An influential Egyptian Islamic preacher who was deported from the United States and banned from several other countries continues to preach hate against secular Muslims and the West. In his latest calls, Wagdy Ghoneim recommended expelling those who did not want Sharia law "out of Allah's universe," and praised the "attack" of Hurricane Sandy on the United States.
"The infidel and hater of Islam is the only one who refuses the application of Sharia and calls for canceling or twisting Article Two," Ghoneim said on Twitter Friday, in reference to attempts to remove Islam's status as Egypt's state religion. "And there are infidels in the Egyptian community who call themselves liberals, seculars or modernists."
The "one who does not want the application of God's law should completely get out of His universe," he added in a veiled threat to Egypt's secular population and religious minorities.
Ghoneim also praised Hurricane Sandy's ravaging of the U.S. on Oct. 31. "In my opinion, this is revenge by the Lord [Allah] for [harming] his beloved Mustafa [another name for the Prophet Muhammad]," he said in a Twitter post, calling the natural disaster simply "one of Allah's weakest armies."
Ghoneim participated in a controversial trip to Tunisia in May, where he tried to unite Islamist factions against the formerly secular government. Twice in February he preached the value of violent jihad on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV channel.
Ghoneim radicalism has been ongoing for years. In May 1998, he gave a speech at Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) conference at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York, co-sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).
Ghoneim told the audience in Arabic, "The Jews distort words from their meanings. . . . They killed the prophets and worshipped idols. . . . Allah says he who equips a warrior of Jihad is like the one who makes Jihad himself." There he also led a violent chant against the Jews, calling them the "descendants of the apes" and praising terrorists as the "heroes of steadfastness."