The Rise of Islamophobia Since October 7th
I. INTRODUCTION
I was born in 2007. Of course, being born six years after the September 11th attacks, I am not old enough to have experienced the turmoil felt by many Americans after it. I am only old enough to have heard about the discrimination faced by American Muslims and other Muslims living in the West, as well as the horrific atrocities committed against people in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the supposed “War on Terror,” launched by the Bush administration in its wake.
Still, twenty-three years and thousands of your visits to Dubai later, the language utilised to demonise Muslims is still being used today. Twenty-three years of constantly having to distinguish ourselves as ‘moderate,’ and ‘civilised’ people, twenty-three years of being forced to assimilate, twenty-three years of verbal and physical violence, and twenty-three years of widespread discrimination is still not enough for specific legislation that centres Muslim voices, experiences, and plights to be enacted and enforced.
II. THE CURRENT ISSUE
On October 7th, 2023, the militant wing of Palestinian political party Hamas, called al-Qassam, launched a violent offensive into Israel, breaking the wall separating Israel from the Gaza Strip, and ascending into surrounding towns — resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Israelis, as well as the capture of 250 hostages. The operation, named Operation al-Aqsa Flood, was a retaliation for another escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the 2021 crisis, which itself was caused by the Israeli storming of al-Aqsa Mosque. Since October 7th, over 40,000 Palestinians, including over 12,000 unidentified individuals, have been killed in the subsequent Israeli aggression.
Since the attack, the worldwide political atmosphere has been tense. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, calling for anything from a ceasefire, to even the dissolution of Israel as a state. In America specifically, the Democratic party is bleeding voters due to Biden’s political and monetary support of Israel — especially Muslim American voters, a population that has consistently voted Democrat since 2001.
In fact, the path that the State of Israel has followed in its establishment highly parallels that of the United States of America. Like colonial America’s ‘manifest destiny,’ Israel’s Zionism is a settler-colonialist, expansionist ideology that promotes the idea that the land of Israel was a land designated specifically to the Jewish people, and that Israel is a unique, virtuous society — therefore granting them implicit permission to mistreat and displace the natives of the land. Furthermore, the similarities between America’s reaction to 9/11, and Israel’s reaction to 10/7 — as well as the wide support of the public — are not lost on me.
Like Americans after 9/11, many Israelis, and supporters of Israel, are utilising Islamophobic rhetoric to justify the massacres in Gaza. For example, many Zionists may utilise pinkwashing, the tokenization of sexual minorities as a strategy to gain the support of people in the LGBTQ+ community, affirm the idea of supposed democracy in Israel, and subtly compare Israel to the surrounding, Muslim countries. Pinkwashing, like most Islamophobic Zionist propaganda, seeks to paint Israel as a democratic, egalitarian utopia that upholds Western values, and the surrounding Middle Eastern (Muslim) countries as regressed, uncivilised oriental societies. This framing is not new. In fact, the idea that Muslims in Muslim countries are inherently socially undeveloped, barbaric, terrorists who are in need of ‘democracy’ and help from the West is the same justification the American government used to give themselves the permission to kill and/or displace some ~42.5 million people in the ‘Global War on Terror.’[1]
III. CULMINATION
In Illinois, on October 14th, 2023, a week after Operation al-Aqsa Flood, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba knocked on 32-year-old mother Hanaan Shahin’s door. As soon as she answered, the man began strangling her, and eventually attacked her with a knife. After being attacked, she ran to hide in her bathroom, and called emergency services. Upon leaving her hiding place, she found her 6-year-old son, Wadea Al-Fayoume, injured, with 26 stab wounds. He was pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital, and Shahin was in critical condition, unable to attend her son’s funeral due to her injuries.
Czuba, the then-landlord of the two victims, was ‘very interested’ in the Gaza War, his wife had reported[2] — and he got most of his information from conservative talk radio. He was worried that these tenants, who were Palestinian Muslims, would harm his family in an “International Day of Jihad,” an Islamophobic rumour that on October 13th, 2023, Muslim communities would come together to massacre non-Muslims, specifically Jewish people. This specific bastardisation of Arabic words and Islamic religious practices closely mirrors the antisemitic claims of Blood Libel and ‘white genocide.’
Since October 7th, many antisemitic conspiracies have been repackaged by Islamophobes to be weaponized against Muslims. Another example is the claim that members of Hamas control many world governments (such as South Africa, Ireland, and Spain[3][4]), a conspiracy that mirrors JOG (Jewish Occupied Governments), the antisemitic idea that most or all of the world’s governments are controlled by Jewish people.
Despite the racial diversity within the Jewish community, the view of Jewish people in the West is a white one. For example, Ashkenazis (northern european Jews) constitute 92% of the American Jewish population.[5] Israel takes advantage of this image on social media, filling their Twitter and Tiktok accounts with white models, with many of them participating in modern trends, posing suggestively, spreading Zionist propaganda to gain a, specifically younger, audience’s favour.[6] This image already exists in the minds of Westerners, and is only affirmed, albeit incorrectly, by the State of Israel itself. Now, with Western Jews widely assimilating into the idea of political whiteness, a position they were not in some 80 years ago, this image pushed must be considered in juxtaposition to the image Israel, with the help of the West, paints of Muslims as regressed, animalistic, barbaric, and uncivilised Arabs — aiding in the justification of violence against us.
