The town of Dearborn, Mich., is becoming a "hotbed of hate," according to Steven Stalinksky, director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The organization shared a video last week showing a group of protesters gathering in the town to celebrate the last day of Ramadan with chants of "death to Israel" and "death to America":
At International Al-Quds Day Rally in Dearborn, Michigan Protesters Chant “Death to America!”; Speakers at the Rally: America Is One of the “Rottenest Countries” on Earth; Israel Is ISIS, Nazis, a Cancer pic.twitter.com/B6hMlaKfi5
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 7, 2024
Tarek Bassi, an activist with the Hadi Institute, was one of those who participated in the meeting. During his appearance, the man claimed that the cries of "death to Israel" and "death to America" were logical:
Why are our protests on the International Day of Al-Quds, why are they so anti-America? Why don’t we just focus more on Israel and not talk so much about America? Gaza has shown the entire world why these protests are so anti-America. Because it’s the United States government that provides the funds for all the atrocities that we just heard about.
Bassi's speech continued by assuring that "Genocide Joe" (referring to the president of the United States) should disappear. And along with him, the entire U.S. system, which is guilty, according to him, of the situation in the Middle East:
It’s not just Genocide Joe that has to go. It is the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and such devilry to happen and would support it – such a system does not deserve to exist on God’s Earth.
Michigan protests underway for more than two decades
The initiative, however, is not new. As Stalinksy explained, these rallies have been taking place in Dearborn for more than 20 years, which has made the town an ideal place for people to gather against Israel and the United States: "You can see rallies and sermons in support for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. I am not saying that everyone in Dearborn is a terrorist, but there is a large amount of support for jihadi groups there," warned the MEMRI director.
This was reaffirmed by Michigan Republican Rep. Phil Green. The state representative assured Fox News Digital that they had detected a problem in Dearborn that, little by little, was spreading across the country. This, he explained, saddened him as he saw how "the world’s problems coming to our doorstep":
This type of extremism, this type of rhetoric, this type of division … threats of violence was a Middle East thing, it seems like a lot of that was limited to the Middle East, and now it’s come to our doorstep
