Poll: Does the URJ legitimize Islamofascism by creating an alliance with ISNA?

When a major Jewish organization (URJ - Union for Reform Judaism) allies itself with Islamic extremist organization (ISNA - American branch of Muslim Brotherhood) and URJ president states: "Islamic extremists constitute a profound threat. For some, this is a reason to flee from dialogue, but in fact the opposite is true," do the actions of the URJ and its president amount to legitimizing Islamofascism?
	I am a Muslim
	Yes
	No
	I am a Jew
	Yes
	No
	I am neither a Muslim nor a Jew
	Yes
	No

Fort Hood and the Academic Apologists

by Cinnamon Stillwell

In the wake of the horrific attack at the Fort Hood military base in Texas earlier this month, and the mounting evidence that the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by Islamist beliefs, the media has turned to Middle East studies "experts" for enlightenment.

Instead, what the media, and, by extension, the American public, has received are the moral relativism and obfuscation that too often meet any effort to address Islamism or jihadism in an intellectually honest manner.

Writing for the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog, John Esposito, professor and founding director of the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, extends his long tradition of issuing apologias for radical Islam by conflating Hasan's actions with "extremists" of all religions.

In the process, he professes ignorance as to why there might be suspicion directed towards Islam in the wake of 9/11, the worst Islamic terrorist attack in U.S. history:

Why this common tendency and double standard towards Islam and Muslims post-9/11? We judge the religion and majority of mainstream Muslims by the acts of an individual or an aberrant minority of extremists.

Yet, when Jewish fundamentalists kill a prime minister or innocent Palestinians or Christian extremists blow up abortion clinics or assassinate their physicians, somehow the media is capable of sticking to all the facts and distinguishing between the use and abuse of a religion.

Having written this post while news of Hasan's fanatical leanings and possible terrorist connections was still developing, Esposito warns against a "rush to judgment" that might, as he puts it, "negatively impact the American public's perception of Islam."

Heaven forbid Americans start to suspect that Islam itself contains the seeds for Islamism. Contrary to popular belief, this awareness need not implicate all Muslims. Rather, it asks the faithful to address Islamist violence and aggression by implementing theological and cultural reform.

Esposito continues the moral equivalency and non sequiturs in a later "On Faith" post:

No major faith, including the five major world religions I have studied and taught, threatens the safety and security of the U.S. or its citizens. Religious extremists of any faith are a threat but they should be treated as any other extremists, religious or non-religious.

Yes -- but the 14, 374 terrorist attacks worldwide over the past eight years weren't perpetrated at random by members of diverse world religions. They were executed by radical Muslims, every one.

Ingrid Mattson, professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations, director of the Macdonald Center for Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary, and president of the Islamic Society of North America, is well-known for expressing her own Islamist sympathies. This may be why, in a November 8, 2009 New York Times article, Mattson made this clumsy attempt at obfuscation:

I don't understand why the Muslim-American community has to take responsibility for him. The Army has had at least as much time and opportunity to form and shape this person as the Muslim community.

Arguing that the U.S. military was responsible for cultivating Hasan's Islamist beliefs is laughable.

So is the idea that the Muslim-American community bears no responsibility. After all, the "community" includes radical clerics such as Anwar Al-Awlaki, the former spiritual leader of the Virginia mosque Hasan attended (and who has since praised Hasan for the attack), along with organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose sole purpose is to intimidate into silence anyone who connects Islamic terrorism with Islam.

Read more,,,,

Source: Middle East Forum

Guest list for Obama's White House Ramadan dinner

September 1

The other day President Obama issued a special message to the Muslim world for the annual Ramadan holiday. Tonight, before leaving Wednesday for the rest of his stay-cation at Camp David, the president hosts a White House banquet to celebrate the same holiday.

Invited guests include three Cabinet secretaries, numerous diplomats, five members of Congress including the lone Muslim, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission.

Here is the list of invited guests, as provided by the White House:

Cabinet: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Deputy Cabinet secretaries: Commerce Deputy Secretary Dennis Hightower and Education Deputy Secretary Adam Miller.

Congress: Reps. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.).

Diplomats: Ambassador Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan; Ambassador Adel A.M. Al Jubeir of Saudi Arabia; Ambassador Husain Haqqani of Pakistan; Ambassador Erlan A. Idrissov of Kazakhstan; Ambassador His Excellency Said ...

