A Fair Sheik?
The media ignore a New York imam's anti-Semitic rantings.
BY SETH LIPSKY
Wednesday, October 24, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
This week, the New York Times finally got around to reporting some explosive remarks attributed to the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. The remarks--posted on the Internet in Arabic Oct. 4 and translated to English week ago--were made by Sheik Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, according to an unofficial Web site of Egypt's Al-Azhar University. The sheik was the representative of the university in America as well the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center, a large mosque on Manhattan's Upper East Side built with money from Kuwait and several other Arab countries.
The day after the Middle East Media and Research Institute published its Oct. 17 translation, this site's Best of the Web Today column took note. But no New York newspaper or civic leader has made a public issue of the imam's remarks. The Times deserves some credit for finally getting the story, but it treats Sheik Gamei'a's remarks as something of a mystery, given that he had apparently been sympathetic to interfaith dialogue before he left New York to go back to Egypt in the wake of Sept. 11.
The Times quotes Kuwait's ambassador to the United Nations as insisting that the interview attributed to the imam "does not represent at all the policy and believes of the Islamic Cultural Center, nor what Imam Gamei'a was teaching the Islamic community during his three and a half years here." The ambassador was taken by surprise by the comments, the Times asserts.
So what did Sheik Gamei'a say? He began by complaining, in response to a question, of the negative impact of the events of Sept. 11 on Muslims in America, asserting that all commercial activity with "anyone found to be a Muslim or an Arab" was "immediately halted." Following the incident, he said, Muslims and Arabs stopped feeling it was safe to leave their homes, to send their wives to the market or their children to schools. "Muslims do not feel safe even going to the hospitals, because some Jewish doctors in one of the hospitals poisoned sick Muslim children, who then died."
His interlocutor then asked: "The media has reported firing on mosques and harassment of Muslim women, and the situation has gotten so bad that Arabs are murdered in the streets. What about harassment you and your family have suffered?" "It's true," the imam replied. "The Muslims are being persecuted by the people and the federal government. This is the result of the bad image of Muslims created by the Zionist media, and of their presenting Islam as a religion of terrorism. That is why the Americans have linked the recent incidents to Islam."
The imam reported that he had personally suffered, when his home was attacked and his daughters harassed. He said he went out to question those who were attacking his home. "During my conversations with this group, it became clear to me that they knew very well that the Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent, and that someone from among their people was disseminating corruption in the land. Although the Americans suspect that the Zionists are behind the act, none has the courage to talk about it in public." (The Kuwaiti ambassador told the Times that Imam Gamei'a was never seriously threatened.)
Why can't Americans talk about the supposed Zionist plot? the interviewer inquired. After all, "it's their country, and the Jews are a minority."
"When I asked them whether they had the courage to talk about it openly, they said: 'We can't,' " said the imam. "I asked why, and they said: 'You know very well that the Zionists control everything and that they also control political decision-making, the big media organizations, and the financial and economic institutions. Anyone daring to say a word is considered an anti-Semite.' "
At this point he was asked whether "the Jewish element played a role in igniting the flame of fitna (internal strife)." He replied: "The Jewish element is as Allah described it when he said: 'They disseminate corruption in the land.' We know that they have always broken agreements, unjustly murdered the prophets, and betrayed the faith. Can they be expected to live up to their contracts with us? These people murdered the prophets; do you think they will stop spilling our blood? No.
"You see these people (i.e. the Jews) all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world. Now, they are riding on the back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that, they rode on the back of Germany. But Hitler annihilated them because they betrayed him and violated their contract with him."
The imam then spelled out his Jewish-conspiracy theory about the Sept. 11 attack: "They used Arabs to carry it out." Proof? "All the signs indicate that the Jews have the most to gain from an explosion like that. They are the only ones capable of planning such acts. . . . Jews control decision making in the airports and sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon." America, he added, has presented "no proof incriminating Osama bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida."
Further along, Sheik Gamei'a said: "I advise every Arab and every Muslim leader not to offer any aid whatsoever to the oppressing superpower [to help it] attack Muslims, because this is a betrayal of Allah and his Prophets"
I quote the imam's interview at length because, other than this site and the Times, so few have done so, though it his comments have been available in English on the Web for more than a week. The imam was affiliated with a major Islamic Cultural Center in the biggest American city, a center funded by Kuwait and several other governments. Yet several search engines have turned up only the one newspaper dispatch on the diatribe attributed to him--and that was an opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson. It may be that in today's context, such sentiments from a cleric with a major mosque in an American city just aren't newsworthy.
