a right to defend itself. at the same time, people can disagree with the israeli government and not be held accountable, no matter their opinion on israel's actions through the violence and acts of anti-semitism by those who disagree with israel or oppose israel or engage in that anti-semitism, and, similarly, it is crucial that we if her and she ate between hamas and the palestinian people and not paint the entire palestinian people, paint arab americans, muslim americans with a broad brush that holds them accountable for the actions of specific extremists across the globe. so, it is really important we hold that complexity and bring the nuance to the conversation at a time when so much of this is being painted in black-and-white zero-sum terms. host: amy spitalnick, chief executive officer of the>> "was-

host: welcome back to "washington journal," we are joined by nihad awad. welcome to the program. guest: good morning. host: you cofounded cair in 1994. tell us how you are funded. guest: the mission is to enhance islam because we believe that muslims are not well represented . there is a lot about what islam is and the count is in the millions. we have to protect the civil rights of americans in the workplace, schools, government, so on and so forth. we also believe in empowering

american citizens to encourage them to be more engaged to vote and run for elections themselves because service is important for us as muslims. also, we had coalitions with like-minded organizations who be -- and believe in civil rights for all. we are funded by the community. also, the people from the larger society, who believe in our mission. host: cair has come under criticism for connections to hamas, can you clarify any past or current connection you have with hamas? guest: we have no connection. i am proud to be palestinian. the organization has operated for 30 years, 39 to be precise,

and the political organizations are not just a community but those who need our help so they damage your credibility, but our credibility has been growing massively, but the support is from the public, and they don't judge rumors and he said, she said. host: froyour organization abouthrise of anti-muslim incidents across the.s., 774 complaints, included incidents on october 7, the largest amount ported since december 2015 after former president trump declared his intentions foa muslim b.

can you tell us about the rise in these incidents? the most shocking was the killing of the six-year-old boy in illinois and the wounding of his mother. tell us a little bit morabt that. guest: yes, i have been doing this work for decades now. the bombing, the 9/11 backlash, all of these horrible incidents, i went through them, but just days after that, we saw that all of us as americans came together, and we will not allow any hatred or violence against minorities. we did not allow that to continue. unfortunately since october 7, i

have seen that our community is facing hate crimes today. a six-year-old boy and his mother, he was shot 26 times, and his mother was shot 12 times , and that is really do to the dehumanization of the palestinians in particular, and americans in this country because of the misrepresentation, and this misinformation about what happened and what happens in and around gaza and also in israel. all of these things fueled hatred and anger among informed people -- uninformed people to take violent action against innocent people, so this is one incident.

one woman was stabbed to death while at a picnic, and this puts the community on edge. people have been driving their cause into crowds, and that is alarming, and supplicating to people's right to speak. most of the cases are of people being threatened to be terminated at the workplace. medical professionals and doctors have been terminated just for expressing sympathy to palestinians. we have not seen a response from the government to say, no, look, we will not allow backlash

against any minority, whether jewish community, muslim community, or any community. people are free to express themselves. they are entitled to their views, but violence, hate crimes will not be tolerated. we are hearing a lot from officials that a statement to the muslim community or action being taken. host: i invite our viewers to join the conversation. democrats, (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. independents, (202)-748-8002. we have a line set aside for muslim americans on (202)-748-8003. you can use that same line for texting. i asked our previous guest about the definition of anti-semitism. i would like to ask you about your definition of islamophobia. guest: islamophobia can have

different definitions, but the most common is the hatred and prejudice against muslims that leads to acts of discrimination or violence because of one's identity or one's religious views or adherence to a particular religion. in this case, islam. host: what has been your reaction to president biden's handling of this israel-hamas war? what is your message to him? guest: disasters, in one word, disastrous. the president has betrayed me as a palestinian-american muslim, as someone who voted for him, and him on a zoom call assuring us that all americans are equal. in his policy, and the

