By Luke Peterson

July/Aug 2024

The great majority of U.S. pundits and talking heads within the authoritative news media estimate that between 80 and 100 of our country’s institutions of higher learning are currently in turmoil, having seen a wellspring of protest encampments as the Spring semester of 2024 ends. 

Located on many universities green spaces, their occupants gather to protest Israel’s ongoing war against Gazans (and to a less immediate extent, the West Bank) and, more specifically, to seek to compel their respective universities to divest from Israeli war industries. In so doing, they are both defying university edicts against such public displays and facing intimidation and threats from universities and/or city officials who declare such assemblies unlawful, against university policy or, using an all-too-familiar mode of castigation, antisemitic. 

Many of these brave students have been disciplined, punished, censured or expelled for their humanitarian actions for Palestine. In other places, particularly universities across the South, students have been set upon by riot police or National Guardsmen, even though Lois Beckett, writing for The Guardian (May 10), noted that nearly all of their activities have been peaceful and non-threatening to staff or students on campus. 

In all, 2,000+ students and supporting faculty members have been arrested and an untold number maced, trampled or beaten by police. In one case, Columbia and Barnard University students arrested at encampments during the first week of May were tortured via denial of food and water for 16 hours (Akela Lacy, May 6, https://theintercept.com). 

But what has prompted this organic expression of solidarity with Palestine among American university students now? One obvious answer is the duration of Israel’s current cruelty toward Gaza’s civilian population, all funded and at least tacitly supported within their country’s halls of power. 

But a closer look at the proscription of academic discourse surrounding Palestine and Israel may provide a more detailed answer. Indeed, the university system has seen a notable uptick in activity from a number of well-organized and evidently well-funded organizations. Their remit is to censor students, professors and other members of university communities nationwide who accuse Israel of crimes against humanity or suggest that its targeted attacks against Palestinian civilians — 40,000+ deaths in Gaza since October 2023 — constitute genocide (Julia Frankel, https://apnews.com, April 6).

One such organization that exists solely to target and condemn any human rights advocacy in North American academia is the online extremist organization Canary Mission (https://canarymission.org/). Its raison d’être is to meticulously document any scholarship and advocacy that is even remotely critical of Israel or its primary paymaster, the U.S. Canary Mission has organized branches in North America for the stated purpose of documenting “individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.” Their scope and reach is as ambitious as it is broad, and they clearly view their remit in contemporary political discourse as critical — their website tagline reads, “Because the world should know.”

In that regard, that organization and this author agree. The world should know that, despite protestations to the contrary, Canary Mission is an explicitly political organization whose operational goals have nothing to do with creating safe spaces for university students or protecting marginalized or vulnerable populations. Rather, it seeks to silence every utterance of Israeli criminality, past or present, across North American university campuses. 

For example, its “Organizations” tab brazenly equates international media organizations like Al-Jazeera with neo-Nazi agitators like the Daily Stormer and the Goyim Defense League. Such falsification of plainly non-existent connections makes Canary Mission’s painfully clear: Paint with as broad a brush as possible, condemn and associate as many individuals as possible and tarnish all who dare to criticize Israel as hateful antisemites no matter the truth or logic of their arguments. It’s a clumsy practice, as dishonest as it is dangerous, and potentially, if defamation laws were to be applied fairly and on balance, an illegal one. 

Operating with an identifiable hubris and self-importance, Canary Mission clearly fears no reprisals for publicly listing the names and affiliations of professors and students, aid organizations and media outlets, who speak out against the ongoing genocide. Its operations seem to grow daily: pointing out and castigating as many critics of Israel as they can, maneuvering with increasing impunity in the wake of the militarized American response to the ongoing university protests, and Canada’s very tepid response to the protests of hundreds of Canadian students and organizations. 

In sum, any U.S. university student questioning Israel’s official narratives about its creation and brutal military record over 75 years, or publicly asking about this country’s uncritical fealty to Israel, is a suitable target for identification. Reminiscent of other oppressive, authoritarian organizations, the Canary Mission’s blacklists continue to grow.

A similarly constituted group, the anti-Palestine propaganda initiative CAMERA (Committee For Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis; www.camera.org) and Camera on Campus, targets and defames pro-Palestinian groups located on American university campuses. Its supporters take videos of pro-Palestine demonstrations and protests, spuriously reclassifies them publicly as hate speech or antisemitic antagonism and then posts the humanitarian demonstrators’ personal details online to engender negative professional and personal consequences for them. 

Professing to be non-partisan defenders of the truth behind Zionism, Camera on Campus (https://cameraoncampus.org/), like other anti-Palestine hate groups, deliberately ignores Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948-49, its mass confiscation of land designated for a future Palestinian state via the U.S.-funded settler movement since 1967. Camera on Campus also deliberately obfuscates the idea of indigeneity within historic Palestine, using an indigenous spokesperson from American Samoa in a highly skewed and historically inaccurate video on their X page to praise with false laurels the Zionist colonial project. 

The intent of this loose coalition of anti-Palestine groups is to quieten any and all criticism of Israel on American university campuses and to do their best to dehumanize Palestinians to the greatest extent possible. This hate campaign is being conducted alongside a simultaneous repackaging of organic pro-Palestine university demonstrations as thinly veiled antisemitism, a baseless hatred of Jews as a whole. 

In effect, these groups intend to gaslight membership of the American academy by convincing the public writ large that the Palestinian victims of genocidal oppression are in fact the victimizers of Israel and global Jewry. Supporters of Palestine are falsely castigated as mindless thugs, and as modern-day brownshirts who intend anti-Jewish violence simply for the sake of it while having no coherent political agenda to speak of. 

