Hate speech surges against Jewish, Arab communities across US in year since Oct. 7 attack

WASHINGTON — In the year since the deadly Hamas attack on Israel, there’s been a surge in antisemitism and Islamophobia affecting communities across the United States.

Channel 2 Washington Correspondent Kirstin Garriss spoke with leaders from Jewish and Muslim organizations about these incidents and how they’re warning lawmakers of future tension in the year since the crisis in the Middle East started.

Many of the incidents have happened on college campuses. New data from the Anti-Defamation League revealed that there have been more than 10,000 anti-semitic incidents from the date of the attack, Oct. 7, 2023, to Sept. 24.

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“We saw nearly a 500% increase in antisemitic acts on college campuses in the last academic year. In response to this act of terror, our students are being terrorized,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s Director, said. “It’s unacceptable.”

Similarly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim advocacy organization in the US, says they’ve also seen a large spike with more than 5,000 reports of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination in the first half of 2024.

Research and Advocacy Director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations Corey Saylor said studies by Princeton University documented that 95% of protests on campus were peaceful.

“We’ve seen students targeted by their own university administrations and by other protesters,” Saylor said.

Both the ADL and CAIR expect the number of discrimination incidents to increase.

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