Recently in Muslim Brotherhood Category

In Human Events this morning, I discuss the looming succession crisis in Egypt:

The Islamic supremacist group known as the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated--according to a captured internal document--to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within," has its best chance in years to take power in Egypt, with implications for the Middle East and beyond.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has terminal stomach cancer, and is not expected to survive beyond another year. Mubarak has anointed his son Gamal as his successor; however, the Brotherhood, from which sprang both Hamas and al Qaeda, could attempt to seize power upon the elder Mubarak's death, and is maneuvering now to ensure that once Hosni Mubarak is gone from the scene, the Muslim Brothers will be more powerful than ever.

The Brotherhood is banned in Egypt, but often runs candidates in Egyptian elections as independents. In this way it won one-fifth of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Since the days of President Gamel Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), the Egyptian government has looked the other way as the group terrorized Coptic Christians and enforced Islamic strictures upon the Egyptian populace, but cracked down when the Brotherhood showed signs of growing powerful enough actually to seize the reins of the Egyptian government.

Shortly before he was assassinated, Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat released all the Brotherhood political prisoners who had been languishing in Egyptian prisons, and even promised the Brotherhood that Islamic law would be fully implemented in Egypt.

The Islamization of Egypt has been proceeding steadily for decades. The Brotherhood's societal and cultural influence has long outstripped its direct political reach, and shows no sign of abating. Nonetheless, nearly 30 years after Sadat's promise, the Brotherhood is still pressing for that full implementation of sharia law.

Read it all.

The "Muslim rapper" is a smooth and persistent deceiver, and consequently this is largely a dialogue of the deaf, but Pamela Geller manages to impart a great deal of information despite his attempts to impede her from doing so.

Over at Atlas Shrugs Pamela has posted some background information to demonstrate the truth of her assertions here:

Pipes/Chadha: CAIR's Hate Crimes Nonsense:

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8559

Other anti-Muslim hate crimes that turned out to have been fabricated by
Muslims:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/hamas-linked-cair-trumpets-another-anti-muslim-hate-crime-that-was-faked-by-a-muslim.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/10/dayton-mosque-attack-hoax-update-can-of-pepper-spray-was-found-inside-the-mosque.html

There is more. Read it all.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss what could follow the end of Hosni Mubarak's rule in Egypt, and how the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to take advantage of the situation:

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, and is not expected to live beyond a year. After that, the uneasy equilibrium of Egyptian politics could be violently disrupted, with the possibility for escalation in the Middle East and beyond. The Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood, from which sprang both Hamas and Al-Qaeda, could attempt to seize Mubarak's death as an opportunity to try to take power in Egypt. Mubarak's son Gamal, however, appears to be determined not to let that happen. It is by no means beyond the realm of possibility that armed conflict could result - conflict that could be the deadly match in the Middle East's tinderbox.

Officially, the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt, but its candidates often run in elections as independents - winning one-fifth of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Since the presidency of Gamel Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), the Egyptian government has practiced steam control with the Brotherhood, looking the other way as the group terrorized Coptic Christians and enforced Islamic strictures upon the Egyptian populace, but cracking down when the Brotherhood showed signs of growing powerful enough actually to seize power. Shortly before he was assassinated by members of another Islamic supremacist group that was enraged by his peace treaty with Israel, Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat not only released all the Brotherhood political prisoners who had been languishing in Egyptian prisons, but also promised the Brotherhood that Sharia would be fully implemented in Egypt.

The Islamization of Egypt has been proceeding steadily for decades. While in the 1960s women wearing hijabs were rare on the streets of Cairo, now it is rare to see a woman not wearing one; the Brotherhood's societal and cultural influence has long outstripped its direct political reach, and shows no sign of abating. Nonetheless, nearly thirty years after Sadat's promise, the Brotherhood is still waiting for that full implementation of Sharia. Mubarak's son and heir apparent, Gamal Mubarak, said in a July 2008 interview [1] that "religion" was one of the "most important components" of Egyptian society and culture." Yet he maintained that Egypt's "constitution formally prohibits confessional political parties and the use of religion in political discourse." He added, in clear reference to the Brotherhood and allied Islamic supremacist groups:

But this is not enough. During the last months, these groups have been trying to take advantage of the difficulties our country is going through. By multiplying anti-Western references, they are building barriers between the different cultures. They are destroying the bridges between the Eastern and Western worlds that the past generations had so much trouble building. That is the worst thing that could happen.

