Wednesday, October 18, 2023

MUSLIMS IN AMERICA - In 2019, Rep. Ilan Omar let her views on Jews be known when she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby" in a sleazy reference to hundred dollar bills.

 

Resurfaced Video Shows Houston-Based Muslim Children Pledging to Be Soldiers, Martyrs for Iranian Ayatollah







Leftists Want the Same Massacre to Happen Here

Too bad if the truth scares you.

Understand that our foreign and domestic enemies not only eagerly support the frenzy of rape and murder we saw in Israel but that they want it repeated here in America. When they talk about “the consequences of colonialization” or complain that Israel has defended itself, they are normalizing mass atrocities by their purported allies against their actual enemies. Their enemies in Israel are Jews – men, women, and children – and here, their enemies are normal Americans – again, men, women and children. Denial simply empowers these monsters, and attempts by the goo-goos to appeal to our enemies’ morality, or to point out facts and argue in good faith, will end in abject failure. What matters to our enemies is that we suffer and die. Nothing less will satisfy them.

They want you dead, horribly. Your family as well. Too bad if the truth scares you. You can deny it, but you’re only fooling yourself – and probably not even yourself.

How do I know they want us dead? They tell me on social media, where the fellow travelers of the brave warriors who take on unarmed women and children cheer on the atrocities.  What do you think they mean by “decolonialization”? They mean you deceased. But they also tell us by their actions. Why do you think that Soros DAs free rapists and murderers? Why do you think they only vigorously pursue their political enemies and those who use self-defense to protect themselves from criminals? Why do you think they are dedicated to seeing us disarmed? We’re not murdering people – and they do not care about the people who actually are. Their top priority is to see that we do not have the means to protect ourselves – via cops, via the legal system, or via our guns. There is only one possible conclusion for anyone who is not in willful denial. It’s just hard for some people to accept, but take a look at the people giddy over Hamas’s savagery and you cannot come to any other conclusion. Do you think someone who wants to make sure you cannot fight back wants you alive or dead? Because wanting you defenseless is only consistent with wanting you dead.

At least we still have guns. The Israeli families did not have guns – contrary to popular belief, owning a gun was nearly impossible in Israel until they saw the light over the last few days. And that foolishness got hundreds killed. Even a couple guys with rifles – most adult Israelis have served – could have changed the whole dynamic. You have seen the videos taken by terrified future victims of the cowards strolling through the towns without a care in the world. But imagine someone engaging them from a building with an M4. Outgunned? Yeah, he would be – unless all the citizens had a gun, like in Texas. The fact is that when there is return fire, the situation changes dramatically for the attackers – and it did where armed Israelis confronted them. When they come under fire, instead of walking from house to house butchering kids and grandmas they have to take cover and engage the shooter(s). Remember how two half-wits with handguns shut down Boston? Armed citizens turn the tables on packs of semihuman savages.

The gun control thing is part and parcel of the left’s campaign to delegitimize any resistance to the leftists’ exterminationist agenda. You see it in their demands that Israel forgo violence, but it is not because they believe violence is illegitimate. As we have seen, they support violence. They just want to morally corral Israel so that it cannot fight back, because fighting back and killing the terrorists who slaughtered the innocents is an effective means of preventing future attempts at genocide.

Here in America, where they hope to someday repeat this monstrosity against us “colonizers,” their initial means is defunding cops and preventing any prosecution of criminal acts, as well as the aforementioned attempts to disarm us. Again, what is the end state you want if you wish rapists and murderers to be wandering free, unpunished, with no cops, and with the normal folks disarmed? Perhaps more rape and murder? Certainly that’s not a recipe for less.

It is not as if we have not seen the results, despite the regime media running interference by downplaying the truth. We know what has happened to crime lately – it has exploded. But if you want to see what is coming down the road, look across the ocean. In South Africa, which had a chance for reconciliation, the leftists in power who share their beliefs with the Hamas and criminal-excusing left in the West (including prominent members of the Democrat Party), are encouraging a bloody pogrom against the remaining “settlers” – most of whom had families settle there 150 or more years ago. Remember that to our domestic enemies, we patriots here in America are “settlers” or “colonizers” – regardless of color, since they reserve a special hatred for normal people who are not white. They want this mass rape and murder to happen here to us as repayment for some kind of corruption of blood. Of course, needless to say, with us gone they can rule unencumbered by our resistance.

