1999 Appt. to U.S. Terrorism C’tee Was Rescinded

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized President Barack Obama for dispatching an extremist, anti-American, anti-Israeli Islamist, Salaam Al-Marayati, to speak overseas on behalf of the U.S. to a human rights conference Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Salaam Al-Marayati, the director of the Islamist Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), is a vocal Israel-hater and apologist for Islamist terrorism who has called for Israel’s destruction; suggested Israel be placed on a suspect list as the possible perpetrator of the 9/11 acts of terrorism; condemned already in the 1990s American air strikes of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Sudan; and defended the rights of Holocaust deniers. In 1999, Marayati was appointed to a U.S. congressional committee on terrorism but, following a ZOA campaign in the media and on Capitol Hill that exposed his extremism, Marayati’s appointment was rescinded. (The ZOA’s campaign included ZOA President Morton Klein debating Marayati for an hour on KTLA, a major Los Angeles T.V. network, and an appearance on PBS’ MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour).

Among Marayati’s many acts as a Muslim extremist:

• Calls for Israel’s destruction: “the establishment by force, violence and terrorism of a Jewish state in Palestine in 1948” was “unjust” and “a crime” and vowed to “work to overturn the injustice” (MPAC co-signed public statement, Sep. 17, 1993).

• Condemns pre-9/11 American military strikes upon Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Sudan: Said these strikes, following the al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were “illegal, immoral and illogical” (MPAC press release, August 24, 1998).

• Claimed that Israel might be perpetrator of 9/11: “If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kind of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list, because I think this [the 9/11 attacks] diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies” (David Firestone, ‘A NATION CHALLENGED: RELIGION; For Some Jewish Leaders, Partnership With Muslims Is a Casualty of Sept. 11 Attacks,’ New York Times, October 22, 2001).

• Calls Israel’s supporters Nazis: comparing Israel’s supporters to Hitler; MPAC displayed a campus exhibit stating that “Zionism is Nazism” (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1994; Los Angeles Jewish Journal, November 2, 2001).

• Defends French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy: Described France’s fining of Garaudy for Holocaust denial as “persecution of his right to express an opinion” (The Minaret, Vol.20, No.3, 1998).

• Gives anticipatory justification of Islamist terrorist assaults on America: “Where Israel goes, our government follows … What is important is whether the American people are aware of and ready for the consequences” (MPAC article, ‘What Do We Expect?,’ Apr. 5 1997).

• Blames Palestinian terrorism on Israel: Jews murdered by Palestinians are “the expected bitter result of [Israel’s] reckless policy” (Jewish Exponent [Philadelphia], October 18, 2001).

• Calls for extradition of Israelis who killed a rampaging Muslim terrorist in Jerusalem: When in February 1996 a Palestinian, Muhammad Hamida, shouted the war cry, ‘Allahu Akbar’ (Allah is Great), drove his car intentionally into a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing one Israeli and injuring 23 others and was shot dead, Marayati said not a word about Hamida’s murderous attack while calling his killing “a provocative act,” and demanded the extradition of his executors to America “to be tried in a U.S. court on terrorism charges.”

Steve Emerson, an authority of American Muslim extremist groups, has said of the appointment of Al-Marayati as a representative of the U.S. at one of the world’s largest human rights conference “For this administration to appoint to an august human rights organization Salam Al-Marayati, who has openly supported Hizbollah, claimed that the FBI has illegally incited Muslims on terrorism charges because of FBI sanctioned policies of “racial profiling,” has defended as innocent the most notorious members of Hamas who were found guilty of laundering millions of dollars to a terrorist group, and someone who has complained of ‘having the Holocaust shoved down [his] throat,’ is an outrage … [his appointment as a representative of the U.S. to the OSCE human rights conference] cries out for a congressional investigation of the larger and more heinous scandal of the unprecedented degree to which the Obama administration has embraced and collaborated with radical Muslim groups in the U.S. whose lineage derives directly from the world wide totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood movement” (Lori Lowenthal Marcus, ‘Our Man Al-Marayati,’ Jewish Press [New York], October 3, 2012).

Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official said, “It is inexplicable that a person who blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks and advocated for terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah—which has killed more Americans than any terrorist group in the world except al Qaeda—was chosen to represent the United States” (Adam Kredo, ‘Anti-Israel Advocate Reps U.S. at Rights Conference,’ The Washington Free Beacon, October 3, 2012).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This is repeat performance of the terrible mistake made by the Obama Administration in 2010 in dispatching Al-Marayati to Europe to speak on behalf of the U.S. to UNESCO in Paris and at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

“It is deeply disturbing and offensive that the Obama Administration would go out of its way to select a man with a long record of Israel-bashing and apologetics for terrorism, who even called for Israel’s destruction and described its creation as a “crime,” to go overseas speaking on behalf of the United States.

“As we said in 2010, such an ill-conceived decision calls into question the Obama Administration’s commitment to combating Islamist extremists. Indeed, in the Administration’s refusal to even refer to Islamist extremists and its tendency to refer to terrorist acts perpetrated by Islamists as ‘man-made disasters,’ we see a deeply concerning blindness to the threat. In the invitation to Al-Marayati to speak overseas, we see further lack of seriousness about dealing with the problem. Such spokesmen and organizations should be shunned, not courted and never given the credibility of the imprimatur of the U.S. government.”