Gamal Mubarak's remedy for this growing Brotherhood influence involved "audacious leaders who are able to prepare their country for the future and implement some reforms even when they are unpopular. Such a leader must be brave enough to remain faithful to his convictions, despite all opposition."

But is Gamal himself such a leader? Middle East analyst Barry Rubin tells Frontpage that "he has some good characteristics-pragmatism and moderation-but his age, lack of military experience, and limited charisma are against him."...

Read it all.

Note how Ramey's demeanor changes from the first video to the second.

He denies that the Muslim American Society is the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., but the Muslim Brotherhood's own website carries the Chicago Tribune expose from 2004 that identifies the MAS as the Brotherhood's arm in the U.S.

"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, via the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language website, Ikhwanweb.

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 with good reason. The Brotherhood is dedicated, in its own words, to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within." "Controversy Surrounds Construction of Mosques Across U.S.," by Lauren Green for FOXNews.com, July 2 (thanks to all who sent this in):

They're separated by thousands of miles, but they share a common controversy: Mosques.

Murfreesboro, Tenn., has joined a growing list of midsized towns in the U.S. that are embroiled in conflicts over proposed mosques being built or bought in their neighborhoods.

Including Murfreesboro, residents have risen up against mosques in two other Tennessee towns; in Staten Island, N.Y.; Sheboygan County, Wis.; and the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, as well as the proposed mosque and Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero, which has garnered some of the most heated battles.

A new Quinnipiac Poll shows that well over half of New Yorkers - 52 percent oppose building a mosque near the 9/11 site. Only 31 percent support it.

Among ethnic groups, Hispanics show the greatest opposition to the Ground Zero mosque, 60 to 19 percent.

Among religious groups, Jews and white Catholics expressed the greatest opposition, both at 66 percent.

Those who support building the mosques say the opposition comes from growing Islamophobia, racism and ignorance.

Those who oppose adamantly deny that bigotry is involved.

In Murfreesboro, Republican congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik says she's not against the building of a mosque, but she does oppose the construction of an Islamic cultural center, which she says would be an Islamic training facility. "This has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with a radical agenda," she says.

But in Staten Island, fears that a mosque will become a breeding ground for homegrown terror are rooted in reports about who's financing the deal.

Residents of the heavily Catholic neighborhood are in an uproar over a Muslim group's plans to buy a shuttered convent and convert it into a Mosque. Besides concerns about increased traffic and little parking, there are disturbing reports surrounding the organization, the Muslim America Society, which is funding the purchase.

According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, MAS has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a 100-year-old movement that is widely regarded as one of the most influential Islamic fundamentalist groups in the world. Its stated agenda has been to spread Islam and Shariah law throughout the West. Some of its members also reportedly created Hamas.

"The Muslim American Society was created in the early 1990s as the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood," says Steve Emerson, IPT's executive director.

He says the MAS and Muslim Brotherhood claim to oppose terrorism, but "behind closed doors they support terrorism and have defended various terrorists that have been convicted in the United States since 9/11."

But Ibrahim Ramey, the human and civil rights director for MAS Freedom, adamantly denies any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or terrorism.

"There are people who don't like Muslims and don't like Muslims in their neighborhood who have been vociferously and consistently trying to link MAS with foreign organizations and movements, but that simply isn't true," Ramey says.

"We are not agents of Hamas nor do we answer to them, nor do we provide money for them, nor are we part of any conflict that they have with the U.S. Government, or any authorities in the United States."

Note the careful and evasive wording. There doesn't seem to be any explicit denial of a link to the Brotherhood, at least in Ramey's words as reported here. And no one was charging that he "answers" to Hamas.

Emerson says his group has documentation linking MAS with the Muslim Brotherhood. He also says MAS has been on a spending spree in the last two years, either buying property to establish mosques, as in Staten Island, or taking over existing mosques, like the huge Dal al-Hidrah in Northern Virginia and the very prominent Islamic Society of Boston in Massachusetts.

"The way to gain influence among the Muslim community is to control the mosques," Emerson says. "The way to control what people think in the Muslim community is to have the right imam preach the right message. So by acquiring these mosques the Muslim American Society gets the right to appoint the imam and distribute the message they believe is necessary to spread Islam around the world."...

