In the video above, I questioned the MAS reps involved in this sale about their ties to the Brotherhood and related matters, and got, as you can see, a windy non-answer.
In reality, the MAS is the Brotherhood in the U.S., and the Brotherhood in the U.S. is a subversive organization:
"In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004
The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand 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 Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- Mohamed Akram, "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," May 22, 1991, Government Exhibit 003-0085, U.S. vs. HLF, et al. P. 7 (21).
And here we have a play for victim status based on the old shopworn charge of racism and bigotry, with no attempt whatsoever to deal with the real substance of the objections to the MAS and to this sale.
"Backers of Staten Island mosque go on offensive," by Amy Padnani for SILive.com, June 23 (thanks to Twostellas):
ISLAND, N.Y. -- Those opposed to a planned mosque in Midland Beach are consumed by bigotry and hatred, a Muslim American Society leader said yesterday.Ibrahim Ramey, the human civil rights director for MAS' advocacy arm, the MAS Freedom National, accused some Staten Islanders of engaging in a "ferocious attack" against Muslims based on stereotyping and prejudice.
"When stripped of all the propaganda, innuendo, and flat-out lies, the issue is simply one of religious bigotry and hatred," he said, in a letter issued to the media.
Ramey went on to refer to residents' attitudes as contrary to what America stands for: "Is this really happening in America -- a nation that boasts of its religious tolerance and pluralism? Sadly, the answer is, yes." [...]
Ramey's letter went on to defend MAS as a peaceful organization, highlighting the group's affiliation with Religions for Peace, The Interfaith Alliance, Interfaith Workers Justice and the Temple of Understanding. He called upon people friendly and respectful toward all religions, who he referred to as the "better angels of the interfaith community," to stand up in support of MAS' mosque proposal.
Bill Owens, a Midland Beach resident who has been very vocal in his opposition to MAS, said the group was wrong to characterize residents as full of hatred.
"We're not racist or bigots," he said. "The five firefighters from our neighborhood, they didn't stop at the door of the World Trade Center and ask what sex, color and religion they were. They went into the building and perished. St. Margaret Mary's just had their eighth-grade graduation and there were Muslim children who graduated. We're not anti-Muslim, we're anti-terrorist. Everybody says we're Islamaphobes. No, we have a 'terrorphobia.'"
Owens went on to say that residents received a lot of support at their rallies protesting the mosque -- even from Muslims.
"We've had Muslims come up to us and say, 'Don't let this organization move in here, they're evil.'
"We're doing what we think is right in this neighborhood. Someplace, you have to make a stand. The only thing evil needs to be successful is for good people to do nothing."
----------------
Here's the text of Ibrahim Ramey's letter:In Staten Island, New York, there is a ferocious attack, by some members of the community against Muslims who are seeking to purchase a property that would be used as a mosque and an Islamic center. The prospective seller, a local Catholic church, is now under intense pressure to back out of the original plan to sell the property, while anti-Muslim agitators have converged on the Staten Island neighborhood, claiming that the Muslim organization that is seeking to buy the property is a front group for terrorists, criminals, and other assorted "Anti-American" agents of mayhem and destruction.
Is this really happening in America -- a nation that boasts of its religious tolerance and pluralism? Sadly, the answer is, yes.
It does not matter to many opponents of the neighborhood mosque that the national organization supporting the project-the Muslim American Society -- is a legal, registered not-for-profit corporation with local chapters in some 35 states. They don't care that there are no indictments of the organization made by Homeland Security or the Department of Justice. And it makes no difference to them that this same group, while vilified by Islamophobes across the nation, still supported significant material contributions to the largely Christian victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tragic earthquake in Haiti earlier this year....
Yes, but is it a Brotherhood entity?
RSS Feed
Muslims do not give charity, as do people of other religions, to those who are not of the same faith - that is, to non-Muslims. Or rather, they are permitted, not as an act of charity in the Christian sense, of fellow-feeling and sympathy with one's fellow man, but rather to ostentatiously give what may appear to be charity, in order to further the cause of Islam.
The most famous example of this was that check written by the Saudi prince with the facial tic, whatshisname, the one who, very soon after the 9/11/2001 attack in which 15 of the 19 participants, and all of the funding, and much of the inspiration, came from Saudi Arabia, wanted in as public as way a possible to grandly present a check to Mayor Giuliani for ten million or so. Giuliani, no fool, and recognizing it for the obvious P.R. it was, simply ripped it up -- also in the full view of the public.
A very tiny amount of Muslim aid went from some Middle Eastern country -- it may have been Qatar -- but quite noisily was given, to some victims of Katrina, and long after the fact. And in Haiti, after the Israelis had immediately arrived and were the first at setting up hospitals, a Muslim group sent money along with those who were intent on dispensing that money in an operation that included a good deal of Da'wa. There is not a single report of any attempt by any Jewish or Christian aid group to attempt to proselytize or otherwise propagandize among the recipients of aid when they arrive after a natural disaster -- no reports of Americans doing so in Aceh,in Indonesia, after the tsunami, or in Pakistan after the earthquake, or of the Israelis behaving that way in when they arrived quickly with aid after the earthquake a few years ago in Istanbul.
But the o attempt here to attempt to use the pathetic and sinister "aid" given by Muslims to curry favor and win p.r. points for future use here should be seen for what it is, and it should properly disgust.