This real talk is tough to hear, and unpleasant to say, but you have to believe people when they tell you that they want you dead. And when these creatures chant “Death to America,” that’s not their quirky way of wishing you a happy birthday. But words are not the only way people tell you what they want. People want the reasonably foreseeable consequences of what they advocate. The leftists here advocate letting rapists and murderers run free. They advocate that we normal people be rendered totally defenseless. Is there anything else they could want but for us to end up being raped and murdered?

Nope.

Oh, most of them won’t say it outright. They just support the criminals and terrorists who do the raping and the killing. The ones that are open about their endgame – that is, our end – must really tick off the more sophisticated ones who use their coded attack dog whistles to say it. The Squad gets on social media and appeals for peace and de-escalation only because they want to prevent Israel from hitting back now that the brave child-killers they support have been driven back into their rat holes. But do you think Ilhan Omar, when she attains power, will lift one brother-touching finger to keep you from being killed?

No. She hates you. She would cheer, just like the “civilian” savages of Gaza.

What is bitterly funny are the leftists who think the hell they would unleash via their favored sociopaths upon their own society in the name of social justice or, more accurately, socialism, will pass over them. It’s like the dumb commie college kid who thinks that after the Revolution he’s getting the poetry writing gig and not the fertilizer-shoveling detail down on the collective farm. It’s hard not to burst into laughter seeing a coterie of mutants marching with a “Queers for Palestine” banner knowing that they would be tossed off one of the few buildings the IAF has left standing the second they set foot in the Gaza Strip. Many of the poor kids at that desert rave, where the courageous rapists and butchers unleashed their animalistic hate to the tune of countless women molested and 260+ murdered young people, probably bought into that nonsense ideology. One woman, being hauled off into a hell of sexual torment in Hamasland by these savages, is on video crying out that she “is innocent.” But you cannot be innocent of being the Other. And to these monsters, we are all the Other. And they want the Other dead.

The answer is war. We gave peace a chance and we got heaps of corpses. Now let’s get back to basics, to the tried and true method of dealing with barbarians passed down from the Romans. We must fight them, without false mercy and with the ruthlessness necessary to destroy their ability to rape and murder our people. At home – for now – that means tough policing combined with a judicial process that leads to harsh sentencing. In Israel, it means a harsh war that destroys Hamas utterly. And in both cases, it means ignoring the false claims upon our morality issued by the morally illiterate to not do what we must do to prevail.

You are not moral by letting them win. You are weak and cowardly, and eventually you and yours will be featured on one of those snuff videos. If you want to live, you will have to fight. At a national level, we must make war on our enemies and seal our borders. Locally, we must imprison thugs without the cruelty to normal people that comes with false compassion lavished upon criminals. And personally, the answer is the same one I have been giving you for years.

Buy guns and ammunition. If you have to die, at least do it on a pile of hot brass.

Peter Schweizer: Does the Biden Administration Really Stand with Israel?

peter-schweizer-drill-down-podcast
The Drill Down Podcast

The massacre of more than 1,300 Israelis by Hamas terrorists still outrages most of the world. The focus on Hamas, Hezbollah, and their deep ties to Iran exposes the brutality of all three; and Israel’s fearsome, ongoing response enjoys broad support.

But the role played by Iran is complex, deadly, and insidious – and perhaps partly enabled by U.S. policy. In the latest episode of the Drill Down podcast, Peter Schweizer asks: “Do we really stand with Israel, in terms of our government policy and some of the people that are making policy decisions?” In the case of one key Biden Administration policy maker, the now-suspended diplomat Robert Malley, the answer is clearly no.

Robert Malley has for years been a fixture in American left-wing circles on Middle East affairs. After serving in the Clinton administration, he spent the Bush years running a pro-Iran think tank funded by George Soros. He then emerged as an advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama but was removed after it was revealed he was in regular contact with terrorists.

“He was talking to officials from Hamas, a terrorist organization,” Schweizer says.

Still, six years later (2015), Malley was tapped by President Obama to oversee the Iran deal that he negotiated but could not get the Senate to adopt as a treaty.

Malley was shelved again during the Trump years – along with the Iran deal he had managed – but came back like a bad penny in 2021 when the new Biden administration pledged to resurrect the Iran deal. But, once more, fate intervened. Malley was forced out of the State Department just this summer when an internal investigation revealed he had “mishandled classified documents.” Additional reporting found there is also an ongoing FBI investigation of him.

