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CAIR-LA Director: ‘Israel Doesn’t Have Right to Defend Itself,’ ‘Every Day for Palestinians Has Been Oct. 7’
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles office, speaking at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, Dec. 1, 2023: Photo: Screenshot
Israel “does not have the right” to defend itself from Palestinian violence, and for the Palestinians “every single day” since the Jewish state’s establishment has been comparable to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, according to the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles office (CAIR-LA).
“For 75 years, every single day for the Palestinian people had been October 7,” Hussam Ayloush said while delivering a sermon at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City in the US state of Oklahoma on Friday.
Ayloush was referring to Hamas’ onslaught across southern Israel on Oct. 7, when the Palestinian terror group invaded the Jewish state, murdered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 240 others, taking them back to Gaza.
Ayloush’s sermon was first reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute and posted online by CAIR’s Oklahoma branch.
In his remarks, Ayloush also seemed to rationalize the Hamas atrocities and condemn Israel’s defensive war in response to them, arguing the Jewish state does not have the right to defend itself.
“Israel does not have the right to defend itself, as an occupier to defend itself from the occupied,” he said. “No, it doesn’t. This is not a rhetorical thing — it doesn’t, legally, under international law. No occupier has the right defend itself from the occupied.”
Ayloush then compared Israel to Nazi Germany, apparently drawing a moral equivalence between the lone democracy in the Middle East and the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
“Imagine we tell Nazi Germany: ‘You have the right to defend yourself against French resistance, or Polish resistance, or Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.’ People would laugh at you if you said that,” he claimed. “Imagine if you said that Russia has the right to defend itself against Ukrainian resistance — you don’t. As long as you are an occupier, you do not have the right to resist, or to defend yourself.”
“Guess who has the right to defend themselves?” Ayloush asked. “The Palestinians.”
Ayloush went on to argue that people trust news from “on the ground photojournalists” putting their content on social media rather than traditional media outlets, before accusing Israel without evidence of faking the deaths of Israelis.
“You can’t fake the image of dead children. You can’t fake the image of dying parents. You can’t fake the image of burying, you know, people crying,” he said. “You can fake one or two if you want to be the Israeli government, etc., as they do once in a while, right?”
The CAIR-LA director then touted Al Jazeera as “the most credible, most comprehensive of the outlets providing material on what is happening there, English or Arabic.”
Al Jazeera was established by the Qatari royal family, which has infamously hosted senior Hamas leaders for years. Qatar, along with Iran and Turkey, has also provided a large portion of the Palestinian terror group’s budget.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), meanwhile, “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.”
Critics have accused CAIR of being sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and a creation of the Islamist movement’s broad network. Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
CAIR has previously disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim about its Hamas links, asserting that the Muslim advocacy group “unequivocally condemns all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al Qaeda, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
In October, the ADL criticized CAIR for signing on to a statement of the US Council of Muslim Organizations following the Oct. 7 massacre that “ignored Hamas’ violence against Israeli civilians and instead called for the United States and world governments to ‘exert pressure on Israel’ to stop its ‘atrocities’ against the Palestinians.”
The head of the ADL has previously lambasted CAIR for backing racist and antisemitic statements made by one of its executive directors, accusing both of “blatant antisemitism.”
CAIR-LA and Ayloush didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post CAIR-LA Director: ‘Israel Doesn’t Have Right to Defend Itself,’ ‘Every Day for Palestinians Has Been Oct. 7’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Egypt’s Sisi, Trump Discuss Gaza Ceasefire; No Mention of Palestinian Transfer in Statement
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt, June 10, 2024. Photo: Amr Nabil/Pool via REUTERS
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and US President Donald Trump agreed on the need to consolidate the Gaza ceasefire deal in a phone call on Saturday, the Egyptian presidency said, but it was unclear if they discussed Trump’s call for the transfer of Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan.
The presidency said in a statement they had a positive dialogue which stressed the importance of fully implementing the first and second phases of the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and the need to step up humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza.
However, the statement did not mention if they discussed Trump’s statement last week that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza following 15 months of Israeli bombardments that have left most of its 2.3 million people homeless.
Critics have called his suggestion tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
Sisi rejected the idea on Wednesday, describing it as an “act of injustice.” However, on Thursday Trump reiterated his call, saying that “we do a lot for them, and they are going to do it,” in an apparent reference to US aid to both Egypt and Jordan.
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Saturday also rejected a transfer of Palestinians from their land, saying such a move would threaten regional stability, spread conflict and undermine prospects for peace.
In their call, Sisi and Trump also expressed their keenness to achieve peace and stability in the region, the Egyptian presidency statement said.
