Obama Delegate To OSCE Human Rights Conference Called Israel 9/11 Suspect, Supported Hamas

Jewish groups and Conservatives are outraged over the news that Israel basher and Hamas supporter, Salam al Marayati, was one of the three US delegates to the OSCE Human Rights Conference in Warsaw, Poland. al Marayati is notorious for his comments in 2001, when he stated that he considered Israel a suspect for the 9/11 attacks. While speaking to a radio program on September 11, 2001, he made the following remarks:

“If we’re going to look at suspects, we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies.”

Salam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was chosen to represent the United States government at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) annual 10-day human rights conference, the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings (HDIM). The conference concluded last week in Warsaw and Mr. al Marayati’s appointment to the delegation may have been largely overlooked due to the furor over the threats by the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to arrest OSCE election monitors.

al Marayati has been widely criticized for his support of Hamas and Hezbollah; both listed by the United States government as terrorist organizations. Mr. al Marayati insists the groups are engaged in providing social programs and humanitarian assistance to the residents of Gaza and Lebanon and he refuses to condemn them for their repeated acts of terrorism; cynically referring to the murder of Israeli civilians as “quote unquote military operations.”

“I don’t think any group should be judged 100% this or that. I think every group is going to have… its claim of liberation and resistance. Yesterday’s terrorists in the Middle East are today’s leaders. The PLO is the number one example of this. … The PLO 35 years ago was considered a terrorist organization, nobody should deal with them. … But they became the people in authority, in Palestine, today. So Hamas today, the way it’s being viewed, is exactly how the PLO was viewed 30 years ago. And in fact, even Hamas in terms of its social and educational operations is doing exactly what the PLO was doing 35 years ago, as well as its quote unquote military operations.”

The State Department has defended the appointment of Salam al Marayati vigorously:

“Mr. al-Marayati has been involved in U.S. government initiatives for almost 10 years and has been a valued and highly credible interlocutor on issues affecting Muslim communities. He was invited to participate in this year’s HDIM as a reflection of the wide diversity of backgrounds of the American people.”

Despite the attempts by the Obama Administration to portray al Marayati as a moderate Muslim who embraces diversity, the criticism over his appointment has been fierce and sustained. Steve Emerson, one of the world’s leading counter-terrorism experts, and someone who has conducted extensive research into Al-Marayati’s background, told The Jewish Press:

“For this administration to appoint to an august human rights organization Salam Al-Marayati, who has openly supported Hizbollah, claimed that the FBI has illegally indicted Muslims on terrorism charges because of FBI sanctioned policies of “racial profiling,” has defended as innocent the most notorious members of Hamas who were found guilty of laundering millions of dollars to a terrorist group, and someone who has complained of ‘having the Holocaust shoved down [his] throat.’ is an outrage. [Al-Marayati’s appointment] cries out for a congressional investigation of the larger and more heinous scandal of the unprecedented degree to which the Obama administration has embraced and collaborated with radical Muslim groups in the U.S. whose lineage derives directly from the world wide totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood movement.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, declared:

“One would assume that individuals selected to represent the United States at an international human rights conclave would share our government’s longstanding policy that Hamas and Hezbollah are dangerous terrorist organizations. But Mr. Salam al-Marayati and his organization are long-time advocates that these deadly terror groups be removed from the U.S. terrorist list. With terrorism continuing to roil the Middle East, the question is why the U.S. State Department would say he is ‘highly credible’?”

No one has summed up the utter madness of this Obama Appointment better than the respected blogger who writes the “Jewish Facts From Portland” Blog:

“Does Obama realize what happened in Warsaw? Does he remember the Warsaw Ghetto uprising? From October 16, 1940 to November 16th, 400,000 Jews were rounded up and put in the largest ghetto only 2.4% the size of Warsaw where most all died, starved to death or shot, with the remainder sent to Treblinka to the ovens. Warsaw stands out as the place where Jews were rounded up and forced to remain in Poland where they made a last stand for their lives but were slaughtered by the Nazis. The Palestinians’ terror group, Hamas, have been consistently shelling southern Israel for the past 12 years with mortars, missiles and rockets. Let’s talk about aggression and occupation and apartheid policies and get it straight and honest, and not stick to the Hamas/Fatah delusions.”