Peter Hasson, DCNF

The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Los Angeles branch compared the state of Israel to the terrorist group ISIS in a recent speech, video from the event shows.

The CAIR-LA official, Hussam Ayloush, appeared to draw an equivalency between American Jews who fight in the Israeli army and Muslim Americans who join ISIS and other terrorist organizations.

Ayloush made the comments during an April 20 speech at an Islamic center in California but they flew under the media radar until highlighted by The Middle East Media Research Institute on Friday.

“Do you know how many hundreds of Jewish American kids are recruited to join the Israeli occupation army?” Ayloush asked. “Hundreds. Every year,” he said, accusing them of joining an army that engages in “war crimes.”

“No one has ever established a [countering violent extremism] program to see why normal American kids leave their homes to become part of an army committing war crimes,” he said. “They go to the American Muslim community, although again and again we’ve seen the number of Muslims who join extremist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda is very, very, very tiny. Very tiny.”

In 2009, CAIR was listed by the U.S. government as an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme that provided funding to the terrorist organization Hamas.

Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson

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