Politics/ February 23, 2024
Much like his predecessor, the president is decrying anti-Arab and Muslim hatred while assisting to sustain it. Individuals are declining to let him get away with this hypocrisy.
(William Thomas Cain/ Getty Images)
Hajur El-Haggan had actually been teaching at Argyle Middle School in Silver Spring, Md., for 5 years when the Israel-Gaza war started. She had actually never ever been shy about her views, frequently using T-shirts, pins, and even fingernail art with mottos revealing uniformity with Palestine. Nobody had actually ever made a concern of her politics in the class.
In late November, El-Haggan was put on leave by the Montgomery County Board of Education since she had actually included a popular call for Palestinian freedom, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be complimentary,” to her e-mail signature. (Her lawyer, Rawda Fawaz, states that quotes in e-mail signatures are technically versus the county’s guidelines, however this policy was used just to speech associated to Palestine.)
El-Haggan is taking legal action against the school board for discrimination with the aid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in addition to 2 other instructors who state they were likewise suspended by the district for their Palestine advocacy. Days before being placed on leave, El-Haggan likewise had a Palestinian flag duped her automobile in the school car park.
As a Muslim of Egyptian and Sudanese descent, El-Haggan was raised with stories of how Islamophobia impacted her older member of the family in the early 2000s. For El-Haggan, therefore numerous others, the present environment has troubling parallels to the break out of bigotry experienced by Arabs and Muslims after the September 11 attacks. CAIR has actually gotten over 3,000 problems of Islamophobia and anti-Arab predisposition and discrimination considering that the October 7 Hamas attacks, lots of associated to work and education like El-Haggan’s.
This parallel is not a coincidence, however rather an outcome of the policies and techniques of individuals in charge of the nation– from George W. Bush then to Joe Biden now. And both guys reacted to this spread of hatred with the exact same pandering hypocrisy.
Bush condemned Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate while sustaining mass violence versus Muslims and Arabs in your home and abroad. Joe Biden has actually wanly tried to present himself as an ally of Muslim and Arab Americans, while developing the ideal conditions for hate versus this neighborhood to grow. (Israel has actually eliminated over 29,000 Palestinians, primarily females and kids, in its continuous barrage of Gaza, with the Biden administration’s overall monetary and diplomatic assistance.)
Present Issue
“When you see that the federal government is securing one class of individuals and not others that are likewise affected, then society will simulate that and erupted one group– Muslims and Arabs– while being accommodating of another,” stated El-Haggan.
While Bush paid a reasonably little political cost for stiring bigotry and Islamophobia, Biden now discovers himself dealing with striking levels of resistance from a mindful public.
