BY RON KAMPEAS
(JTA) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Muslim and Jewish Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have joined to call on the Biden administration to create an Islamaphobia monitor position.
The proposal in a letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken was shaped by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is Muslim, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., who is Jewish.
A source close to the drafters said that the government’s antisemitism monitor, a position created in 2004, was a model for the proposal. The name proposed in the letter, Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combatting Islamophobia, is a precise echo of the existing office, Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism.
“In recent years, we have seen a dramatic increase in violent Islamophobia and the persecution of Muslims manifesting itself around the world,” said the letter, which cites ongoing persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China and Rohingya Muslims in Burma, as well as a mass casualty attack on a New Zealand mosque in 2019 and a recent deadly attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario.