Muslims Should Speak Loudest Against Trump's Antisemitism | Opinion

Donald Trump just threatened America's Jews. Over the weekend, Trump warned Jews that they need to "get their act together" before "it is too late!"

"No President has done more for Israel than I have," Trump wrote on his own social media platform, "Truth Social," before adding that it was "somewhat surprising that our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S."

The insulting comments are a new low, even for the notoriously white nationalist former president. His disgusting words rightfully drew immediate condemnation from the White House.

"Donald Trump's comments were antisemitic, as you all know, and insulting both to Jews and to our Israeli allies," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters. "But let's be clear, for years, for years now, Donald Trump has aligned with extremist and antisemitic figures. ...We need to root out antisemitism everywhere it rears its ugly head. We need to call this out. With respect to Israel, our relationship is ironclad and it's rooted in shared values and interests. Donald Trump clearly doesn't understand that either."

While it's important to have such strong language and condemnation from the Biden administration, it's simply not enough. This time, we need a louder denunciation that should come from all Americans. But one group of American's voices must be the loudest: Muslim Americans.

Why? Because the former president frequently and notoriously targeted American Muslims while he was in power, even instituting a literal Muslim ban while he was in office which separated countless Americans from family and loved ones in Muslim countries. According to the ACLU, many Muslim families remain separated because of this Trump-era hateful foreign policy.

As an American Muslim, I think our voices should be the clearest and loudest defending American Jews because when Trump came for us time and time again while campaigning and in the White House, it was my Jewish friends, neighbors, and community members who supported us the most.

I remember trying to explain to my then 6-year-old why President Trump "hates Muslims so much." I remember trying (and failing) to shield her from news of the Muslim ban. During those days, the support and allyship of our Jewish friends were the strongest and most tangible. There is a kinship that comes from knowing what it's like to have your community targeted over your faith and culture.

We must stand now—and always—with our Jewish friends just as they did for us during the Trump years. They didn't have to do it, but they did.

At the end of the day, we must never forget that our faiths have the most in common, culturally, and religiously. We need to talk about that more, too. I have always thought that was the irony of all the tension between the two faiths.

Americans are becoming deaf and used to Trump and his allies spewing hate. It is not okay, and it must be American Muslims who raise the loudest alarm and wake the country.

Anushay Hossain is a writer and a feminist policy analyst focusing on women's health legislation. She is a regular on-air guest at CNN, MSNBC, and PBS, and her writing on politics, gender, and race has been published in Forbes, CNN, USA TODAY, The Daily Beast, and more. Hossain is also the host of the Spilling Chai podcast and author of "The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women."

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.