You don’t need to read the latest FBI hate-crime statistics to know that there has been a surge in antisemitism in the United States since Oct. 7, 2023. The evidence that a global wave of Jew-hatred was making itself felt was plainly evident on the streets of American cities, and especially on college campuses, where mobs were chanting for the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet and for terrorism against Jews everywhere. There was also the series of violent murderous attacks on Jewish targets, as well as the mainstreaming of blood libels about Israel and Jews in legacy media outlets.
But a deep dive into the report issued by the FBI this week for crimes reported in the year 2024 confirmed for anyone not already convinced that antisemitism is spiking. Of all the crimes based on religious prejudice that year, some 69.1% were against Jews. Though Jews have been the leading victims of such attacks for as long as the FBI has been issuing statistics, this was an increase over previous years.
Just as significant was the annual reminder that despite the push in the media and from groups purporting to represent the interests of Muslim Americans to treat Islamophobia as a national problem second only to anti-black racial prejudice, the evidence for that assertion is still lacking. In fact, crimes against Muslims were second only to those against Jews. Indeed, despite the rising population of believers in Islam and declining American-Jewish demographics, attacks on Jews again vastly outnumbered those against Muslims, with only 9.3% being listed as anti-Islamic.
Surge in Jew-hatred
That means Jews were about 660% more likely than Muslims to be victims of anti-religious-bias offenses in the United States last year. Throw in the fact that the numbers of anti-Jewish crimes recorded by the Anti-Defamation League are far higher than those in the FBI statistics, and it’s apparent that the problem of antisemitism is approaching the level of an epidemic.
What isn’t to be found in the data is an understanding of the primary engines of antisemitism in 21st-century America.
There are a variety of sources of the world’s oldest hatred, some from the left and some from the far-right. But that which has been directed against Jews since the Hamas-led Palestinian-Arab attacks on southern Israeli communities started the current war with unspeakable atrocities has largely been driven by those who support the perpetrators. That is why any discussion about the massive uptick in anti-Jewish crimes must not only focus on notorious instances of antisemitism, such as the encampments at major universities, where Jews were targeted by woke leftists activists, or even the vitriol spewed by right-wing podcasters like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. We must also speak directly about the widespread antisemitism that is coming out of the Muslim-American community and the groups, both foreign and domestic, which are helping to direct and fund it.
This is why authorities shouldn’t just note the hate-crime statistics with dismay and issue anodyne statements calling for everyone to be nicer to each other. Instead, action must be taken to curb the activities of hate groups, especially those masquerading as civil-rights advocates and those who receive foreign funding from entities and states playing an active role in spreading Jew-hatred.
CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood
At the top of the to-do list should be the stripping of one of the principal engines of American-Muslim antisemitism—the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)—of its tax-exempt status, as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) recently demanded. Just as high on that list must be a congressional vote to do something the United States should have done decades ago: designate the Muslim Brotherhood, which plays a large role in fomenting hate at home and abroad—and to which CAIR is directly connected—as a terrorist organization, as members of the Senate and House have proposed.
The Brotherhood is a century-old group, founded in the Middle East and dedicated to unremitting conflict and hatred of the West, particularly of Jews. Its loosely organized network was a major source of instability in countries like Egypt, but in our day, its most prominent offspring is Hamas. Its leadership lives in Qatar and, backed by the enormous oil wealth of that emirate, spreads its ideology throughout the world.
One example of its activity is, as documented by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy, is its thorough infiltration of Canada via local Muslim groups. This poses a threat to both the Jewish community and the country’s democratic culture, as it seeks to shut down scrutiny of its antisemitism by using the government in Ottawa to punish acts of alleged Islamophobia.
As was the case in 2019, when President Donald Trump first proposed, but ultimately failed, designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, there will be considerable opposition to such a measure today.
At the heart of that reluctance is the conviction among many in America’s political/foreign-policy establishment, the mainstream media, academia and the world of popular culture that to speak of Muslim antisemitism—and the way those influenced by or part of the Brotherhood’s network are promoting hate—is something that can’t be done. Why? Because those who have tried to point out the problem expose themselves to charges of bigotry and Islamophobia.
