Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi is the Secretary-General of the Italian Muslim Assembly and co-chairman of the Islam-Israel Fellowship. He has a Ph.D. in Islamic Sciences authorized by a former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and is authorized to teach Quranic exegesis and Islamic Law by scholars from Al-Azhar University. He preaches in support of Israel's right to exist.
The following is ClarionProject.org National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s interview with Sheikh Palazzi:
Ryan Mauro: What happened that compelled you to start promoting Islamic teaching that is compatible with the West and supportive of peace with Israel?
Sheikh Palazzi: I felt it was a duty so that the examples of the House of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), especially of Emir Feisal of the Hashemites and one of my teachers, Sheikh Muhammaad al-Sha’rawi, are not forgotten.
Mauro: How do you make the case Muslims should support Israel’s right to exist?
Sheikh Palazzi: That is what Allah orders the Muslims to do in the Qur’an and Sunnah, as proven by the behavior of the Caliph Omar, may God be pleased with him, who founded the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.
As soon as he liberated Jerusalem from the Byzantines, he abolished the anti-Jewish ban dating back to the Emperor Hadrian and moved 72 Jewish families from Tiberias to Jerusalem, in an area close to the Kotel where the Jewish Quarter still stands.
Mauro: How much success have you had in spreading your anti-Islamist point-of-view?
Sheikh Palazzi: I have received support from many important but powerless Muslim scholars, including the Muftis of Tataristan and of Sierra Leone; the former President of Indonesia, Abdrurrahman Wahid; the U.S. scholar from Syria, Hisham Kabbani—but on the political level, I was completely defeated.
Those whom I have repeatedly described as the main danger for the world, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, are now more powerful than ever before. I thought that 9/11 would open the eyes of the Americans to the role of the House of Saud as the main sponsor of worldwide Islamist terror.
The Bush Administration systematically covered for them and attacked Saddam Hussein. No doubt Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator but at least he was secular and, differently from the Saudis, he had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. Those who created Al-Qaeda, on the contrary, were introduced by Bush as “our allies in the struggle against terrorism.” With the Obama Administration, the situation is even worse.
Mauro: You live in Italy. Where is Europe headed? Should we be concerned?
Sheikh Palazzi: Europe will soon be colonized by Islamists with the active support of German and Liechtenstein banks. America should be concerned that its President helped to destroy secular regimes in Northern Africa, actually empowering the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Tunisia and now in Syria, too.
May the Almighty be Merciful toward His creatures and protect them from the consequences. America is bowing to everything the Muslim Brotherhood is asking for.
Mauro: What do you think about the major Muslim-American organizations that condemn terrorism but blame Israel and American foreign policy as the root cause of terrorism?
Sheikh Palazzi: Islamism is the attempt to transform a traditional religion into a totalitarian, fascist-like or communist-like ideology. Today, Islamists are divided into two groups: Terrorists and politicians. Terrorists attack and politicians take power in countries that are afraid of their terrorist allies.
It is a suicidal attitude to say that the help of moderate Islamists are needed to fight the militant Islamists. Those who are called the “major Muslim-American organizations” are nothing but the political faction of Islamism. They represent a very limited sector of the Muslim-American population, but they can claim to be “major” since they have huge Saudi funds at their disposal and because U.S. politicians are unfortunately on good terms with the Saudis.
One case of this is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It is an organization with a known history of being propagandists for terror but that organization is not outlawed. On the contrary, both Democrat and Republican politicians are regularly attending its meetings as honored guests. Winning the War on Terror under these circumstances is simply impossible. It’s like hoping to win World War Two while considering the Nazis and the Japanese as friends.
Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org's National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.
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