An Imam Blows the Whistle on Muslim Antisemitism
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I'm Barry Weiss and this is Honestly. This is the scene at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville. Understand that the police, law enforcement, several law enforcement agencies do have

A situation right now, a hostage situation that they're monitoring, they're calling it a SWAT situation. On January 15th, police officers and FBI SWAT teams circled around a small synagogue in Coleyville, Texas, for more than 11 hours. Law enforcement from several agencies, from locally here in Coleyville, the police department, to the feds, many of them in some tactical gear, preparing for however this situation is going to play out.

Inside, a British-born Muslim man named Malik Akram had taken the rabbi and three other Jews who had been praying at Shabbat services that morning hostage. This all took place during the Sabbath, the Shabbos service here this morning in Texas. This man walked in, there was some communication, and then took four people hostage.

Akram told the congregation that he had two guns, two bombs, and that he was not afraid to pull the strings. You're not going to let a guy like me walk into your country and fucking walk away with your people. It's bigger than fucking the staff you're living with. So I don't think that's going to happen yet. And the whole thing was happening live on Facebook because the service had been streaming for people at home. I don't want to fucking live with poor fucking dead bodies. I don't want to.

Throughout that day and into the night, Akram would not stop ranting. About America, about a convicted terrorist in federal prison, and about Jews. He said things like, In the meantime...

Prominent progressive pundits and activists, the very same people whose whole persona is about speaking out against bigotry and hate and elevating marginalized communities, the very same people who are usually demanding that the police immediately call an attack a hate crime, sometimes before there's even evidence to confirm that suspicion. These people were uncharacteristically silent. And those progressives who did decide to weigh in on the news, some of them had quite an unusual take.

Well, the four Jews inside the synagogue were still being held at gunpoint. Wajahat Ali, a writer who is a regular on MSNBC, tweeted this, quote, you're about to hear some ugly and vicious Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry this weekend from elected officials, commentators, and even mainstream media. Don't fall for it. So in the middle of a hostage taking,

As Jews and people of conscience around the world waited in fear and suspense, praying that the ordeal would not end in bloodshed. This was the concern. This was the politically appropriate, narratively correct, careful not to offend the wrong crowd concern. And Ali was far from alone. When reports came out that the hostages were safe and the gunmen had been killed, the

I watched people not immediately thank law enforcement for helping to bring those Jews out unharmed, but instead pontificate that the gunman would have come out alive if he had been white. I watched as the major headline the next day became that the incident was not specifically related to the Jewish community and that the FBI was continuing to work to find the motive.

So as everyone went to work trying to find the motive, the mysterious, perplexing motive of a gunman who took Jews hostage in a synagogue on Shabbat morning, a man named Imam Abdullah Antepli said enough. He tweeted this. We need to honestly discuss the increasing anti-Semitism within various Muslim communities. He added Muslims can no longer pretend it doesn't exist.

Imam Abdullah is a professor at Duke University, where he served as the school's first Muslim chaplain. He is also a self-described recovering anti-Semite. There is so much about Imam Abdullah that I admire. But the one thing that stands out is there's nothing that's off limits. There's nothing he won't discuss, even when it comes to really contentious and emotional conversations about subjects like Israel.

Suffice it to say, I do not agree with him about everything he says, and I'm sure the same is true the other way around. But working together with Jews and Israelis, his main message is, I don't have to agree with you. I have to understand you. That's what I try and do in this conversation. Abdel has paid a very heavy price for reaching out to the Jewish community in the way that he has during his life. And I'm so honored to talk to him, especially today on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It feels fitting to be in conversation with someone who is committed to rooting out the Jew hate that made that genocide possible so that a tragedy like the one we're commemorating today can never come close to happening again. We'll be right back. Hey, guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network. Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that.

There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election. We do all of that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer. Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts. It's America on Trial with Josh Hammer.

Imam Abdallah, thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you for having me. So some of my favorite people in the world are self-described recovering anti-Semites, and that's how I've heard you identify yourself. Yes, I am. So I'd love if you could take me back to your childhood and tell me what you mean when you say that you grew up anti-Semitic.

Yes, I grew up in the southeastern part of Turkey in an incredibly secular, not religious, but chauvinistically nationalist household. And it's somewhat typical in most developing world. If you grew up in a society economically, socially, politically devastated, everything around you perpetually fails. And you are in a cycle of misery, violence, poverty. And you try to understand why.

This is particularly a painful point for a lot of Turks or people who were descendants of larger big empires. After many centuries of golden ages, after incredible empires and prosperity, what went wrong? Like, why are we failing? And in that moment of trying to understand the complex problems around myself when I was 12, 13 years old,

I was exposed to a very systemic, despicable, reprehensible, anti-Semitic propaganda. If you are lucky enough not to be exposed to hate early on, we don't really understand how seductive hate can be, how much it can give you a comfort, because the success of hate is to give very convincing, compelling, black and white, very simplistic answers to a complex problem around you. So as I was trying to understand, as Muslims, as Turks,

What went wrong? Why Middle East is in a perpetual state of pain, dysfunction, violence, terror? Why can't we just produce anything good? And the anti-Semitic literature around me gave me very convincing answer that all the problems that we are facing primarily, if not exclusively in some areas, are because of this cancerous, evil, irredeemably evil Jews.

The first book I read, I believe, given to me by my parents was

were the children's version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Wow. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the most notorious example of anti-Semitic propaganda in modern history. I say the children's version because it was simplified, there were a lot of cartoons. Since the first Arabic edition appeared in 1920, the Protocols and other myths of Jewish conspiracy have spread widely in the Arab world. And that book in 1980s was incredibly popular.

And they were taking the basic lines from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and re-narrating in such a despicable, poisonous, and but successful way, putting images and pictures and realities from Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like, I distinctly remember pictures of Palestinian children killed and murdered in Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and then there are verses of Torah under them.

