0:00

The temperature in Euless, Texas, hit 91

0:02

degrees in mid-May, so a mom

0:04

took her two kids to the

0:06

community pool. Poolside,

0:10

a woman asked where they were from,

0:12

grabbed at the six-year-old boy, and when

0:15

he got away, pushed the little girl's

0:17

head under the water. The mother told

0:19

police that her three-year-old child was yelling

0:21

for help, was coughing up water, but

0:24

she was able to pull her out

0:26

of the water. The kids are Palestinian-American.

0:28

The attacker is white and was charged

0:30

with attempted murder. The Council

0:33

on Islamic-American Relations says it's

0:35

a hate crime, calling it

0:37

Islamophobic, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian, suggesting

0:40

that those terms don't all mean the same

0:42

thing. Coming up on Today

0:44

Explained, since October 7th, incidents of Islamophobia

0:47

in the U.S. have spiked. But

0:49

what's Islamophobic? What's anti-Palestinian?

0:53

And an argument that drawing a distinction

0:55

between the two really matters. Get

1:01

3% daily cash back when you use

1:03

Apple Card to buy a new iPhone

1:05

15 or pair of AirPods at Apple.

1:07

You can choose to grow it at

1:09

4.40% annual

1:11

percentage yield APY when you open

1:13

a savings account through Apple Card.

1:16

Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on

1:18

iPhone. Subject to credit

1:20

approval, savings is available to Apple Card

1:23

owners subject to eligibility. Savings

1:25

in Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank

1:27

USA, Salt Lake City Branch, Member FDIC.

1:30

Terms and more at applecard.com. Have

1:36

a question or need how-to advice? Just

1:39

ask Meta.ai. Whether you need

1:41

to summarize your class notes or want to create

1:43

a recipe with the ingredients you already have in

1:45

your fridge, Meta.ai has the

1:47

answers. You can also

1:50

research topics, explore interests, and so

1:52

much more. What's the

1:54

most advanced AI? At your

1:56

fingertips. Expand your world

1:58

with Meta.ai. Now

2:01

on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and

2:03

Messenger. This

2:09

is Today Explained. My

2:11

name is Mustafa Beyumi. I

2:13

am a journalist, a writer,

2:16

and a professor. I write

2:18

for The Guardian, and I teach at the

2:20

City University of New York. Mustafa

2:23

was born in Egypt, moved to Canada as

2:25

a child, and has been in the U.S.

2:27

most of his adult life. Fifteen years ago,

2:29

he wrote a book that I really loved.

2:32

It's called How Does It Feel to Be a

2:34

Problem, in which he documented

2:36

the lives of seven young Arab Americans

2:39

in Brooklyn after 9-11. The difficulties

2:41

that they faced included Islamophobia.

2:44

I would define Islamophobia as

2:47

a kind of anti-Muslim racism,

2:49

an anti-Muslim bigotry. You

2:52

know, I think definitionally it would be

2:54

something about fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims,

2:56

but it's not really about doctrine, right? It's

2:59

not about whether somebody is a believing

3:02

Muslim or a non-believing Muslim. It's about

3:04

Muslims as an identity, not as a

3:06

belief system, and

3:08

I think that's an important part to

3:10

underscore. Many Americans would

3:12

only really have become aware of

3:15

the term Islamophobia after 9-11. I

3:19

assume it existed before then. What

3:21

has it looked like in the U.S.

3:23

historically? Well, I think you're

3:25

actually quite correct about that. That Islamophobia

3:27

as a social phenomenon really took off

3:30

after 9-11. If

3:32

you look at the history of anti-Arab

3:35

and anti-Palestinian sentiment in the United States,

3:37

you'll see that it goes back at

3:39

least to the Arab-Israeli war in 1967.

