My Neighbor, the Hamas Leader
Back in March, my friend and colleague Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News emailed me a link to an article in Tablet Magazine and asked: “Hey — isn’t that your neighbor with the head of Hamas?” Sure enough, it was. My former neighbor Salah Sultan was standing right beside Ismail Haniyeh — the Hamas “prime minister” of Gaza — as Haniyeh left a meeting with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Cairo (purple shirt):
Stakelbeck knew about my neighbor Sultan because Erick and I had worked together on a video segment highlighting Sultan’s activity and residence in my hometown of Hilliard, Ohio, back in 2007. That was more than a year after I had first written about returning home to Ohio to discover that I had an internationally known Hamas cleric living about a mile from my own house. Not only that, but Sultan was the religious director at the local Islamic school, Sunrise Academy, which had taken over the former public library building in town. Sultan was also the resident scholar of the newly built Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard.
As I later recounted, the Columbus Dispatch attacked me as a racist and a bigot, characterizing me as a Christianist Neo-Nazi. This after I had identified Sultan’s rabidly anti-Jewish remarks, his calls for violent jihad, his open support for Hamas, his ties to Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, and his association with international Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
The Dispatch article encouraged readers to attend an open house set up in response to my article at the local Islamic school. The relevant section of the Dispatch article responding to my claims was titled “Hostile Assertions”:
The condemnations not only came from my local paper, but also from the “interfaith leaders” in town — namely the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio – who had arranged the Dispatch hit piece. They also came from local residents, who felt free to vent their fury in phone calls made to my family members. One local columnist wrote an article titled “Muslim Basher, Patrick Poole, Preys on People’s Fears.”
Two weeks after the Dispatch article appeared defending Salah Sultan as a well-respected Islamic scholar and local interfaith leader (curiously, the Dispatch article can no longer be found on their website), he appeared on Al-Risala TV where he claimed that the 9/11 attacks were a U.S. government plot to victimize Muslims. He also defended designated terrorist and al-Qaeda cleric Abdul Majid al-Zindani. (See video embedded above.)
Needless to say, the Dispatch never followed up, even after I sent the reporter and editors a copy of Sultan’s video translated by MEMRI.
Last year at PJ Media, I revisited some of Salah Sultan’s activities since that time. I was driven to do so after he appeared last August on Al-Jazeera issuing a fatwa authorizing the assassination of any Israeli in Egypt. I titled that review “Yes, my neighbor really was a racist, terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood cleric.”
As a demonstration of how correct I was, take note of the picture below of Sultan being chummy with Khaled Meshaal –the head of Hamas and a specially designated global terrorist according to the U.S. government — that was posted on Sultan’s Facebook page on May 6 this year:
In law enforcement circles, this is what is known as an “investigative clue.”
In case the folks at the Columbus Dispatch still have any doubts about his Hamas connections, here Sultan is again with Ismail Haniyeh in March, just days after the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) — where Sultan sits on the board – greeted Haniyeh as a member:
But what about my prior claims about Sultan’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood? Well — Sultan was actively involved in the Egyptian elections, appearing regularly with the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi (who, I noted here, first became a Muslim Brotherhood member while in the United States studying at the University of Southern California).
Here’s a picture of Sultan and Morsi at a campaign event dated May 13:
Here is one of Morsi’s campaign flyers noting Sultan’s support (top row, second from the left):
In case there was any remaining uncertainty about Sultan’s ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Sultan led a Muslim Brotherhood rally and gave a fiery speech in Tahrir Square on a live June 21 broadcast on Al-Jazeera:
No doubt officials at the Columbus Dispatch will say I’m an Islamophobe for mentioning Sultan’s exercise of democracy on behalf of his preferred political party in his native homeland of Egypt.
What about my previous claims of his anti-Semitic racism? Funny you should ask. Again, I would note his aforementioned fatwa broadcast on Al-Jazeera, where he authorized the killing of any “Zionist” in Egypt.
Also, in November Sultan was the organizer of a “March Against the Judaization of Jerusalem” (here is an English-language report noting his leadership in the event), which is rather remarkable, as the Jews have been living in Jerusalem for more than 3,000 years. During events related to the march, reports indicate that speakers railed against “those treacherous Jews.”
At a November 25 rally at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Sultan can be seen marshaling religious leaders invoking the notorious Islamic hadith about the end times, when the stones and trees will say “O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come kill him.”
As noted by an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report, in February Sultan gave a speech at an IUMS meeting in Cairo where he blamed violence against Egyptian Christians on “acts of Jews.” At the event, the crowd was led in a chant: “To Jerusalem we are going as martyrs in millions.”
