Oct 16, 2023
Landlord Fatally Stabs Palestinian-American Boy In Alleged HATE Crime
Illinois landord Joseph M. Czuba allegedly stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume and seriously wounded his mother, both of whom were his Muslim tenants.
- 10 minutes
An Illinois man is being charged
with a hate crime after stabbing
this 6 year old boy 26 times, killing him.
His mother was also stabbed multiple
times but is expected to survive.
The suspect, Joseph Czuba,
was the family's landlord.
[00:00:16]
He now faces a first degree murder
charge and two hate crime counts.
Police say he targeted them
because they were Muslim.
>> Speaker 2: It's right, a 71 year old
man named Joseph Czuba in Illinois has
been charged with two counts of
a hate crime after stabbing a 6 year
[00:00:34]
old Palestinian American child to death.
The boy's mother was also attacked but
survived the stabbing and
is recovering in the hospital,
but is in critical condition.
Now, Czuba was apparently their landlord,
and
it's interesting because there are some
reports indicating that he actually
[00:00:53]
had a great relationship with them
prior to what Hamas did in Israel.
The suspect allegedly even built
a treehouse for the six year old.
The 71 year old landlord
built the boy a treehouse,
let him use a swimming pool and bought
him toys, the child's relatives said.
[00:01:10]
But over the past few weeks, according
to the family, something changed, and
he had grown hostile to his Arab tenants.
Now, a week after Hamas's attack, things
apparently changed between the landlord or
in terms of the landlord's thinking
that that is what is being reported,
[00:01:26]
although this story is still developing
and the details might change.
So I would definitely urge you all to
wait as we learn more details about it.
Now here's what
the Washington Post claims,
Czuba allegedly knocked on the Palestinian
family's door just after 11 AM.
[00:01:42]
When the mother, Hanaan Shahin,
answered, he assaulted her with
a serrated military style knife while
yelling anti-Muslim statements,
forcing her to run to
the bathroom to call 911.
In Arabic language text messages to
the boy's father right after the attack,
[00:02:01]
the family said.
She wrote that Czuba had
knocked on the door.
When she answered,
she texted, he choked her and
then tried to stab her while yelling words
to the effect of you Muslims must die.
And then when she emerged from
the bathroom after calling police,
[00:02:18]
she found Czuba attacking her six
year old son, Wadea Alfayoumi,
who later died of his wounds.
He had been stabbed 26 times,
the Will County Sheriff's Office
said in a statement.
Shahin, 32,
was stabbed at least a dozen times and
[00:02:35]
remains hospitalized in serious condition.
So he's been charged with first
degree murder, attempted murder and
aggravated battery, and he also has
two counts related to hate crimes.
In a statement to the press,
the Will County Sheriff's Office
said the following.
[00:02:52]
Detectives were able to determine
that both victims in this brutal
attack were targeted by the suspect
due to them being Muslims and
the ongoing Middle East conflict
involving Hamas and the Israelis, Cenk.
>> Speaker 3: The father of the victim
couldn't believe that this guy,
[00:03:07]
who had been so nice to the family
before had killed his son.
That he wondered if the son
had gone to hug him, and
the guy accidentally stabbed him.
As it turns out, no.
He stabbed the kid 32 times, I think.
[00:03:24]
>> Speaker 2: He stabbed
the 6 year old 26 times.
>> Speaker 3: Twenty six times,
and the mom 12 times, I think.
Okay, so guys, the human mind is very
open to influence both fortunately and
unfortunately.
And there are some people in this country
who are not mentally well, and there's
[00:03:42]
tons of people who are not mentally well,
but they've got minor issues, or
they have mid sized or even major issues,
but they're not prone to violence.
But there is a subset that
is prone to violence, and
people keep going around triggering them.
So what did Donald Trump
say after the attacks?
[00:03:58]
Hamas is here.
You have to protect yourself.
They're in America.
You've got to do something.
Well, when you have a mentally
unstable person like this.
Because if you're wondering,
why did he switch overnight?
Because all of a sudden,
he started hearing messages in media
saying that the Hamas is here and
[00:04:15]
that they're the awful, terrible people
that you got to do something about.
People who are mentally well
don't do stuff like this, right?
But there is a giant number of
people in a country of 330,000,000
people that are unfortunately prone to
violence and are not mentally well.
[00:04:35]
We all in media and politics have
to be careful not to trigger them.
Does the right wing and Donald Trump
look like they're being careful?
No, they're doing the exact opposite.
Why don't you do something?
Come on, these Palestinians deserve it.
They all voted for Hamas, etc.
[00:04:50]
And then you get a lunatic to go and kill
a 6 year old boy and stab him 26 times.
You think he got the idea out of nowhere?
It just popped into his head, no.
>> Speaker 2: So, look, the reason why
I say we should wait to learn more
details about this,
because the story is still developing,
is because there is a contradiction in
the story as it's been reported so far.
