Archive for the ‘CAIR’ category

CAIR Smears and Tries to Silence an IPT Fellow

March 30, 2017

CAIR Smears and Tries to Silence an IPT Fellow, Investigative Project on Terrorism, March 30, 2017

Using misleading claims and engaging in rank hypocrisy, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is waging a campaign to silence an Investigative Project on Terrorism senior fellow.

CAIR issued a news release Wednesday announcing its efforts to pressure the United States Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) into dropping Patrick Dunleavy as an instructor in “The Dynamics of International Terrorism” course. Dunleavy, who served as deputy inspector general for New York State’s Department of Corrections, focuses on prison radicalization.

It’s a topic he learned about first hand, including work on “Operation Hades,” an investigation into radical Islamist recruitment both in and out of prison.

CAIR’s release, however, ignored Dunleavy’s long record of accomplishment which includes serving as a consultant for the FBI and the International Association of Chiefs of Police on the National Data Exchange Program. He also has been a featured speaker at the United States Army’s Counter Terrorism Conference.

Instead, CAIR described a letter it sent to U.S. Air Force Special Operations Commander, Lieutenant General Marshall B. Webb, demanding Dunleavy be dropped from future programs. It cited three statements CAIR sees as “Islamophobic”:

1) “To Americans [morality] means individual liberty, equal rights for men and women, religious freedom, free speech, etc. But these are contrary to the moral code of Islam.” 2) “The concept of ‘friendship,’ . . .is a relationship based on at least some degree of shared moral and political ideals. By that standard no Muslim nation is a friend of the U.S.” and 3) “To many Muslim parents, visions of violence and death are indeed the ‘better future.'”

All three come from a 2011 article Dunleavy co-authored with Peter Gadiel, whose son James was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. As we’ll show, none of these statements is Islamophobic, as each is rooted in Quranic verses or is exhibited by disturbing numbers of Muslims throughout the world.

CAIR’s credibility should be considered first.

This is an organization deemed persona non grata by the FBI in 2008, based upon evidence agents uncovered which prove that CAIR was created as part of a Muslim Brotherhood-run Hamas support network in the United States. In addition to internal documents which place CAIR under the umbrella of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee,” CAIR co-founder Nihad Awad – the only executive director in the organization’s 23 year existence – is on the Palestine Committee’s telephone list. He also participated in a secret 1993 gathering of Hamas supporters in America who debated ways to “derail” the fledgling, U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords that at the time offered hope for a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestine Committee members could not accept a deal that recognized Israel’s right to exist and felt politically threatened by the elevation of the secular Palestine Liberation Organization to run a newly autonomous Palestinian Authority. Participants were encouraged not to mention Hamas by name. Rather, they were instructed to flip the spelling of the name, and talk about “Samah.” As this FBI translation shows, Awad dutifully followed these instructions.

In addition, CAIR not only defends people caught supporting terrorists, it often lauds them. Among many examples, it defended Palestinian Islamic Jihad board member Sami Al-Arian for years even after his conviction for supporting the terrorist group, and in 2014, chose to honor his family with a “Promoting Justice Award.”

It continues to laud convicted Palestinian bomber Rasmieh Odeh, who was responsible for a 1969 Jerusalem bombing that killed two college students.

This is the organization that finds Dunleavy unacceptable.

Officials already have reviewed all of Dunleavy’s USAFSOS presentations and told him that they found nothing offensive, and he has logged no complaints after teaching multiple courses a year for the past five years.

It’s worth noting that CAIR relies on one five-year-old article as the basis for its complaint. Potomac Books published Dunleavy’s The Fertile Soil of Jihad in 2011 and he is frequently published by the IPT and elsewhere. The absence of any truly bigoted statements is telling.

So is CAIR’s hypocrisy. Its website features a page devoted to debunking what it calls “Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories About CAIR.” (See the IPT’s analysis of CAIR’s false claims here.) On that “misinformation” page, CAIR whines twice about “guilt by association,” including a response to the number of CAIR officials who were implicated in terrorism-related cases.

Yet, the only other reason CAIR cites to disqualify him from the Air Force training is the fact that he’s an IPT senior fellow and CAIR does not like the IPT. It’s easy to understand why. We’ve done more to expose its history and highlight the radical views of its top officials and its opposition to law enforcement counter-terrorism efforts than anyone else.

But, again, Dunleavy has written more than two dozen articles for the IPT. CAIR cited none in arguing he “does not fit the U.S. military’s standards for a subject-matter expert” working with the dreadfully “Islamophobic” IPT.

The example CAIR does cite, as mentioned above, utterly fails to make CAIR’s case. First is the statement, “To Americans [morality] means individual liberty, equal rights for men and women, religious freedom, free speech, etc. But these are contrary to the moral code of Islam.”

That could sound bad. But looking at the world today, and the treatment of women, gays and other minorities living in majority-Muslim nations, individual liberty and equal rights are sorely missing. Right now, a Twitter hashtag is calling for the death of a Pakistani blogger named Ayaz Nizami. Nizami, an atheist, was among three people arrested last week and charged with blasphemy. #HangAyazNizami trended on Twitter in Pakistan afterward.

Polling indicates a shocking number of Muslims agree that death is the appropriate punishment for apostasy. In 2013, the Pew Research Center found 88 percent support among Egypt’s Muslims and among 62 percent of Pakistanis. Majority support also exists in Malaysia, Jordan and inside the Palestinian territories. More than a third of young British Muslims agreed.

