Remarks of Jerry Gordon
Anti-Terror Coalition Press Conference on Muslim Florida Capitol Day
Tallahassee, Florida, March 10, 2009
Ahmed Bedier has made a remarkable transformation from a decidedly secular Muslim to a radical one. The son of highly educated Egyptian professional parents, he grew up in the US. He had the benefits of an education in the Western secular tradition and a collegiate career as an athlete. Perhaps propelled to do something about perceived derision of fellow American Muslims following 9/11 he was energized to leave his real estate development career and became a highly articulate spokesperson and defender of Muslim causes. He figured most prominently as an unofficial spokesperson for convicted felon, former University of South Florida Professor, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror financier,
Sami Al Arian. He found “nothing immoral” about the PIJ and Hamas were doing in Gaza and the West Bank. Later he would include Hezbollah in that charmed circle.
Bedier’s transformation to radical Islam and rise to prominence as a CAIR spokesperson was no accident. Rather it was the product of his association with the Islamic Society of Pinellas County (ISPC), and al Farooq Mosque. Two investigations in 2005 by Joe Kaufman and 2008 by David Gaubatz have demonstrated that the Mosque is a conduit for extremist Islamic views and denial of the human rights of unbelievers, prominent among them, Christians and Jews. It is surprising that both Jewish and Christian clergy and even an
FBI Special agent in Tampa - St. Petersburg hold Bedier in high regard for his Muslim community outreach and interreligious dialogue. His membership on a local Human Rights Council, in their views, overlooks his public statements supporting Islamic terror groups, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad that deny basic human and civil rights under our Constitution.
Joe Kaufman had earlier spotted the source of Bedier’s fundamentalist extremist Islam, his membership in the ISPC.
Bedier credits ISPC with bringing him to his Islamic faith. This is evident in the fact that, shortly after the September 11
th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, on his personal website, he replaced a link to ‘
Disney Online’ with a large golden picture of “
Allah” written in Arabic. He also began to look into his
Egyptian family lineage, and he
proclaimed loudly on an internet site, “YOUR GOD AND MY GOD ARE THE SAME BEING, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE TRUE GOD, and WE WITNESS THAT THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD. TO FIND OUT MORE PLEASE READ THE QURAN.”
On the ISPC website, Kaufman found extremist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian views from convicted felon, U.S. born Ali Al-Tammimi, serving 80 years for recruiting Jihadis for the Taliban. There were also hateful sermons from Saudi Sheikh, Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid.
Al Tammimi in a recorded sermon opined on hatred of Christians and Jews:
“Part of our faith is that the Jews and Christians are disbelievers, and that is why Allah says in the ninth surah -- and this verse is directed basically against the Christians -- fight those that are the people of the scripture who do not believe in Allah and the last day… until they give jezziya (money), until they are willing to submit to the Islamic state, and they’re in a state of humiliation.”
Al-Munajiid noted this about Jews;
“It is impossible ever to make peace with the Jews; we must not [enter into] a pact with them, we must not [sign] a treaty with them… There is no hiding from the evil of the Jews; there is no concealment from their deception. The Jews are defiled creatures and satanic scum. The Jews are the helpers of Satan. The Jews are the cause of the misery of the human race… Satan leads them to Hell and to a miserable fate. The Jews are our enemies and hatred of them is in our hearts. Jihad against them is our worship… Muslims must… educate their children to Jihad. This is the greatest benefit of the situation: educating the children to Jihad and to hatred of the Jews, the Christians, and the infidels…”
Kaufman noted:
In the Wahhabist way of life, there is no leeway with regards to how Islam is taught or practiced. It is one way and one way only. Therefore, it is quite understandable that a young man like Ahmed Bedier, when he is vulnerably searching for his faith at such a place as ISPC, would fall prey to an education of hatred and violence. This is not an excuse for Bedier, by any means, but it is a way of diagnosing the problem in hopes that one day the level-headed world will find a cure.
Has anything changed since Kaufman wrote that in 2005? Hardly.
Last October, In a
New English Review article about a debate on the Film “Obsession” at the University of South Florida, organized by moderator, Tom Trento, I noted these comments by David Gaubatz who had investigated Mosques in Tampa.
According to Gaubatz, he and his colleagues in the Mapping Sharia project had developed over 62 metrics that would score each Mosque in terms of Sharia compliance and adherence. He said that there was a high correlation between the incidence of those metrics and presence of radical Salafist/Wahhabist, pro-Taliban and al Qaeda materials. Gaubatz and his colleagues have surveyed over 200 Mosques in the US and found that 75% of them fit the project’s definition of radical.
Gaubatz defines the problem as “Islamoscholarphobia,” a reference to the alleged Islamic scholars who form an Islamist cabal in America and supply Salafist/Wahhabist and pro-Taliban al Qaeda materials to radical Mosques in America. He illustrated this with the aid of a Power Point presentation and pamphlet materials obtained during a visit to a local Tampa area Mosque on Friday prior to the Saturday evening program. There, he found pamphlets by U.S. born Islamic scholar and convicted felon,
Ali Al-Tamimi, now serving 16 consecutive terms for a total of 80 years in a Federal prison, for recruiting Islamic terrorists in America.
Gaubatz also found pamphlets by
Abu Ala Maududi, founder of the extremist Islamic group
Jamaat e Islami (JI). He likened finding JI pamphlets by Maududi and those by Tamimi as the moral equivalent of going into Christian churches and hypothetically finding pamphlets praising the violent extremist views of the late executed
Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the
Oklahoma City terror bombing in 1995.
During the Q+A session a member of the audience confronted Gaubatz. The exchange underlined what Gaubatz had found in his visit to the Tampa Mosque:
There was a defining moment when a Muslim attired in Sharia compliant clothing, stepped to the microphone and asked a question of Gaubatz, “Do you think I’m a radical Muslim?” To which Gaubatz replied, that by his attire he appears to be Shariah compliant. However, he doesn’t know if the questioner reads the radical tracts by Al Tamimi or Maududi placed at his Mosque or believes the Imam who preaches radical sermons at Friday services.
A final note about the Egyptian Muslim environment that Bedier allegedly venerates. A
New English Review interview with Massachusetts Rabbi Jon Hausman presented about his own experience in Muslim Egypt. Hausman has a graduate degree in Middle East Studies, speaks both Hebrew and Arabic, and attended the American University in Cairo.
I saw in 1970s Egypt a country teaching its youth to hate Jews, America, women’s rights, general education, democratic values, and democracy. I saw the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood up close and personal. I saw the abject poverty of and dissociative treatment of the Coptic Church and its adherents. I wouldn’t say that it was an eye opener for me, but it was probably the most formative educational experience in my life.
Do Muslim Floridians, whom Ahmed Bedier brought to meet state representatives today, harbor extremist views like the Hijab swathed woman in Fort Lauderdale at a protest last December who said that “Jews should go back to the ovens”? We hope not. However, as Bedier has been transformed by extremist rhetoric preached by radical Imams steeped in the Wahhabi traditions, we wonder how many among today’s visitors to Tallahassee on Muslim Florida Capitol day are similarly inclined?
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