Anger sprouted after the Wall Street Journal, an American business and economic-focused daily on Friday came up with a headline: Welcome to Dearborn, the capital of American Jihad.
That referred to Dearborn, a city in the state of Michigan with overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim population, the WSJ report focusing on local support for Palestinian rights.
Dearborn city officials, human rights advocates and US lawmakers also defended Michigan's large Arab and Muslim American communities for their stand on the Palestinian cause and what is happening in the Gaza Strip.
Pramila Jayapal, an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from Washington's 7th congressional district denounced the WSJ report, calling it “disgusting”.
“The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of promoting this kind of Islamophobia and immediately apologize to the residents of Dearborn and to American Muslims”, she asked.
Senator Gary Peters, who represents Michigan, also said in an article that the WSJ column “puts the entire Dearborn community at risk."
Discrimination and hatred against Muslims and Palestinians have increased alarmingly in the United States since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza.
Four months have passed since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, the spread of Islamophobia in the US is evident, with some reports indicating a 180% increase in discrimination and hatred against Muslims and Palestinians.
The shooting of three Palestinian-origin students in Vermont in November and the stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child in Illinois in October were part of the same anti-Muslim hatred.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has announced that it received 3,578 hate and Islamophobia-related complaints during the last three months of 2023, which was a 178% increase compared to the same period in 2022.
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