US media has reported that the White House has held meetings with US Muslim groups that included groups tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood. According to a Washington Post report:
The White House held three separate meetings Monday with faith leaders to discuss concerns about rising hostility toward religious minorities, and Muslim leaders pressed for President Obama to do something he hasn’t since taking office: Visit a US mosque. Ideally, they said, the visit would be with former president George W. Bush.
The meetings were typical in a way of the ones top White House officials hold all the time to hear people’s concerns, but the crunch of three in one day, and a related meeting there Thursday, shows increased concern about recent reports of hate incidents against Muslims, and Sikhs who people confuse with Muslims. Terrorism incidents in Paris and California have led, Muslim leaders say, to a sharp rise in discriminatory incidents.
Among the approximately 10 Muslim leaders who came to the White House on Monday to meet with several top officials was Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy group. The meeting, she said, was called by the White House. According to a White House official, Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, Director of the Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Muñoz and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes attended.
Khera said she pressed the White House to consider something Muslim Americans leaders have requested over the years: A visit to a mosque.
‘I think it would be enormously comforting and also send powerful message to Americans about recommitting to religious freedom — especially if we had Bush and Obama visit together,’ she said. She said her group hadn’t raised the question with Bush, who visited a mosque six days after the Sept. 11 attacks and said ‘The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.’
Read the rest here.
The Post report went on to say that In addition to Khera, among other Muslim leaders at the White House on Monday were Imam Mohamed Magid of the prominent Northern Virginia mosque, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, or ADAMS; Dalia Mogahed, a scholar with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding; Khaled Latif, chaplain at New York University; and Hoda Hawa, director of policy at the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Three of the above individuals represent groups that are either part of or tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood:
- The All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) is a prominent Muslim community organization in the Washington metropolitan area and a number of important US. Brotherhood leaders are known to have been members of ADAMS. For example, the GMBDW reported that on September 26, 2015, a funeral service was to have taken place at ADAMS for Jamal Barzinji, described only in the announcements as a “Muslim pioneer” but who in fact was President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a US Muslim Brotherhood “think-tank”, and one of most important figures in establishing the Brotherhood in the US.
- On April 12 2009, the GMBDW reported that one of the two Muslim members appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships was Dahlia Mogahed, a protege of John Esposito perhaps the best known academic supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and with strong ties to Saudi Arabia. Although the report on the appointment was not exclusive to the GMBDW, we were the only publication to note that Ms. Mogahed is the daughter of Elsayed Mogahed, an Egyptian immigrant who is a former engineering scientist at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Islamic Center of Madison (ICM). The website of the ICM links mainly to US. Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Souheil Ghannouchi, the President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), was ICM Imam and President for several years. The MAS is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and closest to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding is a think tank whose other scholars include a number of individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood including Louay Safi, a former Research Director at IIIT and an important US Muslim Brotherhood leader.
- The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) was established originally in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose leaders had backgrounds suggesting they were associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. A 1989 US Muslim Brotherhood document introduced as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial refers to the last name of one of the MPAC leaders, Mather Hathout, in a list of “Islamic Centers and Groups in the field.” MPAC has since developed into the political lobby arm of the US Muslim Brotherhood and has opposed almost every counterterrorism action proposed or carried out by the US government, often suggesting that the efforts were aimed at the US Muslim community. MPAC has also acted in support of a variety of Palestinian terrorist organizations as well as facilitating a wider range of terrorism by defending or justifying violence carried out by Islamic groups. Nevertheless, MPAC has developed particularly extensive relationships with agencies of the US. government including meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI. The GMBDW recently reported that MPAC used the opportunity of the San Bernardino terror attacks to co-author an editorial along with an LAPD official to once again suggest itself as part of the solution to terrorism in the US.
The GMBDW again notes the current and increasingly difficult political climate in which to introduce criticism of US Muslim organizations. However, we also note our report on a 2011 poll conducted by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, known to have been headed by Dahlia Mogahed herself, in which respondents were asked “Which national Muslim American organization, if any, do you feel most represents your interests.” According to the relevant table, no part of the US. Muslim Brotherhood scored higher than 12% with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), scoring only 6% among men and 1% among women and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), formerly led by Mohamed Magid, scored 4% and 7% respectively. GIven these results, it is hard to accept the claim of any of these organizations that they are either “mainstream” or representative of the US Muslim community and therefore the GMBDW rejects any notion that criticism of these organizations is in any way criticism of US Muslims themselves. That these groups have succeeded in assuming the mantle of US Muslim leadership speaks only to the organization and funding capabilities relative to any possible competitors. (Note: Interestingly, the Gallup poll appears to be no longer available online but can be downloaded here.)
The GMBDW also continues to reject the notion that the US Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the US government. As we discussed in an extensive post in August 2014, we maintain that the Obama Administration interaction with US Muslim Brotherhood groups and figures is rather part of a deliberate policy, however misguided in our opinion, that such interaction plays a useful role in bolstering our relationship with the Islamic world. We feel it is worth repeating what we said at the end of that post:
In order to combat the pernicious influence of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, it is vital for there to be a realistic understanding of the network that is based on actual evidence about who or what is involved and how it actually functions. While we are fully aware of and since 2008 have posted about GMB deception strategies, fanciful and exaggerated claims about legions of Muslim Brotherhood “infiltrators” with narratives that are constructed for the benefit of ideological communities do nothing to further this understanding and do a disservice to this important cause. They also run the risk of serious damage to the civil fabric in the US by promoting suspicion and hatred among fellow Americans. The GMBDW very much regrets any misuse of the information we have provided that is being used for unsavory ends.