All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.
October 2023: A 6-year-old Palestinian American boy named Wadea Al-Fayoume was fatally stabbed 26 times by his mother’s landlord in Illinois. The child’s accused killer, Joseph Czuba, 71, was charged with murder and a hate crime.
November 2023: Three college students were shot in Vermont while speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs, traditional Arab scarves. One of them, Palestinian American Hisham Awartani, 20, is now paralyzed. Police charged Jason James Eaton, 48, with three counts of attempted murder. The shootings were investigated as a hate crime.
Violent incidents like these prompt Palestinian American Adam Abusalah to think twice about wearing his keffiyeh, which has become a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians.
“Is it worth it?” Abusalah says. “I think sometimes when I go to places and it's places that I'm not familiar with, I say, ‘Should I just leave it in the car? Should I not, you know, mention that I'm Palestinian, that I'm Muslim?’”
Fear of retaliation and reprisals has spread through Arab American and U.S. Muslim communities since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel and the start of Israel’s war in Gaza. Some Arab Americans say they haven’t felt this on edge since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S. more than 20 years ago.
“It was very similar to 9/11, that sense of anxiety and fear and trepidation,” says Diana Abouali, director of the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. “But sort of on steroids, because now we had social media, and all these things could be expressed, obviously, a lot more publicly.”
Arab Americans like Samraa Luqman, a community activist from Dearborn, worry about being held accountable for violent incidents occurring overseas, as well as at home in the United States.
“We're always on edge,” Luqman says. “We're always afraid. We're always afraid that we're going to be targeted or blamed for another event.”
Although the fear of being targeted has been enhanced since October 7, Luqman says it is part of being Arab and Muslim American in the United States, especially since 9/11. And those concerns make it difficult for Luqman to practice her faith as devoutly as she might like.
“For almost 30 years of my life, I wore the headscarf, and when I moved to another state, I was too afraid to wear it,” she says. “I actually stopped wearing it.”
Luqman also recalls a conversation with her boss, who told her she was initially reluctant to hire Luqman.
“The interviewer ended up being my supervisor, and we became very close,” Luqman says. “She told me, ‘I didn't want to hire you. … I didn't want no terrorists working with me.’”
Amny Shuraydi, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, has encountered similar sentiments when people express surprise after learning she is Arab American and Muslim.
“There are instances where people will make comments [like], ‘You're very pleasant to be around. You're very classy, and you have this persona that just doesn't fit,’” Shuraydi says. “And then the question becomes, ‘Well, why do you assume that Arab Americans and Muslims aren't pleasant to be around? Why do you think that I'm an exception and not the rule?’”
There are no recent public FBI statistics regarding hate crimes against Arab and Muslim Americans. However, in his Ramadan message on March 10, President Joe Biden expressed concern about the “appalling resurgence of hate and violence toward Muslim Americans.”
The statement said the Biden administration is developing a strategy to counter bias, discrimination and hate against Muslims, Arab Americans and other marginalized groups.
Additionally, both the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Anti-Defamation League, which combats antisemitism, have tracked numerous incidents targeting these communities since October 7.
Recently, The New York Times published an opinion piece headlined, “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom.” An opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal called Dearborn, home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the country, "America’s Jihad Capital.”
The mayor of Dearborn tweeted that police would increase security at places of worship and major infrastructure points after the "Wall Street Journal" opinion piece was published.
“Remove ‘Arab’ and insert ‘Jew’ or ‘Black’ in those articles or op-eds — that would never be allowed to see the light of day,” Abouali says. “I think there's a license to publish inflammatory defamatory language about Arabs. … I think it's OK to be really racist towards Arabs.”
Inflammatory language justifies hatred and violence against Arab Americans and U.S. Muslims, according to Shuraydi, who says equating any group of people to animals suggests they are inhuman and therefore undeserving of empathy.
“They're a wonderful community and a flawed community just like any other community that exists in the United States,” Shuraydi says. “And it's important that they are recognized and viewed as human beings, as people, and not placed in situations that create divisiveness for them and make them targets and dehumanize them.”