Mo Baydoun, mayor of Dearborn Heights, Mich., faced criticism on social media following his response to the attack on Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in the western suburbs of Detroit, on March 12.
Baydoun wrote that the suspect, identified by federal authorities as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, was a resident of Dearborn Heights who had recently “lost several members of his own family, including his niece and nephew, in an Israeli attack on their home in Lebanon.”
“Everyone deserves to worship in peace, and we must unequivocally condemn any attack on a house of worship or the people within it,” the mayor stated.
Authorities said Ghazali, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, rammed a vehicle into the synagogue complex, which houses an early childhood center, and opened fire before being fatally shot by security personnel. The synagogue’s director of security was injured, and dozens of officers were treated for smoke inhalation. The children and staff inside the building were evacuated safely.
“A conflict halfway around the world is somehow a rationale for trying to blow up a synagogue full of children and murder innocents, according to the mayor of Dearborn Heights,” the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote, calling the mayor’s statement a “disgusting, twisted response.”
Tal Fortgang, legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute, stated, “Is it really so hard to say, ‘anyone who believes it is acceptable to harm American Jews in response to Israel’s actions is wrong and unwelcome in our community’?”
Multiple media outlets, citing law-enforcement officials, have reported that Ghazali’s brothers, who were killed in the airstrikes, were known members of Hezbollah.