[00:05:09]
You have family members of the boy and
the mother who are targeted by this
guy saying, well, he was so polite and
so friendly before what happened.
But then there are other members of
the community who allege that the suspect
here, Czuba, had serious issues.
[00:05:26]
As news of the arrest spread.
People who live nearby said in community
forums on Facebook that he had long
alarmed residents with yard signs
telegraphing his extreme views.
One woman wrote that she had alerted
local officials about the unhinged man.
[00:05:41]
Now, the Palestinian tenants
had seen the signs but
did not understand their symbolism and
had not experienced the landlord's
extremist side until recently,
said Yousef Hannon.
An uncle and family spokesman who was
sitting with the slain child's father
[00:05:58]
during a phone interview.
So there could have been just
the inability to understand his extremist
side, being able to understand what crazy
extremist signs that he had posted.
However, I don't know
what those signs said.
[00:06:14]
There are no details about
that in the reporting yet.
But as the story develops and
if the details are compelling to share,
I will definitely share them with you.
But the idea that a 6 year old boy
is a threat to anyone's safety,
the idea that you need to stab
a 6 year old boy 26 times and
[00:06:34]
kill him, it's just depraved,
immoral, disgusting behavior.
And luckily, we haven't seen any type of
violent targeting of Jewish Americans,
but there has been harassment
of Jewish Americans as well.
[00:06:50]
So the idea that what's happening
with this Israeli-Gaza war
should somehow compel anyone in any
other country to carry out acts
of violence against innocent people,
I just don't understand it.
I don't understand it.
>> Speaker 3: Well, we're not supposed
to understand it because they're not
[00:07:07]
mentally well.
Nobody who's healthy and normal does
this kind of barbaric act, right?
But that's why I keep saying you've
got to be careful about what you say.
So, for example,
I've criticized the occupation of
the Palestinian people dozens
of times on the show and
[00:07:26]
what I tell you almost every time.
Remember, it's not all Israelis,
it's the right wing government of Israel.
Our government also does wrong
things we don't agree with.
This is not about Israeli civilians, etc.
We say that almost every time when
we criticize another government.
[00:07:44]
The Russian people are perfectly fine.
There's nothing wrong
with the Russian people.
It is their government that has invaded
Ukraine and done these terrible things.
The Saudis,
it is not their people that did it.
It is their dictators that are taking
these terrible actions, etc.
But do you see other people being
that responsible and careful?
[00:08:02]
I mean, in my lifetime?
Come on guys,
even if you're a right winger, be honest.
How much have Muslims been demagogued
against in this country and
fear driven about them and terrible,
[00:08:18]
terrible things said about Muslims
2000 times over in this country?
That's why when I usually even lovely
good people that are right wingers,
when I encounter them and
I tell them at some point my background
was Muslim and I used to be Muslim,
[00:08:36]
they go that's a shame because this
nonstop influence of Muslims are terrible.
Muslims are terrible.
And that's why Hamas, what they did, what
a terrible, awful set of human beings.
Because you didn't just condemn
Palestinians to getting slaughtered there,
[00:08:51]
you didn't just kill poor
innocent Israelis, you condemned
all Muslims to this goddamn stereotype
that's an albatross around our neck.
And so then you have lunatics like this
that then get triggered by right wingers
going you gotta attack all Muslims.
All Muslims are that way.
I did a three hour debate with Sam Harris
because the guy pretended to be an atheist
[00:09:10]
and then all of a sudden he says but
no, only Islam is the worst religion.
That's why Bill Maher sometimes
I agree with him now.
But it's so
hard to overcome his demagoguing
against Muslims for his entire career.
The Muslims are bad.
The Muslims are bad.
The Palestinians are terrorists.
[00:09:26]
How many times have they said it?
Later in the show,
we're gonna show you Republican after
Republican heartless pricks going and
telling everybody how terrible
Palestinians and Muslims are, in mass.
And then you have people.
What happened after 911?
They killed Muslims.
They killed Sikhs who aren't even Muslim
because they were wearing turbans.
[00:09:42]
It has happened how many times now?
And every time the right wing who stoked
that anger and hatred, then pretend to be
surprised, golly, gee, did they murder
innocent 6 year old Muslim boy?
I don't know, I was just the one telling
them that Muslims are all evil 24/7.
[00:10:00]
I guess somebody did something.
Yeah, you know what it leads to.
And they don't mind because
they're agents of hatred and fear.
And they divide us nonstop and
try to tear us apart.
All human beings are the same.
Please, if you're out there, please get
that crap out of your head about how Jews
[00:10:18]
are different or Muslims are different or
any religion or nationality is different.
We're all humans.
That's so obvious.
How could these monsters not see it?
Go ahead,
speak out against every different religion
from all these different sections.
All you're gonna do is drive
more hatred and more killings.
[00:10:36]
We're all humans.
Anyone who doesn't realize that
is a moron of the highest order.
How stupid do you have to be to
not realize we're all the same?
We're all obviously the same.
Stop murdering each other for no reason.
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