Natana DeLong-Bas
It is not surprising considering that this event took place at John Esposito’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). But cut Esposito and his Center some slack: they hadn’t scheduled the Nazi speaker because he was a Nazi, but because he is a defender of Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt. The whole event was supposed to be a big Muslim Brotherhod lovefest, which is not surprising, since Esposito has called Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who advocates jihad-martyrdom suicide bombings and has praised Hitler’s genocide of the Jews, a champion of a “reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights.” Esposito has called another Brotherhood group, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) “phenomenal organization” and has spoken at CAIR fundraisers in order, he explained, to “show solidarity not only with the Holy Land Fund [that is, the Holy Land Foundation], but also with CAIR.”
The Holy Land Foundation was shut down and prosecuted for funneling money to the jihad terror group Hamas, which once boasted on its website about its murders of civilians in pizza parlors and on buses; the Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Esposito himself refuses to condemn Hamas (which calls itself the Muslim Brotherhood for “Palestine”), as the Investigative Project notes: “In a 2000 interview in The United Association for Studies and Research’s (UASR) Middle East Affairs Journal, Esposito refused to condemn Hamas, which at the time was already designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department.”
Esposito has also co-edited a book, Islam and Secularism in the Middle East, with Azzam Tamimi. Palestinian political scientist Muhammad Muslih calls Tamimi “a Hamas member.” Tamimi has said: “I admire the Taliban; they are courageous,” and “I support Hamas.” When University of South Florida computer science professor Sami al-Arian was accused of involvement with the leadership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for the murders of several civilians, he became a cause célèbre, with his defenders ascribing his prosecution to “Islamophobia.” Esposito rushed to his defense, avowing: “Sami Al-Arian’s a very good friend of mine.” In 2008, Esposito advocated for al-Arian’s release, saying:
Sami Al-Arian is a proud, dedicated and committed American as well as a proud and committed Palestinian. He is an extraordinarily bright, articulate scholar and intellectual-activist, a man of conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice.
Al-Arian later pled guilty to “conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a specially designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law.” Al-Arian also, according to Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), has “longstanding connections to associates of al Qaeda.” Wolf quotes a federal affidavit noting that –˜Sheik Rahman (the “˜Blind Sheik”) visited Al-Arian at his residence in Tampa and spoke at his mosque.” Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in U.S. prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and additional terror plots.”
Also associated with the Blind Sheikh is the man Esposito calls “my old friend Siraj”: the popular Muslim speaker Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj was designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing for taking the Blind Sheik to speak at mosques in New York and New Jersey in the early 1990s. Wahhaj has warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has also asserted that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”
This event isn’t singular. Events like it take place regularly on campuses all over. It is a sign of the corruption and decay of U.S. academia, and (unless one is a Leftist or an Islamic supremacist) the utter worthlessness of academic degrees today except as a ticket to a decent job.
“Georgetown University Hosts 9/11 Truther,” by Adam Kredo for the Washington Free Beacon, November 22:
Just days after it came under fire for engaging with a member of Egypt’s Nazi Party, Georgetown University hosted an event with a 9/11 Truther who has claimed that Osama bin Laden was not involved in the 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers.
A Thursday afternoon panel sponsored by Georgetown was chaired by Boston College Professor Natana DeLong-Bas, who has defended Islamic fundamentalism and maintained that bin Laden played no role in the most deadly terror attack on American soil.
DeLong-Bas was scheduled to be joined on the panel by Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) and former White House advisor Dalia Mogahed. The event, which focused on the future of Muslim-Christian relations, was organized by Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Ellison did not show up.
The controversial panel took place just days after the Washington Free Beacon reported that Georgetown was slated to host a December 5 event with Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer Ramy Jan, who also is a key memberof the country”s Nazi Party.
DeLong-Bas is known to be an outspoken critic of the official 9/11 narrative and has implied that Islamic terrorism is a product of Western intervention in the Muslim world.
“I think that the Western media and the world have given Osama bin Laden more weight [than he has in reality] and exaggerated in depicting the danger he poses,” DeLong-Bas said in a now infamous 2006 interview with the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
“Likewise, I do not find any evidence that would make me agree that Osama bin Laden was behind the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center,” she said, according to a reproduction of the interview supplied by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “All we heard from him was praise and acclaim for those who carried out the operation.”
She also claimed that America’s support for Israel is justifiably enraging Arab youths.
“American government’s tying [the hands of] the U.N. [and preventing it] from adopting any resolution against Israel, have definitely added to the Muslim youth’s state of frustration, which then pushes them to””as they understand it””help their brothers do away with the aggression against them, in the various Islamic countries,” DeLong-Bas said.
These things, she added, are happening “at a time in which all political options have been closed off. That is why I believe that religion has nothing to do with this.”
In addition to downplaying the influence of extremist Islamic scholars, DeLong-Bas praised supposed democracy efforts undertaken by terror group such as Hamas.
“The U.S. made an effort to implement democracy in the Middle East””efforts that did not rise to the level of what Hamas has achieved, for example””we need to give them more time,” she said. “Also, I believe that the Islamic groups have clearly demonstrated their agendas in their political and reformist activities in the fields of medical care and education.”
Islam does not promote violence against the West, DeLong said in a 2011 interview on the 2001 terror attacks.
The “biggest misconception” about Islam and Wahabism, a particular extremist strand of Islam, is that “violence does not have to be part of the picture,” she said in an interview.
Another keynote speaker at Tuesday”s Georgetown event, Karen Armstrong, also blamed the West for the 9/11 attacks, according to those who attended the event.
Armstrong reportedly said that “9/11 was the Brits” fault,” according to one person in the room who was tweeting the event.
Experts say that it is not surprising to see DeLong-Bas and other who share her views heading up an event organized by Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center.
DeLong-Bas is a known disciple of Alwaleed Center founder John Esposito, who has come under fire in the past from some critics for being an “Islamist apologist.”
The center has additionally received major funding from Saudi sources….
After the Free Beacon reported on Tuesday about Georgetown’s inclusion of Nazi Party member Jan, his name was quietly scrubbed from the event….