US announces strategy to combat hate against Muslims, Arabs

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has announced a long-awaited strategy to address the increase in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate, which has grown significantly since the Middle East crisis began, highlighting the need for urgent and ongoing action to tamp down discrimination and bias.

The 64-page document comes weeks before the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, who imposed a travel ban on people from some majority Muslim countries during his first term that Biden rescinded on his first day in office.

The strategy comes more than a year after death of six-year-old boy Wadea Al-Fayoume, stabbed by a man who targeted him and his mother because they were Palestinian-American.

In a foreword to the strategy, Biden called the attacks on the Chicago boy and his mother "heinous acts" and noted a spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes, discrimination and bullying that he called wrong and unacceptable.

"Muslims and Arabs deserve to live with dignity and enjoy every right to the fullest extent along with all of their fellow Americans," Biden wrote. "Policies that result in discrimination against entire communities are wrong and fail to keep us safe."

The Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, called the strategy "too little, too late" and faulted the White House for not ending a federal watchlist and "no-fly" list that includes many Arab and Muslim Americans.

The Trump transition team had no immediate comment on the strategy or whether it would support it.