[NowThis' Aliya Karim] There's been an uptick in violence
and suspected hate crimes
against Muslim Americans and supporters of Palestine.
A 6-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed 26 times in Illinois.
Across the nation, peaceful pro-Palestine marches
have reportedly been met with hostility and violence.
In Cleveland,
a Palestinian American man was hit by a car.
The driver allegedly yelled,
Harvard students were doxxed for condemning Israel in a letter,
with their personal information having been splashed
across multiple websites.
And social media platforms have been under fire
for ‘shadow banning’ users from posting about Palestine,
suppressing Palestinian voices,
and even labeling some users as ‘terrorists.’
So why is this happening?
We spoke with William Youmans,
a professor at George Washington University,
for some insight.
Even in this country, we see a constant attack on
Palestinian American free speech.
Not just Palestinian Americans,
but anyone who's supportive of
the Palestinian position.
We see college students losing job offers.
We see state laws being passed to make it impossible
for people to support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions,
despite this being a non-violent source of resistance.
Youmans, who is Palestinian American,
researches international communication,
with a focus on U.S.-Arab relations.
He's been attending demonstrations in support of Palestine since he was a kid.
So to be Palestinian means to be displaced.
It means to be in exile.
It means to basically witness the homeland from far away.
Every Palestinian American is a student of history—
not by choice,
but by family folklore,
by self-identity,
by coming to realize who they are.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations
that have happened across the country since October 7.
And those are just the tip of the iceberg.
The Department of Homeland Security warns
there could be more that have gone unreported.
Muslim Congress members are seeing a spike in death threats, as well.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar told NBC News
that one of the many voicemails she's received threatened:
The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has been flooded
with reports of FBI visits
to mosques and individuals,
echoing the post-9/11 era
when thousands of Arab and Muslim men faced interrogations.
Who really makes me worried are the partisans,
the people who are ideologically committed to Israel.
These are the people behind most of these physical attacks.
So I'm not sure that they're going to go away.
In many ways, what they reveal to me is a degree of desperation,
where you see your narrative kind of being challenged
in ways that you cannot counter.
This skewed narrative has deep roots.
Historically, Israel has not been a credible source of information
for conflicts that it's involved in.
We've seen this time and time again.
In 1996, when Israel shelled a refugee camp
that was run by the UN,
killing over 160 people in Qana, Lebanon,
Israel denied it was responsible.
We saw, with the murder of the Al Jazeera journalist
Shireen Abu Akleh,
which caused an international outrage.
She was killed by a sniper.
Israel denied that it was responsible.
Despite the questionable credibility,
Western media continues to rely on Israeli sources.
In fact, a 2019 study that examined
50 years' worth of headlines from major U.S. newspapers
And it’s not just about narratives;
it's also about harmful rhetoric.
An October 16 tweet from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official account stated:
That tweet was later deleted.
On October 9, Israel’s defense minister
ordered a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza by saying this:
[in Hebrew] We are fighting against human animals.
This sort of rhetoric has found its way into interviews with Palestinians
and Palestine supporters on major news networks.
I'm gonna be even ahead of you because I see the question coming.
Do you condemn Hamas for that?
Yes, I condemn Hamas.
If you want me to renounce Hamas
because they're anti-woman, anti-everything,
then I'm also going to sit and renounce Israel,
which is also anti-woman, anti-free speech,
anti-, anti-gay, anti-everything.
The interview hosts would often ask them about condemning terrorism
and then interrupting them constantly to make sure they condemned Hamas,
which is a vicious rhetorical move
that forecloses the possibility of a conversation.
Unfortunately, in the United States,
we don't have a robust debate on Israel policy,
in part because politicians are completely aligned on this issue.
And the clear explanation for that has to do with the power of the Israeli lobby,
which is a well-organized, well-established
set of organizations that have been around for more than 50 years.
The reality in Israel and Gaza is being reported on
based off a mess of inconsistent accounts.
Even President Joe Biden had to walk back claims about alleged Hamas atrocities.
Newspapers throughout the world picked it up uncritically.
It was a perfect example of how misinformation
can come from the top, in a way
that can powerfully shape public opinion.
Yet, there is some hope as activists challenge the status quo
and fight back against dangerously persistent rhetoric.
Social media has more often been offering correctives to mainstream media
than mainstream media's been offering correctives to social media.
But I find Gen Z far more informed
about the world than my generation was
and certainly the generation before me.
We've seen a dynamic protest movement emerge,
led by groups like the Palestinian Youth Movement,
by Jewish [Voice] for Peace,
by IfNotNow, by a whole range of organizations.
And I would encourage anyone who cares about this—
about bringing peace, about bringing justice for the Palestinians,
bringing a resolution to this conflict now—
should be joining these kinds of organizations.
Being active means being part of a community,
of having places to go,
of having people who you're working closely with together
towards a common cause.
So it's not just enough to to speak on social media.
You have to get out and do things.
And that will break the feeling of isolation or demoralization.
It's important to remember that we can be empowered,
and that we can speak back,
and we can force those in power to hear us.
And eventually, they will have to answer to these voices.