The sleepy city of Dearborn, Michigan is primarily known as the residence of Henry Ford and the headquarters of the international car company, but over the years the city has also become the "capital of Arab America" due to the large population of Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, Syrian and Palestinian immigrants from the Middle East.
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Now, reluctantly, a new and controversial title has been added: "America's Jihad Capital" - at least according to an opinion piece published on February 2 in the Wall Street Journal. This article has caused such an uproar that the city's mayor has been forced to increase police presence outside mosques and civic centers due to Islamophobic threats against its nearly 100,000 residents.
Dearborn, MI
(Video: Reuters)
The controversial article was written by terrorism analyst Steven Stalinsky, CEO of MEMRI - the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington, DC. MEMRI is a research institute for newspaper analysis jointly established by Israelis Yigal Carmon and Dr. Meirav Wurmser. Carmon, who previously served as an advisor to the Shamir and Rabin governments in the fight against terrorism, has often been attacked by Arab networks.
"Welcome to Dearborn, America's Jihad Capital," reads the headline of the article, which calls on authorities at all levels to "pay close attention" to Dearborn's Arab majority because it supports Hamas terrorism. "Almost immediately after Oct. 7, and long before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, people were celebrating the horrific events of that day in pro-Hamas rallies and marches throughout Dearborn," writes Stalinsky.
Imran Salha, the imam of the Islamic Center of Detroit spoke at a Gaza Endures rally organized by the Michigan Taskforce for Palestine on December 19, saying: "It is such a silly claim to start the conversation from October 7. You owe us 75 years of condemnation. And how many October 7s have you allowed to occur to the Palestinians without a single word? Your silence is deafening... Zionism is as blasphemous to Judaism as terrorism is blasphemous to Islam."
In his article, Stalinsky says that the "backing of terrorism in southern Michigan has been a long-standing worry for U.S. counter-terrorism authorities. A report by the Michigan State Police in 2001, presented to the Justice Department post-September 11, labeled Dearborn as a 'financial support center' and a potential 'recruitment and support base' for international terror organizations. The evaluation indicated that a majority of the 28 terror groups recognized by the State Department had a presence in Michigan. Numerous Dearborn residents, both current and former, have faced convictions related to terrorist activities in the past few years."
In his X post from late January, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said: "Our immediate demand is crystal clear: the Biden Administration must call for a permanent ceasefire to a genocide it is defending and funding with our tax dollars. Dearborn residents have tirelessly protested and organized in demand of a cease-fire. As their mayor, I follow their lead."
Biden, mentioning no names, similarly posted on X that blaming a group based on the words of a few people is wrong, adding it leads to Islamophobia and anti-Arab hatred and that it shouldn't happen either in Dearborn or any other town in the United States.