Gaza War Fuels Record High Anti-Muslim Incidents in US in 2023
This information comes from data released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which reported a record 8,061 complaints, marking a 56% increase from the previous year, on Tuesday.
The last quarter of 2023 alone accounted for about 3,600 of these incidents, coinciding with the escalation of the Gaza war.
This trend wasn’t confined to the US, as global human rights advocates also reported a rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias, and antisemitism following the renewed Middle East conflict.
Several tragic incidents in the US underscored this disturbing trend, including the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American in Illinois, the shooting of three Palestinian-descended students in Vermont, and the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas.
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After a brief respite in 2022, which saw the first-ever recorded annual drop in complaints, 2023 witnessed a resurgence of anti-Muslim hate. The monthly average of such incidents rose from around 500 in the first nine months to nearly 1,200 in the last quarter.
The majority of the complaints in 2023 fell under the categories of immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, hate crimes, and education discrimination.
CAIR compiled these figures by reviewing public statements, videos, reports from public calls, emails, and an online complaint system, and by reaching out to individuals whose incidents were reported in the media.
Source: Agencies
