protest because we don't recognize Congress! The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!" Observers such as the Intelligence Summit have called the Islamic Thinkers Society a Fundamentalist Islamic group. Activities The group is based in the largely immigrant community of the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens, New York City but operates in the wider New York area. It is composed mainly of second-generation young Arab, Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslim immigrants with a few converts. 2005 On March 19, 2005, the organization protested the intergender Muslim service held at Synod House of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. ITS members stood outside the service, irate that a woman was allowed to lead the ceremony. The group changed its name to the Islamic Thinkers Society and held a rally against Israel, co-sponsored by the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, in New York City outside the Israeli mission to the United Nations on May 6, 2005. Placards were displayed which equated Nazi and Israeli symbols; other signs were emblazoned with the symbol of the Hamas militant group, and proclaimed that "Palestine is Islamic Land", "Allah Will Destroy the Terrorist State of Israel", and "Complete Liberation of Palestine From the Zionist Scum". One of the slogans shouted by the crowd in Arabic was the anti-Jewish slogan: "Khaibar, Khaibar ya Yahud, jaysh Muhammad sawfa ya'ud!" evoking the historical battle between the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Jews of the Khaybar oasis. On March 23, 2004 a rally to mourn the death of the militant leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the group Hamas was also held in front of the Israeli consulate. The leader of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, Imam Red Shata, who was quoted by the New York Daily News, publicly stated, "The lion of Palestine has been martyred." In the same speech, he condemned all violence. he stated that "we don't hate Jews ...to kill one man is to kill all mankind." On June 8, 2005 the ITS publicly desecrated and ripped up an American flag on the street in New York City during a rally on 74th Street and 37th Avenue in the borough of Queens. This event, which its members called "Operation: Desecrate American Flag" was videotaped by the Islamic Thinkers Society and can be seen on the Internet. The group's five-minute video begins with a man speaking in English, "Just