Ummah Day in Philadelphia

Young schoolchildren attending the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia are being taught to be enemies of Jews and are being indoctrinated in the culture of violent Islamic jihad. This is extremely disturbing at any time, but even more so now with the rise in anti-Semitism and the horrific murders of innocent Jews from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh to Chabad of Poway, north of San Diego. On April 22, 2019, the Muslim American Society in Philadelphia uploaded a video of its “Ummah Day” celebration. Ummah Day is the time of year when Muslims come together and celebrate their cultural traditions. It’s about Muslim pride -- as the Quran teaches, “You are the best community (Ummah) raised up for (the benefit of) humanity; enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong and believing in God…” (Quran 3:110). The video of their celebration, however, reveals something sinister is going on there.

In the video, young boys and girls dressed in traditional Muslim attire sing and recite what the Muslim American Society claims are traditional Muslim songs and poetry. But if you listen to the lyrics you will hear the boys singing, as they don the Palestinian keffiyeh, how they will fight to destroy Israel and reconquer Jerusalem with lines such as, “Glorious steeds call us and lead us onto paths leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us. Paradise needs real men!” and “Take us, oh ships, until we liberate our lands -- until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones! Not to be outdone by the boys, the girls recite lines extolling the virtues of suicide attacks such as, “We will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies, and we will sacrifice our souls without hesitation.” And, then reveal their own Islamic warrior ethos claiming, “We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will lead the army of Allah fulfilling His promise, and we will subject them to eternal torture.” The Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in all of Islam, located in the Old City of Jerusalem, is controlled by the State of Israel. In the video you will also see Muslim women looking like typical public-school teachers organizing and supervising the children as they recite these heinous and barbaric lines -- as if they were singing lines from The Little Mermaid in the local middle-school spring musical. That’s perhaps even more chilling. After the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) discovered this video and Fox News reported on it, the Muslim American Society posted a statement on Facebook explaining, “The center celebrated ‘Ummah Day’ where children sang songs from their cultural traditions… not all songs were properly vetted. This was an unintended mistake and an oversight in which the center and the students are remorseful.” Translation? “Oops! You weren’t supposed to see that one!” The Islamic Center’s leaders are remorseful because they got caught indoctrinating their children in violent Islamic jihad. The following day their Facebook page was taken down and that statement was removed from their website. Although MEMRI posted the story May 3 and Fox News published it that same day, you would be hard pressed to find any reference to it in the mainstream media at the time. Not in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or CNN. Those news organizations falsely condemned the Covington Catholic High School boys for racism instantaneously upon the release of that now-infamous doctored video. Yet that same media did not condemn these Muslim students even though the Islamic Center itself published the video and then a statement admitting to it. The media’s silence in the face of not just actual racism and bigotry but pledges by school children to decapitate Jews was deafening. It took two days for the Times and the Post to reference the incident by publishing a brief story by the Associated Press that gave the Muslim American Society’s damage-control position. The media has already begun to collude in the cover-up. Pennsylvania’s Muslim legislators have remained silent as well. Movita Johnson-Harrell (D-Phila.), the first female Muslim lawmaker in Pennsylvania, made national news by immediately condemning the offering of a Christian prayer in the General Assembly. Yet she has not condemned, let alone even commented on this video. In the days afterward, Rep. Harrell attended a Council on American-Islamic Relations event in which she claimed she was, “discussing strategies for improving community relations nationally to combat bigotry and hate.” Perhaps Rep. Johnson-Harrell should spend her time counseling Muslims in her own community to stop teaching their children to embrace not just bigotry and hate, but violent Islamist jihad. America just got a glimpse into what’s going on at the Philadelphia chapter of the Muslim American Society – there are 41 other chapters spread throughout the United States. As we say in the law, being so warned, govern yourself accordingly. Marc A. Scaringi, Esq. Mr. Scaringi is an attorney in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a radio talk show host of The Marc Scaringi Show on WHP 580AM and I Heart Radio and a Donald J. Trump endorsed Delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention.