In a response to the recent President Obama speech to the Muslim world, Islamic convert Robert Crane makes the interesting admission that he is a “principal adviser” to Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef. In an article in the American Muslim, Dr Crane writes:
The best approach was taken by Dr. Ahmed Yousef, for whom I served in the 1990s as Managing Editor of his scholarly Middle East Affairs Journal and for whom I have long been a principal adviser. As the Deputy Foreign Minister in Palestine’s legally elected government, and as one of the two intellectual founders in 1983 of the Palestinian Hamas, Dr. Yousef has authority as perhaps the world’s leading Islamist in the search for peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice.
Youssef serves as Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the dissolved government in Gaza but is usually described by the western media as a political adviser to Ismail Haniya, senior political leader of Hamas and one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National Authority. His Middle East Affairs Journal is published by the United Association for Studies and Research (USAR), part of the Palestine Committee of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and generally thought to be part of the Hamas infrastructure in the U.S.
Dr. Crane, who was very briefly U.S. ambassador to the UAE in 1981 and who converted to Islam in Bahrain during that year, has been a board member of the USAR as well as holding positions with the American Muslim Council and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, both also part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. In 1998, Dr. Crane wrote that he had a “structure for Islamizing America.”
Shortly after 911, Dr. Crane published an article blaming the terrorist attacks solely on the U.S, and specifically on “active U.S. support of secularized and xenophobic Zionism”:
The greatest challenge to our commitment, courage and creativity lies not in enforcing stability through military might, which can never succeed in the long run, but in building security through foreign policies that address the roots of terrorism. Since the modern era of global terrorism is a long-term phenomenon, the policies to undercut or eliminate its causes must be long-term. Our success will come only from a commitment to promote justice as the root of stability, and from the courage to change any policies that may have political support in Congress but nevertheless may increasingly threaten the American people with mass destruction. America’s bizarre complicity in the genocidal destruction of Chechnia, its tacit support of India’s incredibly brutal occupation of Kashmir, its passivity in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, and even America’s insistence on zero casualties in stopping the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo all contribute to the terrorist mentality that is growing all over the world. Most challenging to American policy-makers, however, is the support given to the Zionist enterprise in the Holy Land. Anti-American movements are motivated primarily by active U.S. support of secularized and xenophobic Zionism, which has abandoned the spiritual essence of the Judaic religion revealed anew by Prophet Isa ( ), Jesus the Christ. This is compounded by the knee-jerk reactions of American policy-makers against opponents of Zionism, the so-called rogue states, and by American efforts to control countries in the Middle East that in the future might give tacit or active support to a coalition against Israel. Unfortunately, at least until recently, few Americans have been aware that the menace of terrorism is growing. And fewer still are aware of the fact that their own government has been a major cause. American naivete about the threat has been dispelled, probably permanently, by the spectacularly successful attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon. These are the primary financial and military symbols of what many in the world consider to be American policies to control the world and to maintain or promote the rampant injustices from which they are suffering. The political symbols fortunately remain, but for how long?
In 2007 wrote that he looked forward to the collapse of the “American Empire” which he said would come about “only with the help of Muslims”:
The American Empire must eventually collapse, as John Whitehead predicts, and as all empires have. The challenge is to transform America so that it is no longer an empire and therefore can serve the intent of its founders to be a moral model for the world based on the universal wisdom of all the world religions. This transformation can come only with the help of Muslims who are pursuing the mission of educating their fellow Muslims for the good of America.
Dr. Crane role as adviser to a Hamas leader is likely in violation of U.S. law regarding the provision of material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations:
2. §2339B. Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations
(a) Prohibited activities. –
(1) Unlawful conduct. – Whoever, within the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, knowingly provides material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life. . . .
(g) Definitions. – As used in this section . . .
(4) the term “material support or resources” has the same meaning as in section 2339A; . . .
(b) Definition. – In this section, the term “material support or resources” means currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, transportation, and other physical assets, except medicine or religious materials.
(6) the term “terrorist organization” means an organization designated as a terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.