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Once seemingly fading into obscurity, anti-Muslim hate groups in the United States have surged back into the spotlight in recent months, reinvigorated by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Many of these groups, such as Jihad Watch and ACT for America, emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. and thrived on public fears of terrorism. But as those fears waned in recent years, so did the groups’ sway. Some disbanded, while others gravitated to other hot-button issues.
From a peak of 114 in 2017, their number dropped to a mere 34 last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks hate groups.
In early 2023, "Islamophobia was down to a slow trickle," SPLC senior research analyst Caleb Kieffer said.
Then came the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, which claimed about 1,200 lives and triggered a massive Israeli military response in Gaza.
Anti-Muslim groups that had "opportunistically" seized on divisive issues, such as critical race theory and LGBTQ-inclusive policies, swung back into action.
"These anti-Muslim groups went right back to their core messaging," Kieffer said in an interview with VOA. "They've been going hard on the rhetoric since October last year."
Take ACT for America. Founded in 2007 by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese American political activist and self-described "survivor of terrorism," it grew into one of the country's leading anti-Muslim organizations.
At its peak, the group had more than 50 active chapters, each counted as a separate hate group by the SPLC. But in recent years, most of those chapters either shut down or shifted into other areas, leaving ACT for America with just eight on SPLC’s most recent list.
According to the SPLC, ACT for America embraced a "nativist tone" before October 7, circulating, among other things, a petition calling to "Stop the Taxpayer Funded Border Invasion."
After October 7, the group launched another petition more in line with its agenda and with a call by former U.S. President Donald Trump to stop admitting Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
Warning her followers about homegrown jihadi terror, Gabriel, a staunch Trump supporter, began peddling her bestselling anti-Muslim book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, in exchange for a $25 donation.
In a video titled "Wake Up America" in October, she claimed, "Hamas has a large network of cells spreading all across America," from Laurel, Maryland, to Tucson, Arizona.
Other groups that had also latched onto contentious issues similarly pivoted back to their core agenda.
