DEARBORNISTAN, USA - Sunday was a busy day.
I did the work Michigan's FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel Roberts and his agents should be doing: I headed to the Bint Jebail Cultural Center in the heart of Islamic America--Dearborn, Michigan. More on that club--a hangout for thousands of Hezbollah supporters on our shores--later.
Bint Jebail--also spelled "Bint Jbeil"--located in southern Lebanon and very close to the border, is the key Hezbollah stronghold. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah makes most of his fiery anti-Semitic, anti-American speeches there...to eager ears. It is the site from which much shelling of rockets and missiles, onto Northern Israel and beyond, emanates. Thousands of Detroit area Muslims (the majority of whom are Shi'ite) come from the Bint Jbeil area, and they support Hezbollah.
Hezbollah's U.S. Citizen Mayor
Bint Jbeil's Mayor, Haj Ali Bazzi, is a U.S. citizen, with a Michigan Driver's License and an American passport. Even though he cannot speak English, he spent a short time in Dearborn and--voila!--American citizenship was served up. Bazzi told an ABC News TV crew that he "would defend Dearborn against invasion by another state." Of course, he would--it is Little Bint Jbeil. But would he defend America against a foreign invasion? Not likely, judging from many of his relatives in Dearborn, open supporters of Islamic terrorist groups.
Shi'ite Muslim Nurse Ratchet
In October 2004, one of them, Najah Bazzy, announced--at a Michigan CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) event--that she is "embarrassed to be an American," even though she claims she is a second- or third-generation American. We're embarrassed she's American, too.
The Shia Muslim Nurse Ratchet, Najah Bazzy served as the head Muslim transcultural nurse at Oakwood Hospital, also in Dearbornistan. During her tenure, the hospital was raided by the FBI for providing tax-paid Medicaid deliveries to pregnant, foreign Muslim women with fraudulent social security numbers. All of those kids are now U.S. citizens, and their American birth certificates can be sold in the Muslim world's black market. Bazzy is one of the women featured in an exhibit in the tax-funded Arab American National Museum to which she donated an anti-Israel video by a fringe nurses group.
Hezbollah's American "Social" Club
Then, there is the Bint Jebail Cultural Center, Sunday. Many of the Bazzis were in attendance at the club, whose Chairman is Nazieh Bazzi. They were ostensibly there to mourn members of the Bazzi family who died in Israel's defensive war against Hezbollah. But this was no memorial service. It was a Nazi-style hate-fest.
The Bint Jebail Cultural Center was founded in 1994. Incredibly, American taxpayers subsidize this "cultural center," since it has 501(c)(3) tax-deductible status. In 2004, the year of its last tax return on file, the club spent over $85,000 on "cultural and religious seminars and lectures," most of them extremist. The decor of the club is elaborate, if you like the Saddam Palace/Donald Trump Apartment style of gaud. The extremists who founded the club apparently think paradise looks like Liberace-land.
While it operates mostly as a banquet facility, the Bint Jebail Cultural Center is also used as a frequent meeting place for Hezbollah supporters and a locale for pro-Hezbollah rallies that frequently feature anti-American and anti-Christian hate, not just anti-Semitism. (Despite all that, U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy III--now a Bush nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals--is a frequent guest at this club, including last October, when he told its members that the club and the U.S. government had "issues of common interest and concern.")
Sunday's event was no different than the usual Bint Jebail hate fare, minus the bloated, pandering federal officials. It was a Hezbollah rally filled with anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric, as well as prayers for the Mujahideen and the Martyrs. What I saw and heard should be must viewing for all Americans.
But you didn't read any of it in the whitewash AP story by a reporter who apparently doesn't speak or understand Arabic--the language of most of the speeches (and probably not English, either, since he couldn't even get the name of the club right). Not that Arabic fluency was necessary. It was quite clear that this was a modern day Nazi hate-fest.
While AP reported that there were 1,000 people in attendance, this was the one time when the mainstream media under-reported numbers at an extremist Muslim rally. There were easily 2,500-3,000 Jew-hating, anti-American bodies in the room that has a maximum capacity of 1,000. No fire marshals, though. The Dearborn police were guarding these Hezbollah supporters in a car outside the venue. The fire was reserved for the speeches.
Among the many speakers, several things were in common: multiple statements about the Jews, cheers for the total destruction of and end to Israel, and support for Hezbollah, the Mujahideen, and the Martyrs.
