It is certain that none of the IL Muslim Civic Coalition’s “partners from diverse faiths, races, and communities” will take any notice whatsoever of any of this, and will continue their partnerships, knowing that any other course of action would open them up to charges of “Islamophobia.”
“New Islamist Group in Chicago Dominated by Radical Voices,” by Steven Emerson, IPT News, March 28, 2019:
The IL Muslim Civic Coalition, which formed last October, claims to be “a partnership of 250+ Activists, Influencers and Organizations. We empower the voices of cultural and diverse Muslims.” It issues voter guides and does candidate training.
Last month, it was among the groups to meet with Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts after disclosures that Ricketts’ father had made anti-Islamic statements.
But many Coalition organizers – and even the organization itself – already have demonstrated their own uniform and often radical ideology, especially when it comes to issues involving Israel.
In a January Facebook post, the Coalition praised the anti-Semitic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib as “an embodiment of Muslim women across our country and an inspiration to all across the world.”
The next month, the Coalition rallied to defend Omar after she made another anti-Semitic statement. Omar said American support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins, baby” – meaning money. When asked who she was talking about, Omar replied, “AIPAC!” – the pro-Israel lobbying group.
The Coalition rushed to Omar’s aid in a Feb. 13 Facebook post, trying to erase any interpretation that Jewish money was driving American policy: “AIPAC is a powerful pro-Israel lobby,” it said. “This is a fact. And AIPAC is influencing our lawmakers against the long term best interests of America. USA must be an equitable and just leader in the world. We respect and love our Jewish brothers and sisters. But we should NOT support Israel’s oppressive policies against Palestinians.”
The post included an action plan, urging followers to initiate conversations with five neighbors and one local official using its talking points.
Like all other American Islamist groups, the Coalition has been unwilling to acknowledge any role Hamas and the Palestinian Authority play in fomenting violence and indoctrinating Palestinians to reject peace with Israel. It has said nothing about a brutal Hamas crackdown on protesters frustrated by deteriorating economic and quality of life issues in Gaza as Hamas prioritizes building its rocket arsenal and digging terror tunnels to attack Israeli civilians.
But board members are not shy about going after anyone who strays from their orthodoxy….
Beg shared a blatantly anti-Semitic Facebook video. It was touted as a speech comparing Israel to an “ADDICT LIVING OFF THE LOOT FROM AMERICANS TO KEEP THEIR ‘OCCUPATION ADDICTION’ GOING!”
“AIPAC + ROTHSCHILDS JEWISH MAFIA ARE FORCING MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS TO KEEP FEEDING THE DANGEROUS ADICT [sic]!” the post said.Beg shared and applauded it for offering a “very enlightened perspective.”
In December, Beg live-streamed a speech by former CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired from the cable news outlet after calling for the destruction of Israel at the United Nations. “Standing up with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill and against the unjust and biased actions of CNN, does not imply our love and care for our Jewish cousins is any less,” Beg wrote. “We stand against the injustice and hypocrisy of a #media company pressured by an unjust foreign State and its supporters.”
Arshia Ali-Khan, whom the Coalition describes as a “Steering Board Member and Development/Grants Team Member,” once shared on Facebook an article from The Intercept that attempted to whitewash Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic statements regarding AIPAC and Jewish influence in U.S. Congress. She also shared a Washington Post op-ed video last May by Mehdi Hasan. The Post‘s own summary said he would show why the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem was “so problematic as Israeli forces kill Palestinians in Gaza.”
That was a reference to violent demonstrations on the Gaza-Israel border organized by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist entity. It later admitted that most of the protesters killed were Hamas members.
In addition to troubling leadership, the Coalition’s partners include groups which have repeatedly stood by terrorists and oppose Israel at virtually all turns.
CAIR is one such partner. For example, it defended convicted terrorist Tarek Mehanna, who was sentenced to 17½ years in federal prison for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida and other stemming from a plot to kill American soldiers overseas.
The Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), another Coalition partner, boasts of its close ties to CAIR and has defended numerous Islamist terrorists and other radicals, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad governing board member Sami Al-Arian, Hamas operative Muhammad Salah, and Shain, Eljvir and Dritan Duka, brothers who to plotted kill soldiers at New Jersey’s Fort Dix Army base.
IL Muslim Civic Coalition partnered with Emgage “to increase Muslim American civic engagement, establish a clear GOTV strategy in Illinois, and publish data-driven reports to help activists and allied organizations.”
“Emgage and the Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition share a common goal: to ensure that Muslim Americans have a seat at the table. With this partnership, we aim to do just that by empowering and educating communities across the nation.”
