This Is for You, Mr Ashish Parashar!
By Mohajer Ansari
CA
The October 7 conflict between Hamas and Israel some 7,000 miles away, has led to increased antisemitism and Islamophobia on American soil. For Muslim-Americans the atmosphere is reminiscent of the horror of the post-9/11 era with an added flavor. These days, if you are a Muslim, take a stand for the Palestinian cause and call a person of Jewish faith a Jew, you fit the profile of an antisemite.
That’s the height of paranoia!
Or, even if you are not a Muslim but don a keffiyeh as a sign of solidarity with Palestinian cause, you and your 18-month-old child are subject to a litany of profuse racist abuse and physical assault, as happened to Mr Ashish Parashar, a London-born Indian-American in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, New York on November 7.
This is the height of intense myopic ignorance of the woman who tried to attack him and his son with her phone and hot coffee! A spur-of-the-moment thinking by Parashar, who moved the child quickly from his arms to his back during the attack, protected him from some serious injuries during the verbal and physical encounter.
The anti-Palestine, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and the latest anti-keffiyeh vitriol spewing in the public forums as well as political corridors has become indistinguishable.
And why ever not? Declaring himself to be a Zionist, President Biden has granted a free hand to the Israelis to use Gaza as a killing field, including hospitals and ambulances - no questions asked. So far, IDF has killed more than 14,000 people in Gaza, 68% of whom are women and children. Anything even remotely resembling an infrastructure - be it a school, home, shelter, hospital, mosque or church, sewage plant, water supply or electric grid - has been razed to ground with 500-pound MOABs. The number of casualties and the injured in the past eight weeks in Gaza has exceeded that in any conflict in recent memory!
And who can forget the anti-Tlaib campaign in the Congress? The Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was censored for displaying a Palestinian flag in her office, and for calling the Israeli actions exactly what they are - genocidal retaliation with total American complicity. But hanging an Israeli flag in his office or displaying the photos of abducted Israelis and ‘No Ceasefire’ sign on his door by Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is deemed perfectly alright. Despite swearing allegiance to the American flag, it was also okay for Congressman Brian Mast (R-FL) to don the uniform of IDF that he once served, and then post on X, “Tlaib’s Got Her Flag, I’ve Got My Uniform.”
Why is this hubristic posturing by Mr Mast not a veiled threat of physical harm to her in the corridors of Congress, just as IDF has been actuating to the Gazans? No one is asking this question.
Ms Tlaib’s use of the phrase, ‘river to the sea’, is deemed antisemitic, but Fetterman’s and Mast’s hyperbolic alignments to the Zionist regime do not count as anti-Palestinian tropes. When without a shred of evidence, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) maligns Ms Tlaib to be a Hamas associate, she faces no consequences.
They should know that one version of this divisive phrase was once used by Benjamin Netanyahu himself at a Likud party forum in 1977: Between the Sea and Jordan, there will be only Israeli sovereignty! So, when it is used by Israelis it is patriotic, but when used by others it is suddenly antisemitic? How pathetic!
An ex-Obama adviser, Stuart Seldowitz, who had previously served as deputy director of the US State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs was filmed and later arrested for harassing a Muslim food vendor in New York City with Islamophobic rants. His encounter and systematic abuse of the food vendor (whom he called ‘ignorant’) over several weeks, was laced with intimidation, threat and extreme disrespect for Islam, Qur’an, and Prophet Mohammed. His mostly one-sided vitriolic monologues were totally uncalled for. They were painful to hear and watch for anyone with any moral dignity. Yet, despite the authenticated account of his racially motivated derogatory and malicious outburst, nobody is calling him an ‘Islamophobe’! Had the roles flipped and equivalent abuses were uttered by this vendor, maligning Mr Seldowitz and his Jewish heritage, he would have been immediately called antisemitic by all of NYC and the world and perhaps killed too!
Sadly, since 9/11, bigots like Seldowitz, have taken it as their constitutional right to target Muslims, their religion, book, and prophet Mohammed, as and when they please without repercussion or accountability. In contrast, as displayed elegantly by this young vendor, no one would find any Muslim ever hurling abuses against Moses, Jesus, Torah or Bible, because this is against the very tenets of Islam. Evidence? Even in the thick of an on-going genocide, and, despite what the world thinks, the oppressed Gazans have held on to their religious teachings and thus have stood on a higher moral pedestal!
Despite an unfortunate and emotional encounter in Fort Greene Park and the fear still lingering on the back of his mind, Mr Parashar is resolute that he will never take off his keffiyeh - the scarf that has now become a symbol of his solidarity with the Palestinians!
So, Mr Ashish Parashar, Thank You, for your innate decency, selfless humanity, deep caring for the unimaginable suffering of fellow human beings some 7,000 miles away, and, for donning the keffiyeh, in defiance to the racist profiling!
