by Walter Ruby
Special to the NJJN

May 08, 2008

A Pompton Lakes rabbi is standing behind a Palestinian-born imam facing deportation for alleged ties to Hamas.

Mohammed Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson goes before an immigration judge in Newark this week. The three-day trial will determine whether he should be deported for having failed to disclose on his application for U.S. residency that he was arrested by Israeli forces in his home town of Nablus and held in administrative detention for three months.

Qatanani asserts that he was eventually set free without being charged, but his attorney, Claudia Solovinsky, said she was informed by U.S. authorities that the imam was convicted by Israel for assisting terrorist organizations, allegedly by encouraging Palestinian students arriving in Jordan, where he was living in the early 1990s, to join the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Rabbi David Senter of Congregation Beth Shalom in Pompton Lakes, who has worked closely with Qatanani in interfaith projects over the past several years, said he is convinced that the imam “is a supporter of non-violence who denounced terrorism against Israelis in my presence.”

“Imam Quatanani has devoted himself to proving that Muslims and Jews can come together despite what is happening in the Middle East,” Senter told NJ Jewish News. “What would my commitment to Torah values be worth if I don’t stand by my friend in his hour of peril?”

Father Phil Latronico, a Roman Catholic priest based in Union City who serves as chair of the North Jersey Christian-Muslim Project, also said he supports Qatanani.

Senter and Latronico are both expected to testify as character witnesses at Qatanani’s trial, expected to conclude on May 12.

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ), whose district includes Paterson, has also praised Qatanani, who arrived in Paterson from Jordan in 1995.

“I’ve seen with my own eyes a gentleman who’s had a tremendous positive influence in the community,” Pascrell told The New York Times. “The immigration department is talking about something that goes way back many years, and they have every right and responsibility to look into that. But he’s done nothing but good since he’s been in the United States.”

Qatanani is facing charges that he failed to mention in his application for permanent residency in the United States — which he submitted in 1999 and which was later denied — that he was picked up by the Israeli police in 1993 in his home town of Nablus, and held for three months in administrative detention.

Qatanani’s lawyer Claudia Slovinsky asserts that Qatanani was released without any charges or convictions, but said she was informed recently by U.S. immigration officials that her client was convicted by Israel for assisting terrorist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Qatanani, who denies ever having had a connection with Hamas, has acknowledged being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan when he lived there in the early 1990s, but points out that the group, unlike Hamas, has never been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

Before Qatanani’s coming to the Islamic Center of Passaic County, the largely Arab-American mosque had a reputation for militance. Its previous imam, Mohammed el-Mezain, was arrested in connection with a terrorism-financing case brought against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. (He was eventually acquitted of all but one charge, on which there was a hung jury.)

But Qatanani has engaged in a sustained program of interfaith outreach and has built ties to New Jersey’s political elite, once hosting Governor Jon Corzine at the mosque and becoming the first Muslim religious leader to offer prayers at a session of the NJ General Assembly.

A spokesman for the mosque, Mohammed Al-Filaly, said, “We are optimistic that justice will prevail and the unsubstantiated charges against Imam Qatanani will be dismissed.”

Al-Filaly said he hopes that Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl will listen “to the voices of so many elected officials, and Christian and Jewish leaders, who maintain that Imam Qatanani is a man of peace and moderation.”

If Qatanani is deported, he would be returned to Jordan with his wife and children, three of whom were born in the United States.

Senter expressed “fear that Imam Qatanani may be denied justice due to the wide brush applied to Muslims after Sept. 11.”

Senter said that he and Qatanani gave sermons at each other’s congregation and that the imam brought a group of young people to a model seder at Congregation Beth Shalom.

“I heard the imam tell members of his congregation that all acts of terror are wrong, including the recent attack on the Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem,” where eight yeshiva students were gunned down by a Palestinian man in March.

“Unless Jews and Muslims reach out to each other and build bridges as Imam Qatanani and I have done, hatred and bitterness will continue to flourish,” Senter said.

Allyson Gall, New Jersey area director of the American Jewish Committee, said she has no knowledge about the veracity of the charges against Qatanani. “We leave that up to the Department of Homeland Security, which clearly has a job to do,” she said. “But when a large number of people stand up and say, ‘This is a good guy,’ that should be taken into consideration.”

Israeli military authorities stand by their characterization of Qatanani.

“Imam Mohammed Katanani [sic] was convicted based on his own admission on charges of belonging to an unauthorized association and providing services to an unauthorized association, for being a member of Hamas and acting on its behalf,” the Israeli army said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press on April 24.

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