Last week Pamela Geller wrote this at The American Thinker:

The Freedom Defense Initiative, a new organization I started with author and scholar Robert Spencer, hosted its inaugural event to an enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 19. But this event was at CPAC, not of CPAC. Could this be because of the influence of conservative kingmaker and power-broker Grover Norquist, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC? The only event concerning the war on America at CPAC was worse than nothing at all: It was an Islamic propaganda (taqiyya) presentation entitled "You've Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror." Its message was that "real conservatives" don't support the war on terror because it is a creation of the "Israeli lobby."

She went on to detail Norquist's many ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists. And now Frank Gaffney has followed up on Geller's piece, writing in his latest column:

Then, there was the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in which, apart from several noteworthy addresses, the official agenda was largely bereft of any discussion of the threats to our nation, constitution and society arising from today's totalitarian ideology - what authoritative Islam calls "Shariah." [...]

Another explanation for the low-balling, or outright ignoring, of national security is the influence of some of the more libertarian members of the conservative movement. Their sentiments are exemplified and aggressively advanced, mostly behind the scenes, by Grover Norquist. Norquist is best known for his anti-tax activism as president of Americans for Tax Reform but, over the past 12 years, he has become increasingly associated with policies and initiatives that are strikingly at odds with the national security convictions and practices of the man he - and virtually all other conservatives - so admire: Ronald Reagan.

For example, Norquist recently wrote an open letter that charged with "scaremongering" those who opposed the Obama administration's efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, move terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 conspirators to trial in New York City and open a new Gitmo North in Illinois. He has inveighed for years against the Patriot Act, promoted "open borders" and sponsored a neo-isolationist organization called the American Conservative Defense Alliance. One of the Alliance's fellows, a disgruntled ex-CIA officer named Philip Giraldi, presented a paper at a 2010 CPAC panel entitled "Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror." Giraldi told the audience that, "Fear has been the key to the door for expansion of government and government powers and the people in charge in Washington have seized the opportunity. It has also eroded the liberties that have defined us as a nation."

As...Pamela Geller, among others, have noted, Norquist has also been a sponsor of efforts to promote in the name of GOP "inclusion" individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He seems indifferent to the Brotherhood's self-declared mission to "destroy Western civilization from within" or the close alignment between many of his policy recommendations and the interests of the Brothers and other Shariah adherents who seek such an outcome....

Indifferent at best. Anyway, Gaffney goes on to explain that Norquist has been involved in organizing some debates of late, so he sent him this challenge:

8 March 2010

Mr. Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
722 12th Street, NW Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Grover:

For some time, you have been promoting a number of national security-related policy positions and initiatives as the appropriate ones for conservatives and Republicans to adopt. These have included:

· Your strenuous opposition to the enactment and subsequent reenactment of the Patriot Act;
· Your support for President Obama's decision to close Guantanamo Bay;
· Your support for his administration's bid to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court in New York City;
· Your support for transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.
· Your advocacy of what amount to open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens;
· And your outreach to individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the name of GOP "inclusiveness."

You have claimed that those who disagreed with you on these recommendations were "scaremongering," "racists" and "bigots."

It has been troubling to me that your policy preferences and efforts to advance them may have contributed to a serious diminution of the amount and quality of attention given to these and related subjects in the Conservative Action Project's Mount Vernon Statement, the Conservative Political Action Conference's program and the choices available to respondents as part of the development of the Contract From America.

It was, therefore, heartening to me to learn of the enthusiasm you have expressed together with The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel for the idea of debate as a means whereby arguments can be "tested and honed." Rarely has it been more necessary than now, in the run-up to a potentially pivotal national election, to have a rigorous evaluation of the sorts of ideas you espouse and promote with respect to our national security and their suitability for American conservatives and Republicans.

Accordingly, I formally challenge you to a public debate about those arguments in a mutually agreeable forum. I believe this should take place at the earliest possible moment, given the importance of sorting out whether your policy recommendations should be adopted or rejected by the Republican Party and/or the conservative movement.

Knowing of your commitment to public debate, I hope you will promptly accept this invitation.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
President & CEO
Center for Security Policy

While Grover is setting up that debate with Gaffney, he can also finally answer the challenge to debate that I sent him back in July 2008, and wrote about here. But somehow I suspect that neither Gaffney nor I will hear from him.

Nonetheless, it is good to see Gaffney picking up and furthering Geller's calling-out of Norquist. Pamela has even more on Norquist here.

As if this coverup weren't enough.

