Israel Matzav

What a piece of work...

An American Jew who converted to Islam while living in Israel has been convicted in the United States of criminal incitement and sentenced to 2.5 years in jail for inciting violence against Jews.

Born Joseph Leonard Cohen, Yousef al-Khattab, 45 from New Jersey, converted from Judaism to Islam in his late 20s, when he was living in the Middle East. Upon his return to the US in 2007, he started the Revolution Muslim website. 

In a post from 2009, Khattab posted a photo of the Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn with a link to map, noting the main temple was always full during prayer time, the Washington Post reported.

Khattab admitted posting articles encouraging readers to take unspecified action against Jewish leaders and publishing names and addresses of Jewish leaders and synagogues.
Posting a video on YouTube in 2009 of violence in the Gaza Strip, Khattab encouraged Muslims angered by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to "deal with them directly at their homes." 

...

Renouncing the articles in court, he asked the judge to hold him responsible only "for what I say, not how people understood it," the Post reported.

In an interview with NPR, Khattab admitted that his actions were "stupid" and "wrong."
"They interpreted me giving the message of Islam as being a threat to the Jewish community, which it wasn't," Khattab told NPR, but could not explain how providing addresses and pictures of Jewish leaders after an anti-Semitic post could be misinterpreted.
Khattab claimed in court that he was a "clown" and "the Gilbert Gottfried of the Muslims," saying he did not intend to incite violence, according to the Post. He also noted he would not make the same posts today.  

Yeah, he's a clown alright. A very dangerous one.

Labels: crime, Jew hatred, Jewish anti-Semitism, Muslim Jew hatred

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:21 AM