BBC exposes Columbus mosque speaker, hatemonger Khalid Yasin

The BBC’s Panorama program on Monday, “Muslim First, British Second,” addressed the growing problem of Islamic radicalization flourishing under the guise of “non-violent” Muslims. What they discovered is that extremist preachers, while nominally disclaiming violence, in fact, are a major contributor to the atmosphere of hate that breeds Islamic terrorism.

So it was no surprise then that one of the hatemongers they profiled was none other than Khalid Yasin, who was in Ohio last year conducting fundraisers in Columbus and Dayton. As we reported here exclusively at COAT last May, Yasin spent more than a week touring a number of Columbus-area mosques and Ohio State, his visit sponsored by the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus.

The segment on Khalid Yasin begins around the 9:40 mark:



Sure is nice to see a major media outlet addressing this problem — even if they are 3,866 miles away. Now if only get the media a little closer to home to begin seriously tackling this issue. Not holding my breath.

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Qaradawi calls for the genocide of the Jews — his friends in Central Ohio

Last Friday, HAMAS spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi went on his weekly TV program on al-Jazeera to pray for the genocide of the Jews:

Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.

MEMRI has the video and the transcript of Qaradawi’s comments. This tirade and his calls for the genocide of the Jews is nothing new, of course. You can read more from this post at JihadWatch.

However, what should be of concern to residents of Central Ohio is that Qaradawi has close associates in our area. Don’t believe me?


Yes, that’s our local terror sheikh, Hilliard resident Salah Sultan (right) hamming it up with Qaradawi (center) and Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood leader Faisal al-Malawi (left). Sultan serves on the board for two of Qaradawi’s organizations along with al-Malawi, the International Association of Muslim Scholars and the European Council for Fatwa and Research. Qaradawi and Malawi are both banned from the US for their open support of HAMAS and other terrorist organizations, as well as for issuing fatwas allowing for suicide bombings against civilians. In 2004, Qaradawi, Malawi and Sultan issued a fatwa in the name of IAMS calling for jihad against American troops in Iraq.

Sultan is also a member of the Fiqh Council of North America, which bills itself as the top Islamic ruling body in the US.

Here’s another shot of them laughing it up:


These photos of Qaradawi and Sultan have never been released before and are provided here exclusively by COAT. We have about a half-dozen more we are not releasing at this time.

Let’s not forget Sultan’s appearance in July 2007 with Qaradawi and HAMAS head (and designated terrorist) Khaled Mish’al sitting together on the speaker’s dais at a conference in Qatar honoring Qaradawi:


So impressed was Qaradawi with the two speeches that Sultan delivered in his honor that he posted them on his own personal website:



For those just joining us, Sultan appeared on Egyptian Al-Nas TV just two weeks ago (which we reported here) preaching Jew hatred and predicting death and destruction for America:


Let’s not forget that Sultan was the religious director for the Islamic school in Hilliard, Sunrise Academy, as seen in this 2005 announcement for a seminar taught by Sultan (seen teaching below) held at Sunrise sponsored by the school and the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (click to enlarge):


And let’s not forget about his friends at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard/Dublin, where Sultan served as scholar-in-residence for his best friend, Noor president Hany Saqr:


And here’s a shot of Sultan at one of the Noor Center’s intifada-fests:


Hmmm . . . where did all that money go they raised that night? And will the Noor Center's de facto press agent, Columbus Dispatch religion reporter Meredith Heagney, quickly move to explain this all away?

Ohio terror sheikh, Fiqh Council of North America member Salah Sultan: Jews killed President Kennedy, advocates Islamic theocracy in US elections

Welcome Investigative Project and RoP visitors!

It has been a while since we heard last from our local terror sheikh and former Hilliard resident, Salah Sultan. Despite having fled to Bahrain last year, Sultan still sits on the Fiqh Council of North America. That’s why I was so interested to see an interview with Sultan published by IslamOnline earlier this year addressing the upcoming elections, “Politicking US Muslims — How Can US Muslims Change Realities: Interview with Dr. Salah Soltan”.

Those who have been following Sultan’s activities and statements might recall that he gave an interview to the official Muslim Brotherhood website, Ikhwanonline, immediately following the 2006 elections, "US Islamic Center: Democrats More Tolerant Towards Muslims".

The entire IslamOnline interview is definitely worth the read, and it is reprinted below in its entirety. There are a few curious statements I would like to point out. The most glaring is his statements about the political activity of the Jewish community in the US. Claiming that the number of Muslims in the US is greater than the Jews (a fact not supported by most polls, which finds the number of Muslims at no more than 3 million), he clearly wants Islamic political power to rival that of the Jewish community:

Jews are certainly less in numbers than Muslims now in the US. Our number is between 8 to 10 millions, yet although American Jews are no more than 6 million they have vision, plan, determination of whom to vote for and whom to ignore, and in some cases they support two candidates at the same time so that whomever wins becomes accountable to them. This is done in the Congress or the presidential elections. Jews in the US spend massive amount of money on elections’ publicity campaign. . .

Such exorbitant expenditure on US elections by Jewish-owned mega-businesses and organizations is not done in philanthropy.

Ah, but he’s not done yet. In fact, he relates a fictional account about how a Jewish community leader approached President Kennedy to help finance his reelection if only he would turn over foreign policy decision-making to the Jews. When Kennedy refused, they had him assassinated:

I will mention an example that Muslims in the US and Europe should be well aware of. Mr. Paul Findley’s book “Silent No More” says that President Kennedy in his second elections had a shaky stand, and accordingly a man responsible for 300 Jewish organizations proposing to fund all his campaign on one condition which was to place the keys of foreign policy in his hands, and Kennedy refused such proposal. The result was the assassination of John Kennedy.

So Salah Sultan claims that the Jews in America killed President Kennedy because he wouldn’t let the Jews control American foreign policy. Wonder how our interfaith leaders, like Sultan’s friend and Interfaith Association of Central Ohio board member, Abukar Arman, would respond to Sultan’s views on this topic?

Two other topics covered by Sultan in his IslamOnline interview should be noted:

• He states that if Muslims would participate in elections, they could then leverage their political power to show that homosexuality is a “perversion”, and ensure that their views would be taught in American schools.
• He also advocated US elections done by Islamic “shura councils”, i.e. theocracy.

Just as reminder, here are some of the organizations that Sultan worked with in Central Ohio:

• Sultan was brought to the area by the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus, who hired him as their fiqh research director.
• Sultan also served as religious director for the Hilliard-based Islamic school, Sunrise Academy, where he also conducted teacher training.
• Sultan later served as the resident scholar at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard, working directly with his Muslim Brotherhood buddy, Hany Saqr.

Oh, and let’s not forget that one our local Muslim columnists Mahmoud El-Yousseph proclaimed Sultan "one of America’s most-noted Muslim scholars", and Sultan was defended as a moderate in a lengthy article by Columbus Dispatch reporter Felix Hoover.

