Last Friday, Oct. 25, 2013, in the early morning hours, vandals came under cover of darkness to desecrate the Islamic Society of Delaware (ISD) in Newark, the largest and most prominent mosque in the state. The alleged perpetrators destroyed a wooden fence and severely damaged an electronic sign. Damage is in the thousands of dollars. Most shockingly, the alleged culprits also fashioned the debris into a cross (Christianity’s sacred symbol for the “Prince of Peace”), thus insulting both Islam and Christianity. CAIR-Philadelphia immediately
issued a Press Release condemning the attack and “urged local, state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate this attack as a possible hate crime.” The Press Release went on to declare that the “unfortunately growing promotion of Islamophobia in our society leads to such troubling incidents.”