CHICAGO - U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today visited with leaders of Illinois’s grieving Muslim and Jewish communities to reinforce her support in light of the ongoing war in the Middle East. Duckworth reiterated the importance of denouncing hateful Anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric and violence that has already led to multiple hate crimes in Illinois and around the country. Duckworth today visited the Mosque where 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was laid to rest this week to express her support for the grieving community and discuss the spike in Anti-Muslim hate. She later met with several leaders from American Jewish Committee Chicago, Jewish United Fund, Metropolitan Chicago Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League to reinforce her support for the Jewish community in Illinois, who are reeling after witnessing the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
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“Whether in Plainfield, Lombard, Israel or Gaza, no one deserves to be terrorized for who they are or what they believe. These last two weeks since Hamas’s inhumane terrorist attacks in Israel would have been heartbreaking enough, but for the violence and hate to reach—multiple times—into Illinois and lead to even more bloodshed has made them even more painful and scary for our neighbors.
“After a precious young boy lost his life in an unimaginably cruel way just because he was Muslim, it’s on each of us to do everything in our power to end this spike in hate crimes in our state. We all can and must denounce hate against both our Muslim and Jewish neighbors wherever we see it and remember the humanity in each other. In this moment, we must be united in our shared goal of ending—rather than perpetuating—needless suffering of innocent human beings, both in the Middle East and here at home.”
Earlier this week Duckworth made an impassioned plea on the floor of the United States Senate for the global community to lift up the humanity of innocent civilians—not to dehumanize those who may look or pray differently than us.
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