... Tayeb Jawad of Afghanistan; Ambassador Aziz Mekouar of Morocco; Ambassador Peter N.R.O. Ogego of Kenya.

Also, Ambassador Roble Olhaye of D’jibouti; Ambassador Michael Oren of Israel; Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat of Indonesia; Ambassador Klaus Scharioth of Germany; Ambassador Meera Shankar of India; Ambassador Nabi Sensoy of Turkey; Ambassador Sir Nigel Elton Sheinwald of Britain; Ambassador Sameh Hassan Shoukry of Egypt; Ambassador Samir Shakir Mahmood Sumaida’ie of Iraq; and Ambassador Pierre Nicolas Vimont of France.

Read more here,,,,

Source: LA Times

H/T JihadWatch

Legitimizing Islamofascism: Dinner in Abraham's Tent

By Khalim Massoud

Tri-Faith Initiative, a partnership of Temple Israel, The Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska and The American Institute of Islamic Studies and Culture, is inviting you to attend Dinner in Abraham's Tent: Conversations on Peace.

Join us on March 27 for a special evening with national faith leaders of Reform Judaism, Islam and Christianity to discuss peace in our time and peace in our communities.

Dinner in Abraham’s Tent: Conversations on Peace is a remarkable event offering the opportunity for members of our three faith groups and others who support strengthening interfaith relationshiips to come together for worship, celebration and thought-provoking conversation.

Rabbi Peter Knobel, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church will gather at the Qwest Center in Omaha, NE to discuss issues of peace.

The idea of interfaith trialogue is commendable, except, in this case there is one enormous problem. Muslim side is represented by none other than the infamous Ingrid Mattson, the president of ISNA. The same ISNA that was a co-creator of Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, which, among other things, reads:

Establishment of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents Islam as civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state [caliphate] wherever it is. ... Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America: The Process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brothers] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.

Muslims Against Sharia and many other moderate Muslims raised this issue in the past, but our words are falling on deaf ears. Make no mistake about it: conferences like "Dinner in Abraham's Tent" are legitimizing Islamofascism and advance Muslim Brotherhood Strategic Goal described in the aforementioned Memorandum*.

* Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America was part of the evidence presented in Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial which resulted in multiple convictions on terror-related charges.

Source: Tri-Faith Initiative
H/T: B.T.

Contact Information
Katharine Jeffers Schori c/o Canon Robert Williams, director of communication 815 Second Avenue New York City, NY 10017 (212) 922-5385 rwilliams@episcopalchurch.org	Peter Knobel Beth Emet The Free Synagogue 1224 Dempster Street Evanston, Illinois 60202 Telephone: (847) 869-4230 Fax: (847) 869-7830 Knobel@bethemet.org

Ingrid Mattson
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award



Katharine Jefferts Schori
Latest recipient of the Demented Priest Award



Peter Knobel
Latest recipient of the Retarded Rabbi Award

"Moderate" Muslims Versus American-Muslims

By Supna Zaidi

With the inclusion of Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), in the national prayer service obscure - need to indicate part of presidential inauguration this week, it seems it is again time to re-evaluate America's desire to forge alliances with "moderate" Muslims.

Various news sources report need link that Mattson's invitation raised criticism due to ISNA's alleged connections to terrorism. It is a fact that ISNA is a listed un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing case and one of a number of "individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood."

Yet, defenders of Ingrid Mattson, like Mark Pelavin, director of inter-religious affairs for the Union for Reform Judaism has called Mattson "a really important voice denouncing terrorism."

Mark Pelavin

In a Fox News article, Palavin states, "Clearly, Dr. Mattson has been welcome throughout the government," he said. "I haven't found anyone anywhere who's found anything Dr. Mattson has said that's anything other than clearly denouncing terrorism in quite explicit Islamic terms."

By definition terrorism simply refers to the use of violence to achieve a political end. It includes no evaluation, let alone criticism of the political end desired. This is the real issue both the media and individuals like Pelavin have overlooked.

Islamist organizations like ISNA, are described as such not because they explicitly defend terrorism, recruit or fundraise for jihadis (though ISNA has allegedly done the latter), but because they prescribe to the same ideology that jihadis do - Islamism. The "war on terror" is an ideological conflict that the anti-western Islamist movement has initiated by positioning itself as a totalitarian system that does not want to co-exist with capitalism.

