Imam Mohamed al-Asi, who preached and taught outside the Islamic Center of Washington DC for decades (until very recently) was invited to Canada’s York University, where he told an applauding audience that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks. (Hat tip: Daniel Pipes.)

The “Israeli Zionists” and the “neo-cons in Washington, D.C.,” are to blame for leading the CIA into protecting Israeli interests and undermining Islamic self determination, al-Asi told an evening program in Founders Assembly Hall attended by more than 200 people, who received him warmly.

The host introduced al-Asi as the imam who was expelled from the Islamic Centre in Washington, D.C., due to the fiery nature of his sermons. For the past 20 years, al-Asi has been delivering his speeches from the sidewalk in front of the centre.

“The Jewish lobby in the United States, and I say Jewish lobby, preferring to say Zionist lobby, but the fact of the matter is that the Jews themselves refer to it as the Jewish lobby … was very disturbed that Muslims were beginning to stand up and their voice was beginning to be heard. Something had to be done about this,” al-Asi said at York.

“If they can’t criminalize the Muslim community, there must be some major cataclysmic type of criminal activity … so they need something that would jolt public opinion into perceiving everything that is Islamic as terrorist. Without Sept. 11, they wouldn’t have been able to do that,” he said.

“Sept. 11 was used by the Israeli Zionists, who by now had their representatives in those sectors of people called neo-conservatives [who were] all steering American policy to protect Israeli Zionist interests.”

Al-Asi was part of an event titled “From Ground Zero to Islamophobia: Who Are the Victims?” that was hosted by seven different campus organizations, including the Muslim Action Network, the Muslim Student Association, the Middle Eastern Student Association, the Pakistani Student Association and the Pakistani Student Federation.