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 God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

"BREAKING NEWS: New Obama Envoy Has History Of Engagement With U.S. Muslim Brotherhood; Called Al-Arian Case 'Politically Motivated Persecution,'" from the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, February 15 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Rashad Hussein, White House official and President Obama's newly appointed Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, has a history of participation in events connected with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood as well as support for Brotherhood causes....[...]

However, in October 2000 Mr. Hussain spoke at a conference sponsored by the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (CMCU). The conference was titled "Islam, Pluralism, and Demoracy and featured many leaders of the global Muslim Brotherhood including former German diplomat Murad Hoffman, and International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) leaders Louay Safi, Jamal Barzinji, Hisham Al-Talib, and AbdulHamid Abusylayman. The AMSS was founded in 1972 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Student Association and has long been associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

In June 2002, Mr. Hussain was listed as part of a Congressional Staffers panel at the American Muslim Council's (AMC) 11th annual convention. The AMC was headed at that time headed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, a leader in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and currently imprisoned as part of a plot to assassinate the Saudi head of state, Crown Prince Abdullah. Other important leaders of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood such as Jamal Barzinji were also part of the AMC.

While at Yale Law School, Mr. Hussain was listed as part of the organizing committee for an April 2004 conference organized by a student organization known as the Critical Islamic Reflections (CIR) group. Among the CIR sponsors listed on the their web site was IIIT and the Fairfax Institute, the IIIT educational arm. IIIT is an important component of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and three of the key IIIT/Fairfax leaders Jamal Barzinji, Hisham Al-Talib, and Yaqub Mirza; were also associated with what has been called the SAAR network (Safa Group), a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in March 2002 and which, until at least mid 2007, had been the subject of an ongoing investigation. Also listed as a CIR sponsor was ALIM, most likely referring to the American Learning Institute for Muslims and whose list of instructors includes some of the most important leaders of the U.S./global Muslim Brotherhood including Tariq Ramadan, Jamal Badawi, and Taha Al-Alwani.

In September 2004, while still a Yale law student, Mr. Hussain participated in a session at the annual conference of the Muslim Student's Association (MSA) of the U.S. and Canada. The MSA has long been associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and at the session, Mr. Hussain appeared along side the daughter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian and labeled Al-Arian's prosecution "politically motivated persecution." According to an archived notice in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

A session on civil rights called "Get up, Stand up; Stand up for your Rights: The State of Contemporary Civil Liberties" was held Sept. 5 at the annual conference for the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada, held alongside the Islamic Society of North America's 41st annual convention in Chicago. Laila Al-Arian, daughter of civil and political rights activist and Muslim leader Sami Al-Arian, opened the session with her father's story. She gave a heart-wrenching, emotional account of an innocent man targeted for free-speech activities, whose rights were stripped thanks in part to the PATRIOT Act. Al-Arian, who has not yet been to trial, has been held in a federal penitentiary for over a year and a half. Al-Arian's situation is one of many "politically motivated persecutions," claimed Rashad Hussain, a Yale law student. Such persecution, he stated, must be fought through hope, faith, and the Muslim vote.

(It should be noted that in the latest version of the above report, the two sentences pertaining to Mr. Hussain have been removed, sometime after October 2007 according to the Internet Archive.)

In 2006, Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison for conspiring to violate a federal law that prohibits making or receiving contributions of funds, goods or services to, or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Defense of Al-Arian and accusations of politically-motivated prosecution has been a long-time U.S. Muslim Brotherhood cause....

Read it all.

Over at Big Government, Pamela Geller discusses the U.S. government's willful blindness to the jihad:

They knew. Two years before the Fort Hood jihad massacre, the Army knew of jihadis in its ranks -- and did nothing.

Investigative reporter Bill Gertz has revealed: "Almost two years before the deadly Fort Hood shooting by a radicalized Muslim officer, the U.S. Army was explicitly warned that jihadism -- Islamic holy war -- was a serious problem and threat to personnel in the U.S., according to participants at a major Army-sponsored conference."

Over 350 Army officials involved in counterterror efforts attended this February 2008 conference. One of the speakers, Lt. Colonel Joseph Myers, explains the topic of his lecture: "I noted that because of our lack of understanding of Islamic doctrines, Islamic Jihad and my view that our counterintelligence function is broken, outdated and being usurped in some cases by public affairs and equal opportunity officials, we were going to get soldiers killed in America, on our own bases for that professional ignorance."

And that's just what happened at Fort Hood.

