Palestinian Islamic Scholar Sheikh Issam Amira in a recent address blamed the toleration of homosexuality on the part of governments and media for the recent Omicron wave which threatens to sweep countries globally.
In a sermon delivered earlier this month at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount complex — Judaism’s holiest site which marks the site where the Jewish temples stood — radical Islamic scholar Issam Amira addressed the emergence of the recent Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
“Why has this abomination spread? Why has coronavirus – with its Indian variant and its Omicron variant – spread?” he asked his audience. “What are these names, these diseases, that were not known to our forefathers?”
Deeming the cause for the variant unambiguous, Amira blamed the “infidel” and “licentious media” for the current pandemic.
“The reason is clear: ‘Immorality never appears among people to such an extent that they make it known to all,’” he said, quoting an Islamic teaching. “Who would make this known to all? The common people?”
“No,” he replied. “It is the infidel and licentious media that makes it known to all.”
He continued by castigating those rulers who tolerate homosexuality and follow in the ways of “feminist” groups.
“[Those] rulers who permit and promote homosexuality; it is the rulers who follow the feminist organizations with their CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women), gender issues, and whatever,” he said.
“These are all the precursors of the spread of diseases which did not exist among our forefathers,” he added.
He then urged Muslims to unite and fight against such rulers.
“It is necessary to unite the efforts of all Muslims, individually and collectively, against these ruthless rulers, who have brought these catastrophes upon us,” he said.
In response, conservative commentator David Horowitz deemed the remarks, “Deadly bigotry.”
“Well that is about as hateful and ignorant as all his other pronouncements LOL. But it’s Israel that gets resolutions against it in the UN?” wrote one Twitter user.
“Still the ol’ fashioned way: when something isn’t going well, blame the #Jews and the #gays…,” wrote another.
“Didn’t BDS claim they were a LGBTQ movement?” asked another.
“Attention Code Pink! You’re on the wrong side!” quipped yet another user.
This is not the first time Amira’s expressions have stirred controversy.
Last year, Amira was temporarily banned from the Temple Mount for lauding the terrorist decapitation of history teacher Samuel Paty in France after showing cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed to pupils during a class on freedom of expression.
In an address delivered in 2018, he said Muslims were “undergoing a major crisis regarding the honor of their womenfolk,” encouraging men to tell their female relatives: “We are ready to die defending your honor, but at the same time, we are ready to kill you if you take your honor lightly.”
In 2017, he said Arab leaders should have received then-President Donald Trump on his Middle East trip with the words: “Get lost! The only thing we have for you is our swords!”
In 2015, he called for the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate and claimed the main war of Islam was with America and Europe, “but we are ready for them.”
He said the Chinese were “reasonable people” who would convert to Islam, while the Russians “are stubborn, but once Moscow is liberated from the shackles of the USSR, of Bolshevism, of the Czar and even of Putin, they will join Islam, and that will be that.”
Earlier this month, Canadian cleric Younus Kathrada was accused of divisive speech after he compared wishing people a Merry Christmas to congratulating murderers and pedophiles, as he called on Allah (God) to “humiliate the infidels” and “annihilate the heretics and atheists.”
Human rights groups and leftist activists have a history of routinely ignoring Palestinian oppression against their own — especially women and those in the LGBTQ community.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has blasted the “antisemitic double standard” Israel is held to by the left as LGBTQ activists defend the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization “that systematically murders LGBTQ people.”
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein
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