RUTHFULLY YOURS

Sofian Zakkout, President of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), is always looking for new ways to promote hatred of Jews. Recently, he advertised on his Facebook page an article about how the Nazi Holocaust was “faked.” Now, he is targeting Jews by posting onto social media a claim that they perpetrated the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Will any of the hate he is peddling do harm to the relationships he and his group have made, both financial and otherwise, with organizations associated with fighting crime?

Usually, anti-Semites — those rabid ones who are violently opposed to Jews — attach themselves to one of two categories, white supremacists or Muslim terrorists. Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, who is Muslim himself, strongly supports both.

When it comes to white supremacy, Zakkout is a fervent follower of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Zakkout has described Duke as “David Duke, a man to believe in!” and Zakkout has said of Duke, “I respect him for his honesty!” Zakkout’s Facebook page and the websites of his organization AMANA each have been used to promote Duke and his bigoted videos. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has previously cited Zakkout and his group for posting what the ADL described as a “venomous” anti-Semitic Duke video onto AMANA’s official site.

This past February, Zakkout advertised on social media a report claiming that the horrors committed by Nazi Germany during the 1930s and 1940s were fabricated. Aptly titled ‘How the Holocaust was faked,’ it begins: “The alleged ‘Holocaust’ of ‘6 million Jews’ at the hands of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist Germany during WWII is the biggest lie ever foisted upon humanity.” It was produced by The Realist Report, an anti-Jew, anti-black, anti-gay independent media outlet, which describes Hitler as “the greatest leader in modern Western history.”

Zakkout is also very open about his strong support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. In August 2015, he wrote in Arabic on Facebook, “Hamas is in my heart and on my head.” In July 2014, Zakkout organized a pro-Hamas rally held outside the Israeli Consulate in downtown Miami. On video, Zakkout is shown smiling, as event goers repeatedly shout, “We are Hamas.” Following the rally, Zakkout wrote the following in Arabic, above photos from the event: “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”

On April 21st, Zakkout took to Facebook to promote a report discussing Jewish involvement in the September 11th attacks. Attached to the report was a graphic depicting an Israeli flag next to the burning World Trade Center towers, one tower totally engulfed in flames, with the caption, ‘Israeli CONNECTION to 9/11.’ Another photo from the report shows the burning towers with a Jewish Star affixed to one. The report begins, “It ain’t debatable! Soup to nuts, top to bottom, the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. were an ‘Israeli’-Jewish job.”

The report names twelve Jews, who it calls the “REAL planners and executors of 9/11.” According to the report, they include former and current Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert; then-soon-to-be Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg; and then-head of the criminal division of the Justice Department Michael Chertoff. It labels them “chosenite brethren.”

The website which published the report and which Zakkout linked to is Mouqawamah Music, a site that openly calls for “Death to Israel” and curses the Jewish religion. The site states, “[A]fter 132 some odd years of Jewish colonization in the Holy Land, there are only three words that properly encapsulate our pain, our sadness and our rage: DEATH TO ‘ISRAEL.’” And “What is today called Judaism is NOT a nice religion. It is and has always been a conspiracy against humanity, more of a domination strategy than a religion… [I]t is clearly wicked and filth-ridden…”

Sofian Zakkout has, once again, found a way to target Jews. Whether it is organizing pro-Hamas rallies, promoting David Duke videos, advertising Holocaust denial reports, or helping to push the absurd notion that Jews were behind 9/11, if it is a way to spread hatred of the Jewish people, Zakkout will gladly embrace it.

Unfortunately, Zakkout and his group’s anti-Semitic actions have had little effect on how he is viewed by some organizations associated with fighting crime. Zakkout’s name is still found on the official website of Citizens’ Crime Watch of Miami-Dade County as a Member at Large on the group’s Executive Committee. Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers has also been reluctant about removing Zakkout from its Board, and Zakkout’s AMANA previously received a $70 thousand grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — for counter-terrorism purposes, yet!

Nothing affiliated with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout should receive any legitimacy or funding from any organization, especially those organizations associated with fighting crime. To do so would be a crime in itself.