What makes this so profoundly disturbing is that it shows that senior level officials knew. They were explicitly warned that jihadism -- Islamic holy war -- was a serious problem and a threat to military personnel and civilians alike. And still they did nothing. Not only did they do nothing, but they left known jihadis like Nidal Hasan, who murdered thirteen Americans at Fort Hood in his jihad attack of November 2009, in place and unsupervised.

They knew. And still they sacrificed Americans. [...]

This is surrender. And it isn't limited just to the Fort Hood report. Did you know in the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Manual, the word jihad is not to be found? Not once.

This is no accident. This is happening because for decades the Muslim Brotherhood (i.e., the Muslim American Society, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, etc.), has infiltrated every agency and institution at the highest levels, and they control what is said and how it can be said.

Islam has achieved absolute intellectual dominance. The Muslim Brotherhood groups in the United States control the narrative. They control information and how it is processed at senior levels of the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, and the various branches of the military.

And so they knew about the jihadis in the ranks, and did nothing. Will the thirteen dead at Fort Hood move the American people to rise up and demand an end to the Muslim Brotherhood influence in our government? If that happens, they will not have died in vain.

If you're skeptical about the charge that Muslim Brotherhood groups "control information and how it is processed at senior levels of the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, and the various branches of the military," as you may be, since the relentless smear artist and libelblogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has renewed his defamation campaign in connection with this piece, watch this video (and here is part two). They show a former Defense Department official and a former FBI agent blowing the whistle on the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration of our government at the highest levels, and the Brotherhood's immense control over counterterror efforts. Transcript here.

Does Charles Johnson know that there isn't severe Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the government? Of course not. He doesn't have a clue, and he ignores evidence such as is presented in the videos linked above. And so when he turns out to be wrong, he will bear a heavy responsibility for having misled his witless sycophants about the magnitude of the threat we were facing. But by then perhaps most of them will have awakened to the spectacular foolishness of following this tinhorn cult leader in the first place.

Islamic Relief USA and the Islamic Circle of North America, both groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within," are operating in Haiti -- ostensibly working in relief efforts, but no doubt doing a good bit of dawah on the side. Creeping Sharia has the story (thanks to herr Oyal).

In Human Events today I discuss the opening of America's doors to the slick and crafty Tariq Ramadan:

Five years after being barred from the U.S. for making charitable contributions to a group that sent those contributions to the jihad terror group Hamas, internationally renowned Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, often mislabeled "the Muslim Martin Luther," is allowed to enter the country again. The turnabout comes not because Ramadan has been cleared of these charges, but because Secretary of State Clinton has, in the words of State spokesman Darby Holladay, "chosen to exercise her exemption authority for the benefit of Tariq Ramadan."

Holladay disingenuously suggested that the Bush Administration had barred Ramadan from the country because of his opposition to the Iraq War, but no "exemption authority" would have been needed to overturn a ban that had been put in place for that reason. Clinton was exempting Ramadan from prohibitions on supporters of terror groups entering the country.

Ironically, days after the Obama State Department announced the exemption for Ramadan, a Detroit-area Muslim named Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka was arrested at the border while attempting to cross from Canada back into the United States. His crime? Lying to the FBI and immigration officials about his work with the Holy Land Foundation, formerly the largest Islamic charity in the United States, which has now been shut down for funneling charitable contributions to Hamas.

So what is the difference between Tariq Ramadan and Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka? They have both allegedly been disingenuous about their ties to a Hamas charity, and yet Ramadan is free to enter the United States and Masfaka is under arrest. So what unique and compelling benefit does Tariq Ramadan bring to the U.S. that would move Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to bend their own anti-terror rules and make this exemption for him?

The answer, of course, is that Tariq Ramadan is internationally famous as a voice of Islamic moderation -- and a vocal critic of the Bush Administration's Middle East policies, which the Obama Administration very much wants to subject to public criticism. Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka, in contrast, toils in relative obscurity and offers the Obama Administration no such political fringe benefits.

Ramadan represents the kind of Muslim who should respond most favorably to Obama's recurring pleas for a new relationship based on mutual respect: urbane, sophisticated, Westernized, closely identified with Islamic moderation and reform. In fact, Holladay explained the exemption for Ramadan in terms that specifically recalled Obama's repeated appeals: "Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the US government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

However, there are cracks in Ramadan's façade that should have raised eyebrows even in Obama's State Department. Ramadan is the grandson of Hasan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood -- an international Islamic supremacist organization that is dedicated, in its own words (according to an internal Brotherhood document captured in a raid of the Holy Land Foundation), to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house."