No other religion today carries such risks for those who leave. Even Scientology stops at merely disconnecting people from their families when someone leaves the church.

Both Iran and the Islamic State execute homosexuals.

Meanwhile, most American mosques still segregate men and women during prayer, often sending the women into sparse and cramped back areas and side rooms. American clerics like Yasir Qadhi advocate a Saudi Arabian lifestyle for American Muslim women. Stay home and tend to your husbands, he preached. They “should not work, because their role is as wives and mothers.”

“You please your husband,” Qadhi said. “And in return your husband will give you the far more difficult things to do of earning money and doing this and that.”

This is a Muslim American cleric prominent enough to warrant an 8,500 word New York Times profile, preaching his view of Islam’s moral code in the 21st century.

There are Muslim reformers who want to change this mindset, and advocate for genuine equality for women and minorities. CAIR, like other Islamist groups, has refused to endorse their agenda and generally pretends they do not exist.

The second Dunleavy statement CAIR singles out: “The concept of ‘friendship,’ . . .is a relationship based on at least some degree of shared moral and political ideals. By that standard no Muslim nation is a friend of the U.S.”

In the Quran, verse 5:51 instructs Muslims not to “take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people. Verse 9:30 calls on Allah to “destroy” Jews and Christians.

Finally, CAIR takes issue with his 2011 statement that, “To many Muslim parents, visions of violence and death are indeed the ‘better future.'”

This is certainly true among a disturbing number of Palestinians. Parents of Palestinians killed attempting to carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis speak of their pride. It is routine for deadly attacks to be celebrated with people handing out sweets on Palestinian streets. Hamas media for years has indoctrinated children into jihad, using everything from training camps to plays and video productions showing young children pretending to be in combat. Hamas television even “martyred” a Mickey Mouse rip-off, and then sent a puppet bumblebee “to continue the path of Islam, of heroism, of martyrdom and of the mujahideen.”

CAIR has never condemned this indoctrination, and on a broader level, its officials refuse to condemn Hamas by name. In fact, they take great umbrage at the suggestion this is something worth doing.

But the organization does find time to smear a veteran law enforcement official and expert on radicalization because it does not agree with his message. It does not appear that the tactic will work in Dunleavy’s case. But it’s time for law enforcement officials, the military and the media to follow the FBI’s lead and recognize CAIR for what it is and simply dismiss such baseless attacks out of hand.

U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and Saul Alinsky: A Match Made in America

March 28, 2017

U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and Saul Alinsky: A Match Made in America, Center for Security Policy, March 28, 2017

(Please see also Trump backs off Muslim Brotherhood’s designation as terrorist organization. — DM)

In September 2015, the Center for Security Policy (CSP) published Star Spangled Shariah: The Rise of America’s First Muslim Brotherhood Party. Warnings issued then have since been confirmed, specifically, that the United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), while deceptively cloaked in red, white, and blue, is simply the leading edge of the Islamic Movement in this country. In pursuit of Civilization Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood’s information operations – including many tactics learned directly from the KGB – have enabled this organization to insinuate itself gradually into a position from which it can assault the pillars of our society. These include: academia, the U.S. judicial system, faith groups, all levels of government, the media, intelligence and security agencies, and our refugee resettlement and other immigration processes. As will be shown here, a development not new but recently uncovered reveals that USCMO Secretary General Ousamma Jammal is directly connected to Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a Marxist-Leninist organization dedicated to revolution in America.

In his Brotherhood/USCMO leadership role, Jammal has a well-established track record of political activism and success at developing strategic relationships for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood including with members of the U.S. government. In the ‘About Us’ section on the USCMO website, the third prong of the USCMO Mission Statement declares the necessity “to create and sustain an urgent, collective sense of direction that well-serves the American Muslim community toward the betterment and guidance of our nation.” What the USCMO fails to share with the American people is the USCMO’s commitment to the establishment of Islamic Law (shariah) in place of the U.S. Constitution.

It’s long been known that the USCMO is openly allied with far-left racist and revolutionary movements like Black Lives Matter. Recall that, in March 2016, the Center released a videowhich highlighted the statements of Muslim Brotherhood leaders that should be chilling to Americans who cherish the Constitution and oppose the expansion of shariah. That video showed top USCMO leadership figure, Nihad Awad (also the Executive Director of HAMAS USA dba the Council on American Islamic Relations or CAIR), explicitly aligning the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood with the Black Lives Matter movement. The Muslim Brotherhood alignment with the overall Red-Green Axis demonstrates the genuine aims of jihadis in suits: undermining the U.S. Constitution and national security through the global Islamic Movement.

In CSP’s Civilization Jihad Reader series publication, The Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration, and the Agenda to Erase America, author James Simpson provides several crucial data points that hint at the Brotherhood’s other, Marxist-Leninist, affiliations.

  • The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is the grant making vehicle of the USCCB. It was founded in Chicago in 1969 with the help of radical organizer Saul Alinsky specifically to fund Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF).
  • CCHD has been a radical leftist funding vehicle ever since, giving millions to ACORN, the radical training school, Midwest Academy and others. IAF receives the largest percentage of CCHD grants of any CCHD grantee.

