CAIR reports record 8,658 discrimination complaints in 2024 as war in Gaza stirred up Islamophobia.
Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Arabs in the United States hit a new record in 2024 amid the Israel-Gaza war, an advocacy group has reported.
A report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday said that the 8,658 complaints regarding anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents last year – representing a 7.4 percent rise year on year – was the highest number since the group began compiling data in 1996.
Complaints regarding employment discrimination were the most common at 15.4 percent of the total. Complaints regarding immigration and asylum constituted 14.8 percent, education 9.8 percent and hate crimes 7.5 percent.
Rights advocates have highlighted an increase in Islamophobia, anti-Arab bias and anti-Semitism since the Hamas attack in October 2023 saw Israel launch a devastating onslaught on Gaza.
“For the second year in a row, the US-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States,” CAIR said.
Israel denies genocide and war crimes accusations.
Last month, a man was found guilty of a hate crime for the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy 18 months ago.
Other alarming incidents since late 2023 include the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man, also in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, and the shooting of two Israeli visitors, whom a suspect mistook to be Palestinian, in Florida.
University protest crackdown
CAIR also noted a crackdown on pro-Palestine protests on university campuses.
Demonstrators have for months demanded an end to US support for Israel. Through the summer of 2024, classes were cancelled, university administrators resigned, and student protesters were suspended and arrested.
Notable incidents include violent arrests by police of protesters at Columbia University and a mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles.
President Donald Trump has demanded a step-up in action against the protests.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student who served as a negotiator between pro-Palestine protesters and Columbia University in New York’s administration, was arrested this week by immigration officials despite holding a permanent residency green card.
Trump has written on social media that Khalil’s was “the first arrest of many”.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” he added.
Executive Director of CAIR New York Afaf Nasher condemned the arrest as a “shocking escalation” that “sets a dangerous precedent and threatens the civil liberties of all”.