The Truth About the Jihad in Dearborn

“We are on the road to a great victory, here in D.C., and there in Palestine.”

 By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

 

When the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by a counterterrorism researcher exposing support for terrorism in Dearborn, MI, Biden didn’t condemn the hate, he condemned the op-ed.

“Americans know that blaming a group of people based on the words of a small few is wrong. That’s exactly what can lead to Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate, and it shouldn’t happen to the residents of Dearborn,” Biden tweeted.

The “small few” named in the op-ed included a pro-terrorist gathering attended by over 1,200 people (2% of the local Muslim population), the Dearborn’s Islamic Center of Detroit and the 120,000 square foot Islamic Center of America which can accommodate 2,500 Muslims and has been described as the largest mega mosque in the country. That’s far from a “small few.”

After the Hamas attacks, the Detroit News promoted claims by the Islamic Center of Detroit that it had been forced to boost security because “people are scared”. A week earlier, Imam Imran Salha of the center had told a huge crowd that Israel had put a “fire in our hearts that will burn that state”—Israel— “until its demise.”

Last year, Imam Salha had been recorded on video disavowing non-Muslim and gay supporters. “If somebody loves Palestine, but they don’t worship Allah, then I don’t want your activism for Palestine,” and complained about those who “shake hands with people who endorse things like the LGBTQ principles.”

Imam Salha may despise them, but Biden and Michigan Democrats, from Gov. Whitmer on down, will defend him and dismiss exposes like the one in the WSJ as “hateful”.

Biden’s condemnation had been prompted by Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud who had claimed that the WSJ op-ed was “Islamophobic” and endangered Muslims. CNN and other media outlets uncritically repeated Mayor Hammoud’s claims that the op-ed was a threat.

“In response to an Islamaphobic, Anti-Arab, and blatantly racist opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal today, we have increased the presence of law enforcement throughout Dearborn,” Mayor Hammoud had claimed. “This is more than irresponsible journalism. Publishing such inflammatory writing puts our residents at increased risk for harm.”

What Mayor Hammoud did not mention was that he had spoken at an anti-Israel rally convened by the same pro-terrorist group which had been mentioned in the WSJ op-ed where participants condemned Biden and elected officials for supporting Israel after the Hamas attack.

The rally had been organized by New Generation for Palestine: a local anti-Israel group that has defended Hamas. Amer Zahr, the president of NGP, responded to Oct 7 by arguing that, “Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from an occupation, and that’s what led to this.”

NGP has used signage reading, “Thank You Yemen” at a time when America is at war with the Houthis and fighting to stop their attacks on civilian ships.

At an NGP rally only days after the attack, Zahr had argued that Oct 7 was not an unprovoked attack. He had previously stated, “we say very proudly, that we stand with every resistance against Israel and every resistance against the occupation … whether it’s called Hamas, whether it’s called Hezbollah.”

Linda Sarsour, who had long been accused of supporting terrorists, claimed at the rally at which Mayor Hammoud spoke that, “Israel already lost the war” against Hamas, while the co-master of ceremonies called for destroying Israel.

The “small few” in Dearborn includes the mayor of the city as well as Sarsour: a prominent Muslim political figure, who had been named as one of Obama’s ‘Champions of Change’.

The WSJ op-ed’s title, “Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital” had come in for criticism by Hammoud, Michigan politicians, including Rep. Debbie Dingell as well as President Biden..

MEMRI had posted a video of the NGP rally at which Mayor Hammoud called Dearborn “the city of resistance”. That’s a euphemism often used to describe Hamas terrorism.

This was not the first time that Hammoud had appeared at an NGP event praising terrorism.

In 2022, Mayor Hammoud spoke at an NGP Dearborn rally at which Osama Siblani, the publisher of Arab American News, declared, “We are the Arabs that are going to lift Palestinians all the way to victory. Whether we are in Michigan, and whether we are in Jenin. Believe me. Everyone should fight within his means. They will fight with stones. Others will fight with guns. Others will fight with planes, drones. And others will fight with rockets. And others will fight in their voice, and the others will fight with their hands and say free, free Palestine!”

Biden responded by sending a campaign official to meet with Osama and court his support.

Mayor Abdullah Hammoud claimed that describing support for terrorism in Dearborn was “racist”, “anti-Arab” and “Islamophobic” while he took part in rallies at which there were calls for violence and support for terrorism by figures who had supported terrorists for decades.

It’s not that the media doesn’t know about what’s going on, it’s that it will no longer discuss it.

“Mr. Bush believes Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian factions are terrorists, but we believe they are freedom fighters,” Osama Siblani had told the Washington Post.

