Yesterday I noted that a press conference held by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in front of RNC headquarters to attack Michele Bachmann and demand that Mitt Romney denounce his GOP colleague was a bust when the media failed to show. MPAC then “cancelled” the press conference after the fact.
One of the few media interviews MPAC gave at the “cancelled” press conference was an interview by MPAC-DC director (and regular White House guest — even when they won’t admit it) Haris Tarin, where he hinted at Bachmann’s ties to this weekend’s shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
But Michele Bachmann is not MPAC’s first scapegoat for violence.
As the LA Times reported back in September 2001, on the day of the 9/11 attacks longtime MPAC president Salam al-Marayati went on a local radio program and blamed Israelis for the attacks:
Al-Marayati was interviewed the day of the terrorist attacks, by Warren Olney on KCRW-FM’s “Which Way, LA?” According to a transcript provided by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization created to defend Jews against anti-Semitism, Olney asked: “Are you worried about another spate of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States?”
Al-Marayati replied: “Yes, we’re warning about generalizations that will only aid the criminals who perpetrated this deplorable act and really hurt innocent people. . . . ”
The discussion then turned to suspects. According to the transcript, Al-Marayati said, “If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies. Why not put all the suspects on the list, instead of going ahead and shooting from the hip and saying those people did it and bombing the cornfields of Afghanistan and pharmaceutical factories of Sudan. . . .”
David A. Lehrer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he will not join any dialogue involving Al-Marayati.
Must be nice to always have a ready-made scapegoat for every act of violence (and SHOCK!! they always seem to be MPAC’s perceived “enemies”).
The hypocrisy is, of course, that when Muslims are involved in terror plots we’re always told by groups like MPAC that we’re not allowed to hold anyone else in the Muslim community accountable for their role in radicalizing would-be jihadists. But a shooting at a Sikh temple? Michele Bachmann is to blame. 9/11 attacks? The Jews are responsible.
UPDATE: Twitchy points us to the Twitter storm on the left attacking Bachmann for made up quotes attributed to her by The Onion (a parody publication).
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