The monitoring, outing and doxing campaigns organized by Canary Mission, CAMERA, and other like minded organizations censor free speech and humanitarian action focused on aiding the besieged and bombarded Palestinians of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They have had real-world, lasting consequences for conscientious student-activists. Emboldened by the false equivalence that equate legitimate criticism of Israel with blanket antisemitism, in the months since campus protests have mounted against the Israeli genocide in Palestine, Zane McNeill notes that a number of otherwise talented and qualified university students nationwide have had job offers rescinded (https://truthout.org, Oct. 19, 2023).

In other cases, protesters for Palestine have been disciplined, fired or denied tenure simply for being outspoken on behalf of Palestinian rights within the context of the American educational and political system (https://www.chicagotribune.com/2019/03/06/steven-salaita-rejected-by-u-of-i-over-israel-tweets-seems-to-have-found-peace-driving-a-school-bus/).

These cancellations, broken promises and false equivalencies continue to haunt doxed pro-Palestinian speakers in the academy and in professional circles around the country. This reality demonstrates these techniques’ effectiveness and the damaging nature of the sanctioned anti-Palestine hate speech now common within popular discourse. As such, it would seem evident that the much-lauded right to free speech said to resonate throughout this country in the contemporary political era continues to be conditioned by that speech’s content and the speaker(s) in question’s proper alignment with the ideological and/or political interests of both the U.S. and Israel. 

Luke Peterson received his Ph.D. from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Cambridge — (King’s College). His new book, “The U.S. Military in the Print News Media: Service and Sacrifice in Discourse,” has been published by Anthem Press.

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The post A License to Hate appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

May/Jun 2024

In 2023, CAIR received 8,061 complaints nationwide, making it the highest number of complaints CAIR has ever recorded in its 30-year history. Nearly half of all complaints received in 2023 were reported in the final three months of the year. The 2023 wave of anti-Muslim incidents, a 56% jump over the previous year, surpassed the period following the implementation of President Trump’s Muslim Ban, which saw a 32% over the previous year.

The primary force behind this wave of heightened Islamophobia was the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine in October 2023. Employers, universities, and schools were among the central actors suppressing free speech by those who sought to vocally oppose Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza and call attention to Palestinian human rights.

The number of complaints in 2023 is a 56% increase over 2022. Immigration and asylum cases made up 20% (1,637) of the complaints received. Employment discrimination (1,201 complaints, or 15%), education discrimination (688 complaints, or 8.5%), and hate crimes and incidents (607 complaints, or 7.5%) are among the highest reported categories. Behind these numbers are human tragedies. 

In October, six-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed and murdered by his family’s landlord in Chicago. According to his mother, who was also attacked, the landlord yelled “you Muslims must die!” before attempting to choke and stab her.

In another incident of a child being targeted, a teacher threatened to beat and behead a seventh-grade Muslim student in Warner Robins, Georgia, in December. After the student asked about the teacher’s Israeli flag, the teacher was overheard, in part, threatening to “slit [the student’s] god***n throat” and “cut her head off” by several students and witnesses.

Meanwhile, a Muslim and Palestinian woman was reportedly threatened by a man while riding the Washington, D.C. Metro train in October. The woman had been riding the train on her way to a demonstration for Palestinian rights when a man reportedly asked her, “How’d you like to lose your life? “On video, the man is then heard asking the woman, “How’d you like to have your head beheaded?” According to the victim and witnesses, the man also reportedly possessed a firearm, which he slightly removed from his pocket. While this wave of Islamophobic bias dominates this report, the status of Muslim civil rights proved precarious in other ways.

  In 2023, CAIR was given access to copies of the No-Fly List and Selectee List, subsets of what is colloquially known as the “terror watchlist. “An expert statistical analysis estimates that at least 98.3% of the names on the watchlist are identifiably Muslim. More than 350,000 entries alone in the portion of the watchlist acquired by CAIR include some transliteration of Mohamed, Ali, or Mahmoud, and the top 50 most frequently occurring names are all Muslim names. 

A Muslim-American Air Force veteran, Saadiq Long, knows the consequences of being watch listed. Long had been pulled over by Oklahoma City Police Department (OKCPD) officers numerous times, most notably a stop on January 12, 2023, which resulted in him being handcuffed and arrested at gunpoint while his vehicle was searched. In May, Mayor Mohamed T. Khairullah of Prospect Park, N.J. was barred from attending the White House’s 6th annual Eid al-Fitr celebration likely due to his prior watch listing. 

Over several months, CAIR, Muslim families, and other community partners called for the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland to restore the school districts opt-out option for certain types of instructional material. In the fall of 2022, MCPS implemented opt-outs when it introduced curriculum and classroom.

In teacher discussion guides, MCPS makes it clear that English teachers are expected to teach concepts related to gender, family life, and relationships. Contrary to claims MCPS had made in federal court, teachers are told to scold, debate, or “disrupt the either/or thinking” of only students who express traditional viewpoints or ask critical questions about those topics (Luke Rosiak, Aug 21, 2023   DailyWire.com). 

Some Positive Outcomes Too

The recognition of Muslim religious identity by allowing mosques to broadcast the call to prayer, celebrating Muslim Heritage Month, and observing Eid as school holidays granted American Muslim communities equal social opportunities to practice their faith. In 2023, Minneapolis and New York City permitted mosques to broadcast the adhan, or call to prayer, over loudspeakers. Also in 2023, New Jersey and Georgia adopted the practice of recognizing a Muslim Heritage Month. North Carolina joined the list of states observing Muslim American Heritage Month in early 2024, bringing the total to at least eight states. School districts in at least six states added the observation of one of two major Muslim holidays to their yearly calendars.