French journalist Caroline Fourest, who has published a book-length study of Ramadan's sly duplicity, Brother Tariq, concludes that this much-lionized putative Muslim Martin Luther is actually anything but a reformer: in reality, Ramadan is "remaining scrupulously faithful to the strategy mapped out by his grandfather, a strategy of advance stage by stage" toward the imposition of Islamic law in the West.

Ramadan, she explains, in his public lectures and writings invests words like "law" and "democracy" with subtle and carefully crafted new definitions, permitting him to engage in "an apparently inoffensive discourse while remaining faithful to an eminently Islamist message and without having to lie overtly -- at least not in his eyes." Ramadan, she said, "may have an influence on young Islamists and constitute a factor of incitement that could lead them to join the partisans of violence."

In light of Ramadan's smooth duplicity, his new welcome into the U.S. is a fitting symbol for the entire catastrophe of the Obama Administration's policy toward the Middle East and Islamic terror. Obama reaches out to the Islamic world, assuming that his overtures will be welcomed by voices of reason and restraint. But in making this appeal, Obama drastically underestimates the jihad threat and mistakes all too many enemies for friends. And so now he also underestimates and misevaluates Tariq Ramadan, with consequences that no one can foretell at this point, but which are not likely to be positive.

I have word from an informed source that a top representative of the Muslim Brotherhood arm known as the Islamic Society of North America -- Louay Safi -- is at Fort Hood this week training the army brigade getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan. At about 1800 EST today, Safi gave a check to families of the victims of the Major Hasan jihad killings.

The Fort Hood leadership was overheard commenting that Safi was "really nice."

The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands"? The rest of that passage, of course, is: "...and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." That's from "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

ISNA is a Brotherhood entity, and an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case.

This is criminal and the base commander should be fired right now.

The Muslim American Society is the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

"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.

And the Muslim Brotherhood's self-proclaimed goal in the U.S. is the destruction of American society and the imposition of Sharia in this country. 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 God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

"Man accused in Boston terror plot is son of former Muslim American Society leader: Father moves out of town weeks after son questioned by the FBI," from Americans for Peace and Tolerance, October 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Media reports on the Boston terror arrest have named three individuals as conspirators in the plot to machine gun people in shopping malls and kill American officials.Two, Daniel Maldonado and Tareq Mehanna, are in custody. The third, however, Ahmad Abousamra, escaped to Syria after being questioned by the FBI in 2006.

According to the complaint, it was Abousamra who introduced Maldonado and Mehanna to each other during an afternoon of watching "jihad videos" in which Islamic terrorists killed and mutilated American soldiers.

Abousamra seems to be the most extremist of the three, as well as the one most educated in radical Islamist ideology. According to the criminal complaint:

"Abousamra expressed his belief that suicide bombings were permissible. ... Abousamra found justification for his position in the religious writings of Muslim extremists. Abousamra justified attacks on civilians, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks. Abousamra stated that civilians were not innocent because they paid taxes to support the government and because they were Kufar (non-believers). ... Abousamra always justified their extremist views by citing Islamic teachings."

Ahmad Abousamra is the oldest son of Abdul-Badi Abousamra, former vice president of the Boston branch of the Muslim American Society, which operates the largest Islamic center in the Northeast. The MAS has branches in 34 cities within 23 states.

The Muslim American Society, according to Federal prosecutors, "was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America." The Muslim Brotherhood is considered to be the first truly modern Islamic supremacist movement. As such, it has spawned or aided most of the Islamic terrorist organizations functioning around the globe today, including Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Lashkar-e-Taibah....

Read it all.

The Muslim Brotherhood, as I explain in Onward Muslim Soldiers, is the father of virtually all of today's jihad terrorist groups. And as this Washington Post article shows, it has not been inactive here in the U.S. -- yet State, demonstrating more of its astounding and suicidal myopia, is trying to find "friends" in the Brotherhood. (Thanks to Miss Moneypenney for the link.)

When U.S. immigration officers in New York City whisked away Ishaq Farhan as he stepped off an incoming international flight in May 2000, his Jordanian diplomatic passport was no help to him. Federal agents questioned him for hours before barring his entry into the country. Then they made him pay for the flight back to Jordan.

