Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/94842
'HATE SPEECH' DEPLORED The Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee has its headquarters on McIntosh Road in Sarasota. File photo JEWISH FEDERATION CRITICIZED FOR PLANNING EVENT STARRING AN ANTI-ISLAM FIREBRAND By Cooper Levey-Baker Associate Editor An upcoming appearance by a controversial anti-Islam author, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee, is prompting sharp criticism, with at least one critic label- ing the writer's past words "hate speech." At the center of the controversy is Brigitte Ga- briel, the author of Because They Hate: A Sur- vivor of Islamic Terror Warns America and They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. She is scheduled to appear in Sarasota on Dec. 12 as part of the Jewish Federation's ongoing Israel @ 65 celebration, intended to commemorate the founding of the Jewish state in 1947. While a press release promoting her appear- ance describes Gabriel as "a leading expert on global Islamic terrorism," that fails to capture the heat of her rhetoric. The New York Times quoted her last year charging that radical Mus- lims have infiltrated the CIA, the FBI, the Pen- tagon and the State Department, and that the "cancer" of radical Islam takes its ideology di- rectly from the Muslim holy book, the Quran. Gabriel also leads a nationwide grassroots organization dubbed ACT! for America, dedi- cated to opposing "violent jihad, stealth jihad, the advance of sharia law, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, or the scourge of politi-