Archive for the ‘Islamist organizations’ category

Good Riddance

February 27, 2017

Good Riddance, Front Page MagazineRobert Spencer, February 27, 2017

hijabmodel

The establishment media has found a new heroine: Rumana Ahmed, a hijab-wearing Muslim woman who worked at the National Security Council during the Obama administration and for eight days into the Trump administration, at which point she quit. 

Ahmed explained: “I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim.” That’s enough to send the media into self-righteous ululations of anti-Trump fury, but as always, there is more to this story than what the media is telling you, and a good deal about Rumana Ahmed that they would prefer you did not know.

In her piece in The Atlantic explaining why she left the Trump NSC (and it is important to note that she wasn’t fired by her supposedly “Islamophobic” new bosses; she quit), Ahmed sounds themes of post-9/11 Muslim victimhood that have become familiar tropes among Leftists: after recounting her idyllic life “living the American dream,” she says: “After 9/11, everything would change. On top of my shock, horror, and heartbreak, I had to deal with the fear some kids suddenly felt towards me. I was glared at, cursed at, and spat at in public and in school. People called me a ‘terrorist’ and told me, ‘go back to your country.’”

Not surprisingly, Ahmed made no mention of the fact that this Muslim victimhood narrative has been sullied, if not vitiated entirely, by the high number of “anti-Muslim hate crimes” that turn out to have been faked by Muslims. The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslims have on many occasions not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating “hate crimes,” including attacks on mosques and even murders: a New Jersey Muslim was found guilty of murder that he tried to portray as an “Islamophobic” attack, and in 2014 in California, a Muslim was found guilty of killing his wife, after first blaming her murder on “Islamophobia.”

Ahmed blamed yet another murder on “Islamophobia”: “A harsher world began to reemerge in 2015,” she wrote in The Atlantic. “In February, three young American Muslim students were killed in their Chapel Hill home by an Islamophobe. Both the media and administration were slow to address the attack, as if the dead had to be vetted before they could be mourned. It was emotionally devastating.”

In reality, there is no evidence that the Chapel Hill murders were committed by an “Islamophobe.” U.S. Attorney Ripley Rand declared the day after the murders: “The events of yesterday are not part of a targeting campaign against Muslims in North Carolina.” Rand said that there was “no information this is part of an organized event against Muslims.” Nor has any emerged since then, although that fact has not stopped Islamic advocacy groups from routinely treating these murders as evidence of a wave of anti-Muslim hatred in the U.S. Ruhana Ahmed in The Atlantic abets this cynical and disingenuous agenda.

In the same vein, Ahmed claims: “When Trump first called for a Muslim ban, reports of hate crimes against Muslims spiked.” In reality, as MRC Newsbusters noted in late November, “A number of these incidents have been debunked already, though the scant details on the majority of stories would be near impossible to disprove (or prove!).”

Ahmed is not only dishonest; she’s connected. Before she went to work for the Obama administration, she was an officer of George Mason University’s Muslim Students Association (MSA). According to Discover the Networks, the “was established mainly by members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Nyack College theologian Larry A. Poston writes that ‘many of the founding members of this agency [MSA] were members of, or had connections to,’ the Muslim Brotherhood or Jamaat-i-Islami.” The MSA is “a radical political force and a key lobbying organization for the Wahhabi sect of Islam, telling students that America is an imperialist power and Israel an oppressor nation. MSA speakers routinely spew anti-Semitic libels and justify the genocide against the Jews which is promoted by Islamic terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and by the government of Iran.”

What’s more, “a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood internal document — titled ‘An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America’ — which named MSA as one of the Brotherhood’s 29 likeminded ‘organizations of our friends’ that shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation. These ‘friends’ were identified by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims ‘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 … so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.’”

It is hard to imagine how someone who had served as an officer in an organization dedicated to “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within” would so quickly be appointed to the National Security Council, but that was Barack Obama’s America. The Trump administration is indeed setting a strikingly different tone, one that Rumana Ahmed finds unacceptable. Her dissatisfaction and departure from the NSC are good reason for every patriotic American to applaud.

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.