The U.S. Embassy in Jordan lost no time making amends to Farhan, a leading opposition politician who has been closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide movement opposed to Western influences. A State Department official visited his home, issued him an immediate visa and passed on the United States' "deep regret for the difficulties Dr. Farhan experienced."

The episode demonstrates the U.S. government's dilemma. Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.

Dream on.

"It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world," said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official specializing in the Middle East. "It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood "would be foolhardy in the extreme," he warned.

Foolhardy, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder. Read on:

The Brotherhood's history and the challenges it poses to U.S. officials illustrate the complexity of the political front in the campaign against terrorism three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. FBI agents and financial investigators probe the group for terrorist ties and legal violations, while diplomats simultaneously discuss strategies for co-opting at least its moderate wings. In both sectors of the U.S. government, the Brotherhood often remains a mystery.

The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers.

In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.

For decades, the Brotherhood enjoyed the support of the government of Saudi Arabia and its oil billions, which helped the group expand in the United States.

Read it all.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the forefather of virtually all of today's Islamic terror groups -- most notably, Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Held at bay in Egypt and banned in Syria, it is now making a comeback. From MEMRI, :

Recently, there has been frequent mention in the Syrian media of the possible return to Syria of members of the Muslim Brotherhood - an organization that has been banned in Syria for two decades, with membership being punishable by death. While Syrian government officials' statements have been repeatedly preparing the ground for this possible change, Muslim Brotherhood leaders are denying the existence of any contacts with the Syrian government on this matter. For example, while Syrian MP Muhammad Habash revealed that there had been contacts between the Muslim Brotherhood and Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood Inspector-General in Syria, Sheikh 'Ali Sadr Al-Din Al-Bayanouni, [1] denied it vehemently.

Rumors of Return Began With Assad's Statements

The rumors about the possible return of Muslim Brotherhood members started with statements by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad himself, who in April 2004 told Al-Jazeera: "Some Muslim Brotherhood leaders who were in the past involved in events have returned to Syria. These leaders, who in the 1980s were imprisoned and who were responsible for destructive operations, even those in the most senior echelons, have now left the prisons, and now most of the Muslim Brotherhood [members] are living normal lives in Syria. It is possible.

"With regard to those outside Syria, some have returned to Syria, and those from the rank and file who are not leaders but who belong or identify with the Muslim Brotherhood have returned in a quiet and orderly manner. There is acknowledgement of past mistakes, such as the killing and destruction against Syrian citizens."

Akef

Hamas is an offshoot of the world's first modern radical Muslim group, the Muslim Brotherhood. From AP:

Arabs condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin and vowed revenge on Israelis, while the United States quickly called for restraint from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, arguably the largest Islamic movement in the Middle East, issued a warning to all Americans and Israelis.

"There can be no life for the Americans and Zionists in the region," Akef told the pan-Arabic satellite television Al-Jazeera. "We will not rest until they (Israelis) are expelled from the region."

Agent of the Muslim Brotherhood? (Photo: Time)

France's Nouvel Observateur (thanks to Joyce) is reporting that controversial European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan's move to the United States may be related to talks between Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood. Here is my rough-and-ready translation of the French article:

Surprise: Tariq Ramadan, part-time lecturer at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, is on his way to the United States. Next September, he will be named a professor at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. This arrangement comes after multiple offers made to him by many American universities for several months, in particular the University of Chicago. In April, he will also give several lectures in California, and according to him, will be invited to the U.S. State Department, which seems interested in him more and more.

This information was also confirmed Wednesday by the Genevan daily newspaper Le Temps, which confirms, quoting a spokesman of Tariq Ramadan, that "he will give courses beginning next fall on the relationship between religion, conflict and the promotion of peace." However, according to the paper, the visa application filed by the intellectual is likely to take time, "because there are people who have questions about it."

His departure from Europe is even more surprising since the Genevan theologian (of Egyptian origin) is actively involved in France in the debate over the veil and secularism. Tariq Ramadan is considered, by many European intelligence services, to be one of the clandestine leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that supports the Palestinian kamikazes of Hamas. Is his departure for the United States a sign, as DST [Territorial Surveillance Directorate, France's domestic intelligence service] officials believe, of an accord between Washington and the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood?

Translation corrections welcome. In any case, the connection that this article makes between Ramadan and the Muslim Brotherhood is significant. In Onward Muslim Soldiers I explain how careful he has been to present himself as a moderate Muslim, although there are numerous questions about his real connection to radicals. The Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is the father of virtually all modern-day Islamic terror groups.