The two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers. But they overlap even as Muslim and Jewish communities are pitted against each other

The shooting at a mosque and school in San Diego has forced Muslim Americans to ask themselves painful questions. After the killing of three people in an armed attack last week, they now wonder if other places of worship will be targeted next, whether they can still send children to school and trust that they will return home unharmed, and whether they can still safely walk the streets as people identifiable by their faith.

These are also questions that Jewish communities are reckoning with, most recently after the stabbings in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. Over the past three years, against the backdrop of wars in the Middle East, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate have flared across the west, with each rising to record levels. But these two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers, let alone confronted as a common threat to societies.

The difference in framing around antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred distorts public understanding, inflames tensions and makes both Jewish and Muslim communities less safe

The horrific terrorist attack on the Islamic Centre of San Diego in California has been reported by many news outlets over the past few days. Yet as the story travelled across screens and news feeds, something more subtle unfolded: the language of reporting. Some outlets spoke of “teen suspects” and “three deceased” rather than murdered worshippers or a terrorist attack on a mosque. Words matter. They shape sympathy, urgency, and influence how violence is understood. Too often, the vocabulary of terror and extremism appears unevenly distributed; sharpened for some perpetrators but softened for others.

There is a growing sense that the world is slipping backwards – not through dramatic rupture, but through the steady normalisation of hate, the coarsening of public discourse and politicians increasingly fuelling division and racism.

Experts say hate-motivated extremists being radicalized online and adopting ideologies of shooters before them

The killing of three men at a San Diego mosque on Monday is the latest example of a disturbing trend in recent decades: hate-motivated shooters learning from – and copying – each other in acts of violence meant to push the nation toward a race war and, ultimately, societal collapse.

The two San Diego shooters, who were 17 and 18, killed 51-year-old Amin Abdullah, a security guard at the Islamic Center of San Diego, 78-year-old Mansour Kaziha, a mosque elder and founding member of the center, and Nadir Awad, 57, who lived across the street and whose wife worked as a teacher at the center’s school.

Amin Abdullah, 51, was one of the three victims of deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday

A security guard who was killed during the shooting at a San Diego mosque on Monday is being hailed as a hero after police said that his actions “undoubtedly” saved lives.

On Monday, two teenagers opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, California, shooting and killing three men. The two attackers, aged 17 and 18, were found dead several blocks away, from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said.