In a Metro Industrial Areas Foundation action memo dated 20 November 2016 and published by member organization ‘Dupage United’ on 9 December 2016, USCMO Secretary General Oussama Jammal is listed among the leadership. The …And Take Counsel section on the USCMO website states, “When we speak with one clear, communal voice, our advice can help true the direction of American society toward justice.” It must be understood, however that within Islam, the word ‘justice’ means ‘shariah’ and only shariah. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood version of social justice is not intended as benevolence towards non-Muslims; quite to the contrary. Rather, in true Saul Alinsky form, the aim of the Red-Green Axis is anarchy intended to collapse the U.S. system of Constitutional law and order.

Jammal is fully cognizant that the Muslim Brotherhood’s manipulation of progressive leftist social justice entities aligned with the Red-Green Axis is strategic for the advancement of the settlement process. The Muslim Brotherhood has both co-opted the interfaith religious dialogue movement and mastered the operational mechanics of the political process in the U.S. to advance Islam’s shariah objectives. That Jammal works so closely with IAF leadership should be a red flag warning and belies what the USCMO shares with non-Muslims when it says: “Our well-deliberated and sincerely expressed words for the benefit of the nation can fortify attitudes that propagate harmony between people and institutionalize policies that spread prosperity to all.”

This revelation, that the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood works directly with the Marxist-Leninist Alinsky-founded IAF at the highest levels, lends yet additional substance to the overall Red-Green Axis, whose seemingly disparate elements nevertheless have been collaborating to bring down this Republic for some time. Forthcoming CSP publications will delve even further into the Brotherhood-IAF connection.

Trump backs off Muslim Brotherhood’s designation as terrorist organization

March 28, 2017

Trump backs off Muslim Brotherhood’s designation as terrorist organization, Washington TimesGuy Taylor, March 27, 2017

(Please see also, Five Reasons The Muslim Brotherhood Is a Terror Group. Who at the State Department are advising against designation as a terrorist organization? Holdovers from the Obama administration?– DM)

In 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood briefly was elected democratically to power in Egypt before its leader, Mohammed Morsi, was ousted from power.

President Trump has — for the time being — put on the back burner an executive order designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, according to U.S. officials close to a heated debate inside the administration over the status of the global Islamist movement.

While the White House has declined to comment publicly, officials speaking on condition of anonymity say the administration backed down from a plan to designate the Brotherhood last month after an internal State Department memo advised against it because of the movement’s loose-knit structure and far-flung political ties across the Middle East.

The memo “explained that there’s not one monolithic Muslim Brotherhood,” according to one of the officials, who told The Washington Times that while the movement may well be tied to such bona fide terrorist groups as Hamas, its more legitimate political activities would complicate the terrorist designation process.

The Brotherhood has prominent political factions engaged — at least perfunctorily — in democracy in Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and several other Muslim-majority nations, and the State Department memo coincided with high-level pressure placed on the Trump administration from at least one of them.

Senior diplomats from Jordan — a close U.S. ally — are believed to have weighed in heavily against the idea of adding the Brotherhood to the State Department’s foreign terrorist organizations list, said the official, because the movement’s political arm in Amman currently holds 16 Jordanian parliament seats.

But debate over the Brotherhood’s status remains biting in Washington, where hard-liners in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism say former President Barack Obama erred for years by failing to target the organization’s promotion of extremist ideology, and that President Trump is now badly fumbling a chance to rectify the situation.

Links to terror

A small but vocal group of Republicans on Capitol Hill is pushing legislation that would direct the State Department to either designate the Brotherhood, as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, as terrorist organizations or justify why they are being kept off the list.

Sen. Ted Cruz, who reintroduced the Muslim Brotherhood portion of the legislation last month with a House version backed by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, says listing the movement would “codify needed reforms in America’s war against radical Islamic terrorism.”

“This potent threat to our civilization has intensified under the Obama administration due to the willful blindness of politically-correct policies that hamper our safety and security,” the Texas Republican said in a statement at the time.

“This bill would impose tough sanctions on a hateful group that has spread violence and spawned extremist movements throughout the Middle East,” added Mr. Diaz-Balart, Florida Republican.

While hard-line groups have rallied behind such assertions for years, the legislation also has a number of more moderate backers, including Qanta A. Ahmed, a Muslim British physician and author, who argues that the Brotherhood “birthed modern-day Islamism” as a “supremacist totalitarian ideology that seeks to undermine pluralist societies and impose hardline theocratic regimes.”

“Founded in Egypt in 1928 and with branches or affiliates in over 70 nations, the Muslim Brotherhood today masquerades as a legitimate Islamic institution and a benign democratic actor,” Ms. Ahmed argued in an article published this month by the National Review.

“It is neither,” she wrote, adding that the movement has “well-documented links to the financing of terrorism” and that “the United States should designate [it] as a foreign terrorist organization.”

Missing the nuances

Current and former State Department officials say those calling for the designation of a movement as broadly based as the Muslim Brotherhood are ignoring a host of complex factors that could undermine the designation’s legitimacy.

The Brotherhood, analysts say, exists as a vast and loosely knit political and social organization, with millions of followers and dozens of factions spread across the Muslim world.

Few question its promotion of Shariah or Islamic law, or that some of its followers have embraced terrorism — the most notable example being the Palestinian group Hamas, whose official charter calls for the destruction of Israel. Hamas was put on the terror list in 1997 and has stayed there since.

