Islamic media has reported on a newly-emerging organization
whose leaders are tied to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and which is
designed to help elect Muslims to local governments in the Chicago area.
According to an OnIslam
report:
07 January 2013 CAIRO – Reclaiming their political rights, an
increasing number of American Muslims is running for local elections,
creating a new generation of future leaders within the Chicago area
Muslim community. ‘I think (Muslims) are awakening because we made this
our home, so we need to get involved,’ Nazneen Hashmi, who is running
for one of three Hanover Township trustee seats, told the Daily Herald.
Engaging in the political live as early as in the 1980s, Hashmi, a
single mother with two children in college, decided it was time to give
back to her community of Streamwood. An information technology
professional, Hashmi was appointed to the village’s Community Relations
Commission where she worked to promote diversity and organized a forum
on marriages around the world. Hashmi is among several Muslim candidates
running for elected office in the suburbs this spring who have caught
the eye of the group Project Mobilize. The project aims at fostering a
greater civic involvement and helps the political campaigns of
first-time candidates through training, networking, fundraising and
providing resources to reach target demographic. ‘We wanted to be the
vehicle to help those individuals gain leadership skills,’ group
co-founder Reema Ahmad said. ‘Project M is a tool that they can wield.
We do not have any political agenda beyond helping communities that are
politically marginalized have a voice.’ Working previously with the
Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago, Ahmad began to
recognize the potential for growing future leaders within the Chicago
area Muslim community. ‘It was time for the Muslim community to kind of
take the next step and take ownership of the political process and run
ourselves for political office,’ she said. ‘That was the motivation for
starting Project Mobilize, which was founded in May 2010. Our goal was
to build our leadership from the bottom up.
Read the rest here.
In November, a
post
reported on another one of the innumerable front groups of the U.S.
Muslim Brotherhood, this one calling itself the Muslim American Citizens
Coalition and Public Affairs Council (MACCPAC).
According to its
website,
the following individuals are members of the board of Project Mobilize
and are known to have ties to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood:
- Safaa Zarzour (Secretary-General of the Islamic Society of North America who has extensive ties to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood)
- M. Yaser Tabbara (former Executive Director of Council on American Islamic Relations Chicago chapter)
- Oussama Jammal (Vice President of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, known to have been a center for terrorism fundraising)
In addition, the online
c.v. for
Reema Ahmed indicates that she did more than “work with” the Council on
American Islamic Relations (CAIR). She was in fact the Government
Affairs Coordinator for the Chicago chapter. In addition, she is
currently a
director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee where Salah Sarsour serves as the Religious
Chair as well as being the registered
agent for
the Wisconsin chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a part of
the US Muslim Brotherhood closely tied to the Egyptian organization. The
Sarsour family in Milwaukee is known to have many
ties to the Hamas infrastructure in the US.
Her c.v also indicates that she is a Fellow at the American Muslim
Civic Leadership (AMCLI) Institute which serves as home for Project M.
According to its
website, the AMCLI is:
…housed at the University of Southern California’s Center for
Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC), and works in partnership with the
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding
(ACMCU) at Georgetown University.
In 2005, Saudi prince Alaweed bin Talal, a financial
supporter of the global Muslim Brotherhood,
donated $20
million to the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown
which is headed by Dr. John Esposito who has espoused
views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine and during the 1990′s was
known for
his claims that Islamic fundamentalism was, in fact, democratic and
posed no threat to the U.S. Dr. Esposito has at least a dozen past or
present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations
including having served on the advisory
board of
the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in the U.K. headed by Azzam
Tamimi, a leader in the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood and often described as a
Hamas spokesman. Dr. Esposito has also
served with
global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi on the Steering
Committee of the Circle of Tradition and Progress and enjoyed a close
relationship with the United Association For Studies and Research (USAR),
part of
the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and part of the Hamas
support infrastructure. The AMCLI website indicates that the
organization is funded by a group of liberal foundations that includes
the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation (George Soros), and
the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Also serving as an AMCLI Fellow
was Department of Homeland Security Adviser Mohamed Elibiary who has
numerous
ties to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.
Documents released in the Holy Land Trial have revealed that the
founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine
Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood and identified the organization
itself as being part of the US. Muslim Brotherhood. A recent
post discussed
an interview with the Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
in which he confirms a relationship between his organization and CAIR.
Investigative
research posted
on GMBDR determined that CAIR had origins in the U.S. Hamas
infrastructure and CAIR and it leaders have a long history of defending
almost all individuals accused of terrorism by the US. government,
frequently calling such prosecutions a “war on Islam.” 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.