Elmasry later apologized for his remarks, calling them his "biggest mistake" in 30 years of public life and offered his resignation, which was not accepted by the CIC's board.
"[2] The remarks only received attention several weeks after the broadcast, and after Elmasry's apology and proffered resignation, when a press release by the Canadian Arab Federation highlighted them.
"[2] In a letter to the Toronto Star following Sellar's column, Elmasary complained about the affair: Canadian news media - including the Star - launched a relentless and unfair attack against the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and me while covering up for weeks the outrageous statements made on the same show by Adam Aptowitzer, then the Ontario chairman of the B'nai Brith Institute of International Affairs.
While never referring to Aptowitzer's statements, the media used news stories, editorials, op-ed pieces, columns, photos, front-page coverage, cartoons, and radio and television commentaries to paint a negative picture of CIC and myself which seriously distorts and falsifies the truth.
[5] Regarding the October 2004 controversy involving Elmasry, Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, had stated that "...to believe all Israelis are targets is the height of hypocrisy.
"[9] However, Fatah has argued that "in the Muslim world[...] allegations of apostasy are used to silence critics and human rights workers" and that "Some interpretations of Sharia call for apostates to be killed.
Mr. Bush has started a new and ugly cold war and he clearly intends to transform it into a hot one, sooner rather than later; the media and political hype will translate into real aggression, bringing death, misery and destruction to yet another Middle East state.
The evil character of human greed and power-lust is about to raise its ugly specter once again and subjugate a weaker nation that refuses to toe the American line.
Elmasry also stated that the decision to place Hezbollah and Hamas on this list was "dictated by special interest groups with agendas that are contrary to peace with justice".
wrote Elmasry in a letter to the National Post analogizing the current situation to the history of anti-Semitism where "European Jews were found guilty-by-association of many crimes, from killing the Son of God to any professional misconduct, beginning with the local Jewish doctor".
[17] In 2002, Elmasry denounced an email from the Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque that urged followers not to wish anyone a "Merry Christmas" asserting that this was tantamount to congratulating someone for murder and adultery.
"[18] Elmasry says he and the CIC support "smart integration where Muslims can practise their religion but can also be involved in advancing the well-being of their home country, which is Canada".
[19] In 2005, the Canadian Islamic Congress supported recommendations by Marion Boyd that the government of Ontario permit sharia tribunals to which Muslims could voluntarily submit civil disputes and whose findings would then have legal weight under the Arbitration Act.
The Muslim Canadian Congress demanded that the CIC apologize for "false" accusations that those who criticize sharia are "smearing Islam, ridiculing the Koran [and] badmouthing Muhammad".
[23] The MCC wrote,Your [Elmasry's] false and utterly irresponsible accusations of blasphemy have exposed these active, dynamic and prominent members of the Canadian Muslim community and their families to enormously dangerous consequences.
[23] Elmasry responded by stating that Islam has no punishment for denouncing the religion, its holy book, or Muhammad, and he dismissed as "nonsense" the notion that his words could be construed as a death sentence.
[19]Commenting in June 2006 on the decision of United Church, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to reissue a motion to divest in Israeli companies, Elmasry stated:
His next gaffe [the first being the October 2004 controversy] was the declaration that Israel's cruelty could be explained by the fact that the Old Testament is full of justification of bloody deeds by the ancient Hebrews.
"[28] In an article written in the National Post, Ezra Levant, the publisher of the now-defunct Western Standard accused Elmasry of hostility towards Jews.
During the meeting, Levant claims Elmasry engaged in "a lengthy rant against the 'zhoos' who control the media, the 'zhoos' who are 'on top' of the world and keep the Muslims on 'the bottom', and about how my own comments were suspect because I, too, was a 'zhoo.
[31] Elmarsy has also called for Britain to apologize to the Palestinians for its role in the creation of Israel and for its use "of military violence, political stratagems and economic influence to inflict generations of injustice, destruction, misery and death on a native people living in the path of their plans".
"[33] He has also written that: "[...]Zionism, as a political ideology, has succeeded only in building an apartheid state for Jews; an elaborate ghetto kept separate from its Palestinian neighbors by concentrated military power, an aesthetically monstrous 'security wall,' economic dependency on Western support, compulsory military conscription and training (including how to kill with weapons), and a hate-based education system for Jewish children that teaches them to despise anyone and anything Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim, in that order.
"[37] In an article written in The Canadian Charger in June 2009, Elmasry wrote that "Israelis are indoctrinated in Zionism" and that "violent militarism is not only a Zionist ideal but an economical and a sociological necessity.
"[38] In a subsequent article, Elmasry wrote that "in the West Zionist Jews create, encourage, support wars in Afghanistan and Iraq... [and] cheer for racist, anti-immigration politicians in Canada and Europe."
Elmasry concluded by stating that the reason Kovel's book has been "buried" is that "our so-called 'free' press and broadcasting networks[...] are free only to those who own them and use their power to express their own views.
"[36] In 2004, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty encouraged Muslim parents to allow their children to attend public school classes that include teaching tolerance of gays and lesbians.
"[41] In July 2008, writing in an op-ed for the Montreal Gazette, Elmasry called Robert Mugabe "clumsy" but "no worse than many leaders in the developing world" and questioned: "Why so did many Western media outlets, including Canadian ones, send their own correspondents to cover an election in a poor faraway African country of about 13-million black people?
"[42] Father Raymond J. de Souza criticized Elmasry for this op-ed, writing that Mugabe is "a man so isolated that even his fellow African dictators have distanced themselves from him".
"[44] Elmasry contrasted Khadr's case with that of dual Canadian-British citizen William Sampson, who was freed from a death sentence in Saudi Arabia in 2003.
Kay rhetorically asked "what the Christian tribespeople from southern Sudan who have been abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and enslaved by Arab Muslims in recent years would make of Elmasry's historical fantasies".