A prominent U.S. organization fighting anti-Semitism has expressed gratitude to a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader who himself has a long association with anti-Semitic individuals and organizations. The website of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), a prominent organization fighting global anti-Semitism, has announced that during a September meeting with SWC, Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, Religious Director of the Islamic Society of Orange County said that he would challenge Iran’s President’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Nazi Holocaust. The denial took the form of a question posed to Ahmadinejad during his recent U.N. appearance by Siddiqi’s representative who asked “What is your purpose in questioning the Holocaust?.” According to the report, the SWC expressed it gratitude to Dr. Siddiqi stating:
It is important for religious leaders to speak out against extremism especially during these days which coincide with the Ramadan and the Jewish High Holy Days.
Dr. Siddiqi is a former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an umbrella group of U.S Muslims organizations that is an important component of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood throughout the world is strongly associated with anti-Semitism which takes many different forms, some of which has been reported in previous posts Dr. Siddiqi himself has written a publicity letter for a book authored by an William Baker, an individual with a right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic background, written a letter of recommendation praising a book by Harun Yaya, the well-known author of several anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial books, and was a member of the board of the Institute of Islamic Information & Education in Chicago (IIIE) whose late director was the author of numerous virulently anti-Semitic articles.