Today, the Islamist movement is an internally conflicted movement, where one side seeks to further the violence initiated by men like Osama bin Laden. While non-violent Islamists prefer to work legally through existing social and political institutions, civic engagement and lobbying to further the Islamist cause. This is in line with the teachings of the Muslim Student Association as well. ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Muslim Student's Association of the U.S. and Canada. The MSA is a Muslim Brotherhood creation meant to recruit Muslim youth to Islamism. As one past member stated:

"We are told America's foreign policy is based on racist neo-imperialism; we are taught that national security is a foul epithet to be reviled; we are told the Jews and Israel are to blame for the hatred against us".

Moreover, ISNA co-founder and convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian acknowledges that he was a Muslim Brotherhood member in 1981.

It is shocking that the U.S. government continues to embrace ISNA despite a 1991 memorandum made available through discovery in the first HLF case that lists ISNA among a list of Islamist organizations supporting the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda in the US. (see a copy of the memorandum here. The English translation starts on page 15), whose motto remains:

"Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

If that isn't enough, consider terrorist expert Steven Emerson's commentary on ISNA:

"a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation"; "convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred" (for instance, al Qaeda supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al-Qaradawi was invited to speak at an ISNA conference); has held fundraisers for terrorists (after Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense); has condemned the U.S. government's post-9/11 seizure of Hamas' and Palestinian Islamic Jihad's financial assets; and publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that "often champions militant Islamist doctrine."

ISNA has learned to tone down the violent rhetoric and Mattson's rise in the Islamist ranks might be intentional effort to add sophistication to its backwards ideology. As a female, white convert to Islam, ISNA looks almost progressive. Mattson became Vice-President of ISNA in 2001. The year of her initial participation with ISNA or other Islamist organizations is unknown.

Mattson's likely affinity towards Islamism is very likely considering the history of ISNA and some of her own statements. Like all Islamists, Mattson blames the West for the problems in the Muslim world today. Note her response to the following question during an interview with CNN:

"CHAT PARTICIPANT: At what point in history, if known, did the Islamic nation turn from a philosophical and educated state comparable to the Greeks to the now third world state it is in?

MATTSON: Well, the decline began with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. One of the first things the colonialists did was to dismantle the institutions of what we could call civil society. The Muslim world has until now not recovered from that dismemberment of its society".

And like other Islamists, Mattson prefers that Muslims live under Islamic law. She states in her work, "Stopping Oppression: An Islamic Obligation:"

"Before colonialism, authority was acquired by religious leaders in a much more subtle process, and religious leaders who advocated extreme hostility or aggression against the state were usually marginalized. After all, most Muslims did not want to be led into revolution, they simply wanted their lives to be better. In general, the most successful religious leaders were those who, in addition to serving the spiritual needs of the community, were able to moderate how state power was exercised on ordinary people, and in some sense, acted as intermediaries between the people and state."

In the same article Mattson paints a picture of men like Osama bin Laden as charismatic revolutionaries who win the support of the oppressed masses. She argues that because oppressed masses have no one else to turn to, charismatic leaders like bin Laden become popular regardless of how unfounded their violent interpretations of Islam are. Again it is only the strategy of Islamists that Mattson objects to, not their grievances against the West or their end goal of changing US foreign policy to favor Islamist interests abroad.

In 2005, ISNA chose not to participate in the May 14 "Free Muslims March Against Terror," an event that supported the end to terrorism. ISNA has been accused of supporting Hamas and was investigated by US law enforcement for possible terrorist connections. Its tax records were requested in December 2003 by the Senate Finance Committee. U.S. Senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus of the Senate Committee on Finance listed ISNA as one of 25 American Muslim organizations that "finance terrorism and perpetuate violence."

There is no reason either Ingrid Mattson, or ISNA should have been the representative face of Islam at the national prayer service inaugurating President Obama's first days in office. As the President of ISNA in the United States and Canada, Mattson is responsible for the activities and statements of the organization. Under her watch, ISNA Canada invited a terrorist with Jamaat Islami connections to speak at their conference in 2008, and has featured Tariq Ramadan as a speaker, an Islamist who has been refused entry into the US.