Gorka & Jasser: We Are Fighting ‘Not a War with Islam, but a War Inside Islam’

February 24, 2017

Gorka & Jasser: We Are Fighting ‘Not a War with Islam, but a War Inside Islam’, BreitbartJohn Hayward, February 24, 2017

isis-koran-640x480Flickr/AFP

Broadcasting live from CPAC 2017, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow spoke with Dr. Sebastian Gorka and Dr. Zuhdi Jasser about national security, Islamist terrorism, and their panel discussion, “When Did World War III Begin?”

(Audio at the link. — DM)

Marlow began by asking his guests what they expected from the national security segment of President Donald Trump’s scheduled address to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“Exactly what we’ve heard before,” Gorka replied. “If you really want to understand the direction of the White House and how much everything changed at 12:01 on January the 20th, you look at two things: you look at a speech that really wasn’t carefully addressed or really paid enough attention to, that’s the Youngstown campaign speech, which was about the threat of jihad in general and what we’re going to do about ISIS.”

“Specifically, it really bears repeating, the inauguration, the address that the president gave at the inauguration, was explicit,” he continued. “Number one, we are going to eradicate the Islamic State – not degrade, not manage, not ameliorate – eradicate. And secondly, words have meaning. When he says our enemy is ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ that is a 180 degree  change from the last eight years, when we weren’t allowed to even say who the enemy was.”

“Zuhdi knows it better than anybody because he understands that this isn’t about poverty or lack of education. It’s about people who are fighting for the soul of Islam – not a war with Islam, but a war inside Islam; as King Abdullah, as General Sisi has said, for which version is going to win,” Gorka said.

Marlow asked Dr. Jasser about the topic of language control Gorka touched upon and the previous administration’s reluctance to use explicit language like “radical Islamic jihad” to describe the enemy.

“We got to this point because we had an administration who was being whispered to by Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, by apologists, by governments that might be our allies against al-Qaeda and ISIS, but they love a whack-a-mole program. They don’t want to treat the disease, which is not ‘violent extremism’ but violent Islamism,” Jasser charged.

“We have to start focusing on our own values,” he urged. “There’s nothing more American than fighting theocracy, and yet the Left for the last eight years has invoked blasphemy laws in America by telling us we can’t criticize Islamist political movements.”

Jasser predicted the new administration would succeed in destroying ISIS but warned that “it will come back in another form – two, three, four years later – unless we engage Muslim reformists, like our Muslim reform movement, to treat the underlying theocracy.”

Marlow complained that the mainstream media swiftly denounce candid talk about the problem of radical Islam as “hate speech” even when confined to straightforward reporting without editorial opinion, making it difficult to have a constructive discussion about the problem.

“I think this is exactly what the Saudi regime, the Iranian Khomeinists, the Brotherhood want, is they want to dominate what Islam means,” Jasser said. “And yes, it’s not my Islam, but we have to thread that needle. Because if you don’t call it political Islam or Islamism as the threat, you’re not going to be able to figure out who to engage. We want to engage anti-Caliphate, anti-violent jihad Muslims who are pro-freedom, pro-equality of men and women, who share our values. If we don’t do that discernment in our verbiage, we’re going to miss it and actually end up helping our enemies and end up actually not only being the firefighters, but the arsonists. We have to stop that cycle.”

“Let’s just take it one level deeper. It’s not just empowering our enemies, which would be bad enough,” Gorka added. “If you don’t talk truthfully about who the enemy is, how are you going to win? What we saw in the last eight years is a policy that actually weakened our most important allies.”

“So when you’ve got the president of the most populous Arab nation in the world say this is a war for the heart of Islam, General Sisi, when you’ve got King Abdullah with his Amman statement saying, ‘Look, we have to stop the jihadis hijacking the religion’ – we have a president here who stands up and says, ‘No, no, no, these are not the droids you’re looking for, the religion has nothing to do with this,’” he elaborated, referring to the Obama administration’s insistence on framing the war as a struggle against generic violent extremism.

“Do you know who we hurt the most? Those Muslims who are on the front lines with the jihadis, who understand this isn’t about poverty or lack of education; it’s about an ideology. So we’ve actually hurt the people who are on the front line the most. We’re not prepared to do that anymore. This administration’s going to help the Jordanians, help the Egyptians, help them fight this war,” Gorka vowed.

