CAIR-New Jersey director Jim Sues thinks killing all Jews is a bridge too far. |
On Friday, December 8, a New Jersey imam gave a hate-filled sermon calling for the Jews to be killed “down to the very last one,” as we wrote about previously. Today, asked to comment on the episode, the director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jim Sues, released a gratifying statement.
Here is Mr. Sues’s statement to Islamist Watch: “CAIR has a long history of challenging anti-Semitism in all its forms. We believe that statements expressed in this sermon are inappropriate and should be condemned.”
We applaud Mr. Sues for his willingness to confront anti-Semitism—a willingness which is especially noteworthy because other CAIR branches and CAIR’s national office have often turned a blind eye to anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred as well. For example, extremist cleric Siraj Wahhaj is often tapped to headline CAIR events—including a banquet held by CAIR-San Francisco just a few weeks ago—despite his longstanding bigotry and support for actual violence.
Indeed, on this very topic of the New Jersey sermon, media figures have reached out to CAIR-National communications director Ibrahim Hooper for a statement, and to date have been ignored. (We will update this post if they do get a response.)
We hope that the decency shown by Jim Sues will soon become the norm among CAIR chapters, and perhaps, in time, CAIR National itself.
Oren Litwin is a research fellow for Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