Sultan was the focus of this CBN News report, "Jihad in Central Ohio":


Sultan also gave an interview to Al-Risala TV (translated by MEMRI) in May 2005, just days after the Dispatch article defending Sultan appeared, where he claimed that the 9/11 attacks were done by the US government, and defending Yemeni Al-Qaeda cleric and designated terrorist, Abdulmajid Al-Zindani:


Here’s the entire IslamOnline interview with Salah Sultan:

Politicking US Muslims

How Can US Muslims Change Realities
Interview with Dr. Salah Soltan

By Abdelrahman Rashdan

Staff Writer — IslamOnline.net

US Muslims: Interview with Dr. Salah Soltan

Dr. Salah El-Deen Soltan has been described as “one of America’s most-noted Muslim scholars.” Scrolling through his eight-page CV, one would be astonished at the amount of positions, publications, activities, researches, and workshops he held, led, or was part of.

As the founder of several US Muslim organizations, including the American Center for Islamic Research, the Sultan Publishing Company, and the Islamic American University, Dr. Soltan has proved that his insight of the American Muslim community is worth digging into.

It is obvious that the American-Muslim community needs change, needs to be more active in the US politics, and needs to change the policies of its country that has changed and continues to change the lives of a lot of Muslims all around the world. And it appears that Dr. Soltan is well-suited for the talk about this arduous mission.

“To achieve Allah’s consent and Paradise through the reformation of the soul, the family, the society, and the nation according to the methodology of the Qur’an and the Sunnah,” this is how he sees his mission in life, and it shows in this interview.

IslamOnline.net (IOL): Why should Muslims participate in the US elections?

Salah Soltan: I believe that such participation is not only permissible, but obligatory as well when it comes to the US elections; and the Islamic text proves that.

Allah — Subhanahu Wattaala (“Glorious and exalted is He”) — says: [Hide not testimony] (Al-Baqarah 2: 283) and elections is a witness according to the agreement of many of the Ummah scholars. [Hide not testimony. He who hideth it, verily his heart is sinful] (Al-Baqarah 2:283) such scripture, along with many others, signifies that nonparticipation leads to the sinning of the heart.

Through research, collecting opinions of credible Sheikhs and Fatwa councils, arguing the doubts that some of the respectable brothers and Sheikhs rouse about the participation in elections, all of that made me end up with a firm believe that participation in the US elections from the juridical angle is an obligation.

Circumstantially, it is an obligation too. According to the constitution, the American system makes everything goes through elections. I believe that for every Muslim who lives there commanding what is right and forbidding what is wrong goes through elections.

The participation of Muslims in the US elections is a judicial obligation and a circumstantial necessity.

The last elections before I left America was about smoking in public places in Ohio. Voters went to vote and Muslims were mobilized to vote against smoking in public, especially in restaurants.

Even the police has a board that is elected by cities’ citizens. Mayors, governors, board electricity companies, and educational councils are all elected.

Another example there is a fierce debate between the elected educational councils in different parts of America on whether to consider homosexual boys and girls pervert or not. If people vote that they are normal not pervert, they would assign big number of social counselors, not to guide those boys and girls, but to guide their parents and teach them to accept their homosexual children and that it is normal, as statistics show that 70% of those who leave school and home are homosexual, who are not accepted by their parents and tend to leave their parents which makes them drop out of school in order to work to earn their living. If Muslims were present in such debate, and demonstrate both logically and religiously that such homosexuality is prohibited pervert in all religions not just in Islam, the results would be very satisfactory.

I have an issue with brothers’ nonparticipation in elections, the duty of participation in election is put forth only when there is a presidential elections. But presidential elections are part of a long chain in the structure of the American society. Thus, I would like our brothers who have Fiqh of reality to give attention to every elections that occurs in any state not just to the presidential ones; I think this issue is really important.

The American congress is composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives and these are the most supreme powers after the president, and they give the needed legitimacy for the latter. The Congress can litigate the President and dismiss him.

Thus, nonparticipation means the continuation of their crimes in our countries.

Jews are certainly less in numbers than Muslims now in the US. Our number is between 8 to 10 millions, yet although American Jews are no more than 6 million they have vision, plan, determination of whom to vote for and whom to ignore, and in some cases they support two candidates at the same time so that whomever wins becomes accountable to them. This is done in the Congress or the presidential elections. Jews in the US spend massive amount of money on elections’ publicity campaign.

The average sum of money spent on publicity for a Senate candidate is $5 million and for the House of Representatives candidate is $1 million, yet the US presidential candidate exceeds by far this amount. The most expensive presidential campaign was that of President Bush in year 2004; it reached billions of US dollars.

If it was a presidential election, such as that coming up at the end of 2008, then there has to be formed a Shura council from all US states that will assemble and take one decision.

Such exorbitant expenditure on US elections by Jewish-owned mega-businesses and organizations is not done in philanthropy.

I will mention an example that Muslims in the US and Europe should be well aware of. Mr. Paul Findley’s book “Silent No More” says that President Kennedy in his second elections had a shaky stand, and accordingly a man responsible for 300 Jewish organizations proposing to fund all his campaign on one condition which was to place the keys of foreign policy in his hands, and Kennedy refused such proposal. The result was the assassination of John Kennedy.

These facts, supported with incidents and numbers, prove that the participation of Muslims in the US elections is a judicial obligation and a circumstantial necessity. I hope that Muslims stop yelling at the Islamic centers and Masjids justifying not participating in elections with claims of widespread scandals in the US, especially in the municipality elections.

IOL: Put between two choices of personal benefits — related to candidates’ internal agenda — and the US foreign policy that affects the Muslims world, which choice do you think the US Muslims should ideally go for?

Soltan:In this case I would put methodology instead of a solution. The methodology in such case would be the presence of a Shura council according to the nature of the elections. If it was a local election, then the Shura council would be a local one that would decide which candidate is more appropriate. If it was a presidential election, such as that coming up at the end of 2008, then there has to be formed a Shura council from all US states that will assemble and take one decision. But for one US Muslim to sit alone and start making a judgment of who fits and who does not that is not correct.

Two conditions have to be satisfied in a good candidate: does not be notorious for attacking Islam and to be qualified enough to the positions he is running for.

This Shura council has three levels of choice. The first, is that it chooses the best out of two good candidates incase both had no drawbacks, which does not happen. The second involves choosing between goods and evils, the lesser harm should be warded off for the greater benefit; if the harm is greater, then the benefit should be left. The third point, and which happens a lot in the US, is to choose the lesser of two evils; in the third case, both candidates will do harm to Muslims internally or externally, thus the choice will go to that who will do less harm to Muslims.

