Hate Crimes Increase Since Start of War : Prejudice: Record number of incidents have been directed against Arab-Americans, study says.

The number of hate crimes directed at Arab-Americans has risen to a record high since the war in the Persian Gulf began last month, according to a report released Wednesday by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Since Operation Desert Storm began, a total of 48 acts of violence, harassment or intimidation against Arab-Americans nationally have been reported to the ADC. They account for more than half of the 95 incidents logged since Iraq invaded Kuwait Aug. 2, it said.

For the month of January, 58 such hate crimes have been reported throughout the United States, nine of them in California. That compares with only one case of harassment in the United States in January, 1990.

About 70% of the reports have involved threats or intimidation. Vandalism and destruction have accounted for about 16% of the crimes, while physical assaults have made up about 14%, the ADC reported.

The recent tally is by far the highest since the organization began compiling hate crime statistics in 1985 after ADC Regional Director Alex Odeh was killed by a bomb in his Santa Ana office during the Achille Lauro hijacking.

“Since that time we have seen ups and downs,” said ADC President Albert Mokhiber. “Anytime there is a crisis in the Middle East, there’s a backlash against the Arab-American community.”

Mokhiber said there was a brief respite from discrimination during the intifada uprising by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza strip. “For the first time, Arabs were being viewed as the victims rather than terrorists or aggressors,” he said. “This is the stereotype we have been trying to eliminate for the last couple of years.”

But the crisis sparked by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait six months ago has caused a sharp rise in the level of public hostility toward Arabs and Arab-Americans, the organization said.

Following the deployment of U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf region, anti-Arab violence and crime increased significantly--from five incidents of anti-Arab hate crimes from January through July, 1990, to more than 40 reports from August through December.

The report did not break down statistics by Arab-American subgroups. A handful of incidents described in the report identified the targets as Iraqis, Kuwaitis or Palestinians, but most simply described the victims as Arab-Americans.

“But not all Arabs are under attack,” Mokhiber noted. “This is a relatively small number given the entire number of Arab-Americans in the U.S.”

There are about 2 million Americans of Arab descent in the United States. Although most Arab-Americans live in the Northeast region, California has the single largest Arab-American community: about 350,000 people, or almost 1% of the state’s population.

ADC officials also criticized recent FBI questioning of Arab-Americans, particularly an interview on Monday of an Arab-American government employee who was asked about attitudes of his ethnic group toward the war.

“We view those questions as invasions of our civil rights,” said Gregory T. Nojaem, ADC’s director of legal services. Nojaem said he was present during the FBI interview with Ghassan Khalek, and directed the federal worker not to answer the “politically laden questions.”

The session occurred after the FBI said it had completed interviews with more than 100 prominent Arab-Americans to warn them about the possibility of backlash against Arab-Americans and to solicit information about potential terrorism.

“The FBI is engaging in interviews of Arab-Americans under the assumption that we have some special knowledge of terrorism, which is baseless,” Mokhiber said. “Obviously, like other Americans, we would bring forward such information if we had it.”

Khalek, who participated in the ADC press conference, said he was annoyed that the FBI agents had made him look suspect by flashing their badges upon arriving at the Federal Communications Commission office where he works.

“There are some people who don’t want to hang out with you, they don’t want to go to lunch with you because they know the FBI is looking for you,” Khalek said.

Khalek noted, however, that many Americans have shown a great deal of support. One co-worker, offended by the FBI’s visit, hung a sign on his office door saying: “Arab people are our friends, not our enemies.”