(Miami Fla, D.C., 12/20/23) – The Florida Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Florida), the state’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today announced the release of CAIR’s new paper on the state of Islamophobia leading up to and during the ongoing attacks by the far-right Israeli government against Palestinians in Gaza, which many legal and human rights experts have indicated may constitute the crime of genocide.
SEE: Gaza: The Resurgence of Islamophobia in 2023 Click here!
ADVISORY: The paper will be discussed by CAIR researchers during a virtual briefing on Thursday, December 21 at 3 P.M. ET. For more information: CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor, 202-384-8857, [email protected]]
LINK TO LIVESTREAM: https://www.facebook.com/CAIRNational
Titled “Gaza: The Resurgence of Islamophobia in 2023” this preliminary evaluation argues:
That the drivers of U.S. Islamophobia have evolved since President Trump left office.
That these evolved drivers have been on display throughout the recent wave of Islamophobic bias; and
That institutions involved in promoting justice and mutual understanding need to expand their campaigns to address these drivers.
The paper documents how government and law enforcement officials, corporations, institutions of higher education, media executives, and social media networks have promoted Islamophobic tropes to justify the Israeli government’s violence against Palestinians and therefore emboldened anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian hate and rhetoric in the United States.
“CAIR is committed to long-term problem solving, even as this current crisis of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian hate is stretching our resources to the limit,” said CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor. “While this paper was in the works before October 7, events since then have convinced us that drivers of Islamophobia in the U.S. are changing and only by understanding the threat and designing sustained campaigns to address that threat will we be able to combat this bias.”
He said the paper also contextualizes this present wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian racism within the wider landscape of U.S. Islamophobia in 2023, discussing how many key anti-Muslim actors today have increasingly promoted or relied on Islamophobic rhetoric and hate over the past several years.
The paper concludes by initiating the work to make alterations to CAIR’s approach to addressing U.S. Islamophobia, including a reassessment of CAIR’s vision for combating Islamophobia as well as preliminary findings around a state-specific tool to quantitatively assess Islamophobia. These findings will pave the way for the organization’s 2024 Islamophobia Report and campaigns.
SEE: CAIR 2022 REPORT ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE MAINSTREAM
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CONTACT: CAIR-Florida Media and Outreach Director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, 305-502-6749, [email protected], CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor, 202-384-8857, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]
