Never forget also means remembering who else was hurt on 9/11 | - Ann Van Dyke, PennLive letters

 Published: Sep. 16, 2026

Twenty-five years ago, I worked for the PA Human Relations Commission. Part of my job was to follow up on reports of bias incidents to determine whether they violated anti-discrimination or criminal law, or were constitutionally protected acts of miserable behavior, which sometimes do not violate any law because of our extremely strong freedom of speech and expression.

Bias incidents directed at adults and children who appeared to be of the same ancestry or religion as the attackers surged.

While some people expressed widespread unity immediately after the 9/11 attacks, others carried out what they considered acts of retaliation. For example, a home in Enola belonging to a Muslim family originally from India was defaced with hate graffiti, and their mailbox was blown up anonymously.

While that was happening, members of the family were at a fundraiser for the 9/11 victims. “Acts of revenge” against people who had nothing to do with the attacks continued intensely in the months after and never stopped: destruction of property, assaults, anonymous hate mail, graffiti, slurs yelled during drive-bys, and public discourse increasingly full of vicious, false stereotypes.

All of that was and continues to be directed at adults, children and families who are Muslim, Middle Eastern, of Arabic descent, or who appear to be.

Twenty-fifth-anniversary calls to “never forget” need to include the innocent people who were harmed then and now because of what their ancestry or religion is or appears to be. The U.S. still strives to be better than that.

Ann Van Dyke, Mechanicsburg, Pa.

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2026/09/never-forget-also-means-remembering-who-else-was-hurt-on-911-pennlive-letters.html?gift=e4c9a45f-441e-497f-84c7-31f77e3d66eb

    [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

"Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed are probably today’s most visible Muslim American politicians. What makes them noteworthy is not just their obvious communication skills, but their deliberate attention to policies that enhance the public good for all."

‘What makes Mamdani and El-Sayed noteworthy is not just their obvious communication skills but their deliberate attention to policies that enhance the public good for all.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

9/11 entrenched Islamophobia in US politics. But it doesn’t work the way you think

Anti-Muslim sentiment is used as a political weapon. Meanwhile, Muslim American leaders are making a difference for all 

 Moustafa Bayoumi in The Guardian 

Fri 11 Sep 2026 

It’s been 25 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, and during this time Muslim Americans have learned how to live in that dangerous space between other Americans’ fears and their ignorance.

The fear was clear from the beginning. Immediately following 9/11, Muslim Americans faced what Human Rights Watch called “a severe wave of backlash violence”. A tide of hate rose up against ordinary Muslims and those who appeared to be Muslim, including at least three murders in the immediate backlash after the attacks. The federal government, for its part, began targeting Muslim immigrants in a massive surge of repression that legal experts soon compared to the Palmer Raids of the 1920s.

The ignorance was just as evident. Even Oprah Winfrey did her part to allay it, dedicating an episode of her show in October 2001 to “Islam 101”. The Qur’an leapt on to the New York Times bestseller list that fall. Yet despite these early efforts at education, most Americans still learned little about Islam and Muslims. One 2006 study found that only a third of those polled realized that Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews do. Close to 10% of respondents thought Muslims worship a “moon god”.

Much of this fear and ignorance has continued unevenly over the last quarter century, with negative attitudes towards Muslim Americans softening at times and hardening, sometimes into deadly violence, at other times. What’s interesting is when expressions of these attitudes happen. It turns out that predicting when animosity to Muslims will rise and fall may not be quite what you think.

