According to the Web site of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIRs, the organization will be holding its 10th anniversary dinner October 3-4 in Washington, D.C. Invited guests include Ralph Nader, European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, and the head of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Sheik Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi.

Mr. Tantawi is arguably Sunni Islam’s most prominent religious authority. He is considered a moderate representative of mainstream Islam, and has met with the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the chief rabbi of Israel.

Mr. Tantawi’s reputation as a moderate is due to his position of accepting the banning of the hijab in French public schools, and his sanctioning of the use of birth control. However, those who follow his comments in Arabic often find his reputation overshadowed by his anti-Semitic comments.

For example, in most of the interviews Mr. Tantawi gave following his historic meeting with the former chief rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau, he referred to the rabbi and to Jews as “enemies of Islam.” One such reason, he explained, is “their false claims” regarding Jewish historical connections to Jerusalem. After the meeting, Mr. Tantawi said, “I did not ask to meet with the rabbi… when he left the meeting, his face looked like his behind…”

More recently, Mr. Tantawi was quoted by the AFP on August 4, 2001, stating that the Western Wall is not really a Jewish holy site: “the temple of our Lord Solomon was not to be found underneath Al Aqsa Mosque as the Jews claim.”

Islamic sources such as the Koran and Sunna are the basis for Mr. Tantawi’s philosophy on Jews and Israel. In a sermon in April of 2002 he called the Jews “the enemies of Allah, the sons of apes and pigs.” In an interview he gave to Al ‘Ahd wa Al-Mithaq on December 12, 1998, the sheik explained: “I’ve been fighting normalization for over 30 years. This is proved by the dissertation that I wrote in 1966 entitled ‘The Israelites in the Koran and Suna [Following the way of the Prophet].’ In this dissertation I discussed their dark history, their ways of deceiving Islam and Muslims, their atrocities as depicted by the Koran, their false claims and the ways in which they were answered by the Koran, and the punishments Allah imposed on them…There is not a single Egyptian that maintains the normalization and whoever does so is a traitor to his religion…”

Mr. Tantawi’s religious rulings have also been influential regarding support for the intifada. In an interview with the UAE newspaper Al-Khaleej on October 13, 2000, Mr. Tantawi declared, “the blessed Al-Quds intifada …demonstrated to the whole world that Allah has recruited to Al Aqsa a force that will defend it from the Jewish enemy…Permission for jihad to confront the enemy and liberate the pillaged land is an obligation upon the Muslims in every place and in every era…Jihad was legislated in Islam in order to repel the aggressor enemy…and to fight the vile. This is what our brothers are now doing in occupied Palestine. Their jihad against the enemy…and against the Israeli tyranny is a legitimate and noble jihad…”

With the most recent suicide bombing in Israel last month, which killed 19 and brought the total of Israelis killed during the intifada to over 1,200, Mr. Tantawi has also been influential in sanctioning these terrorist attacks. In April 2001, Mr. Tantawi declared, “the suicide operations are of self-defense and a kind of martyrdom, as long as the intention behind them is to kill the enemy’s soldiers, and not women or children.” During 2002, Mr. Tantawi called on Palestinian Arabs to intensify “martyrdom operations” against the “Zionist enemy,” and described them as the highest form of jihad operations.

At this point, Mr. Tantawi upgraded his position, adding that “every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law and Islamic commandment.” In March of 2002, he further explained, “Those who blow themselves up among aggressors…and assault honor and property of Palestinians, are martyrs.”

Mr. Tantawi’s visit to America could provide an opportunity for American policy makers and the American Muslims who invited him, not only to ask him about the issues mentioned in this article, but also about his support for attacks on U.S. troops, about clerics under his control at Al-Azhar declaring jihad on the America, as well as his previous calls for Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons to fight “the enemy.”

Mr. Stalinsky is Executive Director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).