Shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then-President George W. Bush gave the most important speech of his political career. Standing inside the Islamic Center of Washington, the Republican leader declared that “Islam is peace,” drawing a clear distinction between the Islamic faith and those who practice it in America and around the world, and the al-Qaida hijackers who participated in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. He allowed for no doubt in who should be held responsible for planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field: a specific group of terrorists. Not all Americans embraced the message, of course. There were numerous injustices perpetrated against innocent U.S. Muslims and people with brown skin mistaken for Muslim. But Bush’s attempt to draw a clear, nonpartisan line in this diverse country built on immigration, was critical in limiting the violent, bigoted response.
President Joe Biden has made a similar call in the wake of this month’s surprise attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, which resulted in more than 1,400 military and civilian deaths.
“Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday on the CBS news program “60 Minutes.” The president also has cautioned against Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip given the level of bloodshed required for such a move, and drawn a sharp distinction between Hamas and ordinary Palestinians, while continuing to support the “two-state solution” that would create a separate Palestinian state next to Israel. Yet it’s not clear that everyone across this country hears — or perhaps fully understands — these distinctions.
On Saturday, authorities said a man stabbed two Palestinian-Americans who rented the ground floor of a house from him in suburban Chicago: a 6-year-old boy, who tragically died, and his mother, who is expected to survive. Investigators with the Will County Sheriff’s Office say the victims were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.” In addition to first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder charges already filed in the case, federal authorities are investigating the event as a hate crime. President Biden quickly weighed in, releasing a statement from the White House declaring that the “horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are.”
Yet where are the voices today from the party of George W. Bush? In the days after the Hamas attack, former President Donald Trump has certainly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for being unprepared and, weirdly, praised the Iran-backed Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah for being “very smart.” Others in his party have sharply condemned U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the U.S. House of Representatives, for flying a Palestinian flag outside her office door. And, again, the distinction between supporting Hamas and supporting the estimated 220,000 Americans of Palestinian descent is lost.
Let us leave the paranoia behind. Let us act like Americans and draw a clear distinction between those who seek to do us harm and those who do not, regardless of their faith and race. This is not that hard.
If Democrats are the only ones preaching acceptance of Muslim Americans, it will be dismissed as mere lip service by too many. All must speak out against hate and it can start by mourning 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume who loved to play ball, loved to color, loved to swing, loved his family and who, we surely can all agree, did not deserve to have his life ripped from him, stabbed 26 times.