Anti-Muslim bias complaints up 178 percent at end of 2023: CAIR

Complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias jumped dramatically in the United States after the Israel-Hamas war broke out in Gaza in October, according to new data from a leading Muslim advocacy group.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reports that during the final three months of 2023 the organization fielded 3,578 such complaints, a 178 percent increase over the same period in 2022.

The biggest categories of the complaints included employment discrimination at 19 percent, hate crimes at 13 percent and education bigotry at 13 percent.

The three-month period tallied came after Hamas’s deadly cross-border terror attack on Israeli citizens on Oct. 7, which prompted the ongoing war in Gaza that has left thousands dead and homeless in the Palestinian-majority territory.

CAIR called the numbers “staggering” and pointed to the bias backlash as a reason to resolve the conflict with “justice for Palestine.”

“Despite this disturbing wave of bias targeting the Muslim, Arab-American and Palestinian communities, we are witnessing an impressive resilience in the face of bigotry,” CAIR national Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

Ahead of the dramatic increase, CAIR had reported in 2022 the first-ever drop in complaints since it began tracking data in 1995.

The war in Gaza has prompted a wave of pro-Palestinian protests across the United States, and advocates have taken to shouting down President Biden during his public events.

The Palestinian sympathizers want a cease-fire, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials have rejected such calls.