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Canadian Interfaith Conversation to feature speakers linked to Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood

May 7, 2017 6:39 pm By Robert Spencer

The Canadian Interfaith Conversation starts tomorrow, and will feature Ingrid Mattson and Amira Elghawaby as speakers.

Mattson is a former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

“The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was established in July 1981 by U.S-based members of the Muslim Brotherhood with a background as leaders of the Muslim Students Association (MSA). As author and terrorism expert Steven Emerson puts it, ISNA “grew out of the Muslim Students Association, which also was founded by Brotherhood members.” Indeed, Muslim Brothers would dominate ISNA’s leadership throughout the Society’s early years. Striving “to advance the cause of Islam and serve Muslims in North America so as to enable them to adopt Islam as a complete way of life,” ISNA was highly dependent upon Saudi funding during its early years.” — from Discover the Networks

From the Investigative Project on Terrorism:

In its latest filing before the federal district court in Dallas on behalf of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and its affiliate organization, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in the Hamas-terrorism financing case, the ACLU has made a noteworthy admission.

Rather than deny that there is copious evidence tying ISNA and NAIT to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the brief argues that such evidence is merely dated. In a curious footnote on page 7, the reply states:

Assuming the authenticity of documents’ dates, the most recent documents to mention either ISNA or NAIT are dated 1991, Gov. Exhs. 3-3 and 3-85, but the majority of the documents are older. Almost all of the numerous exhibits that purport to show financial transactions and that contain any mention of ISNA or NAIT are dated 1988 and 1989 (there are two dated 1990), almost a decade before the majority of the overt acts the government alleges in support of its conspiracy charges against the HLF defendants.

So ISNA and NAIT are not saying that the documents tying their organizations to Hamas are “inauthentic,” but that the problem with the evidence is just that it is old. Then, even more curiously, the reply goes on to argue something that the government has not even alleged:

Even if the “evidence” provided some basis for alleging criminality against petitioners, the government’s discussion of it shows the government utterly fails to grasp the singular weight and consequence that an official accusation of criminal conduct carries in our criminal justice system and in our society.

But, of course, the government has not charged ISNA or NAIT with criminal conduct, or the two groups would be indicted in their own right, rather than un-indicted co-conspirators who worked with the Holy Land for Relief and Development (HLF), the defendant and alleged Hamas-front. The reply brief then, as Shakespeare might write, “doth protest too much.”

Elghawaby is with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), which founded as the Canadian branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements about how Islamic law should be imposed in the U.S. (Ahmad denies this, but the original reporter stands by her story.) A California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI, and a Florida chapter distributed pamphlets with the same message. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has been proposed or implemented and has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates. A CAIR operative recently called for the overthrow of the U.S. government.

Clearly, this conference is a farce, with Muslim spokesmen with numerous unsavory ties being showcased by those who pretend to care about human rights but really do not.

Even at this eleventh hour, many Canadians are trying to mobilize in order to bring objections to this situation to the attention of the organizers of the gathering. Please politely and courteously write to those responsible for the inclusion of these speakers:

Lead Organization:

Mr. Zul Kassamali and Dr. Aileen van Ginkel, Co-Chairs
Canadian Interfaith Conversation
info@interfaithconversation.ca

Partner Organizations:

Mr Albert Lo
Chairperson
Canadian Race Relations Foundation
chair.crrf@telus.net

Mr. Ray Pennings
Executive Vice President
Cardus
rpennings@cardus.ca

The Lawfare Project recently wrote a letter to “Dear Prospective Canadian Interfaith Conversation ‘Our Whole Society’ Conference Participants, Attendees, and Media Representatives.” It stated:

The Lawfare Project (LP), a non-profit legal think-tank based in New York City, notes with dismay the apparent failure of ethical due diligence of the Canadian Interfaith Conversation (CIC) in the course of planning the CIC’s pending conference in Ottawa, Canada. Scheduled for Saint Paul University on May 8-9, 2017, and titled “Our Whole Society: Religion & Citizenship at Canada’s 150th,” the conference and its failings appear to be the shared responsibility of the CIC and its “Our Whole Society” partner organizations, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, and Cardus, a Canadian Christian organization.

The LP’s concern stems from the announced presence, among conference presenters, of Dr. Ingrid Mattson, former head of the Islamic Society of North America, and Ms. Amira Elghawaby, a representative of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. These individuals are, in the LP’s opinion, unsuitable candidates for prominent roles in an interfaith gathering purporting to emphasize solidarity and tolerance, and aspiring to achieve a more peaceful world.

Dr. Ingrid Mattson was a longtime leader of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) when it was designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful US Holy Land Foundation terror-fundraising prosecution. Mattson‘s current position at Huron University College was the result of an endowment built around money from radical-Islamic sources. Any number of her associates have been problematic from the perspective of Islamist supremacism, as have some of her teachings and preferred theological sources. For more information on Mattson, see the LP’s news release, “Collapse of Mattson Libel Suit Signals Victory for Free Speech and The Lawfare Project,” including its links to court papers.