While the treatment of incarcerated and detained Muslims continues to be an area of concern, progress has also been made to preserve their freedom to practice their faith. The California chapter of CAIR, alongside The Church State Council, Exodus Project, Jakara Movement, and Tayba Foundation, sponsored SB 309, a bill that would create a statewide policy ensuring the right of religious headwear, clothing, and grooming to those in California’s carceral system. The bill was signed by Governor Newsom in October 2023.

Based on these and other developments, CAIR makes several recommendations in this report. 

Public officials at all levels of government, corporate leaders, and those speaking on behalf of places of education must respect free speech on Palestine and the value of human life. If they choose to comment on international affairs such as events in Israel and Palestine, then equal weight and attention should be given to Palestinian suffering. 

The Biden administration must suspend the FBI’s dissemination of the watchlist. Congress must enhance anti-doxing laws. We also reiterate some previous recommendations including our insistence that the U.S. government tie police funding to the submission of hate crimes data and that banks must end the wrongful targeting of American Muslim, Arab, and Persian families.

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By Sanaa Asif

May/Jun 2024

The illegal occupation of Palestine has persisted for decades, often overshadowed by political interests and historical narratives. As the current genocide in Gaza continues, Black scholars, religious leaders and civil rights activists are again calling attention to the ties and similarities between the Palestinian conflict and the Black struggle in the U.S. for sociopolitical equality and the right to self-determination. 

U.S. Role in the Holocaust

Jimmy Jones, Ph.D. (professor emeritus, Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.; executive vice president, The Islamic Seminary of America) believes that the U.S. had a significant role in inspiring the Holocaust. “Americans set the framework for the Holocaust,” he says. 

“Historically speaking, the Nazis learned from racial segregation in the United States. And they felt that what we did in the United States was too radical in terms of racial segregation.” In fact, during the Holocaust, pro-Nazi movements were very popular in America. Groups such as the German American Bund (founded 1936; outlawed 1941) and the American fascist movements were gaining more support. Various public figures such as Henry Ford were even distributing pro-Hitler pamphlets.

He notes that after WW2 ended, Americans felt guilty about their treatment of the Jews and tried to reconcile it through many types of rhetoric, such as books and songs. Israelis took the American apology in stride, using it to their advantage to gain unchecked support, military prowess and political dominance. He mentions the post-victimization ethical exemption syndrome, which has created and defines as “the notion that because my people either are or have been oppressed, you shouldn’t be able to hold me to any ethical standards. I should be able to do whatever I wish.”

Jones explains how this syndrome became a major reason that enabled Israel to occupy so much of Palestine. Because the West felt guilty about the Holocaust, it allowed Israel to do whatever it wished. In his essay “Zionist Logic” (The Egyptian Gazette, Sept. 17, 1964), Malcolm X, who traveled from Egypt to Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sept. 5, 1964, argues, “Zionist logic is the same logic that brought Hitler and the Nazis into power… It is the same logic that says that because my grandfather came from Ireland, I have the right to go back to Ireland and take over the whole country.”

Racism Within Israel

Jones analogizes Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and its widely criticized use of military tactics against Palestinians to the Americans’ invasion of Native American territory. During the 1800s and early 1900s, both Indigenous and African American individuals were targeted with legislation designed to reduce their civil rights and limit their representation in government. According to Jones, Israel is doing worse to Palestinians — reducing their civil rights by illegal occupation of their land and eliminating their representation in the government.

He emphasizes that Israel also discriminates against its own people — an example being the Ethiopian Jews. They make up more than 1 percent of the population, and yet are treated very harshly. For example, there are widely publicized reports of involuntary sterilization (Phoebe Greenwood, Feb. 28, 2013, www.theguardian.com; Alistair Dawber, Jan. 27, 2013, www.independent.co.uk/). In addition, they experience much higher levels of poverty, police brutality, arrest rates and incarceration. 

“This is where you can take a good look at the racial relationships right there on the ground, when you look at how Ethiopians and other African immigrants are treated so harshly, very harshly, in Israel,” Jones says.

Voices Within the Black American Community

Black church leaders are among the loudest voices within the Black American community calling for Palestinian rights. “This [Palestinians] is a proud, resilient people who have suffered over at least 75 years and still walk proudly, still value education, still value their identity as Palestinians. And I think particularly for the leadership of the Black community, this really resonates for them because this is Black people, right? This is Black people having to be resilient, having to step up despite what people say about you, despite what they do to you,” Jones says. 

Malcolm X also drew significant parallels between the Palestinian struggle and the Black American fight for equality. After breaking away from the Black nationalist and separatist Nation of Islam, Malcolm X traveled abroad to meet and interact with African and Middle Eastern leaders. 

“I, for one, would like to impress, especially upon those who call themselves leaders, the importance in realizing the direct connection between the struggle of the Afro-American in this country and the struggle of our people all over the world,” he said upon his return. One of those causes was the Palestinian people’s struggle, about which he was most vocal during the last six months of his life, describing it “as a blistering battle for the most fundamental human rights” (https://www.gqmiddleeast.com/).

While on a trip to Gaza, he wrote one of his most famous and extensive essays on the Palestinian cause, “Zionist Logic,” in which he described Zionism as “a new form of colonialism” and warned African countries against being exploited by Israel.