But away from Hamas, many Brotherhood leaders were known during the 1970s to renounce violence in favor of politics. And recent decades saw factions of the movement embrace democracy to gain legitimacy in various Middle East nations, as well as to try to topple dictatorships.

Following the 2011 overthrow of Egypt’s authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood was — albeit briefly — democratically elected to power in Cairo before the nation’s military ousted the movement’s national leader, Mohammed Morsi.

While several Gulf Arab monarchies view the Brotherhood as an internal political threat, the movement’s factions are seen as part of the democratic landscape in other places, including Turkey, where many see the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a distant Brotherhood affiliate.

Creating problems

“If you’re talking about just broadly listing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, you’re going to run quickly into a serious definitional problem,” says P.J. Crowley, who served as an assistant secretary of state for public affairs under President Obama.

“Certainly, if you look at Hamas, it’s part of the Muslim Brotherhood family,” Mr. Crowley told The Times. “But the Brotherhood is also a distant cousin of the AKP in Turkey, so once you start down that road, you get into an immediate problem that could create significant diplomatic issues. And what about Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia?

“The one thing that distinguishes the Muslim Brotherhood from groups like al Qaeda is that al Qaeda wants to blow up any democratic process, while the Brotherhood is theoretically prepared to participate in the democratic process,” he said.

A report by NPR recently maintained that the Brotherhood became popular among Middle East university activists in the 1960s and 1970s — and when some immigrated to the United States with student visas, they brought the movement’s ideology with them.

“They were helped even by our State Department,” Hossein Goal, who emigrated from Iran during the period, told NPR. “They gave them sanctuary to come here.”

It follows that members of the movement had significant roles in establishing mosques, Islamic schools and other U.S.-based Muslim organizations. NPR suggested that, over the years, the situation fueled debate over the whether the movement’s true aim was to participate in American life or to advance an Islamist political agenda in the U.S.

Seeking truth

One prominent U.S. Muslim organization says the push to get the Brotherhood listed as a terrorist organization today is a ruse. “We believe it is just a smokescreen for a witch hunt targeting the civil rights and civic participation of American Muslims,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“Sponsors and supporters of the designation have for many years falsely linked the majority of mainstream American Muslim organizations and leaders to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mr. Hooper told The Times. “[This] will inevitably be used in a political campaign to attack those same groups and individuals, to marginalize the American Muslim community and to demonize Islam.”

One of the strongest advocates for designating the Brotherhood says that’s nonsense.

“It is a terrorist organization,” says Frank Gaffney, who heads the Center for Security Policy think tank in Washington. “It’s the leading edge in this country and elsewhere in the West for Shariah supremacism.”

Mr. Gaffney, who drew liberal ire during the Obama years for claiming the former president was secretly a Muslim, told The Times that U.S. policy has long been afflicted by thinking the “Brotherhood is part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

“We are in the fix we’re in today, 16 years since 9/11 and having basically lost two wars, not due to military inadequacies but due to this incoherent understanding, or nonunderstanding, of the nature of the enemy,” Mr. Gaffney said.

“One of the things that was most important about Donald Trump’s claim that he understood the nature of the enemy was that he seemed to recognize that it involves the Muslim Brotherhood — and, for that reason, he should designate it a terrorist organization.”

Oklahoma lawmaker gives questionnaire to Muslims, Hamas-linked CAIR enraged

March 5, 2017

Oklahoma lawmaker gives questionnaire to Muslims, Hamas-linked CAIR enraged, Jihad Watch

(Mr. Spencer seems to encourage CAIR, et al, to join the Muslim Reform Movement, which he generally disparages elsewhere as at best pointless. — DM)

If Soltani and Hamas-linked CAIR were operating in good faith, they would admit that the Qur’an sanctions wife-beating and that spousal abuse is not just rampant but taken for granted in many areas of the Islamic world, and would detail a genuine program for reform and a determination that women not be beaten. Instead, Soltani dismisses the questions as “Islamophobic” and claims victim status. This is typical, but it doesn’t make the questions go away. [Emphasis added.]

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Hamas-linked CAIR’s Adam Soltani asks: “The question that comes to mind is, does he do this to others? Does he ask question to his Christian constituents? His Jewish constituents? If the answer is no, that’s discrimination. There’s no other way to call it.”

All right. However, there have been 30,000 murderous jihad attacks worldwide since 9/11 carried out by Muslims who found impetus and justification for them in the Qur’an and Sunnah. Christians and Jews, meanwhile, are not committing acts of violence and pointing to their holy book to justify it and make recruits among peaceful Christians and Jews. Is John Bennett not allowed to notice that, and decry it?

Soltani also said: “Nobody should be vetted with stupid, Islamophobic, hateful, bigoted questions before they can meet with their representative.”

Well, in reality, if my representative asked me to fill out a questionnaire before he or she would meet with me, I would just fill it out. Soltani says that the questions are “stupid, Islamophobic, hateful, bigoted,” but he doesn’t explain why (and of course “journalist” Mary Ann Georgantopoulos of the establishment propaganda media organ BuzzFeed doesn’t ask him to). There is an important reason for this: Soltani knows full well that the Qur’an tells Muslim men to beat women from whom they fear disobedience (4:34), and that multiple hadiths record that Muhammad married a 6-year-old girl (Aisha) when he was 51 (or thereabouts), and that Bennett’s other questions also have a foundation in actual Islamic teaching and practice.

