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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the Netherlands, criticism is widening on how international media covered the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football unrest on November 7th, with many saying that attacks targeting Arab and Muslim residents were overlooked, meanwhile in India, the country’s top court last week banned the practice of ‘bulldozer justice’ which has been on the rise in recent years, particularly in states governed by the BJP and most often targeting Indian Muslims, and in the US, many of the Muslim American leaders who supported Donald Trump in the general election are now “deeply disappointed” as Trump’s cabinet is steadily becoming more and more pro-Israel. Our recommended read of the day is by Aamna Mohdi for The Guardian on how Runnymede Trust Chief Executive Shabna Begum says that racist riots in the UK will return if Islamophobia continues to be “an acceptable currency” in politics. This and more below:
United Kingdom
Muslims face ‘bleak and dystopian’ climate in UK, says head of thinktank | Recommended Read
Islamophobia has become “brutally divisive” in the UK and failure to challenge its root causes will lead to more racist riots, the head of the UK’s leading race equality thinktank has said. Shabna Begum, who became the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust earlier this year, said the country was entering a new phase in how it talks about Muslims. “Sayeeda Warsi coined the term ‘the dinner table test’, but I think we’ve got even beyond that,” she said. “The way politicians talk about Muslims now is so derogatory, it’s in the most brutally divisive terms.” She said that unless something changed in political rhetoric and policy, last summer’s riots would not be a one-off. “I think they will come back. That [the riots] was the ugliest representation of the years of racism that have been manufactured through the political media conversation. And if we don’t do something differently, that won’t be a one-off, and that ugliness will become just a regular feature of our politics.” Speaking exclusively to the Guardian amid the launch of the Runnymede Trust’s report on Islamophobia, Begum said the devastating war in Gaza and the response to the ceasefire protests in the UK meant the issue had become “inescapable” and had to be confronted. While she did not name specific MPs, Begum said Labour and the Conservatives had both been guilty of feeding a hostile climate for British Muslims that is “bleak and dystopian”. read the complete article
United States
Trump's pro-Israel cabinet picks upset Muslims who voted for him
U.S. Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters. "Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his secretary of state pick and others," said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe. Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State. Earlier this year, Rubio said he would not call, opens new tab for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy "every element" of Hamas. "These people are vicious animals," he added. Trump also nominated Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and staunch pro-Israel conservative who backs Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two state solution in Palestine "unworkable", as the next ambassador to Israel. He has picked Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who called the UN a "cesspool of antisemitism", opens new tab for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), said Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that. read the complete article
CAIR Calls on Senate to Reject Warmonger and Anti-Muslim Extremist Pete Hegseth
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the Senate to reject the nomination of Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense due to his calls for the destruction of Al-Aqsa Masjid, support for war crimes, and over his past smears targeting Muslims and Islam. read the complete article
Slew of alleged anti-Arab hate crimes reported in New York region
A group of men who allegedly assaulted a young couple in Brooklyn last month in what police are investigating as an anti-Palestinian hate crime still have not been identified. The NYPD is seeking the public's assistance in identifying a group of at least four seemingly Jewish men who were filmed making anti-Palestinian remarks in a verbal dispute with the young couple that led to the victims being physically assaulted. The young woman suffered a serious eye injury, and the man suffered a cut to his face. Both victims were transported by ambulance to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital to be treated for their injuries. Hate crimes and incidents of Islamophobia against Arab and Muslim populations in the United States have exploded in the past year since Israel began its war against Gaza and Lebanon. read the complete article
‘Blame yourself’: Trump’s election hasn’t dampened pro-Palestinian activists’ anger at Democrats
For Democratic pro-Palestinian activists, Donald Trump’s reelection delivered a bitter vindication. Led by the Uncommitted National Movement, they spent months pushing and pleading with the Biden administration to scale back its support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Their warning had been consistent and direct: Not only did Democrats risk collapsing support among Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, but the conflict – and the continuous flow of military aid to the Israeli government – could depress enthusiasm among the coalition of young, mostly progressive-minded voters who proved key to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. “We told them that the impact of Gaza was going be bigger than just the Arab community. It’s why the turnout was lower in college areas and among young Black voters,” said James Zogby, co-founder of the Arab American Institute and a Democratic National Committee member for more than 30 years. “From the polling we’ve been doing over the last year, we saw it had an impact. And it certainly had an impact on my community.” Early post-election analysis of the race suggests that those concerns were well-founded – and emblematic of a broader disconnect between party leaders and the Democratic grassroots. Arab Americans, like Latino and Black men, all moved toward Trump in the final accounting. The president-elect’s vote-share improved nearly everywhere, from the red states he’s dominated for nearly a decade to traditionally liberal electorates, where Democrats either stayed home or, to a lesser degree, backed third-party candidates. read the complete article
