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U.S. officials who’ve used inflammatory anti-Palestinian rhetoric amid the Israel-Hamas war are facing criticism after an alleged hate crime in Illinois, in which authorities say a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and his mother were repeatedly stabbed on Saturday.
Investigators said the boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume, was stabbed 26 times at his home in Plainfield by the family's landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba. Wadea died at the hospital. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, was allegedly stabbed more than a dozen times and is expected to survive.
In the aftermath of Hamas' attack, which some have labeled “Israel’s 9/11,” the stabbing incident in Illinois sounds eerily similar to the post-Sept. 11 hate crime killing of Balbir Singh Sodhi, which I discussed last month in a ReidOut Blog about post-9/11 Islamophobia.
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
The killing comes amid a rise in anti-Palestinian invective. Several lawmakers have given voice to anti-Palestinian bigotry since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, with some U.S. lawmakers embracing rhetoric that has framed the Palestinian people — not just militant group Hamas — as America’s enemies and burdens to civil society.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, told CBS News on Sunday that the U.S. shouldn’t accept refugees from Gaza because, “If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic,” he falsely claimed. “None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist,” he said — again falsely. And he went on to claim refugees from Gaza would increase “anti-Americanism.”
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said Israel can “bounce rubble” — or unleash devastation — in Gaza, and suggested any casualties would be Hamas’ responsibility rather than Israel’s.
I wrote last week about how rhetoric like this breeds the terrorism that hawkish conservatives like Cotton and DeSantis say they want to quash. Check it out here.
Ahmed Rehab, who leads the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, drew a connection between bigoted anti-Palestinian rhetoric and Wadea’s fatal stabbing in a news conference on Sunday.
Rehab said the boy “paid the price for the atmosphere of hate and otherization and dehumanization that, frankly, I think we are seeing here in the United States.”
As CAIR-Chicago calls for "responsible leadership and balanced media coverage," Rehab said that “this unthinkable senseless crime did not happen in a vacuum."
On Sunday, President Joe Biden responded to the killing with a statement that denounced Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry, saying he and the first lady were “shocked and sickened." Biden added that his family and the White House are “sending our condolences and prayers to the family, including for the mother’s recovery, and to the broader Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim American communities.”
Thoughts and prayers are kind, indeed. But I’ve heard them offered so often in response to slain children that I see no value in them as a remedy to hate-fueled violence.
That said, it’s somewhat encouraging that the Biden administration appears to be calibrating its language about the conflict to show a bit more empathy toward the Palestinian people and a bit less deference to the Israeli government.
At minimum, that’d be a good starting point for vectors of hate and brutality like DeSantis and Cotton.