Islam In The United States

[Soldier4Christ]

Kids share Muslim faith in event for educators

Samina and Rashid Chotani's Ellicott City home will be relatively silent in the coming weeks, compared with the past month and a half.

That's when up to 42 children gathered each Sunday to prepare for their performance during the third Howard County Public School System Teachers Appreciation Dinner.

The event, held Monday at Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, was sponsored by the Howard County Muslim Council. The program, "Islamic Holidays," was an opportunity for educators in the county to learn more about the Muslim faith. There were a number of plays and songs, speeches and a quiz that tested what the teachers learned.

"It's a night to celebrate, appreciate, educate and to say thank you for what they've done," said Rashid Chotani, the president of the organization.

Chotani recruited Muslim students to share aspects of their culture with educators in the county to promote understanding and education about the Muslim faith.

"Teachers are the core of our society," Samina Chotani said. "The kids are not with us the whole day. Teachers are the house mother and house father. Imagine how much time teachers spend with them. You have to respect the teachers."

More than 300 people attended the event, including Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin and several school board members.

Rashid Chotani said he has received plenty of positive feedback from those who attended the event, which drew the largest crowd to date.

The ACLU will surely jump on this issue? Nope, complete silence from them.

[Soldier4Christ]

Phoenix Imam Tells Muslims To Disregard U.S. Laws

“A Muslim must try his best to abide by the rulings of Sharia [Islamic law] whenever possible as much as he can. He should not allow himself to be liable to those western laws that contradict the clear-cut Islamic rulings.” The rulings of Sharia, mind you, include stoning for adultery, amputation of the hand for theft, and institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims. But the speaker was not some fanatic Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia; it was the Phoenix-based imam Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Foundation. This is probably one reason why, as The Arizona Republic reported Monday, the FBI has stepped up scrutiny of Shahin and other Muslim leaders in Phoenix.

Omar Shahin has been in the news before. He is the spokesman for a group of six imams who sued US Airways after being removed from a flight in 2006 when passengers and crewmembers reported that they were behaving suspiciously. The imams were handcuffed and later interrogated, then released with no charges, whereupon Shahin led a news conference to condemn prejudice against Muslims. All six imams later sued the airline, airport police and an FBI agent, claiming they had been singled out solely because they were Muslim. “We did nothing,” Shahin maintained in a report on Boston Herald.com -- and the Council on American Islamic Relations seized on the incident as evidence of American “Islamophobia.” “We are concerned that crew members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam,” said CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, in the same report.

The imams also initially sued the anonymous passengers who reported them, before House Republicans pushed through a measure protecting whistleblowers in such circumstances. As I discuss in my new book Stealth Jihad, if this initiative had been successful, the only winners would have been Islamic jihadists who wanted to hijack airplanes. Any ruling against the passengers would have essentially placed Muslims beyond the pale of security-related scrutiny, because someone who reported suspicious behavior by a Muslim in an airport or airplane would have faced a real risk of being sued for discrimination.

Shahin’s questionable activities didn’t begin with this lawsuit, either. In the '80s, he was an imam at the Islamic Center of Tucson, which the Republic identified as “a hub for adherents to the radical Wahhabi school of Islam, some of whom later became important aides to Osama bin Laden in the al-Qaida terrorist group.” The report by Sean Holstege and Dennis Wagner also notes that Shahin raised funds for two Islamic charities that were ultimately shut down on accusations that they were funneling contributions to the jihad terrorist group Hamas.

Yet despite all this, “Shahin has served as a Muslim community liaison with the FBI and the Phoenix police,” according to the Republic. How did a man with a record like Shahin’s ever get into the good graces of the FBI? He was able to do so because many officials in positions of influence in the United States are standing by passively as the stealth jihad advances. They are ignorant of what is happening, and those who do know are making sure not to tell them. Willfully blind officials appear dedicated to “multiculturalism” and “diversity” no matter what the cost. They hinder the investigation of and resistance to the stealth jihad.

There is no gauging the extent of stealth jihadist infiltration into American intelligence and law enforcement agencies. But there is no question that the chief enabler of that infiltration has been political correctness among American officials. In this great war against the global jihad network, no one wants to appear anti-Arab or anti-Muslim -- and this has led more or less directly to some serious lapses in national security.

If America is to survive, it is eventually going to have to choose national security over political correctness -- and call upon Islamic leaders like Omar Shahin to stop teaching Muslims in the U.S. to disregard American laws when they conflict with Islamic norms. The spectacle of the FBI increasing scrutiny of a man whom they have worked with in the past is ludicrous beyond belief. How many more imams in America will teach Muslims that when Islamic law and U.S. law contradict each other, it is U.S. law that must give way, before those sworn to uphold and defend U.S. law wake up to what is happening?

[Shammu]

Omar Shahin needs to get a plane ticket out of the United States, or follow the laws of the state of Arizona!!

How many more imams in America will teach Muslims that when Islamic law and U.S. law contradict each other, it is U.S. law that must give way, before those sworn to uphold and defend U.S. law wake up to what is happening?

These muslims won't be happy, till they can have their way. The United States law, is for the whole country. Without the law, their will be chaos, which is what muslims want.

[Soldier4Christ]

Muslim inmates at Rawlins accommodated

The Wyoming Department of Corrections says it will allow Muslim inmates at the state penitentiary in Rawlins to time their meals to accommodate their daily prayers.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit earlier this year on behalf of two Muslim inmates. The lawsuit challenged a prison rule requiring inmates to eat their meals within 20 minutes after delivery, saying the policy forced them to choose between eating meals and praying.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer approved an agreement on Wednesday that allows prisoners receiving religious meals to keep their meals in their cells until the next meal is served. It also requires the prison to install a new microwave for inmates that won't be used for pork, which is forbidden to Muslims and members of some other religions.

Stephen Pevar, a lawyer with the ACLU in Connecticut, said Thursday that he credits prison officials for their willingness to make changes to accommodate the inmates.
Congress passed a law in 2000 that was intended to make certain that prisoners could practice their religions in prison unless doing so clearly threatened prison security, Pevar said.

"Complying with this new law has required prison officials around the country to make some changes," Pevar said. "I am pleased to say that Wyoming officials have made some very important changes, not only in this case, but in that case a couple of months ago with the American Indian inmate who wanted access to some eagle feathers."

The ACLU represented inmate Andrew John Yellowbear Jr., a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, in his successful federal lawsuit against the Wyoming Department of Corrections to secure eagle feathers for use in religious ceremonies. Yellowbear is serving a life sentence on a conviction of murder in the death of his daughter.

