The #IslamophobiaIndustry is aided and abetted by loving, caring people. Non-Muslims who try to help their Muslim friends explain what they really meant; not what they said. Now, I get that. Sometimes I have to explain what I just said. Sometimes we do misspeak. And I believe that if someone did not understand what I was trying to say it is my fault for not properly explaining.
Well, let’s all be grateful to people like Nancy Pelosi in America, and Bernie Farber in Canada. Both Progressives, they are both trying to help Muslims integrate into the West.
While to many of us, the comments made by Omar seem to be antisemitic-the old canards about Jews and money, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” and dual loyalty, Nancy Pelosi helped her out by telling all of us that Omar, a Congresswoman, simply did not understand that some of her words were “fraught with meaning.”
Pelosi said:
“I don’t think our colleague is anti-Semitic, I think she has a different experience in the use of words, doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with meaning that she didn’t realize.”
That Omar is reportedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, seems unimportant as well.
It is breath-taking that an elected official in America is unaware that her comments just might be misconstrued as antisemitic. So, Nancy to the rescue.
Yet, Omar Jamal, a Somali community activist, seemed to understand. He told the Washington Post that he has been in touch with Jewish leaders after Omar’s comments viewed by some as anti-Semitic. He supported her campaign but called her recent comments, “wrong, period,” according to the report.
“This is up to Ilhan Omar,” he said. “She has really spoken in a very dangerous way, and it’s going to be up to her to reach out to people and fix this.”
Yes. Fix this.
We had a similar incident in Canada. Imam Elkaswary, at the Masjid Mosque in downtown Toronto, the largest city in Canada and the most diverse in the world, said that he, too, misspoke after he shared nasty antisemitic prayers about the Jews. Like Omar, he had a champion, Bernie Farber, who realized that this poor Imam just misspoke and worked with him. He was just misunderstood. He didn’t mean “filth of the Jews.” And the Toronto Star wrote a four page article about the misunderstood Imam; leaving out all of his social media posts that spoke of his anti-Jews/Israel/Zionist views that had been made available to them: the Star and Farber.
Does this sound familiar November 10, 2016 – Ayman Elkasrawy shared a video dealing with the US presidential elections. He added the following comment (originally in Arabic): “An important and useful episode… shows the lie of the American democracy (in terms of electing candidates by the people)… and shows the staggering amount of loopholes that explain how the Zionist lobby can control the presidency of America and who comes to it [becomes a President]!!!”
You can read all of my articles here. https://dianebederman.com/?s=Toronto+Star
Elkaswary had been recorded on video praying:
“O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them,” read the article’s translation of his prayers. “O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews!”
In Arabic. But the English translation? That was part of the problem; the English translation on the scrawl below the video. That the Muslim organizations that responded to the video, had listened to the prayers themselves, again, I say in ARABIC, and seemed to know what he was saying and responded to them, suddenly did not matter. NCCM The National Council of Canadian Muslims) sent out a news release, apologizing for the Imam.
February 21, 2017 Muslim Association of Canada sent out a release sharing their shock.
That he was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood didn’t seem to matter, either.
And so he began his apology tour like Omar. He didn’t mean the filth of the Jews. Well, not all the Jews. Whatever he said he meant to be about the Jews who are on the Temple Mount-or some such thing. And slay them one by one-well that was also misunderstood.
But, you know, he/she was just misunderstood.
What if we just let our fellow Muslims speak and let the words speak for themselves? What do you think would happen?
From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”
