As indicated by its site, the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) held its fourteenth Annual Convention for Palestine in the US from November 25-27, 2021, in Chicago, Illinois. The AMP gathering highlighted various hazardous speakers, however it is Zahra Billoo, the San Francisco Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who has gotten the most consideration following her location to the meeting. In that location, which followed that of CAIR Director Nihad Awad, Billoo made a progression of combustible claims, basically assigning enormous bits of the Jewish people group in the US, just as unidentified Muslim associations as “foes” who are plotting and conspiring to hurt Muslims. The charges included: (US Muslim Brotherhood Group )
- (34:50) Saying Islamophobia was a well-funded “conspiracy,” a term which she immediately corrected to “project.”
- (35:10) Saying “they,” appearing to refer to Islamophobic figures, opposed Muslims not only because “Muslims fight for Palestine” but because Muslims fight for a variety of social issues, including Black Lives Matter, homelessness and poverty, and the environment.
- (37:05) Conflating “our opposition” with “our Jewish friends” and claiming that Muslims mistakenly tried wooing Jews by fighting Islamophobia in the US while “ignoring the foreign issue.” She further said that “to ‘them,’” Muslims, Palestinians, Arabs, people of conscience, here and abroad were “a threat.”
- (37:35) Claiming that Zionist organizations promoting the “Zionist agendas” were the same ones who “want to ban Muslims.”
- (37:45) Saying, “the police officers in the United States who kill unarmed black men, women, and children are trained by the Israeli military,” a claim disputed by the organizers of US/Israel police exchanges.
- (38:32) Labeling a large part of the organized Jewish community in the US, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Federation, Zionist synagogues, and university Hillel chapters as “polite Zionists” who will “… take your friendship and throw your Palestinian brothers and sisters under the bus.”
- (40:31) Labeling unspecified “Zionist” and “foreign policy organizations who say they are not Zionists but want a two-state solution” as “enemies” who are “working to harm you” and would “sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back.”
- (41:10) Urging listeners to “know the Muslim organizations that are out to harm you” and saying that, in some ways, they were worse than the Zionists because “at least the Zionists will tell you what they’re out for. But when Muslim organizations sell you out, they are doing it in your name.”
In her discourse, Billoo further asked crowd individuals to give month to month to the AMP, saying that assuming they paid assessments in the United States, this implied they ceaselessly monetarily upheld “politically-sanctioned racial segregation” in Palestine as a feature of the US unfamiliar spending plan. (US Muslim Brotherhood Group )
Israeli media is detailing that after the show, Billoo is taking a holiday which she says is connected with the pressure of requesting work, yet additionally said she is “still in the center of a delayed Zionist attack”:
They have wound my words, lied with regards to me, assaulted me via web-based media, email, and by focusing on our accomplices. They are composing letters to CAIR even today, like they have not focused on our unimaginably principled history.
In December, CAIR National gave a ringing protection of Billoo, giving an explanation that read to some extent:
During a discourse conveyed at a meeting in Chicago last month, Zahra discussed the reasonable associations between Islamophobic disdain gatherings and against Palestinian activism. She further censured the Israeli government’s denials of basic freedoms against the Palestinian public. She likewise urged American Muslims to try not to work together with any associations that help the political philosophy that the Israeli politically-sanctioned racial segregation government uses to legitimize confiscating, involving, and killing Palestinians. Following her discourse, hostile to Muslim sites misquoted Zahra’s comments and dishonestly guaranteed that she had deterred Muslims from working with Jewish gatherings at-large. This is a conspicuous falsehood. Indeed, Zahra lauded the numerous Jewish activists and gatherings that help common freedoms for all individuals, including Palestinians, and explicitly urged Muslims to take part in interfaith coordinated effort with Jewish associations like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.
In an audit of her discourse, the Global Influence Operations Report (GIOR) could track down no such recognition or call for interfaith collaboration.
The AMP is a Palestinian promotion bunch with solid connections to the Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB) in the US and the US Hamas support foundation. The 2021 AMP show, which occurred in Chicago and was named “On the Road to Free Palestine,” additionally highlighted appearances by a few others attached to the GMB and Hamas support bunches in the US, including the accompanying:
Nihad Awad, CAIR National fellow benefactor, and long-lasting Executive Director
Linda Sarsour, Executive Director of the US Muslim social equality NGO MPower Change, which has helped out significant associations in the US MB. Sarsour has become known for her unforgiving analysis of Israel, and in 2012, our ancestor distribution was quick to report Sarsour’s family connections to Hamas. (US Muslim Brotherhood Group )
Osama Abuirshaid, AMP Executive Director and US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) board part
Taher Herzallah, AMP Associate Director of Outreach and previous AMP Campus Coordinator
Oussama Jamal, Secretary-General of the USCMO and long-lasting head of New Jersey’s Bridgewater mosque, attached to the US Muslim Brotherhood and whose individuals were known to have raised assets for Hamas-connected foundations.
Lamis Deek, previous board individual from the CAIR New York part
CAIR is important for the GMB in the US. It portrays itself as “a grassroots social equality and support bunch” and as “America’s biggest Islamic common freedoms bunch” and was established in 1994 by three officials of the Islamic Association of Palestine, part of the US Hamas framework around then. The association has over and again got different gatherings together with binds to the US Muslim Brotherhood in drawing in Muslim residents to partake in consultative gatherings with official workplaces and state congresspersons, featuring the need to battle Islamophobia and against Muslim feeling in the US.
