The United States’ new “Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate” is just a symbol without substance, criticized leading Muslim scholars and advocates.
On Dec. 12, the Biden-Harris administration released this strategy to describe and address the bias, discrimination, and threats long-plaguing Muslim and Arab Americans, which have spiked over the last year.
The plan aims to increase awareness of hatred against Muslims and Arabs and broaden recognition of their heritages; improve their safety and security; tackle discrimination against them and appropriately accommodate their religious practices; and continue to build cross-community solidarity and collective action to counter hate, according to the White House.
“Black Muslim communities have noted the challenges of confronting both Islamophobia and anti-Black racism. Despite representing nearly one-third of American Muslims, Black Muslims find that their unique experience is often disregarded,” notes page 10 of the White House document.
Many Blacks in America were introduced to or became familiar with Islam through the Nation of Islam and the Teachings of its Eternal Leader, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. For decades the U.S. government has tried to destroy the Nation of Islam. Yet the Nation of Islam has been in America for nearly 100 years.
Of importance is the history of America’s ambivalence and even hatred toward Islam and Muslims, noted Nation of Islam Student Minister Demetric Muhammad of Mosque No. 55 in Memphis.
During the time of the Coming of the Great Mahdi Master Fard Muhammad, who was identified by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as Allah, God in Person, who traveled in and out of America, beginning in 1910, America had a very tense relationship with the Muslim world, he explained.
So much so, that in 1917 the “Asiatic Barred Zone Act,” also known as the “Immigration Act of 1917,” was passed which barred any persons from countries in Asia and in the Muslim world from coming to America, explained Student Min. Demetric Muhammad.
During WWII, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was taken off the streets and jailed for teaching Islam to Black people under the guise of draft evasion though he was too old for the draft.
Today, for the White House to introduce its strategy to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate just a month before the Biden-Harris administration leaves office in January is being questioned and scrutinized.
“It’s really rather insulting, quite frankly, to the Muslim community, because President Biden is a lame-duck president. About the only thing that he could do in the final days of his administration that would be meaningful is like what he’s already done, pardon and commute certain sentences. Many of his constituency wanted him to do something more bolder to wipe out student loan debt,” stated Student Minister Demetric Muhammad.
“But to create a White House initiative to combat Islamophobia, that’s the kind of thing that requires time … requires a campaign … that would have certainly required him to be in office to bring about! …
And there is no hope of expectation that President Trump is looking to continue anything that President Biden started,” said Student Min. Demetric Muhammad, an author and member of the Nation of Islam Research Group.
Robert McCaw, Government Affairs Department Director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, argued that the “Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate,” is “too little too late, as it does not address the primary driver of Islamophobia in the United States, which is the U.S.’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and ongoing expansion into Lebanese-Syrian land.”
“The Biden administration has adopted a policy of dehumanizing anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim rhetoric to justify Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which it is complicit in, which has resulted in a spike in anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab hate crimes across the country,” said Mr. McCaw to The Final Call.
He argued the long-delayed strategy could have been issued over a year ago, had it not been for the U.S.’s delay in trying to figure out how to address Muslim community concerns in regard to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“The strategy looks back at what small accomplishments it has done in combating Islamophobia while not addressing institutional concerns, like the FBI’s unabated surveillance of the Muslim community, watch listing of millions of Muslims, and policies of securitizing the U.S. government’s relationship with the Muslim community,” he said.
Considering the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Jewish organizations contribute to heavily influence the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate, no Muslim group, Muslim immigrant group, or domestic Muslim group “has anywhere near the kind of representation in the federal government that the Jewish community does,” Student Minister Demetric argued.
“It would be foolish for anybody to think that anything coming out of the federal government that would be aimed at helping Muslims would be on par with what the federal government does to help Jews,” he said.
He added, “It’s just symbol without substance and it’s an insult to thinking people and intelligent people. It’s just hard to believe that they would do that at the 11th hour.”
Groups like AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee), ADL (Anti-Defamation League), AJC (American Jewish Committee) and other Jewish groups have leveraged their political influence at various levels of government.
The AJC was among many organizations that advocated for the “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.” According to ajc.org, “The Strategy, which includes dozens of AJC’s recommendations, closely resembles AJC’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism in America.”
The administration’s anti-Semitism strategy was introduced with much fanfare in May 2023, however, not without questions.
“The Biden-Harris administration embraces the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which is seen as highly problematic even to supporters of the plan.
The definition conflates criticisms of Israel with anti-Semitism. According to Bend the Arc CEO Jamie Beran,” wrote Nation of Islam Student National Imam Sultan Rahman Muhammad, in the article “Who is the real hater? White House launches ‘first-ever’ National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism,” which was published in The Final Call in Vol. 42 No. 35, dated June 13, 2023.
“The singular focus of some in the Jewish community to codify the IHRA definition into law or policy is an unnecessary and potentially harmful distraction,” Student Imam Sultan Muhammad continued.
“To further understand how problematic the controversy around the definition of this terminology is, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan points out the deceit inherent even in the meaning of the word ‘Semitic.’ Minister Farrakhan questions, in ‘The Time and What Must Be Done,’ Part 19, ‘What is a ‘Semite’?” he wrote.
“According to the dictionary, a Semite is ‘a member of any of the peoples who speak, or spoke, a Semitic language’—but it then adds this to the definition: ‘including, in particular, the Jews and the Arabs.’
That’s a rather ‘deceitful’ definition—let us point out the deceit in that definition! Because today we would like to enlighten you on whom the real ‘Semitic people’ are, if you’re going to use that definition,” continued Student Imam Sultan Muhammad’s article.
He added, “False charges of ‘anti-Semitism,’ a term without clear definition, has now been weaponized as a national governmental policy tactic. This ‘trick,’ according to former Israeli Minister of Education and Knesset (the governing body of Israel) member Shulamit Aloni.
Is used to demonize, silence, and control any that would oppose or criticize any actions including unjust international war crimes and errant policies of Zionist Jews that strangle liberties like freedom of speech and the national sovereignty of independent nations. …”
According to an April, Pew Research report, “Rising Numbers of Americans Say Jews and Muslims Face a Lot of Discrimination,” the shares of Americans who say there is a lot of discrimination against each group vary considerably.
“Muslims are most widely perceived to face a high degree of discrimination: 44% of U.S. adults say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims, which is slightly more than the shares saying this about Black people (40%), Jews (40%) and Arab people (39%),” notes the report.
—Charlene Muhammad,
National Correspondent
