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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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December 21, 2016
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Hamas-tied
Imam Hosts Syrian Sheikh Who Backed Suicide Bombings
by John Rossomando • Dec 21, 2016
at 3:48 pm
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A New Jersey imam fighting deportation may have harmed his case to stay
in this country and avoid deportation by hosting a radical Syrian cleric
last week.
Sheikh Mohammad Qatanani is due back in immigration court next month. He
failed to disclose connections with Hamas when he
applied for permanent residency in the United States. That omission,
immigration officials say, renders him ineligible to stay in the country.
Israeli military court records show he was arrested in 1993 and
convicted of providing support to Hamas. Qatanani claims he was merely
detained and never charged.
While his case is in recess, Qatanani's mosque, the Islamic Center of
Passaic County (ICPC), hosted
Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Al-Nabulsi last Friday. Al-Nabulsi is a Syrian
imam who defended Palestinian suicide bombings in April 2001.
"All the Jewish people are combatants" acceptable as targets
for attacks in Israel, Al-Nabulsi wrote in his "ruling on martyrdom operations in
Palestine."
Al-Nabulsi praised "our Mujahidin Resistance Brothers in Palestine
and Lebanon" in a 2006 article on his website.
"We say Allah-u Akbar to all our Mujahidin brothers in South
Lebanon and Palestine who embodied with their heroic deeds the meaning of
Jihad," Al-Nabulsi said.
 During a visit
to Qatar earlier this month, Al-Nabulsi posed for a photo with Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas
leader who served as its prime minister in Gaza.
Qatanani also hosted Al-Nabulsi in January 2014.
Al-Nabulsi's defense of suicide bombings might be added into the record
in Qatanani's immigration court case to help build the argument that he
supports extremists. It also could contradict Qatanani's statement at his Dec. 7 deportation hearing that he did not know anyone
in Hamas or connected to Hamas apart from his brother-in-law, who he met
once in 1994.
Both Qatanani and Al-Nabulsi
are slated to speak at next week's MAS-ICNA Convention in Chicago.
Al-Nabulsi's ICPC appearance last Friday focused on Muslim unity in
response to the Syrian civil war and the slaughter in Aleppo. Qatanani
sought to tie the fight against Assad in Aleppo with the Palestinian
struggle with Israel in Gaza.
"The blood of the Syrian Muslim child of Aleppo is the same blood
of the Palestinian child of Gaza," Qatanani said.
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