White House releases national strategy to combat Islamophobia

Washington: The White House on Thursday announced what it called the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia, detailing more than 100 steps federal officials are taking to curb hate, violence, bias, and discrimination against Muslims and Arab Americans. In a statement announcing the strategy, the Biden administration wrote, “Over the past year, this initiative has become even more important as threats against American Muslim and Arab communities have spiked.” It said that included the October 2023 slaying of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi, an American Muslim boy of Palestinian descent, who was stabbed to death in Illinois. It says that new data collection and education efforts are “increasing awareness of these forms of hate as well of the proud heritages of Muslim and Arab Americans.” The plan calls for more widely disseminating successful practices of engaging Muslim and Arab Americans in the reporting of hate crimes, and that federal agencies are now more clearly spelling out that “discrimination against Muslim and Arab Americans in federally funded activities is illegal.” The White House’s plan also urges “state, local, and international counterparts, as well as the nongovernmental sector, to pursue similar initiatives that seek to build greater unity by recognizing our common humanity, affirming our shared values and history, and embracing equal justice, liberty, and security for all." The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., panned what it called “the White House’s long-delayed document” as “too little, too late.” “The White House strategy lays out some positive recommendations related to anti-Muslim bigotry, but it has been released too late to make an impact, fails to promise any changes to federal programs that perpetuate anti-Muslim discrimination on a massive scale," the council said in a statement further noting that the plan doesn't address what it called a “federal watchlist” targeting some Arab-Americans as potential terrorists.