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islamophobia
'Racist and Bigoted': Trump Rebuked for Grotesque Attack on Abdul El-Sayed and Wife
President's smear of Michigan Democrat described as "not just an attack on American Muslims, but on the idea of America itself."
Aug 10, 2026
President Donald Trump, a notorious racist and serial liar, is being denounced once again for his hateful contributions to public discourse and American politics for an Islamophobic social media post over the weekend targeting Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku—both of whom are practicing Muslims.
On Saturday evening, Trump posted side-by-side images with he and his wife, Melania Trump, wearing formal dinner attire, on the left and El-Sayed and his wife, who wears a Islamic hijab, both dressed casually in what appears to be a diner, on the right.
The heading above the photo posted by Trump declared, "Two VERY DIFFERENT Americas."
The overtly anti-Muslim message, now pervasive within the Republican Party, stirred immediate anger and harsh rebuke.
"America does not belong to any one race or religion, and President Trump does not get to decide who counts as an American," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
"An American man of Egyptian descent is just as American as an American man of German descent, and an American woman wearing a hijab is just as American an American woman without one," Awad continued. "President Trump's racist and bigoted social media post was not just an attack on American Muslims, but on the idea of America itself."
As Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan wrote on Friday, El-Sayed's recent victory in the Michigan primary last week has unleashed a fresh wave of GOP-led attacks on Muslims, a strategy that is well-worn, that is only likely to intensify.
"We are about to witness an explosion of Islamophobia in America of the kind we have not seen for decades," warned Hasan. "Expect them to throw the whole bigoted kitchen sink at El-Sayed. This will be the anti-Zohran Mamdani campaign on anti-Muslim steroids."
Asked about Trump's racist attack by CNN on Sunday, El-Sayed turned the Islamophobic smear into an opportunity to explain what does distinguish people like the president and the First Lady from the kind of lawmaker the Michigan Democrat said he wants to be and the kind of relationship he and his wife have.
“Yeah, he’s right,” El-Sayed told CNN, when asked about the post on Sunday.
“One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you—or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good things.”
“Yes, you’ve got two different visions of America,” said El-Sayed. “Donald Trump’s vision is the one you’re living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe, when you look in your children's eyes, that they're going to have a better future than you did?”
Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed responds to President Trump posting a picture of his wife. pic.twitter.com/j8lGGwPET8
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) August 9, 2026
"Sarah and I are running," he continued, "because when we look our daughters in the eye, we want them to believe that they are every bit as able to have a better future than the one they could have had under the Trump administration—that they can live together with their sisters and brothers in America in a way that they lock arms to build the good things that they deserve together. Where they'll know they have the good healthcare that they need and good jobs, and know that there are kids who live 15 minutes away whose lives are very, very different from theirs because we've been okay for far too long with a level of inequality in this country."
For his daughters, El-Sayed added, "I want them to live in a country where they breath clean air and drink clean water. And actually, Sarah and I like each other. I don't know about about the First Lady and the president, but from what I've heard it's a bit of a rocky road."
CAIR's Awad called on Trump to "immediately remove this hateful post and to uphold his responsibility to represent all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or background." He also said that all members of Congress must "reject ongoing efforts to fuel anti-Muslim hatred and division" that has become so commonplace in recent decades, only intensifying under Trump's leadership.
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Dem Establishment Intensifies Attacks on El-Sayed as New Poll Shows Him Leading by Double Digits
A Michigan congresswoman called El-Sayed "anti-American" in an interview Thursday in what one progressive lawmaker said was a "racist" attack.
Jul 30, 2026
With a number of recent polls finding former public health official Abdul El-Sayed with a strong lead against Rep. Haley Stevens in the Michigan US Senate race, establishment Democrats are resorting this week to attacks that some critics said amounted to racism.
The latest survey, out Thursday from the highly respected, non-partisan Emerson College Polling along with WLNS/WOODTV, found El-Sayed with 54% support, while Stevens had 39%.
Six percent of respondents said they were undecided about the primary election, in which Michigan voters will go to the polls on August 4, and 2% said they backed state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8), who suspended her campaign earlier this summer.
El-Sayed had the support of voters under 50 by 42 percentage points, as well as voters age 50-60 by 12 points.
The poll came on the heels of another survey by Tavern Research, which found El-Sayed—who has built his campaign around the pledge, "Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All"—leading Stevens by 11 points.
Outside groups' spending on behalf of Stevens, including roughly $60 million in funding from a super political action committee affiliated with the increasingly unpopular American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has become a major topic of discussion in the race, with El-Sayed arguing that his opponent's reliance on such outsized spending is proof that she is far less "electable" than her supporters in the Democratic establishment have argued.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that billionaires are clearly "panicked" by the possibility of a Democratic Senate candidate whose victory would "make it clearer than ever that the American people are sick and tired of the same-old, same-old establishment politics and policies."
