Joseph Czuba, Plainfield Townwhip Landlord, 71, stabs 6 year old Muslim boy, Wadea Al-Fayoume to death over Israel-Hamas conflict as CAIR Chicago blames media rhetoric.
‘You Muslims must die!’ A Chicago area landlord has been arrested for allegedly stabbing to death a 6 year old Palestinian-American boy along with wounding his 32 year old mother, in an incident influenced by the current conflict involving Israel and Hamas.
Wadea Al-Fayoume, was killed after he was stabbed 26 times with a large military-style knife by Joseph M. Czuba, 71, over the weekend.
‘Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,’ the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a released statement on Facebook.
‘You Muslims must die!’
The mom identified as Hanaan Shahin, had more than a dozen stab wounds on her body. She remained hospitalized Sunday but is expected to survive.
Officers found both victims late Saturday morning at a home in an unincorporated area of Plainfield Township, roughly 40 miles southwest of Chicago.
Czuba was found Saturday outside ‘sitting upright outside on the ground near the driveway of the residence’ with a cut on his forehead, police in Will County, Illinois.
Police charged him with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
According to local reports, Al-Fayoume had turned 6 less than two weeks ago.
The boy along with his mother had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years, at the time of the attack at the hands of the landlord.
Citing text messages from the mother to the boy’s father, the suspect reportedly yelled, ‘You Muslims must die!’ ahead of the stabbing, according to Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago.
The Muslim civil liberties organization called the crime ‘our worst nightmare,’ and part of a disturbing spike in hate calls and emails since the outbreak of violence in the Middle East.
‘What we have is a murdered Palestinian child by someone who is radicalized by the environment in which we live right now, that casts Palestinians as human animals,’ said Ahmed Rehab, president of CAIR-Chicago. ‘This person had no track record with the family. As a matter of fact, the father says he had built a treehouse for the boy, and allowed him to swim in a makeshift pool and brought him toys.’
Adding, ‘[Al-Fayoume] paid the price for the atmosphere of hate and otherization and dehumanization that, frankly, I think we are seeing here in the United States, as a result of the irresponsible leadership and lopsided, one-sided statements we are seeing in the media.’
Jake Tapper has spent the last week demonizing Palestinians and drumming anti-Arab/Muslim hate. Now, he can’t even mention the name of the child murdered or the fact he was murdered because of his ethnicity.
His name was Wadea Al-Fayoume and Tapper helped incite his murder. https://t.co/RmBDPpxw9t
— Tariq Kenney-Shawa (@tksshawa) October 16, 2023
Boy’s mother left the West Bank 12 years ago to come to the U.S in bid to escape war
He then went on to compare the atmosphere that led to Al-Fayoume’s death to the one in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
‘We’ve warned about not creating the same mistake we had in the post-9/11 environment,’ he added.
‘We got promises that we would not fall back into that ugly, dark world again and here we are. Ultimately, the blame lies in the perpetrator, I blame the murder on the murderer.’
However, he still felt that the media and politicians had influenced Czuba, whom he said had interacted with the family several times before and caused no suspicion.
The boy’s father was too shaken to speak, but he was joined Sunday by Muslim faith leaders who say this alleged hate crime is every Palestinian American’s biggest fear, as war rages in the Middle East.
The family said the boy’s 32-year-old mother left the West Bank to come to the U.S. 12 years ago, in hopes of avoiding the violence that continues today overseas.
Czuba has been taken to the Will County Adult Detention Facility and is awaiting an initial court appearance.