Basically trying to convince that these people are here to kill, destroy, dominate the world. They are cancerous. They are behind banks, media. They are behind every centers of power and they aim to control the world and get rid of Islam, humiliate Islam in its own house and establish the state of Israel. This is their determination. At any cost, they will do anything. And the second book I read,

was the Henry Ford's International Jew. And who gave you that book? Was it also your parents or your school? My teacher, my school teacher gave me that book. Tell us about what was in that, what's in that book for those who are unfamiliar. Yes, very few people remember this incredible anti-Semitic industrial person, the founder of Ford Motors and Cars. He wrote this International Jew, the book International Jew, which is more or less

forgotten in the United States, but regretfully and reprehensibly, with a lot of Saudi money and Wahhabi money, it is printed free of charge and distributed in all Muslim-majority countries. This famous American tycoon, anti-Semitic person, gave a very modern language to traditionally Christian anti-Semitism and the Protocols of Elders of Zion, portraying Jews as people, Judaism as religion.

as this cancerous, hidden, secret cult who try to manage the world by seizing the centers of power, by getting into the brain tissues of societies and manipulating people because they have an agenda. This is a global Illuminati somehow connected globally with other Jews around the world, and they should be completely wiped out and cleansed from any and every society.

And the third book I read was "Mind Cough." These all three books were presented to me in plain, accessible Turkish language, which I, of course, back then didn't realize. Like, why a literature written originally in Russian, in English, and in German was so easily available for a teenager trying to understand the complexities of the world?

So these were not just biases or minor light bigotry against Jews and Judaism. And back then, television became a lot more popular. I remember the first international news that captured my imagination was intifada scenes where IDF soldiers, they were breaking the shoulder bones of Palestinian protesters.

And those images really burned into my psyche so deep. Reading this literature, being already born in an incredibly dysfunctional and broken society, in a slum, in a very poor environment. So it was a quote-unquote perfect match. And I made to believe, I made to feel that

that Jews as people, Judaism as religion, Zionism as a form of nationalism and ideology is irredeemably evil and should be fought against. So much so that I remember, Barry, when I see a traditional Jew praying in front of a cartel in front of the Western Wall, I would get literally filled with rage and I would get physically sick.

It will fill me with incredible amount of rage thinking that what this person, visibly Jewish person, represent is all the things going wrong in the world and all the horrible things happening to Islam and Muslims around the world.

I'm just curious, like, as you're sort of remembering your childhood and let's say sitting around the dinner table, would Jews or the state of Israel or Judaism come up in a casual way? Like, was it something that was sort of top of mind for people? Absolutely. I remember like any problem happening.

That's being discussed on the day. What's capturing in the headlines in terms of why there is rising prices, why there's high inflation, why Turkish economy is in shambles.

Or our team would lose. Soccer is the biggest religion in Turkey, like in the Middle East. I remember distinctly we would lose game against Germany or UK. And if you feel referee wasn't all that just, of course, there must be some Jews or check his blood or DNA to see if he has any connection to Jews and Judaism. These were very casual conversations. Wow.

Well, this idea that you were marinating in growing up in Turkey, the idea that the Jews are a secret hand that controls the world and are conspiring to make life worse for innocent people, including Muslims, that is the same idea. That's the same ideology that drove a man to take four Jews hostage in Coleyville, Texas, earlier this month. As you were watching the news that day and as reports of what he was saying, recordings of phone calls with law enforcement throughout the incident came out,

How familiar did those ideas feel to you and to the things you once believed in your own life? I speak in absolute conviction. I cannot tell you how pained and how shaken I was when I found out who this person is and what he believed, because it felt painfully familiar. There was no surprise there. All the casual anti-Semitism, irresponsibly, immorally, despicably,

casually just discuss in Muslim societies. I dare every single Muslim around the world that they have never heard any of the conspiracy theories that this British Muslim guy, the anti-Semitic terrorist who took over the synagogue that day. I dare any Muslim that they have never heard any of these conspiracy theories.

That's why it hurt me, it shocked me, it pained me, it disturbed me more so than the Tree of Life and Pittsburgh and other places. What was additionally incredibly painful, disturbing, this man had additional layers of religious conspiracies because some of what he said was, yes, pages from the protocols, pages from the International Jew or Mein Kampf, but also some of what he says was,

the incredible distortion of certain scriptural teachings in Islamic tradition. I want to stay for a second on what you just said, which I think is very provocative. And you also tweeted it after the incident. Just to repeat it again, you wrote and just said, can a single Muslim claim that they haven't heard of any of the vile anti-Semitic conspiracies that this terrorist believed and acted on?

And I have to say, I was taken aback by the bluntness of the comment because it sounds to me like you're saying, if I can here, the Muslim version of the American stereotype that everyone has a crazy racist uncle that says offensive things at Thanksgiving. And you're basically saying every Muslim, doesn't matter if you're moderate, religious, secular, you've all come across this kind of

anti-Semitism from within your own community at some point around the metaphorical Thanksgiving table. Is that a fair interpretation of that statement? Yes, but to equate to a crazy homophobic or anti-Semitic racist uncle doesn't do any justice because it is no longer just one person, one uncle, one bizarre situation. It's getting worse.

This is not episodic, like casual anti-Semitism only done by a few people. It's becoming more and more mainstream. And there are some really horrible people who are flaming the fires of anti-Semitism in Muslim societies, and it's getting worse. Well, OK, let's talk about how the anti-Semitism is getting worse and the moral urgency you feel that Muslims have to address it before it's too late.

The day after the hostage-taking, you tweeted, Houston, we have a problem. And in your Twitter thread, you basically said, it's time for Muslims to talk about this openly and honestly. You wrote, we can no longer pretend that the problem of anti-Semitism within us does not exist. Who did you hope would read that? And what were you hoping to start in terms of a public conversation by saying this out loud and on social media? My primary audience were my fellow American Muslims.

And I was primarily trying to address the Muslim community leaders who are aware of this increasing anti-Semitic discourse in our society, who were as troubled as me, but somehow not finding the public voice and courageously speaking against this. I was trying to honestly express my moral outrage, but also trying to say, am I the only one?

Who wasn't surprised by this incident? Am I the only one making moral imagination? Through these statements, I was trying to tell my fellow American Muslims, imagine there was some prominent Jewish organizations spewing anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia. Imagine prominent Jewish organizations were giving platform to anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia.

They were casually discussing and declaring 90 plus percent of American Muslims as our enemies or telling conspiracy theories and putting us categorically as the fifth column. And a week or two later, a Jewish terrorist holding imam and few people in a mosque hostage on a Friday after the Juma prayer. What would we do? This happened many times since 9-11 when irresponsible people were arrested.

fanning the flames of Islamophobia. There were incident after incident, mosque burning, Muslims are attacked. What did we do? We, of course, went to the people who were part of anti-Muslim discourse in our society and said, you may not be directly guilty of this particular incident, but you are responsible by being part of this poisonous and toxic discourse. So in order to have any moral decency,

You have to activate your golden rule and say, if this was happened to me, I would do exactly this. At least we should have the moral decency to say this is unacceptable. We have to hold irresponsible civic leaders, politicians and religious leaders who are so immorally responsible.

setting the flames of antisemitism in our society. And I was particularly referring to some of the previous incidents and statements done by American Muslims for Palestine or Council of American Islamic Relations CARE, or some of the politicians in social media have displayed these levels of antisemitism and taking them, taking aim at them and opposing them. This, my primary audience were my own fellow Muslims.

