In The Press

Antonia Blumberg
 The Huffington Post

Khalid Jabara, 37, was shot and killed last week outside his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Hundreds of mourners gathered at a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Thursday to memorialize Khalid Jabara, a 37-year-old who was shot and killed on Aug. 12 in an apparent hate crime.

During the ceremony, Rev. George Eber, parish priest of St. Antony Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, urged mourners “to never forget God — no matter what. Even in this horrible time.”

Eber recalled Jabara’s character saying, “He was funny, a person people liked, friendly, gregarious, someone who brought a joy when there was darkness.”

The Jabara family are Orthodox Christian, and Khalid’s parents immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1980s from Lebanon. They settled in Tulsa to raise their three children where they started a family catering business, but there was trouble in the community.

According to a statement released on Facebook by Jabara’s sister, Victoria Jabara Williams, the family had experienced years of verbal and physical assaults by their neighbor, Stanley Vernon Majors.

Williams said Majors frequently harassed them, calling them “dirty Arabs,” “filthy Lebanese,” “Aye-rabs,” and “Mooslems.” She also said Majors had run over her mother with his car last year, leaving her with a broken shoulder, collapsed lung, broken ankle, broken nose, head trauma and fractured ribs.

Police arrested Majors for the attack and charged him with felony assault. But despite warning signs of Majors’ antagonism toward the family, police released him from custody several months ago so he could await trial in March 2017. 

On Aug. 12, Jabara called the police, “stating this man had a gun and that he was scared for what might happen,” Williams said in her statement. Police showed up but left the neighborhood without questioning Majors. Less than ten minutes later Jabara was shot and killed outside his home.

Majors is now in police custody, again, on suspicion of first-degree murder.

“We can learn to love our enemy, but not on our own,” Eber said during the memorial. “I have been asked by the news media to label this. I look to history. We haven’t stopped these wars, these atrocious murders.”

Jabara’s killing has received national attention as yet another tragic and dangerous incident of xenophobia. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton released a statement on Thursday, responding to Williams’ Facebook post:

Victoria, my heart breaks for you and your family over the loss of your brother Khalid. An attack like this is an attack on all of us, and we must come together to ensure that no other family loses a beloved son or daughter because of prejudice and bigotry.
Muslim American activist Linda Sarsour set up a LaunchGood campaign on Monday to raise money for the Jabara family. So far, more than 300 people have made contributions, totaling nearly $20,000. The funds will go toward providing home health care for Jabara’s father, who relied on his son as caretaker.

“We will not be silent. Let’s stand against hate and show our support for Khalid and his family,” Sarsour wrote on the fundraiser page.

The shooting comes at a time when the U.S. is facing rising xenophobia, often aimed at Muslims, Arabs and those perceived to be such.

“My family lived in fear of this man and his hatred for years,” Williams said in reference to Majors.

“Our brother Khalid was just 37 years old and had his whole life ahead of him. He was a kind spirit, loving brother, uncle and son. Khalid’s heart was big,” she wrote. “All of that has been taken away from us by this hateful man and a system that failed to protect our community.”

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

CAMILA DOMONOSKE NPR A 5-year-old boy, identified in news reports as Omran Daqneesh, sits in an ambulance Wednesday after reportedly being pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria. Mahmoud Raslan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Surrounded by shouting, he’s completely silent. The child is small, alone, covered in blood and dust, dropped in … Continued

By Sarah Lazare 

AlterNet

A 61-year-old white Tulsa man accused of terrorizing his community for years with racist attacks was arrested Friday night for fatally shooting his neighbor, 37-year-old Khalid Jabara, whom he had previously referred to as a “dirty Arab” and “filthy Lebanese.”

The Jabara family said in a statement released Monday that the perpetrator, Vernon Majors, “was not unknown to us—he is our neighbor—someone whom we continuously brought to law enforcement’s attention. He killed our brother while awaiting trial for running over our mother, resulting in a broken shoulder, collapsed lung, broken ankle, broken nose, head trauma, and fractured ribs amongst other injuries.”

