In a November 2016 Friday sermon, Imam Ammar Shahin of the Islamic Center of Davis, California, related to the fires raging in Israel at the time as "good news" and said that "Allah has soldiers that He sends to people. A mosquito killed Nimrod, water killed Pharaoh."

MEMRI recently exposed two antisemitic sermons by Imam Shahin (for his July 21, 2017 sermon, see https://www.memri.org/tv/california-sermon-antisemitic-sermon-kill-jews-liberate-al-aqsa-mosque; for his July 14 sermon, see https://www.memri.org/tv/california-sermon-ammar-shahin-prays-allah-turn-jerusalem-palestine-into-graveyard-for-jews/). Following the Islamic Center of Davis's claim that MEMRI had mistranslated and taken Imam Shahin's July 21 statements out of context, MEMRI published a response: see https://memri.org/reports/memri-responds-islamic-center-daviss-statement-following-exposure-imam-shahins-july-21).

Sheikh Ammar Shahin: "The other thing is the good news today, of the fire that happened in Israel – which I don't like to call it that. But this is another lesson for us to learn. I wanted to emphasize, even though the sermon is over, just to emphasize the importance... Know, as I told you last Friday and the Friday before – after the elections – know that the power, the kingdom, the punishment from Allah comes in a way that you can never imagine. People are worried about certain things, and Allah has His army. Allah has soldiers that He sends to people. A mosquito killed Nimrod, water killed Pharaoh. People got destroyed although they had kingdom and power. Don't worry about how Allah will take care of things. But depend on Allah, rely on Allah, leave it to Allah. Look what they are going through, three days now fires, and they are calling for help from the East and the West. They are calling for help even from the Palestinian government to help them, and support them – which they are doing."