With hate crimes rising in Illinois since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday urged residents to renounce hatred and to stand in solidarity with their Muslim and Jewish neighbors.
“Hate has no home here in Illinois. It’s a phrase I’ve used time and time again, but hate always has an insidious way of trying to move in if we let it. So we must stand together to reject,” Pritzker said, surrounded by members of the Arab American Bar Association at a Chicago news conference.
“We stand here united across religions, across ethnicities to renounce hatred. To show our Muslim and Jewish neighbors that we stand with them, and to chart a new course of solidarity, justice and humanity,” Pritzker said.
The Democratic governor warned Illinois has seen an “alarming increase” in anti-Arabism, Islamophobia and antisemitism in the wake of the war. He also noted “online hatred has skyrocketed” on every social media platform — as mosques, synagogues and other places of worship are targeted across the country.
“Palestinians, Arabs and Jews from Chicago to Dearborn [Michigan] to New York City are fielding threats left and right. I am genuinely concerned for peoples’ personal safety. Threats can transform into violence,” Pritzker said.
Asked whether the state should enact stronger hate crime penalties, Pritzker instead urged communities to stand up for their neighbors and unite against hate.
“We need stronger action in our communities to stand up against hate speech and hate crime,” Pritzker said.
Since the war started began, two Chicago-area Muslim schools have received violent threats, a suburban man was charged with a hate crime for threatening to shoot two Muslim men and another suburban man allegedly told a woman, “Go back to your country.”
And 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume was killed in an alleged hate crime because of his ethnicity and Muslim faith, authorities said.
And on Sunday, two people were taken into police custody after one man allegedly fired a shot in the air near a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators protesting an Israeli solidarity event in north suburban Skokie.
Many Muslim schools have been on soft lockdowns.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at Monday’s news conference that the war has fueled an “unacceptable uptick” in hateful rhetoric, and in some cases, criminal violence. Raoul said his office stands ready to respond.
With funds from the Department of Justice, Raoul said his office is helping train law enforcement partners to identify hate crimes and ensure those crimes are properly reported. Raoul also urged the public to call his office’s civil rights division at (877) 581-3692 to report any hate crimes.
“One thing that’s non-debatable is that the law here in the state of Illinois does not tolerate hate,” Raoul said.
William Haddad, founding president of the Arab American Bar Association, detailed the many instances of discrimination and hate that members of the Arab-American community have experienced since the war began.
“I regret to say that the onslaught of hate crimes against Arab-Americans and Muslims is far exceeding what we saw in the aftermath of 9/11, far exceeding what we saw during the presidential primaries in 2016, when there were murders committed in North Carolina and in Texas,” Haddad said Monday. “We’re at a pace now that seems like were’ going in that direction.”