palestinians deserve freedom and all of this talk, but what we see now, he has been adding fuel to the fire. he is not making the region stable, and he has been supporting the occupier. and he is dismissing and analyzing the human suffering of the palestinians. minimizing their suffering is a form of dehumanization and has given many people the green light to commit these crimes we have been seen. he has given the green light for the israeli government to be as brutal as the world is watching now, killing thousands of people, mostly civilians. the majority of these victims are babies, children. you do not have to watch cnn -- you have to watch cnn, you may

not see this on fox news, just google it. he will be horrified, as the world has been horrified, so the president has betrayed us as voters, and has retrieved the americans, he has been shipping billions of dollars, not to fix schools or employee the unemployed or ensure -- insured and uninsured, not to help societies or help rebuild of the structure of this country, he has been shipping our hard earned tax money to israel, a foreign country. at the same time, he is defending the ukrainians against the invasion, so the dilemma for us that i cannot comprehend, like millions of americans, how come you support the occupier in

palestine and you support the occupied? if he flips it, reasonably speaking, he will see that palestinians are the occupied people. it is then who have been living in an open air prison, as president carter said, which is called gaza, and israel has just been shooting and bombing them. and people continue to say, israel has to defend themselves. against what? host: let's talk to viewers. marion in grovetown, georgia, democrat. caller: good morning. i first want to say how heartbroken i am for both the jews, the innocent jews, and the instant penicillins -- innocent palestinians. i think it is how awful how organized religion can be deadly and make people not be able to think. my question is this, and i will read this, and if you don't

mind, will you answer what netanyahu and thomas, their relationship is? let me read that -- netanyahu and hamas, their relationship is? this is from the times of israel. for years, governments led by benjamin netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the gaza strip and west bank, bringing palestinian authority president to his knees, while that propped up the hamas terror group. and i read that netanyahu would put money into hamas' hands, keeping hamas sort of empowered to cause chaos so that they could use hamas as a reason to show what victims they are. i do not blame the jews at all. i blame governments that use this kind of horribleness to make policy. thank you very much. guest: thank you for your

question and comment. you said innocent jews, muslims, i don't really think this way. this is not a fight between jews and muslims. this is an occupation by a designer's movement and to convince jews that this is their homeland. both palestine -- the land was taking over from palestine and hit habitants -- and inhabitants. i have so many people, there are tens of thousands of jewish americans. you see them today everywhere protecting and believing that it is an apartheid state. they're growing more angry that

they have been lied to about the idea that it is linked to judaism. they don't believe israel is in a different state. these are jewish americans and israelis, so this is not a fight between two religions. religions are the farthest from this. it is a misinterpretation of a religion, mainly judaism, to impose on other land and people. so this is very important to me because this is not about religion but oppression of other people, and second -- host: i was going to ask about the second point. guest: the second point, you know, what israel is doing to palestinians, we should not get

too much power for the israeli government. it is an occupation, and they are trying to defend themselves for 75 years against oppression and apartheid. host: let's talk to amy, in marion, indiana, muslim american. caller: hi. that is the smartest man i have ever heard talk. we need to listen to him and stop fighting. god is mad at the violence. he is real mad. those are innocent people. the palestine's are innocent. they did not do anything to anybody. host: all right, let's go to a republican in campbell, maryland. michael, good morning. caller: thank you for having me. first off, i want to start off, i, far right republican -- i am a far right republican, and i support their fight because it

is much like the fight that americans faced against king george and we gained their independence. that is what they're going through, having your land stolen , and not just your land but your dignity. that is what that is. i have heard of people getting kicked off their land. it is a horrible situation to live through. but i want to say that palestine right now is facing something that americans are going -- are facing. america and europe are under this zionist control, and the only media we get is zionist controlled media. if we don't go along with them, they drop us off. host: i wanted to go back to something you said before, which is that your community is on edge. what is your message to members of the arab and muslim communities? guest: we are counseling the

community, and i am counseling myself. we believe that god will solve everything, apart from you and i, and not only americans, but like so many people, people started to find out that they have the right. the mainstream media has done a disservice for joe biden by being one-sided all the time from the beginning of the conflict. one of the reasons i started to do this work is my honest discussed with the media and how it is portraying the victims as victimizers. how they have been dehumanizing my faith, i people, myself, and others -- my people, myself, and others, and we have not had the chance to express ourselves as humans.