In the current lawsuit, the ACLU represented Muslim inmates Joseph Miller and Hurie Purdiman Jr. against the corrections department. Pevar said other inmates, including both Muslims and Jews, will take advantage of the prison's agreement to install a new microwave oven that won't be used for pork.

"It's a quick fix to a problem that caused a number of Muslim prisoners to not be able to eat," Pevar said.

On the issue of timing meals to allow Muslim inmates to perform their prayers, the agreement calls for prison staff to alert inmates before meals are served in the dining hall and also to allow inmates receiving religious meals to go to the front of the serving line to get their meals. It also establishes a procedure for inmates who must fast until after sundown to get their meals when their fasts are over.

Melinda Brazzale, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, said Thursday that Rawlins Warden Mike Murphy had sent out a directive to the prison staff instructing them how to comply with the agreement.

[Soldier4Christ]

Surprise! CAIR officials
slapped with subpoenas
Terror-linked Muslim lobby's dinner
turns into public relations nightmare

When the Council on American-Islamic Relations held its 14th Annual Banquet at the Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel tonight, it was planning to raise funds and honor some of its supporters, but instead several top officials of the Muslim lobby group were served with subpoenas for various civil and criminal offenses.

The dramatic surprise, caught on video to be released later, was a result of the research work of the Mapping Sharia Project, headed by Dave Gaubatz. He personally served CAIR Director Nihad Awad at the banquet tonight while North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw, D-S.C., a CAIR national board member, was addressing the festivities.

Also addressing the dinner was Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the nation's first Muslim member of Congress. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, reportedly turned down an invitation to address the banquet.

As WND previously reported, CAIR allegedly defrauded a number of Muslims recently seeking help with citizenship delays, and then threatened to sue them if they complained to the media, according to a security watchdog group which has obtained internal CAIR documents.

The former legal director of CAIR's Maryland/Virginia chapter shook down Muslim hardship cases for thousands of dollars without providing promised services, officials with the Mapping Sharia Project charge.

CAIR, a nonprofit group, promoted the services of the employee, Morris L. "Jamil" Days, whom it publicly described as a civil-rights attorney, even after discovering Days was unlicensed and was fraudulently representing CAIR's clients.

CAIR's board allegedly covered up the scandal by paying defrauded Muslim families partial restitution payments while insisting they sign agreements releasing CAIR from legal liability, officials said.

The Mapping Sharia Project had threatened to sue CAIR for "damages in the amount of $25,000 for the purpose of conducting meetings, workshops, press releases, flyers and the like to reverse ... the damage to CAIR's reputation caused by the recipient's breach" of the agreement to remain silent about the "incident."

Earlier this year, the board also fired Days and closed the chapter's offices in Herndon, Va. The chapter director, Khalid Iqbal, is no longer with CAIR.

CAIR refused to respond to the allegations, which came to light only after American Muslims provided evidence to the Mapping Sharia Project.

"I really don't know anything about this," CAIR spokesman Ahmed Rehab said. He referred questions to CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper, who declined comment.

Earlier this year, CAIR launched a $250,000 fundraising campaign that included a promotional on its website touting its mission to help Muslims, particularly those confronting citizenship problems.

"Everyday, CAIR works hard to defend the rights of American Muslims who encounter a delay in gaining citizenship," the group said.

In fact, CAIR has "victimized" poor Muslim immigrants, says Gaubatz.

"CAIR continues to put Muslim Americans at risk through the pretense that they represent them in any way," Gaubatz said. "CAIR is receiving support from big foreign donors, not because of their effectiveness in discrimination cases, but because of their false image in the media."

Gaubatz says CAIR, which last year was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terror-financing case involving Hamas, controls some $7 million in real estate assets in Washington through a limited liability holding company that includes silent Middle Eastern investors.

He says his group has filed a formal complaint against CAIR concerning the alleged fraud with the District of Columbia.

WND has previously reported on CAIR's extensive ties to terrorism and extremism. Although CAIR is a nonprofit organization, it does not disclose complete directories of its staff or advisory boards, and even refuses to make its federal tax filings readily available to the public. But a review of federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election Commission records detailing donor occupations, reveals that Washington-based CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations.

"Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters," said one FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials.

WND has reported that at least 14 CAIR officials have been caught up in terror investigations.

Congressional leaders say they are warning lawmakers and other Washington officials to disassociate from the group due to its growing terror ties.

"Groups like CAIR have a proven record of senior officials being indicted and either imprisoned or deported from the United States," said U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-founder of the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus.

CAIR itself recently was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged scheme to funnel $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas. In the Holy Land Foundation case, federal prosecutors also listed CAIR as a member of the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that gave rise to Hamas, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. The government will retry the Holy Land case, which ended in a hung jury.

"There was a lot of evidence presented at the recent Holy Land Foundation trial which exposed CAIR and others as front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States," Myrick said.

Still, CAIR is lobbying House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and other sympathetic members of Congress to pressure the Justice Department to expunge its name from the case, arguing the negative publicity has hurt membership and fundraising.

The federal judge during the trial refused a written request by the group to strike its name from the list of co-conspirators. The petition is still pending before the court.

CAIR, which runs 33 offices and chapters nationwide, also recently helped defeat an anti-terror plan by Los Angeles police to map the local Muslim community for extremist neighborhoods.

Critics counter that CAIR has no legitimate voice to make such complaints, because the group is itself an extremist organization that has employed or appointed to its boards of directors and advisers an inordinate number of radical co-conspirators, suspected and convicted terrorists, and other criminals.

Indeed, the list is long and growing, and includes:

    * Muthanna al-Hanooti: The CAIR director's home was raided last year by FBI agents in connection with an active terrorism investigation. Agents also searched the offices of his advocacy group, Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International Relations, which al-Hanooti operates out of Dearborn, Mich., and Washington, D.C.

      FAAIR claims to be a consulting firm raising awareness of Sunni grievances in Iraq, but investigators suspect it's a front supporting the Sunni-led insurgency.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Al-Hanooti, who emigrated to the U.S. from Iraq, formerly helped run a suspected Hamas terror front called LIFE for Relief and Development. Its Michigan offices also were raided last September. In 2004, LIFE's Baghdad office was raided by U.S. troops, who seized files and computers.

Al-Hanooti is related to Shiek Mohammed al-Hanooti, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He currently leads prayers at a Washington-area mosque that aided some of the 9/11 hijackers.

