Michigan Islamic Scholar Suleiman Hani In Staten Island Mosque Lecture: At Academic, Interfaith Dialogue Settings, Zionists Get Angry When You Bring Up Herzl, They Try To Normalize Occupation; Why Are You Ignoring That Zionism Is Evil At Its Core? Netanyahu Is A Polish Terrorist, A Villain

In a lecture delivered at the Muslim American Society (MAS) Staten Island Center in New York on March 16, 2025, Michigan Islamic scholar Suleiman Hani referred to Israeli Prime Minister as a "Polish terrorist," saying that he is worse than fictional villains such as Thanos, Darth Vader, and Voldemort. Hani emphasized that Zionism is evil "at its core" and warned against cooperating with Zionists, because Zionism and "modern post-Zionism" are inherently Islamophobic.

Suleiman Hani: "When somebody flatters a colonial mindset, a political entity, it's like somebody praising and looking up to Hitler, or in a maybe fictional sense... Who are the villains that people talk about these days? What, Darth Vader, Voldemort, and Thanos... Who else? I don't know who's out there. Who are some of the other villains out there? Who? No, I meant the fictional ones. Netanyahu is very real. He's a Polish terrorist. May Allah reward you. He's actually worse than Thanos and all these guys, because he's doing this in real time. Right?

"So when you give this example of who you look up to, and who you are trying to flatter, it says a lot about who you are and what your project is. And by the way, I can't count the number of times the Zionists today got so angry – in academic settings, in 'dialogue'... multi-faith settings, interfaith groups, where they are trying to normalize occupation. And you'll bring up Thomas Herzl [sic] and others, and they'll say: 'Please don't mention these things. It's aggravating to us. It's agitating to our etiquette and respect.' I said: What do you mean? These are your receipts, not mine. These are your people, not mine. These are honest conversations. So why are you ignoring what Zionism actually is? At its core it is evil.

"And at its core today, post-Zionism – for those who have studied post-Zionism in a modern sense – is extremely Islamophobic. In fact, for Zionism to succeed in the world today, they've admitted that they fund, they work on... What? Islamophobia. There is no separation between the two. You cannot be a Muslim who says: 'I want to work with Zionists for world peace.'"