Last year, the Islamic Society of North America--or ISNA--was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism case. Now the group is receiving a grant from the U.S. government.
The State Department grant will help fund ISNA's "Citizen Exchange Project." Sayyid M Syeed is National Director of ISNA's Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances. He tells CBN News that the program "seeks to build bridges and send multifaith parties--Christians, Jews and Muslims--to countries in the Middle East to explain pluralism in America and to fight stereotypes about America in the Middle East."
Syyeed says ISNA wants to bring respected Muslim scholars to the U.S.--they'll have American "host families" who they'll stay with during their visits. Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Yemen are some of the countries involved in this cultural exchange, which is being co-sponsored by ISNA and the National Peace Foundation.
On its face, this sounds like a program that could have some merit. So what's the problem? Well, ISNA has been accused of having ties to terrorism. As I mentioned above, the group was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the huge Holy Land Foundation/ Hamas terrorism funding case last year. This was the largest such case in U.S. history (watch my report on the HLF case here).
Federal prosecutors say the Holy Land Foundation--which advertised itself as an Islamic charitable organization--was actually a front for terrorist fundraising that funneled over $12 million to Hamas.
The HLF trial was declared a mistrial in October 2007. When we spoke yesterday, Syeed pointed out that ISNA was never formally indicted in the HLF case, and that the the charges against the group were "thrown out." What he didn't mention is that the Department of Justice is actually planning to retry the case, as federal prosecutors still believe they have the goods on HLF. Regardless of the verdict, being named in a high-profile terrorism case is obviously a public relations nightmare for ISNA.
The chief reason the HLF trial was so damaging to ISNA--and why eyebrows have been raised about the State Department grant awarded to the group--is a key piece of evidence introduced by federal prosecutors in the case. It's a 1991 memorandum outlining the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement's blueprint for America (see a copy of the memorandum here. The English translation starts on page 15). Founded in Egypt in 1929, the Brotherhood created Hamas and served as an inspiration for Al-Qaeda. It's slogan: "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."
In that 1991 memo--authored by a Brotherhood member--ISNA was identified as one of 29 American-Muslim groups that the Brotherhood should work with to help establish Islamic sharia law in the United States. Or as the memorandum puts it:
"The Ikhwan (Muslism 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 as God's religion is made victorious over all other religions..."
During our conversation, Syeed told me that ISNA is a moderate group whose "website, conferences, convention and speeches speak for themselves." The Bush administration seems to agree. In addition to the State Department grant, ISNA received $50,000 in grants in 2003 and 2004 from the Department of Health and Human Services under the administration's faith-based initiative. The F.B.I. and Department of Justice have also reached out to ISNA. It's also one of the groups the U.S. Bureau of Prisons relies on to hire Muslim clerics for the federal prison system. And ISNA board member Muzammil Siddiqui personally presented President Bush with a Koran following the 9/11 attacks (see photo here).
State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson tells CBN News that she wasn't exactly familiar with the HLF case in which ISNA was named an unindicted co-conspirator. "The State Department sponsors a number of multifaith programs," she said. "If a group is found to be in violation of U.S. Law, then we wouldn’t work with them."
What do you think?