ISNA and Jihad: Why DOJ's Involvement in ISNA Conference Sends The Wrong Message
By Jeffrey Imm
Regarding DOJ's involvement in the ISNA conference, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross states that the thrust of his comments about the recent news story on DOJ's involvement in the ISNA conference is "that many of the attorneys in DOJ's civil rights division are far more dedicated and do a better job than people in the counterterrorism field often give them credit for, and I feel that they took too hard a hit in the initial coverage of DOJ's attendance of the ISNA event."
The focus of this blog is on counterterrorism issues and concerns.
From a counterterrorism perspective, there are five key facts that are the basis for why DOJ's involvement in the ISNA conference is wrong:
1. The ISNA organization has a history of ties with Jihadists. This is why ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing case of US. v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et. al.
2. Evidence submitted in the Dallas federal courtroom shows that ISNA was established in 1980 by American members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has provided Jihadist ideological underpinning for various Jihad organizations
3. Other evidence showed that ISNA used a financial subsidiary, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), to divert funds to Hamas' Musa Abu Marzook, and other Hamas-run organizations, with top HAMAS official Mousa Abu Marzook thanking ISNA
4. ISNA's conference session on "the threat and reality of U.S.-sponsored torture"
5. ISNA conference main speakers include individuals with a history of dealing with extremist views:
-- Muzammil Siddiqi - Steven Emerson's article "Muzammil the "Moderate" states that "when Siddiqi was President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in 1997, his organization received special thanks from Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who wrote that ISNA supported him through his jailing and extradition process, writing that such efforts 'consoled' him." As Steve Emerson's column points out, "Siddiqi has made numerous pro-jihad statements in the past and has denied that 9/11 was carried about by Muslims." Muzammil Siddiqui has been a member of Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), whose members have been connected to Islamic extremism and terrorism.
-- Siraj Wahhaj - a character witness for convicted 1993 World Trade Center terrorist "blind sheik" Omar Rahman, and a man who reportedly called for replacing the American government with a caliphate
-- Abdalla Idris Ali - has been on the board of the American Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders have openly supported terrorist groups, such as Hamas
-- Ihsan Bagby: "we [Muslims] can never be full citizens of this country... because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."
-- Zaid Shakir: "Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country"
Furthermore, the argument over whether DOJ is a "sponsor" rather than a "paying exhibitor" is more semantics than substance. That fact is that exhibitors at the ISNA conference must pay ISNA for the right to exhibit at that conference. In addition to having the US Justice Department paying an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist finance trial for this privilege, ISNA also has the right to screen and approve any materials that the Justice Department distributes (Exhibition Contract Term 11).
Moreover, these same key facts are also why this sends the wrong message for Muslim outreach from a civil rights perspective, which is not the focus of this blog (if it were, then the question of ISNA's president Ingrid Mattson's views on civil rights would be legitimate to question).
The U.S. government is responsible for demonstrating consistency of policy and position to all people, based on the law. To assume that the Department of Justice is required to attend the conference of an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist finance trial does no justice to the cause of law or civil rights for law-abiding Muslims or non-Muslims. It is an injustice to American civil rights to view perceived support for terror trial organizations as an option for the cause of "outreach" and law-abiding Americans of all faiths should be outraged.
Sources:
DOJ, ISNA & HLF - by Steven Emerson
ISNA’s Lies Unchallenged Again - by Steven Emerson
Muzammil the "Moderate" - by Steven Emerson
Top HAMAS official Mousa Abu Marzook thanks ISNA
Backgrounder On the Fiqh Council of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- discusses Muzammil Siddiqi
The DAVID Project: The Silencing -- discusses Siraj Wahhaj
Salon: Islam's flawed spokesmen -- discusses Siraj Wahhaj
The Kashmir Telegraph: Kashmiri Pundit View-point -- discusses Siraj Wahhaj
The Middle East Quarterly - Ahmad Yusuf: "Hamas Is a Charitable Organization" -- Ihsan Bagby quotation
April 29, 2003: New York Sun - "Pro-Hamas Figure Reappears at AMC"
March 4, 2003: Insight - "The American Muslim Council in Its Own Words"
June 18, 2006: The New York Times - "U.S. Muslim Clerics Seek a Modern Middle Ground"