A little over a month ago, on October 7th, a decade of tenuous normalization came to an end. The Sunni Islamist military organization Hamas invaded southern Israel and killed over a thousand people, taking over two hundred forty hostages. The Israeli government responded with an airstrike campaign and later a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory of Gaza. A new war has begun, and already over 11,000 Palestinians are thought to have been killed.
In the United States, the Israel-Hamas war has been subsumed into a broader cultural conflict. Protests across the country have called for a ceasefire and largely blamed Israel for the war. In Massachusetts, pro-Palestine rallies have been held in Boston and Cambridge, with its participants also demanding a ceasefire. These events have only added to the febrile atmosphere of the country. Polarization is at an all-time high. Even worse, so are hate crimes against Jews and Muslims. According to the Anti-Defamation League, between October 7th and 23rd, acts of hate against the Jewish community were up 388% nationwide compared to the same time last year. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has stated that reported hate crimes against Muslims in just the last month outnumber reports from the entirety of 2022.
It is a depressing fact that what unites Muslims and Jews at the present moment is the violence directed towards them. Synagogues and mosques, Jewish and Islamic community centers have been vandalized and targeted by extremists. Jewish and Muslim students at universities have faced discrimination and violence. In Illinois, a 6-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed and killed allegedly by his landlord on October 14th. New England has also seen a sharp rise in hate crimes. A UMass Amherst student was arraigned last week on charges that he punched a Jewish student and spit on an Israeli flag. A Rhode Island man was arrested in October for allegedly calling in a bomb threat to a synagogue in Providence. Boston police have launched an investigation after “Nazi scum” was found spray painted on a Brighton Islamic community center’s welcome sign. Boston University’s Hillel was vandalized last week, and campus police are investigating it as a possible hate crime. It is unsurprising that Jews and Muslims feel increasingly unsafe.
The FBI’s Boston office, which covers Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, has been communicating with law enforcement and faith-based organizations in New England to keep track of and help prevent hate crimes. It is important to note that hate crimes are often underreported, and that victims may fear retribution for reporting crimes or may distrust law enforcement to do anything about them. Nonetheless, Kristen Setera, a spokesperson for the Boston office, has urged people to report hate crimes to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov. Perpetrators of these crimes can only be held accountable if community members speak up and alert law enforcement about them. Community members can also work towards creating awareness through public information campaigns and media exposure, which can make people feel more comfortable about talking openly about hate crimes. Educating people about the impacts of hate crimes and encouraging toleration of people from different faiths or cultures must also be a priority. As individuals living thousands of miles from the Middle East, we may not be able to do much to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from continuing. But we can try to prevent another kind of war from breaking out here.
