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14-12-2024
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Thursday released a long-awaited strategy for countering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate, up sharply since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, calling for urgent, continued work to reduce discrimination and bias.
The 64-page document comes weeks before the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, who imposed a travel ban on people from some majority Muslim countries during his first term that Biden rescinded on his first day in office.
It mirrors a comprehensive strategy to fight antisemitism released by the White House in September 2023, and comes more than a year after death of six-year-old boy Wadea Al-Fayoume, stabbed by a man who targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian-American.
In a foreword to the strategy, Biden called the attacks on the Chicago boy and his mother “heinous acts” and noted a spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes, discrimination and bullying that he called wrong and unacceptable.
“Muslims and Arabs deserve to live with dignity and enjoy every right to the fullest extent along with all of their fellow Americans,” Biden wrote. “Policies that result in discrimination against entire communities are wrong and fail to keep us safe.”
The Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, called the strategy “too little, too late” and faulted the White House for not ending a federal watchlist and “no-fly” list that includes many Arab and Muslim Americans.
The Trump transition team had no immediate comment on the strategy or whether it would support it.
Trump, who won support from some Muslim voters angry about Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, has said he will ban entry to the US of anyone who questions Israel’s right to exist and revoke visas of foreign students who are “anti-Semitic.”
Tensions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups surged on some US. campuses after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, with human rights advocates warning of rising anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate.
Earlier, at Columbia University, two groups of hundreds of students tensely faced each other in dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while university officials blocked public access to the New York City campus as a safety measure.
Supporters of Palestinians, many of whom wore face masks to hide their identities, held signs in a grassy area near a library that read “Free Palestine” and “To Exist is to resist.” About 100 feet (30 meters) away, students backing Israel silently held up posters with the faces of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.
After the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ weekend attack on Israel, Israel has bombarded and laid siege to the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, and plans a ground invasion. The Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300, according to public broadcaster Kan. Gaza authorities said more than 1,500 Palestinians had been killed. Amid the growing conflict, tensions between students on opposite sides of the issue have boiled over on some US college campuses.
Statements by student groups supporting Palestinians have prompted outrage and fear among Jews and, in some cases, wider rebuke from public officials and corporations. There have been reports of harassment and assaults of both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, deepening grief and putting students of all political stripes on high alert. “Jewish students are afraid,” said David Hidary, a 20-year-old physics major, who attended the Columbia protest with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders. In a sign of the tensions, some counter-protesters at Columbia shouted angrily at the pro-Palestinian group. During a moment of silence for Palestinian victims, an opposing protester yelled out that they should be honoring children murdered by Hamas. (Int’l News Desk)
