How Israel Helped SHAPE Islamophobia in America
Constant surveillance, anti-immigration policies, and open hatred… Has Islamophobia in the U.S. gotten worse since 9/11? And did anti-Muslim bigotry in America exist long before then?
Yes and yes, argues journalist and author Rozina Ali, as she joins Mehdi for a conversation about the history of Islamophobia and her powerful new book, Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America.
Ali’s book examines the way Islamophobia is “manufactured and encouraged” in the U.S., tracing its roots back well before 9/11, to the 1940s. Today, xenophobic persecution is not reserved for Muslims. Ali explains how the Donald Trump administration is using vague anti-terror laws to target anyone it deems a political enemy.
Ali breaks down the way “thousands and thousands” of Muslim Americans were surveilled by the FBI and undercover informants, and explores the role Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu played in shaping what we know to be Islamophobia today.