My secondary audience were fellow Americans because it doesn't go unnoticed. What I am outraged with, what I am incredibly troubled with, the hypocrisy or lack of moral courage that I see in my community, just because we don't talk about it doesn't mean people don't see it. Well, Abdullah, what's so amazing to me is that you wrote

those comments, just as a lot of people in the media and even some in law enforcement, they were actively downplaying the connection between the gunman's Muslim faith and his thoughts about the Jewish community. Why was there such a gap between your clarity, your correct moral clarity and theirs? And what do you make of the fact that

they were sort of minimizing the thing that to many of us felt so obvious. There are, this is a very complicated question. We have to put American society and who have we become after 9-11 on a shrink desk and psychoanalyze our society because post 9-11 realities are pumping hate against Islam as a religion and Muslims, American Muslims as people. So some of this,

troubling, deeply troubling, as you beautifully articulated. Lack of clarity is coming from, quote-unquote, innocent good intentions. People just keep this as an elephant in the room and trivialize this or deflect this. Same thing as the FBI agent. There's an anti-Semitic terrorist took hostage of the rabbi and a few congregants in a synagogue on Shabbat,

And the first public official discussing this issue, the FBI spokesperson, came out and said the issue was not directly related to Jews or Judaism. Like he couldn't even name the problem. My heart sank into my stomach, really. I cannot tell you how broken I was, how shaken I was.

How angry and frustrated I was with that failed opportunity, not even naming the problem right, and try to trivialize it that this has nothing to do with the Jewish community or Jews. Or equally troubling, quite honestly, how some of the good intention and naive people, their immediate concern was this might give rise to Islamophobia.

And I understand it's coming from a good place, but really, like in that moment, your concern is not about people who are held hostage for 12 hours or gunpoint and that sends shockwaves of terror into the hearts and minds of many Jews around the country and the world. Your primary concern and sympathy doesn't go to the real victims on that moment. These are two incredibly troubling sentiments and realities that we need to discuss openly and courageously.

The FBI has now confirmed, of course, that the incident was an act of anti-Semitism. And as we've been discussing, and as you believe, the anti-Semitism that the gunman espoused seems to be part of a larger trend in the West. A few years ago, the Anti-Defamation League did a survey of more than 100 countries on people's attitudes towards Jews.

And it found that anti-Semitism was twice as common among Muslims than among Christians. Another study, this one from the University of Oslo, found that a disproportionate amount of the increasing anti-Semitic violence in Western Europe is perpetrated by individuals with Muslim backgrounds. Fareed Zakaria, the CNN journalist, wrote a few years ago a column in which he said, anti-Semitism has spread through the Islamic world like a cancer. So let's talk about some of the root causes.

There's some Muslims who say this is embedded in the religion itself, that there are lines in the Koran about killing Jews. But then others see it as a cultural or a geopolitical phenomenon, that Israel and the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and Israel's victories against its Arab enemies is actually what creates or perpetuates the problem.

Others will point to poverty and lack of education in the Arab world, how you described your childhood, and say that Jews are sort of being used as a scapegoat. I'm wondering where you come down. How much of the problem is theological? How much is geopolitical? How much is cultural? How much is economic? How do you understand it? Each three or four categories you mentioned on itself is completely wrong.

This problem is big enough, deep enough, so deeply rooted enough that it has its connection to both theology, religion of Islam. It has connection to, of course, Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has connection to cultural, political, and the geographical, regional realities of some of the Muslim majority societies, especially Arab countries. Let's analyze one by one. We have several verses in the Qur'an.

and many more in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, which in one way or another over the centuries has potentially became a theological and religious base for Muslim anti-Semitism. Thankfully, none of these scriptural, traditional, foundational, canonic, potential anti-Semitic sources, they never moved to the center of Islam the way it did in Christianity. Regretfully, because of

Jesus being Jewish and the way that story is being told and Jesus on the cross in Christian tradition became the center of this religion. Those stories, subtly or unsubtle, over the centuries from the center, from the heart of the religion, pumped anti-Semitism in one way or another. Thankfully, Muslim societies and Muslim civilizations, they were able to keep these anti-Semitic elements alive.

at the periphery of our theological thinking. But these stories always try to come close to the center whenever there is an episodic conflict between Jews and the Muslim societies. And therefore, the pre-1948 Muslim anti-Semitism, as you can see, is episodic. There is absolutely, relatively speaking, an incredibly much better

treatment of the Jewish minorities in Muslim majority societies throughout the century. Again, I'm not saying it was rosy, it was hierarchical, but compared to what the Jews have gone through in Europe, not because Muslims were innately, inherently more peaceful than the European Christians, but tradition, the religion, they kept these antisemitic stuff at the periphery, at the outside, at the outskirts, in the marginal places.

But since 1948, increasingly, these anti-Semitic elements in our tradition is moving to the center. And for some communities, it's at the heart, at the center. There are evil terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and some elements of Muslim Brotherhood. Look at the Hamas charter.

If that's not a religious Islamic antisemitism, what it is? They are taking these verses, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and building a Muslim theological antisemitism. And it is being propagated through Wahhabi money throughout the Muslim majority world. So to deny that religion of Islam or certain theological interpretation has nothing to do with it would be a lie. But to say it's the religion itself,

is also would be inaccurate and misleading. The second category is Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is absolutely, absolutely one of the ways in which those anti-Semitic ideas, whether coming from religious or secular sources, has been increasingly popularized as you are what you consume in terms of source of information. If you are a pro-Palestinian Muslim following the sufferings of the Palestinians' occupation for the last 100 years,

And if your leaders, religious and political leaders, using and weaponizing Palestinian suffering for their political gain,

and irresponsible pumping anti-Semitism. So inevitably, many Muslims, quote, unquote, they don't know any better. They are ignorant in this subject. They don't know what is the discussing of the human rights violations of the Palestinians that they go through. What is the opposing and criticizing, expressing anger and frustration towards certain Israeli government policies against Palestinians? And what is anti-Semitism? Where is that line?

