How anti-Muslim hate enabled the San Diego mosque attack

“My legs were shaking and my hands and my head were hurting a lot. I felt like a rock.” That was how nine-year-old Odai Shanah described feeling on 18 May at the Islamic Center of San Diego, where two armed anti-Muslim extremists carried out a mass shooting attack and murdered three people.

Shanah saw the bodies of victims as SWAT teams led him and other children out of the classroom in which they had been sheltering during the attack, a sight he will likely never forget for as long as he lives.

The little boy’s mother immigrated to the United States from Gaza two decades ago. Being in this country did not, however, prevent her son from being victimised by the ideology of anti-Muslim hate that has targeted hundreds of thousands of children in her homeland.

The same ideology that led to the massacre at the Islamic Center of San Diego has inspired the Israeli government’s killing of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, the expulsion of millions more from their homes, and attacks on countless mosques across Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

It is the ideology that justifies describing the Palestinian people as ‘Amalek’ and treating them as subhuman. It is also the ideology that justifies the Israeli government’s restriction of Muslims from entering one of their holiest sites, the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

It is the hatred that inspires the Burmese government’s genocide of the Rohingya people, the far-right Hindutva government’s enabling of mob violence and persecution of Muslims in India, and the Chinese government’s mass internment of Uyghurs in concentration camps.

It was this anti-Muslim hate that inspired the massacres in Quebec in 2017, Christchurch in 2019, and Norway in 2011.

It is an ideology held not only by the genocidal governments abroad and lunatic mass killers, but also by the current US administration and a large number of American lawmakers.

It is the ideology that inspired the creation of the farcical so-called “Sharia-Free America Caucus,” which just held its second hearing in Congress to promote conspiracy theories about a covert Islamic takeover of the United States. It now boasts 60 members in Congress.

Among those 60 are Randy Fine, who has called for a nuclear holocaust of Palestinians and the “destruction” of mainstream Muslims; Andy Ogles, who said that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” and Tommy Tuberville, who has called Islam a “death cult” and said the “enemy is inside the gates” after Zohran Mamdani was sworn into office in New York.

This ideology is behind the waves of anti-Sharia bills being promoted across the country in an attempt to legally persecute Muslims practising their faith. This ideology has inspired Texas and Florida Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis to launch feverish witch hunts against Muslims trying to establish communities and mosques and to label the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation a foreign terrorist group.

The ideology of anti-Muslim bigotry is what justifies America’s unjust and illegal war on Iran, which has killed at least 3,375 so far. It is invoked openly by Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who described Iran as being led by “prophetic Islamist delusions” and prayed for “overwhelming violence” on the nation.

Hegseth, who has the Arabic word for disbeliever as well as a Crusader cross tattooed on his body, has also called for the Al Aqsa Mosque to be destroyed and once reportedly yelled “kill all Muslims” while drunk.

It is anti-Muslim bigotry that justifies the subjugation of America’s national interests to those of Israel and the billions of taxpayer dollars in weapons and support that our government gives to Israel so it can slaughter Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon.

What happens when elected officials identify a religious minority as a dangerous fifth column? What happens when the halls of Congress are used for Orwellian hate sessions targeting that minority? What happens when the slaughter of other adherents of that religion is justified and even celebrated as a noble act?

These questions were answered on 18 May in San Diego.

Instead of merely expressing condolences and condemning the shooting, elected officials must meaningfully oppose the virus of anti-Muslim hate that is infecting the halls of power in this country. They must call out their colleagues who have promoted the dehumanisation and demonisation of Muslims at home and abroad. They must call for an end to American involvement in the slaughter of Muslims in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Failing to do so means complicity in the bloodshed in San Diego and paving the way for further violence in the future.

Nihad Awad is the National Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

Ismail Allison serves as National Communications Manager at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation.

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.