Noor Center speaker Wagdi Ghoneim: Eating and drinking left-handed is Satanic

In May 2004, international Muslim Brotherhood figure Wagdi Ghoneim came to Central Ohio to speak at a fundraiser for the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, now in Hilliard. That, of course, was before he was arrested, deported, and banned from the US later that year for his advocacy of terrorism and religious extremism. He was serving as the imam for the Islamic Institute of Orange County (CA) at the time. A few months ago I reported on Ghoneim’s Central Ohio connections after Ghoneim was arrested and deported from South Africa for the same reasons.

Well, the former Noor Center speaker appeared earlier this month on Al-Nas TV, addressing the age-old issue of how eating and drinking with your left hand follows Satan and his success at beating back the demonic temptations to use his left hand. MEMRI has the video, and also the transcript of Ghoneim’s remarks:

Wagdi Ghoneim: Some people eat with their left hand. What’s this supposed to be? They say: When you eat, the fork goes in the left hand. Do you eat with your left hand? You do, and then you take a drink. What’s this supposed to be? You use your left hand, and yet you claim to hate Satan?! You dare to tell me that you sense the enmity of Satan?! Allah give me the strength to resist Satan. . . Hold on a sec. The Prophet Muhammad said: “When you eat or drink, do not use your left hand, because Satan eats and drinks with his left hand.” Whoever eats and drinks with his left hand follows Satan, and whoever loves the Prophet Muhammad must eat with his right hand.

But when you tell people this, they say: But Sheik Wagdi, the rules of délicat and étiquette require the knife to be in the right hand, and the fork in the left. You should cut the food with your right hand, and eat with your left. If you dare to switch — the fork in your right hand and the knife in your left — they say: “Oh, how sauvage! This is unheard of.” Brother, what délicat? You are a Muslim.

When I was secretary-general of the commerce trade union, a large Iraqi delegation came, and we took them to a very big, five-star hotel in Cairo. We sat down to eat, and as I always do, I took the knife in my left hand and the fork in my right. Along comes the chef in his hat, taps me on the shoulder, and whispers: “Pardon me. . .” I said to him: “I am a Muslim!” So he said: “I’m sorry, I apologize.” I take pride in my Islam — or is Islam something disgusting, which I should be ashamed of? No.

[...]

Ghoneim: Some people say: “I am left-handed. I use my left hand for everything.” I was like you. I used to eat, drink, dress, and write with my left hand. That’s how Allah created me. The moment I became religious in 1969, Allah be praised, this came to an end. There were times when Satan tempted me to use my left hand, so in order to put an end to this altogether. . . What do I eat? Rice? I eat rice with a spoon. Bread? I need to cut it first. Fine, I’ll cut the bread in advance. I prepare the water and everything. That’s it. I’ve already cut the bread. . . Then I take my left hand and place it under my left leg. That’s it, it’s stuck. It won’t come out. I take the spoon in my right hand, and the same goes for the fork. . . The hadith says that when you are done eating, you should lick your fingers clean, because you don’t know where exactly the blessing lies. You say this is disgusting because it was the Prophet Muhammad who said it, but if Michael Jackson or some nobody told you to lick your feet, you would. We are Muslims, and we follow the path of the Prophet.

Oh, and don’t forget to lick your fingers after eating in the proper Quranic manner! We wouldn’t want to give in to Satan’s temptations!

Pipeline News has provided a very brief overview of Ghoneim’s documented racist views and support for terrorism:

• He had also referred to Jews as “monkeys” and “pigs” during a Brooklyn College conference of the American Muslim Alliance on May 24, 1998.


• Before leading the audience in anti-Jewish verse, Ghuneim said: “The Jews distort words from their meanings. . . . They killed the prophets and worshipped idols.


• Speaking about suicide bombings that took place in Israel in 1996: “Those young people who explode themselves to kill the Jews were not committing suicide but jihad,” Ghuneim said, “They are mujahedeen because there is no way to struggle and fight the Jews except that way. Allah bless those martyrs.”


• On May 24, 1998, for example, CAIR co-sponsored an incendiary rally at Brooklyn College that featured speakers spouting anti-Jewish rhetoric. One speaker was Wagdy Ghuneim, a radical cleric from Egypt. He told listeners, “Allah says he who equips a warrior of jihad is like the one makes jihad himself.” He led the audience in a song with the lyrics: “No to the Jews, descendants of the apes.”

The audio of Ghoneim leading a song depicting Jews as monkeys and apes can be found at the Investigative Project.

All of these incidents occurred and made public well before Ghoneim’s May 2004 appearance on behalf of the Noor Center.