3:42

The U.S. really, its policies really

3:44

turned towards supporting Israel. Reports

3:46

on the air and ground battles received here

3:49

are sketchy. The only thing Pentagon officials are

3:51

confident of is that the ultimate victor will

3:53

be Israel. And it's

3:55

still believed here that Israel has better

3:58

trained men and better command control. The

6:02

haters of truth and

6:05

lovers of other than

6:07

truth. These are

6:09

sort of early precursors of African

6:11

American Muslim communities. In fact,

6:13

the Nation of Islam and the Morish sign step will still

6:15

exist today, but in much smaller numbers than they once had.

6:18

You are seeing local Muslims entering

6:20

the Miami mosque located at Northwest

6:22

7th Avenue and 53rd Street.

6:26

Studies warn that the Muslims are the

6:29

largest black extremist organization in the United

6:31

States. These groups were also

6:33

being watched by the

6:35

government primarily because they were seen as

6:37

not being patriotic enough, especially during the

6:39

World War II effort. And so they

6:41

were seen as being seditious and maybe

6:43

even having connections with the Japanese. But

6:46

the government's attention that was focused on

6:49

black Muslim groups was generally part of

6:51

a larger wave of oppression that was

6:53

focused on all kinds of liberation struggles

6:55

organized by African Americans across the country.

6:58

So Coen Tel Pro, you know, the

7:00

counterintelligence program by the government that was

7:02

eventually exposed had certain specific

7:04

groups that they were targeting. Among

7:07

the treasure trove of CIA and FBI

7:09

files released by America's National Archive last

7:12

week were documents relating to the assassinated

7:14

civil rights leader Martin Luther King. The

7:17

FBI's director at the time, Edgar Hoover, detested

7:19

King and suspected him of being a

7:22

communist. Of course, it's well known that

7:24

African American organizations were part of Coen

7:26

Tel Pro, as were actually

7:28

Arab American groups, which is less known.

7:30

So I think it's absolutely necessary to

7:32

see the ways in which

7:35

African American history, Arab

7:37

American history, Muslim American history are connected, but

7:39

also to see them for their differences at

7:41

the same time. How

7:48

does Islamophobia shift in the

7:50

U.S. after 9-11? How

7:52

does it manifest? Support

12:16

for Today Explained comes from WONDERY

12:18

and the podcast American History Teller's

12:21

First Ladies. When Martha Washington became

12:23

First Lady of these United States,

12:25

she had a president by her

12:27

side, but no precedent to follow.

12:29

Without a guidebook, she had to

12:31

define the role for future presidential

12:33

spouses. What was that like? American

12:36

History Teller's is a podcast from

12:38

WONDERY that examines the achievements of

12:40

five of America's First Ladies, their

12:42

origins, the moment they stepped into

12:44

their role, the ways in which they

12:47

redefined the traditions to leave their mark

12:49

on history. You can follow American History

12:51

Teller's on the WONDERY app or wherever

12:53

you get your podcasts. You can binge

12:55

this season American History Teller's First Ladies

12:57

early and ad-free right now on WONDERY+.

13:00

You can also go deeper and

13:02

you can get much more with

13:05

WONDERY's other top history podcasts, American

13:07

Scandal, Legacy, and even the Royals.

13:16

Support for Today's episode comes

13:18

from Constant Contact. Constant Contact

13:20

believes the attention economy is

13:22

real and Constant Contact wants

13:25

you to excel in the attention economy. If

13:27

you're a business owner, a marketer, or

13:30

anyone else just trying to break through the

13:32

noise and reach customers, Constant Contact might be

13:34

able to help. According to

13:36

Constant Contact, their platform makes it easy

13:38

to use email and SMS marketing to

13:40

keep your message in front of your

13:43

customers, reach new audiences, and communicate more

13:45

effectively. They even offer a handful of

13:47

writing assistance tools and automation features to

13:49

help you get more from your marketing

13:52

efforts. You can get going and start

13:54

growing your business today with a free

13:56

trial at constantcontact.com. You can go to

13:58

constantcontact.com for a free trial. Constant

14:00

Contact. Helping the small

14:02

stand tall. constantcontact.com Have

14:10

a question or need how-to advice? Just

14:13

ask Meta AI. Whether you

14:15

want to design a marathon training program that will

14:17

get you race-ready for the fall, or

14:19

you're curious what planets are visible in tonight's

14:22

sky, Meta AI has the

14:24

answers. Perhaps you want

14:26

to learn how to plant basil when your

14:28

garden only gets indirect sunlight. Meta

14:30

AI is your intelligent assistant. It

14:33

can even answer your follow-up questions, like

14:36

what you can make with your basil and other ingredients

14:38

you have in your fridge. Meta

14:40

AI can also summarize your class notes,

14:42

visualize your ideas, and so much more.