Similarly, Muhammad Ali was an active proponent of Palestinian civil liberties, calling the occupation unjust and unsustainable. In January 1988, he participated in a pro-Palestine rally in Chicago during the first intifada. He condemned the annexation of Jerusalem and other Palestinian lands, and, after visiting multiple Palestinian refugee camps, declared, “In my name and the name of all Muslims in America, I declare support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland and oust the Zionist invaders” (“Ali Belts Zionism,” March 8, 1974, www.jta.org/archive/ali-belts-zionism). 

A significant activist in the Black liberation struggle, Ali also refused to fight in Vietnam to protest the lack of civil rights for Black Americans and wrote poetry in tribute of Black leaders in the Attica prison uprising. His activism represents a deep and meaningful legacy of resistance to Zionism, anti-Black imperialism and the struggle to free peoples ruled by the oppressive systems these ideologies create.

Recommended Reading

Jones recommends Mazen Qamsiyeh’s “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle” (Pluto Press, 2004) for those wanting to learn more about the roots of the Palestinians’ resistance to Israeli settler colonialism. Written by a geneticist, it delves into the technicalities of who is indigenous and who a Jew really is and using genetics to back up his claims. He also recommends “I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity” by Eladim Abu-Laish, a world-renowned physician and academic (Bloomsbury USA, 2012) who recounts his experiences in a Jabali refugee camp in 2009, when his daughters and niece were killed by Israeli forces.

Sanaa Asif, a Hinsdale Central High School student, is an avid reader and loves to learn and write about other people’s stories.

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By Carissa Lamkahouan

May/Jun 2024

Initially, Karina Guillen just wanted to stay silent about it — at least on her social media channels.

A married mother of two who reverted in 2019 and considered herself relatively young in the faith, she thought it would be better for her to learn about Islam and its practices before delving into the Palestinians’ plight and possibly courting controversy with family and friends.

“I really wanted to stay away from the politics [of it],” she said. “I know how a lot of my [Christian] family members speak about Israel and how they support it, so I wasn’t ready to open that dialogue with them.”

However, as the war dragged on and she saw the atrocities in Gaza resulting in an ever-rising death toll, she began to have second thoughts.

“I realized I had to pay attention,” Guillen stated.

Armed with a desire to educate herself, she learned more about the conflict and its history. She also began viewing the situation not only as one defined by the politics between the two warring factions, but also about the humanitarian crisis that both the Palestinian Muslims and Christians were suffering. 

That knowledge encouraged her to keep learning and, before long, Guillen felt informed and brave enough to post the articles where her friends and family members could read them. To her surprise and relief, no one who’d expressed support for Israel challenged what she was sharing online. However, as time passed, Guillen observed a change in their own public postings.

“My family never said anything to me about what I was posting, but they stopped posting so much about their support for Israel, and I believe I influenced them to see [that] this was a humanitarian issue. I believe I made them more aware and made them think that it was no longer just about religion or just about Muslims; it’s about a genocide and human rights,” Guillen remarked.

In fact, since she summoned the courage to speak her mind, a Christian friend confided to her that her bravery inspired her.

“She reached out to me and commended me for posting, because she doesn’t feel brave enough to speak up against what’s happening in Gaza,” she stated. “She knows it’s very inhumane, but because she’s Christian she feels she can’t support Palestine.”

For Some, Posting Comes at Their Peril

Many Muslims and non-Muslims agree with Guillen’s take on the issue, but not all have had the same positive experience after sharing their opinion. Since the war broke out, several organizations and news programs have reported the fallout people can suffer by supporting Palestine’s right to fight for its freedom.

On Oct. 26, 2023, The New Arab (www.newarab.com) reported that the U.S. civil rights group Palestine Legal was monitoring how some of those who voiced public support for Palestine have been targeted. The group — via several posts on X (formerly Twitter) — identified more than “260 (reports) of harassment and censorship attempts.” It said that it has spoken to people who have lost their jobs or even had job offers rescinded after making pro-Palestinian social media posts or signing statements of support. 

On Dec. 22, 2023, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that Canadian lawyers had been fielding calls from people about losing their jobs or being suspended, as well as from job seekers being flagged to potential employers after publicly expressing their support for Palestine. 

On Nov. 3, 2023, four UN special rapporteurs issued a press release expressing worry at the “worldwide wave of attacks, reprisals, criminalization and sanctions against those who publicly express solidarity with the victims of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.” 

The press release identified special rapporteurs as part of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, which is the “largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system.” According to the press release, “Calls for an end to the violence and attacks in Gaza, or for a humanitarian ceasefire, or criticism of Israeli government’s policies and actions, have in too many contexts been misleadingly equated with support for terrorism or antisemitism. This stifles free expression, including artistic expression, and creates an atmosphere of fear to participate in public life” (www.ohchr.org. Search under “press releases”).

On Dec. 22, 2023, Brishti Basu (senior writer, CBCNews.ca.) posted the following on CBC News: “The [UN] statement said that artists, journalists, academics, athletes and protesters have all been censored, suspended, blacklisted or otherwise threatened with workplace consequences for expressing their views” (www.cbc.ca/).  

The Pressure to Post Comes from Both Sides

While Guillen was initially worried about how her support for Palestine would be received, other Muslims face the same worry — but for very different reasons. 

Recently, writer Asma Khan (not her real name) found herself in a tight spot. As a rule, she had resisted writing on social media in support of Palestine. This decision largely stemmed from her husband’s objection and worry about his career.

“He is concerned about what I post on social media in general and how it could affect his job,” she said. “I could defy him and post whatever I want, but I don’t think that’s the key to a harmonious relationship.”

Despite what would seem to be a safe approach, Khan soon found that not everyone agreed. After being nominated for an award for her work, she was presented with a threat from the award’s panel of judges. 

