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.
Evidently, the “diversity” movement so fetishized by the left has become so comically diseased in its thinking that terror sympathizers with likely ties to jihadists are now representative of a “valued” and “credible” group of Others who deserve a place in the great American quilt.
Gee, I wonder if persecution status can be far behind, followed by, say, I don’t know, dictates against “hate speech” that denigrates the Muslim religion?
The return of blasphemy laws! Forward!
Incidentally, I tend not to take any gathering that gives itself the label “human rights conference” much credence to begin with. But I will say that appointing someone to represent your country at a human rights conference, while largely a symbolic act, sends a largely symbolic message.
And the message here is “fuck you, Zionist oppressor racist dogs.”
“Sincerely,
“Your friends at the State Department and the White House
“cc: Muslim Brotherhood; Achmadontknowhowtospellitmajad”
Think Mitt will bring this up at a foreign policy debate? Think again: the Romney camp was content, it said, not to challenge the recent unemployment numbers for fear of being seen as “Truthers,” a phrase created by Politico to describe those who don’t accept statistics released by government at face value.
Because, you see, government is now truth. The perception is the reality — and you don’t get to challenge the perception.
Which, that’s going to end well for liberty, you betcha!
(h/t newrouter and Terry H)
The stockpile for rebutting the I got Bin Laden’s grows.
No, no. Human Dimension Implementation Meetings. Which, wha…? I don’t even want to know.
Jack Welch, OUTLAW!!!
Question
AuthorityDissent!Why-ever would it be the case that the only group that wishes the Western world to be destroyed, and figured out that a weak point to attack it at was the academe, be the Communist sponsored “New Left”?
There are others whose hatred of freedom and the West go back much farther in time and who may also have larger numbers of fanatical members and more cash.
Mutual interests whether for power or of common enemies can make for some strange bedfellows.
I remember being taught in school that the enlightenment was a done deal. Ancient history.
Kind of missed on that one, didn’t they?
A truther and terrorist sympathizer? If he’s gay, we hit the trifecta.
Mr. Salam al-Marayati is Muslim so, by definition, deeply closeted in his gayness.
“Gay” is highly subjective in the Muslim world. For instance if you bugger a foreign diplomat you aren’t gay, you’re a freedom
fighterfucker.The buggerer isn’t gay, the buggeree, however, is.
So, really Ambassador Stevens was no better than Ahmed’s whore of a sister, who also deserved to die.
What with the way they both let themselves be raped like that.
Which is why baseball will never really take off in the Middle East. When being a catcher is a sin punishable by death (and possibly by a lot of unasked-for catching just prior to the ‘death’ part), the games tend to be short-lived.
Grist that will not be milled as part of the foreign policy debate.
“Achmadontknowhowtospellitmajad”
I know you’re just funning, but for others who find the name a challenge, I offer my mnemonic. I just pretend the guy’s a cocksucking Latin American despot, and think of him as El Presidente Ahmad-y-Nejad.
I’m pretty sure Ahmad and Nejad are his pet goats, NTTAWWT.