In May, the ADL reported that Sultan was the host of a new live television program on the Al-Risala network:
The program also featured live call-ins from viewers, including several who used the platform to make anti-Semitic remarks. One caller from Egypt said:
“It will be impossible for the Jews, those sons of apes and pigs, no way … no way … that they can achieve their goal in building their alleged temple. Inshallah and God’s willing this will never happen. We will raise our young children, the seven-year-old ones, the five-year-old ones, and the four-years-old to fight the Jews and have war with the Jews.”
Sultan responded, “God willing.”
A report last month by MEMRI stated that one of Sultan’s friends is the director of Al-Risala, Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood leader Tareq al-Suwaidan. They published pictures of the pair and noted Suwaidan’s anti-Jewish rhetoric, endorsement for the reestablishment of the global Islamic caliphate, and calls for violent jihad.
The MEMRI report also indicates that Suwaidan is a graduate of both the University of Oklahoma and Penn State.
One of the other issues that the Columbus Dispatch took me to task for was my connecting Sultan to international Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, whom the ADL describes at the “Theologian of Terror” for — among other things — his religious endorsement of suicide bombings by Hamas as “martyrdom” (he was the first major Sunni cleric to do so), and by Iraqi insurgents targeting American soldiers and contractors.
As far back as 2008 I noted the close relationship between Qaradawi and Sultan, including the appearance of Sultan at a July 2007 conference in Doha, Qatar (Qaradawi’s base), where Sultan praised Qaradawi as his teacher and mentor. Sultan later appeared on the main speakers’ dais with Qaradawi and Khaled Meshaal.
As Qaradawi reaches his late 80s, Sultan appears to be assuming his mentor’s mantle. Here is one recent picture of the pair:
And another:
Sultan’s increasing role in Qaradawi’s orbit is attested to in a February 10 article in the Khaleej Times reporting on a visit by leaders of the Syrian National Council — dominated and controlled by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood — with Qaradawi. During the meeting, Sultan (identified in the article as part of Qaradawi’s group) called for armed jihad against the Assad regime:
Another leading member of Qaradawi’s grouping, Salahudin Sultan, appealed to Gulf leaders to arm rebel fighters in Syria and send troops to back them.
“King of Saudi Arabia, emir of Qatar, take out the weapons and hand them over to those free people,” Sultan said.
“As you sent your Peninsula Shield Force into Bahrain, move them towards Syria,” he added, referring to the Gulf military force deployed to member state Bahrain last March to help the kingdom’s Sunni rulers put down Shiite-led pro-democracy protests.
It’s not just the Assad regime or the “Zionists” that are the targets of Sultan’s calls for violent jihad. In December 2008 I reported at PJ Media about one of Sultan’s appearances on Al-Nas TV, where he warned of the immediate destruction of America and invoked the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
This is a theme he returned to recently on Sada al-Balad TV back in February (translated by MEMRI), where he responded to a question about whether war with Israel would lead to war with the U.S. He responded: “Why not?”, approvingly cited The Protocols once again, and recalled a sermon he had previously given in Dallas where he likened the days of destruction with Noah and the looming wrath for the U.S.:
MEMRI also translated a January 17 interview with Sultan in which he encouraged Muslim youth to take up sports such as karate in preparation to fight for the liberation of Palestine:
I call upon young people to practice sports, and to strengthen their bodies in preparation for jihad. Practice Karate, practice Taekwondo, practice all the sports that make your body extremely strong. Lift weights, and then dream, day and night. Turn your faces towards the heavens. If the young turn their faces to the heavens in a desire to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it will be liberated soon, Allah willing.
Whatever happened to the respected Islamic scholar and interfaith moderate Salah Sultan, for whom the Columbus Dispatch was driven to publicly castigate me for daring to call him a terror-loving, terrorist-associating, racist Muslim Brotherhood leader?
He was a figment of the newspaper’s imagination, fed to them by their friends in the local Islamic community and by Sultan himself, and aided in no small measure by soothing narratives of interfaith peace and harmony many hold to despite all the conflicting evidence.
All along, he really was who I said he was. But it’s doubtful that the local media will correct the record.
But why does the record need to be corrected? Since his activity is entirely outside the U.S. now (he’s been banned from reentering the country), surely there’s really no relation between what happens over there and our communities here? Even though everything I said about Salah Sultan going back to April 2006 has been verified, my stated fears of a “hometown jihad” are nothing more than the paranoid fantasies of a raging, racist Islamophobe, right?