So majority of the antisemitism coming out of Israeli-Palestinian conflict is somewhat innocent and treatable. But there is a very well organized, incredibly evil,

hardworking, quote unquote, deliberate intentional mechanisms of anti-Semitism, using and weaponizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hiding behind the pro-Palestinian activism, using this vulnerability that I try to describe, they are not innocent. They are intentionally and deliberately behind this anti-Semitism industry and trying to popularize this

And they are gaining a lot of success. They are gaining a lot of ground in the Muslim majority countries and Muslim communities around the world. Abdullah, who is driving what you're describing provocatively as the anti-Semitism industry? Are there specific organizations or imams? Who are you thinking of when you say they in that statement? When I say they...

People who promote Wahhabi ideology, who are behind vile anti-Semitic literature, people who translated this anti-Semitic literature, spending millions of dollars of money and spreading around the world.

People who intentionally, deliberately delivered that Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the International Jew and the Mein Kampf into my hands. Like these books are not translated and printed and dropped from the heavens or hell. There is a mechanism in which people who gain money out of this, who gain popularity out of this, people who justify their dictatorial regimes out of this,

Let me give at least a few names. The autocratic fascist dictatorial leaders of many Muslim majority countries, including my own birth homeland, Turkey. President Erdogan. He's a rabid anti-Semite. Erdogan, his regime, and all his cronies

In order to deflect and distract people from the real problems of Turkey, they keep harping the vile anti-Semitism. They give money to anti-Semitic resources. They are harboring some members of these anti-Semitic organizations and groups, including Hamas. I can give many different examples, and they're just fanning the fires. Okay, Abdullah, let's talk for a few minutes about some of the criticism you get, especially from your fellow Muslims. Yes.

How do you respond to the people who say your perspective is exaggerated? That, yeah, sure, of course, anti-Semitism is an issue in Muslim communities, as you've just clearly articulated. But even if they're trending upward, they're still the minority. And the majority of Muslims aren't going into synagogues with a bomb or a gun. How do you respond to that criticism? I hope the distinction that I'm about to make will make sense and it will come out very clearly.

The problem is not just the increasing number of anti-Semites in the community. The rest of the majority, they are losing their immune system. What worries me is why the majority of my community seemingly losing their grip to their ethical, moral sensibilities.

Their ethical, moral filters are not catching and opposing and rejecting, pushing back. That's what worries me because it doesn't comfort me that these anti-Semites and overt anti-Semitic discourse is still a minority. If the rest of the community is responding the way they are supposed to publicly and privately, okay, I have no concern because every community primarily is judged based on their reaction to the

moral failures of their community? How do they react to their bad apples? I'll give you, can I give you one more example from the United States? Please. A vile, despicable anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan, the leader of Nation of Islam. 15 years ago,

You would never see him receiving any reverence, any respect, any acceptability. On the contrary, you will see very clear opposition, very clear rejection of him in many of the Muslim spaces, many of the African-American communities, both Christian and Muslim, etc. And look at him now.

At best, people remain silent. At worst, his popularity at the tail end of his anti-Semitic career is increasing. What worries me is not just whether this is prevalent, what is the percentage, majority, minority. I believe the general body is not where it needs to be in terms of detecting, rejecting, and rooting out and clearing out the anti-Semitic discourse.

Well, what do you make of your fellow Muslims who might have the really understandable point of view of, you're right, we have a problem, let's solve it. But why do you have to air our dirty laundry to the world? What do you say to those people? What's the argument for airing it publicly? I say two things. This is a Muslim shanda. And I get this all the time. Like, why? And as you know, many Muslim majority...

Cultures are a collective society. It's a culture of shame. Like if you air our dirty laundry, our enemies give us names. So you shouldn't do this. I tried to say this a little bit earlier, but let me be more clear and specific. Has this ever worked for a problem of this size, for a failure, moral failure of this scale, which is so visible, which is so impossible to not see, not hear, not smell?

Everybody sees it. For us to hide our head in the sand and deny its existence, and not just because we don't discuss it. Has it ever worked? I'm asking these people who are calling me Shanda, that I am bringing shame. I am airing air to laundry in the community. Secondly, I am not a renegade, left the Muslim community, now hate Islam and Muslim community. I am not an ex-Muslim. I'm not an ex-member.

My criticism is coming from a place of love. I am pained. What will this mean for American Islam and American Muslim identity? What kind of Islam will be in the market available for my children and grandchildren?

If this increasing anti-Semitic discourse is not stopped, if it is not marginalized, if it is not silenced, this will give a very toxic nature to American Islam. It will put us at odds with the rest of our fellow Americans and American society at large. How are we going to be as American as apple pie?

love the good in the society, fight against the bad and ugly with this increasing levels of antisemitism goes unchallenged in our community. So let me tell you, when I received death threats from fellow Muslims, there were death threats that FBI had to put us into a safe place for a while. I cannot tell you how painful that was. I eat and breathe Islam and Muslim American identity. I day and night, if you look into my schedule,

I want to see our community is doing better. Our community is recovering from this post-9-11 insanity. Our community is taking all the good things about American culture, American society, American civic culture, giving the Muslim Spain, like Catholic Americans, like Jewish Americans, like Protestant Americans, using the healthy, functional sides of American culture and revealing the best of Islam. So am I an enemy of my own community? Do you see anything that...

could be used against me that I hate my community, I want to destroy my community. At worst, I'm wrong, but I'm a loyal member of this community. My criticism is because I love this community, because I know that we can do better. Abdullah, there are a few people I can think of, few leaders, few people with the title Imam next to their name, who speak this bluntly about Jew hate inside the Muslim world. And I'm wondering where this clarity and conviction comes from.

First of all, I don't believe I can give you many other names that I am the only one. I hope that's not the case. You're not the only, but you're extraordinarily clear and blunt in the way you explain it. There's no games. There's no word games. Yes, and there is no ends and buts. That's right. There are a few reasons. One, I have a firsthand experience how much this hate can poison one's heart.

how much darken somebody's heart, how much it could erode its ethical moral from within. So I feel I have a moral responsibility. I have been trying to recover since then.

and driving in the opposite direction as fast as I can. Therefore, I have an additional moral responsibility to make sure I will be one of the loudest voices in opposing and condemning and pushing back to this anti-Semitism. Secondly, I did hope this will come out clear with all respect.

I'm a university professor. Most of my imam roles are in higher educational setting. So my paycheck, in a way, I want to downgrade my hero status here. Okay. It is somewhat expected of me because the consequences, professional, personal, societal, and communal consequences I face is less or minimal.