The FBI alleges al-Hanooti, an ethnic-Palestinian who also emigrated from Iraq, raised money for Hamas. In fact, "Al-Hanooti collected over $6 million for support of Hamas," according to a 2001 FBI report, and was present with CAIR and Holy Land officials at a secret Hamas fundraising summit held last decade at a Philadelphia hotel.

Prosecutors recently added his name to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.

Al-Hanooti denies supporting Hamas, although he's praised Palestinian suicide bombers as "martyrs" who are "alive in the eyes of Allah."

Earlier this year, his younger brother, Hamid al-Hanooti, was found dead in Iraq after reportedly being held by local security forces as a suspected terrorist.


Laura Jaghlit: A civil-rights coordinator for CAIR, her Washington-area home was raided by federal agents after 9/11 as part of an investigation into terrorist financing, money laundering and tax fraud. Her husband Mohammed Jaghlit, a key leader in the Saudi-backed SAAR network, is a target of the still-active probe.

Last decade, Jaghlit sent two letters accompanying donations – one for $10,000, the other for $5,000 – from the SAAR Foundation to Sami al-Arian, now a convicted terrorist. In each letter, according to a federal affidavit, "Jaghlit instructed al-Arian not to disclose the contribution publicly or to the media."

Investigators suspect the funds were intended for Palestinian terrorists via a U.S. front called WISE, which at the time employed an official who personally delivered a satellite phone battery to Osama bin Laden. The same official also worked for Jaghlit's group.

In addition, Jaghlit donated a total of $37,200 to the Holy Land Foundation, which prosecutors say is a Hamas front. Jaghlit subsequently was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing case.


Abdurahman Alamoudi: Another CAIR director, he is serving 23 years in federal prison for plotting terrorism. Alamoudi, who was caught on tape complaining bin Laden hadn't killed enough Americans in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, was one of al-Qaida's top fund-raisers in America, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Nihad Awad: For the first time, wiretap evidence from the Holy Land case puts CAIR's executive director at a Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and activists that was secretly recorded by the FBI. Participants allegedly hatched a plot to disguise payments to Hamas terrorists as charitable giving.

During the meeting, according to FBI transcripts, Awad was recorded discussing the propaganda effort. He mentions Ghassan Dahduli, whom he worked with at the time at the Islamic Association for Palestine, another Hamas front. Both were IAP officers. Dahduli's name also was listed in the address book of bin Laden's personal secretary, Wadi al-Hage, who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the U.S. embassy bombings. Dahduli, an ethnic-Palestinian like Awad, was deported to Jordan after 9/11 for refusing to cooperate in the terror investigation.

Awad's and Dahduli's phone numbers are listed in a Muslim Brotherhood document seized by federal investigators revealing "important phone numbers" for the "Palestine Section" of the Brotherhood in America. The court exhibit shows Hamas fugitive Mousa Abu Marzook listed on the same page with Awad.


Omar Ahmad: U.S. prosecutors also named CAIR's founder and chairman emeritus as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Ahmad too was placed at the Philly meeting, FBI special agent Lara Burns testified at the trial. Prosecutors also designated him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine Committee" in America. Ahmad, like his CAIR partner Awad, is ethnic-Palestinian.

(Though both Ahmad and Awad were senior leaders of IAP, the Hamas front, neither of their biographical sketches posted on CAIR's website mentions their IAP past.)


Nabil Sadoun: A current CAIR board member, Sadoun has served on the board of the United Association for Studies and Research, which investigators believe to be a key Hamas front in America. In fact, Sadoun co-founded UASR with Hamas leader Marzook. The Justice Department added UASR to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.



Mohamed Nimer: CAIR's current research director also served as a board director for UASR, the strategic arm for Hamas in the U.S.

(Tellingly, CAIR neglects to mention Nimer's and Sadoun's roles in UASR in their bios.)


Rafeeq Jaber: A founding director of CAIR, Jaber was the long-time president of the Islamic Association for Palestine. In 2002, a federal judge found that "the Islamic Association for Palestine has acted in support of Hamas." In his capacity as IAP chief, Jaber praised Hezbollah attacks on Israel. He also served on the board of a radical mosque in the Chicago area.


Rabith Hadid: The CAIR fund-raiser was a founder of the Global Relief Foundation, which after 9/11 was blacklisted by Treasury for financing al-Qaida and other terror groups. Its assets were frozen in December 2001. Hadid was arrested on terror-related charges and deported to Lebanon in 2003.


Siraj Wahhaj: A member of CAIR's board of advisers, Wahhaj was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The radical Brooklyn imam was close to convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and defended him during his trial.


Randall "Ismail" Royer: The former CAIR communications specialist and civil-rights coordinator is serving 20 years in prison in connection with the Virginia Jihad Network, which he led while employed by CAIR at its Washington headquarters. The group trained to kill U.S. soldiers overseas, cased the FBI headquarters, and cheered the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Al-Qaida operative Ahmed Abu Ali, convicted of plotting to assassinate President Bush, was among those who trained with Royer's Northern Virginia cell.


Bassam Khafagi: Another CAIR official, Khafagi was arrested in 2003 while serving as CAIR's director of community affairs. He pleaded guilty to charges of bank and visa fraud stemming from a federal counterterror probe of his leadership role in the Islamic Assembly of North America, which has supported al-Qaida and advocated suicide attacks on America. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison and deported to his native Egypt.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Ghassan Elashi: One of CAIR's founding directors, he was convicted in 2004 of illegally shipping high-tech goods to terror state Syria, and is serving 80 months in prison. He's also charged with providing material support to Hamas in the Holy Land Foundation trial. He was chairman of the charity, which provided seed capital to CAIR. Elashi is related to Hamas leader Marzook.


Hamza Yusuf: The FBI investigated the CAIR board member after 9/11, because just two days before the attacks, he made an ominous prediction to a Muslim audience.

      "This country is facing a terrible fate and the reason for that is because this country stands condemned," Yusuf warned. "It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did. And lest people forget, Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands."

CAIR, which receives financial backing from Saudi and Emirati royalty, denies charges that it has a secret agenda to Islamize America. But a Muslim Brotherhood document declassified in the Holy Land case reveals that CAIR's parent was among Muslim organizations enlisted in a secret plot to destroy the American system from within and eventually take over the country.

Written early last decade in Arabic, the manifesto lays bare the subversive role of CAIR's forerunner, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and other Muslim groups in America to carry out a "grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by the hands of the believers, so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

CAIR's founder Ahmad, while claiming to be a moderate and patriotic American, last decade told a group of Muslims in Northern California that they are in America to help assert Islam's rule over the country.

