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Director of policy and advocacy for the Los Angeles branch of The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR LA), Shaheen Nassar, said that antisemitism is a uniquely European phenomenon, and it was a way of persecuting a group of people for the "false historical accusation" that they are the descendants of the people of historic Palestine. He made his remarks during a lecture held at the Islamic Society of Orange County, which was posted on the IOSC Masjid YouTube channel on June 11, 2021. Nassar explained that Muslims and Arabs are Semites, and that "most historians recognize" that the vast majority of European Jews and the "European Jewish colonizers" in Palestine are Europeans who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages, and it is in fact Palestinians who most likely to have the blood of the Israelites running through their veins. He added that it is ironic that while Zionism is a "racist supremacist ideology," Jews are also the target of antisemitism, which he conceded is a "real thing." He went on to explain that white supremacists hold Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian lives in equal contempt.
Shaheen Nassar: "Palestinians and Arabs are Semites themselves. Antisemitism is, throughout much of history, a uniquely European phenomena. It was essentially a way of saying... it was a way of persecuting a group of people for the false history accusation, this false historical allegation, that they had descended from historic Palestine. The reality of course, as most historians recognize, is much of European Jews and much of the European Jewish colonizers of Palestine are all descendants of medieval converts to Judaism, and that realistically the blood of the ancient Israelites most likely flows in the blood of Palestinians
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"If Zionism is a supremacist ideology, isn't it ironic that also Jews are the targets. And by the way this is legitimate, antisemitism is a real thing. I may not necessarily agree with its relevance to the issue of Palestine, but antisemitism is a very real thing, and there are white supremacists out there who hold Jewish lives and Muslim lives and Palestinian lives with equal contempt.
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"A lot of the people that were massacring Palestinians, the people that I mentioned who would kill, in such horrific and gruesome ways, Palestinian children, committed acts of sexual violence... These death squads, the Irgun, the Hagana, the Black Hand, they would later evolve into the modern Israeli defense forces.
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"There's no direct blood relation between the ancient Israelites and the European colonizers."
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