If Soltani and Hamas-linked CAIR were operating in good faith, they would admit that the Qur’an sanctions wife-beating and that spousal abuse is not just rampant but taken for granted in many areas of the Islamic world, and would detail a genuine program for reform and a determination that women not be beaten. Instead, Soltani dismisses the questions as “Islamophobic” and caims victim status. This is typical, but it doesn’t make the questions go away.

bennett-questions

“This Lawmaker Asked Muslims If They Beat Their Wives Before He Would Allow A Meeting,” by Mary Ann Georgantopoulos, BuzzFeed News, March 3, 2017:

Muslims hoping to meet with a Oklahoma lawmaker during a special event had to first fill out a controversial questionnaire about Islam that included inquiries such as “Do you beat your wife?”

Oklahoma Rep. John Bennett asked his constituents taking part in the state’s third annual Muslim Day on Thursday — in which Muslims have the opportunity to interact with state legislators at the capitol — to fill out the questionnaire.

Adam Soltani, executive director of Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) Oklahoma, told BuzzFeed News that high school students from Tulsa’s Peace Academy visited Bennett’s office to either meet with him or schedule a meeting.

The students were met by a legislative assistant, Soltani said, who gave the students a questionnaire, telling them it must be filled out in writing.

The nine-part questionnaire includes questions such as, “The Koran, the sunna of Mohammed and Sharia Law of all schools says that the husband can beat his wife. Do you beat your wife?”

Another question is, “I have heard that, according to accepted Islamic sources, Mohammed, at age of 49, married a 6-year-old girl, and that he had sex with her when he was 52 and she was only 9 years old. Is that really true?”

“I was distraught when [the students] showed me the questionnaire,” Soltani told BuzzFeed News. “I wasn’t completely surprised by it because obviously we have been challenging Bennett’s hate rhetoric for many years.”…

Soltani said he does not know how many people got the questionnaire because more than 200 people attended Muslim Day at the Capitol, adding that all the other legislators were very supportive and welcoming.The questionnaire was written up by anti-Islam group ACT for America — the group’s logo and email address are on the sheet of paper.

“The question that comes to mind is, does he do this to others?” Soltani said. “Does he ask question [sic] to his Christian constituents? His Jewish constituents? If the answer is no, that’s discrimination. There’s no other way to call it.”

Soltani said there shouldn’t be somebody working for the state of Oklahoma who doesn’t represent all citizens.

“Nobody should be vetted with stupid, Islamophobic, hateful, bigoted questions before they can meet with their representative,” Soltani said in a video posted to Facebook Thursday.

New DNC Chair Perez Engaged Islamists, Ignored Reformers

February 27, 2017

New DNC Chair Perez Engaged Islamists, Ignored Reformers, Clarion ProjectRyan Mauro, February 27, 2017

tom-perez-640-320Tom Perez (Photo: Justice Department)

Tom Perez has defeated Rep. Keith Ellison in the race to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but don’t rest easy: Perez also has a concerning record and chose Ellison as his deputy chairman.

When he was the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, he included Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups and their allies in discussions about counter-terrorism training and investigations and laws punishing alleged “hate speech” against the religion of Islam. Muslim and non-Muslim critics of such Islamist groups were not a part of Perez’ outreach on these issues.

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor responsible for locking up the “Blind Sheikh” behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, rightly pointed out at the time that the result of excluding the Islamist groups’ rivals is that officials like Perez “are making these Islamist groups into the representatives of Muslims in the United States.”

In 2012, Perez wouldn’t answer what should have been a very easy question posed by Rep. Trent Frank (R-AZ) while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution :

“Will you tell us here today that this Administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?”

His answer was a series of stammers and assertions that it was hard to answer. (See  shocking video below:)

Then, as Secretary of Labor, Perez continued to give groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a platform while excluding the other side. In May 2015, CAIR-Florida Communications Director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz was invited to take part in a roundtable with Perez about immigration and wage issues.

Keep in mind, Perez invited a group that FBI policy officially prohibits from being involved in outreach programs.

Counter-terrorism investigator Joe Kaufman has followed Ruiz and CAIR’s Florida branch closely, documenting their radicalism and links to other Islamist extremist entities here and here.

Ruiz appeared on Newsmax TV with me in March 2016 where he made the ridiculous statement that there have been no terrorist networks in America since 2001. You can watch the segment here. He subsequently told Newsmax he would not appear on the show with me ever again.

The good news is that enough Democrats took Ellison’s record seriously to stop him from becoming the DNC chairman, to the point that prominent Democrat Alan Dershowitz said he’d leave the party if Ellison won.  However, Ellison is still the deputy chairman and Perez’s record leaves much to be desired.

As deputy chairman, Ellison is still positioned to make the DNC adopt the talking points of Islamist groups like CAIR.

What Is the Muslim Brotherhood?

February 8, 2017

What Is the Muslim Brotherhood? Gatestone InstituteThomas Quiggin, February 8, 2017

Islamists are those who have the desire to “impose any interpretation of Islam over society by law.” A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows.

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A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows.

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, stated that “It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

A bill, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz, to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist group would have far-reaching impact, and be the single greatest blow stuck against Islamist extremism in the USA.