Noor Center speaker Wagdi Ghoneim arrested and deported from South Africa

Hany Saqr’s HAMAS/Muslim Brotherhood buddy and previous speaker at Hilliard’s Noor Islamic Cultural Center, Wagdi Ghoneim, was arrested and deported from South Africa last week. This is yet another in a long string of expulsions for the Muslim Brotherhood cleric, who spoke at a Noor Center event in May 2004, just months before he was expelled and banned from the US for his open support of terrorism.

Here’s the announcement that circulated for Wagdi Ghoneim’s May 2004 Noor Center event:

Sh. Wagdy Ghoneim and Imam Siraj Wahhaj are visiting Columbus
Posted on Sunday, May 23 @ 11:19:02 EDT

Sh. Wagdy Ghoneim and Imam Siraj Wahhaj are visiting Columbus. Sh. Wagdy is invited by Masjid An-Noor to give a speech in the Fawcett Center on May 23rd at 6pm. Imam Siraj Wahhaj will be speaking on the topic “The Mood of the Nation” on Friday June 4th at 8pm in the Columbus Africentric Secondary School located at:

300 East Livingston Ave, Columbus, OH 43215

Tickets for both events are $10 per adult. Babysitting provided and refreshment served.

Of course, Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is a Noor Center regular, appearing most recently as the mosque’s Eid keynote speaker in December 2007.

Wagdi Ghoneim’s May 2004 speaking engagement is not the only tie between the Noor Islamic Cultural Center and himself. In fact, Ghoneim and former Noor Center resident scholar Salah Sultan were both identified in a July 2007 LA Times article by name in an article outlining “controversial Sunni figures”, “glorifying holy war” and “sharing the outlook of Al-Qaeda” in Bahrain.

In fact, here's an image from that LA Times article identifying the pair:


At issue was a Bahraini TV program featuring Ghoneim and Sultan, which the government of Bahrain eventually cancelled after vocal protests from members of parliament, who also protested the speed with which their citizenship applications were considered (Sultan’s was approved; Ghoneim was deported).

Wagdi Ghoneim has been banned from the US since being expelled in December 2004. While he was deported on a visa violation, a US Customs and Immigration Enforcement was much more frank about Ghoneim’s terrorist connections:

The government alleges that Ghoneim, who came to the U.S. in 2001 from Egypt, participated in fundraising activities around the country that could have helped terrorist organizations, said Bill Odencrantz, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director of field legal operations.

Ghoneim has not been charged with terrorist activity, however. Instead, he was arrested at his Anaheim home on Nov. 4 on suspicion of overstaying his religious-worker visa. he was charged with the immigration violation, Odencrantz said, “because it was the easiest charge to prove.”

“Frankly, our task is not to sit and wait around for people to blow up buildings,” Odencrantz said. “Our task is to look at situations and circumstances and take action against people.” (Kimi Yoshino, “To Avoid Visa Fight, Muslim Cleric to Leave”, LA Times, December 29, 2004, pg. B3)

Ghoneim was prevented from entering Canada in 1998 and subsequently banned for being a member of HAMAS and the Muslim Brotherhood (Ottawa Citizen, “Egyptian Religious Leader Denied Canadian Visa”, January 10, 1999).

In 2005, he was banned from entering Switzerland, which cited his fundraising for HAMAS (Islam Online, “Preacher Denied Entry, Swiss Muslims Furious,” September 19, 2005).

More recently, Ghoneim was expelled from Bahrain in November 2007, as reported by my friend and Bahraini blogger, Mahmood Al-Yousif of Mahmood’s Den.

Pipeline News has provided a very brief overview of Ghoneim’s documented racist views and support for terrorism:

• He had also referred to Jews as “monkeys” and “pigs” during a Brooklyn College conference of the American Muslim Alliance on May 24, 1998.


• Before leading the audience in anti-Jewish verse, Ghuneim said: “The Jews distort words from their meanings. . . . They killed the prophets and worshipped idols.


• Speaking about suicide bombings that took place in Israel in 1996: “Those young people who explode themselves to kill the Jews were not committing suicide but jihad,” Ghuneim said, “They are mujahedeen because there is no way to struggle and fight the Jews except that way. Allah bless those martyrs.”


• On May 24, 1998, for example, CAIR co-sponsored an incendiary rally at Brooklyn College that featured speakers spouting anti-Jewish rhetoric. One speaker was Wagdy Ghuneim, a radical cleric from Egypt. He told listeners, “Allah says he who equips a warrior of jihad is like the one makes jihad himself.” He led the audience in a song with the lyrics: “No to the Jews, descendants of the apes.”

The audio of Ghoneim leading a song depicting Jews as monkeys and apes can be found at the Investigative Project.

