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Speakers at the "Hands Off the Middle East" rally in Dearborn, Michigan on August 5, 2024 emphasized the political power of the local Muslim community, supported U.S.-designated terrorist groups such as Hizbullah, and said that MEMRI can go to Hell.
Amer Zahr, a Dearborn activist and comedian, who was the MC of the event, said that Israel "assassinates our leaders," that protesters are no longer afraid of American law enforcement, and are not ashamed to say they stand with Hizbullah. Ali Alaa, from Doctors against Genocide, said that Muslim activists in Dearborn have been approached by the campaigns of both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for their support because they know that "the next president of the U.S. is coming from Dearborn."
Osama Siblani, the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Arab American News thanked MEMRI for translating his interviews in Arabic on foreign television channels into English. He continued to say that it was MEMRI's executive director Steven Stalinsky who wrote the Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled Welcome to Dearborn, America's Jihad Capital, adding: "MEMRI Can Go to Hell!"
Local news coverage of the rally by "metro Detroit's Arab American community" – for example, Fox 2 Detroit and the Associated Press, failed to mention the extremist statements at the event, including MC Amer Zahr's message to the U.S. government: "Whenever we have a rally in Dearborn, we don't forget to welcome our uninvited guests from the CIA and FBI... There are no words that you can use against us that scare us any more" and that "we don't care any more" if they want to "call Dearborn the 'jihad capital' and "call us all terrorist sympathizers" and that they had "tried to make us ashamed of saying 'from the river to the sea." He added, "We are not ashamed to mention the word 'Hizbullah'; we are not ashamed to say that we stand very strongly with the Lebanese resistance."
Amer Zahr, Dearborn comedian and activist: "It is not just Palestine, they will come after us everywhere, and so we have to make sure we keep our voices loud.
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"Everything that they have done is to try and break the Arab and Palestinian spirit, whether it is assassinating our leaders or raping our prisoners and our hostages."
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Alaa Ali, Doctors against Genocide: "In the past few weeks, we have been approached by Kamala Harris's campaign and by Trump's campaign. They are trying to gain our votes. They are trying to gain our trust. We told them: 'We will not give you our votes until you show us on the ground what you are going to be doing.' Those people don't care about anything but our votes. Any one of us who really has a conscience, who still feels the oppression that everyone is feeling in the Middle East, will not just go and vote, we will knock on every door next to him, and take them by hand to the polls tomorrow to vote. We will show them that we have numbers, we have votes, we can change everything around. They know that the next president of the United States is coming from Dearborn."
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Zahr: "Whenever we have a rally in Dearborn, we don't forget to welcome our uninvited guests from the CIA and FBI that are here as well. Welcome. We have nothing to hide. We are not ashamed that we stand here. There are no words that you can use against us that scare us anymore. They want to come and call Dearborn the 'Jihad Capital.' They want to call us all terrorist sympathizers – we don't care anymore.
"We are here, standing up for justice and standing up for our people, and there is no way that you will scare us anymore. They tried to make us ashamed of saying: 'from the River to the Sea' – are we ashamed?"
Crowd: "No!"
Zahr: "Are we ashamed?"
Crowd: "No!"
Zahr: "Let's try it once: From the River to the Sea..."
Crowd: "Palestine will be free!"
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Osama Siblani, publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Arab American News: "Let me tell you about something. Every time I appear on a television station overseas and speak in Arabic, there is an organization called MEMRI – Middle East Media Research Institute, this is the same institute whose executive editor [sic] wrote his infamous opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about Dearborn and called it a jihadist city.
"So every time I appear on Arabic television, they take my statements and translate them into English, and they broadcast it, put it on video, and YouTube. So I want to take this opportunity to say to them: 'Thank you for doing so. I appreciate the effort of translating every word I say.' So I am saying now: 'Go to Hell!'
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"You see, in the first couple of days of this war, ten months ago, I spoke at the function that we did at the civic center, and I said that Hamas is not the terrorist. Ten months from then, I say it now. The terrorist is Netanyahu and his government and Biden and his administration."
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Zahr: "We are not ashamed to say that we stand with our Iraqi brothers and sisters that are fighting against occupation and apartheid, and they have been fighting against American occupation and apartheid since the first Gulf War.
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"We are not ashamed to say that we stand with our Lebanese brothers and sisters protecting the north of Palestine, protecting the south of Lebanon.
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"We are not ashamed to say the word Hizbullah. We are not ashamed to say that we stand very strongly with the Lebanese resistance.
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"And finally, and last but definitely not least, our brothers who put a little toll plaza in the Red Sea."
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