The Chicago Tribune had quoted Osama boasting, “If the FBI wants to come after those who support the resistance done by Hezbollah, then they better bring a fleet of buses. I for one would be willing to go to jail.”

At the November rally where Hammoud spoke, Osama had bragged, “We are on the road to a great victory, here in D.C., and there in Palestine.”

Mayor Abdullah Hussein Hammoud, the son of Lebanese immigrants, chose to take part in a rally with Osama and then threaten the Wall Street Journal for reporting on the support for terrorism in Dearborn while playing the victim.

Quite a few of the politicians condemning the WSJ for exposing Dearborn know better.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had claimed that the WSJ op-ed was “incredibly cruel and ignorant and a total misrepresentation of an important city full of a lot of beautiful people.”

Gov. Whitmer’s old family friend is Abed Hammoud: a Lebanese immigrant and former U.S. attorney who once ran for mayor in Dearborn, and whose son Mustapha is a city councilman.

Abed Hammoud, had headed the Congress of Arab American Organizations alongside Osama Siblani and CAAO rallies included support for Hezbollah. He had complained that a government crackdown on Hezbollah was “smearing the whole community”.

“Now people are scared to even say `I want Hezbollah to defend Lebanon,'” he had objected.

Abed Hammoud was listed as the lawyer for Hezbollah financier Mohammad Bazzi: a “specially designated global terrorist” who has been described as “a player for senior Hezbollah operatives and senior Iranian leadership”. These are Gov. Whitmer’s beautiful people.

Despite Hammoud being quoted on the record about Islamic terrorists, Obama chose to appoint Gov. Whitmer’s family friend as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

There are no shortage of beautiful Islamic terrorist cases that have come out of Dearborn, MI.

11 Muslim men out of Dearborn had been among those charged in Operation Smokescreen for smuggling cigarettes to benefit Hezbollah under orders from Mohamad Youssef Hammoud, allegedly a Hezbollah leader in America, operating out of Charlotte, who was released 7 years too early. Fawza Mustapha Assi of Dearborn was caught smuggling night-vision goggles and other equipment to Hezbollah and sentenced to ten years in prison. Samer El-Debek of Dearborn was accused of training with Hezbollah and trying to “assess the vulnerabilities of the Panama Canal.” Khalil Abu-Rayyan of Dearborn promoted ISIS and talked about shooting up a Detroit church and stated that it was his “dream” to carry out a beheading. Ibraheem Izzy Musaibli of Dearborn was sentenced in 2023 to 14 years in prison for being an ISIS Jihadist.

Those are only 15 examples out of many more that have come out of America’s Jihad Capital.

But the political support for Islamic terrorism in Dearborn is what really makes it such a national security threat. Much as Hamas supporters cry “genocide” when there are consequences for their terrorism, exposes of terrorism support in Dearborn are met with cries of “Islamophobia”.

Mayor Abdullah Hammoud claims that Gaza is suffering from a “U.S. government-backed genocide” and that Muslims in Dearborn are terrorized by a WSJ op-ed exposing terrorism.

What was Mayor Hammoud’s response to the Hamas mass murder of Israeli and American civilians? Beyond his attendance at a pro-terrorist rally, he posted a message on social media on Oct 7 in which he did not condemn Hamas, but he did condemn Israel, and claimed that, “Israel’s decades of illegal military occupation and imprisonment of Gaza make peace impossible and tragic violence inevitable .Israel has trapped millions of Palestinians in Gaza in what is recognized by the international community as the world’s largest open-air prison. Failure to recognize this context is the inability to comprehend what is unfolding overseas.”

The context was an attempt to place the blame for the Hamas kidnappings and massacres of Israeli civilians including little children on the victims of Islamic terror rather than the terrorists.

Mayor Hammoud then threw in, “Hypocrisy is sending billions of tax-payer dollars to Ukrainians fighting for their homeland and championing their armed struggle as ‘resistance,’ while condemning even peaceful forms of Palestinian resistance, such as boycotts, as illegitimate.”

This is why Hammoud is one of the Islamist politicians featured in the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s ‘Election Jihad’ report which describes how Islamist politicians are crawling into political offices across Michigan, not just in Dearborn, but around the country.

The ‘Election Jihad’ is real and it threatens America’s national security and its future. If you doubt that, just look at Dearborn, Michigan.

251 people from Dearborn fighting for America in WWII.

These days Dearborn produces the likes of Ibraheem Musaibli who traveled to Syria, joined ISIS and fought for the terrorist group only to be turned over to the United States and sent to prison for only 5 years. He’ll be out and roaming the streets of America’s Jihad Capital by 2028.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation. Thank you for reading.