All of these incidents occurred and were public well before Ghoneim’s May 2004 appearance on behalf of the Noor Center. This raises the question of what other hate mongers and terror sheikhs are being featured at Noor (other than Siraj Wahhaj).

Another question that also remains concerns the connections of the Noor leadership to international terrorist organizations (more on that later).

Establishment media dhimmis ignore new Cleveland imam’s terror ties

Following up on last week’s blockbuster news about Egyptian hate sheikh Ahmed Alzaree’s hiring to replace the Islamic Center of Cleveland’s convicted and deported former imam, Fawaz Damra, the coverage of this growing story (fueled entirely by the work of bloggers, especially the initial work done by Tom Blumer of the Plain Dealer’s Wide Open blog and BizzyBlog) by the establishment media has aptly demonstrated the sorry condition of the supposed Fourth Estate in Ohio.

When the Plain Dealer finally got around to covering the story on Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rants on Saturday, “Public scrutiny under way for Ahmed Alzaree, new imam of Islamic Center of Cleveland”, the title couldn’t have been more fitting as the scrutiny has been entirely from the “public” not the “establishment media”. As Tom Blumer noted in a subsequent Wide Open post this weekend, “Ahmed Alzaree Follow-up: Who WAS That Cleveland.com Blogger?”, the PD’s Robert Smith couldn’t even admit that one of the PD’s own bloggers (Blumer) had been the one that broke the story. The coverage by the Associated Press/Columbus Dispatch (“Comment on Jews by incoming imam draws criticism”) and the abbreviated clip by the Cincinnati Enquirer (“Spiritual Leader’s Sermon Scrutinized”) was even more non-descript.

What is shocking is how easily the PD’s Smith allows Islamic Center of Cleveland president Jalal Abu-Shaweesh to explain away Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rant about how rocks will cry out for Muslims to kill hiding Jews:

Abu-Shaweesh, who read the sermon, said Alzaree was relaying a well-known Hadith as he listed myriad signs of Judgment Day and was likely just being thorough.

“Just being thorough”? Did that warrant any follow-up whatsoever on Smith’s part? Apparently not, because it passes without any further comment.

But what all these Ohio establishment media outlets have failed to acknowledge is the updated info we provided here concerning Alzaree’s connections to yet another deported terror cleric Wagdi Ghoneim. Here’s what I wrote:

COAT contributor Sun Tzu informs me that just prior to being expelled from the United States, one of the preachers that Ahmed Alzaree brought to Omaha was his friend and fellow Egyptian terror cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, who one US immigration official explained was kicked out of the US because “our task is not to sit around and wait for people to blow up buildings”. According to an Islamic Center of Omaha newsletter, Ghoneim visited in August 2004. JihadWatch reminds us that Switzerland has also banned Ghoneim from their country in 2005. As Daniel Pipes has noted, Ghoneim called Jews “descendants of the apes” at a 1998 CAIR event (apparently a common theme in the Damra-Alzaree-Ghoneim “inter-faith” circles).

Blumer has conveniently reposted the December 2004 LA Times article and Associated Press article concerning Ghoneim’s expulsion from the US for immigration violations and to avoid further investigation into accusations of his terrorist ties and fundraising. But not one of these “media” outlets could utter a word of mention of Ghoneim’s appearance at Alzaree’s Omaha mosque just weeks before he was expelled from the US, even though the PD’s follow-up article mentions the Central Ohioans Against Terrorism blog entry by name (yes, I am presuming that Smith read the post, since he was writing an article on the “public scrutiny” of Alzaree’s hiring; perhaps that is asking too much).

Beginning with the original Plain Dealer story by David Briggs last Tuesday, it has been the “bloggers”, not the “journalists”, who have continued to break new developments on Alzaree’s hiring, questionable background and incendiary statements. The media establishment’s reluctance to say anything critical of Islamic extremists is hardly surprising in light of their past performance, but their willful ignorance and whistling past the graveyard has become so painfully obvious that it is getting hard to watch anymore.

Ohio’s largest mosque hires Egyptian hate sheikh to replace deported terror cleric Fawaz Damra

[Be sure to see the update with new info below! And read Tom Blumer’s take on this story this morning at Wide Open blog.]

[And welcome to everyone joining us from LGF!]

Tom Blumer, the economic genius behind BizzyBlog and a new contributor to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s brand-spanking new Wide Open blog (along with Dave from NixGuy) made me aware of an article in Tuesday’s Plain Dealer by David Briggs, “Islamic Center hires new imam to replace deported cleric”, announcing that the Islamic Center of Cleveland, former home of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Fawaz Damra (before the US government stripped him of his citizenship and deported him back to Israel earlier this year), has been replaced by Ahmed Alzaree, who will assume his new position as head cleric on November 1. The Associated Press has also picked up the story. Alzaree comes to the Buckeye State from Omaha, Nebraska.

