Arab-Americans Denounce Hussein : Islam: Local and national leaders condemn Iraq’s call for a Muslim holy war, including terrorism, against the U.S.

Arab-American community leaders in California and across the nation Sunday denounced Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s call for a Muslim holy war, including terrorist acts against the United States. But several urged a cease-fire in the bombing of Iraq.

Salam al-Mayarati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said, “We condemn the use of the name of Islam to serve anyone’s selfish political ambitions.” He added that because of Hussein’s persecution of devout Muslims, his calls for Muslim solidarity “cannot be taken seriously.”

But Al-Mayarati said it is fair to condemn other Arab “dictators,” such as King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and to demonstrate against the American bombing of Iraqi targets.

M. T. Mehdi, president of the American-Arab Relations Committee, said in New York, “We feel caught between a madman in Baghdad and a madman in Washington.” He said that an informal telephone poll taken by his 20,000-member organization indicated that a large majority of Arab-Americans oppose the attack on Iraq, even though they do not like Saddam Hussein.

Carol El-Shaieb, president of the Arab-American Club of Santa Clara County, declared: “I don’t even listen to him (Hussein). We’re not terrorists here.”

But El-Shaieb said she is aggrieved by the continued heavy bombing of Iraqi targets. “It’s not surgical bombing,” she asserted. “There’s a lot of civilian dead, great suffering and possibly disease spreading. Saddam’s a crazy man, but the Iraqi people are innocent.” She deplored “a lack of reaction” by the Bush Administration to pleas for a cease-fire.

“Saddam doesn’t manipulate the minds of our people,” said Victor Ajluny of the Silicon Valley Congress of Arab-Americans. “I don’t see us responding to him. But there certainly is a response among us to calls for peace.”

Nazih Bayda, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said in Los Angeles that his group condemns “any terrorist action, no matter who commits it. We don’t feel this is a religious war whatsoever.”

“Saddam Hussein is trying to rally what support he can, and the only way he can do that is to try to rally the Muslim community,” Bayda said. “I don’t think Muslims around the world will heed his call. . . . I think he’s going to be disappointed.”

Meanwhile, there were scattered reports of violence directed at Muslim facilities in this country. Police in Tulsa, Okla., stepped up patrols around both mosques and synagogues after someone shattered a mosque’s windows Friday night during a prayer service for peace. A bomb exploded in an Arab-owned grocery in Cincinnati, but the FBI said it did not appear connected to the war.

Detroit Mayor Coleman Young said dozens of bomb threats have been reported by his city’s 45,000-member Arab-American community.