I’ll answer that question here at PJ Media shortly.
Update: Earlier today, PJM’s Andrew McCarthy and I discussed this topic with Glenn Beck at GBTV:
Thanks for your article.
p.s.: how long will we have to wait for an PJ article on ‘Obama inks ‘secret order’ to aid Syria rebels’
Patrick, few have a clue how many of their American neighbors are duly connected to The Muslim Mafia! And, I am speaking about a subject I am very familiar with.
However, in Israel, most of us have our eyes wide open, knowing full well where we are living. And, it ain’t pretty.
Go to my blog -www.adinakutnicki.com, and you will find a veritable feast regarding the Brotherhood, and its plans. I am sure you are duly aware of them, but it is important to glean from others, as I make it my business to do the same.
Mind you, some of my ‘devoted’ viewers come from Islamic confines. I guess they are interested in seeing how the ‘Zionist entity’ is faring under their onslaught.
NO matter. They only win if we submit.
http://iaco.org/
This is Baha’i Faith islamic trojan horsing. The baha’i faith follows baha’u'llah. Baha’u'llah claimed to be the second coming of ISA. Isa, in islamic religious doctrine comes back to break the cross and end the jizya. Unity in Diversity is baha’i faith doctrine.
Unity in Diversity is destroying Christianity and providing cover for muslims to grow and eventually destroy all non-muslims.
This serves the Baha’i in two ways.
1) The historical Jewish Jesus will eventually be erased and replaced by the muslim jesus Isa.
2) With Judaism and Christianity destroyed there will be no competition for souls trying to escape the hell on earth muslims live in due to their islamic faith. Thus the baha’i faith becomes the only avenue of escape.
Not to mention there is a New World Order all baha’i are trying to bring about.
Why is it that Democrats, especially the far left variety (is there any other kind today?) always seem to cuddle up to the enemies of freedom and this country? The same is true of their loving cohorts in the LSM.
CAIR is an “unindicted co-conspirator” in horrific terrorist actions, yet enjoys the friendship of the current Administration as well as that of prominent Democrats on the local level of every large city. The Islamic Brotherhood has a vision of the world stuck in the 7th century, with barbaric views on women’s rights and personal freedom.
One can only shake one’s head in disblelief and disgust.
“Why is it that Democrats… always seem to cuddle up to the enemies of freedom and this country?”
The answer is manifold.
At the top is the appearance of being “tolerant”. Their moral superiority allows them the charge of accepting islam as a legitimate religion, and being as most American baby-boomers were brought up in a Christian household and rejected it, they continue their adolescent fantasy that Christianity was “brutal”. They are still angry that mommy and daddy made them go to church instead of letting them toke up in the garage on a nice Sunday afternoon.
Second is the common thread of hating capitalism. This is where the two factions work together to undermine what most of us consider normal American activity. However, they both play against one another…the socialists and the muslims…thinking that one will eventually be more powerful than the other, secretly winking behind each other’s back, knowing that when the time comes, there will be blood. But for now they benefit one another.
Finally, they are both steeped in hatred. Hatred of the US. For the muslims, it’s an age-old hatred that has aged to a fine point. For the self-loathing baby-boomer hippies-cum-politicians, it is a way to stick it to conservatives. When they pretend to get along with the sand-people, they cast side glances to see if any conservatives are flinching, and take pleasure in that. So it’s a bit of theater for both muslims and socialists. Just as long as it makes conservatives unhappy.
I remember when in college I was told, “Never go to bed with someone crazier than yourself” and often, I think that applies to the way socialists court the muslims. One thing is sure though…it will end ugly. very ugly.
P Jay,
“When they pretend to get along with the sand-people, they cast side glances to see if any conservatives are flinching, and take pleasure in that”
Exactly. Thats the prime motivation of all lefty causes…they way it looks, and who it annoys.
Like self-concious posers glancing to a mirror as they preen their grievences to others, they need to “see themselves” wearing the costume, to re-enforce their (hopeful) belief that WE take them seriously…because deep down inside they know they have no convictions, other than they “disagree” because they think their “supposed to”.
Like White college chicks who date Black guys just to annoy their parents. The Che shirts, the pro-palistine antisemitism, its all the same:
Look at me, dont you hate it? Gosh I must be SO cool.
The Drugstore Cowboys and Sidewalk Commandos our political debate.
