In 2004, American radio host Michael Savage described Arabs as "non-humans", said that Americans want the U.S. to "drop a nuclear weapon" on an Arab country, and advocated that people in the Middle East be "forcibly converted to Christianity" to "turn them into human beings". Savage characterized Israel as "a little country surrounded by racist, fascist bigots who don't want anyone but themselves living in that hell hole called the Middle East". Expressions of anti-Arabism in the United States intensified following the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, which was perpetrated by Nidal Malik Hasan, a Palestinian Arab American. In 2010, the proposed development of an Islamic community center containing a mosque near the World Trade Center site provoked further widespread expressions of virulent anti-Arabism in the United States.