Today's NYTimes has a story about the Islamic Society of North America convention this past weekend, and the flap over the US government's sending representatives to engage the ISNA membership -- this, even though in Dallas, the Justice Department has named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist fundraising case, and has presented evidence linking ISNA directly with the radical international Muslim Brotherhood. I love this part of the story:
Representatives of at least eight federal departments and agencies attended the convention, their booths sandwiched among hundreds of others from bookstores, travel agencies, perfumeries, clothing designers and real estate developers.Mark S. Ward, who runs programs in Asia and the Middle East for the Agency for International Development, said Washington had to compete for influence abroad with militant groups that are expert at delivering humanitarian services.
Mr. Ward said he hoped more American Muslim organizations would apply to help distribute overseas aid.
So let me get this straight: the Justice Department believes that ISNA is close enough to alleged terrorist fundraising that it names the organization in the HLF case (without charging it criminally) -- but another part of the US government wants ISNA to apply for a program distributing US government aid overseas?
What sense does that make? Either the US government has an idiot, or idiots, in charge of making decisions, or it's being unjust to ISNA in the Dallas case. Me, I vote for the idiot explanation.
On the jump, I've pasted my 2003 Dallas Morning News column about ISNA, and how its then-leader called me a Nazi for asking him to square his public professions of peaceableness with the fact that his group's board had on it a number of Muslims with direct ties to Islamic extremism (e.g., one of them had spoken at the infamous "Death to the Jews" rally outside the White House in 2000, and Zaid Shakir, who's quoted in today's Times story complaining about anti-Muslim bigotry, once said that Muslims can't accept the American political system becauase "it is against the orders and ordainments of Allah." The Times, to my knowledge, has never explored that side of ISNA. No surprise there.). I'd put a link up, but I think it's no longer on the News' online archive. Below is the whole column, lest anybody is tempted to buy ISNA's sob story.
By Rod Dreher
October 23, 2003
The Dallas Morning News
Nazi? Moi?
All I had done was ask a simple question of Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed,
the general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America, who
recently met with The Dallas Morning News' editorial board.
Dr. Syeed's revealing reaction - he said that my query reminded him
of "Nazism" and that I would have to "repent" - tells us a great
deal about American Islam's extremist problem ... and ours.
ISNA is the largest Islamic organization in the country, serving as
an umbrella group for 300 or so mosques, cultural centers and
affiliated groups.
The North American Islamic Trust, a sister organization set up for
what its Web site calls the "protection and safeguarding" of the
finances of ISNA and other groups, owns between 20 percent and 27
percent of this country's mosques.
ISNA is heavily funded by Saudi contributions and has been
described in congressional testimony by terrorism expert (and
Muslim convert) Stephen Schwartz as one of the chief conduits
through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the
United States.
Though ISNA portrays itself as mainstream, Islamic scholar Ali
Asani of Harvard calls it "ultra-orthodox [and]
ultra-conservative."
Echoing similar reports from across the country, Dr. Khalid Duran,
a moderate Muslim, and unnamed others like him told the St.
Petersburg Times that extremists try to take over American mosques
and hand the titles over to NAIT.
Jamaluddin Hoffman, a Sufi and moderate, characterizes what's going
on as "a war for the heart and soul of our religion."
ISNA's advisory board (see www.isna.net) is thick with men who have
espoused extremist opinions and have troubling associations.
There's Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam named by U.S. Attorney Mary
Jo White as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as
co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also
testified as a character witness for convicted terror mastermind
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has
documented at least two occasions in which Mr. Wahhaj has urged
followers to overturn the U.S. system of government and set up an
Islamic dictatorship.
There's Muzammil Siddiqui, a former ISNA president who spoke at an
Oct. 28, 2000, "Jerusalem Day" rally in Washington, an event that
degenerated into a hatefest in which the crowd chanted, "Death to
the Jews!" Columnist Debbie Schlussel, citing a Pakistani news Web
site, quoted Dr. Siddiqui as saying that Islamic rule has to be
global and that "all our efforts should lead to that direction."
ISNA board member Bassam Osman is the president of NAIT, which owns
the Islamic Academy of Florida. That school was described as a
criminal enterprise in the federal indictment handed down in
February against school founder Sami al-Arian and others alleged to
be Palestinian Islamic Jihad fund-raisers.
ISNA sponsored a big conference this past summer in Dallas
(www.dfwisna.com). Mr. Wahhaj, Dr. Syeed and Dr. Siddiqui spoke
there, as did Imam Zaid Shakir, who said in a 1992 educational
video that Muslims can't accept the American political system
because "it is against the orders and ordainments of Allah."
None of these people has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
But they all have been affiliated with a brand of Islam that most
Americans would, and should, find frightening. We are entitled to
ask why.
Given ISNA's leadership, it is no wonder Dr. Syeed wouldn't give a
straight answer when a Morning News colleague of mine asked him
three times what his organization was doing to fight Islamic
extremism.
When I asked the man how he squared his profession of tolerance and
moderation with having radicals on the ISNA board, Dr. Syeed became
hostile, sputtering that my question reminded him of Hitlerian
persecution. That is blustering nonsense, of course, and an attempt
to silence legitimate questions about ISNA's agenda through
intimidation and misdirection.
They must not get away with it. As benign as they sometimes sound,
Dr. Syeed and his ilk are no friends of moderation and tolerance.
As the late Seif Ashmawi, a moderate Muslim-American newspaper
publisher, once put it, "Radical Islamic groups have now taken over
leadership of the 'mainstream' Islamic institutions in the United
States, and anyone who pretends otherwise is deliberately engaging
in self-deception."
