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Chicago: Islamic preacher blames Jews for coronavirus and warns Muslims to arm themselves against neighbors

Apr 29, 2020 4:00 pm By Hesham Shehab

One of Chicago’s most notorious anti-Semites has responded to the COVID-19 outbreak in a despicable manner: by blaming Jews and encouraging Muslims to arm themselves against their neighbors.

During a series of alarmist rants on his YouTube channel, Imam Omar Baloch simultaneously declared that the coronavirus may be a Zionist-American plot to throttle the growth of the Chinese economy, a punishment from Allah and the work of shadowy secret societies.

However, Baloch’s most concerning online lecture occurred on March 22, when he suggested that the coronavirus presents a “very good opportunity” for Muslims to “purchase firearms” ahead of confrontations with their Trump-supporting neighbors.

“Muslims need to start having systems of security, systems of firearms,” he began. “You have to really think about the safety of your Muslim community. … If you live in the suburbs, the neighbor to your right and neighbor to your left, those that love Trump don’t necessarily love you that much. This is a very good opportunity,” the imam said, adding that these same “neighbors” will become desperate after six to seven months of “financial crisis.”

An anti-vaxxer and doomsday-prepper, Baloch was born in Chicago and preached there for much of his adult life, only recently relocating to Abingdon, Md., to work at the Al Falah mosque. He studied at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and also attended Al-Azhar University in Egypt and the Jamia Thul Ahlul Hadith in Pakistan.

Despite his international education, Baloch proliferates outlandish and implausible theories based on medieval superstitions, reflecting a curious paranoia common among extremists of every persuasion.

To make the case that the coronavirus is a sadistic plot engineered by the West, Baloch sought to legitimize previous conspiracies as a matter of fact.

During a March 13 YouTube video titled “Corona Virus Man Made or God Sent?” Baloch explained that there are two types of conspiracies. According to the imam’s stunted logic, the first kind is observably “clear,” such as the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “It doesn’t fit the facts,” said Baloch, arguing that the deadly plot was carried out to show that “Muslims are terrorists.”

The imam refused to “give a dissertation” to prove his 9/11 conspiracy, which was premised on a single observation: “You can’t have a plane hit a building, and then it just comes tumbling down as if there was a bomb attached to it,” he reasoned.

Baloch shared his hypothesis regarding the pandemic. “The economy was about to fall, and then they needed some way to deal with the falling economy,” he reasoned. “So, there was no better timing than to come up with this coronavirus and then blame it for everything that happens.”

The imam continued, reading a Foreign Policy headline: “‘Beijing Knows Who to Blame for the Virus: America.’ Okay, but we know who’s behind [it],” he said, referring to a Jewish conspiracy. “It’s not innocent America. In a sense, you know, we know who really is behind it.”

As an Islamic scholar, Baloch attempted to provide theological justification for his superstitions, offering “conspiracy theories from a Koranic perspective,” and asking, “Does not Allah punish people with plagues?”

Baloch pointed to the Divine nature of the coronavirus. “It’s like from Allah: ‘This will not affect kids.’ And it’s from Allah that it’s affecting so many people that are very famous. Like Trump’s daughter now has it. The Supreme Ayatollah—they have it,” said Baloch, ostensibly referring to Ivanka Trump and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, neither of whom is afflicted with COVID-19.

Next, Baloch identified two corrupt and immoral tribes mentioned in Islamic eschatology and known as Yājūj and Mājūj (Gog and Magog). Contrary to scholarly consensus, he claimed that these tribes are “a specific variation of the Jews” who are “behind” the coronavirus.

However, Baloch was careful not to attribute too much power to infidels. “Once you release [coronavirus], where it goes is in the hands of Allah,” he said. The imam argued that the pandemic could have been an experiment that went awry, as with the popular fiction novel Jurassic Park. “If you play with nature, you don’t know what it will do,” he insisted.

To the Maryland imam, the United States and Israel are inseparable, with the Zionist hidden hand perpetually manipulating American politics. Indeed, Baloch sees Jewish perpetrators behind every global plot. “Poor U.S. is used as a smokescreen by Yājūj and Mājūj,” he said, using his erroneous euphemism for Jews. “Yājūj and Mājūj does 9/11 and puts America in the middle … and over here it does coronavirus and puts America in the middle.”

