Robert Spencer
Jihad Watch
9/26/2011
The other night I watched a British documentary about the Ground Zero mosque controversy (for which I was interviewed, and in which I appear) that portrayed Sharif El-Gamal as a good-hearted schlub who was trying to do a good deed and ended up getting beset by cynical sharpies like Pamela Geller and me. Anything about his criminal past, his glorification of physical violence, his numerous shady financial dealings? Of course not! That wouldn’t fit the narrative! But in reality, the man behind the Islamic supremacist Ground Zero Mosque is an Islamic supremacist thug: “Mosque falls short,” by Andrea Peyser in the New York Post, September 26:
“We don’t know what they’re really going to do. They’ve said they wanted to do a lot of things,’’ said a board member who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. Still, he confessed to being weary of the fight.“It’s been emotionally and physically draining. After the anniversary [of 9/11] passed, I have to distance myself from it.’’
“I don’t trust this guy as far as I can throw him,’’ said another board member, concerned about El-Gamal’s long rap sheet, another thing you’ll never read about in the Times.
El-Gamal has been busted at least seven times since 1990 for DWI and disorderly conduct, and charged with failing to pay more than $200,000 in taxes. Most recently, in 2005, El-Gamal was arrested for assaulting a man who sublet an apartment from his brother, punching the guy and breaking his nose and cheekbone. El-Gamal at first said he didn’t hit the man, but WCBS/Channel 2 discovered records that show El-Gamal conceded “his face could have run into my hand.’’
I tried to talk to El-Gamal and give him a chance to turn me around to the sunny face of Islam. He refused. Can you blame him?…
The Comments at Jihad Watch include excellent related links added by readers.
Related: Obama reaching out to Muslim Brotherhood in Syria; Pro-West opposition protests
