A photo published by "CNN" of the American teacher who threatened a Muslim student to behead her
A teacher at a US middle school has threatened to behead a 13-year-old Muslim student after she expressed annoyance at the Israeli flag he brought to class.
CNN reported on Thursday that police recently arrested the Jew Benjamin Reese, 51, a seventh-grade teacher at a middle school in the southeastern state of Georgia, for threatening a Muslim student to behead her, after the latter expressed her discomfort with the Israeli flag in the classroom.
The incident report issued by the authorities indicated that the threat occurred on December 7, and that the teacher also directed insults at three students.
Local media reported that the teacher was released on bail of $7,500.
Rising targeting of Muslims
With the continuation of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Palestinian resistance on the seventh of last October, cases of targeting Muslims in the United States have escalated.
In mid-October, a man in Illinois stabbed and killed a Muslim boy 26, while seriously injuring his mother while shouting anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian slogans.
Police accused the 71-year-old man of committing a hate crime against 6-year-old Wadih al-Fayoumi and his 32-year-old mother, saying the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith, as part of Israel's war on Palestinians.
On 25 November, three students of Palestinian origin were attacked by gunfire in the US state of Vermont.
The families of the victims issued a joint statement urging authorities to investigate the shooting as a hate crime, which was also called for by the U.S.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has confirmed that it has observed a significant increase in Islamophobia-driven incidents in the United States since the start of the battle of the Al-Aqsa flood and the war on Gaza.
The council said it had received 774 complaints about Islamophobic-driven incidents and prejudice against Palestinians and Arabs inside the United States between Oct. 7 and Oct. 24 alone.
This is the highest rate since 2015, CAIR said, adding that this figure is almost 3 times the average number of complaints compared to the same period in 2022.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said an 18-year-old Palestinian was assaulted in Brooklyn, along with death threats at a mosque, and the stabbing death of Muslim child Wadih al-Fayoumi in Illinois.
The Anti-Defamation League said its preliminary data showed a 388 percent rise in incidents of "anti-Semitism" in the United States between Oct. 7 and 23.
Source : Al Jazeera + Anatolia