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant," a local reporter quoted him as saying, adding, "The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Ahmad insists he was misquoted. However, an FBI wiretap transcript quotes Ahmad agreeing with terrorist suspects gathered last decade at the secret Philly meeting to "camouflage" their true intentions.

He compared it to the head fake in basketball. "This is like one who plays basketball: He makes a player believe that he is doing this, while he does something else," Ahmad said. "I agree with you. Like they say, politics is a completion of war."

What's more, Hooper, CAIR's communications director, also has expressed his wish to overturn the U.S. system of government in favor of an "Islamic" state.

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

Though conceding he made the remark, Hooper argues that he's never advocated violence. He says he and Muslims like him should work instead through the media and use "education" to help turn America into an Islamic state.

[Soldier4Christ]

Muslim charity defendants guilty on all counts
Holy Land Foundation tied to funneling cash to terrorist group Hamas

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

 The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case after a mistrial last year, and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.

The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.

"The jury has handed the government a huge victory and a loud and clear message has been sent – if any group funnels money to a terrorist organization, the government will hunt you down and turn off the money spigot," said Robert Hirschhorn, a nationally known jury consultant based in Lewisville. His partner, Dallas attorney Lisa Blue, was hired by the government to help pick the jury.

It was the second trial where the government attempted to convict the men and the now defunct Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation itself. It took the jury eight days of deliberations to reach its decisions – less than half the time it took jurors to end up with an almost complete mistrial last year on the first go-around.

 "My dad is not a criminal!" sobbed one courtroom observer after the verdicts were read. "He's a human!"

"It's a sad day," said Mohammed Wafa Yaish, Holy Land's former accountant and himself a witness of the trial. "It looks like helping the needy Palestinians is a crime these days."

Before he read the verdict, the judge had ordered all observers to remain civil and respect the proceedings.

In the trial's second, overflow courtroom, reaction to the verdicts was subdued. Family and friends left quietly. Several said they didn't want to talk.

One supporter of the defendants who identified himself as Adel said, "It's politicized. I don't think there is justice. I know these guys. I think everything is lies."

John Wolf, a friend and member of the Hungry for Justice coalition, said he'd known the defendants for 12 years.

"I'm not surprised," he said of the verdicts. "I think the government had their do-over and they learned from their mistakes. It's hard to accept because I don't believe the gentlemen are guilty. These guys are the sweetest, clean-hearted people."

By early evening, jurors were back in the jury room to determine if $12.4 million in defendants' assets should be forfeited to the government because of several convictions on money laundering charges related to the case.

"The issue is not whether they made money. The issue is whether the money went to Hamas," said prosecutor Barry Jonas, addressing defense attorney arguments that their clients did not benefit from any of Holy Land's business transactions just before the jury went back into deliberations.

Opening statements at the Earle Cabell Federal Building in downtown Dallas began Sept. 22. Over the past two months, prosecutors attempted to prove that five former charity organizers used Holy Land, once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., to funnel an estimated $60 million to the militant group – most of it before 1995.

Hamas was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995, and the trial centered on the $12 million the government said Holy Land and supporters funneled to the group after that date.

Defense attorneys argued that the foundation was a legitimate, non-political charity that helped distressed Palestinians under Israeli occupation. They accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure to prosecute the charity, and of relying on old evidence predating the 1995 designation.

Holy Land was formed in the late 1980s, and was shut down by U.S. government regulators in December 2001. The case was indicted in 2004.

Last year's trial of the same five defendants ended in a hung jury Oct. 22, 2007. Jurors deliberated for 19 days before they deadlocked.

Supporters on both side of the aisle were prepared to claim a victory, at least in the moral sense.

"The government showed in a streamlined case that where special assistance to the families of terrorists is concerned, cash is the moral equivalent of a car bomb," said Peter Margulies, Roger Williams University law professor who studies terrorism financing cases.

"Going forward, however, the government must be more pro-active about furnishing guidance to Muslim-Americans who merely wish to fulfill their religious obligations," he said.

Douglas Farah, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent who is now an author and terrorism consultant, said that the "trial provides an invaluable forum for publicly showing the true agenda of the international Muslim Brotherhood and its organizations in the United States – the abolition of the United States government as we know it and support for a designated terrorist organization."

"Given this complete victory for the government … it is now incumbent on U.S. government agencies to stop dealing with them as if they were engaging in benign efforts to push an agenda of tolerance and civil rights."

Once a gag order on the case has been lifted, probably after the jury settles the forfeiture issue, the Justice Department is likely to claim victory not only with the verdicts, but by trumpeting the shutdown of what prosecutors say was a robust and unsettling American network of terrorist funding.

Holy Land, regardless of the verdict, is defunct. And other international terrorism financing pipelines have been interrupted.

But critics of the government case argued that even convictions would carry an asterisk noting that it took untold millions of taxpayer dollars, 15 years of investigation and two long, high-profile trials to finally convince a jury of the defendants' guilt.

"I think this case proves that, with enough effort, the federal government can convict nearly anyone," said Tom Melsheimer, a former federal prosecutor in Dallas now in private practice. "Retrials tend to favor the prosecution, in my view, because the government can figure out what worked and what didn't and streamline their presentation of the evidence.  The defense, on the other hand, has already shown their cards and the government can be better prepared to respond.

 "I fear that these convictions will convince the government of the justness of their overall cause but I view the convictions as compelling the opposite conclusion," he said. "To spend millions of dollars in time and expenses to prosecute people who were of no real threat to anyone, under the banner of a terrorism case, is a waste of precious federal resources.

William Moffitt, a Virginia defense attorney who represented two former university professors, Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Sami Al-Arian, said before the Holy Land verdicts that he suspects the convicted defendants will be hailed as heroes by some.

"I suspect that they will be viewed much the same way that Mandela was viewed by the black South African population – as freedom fighters who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of Palestine," he said. Mr. Ashqar and Mr. Al-Arian were acquitted in trials in Chicago and Florida on similar charges that they steered support to Palestinian terrorists.

Mr. Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for refusing to testify for a grand jury about his Hamas ties. Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is being held on contempt charges for refusing to co-operate in another terrorism support investigation. But both are viewed as folk heroes by some in the Muslim community.

Mr. Moffitt said Holy Land and the other cases are "show trials" where the government attempted to use "events that happened over 10 years ago" as evidence of crimes well before statutes specifically outlawing terrorism support were enacted.