A very religious Islamic event, I sat with the many bitter-looking, hijab-encrusted women in black (the women were relegated to separate seating in the back). Every imam of every Shi'ite mosque in town was there, white turban et al. That includes Imams Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America and Mohammed Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom--heads of the two largest mosques in North America. (I've written extensively about Elahi's connections to Iran and Hezbollah.) Also there, Imam Husham Al-Hussainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Institute. At a Dearborn rally in memory of Yasser Arafat, he held a poster of his hero, Ayatollah Khomeini. Both Qazwini and Al-Hussainy were hugged by President Bush in media photo ops when he came to town upon Iraq's liberation.
Haj Mohammed Turfe (AP incorrectly called him Mohammed "Torfah"), Founding Chairman of the Bint Jebail Cultural Center, gleefully and repeatedly spoke of how "only a few thousand Jews will survive Armageddon." This mantra, repeated often throughout the event, got raucous, deafening applause and cheers. Well, for once--I thought--extremist Muslims have respect for Christianity...when they can twist it to suit their fascist hopes and dreams.
Dr. Ali Ajami, Lebanese Consul General in Detroit, delivered a fire-and-brimstone anti-Semitic tirade that would make Father Coughlin blush. An open supporter of Hezbollah, sources say he was installed in the position by Hezbollah officials in the Lebanese and Syrian governments. Incredibly, he is constantly feted by Department of Homeland Security officials.
Then, there was Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi. First, he said that Americans and Jews are "diseased," among other attacks. He sang a prayer for the Martyrs and Mujahideen--to the fervent applause of the attendees. He urged those in attendance not to buy new clothes for the next year, and to instead donate the money to "them, our brothers and sisters." It was quite clear he was speaking of Hezbollah (giving money to it is a violation of U.S. law). Incredibly, this Islamic David Duke is still a regular columnist for The Detroit News, thanks to editorial page editor Nolan Finley.
Throughout the speeches there were cheers and statements of support from the crowd for Hezbollah and against Jews. Some of the loudest cheers came for the repeated mantra, "Pray for the Speedy Dismantling of the Jewish State." It was a take on the business card of extremist Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta, a surprise speaker at the event. But his card says, "Pray For the Speedy Peaceful Dismantling of the Zionist State." His audience was not interested in the "peaceful" part, apparently.
Weiss, a Jewish self-hater, has no following in the mainstream Jewish community. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis from high and low have denounced and disavowed this extremist "rabbi" who makes a career of attending anti-Israel rallies sponsored by Muslims. But not Imam Husham Al-Hussainy. He told two Muslim women that he and Rabbi Weiss made a great team, last week, in denouncing Israel at various rallies. I watched Rabbi Weiss, whose sole legitimacy is his ultra-Orthodox religiosity, shake the hands of the Muslim women--a total no-no for observant Orthodox Jewish men (who are not allowed to touch women that are not their wives or close relatives).
Below is Rabbi Weiss' business card, should you wish to tell him what you think of his participation in a modern day Nazi rally. He wore a giant Palestinian flag as did his rabbi sidekick companion.
Also in attendance and cheering for the various expressions of hate was Nasser Beydoun--who that morning went on a local TV show, claiming he is a moderate that has respect for Jewish people and the State of Israel. He is Chairman of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce and an organizer of the U.S. Arab-Economic Conference, last month in Houston (attended by President George H.W. Bush, State Dept. official Karen Hughes (more on Hughes here), etc.). Incredibly, Michigan Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis--so desperate to get the minuscule Muslim vote--was hyping Beydoun as a U.S. Senate candidate. Beydoun's father, Mohammed, is a U.S. citizen but lived in his elaborate Bint Jbeil, Lebanon mansion, until U.S. taxpayers paid to bring him back here, last week.
Why are these extremists--Nasser Beydoun, Mohammed Ali Elahi, Husham Al-Hussainy, etc., etc., ad absurdum--commanding the respect and attention of U.S. officials? Why do these supporters of Hezbollah terrorism against Americans and Jews support genocide in the light of day?
It's an enigma that has no reasonable explanation. Pandering to this extremist hate by our government officials--whether for political pragmatism or any other reason--is unacceptable.
All freedom-loving Americans need to wake up to the "culture" I saw on display at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center.
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More pics from the Hezbollah event at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center (will use a better camera next time):
