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Cleveland Rock: "There is a Jew Hiding Behind Me"by IPT The former Imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, Fawaz Damra, convicted in 2004 for lying to immigration officials about his ties to the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has been replaced. Damra had famously played up his interfaith credentials, even after evidence surfaced of his participation in fundraising events for the PIJ, and also telling a crowd of Muslim supporters in 1991 that they should aim "a rifle at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." Damra chalked up such sentiments as youthful indiscretions, made before he knew any Jews. The community – and more importantly, a jury – apparently did not buy that explanation, and he was subsequently deported to the West Bank. Now comes word, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, that Damra has been replaced by one Imam Ahmed Alzaree, an Egyptian born cleric who had last been the spiritual leader of a mosque in Nebraska. Alzaree is tasked with healing a community where trust had been torn apart by Damra's lies, obfuscations and viciousness. But, as Cleveland Plain Dealer blogger Tom Blumer reports, all is still not well in Cleveland. Blumer posted a March 2003 Khutba (or sermon) by Alzaree, where the Imam said:
As Blumer stated, such sentiments do not necessarily make Alzaree a terrorist in the sense that Damra had been, and Alzaree even appears to be asking that Allah not visit such a "horrible moment" on the world, although it seems he believes the end-time scenario described in the hadith is a foregone conclusion. If this is the case, it is hardly in the Cleveland mosque's best interest to replace one virulently anti-Semitic jihadist cleric with another. As Blumer asks: "Meet the New Imam, Same as the Old Imam?" Related ItemsComment on this item |
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