Her presence challenges today's definition of what the elusive, yet desired "moderate" Muslim should look like. American-Muslims who do not politicize their faith, respect individuals of all other faiths or not faith at all are the real Americans. Muslims who defend the secular principles that unite American men and women on an equal footing are the individuals US. agencies should seek out. They do exist. Consider: Zuhdi Jasser, Stephen Schwartz, and Sheikh Kabbani.

Otherwise, we will continue to lose in this war on terror by relying on Americans whose loyalties lie elsewhere.

Source: Muslim World TodayMark Pelavin
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award

Friends of Terror: the truth about two leading Islamic organizations

By Joe Kaufman

Both the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) present themselves as mainstream Muslim organizations, yet in reality they are part of a radical Muslim movement which exists for the purpose of doing harm to America and Western interests abroad. Part of their success lies in getting people and organizations to endorse them and their operatives, thus providing them with a veil of legitimacy. Among their ‘validators’ are one of the most popular and influential evangelical preachers and the President himself.

ISNA, said to be the largest Muslim organization in North America, has its roots in the extremist Muslim Brotherhood overseas, the same group responsible for the formation of Hamas and most other international terror entities. Given this bit of information, it is interesting that Ingrid Mattson, the President of ISNA, would be invited to speak at the National Prayer Service for the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama. While her words at the event were few and entirely innocuous, her mere presence was a profound challenge to America’s war on terrorism.

Prior to Mattson speaking, an Associated Press story was released, entitled ‘Obama prayer leader from group US linked to Hamas.’ ISNA had recently been named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator for a federal trial dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to the terror group. During the trial, proof was presented of ISNA’s relationship to a Brotherhood document calling for the destruction of the West.

At the end of the trial, all of the defendants were found guilty on all charges. Only two weeks before the AP story came out, Hamas had called for attacks on Jews worldwide. Read more ...

Source: FrontPage Magazine

ISNA's Ingrid Mattson in Her Own Words. Center for Security Policy (Research Brief)

1) Mattson places loyalty to Islam before loyalty to the United States of America:

If Muslim Americans are to participate in such a critique of American policy, however, they will only be effective if they do it, according to the Prophet's words, in a "brotherly" fashion. This implies a high degree of loyalty and affection. This does not mean, however, that citizenship and religious community are identical commitments, nor that they demand the same kind of loyalty. People of faith have a certain kind of solidarity with others of their faith community that transcends the basic rights and duties of citizenship.

2) Mattson on the possibility that Americans may "rise to the challenge of defining themselves as an ethical nation":

The first duty of Muslims in America, therefore, is to help shape American policies so they are in harmony with the essential values of this country. In the realm of foreign policy, this "idealistic" view has been out of fashion for some time. Indeed, the American Constitution, like foundational religious texts, can be read in many different ways. The true values of America are those which we decide to embrace as our own. There is no guarantee, therefore, that Americans will rise to the challenge of defining themselves as an ethical nation; nevertheless, given the success of domestic struggles for human dignity and rights in the twentieth century, we can be hopeful.

3) Mattson denies the existence of terrorist cells in the United States:

There's a prejudgment, a collective judgment of Muslims, and a suspicion that well "you may appear nice, but we know there are sleeper cells of Americans," which of course is not true. There aren't any sleeper cells. Read more ...

Source: Center for Security Policy

On Eve of Inaugural Prayer Service, IPT Report Documents Troubling History of ISNA's Mattson

As part of the inaugural festivities for President Barack Obama, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) President Ingrid Mattson is scheduled to participate Wednesday in a prayer service at Washington's National Cathedral.

Given her organization's historic connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to establish Islamic law, or Shari'ah, as the basis controlling society, Mattson's invitation is generating some criticism.

Her organization was founded in 1981 by Muslim Brotherhood members who had been part of the Muslim Students Association. ISNA was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas-support prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which ended in the conviction of five former HLF officials on 108 counts. Federal prosecutors identified ISNA as a "member organization" of the "U.S. Muslim Brotherhood" on its list of "Unindicted Co-conspirators and/or Joint Venturers."

It is important to note that none of the activity related to ISNA's involvement in the HLF case occurred under Mattson's leadership. However, she has an established pattern that should be known in advance of her inaugural participation of making statements which minimize the nature of extremist forms of Islam and rationalize the actions of Islamist terrorist movements.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has assembled this report on Mattson. Read more ...

