By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday released a long-awaited strategy for countering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate, up sharply since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, calling for urgent, continued work to reduce discrimination and bias.
The 64-page document comes weeks before the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, who imposed a travel ban on people from some majority Muslim countries during his first term that Biden rescinded on his first day in office.
It mirrors a comprehensive strategy to fight antisemitism released by the White House in September 2023, and comes more than a year after death of six-year-old boy Wadea Al-Fayoume, stabbed by a man who targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian-American.
In a foreword to the strategy, Biden called the attacks on the Chicago boy and his mother “heinous acts” and noted a spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes, discrimination and bullying that he called wrong and unacceptable.
“Muslims and Arabs deserve to live with dignity and enjoy every right to the fullest extent along with all of their fellow Americans,” Biden wrote. “Policies that result in discrimination against entire communities are wrong and fail to keep us safe.”
The Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, called the strategy “too little, too late” and faulted the White House for not ending a federal watchlist and “no-fly” list that includes many Arab and Muslim Americans.
The Trump transition team had no immediate comment on the strategy or whether it would support it.
Trump, who won support from some Muslim voters angry about Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, has said he will ban entry to the U.S. of anyone who questions Israel’s right to exist and revoke visas of foreign students who are “antisemitic.”
Tensions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups surged on some U.S. campuses after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, with human rights advocates warning of rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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