“I think we have to own what it means to be diverse,” Jasser suggested. “What is ‘diversity’ in the Muslim community? It’s not ethnic diversity. Being Muslim is not an identity movement of a monolithic homogenous group. It is a diverse ideological movement that has fundamentalist, orthodox, liberal, secularists that are all in this Muslim diverse group. So if the Left actually believes in diversity different from what Pelosi whispered into Andre Carson’s ear – ‘Tell them you’re Muslim’ – Islam is not a race. They’re racializing the faith. That’s the biggest obstacle.”

“I think the other thing I hope to see is not only us being against jihadists, but what are we for,” he added. “I think that will be the difference between some of the dictators in the Middle East, that yes, some of them have been on our side against jihad, the militants, but we are the adults in the world, in being for liberty and freedom. I hope that will be part of a Trump Doctrine.”

Gorka agreed, saluting Jasser as “the point man here in America for sense, for common sense in this battle.”

“The saddest part is there are people like him in the Middle East. There are people every day risking their lives on their blog sites, in North Africa, in the Middle East pushing back on this, saying, ‘I’m a Muslim, but I don’t think an infidel needs to be killed.’ That means he’s put the crosshairs on his chest,” Gorka noted. “In some parts of the Muslim world, that’s an instant death sentence.”

“That’s why the four million Muslims in America need to step up and act because we can do things here that you just can’t do in the Middle East,” Jasser said. “They end up in prison. They end up slaughtered, tortured.”

Marlow proposed that “the stifling of speech in the Muslim world is really what has allowed a lot of the jihadist movements to flourish.”

“Why do you think they use the term ‘Islamophobia’ instead of talking about, yes, there might be some bigotry against Muslims in the West?” Jasser asked. “They use the term Islamophobia because they want to anthropomorphize Islam so that you don’t criticize it, and they suppress free speech. That’s how they invoke blasphemy laws in the West.”

“You’re absolutely right. The freedom of speech issue is huge in the Middle East because it’s a life and death issue in many cases,” Gorka said. “But here, it’s almost as important. It’s not life and death, but it is closing down the discussion.”

“You look at what’s happened in the last four weeks with this administration,” he said. “There’s a phrase in soccer: you play the man on the ball. We’re not going to talk about policies; we’re going to attack individuals, whether it’s Kellyanne, the president, myself, Steve Bannon. They do that how? ‘We don’t want to talk about the threat to America. You’re a racist. You’re an Islamophobe. You’re a xenophobe. Oh, well, in that case, we can’t talk to you.’ That’s as dangerous as just the constant ad hominem attacks because then there is no discussion.”

Jasser said his message to CPAC was that “there is hope” for a lasting victory in the long war against Islamist extremism.

“The first step is to defeat the militants, which this president will finally do,” he said. “The second step is to go back to our American roots and defeat theocracy, work with Muslims and our Muslim reform movement. We have a two-page declaration that can be used, I hope, not only to vet refugees, to figure out which groups are with us and against us. I hope we start doing security clearances through those who share our values.”

“There are so many that are – not in this administration, but that are in the government from the previous administration – that I think are Islamists, that might not be violent extremists, but we need to shift the axis of the lens of Homeland Security, foreign policy, to countering violent Islamism. There’s nothing this group here and the country can do to better empower reform-minded Muslims that share our values than to shift from this blasé CVE to CVI,” Jasser said, lampooning the Obama administration’s acronym for “Countering Violent Extremism.”

Gorka referred to CVE as “garbage from the last eight years that obfuscated the threat.”

He said the most important step taken by the new administration was President Trump’s executive order to temporarily limit immigration from the most unsecure Middle Eastern nations.

“Whatever the final version of the reform measures are, the fact is, when an Iraqi collars me in the halls of Congress and says, ‘My friends back home in Iraq applaud this measure because they know how many bad guys are in Iraq that want to come over here, so do it. Thank you,’” Gorka said.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka is deputy assistant to President Trump and was formerly national security editor for Breitbart News. He is the author of Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith.