Even with money pouring into Michigan to back Stevens, who has praised US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and said she would not support any conditions on military aid to Israel—further distancing herself from Democratic voters' views—the congresswoman's supporters have resorted to attacks on El-Sayed, with Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) recently making numerous media appearances to portray him—without evidence—as "sexist" and "un-American."
Scholten told Semafor Thursday that El-Sayed "has allowed distinctly anti-American sentiment to enter our public dialogue"—an apparent reference to his earlier campaigning with commentator Hasan Piker, an outspoken critic of Israel who once said the US "deserved" the September 11 attacks, a remark he later clarified and apologized for.
Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97) said Scholten's vague comment ignored El-Sayed's own clear statements about his love for and belief in the potential of the United States.
"She’s just racist," Romman said of the remark. "All people have to do is listen to Abdul speak for barely a few minutes, and they’ll hear a deep love for our country."
The United Democracy Project, the super PAC tied to AIPAC, has also attacked El-Sayed for his association with Piker and baselessly claimed in one commercial that the candidate “expressed sympathy for a terrorist." Scholten's comment also echoed the campaign of Republican candidate Mike Rogers, a former US House member who said in a call with supporters, “I don’t think he likes America, candidly.”
AIPAC-funded ads have also claimed El-Sayed's rhetoric is "uniquely sexist."
The commentary from both Democrats and Republicans are "reproducing tropes that have just been around for centuries" about Muslims, Nancy Khalil, an anthropologist at University of Michigan, told The Intercept this week, referring to stereotypes painting Arab and Muslim men as "controlling of women."
“We’re seeing it come from within his own party," said Khalil.
Dr. Adam Hamawy, a surgeon who won the Democratic primary race in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in June after also campaigning on Medicare for All and other popular progressive policies, told The Intercept that he faced similar attacks.
"They’re questioning his loyalty, they are not talking about issues,” Hamawy said. “And that was the same thing here as well: They didn’t attack me on issues, they attacked me for who I was.”
While making negative claims about El-Sayed's character, some in the Democratic establishment have refused to say they would vote for the Medicare for All advocate in the general election if he wins the primary. Scholten refused to commit to backing him in an interview with CNN last week, while Michael LaRosa, the former press secretary for First Lady Jill Biden during the Biden administration, said Wednesday that he would "do everything I can to make sure he loses" the general election, due to comments El-Sayed made about supporting primary challenges of Democrats including Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
Sanders said Wednesday on CNN that he was committed to supporting whichever candidate wins the primary, in the interest of securing a Democratic Senate seat in the crucial election.
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The Danger of Trump's Evangelical Theater
Christian nationalism is reshaping the moral language of US foreign policy and endangering pluralist democracy.
Jun 10, 2026
Less than a week after American bombs started to drop on Iran in late February, evangelical pastors famously gathered in the Oval Office to lay hands on a president unilaterally executing a war. It remains an emblematic moment, one of the more clarifying silhouettes of our political mood now sweeping through digital spaces.
That image and many more like it circulated instantly around the country and the world lifting the veil of a bigger story that's gone under-reported: Christian nationalism reshaping the moral language of US foreign policy and endangering pluralist democracy, as the Oval Office is transformed into a quasi-liturgical space in which war is cast as divine sanction, one that is specifically hostile to American Muslims in important ways.
The consecration of a president by a covey of clergy (eyes closed and heads bowed) in the heart of a secular and multicultural democracy illuminates a political culture in which narrow religious narratives are permitted to exert greater influence on how foreign conflicts are imagined and justified in the American public sphere. In our current context, Iran is cast not simply as a strategic adversary but as an apocalyptic antagonist that must be defeated because it is God’s plan. In other words, a major geopolitical event is refashioned into a scriptural caricature that prefigures war in the presumed theater of Armageddon.
What is hardly considered in our context at home is the domestic consequence of that caricature. The United States is not an evangelical nation, despite the bloated conceits of mega-churches, maudlin politicians, and rock star preachers. It is a pluralistic one—home to millions of Catholics, mainline Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, and nonbelievers. When a specific strand of evangelical eschatology is invited to run the theological grammar of American foreign policy, it shapes how Washington thinks about Iran, a Muslim country; and it also messages how Washington may think about the millions of American Muslims who share a religious tradition with the country being bombed and caricatured. The revival of Crusade-like language among those at the apex of American political and military authority thickens the margins of already marginalized and vulnerable communities. The San Diego mosque shooting, undoubtedly horrific, was one of several indicators of the rise of Islamophobia since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
An administration that reaches any agreement or capitulation with Iran must contend with a powerful domestic constituency for whom any settlement carries the implicit suggestion that the prophetic script was wrong.
These observations are not a call to police theological conviction. But those steering American power toward a militant democracy owe the public transparency about how directly end-times rhetoric about the Muslim world is shaping the foreign policy of a government that still boasts about its pluralism. It should also reckon with the domestic costs of the language of demonization, which places at great risk on the mosques and neighborhoods of American cities and towns.
