CAIR, Muslim Groups Call to Reinstate Hate-Crime Commissioner Who Compared Israel to Nazi Germany

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wants Maryland’s attorney general to reinstate Zainab Chaudry to the state hate-crime commission following Chaudry’s ouster for her antisemitic social media posts.

Chaudry is CAIR’s Maryland director and was suspended from her role on Maryland’s hate-crime commission after she compared Israel to Nazi Germany on Facebook last week. CAIR officials and two dozen Muslim organizations now want the attorney general to restore Chaudry.

“Like Zainab, many members of the Maryland community have been critical of the Israel government’s horrific crimes against the Palestinian people,” CAIR’s letter to the attorney general said. “As you know, the Israeli government has bombed residential buildings, refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, mosques and churches, killing over 13,000 people, most of them women and children.”

“Israeli leaders have also made genocidal remarks about the Palestinian people, calling them ‘human animals,’ claiming that there are ‘no innocent civilians’ in Gaza, and threatening to ethnically cleanse millions of people,” the letter continued. “Suspending Zainab for criticizing the Israeli government’s horrific crimes and for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people is unacceptable. This attack on her is an attack on all of us and we will not accept it.”

A number of prominent Maryland Muslim organizations signed the letter, including the Academy of Muslim Achievement, American Muslims for Palestine, Anne Arundel County Muslims Council, Baltimore Area Muslims, Baltimore County Muslim Council, Family Rights for Religious Freedom, House of Worship LLC, Justice For All, Masjid Mustafa, Maryum Islamic Center, Montgomery County Muslim Council (MCMC) Muslim Family Center, Muslim Outreach and Volunteer Enterprise, Muslim American Society MD, the Tunisian United Network, United Maryland Muslim Council, among others. 

Chaudry was suspended after she posted antisemitic comments on Facebook last week. In one, she posted a photo of Israeli flags at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin next to a photo of Nazi Germany flags at Brandenburg in 1936, captioning the post: “That moment when you become what you hated most.” Chaudry has repeatedly called Israel’s counter-attack against Hamas a “genocide.”

The former official has continued to post in support of Palestinians since her suspension.

“Any pushback we get for standing up for justice and exposing Israel’s crimes is nothing compared to what Palestinians are experiencing,” she said on Facebook. “Never stop speaking up for Palestine.”

Jeffrey Trimbath, president of the Maryland Family Institute, said that Chaudry’s rhetoric and adoption of an “oppressor narrative” is historically ignorant and dangerous.

“The standard to which any commissioner should be held, or the standard that any state official or state employee ought to be held, is an understanding that all Maryland citizens are worthy of protection under the law, and that each Maryland citizen has the right to express themselves to worship in the way that they see fit, to educate their families in the way they see fit, and to live their life in peace with other people, their fellow citizens,” Trimbath said. “If you’re not committed to those core principles of living in civil society, with others, based on a Judeo-Christian understanding of society, then you should not be allowed to serve in any capacity in Maryland state government. Let alone on a commission so high profile as this one.”

Maryland officials might cave to community pressure and reinstate Chaudry, but, Trimbath added, they should not.

“This is something we actually applaud the attorney general for: for pushing [Chaudry] off the commission because of her hateful and frankly, racist statements that she made,” Trimbath said. “But I will tell you, the left is very strong in Maryland. They’re constantly trying to squeeze out anyone who favors an Islamic or Judeo-Christian view of life. We work with several families in Montgomery County, who are from the Muslim tradition.”

The Maryland Family Institute has supported Montgomery County’s interfaith parent coalition, which rose up this summer after Montgomery County Public Schools removed parents’ right to opt their children out of sexually explicit curriculum. Muslim, Orthodox Christian, and Jewish families have protested the school board together for months.

“We think the members of the Commission ought to live up to the standards that Muslim families themselves have lived up to, in protecting their kids and living at peace with other citizens,” Trimbath said.