RSS
‘Tyrannical Jews’: Florida Imam Who Promotes Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Says He ‘Wasn’t Calling for Violence’
Dr. Fadi Kablawi — a dentist from Miami, Florida and an imam at the North Miami Islamic Center — has come under fire for making a series of antisemitic comments. Photo: Screenshot
An imam in South Florida who recently accused Israel of being “worse than the Nazis” and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories is now defending his comments as he faces calls to suspend his dental license.
Dr. Fadi Kablawi, a dentist from north Miami, made the controversial comments while delivering a Friday sermon on April 26, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which first flagged his remarks.
Beyond calling the world’s lone Jewish state “worse” than Nazi Germany, Kablawi touted conspiracy theories that Israeli aid organizations used the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a cover to harvest innocent Haitians’ organs.
Florida Imam Dr. Fadi Kablawi in North Miami Friday Sermon Accuses Israel of Organ Theft, Trafficking, Prays: Oh Allah, Annihilate the Tyrannical Jews, the Brothers of Apes and Pigs #antisemitism pic.twitter.com/4XAcqxkRJM
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 13, 2024
“It is not enough that they [Israel] stole their land; now they steal their skin,” he said, suggesting that Israel is engaging in similar practices during its current war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
“Go and find who is behind organ trading in this country or this world. Go and ask them, those who know,” Kablawi urged his congregants. “All that is because there is no God for these people. All that is because these people look at you as nothing but a mistake, or at best, you were created for their service.”
Among his supplications at the end of his sermon, he pleaded, “Oh God, fall upon the tyrannical Jews,” and “fall upon the brothers of apes and pigs … Oh God cut off their seed.”
The North Miami Islamic Center (or Masjid As-Sunnah An-Nabawiyyah), where Kablawi serves as the sole imam, calls itself “one of the largest Islamic centers in the State of Florida.”
The Algemeiner reported on Kablawi’s remarks on Monday as part of a larger news story on Islamic preachers in the US leveraging their positions in recent weeks to disseminate hateful messages about Israel and the Jewish people.
Coinciding with the report, Kablawi received backlash from state lawmakers and defended himself to a local media outlet.
“Suddenly they’re so offended that I’m making a prayer; this is how low it is,” Kablawi told NBC6, a local affiliate in south Florida. “It was a prayer — I was asking God to deal not with the Jews, to deal with the atrocities of the tyrannical Jews.”
Kablawi insisted his remarks were merely political.
“I wasn’t calling for violence. I wasn’t calling for anyone to harm anybody. I was making a pure prayer against tyrannical criminals who are killing my people,” he said.
Kablawi’s remarks have sparked a significant backlash in the Sunshine State. The Florida Legislative Jewish Caucus has asked the Florida Board of Dentistry to revoke his dental license, saying they are “concerned with Dr. Kablawi’s incendiary rhetoric and the potential danger it poses to his patients.”
Former State Rep. Joe Geller, who is from Miami, lambasted Kablawi over his sermon.
“This alarming and hateful speech is unacceptable and frightening,” Geller said, according to local news outlets. “Calling for the annihilation of an ethnic group amounts to genocide. Patients deserve to be protected from this violent and dangerous individual. This cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.”
The Jewish Caucus began calling for action after Florida state Rep. Randy Fine — the only Jewish Republican in the Legislature — wrote a letter to the Florida Board of Dentistry, asking the body to suspend Kablawi’s license.
“North Miami where Dentist Kablawi practices contains many Jewish residents, none of whom could be considered safe in Imam Kablawi’s dentist chair, where he could personally implement what he is asking Allah to do,” Fine wrote to Jose Mellado, chair of the Board of Dentistry. “Practicing medicine in Florida is a privilege — not a right — and as the chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, I call on you to immediately suspend Dr. Kablawi’s license and commence a thorough investigation of his practice.”
Fine noted that Kablawi has made antisemitic comments calling for violence against Jews on multiple occasions, including just one month after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
BREAKING: Rep. Randy Fine calls on Florida Board of Dentistry to Suspend Dental License of Muslim Imam Dentist openly advocating for violence against his Jewish patients. @MEMRIReports @ShirionOrg @StopAntisemites pic.twitter.com/pTNNmBrvbI
— Rep. Randy Fine (@VoteRandyFine) May 13, 2024
Kablawi said he will fight efforts to take away his dental license.
“To target my license that I worked hard for and kept in good standing for 20 years, it’s an under-the-belt shot and it’s unethical,” he told NBC6.
Since Hamas’ atrocities of Oct. 7, there has been a global surge in antisemitism, with several countries reporting record numbers of antisemitic incidents.
The Anti-Defamation League released a report last month showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching an all-time high. Most of the outrages occurred after Oct. 7, during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents have also skyrocketed to record highs in several other countries around the world, especially in Europe.
In October, Cygnal conducted a survey indicating 57.5 percent of Muslim American respondents felt that Hamas was at least “somewhat justified” in attacking Israel “as part of their struggle for a Palestinian state.”
The post ‘Tyrannical Jews’: Florida Imam Who Promotes Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Says He ‘Wasn’t Calling for Violence’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login