 

 

Dr. Jasser joins Bob Harden discussing the need for reform within Islam 02.20.2017

February 21, 2017

Dr. Jasser joins Bob Harden discussing the need for reform within Islam 02.20.2017, AIFD via YouTube

Dr. Jasser joins Politics & Profits discussing the Trump admin & radical Islam 02.15.2017

February 17, 2017

American Islami Forum for Democracy via YouTube, February 15, 2017

 

Maryland Mosque Memorializes Islamist Assassin

February 16, 2017

Maryland Mosque Memorializes Islamist Assassin, Clarion Project, February 16, 2017

pakistan-mumtaz-qadri-supporters-1-aamir-qureshi-afp-getty-640Pakistani supporters of Mumtaz Qadri (Photo: © AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty)

Baltimore-based Imam Ijaz Hussain, stated, “Mumtaz Qadri was not a terrorist and whoever says, “We are with you O Prophet” cannot be a terrorist.”

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A mosque in Maryland held a celebration in honor of an Islamist assassin who killed a governor in Pakistan for speaking about against the country’s heinous blasphemy laws.

As reported by Rabwah Times, the Gulzar E. Madina Mosque in Pikesville, Maryland, hosted an Urs celebration, a traditional commemoration reserved for saints and holy people, for Mumtaz Qadri who killed the governor of Punjab province Salman Taseer in 2011.

Qadri was Taseer’s bodyguard and was incensed that Taseer called for the reform of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. Taseer had also expressed support for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman framed for blasphemy, arrested and sentenced to death in Pakistan.

Blasphemy laws in Pakistan, which carry the death penalty, are often used to exact revenge against Pakistan’s mistreated minority populations. Often, just the hint of a blasphemy accusation will spark mob violence resulting in death for the person charged.

After Qadri shot Taseer to death, he was lauded as a national hero.  More than 100,000 people attended his funeral and riots ensued for weeks after he was arrested, tried and hanged for his crime. He is viewed as a saint by a large sector of the population and a shrine is being built in Pakistan to memorialize him.

The Urs event at the Maryland mosque was advertised in the Urdu Times, the largest Urdu newspaper in the U.S. Rabwah Times reported a robust turnout, with participants including young children and teenagers.

The speakers included Syed Saad Ali, an Islamic scholar based in New Jersey, who chastised the crowd, saying:

“Warrior Mumtaz Qadri kissed the noose in love for Prophet Mohammed When Qadri was in jail for five years. What did we do? What effort did we make (for his release? Why did we not go where he was being held? Qadri did everything for us and for the love of Islam and we could not even stand by him? People say Islam teaches peace…..I say Islam teaches us ghairat (honor). Who will now stand up?

Ali also praised another killer, Tanveer Ahmad, a British-Pakistani man who stabbed to death Asad Shah, another British-Pakistani in Scotland. Shah, from the Ahmadi sect, made posts on social media that Ahmad deemed blasphemous.

Speaking about Ahmad, Ali said,

“Our warrior Tanveer, who is sitting in a jail in Scotland, I don’t know if someone knows or not, when that Mirzai (Ahmadi) spoke his ‘sacrilegious rubbish,’ he went there and stabbed him 27 times, and the police arrested him and right now he is in a jail in Scotland. So if we just take a step forward, angels will automatically come for our help. But what Mumtaz Qadri has done is something amazing, he has surpassed all these warriors.”

Another speaker, Baltimore-based Imam Ijaz Hussain, stated, “Mumtaz Qadri was not a terrorist and whoever says, “We are with you O Prophet” cannot be a terrorist.”

Hussain praised the American system of free speech, saying it allowed events such as these to be held:

“We have some freedoms here (in the U.S.) which we do not even have in other Muslim countries. This is the beauty of this country. There are some countries where we can’t even praise the prophet, we can’t celebrate the Day of Imam Hussain. This country has freedom of religion, and this is the beauty of this country.”

The Muslim Brotherhood: Wellspring of Terrorism

February 15, 2017

The Muslim Brotherhood: Wellspring of Terrorism, Gatestone InstituteJudith Bergman, February 15, 2017

The Trump administration is considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a foreign terrorist organization, and Human Rights Watch is outraged.

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The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for “jihad”, in January 2015.

“The Muslim Brotherhood at all levels have repeatedly defended Hamas attacks… including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.” — UK government expert review of the Muslim Brotherhood, December 2015.

The Muslim Brotherhood not only funds one of the most virulent terrorist groups, Hamas, but there is barely any daylight between the various leaderships of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Hamas.