Like, I am banned from Turkey. I am banned from Iran. I am banned from Lebanon, Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, blacklisted in these countries.

Why? Because they cannot tolerate my public voice against anti-Semitism. Imagine being an imam in those countries where every imam is a civil servant, where every imam is in the payroll of the government. 99% of the Muslim majority world, their even sermons, the khutbahs, what they deliver on Friday is either fully or partially written or directed by the government.

What do you expect? These people have no personal agency, no professional safety net, no way of saying what they feel is right publicly without facing dire consequences. Are you in touch with people from those countries that are closeted, that share your viewpoint, but are underground, that are too scared to say it out loud for real fear of government reprisal? Are you in touch with any people like that?

I am. I am. And I didn't know that I had some sort of a following in those countries until the Abraham Accord was signed. One of the very few good things I think the previous administration has done. But after Abraham Accord was signed and the climate, at least in United Arab Emirates, in Bahrain, in Morocco, and even in Sudan, was at least...

There was a little bit more oxygen that people can breathe, that anything that they say against anti-Semitic discourse will not be immediately shut down. I have received an incredible outpouring of love and support, appreciation, people reaching out and saying, how can we defeat this obsession?

These conspiracy theories are turning our own imagination into some monstrous status. And people out of selfish reasons, in addition to ethical, moral reasons, have reached out to me from those countries and saying, let's have a different educational discourse. Let's learn how to air legitimate criticism against people.

unacceptable, morally indefensible treatment of Palestinians in the Middle East, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, without crossing the line into anti-Semitism and hate. After the break, we talk all things Israel, what Abdullah thinks the line is between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, and why he's over the kind of polite interfaith work where all we do is eat hummus together. We'll be right back.

Abdallah, now I want to turn to a topic you've touched on a few times so far in our conversation, but we haven't really dug into it yet. And this is the easy, totally non-contentious, non-controversial topic of Israel. To start, I wonder if you can explain to me how most Muslims, if it's possible to generalize, understand what Zionism is. It is fair and honest and truthful to say that there is a great deal of

ignorance, there's a great deal of lack of knowledge and exposure, and hate turns very complicated, multi-layered problems into black and white realities. Like for a lot of Americans regretful after 9/11, Islam, jihad,

Osama bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah, it all became just one thing. And it's horrible. It's evil. There is a similar corruption of hate and intellectual mind that is Zionism became this incredibly corrupt, toxic world that for regretfully for many, many Muslims, when you say the word Zionism, like pretty much if you scream jihad,

on an American airport, how people will react. People emotionally immediately shut down because of the kind of information that they have been exposed to over and over and over again. Zionism became this word that captures anything evil, anything destructive, anything racism or anything horrible could be packaged in.

There's a great deal of ignorance, misunderstanding that this word, Z word, became this

conversation stopper and emotionally stopping and intellectually stopping people. I mean, the other thing I think is important to point out in this conversation is that the vast majority of Jews identify as Zionists. It's a core part of the Jewish identity. So when people say things like, I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm just anti-Zionist, or I'm not against Jews, I just don't really talk to Zionists, or, you know, I believe Jews are okay, but Israel doesn't have a right to exist.

What do you see as the line that separates sort of criticism of Israel from being anti-Semitic? Because I am increasingly of the view that unless you're an anarchist that doesn't believe that any nation state at all has a right to exist, there's really not a way to be an anti-Zionist without

being an anti-Semite. In other words, there's not a way to deny one country in the world or one people's right to sovereignty, but grant it to everyone else. Tell me if I've got that wrong or how you think about it. You got it right. Another aspect or consequence, another devastating outcome of hate is you exceptionalize those people. You don't discuss that problem like any other problem.

I always tell my friends, if you look at the number of times United Nations condemned Israel, I think almost equal number of the rest of the world. That's right. Equal to Iran and North Korea and China. And sometimes you see that who are these people condemning Israel? And Israel is worthy of condemnation for many of its policies. Don't get me wrong. I will get there.

But I look at who signed this declaration of condemnation, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt. Like, really? Really?

You have any moral standing and Turkish anti-Semitic leader is going and vomiting anti-Semitism in the name of being pro-Palestinian while he's killing the Kurdish people, while legislating denying Armenian genocide, while putting journalists and academics in jail in tens of thousands. At some point, Turkey had more journalists in jail than the rest of the world combined.

And you have a face and moral decency to go and tell Israel that you are mistreating people or human rights violations are the worst and the only one.

That's another indication and a measure, that rubric that people should utilize. Are you discussing this as a conflict and your moral outrage is consistent with similar ones or you are just exceptionalizing this completely and singling out another one? Having said all of this, I hope what I'm about to say will come clear to your audience, especially those who are Jewish and in one way or another Zionist or pro-Israeli.

For a lot of good people, including myself, I hope, when they talk about human rights violations that Palestinians are going through, when they express moral outrage towards this morally, to me at least, indefensible occupation, which is in its 60th year, when they criticize this illegal settler violence, they are looking into a reality that

and say, this is not right. Teach me. How can I say this in a way that that's not going to cross the line into anti-Semitism? From home demolitions to illegal settlements. There are illegal settlements, even by the law of Israel, is illegal. Those outposts terrorizing people, cutting their olive trees, killing their sheep, or limiting their mobility within West Bank. How can I

express my moral outrage without singling out, without exaggerating, without crossing the line, treating Israel as a secular nation state like you would treat secular nation states of any kind. You will give the similar reaction. You will use the similar ethical moral rubrics. You will make the similar arguments. I think part of the anger of these people against me and people like me is like we treat Israel as any other state.

Abdullah, what I'm hearing you say is that you can criticize Israel and you can criticize Palestinians and you can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. And it's not a zero-sum game. Am I hearing you right when you're saying that? Absolutely. Absolutely. Or you can be pro-Palestinian like myself. You can be in solidarity and advocate for Palestinian rights for two-state solution, as I believe.

without crossing the line into hate and racism. And you can also, Alija Izetbegovic, the leader of the Bosnian liberation, says you lose the war when you are worse than your enemy. You lose the war if there is no difference between you and your enemy. I don't want to speak in those terms, who's enemy, who's not. But in order to advocate for human rights or liberation or the security

aspirations of some people, you have to stay in certain moral ground and integrity. And therefore, in some pro-Palestinian circles, unfortunately, that's missing greatly.