“They were [all] Muslims,” she stated, “and they made a statement on social media to all the contestants and to their audience in general. I am paraphrasing here, but they said, ‘We are watching what you post or don’t post about Palestine on social media. If you are silent, or if you post any nonsense about ‘both sides’ having a valid point, you will be blacklisted. You will not even be considered for this award, and we’ll tell our followers to cancel you.’”

Khan said the judges’ stance shocked her and made her afraid not to post online about her support for Palestine. The experience led her to question what posting on social media means in terms of decoding people’s views on a subject and even ponder how writing a statement on Facebook, X or any other platform is viewed as a total and accurate reflection of a person’s character and beliefs. She even questioned how much impact posts from everyday folks could have.

“I would argue that social media is not necessarily the most effective way to support Palestine,” she said. “I would also argue [that] leaders and influential spokespersons for the Muslim ummah have a greater responsibility to post because they have a wide following and might actually change some minds.”

For Some, Speaking Out Sparks Fear and Guilt. For Others — Defiance

Houstonian Hannah Ali has only shared her support online for Palestine once or twice since the war began. Active in her subdivision’s homeowner’s association, the move left her feeling worried about how neighbors might take it and how they might treat her and her family if they disagreed.

In fact, she said she’s used Khan’s argument to justify not writing more or more forcefully about her views on her social media platforms. 

“When I think about posting something, I’ll stop and ask myself, ‘What can my posts even do to make the war stop?’” she related.

Nevertheless, her decision has left her feeling guilty, particularly when she views graphic videos coming out of the war zone, especially those featuring harm or even dead children.

“On many levels I really want to share everything I see so that people can see how bad it is in Gaza. But I rationalize away my decision not to post by thinking to myself, ‘Oh what good is it gonna do?’ or ‘I’m probably going to rub someone the wrong way with this and end up in a fight on Facebook.’”

Although Idriss Assal understands Ali’s reasoning and her hesitance, her attitude doesn’t work for him, especially as the fighting in Palestine has dragged on for months and more people are seeing the scale of the damage and death toll. 

The Texas-based finance manager said anyone who wants to make their solidarity with Palestine known online should feel empowered to do so. His reasoning: The more people who speak up, the less risk involved.

However, many would likely disagree. On Jan. 28, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on university students and recent graduates — including Jinan Chehade — losing job opportunities as a result of their public support for Palestine, support specifically tied to social media postings. The students’ experiences mirror those of others around North America, which can be found by a quick Internet search.

Carissa Lamkahouan is a freelance journalist based in Houston. Her work has appeared in AboutIslam.net, The Houston Chronicle, Inventors Digest, Animal Wellness, The Muslim Observer and other publications.

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By Zanah Ghalawanji

Mar/Apr 2024

In a shocking violation of anti-discrimination laws, Montgomery County (Md.) public school teacher Hajur El-Haggan faced immediate leave and investigation for sharing the Palestinian slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Her non-Muslim colleagues who shared similar speech have not been disciplined. This incident is emblematic of a troubling trend where American employees supporting Palestinian freedom are harshly reprimanded. 

Over the past three months, civil rights organizations like CAIR have received numerous complaints of employer retaliation against those speaking out on the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza. CAIR headquarters has seen a 20-fold increase in calls involving professional repercussions for political speech. The backlash is “unprecedented,” says Zainab Chaudry, director of CAIR’s Maryland office. 

During this period, employees have witnessed a stark reality of limited speech rights, with institutions in the U.S. disregarding anti-discrimination laws and free speech protections. Despite the U.S. priding itself on valuing freedom of expression, American employers target pro-Palestinian employees through disproportionate enforcement of workplace policies, strict limitations on private speech and the weaponization of fear-mongering tactics. 

Anne Arundel County (Md.) special education teacher Saera Suhail also found herself a target of employer investigations into violations of rarely enforced policies. She was accused of violating email policies after opposing the county’s biased curriculum on the Gaza crisis. The school’s principal claimed that Suhail sent an unapproved email to staff when she responded to the county’s email. The selective enforcement of policies reveals a pattern of discrimination against Muslim teachers of color. Other public-school teachers in Montgomery County were accused of antisemitism, placed on leave and investigated for sharing political commentary on Facebook. 

Other Professions Too

This discrimination extends beyond schools. An Ohio Muslima beauty technician was terminated by the salon’s Jewish owner after she shared posts highlighting the current situation in Gaza. The owner claimed that she violated the salon’s social media policy, despite having reportedly posting herself an Instagram story that referred to what appeared to be Palestinians as “sick animals.” 

Even government employees, theoretically protected by the First Amendment, face investigations for pro-Palestine posts on personal social media. A government attorney was publicly doxed and threatened by pro-Israel advocates and placed under investigation for sharing an Instagram reel that debunked myths surrounding the crisis. Despite her speech being protected by the First Amendment, Republican lawmakers are pressuring her employer to terminate her. 

Pro-Israel groups like the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the Anti-Defamation League are exerting pressure behind the scenes to have employers fire individuals who openly support Palestine. 

In the cases of the Montgomery County teachers, the JCRC issued a statement alleging that they had been placed on administrative leave for sharing “antisemitic images and messages on their social media accounts.” It supported the county’s removal of them. According to its website, one of JCRC’s “four pillars” is Israel Advocacy. 

The strategy of condemning pro-Palestinian views as antisemitic is further reinforced by political resolutions. The Republican-controlled House passed a resolution equating anti zionism with antisemitism, contributing even more to the chilling effect on free expression. 