The Most Dangerous Domestic Antiterrorism Bill Since The PATRIOT Act
Proponents of the anti-charities bill, H.R. 9495, exploited the aftermath of Donald Trump’s reelection to fast-track the legislation using a procedure that required a two-thirds majority. Fortunately, a broad coalition of nonprofits sounded the alarm and enough Democrats woke up to defeat the bill—although, shamefully, 52 of them still voted to give the second Trump administration an authoritarian’s ideal housewarming gift. House Republicans appear to be gearing up for another vote as early as next week, one that would require only a simple majority to send the bill on to the Senate. As law, the anti-charities bill would be the most dangerous piece of domestic antiterrorism legislation since the PATRIOT Act. Even if it doesn't survive this lame-duck congressional session, the bill is certain to be reintroduced once the GOP trifecta is in place next year. The next bullet we'll have to dodge is already in the chamber. There have been two major lines of attack on the bill. First, it is quite clearly a civil liberties disaster, permitting designation of charities as terrorist supporters without due process and on the basis of secret evidence. The Secretary of the Treasury would have unilateral power to designate a "terrorist supporting organization" and would not have to either explain or provide evidence for such a designation. Because no detailed explanation is required, any judicial review is reduced to a legal spell-checking exercise. Second, thanks to several decades of Global War on Terror authoritarianism, the government already has ample power to criminally prosecute charities on terrorism grounds. It can even seize charities’ assets without due process using sanctions laws. The bill is, on this view, redundant. But being both draconian and redundant does not make the anti-charities bill pointless. On the contrary, it promises to solve a longstanding problem for the national security state. read the complete article
Canada
‘This is about protecting the soul of a Canada that we’re still building:’ Why Canada’s first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia isn’t backing down
After a terrorist killed four members of a Muslim family in London, Ontario in 2021, the Government of Canada organized a National Summit on Islamophobia. Among the over 100 recommendations to emerge was the creation of a Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, similar to Canada’s 2020 appointment of a Special Envoy on Anti-Semitism. In January 2023, just days before the sixth anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting, Amira Elghawaby, a journalist and human rights advocate, was appointed to the role. From the beginning, Elghawaby’s tenure has been fraught. Before she even started the job, critics seized on her past remarks on Quebec’s Bill 21. Calls for her resignation have been relentless ever since, especially in light of her outspoken criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza. But, as she told Omar Mouallem, Elghawaby remains committed to her mandate: To tackle Islamophobia — whether online, on university campuses, or within the federal government itself. read the complete article
Op-ed: Once again, U of T fails to keep its students safe
On September 6, far-right agitators confronted pro-Palestine student protesters at King’s College Circle. Among these agitators was Meir Weinstein, the former leader of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) — whose American branch was designated as a terrorist group by the FBI. Members of the JDL have been convicted of multiple bombings and an attempt to hijack a plane. At the same confrontation, the far-right protesters openly displayed violent and dehumanizing slogans such as “Make Gaza a parking lot.” They also hurled racist and Islamophobic slurs, and yelled “Get out of Canada. This is our country.” Ron Banerjee, a notorious Islamophobe, led the chants. Furthermore, these extremist agitators unfurled flags of Kahane Chai, a Jewish entity that advocates for expelling Arabs from Israel, and is a far-right terrorist group as designated by Canada. Other vigilantes from JForce, a private security firm and self-described “defenders of Israel,” roamed the campus in groups dressed in black uniforms and tactical vests. Meanwhile, Magen Herut — an extremist group based in Canada — was also spotted on campus, creating an intimidating atmosphere for Muslim students. As the President of the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA), it is clear to me that the U of T administration has failed to protect its Muslim and Arab students, along with their peers and allies. To me, this failure demonstrates an indifference to these students’ safety and reveals institutional biases. read the complete article
Netherlands
Kneejerk response, then overcorrection: what the aftermath of the Amsterdam violence should teach us