Considering Damra’s high-profile expulsion from the US, you would think that the Islamic Center of Cleveland would hire a more moderate voice to lead them than the terrorist cheerleader they had most recently. Think again.

Not mentioned in the Plain Dealer‘s report is Ahmed Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rants. According to Blumer, in a 15-second Google search, he came across a particular sermon dated March 7, 2003 where Alzaree offers this encouragement to his followers:

Dear brothers and sisters, the talk about the Day of Judgment is long and full of things that will confuse the human mind and put fear in the hearts of the faithful. Every day that comes is much more Worse than the day before it as we get closer to the hour. Among the signs of the approach of Day of Judgment is what the messenger of Allah PBUH said: “The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews.” Agreed upon. This is seemed to be very soon and close now. We ask Allah SWT not to test us so hardly if we live till this horrible moment insha’allah.

Apparently, the Plain Dealer‘s David Briggs didn’t do the same Google search that Blumer performed, even though in his article Briggs states:

Alzaree would not confirm his hiring, at one point saying he would not come to Cleveland because a reporter was inquiring about his background.

Gee, what do you think a reporter might be looking into, Mr. Briggs (real quick wits among these establishment media dhimmis, eh?), and who could possibly be motivated do such an investigation (grin)?

Someone looking at Alzaree’s background (at least if they bothered to look) might also come across the following comment in that same sermon where he highlights the required Quranic “jizya” tax to be imposed upon non-Muslims and his lament at its disuse in the Muslim world:

Abou Hurairah RAA narrated that the messenger of Allah PBUH said: “By Allah it is about the time the son of Maryam comes down and he shall rule with justice and he shall break the cross and kill the pig and will remove the “Jezyah”; (i.e. the supposed tax paid to the Muslim government by non-Muslims who live with them against guarding and protecting them which is mentioned in the Holy Quran in Surat Al-Tawbah (9-29) as a “fard” or requirement in despite of being lost and no longer practiced nowadays by almost all Arab and Muslim Countries), (that means that only Islam shall be the only accepted faith and religion), and the wealth shall increase to the point the charity is not needed” Reported by Al-Bukharee and Muslim.

Now remember that what initially got Alzaree’s predecessor Damra into trouble was a videotape that came to light of him raising money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and convicted PIJ leader Sami Al-Arian (video and transcript available from the Investigative Project). Damra was also filmed urging his supporters to point “a rifle at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." This is the same Fawaz Damra that was hailed as a great inter-faith leader in Cleveland.

(Oh, and did I mention that Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman’s close advisor and CAIR national vice chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras described terror leader and fundraiser Damra as a “long-time friend”?)

Now it seems that Alzaree has been hired to bring in Damra’s harvest of hate. Ahmed Alzaree encourages his flock by bringing to mind the glorious day in the future when stones will call out for hiding Jews to be killed and laments that the practice of jizya is no longer imposed on Jews and Christians in the Muslim world as a testament of their submission to Islamic imperialism.

Real nice. A real paragon of peace the Islamic Center of Cleveland has hired in Ahmed Alzaree. A real inter-faith leader like Damra, wouldn’t you agree? If you have any doubts, just listen to Alzaree’s recent sermon, “Prejudice from a spiritual perspective”, where he will no doubt tell you all about his peace and love for his fellow members of the Abrahamic tradition and his efforts to spread the love and engage in inter-faith dialogue at Creighton University.

Just don’t hide behind any rocks in Cleveland anytime soon.

UPDATE: COAT contributor Sun Tzu informs me that just prior to being expelled from the United States, one of the preachers that Ahmed Alzaree brought to Omaha was his friend and fellow Egyptian terror cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, who one US immigration official explained was kicked out of the US because “our task is not to sit around and wait for people to blow up buildings”. According to an Islamic Center of Omaha newsletter, Ghoneim visited in August 2004. JihadWatch reminds us that Switzerland has also banned Ghoneim from their country in 2005. As Daniel Pipes has noted, Ghoneim called Jews “descendants of the apes” at a 1998 CAIR event (apparently a common theme in the Damra-Alzaree-Ghoneim “inter-faith” circles).

Regular COAT readers will recall my mentioning Ghoneim recently in connection with our own Hilliard Holy War Homeboy, Salah Sultan, who the LA Times reported in July has been hanging out in Bahrain with Ghoneim, where the two had a weekly TV program until it was shut down by the government because of its extremism. My Bahraini friend and journalist Mahmoud Al-Yousif has been keeping track of Ghoneim and Sultan’s antics there. But rest assured, the Columbus Dispatch still considers Sultan a moderate.