Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, was savagely stabbed to death and his 32-year-old mother, Hanaan Shahin, critically injured October 14 in Plainfield, a Chicago suburb, by a knife-wielding man who yelled, “You Muslims must die.”

By Hanaan Shahin's account, their 71-year-old white landlord, Joseph Czuba, angrily knocked on the door. When she opened it, he tried to choke her and started stabbing her with a knife. Shahin fought him off and ran into the bathroom to call 911, but when she came out she found her son dead on the floor. The autopsy showed that Wadea had been stabbed 26 times with a seven-inch military-style knife. His mother was hospitalized with over a dozen stab wounds. 

Hanaan and Wadea had lived in a two-room apartment on the ground floor of the building for two years without a problem. The landlord, who lived on the floor above, had even built Wadea a treehouse. But the landlord apparently had been whipped into a frenzy by the media coverage of the Israel-Hamas clash. Czuba was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and two counts of a hate crime. 

Thousands at Funeral for Wadea

Wadea was born in the U.S. His mother came from the West Bank 12 years ago, and his father, also Palestinian, migrated from Jordan nine years ago. Wadea had just turned six when he was killed. He was remembered by family and friends as a kind boy who was into LEGOs, a soccer fan who loved swimming, jumping and playing games. 

On October 16, thousands of people poured into the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, known as Little Palestine because of its large Palestinian-American community, for the funeral for Wadea. Hanaan, still in the hospital, was unable to attend. The small white coffin for Wadea was draped in a Palestinian flag. Large crowds poured into the streets, which were lined with Palestinian flags, backing up traffic for blocks. During the procession to the burial site, mourners chanted "Free, Free Palestine!" 

“Wadea’s death symbolizes the killings of Palestinians in Gaza”

Wadea’s murder took place as racist and dehumanizing portrayals of Palestinians are being spread by politicians, the media, and social media platforms. There is widespread and constant coverage of stories of Israelis killed in the Hamas attack—including unsubstantiated claims of mass beheadings of Israeli children—while underplaying or ignoring the Palestinians being slaughtered by the Israeli military—as if to justify the statement by a top Israeli defense official warning of a genocidal war on all of Gaza: “We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly.” 

To be clear, Hamas’s wanton murders of non-combatants, including children, were war crimes and cannot in any way be upheld. But Biden and the U.S. have unequivocally backed Israel as they wage genocidal retaliation that is devastating Gaza with massive bombing, killing hundreds and wounding thousands—including children with horrendous burns, mortar wounds, and lost limbs—as Israel’s complete blockade of Gaza is cutting off water, fuel, medical supplies and other necessities of life. It’s in this context of the dehumanization of and genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza that a landlord in a Chicago suburb apparently got whipped up to commit such a horrific crime against a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy.

Across the U.S., there is a rise in threats and assaults against Palestinians and Muslims. CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations)-Chicago reports receiving a level of hate calls and emails not seen since 9/11 and Trump’s travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries.

“We are humans”

An imam who spoke at the funeral drew a parallel between Wadea’s savage death and the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a Black youth who was brutally abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white woman: “As the famous saying of the mother of Emmett Till, when she said ‘Let the world see what they have done to my boy...,’ since the mother of Wadea is not here, we say on her behalf, ‘Let the world see what they have done to her boy.’”

At an October 15 news conference, Wadea’s uncle said, “We are not animals, we are humans. We want people to see us as humans, to feel us as humans, to deal with us as humans, because this is what we are.” Wadea’s father, Odey Al-Fayoume, speaking in Arabic, said his son is a martyr whose death symbolizes the killings of Palestinians in Gaza.

Someone at Wadea’s funeral said, “The smallest caskets are the heaviest.” Imagine now the weight of the more than 1,000 Palestinian children in Gaza—the numbers growing by the day—whose lives have been stolen by Israel’s current genocidal attack, with America's “iron-clad” support. Add to that the weight of the thousands of Palestinian children murdered by Israel over decades of occupation and oppression. No more of this!

What Are America’s “Fundamental Values”?

Biden, who has repeatedly assured the world that the U.S. and Israel are inseparable, issued a statement about Wadea’s murder. He said, “This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values.”

“Fundamental values”?!? Is Biden referring to the bone-deep white supremacy that justified 245 years of enslavement of millions of Black people, which was foundational to what made America what it is today? Or the so-called “Manifest Destiny” that U.S. rulers claimed gave “god’s blessing” to the genocidal annihilation of the millions of indigenous peoples who “got in the way” of expanding the American empire “from sea to shining sea” and beyond? Or “the good guys” of the U.S. military that have carried out countless bloody invasions, wars, coups, and occupations necessary to make America the top dog in dominating and brutally exploiting the world’s people and plundering its resources? (See the American Crime series at revcom.us, which brings these and other crimes to light.) 

All people of conscience need to denounce what Israel, with U.S. backing, is doing to the Palestinian people—and act with determination to stop the horror now going on and stand with Palestinians and Muslims in this country being threatened and attacked. But our sights must be set on a real revolution to bring about a fundamentally different system, which would bring to an end the horrors U.S. imperialism and its attack dogs are committing against the people of the world.