Ali Fawaz
Ali Fawaz (Arabic: علي فواز; a.k.a Ali Hassan Fawaz) is a Hezbollah[1] Islamist and a Khomeinist activist based in Fremont, California. Since he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001, Fawaz, along with his wife Kathleen Kraus (a.k.a. Noor), have been especially active at Fatimiyya Islamic Center of Hayward and Shia Association of Bay Area (SABA) of San Jose. Both organizations are dedicated to propagating Khomeinism and anti-Semitism in the Bay Area and beyond.
هداهما الله
Ali Fawaz is also a staunch promoter of the oppressive anti-American Iranian regime and an adherent of its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
علي خامنئي
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
Ali Fawaz is a Lebanese national and a naturalized U.S. citizen. His spouse, Kathleen Kraus, is American. She converted to Shia Islam after she had met Fawaz.
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Background
Ali Fawaz was born to a Lebanese Shia-Muslim family from Abbassieh, South Lebanon, where he spent his early years. His impoverished parents immigrated to Sierra Leone, Africa, to seek work opportunities. They initially left their son in Lebanon in the custody of his aunt. He later on also relocated to Africa and rejoined his parents there.
There are numerous very large Lebanese Shia communities in West Africa. The Shiites of Lebanon migrated to Africa in very large numbers to escape their country's discriminatory sectarian government system, the ongoing wars between the numerous Lebanon-based factions and Israel, and the tyranny of the Shia feudal landlords.
Up until the 1990's, the Lebanese political system was set-up by French colonialists to openly favor especially the Maronite Catholic community. The Shia, although the largest sect in Lebanon, consisted mainly of less educated mountain peasantry; thus, they were placed at a political and hence economic disadvantage. It did not help that up until the 1980's, the Shiite villagers of Lebanon were ruled by ruthless feudal overlords who neglected the needs of their subjects. Indeed, the grandfather of Ali Fawaz was employed by one of these powerful feudal families, the Osseirans, and was, not surprisingly, mistreated at their hands.
The hardship of living under feudal tyranny and the state-imposed economic disadvantage was sufficient to drive numerous Shiites away from South Lebanon to seek opportunities elsewhere. However, the raging Arab-Israeli conflict was a new factor that drove the Shia afar from their remote villages in droves. After the Arab defeat during the Six-Day War with Israel in June 1967, the Lebanese front was finally opened. The Israelis began shelling the Shia villages in retaliation to Palestinian commando raids into Galilee and Israeli coastal settlements. If some can endure poverty, no one can tolerate shrapnels and bullets. The Shia migrated to the slums of Dahieh or left Lebanon altogether to escape the raging fighting and the oppressive destitution.
The Fawaz family was not an exception to these dire circumstances. Hence, they chose Africa.
These combined factors caused many members of the Shia community to become collectively embittered and espouse radicalism. So when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched his Iranian revolution in 1979, he found Lebanon a very fertile ground for exporting his ideology and Islamism. Like many disgruntled Lebanese Shiites, Ali Fawaz readily answered the revolutionary call!
Ali Fawaz in America
After completing his secondary studies in Sierra Leone, Ali Fawaz moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to pursue his higher education. While in college, he met Kathleen Kraus, whom he eventually married. Kraus was born in Upstate New York to a Christian family of German ancestry. Upon converting to Islam, Kraus adopted the Arabic name Noor (Arabic for light; Arabic: نور).
Following the example of her pro-Velayat-e Faqih husband, Kraus too eventually joined the Khomeini bandwagon and became a staunch anti-America Islamist.
Ali Fawaz and the convicted felon Rafic M. Labboun
Ali Fawaz is a follower and a subordinate of the senior Hezbollah cadre Rafic M. Labboun. The latter is the leader of the Bay Area-based Hezbollah operatives and activists.
المجرم المدان رفيق لبّون
هداه الله
Convicted felon Rafic M. Labboun
After the arrest of Rafic M. Labboun, Ali Fawaz provided him with unlimited support.
Notes and references
- ↑ Hezbollah (Arabic: "حزب الله"; a.k.a. Hizbullah; a.k.a. Hizballah) is an international terrorist organization based in Lebanon. Hezbollah has operatives stationed throughout the world, including the United States and Europe. For more information, please see: What is Hezbollah?
Article publishing history
This first version of this article was released here on 5 August 2010.
Also see
- Abdul Alim Musa
- Alipur: A Mini Iran in Karnataka
- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
- Mohamad Ali El Husseini
- Nabi R. Mir (a.k.a. Nabi Raza Abidi)
- Rafic M. Labboun
- Shia Association of Bay Area (Saba Center)
