The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has reported that its President Mohamed Magid spoke with US Vice President Joseph Biden during an interfaith Iftar dinner in order to express concerns over the loss of life in Gaza. According to the report:
Islamic Society of North America
July 24, 2014 On July 22nd, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) President Imam Mohamed Magid spoke with Vice President Joseph Biden while attending an interfaith iftar dinner, to express the American Muslim community’s concern for the loss of innocent lives in Gaza.
Other guests included Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN), Rep. James Moran (D-VA) and local representatives from the Jewish and Christian faith traditions.
According to the most recent reports, over 700 Palestinians were killed with 4,000 injured. Over 80% of them were civilian. Three Israeli civilians and 32 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the conflict began over two weeks ago.
Imam Magid along with Christian and Jewish leaders who attended the interfaith iftar dinner, conveyed the message of respect for human life, a principle common in all three Abrahamic faiths. They also emphasized the importance of collaboration in establishing an environment of dialogue and understanding between faith traditions.
While the ISNA report is characteristically restrained, in line with its recent statement on the Gaza conflict, the report goes to identify what are described as efforts “being made by Muslims and our interfaith partners to put an end to the violence” and uses the example of the nodeadkids.com website where the ISNA report says over 53,000 letters have been sent to congressional representatives. However, the graphics used at this site as well as a link to a New York Times article on John Kerry suggest to us that the intent of the site goes beyond concern for children into the realm of political propaganda.
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) describes itself as “an independent, open and transparent membership organization that strives to be an exemplary and unifying Islamic organization in North America by contributing to the betterment of the Muslim community and society at large. In fact, 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 US Muslim Brotherhood. In June 2013, the GMBDW posted a detailed analysis of why we are deeply skeptical of ISNA and its apparent acceptance by the current US government and other parties as a moderate organization. Our report from July on ISNA’s failure to disclose its own relationship to organizations represented by individuals target for NSA surveillance did nothing to alter our position. It seems to us that at this point, ISNA represents the US Muslim Brotherhood “good cop” in the classic psychological tactic used for interrogation where a team of two interrogators take apparently opposing approaches to the subject. The “bad cop” in this scenario is clearly the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) whose Twitter feed during the Gaza conflict shows that it misses no opportunity to pour fuel on the fire with accusations such as this which later prove to be erroneous. The arrangement appears to be working well for both parties as it would seem unlikely that CAIR could ever completely reinvent itself, particularly as long as it is headed by the same Hamas-tied leadership which created the organization.