14:45

The best part is you can find Meta AI right

14:48

in the apps you already have. Instagram,

14:50

WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.

14:54

Just tag Meta AI in your chat or

14:56

tap the icon in the search bar to

14:58

get started. It's the

15:00

most advanced AI at your

15:02

fingertips. Expand your

15:04

world with Meta AI. It's

15:14

Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Vox reporter

15:16

Abdullah Fayad will be familiar to you

15:19

if you've heard any of our

15:21

Florida Man episodes. Abdullah covers policy,

15:23

and he covers a lot of

15:25

Donald Trump. That's his beat. But

15:27

his heritage is Palestinian. I

15:29

was born in the U.S., but I grew up

15:31

in Jerusalem. My parents are Palestinian, and they moved

15:34

back there when I was about two and a

15:36

half years old. So I grew

15:38

up there, spent my entire childhood there and all

15:40

the way through high school. I

15:43

lived a life of relative

15:46

privilege compared to many other

15:48

Palestinians. But the

15:50

reality is that we still lived

15:52

under occupation. That meant for

15:54

his family, as for other Palestinian

15:56

families, their movement was limited. go

16:00

through checkpoints, especially when we were kids

16:03

during the Second Intifada that were set

16:05

up throughout the city. We lived in,

16:07

you know, incidents with

16:10

military and soldiers, you

16:12

know, in our neighborhoods and places we grew up. After

16:15

writing many pieces about American

16:17

politics, Abdullah recently wrote something

16:19

more personal for Vox. The

16:22

article's title, it's not

16:24

Islamophobia, it's anti-Palestinian racism.

16:27

I asked Abdullah why he thinks making

16:29

that distinction is necessary. Well,

16:32

I thought that one thing was

16:34

really missing in the conversations we

16:36

were having here in the United

16:38

States about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia

16:40

in the wake of October 7th. You

16:43

know, we've seen task forces

16:45

rise up in universities across

16:48

the country on anti-Semitism, task

16:50

forces about Islamophobia. You

16:52

know, we've seen also any time there

16:54

has been an attack on Palestinians, you

16:57

know, politicians and institutions, you know,

16:59

try to, you know, label

17:01

it as Islamophobia. One example

17:03

is, you know, the

17:06

six-year-old Palestinian American boy who

17:08

was murdered in his apartment,

17:11

allegedly by his landlord. Warners

17:13

gathered in Bridgeview Monday night to

17:15

offer their condolences to the father

17:17

of six-year-old Badea Afayumi, hours after

17:19

he was laid to rest. His

17:21

white casket draped in the Palestinian

17:24

flag during the funeral service. His

17:26

landlord was upset in the aftermath

17:28

of October 7th. You

17:30

know, the alleged landlord, for example, you

17:32

know, was afraid, according

17:34

to his wife, who spoke to law enforcement,

17:36

he was afraid that the mother

17:38

of the boy was going to invite

17:41

her Palestinian friends and

17:43

potentially harm him. Beyond

17:45

those incidents, we've also seen

17:47

a lot of anti-Palestinian discrimination

17:49

at the institutional level. A

17:52

lot of people, for example, saw what happened on

17:55

college campuses and were befuddled. by

18:00

why there was such an

18:02

overwhelming police response to overwhelmingly

18:06

nonviolent campus protests. So

18:10

it started at Columbia University, where

18:12

the president of the university, Nama

18:15

Tshafik, quickly

18:17

after the encampment in

18:19

April, within days

18:21

contacted the NYPD and said that

18:23

there was a clear and present

18:26

danger being posed by

18:28

the protesters. As a general matter,

18:31

Columbia University, and this goes back many years,

18:34

does not want NYPD present on

18:36

campus. That is their decision.

