The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has rebuked anti-Semitic comments by a speaker at the group’s national convention July 4th weekend.
As the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported last week, Warith Deen Umar’s remarks during a “meet the authors” panel included claims that Jews controlled the world, used the Civil Rights movement for their own gain and suffered the Holocaust as a punishment for being “serially disobedient to Allah.”
In a statement, ISNA expressed “our complete rejection of all prejudicial views and bigoted stances toward the Jewish community and any other community of faith.” ISNA President Ingrid Mattson also was quoted in the statement:
“We pride ourselves in the many good relations we build with our interfaith partners for peace. There is no place for bigotry and intolerance in our organization and community.”
The statement was issued late Friday afternoon and is notable for what it doesn’t say as much as for what it does. It never identifies Umar as the speaker. While ISNA “rejects” his message, it never apologizes for facilitating them during a convention that featured a high-profile evangelical Christian leader and leaders of national Jewish movements.
And it seems to pass the buck when it comes to ISNA’s vetting process:
“These sessions are proposed by members of the community, and the proposal described a completely different content than what reportedly transpired. The title of the speaker’s presentation was ‘Jews for Salaam [Peace],’ and the presentation was described as a '… blue print for world peace. Christians, Jews and Muslims have common roots; focuses on the unique position Jewish people are in to move the world toward peace.’”
As our story pointed out, however, Umar’s radicalism and anti-Semitism were easily discoverable to anyone who bothered to look.