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Bridge Initiative Video Podcast Five Questions on Anti-Arab Racism During Gaza War
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Five Questions on Anti-Arab Racism During Gaza War

by Bridge Initiative Team
May 21, 2024

In Episode 14 of “Unpacking Islamophobia,” our guest is Abed Ayoub, National Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti -Discrimination Committee (ADC), the country’s largest Arab American civil rights organization based in Washington DC. Throughout his career, Ayoub has worked to address issues impacting Arabs and Muslims in the United States, including matters related to discrimination, immigration, hate crimes, surveillance and profiling.

Ayoub begins his discussion on anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism during the 2023-24 Gaza war by highlighting the similarities with post-9/11 Islamophobia in Western societies. “There are a lot of similarities between the hate we’re seeing now and after September 11th,” notes Ayoub. “Particularly when it comes to the number of cases, the types of cases [that ADC receives], but the biggest difference is what we’re seeing now, the attacks are far more sophisticated” because people are being attacked in the workplace “whether they be attorneys, doctors, students, professors” just for voicing support for Palestinians.

“We’re now seeing it on college campuses with the encampments,” Ayoub continues. “We began seeing it on college campuses around September to December of 2023 when folks were trying to get the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJPs) campus chapters shut down.” Ayoub also discussed high-profile anti-Arab/anti-Muslim hate crime attacks, including the tragic story of 6-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume who was brutally stabbed 26 times by his family’s white landlord while he screamed anti-Muslim slurs.

Ayoub concluded the episode by discussing the high-profile hate crime shooting of three young Palestinian-American college students who were shot in Vermont by a white neighbor simply because they wore keffiyeh scarves and spoke in Arabic on their way home one evening. He also mentioned the rise of school bullying for Arab and Muslim children and how this will affect future generations of Arab, Palestinian and/or Muslims in the United States.

 

Featuring

 

Abed Ayoub is national executive director of the American Arab Anti -Discrimination Committee (ADC), the country’s largest Arab American civil rights organization based in Washington DC. Throughout his career, Ayoub has worked to address issues impacting Arabs and Muslims in the United States, including matters related to discrimination, immigration, hate crimes, surveillance and profiling. Under his leadership, the ADC has become the leading voice of Arab Americans on issues domestic and foreign. He is a regular commentator on national and international media and has developed a strong reputation for his commitment to social justice. Ayoub was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and graduated from University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in 2005.

Arsalan Iftikhar is Senior Researcher for the Bridge Initiative at the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Arsalan is a prominent human rights lawyer, an internationally recognized researcher on the topic of Islamophobia, and a global media commentator. He is the author of several books including FEAR OF A MUSLIM PLANET: Global Islamophobia in the New World Order and Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies and Threatens Our Freedoms which President Jimmy Carter called “an important book that shows Islamophobia must be addressed urgently”. Throughout his career, Arsalan has been a regular on-air commentator for National Public Radio (NPR) and his interviews have appeared on prominent global media outlets like CNN, Al-Jazeera English, BBC World News, The Economist, New York Times, Rolling Stone, NBC News “Meet The Press” & many more. A native of Chicago, Arsalan was awarded the 2013 Distinguished Young Alumni Award from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where he received both his undergraduate and law degrees.

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