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FBI TARGETS MUSLIMS AND PALESTINIANS IN WAKE OF HAMAS ATTACK, CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES WARN

The domestic policing comes amid reports of harassment against Muslims and Palestinians around the country

FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT agents have ques­tioned and detained Palestinian nation­als and made vis­its to mosques in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel, accord­ing to civ­il rights advocates.

Abed Ayoub, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, said that his orga­ni­za­tion has field­ed mul­ti­ple reports of indi­vid­u­als and mosques being vis­it­ed by the FBI this week. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a police account­abil­i­ty group, also said it had received reports of fed­er­al agents intim­i­dat­ing Palestinians and their supporters. 

The inter­ac­tions are rem­i­nis­cent of sur­veil­lance and tar­get­ing of Muslim and Arab com­mu­ni­ties in the wake of the 9⁄11 attacks, and Ayoub told The Intercept that they are con­tribut­ing to a resur­gence of fear among Muslim com­mu­ni­ties. “Like, ‘Oh my god, this is hap­pen­ing again, how are we going to pro­tect ourselves?’”

The reports come after President Joe Biden issued a warn­ing this week about poten­tial “domes­tic threats” across America. “This is not some dis­tant tragedy — the ties between Israel and the United States run deep,” Biden wrote on Tuesday. “In cities across the coun­try, local and fed­er­al law enforce­ment part­ners are close­ly mon­i­tor­ing for any domes­tic threats in con­nec­tion with the hor­rif­ic ter­ror­ist attacks in Israel.”

In a press call Thursday, Department of Homeland Security offi­cials said they do not have any spe­cif­ic cred­i­ble intel­li­gence indi­cat­ing a poten­tial threat to the United States, but that they are mon­i­tor­ing “a vari­ety of threat actors who might be dri­ven by anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, or anti-Arab sen­ti­ment.” The offi­cials also said they were mon­i­tor­ing poten­tial threats in rela­tion to a video state­ment by for­mer Hamas polit­i­cal leader Khaled Meshal, who called for a broad, glob­al mobi­liza­tion in sup­port of Gaza on Friday. Meshal’s state­ment prompt­ed mass spec­u­la­tion and hys­te­ria about a “Day of Jihad” across the United States, with schools in some places shut­ting down. 

Ayoub said that the reports that the ADC received includ­ed FBI offi­cers vis­it­ing a Texas mosque to meet with lead­er­ship and ask about any “trou­ble­mak­ers” in the com­mu­ni­ty, and FBI agents seek­ing to ques­tion an indi­vid­ual who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement two months ago for a green card issue. That indi­vid­ual, Ayoub said, “has nev­er had any issues” pri­or to his run-in with ICE. Ayoub added that the ADC received a report of the FBI vis­it­ing a mosque in a dif­fer­ent state from a part­ner civ­il rights organization.

Meanwhile, Muslims and Palestinians have report­ed inci­dents of dis­crim­i­na­tion through­out the nation this week. In New York, for exam­ple, a group of men wav­ing Israeli flags assault­ed an 18-year-old Palestinian in Brooklyn. Numerous indi­vid­u­als at a ral­ly looked direct­ly into a cam­era as they exclaimed threats includ­ing “Kill all Palestinians, all of them!” and “Flatten them like a park­ing lot … once and for all.” 

On Thursday, when asked what her mes­sage is to Palestinians who fear for their loved ones as Israel main­tains a siege in Gaza, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called on “law-abid­ing Palestinians to reject Hamas,” with­out address­ing the ques­tion of Palestinians’ own concerns.

While the FBI has acti­vat­ed resources to inves­ti­gate Palestinians in the span of just a few days, its track record of suc­cess­ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ing crimes com­mit­ted by Israelis against Palestinian American cit­i­zens has proved far less urgent, not­ed Jarrar of DAWN. 

He point­ed to the cas­es of Alex Odeh, an activist who was assas­si­nat­ed in California in 1985, and Shireen Abu Akleh, a jour­nal­ist who was killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank last year. “When Palestinian Americans like Shireen Abu Akleh and Alex Odeh are mur­dered by Israel, the FBI does noth­ing about it,” Jarrar said. “But when we protest injus­tice by Israel, the FBI knocks on our doors.”

After the FBI announced an inves­ti­ga­tion into Abu Akleh’s killing, which mul­ti­ple orga­ni­za­tions report­ed was pre­med­i­tat­ed last year, the Israeli gov­ern­ment announced that it would not coöper­ate with the inves­ti­ga­tion. Israel’s then-Defense Minister Benny Gantz told the press that the FBI’s inquiry rep­re­sent­ed “inter­fer­ence in Israel’s inter­nal affairs” and that he had “made it clear to the American rep­re­sen­ta­tives that we stand behind the [Israel Defense Forces] sol­diers, that we will not coöper­ate with any exter­nal investigation.”

Decades ear­li­er, Odeh, who was the West Coast region­al direc­tor at ADC, was mur­dered before speak­ing at Congregation B’nai Tzedek, a Reform syn­a­gogue in Santa Ana, California. As The Intercept pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed, two prime sus­pects in Odeh’s killing escaped to Israel, where they con­tin­ue to live pub­lic lives. The FBI, mean­while, con­tin­ues to list a $1 mil­lion reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to the suc­cess­ful arrest and con­vic­tion of Odeh’s murderers.(From the Intercept)