Most of the terrorists who later founded al Qaeda were rooted in the MB. Osama bin Laden was apparently recruited as a young man to the MB, whereas Ayman al Zawahiri joined the MB at the age of 14 and went on to found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ),”an organization that…. holds many of the same beliefs as the MB but simply refuses to renounce violence inside Egypt” — Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The Muslim Brotherhood believes today what it has always believed: that a caliphate, where sharia law will rule, must be established through jihad. Refusing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization would be a grave mistake, playing straight into the strategy of the Brotherhood and, once more, revealing to the world the extreme gullibility of the West.

The Trump administration is considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a foreign terrorist organization, and Human Rights Watch is outraged.

“Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ would wrongly equate it with violent extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and make their otherwise lawful activities illegal,” said Human Rights Watch. The press release went on to repeat the old claim that “…the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt officially renounced violence in the 1970s and sought to promote its ideas through social and political activities”.

Adding its voice to the Muslim Brotherhood’s apologists, the New York Times wrote:

“A political and social organization with millions of followers, the Brotherhood officially renounced violence decades ago and won elections in Egypt after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Affiliated groups have joined the political systems in places like Tunisia and Turkey, and President Barack Obama long resisted pressure to declare it a terrorist organization.”

For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood has pushed a specific public narrative, intended exclusively for Western consumption. Just how extremely effective the MB has been was demonstrated in 2011, when then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, unbelievably, claimed that the MB was “… largely secular… has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam…They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt…there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence”.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Banna made jihadist violence a focal point of his movement. He wrote, “Death is art” and “Fighting the unbelievers involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam.” The MB inducts members into its deliberatively secretive and opaque network with the pledge that “Jihad is our way” and “Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

It is, in fact, difficult to overstate the importance of the MB in promoting and spreading jihad in the 20th century and onwards[1]. As the UK government’s expert review of the MB, published in December 2015, concluded:

“[The Muslim Brotherhood’s] public narrative — notably in the West — emphasized engagement not violence. But there have been significant differences between Muslim Brotherhood communications in English and Arabic; there is little evidence that the experience of power in Egypt has caused a rethinking in the Muslim Brotherhood of its ideology or conduct. UK official engagement with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood produced no discernible change in their thinking. Indeed even by mid-2014 statements from Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-linked media platforms seem to have deliberately incited violence”.

The UK review goes on to say:

“The Muslim Brotherhood at all levels have repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians. The Muslim Brotherhood facilitate funding for Hamas. The leadership of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, its Jordanian counterpart and Hamas are closely connected. There are wider links with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates throughout the region and senior Muslim Brotherhood figures and associates have justified attacks against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood not only funds one of the most virulent terrorist groups, Hamas, but there is barely any daylight between the various leaderships of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Hamas. (According to article two of the Hamas Charter, “The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times”).

The indictment could not be more damning.

Another terrorist group rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood is Egyptian terrorist group Jamaat al-Islamiyya. This group came into existence, conveniently, when it broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood, after the latter denounced the use of violence in the 1970s. Creating a new terrorist organization was a brilliant strategy, which allowed for the Muslim Brotherhood to polish its image as a peaceful organization, leaving the dirty terrorist work to so-called “offshoots” or proxies. Indeed, Jamaat al-Islamiyya used the writings of the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, as an ideological basis. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted and jailed in the United States as the perpetrator of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, was the spiritual leader of Jamaat al-Islamiyya.

The New York Times itself featured a lengthy article called “The Philosopher of Islamic Terror” about Sayyid Qutb in its magazine in March 2003, stating that he was “…the intellectual hero of every one of the groups that eventually went into Al Qaeda, their Karl Marx… their guide”. Most of the terrorists who later founded al Qaeda were rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. Osama bin Laden was apparently recruited as a young man to the MB, whereas Ayman al-Zawahiri joined the MB at the age of 14 and went on to found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, “an organization that holds many of the same beliefs as the MB but simply refuses to renounce violence inside Egypt”, according to The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). It subsequently merged with bin Laden’s organization. The lead hijacker of 9/11, Mohammed Atta, was also a member of the MB. The list goes on.

