A prominent Shia imam in Southern California, who is widely regarded as a moderate leader and promoter of interfaith dialogue, is being criticized for his statements linking ISIS with Israel.
Imam Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini made the controversial statements during a public sermon on June 23 when he addressed his congregation at the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County mosque in Costa Mesa.
“ISIS is the production of the Israeli intelligence,” he said. “Most of their officers were trained in Israel, including Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.”
Al-Baghdadi is the founder of the Islamic State terrorist group, which has been associated with bomb and vehicle attacks, most recently the Aug. 17 attack in Barcelona that left 13 dead and more than 100 injured.
A video of Al-Qazwini’s sermon was obtained and released this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a bipartisan nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
“When you watch him say it, it’s hurtful,” said the organization’s executive director Steven Stalinsky. “It’s really surprising. It’s classic anti-Semitism.”
MEMRI’s website says the organization “supports the U.S. in its fight against terrorism” and that its “highly trained staff thoroughly translate and analyze” source materials in Arabic including television programming, radio, newspapers, textbooks and websites.
However, the institute’s impartiality has been questioned by prominent Muslims including Ibrahim Hooper with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who told the Washington Times in 2002: “MEMRI’s intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible.”
Stalinsky said the organization is working on projects relating to several topics including voices of reform in the Middle East and anti-Semitism. Its co-founder and president is Yigal Carmon, who spent 22 years in Israeli military intelligence and later served as counter-terrorism adviser to two Israeli prime minsters, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.
Al-Qazwini released a statement through his mosque Monday, Aug. 21, apologizing to anyone who may have been offended by his statements.
But, he told the Register on Wednesday that he stood by what he said in his sermon, adding that he got the information about links between ISIS and the Israeli intelligence from Iraqi government and military sources who have been leading the fight against the terrorist group.
The imam said he heard the information during his trip to Iraq in 2014 and believes it to be credible.
“I heard from them that among other Arab, Gulf and Muslim regional governments and political actors, ISIS was also being supported by Israeli intelligence,” he said. “I don’t know if it was right or wrong. But it was something I’d heard from what I believed to be a credible source.”
During his sermon, the imam also said ISIS was “not the production of Islam.”
“Islam is not responsible for ISIS,” he said Wednesday. “There are certain agencies and governments, they put hand in hand to establish ISIS, to demolish Islam from within. This was the plan.”
Al-Qazwini said he has long maintained that Arab and Muslim governments have funded terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida.
“I’m certainly not putting the blame squarely on Israel,” he said. “I’m saying they may have had a role. But I have consistently said in speeches, lectures and other times ISIS is the production of fanatical schools of thoughts in Islam that fund the terrorist groups and brainwash young people.”
The imam did admit that he may have been “emotional” on the day of the sermon.
“I may have overstated my speech and I did not mean to say Israel is responsible for ISIS,” he said. “This is not my record, not my history and not my intention. I’m not anti-Semitic. I respect Jewish people.”
But local rabbis said they are shocked that a leader in the interfaith community would give credence to such rumors.
“It’s a crazy conspiracy theory and hate message,” said Rabbi Arnold Rachlis, who heads University Synagogue in Irvine.
Rachlis and his congregation received Al-Qazwini and members of his mosque in December for an interfaith dialogue. “I feel burned by this,” Rachlis said. “I’d never have thought that someone who desired to engage in dialogue would have succumbed to such an absurd theory.”
The imam should have checked the veracity of this information before preaching it to his congregation, the rabbi said.
“As a religious leader, he had the responsibility to do that,” Rachlis said. “I don’t think the apology he issued is sufficient. He needs to not only verify those statements, but issue a public retraction.”
“Repeating a canard” is unacceptable for a leader of Al-Qazwini’s standing, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
“If someone told you something, should that be the basis for which you slander an entire people?” Cooper said. “The hidden forces behind Islamist terrorism are the Jews? This is conspiratorial nonsense.”
He said the imam’s statements also cast a shadow on his interfaith work.
“I’ll go anywhere to break bread and find partners to leave a better world for our grandchildren,” Cooper said. “But I won’t sit down with people who don’t respect who I am. Respect — that’s the starting point for dialogue.”
Rachlis agreed, saying he is not averse to discussing controversial issues in interfaith groups. Specifically, he doesn’t believe talking about the Israel-Palestine conflict should be taboo in an interfaith setting.
“That’s not where you would begin with,” he said. “But, once you establish trust and friendship, you can absolutely discuss hot button issues.”
Some, including Rabbi Frank Stern, who served 20 years at Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, are more forgiving of Al-Qazwini.
“I’m surprised (the imam) said that,” he said. “In general, I find him to be a courageous and outstanding individual. In this instance, I don’t agree with him. But, I respect his point of view and hope we’ll be able to talk about it one of these days.”
Muslim leaders tread shaky ground, particularly when they want to speak their minds on the Israel-Palestine issue, said Jihad Turk, president of the Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School in Claremont. They run the risk of being labeled as “anti-Semitic” when they make comments that are critical of Israel, he said.
“It’s important for authentic leaders to speak to the issue, but do so in a way that is responsible and doesn’t violate the pluralistic and inclusive attitude of Islam toward other faiths,” he said.
Imams should continue to emphasize, as Al-Qazwini did, that ISIS is not a product of Islam, but a fringe group that hijacked the religion to further its own agenda including justifying violent acts such as rapes and beheadings, Turk said.
“But it’s also important for Muslim leaders to ensure that all of the information they share from the pulpit with their communities is accurate and verified,” he said.
The Anti-Defamation League finds the imam’s statements offensive, said Rabbi Peter Levi, regional director for Orange County and Long Beach.
“His claim that ‘ISIS is the production of the Israeli intelligence’... promotes anti-Semitic canards and demonizes the State of Israel,” he said. “Jewish and Muslim communities must come together to condemn the use of conspiracy theories and engage in fact-based conversation about Israeli policy so that all faiths can coexist with mutual respect in the Holy Land and around the world.”