Employees critical of Israel face not only professional consequences, but also personal attacks, thereby creating an environment in which any such criticism risks causing permanent damage to one’s reputation. The weaponization of fear-mongering tactics extends to prohibiting pro-Palestinian clothing, reprimanding employees for cultural symbols and even suppressing Palestinian identity through dress codes. Palestinians have reported employer bans on keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf. The professional blowback has been lopsided, but workers who have made pro-Palestinian statements are bearing the brunt of it. 

CAIR is encouraging employees facing retaliation for speaking out to fill out and submit an online civil rights complaint form available at www.cair.com. We also encourage everyone to review our “Know Your Rights Materials” on www.islamophobia.org. 

Zanah Ghalawanji, Esq., is CAIR’s staff attorney.

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By Luke Peterson

Jan/Feb 2024

The African American experience in the U.S. has been connected to the practice of Islam, particularly Sunni Islam, since before the country’s foundations. It is known, for example, that between the years 1701 and 1800, millions of Africans were brought to what became the U.S, through the inhumane commercial exchange known as the Triangular Trade — the three-legged British-Africa-America route that made up the Atlantic slave trade — which saw trafficked and abused Africans in bondage traded as property to wealthy elites throughout the American colonies. 

Through kidnap, rape, and pillage committed by the European slavers, this widespread and shameful practice (which was not, as is sometimes suggested, limited to plantation owners in the ante-bellum American South) brought thousands of observant Muslims to the Americas against their will. In all, some suggest that as many as 3 million African Muslims were kidnapped and deposited across the Americas, and the Caribbean throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (Sylviane A Diouf, “Muslims in America: A forgotten history, Feb. 10, 2021).

As many as 30% of Africans trafficked in chattel slavery during this period were Muslims, many of whom documented their experiences in writing. Historians and chroniclers like Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Bilali Mohammad recorded their experiences as slaves in America, leaving behind both words and deeds instructing subsequent generations about slavery, black identity and, critically, early American Islam. Other records show Arabic served as a clandestine lingua franca for maintaining Islamic traditions while also eluding abusive slave owners, who classified literacy as a criminal activity. 

Others still, some freed and many still enslaved, fought under the banner of the U.S. during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and during the Civil War to decide, once and for all, their freedom and their future within this country. Traditional Arabic and Islamic names are documented across military muster rolls from those bloody conflicts as testimony to their presence in this country’s earliest armies. 

A view into 21st-century’s America’s cultural and political milieu, however, would see the denial of Islam’s long presence here, as it would seek to treat African American Muslims as something exotic or other within the national religious and cultural fabric. And though it may be true that the vast majority of African Americans have traditionally identified as Christian (79% of the community, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study), Islam has remained both a visible and stable presence within the African American community throughout the 20th century. 

Indeed, some African American leaders identified Islam as their people’s natural religion, leading to the foundation of its most famous offshoot, the Nation of Islam, founded in Detroit during the 1930s. While many regard its teachings as heretical, the Nation’s influence in the black American community grew during the 1950s and 1960s under the charismatic leadership of Malcolm X, — who many consider charismatic” — among other prominent Civil Rights figures. After returning from hajj, though, Malcolm X renounced the Nation’s teachings and encouraged his followers to convert to traditional Sunni Islam. He also changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, sought to end internal strife among the various camps working toward equality for African Americans and attempted to create a unified movement across disparate civic and social movements. 

This message of unity, and the threat he continued to pose to the conservative, white establishment, may well have sealed his fate as a conspiracy of operatives assassinated the visionary leader at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on February 21, 1965. Three members of the Nation were convicted, but long-standing evidence suggests that they were not the sole perpetrators of the crime. And in June 2022, two of those convicted for the murder, Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, were exonerated and subsequently awarded a large cash settlement by the state and city of New York. 

Things Begin to Change

This reversal of fortune coincided with a sea change in political representation for the Black Muslim community. Specifically, midterm elections in November 2022 saw electoral victories by more Muslim representatives and more Black Muslim representatives at the federal, state and local levels than any other time in American history. These elections boosted the visibility of African American Muslim leaders like Zaynab Muhammad (D-Minn.), Munira Abdullahi (D-Ohio), Ismail Mohamed (D-Ohio), Mana Abdi (D-Maine) and Deqa Dhalac (D-Maine). 

Their successes mirror the wins garnered on the federal level by prominent African American Muslim congressional representatives Ilhan Omar (D) and Keith Ellison (D), both from Minnesota. For his part, Ellison has held offices within the Democratic Party at both the state and federal levels — and continues to do so in his current position as Minnesota’s state attorney general. From 2022 onward then, an argument can be mounted attesting to new levels of representation, prominence and political influence for Muslims, and specifically for African American Muslims.

And the Most Prominent Individual Targets Are …

Perhaps predictably though, this newfound national prominence prompted an ugly, nativist backlash from the conservative, white and nominally Christian establishment. During Ellison’s 2022 campaign for Minnesota’s attorney general, for example, his opponent Jim Schulz (R) coordinated with Minnesota for Freedom, a right-wing advocacy group funded by the Republican Attorneys General Association. Schulz’s campaign relied upon blatantly racist and Islamophobic tropes within campaign ads that dramatized cities on fire and prison inmates rallying to support Ellison. In an open letter signed by 67 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders from Faith in Minnesota, an interfaith activist group based in Ellison’s home state, this ad campaign was denounced as a form of hate speech. 