Source: The Investigative ProjectIngrid Mattson
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Hamas Inauguration: Obama selects a Muslim with ties to Hamas to pray at the inauguration.

By Robert Spencer

Barack Obama isn’t wasting any time making an impression: he has selected the leader of a group that has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case to present a prayer during his inauguration festivities. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), will offer a prayer at the National Cathedral Tuesday.

Superficially, Obama’s choice is understandable: Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian convert to Islam who has carefully cultivated the image of a moderate spokesperson. Yet her organization’s record is not entirely clean. Federal prosecutors last summer rejected claims that ISNA was unfairly named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. And ISNA has even admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, complaining only that the government’s evidence for those ties came from old documents, but offering no proof that the organization had reversed course. In a memorandum on the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy in the United States, a Muslim Brotherhood operative named ISNA as an allied organization in what it called “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

What’s more, in a CNN chat room on October 18, 2001, Mattson offered a subtle defense of Osama bin Laden. She avowed that “only a small number of Muslims throughout the world would support Osama bin Laden’s tactics.” (Emphasis added.) Tactics alone? Is that the only problem with Osama? Does she, then, hold to his goals? Mattson even suggested that “a larger number” of Muslims share bin Laden’s grievances, and that he was popular because the leaders of Islamic countries had failed their people: Muslims, she said, “turned to Osama bin Laden as a spokesperson…because they feel that no one else, including their own leaders, has spoken for them.” This disquietingly echoes the jihadist critique of secular regimes in Muslim countries such as Egypt and Pakistan: jihadists label such regimes illegitimate and apostate because they do not implement Islamic law in its fullness.

In 2002 she even asserted that in countries that were not functioning democracies, “‘extremism’ might seem to be the only rational choice, because extreme actions are the only actions that seem to have an effect.” This again gives the impression that bin Laden’s goals were laudable, and that he was driven by desperation to illegitimate actions in pursuit of a legitimate goal.

Mattson explained during the CNN chat that “Islam allows force to be used by legitimate authorities, to protect people, and to protect Muslim states, just as all nation states in the world permit themselves to use force to protect their security and interests. Again, the problem of individual Muslims taking up arms, becoming vigilantes, in a way, is related to their frustration with the lack of leadership on the part of their own government.” This implies that if the governments of Muslim countries had been waging jihad to protect Muslim states, Osama bin Laden wouldn’t have had to do so. Here again she implies that bin Laden’s goals are sound, only his means are questionable.

Mattson again reinforced the impression that she endorsed al-Qaeda’s goals, if not its means, when she referred (also in the CNN chat) to the “overthrowing of the caliphate” in the 1920s as “a plan of European powers for many years,” and claimed that “this deprived the Muslim world of a stable and centralized authority, and much of the chaos that we’re living in today is the result of that.” This does appear to be an endorsement of the jihadist goal of reestablishing the caliphate and uniting Muslims under its authority in a supranational state which could then, according to Islamic law, legitimately wage offensive jihad warfare against non-Muslim states.

Mattson also excused the virulent and violent Wahhabi movement in Islam, terming it “a reform movement that began 200 years ago to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and rigid interpretation that had acquired over the centuries.” Mattson thus suggests that Wahhabism was a legitimate reform within Islam, asserting that “it really was analogous to the European Protestant Reformation” and noting that “the Saudi scholars who are Wahhabi have denounced terrorism and denounced in particular the acts of September 11” – but never mentioning the abundant evidence that high-placed Saudis have continued to support and finance global jihad terrorism.

Yet while curiously silent about the excesses and violence of Wahhabism, Mattson blamed the decline of the Islamic world on the West: “Well, the decline began with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. One of the first things the colonialists did was to dismantle the institutions of what we could call civil society. The Muslim world has until now not recovered from that dismemberment of its society.”

In reality, the colonial period did not begin until the 18th and 19th centuries, and would not have been able to begin at all had the Islamic world not already been in a period of steep cultural and military decline. Historian Philip K. Hitti describes the decline of Islamic thought as beginning far earlier than the era of European colonialism, saying that “the whole Arab world had by the beginning of the thirteenth century lost the intellectual hegemony it had maintained since the eighth.”

