New Cleveland Imam Quits Before He Starts--Blames Mean Bloggers!

Imam Ahmed Alzaree, the new spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, announced today that he was resigning his position three days before he was to report for work building bridges of understanding between Islam and Cleveland. He cited "allegations by bloggers that he was anti-Semitic and was associated with individuals suspected of having terrorist ties so poisoned the atmosphere in Northeast Ohio that he and his wife, Marwa, decided to look elsewhere."
Bloggers quote allegations unquote included running his name through google and lifting portions of his antisemitic speeches such as this one found at IPT:

Dear brothers and sisters, the talk about the Day of Judgment is long and full of things that will confuse the human mind and put fear in the hearts of the faithful. Every day that comes is much more Worse than the day before it as we get closer to the hour. Among the signs of the approach of Day of Judgment is what the messenger of Allah PBUH said: "The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews." Agreed upon. This is seemed to be very soon and close now. We ask Allah SWT not to test us so hardly if we live till this horrible moment insha'allah. (emphasis added)

Simon Says:"join me in some verbal “weaponizing."

Roger Simon reminds all bloggers that the Beijing Olympics without Freedom of Speech is a propaganda con job. Simon says: blog about Chinese repression, censorship, suppression of bloggers and journalists. Do not blog about the Olympics.

Roger L. Simon

"So I would like to invite my fellow bloggers to join me in some verbal “weaponizing.”

From this moment on, I will not write about the Beijing Olympics unless the subject at hand is censorship and repression in China. And – unless the Chinese government changes its policies – when the Olympics do come, I will not blog about them at all. I will take the opportunity to write as often as I can about the lack of Freedom of Speech on the Chinese Internet and on the suppression of bloggers and journalists in that country.

I hope we could all do this together, especially since this is not an issue of right or left. It is about Freedom of Speech, something upon which the vast majority of the blogosphere can agree. We can reach across the aisle on this one, if others are willing. So…

… about those Beijing Olympics – they’re a propaganda sham until the people of China have Freedom of the Press.