Abdulla, if we could, I'd like to return to the beginning here. I'd like to go back to your own personal journey. We opened with you sort of reading Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I've read in other interviews that you burned Israeli flags. Yes, many times. To where you are now, which is helping fellow Muslims sort of see and rebony their own anti-Semitism.

How did you get from there to here? And when did you start to change your mind? Two things saved me, Barry. The first one is I became very religious. I became fascinated with Islam. This religiosity, praying five times a day, studying Quran, praying regularly, stopping your day and just centering yourself around God. It filled this empty, huge empty space that I always felt in my childhood.

But thankfully, thankfully, the immediate teachers who taught me Islam, they taught a brand and interpretation of Islam that was embedded in first and foremost in morality. They taught before law, before politics, before contemporary issues. They taught mainstream Islamic theology that is embedded in the central moral foundations of Quran and the example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

So my teachers were themselves sufficient anti-Semitic. They were not Jew-loving people. But their focus was, let's set up a moral dashboard. Let's understand what this Quran is saying, who Muhammad is.

and how he dealt with his contemporary Jews and Jewish communities, I cannot express my shock initially, the slap into the face of my anti-Semitism. When I heard the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, married two Jewish women, one of them converted to Islam after marriage, one of them didn't. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him, had Jewish in-laws. He attended Shabbat services. He ate kosher food. Like, it was so much of a shock to my mind

earlier swallowed anti-Semitism, that I couldn't reconcile the amount of poison that I swallowed until that moment with the morals and the stories that I was learning in the religious schools and classes that I was attending. So becoming Muslim, taking Islam seriously, and my own piety, my commitment to these central moral issues taught in mainstream Islamic theology the way I was taught,

I couldn't reconcile. My moral dashboard was giving all sorts of alarms. So that slowed me down in the highway of hate, but it didn't ultimately enable me, empower me, inspire me, take me to the nearest exit. But that slowed me down enough that I can actually see those exits. Like when I remember a year or two into these religious studies, I saw an English translation of the Shema or Amidah prayers.

that people pray in the Western Wall. I was so embarrassed. I was filled with incredible amount of shame that at some point those pictures, those murmurings and the shakings, back and forth prayers that people were saying used to fill me with rage and disgust and anger and hate. They were in most beautiful ways reciting psalms and glorifying the same God as we believe as Muslims. So as a religious Muslim,

I cannot tell you how ashamed of myself I was.

What ultimately took the nearest exit and driving the opposite direction is, is when I came to the United States, when I met God-loving, God-fearing Jews, you know, one of them, our mutual friend and mentor, Yossi Klein-Halevi, and Yecheskel Landau, and others at Hartford Seminary, where I did all my graduate work, because I took my anti-Semitism recovery journey seriously. Because toba, or tishuwa in Hebrew, means

Once you realize you failed, you sinned, you made a mistake, it's not switch on and off. You don't say, I'm sorry. Then you commit yourself in a lifestyle that you will never repeat this mistake again. And you will surround yourself with a web of spiritual disciplines and structure that you will be in a journey that you will not even come close to committing the same mistake again. So just learning Judaism from book and taking Islamic morals and ethics seriously, it wasn't enough.

That person-to-person exposure, getting to know the Jewish community in the United States, my deep friendship with incredibly God-loving, God-fearing, ethical, moral Jews,

it really ultimately allowed me and enabled me, baruch Hashem, baruch Allah, taking the nearest exit and driving in the opposite direction as fast as I can. And also I felt, look, if I recovered, if someone 30 years ago shouting from river to the sea, genocidal chantings, anti-Semitic chantings, and burning Israeli flags made in China can come this far, maybe I can also additionally take my recovery journey further

and help other fellow Muslims along the way. I can turn this into an education. That will be my act of teshuvah, act of tawbah. That will be my praying and asking forgiveness and repentance in action as a teacher, as an imam, as a scholar. This is all I can do.

Well, Abdullah, it's one thing to recover from anti-Semitism, right? It's another thing to decide as a Muslim to commit yourself to genuinely understanding Zionism and the Jewish connection to Israel, which is what you've done in the last decade through your work with our wonderful friend and mentor who you just mentioned, Yossi Klein-Halevi, the author and the journalist.

The two of you now lead a fellowship program called the Muslim Leadership Initiative, where you invite a group of North American Muslims to learn about Judaism and Jewish identity. And Zionism and Israel. It's an educational attempt to see these realities through the eyes of the Jews themselves. Right. And there's...

lots of interfaith programs that I participated in in high school and in college, where you basically sit around in a circle and you talk about your different views and then maybe you'll have a beer afterward. Yours is much more involved and it requires people to travel to Israel. So explain to me what makes this program so special and so different.

Let me express in all humility that I don't want to sell MLI, Muslim Leadership Initiative, as the first and only magical pill that will solve all the Jewish Muslim problems. It's far from it. This is one of many programs. I hope there will be more. Secondly, I also don't want to present MLI as a collective, as many of the anti-MLI-ers are presenting us to be.

This is a fellowship like Truman Fellowship, like White House Fellowship. You invite individuals to come to this program and learn the world of Jewry through their eyes with no obligation to agree with them.

And then take that educational investment, that educational exposure, that leadership training into North America to see if they can do better in Canada and the United States with their fellow citizens who happen to be Jewish and majority of which are Zionist or pro-Israeli, have some level of loyalty, love and respect and connection to this state in the Middle East.

So people come with their own educational commitment. The only condition to join this program is to participate. And people live with their own conclusions. And there were several, thankfully in few numbers, people who left the program in protest. They have a lot of negative things to say about this program, which they are entitled to. I think the uniqueness of this program is

We invite people to come and see and learn and witness to internal Jewish conversations with no real agenda. Everything is on the table. Everything is discussed as if they are teaching to a group of Jews. There is no sugarcoating. It is really an attempt to show and expose these critical, more or less pro-Palestinian Muslims, men and women, to see the world differently.

through the eyes of many American Jews and also Israeli Jews as well. And I think it's working. And I hope there will be many similar programs. I will never forget after the end of the first or second cohort, one of the participants said, Abdullah, I hate you. I said, why? Because he said, I was sitting in a very comfortable spot saying, I am not anti-Semitic. I'm anti-Zionist. I'm anti-Israeli.

That was a very comfortable place. I was off the hook from any moral responsibility to really understand all the complexities of this conflict and what it means for Muslims and Jews in North America. Now that I see that there is no such clear-cut category for a lot of Jews.