This dynamic is precarious not merely because of the literalist theology itself but because of its digital velocity. Christian Zionist eschatology has interpreted Middle Eastern events through biblical end-times prophecy for decades; spread through pews, big tents, publishing houses, radio ministries, and cable television. What has changed is the infrastructure of mediation. Images that are dense with symbolism, such as those of evangelical pastors pressing their hands on a president whom they know is irreligious, traverse the globe, crossing denominational boundaries and reaching international audiences instantly.
Free of the guardrails of moral premises, algorithms now act as transnational religious authorities made not of flesh and intellect but of unseen codes, engineered to decide which images and voices are amplified and which are left behind. Algorithmic power does not operate with corrections—no scholarly review or denominational pushback. Its only function is to maximize attention. The meta-platform effect reinforces the frame that American power and divine providence are aligned, and that Iran and the larger Muslim world stand in opposition to both.
Evangelical militancy circulating through algorithmic feeds that reaches tens of millions is structural in a precise sense: Digital scale generates not merely larger audiences but a self-righteous zealotry that feeds on an epistemic apparition—rationales for war and self-defense narratives that present themselves as a well-reasoned, evidence-based mandate.
An administration that reaches any agreement or capitulation with Iran must contend with a powerful domestic constituency for whom any settlement carries the implicit suggestion that the prophetic script was wrong and that the prayers of the pastors who laid hands on the president spectacularly failed—an extraordinary sacred cost with no secular equivalent.
That cost is borne not only by strategists calculating political survival, but by every American citizen whose religious identity, ancestry, and moral convictions place them outside the religious consensus that currently holds the room and exposes their communities and institutions to the kinetic costs of pernicious public discourses.
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Summer Lee Condemns Democrats' Silence After Anti-Muslim Attacks on Tlaib, Hamawy
"The silence from Democrats when Muslim colleagues and candidates are attacked is a cancerous rot."
Jun 05, 2026
Congresswoman Summer Lee spoke at length Thursday evening about recent anti-Muslim attacks that have been launched by Republicans as well as the corporate media against two progressive political leaders—reserving much of her condemnation for Democratic lawmakers who have remained silent as Rep. Rashida Tlaib and US House candidate Adam Hamawy have been both directly and indirectly accused of "terrorism" in recent days.
"Democrats, we are way too quiet right now," said Lee (D-Pa.) in a three-minute video she posted on her official social media accounts. "This is a moral rot that we are dealing with, and I hope that we will not stand by and let this particular hatred grow and grow until it's out of our control."
Lee spoke up a day after Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) openly accused Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, of advocating "for terrorists on a daily basis" during a debate on a proposal she introduced to block US forces from taking part in Israel's invasion of Lebanon—a war powers resolution that ultimately failed to pass Thursday after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and more than 100 other Democrats joined the GOP in opposing it.
More than 3,500 Lebanese people have been killed and 1.2 million have been forcibly displaced since Israel began attacking Lebanon in March, in what it says is an effort to defeat Hezbollah. Israeli officials have said they are using the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) decimation of Gaza as a "model" in Lebanon.
While Tlaib advocated on the House floor for Lebanese civilians, Miller characterized Hezbollah as “butchers that you like to hang out with to a certain extent,” addressing the progressive congresswoman—prompting her to demand that Miller's comments be stricken from the record and accusing him of a "direct attack on my character."
Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who volunteered to serve in the IDF in 2015, also said supporters of Tlaib's resolution were acting as "proxies for Hezbollah."
In her statement Thursday, Lee said, "Yesterday on the House floor, two different Republicans basically called my sister Rashida a terrorist for nothing more than being there, being Palestinian, being Muslim, being a woman."
She emphasized that the attacks on Tlaib followed similar remarks about congressional candidate Dr. Adam Hamawy, a retired US Army surgeon who volunteered to treat victims of Israel's assault on Gaza and saved the life of Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004.
Before voters in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District went to the polls this week to vote in the primary the progressive Democrat won, opponents attacked him for his former association with Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric who was convicted of terrorism in 1995 and whom Hamawy said he met through the Egyptian-American community in New Jersey.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said Hamawy was "not in line with our values," and The New York Times focused its subheadline on Abdel-Rahman in its report on Hamawy's primary victory, before editing the subhead.
"The anti-Muslim rhetoric is picking up," said Lee on Thursday. "And we don't often talk about how dangerous that is, and we also don't talk about how dangerous it is to our coalition. As the Democratic Party, we are supposed to be the ones that are the standard-setters, the ones who are fighting for justice and equal opportunity and liberation, and if we aren't able to speak up against this right now, then how can we continue to hold that particular mantle?"
"It's not just Republicans who are dealing in this," she added. "I've heard Democrats use and deal in some of the worst tropes and stereotypes of my Muslim colleagues."