"I think that the purpose of these trials was to further, in the minds of the public, the so-called ‘war on terrorism,'" he said. "There are legitimate terrorist organizations out there. But we've tried to make every group that doesn't agree with us like al-Qaeda."

Mr. Yaish, the Holy Land accountant, said Monday that he was angry that the prosecution brought up the Taliban and al Qaeda during the trial. He called that a fear tactic.

"What does giving charity to the Palestinians in the refugee camps have to do with this?"

"They scared the jurors," he said. "Fear is the No. 1 government tactic."

[Soldier4Christ]

Lawsuit's claim: CAIR no longer even exists
Terror-linked Muslim lobby allowed registration to lapse

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, a pro-Muslim lobby named as an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest terror-funding cases ever brought by the U.S. government, continues to operate even though it no longer exists as a corporate entity, according to a lawyer suing the organization.

WND reported last night CAIR officials were surprised at their 14th annual banquet in Washington when lawyer David Yarushalmi arranged for them publicly to be served with legal notice of a new lawsuit over a staff member accused of representing himself as a lawyer and improperly taking clients' money.

Yerushalmi represents four plaintiffs, two of whom are African-American Muslims, in the case that claims CAIR internal documents reveal hundreds of people were victimized in the fraud scheme.

Yerushalmi discussed the developments today with WND founder and editor Joseph Farah, who was at the microphone in G. Gordon Liddy's absence on Liddy's regular radio program.

"We have CAIR documents which demonstrate there are at least 30 other victim-clients who paid money and were victimized by CAIR," Yarushalmi said, "And hundreds of other victims who don't even know they were victims."

The lawyer suggested allegations if that kind could spell the beginning of the end for CAIR's operations.

"If we have our way it certainly is," Yarushalmi told Farah. He said organizations that are proven to have a record of criminal activities should not exist.

Then came the suggestion of further defiance of the law by CAIR.

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"The organization is no longer a valid corporation," Yarushalmi revealed on the program. "The District of Columbia delisted it on Sept. 8, 2008."

He said the organization failed to file its paperwork to continue to exist.

"They are not allowed to be operating, according to the law," he said.

A spokesman for CAIR, contacted by WND for a comment, said, "Thank you and have a nice day," and hung up on the reporter.

The man who served CAIR the legal summons and complaint was Dave Gaubatz, a private researcher who  investigated the group for its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and global jihad.

JihadWatch.org director Robert Spencer, a longtime critic of CAIR, said the lawsuit "is an extraordinarily significant action."

"For years CAIR has used litigation as a weapon to silence and intimidate both its critics and anyone who has advocated measures to protect Americans against jihad terror. But the convictions of various of its former officials on jihad terror-related charges, as well as Islamic supremacist statements that have come to light from some of its spokesmen, have long suggested that CAIR is quite different from what all too many in the government and the mainstream media take it to be," Spencer told WND.

"This suit further suggests that they have not hesitated to use the same tactics they've used with non-Muslims against their fellow Muslims, and is an important step in exposing this unsavory organization for what it really is," he said.

On Spencer's comment page, the participants were awestruck by the legal move.

"This basically discredits all their leadership," wrote one person.

"It's about time that they are unmasked, and this suit directly strikes at their cover operation as a 'civil rights organization,'" said another.

"Give them enough rope … wonderful," said a third.

[Soldier4Christ]

Somalis 'disappearing' off U.S. streets
Communities believe men are being recruited to join holy war

Young Somali men have been mysteriously disappearing from the Minneapolis-St.Paul area – and many Minnesotans believe they are being recruited to join the holy war in Somalia.

According to KMSP-TV in Minneapolis, more than 20 men between the ages of 17 and 22 have vanished from the Twin Cities area in the last few months. Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the U.S. – nearly 60,000 – but some have left without ever informing their families.

The Somali community simply calls them "The Missing."

"It looks like people are being recruited to join the jihad in Somalia, but who's doing it?" Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Center told the station. "We don't know."

Family members and community leaders all say they think the men have returned to fight in the country's civil war – where al-Qaida has a strong presence. The area is so violent – with road blocks and pirates – that the U.N. has refused to allow peacekeeping and humanitarian aid workers to enter. According to U.N. estimates, there are now 1 million Somali refugees. Many people are starving and living on roadsides.

Families are deeply concerned about their relatives in Somalia, and now their men are vanishing from the U.S.

"They're concerned, emotional and in shock," Jamal said. "They're completely grief stricken."

According to the report, eight men departed Aug.1, and 10 more left Nov. 4. Flight itineraries indicate they flew out of Minneapolis, through Dubai, Nairobi and Malindi, Kenya. The families believe they used boats to enter Somalia.

Five families, suspecting that their children had joined jihad fighters in Somalia, reported their suspicions to the FBI – though investigators would not provide the station with any statements of confirmation or denial.

Religious leader Shiek Imam Abdighani Ali said he thinks recruiters are arranging trips for young Somali men.

"A lot of parents are coming to us asking where their kid is going," Ali said. "We are trying to find out who financed (the trips). They are 17 years old, $1,700, and most of them don't work."

Other religious leaders and families say they have been warned not to talk about the mysterious disappearances.

Some of the men are believed to be former gang members, while others were students in college. One man called his mother and told her he was in Somalia – but he would not say why he was there, and no one is talking.

The Chicago Tribune reported the CIA has recruited gangs of Somalis to find, capture and allegedly detain Islamic militants on warships. In the beginning of last year, the U.S. helped install a pro-Western transitional government there, crushing the "Taliban-like movement."

But now the Islamists are regrouping, and violence is everywhere.

More than 700,000 residents of Mogadishu have been driven out of the city, fleeing combat between extremists and the interim government.

Somalia's visitors are considered to be "suicidal" – and that's what has so many family members concerned about the safety of "The Missing" and the nature of their missions.

[Soldier4Christ]

Guilty verdicts in terror case deal blow to CAIR
Founding director of U.S. Muslim lobby group could face 20 years in prison

In a major blow to the terror-support network in America, the nation's largest Muslim charity and five of its former organizers were found guilty of illegally funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinan terrorist group Hamas.

The 108-count verdict against the Holy Land Foundation also deals a blow to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-fundraising scheme.

One of the guilty defendants in the federal case, Ghassan Elashi, was a founding director of Washington-based CAIR, the most powerful Muslim lobbyist group in the nation.