Malley has made no secret of his desire for the U.S. to have better relations with Iran — or his dislike of Israel, even as far back as his freshman year at Yale. The son of a Marxist writer who served in the anti-Israel government of Egyptian President Abdel Nasser, Malley was raised in Paris and knew Yasir Arafat as a frequent guest in his parents’ home.

“So, when the Biden administration says it is fully behind Israel, it is relevant to point to people like Malley who they hire for important work on US Middle East policy. Do their staffing decisions match their commitments?” Schweizer asks.

Congress has noticed.

“Rob Malley deserves extensive scrutiny — yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told reporters after news broke that officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps planned and signed off on the massacre committed by Hamas terrorists from Gaza against Israel. “These reports could not be more concerning, and they hint at what could be the worst State Department scandal since Alger Hiss,” Issa added.

Then there is the money angle. The Iranians do not hire lobbyists in Washington, but use their oil reserves to do the talking for them. A group called the American-Iranian Council is a good example. It is a research and policy think tank “devoted to improving understanding between the peoples of Iran and the United States, and promoting the overall development of Iran.” Not surprisingly, it enjoys funding from key US multi-national oil companies including BP, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, and several others.

This is nothing new. People with interests in foreign companies have served before in public office while simultaneously having foreign entanglements. Peter points out that former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who was a key advisor and “shadow diplomat” for Hillary Clinton when she served in the Obama administration as Secretary of State, was also a paid director for the Russian-owned oil company Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya (TMK) during the same time period.

“While he was advising her (Clinton) to reduce sanctions on Iran, the Russian oil company that was paying him millions was selling pipeline equipment to the Iranian government that was under sanctions. That’s a massive conflict of interest,” Schweizer said.

Hamas’s invasion came as Israel was negotiating for normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, a step that would effectively isolate Iran from its regional neighbors. Iran-funded proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, are doing the mullahs’ business through violence to scuttle Israeli and American diplomacy with Saudi Arabia.

To hear more of the Drill Down podcast – click here.



So, it’s all about the Benjamins after all!

In 2019, Rep. Ilan Omar let her views on Jews be known when she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjaminsbaby"  in a sleazy reference to hundred dollar bills.

Surprisingly, but to its credit, the entire Democratic Caucus condemned Omar’s comments. 

But what about those Benjamins?  Have you ever wondered  why so many of America’s youth, in colleges and universities and even public government schools, have a vociferous, cult-like admiration for all things Arab, and in particular, all things Palestinian?  And their dislike for Jews, Israel and secondarily America?

How does this fixation fit with their fixation with social justice, equity, and intersectionality? 

It doesn’t!

How does this youthful zeal for all things Palestinian jive with the manner in which Palestinians treat women? 

It doesn’t.

How does this zeal  for all things Palestinian blandly co-exist with the disdain, disfigurement, and even death of  LGBTQ members when discovered by the Islamists among them?   

It doesn’t?

Omar’s Benjamins comment was the ultimate in projection.  For decades, a waterfall of Benjamins have been flooding American colleges and universities from a multitude of Arab countries. 

These Benjamins come from Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. 

This research study published at the Jewish Virtual Library tells us a lot:

According to the Department of Education (DoE), between 1986 and 2021, colleges and universities received nearly $8.5 billion from Arab sources. Although the department has cracked down, and universities have reported previously unreported gifts and contracts, we don’t know how many have not been disclosed. Even more concerning is that after issuing reports disclosing some of the names of giftors, the DoE has agreed not to provide the names or addresses of donors.

The New York Times magazine has reported on this, too:

Saudi Arabia directed about $650 million to American universities from 2012 to 2018 and ranks third on the list of foreign sources of money, one spot behind Britain, according to data contained in the foreign gifts report. The top spot is occupied by Qatar, another oil-rich Persian Gulf state and a bitter rival of Saudi Arabia. 

All the poor struggling colleges and universities and treating hospitals welcome their largesse, among which are: Harvard, Penn (recall their recent Palestine Writes convention) Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, M.D. Anderson and the Mayo Clinic. 

Naturally, the Arabs wanted a significant something for their financial benevolence.  The donees complied. All of a sudden, colleges discovered Middle Eastern Studies. 

