By V. Valentino, Red Phoenix correspondent, California.
A landlord in Illinois, Joseph Czuba, 71, killed a 6-year old Palestinian-American child, Wadea Al-Fayoume, in what is being charged as a hate crime. Just as in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, there is now a similar surge in racially motivated and Islamophobic violence since the onset of the current Israeli-Hamas conflict which began on October 7.
The victim’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, 32, was stabbed 12 times by the assailant according to authorities, who stated that she is currently in the hospital and is expected to recover. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) executive director, Ahmed Rehab, recounted details contained in text messages sent from Shahin to her child’s father which demonstrated that Czuba was blatantly anti-Islamic. Czuba knocked on his tenant’s door and immediately after she opened it he allegedly began choking her, shouting, “you Muslims must die,” according to Rehab. “It all happened in seconds,” Shahin explained in one of the messages. Czuba had previously had cordial relations with his tenants. The landlord even built a treehouse for the boy, allowed him to swim in a makeshift pool, and brought over toys for him. It wasn’t until he started watching news coverage about the October 7 attack that something suddenly changed, according to Rehab.
The increase of hate crimes committed against persons of perceived Middle Eastern descent since the attacks of September 11 has proven all too clearly that Islamophobia is at the forefront of racially motivated hate crimes in American society. From 2000 to 2001, racially motivated attacks specifically towards the Muslim community saw a baffling increase of 1,617%. Framing the attacks on the Twin Towers as being perpetrated by Al Qaeda terrorists seemingly justified the subsequent discrimination against Muslims that has become all too familiar thanks to mainstream media outlets over the past 22 years. According to the Center for the Study on Hate and Extremism (ACSHE), up until 2015 incidents of anti-Arab violence were combined into the FBI’s category of bias against “other ethnicity/nationality, non hispanic.” In 2001, hate crimes reported against this catch-all group were more than triple the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes. Furthermore, the ACSHE reported that from 2011 to 2015 attacks against the Islamic community rose another 324%.
As of October 20, The Council on American-Islamic Relations canceled plans to hold its 29th annual banquet on Saturday at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, Virginia, due to the hotel receiving anonymous phone calls referencing bomb threats. A similar event scheduled in Maryland for October 28 was also canceled. The two events will be merged together at an undisclosed location where heightened security measures will be taken. These threats were echoed in several emails currently being investigated by the FBI seemingly due to the fact that the CAIR shifted the focus of its programming to addressing human rights issues for Palestinians. The group has also initiated an online campaign urging Congress to support a ceasefire in Gaza.
The murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume and the bomb threats made against the CAIR within a time frame of less than two weeks demonstrate that Islamophobia still continues to manifest throughout American society more than two decades after the Bush Administration decided to use 9/11 as an ostensible reason to make Muslims the enemy. We can only speculate as to what other acts of bigotry will be carried out in the name of such small minded xenophobia. It goes without saying that the violation of the basic rights of fellow human beings should be condemned to the highest degree possible regardless of what banner they stand beneath.
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