IV. CLAIM AND STATISTICS
Since 10/7, the amount of islamophobic rhetoric within social media, real life, and political spaces has increased to levels similar to that of the aftermath of 9/11, with the American population growing increasingly hostile towards the Muslim religion.
In 2001, after the September 11th terrorist attacks, documented hate crimes against Muslims rose by ~17%, at 481 reports. The numbers stayed above 100 reports per year from 2002 to 2014. This, along with the fact there were only 91 crimes against Muslims in 1998, 1999, and 2000 collectively, demonstrates a strong correlation between the 9/11 attacks and the increase of hate crime against Muslims. There was another spike in 2015, correlated to former president Donald Trump’s islamophobic comments (see Figure 1).
Furthermore, the amount of Muslims in surveyed populations attending religious services more t
han once a week decreased by 9% in 2002, and decreased again in 2007 (see Figure 2). The effect on the mental health of American Muslims is/was palpable. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Muslim Mental Health assessed the effects of 9/11 on Arab-Americans. Participants revealed heightened anxiety, fear, loss of community, isolation, and more.[7]
In addition to this, many non-Muslim Americans expressed troubling views about Islam in the wake of 9/11. In a 2001 poll done by ABC News, nearly 40% of participants expressed unfavourable views of Islam, with this number dramatically rising in the next decade, according to another study published by Shibley Telhami of Brookings Institution in April 2011 (see Figure 3).
Not only that, but in a 2009 abstract published in PsycNet by Wahiba M. Abu-Ras, et al., 40% of Americans admitted to holding prejudice against Muslims, Arabs, or both.[8]
In a similar manner, reports of Islamophobic hate crimes also increased dramatically after 10/7. In April 2024, Reuters reported a 56% rise in anti-Muslim hate crime in 2023, with nearly half of the reports occurring within the last quarter of the year, showing an incredibly strong correlation to the start of the 2023 Gaza War. Supplementing this, according to a study done by the University of Chicago from December 2023 to January 2024, 52% of Muslim students claimed they felt unsafe on campus. Apart from this, research done by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found a 422% increase in keywords, hashtags, and language associated with Islamophobic hate on social media sites such as X (formerly Twitter) and a 40% increase in the use of dehumanising rhetoric pertaining to Muslims in Youtube comment sections after 10/7.
As well as this, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre, 70% of Muslim Americans feel as though Islamophobia has increased since the war started, and over half of surveyed individuals, not just students, felt unsafe due to the war.
V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Islamophobic ideas and conspiracies have massively exploded since 10/7. Muslim Americans feel unsafe — and not without good reason. It is too early to tell the full ramifications this spike in bigotry will have on America, or the Muslim world. However, something is clear: it is a government’s job to protect its innocent citizens. It should be the mission of our government to provide clear, concise and inclusive legislation to protect Muslim Americans.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
[1] “Costs of War.” The Costs of War, WATSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/#:~:text=An%20estimated%203.6%2D3.8%20million,war%20refugees% 20and%20displaced%20persons. Accessed 26 May 2024.
[2] Struett, David. “Plainfield Man Fatally Stabbed 6-Year-Old Muslim Boy after Listening to Conservative Talk Radio, Prosecutors Say.” Times, Chicago Sun-Times, 16 Oct. 2023, chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2023/10/16/23919242/jospeh-czuba-plainfield-stabbing-palestinian-boy-wa dea-al-fayoume-hate-crime.
[3] Reuters. “Israel Says South Africa Exploiting World Court on Behalf of Hamas | Reuters.” REUTERS, 7 Mar. 2024, www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-south-africa-exploiting-world-court-behalf-hamas-2024- 03-07/.
[4] Wilson, Joseph, et al. “Norway, Ireland and Spain Say They Will Recognize a Palestinian State, Deepening Israel’s Isolation.” AP News, AP News, 23 May 2024, apnews.com/article/norway-palestinian-state-ddfd774a23d39f77f5977b9c89c43dbc.
[5] Mitchell, Travis. “9. Race, Ethnicity, Heritage and Immigration among U.S. Jews.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 11 May 2021, www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/race-ethnicity-heritage-and-immigration-among-u-s-jews/#:~: text=Two%2Dthirds%20of%20U.S.%20Jews,do%20not%20specify%20their%20mixture.
[6] HASBARA STAFF. “ANTI-ISRAEL HATE AND PROPAGANDA ON SOCIAL MEDIA: WHAT WE CAN DO.” Hasbarafellowships.Org, 24 May 2022, hasbarafellowships.org/anti-israel-hate-and-propaganda-on-social-media-what-we-can-do/.
[7] Clay, Rebecca A. “Muslims in America, Post 9/11.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, Sept. 2011, www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/Muslims.
[8] Abu-Ras, Wahiba M., and Zulema E. Suarez. “Muslim Men and Women’s Perception of Discrimination, Hate Crimes, and PTSD Symptoms Post 9/11.” Sage Journals, 1 Sept. 2009, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1534765609342281.