From the Islamic Society of North America website:
Through a US State Department grant the Islamic Society of North America and the National Peace Foundation have co-sponsored a citizen exchange project between the United States and the Middle East. This program brings young professionals from the Middle East, specifically from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to the United States. The goal of this project is to explore Islam, the functions of Islamic institutions in the United States, and the activities of interfaith work. In return American professionals from the three Abrahamic faiths; Christianity, Judaism and Islam, will visit these countries in the Middle East to explore Islam and interfaith work as it is done in the respective countries. This program will run through 2009, with several upcoming exchanges in progress.
From “Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case,” by Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun, June 4, 2007:
Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.
Prosecutors applied the label of “unindicted co-conspirator” to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.
Apparently it isn’t a blow to ISNA’s credibility at all.
Madness.
Pipeline News and Andy McCarthy have more.