Muhsen, still another Coalition partner, is dedicated to aiding Muslims with disabilities. That’s a wholly good mission. But Muhsen was founded by the imam Omar Suleiman, who is considered an anti-Semite by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He regularly tweets venomously anti-Israel statements, and has repeated the anti-Semitic trope that Israel has disproportionate influence in American politics.
At a December 2017 rally in front of the White House to protest President Trump’s announcement that he was moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Suleiman demonstrated his contempt for the United States as well as for Israel.
“We should understand that, if anything, what this announcement has done is it has exposed what we’ve known for a very long time – that the United States is anything but an honest broker,” he said. “Never has been. Previous administrations were not. We have funded this occupation, we have emboldened this apartheid, we have shielded Israel from any consequences, facing any consequences on the international stage … Our blind support and loyalty to a government that has disregarded all international forms of accountability because it knows that it has our backing is shameful. It has made us not only an unprincipled and contradictory nation in regards to our policies, it has also put us at odds with the vast majority of nations around the world who can see right through our claim to greatness and our claim to being the moral superpower of the world.”
The Coalition has also spread misinformation about sharia (Islamic law). On March 11, it retweeted a post from a staffer at the Islamist Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University: “No, Sharia law is not antithetical” to the U.S. Constitution. Here’s why:” The post linked to a Bridge Initiative “factsheet” on Sharia that presents sharia law in a positive light, ignoring the elements of it that are oppressive to women, gays, and others, and claims that the negative portrayal of sharia as a “monolithic and medieval system of Islamic law” by anti-Muslim groups has “contribute[d] to Islamophobia and infringe[ment] on American Muslims’ right to religious freedom.”
It is perfectly legal for the Coalition to form and work within the system to advance candidates and causes it likes. It’s also perfectly fair for the public to be aware of the Coalition’s radical partners and anti-Semitic leaders.
Their “partners from diverse faiths, races, and communities” should approach any “partnership” with extreme caution.
CRUSADER says
Illinois is both ILLIN’ and ANNOYIN’
CogitoErgoSum says
I have a really hard time believing Muslims when they say they love their Jewish brothers and sisters. The Quran says Allah does not love the Jews (or Christians or any “infidels”). Why do they love what Allah does not not love? If they want me to believe the Quran is the truth, I am going to believe what is in the Quran and not what comes out of their mouths.
CRUSADER says
Remember the “Rainbow-/-PUSH” coalition of Jesse Jackson era?
Radical
Agenda
Islamist
Network
Bolstering
Oppressive
Wickedness
/
Promoting
Ummah
Shariah
Halal
….
owensgate says
“…(P)artners from diverse faiths”, yeah, that makes it all good. Every “Faith” EXCEPT Real Biblical Jesus-is-Lord Christianity. What’s not to expect here?
CRUSADER says
Wahhabi funded Georgetown making its filthy mark….
The Bridge Initiative is a multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University. The Bridge Initiative aims to disseminate original and accessible research, offers engaging analysis and commentary on contemporary issues, and hosts a wide repository of educational resources to inform the general public about Islamophobia.
https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-sharia/
livingengine says
All the hysteria about AIPAC lobbying in America evaporates with a little perspective.
According to Open Secrets, Israel spends about 5 million on lobbying. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000046963&year=2018
However, according to the Palestinian lobby (CAIR) they have access to the media equal to 143 million dollars. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.profile&ein=770646756
Although, I have never had the terrible adverse effects of AIPAC on American society explained to me other than someone is thwarting the BDS movement, here I can show you 40+ minutes of the Palestinian lobby, aka CAIR, using the media to hurt people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYscCOsS6s
And, they do this every month.
Here is their latest target, Larry Stein – https://gellerreport.com/2019/03/cair-stein-fired.html/
gravenimage says
Fine post, livingengine.
Then there is this article from Alan Dershowitz from a few years ago:
“The Arab Lobby in America and Influence over the U.S.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-arab-lobby-in-america-and-influence-over-the-us
It’s really more of a Muslim lobby, and hence is even larger than this implies. But in any case, it completely dwarfs Israel’s lobby.
By the way–five million dollars? Is this really considered a lot of money for an entire nation to spend on lobbying these days?
In my middle-class neighborhood, this would buy you about seven-and-a-half homes. Seriously.
CRUSADER says
“Islamophobia” defined by Bridge Initiative of Georgetown …a Wahhabi-funded institute….
———————————————————————————–
https://bridge.georgetown.edu/about-us/what-is-islamophobia/
Islamophobia is extreme fear of and antipathy toward Islam and Muslims which often leads to social and political discrimination and can be used to rationalize violence manifested in hate crimes and military attacks.
