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This WNBC broadcast is about Orthodox Jews in broad-brimmed Borsalino hats “beating” a Palestinian couple on the street of Brooklyn.

Although reports say that the victims had cuts and bruises on their faces, we do not see the actual “beating,” for whatever reason.

Reporter Marc Santia immediately turns to the executive director of the New York Chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Afaf Nasher, for comment. Nasher says:

 Another unfortunate incident, unfortunately in a sequence of incidents because we have all seen a sharp increase in Islamophobia.

But this is a mischaracterization. There are almost no examples of Jews attacking Muslims. It is also important to keep in mind that CAIR has nothing to do with this story. It knows nothing about it, and has no information or contacts, nothing at all.

In 2023, we saw over 8,000 incidents and complaints come in of some sort of bias or a hate crime, and that is a record-breaking number.

It is hard to accept the idea that this incident is representative of the American Muslim experience. And CAIR’s claim of over 8,000 complaints is based on its latest civil rights report, “Fatal: The Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate.” CAIR’s report does not include 8,000 complaints. That would be unwieldy. But of those incidents they do include, many took place in previous years, including 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

In other words, the 8,000 examples from 2023 are not enough for CAIR to make their point that “Israeli violence” is causing “rampant Islamophobia.”  Afaf Nasher’s claim that the Jews attacking Palestinians on the streets of Brooklyn is part of a pattern is not supported by their report. In fact, there are very few physical assaults in CAIR’s report. And, those assaults included in CAIR’s “Fatal” report are all isolated incidents, not part of a “sequence of incidents.” Muslims in America are not being attacked by any movements, groups, or internationally financed campaigns. CAIR’s own data is proof of this.

However, CAIR very much wants to give the impression that “Israeli violence” is causing people to attack Muslims. Yet the only unifying feature of the assaults on Muslims in CAIR’s report is opposition to public support for Hamas in this country.

WNBC supports the claim that there is a rise in anti-Muslim hate crime. They give a reference to the NYPD, which says that anti-Muslims incidents have doubled since this same time last year. But how many of those incidents recorded by the NYPD involve Jews attacking Muslims? Again, the station does not include a spokesperson from the police to give details on their data, such as what exactly constitutes a hate crime.

CAIR has freely admitted that it uses its own definition of a hate crime, which is different from the ones that local law enforcement or even the FBI use. The NYPD defines a Hate Crime/Bias Incident as:

A bias incident is any offense or unlawful act that is motivated in whole or substantial part by a person’s, a group’s or a place’s identification with a particular race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation (including gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender) as determined by the commanding officer of the Hate Crime Task Force.

The FBI beaks down bias/hate crime into categories such as destruction/damage/vandalism, intimidation, aggravated or simple assault. According to the FBI:

Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.

But according to CAIR, “hate” is a crime. In an example from Florida, CAIR considers public rudeness to be a crime.

CAIR’s executive director in Minnesota has said that mental illness is not an excuse during the commission of a crime against Muslims. CAIR’s deputy executive director has said the same thing. And the CAIR Connecticut chapter was all knives out for the clearly insane Andrey Desmond.

This news segment from WNBC has similarities to another NBC broadcast out of Washington state, when KING5 reported on a Muslim named Riaz Khan, saying he was “targeted” because of his ethnicity and political affiliation. However, there was no evidence of the attack: no witnesses, no security camera footage, and no evidence of injury to Khan, and when police responded to his call, he declined medical attention.

In spite of the lack of evidence for this supposed attack, the NBC affiliate included a statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had nothing to do with any of it.

Another network affiliate, CBS’s KIRO, covered the same story without mentioning CAIR, but instead cited the Washington State Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), which said that anti-Muslim incidents had nearly doubled since last year. But is a story with no evidence at all really the best occasion for a discussion of the statistics on anti-Muslim incidents? Does the WASPC’s data actually include any such dubious examples as Riaz Khan’s, an incident without any evidence? Or is the station simply trying to justify this political campaign stunt as an example of a hate crime?

There is a nationwide and industry-wide problem with TV stations putting CAIR on broadcasts without good reason, allowing its representatives simply to spread misinformation. Network affiliates from coast to coast will include CAIR on subjects ranging from the George Floyd riots to girls’ softball games in Iowa. In this case, WNBC has helped CAIR promote the idea that Jews are responsible for CAIR’s supposed increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes.