Houston, TX, December 26, 2017 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed deep concern at a dangerous and highly inflammatory anti-Semitic sermon delivered at a local mosque in which the Imam called for the killing of Jews. In a December 8 sermon posted on YouTube, Imam Raed Saleh Al-Rousan of the Tajweed Institute in Houston stated that, “Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims will kill the Jews.” The speech came just two days after President Trump announced his plan to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital.

Dayan Gross, ADL Southwest Regional Director, issued the following statement:

“We are deeply troubled that a local Imam used the Jerusalem announcement as a pretext to scapegoat Jews and call for their deaths and Israel’s destruction. Calls to violence and
appeals to anti-Semitism and hatred are completely unacceptable and have no place in any mosque or house of worship.  This is incitement to violence borne of hatred, the likes of
which we have seen before from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. We hope that our Muslim brothers and sisters will likewise publicly condemn the Imam’s hateful words.

 

“We know that the ideas espoused by Imam Al-Rousan do not reflect those of the vast majority of Muslims in our area, many of whom are our partners in promoting interfaith
relations and who have told us they are appalled by this rhetoric. We appeal to all Houstonians to not generalize or attack the Muslim community as a whole for the words of
one individual.”

 

In the sermon, which was published on YouTube but has since been removed, Imam al-Rousan cites an apocalyptic Hadith, which is commonly invoked by extremists to incite anti-Semitism. For example, in the wake of the Al-Aqsa attack from this past summer, Al-Qaeda used the same Hadith when encouraging followers to conduct further attacks. He said, “My brothers, the Prophet Muhammad brought the good tidings, when he said: ‘Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims will kill the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, [which] will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him… This is the promise of Allah.”