The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has announced that its Director of Community Outreach met last month with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. According to the ISNA announcement, among the items discussed was ISNA’s interfaith campaign:
(May 21, 2013) On Saturday, ISNA Director of Community Outreach Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi joined national and Californian Muslim leaders in San Francisco to meet with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Dr. Elsanousi shared ISNA’s various efforts with the Prime Minister, particularly its interfaith partnership with other religious communities in the United States. He highlighted the Shoulder-to-Shoulder campaign, an interfaith coalition specifically targeted to address anti-Muslim sentiment. Dr. Elsanousi also spoke about ISNA’s parallel effort to assist religious minorities living in Muslim-majority communities around the world and asked for Turkey’s support.
In his remarks, PM Erdogan urged American Muslims to present an accurate and positive image of Islam and Muslims to the rest of American society. Unfortunately, he said, this image has thus far been distorted by the actions of a few groups that claim to represent Muslims. He condemned terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians. While he acknowledged the American Muslim community’s struggle to integrate in the rest of its society, he said we are also afforded great opportunities by living in the most advanced nation in today’s world.
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The “Shoulder to Shoulder” campaign is an interfaith coalition that includes ISNA as well as various Jewish groups including the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding with which ISNA has been cooperating for several years.
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) emerged out of the early U.S. Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure and documents discovered in the course of the the terrorism trial of the Holy Land Foundation confirmed that the organization was part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. ISNA was named as a Holy Land unindicted co-conspirator as a result of what the US Justice Department called the organization’s ” intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case.” In 2009, a US federal judge ruled “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” ISNA has had a long history of fundamentalism, anti-semitism, and support for terrorism. Clearly considered to be “rehabilitated” by the Obama administration, ISNA has more recently issued robust condemnations of terrorism and has also been engaged in an active program of interfaith cooperation that has included partnerships with Jewish organizations and visits to concentration camp sites in Europe. Yet despite these new efforts, ISNA continues maintain strong ties to both the US and Global Muslim Brotherhood and has failed to date to acknowledge any aspect of its actual origins or its history of fundamentalism, anti-semitism, and support for terrorism.
For a detailed analysis of ISNA and its recent history, go here.
In January 2011, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) published a report authored by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch Editor and titled “Turkey, the Global Muslim Brotherhood, and the Gaza Flotilla.” The report abstract states:
There is strong evidence for Turkish governmental involvement in the Gaza flotilla incident, with Turkish government support channeled through the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood network. Since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood. The IHH was not acting alone but rather was an integral part of a Turkish Muslim Brotherhood network.
With respect to the Global Muslim Brotherhood, report’s second conclusion states:
The Gaza flotilla incident brought into sharp focus an even more significant long- term development: the growing relationship between the Erdogan government and the Global Muslim Brotherhood, which has given rise to some of the most notorious Islamist terrorist groups – from al-Qaeda to Hamas. Since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood, while the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip acted as the main axis for this activity.
Read the rest here.