Fawaz Damra, then the imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, introduces Sami Al-Arian for a speech and fundraising session. For years, Al-Arian insisted he and his Islamic Committee for Palestine had no connection to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He maintained that position even after this video was released though the video shows he does not react to Damra's introduction.
Transcript:
Damra: We will listen tonight to an agreeable Islamic seminar titled "The reality of the Intifada al-Jihadiyya in the land of the Prophet's midnight journey to the seven heavens, Palestine, and the conditions of the Islamic Ummah." We would like to start our program tonight with an exhortation and remembrance of the night of Al-Qadr.
Therefore, I will introduce my guests to you this evening so that you may become acquainted with them. I will begin by introducing our guests for this evening, Dr. Sami Al-Arian, President of the Islamic Committee for Palestine. He is an Islamic herald who is touring the United States form each to west to observe how the Palestinian community lives overseas. He is a professor at the University of South Florida in the city of Tampa, and an eloquent Islamic herald concerned with the affairs of the Palestinian community and the Islamic community in general. And he tries to get to know the Palestinian Muslims in America, to connect them with the Motherland, Palestine, and their duty to their mother, Greater Palestine.
He comes to us tonight, as a guest and as a speaker, to talk about the reality of the Intifada al-Jihadiyya.
So I ask out brother Dr. Sami Al-Arian to the podium. Dr. Sami Al-Arian was born in Jerusalem and has sacrificed and continues to sacrifice, for Palestine. He is head of the Islamic Committee for Palestine.
A brief note about the Islamic Committee for Palestine: It is the active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. We preferred to call it the "Islamic Committee for Palestine" for security reasons.