18:39

Last week, on Thursday, they

18:42

informed us that they had students who were

18:44

trespassing. They asked us to come on to

18:46

campus to take action, and we did. I

18:49

reached out to Columbia to ask for further explanation

18:51

when I was writing about this. They

18:54

refused to elaborate on what that

18:56

danger was in the early days.

18:58

Now, when we've seen encampments against

19:00

fossil fuel industries, we've seen them

19:02

eventually get cleared out, but never

19:04

were they labeled as something that

19:07

was imposing a clear and present

19:09

danger on the university within a day

19:12

of being erected. Given

19:17

that the university didn't want to

19:19

really explain the president's rationale behind

19:22

calling in the police, the one thing

19:24

that we can look at is the

19:26

history of universities suppressing

19:29

Palestinian activism on campus.

19:31

Dr. Anne DeQuino, surrounded by students,

19:34

but not allowed back in her

19:36

former classroom. My case is

19:38

a reminder that if faculty and

19:41

staff are not protected from the

19:43

swift and severe reprimand of this

19:45

university, students most certainly are not

19:47

either. Two days after issuing an

19:49

optional assignment, which asked students to

19:51

focus on the biological effects of

19:53

the war in Gaza, she was

19:55

fired. One thing that is

19:58

true about anti-Palestinian racism... is

20:01

that it does not impact just

20:03

Palestinians. It also impacts their allies

20:05

who speak up for

20:07

their rights. Professors on college

20:10

campuses, a lot of students

20:12

face retaliation for speaking up

20:14

against the Israeli occupation. And

20:17

that is not Islamophobia, that's

20:19

anti-Palestinian racism. I

20:21

wonder if there is a counter

20:23

argument that when you complexify the language,

20:26

and you say, well, we're talking about

20:28

this specific smaller group of people, you

20:32

kick other people out of

20:35

the ally ship. So for example, racism

20:37

against Vietnamese in America, racism against

20:39

Chinese in America, one

20:42

might say that's all anti-Asian racism. We should

20:44

keep it simple so that people feel as

20:46

though they are, the

20:49

racism against them kind of bonds them

20:51

together and allows them to act as

20:54

one community. Do you think by drawing

20:56

attention to anti-Palestinian racism, it kind of

20:58

draws divisions at all? I

21:00

don't necessarily think so though I do

21:03

get the point. And if we were

21:05

to use the anti-Asian racism as an

21:07

example, I think there is

21:10

a considerable amount of criticism about

21:13

the umbrella term of anti-Asian

21:15

racism defining all forms of

21:17

anti-Asian discrimination because what it

21:19

does is it flattens the

21:21

reality for many Asian Americans.

21:23

We see, for example, a

21:25

lot of inequality when you

21:27

break down the Asian American

21:29

category by national

21:31

origin. So there is value

21:34

in breaking down categories to

21:36

better understand how forms of

21:39

racism do manifest and where

21:41

they're institutionalized. When you only

21:43

categorize the racism that Palestinians

21:46

face in America as Islamophobia,

21:49

what that actually does, it removes

21:51

and makes invisible the

21:56

existence of Christian Palestinians who

21:58

might be victims of Islamophobia.

22:00

Islamophobia, for example, because their

22:02

culture is so deeply associated

22:04

with Islam. But they

22:06

are not Muslim themselves. And there

22:09

are plenty of Palestinians who are

22:11

also secular, non-practicing, atheist, and in

22:14

the diaspora, many Christian Palestinians as

22:16

well who are deeply embedded and

22:18

deeply rooted in the Palestinian cause.

22:21

Can you talk a bit more about what you

22:23

see? If we erase

22:26

Palestinians from the conversation, we lump

22:28

it all in as Islamophobia, what

22:30

does that actually mean for how

22:32

the U.S. behaves in the region?