Elashi and the other defendants – Mohamed El-Mezain, Shukri Abu-Baker, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh – could face up to 20 years in prison for their convictions on conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

For the first time, wiretap evidence heard in the Holy Land case put CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, at a Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and activists that was secretly recorded by the FBI. Participants hatched a plot to disguise payments to Hamas terrorists as charitable giving.

"Government officials ought to study that evidence to realize CAIR is not what it presents itself as," said Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Awad maintains CAIR is a "moderate" group that condemns terrorism.

But during the Philadelphia meeting, according to FBI transcripts, Awad was recorded discussing the propaganda effort. He mentions Ghassan Dahduli, whom he worked with at the time at the Islamic Association for Palestine, another Hamas front. Both were IAP officers.

Dahduli's name also was listed in the address book of Osama bin Laden's personal secretary, Wadi al-Hage, who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the U.S. embassy bombings. Dahduli, an ethnic-Palestinian like Awad, was deported to Jordan after 9/11 for refusing to cooperate in the terror investigation.

Awad's and Dahduli's phone numbers are listed in a Muslim Brotherhood document seized by federal investigators revealing "important phone numbers" for the "Palestine Section" of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. The court exhibit shows Hamas fugitive Mousa Abu Marzook listed on the same page with Awad.

U.S. prosecutors also named CAIR's founder and chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Ahmad too was placed at the Philadelphia meeting, FBI special agent Lara Burns testified at the trial.

Prosecutors also designated him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine Committee" in America. Ahmad, like his CAIR partner Awad, is ethnic Palestinian.

Though both Ahmad and Awad were senior leaders of IAP, the original Hamas front, neither of their biographical sketches posted on CAIR's website mentions their IAP past.

Elashi, one of CAIR's founding directors, was chairman of the Dallas-based Holy Land charity, which provided seed capital to CAIR. Elashi is related to Hamas leader Marzook.

Prosecutors argued, and a Dallas jury agreed, that Holy Land was the Hamas fundraising arm in America.

Hamas was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995, and the trial centered on the $12 million the government said Holy Land and supporters funneled to the group after that date.

The conspiracy, prosecutors argued, was overseen by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egypt-based jihadist group that authorities say is the parent organization of Hamas.

Prosecutors unveiled a secret Muslim Brotherhood memo outlining the group's ambitions in America. The memo, written in Arabic, called for "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 Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Douglas Farah, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent who is now an author and terrorism expert, says the memo reveals the "true agenda" of Holy Land, CAIR and other major Muslim organizations in the U.S. – which is "the abolition of the United States government as we know it and support for a designated terrorist organization."

He added that the trial exhibits validate what already was "a clear public record of why these groups were founded and how."

CAIR co-founder Ahmad, along with CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper, are on record in media accounts expressing their desire to turn the U.S. into an Islamic state. Ahmad has said, according to a newspaper report, the Quran, not the U.S. Constitution, should be the highest authority in the land.

Defense attorneys argued that the Holy Land Foundation was a legitimate charity "guilty of nothing but feeding Palestinian children" under Israeli "occupation." They accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure and of relying on evidence predating the 1995 terror designation.

"It's a sad day," said Mohammed Wafa Yaish, Holy Land's former accountant and a defense witness. "It looks like helping the needy Palestinians is a crime these days."

Defense attorneys declined to comment but are already discussing plans for appeals, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The jury, which took eight days to reach its decision, also said Holy Land should forfeit $12.4 million because of several money-laundering convictions in the case. Prosecutors said the government probably will end up with about $5 million in Holy Land money frozen by federal authorities in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.

The Justice Department streamlined its case after a mistrial last year. It also persuaded the judge to allow documents from the Palestinian Authority that were not in evidence in the first trial, which showed that the PA considered the Holy Land Foundation to be among international sources of Hamas funding. They also showed that certain Islamic charity committees that HLF sent funds to were indeed associated with Hamas.

"This is one of the most significant victories the Justice Department has won in the war on terror," said Andrew McCarthy, a federal prosecutor who put away blind cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and other terrorists for plotting to blow up New York landmarks last decade.

"Financing is the lifeblood of jihadist organizations like Hamas," he added.

"With the assistance of willing co-conspirators, they conceal their activities and use the Muslim obligation of charitable giving to mask support that is actually channeled to their murderous agenda."

McCarthy said the verdicts reached by average citizens show that "Americans aren't fooled and won't tolerate it."

Some Muslim groups fear the conviction of America's largest charity on terror charges will have a chilling effect on Islamic giving, known as zakat.

CAIR on its website invokes the Muslim obligation of charitable giving in soliciting donations from Muslims.

"CAIR is zakat eligible," it says.

The group also quotes an Islamic "scholar" decreeing, "Muslims should have no hesitation in giving part of their zakat to CAIR."

CAIR's Ahmad joined in discussions recorded in Philadelphia to disguise payments to terrorists as charitable giving. In one exchange, defendant Abu-Baker is heard telling Ahmad that "I swear by Allah that war is deception" and to "deceive your enemy."

Adding to Abu-Baker's point, Ahmad compared the deception needed to fool the infidels with the head fake in basketball.

"He makes a player believe that he is doing this while he does something else," Ahmad said. "I agree with you. ... Politics is a completion of war."

Wiretaps also caught defendants celebrating Hamas terrorist attacks on civilians. Jurors watched a video of a skit in which one defendant plays a Hamas terrorist who kills an Israeli citizen after saying, "I am Hamas, O dear ones."

The jury was also shown evidence that Holy Land Foundation bookkeepers hid Arab bank accounts from the IRS and tried to conceal records of payments made from the overseas accounts to Hamas zakat committees.

Prosecutors argued that the fraudulent bookkeeping showed that the charity's officials knew they were doing something criminal and tried to cover it up.

[Shammu]

Campaign warns Americans about looming Shariah code
Detroit billboard says religious law imposed by Islam threatens rights
Posted: November 28, 2008
1:35 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Shariah, or Islamic law, may be spreading around the world, but it isn't going to be established in the United States without opposition, vow members of the United American Committee.

Officials with the non-profit have erected a 48-foot-long billboard just outside of Detroit, home to one of the largest groups of Muslims in the U.S.

"SHARIA LAW THREATENS AMERICA," warns the sign.

The UAC says it's "dedicated to awakening the nation to the threats of radical Islam" and works to "educate Americans on the nature of Islamic extremism."

The group's mission is to battle against "the ideological aspects of the war on terror to counter elements of radical Islam in America."