Thus, I propose two methodologies, one about decision making through the Muslim Shura councils that will work according to the municipality, state, or the US levels. The second is to value issues according to the best out of two goods, and then judging among the goods and evils, or judging the lesser of two evils concerning Muslims.

This is the methodology and US Muslims can solve problems accordingly.

IOL: What should the US Muslims look for in a presidential candidate?

Soltan:In my book "Muslims Participation in the American Elections: Its Obligation and its Islamic Guidelines," Sultan Publishing, 2005, I said that such conditions that determines an acceptable candidate should include that he does not be notorious for attacking Islam and to be qualified enough to the positions he is running for. If such candidate was not against Islam yet was not qualified enough, then he should not be chosen. If the two mentioned conditions were satisfied a Muslim can accordingly vote for such candidate.

IOL: How do you see the future of the Muslim community in the US? Is it going for a better or worse one?

Soltan:I imagine that the future of the US Muslims is tied up to a number of factors. First is giving more attention to the internal development more than moving and extending outwards in the Da’wah activity. Muslims in the US need much more internal treatment than external one; US and European Muslim communities need to bring up leaders and calibers much more than it is in the rest of the Muslim world.

Secondly, those Muslims must have the abilities to unite themselves behind one cause and say. The Muslim influence is conditioned with unity. As an example, in Birmingham, UK, where there is a high Muslim density, six Muslims ran into elections against each others and the other non-Muslim candidate won the elections because votes were wasted in the competition among the six Muslim candidates. Thus, the nomination of more than one Muslim candidate stood against the success of Muslims. We are facing an actual crisis because we are exerting some real efforts yet such efforts are wasted by disunity.

We do not want to get into a competition and end up with a weak politician that would do more harm than benefit to Muslims.

The third factor that will act towards a better future for the Muslim community is to foster political figures. Most Muslims in the US want to bring up their children to be either a medical doctor or an engineer; there are no Muslim Congressman except for only one who is a doctor and the others are lawyers. We have to direct Muslim youth since high school towards the study of law, but the mentality and culture of the immigrant Muslim community tend to put the study of medicine and engineering ahead of any other field.

Youth have to be directed to the study of political science and law, Allah Almighty said [If they had intended to come out, they would certainly have made some preparation therefore] (At-Tawbah 9:46). We do not want to get into a competition and end up with a weak politician that would do more harm than benefit to Muslims. The Muslim politician should have strength, distinction, ability to deliver strong speeches, and good argumentative powers so that he can command what is right and forbid what is wrong in the correct way.

On the bright side, there is a sister who studied Shari’ah in Zaitouna University and then travelled to Stockholm, Sweden to study the Swedish language and post-graduate degrees. She ran in elections as a member of the municipal council and won; she is an excellent example that should be followed.

Forth, we have to teach the native American people and not only Muslims that acquired the nationality. Till now there are many Americans that have a negative look to non-native immigrants; Native American, white, and African American Muslims have to be taught and trained well to become distinguished lawyers political activists, and I confirm that they can be trained from the Zakah money.

Not only training and education is needed, there have to be leadership positions that such Muslims must be placed in.

Not only training and education is needed, there have to be leadership positions that such Muslims must be placed in. Such practical experience is extremely important so that they can be lively, effective, and powerful leaders that would impress other Americans making them feel that Muslim Americans are also caring for the common interests and not only that of the Muslim community. In my book, I mentioned as the first condition for the participation in the US elections is that the Muslim candidates should observe the welfare of the US society first and then the US Muslims community. When the American common person finds that the Muslim candidate keen on his security, economic wellbeing, cleanliness of streets, the quality of education, the absence of drugs, raping crimes, and violence, this will be the best way to convince Americans that Muslims are different from what Zionists and Islam-enemies are spreading and accusing them of being.

These are the factors that I see determining the future of Muslims in the US. Always I am optimist and I see the future of US Muslims to be more pleasant than now by Allah’s willing.

Abdelrahman Rashdan is a staff writer for the Muslim Affairs section of IslamOnline.net. A graduate of the American University in Cairo, he holds a BA in political science with a specialization in political economy and international relations. Click here to reach him.

Did Hate Sheikh Khalid Yasin Defraud Ohio Muslims (and did ISGC officials looking the other way)?

In May I reported here that international hate sheikh Khalid Yasin was making an appearance in Dayton sponsored by Masjid At-Taqwa and a weeklong schedule of events in Islamic Society of Greater Columbus mosques, in addition to an event at Ohio State (flier for the OSU event below).

But as I write in FrontPage today, “Khalid Yasin: Hate Sheikh, Con Man?”, some Muslims are speaking out and expressing grave concerns about Yasin’s long history of fraudulent fundraising and the complicity of so-called Muslim “leaders” who look the other way at his fraud:

But the issue raising concerns amongst some Muslim leaders in the US is not just Yasin’s cross-country tours promoting his toxic blend of rancid theology and conspiracy-mongering, but also about his fraudulent fundraising and questionable business practices. These Muslim leaders are also concerned that some Islamic institutions have willing looked the other way and ignored these scams as long as Yasin continues to regularly rake in substantial sums on their behalf.

Others have also expressed outrage that while Yasin has taken home as much as a hundred thousands dollars in an evening, thanks to his usual 50/50 split of all funds raised at an event, his wife and child live on public welfare in their home in Sheffield, England.

One source speaking out about Khalid Yasin’s fraudulent fundraising is the Salafi Burnout blog, which has alleged that the hate sheikh is enriching himself in a series of scams preying on the American Muslim community:

Having been exposed as a fraud in Australia and the UK, Khalid Yasin is currently back in the United States still peddling his television scam and raising money and taking up to half the money as his personal cut. He has also raised money in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries for a supposed Qur’an Memorization School in Alabama that did not exist. Last report, he was taking this money and investing it in real estate in Long Island in his own name. Should Muslims continue to allow this individual to trade on his name and swindle his community out of hundreds of thousands of dollars?

These sentiments have been echoed by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, who praised Salafi Burnout for publicly challenging Yasin and questioning how the American Muslim community has allowed a con man to operate so wantonly in their midst without the slightest criticism from Muslim leaders until now:

By now almost everyone is caught up in the buzz swirling around recent revelations of “Sheikh” Khalid Yasin’s long history of fraud and deceit. I applaud the courageous blog Salafi Burnout for attempting to protect the Muslims from what can only be described as a criminal enterprise, and to make us all aware of the tremendous damage it has caused to the community. As Yasin’s criminal house of cards appears to finally be falling, we are left with many unanswered questions as to why this kind of thing has been allowed to go on for so long.

Let there be no mistake, other shoes will drop, not only on Khalid Yasin but a whole host of other “du’ aat” and Imams who have with impunity betrayed the trust of the Muslims, and have left us wondering how individuals with such shady and dubious backgrounds were allowed to attain such stature, influence, and respectability in the first place. It is no exaggeration to say, as we shall soon learn, that our community is top heavy with these types of scoundrels, and yet the larger question remains; why did so many responsible and affluent Muslims fork over huge sums of money to a man who spouts the kind of absurd, preposterous, indeed psychotic things that he does?

