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Dearborn Michigan on the edge after WSJ names it America's jihad capital, here's why
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud took the reins when a Wall Street Journal piece defamed the Michigan city, while also spreading a lofty Islamophobic agenda against it.
A Wall Street Journal piece has upped the tensions in Dearborn, a Michigan suburb with the largest Muslim population in the United States. Published on Friday, this opinion-based post's headline itself branded the city America's ‘jihad capital’.
Penned by Steven Stalinsky, this controversial article was made public in regards to the city residents' pro-Palestine views. Here's what Stalinsky, who's often reviewed issues fuelled by terrorism, had to say in his article.
On Dearborn Michigan being named America's ‘jihad capital’?
Stalinsky, who's also been the Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute's executive director, berated the majority Arab population residing in Dearborn. His urges to counterterrorism agencies to pay ‘close attention’ to them has resulted in an increased presence of police around mosques and other such major centres of attraction, but not as a nod to Stalinsky's thoughts.
This has rather been done to contain the Islamophobic threats that seek to slander the majority of Muslim residents in the area. As could be foreseen, such a politically charged comment has allegedly been met with heightened ‘bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric’ towards the Dearborn localites.
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Once the flabbergasting comment made by the WSJ journalist came to light, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud took to his X (formerly Twitter) profile to address the negatively charged rhetoric.
“Effective immediately - Dearborn police will ramp up its presence across all places of worship and major infrastructure points”, wrote Mayor Hammoud.
In another one of his tweets dated February 3, Hammoud further called out the “garbage” pushed out by WSJ. In the same post, he went on to list the many reasons why “Dearborn is one of the greatest American cities in our nation". The list began with the mention of Dearborn being the fastest growing Michigan city. Hammoud even listed the suburb as the home to the number 1 travel destination in Michigan - Greenfield Village / Henry Ford Museum.
While Dearborn is the home of the Ford Motor Company, the mayor also reminded the world that it was the coffee, food or culture capital of Michigan too. All of these mentions fed into the last bullet point that confirmed that Dearborn is one of the most diverse cities in the state.
This unfortunate WSJ post came up almost around the same time as the NY Times opinion piece titled ‘Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom’. Mayor Hammoud even reposted many other tweets dragging this article by Thomas L Friedman.
Further opening up on the WSJ article content, the Arab-American Muslim mayor highlighted that publishing such “inflammatory” and “irresponsible” pieces of journalism was doing nothing but putting Dearborn residents at risk.
The 33-year-old Dearborn Mayor didn't stop there. He took it upon himself to spell out the city's real identity to Wall Street Journal. In yet another independent tweet dated February 4, he posted a video. Its visuals ostensibly spread a welcoming message about the city in addition to introducing Dearborn's wholesome goodness and all the identity markers the mayor mentioned in his previous post.