So being Jewish and being Zionist in many cases is just the same thing, or it manifests similarly, or there is more to the story, et cetera. So for this particular individual, again, I don't want to say this is true for all participants, all graduates and alumni of the program, that those artificial, inaccurate, unhelpful, toxic categories that we built in our head and comfortably sit and not see some of our internal problems

Through some education, it disappeared. And now there is a very complicated and often difficult and painful moral responsibility to understand the reality through its deserved nuances and accurate facts, etc. Some of our disagreements over Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not bridgeable. It's simply not possible, really, because we see Gaza in one way and you see Gaza in another way. There is no way getting out of this. It is hurting us differently.

It is scarring us differently. So what do you do when your political disagreements are irreconcilable? You try to build overarching ethical moral connections. Our American Canadian citizenship identity, our commitment to make this place home, our commitment to carve out a respectful space for Islam and Muslims in Canada and the United States,

It should allow us, it should enable us, we shouldn't be discussing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in North America as proxy soldiers of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the camp of Israel and the camp of Palestine. This is what is incredibly troubling in these activist circles. We should be discussing as citizens of this country

who completely disagree in certain factual foundations, but we are committed to overarching ethical moral commitment to peace and reconciliation, both in the Middle East as well as here as well. This is what this program is aiming and trying to do, and it's succeeding in its modest terms. I hope it will scale up. I hope its impact in partnership with so many other wonderful programs like IJMA, like AJC's Jewish Muslim

initiatives led by my dear friend Ari Gordon and similar other initiatives, it will multiply and snowball, even if we cannot export hope and inspiration to Middle East, which is very complicated there, as you know, as good as I do.

But can we at least not import despair and hopelessness and division and polarization and hate here? Can we at least here model an example of a different kind of relationship is at the heart of this program. And I will work tirelessly as hard as I can. I will continue to work to see if this program and similar programs will do a better job in stopping the hate at the shores of North America, inshallah.

Abdallah, the program, MLI, that we're talking about is currently in its eighth year. And I know it's very ethnically diverse, but I'm curious about the current cohort. Do you see a certain type of participant as being more open to these conversations about Israel than other groups?

Thank you for pointing that out. Not only in this current cohort, but even in the last couple of cohorts, we have increasing number of refugees or people whose parents or themselves came to the United States through refugee settlement or political asylum process from Syria, from different parts of Africa, and now from Afghanistan.

That side of humanity has challenged seen and unseen walls between Jews and Muslims. An increased number of members of this current or former refugee Muslim Americans are joining MLI, and it is incredibly heartwarming to see.

There are so many of them who are publicly, especially, for example, many of the recent Syrian refugees, when they saw how much certain humanitarian relief work was done by Israeli organizations or the Jewish organizations in the West,

I think their monolithic, poisonous understanding of Zionism and Israel has shattered. Now they have a much more complicated understanding. They can see the good, bad, and ugly of the Middle East realities that Israel is part of.

You work at Duke University. I do. They call me the Blue Devil Imam here. Amazing. Okay, so Blue Devil Imam, you teach there at both the School of Public Policy, also in the Divinity School, and you've been working at American universities for almost 20 years now. And we both know that college campuses don't have the best reputation when it comes to

you know, being able to facilitate a tolerant, moderate, civilized conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the kind that we're having here. Many campuses, as you know, have passed BDS resolutions or at least consider them the boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel.

And there are instances, increasing numbers of them, of progressive Jewish students being excluded from participating in campus social justice movements unless they renounce their Zionism. I'm curious about whether or not you've seen this trend and how it's been for you trying to teach and spread your message of tolerance and understanding in an increasingly polarized environment. I have a very...

multi-layered answer and reaction to this, and I hope I won't come across as paradoxical or contradicting myself. The issues and the problems on college campuses vis-a-vis Israel and Zionism

is an extension and manifestation of broad public polarization and division. So it's not unique to higher education. It may be reflected on college campuses a little bit more broadly, a little bit more visibly, a little bit more loudly. But let's not isolate the higher education vis-a-vis this particular problem. It is not disconnected from the overall troubling, incredibly troubling and disturbing social justice or

ideological polarization, regretfully, that America is experiencing. Secondly, in most places, the problem is incredibly disturbing, but it is not a catastrophe yet. Let's not catastrophize. Let's not exaggerate. In many of the places, the numbers are still small. And there is, for each and every problem, if there is a problem,

The number of students who are involved in this problem are still in a small minority. Let's assess the situation accurately. So, Abdallah, you wouldn't say that on college campuses there is a sense that unless you renounce Israel, you can't be sort of part of the community of the good, righteous social justice people? In some small pockets of campus community, yes.

very far lefty social justice activist community. It's growing. More number of people are regretful that Zionism is racism, Zionism is white supremacy. That's why it's alarming. That's why we should be alarmed and worried and react. But sometimes the way the problem is described as if it's beyond repair, as if higher education lost its moral compass, as if nobody is doing anything against it.

Let me give you one example. Look, there is a PhD student here at UNC, and the hell broke loose over this one PhD student who is a BDS activist, clearly, because of her public messaging about this in her social media, teaching a one-sided, biased, quote-unquote, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli, and anti-Zionist course on Israel. There are dozens of other courses taught by

A lot of people, including myself at UNC, at Duke, like look at the proportion. There is incredible Jewish studies department. There are incredible Hillel's on these campuses doing incredible amount of work. And when these kind of incidents crosses the line into hate, the administration and the existing bylaws and the policies against these issues,

are functioning and working. So let's see the fuller side of the glass and see many of the natural allies. And let's not treat people, you are either with me or against me. There is so quick judgment and hyper-partisanship that is unfortunately suffocating the conversation and further contributing to this polarization that this problem is coming out of.

We have to have a space, and which we used to 20 years ago, where a legitimate disagreement or criticism and condemnation against certain policies of Israel could be discussed. If we so quickly, too quickly, too harshly, too exaggeratedly, if that's a correct word,

Call anti-Semitism card without understanding the realities and looking into the facts and nuances. I think we are doing this service to the real fight against anti-Semitism. Abdullah, given how much time you've spent with Muslims and Jews, I guess I want to ask you, what is the number one thing that our communities need to understand about each other that we don't? Yeah.