Lee was applauded for speaking out about attacks that Democratic leaders had not directly addressed—and that Jeffries was accused of amplifying recently when he said he planned to speak to Hamawy about "his past affiliations."
"Incredibly brave stuff for Summer to explicitly name and condemn Democratic Islamophobia and do so on broad terms," said organizer and writer Cole Sandick. "I hope more elected progressives follow her lead."
Lee emphasized that "no marginalized person should have to deal with the abuse that they are dealing with daily from the White House on down, by themselves."
"So I just really hope that we can be as clear about anti-Muslim hate as we are about all the other forms of hatred that we're fighting back right now," she added, "and recognize that our liberation is tied together."
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The San Diego Mosque Hate Crime and the Political Leaders Who Lit the Fuse
When powerful men and women with microphones and platforms tell the public that Muslim Americans are enemies, invaders, and less than human, some people listen. Some people act. Two teenagers in San Diego just did.
May 20, 2026
A hate crime had struck close to home. On the TV screen, more than four dozen police cars, blue lights swirling in a cold, mechanical rhythm. The news ticker crawled across the bottom of the TV screen, sanitizing horror into a newsbreak: police responding to an "incident" in San Diego's Clairemont Mesa neighborhood. An incident. I didn't think much of it at first. Then my phone rang. A friend. I couldn't bring myself to answer. Moments later, a text came through, cryptic, short and to the point: "Check on the Imam, shooting at the Islamic Center."
The world stopped.
I scrolled through my contacts, found the number, and dialed. My heart hammered against my chest with every ring. Then his voice. I closed my eyes. "We are okay. The school children are safe. We evacuated the mosque," Imam Taha said.
I let out a breath I did not know I had been holding. But okay, I would learn in the minutes and hours that followed, that was not the whole story. Three men who had been okay that morning would never be okay again.
The politicians who run their election campaigns casting American Muslims as enemies owe this community more than thoughts and prayers.
Under the steady and visionary leadership of Imam Taha Hassane, the Islamic Center of San Diego has grown into far more than a place of worship. It is a living, breathing hub of culture and education, a place where faith leaders of every denomination and neighbors of every background have always found an open door and a welcoming table. It is, in the truest sense of the word, a community, one that has spent decades building bridges in a city that repaid the generosity with bullets.
In less than 10 minutes, hate stole the life of three human beings. Amin Abdullah, who welcomed you with a curious smile when you came in, a father and a husband. Mansour Kaziha, a husband, father, and grandfather who greeted his community every day from behind the mosque store counter. And Nader Awad, who, as bullets tore through the air around him, ran into the fire to save others. Three men. Three families shattered. A community in mourning.
This hate crime did not occur in isolation. It comes amid an unprecedented and metastasizing culture of Islamophobia in the United States, where politicians have discovered that Muslim hate is a reliable path to election and commentators have built empires of followers on the broken backs of a vilified community. The names attached to this campaign are not fringe figures shouting into the void from dark corners of the internet. They are sitting senators. Elected congressmen. A president of the United States and his closest advisers. They speak from podiums, not podcasts, and have press secretaries, not anonymous accounts. And they have never—not once—been made to answer for what their words have unleashed.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump claimed that “Islam hates us." His close associate Laura Loomer wasted no time making the blood of victims useful to her agenda. Hours after the shooting, questioned the shooting calling it “The mosque that was 'supposedly' shot up today… people who attend this mosque want us all to be killed." Three men were murdered, and she called the victims a threat.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) says of Islam, “The enemy is inside the gates.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wants Big Brother to monitor Muslim neighborhoods. Congressman Randy Fine (R-Fla.) is the most explicit in spewing hate, declaring, “We need more Islamophobia, not less.”
Imagine the cry if another congressman said we need more Jewish hate.
A Washington Post investigation found that since the beginning of 2025, more than 100 members of Congress have mentioned Muslims or Islam in social media posts, with two-thirds of those posts referencing radical Islam, Sharia law, extremism, or terrorism. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, these statements have amplified Islamophobia and created an environment that fosters discrimination against Muslims. Hate and Islamophobia appear to be a winning election strategy for Republican candidates in November.
When powerful men and women with microphones and platforms tell the public that Muslim Americans are enemies, invaders, and less than human, some people listen. Some people act. Two teenagers in San Diego just did.
I will say something that many might find abhorrent, but that I believe with every fiber of my being: The murderers Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez were also victims. Not of the same order as Amin, Mansour, and Nader, for nothing diminishes what was taken from those three men, their families, and community. But victims, nonetheless. Victims of a political and media ecosystem that fed them a steady dose of dehumanization, paranoia, and hatred of Muslims. They were radicalized by adults who knew exactly what they were doing but faced no accountability for it. Trump, Loomer, Tuberville, Fine, and many others did not pull the trigger, but they loaded the gun with the bullets of hate and pointed it at a place of worship. The blood of five people—including those two teenagers—is on their hands.