Having established a Jewish connection—however, flimsy—to the virus, Baloch naturally imagined other accomplices. “You know why there’s so many of these secret societies: the Bones, the Freemasons, the Illuminati? Because this is how Shaytan [Satan] keeps them all divided to keep them under control,” he said.

Baloch is not the only Islamist to peddle conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. Most Islamists spin the bitter realities of failing Muslim states and their backward Middle Eastern communities into narratives of victimization that fuel resentment towards the West, Jews and Israel.

However, as long as anti-Semitic Islamist leaders such as Baloch continue to find Western scapegoats for Muslim failures, they will not be able to build healthy Islamic communities. By reviving seventh-century mythologies and projecting them on the present, they work against freedom of faith, human equality and treasured Western values. Such Islamist leaders are forces of regression and backwardness, and they only serve to hinder the integration of Muslims in the West.

Hesham Shehab is a counter-Islamist Grid Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

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Filed Under: conspiracy paranoia, Islamic antisemitism, Muslim clerics Tagged With: Chicago, coronavirus, illinois, Omar Baloch


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Comments

  1. CogitoErgoSum says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 4:12 pm

    To make things worse, the U.S. government has now officially admitted that UFO’s are real. Hey, maybe space aliens are to blame for bringing this virus to Earth from another planet in a galaxy, far, far away.

    • SDnikko says

      Apr 29, 2020 at 4:29 pm

      Space Jews.

      • spindler says

        Apr 30, 2020 at 2:09 pm

        Jews in space, saving the human race, Mel brooks

    • R Russell says

      May 1, 2020 at 3:54 am

      CogitoErgoSum
      These UFOs are not extra-terrestrials, but interdimensionals.
      LA Marzulli has done a lot of research on these and has many books about them.

  2. Tony Maim says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 4:19 pm

    Welcome to the NEW Middle west of America

    • CogitoErgoSum says

      Apr 29, 2020 at 4:25 pm

      Yeah, this is progress? I’m thinking the reason those the reason those space aliens have not made first contact with us is because they don’t want any planet that still has a religion as backwards as Islam to become a part of their federation.

      • tim gallagher says

        Apr 29, 2020 at 6:02 pm

        Very funny comment. CogitoErgoSum. It gave me a good laugh. And I agree about how backward Islam is. Islam’s goal is to drag us back to living in 7th century Arab fashion. Islam is unbelievably backward and primitive. It is staggering that any bunch of people, in the 21st century, want to drag us all back to the darkest of dark ages.

        • Michael Copeland says

          Apr 30, 2020 at 6:51 am

          “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”
          Churchill

        • Mo says

          Apr 30, 2020 at 7:45 am

          Maybe isolationist islamist communities have never really been in the 21st century yet?

        • tim gallagher says

          Apr 30, 2020 at 5:52 pm

          Churchill was spot on as usual, Michael, about Islam’s hideous, backward nature. If it was a backward way of living practised by a bunch of pacifists, such as, say, the Amish seem to be, then I couldn’t care. That would be harmless. But Islam is this endlessly violent ideology, which dreams of nothing but murdering non-believers, and wants to drag everyone back to the 7th century as Arabs lived back then. Islam should have become extinct centuries ago and so much human misery would have been avoided.

        • David says

          Apr 30, 2020 at 6:50 pm

          Islam is really intents (lol) We cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand, but I wish muslims would.

      • FYI says

        Apr 29, 2020 at 6:19 pm

        The alien invaders would probably have to study Arabic as allah we know to be a linguistically challenged god.

        allah,the islamic version of the atheists’ parody god,the Sky Fairy:the great one shinned,two right handed Arab Sultan in the Sky who can ONLY be understood through one language Arabic.

        {But wait!wasn’t the Torah revealed through HEBREW?Did allah forget that?If the Torah is in Hebrew but allah only speaks and writes in Arabic….why was the Torah revealed in Hebrew?}

        And of course the koran could never be translated into Klingon or Romulan etc as the “scholars” of islam insist it can only be understood in classical Arabic.I doubt the aliens would be impressed by the islamic claims that the koran is full of incredible scientific miracles{it isn’t:muslims just fiddle the Arabic and PRETEND the koran is a scientific masterpiece full of incredible wonders.It has been widely debunked.And if anyone disputes that,they just try that old fiddle the Arabic trick…”oh that’s not what it means.Oh you couldn’t possibly understand the koran’s Arabic”}

        • Lilith Wept says

          Apr 29, 2020 at 7:24 pm

          Wouldn’t it be hilarious if someone were to publish a Koran in Klingon?!.
          Would moslsms be happy , they it was being translated into another language ? Or angry that it was being published in a made up language a western made up language?
          Maybe their heads would explode trying to figure it out!

