Back on January 21, 2017, the day after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America, I marched with CAIR National Director Nihad Awad and perhaps a million other people through the streets of Washington, DC, to protest Trump’s election and his policies of division, fear, and open bigotry...
Jacob Bender, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, believes Trump’s formal acknowledgement of Jerusalem as the capital may stall the ongoing peace process and bring more volatility to the region.
“The final status of Jerusalem should be negotiated. You don’t make unilateral moves on such an important, crucial issue,” said Bender, a Jewish American who lived in Jerusalem for seven years.
Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, director of outreach and education for the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said Trump’s decision jeopardizes the peace process. “This makes a peace solution all the more problematic,” he said.
CAIR-Philadelphia Staff Attorney Timothy Welbeck said: "We strongly oppose this ban as it is inherently bigoted, xenophobic, and ultimately rooted in utter contempt for Islam. President Trump has made his discriminatory motivations clear since the campaign trail. Since becoming president, Mr. Trump has repeatedly attempted to ban Muslims from entering the United States, and yesterday the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to allow for this abhorrent discrimination. We find this deeply disappointing, but will continue our fight against hatred and discrimination."
White supremacists and neo-Nazis have lauded President Trump as a champion of their causes, and have regularly celebrated his vile stances. Indeed, President Trump has made his worldview clear both as a private citizen, and as the occupant of the nation’s highest office. He did so again earlier this week with a series of inflammatory tweets meant to disparage Islam.
The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations today condemned Mr. Trump after the president retweeted Islamophobic videos from an anti-Muslim British political leader who has been charged in the United Kingdom with "religious aggravated harassment."
“The closest we’ve seen in contemporary history to anything like this was George Wallace, who ran for president in 1968 and famously used this kind of rhetoric,” Zelizer said. “But he was a third party candidate. And he didn’t win.” Trump’s public rhetoric on race, religion and immigration, he said, is almost better suited to presidents of the 19th and early 20th centuries — and amplified through social media. “These [tweets] fall squarely within that historical record of shame,” said Jacob Bender, the director of the Philly chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
On October 21, CAIR-Philadelphia brought together mental health professionals, psychologists and expert therapists with Muslim community members in a symposium titled, Peace at Home: The Power of Change is in Our Hands. / Jacob Bender, Timothy Welbeck, and Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu teamed up with local Muslim activists in Harrisburg on October 24 at the State Capitol Building. / On November 3, CAIR-Philadelphia organized a Civic Engagement 101 training in the Harrisburg-Mechanicsburg area.
Local Islamic organizations are reacting strongly to the Trump administration’s response to the recent terror incident in New York City.
They believe the calls for reform are neck deep in bias.
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“It’s hard not to notice,” said Jacob Bender, executive director of CAIR Philadelphia. “There seems to be a continual double standard.”
