New Document on Combating 'Islamophobia and Arabophobia' Released by Joe Biden

In his final weeks in office, U.S. President Joe Biden announced a strategic plan to combat 'Islamophobia and Arabophobia.' Since the onset of the Gaza war, racial and religious hatred in the U.S., particularly against Muslims and Arab-Americans, has significantly increased, and this new plan calls for urgent action to reduce discrimination and bigotry. This 64-page document was published only about six weeks before Donald Trump's inauguration for his second term. The elected U.S. president had previously banned citizens from several Muslim countries, including Iran, from traveling to the U.S., a measure that Biden rescinded on his first day in the White House. Biden's new plan closely resembles the White House's comprehensive strategy to combat 'antisemitism' announced fifteen months ago. Over a year ago, during the early days of the Gaza war, six-year-old Palestinian-American Wadiah Al-Fiyum, along with his mother, was attacked by their 71-year-old landlord in an 'Islamophobic' incident and was killed with 26 stab wounds. In introducing the new plan, Biden referred to the murder of Wadiah Al-Fiyum as an 'abhorrent act' and described the serious increase in 'Islamophobic and Arabophobic' crimes as wrong and unacceptable. The U.S. president also stated, 'Muslims and Arab-Americans, like other Americans, deserve to live with human dignity and should enjoy all human and civil rights.' Biden emphasized that 'policies that lead to discrimination against parts of society are wrong and cannot guarantee our security.' On the other hand, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that advocates for the civil rights of Muslims in the U.S., described Biden's plan as 'flawed and overdue,' criticizing the White House for its failure to commit to reviewing the federal list of individuals under surveillance and banned from travel, many of whom are Muslim and Arab-Americans, while also criticizing Washington's failure to end the Gaza war, which this group claims has fueled the rise of Islamophobia. Trump's transition team has yet to comment on this new strategy. In the recent elections, Donald Trump managed to gain votes from a group of Muslims who were angered by Biden's strong support for Israel during the Gaza war. The elected U.S. president has also stated that he will prevent deniers of Israel's right to exist from entering the U.S. and will revoke the visas of foreign students who exhibit 'antisemitic' behavior. Since the onset of the Gaza war in mid-October of last year, clashes between pro-Israel and Palestinian student groups at some U.S. universities have escalated, and human rights groups are warning about a significant increase in 'antisemitic, Islamophobic, and anti-Arab' behaviors in academic environments and the broader American society.