The failure is not at the federal level only. In the City of San Diego, Mayor Tod Gloria's performance of solidarity rings hollow against his record of deliberate exclusion. His administration refused to call for even a symbolic ceasefire as genocide unfolded in Gaza. He declined to meet with Muslim and Arab community leaders, fearing the political cost for acknowledging Palestinian life. Most recently, his City Council moved to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, a Zionist tool to silence voices critical of Israel’s malevolent policies. Every one of these decisions sent a message to San Diego's Muslim community: We don’t value you unless you’re dead, and your lives are worth less than the political comfort of those in power. That message was heard far beyond City Hall.
That dismissal, that deliberate erasure was incubated, fertilized, watered, and brought to lethal bloom by years of sanctioned dehumanization of Muslim Americans and sent a signal to every hateful actor watching: This community is fair game.
San Diego Mayor Gloria, who dismissed our cries in life, has no standing to console us in death. The politicians who run their election campaigns casting American Muslims as enemies owe this community more than thoughts and prayers.
The blood in San Diego does not belong only to two lost teenagers. It belongs to everyone who fed them, directly or indirectly, the ideology of Muslim hate.
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'Horrifying Act of Violence': Three Men Shot Dead at San Diego Mosque
"When leaders traffic in anti-Muslim rhetoric, violence follows," said one Democratic senator. "We must confront Islamophobia with the urgency it demands."
May 18, 2026
A pair of teenagers allegedly fatally shot three men at a San Diego mosque on Monday before killing themselves in an attack condemned by many—but welcomed or denied by a handful of far-right figures.
The alleged shooters, who the FBI said were 19 and 17 years old, attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego (ICSD) in the Clairemont neighborhood of California's second-largest city, with officers dispatched to the site at 11:43 a.m., according to San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl. The center contains a mosque and a school where children were studying at the time of the attack.
The chief said one of the victims was a security guard who played a "pivotal" role in preventing more people from being shot at the county's largest mosque just before hundreds of worshippers were expected for afternoon prayers. The guard has been identified as Amin Abdullah.
Wahl said that two shooters—who have yet to be publicly identified—appear to have died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Investigators are treating the shooting as a hate crime.
ICSD director Imam Taha Hassane said that all students and staff members were safely evacuated from the facility.
“It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship,” Hassane added.
The New York Times reported that investigators recovered anti-Islamic material in the vehicle used by the shooting suspects, and that the words "hate speech" were written on one of the guns used in the attack.
President Donald Trump called the shooting a "terrible situation," while some of his supporters denied or seemed to welcome the attack.
Taheen Nizam, director of the San Diego branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement after the shooting that “we strongly condemn this horrifying act of violence at the Islamic Center of San Diego."
"Our thoughts are with everyone impacted by this attack," Nizam added. "No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school. We are working to learn more about this incident and we encourage everyone to keep this community in your prayers.”
The Jewish Democratic Council of America also condemned the attacks. JDCA said that "we're deeply saddened by the shooting at a mosque in San Diego, and our thoughts are with the San Diego Muslim community and all impacted by this tragedy."
"Attacks on our fellow Americans at places of worship are unacceptable," the group added.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was among the Democratic leaders who denounced the shooting, posting on X that he is "horrified by the deadly attack," which he called "an apparent act of anti-Muslim violence."
Several Democratic US lawmakers also condemned the attack.
"What happened at the Islamic Center of San Diego today is devastating," Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said on X. "I’m praying for the victims, their families, and their loved ones."
"This is horrifying, and it did not happen in a vacuum," Coons added. "Muslim communities in this country have been demonized and treated as inherently suspect by those willing to fuel fear for power. When leaders traffic in anti-Muslim rhetoric, violence follows. We must confront Islamophobia with the urgency it demands."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also took to X, writing, "I condemn the deadly shooting at a mosque in San Diego, California."
"Every American should be able to practice their religion without fear of violence," he added. "We must do more to combat anti-Muslim bigotry."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said she is "devastated to see the news of this deadly attack on a mosque in San Diego."
"Our places of worship should be safe spaces for all people," she added. "We must all stand up and condemn this attack and all forms of Islamophobia, racism, and hatred that are on the rise in our communities."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is Muslim and the only Palestinian American in Congress, posted on social media: "I am praying for all the families at the Islamic Center of San Diego. My heart breaks every time senseless violence shatters the safety all of our communities deserve."
Gun control advocates also weighed in on the shooting, with March for Our Lives executive director Jaclyn Corin saying, "We reject the idea that this kind of tragedy is inevitable."
"We have the power to build a society where hatred is confronted before it turns deadly, where communities are protected instead of targeted, and where every person can worship freely and safely without fear," Corin added. "This moment demands more than grief. It demands courage, solidarity, and a collective commitment to rejecting the violence, dehumanization, and extremism that continue to endanger our communities."
