There have been questions about Mohamed Elibiary”s true allegiances for years. He was one of the speakers at a December 2004 conference in Dallas titled “A Tribute to the Great Islamic Visionary.” The visionary in question was none other than the founding father of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
When I questioned him about his appearance at such a conference, Elibiary claimed that he hadn’t known what kind of conference it was going to be, although he didn’t explain why he went ahead and appeared there anyway once he found out. Among those who found this explanation wanting was journalist Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News, whose skepticism angered Elibiary. The great moderate subsequently threatened Dreher, telling him: “Expect someone to put a banana in your exhaust pipe.”
Yet despite all this, Elibiary still got his appointment to the DHS Advisory Council, and has now been promoted. Mohamed Elibiary has risen as far as he has without ever being properly vetted because government and law enforcement officials, and the media, are so avid to find a moderate Muslim who will stand against Islamic jihad terrorism that they will accept virtually anyone’s claim to be just that, no questions asked.
“Homeland Security advisor supports convicted terrorist fundraiser,” by Charles C. Johnson for the Daily Caller, October 6 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
A senior advisor to the Department of Homeland Security is an old friend of an activist who was convicted in 2008 of financing the terrorist organization Hamas.
In an interview with The Daily Caller, Mohamed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, reiterated claims he made this summer that former Holy Land Foundation president and CEO Shukri Abu Baker is innocent and a victim of political persecution.
Elibiary, who in his position on the council has regular access to classified information, also said the United States insults Muslim dignity and compared the Muslim Brotherhood to American evangelicals.
Elibiary confirmed to journalist Ryan Mauro of the ClarionProject in August that he is a longtime friend of Baker. Mauro’s interview can be read at the Center for Security Policy.
Baker and four other officials of the closed Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development were convicted of using the charity to finance Hamas in 2008. It was the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history. Federal prosecutors described the Foundation, which was closed by the U.S. government in 2001, as an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
Elbiary first disclosed the relationship in a 2007 article in the Dallas Morning News. He met Baker as a teenager and was so moved by the terrorist funder’s explanation of alleged Israeli persecution of Palestinians that he says he began donating monthly to Baker’s foundation until it closed in 2001. The friendship continued, with Elibiary meeting with Baker for coffee the day before he was convicted.
Elibiary maintains that Baker is innocent, and in 2010 he wrote that the U.S. government was “using the law to force compliance with unjust foreign policies.” He reiterated his belief that the U.S. should not have prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation.
The Muslim activist has never disguised his support for Muslim Brotherhood extremism. In a 2006 letter to the Morning News, he defended the fanatically anti-American early Brotherhood leader and theorist Sayyid Qutb, stating, “I’d recommend everyone read Qutb, but read him with an eye to improving America not just to be jealous with malice in our hearts.”
Elibiary has been honored by the FBI”s Society of Former Special Agents. In September he was promoted to Senior Advisor at the Advisory Council, a title held only by select members. Other Council members include William Bratton, the revered former New York police commissioner and Los Angeles chief of police; former CIA Director Bill Webster; and L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca.
“If you ever wondered why the Obama Administration believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate force for good and partners with known U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities, this interview with Mr. Elibiary helps us find an answer,” Mauro said.