In the wake of a hate crimes hearing in the US Senate in which Palestinian voices were not platformed, Mehdi sat down with renowned Muslim-American scholar and pastor Sheikh Omar Suleiman. They talked about the killing of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and the double standards in how that horrific murder was covered, but also of his mother’s resilience and the resilience of Palestinians in general despite Gaza. They also covered Republican Senator John Kennedy’s Islamophobic conduct: “In a hearing about hate crime, a hate crime was literally just committed,” said Dr. Suleiman.

On October 14, 2023, a week after the Hamas attacks on Israel, and just days after Joe Biden falsely claimed he had seen photos of beheaded Israeli babies, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy called Wadee Alfayoumi was brutally murdered in his home after being stabbed 26 times. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, was also stabbed and left critically injured.

Shahin’s landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and, crucially, two counts of hate crimes. Czuba pleaded not guilty and faces trial later this month.

On Tuesday, in the wake of a contentious hate crimes hearing in the Senate in which Palestinian voices were not platformed and in which Wadee’s name was barely mentioned, Mehdi sat down with Shahin and civil rights attorney Maaria Mozaffar, from the Muslim Civic Coalition, for an exclusive interview. They talked about Shahin’s memories of Wadee, the ‘Wadee Act’ in the House and Senate, and her conversations with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.