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'Hateful, Bigoted' Chip Roy Introduces MAMDANI Act in Congress
"Blatant Islamophobia aside, Roy's staff probably wasted days trying to land this acronym," said one observer.
Apr 20, 2026
Journalists and rights advocates reacted on Monday with a mix of bemusement and anger over US Rep. Chip Roy's display of "blatant Islamophobia" as the Texas Republican introduced a bill that appeared as intent on personally targeting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as it was on unconstitutionally expelling immigrants from the US over certain political and religious views.
"Blatant Islamophobia aside, Roy's staff probably wasted days trying to land this acronym," said Ravi Mangla, press secretary for the Working Families Party, after Roy unveiled the Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists (MAMDANI) Act.
According to Roy, the legislation would enact "sweeping" changes to US immigration law that would deport, denaturalize, and deny US citizenship or entry to any immigrant "who is a member of a socialist party, a communist party, the Chinese Communist Party, or Islamic fundamentalist party, or advocates for socialism, communism, Marxism, or Islamic fundamentalism."
The bill was introduced nearly four months after Mamdani was sworn in to office. Roy had suggested that the political rise of the democratic socialist, who is a Muslim immigrant from Uganda, risked bringing what he believes to be "Sharia law"—actually a broadly defined set of personal theological and ethical guidelines rather than a national law—to the US.
In reality, Mamdani has taken steps toward enacting a universal childcare program, opening a network of city-owned grocery stores to compete with corporations, and convincing the state to tax the second homes of wealthy New Yorkers.
The legislation introduced Monday comes days after a Washington Post analysis found that Roy has been particularly fixated on promoting the view that allowing Muslims to immigrate to the US and practice their religion—in accordance with the US Constitution—will harm the nation.
Including one recent post that explicitly said, "No more Muslims," Roy has posted from his campaign and official accounts about Muslims, Islam, and "Sharia law" more than 244 times since January—more than any other member of Congress, including Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who has faced called to resign for numerous anti-Muslim comments that have attacked public figures like Rep. Ilham Omar (D-Minn.).
The Council on American Islamic Relations said in a report last month that last year, it received 8,683 complaints from people facing anti-Muslim bias or attacks—the highest number of complaints in a single year since the group began compiling civil rights reports in 1996. Employment discrimination was the most common complaint, with immigration and asylum discrimination and hate incidents rounding out the top three.
Gun control and human rights advocate Cameron Kasky said that "many moderate Democrats and the mainstream media have played a pivotal role in normalizing this dangerous, escalatory Islamophobia."
A number of influential establishment Democrats suggested Mamdani's victory in the mayoral race last year could endanger Jewish New Yorkers, and refused to endorse him. Party leaders also continue to support arming Israel—which has spent the last two-and-a-half years attacking Palestinians in Gaza and has now returned to assaulting Lebanon—claiming the Israeli government needs US weapons to defend itself against other countries and groups in majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) warned that while Roy's bill targets socialists and Muslims whom the congressman says subscribe to "fundamentalism," the party will likely "expand their list of targets—little by little, hoping you do not notice—until their is no one left to stand against their agenda."
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FBI Disrupts Plot to Assassinate Head of Pro-Palestinian Rights Group in New York
"This disturbing case underscores the growing climate of harassment, threats, and violence directed at those speaking out on Palestinian human rights and other social justice issues."
Mar 27, 2026
Nerdeen Kiswani, the co-founder of the Palestinian rights group Within Our Lifetime, emphasized on Friday that public threats and violent rhetoric from a sitting Republican congressman and a Zionist organization had preceded the news that there was an active plot to assassinate her.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force notified Kiswani and her legal team on Thursday night that "a plot against my life... was 'about to' take place, and that agents had conducted an operation in Hoboken [New Jersey] related to this plot."
The US attorney's office in New Jersey said Alexander Heifler, 26, had been charged with one count of unlawful possession of destructive devices and one count of making destructive devices, and was accused of plotting to attack Kiswani's residence with molotov cocktails. Another man had been charged in connection with the plot as well.
An undercover officer infiltrated a group call in which Heifler allegedly asked for assistance with "molotovs." The suspect also told the undercover officer he had an address for the "victim," the formal complaint reads. The officer was at Heifler's home on Thursday when he assembled about eight molotov cocktails on Thursday.
In a joint statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its New York chapter urged "a full and transparent investigation, appropriate prosecution of those responsible, and continued vigilance by law enforcement to protect all communities from hate-driven violence."
Kiswani's organization has held protests in New York that have drawn hundreds of supporters, particularly since Israel began its US-backed war on Gaza in 2023 and public opposition to the Israeli government and the United States' support for it decreased substantially.
Like other Palestinian rights groups, supporters of Israel's government have accused Within Our Lifetime of antisemitism, but Kiswani and other organizers have vehemently denied those accustions.
Group members and supporters frequently chant: “Judaism, yes, Zionism no! The state of Israel has got to go!” at protests.
