Fiery rhetoric around Israel-Hamas war stokes fears at home

Incendiary rhetoric about the war between Israel and Hamas is contributing to a stark rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism in the U.S. — and raising the risk that violent words could turn into actions. 

Three 20-year-old Palestinian men were shot and injured near the University of Vermont on Saturday after being confronted by a white man with a handgun while walking along a street — an incident federal authorities are investigating as a possible hate crime. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday a “sharp increase” in threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities across the U.S. has been recorded since the beginning of the war, which has highlighted sharp divisions in American society over the Middle East, particularly on college campuses.

“There is understandable fear in communities across the country,” Garland said. 

Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project and a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, said that since Oct. 7 — when the war began — there has been a “tremendous amount of awful content” circulating online about Israel and Palestine, much of which is false or demonizing.

“Much of it conflates Hamas with all Palestinians, and even Muslims, and on the other side, it conflates the Israeli leadership with all Israelis, and even all Jews,” Benesch said, “[That] makes it easy for people who are consuming that rhetoric … to want to take revenge against the people who are perceived by them to be members of the largest of those groups — that is to say, Muslims on one side and Jews on the other.” 

In the first four weeks following Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel’s southern border, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy organization — documented a 216 percent increase over the previous year in reports of anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bias.   

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which fights hate and antisemitism, similarly documented a 388 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. over the first two weeks of the war, compared with the same period last year. 

Conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has erupted over decades many times before, but the unprecedented attack launched by Hamas on Oct. 7 — and the subsequent bombardment of Gaza in the weeks since — has created some of the deepest political rifts the U.S. has seen on the matter in modern history.

Those fractures have been put under a microscope in the past 52 days, during which supporters of both sides have taken to American streets in droves to protest.  

“This conflict has polarized people not only in the United States, but all over the world more quickly and severely than any other event,” Benesch said. “Even people who have no personal ties to either side are extremely passionate and agitated about it.” 

In Congress, zealous rhetoric and acts by some lawmakers have only further steeped divisions in an already polarized nation. 

For one, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) introduced a bill earlier this month that could ban Palestinians from entering the U.S. — and possibly expel those who are already here. Zinke described the bill as the “most anti-Hamas immigration legislation I have seen,” conflating all Palestinians with the militant group. 

GOP presidential nominee Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, has suggested the U.S. should not take in any Palestinian refugees from Gaza because they are “all antisemitic.”

The only Palestinian American serving in Congress — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — was censured earlier this month over her criticism of Israel. She posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, that said President Biden “supported the genocide of the Palestinian people” and included clips of protesters chanting “from the river to the sea,” a phrase defined by the Anti-Defamation League as antisemitic.  Tlaib defended her stance, saying she “will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words.” 

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie on Sunday placed some blame on former President Trump, suggesting his “intolerant” language rubbed off on the rest of the country. Trump was harshly criticized during his presidency for promoting antisemitic tropes and Islamophobic beliefs.  

“When you show intolerance towards everyone, which is what he does, you give permission as a leader for others to have their intolerance come out,” Christie told CNN of Trump. “So intolerance towards anyone encourages intolerance towards everyone. And that’s exactly what’s going on here.” 

Garland said Monday that the Justice Department is “closely monitoring” the impact the conflict may have in inspiring extremists at home and abroad, opening discussions with local law enforcement and community leaders to discuss any threats.  

When people are “horrified,” they often seek accountability, Benesch said. An Illinois landlord, for example, was charged with a hate crime last month after being accused of stabbing and killing a 6-year-old Muslim boy in suburban Chicago — a striking example of people who are “neither Palestinian nor Israeli becoming violent” in response to the conflict, she said.  

Tensions have been especially high on American college campuses for students on both sides who have said they fear for their safety at school. Threats and attacks on Jewish and Arab Muslim students have seen a marked rise since the war began with heated protests sometimes turning violent.

The Palestinian men shot in Vermont on Saturday are all U.S. university students. The man who pleaded not guilty to the shooting was a 48-year-old white man. Two of the victims were American citizens, while a third was a legal resident. Two of the victims at the time of the shooting were wearing keffiyehs, a type of scarf associated with the Palestinian cause.

Benesch said fiery rhetoric on the rise in the U.S. since the start of the war could cause some Americans to take matters into their own hands, no matter how misguided those efforts may be.

“Someone who wants revenge, who wants to hold someone responsible, sometimes wants to do that personally,” Benesch said. “In this country … it’s easier to find a Jew than an Israeli — and it’s exactly the same thing on the other side.”