The LP is unaware of any attempt by Dr. Mattson to repudiate, publicly and by name, the various troubling individuals and organizations with which she is, or has been, connected.

Ms. Amira Elghawaby has for years been communications chief for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR.CAN), now renamed—deceptively, according to some—the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM). NCCM/CAIR.CAN was established as the Canadian chapter of the radical, US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Saudi-funded organization that was also designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. CAIR derived from the Islamic Association of Palestine (founded by Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook, who is now a US Specially Designated Global Terrorist), is said to be a Hamas-supporting organization, and has seen several of its officials and affiliates convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Like CAIR, NCCM/CAIR.CAN is known for its exaggerated claims of “Islamophobia“, claims that have unnecessarily alarmed Canadian Muslims and thereby risked pushing young Muslims into radical hands.  For more about NCCM/CAIR.CAN, see the LP’s statement, “Lawfare Project Concerned about National Council of Canadian Muslims Participation in Global Affairs Canada event.” To the best of the LP’s knowledge, neither Ms. Elghawaby nor her organization have ever condemned, publicly and by name, CAIR and those CAIR officials and affiliates who have been convicted of terrorist offenses. Nor are they known to have publicly condemned Dr. Jamal Badawi, a former, long-serving official of NCCM/CAIR.CAN who recommends light physical punishment for “misbehaving” Muslim wives and has been a high-level Islamic Society of North America official – and a US unindicted co-conspirator in his own right.

In the United Against Terrorism handbook jointly produced by NCCM/CAIR.CAN and the closely connected, controversial Islamic Social Services Association, many people of good faith were shocked to find the handbook’s authors apparently attempting to mainstream Dr. Mattson and other questionable individuals by recommending them as scholars to whom Muslims and broader civil society could defer in matters of Islamic theological interpretation, particularly in counter-radicalization contexts. To no one’s surprise, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police publicly withdrew its support for the handbook project. NCCM/CAIR.CAN, however, continues misleadingly to distribute the document, with the RCMP name and logo on it.

Was the inclusion of Mattson and Elghawaby in the “Our Whole Society” event the result of incompetence within CIC, its planning committee, and CIC partner organizations? Was it reflective of one or more planning insiders’ conscious efforts to “launder” the two Islamists in Canada’s national capital, the better to facilitate their access to interfaith, media, government and other influential circles?

Perhaps it was a combination of these things. But incompetence cannot be ruled out, given the fact that a Canadian Interfaith Conversation webpage announcing that CIC executive committee members Mr. Zul Kassamali and Dr. Aileen van Ginkel would become the CIC co-chairs, featured what the Interfaith Conversation seemed to regard as a spiritually uplifting quotation of industrialist Henry Ford. An accomplished anti-Semite, Mr. Ford produced a notorious hate-book, The International Jew, and his Nazi sympathies helped the auto-builder win Hitler’s 1st Class Grand Cross Order of the German Eagle in Gold with Star.

CIC might find a certain resonance in Mr. Ford’s ability to dupe Christian, Jewish and other well-meaning clerics and others about his true inclinations – and then to use such people for endorsements.

Following a review of the material herein provided and linked, CIC organizers and their Canadian Race Relations Foundation and Cardus partners will face a moral-ethical choice. On the one hand, they could honestly and forthrightly admit that errors have been made. On the other, they might be too embarrassed to be honest, and might further condemn themselves by doubling down on their invitations to Dr. Mattson and Ms. Elghawaby. The former, honorable course would avoid opening the CIC, its partners, presenters and sponsors to being used to legitimize individuals and organizations unworthy of the influence that involvement in a high-profile, spiritually oriented gathering could avail them. The latter course would dishonor all concerned and facilitate further penetration by undesirables into influential Canadian circles.

The choice made by the Canadian Interfaith Conversation and its associates will give a revealing indication of the true commitment of those involved, to morals, ethics and the integrity of Canada’s interfaith movement….

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Filed Under: CAIR, Canada, dialogue, Featured, Islamic Society of North America, Useful idiots Tagged With: Canadian Interfaith Conversation


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Comments

  1. Wellington says

    May 7, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    Of course, a veritable plethora of interfaith conversations will also be occurring this day, this week, this month, this year, in one majority-Muslim nation after another. Only a bigoted Islamophobe would assert otherwise.

    So tired of this one-way shit. Why isn’t most everyone in the West by now, even that extra-clueless group of people in the West, i.e., Leftists, disgusted by this metaphorical one-way street?