2304“The objective, then, is to strike terror into the hearts of God’s enemies, who are also the enemies of the advocates of Islam…” — Sayyid Qutb, chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s.

In January 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad:

“It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom.”

The statement also quotes at length the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, disproving the claim that the Muslim Brotherhood has broken with its violent past:

“Imam al-Bana prepared the jihad brigades that he sent to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers and the second [Supreme] Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi reconstructed the ‘secret apparatus’ to bleed the British occupiers.”

After the official statement was released, Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), stated:

“Muslim Brothers have been committing violent acts for a very long time. Under [Egypt’s former president, Mohamed] Morsi, Muslim Brothers tortured protesters outside the presidential palace. After Morsi’s ouster, they have frequently attacked security forces and state property… But until now, the official line from the Brotherhood was to support this implicitly by justifying its causes, without justifying the acts themselves. So the Brotherhood’s open call to jihad doesn’t necessarily mean a tactical shift, but a rhetorical one.”

Terrorism expert and national security reporter Patrick Poole added:

“It [the call for jihad] invokes the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist past, specifically mentioning the ‘special apparatus’ that waged terror in the 1940s and 1950s until the Nasser government cracked down on the group, as well as the troops sent by founder Hassan al-Banna to fight against Israel in 1948. It concludes saying that the Brotherhood has entered a new stage, warns of a long jihad ahead, and to prepare for martyrdom… What remains to be seen is how this announcement will be received inside the Beltway, where the vast majority of the ‘experts’ have repeatedly said that the Brotherhood had abandoned its terrorist past, which it is now clearly reviving, and had renounced violence,”

There is nothing peaceful, lawful or democratic about the Muslim Brotherhood. It believes today what it has always believed and openly stated: that a caliphate, where sharia law will rule, must be established through jihad. Refusing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization would be a grave mistake, playing straight into the strategy of the Brotherhood and, once more, revealing to the world the extreme gullibility of the West and its boundless willingness to believe anything the Muslim Brotherhood throws its way.

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[1] As Fereydoun Hoveyda writes in his book, The Broken Crescent: The “Threat” of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism:

“…aspiring terrorists from all over the world poured into Egypt… to learn from al-Banna’s men the art of eliminating the enemies of Islam. While training terrorists and directing murders, Sheikh Hassan denied involvement in the assassinations and attacks, using what Shiite clerics called ketman (holy dissimulation). Indeed, deceiving infidels was admitted by all Muslims, and Shiites even extended the dissimulation to other Muslims when the security of their ’cause’ was at stake”.

Four Muslim Groups Reject US Counter-Terror Funding

February 13, 2017

Four Muslim Groups Reject US Counter-Terror Funding, Clarion ProjectRyan Mauro, February 13, 2017

(Good! Now perhaps some of the funding will go to anti-Islamist groups, likely to use the money to discourage rather than to encourage radicalization. — DM)

minnesota-four-hpFour Minnesota youth from the Somali community who were convicted of terrorism-related offenses.

The good news is that there are plenty of non-profits, including Muslim ones with an unequivocal stand against Islamism that deserve the grant money. These organizations generally lack financial support from which to build a network, provide services, etc.

If certain Muslim nonprofits choose to put politics and ego above fighting extremism, then there are plenty of other options for these grants. 

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In a revealing trend, four nonprofits groups involved with the Muslim-American community have rejected federal funding for countering violent extremism. For these groups, their image — as well as making a political point – is a higher priority than fighting radical Islam and helping their communities.

The four Muslim groups had been privileged to receive Homeland Security grants to support their efforts to “counter violent extremism,” a generic and politically-correct term that the Obama Administration used to avoid verbiage related to Islam.

Now, these groups are willing to sacrifice that funding and cut their programs just to stick it to President Trump. Their form of protest is not to use their voices, but to try to show how bad President Trump is by increasing the suffering and danger for their constituents and country more broadly.

An organization for Somali youth in Minnesota named Ka Joog is rejecting $500,000 that was supposed to promote education, prevent radicalization, drug use and other harmful activities. Whether you agree with the premise that radicalization is caused by those problems or not, the fact is that Ka Joog chose to deny help to Somali youth in need.