Researchers who study Islamophobia discovered several years ago that anti-Muslim outbreaks in the United States don’t follow highly publicized acts of terrorism. Rather, Islamophobic incidents tend to cluster more routinely around our election cycles.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/11/9-11-islamophobia-us-politics

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere] 

"At a moment when Islam is framed as a source of division, it is worth recalling that on his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm X encountered Muslims of all races, worshipping as equals together, an experience that transformed his understanding of race and human dignity. It revealed an Islam grounded not in fear, but universality, exposing the poverty of racial hierarchies and the distortions that sustain them." Kenneth Mohammed in The Guardian

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Muslim worshippers perform dawn prayers at the Grand Mosque before the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage Photograph: Saudi Press Agency/APAImages/Shutterstock 

The real danger of Islamophobia? It rarely announces itself as hatred yet shapes how millions think

Kenneth Mohammed

 

 The difference in framing around antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred distorts public understanding, inflames tensions and makes both Jewish and Muslim communities less safe

The horrific terrorist attack on the Islamic Centre of San Diego in California has been reported by many news outlets over the past few days. Yet as the story travelled across screens and news feeds, something more subtle unfolded: the language of reporting. Some outlets spoke of “teen suspects” and “three deceased” rather than murdered worshippers or a terrorist attack on a mosque. Words matter. They shape sympathy, urgency, and influence how violence is understood. Too often, the vocabulary of terror and extremism appears unevenly distributed; sharpened for some perpetrators but softened for others.

There is a growing sense that the world is slipping backwards – not through dramatic rupture, but through the steady normalisation of hate, the coarsening of public discourse and politicians increasingly fuelling division and racism.

Across the world... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/may/25/danger-islamophobia-antisemitism-hatred-anti-muslim-abuse

    [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]  

"...More troubling still is how sections of the media shape perception through selective framing and omission. A recent arson attack was widely reported as targeting a “former synagogue”, implying antisemitism while omitting that it was the subject of a fundraising effort by local young Muslims, who had already put down a hefty deposit to tranform the building into a mosque and community centre.

The problem is not whether antisemitism or anti-Muslim hatred exist – both plainly do. It is that selective framing distorts public understanding, inflames tensions and ultimately makes both Jewish and Muslim communities less safe. Today, where perception increasingly shapes reality, omission can be as powerful as misinformation itself..."

"And yet we watched as those subtle, innocent, beautiful nuances of our tongue were twisted into indicators of suspicion. In an American discourse so heavily imbued with anti-Palestinian racism and so rife with Islamophobia, Palestinians or those who dare see them as human are not allowed to have legitimate intentions or legitimate grievances. They are to be constantly seen as suspicious. Even if they speak of human rights, equality, dignity, they can never really be trusted to mean those things because of who they are — sneaky shapeshifters with deeply held, murderous, ulterior motives. It is quite remarkable how much this echoes antisemitism throughout history, and that should surprise no one. All forms of racism are connected" Yousef Munayyer

 ... An Era of Being Exogenously Defined 

On a nightly basis after September 11, 2001, so-called terrorism experts who knew next to nothing about the language, religion, or cultures of the region would appear on news broadcasts — indoctrinating our friends, neighbors, classmates, and coworkers to treat our language as suspicious.

We watched as those subtle and innocent nuances of our tongue were twisted into indicators of suspicion.

I remember hearing an Arab-American elder once explain to a curious neighbor, “In Arabic, God is in every conversation.” At the time, I thought it was a bit overdramatic. It is undoubtedly true that it is hard to imagine an Arabic conversation where Allah is not uttered. Whether in our bismillahs, alhamdulillahs, mashallahs or inshallahs or our yallahs or wallahs, God makes routine appearances. But these are not necessarily religious conversations at all. Even the non-religious use these terms; it is just the nature of how we communicate in our language due to its historic ties to faith. It is also one of the many things that makes the Arabic language beautiful.

And yet we watched as those subtle, innocent, beautiful nuances of our tongue were twisted into indicators of suspicion. In an American discourse so heavily imbued with anti-Palestinian racism and so rife with Islamophobia, Palestinians or those who dare see them as human are not allowed to have legitimate intentions or legitimate grievances. They are to be constantly seen as suspicious. Even if they speak of human rights, equality, dignity, they can never really be trusted to mean those things because of who they are — sneaky shapeshifters with deeply held, murderous, ulterior motives. It is quite remarkable how much this echoes antisemitism throughout history, and that should surprise no one. All forms of racism are connected.