Departments were created, “chairs” and scholarships established - all in the furtherance of brainwashing our students to believe: Arab good, Israeli/Jew bad, America evil.

So the mindless, monolithic protesting and marching against Israel and Jews we are now witnessing is the result of a highly successful propaganda campaign that has spanned decades, fuelled with Arab Benjamins.

Sadly, the Arab Benjamins have created a generation of young useless idiots whose moral compasses are as craven as Hitler’s Nazi youth. They are infused with fury and a total  lack of human compassion and empathy. How else can they replay and distribute gleefully on social media, the horrors Hamas heaped on Israelis?  How else can they celebrate and dance with joy at this monstrous earth-shattering madness?  Why do they think America is evil?

One can  hope that every one of these little monsters are doxxed, canceled, and fired if they are already employed. One can hope that not another penny of taxpayer or personal donations go to any institution already rolling in Arab Benjamins and complying with Arab bidding. 

Lynne Lechter is a vice president of the Philadelphia Chapter of ZOA and a practicing attorney in Philadelphia.

Image: Screen shot from Fox News video, via YouTube


Democrat Rashida Tlaib Accuses Israel of Bombing Gaza Hospital

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., speaks before introducing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a campaign stop at St. Ambrose University, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020, in Davenport, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) hastened to social media in the hours after a deadly explosion wracked a Gaza Strip hospital on Tuesday, pointing her finger at Israel as the perpetrator.

Without pausing to check and confirm sources as the original reports first came in, she said on X – formerly Twitter – that “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.”

She went on to say President Joe Biden must also share some blame, “Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood.”

She cited this “influencer” as evidence for her allegation.

Despite other rash claims from the left, the official U.S. position as outlined by President Joe Biden who is now in Tel Aviv meeting with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, Islamic Jihad terrorists and their backers were responsible for the catastrophe.

Biden made clear the attack appeared to have been carried out “by the other team” and not the Israeli military.

He added the Hamas terror group had only brought suffering to those living in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond.

AP reports the president said, “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” during a meeting with Netanyahu, referring to Hamas terrorists.

The deadly blast, which reportedly killed hundreds of people, sparked outrage, with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas dropping a meeting Wednesday with Biden over the issue.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have since released audio of their own they say shows the terrorists reacting once they realise their mistake in causing the strike on the hospital.

A “proud” Biden told Netanyahu he was “deeply saddened and outraged” by the explosion.

But he also said it was not hyperbole to say Hamas had “slaughtered” Israelis in the Oct. 7 attack that saw mass rape, torture and slaughter inflicted on Israeli civilians.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter:  or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

Hamas Wants to Trade CAIR Leader in Federal Prison for U.S. Hostages

“Only recently, it did one with Iran. Why wouldn't it conduct a prisoner swap with us?”

[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]

There are an estimated 14 American hostages being held in Gaza. (This number may rise or fall as Hamas continues to release videos of the hostages and Israel continues identifying bodies, some of which have been charred beyond recognition, by using DNA samples from family members.) As of this time, there are 20 Americans missing and bodies are being tested.

Biden spoke with some family members on a Zoom call. “It’s my personal commitment to do everything possible, everything possible to return every missing American to their families,” he said,  “we’re working around the clock to secure the release of Americans held by Hamas.”

But the Biden administration has currently ruled out sending rescue forces, instead it is using Hamas allies, Qatar and Turkey, to conduct negotiations with the Islamic terrorist organization.

While Israel has refused to trade hostages for terrorists, Biden may be more willing to do so.

Senior Hamas leader Ali Baraka told Russia’s RT propaganda network, “There are also prisoners in the U.S. We want them. Of course. There are Hamas members sentenced for life in the U.S. We want them too. Of course. We demand that the U.S. free our sons from prisons. The U.S. conducts prisoner swaps. Only recently, it did one with Iran. Why wouldn’t it conduct a prisoner swap with us?”

Barakeh went into more specifics about which Hamas members he meant in another interview.

“There are Palestinians held in America. We will ask for their release. There are Palestinians who are detained by the United States on charges of supporting the resistance in Palestine. They were detained in America because they were accused of running charity organizations that support the people besieged in the Gaza.”

This almost certainly refers to the Holy Land Foundation case in which key figures in the largest Islamic charity in America were convicted of helping to send millions to Hamas.

