DEARBORN—The media clash between local Arab American leaders and the writer of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece continued Monday as both sides doubled down on accusations their opponents are pedaling hate.

On Monday, members of the Arab-American Civil Rights League and others held a press conference outside the Dearborn Police Department and denounced the op-ed piece published Friday. The piece, which described the Wayne County suburb as “America’s Jihad Capital,” prompted city officials to increase police patrols near places of worship.

On Sunday, President Joe Biden, along with Michigan politicians, including U.S. Sen. Gary Peters and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, condemned the piece.

The controversy comes amid months of mounting frustration among Michigan’s Arab and Muslim communities over the president’s support for Israel in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and the failure to secure a cease-fire.

“Daily I speak to families that have lost dozens of loved ones and continue to watch helplessly as their loved ones are maimed, bombed and pushed out of their homes,” in Gaza, said Mariam Charara, executive director of the ACRL, at the press conference outside the Dearborn Police Department.

“Inflammatory rhetoric like this is a direct contributor to the wave of Islamophobic violence the community has had to endure,” in the U.S. due to conflicts in the Middle East, Charara said.

At the press conference, which included a range of leaders, some demanded an apology from the Wall Street Journal. Others invited the writer to visit Dearborn to see the diversity and vibrancy of one the few Metro Detroit communities that is gaining population.

The op-ed, headlined “Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital,” alleged thousands in Dearborn support Hamas, which has been designated by the United States as a terrorist group. The city is home to one of the largest Middle Eastern populations in the United States.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said in a social media post last week that the op-ed has “led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online targeting the city.”

On Monday, members of the Arab-American Civil Rights League, ACRL, said Amer Ghalib, Hamtramck’s mayor, who is Muslim, had received a death threat over the phone since the Wall Street Journal column. Organizers were not aware of any other incidents. Ghalib didn’t attend the press conference.

The writer of the opinion piece, Steven Stalinsky, responded to the Dearborn mayor and other critics in a written statement.

Stalinsky wrote: “I would ask him why he has allowed support inside Dearborn for U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran and its leaders and its proxy militias — who are most recently responsible for killing three American service personnel this past week — to continue for so long, thinking that no one would notice.”

Hammoud, Dearborn’s mayor, meanwhile, retweeted a call to have the Wall Street Journal retract Stalinsky’s piece and issue an apology.

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