Picture: Supplied – Six-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume was stabbed 26 times and his mother more than a dozen times in an alleged hate crime committed by their 71-year-old white landlord in Plainfield Township, Illinois on October 14, 2023.
By Brett Wilkins
"Let's be clear. This was directly connected to the dehumanising of Palestinians that has been allowed over the last week by our media, by our elected officials." – Illinois state legislator
US civil rights defenders on Monday condemned the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois, an alleged hate crime that occurred amid Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza and the incendiary dehumanisation of Palestinians in countries including Israel and the United States.
The Will County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) said on Facebook that Wadea Al Fayoume was stabbed 26 times Saturday by his family’s landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, in Plainfield Township, Illinois, about 35 miles southwest of Chicago. According to WCSO, Czuba used a “12-inch serrated military-style knife that has a seven-inch blade”.
Hanaan Shahin, the slain boy’s 32-year-old mother, was also stabbed more than a dozen times, WCSO said, adding that she is “recovering from her injuries at a local area hospital and is expected to survive this brutal attack.”
“Show the world what they did to her baby.”
— Dr. Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman) October 16, 2023
We buried a 6-year old Palestinian child today. It wasn’t enough that hundreds of Palestinian children are being killed in Gaza every day. Wadea Al-Fayoumi is not just a victim of a hateful despicable man. He is a victim of the… pic.twitter.com/Qdp8A0B3q8
WCSO said that “Czuba was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, hate crime... and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.”
“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the department added, referring to the surprise October 7 attack on Israel by Gaza-based militants that left over 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers dead and Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza that has killed nearly 3,000 Palestinians.
The FBI is also investigating the killing as a hate crime.
I grieve the death of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume, whose stabbing is being investigated as a hate crime.
— Congressman Chuy García (@RepChuyGarcia) October 15, 2023
We must reject the racist conflations of Hamas and Palestinians that only serve to embolden Islamophobia and endanger Muslim communities. https://t.co/iPYDv4XV7O
Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who attended Al Fayoume’s funeral Monday, said in a statement that “to take a 6-year-old child’s life in the name of bigotry is nothing short of evil”.
“Every single Illinoisan — including our Muslim, Jewish, and Palestinian neighbours — deserves to live free from the threat of such evil,” he added.
A 6-year old boy stabbed 26 times, just for being Muslim, according to detectives.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 15, 2023
This is unspeakable.
I pray that love can prevail in these times of so much hate. https://t.co/fkaHZzM0fN pic.twitter.com/CKKIS8nVd6
US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden also condemned the attack:
This horrific act of hate has no place in America and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are. As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred. I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal. There is no place in America for hate against anyone.
At a Sunday news conference, Illinois State Assemblyman Abdelnasser Rashid (D-21) — who is Palestinian American — said: “Let’s be clear. This was directly connected to the dehumanising of Palestinians that has been allowed over the last week by our media, by our elected officials who have lacked the moral compass and lacked the courage to call for something as simple as de-escalation and peace.”
In that same time, over a million Palestinians in Gaza were ordered out of their homes by Israel overnight, with literally nowhere to go.
— State Representative Abdelnasser Rashid (@reprashidil) October 15, 2023
The rampant dehumanizing of Palestinians has now led to this horrific murder. We can and must do better than this.
“Let’s not sugar-coat it,” Rashid wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “this hate crime is a result of the dehumanising, one-sided media coverage of Palestinians and irresponsible statements from elected officials.”
“Israeli spokespeople have been using genocidal language about Palestinians on news channels every day for the past week,” he added. “The Israeli military has killed over 2,600 Palestinians in the last week, including more than 700 children, and the numbers increase by the hour.”
Our National Deputy Director @EdAhmedMitchell says voices on the political left and right contributed to the atmosphere of anti-Muslim & anti-Palestinian bigotry and hysteria that inspired the hate crime murder of 6-year-old Palestinian Muslim #WadeaAlFayoume. #Palestine #Israel https://t.co/RgaxPtMvmP
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 16, 2023
By Monday the death toll in Gaza approached 3,000, more than 1,000 of whom are children. That’s the most Palestinians ever killed by Israeli forces during a war on Gaza. At least 47 entire Palestinian families have been wiped out.
Responding to Al Fayoume’s murder, NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement that “once again, the proliferation of misinformation and hateful conspiracy theories has resulted in a life lost far too soon”.
“Today, the NAACP grieves the loss of 6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume. No one should face the threat of violence in their own home, and we must do everything in our power to stop hate wherever it rears its ugly head,” Johnson added. “There is no place for hate in a democracy.”
A group of Chicago area Rabbis attended the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the six year old Palestinian-American boy who was brutally murdered by his landlord due to his ethnicity and religion.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 17, 2023
Rabbi Ari Hart explains why the Rabbis attended the funeral:
“The Jerusalem Talmud… pic.twitter.com/USaueM8SPX
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that “we have testimony from the mother as to the harrowing moments that unfolded in terms of what was done and said — and it is our worst nightmare”.
“We have full confidence in the authorities to investigate this heinous incident as a hate crime and to do so swiftly,” Rehab added.
“The Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Palestinian racism being spread by politicians, media outlets, and social media platforms must stop,” CAIR national said in a statement.
On Monday, the FBI released its annual hate crime statistics. According to the bureau, antisemitic offences rose 25 percent from 2021 to 2022, accounting for more than half of all reported religion-based hate crimes. Hate crimes targeting Latino people soared nearly one-third. Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes increased 16 percent, while Muslim and Black Americans continued to be disproportionately affected.
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams
This article was first published on Common Dreams