A mythical backlash
For much of the last 24 years, since the 9/11 attacks, Americans have been subjected to endless lectures about their obligation not to associate Islam with Islamist terrorism. Those admonitions about the evils of religious prejudice were correct as a matter of principle. But in the context of the misnamed “war on terrorism” launched by President George W. Bush against a global Islamist terror network, those warnings tended to undermine the sense of urgency about the struggle.
Indeed, Bush’s incessant scolding about Islam’s being a “religion of peace” didn’t merely verge on the comic. It also made a mockery of any hope of having a serious national discussion about the distinction between the many peace-loving Muslim citizens and the hundreds of millions of other followers of that faith who supported Islamist sects that were anything but peaceful.
That confusion led to a standing narrative in American culture—bolstered by the manifest opposition of the mainstream liberal media in any conflict with non-Western belief systems—in which the main outcome of 9/11 was a mythical backlash against Muslims. Over the years, that fictional wave of prejudice was never backed up by objective evidence that it was anything more than stray anecdotes woven together in order to subvert efforts to take the threat of Islamist terror seriously.
Eventually, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Islamist front groups masquerading as civil-rights organizations—such as CAIR—it was expanded into a new form of bias for which Americans were told they must atone: Islamophobia.
But, curiously, as soon became apparent, most of what was labeled “Islamophobia” wasn’t really prejudice against Muslims. Instead, it almost always involved attempts to call attention to the antisemitism in the Muslim world–specifically in relation to groups like CAIR with roots in Muslim Brotherhood-related activities, among them fundraising for Hamas.
Indeed, what they really mean when they cry “Islamophobia” is that holding Muslims accountable for the hate uttered by those who speak for them is something they not only won’t tolerate; they’re determined to ban it.
Biden and DEI
This sentiment was never more in fashion than during the Biden administration, when toxic left-wing ideologies like critical race theory and intersectionality were embraced by the bureaucracy. President Joe Biden’s decision to force the entire federal government to implement the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in all of its doings meant that Islamophobia became a particular priority for Washington.
The notion that Muslims were under particular threat from other Americans wasn’t backed up by hate-crime statistics or anything else. But it fit in with the mantra that all “people of color” or designated minorities were under continual threat and in the right no matter what they did. By the same token, the impulse to see Jews and Israel as “white” oppressors who were always in the wrong made itself felt even when the White House tried to pretend that it cared about antisemitism.
That was made clear when Biden included CAIR, a major source of Jew-hatred itself, in his task force working on a strategy against antisemitism. This was followed up in the last weeks of the administration by the issuance of a strategy paper about Islamophobia that sealed the Democrats’ effort to create a moral equivalence between a real problem—antisemitism—and a fake one.
The second Trump administration has started to roll back this whitewashing of CAIR. But it needs to go further.
By stripping CAIR of its non-profit status and potentially designating it, along with its spiritual godfathers in the Muslim Brotherhood, as affiliated with terrorism, the government can send a strong message that it will no longer tolerate the way a conspiratorial Islamist group’s message of terror and hate has infiltrated the American mainstream.
Doing this won’t have an impact on anyone’s First Amendment rights, since American citizens will always be free to voice their opinions, even when hateful. But the Brotherhood and its network are criminal organizations linked to some of the worst terrorist atrocities of recent history. Saying this out loud doesn’t constitute Islamophobia. It’s a recognition of a potent source of Jew-hatred that has been flying under the radar of government scrutiny by pretending to be defending a minority community against hate.
More to the point, it is way past time for the government to take notice of the fact that these foreign conspirators and their local agents are the engine of a surge in attacks on American Jews that should not be tolerated.
Arrayed against this effort are powerful and wealthy forces, principally a regime in Doha that poses as a U.S. ally while also backing Iran and Hamas. To this end, Qatar has not only become the largest foreign funder of American higher education, but also has used its wealth to buy influence on both the left and the right, including with Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
The statistics showing the rise in antisemitism should be a wake-up call to an administration that wants to be taken seriously on the issue. And it will require confronting the Brotherhood’s Qatari paymasters local network affiliates like CAIR. If Washington doesn’t act, the out-of-control surge in Jew-hatred will only get worse.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate).
https://www.jns.org/as-antisemitism-surges-the-islamist-threat-must-be-taken-seriously/