Apparently unaware of how ridiculous his sentence sounded, executive director Mohamed Farah said the decision was made because President Trump is “promoting a cancerous ideology.” Yes, he actually said he’d decline an opportunity to fight the cancerous ideology of radical Islam because he is offended by the so-called “cancerous ideology” of President Trump.

One local Somali activist with a record of standing against radical Islam, Omar Jamal, said he disagrees with President Trump but “the community desperately needs the money” and it’s better to work with the government as best you can, regardless of politics.

A group in Michigan, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, won’t take $500,000 because it believes President Trump’s counter-extremism programs involve spying on Muslims. The group provided no evidence that accepting the money would actually require them to do that.

The organization’s programs involve public health, human services, youth development and education. They will suffer because of a hypothetical requirement that hasn’t happened yet or even been proposed by the Trump Administration.

The third group to join in, Unity Productions Foundation of Virginia, was offered $400,000 to develop films featuring Islamic scholars condemning terrorism and Muslim-Americans contributing to society.

Muslim-American leadership regularly complains that Islamic condemnations of terrorism do not get adequate attention and the public doesn’t seeing how Muslim-Americans are a positive part of the country.

This group was given a whopping $400,000 to do just that—but instead, it is responding to President Trump’s alleged anti-Muslim sentiment by rejecting money from his administration to combat anti-Muslim sentiment.

That makes absolutely no sense.

The Bayan Claremont Islamic school in California is the latest to join the trend, turning down $800,000 that was to be given to “improve interreligious cooperation, civic engagement and social justice.” About $250,000 of that would have been transferred to a dozen other nonprofits doing work for the Muslim-American community.

The school’s faculty includes some controversial Islamic leaders accused of spreading radicalism and ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The staff includes Imam Suhaib Webb, Omid Safi and Ihsan Bagby.

Its president, Jihad Turk, said it was partially a response to reported plans by the Trump Administration to rename the Countering Violent Extremism programs to a title identifying radical Islam as the focus.

Keep in mind, Trump’s controversial plans—the travel pause (derided as a “Muslim ban”) designed to identify threats of radical Islam—don’t alter these services. These policies do not stop these groups from combating extremism on their own or from providing charity to those in need. You don’t have to agree with your president to help others and work to protect your country to the best of your ability.

By this logic, schools that dislike Education Secretary Betsy DeVos should punish their students by turning away federal funding.

Another element is at play here: Pressure from Islamists and their allies.

Fox News reports that two of the nonprofits “said they were rejecting grants they had already been awarded under the program because of concerns that it could damage their credibility or come with uncomfortable strings attached.”

Such attacks can make the Trump Administration lose Muslim partners, enabling Islamists to rally the community together like a single political party under their helm. An added bonus is that any danger and controversy that arises from the severed relationships can be blamed on Trump’s policies that these Muslim groups sabotaged.

The good news is that there are plenty of non-profits, including Muslim ones with an unequivocal stand against Islamism that deserve the grant money. These organizations generally lack financial support from which to build a network, provide services, etc.

If certain Muslim nonprofits choose to put politics and ego above fighting extremism, then there are plenty of other options for these grants.

On Defining Religion

February 12, 2017

On Defining Religion, Gatestone InstituteNonie Darwish, February 12, 2017

(Please see also, Georgetown Professor Condones Rape And Slavery Under Sharia. Does the First Amendment “free exercise” clause prohibit Federal or state intervention against enforcement of the dictates of Sharia law? If members of a religious cult from Latin America moved to the United States and required families to turn over their young virgin daughters for sacrifice to their Volcano God, would the “free exercise” clause prohibit Federal or state intervention?  — DM)

What the West does not understand is that Islam admits that government control is central to Islam and that Muslims must, sooner or later, demand to live under an Islamic government.

The majority of the world does not understand that much of the American media is in a propaganda war against the Trump administration simply because he names Islamic jihad and would prefer to see a strong and prosperous America as a world leader rather than to see a dictatorship — secular or theocratic — as a world leader.

Islam claims to be an Abrahamic religion, but in fact Islam came to the world 600 years after Christ, not to affirm the Bible but to discredit it; not to co-exist with “the people of the book” — Jews and Christians — but to replace them, after accusing them of intentionally falsifying the Bible.

Islam was created as a rebellion against the Bible and its values, and it relies on government enforcement to do so.