The media ignore a New York imam's anti-Semitic rantings.
BY SETH LIPSKY
Wednesday, October 24, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
This week, the New York Times finally got around to reporting some explosive remarks attributed to the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. The remarks--posted on the Internet in Arabic Oct. 4 and translated to English week ago--were made by Sheik Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, according to an unofficial Web site of Egypt's Al-Azhar University. The sheik was the representative of the university in America as well the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center, a large mosque on Manhattan's Upper East Side built with money from Kuwait and several other Arab countries.
The day after the Middle East Media and Research Institute published its Oct. 17 translation, this site's Best of the Web Today column took note. But no New York newspaper or civic leader has made a public issue of the imam's remarks. The Times deserves some credit for finally getting the story, but it treats Sheik Gamei'a's remarks as something of a mystery, given that he had apparently been sympathetic to interfaith dialogue before he left New York to go back to Egypt in the wake of Sept. 11.
The Times quotes Kuwait's ambassador to the United Nations as insisting that the interview attributed to the imam "does not represent at all the policy and believes of the Islamic Cultural Center, nor what Imam Gamei'a was teaching the Islamic community during his three and a half years here." The ambassador was taken by surprise by the comments, the Times asserts.
So what did Sheik Gamei'a say? He began by complaining, in response to a question, of the negative impact of the events of Sept. 11 on Muslims in America, asserting that all commercial activity with "anyone found to be a Muslim or an Arab" was "immediately halted." Following the incident, he said, Muslims and Arabs stopped feeling it was safe to leave their homes, to send their wives to the market or their children to schools. "Muslims do not feel safe even going to the hospitals, because some Jewish doctors in one of the hospitals poisoned sick Muslim children, who then died."
His interlocutor then asked: "The media has reported firing on mosques and harassment of Muslim women, and the situation has gotten so bad that Arabs are murdered in the streets. What about harassment you and your family have suffered?" "It's true," the imam replied. "The Muslims are being persecuted by the people and the federal government. This is the result of the bad image of Muslims created by the Zionist media, and of their presenting Islam as a religion of terrorism. That is why the Americans have linked the recent incidents to Islam."
The imam reported that he had personally suffered, when his home was attacked and his daughters harassed. He said he went out to question those who were attacking his home. "During my conversations with this group, it became clear to me that they knew very well that the Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent, and that someone from among their people was disseminating corruption in the land. Although the Americans suspect that the Zionists are behind the act, none has the courage to talk about it in public." (The Kuwaiti ambassador told the Times that Imam Gamei'a was never seriously threatened.)
Why can't Americans talk about the supposed Zionist plot? the interviewer inquired. After all, "it's their country, and the Jews are a minority."
"When I asked them whether they had the courage to talk about it openly, they said: 'We can't,' " said the imam. "I asked why, and they said: 'You know very well that the Zionists control everything and that they also control political decision-making, the big media organizations, and the financial and economic institutions. Anyone daring to say a word is considered an anti-Semite.' "
At this point he was asked whether "the Jewish element played a role in igniting the flame of fitna (internal strife)." He replied: "The Jewish element is as Allah described it when he said: 'They disseminate corruption in the land.' We know that they have always broken agreements, unjustly murdered the prophets, and betrayed the faith. Can they be expected to live up to their contracts with us? These people murdered the prophets; do you think they will stop spilling our blood? No.
"You see these people (i.e. the Jews) all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world. Now, they are riding on the back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that, they rode on the back of Germany. But Hitler annihilated them because they betrayed him and violated their contract with him."
The imam then spelled out his Jewish-conspiracy theory about the Sept. 11 attack: "They used Arabs to carry it out." Proof? "All the signs indicate that the Jews have the most to gain from an explosion like that. They are the only ones capable of planning such acts. . . . Jews control decision making in the airports and sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon." America, he added, has presented "no proof incriminating Osama bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida."
Further along, Sheik Gamei'a said: "I advise every Arab and every Muslim leader not to offer any aid whatsoever to the oppressing superpower [to help it] attack Muslims, because this is a betrayal of Allah and his Prophets"
I quote the imam's interview at length because, other than this site and the Times, so few have done so, though it his comments have been available in English on the Web for more than a week. The imam was affiliated with a major Islamic Cultural Center in the biggest American city, a center funded by Kuwait and several other governments. Yet several search engines have turned up only the one newspaper dispatch on the diatribe attributed to him--and that was an opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson. It may be that in today's context, such sentiments from a cleric with a major mosque in an American city just aren't newsworthy.