Dearborn Mayor Claims That Jihadi’s Relatives Dying in Israeli Strike Triggered Synagogue Attack

According to the mayor of Dearborn Heights, Mich., Israelis are almost as much to blame for the March 12 synagogue terror attack as the Muslim jihadi himself because the latter lost relatives in a defensive counterstrike from Israel into Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon.

First of all, no circumstances justify a person trying to blow up a synagogue and school filled with children using $2,000 worth of fireworks. But as it happens, Ayman Ghazali’s family, killed in an Israeli airstrike, were almost certainly Hezbollah operatives. But Mayor Mo Baydoun tried to make Ghazali into an object of pity and practically wept over the supposed danger to Muslims "during these sacred final days of Ramadan." Not that there's any evidence Muslims are being targeted, but Baydoun has to pretend that terrorism is not an overwhelmingly Muslim problem.

Baydoun sadly announced, "Earlier this month, [Ghazali] lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon. Everyone deserves to worship in peace...This tragedy comes at a time when communities everywhere are confronting rising hate and senseless violence." Senseless violence is right. There was no justification for Ghazali trying to blow up a school.

The terrorist who tried to kill Jews at the Michigan synagogue yesterday lived in Dearborn Heights.

After the attack, the mayor of Dearborn Heights issued this psychotic statement explicitly excusing antisemitic terrorism pic.twitter.com/THmRyj3ouE
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) March 13, 2026

Baydoun then acted as if mosques were in equal danger with synagogues. "I want our community to know that we are working closely with our police department and regional partners to protect the safety of every house of worship in our city," he wrote. "I urge residents to stay aware and vigilant, especially as we gather during these sacred final days of Ramadan." Devout Muslims often call for Ramadan to be a "month of jihad." Baydoun did not say that the Temple Israel attack was specifically anti-Jewish violence.

The mayor did not acknowledge that Ghazali had Hezbollah terror contacts in his phone (per The Federalist’s Benjamin Weingarten) or that his brother was reportedly a Hezbollah jihadi. This would explain why Ghazali’s family members died in an Israeli strike, since Israel only conducts strikes on Lebanese territory as a response to attacks from Hezbollah terrorists. In fact, over the last few days, Hezbollah has been absolutely bombarding northern Israel with missiles.

The New York Post and Israel War Room reported:

In 2019, Ghazali was stopped by authorities when he returned to the US from overseas and claimed when questioned that he went abroad for a hair transplant…The attack came after two of his brothers and a niece and nephew were killed in airstrikes in their Lebanon home…The two siblings were believed to be members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, law enforcement sources told The Post.

Therefore, Ghazali was not some well-intentioned individual driven mad by grief at the unjustified slaughter of innocent family members. Rather, he and his family alike were Islamic jihadis with genocidal hatred for Jews.

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