CAIRO: A full-page advertisement in Tuesday’s Washington Post criticized several prominent Muslim leaders for hindering a Middle East peace process, including Egyptian cleric Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi.
The advertisement, paid for by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), shows a picture of Al-Qaradawi preaching, along with photographs of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Alongside each leader’s photograph is a quote denouncing Israel. Al-Qaradawi’s reads:
“Oh Allah, take this oppressive Jewish Zionist band of people and kill them, down to the very last one.
Other quotes include Nasrallah referring to Israel as “not legitimate, Khamenei calling the Israeli state “a cancerous tumor, and Meshaal saying, “there is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel.
“Not everyone wants Israel to live in peace, the AJC advertisement reads. “We stand with Israel against the preachers of hate. And we stand with Israel in its age-old quest for peace.
The AJC is an American lobbying organization based in New York City and Washington, DC. Founded in 1906 by American Jews angry at Russian pogroms, it today focuses on “combating anti-Semitism. supporting Israel’s quest for peace and security. [and] strengthening Jewish life amongst other programs, according to its website.
Its mission statement reads: “To enhance the well-being of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide, and to advance human rights and democratic values in the United States and around the world.
“As leaders from 47 countries gather in Washington to discuss the danger of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons, AJC’s full-page Washington Post ad highlights those terrorists and their backers threatening Israel with annihilation, the AJC said in a statement.
The advertisement comes one day after United States President Barack Obama opened the “Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. Emissaries from 46 countries are in attendance, including Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Israel’s foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, chose not to attend, fearing Turkish and Egyptian delegations would attack him over Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal. Israel is instead being represented by Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor.
One of America’s oldest Jewish lobbying organizations, the AJC has come under criticism in recent years. In December, 2006, the group published an essay by Alvin H. Rosenfeld titled “‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism. The essay accused several prominent American Jews, including historian Tony Judt and playwright Tony Kushner, as enabling anti-Semitism through their writings.
“It [Rosenfeld’s report] has given license to the most intolerant and narrow-minded of Israel s defenders so that, as the AJC concedes in my case, any veering from orthodoxy is met with censure or. is diluted beyond recognition, said Richard Cohen, a Jewish columnist for The Washington Post named in the essay. “The offense here is not just to a handful of relatively unimportant writers, but to memory itself. Shame. The Al-Qaradawi quote chosen by the AJC is taken from his Friday preaching on January 9, 2009. The news agency Al-Jazeera subsequently broadcast Al-Qaradawi’s sermon.
“I address my first message to the aggressor Jews, those arrogant plunderers, who act arrogantly toward the servants of God in the land of God, Al-Qaradawi said in the sermon. “We will wait for the revenge of God to descend upon them [the Jews], and, God-willing, it will be by our own hands.
Al-Qaradawi, now living in Qatar, was born in Egypt and graduated from Al-Azhar University. He was arrested several times between 1949 and 1961 by government authorities because of his involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood. He left Egypt for Qatar in 1961. Al-Qaradawi was one of the first Muslim clerics to establish a web presence, creating Islam Online in 1997. In 2004, Al-Qaradawi declined an offer to become head of the Muslim Brotherhood.
His statements have been condemned as detrimental to hopes of peace by a wide variety of organizations.
