Bush Once Returned Donation
from American Muslim Council
NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is urging FBI director Robert Mueller —a recent Bush appointee— to cancel his planned speech to an extremist anti-American, anti-Israel U.S. Muslim organization, the American Muslim Council, which openly praises terrorist groups.
Mueller is scheduled to speak at the annual convention of the American Muslim Council in Alexandria, Virginia on June 28, 2002. (New York Sun, June 10, 2002) This, despite the fact that George W. Bush himself returned a $1,000 donation to his presidential campaign from the American Muslim Council because of the Council’s extremist positions. (New York Post, Nov. 3, 2000) Hillary Clinton also returned a $1,000 donation from the AMC to her campaign.
The AMC has publicly praised both Hezbollah and Hamas, which are on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Hezbollah was responsible for the 1983 attack in Lebanon that killed 270 U.S. Marines, and many other attacks. Hamas has murdered over 300 Israelis since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, including many of the 29 Americans who have been murdered in Israel since 1993.
The ZOA also notes that while the Bush administration has strongly denounced the Sudanese government’s enslavement of black Christians, the AMC issued a press release on June 1, 2001, headlined “Slavery in Sudan is a Sham,” in which it blasted “the current rash of allegations and disinformation campaign against the Sudanese government.”
In a letter to President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI director Mueller, urging the cancellation of Mueller’s speech, ZOA National President Morton A. Klein wrote: “Speaking at the AMC convention is no different from speaking to a convention of any other extremist supporters of terror, such as the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads, or neo-Nazis. No public official should meet with, and thereby grant legitimacy to, any organization that has expressed sympathy for groups on the U.S. government’s own list of terrorists, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which have murdered hundreds of Americans and Israelis. Giving legitimacy to those who sympathize with terrorist groups undermines our war against terrorism. Those who praise terrorist groups should be treated as pariahs and condemned.”
The American Muslim Council (AMC):
* “Oh Allah, Destroy America”: AMC leader Abdulrahman Alamoudi declared at a pro-Hamas convention in Chicago in 1996: “If we are outside this country, we can say, ‘Oh, Allah, destroy America.”” (New York Post, Sept. 15, 1998)
* “We Support Hamas and Hezbollah”: At a rally in Lafeyette Park in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 28, 2000, AMC leader Abdulrahman Alamoudi said: “I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas. We are ALL supporters of Hamas. I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.” Alamoudi also told the U.S.-based Hamas publication Al-Zaitunah (June 2, 2000): “Our [AMC]’s position with regard to the peace process is well-known. We are the ones who went to the White House and defended what is called Hamas.”
* AMC Opposes America’s Anti-Terror Actions: When President Clinton issued an order freezing the assets of terrorist organizations in the United States, the AMC denounced him for “clearly targeting American Muslims”. (AMC Statement, February 1995; The AMC Report, April 1995)
* AJCongress Refuses to Cooperate with the AMC: The American Jewish Congress has said (Forward, Dec. 26, 1997) it will not cooperate with the AMC because the AMC has “characterized Hamas as ‘a freedom fighter organization,” and AMC leaders have “participated in Islamic conferences in which there have been repeated calls for the destruction of Israel.”
* AMC Praises Hamas Leader: Alamoudi said concerning Hamas terrorist leader Musa Abu-Marzouk: “I know the man, he is a moderate man on many issues. If you see him, he is like a child. He is the most gracious person, soft-spoken. He is for dialogue.” (Washington Post, July 28, 1995)
* AMC Calls Hamas “Freedom Fighters”: After the Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda marketplace in 1997, in which 16 Israelis —one of them an American citizen— were murdered, the AMC called Hamas “a freedom fighter organization.” (Forward, Dec.26, 1997)
* AMC Says Hamas “Not Terrorists”: Alamoudi said at an April 1995 press conference, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization.” (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 12, 1995) Likewise, Alamoudi said at a press conference at the National Press Club on Nov. 22, 1994: “Hamas is not a terrorist group.”
* “Destroy Israel … Boycott America”: AMC leader Abdulrahman Alamoudi took part in a conference of terrorist groups in Beirut, Lebanon, in January 2001. Leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Usama Bin Laden’s terror group took part. The conference called for “Jihad in all its forms and resistance” against Israel and urged a boycott of American goods o the grounds that “American products are exactly like the Israeli products.” (see http://www.minaret.org/beirutconference.htm)
* AMC Honors Anti-Semitic Magazine: At the AMC’s 1999 annual national convention, the AMC honored the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a publication that U.S. Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) has said is “extremely anti-Semitic and filled with messages of hate and bigotry.” Washington Report editors Richard Curtiss and Andrew Killgore, who accepted the award from the AMC, have been speakers at events of the Liberty Lobby, which the Anti-Defamation League has described as one of the most active anti-Semitic groups in the United States. The May-June 1998 issue of the Washington Report printed an article claiming that the Nazis may have killed 3 million, not 6 million, Jews.
* AMC Opposes Existence of Jewish State: The AMC’s deputy director, Issa Smith, told the Los Angeles Times (Jan.24, 1991): “Often we say that we are not against Jews, but against Zionists, those who had the goal of creating a state run by Jews.”