A protester holds a flare and a Palestinian flag during a rally in support of Palestinians at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on November 12, 2023. Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images

By Louis Keene February 6, 2024

A Palestinian American man was stabbed Sunday while leaving a cease-fire protest in Austin, authorities say, the latest in a spate of violent attacks against Muslims in the U.S. during the Israel-Hamas war.

The 23-year-old man, Zacharia Doar, underwent surgery Monday and is expected to recover, according to the Council of American Islamic Relations.

According to CAIR spokesperson Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a group of four demonstrators were leaving the protest in a car when the assailant, who was also driving a car, allegedly spotted a keffiyeh hanging from their window. He then got out of his car and approached the group, uttering racial epithets, including the n-word.

Mitchell said the attacker tried to rip the keffiyeh off of the protesters’ car before pulling one of them out of the vehicle. The group managed to subdue him, but he returned with a knife and stabbed one of them. The protesters again fought him off and police arrived at the scene shortly after.

The Austin Police Department apprehended a suspect at the scene, Bert James Baker, and said the attack appeared to be “bias motivated.” 

Baker was booked for assault with a deadly weapon.

“We’ve seen this story again and again,” Mitchell said, recalling the October killing of six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume in Chicago and the November shooting of three college students of Palestinian descent in Burlington, Vermont. “It is clearly a pattern, and it is clearly, in our view, caused by the rise in anti-Palestinian and anti Muslim rhetoric that has been used to justify the ongoing war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

 “It is very difficult to dehumanize Palestinians in Gaza without creating a blowback here on Palestinians and others associated with Palestinians in America,” he added.

A committee will review the facts of the case for possible hate crime charges before making a recommendation to the Travis County District Attorney’s office, which will make a final decision.

At a news conference Tuesday, the victim’s father, Nizar Doar, called on President Biden, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and local officials to call for a cease-fire.

And he shared a message from his son: “Mr. President, Mr. Joe Biden, I blame you. I blame you for what happened to me. If you would have called for a cease-fire three months ago, this would have never happened.”

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