"Jimmy Carter without the rabbits"
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On May 14 Barack Obama held a private meeting at Macomb Community College with Hassan Qazwini. Qazwini is the leader of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn. Debbie Schlussel describes Qazwini as Hezbollah's most important imam and agent in America.
Obama's meeting with Qazwini came to light because of a brief report in the Detroit Free Press (with the photo above) deriving from Qazwini and his mosque. The Obama campaign has not itself posted any news account or press release regarding the meeting on its Obama News page. A Google News search on "Obama Qazwini" shows that news of the meeting has essentially remained a closely guarded secret.
The Free Press account states that the two discussed the presidential election, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Iraq war, according to Qazwini. Schlussel asks why "this open anti-Semite and supporter of Israel's annihilation" was afforded the privilege of discussing "the Arab-Israeli conflict" in a private one-on-one meeting with Obama. Perhaps they were discussing what Obama referred to as the "legitimate claims" of Hamas and Hezbollah in his chat with David Brooks.
Schlussel has followed Qazwini's career for the past 10 years, decrying President Bush's meetings with Qazwini during the 2000 presidential campaign as well as in connection with the formulation of his faith-based initiative. Schlussel reports:
Qazwini is very open about his support for Palestinian homicide bombings, HAMAS, and Hezbollah. And he's a good friend of Hezbollah spiritual leader, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah--the man who issued the fatwa to Hezbollah terrorists to murder over 300 U.S. Marines and U.S. Embassy civilians in cold blood. Qazwini's mosque has held rallies and celebrations in support of Hezbollah, and many of Hezbollah's biggest money-launderers and agents in America are his congregants.
When I went undercover to his mosque in 1998, he and others welcomed Nation of Islam chief racist Louis Farrakhan as "our dear brother" and "a freedom fighter." Qazwini applauded Farrakhan's anti-Semitic statements saying that Jews were the "forces of Satan" and that there needed to be a "jihad" on the American people.
Schlussel has more on her 1998 undercover visit to Qazwini's mosque at the time of Farrakhan's visit in her October 2001 post.