22:34

I'll give you one example of

22:37

the insidious ways that anti-Palestinian

22:39

racism is so deeply embedded in

22:42

American foreign policy. There

22:44

are all these ideas of what a Palestinian

22:46

state might look like. When you drill into

22:48

what that looks like, American plans look like

22:50

for a Palestinian state, it's not a state

22:53

at all. At least it's not really that

22:55

independent. And the only way

22:57

to really get durable peace, durable

22:59

security for Israel, as

23:01

well as for everyone else, has

23:03

to include the realization of Palestinian

23:05

political rights. There's this idea that

23:07

granting Palestinians full independence is a

23:09

direct threat on not just

23:12

Israelis, but Jews around the world. What's

23:14

happening on America's college campuses is

23:17

horrific. Anti-Semitic

23:19

mobs have taken over leading universities. They

23:22

call for the annihilation of Israel. They

23:24

attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish

23:26

faculty. This

23:28

is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in

23:30

the 1930s. Now, it's

23:32

not to say, of course, that

23:35

Palestinians are incapable of violence. Of

23:37

course, Palestinians, like any society, are

23:39

capable of violence, discrimination, and hate.

23:42

But the idea that

23:44

Palestinian society writ large

23:46

is incapable of living

23:48

with Jewish residents, anti-Palestinian

23:52

racism in and of itself. Since

23:55

October 7th, the

23:57

terms attached to this

24:00

war, right? So we're talking

24:02

Islamophobia, we're talking anti-Palestinian racism

24:04

or bigotry, we're talking anti-Semitism.

24:06

They get similar complaints. One

24:10

side of the debate will say,

24:12

you're weaponizing that term to shut

24:14

down legitimate critiques of states

24:17

or of leaders. How

24:19

do you distinguish between what is a political

24:22

critique of Hamas, for example,

24:24

and what is bigotry against

24:26

Palestinians? Obviously, when you

24:29

attack Hamas as a political entity, that is

24:31

an attack on a political entity. People

24:35

have the right to be

24:37

as critical of Palestinian political

24:40

parties, Palestinian governance as much as

24:42

they want. When it comes

24:44

to how these labels shut down debate, people

24:48

have been very free to condemn

24:50

Hamas, very free

24:53

even before October 7th, to

24:55

condemn all forms of Palestinian

24:57

resistance, including boycotts, including peaceful,

24:59

nonviolent resistance. We've seen

25:02

states, for example, legislate against the

25:04

boycott, divest, sanction movement. I

25:06

don't think there is kind of

25:08

a mirror image there where we've

25:10

seen the same kind

25:13

of shutting down of debate

25:15

happen. Vox's

25:25

Abdullah Fayad. Halima

25:35

Shah and Victoria Chamberlain produced today's

25:37

episode. Victoria Chamberlain also fact-checked. She's

25:39

an all-star. Miranda Kennedy edited Patrick

25:42

Boyd and Andrea Kristin's daughter engineered.

25:44

The rest of our team includes

25:46

Abishai Artsi, Peter Balinan Rosen, Miles

25:49

Bryan, Rob Byers, Laura Bullard, Denise

25:51

Guerra, Amanda Llewellyn, Hadi Moagdi and

25:53

Sean Ramasferam, who's back from vacation.

25:56

Our supervising editors are Amman El-Sadi

25:58

and Matthew Collett. Miranda Kennedy is

26:00

our executive producer. We use music

26:03

from Breakmaster Cylinder. Today Explained is

26:05

distributed by WNYC. The show

26:07

is a part of Vox. Have

26:33

a question or need how-to advice? Just

26:36

ask Meta AI. Whether you

26:38

want to design a marathon training program

26:40

or you're curious what planets are visible

26:42

in tonight's sky, Meta AI

26:44

has the answers. It can

26:46

also summarize your class notes, visualize your

26:49

ideas, and so much more. It's

26:51

the most advanced AI at

26:53

your fingertips. Expand your

26:55

world with Meta AI. Now

26:58

on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and

27:00

Messenger.