I've criticized B'nai Brith before for their on-again, off-again support for Canada's human rights commissions and their censorship laws…Such support is odd, especially considering the fact that B'nai Brith itself was the target of a five-year censorship vendetta by Manitoba's Human Rights Commission, spurred by a radical Muslim complainant.
Well, to my surprise, I was contacted by B'nai Brith to help them assess the propaganda "fatwa against terrorism" issued by a handful of Canadian Muslim clerics, including Calgary's Syed Soharwardy.
I was happy to help reveal the true nature of Soharwrady. I documented for them not only Soharwardy's public statements (his call for sharia law to be imposed in Canada; his slanderous allegation that Christian relief workers in the 2005 tsunami were kidnapping Muslim children) but also his virulently hateful web sites. I pointed them to where Soharwardy repeated blood libels against the Jewish talmud, called for the annihilation of Israel, compared Israel to Nazis perpetrating a Holocaust and other statements. Besides having sifted through so much of Soharwardy's crap on my own, I had also saved the vilest of Soharwardy's web site comments to my hard drive, knowing that my scrutiny would cause him to go back and scrub his sites of the most anti-Semitic material.
Anyways, to my delight, the B'nai Brith issued two press releases on the subject (here's the first, here's the second). Here is the text of them in full:
TORONTO, January 15, 2010 – B’nai Brith Canada questions the wording and intent behind a fatwa against terrorism that was undersigned by a group of North American imams. The recently-issued fatwa, which states that “any attack on Canada and the United States is an attack on the freedom of Canadian and American Muslims. Any attack on Canada and the United States is an attack on thousands of mosques across North America,” was spearheaded by Syed Soharwardy, the president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC).
Soharwardy and his organization have a track record of disseminating antisemitic and anti-Western sentiment. Although a lot of the disturbing material has been removed from the ISCC’s web site, thanks to the probing efforts of Ezra Levant, B’nai Brith was able to acquire archived copies of the offending articles and statements.
“The fact that this fatwa limits itself to terrorism in North America and predicates its anti-terror positions on the damaging effects of terrorism only on the Islamic community is quite concerning,” said Frank Dimant, B’nai Brith Canada’s Executive Vice President. “Is the fatwa implicitly saying that terrorism directed against India, Spain, the U.K., Israel, and Canadian forces in Afghanistan is somehow permissible?
Syed Soharwardy
“Syed Soharwardy is the imam whose complaint dragged Ezra Levant through the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Danish Mohammad cartoons in the Western Standard. We were disgusted when we read some of the virulent antisemitic and anti-Western ravings that were posted to his organization’s web site – some trivialized the Holocaust, others prophesized the extinction of the Christian faith, and still others went so far as to speak of a ‘slaughter’ and ‘annihilation’ of Jews.
“What Canadians would truly like to see is for reputable imams within the Islamic community to stand up and denounce all acts of terrorism irrespective of where they occur and who the targets are. And if Imam Soharwardy wants his fatwa to be taken seriously, he needs to publicly reconcile it with the anti-Christian and antisemitic ravings that have appeared on his organization’s web site.” -30-
For more information, please contact, Dan Rabkin, Communications Officer:
416-633-6224 X 140 / cell: 416-312-9173
B’nai Brith Canada has been active in Canada since 1875 as the Jewish community’s foremost human rights agency.
TORONTO, January 15, 2010 – In light of the media’s relative inaction over the publication in a Canadian Islamic community newspaper of an article accusing Jews of killing children in order to harvest their organs, B’nai Brith Canada is questioning the “media chill” it has witnessed when it comes to antisemitism and anti-Western sentiment emanating from within the Islamic community.
“A horrific blood libel against the Jewish people was published right here in Canada and most of the national print and electronic media have been silent,” said Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President of B’nai Brith Canada. “We are concerned by the fact that such hatred has been met with almost complete silence by the media. We can only assume journalists fear being labeled ‘Islamophobes.’
“Major media outlets undertook the time and effort to interview us when the story broke about Al-Ameen publishing that despicable story, but we later learned that those stories were pulled. We are certain that if such hatred was being disseminated by other religious or ethnic outlets, there would have been outcry in Canada.
“We have all witnessed a ‘legal chill’ in previous years where there were frivolous attempts through our human rights system to muzzle and sanction Maclean’s magazine, the Western Standard and Ezra Levant, and even B’nai Brith for purportedly ‘crossing a line.’ Even though those attempts were unsuccessful, the lasting effect of having to spend such time and resources defending against frivolous complaints has created a chill within our society against speaking out against radical Islam and its manifestations. We are disturbed to see this ‘chill’ expanding into the media, a pillar of society whose freedom to report on issues of concern must be protected.”
-30-
For more information, please contact, Dan Rabkin, Communications Officer:
416-633-6224 X 140 / cell: 416-312-9173
B’nai Brith Canada has been active in Canada since 1875 as the Jewish community’s foremost human rights agency
I'm glad that, after they inspected Soharwardy's record, B'nai Brith did the right thing, and exposed him as an anti-Semitic liar.
I regret that I cannot say the same thing for Calgary's Official Jews. They have see all the same material about Soharwardy that B'nai Brith has; I (and my father) have sent it to them continuously literally for years. Instead of denouncing Soharwardy's anti-Semitism, they actually sent him an official "thank you" letter last month, which you can read here.
Read it, unless you have a strong gag reflex. Calgary's OJs tell Soharwardy it is "comforting" to have him in the fight against anti-Semitism. They say he promotes "values of acceptance and diversity". Seriously -- the same guy who says the Jewish Talmud calls for Jews to kill non-Jews, and says Christians kidnap baby Muslims.
Email
Share
RSS
