OPINION:
A week after Hamas attacked Israel and killed over 1,200 men, women and children, Muslims celebrated.
“We are lucky to be alive in the era of [Iranian leader] Imam [Ali] Khamenei, where we witness these kinds of victories. Brothers and sisters, the operation Al-Aqsa Storm, that day when it took place, was definitely what we call a ‘one of the days of God,’” Imam Usama Abdulghani declared.
Al-Aqsa Storm (also Aqsa Flood) is what Palestinians call Oct. 7, the Saturday when Hamas slaughtered scores of young people at a music festival, raped and tortured women, killed dozens of children, and captured and subsequently murdered hostages.
Now, back to the celebration a week later.
“To the friends of the Zionist occupiers, to the friends of the colonialists, tell your friends: The jig is up,” Mr. Abdulghani told the crowd. “Tell your friends to get out. You know, all of us know — this time it’s different. If you really care about Israel, tell them to get out, tell them it is over, the Titanic is sinking.”
Also, a week after Oct. 7, before Israel had responded militarily, Imam Alhagie Jallow delivered a Friday sermon filled with threats against Jews.
“Our brothers in Gaza are heroes,” declared Mr. Jallow, who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia. “By Allah, they are warriors, heroes, they are men. … They do not fear death. … Oh Jews, you unjust, criminal, corrupt oppressors — stop! You will all most definitely be killed. The Jews, the aggressors, the evil … you describe them, what they do.”
Watching Mr. Abdulghani and Mr. Jallow online conjures up the Muslim settings of Islamabad or Kabul, or maybe an anti-Israel street protest in London or Paris.
But the two were speaking openly in the American heartland.
Mr. Abdulghani stood at the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve watched videos from rallies there and heard Muslims declare that Dearborn is now a jihadi city. President Biden was so alarmed he might lose the Dearborn vote, and with it Michigan, that he turned on Israel and ordered the construction of a Gaza supply pier that turned out to be another one of his disasters.
Mr. Jallow spoke at the Madinah Community Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, a U.S.-based nonprofit that has reported on extremism globally for over two decades, captured their words and posted them online.
MEMRI’s streams of investigative findings, backed by authentic videos, lead me to believe that the United States is increasingly a place of open Islamic extremism that one day will compete with London and Paris as a challenge to the West. The U.S. today hosts nearly 2,800 mosques, more than double the number 20 years ago, according to a private survey quoted by news reports and nonprofit groups.
What materialized in America post-Oct. 7 were rampant student and outsider protests on college campuses, with open praise of terrorist Hamas and open harassment of Jewish students. The militants expanded from campuses to the streets. In Washington, pro-Palestinian demonstators desecrated war memorials.
The leader of MEMRI’s publications and archiving is executive director Steven Stalinsky, a commentator and expert on how Islamic terrorists exploit social media. He once campaigned to force Twitter. to take down posts that encourage violence.
“An important observation,” he told me, “is that immediately after Oct. 7, even before Israel’s counteroffensive began, in many mosques around the U.S. and likewise in the West, we saw celebrations of the attacks. We have seen statements, both just before and after Oct. 7, about this is a new generation of Muslim leaders that does not have to hide its views and its aims, as it did after 9/11.”
“There is quite a bit of extremist content,” he said. “Some includes incitement to violence, some includes support for jihad and martyrdom, some is anti-Israel, some is anti-U.S., some is antisemitic, some calls for the spread of Islam and more explicitly for it to take over the world, some specifically targets Jewish students, organizations, and politicians.”
Anti-Jewish sermons in America didn’t start with Oct. 7. MEMRI has recorded a number of examples.
In July 2017, Egyptian-born imam Ammar Shahin spoke of the “wicked Jews” in a sermon at the Islamic Center of Davis, California, which posted a video.
He referred to the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the site of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians. He called on Allah to “liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews.”
“Oh Allah, destroy them and do not spare their young or their elderly,” he said. “Oh Allah, turn Jerusalem and Palestine into a graveyard for the Jews.”
Hamas supporters subsequently dubbed Oct. 7 the Al-Aqsa Storm and the Al-Aqsa Flood.
In December 2017, Sheikh Raed Al-Rousan, an imam who founded the Tajweed Institute’s Houston branch, criticized then-President Donald Trump’s decision that month to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
He quoted from the Hadith, a post-Muhammad history that reflects the prophet’s messages.
Mr. Al-Rousan said: “My brothers, the Prophet Muhammad brought the good tidings, when he said: ’Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims will kill the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, [which] will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’ … This is the promise of Allah.”
In 2022 in Houston, Muslim religious leaders led battle-dressed children in a song pledging allegiance to Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei and vowing to go into battle against Jews.
“Don’t look at my young age,” they sang. “May my father and mother be sacrificed for you, I will sacrifice everything for you. I will sacrifice everything for you. … I make an oath, one day when you need me. I make an oath to be your martyr, Ali.”
Mr. Stalinsky summed up the state of extremist sermons in America: “Generally anytime there were U.S. actions in the Middle East or Israel fighting with Hamas or Hezbollah, extremist sermons have increased. But especially after Oct. 7, there has been a new level of extremism.”
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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