A Shoe on the Other Foot

Imagine for a minute subjecting words or phrases in a different language, or about a different people, to the same unfair treatment. Consider the Hebrew phrase Am Yisrael Chai. The literal meaning of the phrase is “the people of Israel live,” and there are plenty of instances where the use of this phrase is mundane. However, the phrase is routinely chanted by murderous Israeli settlers as they engage in mob violence against Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Recently, it has been shouted by Israeli soldiers as they commit heinous war crimes in Gaza and shared widely and proudly by those same soldiers on social media. Thus, one could argue that Am Yisrael Chai is a genocidal slogan and must be banned, and that all those who use it or have used it must be criminalized and viewed with deep suspicion.

Surely, this is absurd. And yet this is the absurdity Palestinians and those who support their freedom are constantly subjected to. Still, too many cannot see the glaring double standard... READ MORE

https://theintercept.com/2025/07/10/mamdani-globalize-intifada-democrats/

Zohran Mamdani Shows Democrats How Not to Take the Bait

By refusing to capitulate on "globalize the intifada," Mamdani rejected a long tradition of demonizing Arabic language.

by 

Yousef Munayyer

July 10 2025

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies] 

Antisemitic and Islamophobic violence is rising in the United States. Both must stop: We have a duty to call out antisemitism when we see it. We also have an equal duty to remember that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are also being targeted

‘We must stop this war immediately, before this violence grows and spreads further, consuming even more innocent lives in its monstrous path.’ Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP

Antisemitic and Islamophobic violence is rising in the United States. Both must stop

Moustafa Bayoumi

We have a duty to call out antisemitism when we see it. We also have an equal duty to remember that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are also being targeted

Wed 4 Jun 2025 06.00 EDT

Last modified on Wed 4 Jun 2025 06.01 EDT

This must stop. Two incidents of political violence, both targeting groups of Jewish people, are two incidents too many. Less than two weeks ago, a gunman shot and killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington DC, yelling “Free Palestine” as he was being detained. This week, a man used a “makeshift flamethrower” along with other incendiary devices to attack a Boulder, Colorado, rally organized by Run for Their Lives, a group which organizes events “calling for the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas”. Eight people were injured in this latest assault, at least two of them seriously.

These horrific acts will no doubt increase the anxiety many Jewish people have about increasing – and increasingly violent – antisemitism in the United States. Understandably so. Antisemitism must not be given any oxygen to breathe. One can oppose Israel’s 600-plus day war, relentlessly pounding the innocents in Gaza, while vigorously opposing all forms of antisemitism. In fact, one must oppose both. Such is our duty to each other in a civilized world.

And as we have a duty to call out antisemitism when we see it, we also have an equal duty to remember that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims have also been subjected to extreme forms of violence and bigotry in the United States since the beginning of this terrible war. And while we are certain to hear much about today’s rising antisemitism in the coming days, as we should, we must also make sure to acknowledge the rising threats against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.

Consider what happened to Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian American boy. Wadea was murdered in October 2023 by his landlord, who stabbed the young boy 26 times in his home in Plainfield Township, Illinois. The landlord also attacked the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, stabbing her over a dozen times while telling her “you, as a Muslim, must die.” Joseph Czuba, 73, the landlord, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and hate crime charges last month and sentenced to 53 years in prison.

Or there are the three Palestinian friends, all college students, who were out for a stroll in Vermont during the Thanksgiving long weekend in 2023. They were gunned down in what many are assuming is a hate crime. The three were speaking a mixture of Arabic and English and were sporting keffiyehs, and one of the three, Hisham Awartani, is now paralyzed from the neck down due to the shooting. The alleged assailant, Jason Easton, is currently on trial for the shooting.

