BY:
Jewish
leaders expressed outrage Friday over the State Department’s praise
for, and defense of, a controversial Muslim leader who has defended
terrorist groups and suggested that Israel may have been responsible for
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Salam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was picked to represent the United States government at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) annual 10-day human rights conference, the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings (HDIM).
Al-Marayati’s well-known anti-Israel bona fides prompted Jewish
leaders and others to express outrage over the Obama administration’s
selection.
“It is regrettable that someone with such distorted, conspiratorial
views—even with a lackluster apology—is delegated by our government to
represent our country abroad,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a
statement to the Free Beacon.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center,
argued that the State Department is showing inconsistency by touting an
individual who has defended the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas,
both of which are designated by the U.S. as terrorist organizations.
“One would assume that individuals selected to represent the United
States at an international human rights conclave would share our
government’s longstanding policy that Hamas and Hezbollah are dangerous
terrorist organizations,” Cooper told the Free Beacon. “But
Mr. Salam al-Marayati and his organization are long-time advocates that
these deadly terror groups be removed from the U.S. terrorist list.”
“With terrorism continuing to roil the Middle East,” Cooper added,
“the question is why the U.S. State Department would say he is ‘highly
credible’?”
Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official who now serves
as CEO of The Israel Project, said the State Department’s defense of
al-Marayati lacks credibility.
“That statement, defending a person who is clearly a terrorist
sympathizer and deeply hostile to Israel, calls into question the
credibility of the person who gave it, and it raises a very serious
question: What exactly is the U.S. government saying here?” Block asked.
“It is inexplicable and deeply concerning that a person who has
suggested Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and advocated for
terrorist organizations including Hamas and Hezbollah, which has killed
more Americans than any terrorist group except al Qaeda, would be
described as ‘valued’ and ‘highly credible’ by our government,” Block
said.
The State Department, however, defended al-Marayati’s participation, calling him “valued and highly credible.”
“Mr. al-Marayati has been involved in U.S. government initiatives for
almost 10 years and has been a valued and highly credible interlocutor
on issues affecting Muslim communities,” a spokesman for the U.S.
Mission to the OSCE told the Free Beacon Thursday in a
statement. “He was invited to participate in this year’s HDIM as a
reflection of the wide diversity of backgrounds of the American people.”
Al-Marayati was criticized by pro-Israel leaders when he recommended
that the U.S. “put the state of Israel on the [9/11] suspect list,” according to the New York Times.
“If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups
that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we
should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this
diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories
so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and
apartheid policies,” al-Marayati told a radio host, according to the Times.
The U.S. Embassies in Poland and Brussels had commended al-Marayati’s
participation in the human rights forum, according to statements on
their respective websites.
MPAC, the organization al-Marayati helped create, has been condemned by Jewish groups for promoting false
articles claiming that Israel harvests Palestinian organs, the latest
iteration of a centuries-old anti-Semitic blood libel.
No comments:
Post a Comment