as more evidence emerged, a more complex picture came into view. It was revealed that from the night before the match onwards, hardline supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv – a club with a reputation for racism and hooliganism among some of its fans – had torn down a Palestinian flag from the facade of a building and burned it, attacked one taxi with their belts, and vandalised others. Among the deplorable chants they saw fit to shout on the streets of Amsterdam, home to a large Muslim community, were: “Let the IDF [Israeli army] win, we will fuck the Arabs”, “Fuck you Palestine” and “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there.” Their words bring into focus the elephant in the room. Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, which has now killed upwards of 45,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, displaced most of the population and decimated the besieged territory with such ferocity as to render it uninhabitable. After a year in which many western politicians and commentators have seemed more concerned with, say, campus protests against the war than with the apocalyptic carnage in Gaza, historically illiterate pronunciations of a “pogrom” in the Dutch capital seemed to follow the same script: overlooking or downplaying Israeli violence. The worst manifestation of this was an Orwellian doublespeak in plain sight, when footage of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters attacking local people near Amsterdam Central Station was captioned as the polar opposite: as a violent attack on Israeli Jews. (The Guardian made a correction to a package of video footage on Saturday 9 November.) The Dutch photographer who filmed these events is still imploring news sites to correct the error. Examining the issue in a segment dedicated to uncovering instances of fake news, France24 this Wednesday reported that the BBC, Wall Street Journal and CBS News were still running incorrectly captioned footage. Casting the Amsterdam violence as purely antisemitism has helped buttress the far right. The Dutch government is dominated by the Party for Freedom (PVV), helmed by the anti-Islam, anti-migrant Geert Wilders. And this party is pursuing a well-worn script deployed by the far right across Europe: championing Israel, pretending to care about antisemitism, and using both to push rampant Islamophobia. Far-right parties – often with unsavoury track records on antisemitism – are chasing a political revival by situating themselves as self-declared defenders of Jewish communities in a clash-of-civilisations fight with Islam. read the complete article
Dutch coalition survives (for now) after chaos fueled by fuming Geert Wilders
The Dutch government survived crisis talks Friday night triggered by football violence and the resignation of a minister over alleged racist remarks by other Cabinet members. Though speculation swirled that the entire government would collapse, only Nora Achahbar — a state secretary in the finance ministry from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party — resigned from the Cabinet Friday night, according to multiple Dutch media reports. The fragile right-wing coalition will retain enough seats to remain in power — at least for now — after the Cabinet teetered amid concern that other NSC ministers would follow Achahbar out the door, possibly jeopardizing the coalition’s numbers. Achahbar told her colleagues earlier Friday that she was quitting over alleged racist comments made by other ministers during a Cabinet meeting Monday to discuss violence in Amsterdam involving locals and Israeli football fans last week, according to Dutch broadcaster NOS. She released a statement publicly confirming her resignation shortly after Friday night’s Cabinet crisis meeting. read the complete article
Report: half of Dutch Muslims face discrimination
A report from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reveals that discrimination against Muslims in the Netherlands is on the rise, with 50 percent of Dutch Muslims experiencing bias in the past year. This is significantly higher than the European average of 38 percent. One recent example, reported by RTL, involved Ahmed, a 53-year-old from The Hague, who faced racism when attempting to move into a new home. After a 13-year search, he and his family had hoped to settle in Nootdorp. But when they arrived for a viewing, they found the property defaced with hateful graffiti, including racial slurs. Shocked and disheartened, Ahmed told RTL Nieuws, “It was clear we weren’t welcome.” He and his family ultimately turned down the home, feeling unsafe. Ahmed’s experience is not unique. In another recent incident, 82-year-old Cemile Telli, a Dutch-Turkish woman from The Hague, was reportedly attacked by a neighbor in what her family believes was a racially motivated act. According to Telli’s son, Ali, the neighbor physically assaulted her, pushed her down a flight of stairs, and verbally abused her with racial slurs. Telli was hospitalized with broken ribs and a fractured nose. Her lawyer stated they are seeking justice for what they see as a racially charged assault. The police are investigating both cases but have not yet filed formal charges regarding hate crimes. read the complete article
International
International media accused of skewing and lying in coverage of Amsterdam riots
Unrest broke out before and after the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football match in Amsterdam on November 7. In the following days, international media coverage of the riots was criticised. Many outlets focused on anti-Semitic attacks, while overlooking anti-Arab or anti-Muslim behaviour by Maccabi supporters. Part of this was because a video filmed by Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf was widely circulated and often misrepresented. Our guest in this edition of Scoop is professor and disinformation expert Marc Owen Jones. read the complete article
India
'Bulldozer justice' now illegal in India - but who will pay for my broken home?
In the summer of 2022, Ms Fatima's childhood home - a yellow-brick two-storeyed house in the bustling depths of the city - was torn down by authorities overnight. The house was demolished after her father, a local politician named Javed Mohammad, was arrested and named as the "key conspirator" of a protest by Muslims, which had turned violent. He denies the allegations, and has never been found guilty of any crime linked to the June 2022 protests. The family is just one of many who have found themselves at the mercy of so-called "bulldozer justice" - when authorities swiftly demolish the homes of those accused of crimes - but hopefully among the last. On Wednesday, India's top court banned the practice which has been on the rise in recent years, particularly in states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While the victims include Hindu families, critics say the action is mostly targeted at India's 200 million odd Muslims, especially after religious violence or protests - a charge the BJP denies. read the complete article