In fact, Majors’ hit-and-run attack on Haifa Jabara in September 2015 came close to killing the now 65-year-old woman. According to a police report, Majors referred to the family as “filthy Lebanese” when confessing.

Majors was bonded out of jail on May 25 and he promptly returned to his home.  When Khalid Jabara learned last week that Majors had obtained a gun, he “called the police stating this man had a gun and that he was scared for what might happen,” according to the Jabara family. “The police came and told him there was nothing to be done. Minutes later, the suspect murdered our brother with four shots.”

Authorities are reportedly still weighing whether to file hate crime charges.

The Jabara family says that it has long lived in fear of Majors. “He repeatedly attacked our ethnicity and perceived religion, making racist comments,” they said. “He often called us ‘dirty Arabs,’ ‘filthy Lebanese,’ ‘Aye-rabs,’ and ‘Mooslems’—a fact highlighted by the Tulsa Police Department who also heard these comments from the suspect.”

While the Jabaras are Christian, their testimony indicates that they believe that were targeted, in part, because they were perceived as Muslim.

“The suspect’s bigotry was not isolated to us alone,” the family said. “He made xenophobic comments about many in our community—‘filthy Mexican’ and the ‘n’ word were all part of his hateful approach to anyone from a different background.”

Courtroom records show that the Jabara family had, for years, sought protection from Majors. In 2013, Haifa Jabara was granted a restraining order against Majors after she told a county judge that he is “very racist towards foreigners and blacks,” Tulsa World reports.

Majors retaliated by filing a restraining order against Khalid. But then in March, 2015, Majors was arrested for violating his restraining order order. According to a police report, Majors said to Haifa, “F— you and I want to kill you.” The report says that “Jabara also stated to officers that Majors said multiple racial slurs to her today in her driveway.”

It was just months later, in September, that Majors hit Haifa with his car. In March 2016, Haifa Jabara and Mounah Jabara filed a civil lawsuit seeking damages related to the vehicular attack.

Despite their courtroom efforts, and the restraining order, they were powerless to stop Majors from launching a deadly attack on Khalid, who was killed when he stepped onto his porch.

As Rania Khalek detailed at the Electronic Intifada, repeated pleas by the Jabara family for police intervention went unanswered, even after Majors rammed Haifa Jabara with his car. 

The murder has spurred outrage across the country.

“It is clear that Jabara was targeted because of his ethnicity,” the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said in a statement released on Tuesday. “The unfortunate murder of Jabara is a reflection of the impact and power of hateful rhetoric in politics and the society at large. We can no longer continue to accept the rhetoric of bigotry and hate. When such rhetoric is given a platform, and is mainstreamed, it will lead to additional hate crimes against minority and immigrant communities.”

In an election cycle punctuated by anti-Arab incitement, the murder of Khalid is not an isolated incident. According to a report published in spring by the Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, the United States has suffered a surge in hate crimes targeting Muslim communities that dovetails with the hateful rhetoric of the 2016 election cycle.

“Anti-Muslim violence remained significantly higher in 2015 than pre-9/11 levels 3 with American Muslims approximately 6 to 9 times more likely to suffer such attacks,” the report states. According to the findings there have been “approximately 180 reported incidents of anti-Muslim violence” between March 2015 and March 2016: “34 physical assault, 49 verbal assaults or threats against persons and institutions; 56 acts of vandalisms or destruction of property; 9 arsons; and 8 shootings or bombings, among other incidents.”

“Our brother Khalid was just 37 years old and had his whole life ahead of him,” said the Jabara family. “He was a kind spirit, loving brother, uncle and son. Khalid’s heart was big. He cared for our entire family, our friends and people he didn’t even know. He created every Jabara family joke and filled our lives with love and laughter. All of that has been taken away from us by this hateful man and a system that failed to protect our community.”

Source: www.alternet.org