As I reported previously, this is far from the first time that allegations of fraud and deception have dogged Khalid Yasin. When investigators for the Australian Sunday program looked into his academic background and his media company, the Islamic Broadcasting Corporation, back in 2005 they found a pattern of rampant fraud, deliberate misrepresentations, a mountain unpaid debts by Yasin, and unanswered questions about his phony academic credentials:

[more]

Exit question: Were ISGC leaders (such as Mohammad Tarazi) aware of Khalid Yasin’s history of fraudulent fundraising before they invited him to into their mosques to prey on the Muslim community in Columbus?

Final comment: Bravo to those Muslims courageously speaking out against the corrupt leaders who tolerate lies and fraud, and who sell their congregations away to rancid preachers like Khalid Yasin for money.

Islamic group coming to Columbus in August scheduled Pakistani terror leader as speaker

UPDATE #1: Naresh Raghubeer of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, the organization that opposed Qazi Hussein Ahmad’s entry into Canada for the ISNA conference last month, reports that Qazi was eventually denied a visa by the Canadian government as a result of the public outcry and political pressure, preventing him from speaking at the ISNA conference.

Original post: On August 29th, the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) will be having their 45th annual US convention at the Columbus Convention Center. The ISNA convention’s host is the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (ISGC).

As I report today at PJM, “North American Islamic Group Hosts Pakistani Terror Leader”, ISNA invited Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the head of the Jamaat-e-Islami terrorist organization to speak at their conference in Toronto, Canada just last month. Qazi has been banned by more than two dozen countries in Europe and the Middle East.

Does this portend the kind of extremism that will be brought into our own community in just two months time?

Here’s the opening of the article:

Qazi Hussein Ahmad has been banned from more than 25 countries across Europe and the Middle East for the activities of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) organization that he heads. Terrorism analysts around the world have noted JEI’s close ties to al-Qaeda, and Qazi has publicly defended Osama bin Laden, admitting to meeting with him on several occasions and claiming that no definitive proof exists of bin Laden’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks. In an October 2002 interview with Der Speigel Qazi went so far as to deny al-Qaeda’s existence altogether and defended his group’s support of the Taliban, saying that “they were just and honorable men, who brought peace to Afghanistan.”

With that kind of extremist rhetoric and close associations with known terrorist organizations currently at war with the United States, it is troubling that the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) had Qazi Hussein Ahmad as one of its featured speakers at its annual Canadian conference last month. The ISNA-Canada conference was run jointly with the Muslim Students Association and Muslim Youth of North America, and endorsed by the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Muslim Association of Canada.

The program for the ISNA conference lists Qazi Hussein Ahmad speaking at their seventh session on Saturday, May 24, on the topic of “Religious Extremism: Fact or Fiction.” This was not his first time at an ISNA conference, however, as he was featured at the group’s 1998 35th annual convention held in St. Louis, where Qazi was one of two speakers on the topic of “Human Dignity in the Muslim World: The Case of Pakistan and Algeria.”

Qazi’s appearance at the ISNA-Canada conference was denounced by the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, which demanded that the government immediately review and reconsider his visa application, especially since Jamaat-e-Islami has been designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian government. ISNA’s decision to include the JEI leader in their event was strongly criticized by Calgary Herald columnist Rob Breakenridge, who used the occasion to question Canadians’ paradoxical “tolerant society.”

[article continued]

To verify Qazi Hussain Ahmad’s scheduled appearance at the ISNA conference, here’s the conference flier with him listed prominently as one of their speakers (original here):

Hate sheikh Khalid Yasin’s “Islamic Hatred in the Heartland” tour continues in Columbus all this week

International hate sheikh Khalid Yasin, whose message of hate, bigotry and violence had been condemned around the world (for instance, the 2005 condemnation of Yasin’s views by Australian NSW Premier Bob Carr), will be spending the entire upcoming week featured at events all around Columbus. He will be hosted at several mosques affiliated with the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (ISGC).


You might recall that Yasin appeared at an event in Dayton earlier this month for Masjid At-Taqwa at Sinclair Community College, and his appearance covered by Dayton NBC affiliate WDTN.


Just as a refresher, here are some of Khalid Yasin’s extremist views (covered in this previous post):

• Yasin says that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks. (“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” Sunday, October 9, 2005)
• Yasin claims that AIDS was invented at a US government lab and spread by Western governments through UN agencies and Christian missionaries. (“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” Sunday, October 9, 2005)
• Yasin advocates for the death penalty for homosexuality. (“Home Grown”, Sixty Minutes, Channel Nine, July 24, 2005)
• Yasin justified the terrorist bombings in Bali because of years of alleged Western oppression. (“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” Sunday, October 9, 2005)
• Yasin says that the Quran permits wife-beating and that equal rights for women is a “delusion” and “foolishness”. (cited in “Undercover Mosque”, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007)
• Yasin calls the beliefs of Christians and Jews “filth”. (cited in “Undercover Mosque”, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007)
• Yasin says that Muslims cannot have non-Muslim friends. (“Home Grown”, Sixty Minutes, Channel 9 [Australia], July 24, 2005)
• Yasin rejects any separation between Islam and the state and openly advocates for the reestablishment of the caliphate. (Sunday Nights with John Cleary, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 7, 2003)
• Yasin visited Jemaah Islamiah terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir in prison. (“Koranic TV next step for radial sheikh”, Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 2005)
• Yasin has lectured with Hizb-ut-Tahrir hatemonger Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK in 2006.
• Yasin was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11 soliciting support from the Al-Qaeda front Al-Haramain Foundation, which was designated a terrorist organization in 2004 by the US government, to help finance his Islamic Broadcasting Company.

And here are some of his statements and positions observed by the Australian media as noted in a July 24, 2005, article in the Sydney Morning Herald (“Sheikh calls Prime Minister’s comments inflammatory”):

Sheik Khalid Yasin, the executive director of the Islamic Teaching Institute which is dedicated to the work of promoting Islam, told a large gathering of young muslims at Bankstown Town Hall in Sydney last week that muslims could not be friends with anyone who did not share their faith.

“They’re not your friend because they don’t understand your religious principles and they cannot because they do not understand your faith,” he said.

The sheik said young Muslims should not attend university because they would lose their direction.

“University is a gateway for deviation,” he said.

“You forget your Islamic direction. Now you have become compromised through some kind of intellectuality.”

The sheik told the Nine Network men whose wives disobeyed them should be beaten.

He quoted a verse from the Koran and translated it.

“Now specifically, if you take that word literally, it means literally, beat them lightly,” Sheik Yasin said.

“Beat them, like I would my child.”

