Tim Walz maintained close ties with a Muslim leader who celebrated Oct. 7 and praised Hitler

Tim Walz, Kamala Harris's pick to join her on the presidential ticket for the November election, maintained close ties to an antisemitic Muslim imam who celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre and promoted a film glorifying Adolf Hitler, reported U.S. outlet The Washington Examiner.

According to the report, Walz, as governor of Minnesota, met with Bangladeshi-born imam Asad Zaman at least five times, and even donated $100,000 to the American Islamic Association in Minnesota, an organization run by the antisemitic cleric.

Some of Walz's meetings with Zaman

In May 2023, the imam and other Muslim leaders participated in a meeting with Governor Walz's office on mosque security.

In May 2020, Zaman gave a speech at an event with the governor to call for peaceful protests during the unrest in Minnesota following the death of George Floyd.

In April 2019, the cleric spoke before Walz's state of the state address, a few months after Zaman called for an end to the government shutdown at a press conference with the current vice presidential candidate.

In May 2019, Zaman attended an event Walz hosted during Ramadan, social media posts show.

Zaman's outrageous antisemitic comments

In recent years, Zaman has used his Facebook page to share official Hamas press releases, blog posts from antisemitic sites, and in 2015 even posted a link to the propaganda film “The Greatest Story Never Told,” which praises Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and was released in 2013.

On the day of the Oct. 7 massacre, Zaman stated that he "stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli attacks" In addition, the imam shared an image of a Palestinian flag on Facebook in response to a post by Yusuf Abdi Abdulle, head of the Islamic Association of North America, who justified the terrorist attack by stating that "Palestine has the right to defend itself" and noted that the Biden-Harris administration was "on the wrong side of history" by "supporting the extremist Zionist regime and its illegal settlements."

On Oct. 8, a day after the brutal massacre perpetrated by Hamas and other terrorist groups in southern Israel, Zaman responded to a condemnation of the attack by Democratic Representative Katie Porter by asking the lawmaker if she would be willing to recognize "the right of Palestinians to defend themselves."

Likewise, the Muslim American Society of Minnesota issued a statement on Oct. 7 in which it noted that it "reaffirms its unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli occupation."

Following Oct. 7, the imam also responded to Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Agrarian-Labor Party, who had shared on social media his grief over the killing and kidnapping of Israelis he knew. Zaman rote than Martin's group "cannot be joined at the hip to apartheid Israel and still hope to court the Muslim vote." 

The Muslim American Society: ‘The overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States’

As court records indicate, the Muslim American Society (MAS) was described in the past by federal prosecutors as an organization "founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States."

In addition, the United Arab Emirates designated MAS as a terrorist group in 2014. The organization also came under fire in 2019 after a video went viral on the internet showing children calling for the murder of Jews during an event organized by its Philadelphia affiliate.