Hat tip MEMRI-TV and Deb
The Islamic Society of Orange Country in Garden Grove is headed by Muzammil Siddiqi, who has "graced" the pages of this site for many years. Siddiqi poses as a moderate "bridge-builder" who has sold his act to many Jewish and Christian leaders in Southern California. He is, indeed, a favorite at all the local inter-faith events, where he assures his listeners that Islam "is a religion of peace and tolerance". How many times I have heard him say that.
I recall vividly back in January 2017, as Donald Trump was moving into the White House, how Siddiqi was a featured speaker at an inter-faith event at Newport Beach's Bat Yahm Synagogue, where Trump's alleged "racism" and that of his followers was deplored. Since Trump had been elected, the speakers argued, racism, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism had increased dramatically.
A few months later, there was a follow-up event at UC Irvine, and Siddiqi was also there. During the q and a, I was able to ask him, if he was such a friend to the Jewish community, why had he allowed his mosque to be used for the UCI Muslim Student Union to assemble their notorious "Apartheid Wall", which appeared on the UCI campus every May to help mark a week of anti-Israel events? (This was something I had personally observed at the mosque as well as viewed the MSU's online appeal for Muslim students to come and help assemble the wall at the mosque. He couldn't deny it. So he stumbled through the non-answer but refused to acknowledge the facts.
That brings us to a few days ago on June 11, when one Shaheen Nassar, an official of CAIR in Los Angeles, appeared at the Islamic Society of Orange Country along with Estee Chandler, a Los Angeles official of the radical left-wing, anti-Israel organization, Jewish Voice for Peace. In his presentation, Nassar turned history on its head trying to argue that Jews had no historical claim to Israel (which he, of course, called "Palestine"-a country that has never existed.) He also had a bizarre definition of European anti-Semitism as being, "a way of persecuting a group of people for the false historical accusation that they are the descendants of the people of historic Palestine". At least he acknowledges that anti-Semitism is real, but then blames it all on white racists while neglecting Islamic anti-Semitism, all the while as Ms. Chandler nods in agreement. Nassar's comments on this video certify that in addition to everything else he represents, he is a crackpot.
MEMRI-TV has a clip of Nassar's boffo comments. You can access their report and video here.
The lady in the keffiyeh to his left is the aforementioned Estee Chandler, formerly a B-movie actress. As you can tell, the above photograph of her on the flyer is, well, seriously dated. In the video, she more resembles Yasir Arafat's widow-still in mourning. I have seen her speak at UC Irvine and UCLA, and she can only be described as a pathetic joke who links arms with the very forces who would wipe Israel off the map-if they could. Jewish Voice for Peace is a despicable organization, as is CAIR. The participation of Jewish Voice for Peace in no way diminishes the anti-Semitic nature of the words spoken.
Of course, folks like Muzammil Siddiqi, CAIR, and many others (at least in the US) are careful to state that they are not anti-Jewish, just anti-Zionist. Yet, the words of Nassar at this event, hosted by Siddiqi's mosque (Siddiqi also hosted Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called "Blind Sheikh", at this mosque back in the 1990s) are an insult to Jews in general as well as their heritage. I harken back to 2017 and those two inter-faith events I linked above. I would like to ask the Jewish Federation of Orange Country, the ADL, and the rabbis who hosted those two events what they think of their inter-faith partner (Siddiqi) now. I thought back then they had learned their lesson when they heard about the assembly of that "Apartheid Wall" at the Islamic Society of Orange Country. Maybe the message didn't sink through.
No comments:
Post a Comment