aboth Synagogue in retaliation for the role of Israel and Jews in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ali also planned to travel to Gaza to join Hamas' military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
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 because 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.
Events in the year 2022 in Palestine.
On October 14, 2023, Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, was killed when he was stabbed 26 times in his home in Plainfield Township, Illinois. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, was also stabbed and strangled, leaving her critically injured. Authorities have described the killing as a hate crime motivated by lslamophobia and anti-Palestinianism, and an extremist reaction to the contemporaneous 2023 Israel–Hamas war.
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.
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.
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.
Paul Kessler was a Jewish American man who died at the age of 69 after being fatally injured in an altercation on November 5, 2023, between dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrations in Thousand Oaks, California, United States. Kessler's death has been ruled a homicide; as of a May 2024 press release from the prosecution, authorities have yet to find evidence of a hate crime.
On May 20, 2021, Joseph "Joey" Borgen, a 29-year old Jewish man, was assaulted and beaten in an antisemitic hate crime while heading to a pro-Israel rally in New York City. Borgen was wearing a yarmulke, a visible Jewish skullcap. Five pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and found guilty for the attack and received sentences of up to 7 years in prison.
Pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Texas at Austin began on April 24, 2024, organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. The protests have included sit-ins, marches, and encampments on campus, calling for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel's actions in Gaza. The demonstrations escalated when university officials, with support from local and state law enforcement, intervened to disperse protestors, leading to multiple arrests and sparking criticism over the suppression of free speech on campus. Despite arrests and clashes with police, the protests have continued, drawing significant attention and raising debates about civil liberties and the role of university administration in managing campus protests.
The violence abroad has created violence and fear in the US for Palestinians and Muslims, and for Arabs in general, as well as people incorrectly perceived to be a member of those groups, including Sikhs. Sikh men, who grow long beards and wear turbans as part of their religion, Sikhism, sometimes get mistaken as Muslim and have faced anti-Muslim violence as a result.
Ripple effects from the war between Israel and Hamas are being felt by Muslim and Arab populations across Europe, who fear an Islamophobic backlash. They worry that the conflict and recent Islamist attacks in France and Belgium are emboldening far-right voices who cast Muslims and Arabs as a fifth column posing a danger from within.