This past month, on various occasions, Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, a mainstay for a number of radical Muslim organizations, took the time to get on social media to decry white supremacy. Coming from most anyone else this would have been considered commendable. However, Ruiz himself has had long involvement with a group that champions one of the biggest icons of the white supremacist world, David Duke. Given this reality, as well as the other extremist entities Ruiz involves himself with, his concern about racism smacks of hypocrisy and should be a signal to those who have previously taken Ruiz seriously to think otherwise.
Wilfredo Ruiz, a Muslim convert originally from Puerto Rico, is a magnet for pro-terror groups. He is the Communications Director for the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and he does much volunteer work for both the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and Islamic Relief (IR). Each of these organizations has had significant associations with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
CAIR was founded in June 1994 as part of a terrorist umbrella group headed by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, and has been named a party to Hamas financing by the US government. In August 2006, ICNA was the top donor and partner to Pakistani charity Al Khidmat Foundation (AKF), at the same time AKF hand delivered $100,000 to then-global head of Hamas, Khaled Mashal. Israel has banned IR, labeling it a Hamas front and arresting the group’s then-Gaza Program Manager, Ayaz Ali, in May 2006, for providing assistance to Hamas.
There is yet one more Hamas-related organization that Ruiz has had extensive involvement with, that being AMANA.
According to the Facebook page of Ruiz’s personal blog, Analista Internacional, Ruiz “founded the chapters of Puerto Rico and Connecticut of The American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA)” and is “currently acting as its legal advisor.” According to AMANA, Ruiz has been the Director of its Puerto Rico chapter. Ruiz has also been the Executive Director of AMANA’s sister charity, American Muslims for Emergency and Relief (AMER).
Outside of its Islamist existence, AMANA and its President, Sofian Zakkout, are notorious for championing white supremacist leader David Duke. In July 2010, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) condemned Zakkout and his group AMANA for featuring, on the official AMANA website, what the ADL called a “venomous” anti-Semitic video produced by and featuring Duke. [Ruiz’s name is mentioned directly beneath the video.] Even today, on the AMANA site, under a video discussing how ‘Israel has no right to exist,’ one can find yet another anti-Jewish Duke video.
Zakkout, who declared “Hamas is in my heart and on my head,” who repeatedly labels Jews “monkeys and pigs,” and who has circulated on Facebook a report claiming that “the Holocaust was faked,” has referred to Duke as “David Duke a man to belief in!”
Ruiz refers to Zakkout as his “dear brother” and has stated about AMANA, “AMANA is without doubt the best Dawah (Islamic outreach) and Quran source in America.”
Over the past month, Ruiz ironically has used social media to repeatedly call out white supremacists. On November 26th, Ruiz posted on Facebook about how nooses were found hanging at the Mississippi State Capitol ahead of a racially charged US Senate contest between incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and black Democrat Mike Espy. Of it, he wrote, “This is the new #AmericanPolitics under our #TraitorInChief #Trump. WAKE UP AMERICA!!!”
On November 20th, Ruiz posted about a Tampa-area violent Neo-Nazi group that had two of its members found shot dead with a garage full of explosives. Of this, he tweeted, “#DomesticTerrorism #WhiteSupremacists #NeoNazis are Real! STOP #Racism #Islamophobia #AntiSemitism NOW!”
Ruiz further posted, in November, about swastikas being painted outside a Jewish professor’s office at Columbia University; Wisconsin high school students standing for a group pose while doing a Nazi salute; and a PBS documentary discussing the ‘New American Nazis.’
The subjects that Ruiz has mentioned are, no doubt, serious ones that need to be exposed, albeit minus Ruiz’s uncalled for rhetoric and hyperbole. However, how can Ruiz effectively publicize such issues, when he himself has much involvement with a group that lauds one of the world’s most well-known white supremacists? And should he be the one to post such things, when he himself is involved with groups associated with violence and terrorism and when he himself is linked to those who spread the worst of bigotry and anti-Semitism?
The answer is clearly “No.”
Ruiz needs to be repudiated for cynically exploiting the issue of white supremacy to further his own agenda of legitimizing his network of pro-terror groups. While the scourge of white supremacy needs to be dealt with, Ruiz is certainly not the person who should be addressing the matter. It is Ruiz and those whose causes he champions that are the problem, not the solution.
Wilfredo Ruiz is nothing more than an Islamist wolf in sheep’s clothing and should be shunned for the danger he and his associates pose to our society.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
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