On Friday, Kiswani noted that the pro-Israel group Betar and US Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who has long been known for making openly Islamophobic statements, including against Muslim members of Congress, "encouraged violence against" the organizer and her family.
Last month, Kiswani filed a civil rights lawsuit against Betar, alleging it had subjected her to physical intimidation and racially motivated threats that went "far beyond protected speech."
"It has used its social media accounts to publicly offer cash rewards to anyone who would hand Ms Kiswani a beeper, a direct reference to Israel’s 2024 use of exploding pagers to kill Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon. On multiple occasions, Betar affiliates physically confronted Ms Kiswani on public sidewalks and at demonstrations, cornering her, and shouting threats," Kiswani's attorneys said.
Kiswani said the group's threats amounted to them putting "bounties" on her head.
In response to the news of the assassination plot, Betar on Friday called Kiswani a "violent terrorist."
"Not surprising if other terrorists targeted her," said the group on social media. "Palestinians have always targeted one another. Not surprising given the violent nature of these people who have globalized the intifada."
In January, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced an agreement in which Betar said it would dissolve its New York operations and stop its “widespread persecution of Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and Jewish New Yorkers” who disagree with its stance on Israel and Palestine.
The Times reported that there was no indication that Betar was connected to the plot on Kiswani's life.
Kiswani has also been targeted by Fine, a notorious anti-Muslim bigot who responded to a satirical post by the organizer last month about dogs being "unclean" by saying, "If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
CAIR and CAIR-NY said that "no one in our nation should face violence or intimidation because of their identity, advocacy, or political views."
"We welcome law enforcement’s disruption of the alleged plot to firebomb the home of Palestinian-American activist Nerdeen Kiswani," said the groups. "This disturbing case underscores the growing climate of harassment, threats, and violence directed at those speaking out on Palestinian human rights and other social justice issues. Such actions not only endanger individuals but also threaten the fundamental freedoms of speech and civic engagement."
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Jewish and Arab-American Solidarity Is More Important Than Ever
At a time when authoritarianism thrives on division, the solidarity between Arab and Jewish communities rooted in justice and human dignity is a powerful response to fear and hate.
Mar 24, 2026
Our country is at war. The American-Israeli attack on Iran has plunged the Middle East and the Arab world into chaos, displacing millions and causing thousands of casualties.
Here at home, this war has consequences for the safety of Jewish and Arab American communities. Last week, a man drove a car containing explosives into a synagogue just outside of Metro Detroit. Reports indicate he held Jews responsible for the death of several members of his family in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. At the same time, multiple congressional Republicans have decided anti-Muslim bigotry will be a key part of their strategy for the midterms. This, after their language dehumanizing Palestinians and Arabs, went generally unchallenged.
This moment requires solidarity.
As we hold our breath with every new development abroad and at home, our hearts break. Our hearts break for the loss of life. Our hearts break for the fear felt by Jewish and Arab-American communities. And our hearts break again when we consider how this may fuel more of both antisemitism and anti-Arab racism.
The same politics that justify illegal wars abroad target communities at home.
Meanwhile, many American communities are also the target of the same state violence that launches unlawful wars. The National Guard has been deployed to cities across the country, and agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are targeting Black and brown people in mass raids that have led to tens of thousands of abductions, detentions, and deportations, tearing families apart. Racial profiling has Latinos, Somalis, Asians, and other immigrant communities in fear of leaving their homes. Immigration agents have killed Americans on the streets, and a record number of people have died in ICE custody over the past year. 2026 is on track to surpass those devastating numbers.
Right now, the Trump administration is using antisemitism as a smokescreen to target protesters, particularly immigrants who are people of color, and most particularly those who are Palestinian or Arab. We reject the assertion that this is how we fight antisemitism. We reject the assertion that one of our communities must be harmed to ensure the safety of another. Not only does doing so bring no lasting safety to Jews and Arabs, it invites more danger by weakening all our rights in a democracy under attack—the opposite of how we attain safety for everyone.
The administration’s willful disregard for the rule of law extends far beyond executive powers. Students are being arrested and detained for First Amendment-protected speech advocating for Palestinian human rights, teachers are worried about lesson plans that include the history of slavery, and libraries are being forced to remove LGBTQ+ books while transgender Americans in entire states are being stripped of their documentation.
Our nation’s essential nonprofits are under threat from our own government, and political dissent and protest is labeled “domestic terrorism.” And one of our most important tools to fight back, our vote, is under assault. The Voting Rights Act itself is in jeopardy, with the potential of taking us back six decades. These realities are deeply interconnected.
The same politics that justify illegal wars abroad target communities at home. State repression is creating fear and the erosion of our basic civil rights and liberties, as well as the abandonment of democratic norms.