"Shariah law is a legal system recognized in many Islamic countries such as the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan, and currently Saudi Arabia, and is a legal system which dictates beheadings, stonings, and other punishments for what are listed as crimes under Shariah such as homosexuality and adultery, and according to critics views women as inferior granting them little rights," the organization stated.

Tom Trento, a spokesman, said, "Muslims are the biggest victims of Shariah law in the world. We hope this message inspires the Muslims of America who came to this country to escape Shariah to stand up against it."

The organization's website, whose address is featured on the billboard, highlights a video of Wafa Sultan, a Syrian Muslim who escaped the Middle East and has become a fierce critic of Islam and Shariah.

"At times, it feels to me that Shariah is following me to the United States," Sultan says in the video, referring to radical Islamic charities and organizations operating in the U.S.

Sultan also points out that in Britain and France Shariah is being enforced in various ways in certain communities. Britain recently sanctioned the establishment of Shariah courts for civil matters among Muslims, the UAC noted.

"Our Constitution is not compatible with Shariah," Sultan said. Under the religious rules, "Women and children are deprived of rights we in the West take for granted."

"Homeless in America is more attractive to me than living as a woman under Shariah," she added. "I don’t want to face again the hell that I had kicked off 20 years ago. My biggest obligation is to preserve the free spirit of this wonderful country and not allow destructive forces to ruin it."

The UAC billboard is in Luna Pier, 10 miles north of Toledo and 20 miles south of Detroit on Interstate 75, officials said.

The announcement about the sign comes as Islam expert Daniel Pipes warns in a report in the Jerusalem Post Shariah is advancing one step at a time into Western Europe and North America.

Pipes cited the recent case of a Scottish judge who "bent" the law to acknowledge a polygamous household, a status allowed under Shariah.

"The case involved a Muslim male who drove 64 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone – usually grounds for an automatic loss of one's driving license. The defendant's lawyer explained his client's need to speed: 'He has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow and sleeps with one one night and stays with the other the next on an alternate basis. Without his driving license he would be unable to do this on a regular basis,'" Pipes reported.

"Sympathetic to the polygamist's plight, the judge permitted him to retain his license," he said.

The report said the ruling suggests monogamy, "long a foundation of Western civilization, is silently eroding under the challenge of Islamic law."

Pipes reported at least six Western jurisdictions now accept harems, including Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Australia and Canada. Canada, for example, acknowledges "a marriage that is actually or potentially polygamous, if it was celebrated in a jurisdiction whose system of law recognizes it as valid."

WND reported just days ago a Heritage Foundation expert's warning the U.S. also needs to maintain active opposition to plans for "religious anti-defamation" laws both within its borders and on an international scale or face consequences.

In a report published on the foundation's website,  Steven Groves said the U.S. "must remain wary of continuing efforts by U.N. member states to gain wider acceptance of the 'defamation of religions' concept." The proposal primarily targets any criticism of Islam.

Proponents "will continue to push the 'defamation of religions' agenda at the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N. General Assembly, and at other international forums such as the April 2009 Durban Review Conference," Groves warned.

Groves is the Heritage Foundation's Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies.

He also said within its own borders, the U.S. should refuse to recognize "a new legal cause of action that bans insults or criticism of religion," because it would provide no benefit whatsoever.

States already have laws to condemn religious discrimination and prosecute acts of incitement to violence, he argued. The federal government "should tread extremely lightly where disputes over religious doctrine are concerned. The U.S. does not need a national speech code that would restrict the First Amendment rights of Americans, no matter how offensive that speech may be to any particular religious denomination."

Groves cited the 2005 attempt by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., who wanted to require that the Islamic holy book, the Quran, be treated with "dignity and respect."

"Any attempt to establish a criminal or civil 'defamation of religions' law in the United States … must be strongly opposed," Groves said. "Attempts to introduce such legislation may be incremental – notably, in May 2005, when a group of U.S. congressmen sponsored a resolution," he said. "Such piecemeal legislation must be closely guarded against."

WND previously reported the original U.N. plan that could turn ordinary Christians in America into international criminals.

WND also has reported the Treasury Department has announced it will teach "Islamic finance" to U.S. banking regulatory agencies, Congress and other parts of the executive branch.

According to its announcement, the "Islamic Finance 101" forum is "designed to help inform the policy community about Islamic financial services, which are an increasingly important part of the global financial industry."

The Treasury Department has collaborated with Harvard University's Islamic Finance Project to coordinate its instructions.

Revealingly, a recent report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND, said Britain's MI6 intelligence service identified a group that raises funds with impunity in London as the organization whose militia members in Somalia imposed a Shariah death sentence on a 13-year-old rape victim.

The report describes how the group recently imposed the brutal punishment on a child in the Somalian town of Kismayo.

A 13-year-old girl, described in an intelligence report as "little more than a pretty child," was sentenced to be stoned to death by the all-male court.

It imposed the sentence on Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow after she had complained to the local Shariah court that she had been gang-raped by, among others, her cousins.

But the court found her guilty of adultery and sentenced her to death by stoning.

She was taken from the courthouse to a local sports stadium. There she was buried up to her neck in sand and then stoned in front of a 1,000-strong crowd.

[Soldier4Christ]

Tampa Mayor Honors Islamic Supremacists...

In April of 2007, Pam Iorio was sworn into office for her second term as Mayor of Tampa Bay, Florida, given the confidence of Tampa’s citizens that she will help protect them from harm. Yet every year for at least the last four years of the six-plus years she has served, Mayor Iorio has honored CAIR, a radical Muslim organization, with a Proclamation naming a day for the group. Is the Mayor just trying to placate a fringe constituency or has she submitted to terror?

Tampa has had an Islamic terrorism problem for more than two decades. Elements of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood have infected the population, rendering it vulnerable to those who wish to do harm to the city.

From August of 1986 till February of 2003, when he was taken into custody by law enforcement, Sami Al-Arian, a university professor, built an entire PIJ infrastructure within the Tampa area. He did so in the guise of a charity, a think tank, a children’s school and a mosque -- the latter two still in existence.

Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, Tampa-area university students, were arrested in South Carolina, in August of 2007, and indicted for possession of explosive materials which were found in the trunk of their car. Mohamed later pled guilty to a separate charge of trying to assist terrorists by creating a video demonstrating how to use a remote-controlled toy to detonate a bomb.

