Anti-Zionist groups back anti-Semitic imam, blast school's effort to host interfaith event
A number of Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups have issued statements in support of an imam who promoted sharia law and led a walkout in protest of a Jewish panelist at a CUNY interfaith event.
U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon confirmed on X that the DOJ Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation into the incident.
Several anti-Zionist groups have spoken out in defense of a Muslim leader who led a walkout in protest of a Jewish panelist at an interfaith event.
Abdullah Mady, a self-proclaimed imam, promoted sharia law and chastised Ilya Bratman, a Jewish Zionist member of a November interfaith panel event at City College of New York, before leading Muslims in a walkout, Campus Reform previously reported.
Multiple Muslim and pro-Palestinian organizations have now issued statements backing Mady and his actions, claiming that they were informed Bratman would not be present at the event.
“We stand firmly behind Mady’s statements and the decision made by the students to walk out of the event in protest,” a spokesperson for CCNY’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter said. “The targeted campaign against him and CCNY SJP only exposes the desperate and Islamophobic effort to control campus narrative about the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”
A joint statement undersigned by 18 activist groups claimed the walkout was not due to the fact that Bratman was Jewish, but rather because of his Zionist beliefs, saying, “There is no interfaith with Zionism.”
The statement also sought to justify Mady’s glorification of sharia law, saying that it “is rooted in fairness and justice; ensuring the rights of everyone. Especially for those who are oppressed, orphaned , and (or) poor.”
During his remarks, Mady called for the “tips of the hands of a thief” to be cut in accordance with sharia as a measure for reducing crime.
Another statement from the Muslim American Society of New York and the Tamkeen Movement claimed that Mady’s comments were consistent with Islamic teachings.
“From an Islamic standpoint, Abdullah’s comments align with prophetic guidance that calls for speaking truth in the presence of injustice. His prayer for communities suffering in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, and his critique of Zionism as a political ideology implicated in documented apartheid and faith-based supremacy, are consistent with the values upheld by Muslim institutions and scholars,” the statement read.
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US Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called a report about the event “deeply concerning” and said that the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division would be investigating. She confirmed this in a follow-up post to X, writing, “Investigation was opened yesterday and is ongoing.”
The “Writers Against the War on Gaza,” who penned the statement for CCNY’s SJP chapter, said the group “rejects the Israel’s lobby’s well-established pattern of spurious and manufactured crises as a tool for implementing further unconstitutional controls on speech, academic freedom, and the right to protest.”
This is not the first time the City University of New York system has found itself in the midst of controversy related to claims of anti-Semitism. Campus Reform previously reported that Rep. Elise Stefanik chastised CUNY’s chancellor during a hearing, saying that he has “failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”
All relevant parties have been contacted for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