He also said homosexuals should be killed.

“We don’t make any excuses about that, it’s not our law, it’s the Koran,” he said.

With that in mind, it’s interesting to see that Yasin will be leading both youth and women’s events while in Columbus this week. Also interesting is that he will be speaking at Ohio State University this week, despite the fact that he’s said that Muslims should not attend university: “The university is a gateway for deviation. You forget your Islamic direction. Now you have become compromised through some kind of intellectuality.”

Will it be CAIR-OSU, the Muslim Student Association, or both sponsoring his OSU visit?

Here’s his schedule for this upcoming week (courtesy of Basil Mohamed Gohar and Columbus Dawah):

Shaykh Khalid Yasin in Columbus this week (updated schedule)

Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem

Assalaamu ʿalaykum wa Rahmatullaahi wa Barakaatuh

Alhamdulillaah, our community is truly blessed to have with us Shaykh Khalid Yasin, perhaps best known for his powerful & inspiring lecture, The Purpose of Life. He will be visiting several locations throughout the community during his stay in the coming week, in shaaʾ Allaah. Please visit this page frequently as the schedule is being updated and finalized.

Saturday (May 24th, 2008)
Ibn Taymiya Masjid & Islamic Center (map)
7:00 PM Presentation

Sunday (May 25th, 2008)
Masjid Omar bin El-Khattab (map)
4:00 PM - 8:00 PM (Ladies only)
After Maghrib khaatirah (everyone)

Monday (May 26th, 2008)
Abubakar Siddique Islamic Center (map)
After Maghrib khaatirah

Tuesday (May 27th, 2008)
Masjid Oumar Al-Foutiyou (map)
After Maghrib khaatirah

Wednesday (May 28th, 2008)
Ibn Taymiya Masjid & Islamic Center (map)
7:00 PM Presentation

Thursday (May 29th, 2008)
Event at OSU (details still coming)

Friday (May 30th, 2008)
Masjid Omar bin El-Khattab (map)
Jumuʿah Khutbah @ 1PM
After Maghrib khaatirah

Saturday (May 31st, 2008)
Masjid Omar bin El-Khattab (map)
10:30 AM Youth Program
After Maghrib presentation

Sunday (June 1st, 2008)
Ibn Taymiya Masjid & Islamic Center (map)
7:00 PM Presentation

Will our self-proclaimed “interfaith” leaders, such as Abukar Arman and the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio condemn ISGC’s promotion of this international hatemonger?

You know the answer as well as I do. . .

Oh, wait, Khalid Yasin is being hosted by Abukar Arman’s mosque three times this week. Nevermind.



Here are the links to the international media coverage cited above of Khalid Yasin’s campaign of hate:

Interview, Sunday Nights with John Cleary, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 7, 2003

“Khalid Yasin in conversation”, The Religion Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation National Radio, September 10, 2003

“Sheik calls Prime Minister’s comments inflammatory”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 24, 2005

“Home Grown”, Sixty Minutes, Channel Nine, July 24, 2005

Marian Wilkinson, Anne Davies and Andrew Clennell, “Muslims unites — it’s time to disown terror”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 26, 2005

Tom Allard, “Koranic TV next step for radical sheik”, Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 2005

“Khalid Yasin: The New Voice of Islam?” (transcript), Sunday, October 9, 2005

“Undercover Mosque” (transcript), Dispatches, Channel 4 [UK], January 15, 2007

Robert Spencer, “Guess Who’s Speaking at the Local Mosque”, Human Events, May 14, 2008

Patrick Poole, “Islamic Hatred in the Heartland”, FrontPage Magazine, May 14, 2008

The Central Ohio connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — 15 Years Ago Today

On February 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in the parking garage of the World Trade Center, announcing that war had come to America.

Seven people were murdered that day by Islamic extremists:

John DiGiovanni, 45 (Valley Stream, New York)
Robert Kirkpatrick, 61 (Suffern, New York)
Steven Knapp, 47 (Manhattan, New York City)
William Macko, 57 (Bayonne, New Jersey)
Wilfred Mercado, 37 (Brooklyn, New York City)
Monica Rodriguez Smith and her unborn child (Seaford, New York)

Memorial to the souls lost on 2/26/1993 (destroyed on 9/11)

Another 1,042 people were injured, some severely. The Islamic terrorists who committed this act had intended to kill tens of thousands, if not more.

This day should be important to us in Central Ohio, in that one of the unindicted co-conspirators in this terrorist act, Siraj Wahhaj, named as such by US Attorney Mary Jo White, is a regular speaker in our area. In just the past two years, Wahhaj has been the keynote speaker at fundraising events for Sunrise Academy, Masjid Abubakar Al Siddique, CAIR-Ohio, the Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio, and most recently, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center.

On March 10, 2006, he was the keynote speaker at the Sunrise Academy (the area’s full-time Islamic school) sports complex fundraiser at the Makoy Center in Hilliard. I discussed the event in my article, “Hometown Jihad: The School Gym that Terror Built”. Here’s the announcement (click to enlarge):



Then on February 16, 2007, Wahhaj again appeared in Central Ohio for a fundraiser for Masjid Abubaker Al Siddique on Sullivant Ave held at Sunrise Academy. This mosque is part of the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (ISGC). Here is that announcement (click to enlarge):



On June 6, 2006, Siraj Wahhaj was back again in Columbus for a fundraiser for CAIR-OH. I wrote about this event previously, “CAIR’s Blood Money”. CAIR-OH later bragged how the Wahhaj fundraiser had netted them more than $100,000 in one evening to help spread their hate speech and terror apologies. Here is the CAIR press release following the event (click to enlarge):



This past September 9th, Wahhaj was the keynote speaker for the Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio (IFCO), appearing on behalf of his friend Ahmad Al-Akhras, CAIR national vice chairman and president of IFCO. (See our post here, “Mayor Coleman advisor brings hate shiekh to town”, which discusses in detail Wahhaj’s virulent hate speech and violent rhetoric.)

And most recently, Wahhaj was the featured speaker at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard on December 19, 2007 for their Eid celebration.

Very few Muslims in our area agree with the extremist ideology of Siraj Wahhaj and his local allies. In fact, these events were attended by only a very tiny minority of supporters from the Muslim community. But these same supporters are not only very vocal, but are well-funded, control several of the prominent Islamic institutions in town, and have the ear of our local and state political establishment (as has been observed, Wahhaj’s 2006 CAIR-OH fundraiser was followed in 2007 by an appearance by Governor Strickland, “Not in our name, Gov. Strickland”). As we remember what happened on February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001, it would do us well to remember all those who have been murdered and vow to be vigilant in confronting the hate and extremism that is alive and well in Central Ohio.