In the case of Arab Americans and Jewish Americans, many choose to paint our communities as adversaries or, if we’re lucky, as unlikely allies. Neither is true, and our work together is not novel. At a time when authoritarianism thrives on division, the solidarity between Arab and Jewish communities rooted in justice and human dignity is a powerful response to fear and hate. It is also how we fight back.
This is a time of convergence for many important holidays. Arab American Muslims are preparing for the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Jewish Americans will soon celebrate Passover. The Passover Seder has us place ourselves in the story of those fleeing oppression. The Ramadan fast has us place ourselves in physical hunger and thirst, feeling what it is like to be without.
Those for whom that oppression or hunger is enduring, who await a relief that may not be forthcoming, are the reason we do the work we do. The reason we do the work we do together. Our solidarity is with each other and with them—the marginalized, the least protected, the hungry. We pledge to keep working hard together—and with all who believe in the promise of a better America where everyone is safe and thriving—until our collective liberation is achieved.
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It's Well Beyond Time to Cut Ties With the Anti-Defamation League
While the ADL attacks and smears Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian justice, it gives cover to and helps legitimize (often antisemitic) right-wing politicians and others who back Israel.
Mar 16, 2026
The Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, is holding its annual summit in New York City this week. The ironically-named summit on “hate” features far-right MAGA pastors and politicians, billionaire CEOs, and conservative journalists among its speakers.
No longer putting on the pretense of opposing all forms of bigotry, the ADL has shown it's perfectly comfortable with Trump-era racism. In the year since the last summit, the ADL has withdrawn its criticism of white supremacist groups, denounced antiracist education as "radical," continued to loudly back Israel's genocide in Gaza, and cheered on Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations of students and other noncitizens who have criticized Israel’s violence and stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In fact, the ADL endorsed the executive order issued by President Donald Trump in 2025 targeting critics of Israel and threatening those who aren't US citizens with deportation for protesting in support of Palestinian human rights.
The organization’s Islamophobia has also been front and center. Soon after the election, the ADL singled out New York City’s first Muslim mayor—and a supporter of Palestinian justice—and announced the “Mamdani Monitor: Holding the New Administration Accountable” to track his policies as well as his personnel appointments.
Far from opposing the ascendancy of the white nationalist right, the ADL has doubled down. While it may appear that the ADL’s recent visible displays of its reactionary agenda are the work of its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt alone, in fact, this agenda is not new. But the harm it’s causing is certainly getting worse. The organization’s reactionary political positions—evidenced by its ease in aligning with the likes of Trump and its behavior as an attack dog for Israel’s far-right government—were already clear in its long history of, among other things, Islamophobia and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism.
The ADL’s disturbing positions and actions have become even more aggressive since the genocide in Gaza.
For decades, out of the public eye, the ADL has illegally surveilled Arab Americans, Muslims, social justice activists, members of Congress, and others, including Jews, who speak and act in support of Palestinian justice. It has smeared the groups it targets as “suspect,” using the language of hate, terror, and antisemitism—as when it circulated blacklists of “Arab propagandists” in the 1980s and endorsed the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil for leading protests against Israel’s atrocities. When the NYPD launched aggressive, unconstitutional surveillance of the Muslim community post-9/11, justifying it as part of the domestic and global “war on terror,” the ADL gave an award to the program’s commanding officer.
The ADL’s disturbing positions and actions have become even more aggressive since the genocide in Gaza. As law professor and legal scholar Sahar Aziz points out, the organization has attempted to “criminalize Muslim and Palestinian students, as well as Jewish, queer, and BIPOC students” for opposing Israel’s actions. It has continued to attack Muslim and Arab American groups like Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which have challenged the ADL’s anti-Muslim racism.
The organization has continually platformed Islamophobes and anti-Palestinian bigots. In 2024, more than 60 Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and other organizations condemned the ADL for its consistent pattern of fostering anti-Palestinian hate and for giving a platform to anti-Muslim Pastor John Hagee. In 2025, ADL leaders elected to its board Johnnie Moore who was the executive chairman of the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” which was responsible for numerous massacres of starving Palestinians. And its summit this week features archconservative pastor Samuel Rodriguez, who has made hateful remarks against Muslims as well as LGBTQ people.
While the ADL attacks and smears Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian justice, it gives cover to and helps legitimize (often antisemitic) right-wing politicians and others who back Israel. Excusing Elon Musk’s notorious Nazi salute and ignoring Trump’s invoking of conspiracy theories are just two examples of its hypocrisy.
As aptly stated by Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), one of the hundreds of signatories on an open letter to progressives to #DroptheADL, “The focus of civil rights organizations should be on critiquing state power and not about targeting those who critique state power.”
As the ADL’s reactionary agenda becomes clearer for all to see, there is a growing groundswell of social justice activists, progressive Jewish groups, educational institutions, and members of every profession who are pressuring policymakers to stop cooperating with the organization. The urgency of educators, political leaders, organizations, and others breaking ties with the ADL in this deeply racist, repressive national climate can’t be overstated.
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