Political and legal (sharia) Islam is much more than a religion. Is the First Amendment a suicide pact?

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said that President Donald Trump’s 90-day ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries is “a religiously based ban,” and “if they can ban Muslims, why can’t they ban Mormons.” This has become the position of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, which has influenced not only the American public but has convinced the majority of the world that America is “bad.” How can we blame the world, and even a good segment of American citizens, for hating America when such disingenuous and misleading claims are aired to the world from US officials and broadcast by American television channels?

The majority of the world does not understand that much of the American media is in a propaganda war against the Trump Administration simply because he names Islamic jihad and would prefer to see a strong and prosperous America as a world leader, rather than to see a dictatorship — secular or theocratic — as a world leader. He ran as a Republican; meanwhile, Democrats and the mainstream media refuse to engage in respectful and legitimate debate on the most vital threat to Western civilization in the twenty-first century: Islam. Truth has become irrelevant; people seem to prefer a political game of tug-of-war to sway public opinion against the Trump Administration, and, presumably, to elect Democrats forever. That is how the system is set up.

Political discussions on television have become extremely frustrating; they have turned into shouting matches and name-calling at the least informative levels. Television hosts often become instigators and participants in the shouting matches. The thinking is apparently that the louder they get, the more attractive the program will be. Meanwhile everyone is talking at once; the viewer cannot hear anyone, so the program could not be more boring.

Under the US Constitution, freedom of religion is protected. and Islam has been welcomed inside the West on that basis as one of the three Abrahamic religions. According to Western values and the Western understanding of the word, “religion” is supposed to be a personal relationship with God, where free will is of utmost importance; the believer has authority only over himself or herself when it comes to religious laws or punishing sins (such as leaving the religion or committing adultery) — quite different from criminal laws intended to protect society. Western values also allow followers of a religion the freedom to proselytize, but never by resorting to government enforcement.

Bottom line, the Western definition of religion is in harmony with the Biblical values of the human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that all human beings are created equal under the law. It is considered a basic Western value to view God, family and country as a top priority.

Now let us compare these values to Islamic values:

  1. Muslim citizens have the right to punish other citizens with humiliating, severe, cruel and unusual punishments such as death, flogging and amputation, for sinning against Allah, the Quran or Islam. Those “crimes” include leaving Islam, being a homosexual, or committing adultery. And if the Islamic government does not enforce such punishments, any Muslim on the street has the right to apply the punishment against another Muslim and not be prosecuted. That is why apostates, such as myself, cannot visit any Muslim county; the fear is not only from Islamic governments but from anyone on the street.
  2. Being a Muslim is not a personal relationship with God, as it is under the Bible, but is enforced by the state at birth. When a child is born in Egypt to a Muslim father, the birth certificate is stamped “Muslim” and all government-issued documents as well. A child must learn Islamic studies in school and practice Islam throughout his life. In Egypt, the twin sons of a Christian divorced mother were forced to take Islamic studies and become Muslim just because their originally-Christian father converted to Islam. Today, in Egypt, I am still considered Muslim and such a status could never change if I ever lived there again.
  3. Islamic law and leaders rely on government enforcement — under penalty of death — to keep Muslims within Islam and to convert the minority Christian population into Islam. Islamic sharia law, obliges Islamic states to enforce religious law, and if the Muslim head of state refuses to follow religious law, sharia permits the public to use force to remove the head of state from office.
  4. Islam claims to be an Abrahamic religion, but in fact Islam came to the world 600 years after Christ, not to affirm the Bible but to discredit it; not to co-exist with “the people of the book,” Jews and Christians, but to replace them — after accusing them of intentionally falsifying the Bible. Islam was created as a rebellion against the Bible and its values, and relies on government enforcement to do so.

The tenets above are just a few of the differences in values between Islam, the Bible and the Western concept of religion. What the West does not understand is that Islam admits that government control is central to Islam, and Muslims must demand to live under an Islamic government sooner or later. That might explain the reason for the eternal violence in nearly all Muslim countries, between government being in the hands of a religious theocracy or of the military. Islam, as it is practiced today, has violated all Western definitions of religion and values.

Political and legal (sharia) Islam is much more than a religion. Is the First Amendment a suicide pact?

2294(Image source: Brent Payne/Flickr)

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.