Ellison has also been the target of hate speech and white nationalist vitriol both online and in print — even in foreign countries. In his “Burn This Book: What Keith Ellison Doesn’t Want You to Know: A Radical Marxist-Islamist, His Associations and Agenda” (CreateSpace: 2018), Trevor Loudon accuses Ellison of being a “radical Marxist-Islamist,” a by-now common, right-wing epithet linking oxymoronic scare words together to generate nativist and white supremacist fears of the specter of the other.

Ellison’s battle with endemic racism and Islamophobia perhaps pales in comparison, though, with that endured by his colleague and fellow Minnesotan, Ilhan Omar. Omar, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, embraces a progressive domestic and foreign policy agenda. This includes vocal criticism of the broken American tax system that sustains the uber-rich, mostly white elite, while allowing tens of thousands of citizens to go homeless. 

She has further won popular support among members of the minority American left for openly criticizing the Israeli oppression of Palestinians, an uncritical foreign policy position embraced within the U.S. and corporate America, leading to the grotesque enrichment of a number of weapons manufacturers, among them Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin. 

Omar is so staunch in her advocacy for human rights in Palestine that she authored and proposed an unprecedented bill in the U.S House of Representatives that would cut off military aid to Israel due to its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza’s civilian population during October and November. 

And though these policy positions have proven Rep. Omar’s dedicated support for a committed group of progressive, American political activists, voluminous amounts of online bile and racist condemnation for the egregious crime of publicly criticizing the U.S. political and economic relationship with Israel continues to follow her, including from former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. This racist and Islamophobic criticism culminated in a public censure of Omar in her position in the U.S. House as she was expelled from the Foreign Affairs Committee in February of 2023. 

Calling out the motivations of her political opponents, Omar concisely opined, “I am Muslim. I am an immigrant. … Is anyone surprised that I am being targeted?” Omar would later assess her ouster in terms of the centrist, white nationalist American viewpoint, stating, “This debate today is about who gets to be an American.”

Who, indeed? Speaking specifically to the African American Muslim experience, clearly, if Ellison and Omar are representative of this community, then the country as a whole has many miles to go before we truly embrace Black Muslim identity and learn to value it, thereby ensuring that all Americans, everywhere, are viewed as equal in perpetuity. 

Luke Peterson, Ph.D., Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Cambridge–King’s College, investigates language, media and knowledge surrounding political conflict in the Middle East. He lives in Pittsburgh, where he regularly contributes to local, national and international media outlets.

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By Jimmy E. Jones 

Jan/Feb 2024

“Except his [Lut’s] wife, who we have ascertained will be of those who will lag behind.” (15:60)

The sad story of Prophet Lut’s (‘alayhi as salaam) wife appears in all of the Abrahamic scriptures. I grew up in a Black Baptist Church in Bible Belt Virginia during the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, after I converted to Islam in the 1970s, I was reacquainted with the powerful lesson embedded in this important narrative: No matter how righteous or God-conscious your relatives are, it’s still possible for you to be so caught up in “looking back” at what displeases God that you end up “stuck” like a pillar in the problematic past.

When it comes to race relations in the Muslim American community, it seems that many African-American Muslims and their “allies” are too fixated on “looking back” at the twin American sins of slavery and segregation. Therefore, they often do not focus on the powerful positive perspective that Islam brings to this very sensitive, politically-charged issue. Consequently, many of us are so honed in on White supremacy and Black victimhood that we remain a bit stuck in a narrative that fails to move us forward. In this article, I intend to unpack both of these concepts in a way that might facilitate building a stronger, more cohesive Muslim community.

White Supremacy 

Given my life as a young Black boy growing up in the legally segregated South, I knew White supremacy quite well. Us “colored” children attended underfunded schools using books and supplies cast off by our White counterparts across town. When I encountered a White person in downtown Roanoke, Va., I knew better than to obstruct their path or get too close. 

In addition, the racially motivated brutal murder of Emmett Till on Aug. 28, 1955, was a terrifying reminder of what happens to young boys like me who dared to violate the prevailing racial norms. Even though I was only 9 years old at the time, the horrific Jet magazine open casket picture of Till’s brutalized 14-year-old body was traumatizing. The image was so powerful that it still impacts my interactions with White women almost 70 years later. 

Such was White supremacy’s nature in a state where Whites and Blacks were jailed if they intermarried. This reality lasted up until June 12, 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia banned such anti-miscegenation laws nationwide. Even though White supremacy was particularly detrimental to Black people, its negative impact also affected others.

For example, eugenics, the science of “improving the race,” became a very popular movement in the 1920s. In fact, 30+ states (led by Virginia) passed involuntary sterilization laws to rid society of “defectives” (e.g., immigrants, blind, deaf, “feeble minded”). A 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, involved a poor young White girl that Virginia wanted to legally sterilize. This case became a major catalyst for the eugenics movement. “Liberal” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated in the court’s written opinion that “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  

These words, and the ruling in which they were contained, led to 70,000+ forced sterilizations of the “unfit,” a practice that lasted until the 1970s. All of this was done by using the authority of various state laws. This pseudoscientific movement is meticulously documented in Edwin Black’s “The War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” (Four Walls Eight Windows: 2003). Even liberal intellectual luminaries at Harvard, Yale and Stanford were ardent advocates of this “racial improvement” effort. 

The point here is that while “White supremacy” was a powerful negative phenomenon for Black people, it was also used to suppress and murder others. For instance, lynching is usually associated with Black repression. However, according to The Stanford Daily initially, it was actually more frequently used in the western part of the country against Mexicans before and after the Reconstruction (stanforddaily.com, May 19, 2022). 

Thus, White supremacy has always been about more than just Black and White. 