Hamas would have a special interest in at least one of the terror convicts. Mufid Abdulqader, the half brother of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, who is currently serving out his 20 years in prison sentence in a low security federal prison in Seagoville, Texas. Funding terrorists and a history of chanting terrorist threats apparently netted Abdulqader an easy ride at a low security prison.

Islamists in the United States had lobbied for his release during the pandemic by claiming that the 60-year-old is an “elderly” man facing imminent death at a “virus-ravaged prison”. Abdulqaderf was denied early release, he got COVID, survived it, and he’s set to be out in 2025.

Qatar, acting once again as an intermediary for Islamic terrorists, will be likely to argue that Mufid Abdulqader is only a few years away from being released anyway.

Perhaps the Hamas family member will resume his musical career in which he toured America to sing to Muslim communities cheerful ditties such as, “with Koran and Jihad, we will gain our homes back… the agony of death is precious, killing Jews … Death to Jews, is precious.”.

But it’s another of the Holy Land Foundation terror funders who is far more explosive.

Ghassan Elashi was a founding board member for CAIR in Texas. CAIR’s D.C. office was funded by money from the Holy Land Foundation and the trial led to CAIR being named “an unindicted co-conspirator” in terror funding. It’s a label that the group is still trying to shake off.

But the FBI stated that “evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and Executive Director) and the Palestine Committee. Evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestine Committee and Hamas, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1995.”

CAIR founder and executive director Nihad Awad responded to the Hamas attacks by posting, “a unique Palestinian day. Never say ‘impossible.'” And Awad reacted to Biden’s speech condemning those atrocities by posting, “there is no moral equivalence between the occupied and the occupier. You must condemn the occupier not the occupied.”

Awad had previously stated, “I am in support of the Hamas movement more than the PLO.”

Ghassan Elashi was sentenced to 65 years in prison. At the age of 69, he’s serving out a sentence that would only see him released in 2068.

Senior Hamas leader Ali Baraka mentioned that the Hamas terrorists he wants freed are serving life sentences. While Elashi isn’t technically serving a life sentence, he is currently scheduled to spend the rest of his life at McCreary federal prison in Kentucky (it’s unclear if he’s in the maximum or minimum security part of it) before beginning an even more hellishly extended sentence in a much more secure facility that offers neither parole nor virgins.

Only two of the Holy Land Foundation terror fundraisers received sentences this long making it almost certain that Hamas wants to trade the former CAIR board member for a U.S. hostage.

A Hamas proposal to trade a CAIR leader for a hostage would reopen the question of CAIR’s terror ties again and would be particularly awkward for the Biden administration which welcomed CAIR so enthusiastically that it was assigned to help with security for its antisemitism strategy. Furthermore the statements by the senior Hamas leader that the men it’s trying to extricate are Hamas members would overturn over a decade of lies put out by CAIR and its Islamist allies that the HLF terror fundraisers were innocent victims of ‘Islamophobia’.

Such a request would also establish that a Hamas member had served on a CAIR board.

CAIR had already advocated for Mufid Abdulqader, claiming that the half-brother of a Hamas leader who had called for the murder of Jews was an innocent victim of ‘Islamophobia’. The terrorist fundraiser was seen on video in a skit in which he “plays a Hamas member who kills an Israeli after saying, ‘I am Hamas, O dear ones.’” Good thing he’s in a low security prison.

Other Holy Land Foundation defendants whose release Hamas may demand include Shuri Abu Baker, scheduled to be released from a high security prison in Eastern Texas in 2064, whom CAIR had also defended. Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammad El-Mezain, who had received shorter sentences, were already released in 2021. This did not stop CAIR from signing on to a petition next year to have them set loose even though they were already out of prison.

If Hamas were to request the release of Abdulqader, Abu Baker and Elashi, it would put the Islamist terror group  enlist in the same effort as not only CAIR, but other pro-terrorist organizations that signed the petition like Human Rights Watch, the National Lawyers Guild, Jewish Voice for Peace, ICNA and the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network which has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel. Individual signatories include Ramzi Kassem, a Gitmo terror lawyer who once threw stones at Israel, and was named by the Biden administration as a Senior Policy Advisor for Immigration at the White House Domestic Policy Council.

By holding Americans hostage, Hamas has more leverage to free its members than the Muslim Brotherhood front groups that operate by pretending to be civil rights organizations.

