Arab rally in Detroit: "Hamas is not a terrorist group," "Israel must burn," and making fun of Israelis fleeing for their lives (UPDATE)

The Arab American News reports that a crowd of 1,200 Arab Americans filled an auditorium at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn last Tuesday evening, well after the Hamas atrocities were well know and documented.

That didn't stop Osama Siblani,  publisher of the Arab American News, to tell the crowd that Hamas was “not a terrorist organization.”

Imam Imran Salha of the Islamic Center of Detroit, a Palestinian-majority mosque, said  that Israel will burn.

This is only what is being reported. The full video shows more outrageous statements.

That same Imam Salha referred to the perpetrators of the massacre, saying "the Palestinians that 

stand up for their rights, that protest peacefully, that they cross the border. They do not love to die.

They love life. And because they love life, they wanted to stand up for their rights." His use of past tense makes it clear he was referring to this event.

Salha also mocked the Israelis at the rave who tried desperately to escape from being murdered by Hamas terrorists: "If you really had a claim to the land, oh Israeli,  why did you run away like a chicken?" the imam said to applause.

Another speaker, Nasir Beydoun, invoked antisemitic tropes by saying "Before we end the occupation of Palestine, we have to end the occupation of Congress!"  

He is a candidate for the Senate.

(UPDATE) Siblani's full statement was reprehensible:

We are not going to be intimidated or silent when they say Hamas is a terrorist organization. The fact is it is not a terrorist community.

And we have to say to them that terrorist is Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. But not only Benjamin Netanyahu and his government but everyone that stands behind them and supports him, killing people in Palestine.

We are not afraid to say it. You know why? Because it is the truth. And we have to say it because we are responsible before God. ...

Let me tell you, let me tell you what happened on Sunday. So what happened on Sunday was shameful. Here in Michigan. 

Our representative went to a synagogue and that is not the issue. But what they did there is shameful. While people are being dead. Under the rubbles of their homes. From the bombs that made in the United States. And give it to Israel to kill people. They were standing and dancing and laughing on our bodies, on our homes.

Sunday was Simchat Torah. The representative visited a synagogue where Jews were dancing around the Torah as is done on this holiday. The idea that they were dancing because Israel was bombing Palestinians is sickening - because in synagogues around the world, this was the saddest Simchat Torah ever, as we were only starting to learn about the horrific and genocidal attack by Siblani's Hamas friends on thousands of innocent Jewish civilians. 

Where I prayed, where we do not use electronics during the festival, the first time we learned about the attack was right before the dancing. We stopped, said Psalms, prayed for the safety of the people, and then danced a subdued set of hakafot with songs centered around asking God for salvation.

For Siblani to twist that into saying that Jews were celebrating Palestinian deaths is grotesque and revolting..  

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