By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Read More on ADL’s Hezbollah Speaker’s Ties to Syria, Terrorism ****
At one time, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was a proud Jewish and proud American organization. At that time, run by national director Nathan Perlmutter, the ADL was not afraid to side with Ronald Reagan on the issue of the Contras and issued a report on Daniel Ortega’s and Sandinista anti-Semitism. Now, the organization has become little more than a shrill, anti-Christian, anti-American twin of the ACLU.
The ADL–no longer worthy of the name for which its initials stand–long ago dropped its B’nai Brith and Jewish affiliation. Yet, Betsy Kellman–the former cable marketer who runs the Michigan chapter of this organization–calls it “the 9-1-1 for the Jewish Community.” That wasn’t my experience when I had four anti-Semitic hate-mail death threats from members of the Islamic community and she looked the other way.
But you have to wonder why the self-proclaimed “9-1-1 for the Jewish Community” is hosting a lawyer whose family is heavily involved in Hezbollah and who has represented a cavalcade of Islamic terrorists and illegal aliens as a speaker in their tolerance series. In a series of speeches entitled, “Weaving Our Community,” the Michigan Region of the ADL is, Tuesday Night, hosting Nabih H. Ayad, an open supporter of Hezbollah.

Terrorist Lawyer Nabih Ayad
With “Former” Terrorist Imad Hamad, Client Ginnah Muhammad
In a bait and switch trick typical of Kellman and the local ADL, the event was for weeks advertised as featuring another allegedly more moderate Muslim speaker, but then, over the weekend, the ADL announced the real speaker, Ayad. His topic is “Dispelling Myths of Muslim and Arab Communities.”
I’ve written a great deal about Mr. Ayad, who was a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit against the NSA wiretaps and has represented convicted Hezbollah terrorist Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, Al-Qaeda terrorist Omar Abdel-Fattah Al-Shishani, and over 100 Muslim illegal aliens who paid off a then-INS official to get citizenship. (Ayad is also representing a woman suing a Hamtramck, Michigan judge because he will not allow her to wear a niqab (a full Islamic face-covering) while testifying in court.) The national ADL spotlighted Kourani on its website, decrying the man’s crimes to fundraise, money launder, and recruit in America and Tyre, Lebanon for Hezbollah. Perhaps they’ve changed their tune.
Ayad also sued the U.S. government to try to stop it from deporting any Lebanese or Palestinian illegal aliens during the Hezbollah-Israel war. As I wrote previously, in his suit, Ayad asked the U.S. to end all aid with Israel. The suit

asks the Federal Court to issue an order compelling the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to . . . stop any shipments of weapons or any other military support to Israel.

Most of these suits–especially the two regarding illegal aliens–were done at the behest of Ayad’s buddy, “former” Islamic terrorist and FBI award revokee Imad Hamad, who heads the Midwest ADC (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee). Ayad is ADC’s attorney and sits on its board and terrorist/Ayad client Shishani told me Hamad refers him cases and gets kickbacks from them, a huge illegal no-no.
Ayad is named for and related to Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, who was Hezbollah’s spokesman and negotiator for the hijackers of the TWA 847 flight in which they tortured and trampled to death American Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem. I have seen Ayad attend and speak at several pro-Hezbollah rallies, and he refers to them as “martyrs” and “freedom fighters.” And Ayad’s relatives back in Lebanon are not only involved in Hezbollah, they are in its leadership.
Well, I guess he is “tolerant” . . . of Hezbollah and terrorists. Just not of Jews or Israel. That the ADL would host any event featuring Nabih Ayad is beyond disgusting. On the other hand, I doubt he will dispel any alleged “Myths of Muslim and Arab Communities.”
It’s not surprising that Betsy Kellman, the cable-marketer-cum-“9-1-1-for-the-Jewish-community” would invite Ayad as a featured speaker. Kellman is famous for kowtowing and pandering to the most extreme elements of the Islamic community. On the other hand, when it comes to Jews, if you are an Orthodox Jew, you are a potential terrorist in her eyes.
In a phone conversation with an attorney I know, she told him that she was afraid that violence would erupt against Muslims in the Detroit area because Orthodox Jews would physically attack them. When my friend asked why, she responded, “Well, you know how they [Orthodox Jews] are.” The attorney responded, that no, he didn’t know what she meant and asked her to explain. She told him Orthodox Jews are extremist and violent, whereas the Hezbollah-supporting Muslims in town are “peaceful.”
So much for the “ANTI”-Defamation of the ADL.
In an interesting twist, the “United Against Terrorism Task Force” of a local Reform synagogue, Temple Israel, is sending out notices promoting this event. Next, the Pope will be telling people I’m Catholic, too.
Memo to ADL Director Betsy Kellman:
You have the digits right, but the wrong message. Madam, you are not in any way shape or form “the 9-1-1 for the Jewish community.” But you are, indeed, a prelude to its–and America’s–next 9/11.
***
Before Ayad’s former Al-Qaeda client, Omar Shishani’s sentencing, I met with Shishani under the ruse that I was the girlfriend of a member of law enforcement. Shishani told me he hated Ayad, that Ayad had ripped him off of $25,000 and had to be fired because he would not properly represent Shishani. Shishani maintains that’s because he is only a Chechnyan Muslim, not an Arab one, and that Ayad is intolerant of non-Arab Muslims.
Yup, more of the ADL’s idea of “tolerance.”