OPINION:
The Sept. 11 day of remembrance brings out the worst in Islamic propagandists as they take to their pulpits, podcasts and YouTube channels to bash America and Israel — and assert that the 9/11 attacks are a big lie.
The Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute has done an excellent job of monitoring and capturing video clips of imams and influencers, some of whom preach here in America.
Muslims are just 1.6% of the U.S. population, but they have built a powerful coalition: the Democratic Party, the communist-inspired socialist movement and the liberal news media. Their violence is ignored or explained away.
People were interested in these podcasts
Robert Spencer, who runs Jihadwatch.org, points to a new tally of how many Christians are murdered in Nigeria.
“At least one Christian killed every 86 minutes in Nigeria,” he says, quoting a Sept. 27 report from Christian Daily International. This works out to 4,216 dead Christians from Jan. 1 to Sept. 8.
A Rasmussen poll found that 43% of American voters ages 18 to 24 have a favorable view of Shariah, the Quran’s harsh enforcer.
Whether they know it or not, this means that they are OK with burqas, forced head coverings, child marriages and jihad. A number of Shariah scholars even view music and pet dogs as haram, or forbidden.
I viewed imam sermons on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, a day on which 2,753 innocents were murdered by al Qaeda hijackers flying two planes into the World Trade Center. It fell on Friday, a Muslim day of worship.
In Dearborn, Michigan, America’s heartland and its first Muslim majority-run city government, Shiite Imam Usama Abdulghani treated congregants to a two-point sermon: Islam is superior to all other religions, and the 9/11 attack was a “big lie.”
His talk was posted on the YouTube channel Light of Guidance.
On interfaith dialogue, Mr. Abdulghani said, “That’s not the Quranic take. Our book is the best. … Our prophet is the greatest. … Everything about Islam is the greatest. … The right way of thinking is Islam is supreme.”
Of the 9/11 attacks, he said, “Now we all know, 9/11 was a big lie. A big lie. They made it up.”
The imam’s wild conspiracy rant was posted by MEMRI, whose president and co-founder is Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli military intelligence officer.
In California, Imam Marc Manley also told his followers that the official 9/11 narrative was fiction.
“The story we were told is somehow magically a couple dudes in a cave — a couple of dudes who could barely make a flight simulator test with a couple of box cutters from Staples — managed to somehow thwart and defeat the most powerful military in the world and strike the most surveilled building in the world, with there being no credible record.
“And we were told these people were like James Bond on steroids. That they were able to fly a building — ironically, the size of a skyscraper — 10 feet off the ground, with no footage. And managed to not only strike the Pentagon, but it struck it so well that it basically disappeared. There was no wreckage.”
That no debris from American Airlines Flight 77 was found at the Pentagon is an internet myth. Large amounts were recovered outside and deep inside the building. Also, extensive evidence identified all 19 hijackers as Muslims and al Qaeda members.
In Indiana on Sept. 11, Imam Abdullah al-Hajj said, according to a MEMRI posted video, “Islam does not call to terrorism or things of that nature. And nowadays, we start realizing, and new facts start to come out about those who committed those terrorist acts. They are not Muslims. … Islam is a religion of peace and love for everyone.”
He continued: “Whether you accept it or not, Islam will enter every single house on the face of the Earth. … Oh Allah, destroy the Zionists and exact a severe revenge upon them.”
In Latham, New York, Islamic scholar Ridhwan Sebkhaoui said 9/11 helped spread the word about Islam.
“Despite all the negative that came from 9/11, despite so many who died, so many who were affected, it was the single biggest moment in American Muslim history that shed light on Islam. And as a result, so many looked to Islam and embraced Islam.”
In Charlotte, North Carolina, Imam John Ederer said at the Pillars Mosque that Israel’s Mossad intelligence service booby-trapped the World Trade Center.
“When those Mossad operatives rigged up all those World Trade Center buildings to come down in a free fall. When Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu said in the interview in 1996 that if the West doesn’t pay attention, some militant Muslim will take down the World Trade Centers. When those things happened, they thought they were going to extinguish Islam so that they could complete their project.”
In his 1995 book on fighting terrorism, Mr. Netanyahu referred to an attack that had already happened: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing carried out by Muslims. Mr. Netanyahu, noting the powerful van bomb that killed six people and injured more than 1,000 others, said the next attack might be a nuke.
Still, he did not predict planes flying into the towers.
The Islamic propaganda machine is focused on convincing Muslims that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by non-Muslims, perhaps the U.S. government or Jews.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
Follow the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.