Sisi invited Trump to visit Egypt as soon as possible to discuss problems in the Middle East, the statement added. The two presidents also discussed the need to strengthen their economic and investment ties, it said.
The post Egypt’s Sisi, Trump Discuss Gaza Ceasefire; No Mention of Palestinian Transfer in Statement first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu to Depart Sunday for US to Meet with Trump
US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk in the midst of a joint news conference in the White House in Washington, US, Jan. 28, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart on Sunday for the United States to meet with President Donald Trump, Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday.
Netanyahu has been invited to visit Trump at the White House on Tuesday and they will discuss the situation in Gaza, hostages held by Hamas, and the confrontation with Iran and its regional allies, a statement from his office said.
The post Netanyahu to Depart Sunday for US to Meet with Trump first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Hostages, Palestinian Prisoners Released in Latest Gaza Exchange
Ofer Kalderon embraces his partner, Ramat Gan, Israel, February 1, 2025. Photo: Maayan Toaf/GPO/Handout via REUTERS
Palestinian terrorist group Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday, and dozens of Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released in exchange, in the latest stage of a truce aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli dual national, and Yarden Bibas were handed over to Red Cross officials in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis before being transferred to Israel. Israeli-American Keith Siegel was separately handed over at the Gaza City seaport.
Hours later, 183 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released in the exchange. Among them, 150 arrived in Gaza while 32 got off a bus in Ramallah in the West Bank, where they were greeted by large crowds. One freed prisoner will be exiled to Egypt, according to the Hamas prisoners’ media office.
“I feel joy despite the journey of pain and hardship that we lived,” said Ali Al-Barghouti, who was serving two life sentences in an Israeli jail.
“The life sentence was broken and the occupation will one day be broken,” added Barghouti, as the crowd around him in Ramallah chanted “Allah Akbar (God is the most great).”
At the newly reopened Rafah crossing on the southern border, children suffering from cancer and heart conditions were among the first Palestinian patients to be allowed to leave Gaza for medical treatment in Egypt.
Mohammad Zaqout, a senior official in Gaza’s health ministry, however, criticized the limited number of patients allowed to travel for treatment, saying that around 18,000 people needed better healthcare.
In Israel, crowds gathered at the location in Tel Aviv known as Hostage Square to watch the release in the morning of the Israeli hostages on giant outdoor screens, mixing cheers and applause with tears as the three men appeared.
Kalderon, whose two children Erez and Sahar were released in the first hostage exchange in November 2023, and Bibas both briefly mounted a stage in Khan Younis, in front of a poster of Hamas figures including Mohammad Deif, the former military commander whose death was confirmed by Hamas this week, before being handed over to the Red Cross officials.
“Ofer Kalderon is free! We share the immense relief and joy of his loved ones after 483 days of unimaginable hell,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.
Saturday’s handover saw none of the chaotic scenes that overshadowed an earlier transfer on Thursday, when Hamas guards struggled to shield hostages from a surging crowd in Gaza.
But it was once again an occasion for a show of force by uniformed Hamas fighters who paraded in the area where the handovers took place in a sign of their re-established dominance in Gaza despite the heavy losses suffered in the war.
NEGOTIATIONS ON RELEASE OF REMAINING HOSTAGES
The total number of hostages freed so far is 18, including five Thais who were part of an unscheduled release on Thursday.
After Saturday’s exchange, Israel will have released 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including terrorists serving life sentences for deadly attacks as well as some detained during the war but not charged.
As the fighting has abated, diplomatic efforts to build a wider settlement have stepped up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet US President Donald Trump on Tuesday with the ceasefire in Gaza, and a possible normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia as part of a postwar deal likely to be a focus.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 children, women and older male hostages as well as sick and injured, were due to be released, with more than 60 men of military age left for a second phase which must still be worked out.
Negotiations are due to start by Tuesday on agreements for the release of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in a second phase of the deal, which is intended to lead to a final end of the war in Gaza.
The initial six-week truce, agreed with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the United States, has mostly remained intact despite incidents that have led both sides to accuse the other of violating the deal.
Netanyahu’s government, which has hardliners who opposed the ceasefire deal, and Hamas say they are committed to reaching an agreement in the second phase.
But prospects for a durable settlement remain unclear. The war started with a Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, and saw more than 250 taken as hostages. Gaza is in ruins and a deep legacy of bitterness and mistrust remains.
Israeli leaders continue to insist that Hamas cannot remain in Gaza, but the terror group has taken every opportunity to demonstrate the control it continues to exert despite the loss of much of its former leadership and thousands of fighters during the war.
The post Israeli Hostages, Palestinian Prisoners Released in Latest Gaza Exchange first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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