Gavin Newsom gave millions in taxpayer money to pro-Hamas mosques that call for the annihilation of Jews

Gavin Newsom gave millions in taxpayer money to pro-Hamas mosques that call for the annihilation of Jews

ROBERT SPENCER

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) has awarded millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to mosques whose leaders have preached anti-Semitic hate and called for violence against Israel.

Newsom’s administration awarded $200,000 this year to the Sajjadia Islamic Society as part of its Nonprofit Security Grant program, which aims to help nonprofits protect against terrorist attacks. In a sermon at the mosque this month, the pro-Iran cleric Hamza Sodagar touted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and said that Allah sent “the rockets from Hamas or Hezbollah” to strike Israel. Newsom has also awarded grants to mosques like the Islamic Center of Hawthorne and Islamic Center of Riverside, whose imams have decried the “malevolence of the Jews” and prayed for Allah to “destroy them.”

All told, the Newsom administration has given $40 million to California mosques whose leaders cheer the annihilation of Jews and Israel. Such rhetoric could fuel precisely the kind of violence the grants are meant to prevent. Newsom, considered a future Democratic presidential contender, said last month he will double funding in his state for its nonprofit security program, citing the “unconscionable terrorist attacks in Israel.” Funds will be awarded to both synagogues and mosques, Newsom’s office said.

A spokesman for California’s Office of Emergency Services, which administers the grants, said after a Washington Free Beacon inquiry that it is investigating whether any of the mosques have breached their grant requirements by facilitating hate speech.

“If it is determined they have, their funding will be immediately revoked,” said Brian Ferguson. “As a matter of principle, the State of California rejects hate speech and discrimination in all of its forms. Such speech is a menace to democratic values, social stability and peace.”

Newsom gave $200,000 last year to the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco, where preacher Hussam Ayloush asserted in a Nov. 3 sermon that it is a “lie” that Hamas’s invasion of Israel last month was an “unprovoked attack.”

“If I hear that term again, I’ll go crazy,” he said. “Unprovoked in what dictionary?”

At the Islamic Center of San Gabriel Valley, which received $200,000 this year, preacher Amir Mertaban expressed support for Iraqis who fought American forces and Palestinians currently fighting Israel.

“The Palestinian brothers and sisters that are fighting resistance, shame on you if you label them terrorists,” Mertaban said. He also disputed that Hamas fighters murdered innocent Israelis during the Oct. 7 invasion. “If you’re going to make a claim that Muslims killed innocent civilians, you better be able to prove it.”

Other grant recipients have served as breeding grounds for Islamist terrorists. Newsom’s office awarded $200,000 to the Islamic Center of San Diego, which served as the home mosque for two 9/11 hijackers. Its imam, Taha Hassane, said last month that “resistance [against Israel] is justified.”

“We cannot accuse somebody who is fighting for his life to be a terrorist. The terrorist is the one who started the occupation, not the one who is defending himself,” he saidin an Oct. 20 sermon….