Biden administration announces 1st national strategy to combat Islamophobia

By Rabia Iclal Turan

WASHINGTON (AA) - The White House on Thursday announced a national strategy to combat Islamophobia, outlining over 100 actions federal officials are taking to address hate, violence, and discrimination against Muslim and Arab American communities.

The initiative, a first by the US government, released weeks before President Joe Biden leaves office, follows a similar strategy launched in 2023 to counter antisemitism.

The White House emphasized the growing importance of the plan in light of increased threats, pointing to the October 2023 killing of Wadee Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Illinois.

"Over the past year, this initiative has become even more important as threats against American Muslim and Arab communities have spiked," said the White House in a statement.

The strategy’s four main priorities include raising awareness about hatred targeting Muslims and Arabs, enhancing their safety and security, tackling systemic discrimination, and building cross-community solidarity to counter hate.

"Muslims and Arab Americans have helped build our country since its founding, but they have also routinely experienced hate, discrimination, and bias due to baseless stereotypes, fearmongering, and prejudice," the statement noted.

The administration detailed several measures such as investments in strengthening the security of nonprofit, increased efforts to ensure easier access to those funds; correction of discriminatory travel restriction, sand improving access to resources for reporting hate crimes.

"Threats to one community must be treated as threats to all. Increasing cross-community collaboration continues to be a key part of Administration efforts to protect the safety of all Americans, including through new partnerships that build solidarity among communities of diverse faiths and beliefs," said the White House.

The largest Muslim advocacy group in the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said criticized the plan, saying: "Although we and many American Muslims would normally welcome a national strategy to combat Islamophobia, the White House's long-delayed strategy is too little, too late".

"The 67-page document lays out some positive recommendations related to anti-Muslim bigotry, but it has been released at a time when it cannot make an impact, fails to promise any changes to federal programs that perpetuate anti-Muslim discrimination on a massive scale, such as the Orwellian federal watchlist, and fails to promise an end the most significant driver of anti-Muslim bigotry today: the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza," it said.

It said that Biden cannot "credibly claim" to care about Muslims or Islamophobia while supporting the Israeli government's destruction of mosques, desecration of Qurans, and enabling Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.