Will Biden make such a trade? After making similar deals with Russia and Iran, it seems possible. But with Iran, Biden could argue that he wasn’t directly negotiating with terrorists, there is no such argument when it comes to Hamas. We will be negotiating with terrorists.

Trading for hostages creates a market in them. Biden’s deal with Iran encouraged Hamas to take Americans hostage and try to trade for them. And the more hostages we trade for, the more hostages Islamic terrorists will launch attacks to try to take.

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Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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Tender Loving CAIR: PBS Coddles Hamas-Linked Group, Hints GOP Rhetoric Deadly

October 17th, 2023 8:46 PM

CAIR, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, is an Islamic pressure group masquerading as a Muslim civil rights organization. The Hamas massacre in Israel has brought it back in the news on the taxpayer-supported PBS NewsHour on Monday – not for its previously documented links to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, but to be coddled.

No, the PBS producers and host Amna Nawaz somehow thought it was a good idea to book the executive director of CAIR, a group linked to Hamas, to condemn the murder of a Palestinian-American boy in Illinois, and suggest Israel was dangerously inflaming rhetoric by comparing the rapes and murders and kidnappings committed by Hamas to the 9/11 attacks.

 

 

Liberal Democratic Senator Charles Schumer (NY) had noted that the group's co-founders had "intimate links to Hamas,” and the FBI cut off "high-level cooperation with the group" in 2008. CAIR also faces many allegations of sexism and sexual harassment.

Nawaz teed up Mitchell, who tried to blame the attack on Republicans and more specifically Florida Governor Ron DeSantis:

NAWAZ: The brutal murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy named Wadea Al-Fayoume on Saturday has left a community grieving and fearful about growing anti-Islamic sentiment during the Israel-Hamas war

(...)

I'm joined by Edward Ahmed Mitchell. He's a civil rights attorney and national deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Edward, welcome. So, Wadea was buried today. He just turned 6 years old a few weeks ago. Tell us about this boy. Tell us about his family. What should we know?

MITCHELL: You know, we have seen statements now from President and first lady Biden, from Vice President Harris, second gentleman Emhoff condemning the attack, saying hate has no place in America. We have also seen a number of statements, largely from Republicans, including a candidate for president, Ron DeSantis, saying the U.S. should be rejecting all Palestinian refugees at this time. What kind of impact do those statements have on the general public?

(...)

Mitchell: Look, I would say the American Muslim community has been extremely disappointed with the statements we have heard not only from people on the political right, but also the political left. There has been a week of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian rhetoric. It almost seems like we're back to the years after 9/11. We’ve seen just the complete ignoring the Palestinian suffering...

Nawaz, who is Muslim and has used her journalistic position to fret over alleged anti-Muslim feeling in America post 9/11, actually suggested that Israel calling the Hamas massacre of Jewish civilians their 9/11 moment could lead to violent attacks in America:

Edward, as you know, there's been a generation of Muslim-Americans, of Arab Americans who know how fast and how dangerously anti-Islamic and anti-Arab rhetoric can take hold and spark violence. We saw that after 9/11 here in the United States. Israel has now called this attack by Hamas their 9/11. Have you seen anything else that leads you to believe there could be more attacks of this kind that killed this little 6-year-old boy?

By contrast, an Islamic terror attack in Brussels that killed two people was relegated to the NewsHour news roundup and not granted its own full story.

This hysteria-induced segment was brought to you in part by Raymond James.

A transcript is available, click “Expand” to read:

PBS NewsHour
10/16/23
7:24:13 pm (ET)

Amna Nawaz: The brutal murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy named Wadea Al-Fayoume on Saturday has left a community grieving and fearful about growing anti-Islamic sentiment during the Israel-Hamas war.

His father spoke shortly before his son's funeral today.

Oday Al-Fayoume, Father of Wadea Al-Fayoume (through interpreter): I am here because I'm the kid's father, not because I'm political or religious or anything. I am the father of a child whose rights were violated. I hope this wakes us all up.

Amna Nawaz: I'm joined by Edward Ahmed Mitchell. He's a civil rights attorney and national deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Edward, welcome.

So, Wadea buried today. He just turned 6 years old a few weeks ago. Tell us about this boy. Tell us about his family. What should we know?

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Council on American-Islamic Relations: This young boy like any other young boy. He loved sports. He loved drawing. He loved his family.