Andrew McCarthy, the Assistant US Attorney in charge of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing prosecutions, published an article about the attacks today that is worth reading in its entirety. As you read the excerpt below and the rest of the article, remember that the violence at work on that day 15 years ago is still with us:

On the morning of February 26, 1993, Islamic militants steered a nondescript Ryder van through the winding darkness of the parking garage under the World Trade Center. They had spent years planning this moment in secret meetings at mosques and jailhouses, in rural outposts that served as paramilitary camps, and in safehouses where explosive compounds were mixed in makeshift labs.

Loaded into the van’s rear compartment was a 1,400-pound chemical bomb.

The explosive detonated at a few minutes after noon. The hyper-intensive shockwave bored a six-story canyon into the bowels of the complex. Seven people were killed (one of the six officially listed murder victims having been well along in her pregnancy), over a thousand were injured, and the structural damage would cost nearly a billion dollars to repair.

Amid the terror, the dark cloud that envelops us still 15 years later, was a silver lining. This time, the “battalion of Islam” — as the “blind sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman, liked to refer to the cells in his emerging jihad army — had failed.

It had been the intention of the World Trade Center bombers to annihilate tens of thousands of Americans, in addition to rendering the world’s most significant financial district uninhabitable. Detonation was consciously timed for maximum carnage: high noon on a Friday, when as many as 120,000 business professionals, laborers, diners, tourists, and area residents typically swarmed the Twin Towers and their immediate Wall Street environs.

More diabolically, not content with their sophisticated, powerfully combustible urea-nitrate mixture, the jihadists laced the compound with deadly sodium cyanide and attempted to boost the explosion with hydrogen tanks. The aim was a horror virtually unimaginable back then (though it is, today, an omnipresent fear): wide dispersal of a lethal, aerated chemical, killing the thousands too distant to be obliterated by the sheer force of the blast.

May God bless the souls of those lost that awful day. And may we never forget.

CAIR-Ohio and the Convicted Cop Killer

Convicted cop-killer Jamil Al-Amin (center), with his Central Ohio cop-killer defense crew, Siraj Wahhaj (left) and Ahmad al-Akhras (right)
The next time CAIR-OH does a “cultural sensitivity” seminar for one of our local law enforcement or homeland security agencies, perhaps someone there will ask the CAIR representatives about why their organization has persistently defended convicted cop-killer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who was convicted in March 2002 of murdering Fulton County (GA) Deputy Sheriff Ricky Kinchen and seriously wounding his partner in an ambush as they were serving an arrest warrant on him. He was convicted on all 13 counts and sentenced to life in prison. Deputy Kinchen was taken from his wife and two small children.

Even before Al-Amin’s trial, CAIR and several other prominent Islamic organizations championed his innocence. In a March 21, 2000 press release jointly-issued by CAIR even before Deputy Kinchen’s body was still cold, they claimed: “The charges of Imam Jamil are especially troubling because they are inconsistent with what is known of his moral character and past behavior as a Muslim.” Nothing was said about Al-Amin’s interstate flight to Montgomery, Alabama after the shootings or that when he was arrested police recovered the vehicle bearing bullet holes and the weapons used to ambush Deputies Kinchen and English.

One step these organizations, including CAIR, took was to form an alliance, the National Support Committee for Imam Jamil, and begin fundraising for his defense. One fundraising site was Columbus, Ohio, organized by CAIR-Ohio and the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus. Demonstrating their utter contempt for law enforcement, the keynote speaker was none other than Siraj Wahhaj, a member of CAIR’s Board of Advisors who was named by US District Attorney Mary Jo White as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The Columbus event was organized by then CAIR-Ohio president (now CAIR national vice chairman) Ahmad Al-Akhras, who we noted last month has fled the country for Qatar. The event was held at Masjid Omar ibn El-Khattab near campus, the gathering place for our local Al-Qaeda cell and known affectionately as “Masjid Al-Qaeda”.

Here is a copy of the announcement from CAIR-Ohio and the Islamic Society of Great Columbus for the Jamil al-Amin fundraiser:

From: “Ahmad Al-Akhras”
To: “Columbus Muslims”, “AACO”
Subject: (CAIR-Ohio) Imam Siraj Wahhaj in Columbus
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:30:59 -0400

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

CAIR-Ohio
Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ohio
4700 Reed
Road, Suite B
Columbus, Ohio 43220
Tel: 614-470-5228
E-Mail: cairohio@...
URL: http://www.cair-net.org

Islamic Society of Greater Columbus
580 Riverview Drive
Columbus, Ohio 43202
Tel (614)262-1310
E-Mail: info@isgc.org
URL: http://www.isgc.org

April 12, 2001

-----------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 12, 2001 (COLUMBUS, OH 4/12/2001) CAIR-Ohio and ISGC host Imam Siraj Wahhaj to speak about the case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ohio Chapter and the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus are pleased to host Imam Siraj Wahhaj on Friday April 27, 2001.

Imam Siraj Wahhaj will give Juma’ Khutba at the Bill McDonald’s Athletic Complex on Olentangy River and Bethel Roads. In the evening, Imam Siraj Wahhaj will speak at Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque. The topic of the lecture, which will be after Maghrib Prayer, will be about the case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin of Atlanta, GA.

WHEN: FRIDAY April 27, 2001
Juma’a Khutbah
at Bill McDonald’s
and
Lecture
at 8:30 p.m. — after Maghrib Prayer

WHERE: Juma’a Khutba
at Bill McDonald’s
Intersection of Olentangy River Road and Bethel Road
Columbus, Ohio
and
Lecture: Defending Muslims Rights, the Case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin
at Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque
580 Riverview Dr
Columbus, Ohio
Tel 614-262-1310

TITLE: Defending Muslims Rights, the Case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin

CONTACT: Mohammed Azhar Masood, (614) 937-3357, Ahmad Al-Akhras, (614) 989-5916

When the guilty verdicts were announced, CAIR and these other Islamic organization denounced the trial as unfair and mobilized for his appeal. In a news conference they said, “We do not believe the facts presented in court warranted a guilty verdict against Imam Jamil. His defense team offered credible evidence indicating that he was not the person who shot the deputies. We believe Imam Jamil will be exonerated on appeal.” Fortunately, all of his appeals were examined, considered and rejected.

Here is one description of the events surrounding Deputy Kinchen’s murder and Al-Amin’s arrest:

Preaching a firebrand version of Islam, Al-Amin in the 1980s became a pillar of Atlanta’s burgeoning Muslim community. He and the law stayed on separate paths until 1995, when he was arrested for shooting a drug dealer four times in the legs, and also charged with carrying a concealed and unlicensed .45 caliber handgun. A year later, he was investigated in connection with more than a dozen homicides, which a police report ascribed to revenge, business rivalries and eliminating people who “knew too much.” By 1999 he was arrested on charges of driving a stolen car and carrying a concealed weapon.