The Muslim Brotherhood operating in the U.S. made it clear that “their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The North Atlantic Islamic Trust, according to former FBI Agent Robert Stauffer, “served as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups.” This money was wired into the U.S. from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Libya.

Muslims living in the United States likely have little to fear from the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. By contrast, Islamists living in the United States have grounds to be worried.

A bill introduced by Senator Ted Cruz to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist group could have far-reaching implications, many of which have received little public attention. The bill, if acted upon, would be the single greatest blow stuck against Islamist extremism in the USA. It would also have far reaching impact in Canada and elsewhere.

Islamists are those who have the desire to “impose any interpretation of Islam over society by law.” A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, stated that “It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

2254-1The emblem of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its founder, Hassan al-Banna.

The Muslim Brotherhood operating in the United States made it clear that:

“their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The producer of the memorandum from which this statement is derived was Mohamed Akram (A.K.A. Mohammad Akram Al-Adlouni). He is now the Secretary General of al-Quds International, the international think tank of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Today, according to a 2015 report, Mohammed Akram Adlouni is the General Secretary of the Al Quds International Foundation, a Special Designated Global Terrorist entity, accused by the U.S. Treasury Department of financing Hamas. The Treasury Department notes:

“Hamas’s leadership runs all of the foundation’s affairs through Hamas members who serve on the Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors, and other administrative committees. All documents, plans, budgets, and projects of Al-Quds are drafted by Hamas officials. Several senior Hamas officials, including Specially Designated Global Terrorists Musa Abu-Marzuq and Usama Hamdan, served on Al-Quds’ Board of Trustees. Representatives at an Al-Quds conference were told to consider themselves unofficial ambassadors for Hamas in their respective countries.”

The chairman of the board of trustees of the Al Quds International Foundation is identified as Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leadership figure of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.

The Senate Bill – S.68

Senate Bill S.68, would not only have the effect of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity, but it would also list three Muslim Brotherhood front groups: The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).

CAIR has already been identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, founded to advance the cause of Hamas, and it was listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates in 2014. CAIR functions as the public relations and legal arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and it regularly launches lawsuits against those who speak out against extremist Islam. Its designation as a terrorist group would severely damage the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

ISNA was the first of the major Muslim Brotherhood groups formed out of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), itself formed by Muslim Brotherhood adherents. Its loss would undermine the Muslim Brotherhood on multiple levels.

The Major Impact

The most important issue in Bill S.68 may be the inclusion of the NAIT – the North American Islamic Trust. Formed in 1973, it can fairly described as a waqf, which is the Islamic finance equal to a trust or endowment fund.

The property and cash holdings of the NAIT have never been made completely clear. CAIR itself stated that the NAIT holds the title of some 27% of the 1200 mosques in the USA. The NAIT website states that it “holds the title of approximately 300 properties.” This means that the Muslim Brotherhood controls a large number of mosques and other properties in the U.S. where the message of the Brotherhood is spread.

Former FBI Agent Robert Stauffer led a 1980s investigation into the NAIT, including its role in the ideological takeover of moderate mosques. At that time, he assessed that the ISNA received millions of dollars from the NAIT, which he says “served as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups.” This money was wired into the U.S. from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Libya.

Like CAIR and ISNA, NAIT would have its assets frozen if it is designated as a terrorist group. This would include property such as real estate, as well as cash and other assets held in bank accounts. The responsibility for this would mainly fall to the Department of the Treasury, the Justice Department and the integrated inter-agency strategy known as National Money Laundering Strategy (NMLS).

In addition to stripping the Muslim Brotherhood of its assets, Bill S.68 would also have the effect of silencing the extremist voice of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., along with its extensive network of collaborators. The financial inflow from other countries would be stopped (think Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey), while funding to Muslim Brotherhood front groups in other countries would be halted as well (think Canada).

This bill would be a most helpful first step in countering what seems to be on the part of many a purposeful global jihad.

CAIR: Cruz’s Muslim Brotherhood Bill Not About Terrorism

January 26, 2017

CAIR: Cruz’s Muslim Brotherhood Bill Not About Terrorism, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, January 26, 2017

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s bill seeking to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group is discriminatory leaders of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) claimed at a press conference Wednesday.

“We believe it has little to do with national security or terrorism,” CAIR’s spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.

He sees Cruz’s bill as part of a two-step strategy to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and attack groups and their leaders who “Islamophobes have falsely labeled as linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Hard evidence, however, links CAIR and other American Islamist groups to the Brotherhood.

A phone book introduced at 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas fundraising trial revealed that CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad and fellow CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. This committee came into existence as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to support Hamas in America.

U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis noted in a 2009 ruling that the HLF trial evidence provided “at least a prima facie case as to CAIR’s involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas.”

Awad defended the Muslim Brotherhood at the press conference, saying it has been “part in parcel of the democratic process” that it believes in democracy. Banning it for ideological reasons “is nothing short of shooting ourselves in the foot as the biggest democracy or the strongest democracy in the world,” Awad said.

Cruz’s bill would direct the secretary of state to tell Congress whether the Muslim Brotherhood meets the criteria for designation as a foreign terrorist organization. President Trump reportedly is considering an executive order accomplishing the bill’s objectives.