        • gravenimage says

          Apr 29, 2020 at 8:34 pm

          Lilith, the Qur’an has already been published in Klingon:

          https://islamicanews.com/muslim-nerds-translate-quran-klingon/

          Let’s see–apart from a few Klingons who have joined the Federation and become largely civilized, Klingons are violent barbarians obsessed with “Honor”. Sounds like Mohammedans to me…

        • David says

          Apr 30, 2020 at 6:57 pm

          The Torah was revealed by Yahweh, not Allah. (Allah does not speak or write in Arabic. Gabriel did the speaking.) The two Gods ‘speak’ different languages.
          If the Koran was only available in Arabic, nearly all muslims would not be able to understand it. It is hard enough to understand when translated!

  3. John says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 5:15 pm

    How did this nutcase ever get accepted to Georgetown University? Muslim affirmative action? I doubt he ever graduated.

  4. FYI says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 5:19 pm

    “once you release coronavirus,where it goes is in the hands of allah”

    Would that be al Lah the ARAB god’s ……TWO RIGHT HANDS?

    if allah cannot get his own anatomy right,how is he supposed to know about Science?

    • David says

      Apr 30, 2020 at 6:59 pm

      FYI: “What the right hands possess” Sounds familiar?

  5. tim gallagher says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 6:18 pm

    This Muslim madman’s take on things is extraordinarily twisted and diseased. Pretty well everyone knows that this virus came out of China, but he somehow finds a way to blame the Jews. It is obvious that he is such an obsessive person that he’d find the Jews guilty of everything that ever happens in this world. He is surely a complete lunatic. Hopefully, he is so far out there that only a small number of Muslims will believe his diseased conspiracy theories. Probably not though, as many Muslims seem to be completely irrational in their thinking. There are probably large numbers of Muslims who share this madman’s diseased view of things. When I think of the weird and wonderful Muslim “scholars'” theories about the Covid-19 virus, I keep thinking, you just couldn’t make this stuff up. These Muslim “scholars” are such sick and twisted people.

    • David says

      Apr 30, 2020 at 7:02 pm

      Tim:The cure is : Camel Urine! Did you hear the true story about the fraudster who sold camel urine? It turns out it was his own urine! He got prosecuted! He was really taking the piss! Then selling it.

  6. David Grisez says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 7:34 pm

    Another Islamic Imam comes out with his set of conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 Coronavirus. And like so many conspiracies from Islamic Imam’s, the antisemitism comes out and they blame the Jews. There is really only two possible sources for this Coronavirus, it either came from a Chinese Wet Market in Wuhan or it was an accidental release from the Virus Research Laboratory in Wuhan. Those are the only possibilities that make any sense.

    • Westman says

      Apr 29, 2020 at 8:49 pm

      This guy, Imam Omar Baloch is simply amazing; holding three, count ’em, conflicting conspiracy theories, simultaneously! Only a mind steeped in the deep contradictions of the Quran and Sunnah could execute such illogical divisive thoughts without a mental breakdown. Perhaps Imam Omar Baloch has three seperate personalities, each who dislikes Jews?

      • gravenimage says

        Apr 29, 2020 at 8:52 pm

        Sounds right…

  7. gravenimage says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 8:30 pm

    Chicago: Islamic preacher blames Jews for coronavirus and warns Muslims to arm themselves against neighbors
    ……………………

    How long before Muslims here start mass murdering their Jewish and Christian neighbors?

    • David says

      Apr 30, 2020 at 7:06 pm

      That would be really foolish of muslims. It would surely trigger a bloodbath against them. COVID seems to be infecting more of the muslims. Oh well, they must be bad muslims in that case.

      • gravenimage says

        Apr 30, 2020 at 7:11 pm

        Muslims have attacked Infidels many times. The idea that the Infidels have then gone on a bloodbath against Muslims is simply not the case.

        This “backlash” is largely a phantom affair.

  8. ntesdorf says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 9:28 pm

    By the look of his photo, if you had Imam Omar Baloch as your neighbour in Chicago, you would want to be heavily armed and vigilant.

  9. Walter Sieruk says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 9:44 pm

    It’s not the Jewish people who are responsible for the plague of the coronavirus but the vicious and cruel god of Islam,Allah.