> Islamophobia is a Strategy
> Islamophobia is not random
Islamophobia existed before September 11, 2001
Islamophobia has been present in Western discourse since the Middle Ages, when negative stereotypes about Muslims helped build popular support for the Crusades. Descriptions of Muslims as uncivilized and violent also helped rationalize European colonial domination of most of the Muslim majority world. American scholar Edward Said (d. 2003) used the term “orientalism” to describe the pattern of negatively stereotyping Muslims and other colonized peoples. The term “Islamophobia” was popularized in a 1997 report by the Runnymede Trust, a British think tank that deals with racism and ethnic prejudice.
Like anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and other prejudices, Islamophobia is often used to promote discriminatory policies that serve the interests of political actors.
Islamophobia manifests itself in public and private spaces where Muslims are viewed as suspect and unwelcome; in workplace discrimination where Muslim practices such as wearing a scarf and praying are prohibited; in traditional and social media and political discourse where Muslims are portrayed as violent, misogynist, and untrustworthy. It is evident at local, state, and national levels when alleged Islamic violence is used to justify intrusive surveillance of domestic Muslim communities, and at the international level when alleged Islamic antipathy toward the West is used to justify acts of war.
Islamophobia does not include the rational criticism of Islam. However, it is Islamophobic for criticism of Islam to be generated for the sole purpose of advocating social and political measures that discriminate against and violate the rights of Muslims.
Islamophobia is propagated through well-funded networks of ideologues, media voices, think-tanks, and social and political organizations.
Islamophobia affects Muslims and those perceived as Muslims. It disproportionately impacts those visibly identifiable as Muslims, such as women who wear scarves and people who are often mistaken for Muslims, such as Sikh men who wear turbans.
https://bridge.georgetown.edu/about-us/meet-the-team/
Brought to you by such folks as:
John Esposito, Tamara Sonn, Kristin Garrity Sekerci, Mobashar Tazamal, Farid Hafez, Arsalan Iftikhar, and Susan Douglass…
John Esposito is a former President of the American Academy of Religion, the Middle East Studies Association of North America and of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, Vice Chair of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, and member of the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100 Leaders, and member of the E. C. European Network of Experts on De-Radicalisation and Board of Directors of the C-1 World Dialogue.
Esposito is recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion and of Pakistan’s Quaid-i-Azzam Award for Outstanding Contributions in Islamic Studies and the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University Award for Outstanding Teaching. Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Islamic Studies Online and Series Editor of The Oxford Library of Islamic Studies, Esposito has served as Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World (6 vols.); The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (4 vols.), The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and The Islamic World: Past and Present (3 vols.). Esposito’s books and articles have been translated into 35 languages.
His more than 45 books and monographs include: The Future of Islam, Islamophobia and the Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (with Dalia Mogahed), Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Islam and Politics, World Religions Today and Religion and Globalization (with D. Fasching & T. Lewis), Asian Islam in the 21st Century, Geography of Religion: Where God Lives, Where Pilgrims Walk (with S. Hitchcock); Islam: The Straight Path; Islam and Democracy; and Makers of Contemporary Islam (with J. Voll); Modernizing Islam (with F. Burgat) Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism or Reform?, Religion and Global Order (with M. Watson), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (with A. Tamimi); Iran at the Crossroads (with R.K. Ramazani); Islam, Gender, and Social Change and Muslims on the Americanization Path and Daughters of Abraham (with Y. Haddad); and Women in Muslim Family Law.
————————————————-
SO….now we know a little bit more….
Isn’t education valuable?
somehistory says
“Activists, Influencers and Organizations. We empower the voices of cultural and diverse Muslims.” ”
Doesn’t sound like any religion besides islam is a part of this group. As a Christian, I certainly would not be.
And they engage in ‘candidate training.” such as former candidates and now “reps” omar, tlaib, aoc.
Nasty photo of the two snakes.
gravenimage says
Chicago: New Muslim group with “partners from diverse faiths” dominated by pro-jihad, anti-Israel voices
……………..
No one should be shocked by this.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Re: “It is certain that none of the IL Muslim Civic Coalition’s “partners from diverse faiths, races, and communities” will take any notice whatsoever of any of this, and will continue their partnerships, knowing that any other course of action would open them up to charges of “Islamophobia.””
Well, that’s what libertine “liberal” criminals get for being hypocrites – “cognitive dissonance” and “mental illness” which is probably why they eventually commit suicide in much greater numbers than Conservatives do. Just sayin.’