Jihad At the DNC

Posted By Robert Spencer

 

On August 22, 2012

 

It is no surprise, after four years of Obama Administration pandering, Muslim groups have a prominent role at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. The Charlotte Observer reports that organizers expect as many as 20,000 Muslims to attend the “Jumah at the DNC” series of events being organized by the Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs (BIMA). Among these events is an all-day “Islamic Cultural & Fun Fest,” which will include a “TownHall Issues Conference” that will address “issues such as Islamaphobia, Anti-Shariah, Middle Eastern Crisis, Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act and more.”
There is no doubt whatsoever that this “TownHall Issues Conference” will not include any discussion of Islamic jihad terror plotting in the U.S., or of how Muslim groups have tried to exaggerate the problem of “Islamophobia” by faking hate crimes. It is likewise certain that the “Anti-Shariah” issue will be portrayed as an attempt by bigoted Americans to restrict Muslim religious freedom, when in reality it is solely an attempt to prevent the political and supremacist aspects of Islamic law that are at variance with constitutional freedoms from gaining a foothold here. Certain also is that the discussions of the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act will focus on how these measures are supposedly excessive and unfairly target Muslims.
The overall thrust of the entire “TownHall Issues Conference,” as is clear from its stated agenda, is to portray Muslims as the innocent victims of a bigoted, racist and “Islamophobic” government and law enforcement establishment that is unfairly scapegoating Muslims as a whole for the misguided deeds of a few on September 11, 2001. It will include no discussion of the many attempted jihad attacks against the U.S. since then, or of the successful ones, such as Nidal Malik Hasan’s massacre at Fort Hood or Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s murders outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas. Any and all scrutiny of the Muslim community in the U.S. will be portrayed as gratuitous and unwarranted. The assembled Democrats, meanwhile, will be falling all over themselves to promise that whatever domestic counter-terror apparatus the Obama administration has failed to dismantle during its first term will go under the knife during its second.
But the most disturbing aspect of the entire “Jumah at the DNC” is not the obvious victimhood-mongering of its agenda, but the people involved. The Democrats are playing host to an unsavory gang of Islamic supremacists with numerous ties to jihad groups. Even this is not surprising, but it should be a matter of concern to any Americans who are more aware of the jihad threat than the average politically correct Democrat pol.
Take, for example, BIMA spokesman Jibril Hough. Hough’s mosque, the Islamic Center of Charlotte, is owned by a Muslim Brotherhood group, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case. When confronted about this on a radio show, Hough first professed not to be aware of the charges against NAIT, and then refused to disavow the organization, saying only that he himself was “not necessarily” a member of NAIT and: “I was not involved in the decision to allow NAIT to be the [title] holder.”
Meanwhile, the “Grand Imam” for Jumah at the DNC is none other than Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj is one of the most sought-after speakers on the Muslim circuit, and has addressed audiences all over the country; in 1991, he even became the first Muslim to give an invocation to the U.S. Congress. After 9/11, his renown as a moderate Muslim grew when he declared: “I now feel responsible to preach, actually to go on a jihad against extremism.” But as with so many other Muslim leaders in the U.S., Siraj Wahhaj is not as moderate as he may appear at first glance.
Wahhaj was several years ago designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He himself has denounced this designation as essentially meaningless, but he didn’t earn it by doing nothing. In the early 1990s he squired the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, all around New York City and New Jersey, sponsoring talks by him in area mosques. The Blind Sheikh, of course, is now serving a life sentence for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, as well as in jihad plots to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels.
When Wahhaj was traveling around with the Blind Sheikh, was Rahman “moderate,” and then became “radicalized” later? Or did Rahman and Wahhaj share a supremacist and violent view of Islam, but Wahhaj is going about his jihad in a way that is less likely than Rahman’s to draw law enforcement scrutiny? No one ever asks Wahhaj such questions – least of all Democrat Party politicians.
Nor is Wahhaj’s association with the Blind Sheikh the only blot on his reputation as a “moderate.” He has warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has also asserted that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”
So why is such a man acting as the “Grand Imam” at “Jumah at the DNC”? The Democrats are so in thrall to multiculturalism that it is likely that few, if any, DNC organizers know or care about Wahhaj’s Islamic supremacist statements and ties. To raise any concerns about such a speaker would be “Islamophobic,” violating every rule of the anti-American, anti-Western ethos that prevails among so many Democrats today.
The worst thing about Siraj Wahhaj’s appearance at “Jumah at the DNC” is that it is so thoroughly unsurprising. What would be genuinely shocking would be if the DNC anywhere, at anytime, featured a speaker who spoke realistically about the jihad threat. But there is about as much chance of that as there is of the Democrats ditching Obama and nominating David Horowitz as their candidate for President of the United States.