My community's biggest ethical, moral learning goal with no obligation to agree at all. My community's moral responsibility to understand Zionism and Israel differently. And if it is normalization, let it be normalization. That's not a dirty word for me. What is wrong with being normal? My community's collective wisdom has failed and making my community vulnerable towards anti-Semitism and hate

They collect the wisdom on Zionism and they collect the wisdom in understanding what is and what isn't the state of Israel. With, again, no obligation, no sugarcoat in any of the horrible things being done in that space. Let's try to understand maybe there is more to the story. There is maybe different forms of Zionism's

Maybe this is another form of nationalism, like Turkish nationalism, Arab nationalism. It could, some components manifest as racism, but there is a whole bigger picture out there. It is no different than how you feel proud of who you are as a Turk, as an Arab, as a Pakistani, as an American. My community's one educational goal and responsibility is to try to understand the complexities, even if you're going to end up hating it.

know and hate it and reject it as what it is, not as what you think it is, because your assumptions are wrong. Your source of information about it is wrong. I'm not saying good or bad. You may be as angry as I am. The more I know about Israel, both my appreciation and respect, but also my anger also, frustration also increased. I think for the Jewish communities, and they do a really good job in so many areas,

Their ability to understand Palestinian suffering, their ability to understand how horrible this occupation is and how much it is a source of destruction to Jewish nature, ethical, moral foundation of the Israeli state, and how much this further and further far-right trends in the political landscape in Israel

and the anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism in Israeli society and the Jewish communities here in the West is a moral problem. I'm not equating the two. But I think the Jewish brothers and sisters, without losing any pride about Israel, without losing any element of your own Zionism, without losing any love and joy about this homecoming story, this fulfillment story,

without losing any safety and security that Israel gives to Jews around the world. Like, it is possible. A lot of people think this is impossible. They think in binary terms, if you are this way, you have to compromise your Zionism. I don't think so. Give it a try. Maybe there is a different way in which understanding Palestinian suffering, which is not a fiction. Even if theologically and politically you don't see yourself as an occupying place,

forces in Judea and Samaria, as many Jews call, but you are occupying people. You are in charge of millions of people's destiny as a more powerful entity, and you are morally responsible, at least partially responsible for their suffering and for their perpetual misery. So Jewish communities are

responsibility is to internalize this better and push certain policies that will bring us closer to these two-state solution or whatever solution that Israelis and Palestinians, at least we American Jews and Muslims, we should be part of the solution.

One of the things I think is so powerful about the way you've been talking during this conversation is you're sort of putting the lie to the idea that you can't criticize Israel without being accused of being an anti-Semite.

You know, you are someone who is just a moral beacon in the fight against anti-Semitism. And you have very profound, deep moral criticisms about Israeli government policy. And those two things can coexist. And I think they coexist extraordinarily powerfully in you. Thank you. Thank you. But admirably, if you look into Israel, if you look at the American Jewish community, there are so many Jews who share my moral outcry and moral rage about those human rights violations, about occupation.

Look at Haaretz. You read certain statements coming from a little bit left of center Jewish communities. So I am really grateful. At least I hope there will be similar level of self-critical voices in the Muslim community, in the pro-Palestinian communities as well.

Abdullah, last question. You were a rising star in the Muslim American community. You were the first Muslim to offer the opening prayer to Congress, and I think you were the only one to do it twice. You were the first Muslim chaplain at both Wesleyan and Duke.

And now sometimes you're called a traitor, not by Jews and Christians or deans and head of schools, but sometimes by Muslim colleagues and friends, members of your own community. People have signed petitions saying that the program that you run that we've been talking about is dangerous. And as you mentioned, you get death threats from fellow Muslims. At one point, you were instructed by the FBI to move to a hotel because of imminent threats to your family.

It seems to me that you've paid just an enormous price for reaching out to the Jewish community in the way that you have in your life and doing it so publicly and proudly. So my last question for you is why? Why do you do this work and who are you doing it for? I am on one foot doing it for future generations of American Muslims and American Jews.

Because the work is really to see if they can live a different reality, if they can be in a different world, different America and different Canada. I think it's in our evolutionary biology that this is a very difficult and painful subject. The people who rejected me, the parts of American Muslim communities that I lost ground and credibility and declared as enemy, as traitor, it is painful.

maximum maybe 10%. They don't represent all American Muslim community. There is a much bigger majority Muslim community out there that I'm speaking for them. I'm speaking for the silent majority, trying to create some sort of a moral awakening for them.

And quite honestly, those people who label me with horrible names, I take it as a badge of honor. Similarly, I take it as a badge of honor that Saudi Arabia blacklists me or Turkey blacklists me. Sometimes, whether or not, whether your ethical, moral human being is judged or measured, who hates you? And I'm glad, at least for several of them, these people dislike me because it's confirming some of my ethical, moral commitments. I'm saying all of this, but yet,

It is in our evolutionary biology. When your own people says you don't belong to us or you hurt us or your own people say shanda, it cuts you. It scars you. There is something that sort of creates this ouch in your inner being. Like, am I hurting my people? Am I letting my people down? Am I...

Am I not being the righteous citizen of my tribe? There is something I cannot explain. I don't know if you ever felt this. There are a fair number of Jews who hate you as well. Deeply. I feel everything you're saying deeply. Yes. I can sort of marginalize, justify, and ignore anything and everything said to me by non-Muslims. I can live with it. But when I pay attention to Muslims, even though I know rationally, factually, like they don't represent all Muslims,

It hurts. It sucks. Yes. I have a hard time sleeping those nights if I read those tweets and Facebook statements or petitions. And some of these people were so-called my friends. They knew me. That's the hardest part. Like, these are some... Those people who are...

laying vile accusations and attacks and lies and slanders against me, I wrote recommendation letters for them. I mediated their family problems. I spent hours and days... You know, if people don't know me and saying these things is one thing, but there is a very deeper and really sickening element that some of these people, they know, but somehow being popular, being accepted, being hero in certain activist communities

are so noble and sacred in their mind that they have no problem in throwing me under the bus regretfully. But this comes with the territory. People who are sages of moral justice and human rights and ethical moral fights, they face much worse difficulties from within. I know this and I know how to lick my emotional wounds and keep working and moving forward.

Imam Abdullah, thank you so much for making the time and for your work in this world. Thank you. My pleasure. And I hope we can do some of this work together.

Thanks so much for listening. If you have a tip or a question, write us at tips at honestlypod.com. I also want to flag for you an event coming up this Monday, the 31st. It's called Kids and COVID. It's a roundtable discussion with a parent, a public school teacher, and a student about the consequences of our pandemic policies. I'm really excited about it. For the Zoom link and more information, please go to my Substack, barryweiss.substack.com.

See you soon.