CAIR also protested Trump’s proposed executive order curtailing immigration and visas from majority Muslim countries such as Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Iran. With the exception of Iran, all of these countries have barely functioning central governments and are in the midst of raging civil wars. It also contested President Trump’s order halting the processing of Syrian refugees and ordering the creation of safe zones inside Syria for them.

Awad cast the orders as anti-Muslim and bigoted.

“Never before in our country’s history have we purposely as a matter of policy imposed a ban on immigrants or refugees on the basis of religion or imposed a litmus test on those coming to this nation,” Awad said. “The orders will tarnish our image in the Muslim world, making us seem uncaring and hard-hearted.”

It’s not exactly without precedent. Early 20th century immigration laws barred those belonging to ideological subversives and polygamists from coming to the U.S. Ottoman authorities protested the latter for curtailing Muslim immigration to the United States.

CAIR: Refusing Refugee Admissions Is Equivalent To Slavery

January 26, 2017

CAIR: Refusing Refugee Admissions Is Equivalent To Slavery, Daily Caller, Alex Pfeiffer, January 25, 2017

(President Trump is unlikely to defer to CAIR on this or anything else. — DM)

WASHINGTON — The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Wednesday that refusing to accept Muslim refugees is the moral equivalent of slavery.

CAIR held a press conference in anticipation of executive orders from President Donald Trump to limit refugee entry from several Muslim-majority countries, block federal funds from sanctuary cities and start construction of a wall on America’s southern border.

Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, called the proposed border wall a “multi-billion dollar monument to racism.” Awad went on to say that President Trump’s proposal has nothing to do with national security and is strictly an “Islamophobic” proposal.

A rabbi at the press conference, Joseph Berman, was on the verge of tears and said that the proposal to bar the entry of refugees from several terrorist hotbeds such as Syria and Somalia is an “affront to God.”

The Daily Caller asked Awad if refugees have a right to come to the United States, and CAIR’s communications director Ibrahim Hooper claimed that under international law refugees have “rights beyond what normal immigrants have.” Awad added that the issue isn’t one “of legality,” but of “morality.”

The CAIR executive director then equated refusing refugee entry to former American policies of slavery and women not being able to vote. He said those actions were legal but “wrong.”

 

Hamas-linked CAIR demands that Trump drop Franklin Graham from inauguration lineup

January 18, 2017

Hamas-linked CAIR demands that Trump drop Franklin Graham from inauguration lineup, Jihad Watch

For eight years now, this unsavory gang of Islamic supremacist thugs has enjoyed immense access and influence in the Obama administration. That access and influence should soon be drastically curtailed.

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CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements about how Islamic law should be imposed in the U.S. (Ahmad denies this, but the original reporter stands by her story.) A California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI, and a Florida chapter distributed pamphlets with the same message. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has been proposed or implemented and has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates. A CAIR operative recently called for the overthrow of the U.S. government.

But as far as Hamas-linked CAIR is concerned, it is Franklin Graham who is the “extremist.” Right. For eight years now, this unsavory gang of Islamic supremacist thugs has enjoyed immense access and influence in the Obama administration. That access and influence should soon be drastically curtailed.

franklin-graham

“‘Extremist’ Franklin Graham Must Not Pray At Inauguration, Trump’s Team Told,” by Harry Farley, Christian Today, January 13, 2017 (thanks to The Geller Report):

Franklin Graham should be removed from Donald Trump’s inauguration line up, the US’ largest Muslim civil rights group said on Thursday.

The outspoken conservative pastor and son of evangelist Billy Graham is due to pray at the ceremony next week in Washington.

But the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the president-elect to drop Franklin, who they described as a “notorious Islamophobe”, in order to unite the country.

“If President-elect Trump truly seeks to unite our nation as he promised in his acceptance speech, he will limit the list of those offering prayers at the inauguration to religious leaders who work to bring us together, not to create divisions between faiths,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

“Rev Graham’s ill-informed and extremist views are incompatible with the Constitution and with American values of religious liberty and inclusion.”

A statement from CAIR pointed to comments from Graham in which he called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion”.

Graham also claims Islam is incompatible with American values.

“Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalised – and they do their killing to honour their religion and Muhammad,” he wrote on Facebook in 2015.

“”[T]rue Islam cannot be practiced in this country. You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries,” he once told CNN.

“I don’t agree with the teachings of Islam and I find it to be a very violent religion.”…

A Last, Desperate Plea to Excuse Hamas Support

January 12, 2017

A Last, Desperate Plea to Excuse Hamas Support, Investigative Project on Terrorism, January 12, 2017

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As President Obama’s tenure reaches its final days, Islamists in the United States are waging a furious lobbying campaign aimed at securing the freedom of five men convicted of illegally routing millions of dollars to Hamas.

An open campaign urges the president to pardon five former officials from the defunct, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), casting them as victims of “anti-Muslim hysteria” triggered by the 9/11 attacks. In 2008, a jury convicted the five – Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohammed El-Mezain, Abdulrahman Odeh and Mufid Abdulqader – of using a network of Palestinian charities controlled by Hamas to funneling money to the terrorist group.

It is not clear whether the requests to pardon the five, or to commute their sentences and release them from prison, is being considered seriously. Obama’s pardons thus far involved somewhat less serious crimes including fraud, embezzlement and non-violent drug offenses.

But advocates are pushing social media campaigns and online petitions aimed at securing a pardon, or, short of that, a commutation of the five men’s sentences to set them free. The campaign also has enlisted support from at least one member of Congress.