    • gravenimage says

      May 7, 2017 at 8:03 pm

      Of course, Wellington, I know you are familiar with this quotation from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sayyid Qutb:

      “The foremost duty of Islam in this world is to depose Jahiliyyah from the leadership of man, and to take the leadership into its own hands and enforce the particular way of life which is its permanent feature. …The chasm between Islam and Jahiliyyah is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other, but only so that the people of Jahiliyyah may come over to Islam…”

      In other words, this “interfaith dialogue” is one way entirely by design. The problem is that most hopeful Infidels fail to realize this.

      • mortimer says

        May 7, 2017 at 8:43 pm

        Wellington wrote: “…even that extra-clueless group of people in the West, i.e., Leftists…”

        They are clueless, smug and armored against learning Islam’s core doctrine of jihad.

        The Left fantasizes that they can wrestle Muslims into becoming good Leftists. The Left is riding the tiger of Islam, hoping to dismount and not be mauled.

        Islam is playing along with the gullible Leftists expecting to take over and crush them.

        The jihad will continue and political correctness will deny the death toll and pretend the nightmare isn’t happening.

        • Jeanette says

          May 8, 2017 at 10:53 am

          If I remember correctly, it says somewhere in Revelation that God will make some people stupid (it doesn’t use that word) so that they don’t see the danger.

          It’s looking more and more like that may be the case. It’s hard to see how they could be this stupid when their own lives are on the line, otherwise.

      • Wellington says

        May 8, 2017 at 1:44 pm

        Thanks for your post, gravenimage, particularly because I had forgotten about that term, “Jahiliyyah,” though the meaning which it conveys, how Muslims look upon non-Muslims and what the ultimate design of Islam is, is something I will never forget.

    • Kay says

      May 7, 2017 at 10:38 pm

      I don’t get it. It seems all that is needed is a side by side comparison of Jesus and M, their actions and sayings.

      • Jeanette says

        May 8, 2017 at 10:54 am

        On billboards across America.

  2. Diane Harvey says

    May 7, 2017 at 6:59 pm

    Interfaith Conversations,

    Muslims to everyone else, “You listen, don’t interrupt, and don’t challenge any Muslim.”

  3. Dan says

    May 7, 2017 at 7:30 pm

    It’s most likely a sure bet, if it’s any kind of government or publicly promoted policy or statement promoting Islam, it’s backed by Hamas, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or ISIS or some similar ilk.

    If moderate Muslims had any intention of cleaning this mess up, by now there would have been thousands and thousands of them willing to risk their lives to make things better for “Moderate Muslims.”

    Christians and Jews, and all sorts of other non Muslim religions do it all the time.

  4. gravenimage says

    May 7, 2017 at 7:51 pm

    Canadian Interfaith Conversation to feature speakers linked to Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood
    ………………………….

    Well, this should surprise no one.

    More:

    In the United Against Terrorism handbook jointly produced by NCCM/CAIR.CAN and the closely connected, controversial Islamic Social Services Association…
    ………………………….

    United Against Terrorism actually being linked to–well–terrorism? Again, this should surprise no one.

    More:

    To no one’s surprise, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police publicly withdrew its support for the handbook project. NCCM/CAIR.CAN, however, continues misleadingly to distribute the document, with the RCMP name and logo on it.
    ………………………….

    At the very least, the RCMP should send them a “cease and desist” letter, followed by actionable threats of legal action if these lying thugs continue to falsely use their good names–but they probably won’t…

  5. mortimer says

    May 7, 2017 at 11:51 pm

    Question to ask ALL Muslim leaders at Canadian Interfaith Conversation:

    What is the correct amount of HATRED that Muslims should have against the dirty Kufaar ‘for the sake of Allah’???

    1) hate kufaar once a month 2) hate the defiled kufaar one time a week 3) hate the soiled kufaar once a day 4) hate the filthy kufaar once every hour 5) join ISIS and fight the despised kufaar.

    Ask each person how much he PERSONALLY HATES the kufaar ‘for the sake of Allah’.

  6. Benedict says

    May 8, 2017 at 12:41 am

    The interfaith dialogue is conducted with Dr. Jekyll in a public forum while Mr. Hyde is busy mixing his chemicals in the secrecy of his laboratory. –
    Islam, the religion of duplicity.

  7. Politicianphobia says

    May 8, 2017 at 9:25 am

    SPEECHLESS

  8. Jeanette says

    May 8, 2017 at 10:56 am

    Half of the prominent jihadists profiled in a new study by The Centre on Religion & Geopolitics had ties to supposedly non-violent Islamists prior to joining terrorist organizations.

    actforamerica.org/advocacy?vvsrc=%2fBlogPosts%2f550

  9. Dean says

    May 8, 2017 at 9:03 pm

    I wonder if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be making a grand appearance. The Islamic terrorists and the people behind them owe Trudeau a debt of gratitude for opening up Canada to destruction at the hands of islamists and those who are employing stealth jihad at a rapid rate to take over without a shot being fired.

  10. ninetyninepct says

    May 9, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    Jahiliyyah is pre-Islam. What would be the equivalent word for the Muslim barbarism after Mohammedanism was violently started?

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