Elder Patriot – In 2015 Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel appointed Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) leader Nezar Hamze to be his Deputy Sheriff, one of the most prominent positions in his department.

This is remarkable considering CAIR has been named as a co-conspirator by the U.S. government for two federal trials dealing with the financing of Hamas, and it is recognized as an international terrorist group by the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE).

When Hamze was conducting a class at the Tampa-area Daarus Salaam Mosque preparing CAIR attendees for an active shooter situation he was unequivocal in his words:

“When someone walks through that door, they don’t want to debate. They want to kill you.”

When someone asked him if being a Muslim gun owner might send the wrong message Hamze responded with these instructions:

“Are you gonna be more worried about that, or are you gonna be worried about protecting your family? The minute we start thinking past that, we lose.”

Hamze’s broader message was that a “victim mentality” was not going to save them when a crisis arose. He advised them of the Second Amendment rights to protect themselves and to defend their loved ones with firearms and rifles when necessary.

It would be convenient to credit this to more malfeasance and/or hypocrisy on the part of Sheriff Israel but that would be a mistake.

Sheriff Israel had to have known that his new Deputy Sheriff had been, and continues to be, the Regional Operations Director of CAIR-Florida after having previously served as CAIR-Florida’s Executive Director.

Hamze also seemed to disqualify himself as a law enforcement officer for the manner in which he defended his cousin, Abdelaziz Bilal Hamze, after he used his minivan to run over a woman and then dragged her body for several miles leaving a wake of body parts in his wake. His cousin then attempted to flee the United States. Hamze told the media that his cousin “made some bad decisions,” he “may have been a little threatened.”

Sheriff Israel’s questionable relationship with terrorists extends well beyond hiring Hamze to a top position in his department.

In 2015 he also posed with for photos with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout and a member of Zakkout’s Miami-based AMANA group at a local mosque. Zakkout is a big supporter of Hamas and posted to his Facebook page Hamas logos and photos of Hamas militants and leaders, including Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi and deceased Hamas bomb maker Yehiya Ayyash.

Prior to that in 2014 Zakkout organized a pro-Hamas rally held in Downtown Miami, where the crowd chanted loudly a number of anti-Jewish and pro-Hamas slogans. Zakkout is shown on video with a huge grin on his face, as his mob repeatedly screams, “We are Hamas.” Following the rally, Zakkout wrote in Arabic on his Facebook page, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”

More evidence of Sheriff Israel’s ties to terrorists came when he attended the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF), for a June Ramadan Iftar meal. The event was sponsored by Emerge USA, an innocuously named Islamist lobbying and advocacy group that attempts to dupe politicians into attending its functions by seducing them with a “Muslim vote.”

At the dinner he posed for photos with the co-founder and co-chairman of Emerge, Khurrum Wahid, a South Florida attorney who has spent years representing high-profile Muslim terrorists. They include: Rafiq Sabir, who received a 25-year prison sentence for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was given a life sentence for being part of al-Qaeda and for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush; Sami al-Arian who spent time in prison (and was later deported) for his activities within Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ); and Hafiz Khan, a Miami imam who received 25 years for shipping $50,000 to the Taliban explicitly to murder American troops overseas.

According to the Miami New Times, Wahid himself was placed on a federal terrorist watch list in 2011.

Another photo from the Iftar featured Sheriff Israel and IFSF Events Coordinator Abdur Rahman al-Ghani. Al-Ghani’s Facebook page is littered with anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and Islamic supremacist language and images. In March 2013, al-Ghani posted on his Facebook site a photo of a group of American rabbis, who were meeting with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office to discuss Judaism, with the caption, “Every President has end [sic] up like this. This is the power of Zionism in our U.S. Government.” In December 2012, he wrote on Facebook, “Zionist/Israelis are not holy people. They are demonic and the most evil on earth.”

In April 2012, al-Ghani posted on his Facebook page a graphic depicting an American flag, stating “Worlds [sic] Number One Terrorist Organization.” In March 2012, he posted a graphic stating, “ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD.” He wrote next to it, “Yes, Allah (SWT) has Decreed [sic] we will overtake the world in numbers…” And in February 2012, al-Ghani posted a graphic of the CIA logo spattered in blood with a caption that read in part, “You wipe out the organization that is solely responsible for every terrorist act committed since it’s [sic] creation. You wipe out the CIA.”

The third stop of Sheriff Israel’s radical Muslim tour led him to the Darul Uloom Mosque, located in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Darul Uloom has ties to a number of high-profile al-Qaeda terrorists.

“Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla was a student at Darul Uloom. His teacher was the current imam at the mosque, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed. Padilla was sentenced to 21 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists and for conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim individuals overseas.

Now-deceased al-Qaeda commander and al-Qaeda Global Operations Chief Adnan el-Shukrijumah was a prayer leader at the mosque. In 2010, Shukrijumah was indicted by New York authorities for plotting suicide bombings in the city’s subway system. His father, Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, who was a translator for the spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, “Blind Shaikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, taught classes at Darul Uloom. One of Gulshair’s students, Imran Mandhai, was sentenced to twelve years in prison for plotting to blow up strategic targets in South Florida. Mandhai was deported to Pakistan this past May.

It has further been alleged that one of the 19 hijackers from the September 11 attacks prayed at Darul Uloom.

Scott Israel’s association with terrorists is significantly more extensive than we listed here.

Perhaps that explains why he didn’t lift a finger to defend the children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas H.S. and won’t allow anyone else to be empowered to defend them either.

The sheriff is well aware that “When someone walks through that door, they don’t want to debate. They want to kill you.”

But for our kids he’s “more worried about appearances, than he is worried about protecting our children?

Sheriff Israel knows all too well “The minute we start thinking past that, we lose.” And, apparently that’s exactly how he wants it.