Even so, when the two sheriff’s deputies, Aldranon English, 28, and Ricky Kinchen, 35, found Al-Amin standing in a black trench coat by a parked black Mercedes-Benz, they were not prepared for what came next. Finding Al-Amin’s hands concealed, they followed standard procedure and ordered him to show his hands. “OK, here they are,” he replied and allegedly pulled out two guns, firing first a .223 caliber assault rifle, then switching to a 9 mm revolver. English was shot in both legs, the left arm and right chest. Six bullets killed Kinchen. The next day English identified Al-Amin from a selection of mug shots.

Al-Amin, meanwhile, fled to White Hall, Alabama, and for the second time in his life made the FBI’s most-wanted list. Four days later he was caught — this time by no less than one hundred well-armed police officers. Al-Amin was wearing body armor when apprehended. Police found in White Hall his black Mercedes — complete with a tell-tale bullet hole — two cartridge clips, a .223 caliber rifle and a 9 mm handgun. Ballistic tests showed the guns to be those used to shoot English and Kinchen.

Something our local law enforcement officials ought to consider next time they agree to cozy up to CAIR-Ohio for “cultural sensitivity” and “community outreach”.

Hate sheikh featured speaker at upcoming Sunrise Academy fundraiser

Apparently stung by my revealing their past fundraisers featuring hate sheikh Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see, “Hometown Jihad: The School Gym that Terror Built”), our local fulltime Islamic school in Hilliard, Sunrise Academy, is bringing in the next best thing — Siraj Wahhaj’s running buddy, fellow hate sheikh Abdalla Idris Ali. Sunrise is a program of the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus.

The fundraising event this coming Sunday, December 9th, is scheduled to be held at the University Plaza Hotel (flyer below). Abdalla Idris Ali is best known as the former President of the Muslim Brotherhood front group, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and his virulently anti-Jewish and anti-Christian website, Islamicity.com. The website also features videos of extremist speakers, including multiple videos by a US government designated global terrorist and al-Qaeda cleric, in addition to promoting violent interpretations of jihad.

Ali’s presidential tenure of ISNA from 1992–1997 marked one of the most radical periods of the organization’s existence. In 1995 under Ali’s oversight ISNA established a defense fund for HAMAS terrorist leader Musa abu Marzook. Reporters for the St. Petersburg Times examining the organization have described ISNA as “the main clearinghouse for Wahhabism in the US” and say that the group is funded by the Saudi government.

Professor J. Michael Waller testifying before the US Senate Judiciary Committee described ISNA as a group that seeks to marginalize moderate Muslim voices:

The Islamic Society of North America is an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada. Established by the Muslim Students Association, ISNA seeks to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support its ideological goals. Through sponsorship of propaganda, doctrinal material and mosques, is pursuing a strategic objective of dominating Islam in North America.

Then there is Ali’s founding and continued leadership of Islamicity, a subscription website that openly advocates writings denouncing Jews and Christians as “disbelievers” and advances an extremist view of jihad. Here is a video of Idris Ali fundraising for the Islamicity website. Among the writings promoted at the Islamicity online library is an article entitled “The Corruption of the Torah” saying about Jews that “Allah has told us of the hatred they hide in their hearts”. Another article is entitled, “Confirmation That Judaism And Christianity Are Forms Of Disbelief”.

Then under its definition of jihad, it calls violent jihad against the “enemies of Islam” as the highest and most noble form (so much for the “lesser jihad”!):

Q308: Jihad: Basic definition of A308 : Jihad could be a simple action, such as standing firm in defense of the cause of Islam. This may require speaking out in public, against ignoring Islamic principles, and writing articles or publishing books. It may also take the form of reminding people of their Islamic duties and motivating them to conduct their lives according to Islam. Its top and most noble form is to fight the enemies of Islam in battle in order to foil their attempts to smother the call of Islam.

Perhaps even more troubling is Islamicity’s video channel dedicated exclusively to al-Qaeda cleric and Specially Designated Global Terrorist Abdul-Majeed Al-Zindani (see John Devon’s article, “Yemeni Shiekh of Hate”). Al-Zindani is considered one of Osama bin Laden’s mentor. Another video channel of Islamic conferences feature some of the most extreme Islamic leaders in the US, including our own former Hilliard HAMAS cleric, Salah Sultan (who fled the country for Bahrain earlier this year). We should also remember that Sultan was a regular fixture at Sunrise Academy during his years of residence in Central Ohio, and he used Sunrise Academy as a base of operations.

Another Sunrise Academy fundraiser, another hate sheikh. Go figure.

CAIR-Ohio official: Palestinian terrorists are “guerrilla groups”

A few days ago I posted a comment by Norma Tarazi (“ISGC official Norma Tarazi comments on the ‘Jewish lobby’ in Columbus”), a CAIR-Ohio board member, an official for the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (ISGC), as well as a teacher at the Sunrise Academy Islamic school in Hilliard, where she pondered on the activities of the “Jewish lobby” and “Jewish community activists” in response to an August 20th letter to the editor by Ahmad Al-Akhras published in the Columbus Dispatch. I noted that someone had responded to that letter in Sunday’s Dispatch, and wondered what her response would be. I didn’t have to wait long.

On Sunday, Tarazi circulated her thoughts on this most recent exchange, engaging in even more moral equivalence between accepted methods of warfare between nation-states and terrorist activities by Palestinians. She responds by stating that these terrorist organizations are “guerrilla groups” and are engaged in legitimate resistance. The letter to the editor she is responding to, “Israel within rights to protect itself”, said:

I respond to the Aug. 20 letter “Authorities should not advocate violence,” from [CAIR national vice chairman] Ahmad Al-Akhras. He seems to have a double standard: It’s OK for Hamas to throw rockets into Israel at civilian targets, but not OK for Israel to retaliate against that terrorist group, whose aim is to destroy the Jewish state. . .

In his authoritative book on guerrilla warfare, Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare, Bard O’Neill distinguishes guerrilla campaigns from terrorist activity in that “its primary targets are the government’s armed forces, police, or their superior units, and in some cases, key economic targets, rather than unarmed civilians.” (p. 26)

When HAMAS and Palestinian Islamic Jihad sends suicide bombers into a crowded pizza parlor or a city bus; or as we saw this past weekend, fires a missile into a day care center compound; they are not engaging in guerrilla tactics but terrorism. It is profoundly troubling that CAIR officials continue to miss this crucial difference and attempt to paint terrorism as legitimate resistance. Isn’t this unqualified equivalence between warfare and terrorism that CAIR officials desperately profess they don’t make, and yet resort to almost constantly when pressed on this point?