Mattson has also tried to set Jews and Christians against once another. Speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in March 2007, Mattson said: “Right-wing Christians are very risky allies for American Jews, because they [the Christians] are really anti-Semitic. They do not like Jews.” Yet Mattson would be hard-pressed to produce any anti-Semitic statement from Christians who support Israel – any statement, in other words, comparable to an article posted at IslamOnline, “Jews as Depicted In the Qur’an,” which concludes:

After this clear explanation, we would like to note that these are but some of the most famous traits of the Jews as described in the Qur’an. They have revolted against the Divine ordinances, distorted what has been revealed to them and invented new teachings which, they claimed, were much more better than what has been recorded in the Torah. It was for these traits that they found no warm reception in all countries where they tried to reside. Rather, they would either be driven out or live in isolation. It was Almighty Allah who placed on them His Wrath and made them den of humiliation due to their transgression. Almighty Allah told us that He’d send to them people who’d pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection. All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over them once Muslims stick to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt the modern means of technology.

What is Mattson doing to combat these attitudes within the Islamic community? She never addresses them.

If Ingrid Mattson truly intends to be a voice for reform and moderation within the Islamic community in North America, and to reassure those who are justifiably alarmed by Obama’s invitation to her, she should explain her troublesome statements – especially those that apparently portray Osama bin Laden in a favorable light. She should also explain ISNA’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and confront honestly the elements of Islamic teaching that jihadists use to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. Unless and until she does these things and others that would conclusively demonstrate her moderation, non-Muslims are justified in being appalled at Obama’s choice.

---

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs.

Source: FrontPage MagazineBarack Obama
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award

The National Prayer Service and the Wahhabi Lobby

By Winfield Myers

Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), will deliver a prayer at the National Cathedral during the National Prayer Service on January 21st. The event is part of the festivities for the inauguration of Barack Obama, which occurs January 20. A convert to Islam, Mattson directs the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary.

ISNA has close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group, and was named an un-indicted co-conspirator in U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, a case that uncovered covert financing of the terrorist group Hamas. Since her election as ISNA president in 2006, Mattson's apologias for the radical Wahhabi sect of Islam have gained a much wider audience. Read more ...

Source: American Thinker

Obama Picks Leader of HLF Terror Trial Unindicted Co-Conspirator Group ISNA to Deliver Islamic Prayer at Presidential Inauguration

Barack Obama's choice of clergy is under scrutiny like no other president-elect before him, alternately outraging Americans on the left and the right as he navigates the minefield of U.S. religion.

The Inauguration Committee has only released one clergy name so far for the Jan. 21 National Prayer Service that caps the inauguration. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first woman president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a Protestant group, will deliver the sermon.

The Associated Press has learned additional details.

A prayer will be offered at the National Cathedral by Ingrid Mattson, the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The Islamic Society is the largest U.S. Muslim group.

Source: Jerusalem Post
H/T: Weasel Zippers

2008 Distinguished Islamofascist Awards

First Place (7 points):
CAIR

Second (5 points):
Anjem Choudary / Sami al-Arian

Fourth Place (4 points):
Keith Ellison / Mohamed Elmasry / Yusuf al Qaradawi

Seventh Place (3 points):
Abu Qatada / CIC / Ingrid Mattson / ISNA / Jawhar Badran (posthumous) / Mahmoud Abbas / Mohammad Qatanani / Omar Bakri Muhammed

Source: Muslims Against Sharia Blog

Ingrid Mattson and the "U.S. Muslim Engagement Project"

By Cinnamon Stillwell

Ingrid Mattson, director of the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary and president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), has been all over the news lately.

Mattson was one of the speakers at an interfaith gathering at the Democratic National Convention in August, and now word comes that she's a member of the "leadership group" for the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project. The latter consists of a bipartisan coalition of American leaders from a variety of backgrounds, which, as described at its website, seeks to form "a clear and strong consensus on a strategy to enhance U.S. and international security by working more intensively and directly on the underlying causes of tension with key Muslim countries and communities."

While this would appear to be a laudable goal, Mattson's background and viewpoints demonstrates that she is hardly a suitable candidate for involvement.

As ISNA president, Mattson presides over an organization with troubling ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the unindicted co-conspirators in last year's Hamas terrorism financing case, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation. In the course of the trial, a Muslim Brotherhood document outlining a strategy for "destroying…Western civilization from within," making "Allah's religion…victorious over all other religions," and listing ISNA, among other allegedly mainstream Muslim-American organizations, as "friends" in this effort came to light.

