Biden slams Islamophobia but Muslim group seeks policy change over words

US President Joe Biden has condemned what he termed an ugly resurgence of Islamophobia since the October 7 start of the Israel's war on besieged Gaza but CAIR, a leading Muslim advocacy group, dismissed his comment and urged a change in US policy instead.

"We recognise the violence and hate that Muslims worldwide too often face because of their religious beliefs — and the ugly resurgence of Islamophobia in the wake of the devastating war in Gaza," Biden said in a statement on Friday, the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.

"Islamophobia has no place in our nation. Yet Muslims in the United States frequently endure baseless fearmongering, blatant discrimination, harassment, and violence in the course of their everyday lives," Biden said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] dismissed Biden's statement and accused the White House of contributing to the problem by neglecting calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and by giving unconditional support to Israel.

"The White House cannot condemn violence against a Palestinian Muslim child here in America while simultaneously enabling the mass murder of Palestinian Muslim children in Gaza, nor can the White House call the destruction in Gaza 'devastating' while at the same time sending weapons to those causing the devastation," the advocacy group said.

Israel has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, wounded over 73,000, and uprooted nearly the entire 2.3 million population of the coastal enclave while caused a starvation crisis.

Israel has sealed off all land routes into Gaza apart from two crossings on the territory's southern edge, and has approved plans to invade Rafah area, the city on the southern edge of the shattered Palestinian enclave where more than half of its 2.3 million residents are sheltering after five months of war.

Resurgence of Islamophobia

Human rights advocates have cited a rise in Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian bias and antisemitism in the US and elsewhere.

US incidents that raised alarm include the fatal October stabbing of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al Fayoume in Illinois, the November shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont, and the February stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas.

CAIR says it has received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023, a 178 percent rise from complaints about anti-Muslim incidents in the same period from a year earlier.

Rights groups have compared the resurgence of Islamophobia since October 7 to the stigma faced by Muslims after the September 11, 2001, attacks.