And there’s the time, in May 2024, when a woman attempted to drown a three-year old Palestinian girl in a swimming pool in an apartment complex in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of ... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/04/antisemitic-and-islamophobic-violence-is-rising-in-the-united-states-both-must-stop 

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

 ALSO READ in The Guardian

You can oppose Israel’s policies without killing Jewish people

Jo-Ann Mort

 

The majority of US Jews overwhelmingly oppose Netanyahu’s policies. But subtleties get lost and truly unleashed people react

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/03/jewish-people-antisemitisim-us-left

 

"Meanwhile, it’s important to also call out the sickening and cynical usage of antisemitism on the right by Donald Trump and his allies. The US president is handily and cynically already using the Boulder attack to attack all immigrants and to promote his heartless expulsion agenda with barely a mention of the victims of the crime. He has used antisemitism throughout his term in the most cynical of ways, never showing any genuine interest in eradicating it or embracing the victims. He pretty much ignored the heinous attack on Shapiro, most likely because Shapiro is a vocal and effective opponent of Trump. And, of course, Trump’s Darth Vader imitator Stephen Miller is hard at work using these crimes to promote his anti-American agenda to attack immigrants in the US as well as attack universities and legitimate protest. Trump’s destructive weaponizing of antisemitism to promote his own authoritarian agenda will not keep one Jew safe: in fact, it does the opposite.

Jews don’t want to be played by the left or the right. We don’t want to be pawns tossed back and forth. We want to be safe. We want to be heard. We want to be seen in our diversity, as would any people. We don’t want our lives to be at risk. Listen to and watch what each person says. See each person as an individual. Please build a serious political program that doesn’t cancel or promote violence of any kind but rather lifts up the hopes and desires of everyone. The alternative is deadly."

Decades of spying and repression: the anti-Palestinian origins of American Islamophobia - It’s often assumed that Islamophobia is the driving force behind US anti-Palestinian bigotry. In fact, it’s the other way around

 "In 1985, a series of linked bombings targeted the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which advocated prominently for Palestine. The organization’s Boston office was bombed, injuring two people, and later that year, Alex Odeh, the west coast director, was killed when a pipe bomb exploded as he opened the door to his office. Two suspects in Odeh’s assassination, associated with the Kahanist Jewish Defense League, fled to Israel, where they have since lived openly in West Bank settlements. One of them, Andy Green (who now goes by Baruch Ben-Yosef), has also been identified as a lead civilian organizer of recent protests blocking humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza."

‘Anti-Palestinianism manifested into a generalized anti-Arab racism, which only later – especially after 9/11– morphed into the more widespread Islamophobia.’ Illustration: Mona Chalabi/The Guardian

Moustafa Bayoumi with illustrations by Mona Chalabi

Thu 23 May 2024 08.00 EDT

Last modified on Thu 23 May 2024 15.04 EDT

One evening last Thanksgiving weekend, three 20-year-old Palestinian college students were strolling around Burlington, Vermont, when they were suddenly gunned down by a stranger. One of the victims, Hisham Awartani, is now paralyzed from the waist down. Since they were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic and English, speculation ran high that the young men had been victims of an Islamophobic attack.

The BBC noted that the attack “comes as the US deals with a surge in Islamophobia and antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Gaza war”. Vermont’s Middlebury College described the shooting as evidence of “a marked increase in Islamophobic acts on American campuses and beyond”. A White House statement mentioned how “far too many people live with the fear that they could be targeted and attacked based on their beliefs or who they are”.

But that’s not how Elizabeth Price, the mother of Awartani, seemed to understand the attack. She told WNYC radio that she had raised three children in the West Bank, where children routinely encounter Israeli state and settler violence, and she never believed Hisham would be targeted in the US. In the US, she said, she thought he “would be somewhere safe … I had not realized that to be Palestinian is to be unsafe... READ MORE      https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/may/23/islamophobia-us-palestine-history 

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

From Ellis Island to Gaza, NEVER AGAIN means never again — for anyone.

500 Jews and allies took over the Statue of Liberty, disrupting business as usual to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

@POTUS: Call for a ceasefire. Stop funding Israel's bombing of Gaza. From Ellis Island to Gaza, never again means never again — for anyone.  

NOT IN OUR NAME

My letter to CSM RE How shock over murder of Muslim-Americans could counter creeping Islamophobia: Signs of anti-Muslim fears have been percolating in American society recently, but the murder of three Muslim-Americans in North Carolina could play at least a small part in challenging those views.