Mattson has a long history of defending Wahhabism and Sharia law, expressing anti-American and anti-democratic viewpoints, downplaying concerns over Islamic terrorism in the U.S. and worldwide, claiming women's rights are protected in Islam, besmirching Israel and its "rightwing Christian" supporters, placing loyalty to Islam above loyalty to the U.S., and teaching jihadist literature in her courses. Read more ...

Source: Campus WatchIngrid Mattson
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Former U.S. Officials Promoting American Wing Of Muslim Brotherhood's "U.S. Muslim Engagement Project"

By BEILA RABINOWITZ and WILLIAM MAYER

September 25, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], recently addressed the launch of the "Report of the Leadership Group on U.S. Muslim Relations," part of a new stealth jihad effort called the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project. ISNA is an unindicted co- conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding prosecution and is widely regarded as being the American wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to their website, the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project, "...has been producing a new set of strategies that better meet the long-term national security interests of the U.S. by addressing the sources of tension between the U.S. and Muslims in key countries and region..." [source, http://www.usmuslimengagement.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=42]

The ISNA website identified a number of prominent lefties as being associated with the effort, including Madeline Albright and former ambassador Dennis Ross, "The Group includes respected names in public service and business such former secretary of state Madeline Albright, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Paul Brest, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Stephen Heintz, Bishop Denis Madden, Tufts University professor, Dr. Vali Nasr, and U.S. Special Middle East envoy and negotiator, Dennis Ross." [source, http://www.isna.net/articles/News/ISNA-SERVES-ON-GROUP-THAT-SEEKS-BETTER-US-MUSLIM-WORLD-RELATIONS.aspx] Read more ...

Source: Pipeline News

Meet Ingrid Mattson-ISNA head who mixes Islamism, academica and politics

By Jonathan Schanzer

Ingrid Mattson, a 45-year-old Canadian-born convert to Islam, caused an uproar in the blogosphere after she was invited by the Democratic party to a gathering of religious leaders in Denver on the eve of the convention. Other notable participants included Bishop Charles E. Blake, (Church of God In Christ) and Rabbi Tzvi Weinreb (Orthodox Union).

The commotion stemmed from the fact that Mattson is the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was labeled last year by the U.S. Justice Department as an un-indicted co-conspirator in U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas terrorism financing case.

Mattson's overt affiliation with ISNA created only a fleeting political liability in Denver, but she may pose a longer-term danger to the wider American public.

Mattson is a professor at the Hartford Seminary, where she teaches Islamic law and Islamic history. Through this position of authority, Mattson has obfuscated the threat of radical Islam, numbing her students and the American public to a dangerous ideology.

For example, it is no secret that Wahhabism is a radical Islamist ideology responsible for a great deal of the anti-Western violence produced in the Muslim world. Yet, in a CNN chatroom interview in 2001, Mattson stated that Wahhabism is "a reform movement" that "really was analogous to the European protestant reformation." Inaccurately, she claimed that "the Saudi scholars who are Wahhabi have denounced terrorism," despite the fact that many continue to teach its virtues. Read more ...

Source: National Review Online
H/T: Shariah Finance WatchIngrid Mattson
Latest recipients of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

When It Comes to Islamism, the DNC Still Doesn't Get It

By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Last week’s opening festivities at the Democrat National Convention in Denver began with an interfaith prayer. As the Democrat Party searches for its newfound interest in faith, it quickly called upon one of the lowest hanging fruit in the American Muslim community - the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Ingrid Mattson, the President of ISNA gave a speech along with Adbur-Rahim Ali of the Northeast Denver Islamic Center. Some may dismiss the selection of nine speakers of faith at the political shindig as irrelevant and simply part of the pomp and circumstance of the DNC Convention.

But propping up ISNA in today’s environment is akin to propping up the Legal Guild (a ‘60s Communist front group) to address the convention during the Cold War. Our civil servants will verify that they have prevented over 30 attacks by militant Islamists upon our nation and our citizens since 9/11. The only ideology that unites the groups set upon our destruction is not violence. It is political Islam - their Islamism. Unless we identify both violent and non-violent political Islam as a root cause of terrorism we will never win this conflict. Militant Islamists, much as non-militant Islamists, seek some form of a transnational Muslim, political movement. They both seek various forms of the ascendancy of Islam with respect to other religions culminating in the establishment of Islamic states. Read more ...

