The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said remarks by President Biden about the ongoing student protests against the far-right Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza failed mention or condemn the “violent attacks that pro-Israel rioters and law enforcement officers have launched against students.”
In a statement, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:
President Biden’s claim that “dissent must never lead to disorder” defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics of civil disobedience that suffragists, civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice.
To make matters worse, President Biden’s vague, both-sides speech failed to specifically mention and condemn the violent attacks that pro-Israel rioters and law enforcement officers have launched against students protesting the Gaza genocide at UCLA and other schools across the country.
The White House has repeatedly rushed to condemn any allegation of antisemitism, even if unverified or manufactured, but repeatedly failed to call out specific incidents of violent anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia caught on camera–even after Muslim and Palestinian American leaders ask them to do so.
If President Biden is concerned about unrest on college campuses, he should start specifically condemning attacks on peaceful protesters and stop funding the genocide that has triggered student protests. Until then, he’s part of the problem.
Yesterday, CAIR condemned members of the U.S. House of Representatives who voted hours ago to approve a one-sided, and dishonest proposal about campus antisemitism that ignored anti-Palestinian racism and conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com, CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com