look at us. we speak, we talked, we have a heart, eyes, ears. our humanity has been taken away from us by the disinformation for decades. so for my community, i would say, look, your activism is working. your speaking up is working. more americans believe in your message. more americans believe that american money should stay-at-home. american muslims should not be shipped to israel to bomb innocent people under the pretext of defending yourself. this is insane. but what you are doing is massive. saturday, there will be a massive rally in washington, d.c., and if you are in the area, come and join. look up the muslim community activities in your community or the jewish progressive activists. they have all been doing

marvelous jobs. we have to make sure our voices are there because the cries we get from being discriminated against is nothing to the price that the people of gaza and palestine have been pain, so i thank you for your advocacy, and if i may say, if you encounter any dissemination, our organs -- discrimination, our organization is here for yo u. we have 35 offices nationwide. our services are for you. you are not alone, we are working for you. and you are not alone because you have so many americans believe in justice for all, including the palestinians. host: american officials have always said that israel has the right to defend itself. after that horrible attack on october 7 on israeli civilians, what do you see as the

appropriate response from israel? guest: i think all these clashes are horrible. many civilians will die on both sides, and i, as a palestinian, i am against the hurting of any human being, especially civilians. our politicians are misleading us and the public. the occupy, according to national law, -- international law, they don't have the right to occupy if there occupy people. occupy people have the right to defend themselves, have the right to defend themselves, so this allegiance to israel at the expense of our values as americans that human beings, as people who believe in international law and the rule

of law, this is really a stain on the reputation of the americans and politicians. if i may speak to the politicians and president biden, look, your allegiance is to the american people, not a foreign nation. you have to prioritize national and american security around the world. the whole world is telling you. stop the madness. stop being one-sided. you support the people of ukraine but at the palestinians. this has to end. host: let's talk to deborah in new york, democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call and thank you for taking the time to be here. there are so many points you mentioned that i was touched by and agree with. i am a psychologist by training, so i am watching this crisis unfold, and i am aware of the

trauma that is occurring directly to so many humans and then vicariously to all of us on the sidelines really just watching and feeling very helpless, so that causes so much dysregulation and emotional activation, and are trauma systems are really activated, which makes us all think in black-and-white terms. we start categorizing as a way of kind of coping with our own feelings. my question is, due to the complexity of all of these matters, which have been going on for millennia, what can we do at this point in history to come together with organizations like yours, but to really come together and get the attention of the media and have individuals like those callers on c-span, able to participate in a dialogue that is solution

oriented and that can clarify misinformation and use experts like yourself to really help us understand the complexity of it, but also, you know, maintain that humanistic outlook that nobody really wants suppression, right? i would be interested in hearing any solutions you are aware of or any groups locally that can get the attention of the media to help solve some of these issues. thank you so much. guest: excellent point, thank you so much for your kind remarks and your thoughtful comment. look, the root cause of this is occupation. you cannot be superior to other people and that should not qualify you to dehumanize other people and drive them forcibly to discriminate against them and just try to populate any land just because you have an interpretation of who you are or

a section of yourself to qualify you and enable you to give you the right to do what you do to other people. we have to resolve this mentality. unless americans believe that the american government should change course, this will not be resolved. the main supporter of israel is the united states. i host: will have to stop >> at 8:00 p.m. and discussion on president lincoln shifting policy on emancipation by virginia tech university professor and paul quigley on the presidency on his bio of

james garfield and being a republican. a union war hero and last chief executive born in a log cabin and how in july of 1881 he was shot in a washington, d.c., train station and died two months later. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span 2 and find it oyour program guide. >> monday, watch c-span series in partnership with the library of congress, books that shaped america "the eyes for watching god" during the jim crow era and life within the african-american

community, race relations, gender roles and female empowerment. the book in 1937 is considered a classic and influential on african-american and women's literature. the author of southern life. watch books that shaped america. their "their eyes were watching god" on c-span or online at c-span. org. scan the code to listen to our companion podcast and learn more about the book's feature. >> c-span is unfiltered view of government and funded by these television companies and more, including cox.

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