Source: Family Security MattersDr. M. Zuhdi Jasser
Latest recipient of The MASH Award

ISNA Confernce in Ohio-Introduction to Shariah in the "heartland" Buyer, Beware

Columbus, Ohio - Shaaban 29 1429 / August 30, 2008 - Tens of thousands of Muslims from across the US and Canada came together in Columbus, Ohio to attend the 45th annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which kicked off yesterday. Delegates resumed deliberations on the second day of the three-day event today about a number of key issues such as spirituality, community service, economic development, family, Islamic banking and outreach. The convention is themed "Ramadan... a Time for Change." Read more ...

Source: ISNA
H/T: Shariah Finance Watch

ISNA's "soft jihadist", Ingrid Mattson, on the record

By Patrick Poole

In preparation for ISNA president Ingrid Mattson’s appearance yesterday at the Democratic National Convention’s “interfaith prayer service”, the good folks at the Center for Security Policy prepared a short backgrounder on Mattson’s statements and positions, “Democrats’ Soft Jihadist”.

Since Mattson will be bringing her entire ISNA cultural terrorist crew to Central Ohio later this week for their 2008 annual convention, I thought it appropriate to republish the Center’s analysis here to get a taste of Mattson’s extremist views (Christians are anti-Semitic, Christians are a greater threat than Osama bin Laden, Wahhabism is just a reform movement, praise for jihadist authors, there are no terrorist cells in the US, etc) Read more ...

Source: Central Ohioans Against TerrorismIngrid Mattson
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award

Of Democrats and Co-Conspirators

On Sunday, Ingrid Mattson, the President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), participated in a "public interfaith service of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists" at the opening of this week's Democratic National Convention. While there is nothing wrong with a "public interfaith service" in and of itself, the invited guests and speakers can raise legitimate questions about the motives and mindset of the organizers. Mattson's presence does just that.

Reporting on Mattson's appearance, the website for the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera stated:

Dr Ingrid Mattson, director of the MacDonald Centre for the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations in the US state of Connecticut, told the crowd it "saddened" her that "so much out there is being done because of my religion", but took pains to stress both the work of the US Muslim community with local officials to combat extremism and the support she had from leaders of other faiths. Read more ...

Source: IPT NewsDNCC
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award

Meet Ingrid Mattson, appearing today at the Democratic National Convention

Just in case you missed this news item: "Convention interfaith event announced," by Electa Draper for The Denver Post, August 8:

The Democratic National Convention Committee today announced the program for its first-ever interfaith gathering, which kicks off at 2 p.m. Aug. 24 at Wells Fargo Theater in the Colorado Convention Center.

That would be today.

Keynote speakers include Bishop Charles Blake, presiding prelate of Church of God in Christ Inc. and pastor at the West Angeles cathedral in Los Angeles; Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America; social activist Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking"; and Rabbi Tzvi Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.

Who is Ingrid Mattson? She is the President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). And here, courtesy the Center for Security Policy is Ingrid Mattson in her own words.

1) Mattson places loyalty to Islam before loyalty to the United States of America:

If Muslim Americans are to participate in such a critique of American policy, however, they will only be effective if they do it, according to the Prophet’s words, in a “brotherly” fashion. This implies a high degree of loyalty and affection. This does not mean, however, that citizenship and religious community are identical commitments, nor that they demand the same kind of loyalty. People of faith have a certain kind of solidarity with others of their faith community that transcends the basic rights and duties of citizenship.

2) Mattson on the possibility that Americans may "rise to the challenge of defining themselves as an ethical nation"

The first duty of Muslims in America, therefore, is to help shape American policies so they are in harmony with the essential values of this country. In the realm of foreign policy, this “idealistic” view has been out of fashion for some time. Indeed, the American Constitution, like foundational religious texts, can be read in many different ways. The true values of America are those which we decide to embrace as our own. There is no guarantee, therefore, that Americans will rise to the challenge of defining themselves as an ethical nation; nevertheless, given the success of domestic struggles for human dignity and rights in the twentieth century, we can be hopeful. Read more...

Source: Jihad Watch