    For when getting down to basic Quran theology which is the Quran based worldview the one who is really to blame and is responsible for the coronavirus plague is the god of Islam ,Allah. For according to the Quran Allah had sent cruel disaster of coronavirus on human beings .

    This means then the god of Islam, as if he really does is a destructive and malicious god. For the Quran teaches in Surah 57:22. “No misfortune [disaster] can happen on earth or in your souls but is recorded in a decree [Quran ] before [in eternity ] We [Allah] bring it into existence: that is easy for Allah.”

    Therefore according the Islam’s “holy book,” the Quran the Islamic god, Allah, is guilty of infecting people with coronavirus What a cruel vicious, malicious god Allah must be. So Allah is than a very unloving malice –filled god.

    Nevertheless, all Christians and Jews shout not lose faith and heart in the God of the Bible as vicious by sending coronavirus on people.

    This is because the god of Islam is should be made clear that the God of the Bible is not really Allah the god of Islam. To explain, through the passing of time it has become widely accepted that the word “Allah” is just the Arabic word for God. This started when truth compromising Bible “translators” substituted the word Allah where the word God should have had been uses in the Arabic translation of the Bible. Furthermore, in the glossary in the book ASSASSINS! By Dr. Haha Lung it defines Allah as the “Pre-Islamic Lunar god : the god of Islam. “

    Likewise, in the book entitled INSIDE ISLAM by a former Muslim who is now a Christian, Reza F. Safa on pages 22, 23 it reads “In pre-Islamic times both Allah –worship and Baal-worship involved the worship of the sun, the moon and the stars which h defines them as astral religions. [Which are condemned in the Bible, Second Kings 23:5] The crescent moon, which was the symbol of moon worship, is also the symbol of Islam.”

    In conclusion the Islamic god, Allah, is not the God of the Bible. The words in brackets are my own. In addition other some other books that expose this little known truths are WHO IS THIS ALLAH ? by G..J.O.. Moshay also UNVEILING ISLAM by Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner and THE ISLAMIC INVASION by Robert Morey . There is also PHILISTINE by Ramon Bennett and ANSWERING JIHAD by Mabeel Qureshi

  10. RichardL says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 9:50 pm

    “Despite” his education? He went to Al Ahzar and Georgetown! I know both places of indoctrination from the inside – I even was a guest of the sheikh al azhar for a long time. Most Jesuit universities have been taken over by the anti-Christ and the Jesuit pope is not exactly my favourite. If anyone ever travels to Cairo I recommend you walk into al-Ahzar, it is right opposite al Husseini and the Khan. It is vomit-inducing and looks like IS central.

  11. mortimer says

    Apr 29, 2020 at 11:57 pm

    There is more Jew hatred in the Koran than there is in Mein Kampf. This mullah has brainwashed himself by mindlessly repeating it thousands of times.

  12. Martin says

    Apr 30, 2020 at 1:59 am

    Look at the guy. He’s a bum. Who cares what he thinks?

    • gravenimage says

      Apr 30, 2020 at 7:19 pm

      Unfortunately, lots of violent Muslims care.

  13. Ray Jarman says

    Apr 30, 2020 at 2:23 am

    The most egregious is that it seems YouTube has not pulled the rant while it pulls the video of two doctors talking about COVID 2. Their posting was pulled because the had the nerve to disagree with the leftist
    powers that be concerning opening the country.

  14. Rob Porter says

    Apr 30, 2020 at 9:32 am

    How stupid has America become that an imam can talk this hateful way and yet not be arrested for inciting violence. If not born in the U.S., why is he not deported?

  15. Rolf Wittwer says

    Apr 30, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    What and where did many of these so called “Imams” actually study?
    “Stupidity” seems to be one of those fields of study.
    Most of such figures require psychiatric treatment.
    It would be that easy!

    • David says

      May 3, 2020 at 9:45 am

      Rolf: They didn’t study. They allowed themselves to be voluntarily indoctrinated (preaching to the perverted)

  16. jimfebbroriello8574 says

    May 1, 2020 at 9:05 am

    When they say this…they mean go out and get weapons because they are going to need them for future jihad attacks!

    Don’t let these animals fool you.
    Don’t let these bastards scare you!!

  17. don vito says

    May 3, 2020 at 3:17 pm

    Arm up? In a sanctuary city? With very strong gun laws ( except for criminals)? Hey, islam is an organized crime cult syndicate so saracens may get the race exemption, to carry.

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