Apropos of which, anyone else notice the part in the attempt to discredit you by saying when you wrote for FPM, you wrote for someone who wants immigrants to be “white”? Damning with insinuations of racism, standard tactic …
I repeat: there are simply not enough bullets.
Not Enough Bullets?
That Sir, is a ridiculous statement.
We have no way of KNOWING the effect of our bullets until we CONDUCT a Reasonable Assessment Test.
An audit, if you will, to give us a fair indication of probability.
The last datasets we have on hand date to the late 1770′s
Thus, it is simply not possible to extrapolate any numeric value
(“enough” or ‘not enough”) with any real confidence.
So, before we can declare Yeah or Ney, we must QUANTIFY the effectiveness of “x” , and THEN multiply that by the Proportional Known Volume, and superimpose THAT figure against the Population Profile representing Overall Left.
Do you see now my pessimistic friend?
Until we send a Squad of Patriots against a Platoon of smelly OWS’ers,
we simply WONT KNOW if we have enough bullets for them all.
We may in fact, have quite a bit MORE than necessary on hand right now…
which means great gobs of celebratory fireworks when the deed is finally done.
See? Every Dark Cloud has a silver lining.
And in our case, much of THAT, is in the form of Nickel Plated Brass.
Why is it that many career criminals serving time in the US jails and prisons choose to embrace Islam and claim to affiliate themselves with the islamic brotherhood or other organisations with similar views?…disturbing…
Simple:
Mohammad was a criminal sociopath. He killed, raped, and stole everything he could get his hands on, all while rationalizing it in his own mind as “good” and “proper”, while enforcing his will to have all things “his way” under the threat of the sword.
A criminal mindset that excuses all moral atrocities so long as they are done in the name of “the gang”
Whats not to love when youre ALREADY a criminal?
Islam and Criminals/Prisons are a natural fit, because you dont have to CHANGE.
Its the easiest “conversion” there is.
Wow, well it’s depressing to see that the Colombus Dispatch knowingly supports terrorism, evil, and the destruction of America. I say knowingly because the sheer amount of valid evidence you presented Peter, well it’s just overwhelming almost and shows this piece of human trash to definitely be another barbaric failure as a human in this world. Thank you Peter for taking the time to do this, having a good heart, caring about what is right and caring about our country so much, and for having the courage and fortitude to carry on your research and mission, while the wolves circle and attempt in vain to discredit you and the truth.
It’s typical but none the less shocking that A) this terrorist was ever allowed in our country and when here not arrested and sent to Guantanomo for an indefinite stay, and that B) a disgusting, lying, America-hating news newspaper like the Columbus Dispatch is able to keep reporting “news”, and spreading their vehement, traitorous lies to the public. Can you imagine if the entire situation was reversed and it was Peter who had knowingly lied like the Columbus Dispatch. Well, I can tell you’re not an American-hating liberal easily, so it’s easy to know that you would have been crucified, even more so than the Columbus Dispatch tried to ruin your good name and suppress the truth. So once again thank you and I applaud you for having the courage to fight the evil in our country, and please keep fighting the good fight, because we will prevail I have not a single doubt.
Edit: sorry Patrick, I mistakingly referred to you as “Peter”, when I meant to say “Patrick”.
Yet another piece of outstanding journalistic douchebaggery from the Dispatch (We get the Sunday edition only for the coupons, and our oldest likes the comics).
We’ve lived in the area for about 15 years, and always had this nagging feeling that the Dispatch was never really giving us the full story – just a glossed-over version to keep the local establishment happy. Probably the case everywhere, but it’s been especially noticeable here.
The paper’s behavior isn’t surprising. They used to give a pretty fair amount of editorial space to letters from CAIR.
The truth *always* comes out eventually, doesn’t it?
@Vangrungy, What a load of ignorant, biased, unresearched claptrap. You are a troll and know absolutely nothing about the Baha’i Faith.
Probably not a common troll but perhaps an Islamicist who typically regards the Baha’is as heretics.
I hate to say it but every useless politician that has not spoken out AGAINST the Muslim Brotherhood influence in the White House, House, Senate, DOD, DHS, DOJ and others are actually helping those that believe in Shariah/Islamic law.
By not coming out publically for what Rep. Bachman the other four American heroes are asking, IG investigation as to the influence within our government they are actually helping spread Shariah in the United States.
It is criminal that the media refuse to describe militant Islam accurately. It is bloodthirsty, ruthless and the greatest current danger to Western civilization. No thinking person denies this.
Islam consistently gets a pass from the media in the name of Political Correctness, the greatest curse to befall the country in the last thirty years!