Suzanne Askar (r.) rests her head on the shoulder of Safam Mahate, a student at North Carolina State University, as they stand next to Nida Allam (far l.) during a vigil for three people who were killed at a condominium near UNC-Chapel Hill, Wednesday, in Chapel Hill, N.C.

PHOTO CREDIT CSM...Al Drago/The News & Observer/AP

RE How shock over murder of Muslim-Americans could counter creeping Islamophobia: Signs of anti-Muslim fears have been percolating in American society recently, but the murder of three Muslim-Americans in North Carolina could play at least a small part in challenging those views.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0212/How-shock-over-murder-of-Muslim-Americans-could-counter-creeping-Islamophobia

Dear Editor,

As the talented Dean Obeidallah , co-creator of  "The Muslims are Coming!" a docu-comedy about a bunch of Muslim-American comedians who tour Middle America says on his facebook page: "Since the killing of the 3 Muslim students in Chapel Hill I have had such a mix of emotions of despair and outrage. Im sure others have too. I'm still trying to process the crime yet sadly I'm not surprised something like this happen given the unchecked anti-Muslim bigotry we see in the country today."

It is indeed very hard to process.  Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19 were bright, attractive, compassionate, creative, hard working people whose lives were cruelly cut short.

Thank you for covering the horrible and shocking murder of the three young Americans in Chapel Hill NC with such grace and dignity... and some very good quotes by some very reasonable and wise people who have not given up on hope for humanity.

Dr. Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine is quite right to point out that "“Compared to most countries, [America is] a really great place to be an ethnic or religious minority,” "

And Ibish correct to conclude that “you’ve got a vicious circle between ideology of hatred and current events, and you need a virtuous circle between mainstream Muslims and mainstream broader American community, where you trump a vicious circle with a virtuous one.” 

Many mainstream Muslims here in America are simply Americans. There is no way to tell what their religion might be, and as Americans they are not required to disclose what their religion is, or who they vote for, or any other personal information. They have been and will continue to be an important part of America and who we are, as countless good citizens make numerous positive contributions to our world.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
World Press Roundup: Middle East News

Mideast Quartet calls for speedy resumption of peace talks... "Pending the resumption of negotiations, the Quartet called on both parties to refrain from actions that undermine trust or prejudge final status issues."

Global Citizenship... laying the foundation for a culture of peace

To honor a tragic history, we must work for peace : "The only way to honor our tragic histories is to create a future for our children free of man-made tragedy. This means making peace fully, completely and without reservation, between Israel and Palestine." Ziad Asali

Hamas confirms that it has banned a visit by Palestinian orphans from the Gaza Strip to Israel because it was in the context of “normalization” with Israelis.

During World War II, the Allies adopted the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—as their basic war aims.... The United Nations Charter "reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights, and dignity and worth of the human person" and committed all member states to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion"

A Palestinian’s journey from stone-throwing to conflict resolution

“The United States casts its lot with the problem solvers, the healers, and the builders,”  US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman in a September speech, quoted by CSM in their recent editorial 

Jordan's King: World must stand up to radicals

What Will Israel Become?

STAY CONNECTED... Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to: Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

Palestinian Refugees (1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.

The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

... Ibrahim's Estate... The Promised Land: In Celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Peace Day

Tala Haikal: Empathy Is Essential to Humanity

Hussein Ibish: Non-violent resistance is Palestine’s most powerful weapon

ATFP Calls for De-Escalation between Israel and the Palestinians

 “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), born in Lebanon, immigrated to the United States in 1895 where he grew up to become a beloved poet and respected writer.

"There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies" Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968) American minister, humanitarian and social activist- a cherished leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, whose inspiring words continue to influence and empower diplomatic efforts to bring more justice, more security, more peace and more jobs to more people, every one and every where.

"We are brothers. It's not a question of Jews, of Christians or of Muslims. We're all in the same boat, we have to help each other to get out of this crisis." Lassana Bathily