He was a young man with a promising future that was stolen from him in an act of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate. I wish I could say that our organization was surprised by this, but we're not. We have seen a week of horrific anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian rhetoric, and it has culminated in the loss of this young boy's life.

Amna Nawaz: Tell me about his community. They live about 40 miles outside of Chicago in Plainfield.

What are you hearing from folks there?

Edward Ahmed Mitchell: I think everyone is shocked and stunned.

Obviously, they have been horrified to see the violence happening overseas impacting Israelis and Palestinians, and others, but for it to come home and impact them directly was not something they expected. So I think everyone's rallying around the family, trying to support them, and also sending a message that this is the danger of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hysteria.

And we cannot let this happen again. No one else should have to go through what this young boy's family is going through right now.

Amna Nawaz: Because it's been reported, Edward, this little boy was stabbed 26 times, his mother 12 times. She survived. We should say she's in hospital recovering. The sheriff's office there said that the man charged was their landlord, a 71-year-old man named Joseph Czuba, and targeted them because they are Muslim.

The Justice Department says it's now opening a federal hate crimes investigation. What's your reaction to that? Is that welcome news?

Edward Ahmed Mitchell: The FBI is doing the right thing.

This absolutely does appear to be a hate crime. The landlord, interestingly enough, was previously friendly to the family, even helped build a tree house for the boy. But then, over the past week, he became furious about what he was seeing in the news. He went to the apartment, started an argument with the mother, said that Muslims needed to die and tried to kill her.

And when she managed to get away, he killed her son instead. This is clearly a hate crime, and the FBI should act accordingly.

Amna Nawaz: You know, we have seen statements now from President and first lady Biden, from Vice President Harris, second gentleman Emhoff condemning the attack, saying hate has no place in America.

We have also seen a number of statements, largely from Republicans, including a candidate for president Ron DeSantis, saying the U.S. should be rejecting all Palestinian refugees at this time.

What kind of impact do those statements have on the general public?

Edward Ahmed Mitchell: Look, I would say the American Muslim community has been extremely disappointed with the statements we have heard not only from people on the political right, but also the political left.

There has been a week of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian rhetoric. It almost seems like we're back to the years after 9/11. We have seen just the complete ignoring the Palestinian suffering. We have seen hysteria whipped out about the supposed threat of Muslims and Palestinians in our country.

And that has consequences. So I'm happy to see President Biden and others condemning this sort of violence and sort of hate, but they need to speak up for all human life, all Palestinian lives, and say that this is always unacceptable.

And we should not have to welcome refugees from Gaza. We should be protecting the people of Gaza, so they can stay there in their homes, and not be forced out of their homes due to the Israeli government's bombing campaign.

But to the extent some refugees do come here, certainly, they should be welcomed.

Amna Nawaz: Edward, as you know, there's been a generation of Muslim Americans, of Arab Americans who know how fast and how dangerously anti-Islamic and anti-Arab rhetoric can take hold and spark violence. We saw that after 9/11 here in the United States.

 

Israel has now called this attack by Hamas their 9/11. Have you seen anything else that leads you to believe there could be more attacks of this kind that killed this little 6-year-old boy?

Edward Ahmed Mitchell: If the anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim rhetoric and hysteria that we saw over the past week continues for weeks to come, I am concerned about what would happen.

But I do want to emphasize one thing. The American Muslim community is not going back to the years of the post-9/11 America, where we were subject to discrimination and bigotry, Islamophobia was out of control. We're not going back to that. We are a strong community, a confident community, and no one is going to bully us into being silent about the suffering of the Palestinian people are bully us into not going to our mosques or not praying or living our lives.

We are going to carry on, God willing. We would just encourage our neighbors to speak up for the safety of all people. And we encourage our political leaders especially to do that.

Amna Nawaz: In the 30 seconds or so we have left, for folks out there who are fearful as a result of this attack, what's your message to them?

Edward Ahmed Mitchell:

Be safe, be vigilant, be cautious, but carry on. Be an activist, be a worshiper of God, do what you would normally do, but just be careful.

And we should be doing that all the time, given all the threats that exist here and around the world. But we cannot let anti-Palestinian or anti-Muslim extremism scare us away from doing what is right and living our lives.

Amna Nawaz: That is Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Edward, thank you so much for your time.

Edward Ahmed Mitchell: Thank you.

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