Silence and a lack of curiosity, however well meaning or unwitting,
are allowing a malignant ideology to grow unchecked in this
country.
American Muslims who want no part of Islamofascist ideology are its
first victims. They won't be its last.
Rod Dreher is an editorial writer and occasional columnist for The
Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.
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I don't think Mr. Ward was saying that he wants criminal Muslim organizations to distribute aid overseas. I think he wants American Muslim Organizations to get involved (those without criminal links) to try to counter-effect the work done by a lot of the "humanitarian" Muslim organizations that are also militant organizations....like Hamas for example (in Lebanon and Palestine the organization provides relief aid, builds and runs medical clinics and schools....but at the same time is militant and involved in terrorism). I think that is what Mr. Ward was talking about that it's sad that at a big event like this that there weren't American Muslim Organizations there that were involved with distributing aid overseas that weren't also linked to criminal activities/terrorism...afterall he said that Washington has to compete abroad with these militant groups.
At the same time the article seems to be acknowledging that ISNA has some bad elements in it and that perhaps American Muslim Organizations should try to re-affiliate themselves. Even you point this out in your column that you reposted for us to read. I can see where on the one hand you have agencies looking at an organization like ISNA and all the bad elements and on the other hand another agency looking at ISNA as an American Muslim Organization and thinking "isn't this sad that this organization isn't more involved with overseas aid and is instead also like other organizations over there that have both good and bad elements. Here they are in America and have a chance to be different, to do a lot of good both for Muslim relations in America and for the Muslim peoples overseas."
Well I hope I made sense anyways with what I wrote. I know that as a Hindu we have organizations here in America that help with helping people in India, but that the organizations are very careful with who they partner with in India and if necessary do not partner with any organizations in India and distribute the relief on their own. Maybe organizations like ISNA and other American Muslim Organizations choose to just look the other way at the bad deeds of those they partner with to provide aid for the sake of doing good deeds. But I don't think the ends justifies the means....especially if there are other ways to do the same things without the bad elements.
>>
"How do you suggest that the government engage U.S. Muslims when every Muslim group and mosque has ended up as an unindicted co-conspirator or is on some terrorist watch-list because of our chaotic approach to intelligence. You'd have no one left. So what would you do, short of deportation?"
An excellent question. If only US goverment was not a part of suicidal liberal culture.
Severely restricting Muslim immigration from Muslim AND non-Muslim countries.
Declaring Sharia a political doctrine not compatible with US Constitution.
Deporting all non-citizen Muslims who profess belief in Sharia,
it is similar to deporting non-citizen Commies or Nazis for their political beliefs.
Stripping naturalized Muslim citizens if it can be proven that they believed in Sharia when they took an oath of citizenship.
These steps will do for beginning in domestic policies.
In foreign policy arena, implement Separationism (see Auster, D. West, C Iannone).
Sounds like a good venue for scoping out how things are playing to this particular audience and how they are reacting. Also a good venue for finding out who has what allegiances and a good venue for showing another side of the US. As long as the presence of the US could not be construed as affirmation of criminal activities by fringe groups, I think it is is reasonable for US government officials to attend -- if only for intelligence purposes if none other.
I've also sometimes argued that we should treat Muslims who believe in a world wide Islamic government as we treated communists during the cold war. We should be able to reject any person who believes that the only just government is a world wide Islamic government. That is the real heart of the matter: if a Muslim is a fundamentalist and strictly adheres to the Quran demands than he knows that he must work towards creating an Islamic state. The world will know peace whenever everyone lives by Islamic law.
To me, people who believe in Islamic governments can never be someone whose oath of citizenship to the United States is anything but a superficial sham. Some people may argue -- surely Muslims that come here do not think that way. But they do. What is even more surprising is that they can convert US citizens to thinking that way. I had a friend who was a Nader's Raider, environmental activist in high school. I lost track of her for about 10 years and then came to find out that she had converted to Islam. Over time I learned that she believed that the only just government would be one based on Islam. My mouth dropped. She then proceded to tell me how Islam is more freeing for women. I couldn't believe my ears. And this was a good 15 years before 911. The folks who converted her where from small town, predominantly ethnic and Catholic America. She was raised Catholic.
The fundamental problem with Islam is that adhered to strictly it is not only a religion but also a form of government. Sharia law creates an interesting dynamic: it is a tool that can use fear of the tortures that the justice systems inflicts on the "guilty) to coerce people. I don't understand why we do not refuse citzenship and the right to free passage throughout the country to those who belive that non-Islamic governments should be replaced by Islamic. During the cold war, Soviet communists were restricted to a 25 mile radius of 3 major cities. We have no control over these people.
Sharia is secondary to the state and a useful tool for oppression. A good example comes from an Iranian that I knew. He said how things really work in Iran is that the religious police leave you alone as long as your playing ball and not making waves. Make waves and they'll start following you and your family around or come into your house looking for alcohol and other contraband. The Sharia rules are so complex and the punishments so harsh that no one can obey them all the time. So if a woman's hair falls out of her covering and her family is on the "list" she charged with improper covering. Selective enforcement of the law is really the name of the game.
Similar things go on in Saudi Arabia. I'm sure we have all heard the stories of the women who shed their coverings the minute they get out of Saudi Airspace. The men come to the west to drink and do other things that are dangerous to do in the country. As long as they keep their noses clean, its ok for them to break the rules.
Although, I myself would love to see factions working toward coordinating rather than "competing" to perform humanitarian aid (sounds ironic, no?) this really leads to the question: If these people are so evil, why are the effectuating humanitarian efforts? One would think they would be admonished for sinister behavior.
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