On the same day that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, marked Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the White House released two statements about anti-Muslim hate on Monday.
In a fact sheet, which the Biden administration said addresses “new actions to counter Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate,” the White House described more than two dozen of its prior programs and efforts that address hate broadly, which it said are part of its forthcoming National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Hatred Against Arabs in the United States.
When the White House released its national strategy to counter antisemitism on May 25, 2023, it initially listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (an organization that blamed Israel for being attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, in the days after Hamas’s terrorist attacks in southern Israel, leaving 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage) as among 24 groups supporting “the whole-of-society call to action.” In December, the White House quietly removed CAIR from the strategy.
JNS sought comment from the White House about whether Jewish organizations were consulted on the national strategy to counter Islamophobia and whether the White House’s reference to “hatred against Arabs in the United States” refers also to Jews of Arab descent.
U.S. President Joe Biden also released a statement on Monday marking the one-year anniversary of the killing of Wadee Alfayoumi, 6, whom the president called “a bright and cheerful American Muslim boy of Palestinian descent,” who “was brutally killed in his family’s home in Plainfield, Ill.”
Prosecutors have charged the man, whom the U.S. Justice Department accuses of killing the boy, with committing a hate crime.
“On this day, let us all take steps that honor Wadee’s memory and reaffirm together that there is no place for hate in America, including hatred of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims,” Biden stated. “We can all reject hatred and expose misinformation and disinformation that is cynically aimed at turning us against one another.”
Harris also released a statement about Wadee’s murder. “There is no place for hate in America. Our nation’s founding principles tell us that every person should have the freedom to live safe from violence, hate and bigotry—and no American, of any background, should be made to feel unsafe in our nation,” the vice president stated. “That includes Muslim and Arab Americans, who have been a vital part of the American story since our founding days. As I told Wadee’s mother, Hanan, when I spoke with her, I condemn the heinous attack against her family, and all forms of hate and bigotry against Muslim and Arab Americans.”
“Over the past year, we have seen a rise in Islamophobic and anti-Arab incidents in America, such as bullying, online harassment and hate crimes. These hate-fueled attacks are unacceptable, and stand against our fundamental values,” she added. “President Biden and I have made taking on hate a national priority, and we will continue to do everything in our power to combat hate in all its forms, and against any community. We must be unequivocal: in America, no one should be made to fight hate alone.”
“We honor the memory of Wadee Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy murdered on Oct. 14, 2023,” the American Jewish Committee stated. “We pray for healing for his family and stand in solidarity with Muslim, Arab and Palestinian Americans who feel threatened. Even as war in the Middle East continues, our commitment to combating all forms of hate remains steadfast, regardless of the victim’s national background or religious identity.”