Black Victimhood 

Perhaps the most stunning outcome of the de jure segregation system that I endured during my formative years was that I never considered myself a victim. The people who nurtured me at home, in school and at the High Street Baptist Church that I attended never allowed me to focus on the fact that I was treated as a second-class citizen. Instead, they insisted that I strive to be the best I could be, no matter what the circumstances. Consequently, we all understood that excellence was the standard for every one of us young Black children. 

This refuse-to-be-a-victim attitude is in stark contrast to that of some of the Black leaders and their “allies” in the Muslim American community today, who often portray us as primarily victims of White supremacy and immigrant interlopers who adopt White supremacist attitudes. Far too little emphasis is placed on the value that we currently add to the Muslim community and the broader American society. 

Racism toward us is still a real and persistent scourge in both contexts. However, if you adopt the narrative presented by many African-American Muslim leaders and their “allies,” you would think that most Muslim “immigrants” are “anti-Black” and that most Blacks are very poor.

For a more optimistic view, consider the census data used by Eugene Robinson in his stereotype-shattering book “Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America” ‎ (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group: 2011). The data he references support the central thesis of the book’s first chapter: “Black America doesn’t live here anymore.” In the chapter, he asserts that by 2010, middle-class Black Americans had become the Black community’s largest segment. Racism is still a serious, deadly problem in this country. However, things have gotten a little better.

Facing Forward

If we Muslims want to avoid the fate of Prophet Lut’s(‘alayhi as salaam) wife, I strongly urge our community’s members to come together across ethnic boundaries in order to construct a more inclusive multicultural future for us and for all Americans by focusing on some Islamically inspired concepts that we all know quite well:

 • When it comes to the Qur’an and biology, there is no such thing as “race.” As pointed out in 4:1, all humans were created from a single being and its mate. Thus, “race” is indeed a social construct.

• Even though Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) clearly loved his people and place of birth, he never put his cultural allegiance above the shahada, which encourages Muslims to be in one mutually supportive community.

• A binary approach to solving the country’s racial issues (e.g., “You are either a racist or an anti-racist,” as per the currently popular author Ibram X. Kendi in his bestselling book “How to be an Antiracist”) will lead to even more racial animus. We should heed the lessons in the oft-quoted 49:13, that we are created as nations and tribes as a test of whether we can get to know one another.

• As witnesses for all humanity (2:143), Muslims are obliged to step up and have tough conversations around race that will lead to healing, rather than to increased bitterness and blaming (see Harlan Dalton’s “Racial Healing” [Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group: 1996] for an excellent discussion of how this might happen).

We should all take time to learn about the complex history of race relations in this country through books like Matthew Frye Jacobson’s “Whiteness of a Different Color” (Harvard University Press, 1999) or videos like the excellent three-part PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” (2003).

Further, as a Muslim African American, I believe that we are better off if we focus on the value we bring to a situation, as opposed to acting like “victims” who need to be protected from “micro-aggressions” and be given “safe spaces.” Black victimhood is not the best response to White supremacy.

Jimmy E. Jones, DMin, is executive vice-president and professor of comparative religion and culture at The Islamic Seminary of America, Richardson, Texas.

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Nov/Dec 2023

Travel in the United States as a Muslim has become a challenge for many . Muslims are often subjected to the discriminatory behavior because of the color of their skin and are disrespected on account of their faith.

The introduction to CAIR’s watchlist report states in part: “For more than twenty years, the FBI has detained, surveilled, harassed, and destroyed the lives of innocent Muslims. The public record amply documents how this abuse, inflicted via always-expanding FBI powers, led not to a reduction in terrorism, but painful, farcical, and often dangerous abuse of Muslims…It has long been clear to the Muslim community that the FBI’s list is nothing more than a list of innocent Muslims…Of the watchlist entries we’ve reviewed, we estimate that more than 1.47 million of those entries are aboutMuslims – more than 98 percent of the total…”   

It is important to know that as an airline passenger, you are entitled to courteous, respectful and non-stigmatizing treatment by airline and security personnel. It is illegal for law enforcement officials to perform any stops, searches, detentions, or removals based solely on your race, religion, national origin, sex, or ethnicity.

If you believe you have been treated in a discriminatory manner, you should:

• Ask for the names and ID number of all persons involved in the incident. Be sure to write down this information.
• Ask to speak to a supervisor.
• Politely ask if you have been singled out because of your name, looks, dress, race, ethnicity, faith, or national origin.
• Politely ask witnesses to give you their names and contact information.
• Write a statement of facts immediately after the incident. Be sure to include the flight number, date, and the name of the airline.
• Contact CAIR to file a report. If you are leaving the country, leave a detailed message with the information above at 202-488-8787 or at www.cair.com.

It is important to note the following:

• A customs agent has the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.
• Screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.
• A pilot has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot’s decision must be reasonable and based on observations, not stereotypes — a move initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union.

No-Fly List and Selectee List

Individuals experiencing difficulties during travel at airports, train stations, or U.S. borders may be on either the no-fly or selectee list. It is very difficult to determine if you are on one of these lists.

You may be on the selectee list if you are unable to check in online or at airport kiosks and have to line up at the ticketing counter instead. You should eventually be permitted to fly.

The no-fly list, on the other hand, prohibits individuals from flying at all. If you are able to board an airplane, regardless of the amount of questioning or screening, then you are not on the no-fly list.

If you are constantly subjected to advanced screening or are prevented from boarding your flight, you should file a complaint with DHS TRIP at www.dhs.gov/trip. Most people who file with DHS TRIP are not actually on a watch list and that service can resolve most problems.

If you are experiencing difficulties traveling, you should contact CAIR to file a report at 202-488-8787 or www.cair.com.

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