A week after Karine Jean-Pierre pivoted on consecutive days from discussions about rising antisemitism to discussing anti-Muslim hatred, the White House press secretary on Wednesday announced the White House’s first-ever national strategy to combat anti-Islamic sentiment.
The Biden administration will work with “community leaders, advocates, members of Congress and more” to “counter the scourge of Islamophobia and hate in all its forms,” stated Jean-Pierre.
“For too long, Muslims in America, and those perceived to be Muslim, such as Arabs and Sikhs, have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks and other discriminatory incidents,” she added. “We all mourn the recent barbaric killing of Wadea al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy, and the brutal attack on his mother in their home outside Chicago.”
Jean-Pierre added that the forthcoming strategy “is the latest step as part of President Biden’s directive last year to establish an interagency group to increase and better coordinate U.S. government efforts to counter Islamophobia, antisemitism and related forms of bias and discrimination within the United States.”
The White House did not say whether it would invite Jewish groups to advise it on the strategy, as it did with the Council on American-Islamic Relations regarding the national strategy on combating antisemitism.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, CAIR has repeatedly blamed Israel for the massacre.
