In her freshly released volume Seasons of Fury, journalist Rozina Ali traces the evolution of anti‑Muslim sentiment across the United States, linking it directly to foreign policy toward Israel‑Palestine and warning that the phenomenon will not abate without a fundamental shift in that policy. Drawing on interviews, archival material and personal recollection, the book weaves together the experiences of four families, most notably Arab‑American lawyer Abdeen Jabara, and argues that the climate of suspicion that followed the September 11 attacks has deep historical antecedents. Recent polling data from May 2026 underscores the urgency of her argument: a majority of Muslims report daily discrimination, and public belief that Islam encourages violence has more than doubled since 2001.
A Personal Journey Through Suspicion
Growing up in early‑2000s California, Rozina Ali spent her childhood surrounded by histories of the Kennedy administration and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a scene that felt quintessentially American. Her family had emigrated from Pakistan when she was five, and she embraced the promise of “American exceptionalism” that her parents once celebrated. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 shattered that optimism. In the hours after the news broke, her parents gathered the children and delivered a stark message: “This country is at war, and Muslims attacked this country, and we are all going to be under suspicion.” Ali recalled telling her parents, “This is America. This is not Pakistan. We are living in the United States of America,” a sentiment that would later be proven naïve.
It was not until she began reporting on the impact of the war on terror on Muslim communities that the weight of her parents’ warnings became clear. The resulting book, Seasons of Fury, was never intended as a historical treatise, yet it delivers a sweeping chronicle that begins well before 2001.
Historical Inflection Points
The first major turning point Ali identifies is the 1967 Arab‑Israeli war, which galvanized Arab‑American activism and prompted the first large‑scale surveillance programme initiated by the Nixon administration. The 1972 Munich Olympics massacre further intensified U.S. concern, leading to expanded monitoring of Arab immigrants and, eventually, American citizens of Arab heritage. Abdeen Jabara, an Arab‑American lawyer, became the first U.S. citizen officially acknowledged as being surveilled by the National Security Agency, a fact that Ali highlights as emblematic of the era’s intrusive reach.
The 1990 Immigration and Nationality Act opened the floodgates for a new wave of Muslim migrants, while simultaneously allowing Muslim communities to organise politically and socially. This demographic shift, combined with the rise of visibly Muslim citizens, altered the national narrative: terrorism began to be associated less with specific groups and more with an abstract, monolithic “Islamic threat.”
The Post‑9/11 Landscape
After the attacks of 2001, law‑enforcement agencies deployed a network of undercover informants, infiltrated mosques, and stationed officers in cafés, creating an atmosphere where “the walls have ears.” The FBI and local police were instructed to probe for plots, regardless of any concrete evidence, and to cultivate suspicion among ordinary Muslims. Ali’s research shows that these tactics were not limited to recent years; they echo the surveillance strategies first employed in the 1960s and 1970s, illustrating a persistent pattern of pre‑emptive monitoring under the banner of national security.
The post‑9/11 “war on terror” also saw the expansion of executive power. Broad, undefined statutes allowed the government to label a wide array of dissenting voices as security risks, a mechanism that later underpinned the travel bans targeting predominantly Muslim nations. The lack of a precise definition of terrorism enabled the executive branch to reinterpret the term repeatedly, widening its reach beyond actual terrorist acts.
Current Political Climate
Ten years after she began her research, Ali observes that Islamophobia in the United States feels more pervasive than ever. A May 2026 poll by the Pew Research Center found that most Muslims feel discrimination in their daily lives, a perception that aligns with Pew’s broader finding that the proportion of U.S. adults who believe Islam is more likely than other religions to promote violence has more than doubled in the past quarter‑century.
The political dimension has intensified with the designation of the Council on American‑Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a terrorist organization by the states of Texas and Florida. While CAIR continues to serve as a vital civil‑rights advocate for Muslim communities, these legislative moves signal an effort to marginalise and dismantle established Muslim institutions.
The rise of a new generation of Muslim politicians, including Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El‑Sayed, has further heightened tensions. Critics have revived rhetoric reminiscent of the post‑9/11 era, suggesting that these figures might have terrorist affiliations or hidden agendas. Such accusations echo the suspicion that law‑enforcement agencies cultivated in the 1990s, when the Oklahoma City bombing led many to wrongly assume Muslim involvement, despite the perpetrator being a white army veteran.
The aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel has added another volatile layer. The United States’ unconditional support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has sparked widespread protest and deepened divisions within American society. Public opinion has shifted dramatically, with a growing gap between the electorate’s stance and the policies being advanced by policymakers. This dissonance, Ali argues, creates a fertile environment for Islamophobia to be weaponised as a political tool.
Why It Matters
Ali’s narrative demonstrates that the machinery of surveillance and suspicion first erected to target Arab‑American communities after 1967 has been repurposed to monitor and marginalise Muslim citizens across the United States, and now extends to other minority groups. The expansion of these tools, coupled with a vague definition of terrorism and an increasingly powerful executive branch, threatens civil liberties not only for Muslims but for all Americans who value freedom of speech, religious tolerance and due process. Confronting the roots of Islamophobia, therefore, demands a honest reassessment of U.S. policy toward Israel‑Palestine, as Ali contends that without addressing that contentious foreign agenda, the domestic climate of fear and discrimination will persist. The book’s release at a moment when public sentiment is sharply divided underscores the urgency of this conversation, making Seasons of Fury a crucial contribution to the ongoing debate over identity, security and democracy in the United States.
