Israel Matzav

Surprise: 'Peaceful' imam blames Jews for Holocaust

A New York imam speaking at the convention of the Islamic Society of North America spoiled the show of making nice to the Jews by blaming the Jews for the Holocaust.

The speech came during the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, which was attended by rabbis who have been trying to build closer ties between Muslims and Jews.

At one of the conference's 70 sessions, Warith Deen Umar, a New York imam, spoke critically of Jews, saying that the Holocaust happened to the Jews "because they were serially disobedient to Allah." He also said that a small handful of Jews around U.S. President Barack Obama "control the world."

ISNA immediately apologized after anti-terrorism crusader Steve Emerson discovered the session and released a transcript. The rabbis dhimmis who were present didn't say a word about it. They hoped to sweep it under the table.

The divide comes in the context of a broader debate in the Jewish community about how far to go in dialogue with Islamic groups. One strong view has been presented by Steve Emerson, head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and a skeptic when it comes to close ties between Jewish groups and the major American Muslim organizations.

Emerson has argued that the ISNA and other Muslim groups are not as moderate as Jewish groups would like to believe. It was Emerson's project that released a record and transcript of Umar's comments, and he immediately rejected the ISNA's apology.

"I think they have fooled the Jewish groups," Emerson told the Forward. "They haven't changed."

But Rabbi Marc Schneier [pictured. CiJ], president and founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and a keynote speaker at the ISNA convention, said that Islamic groups are too often condemned because of extreme outliers.

"When you have 99.999 percent of the people saying good things and one person saying other things, you shouldn't magnify the words of that one person," Schneier said. "It is time for the Emersons of the world to understand that the process has begun and that while there may be bumps on the road, the process has begun."

Emerson shot back that "Rabbi Schneier is involved in legitimization of extreme Islamist groups for years. He wouldn't tell a good group from a bad one, even if he got hit on his head by jihad."

Indeed. Debbie Schlussel refers to Schneier as 'Al Sharpton's rabbi.'

Read the whole thing.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 99.999%? He's got to be kidding.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:47 AM