From June of 2004 till July of 2006, the Tampa office of the Muslim American Society (MAS-Tampa) posted onto its website violent material, including one text calling on Muslims to “wage jihad until death.” Other subjects found on the site dealt with the beheading of Jews and the burning of homosexuals.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group created by Hamas operatives, set up shop in Tampa, in 2003, led by the unofficial spokesman for Al-Arian, Ahmed Bedier. Bedier is notorious for a remark he made about PIJ, on a Tampa TV talk show, in December of 2005. Appearing as a CAIR representative, when asked if he believed it was immoral to be associated with PIJ, he said that, prior to 1995, there was “nothing immoral” about it.

Unfortunately, some politicians ignore the actions of extremists and give the groups and individuals a free pass. Sometimes, they even honor them.

A little over a month after his disastrous statement, in January of 2006, Bedier shared the stage with Mayor Iorio, at an evening event honoring the memory of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Earlier in the day, a photo was taken of the two, smiling for the camera with their arms around each other. Under the photo, which is found on Bedier’s personal website, he writes, “Enjoying the morning with City of Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio…”

This was not Mayor Iorio's first involvement with CAIR. On October 1, 2005, the Mayor attended CAIR-Tampa’s 3rd Annual Fundraising Banquet. While there, she told the crowd, “I want all of you to know how much I appreciate being here tonight and all of the good work that you do.” According to the St. Petersburg Times, she then “turned the stage over to Hillsborough County Commissioner Kathy Castor, who read Iorio's proclamation of Oct. 1 as ‘CAIR Day’…”

Mayor Iorio had honored CAIR -- a group that had been founded by leaders of the American propaganda wing of Hamas, a group that had been established as part of the global head of Hamas Mousa Abu Marzook’s Palestine Committee, a group that had a number of representatives that were convicted and/or deported for terror-related crimes -- with a signed Mayoral Proclamation.

And not only did she sign a Proclamation for “CAIR Day” in 2005, but she did it for 2006, 2007 and 2008, as well. And each one coincided with the date of CAIR-Tampa’s banquet -- providing evidence of coordinated efforts between Mayor Iorio and CAIR -- the latest being November 15, 2008.

When Mayor Iorio signed both the 2007 and 2008 Proclamations for CAIR, it was at a time when the group was named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” by the U.S. Justice Department for a federal trial dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. On November 24, 2008, the trial ended, and all of the defendants were found guilty on all counts. That means CAIR was found guilty as well, albeit as an unindicted entity. Now more than ever, Mayor Iorio must withdraw the award she has granted CAIR.

[Soldier4Christ]

Maryland MSA Speaker: Obama an 'Idiot', MLK a Coward...

More MSA Extremism

Controversy simmers at Towson University in Maryland after the school's Muslim Students Association chapter hosted radical Imam Abdul Alim Musa for a lecture called "The Long Wars." It was supposed to focus on U.S. wars on drugs and terrorism.

But many, including Muslim students, walked away offended by Musa's views on 9/11, on President-Elect Barack Obama and Martin Luther King.

As freshman Molly Groo wrote in the independent student paper, the Tower Light, Musa strayed far from the advertised issues:

    "Instead, with virtually no evidence to back up his points, Imam Musa claimed that the United States and the Israelis were responsible for the attacks on 9/11; that President-elect Barack Obama is an "idiot" because "no black man should believe in America"; that Martin Luther King Jr. was a coward who should have rebelled against the system more actively and violently; that al-Qaeda doesn't exist; and that by 2050, the Imam aims to change the United States into an Islamic state run by Sharia law."

Her disappointment in the lecture and in MSA's judgment was shared by "Miraaj," a self-described African-American Muslim who commented on Groo's article. Musa's insulting invective "was enough to turn my stomach," Miraaj wrote. "Imam Musa spoke as a black nationalist stuck in the 60's. In the end I thought that he was a disgrace to black people and Muslims."

This drew a series of responses from the MSA chapter president. The unnamed president said he wasn't defending Musa's 9/11 conspiracy theory, but he didn't take issue with it, either:

    "Basically the Imam said "you have to find out who had a motive, who had the ability to do it, who would gain from this, and who has a history of doing this". He cited events like the Battle of Tonkin and the USS Maine (incidents that allowed for the Vietnam and Spanish-American Wars). He stated that these incidents are, as well as 9-11, fabricated to fulfill the same interests of those in power."

    …

    "As a Muslim, and an Arab, I know that a vast majority of people in the Islamic East do not accept the theory of 9-11 by "Al-Qaeda", or not independently at the least."

Last month, we noted an MSA chapter bulletin at Mesa College in San Diego, in which the chapter treasurer urged his brethren to abstain from voting in the presidential election:

    "Whether you vote for the white kafir or the half-black kafir, they will kill our brothers and sisters. They will subjugate our brothers and sisters."

The Towson chapter president described himself as "the chief architect of the event, and a student of social science," seemed familiar with Musa's life story, and therefore, with his positions. Musa is "not racist or illogical," he wrote

The student Miraaj disagreed, casting Musa as "a wanna-be Malcolm X" who should have been vetted in advance of the lecture. As you can see, Musa advocates the most extreme views of politics and terror, including his praise of suicide bombers in 2000, 2002 and 2003. Congratulations to the Towson students who are calling out him and his MSA hosts.

[Soldier4Christ]

This could also belong in the thread THE ENEMY WITHIN.


Pentagon Turnover Rolls Hesham Islam

Ace Washington Times Pentagon reporter Bill Gertz reports that two casualties of the change in administration will be Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and his special assistant Hesham Islam.

Islam, previously described by England as "my interlocutor" on Islamic issues and outreach, drew scrutiny in January "after a dispute with Joint Staff analyst Stephen Coughlin in the fall of 2007 over the nature of Islamist extremism," Gertz reports. "Mr. Islam disagreed with Mr. Coughlin, a specialist on Islamic law and its ties to extremism, and later referred to him as a ‘Christian zealot with a pen.'"

Coughlin then was forced out after being told his contract would not be renewed. Officials said the move was unrelated to Islam's criticism.

Writer Claudia Rosett dug in to Islam's posted biography and found a number of discrepancies. Among them, Islam told an interviewer that a film depicting his life story would begin with "huddling in terror as Israeli bombs came raining down, demolishing much of the building around him and his family" in Cairo. But, Rosett noted, Israel never bombed Cairo. She also found no records to support Islam's claim that he spent three days floating in the Arabian Sea after an Iranian torpedo sunk a cargo ship he was on.

We reported that Islam, serving as an outreach liaison for England, helped schedule meetings for the deputy secretary with a member of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood and a Lebanese ambassador considered a proxy for Syria. U.S. policy at the time was to freeze out both entities.