Tarazi also fails to acknowledge that Palestinians have repeatedly tried to unsuccessfully use military means to destroy Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, which is slightly more than the “ethnic group” conflict she describes. In her message reprinted below she leaves open the question of whether Israel is a nation-state at all, and also characterizes Palestinian terror attacks as “minuscule”:

Asalaam alaikum to all,

We now have a response to Ahmad’s article two weeks ago, Monday letter. Points to note: Ahmad was using facts to demonstrate that there are extremists advocating violence against civilians on both sides of the Palestine/Isreal [sic] conflict. The writer of this response does not see that he had a balanced article. The concern is not which region has a better government, Ghaza or Isreal [sic], or that Isreal [sic] has the right to protect itself. I will make a few points. I hope someone can write effectively to respond to this letter.

If Isreal [sic] is a sovereign state, for almost 60 years it has not been accepted or recognized by the people it surplanted [sic], no matter how harshly it has implimented [sic] ethnic intimidation, ethnic cleansing of areas, and massive retaliation against civilians in response to the attacks by guerrilla groups. Shock and awe campaigns like Hiroshima and Dresden are only good as war tactics for the immediate psychological impact and, if they do not create quick capitulation of the enemy, they are worthless. (I’m ignoring the whole argument of the morality of these campaigns.) Though they could theoretically be repeated over and over, if the enemy refuses to give in, they would eventually result in genocide, an unacceptable outcome.

If Isreal [sic] has the right to self defense, so do the Palestinians. They do not have the weapons of Isreal [sic], but there is no peace treaty or agreement. It is a double standard to claim that Israel has the right to conduct war and cite Hiroshima as justification for killing civilians among the enemy fighters, and cry foul when Palestinians attack in what ever miniscule [sic] way they find available.

World War II was a large conflict involving nation states and armies in uniform. The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is about two ethnic groups fighting over the same land. The Israelis have created a state and army but the Palestinians have yet to truely [sic] do so. Palestinian fighters are guerrilla groups. This is a different kind of warfare and takes different methods.

While in history we can find examples where ethnic cleansing and genocide took place, the modern world does not accept these methods of warfare any more. Where populations were willing to accept any sacrifice and not give up their fight, these are the only tools available to the military to end the conflict permanently. Examples are Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kurdistan, and others.

Since these two tools are no longer available to civilized countries, the only true means of achieving peace is through diplomacy. With entrenched positions on both sides of the Palestinian/Israeli conflicts, the moderates of both sides need to come together. Each side must work to silence or ignore its own extremist elements if peace is to be achieved, and a win/win compromise must be reached, where each side feels it is giving up the crown jewels perhaps, but where the solution to the conflict is finally seen as worth the sacrifice.

Since Palestinians have been suffering the most throughout the 60 years, they will have the most to gain in a peace settlement, if it gives them enough to ensure that the majority will accept it, and may be seen as “the winners” because of this, but Israelis will have to look at the long term challenges of water shortages, increasing Arab-Israeli population and the long term gains to be made by coming to peace with its neighbors.

The psychological scaring of people that has already occured [sic] will take a few generations to overcome. We have only to see the psychological scaring [sic] of African Americans and Native Americans that still exists because of the history of oppression these groups have undergone in history. It is inevitable that both Jews, with the scars of oppression brought from Europe, and Palestinians, with the scars of oppression from Israeli occupation, will have a hard road to learn to live together in peace.

Norma Tarazi

We are seeing a pattern develop amongst these extremists: what they say publicly (e.g. peddling themselves as “interfaith” or “human rights” activists”) is entirely different from what they say amongst themselves privately.

Again, my continued thanks to members of the local Muslim community who are willing to pass along these messages in concern for the extremist elements that have falsely claimed leadership as spokesmen for all Muslims in our area. It is only through the cooperation of Muslims and non-Muslims alike that we will be able to confront Islamist extremism in Central Ohio.

ISGC official Norma Tarazi comments on the “Jewish Lobby” in Columbus

A concerned member of the Central Ohio Muslim community forwarded me the email below from an official of the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus (ISGC), Norma Tarazi, commenting on the “Jewish lobby” in Columbus in demonstraton of the virulent anti-Jewish propaganda being advanced by ISGC leaders. The individual who sent this was clearly disturbed by the anti-Jewish sentiments expressed in the email reprinted below. This goes to show that there are sane voices in the Columbus Muslim community — they just aren’t the voices that are being heard.

What we see here below is that Norma Tarazi, the editor of the ISGC’s newsletter and a teacher at the ISGC’s Sunrise Academy Islamic school in Hilliard, is sure that there is some hidden meaning in that “Jewish community activists” haven’t responded to Ahmad Al-Akhras’ recent Dispatch letter to the editor, i.e., “They are up to something because they aren’t doing anything.”

Note in Tarazi’s email she isn’t criticizing Israel; she doesn’t say “Israel lobby”, but her suspicion is cast on the “Jewish community activists” and the "Jewish lobby” in Columbus. And this from someone who represents herself to be a “bridge builder” in the community. Is this the kind of open racial and religious hatred that is being taught at Sunrise Academy and in ISGC facilities?

Absolutely outrageous.

Asalaam alaikum,

Some things should be noticed for their absence. Until now, no one has responded to Ahmad’s article of last Monday. His article is strong, with solid facts and balanced, not making any sweeping generalizations against a whole group.

A few years ago the local Jewish community activists would respond immediately and forcefully, calling any criticism of any Jew “antisemetic”, as leaders in the national community have criticised former President Jimmy Carter.

The criticism last week from Larry Pollack about another article was noteworthy because he is an older contributer, repeating the same old argument he has written for years. I thought he had been sidelined in recent years as a writer because he was seen as ineffective.

I’m uncertain what this portends for the Jewish lobby in Columbus, but it is worth noting.

Norma Tarazi

You have to wonder what new “Jewish lobby” conspiracy Tarazi will spy in the Columbus after the Dispatch published this morning a letter from Barbara Soloway responding to Al-Akhras, “Israel within rights to protect itself”:

I respond to the Aug. 20 letter “Authorities should not advocate violence,” from Ahmad Al-Akhras. He seems to have a double standard: It’s OK for Hamas to throw rockets into Israel at civilian targets, but not OK for Israel to retaliate against that terrorist group, whose aim is to destroy the Jewish state. . .

In light of the Susan Purtee incident publicized last week, it is important to recognize and address the anti-Jewish sub-currents in our community, which means that the religious and ethnic hatred expressed by Norma Tarazi ought to also be condemned as vigorously as Purtee’s. And as Soloway expresses in her letter, the moral equivalency engaged in by her buddy and Mayor Coleman advisor, Ahmad Al-Akhras, in equating terrorism by HAMAS with the legitimate military response by Israel to terror attacks ought to be equally condemned as well.

My thanks to the members of the Muslim community who reject the extremism of local organizations like the ISGC and who are tired of having such notorious hatemongers and apologists for terror as Ahmad Al-Akhras and Norma Tarazi falsely claiming to represent all Muslims in Central Ohio. We welcome your continued input and cooperation in exposing the fringe elements that have tried to poison the discourse and derail interfaith relations in our community.