Left unspoken is an undeniable truth behind the pardon/commutation campaign, and behind any ongoing defense of the Holy Land Foundation: Advocates do not believe Hamas support is wrong.

The Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) is leading the charge, supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and pro-Palestinian groups.

CAIR’s appeal provided a White House switchboard number for supporters to call and request commutations. Some sites even include contact information for key members of Congress, urging supporters to emphasize the “cruelly disproportionate” length of sentences – from a low of 15 years for El-Mezain, to 65-year terms for Baker and Elashi.

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CAIR’s Arizona director Imraan Siddiqui described the prosecution as “a political lynching of charity workers … Its effects still haunt American Muslims.”

After reviewing the entire record in 2011, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals saw it quite differently.

Pleas from the MLFA and Siddiqi ignore the exhibits – many of them internal HLF and related documents – showing the family ties between some defendants and Hamas leaders, a reliance on Hamas officials to speak at HLF fundraisers along with other, consistent pro-Hamas messages.

In addition, records show, HLF (formerly known as the Occupied Land Fund) was part of a network called the “Palestine Committee” in the United States. That committee answered to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s mandate that global chapters create “Palestine Committees” in their home countries. Their task was “to support Hamas from abroad,” the Fifth Circuit noted in upholding the convictions and sentences. In the United States, that task fell in part to Hamas political leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who helped create HLF and two other branches – a propaganda wing known as the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and a think-tank called the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).

CAIR was added to the Palestine Committee after its 1994 founding.

“The evidence showed that the long-standing connection between HLF and Hamas began in the late 1980s when HLF arose as a fundraising arm for the Palestine Committee …” the appeals court ruling said. “This fact was notably evident from the … [internal Palestine Committee] documents, which showed that HLF was created along with the IAP.” In addition, Palestine Committee bylaws “specifically recognized HLF as ‘the official organization for fundraising.'”

HLF apologists claim the group was merely interested in helping needy widows and orphans. But, the court pointed out, the orphans included Yehia Ayyash’s children. Ayyash was Hamas’s top bomb maker, nicknamed “The Engineer,” before being killed by Israel.

“An audio tape from 1996 that was seized from HLF’s offices contained songs praising Hamas and discussions of suicide bombers as heroes,” the ruling said.

“We believe that a jury could not help but infer from the above evidence that the defendants had a close association with Hamas and that HLF acted to fund Hamas both before and after Hamas’s designation as a terrorist organization.”

Still, CAIR’s Texas chapter called the five convicted HLF officials “humanitarians,” and described their imprisonment as “an immense wrong.” It cited defense attorney Nancy Hollander’s claim that there was no evidence showing her client, HLF executive director Shukri Abu Baker, breaking the law. “Not a word from his lips that he hated Jews. Not a word from his lips that he supported Hamas. These were fictions,” Hollander said.

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That cannot be said for Mufid Abdulqader, who performed and acted in a singing troupe that helped raise money for HLF at IAP events. In this video, admitted into evidence during the 2008 trial, he is shown wearing camouflage and a kaffiyeh as he sings, “I am Hamas, O dear ones … I swear to wipe out the name of the Zionist. And protect my land, Palestine.” Then, he pretends to strangle an actor portraying an Israeli.

Hollander failed to mention that Baker ran HLF and was responsible for who spoke and what was said at its fundraisers. Those events routinely featured Hamas leaders and activists. She also neglected to mention her client’s participation in a secret 1993 Philadelphia gathering of Hamas members and supporters who schemed about how to “derail” the U.S.-brokered Oslo peace accord without coming off looking like terror supporters.

It was Baker who set a key ground rule for the talks, which were secretly recorded and translated by the FBI: No one should mention Hamas by name, he instructed. Instead, call it “Sister Samah,” which is Hamas spelled backward.

The gathering, Baker said, was “a joint workshop between the Holy Land Foundation and the IAP.” Participants should not mention Hamas by name.

Hollander then compared the HLF case – brought against a handful of men with documented and recorded connections to Hamas – to the mass internment of 117,000 Japanese American men, women and children during World War II.

The current campaign would settle for a sentencing commutation, essentially freeing the men on time served. The sentences, from 15 to 65 years in prison, were overly harsh, advocates say.

But the Fifth Circuit had considered this, too, rejecting defense department arguments. Its ruling noted that the probation office’s presentence recommendations included significant terrorism enhancements because HLF gave money to Hamas “in order to rid Palestine of the Jewish people through violent jihad, HAMAS’ mission.”

It added that “the trial was replete with evidence to satisfy application of the terrorism enhancement because of the defendants’ intent to support Hamas. The Hamas charter clearly delineated the goal of meeting the Palestinian/Israeli conflict with violent jihad and the rejection of peace efforts and compromise solutions. The defendants knew that they were supporting Hamas, as there was voluminous evidence showing their close ties to the Hamas movement.”

Those claiming the HLF defendants suffered an injustice, or that they somehow deserve relief, lie about this record or pretend it does not exist. To acknowledge reality is to shatter their own argument, or to come clean about their true feelings about Hamas terrorism. They know that’s a losing hand. It’s something Shukri Abu Baker talked about in that 1993 Philadelphia meeting.

They need to mislead people if they are going to be successful, Baker said.

“War is deception,” he said. “Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way … Deceive your enemy.”