Above Image: Several hundred Muslims march down Atlantic Avenue after a rally in the park at Albany Avenue, across the street from the Masjid Al-Taqwa mosque, and the Atlantic City campus of Stockton University.

Last Friday afternoon,  hundreds of gathered for a “Peace Rally for Palestine”.  It was held in the park by the Masjid Al-Taqwa mosque.  That mosque is located at Atlantic and Hartford Avenues  in Atlantic City, NJ.  It is in the middle of Stockton University's Atlantic City campus.

The rally included various prayers and speeches.  Men and women sat separately.

One of the speakers was Imam Jawad Rasul.  Rasul resides in Augusta, Georgia. He was previously the imam of the Masjid Al-Taqwa mosque in Atlantic City.

He is now the imam of the much larger Islamic Center of Brushy Creek, near Austin, Texas.  Jawad Rasul became well known in 2012.  At that time, the New York City Police Department disclosed that it had been monitoring events and Facebook posts of students involved in Muslim student activities at colleges throughout the Northeast since 2006. In particular, it released a 2008 report on a whitewater rafting trip Rasul had organized for a dozen Muslim students in upstate New York.  At that time, Rasul was a student of Media and Communication Arts at the City College of New York (CCNU).  An informant for the New York Police Department was one of the participants.  The police report did not disclose any wrongdoing or suspicious or dangerous activity by anyone in the group.

This surveillance by the New York Police Department became known to the public in 2011.  According to the Guardian, that was when the Associated Press published stories of how "the New York City police department, with the help of the CIA, built one of the most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies in the nation" after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the program.  He said "The police department goes where there are allegations, and they look to see whether those allegations are true.  That's what you would expect them to do. That's what you would want them to do".

Click Here For Link To Full 2012 Article On Jawad Rasul in the Guardian: Muslim student monitored by the NYPD: 'It just brings everything home' | NYPD | The Guardian

In March of 2012, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie publicly denounced the program and openly criticized New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly over the surveillance of Muslim activities in New Jersey.

Click Here for Link To March 1, 2012 post on CBS TV News:  Christie Lashes Out At NYPD, Ray Kelly Over Surveillance Of Muslims In New Jersey - CBS New York (cbsnews.com)

The Press of Atlantic City posted various photos of the event on its website.  Click Here For The Link:

GALLERY: Pro-Palestinian rally in Atlantic City (pressofatlanticcity.com)

However, it did not yet publish any story reporting what was said by Jawad Rasul or others at the event.

After the speeches at the park, the crowd walked down Atlantic Avenue to the corner of Florida Avenue.  Rasul and other speakers again spoke from the balcony of a building there.

Many in the crowd carried signs attacking Israel for its response to the October 7 attacks against it by Hamas in Gaza. Others carried signs urging the destruction of Israel and a “Free Palestine”.

Later that evening, Jawad Rasul was scheduled to give a lecture back at the Masjid Al-Taqwa mosque.  The subject was the story of Umar Ibn Al- Khattab the Arab leader who first conquered Jerusalem for Islam in 634. (Christian Crusaders later recaptured the city in 1099.)

Rasul also plans to give a second lecture Saturday morning on Salahuddin Ayyub, the Muslim leader who captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders after almost 200 years in 1187.

Click Here For Our Previous Posts Deoband: How Radical Wahabi Islam Came From Saudi Arabia To Modern India,