Statement on the Austin mosque vandal

On Thursday 5/22, a vandal attacked several Austin-area mosques by crudely spray-painting them with a blue Star of David. The attacks— targeting Nueces Mosque at UT Austin, the Islamic Ahlul Bayt Association, and the Turkish Diyanet Center— are part of a larger pattern of appropriating Jewish religious symbols to threaten Zionist violence against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims. This is the latest in an increasing number of hate-motivated attacks against Arabs and Muslims since the Zionist state of Israel launched its genocidal campaign against Gaza in 2023.

Islamophobia rears its ugly head in Austin— again

Thursday’s attacks are part of a larger trend in rising Islamophobia across the world. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reported 8,658 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents in the US in 2024— the highest number since the group began collecting this data in 1996. These include the murder of six year old Wadea al Fayoume in Chicago and the attempted drowning of two Muslim children in Euless, Texas.

In Austin, the rise in anti-Muslim bigotry has manifested itself in both property attacks and physical violence against Palestinians. We cannot forget the most egregious examples of these attacks, the stabbing of Zacharia Doar after the second statewide protest for Palestine in February 2024. Officials such as Kirk Watson used the attack not to condemn Islamophobia, but to chastise and belittle the very community members who had been repressed and attacked.

The consistent, cowardly complicity of politicians like Watson, the racism of the police, and the threats of the Trump administration have all emboldened racists and Islamophobes.

Zionism is not Judaism

The vandal used the Star of David to imply that the primary motive was religious. We cannot allow this distortion to stand. The issue at hand is not religious conflict; it is purely colonial in nature. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) engage in similar attacks by carving the Star of David into Palestinian land and even into the bodies of Palestinian prisoners.

The racist who vandalized these mosques is using the same tool — weaponizing what should be a religious symbol into one of supremacy and domination. This attack mirrors the profound level of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism fundamental to Zionism, which we see espoused daily in the genocidal rhetoric of the Israeli government and of U.S. politicians.

The reality is that Zionism and U.S. imperialism weaponize Islamophobia and antisemitism alike in their attempts to justify war and exploitation. Only by uniting against racism and imperialism can we build a just world free of antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism, and all forms of racism and oppression.

We are rooted in community

We condemn this attack against the Austin Muslim community. We know that, at the end of the day, it is our community that keeps us safe, and together, as a community, will continue to struggle against all forms of oppression and racism.