Why Did DHS Sec. Johnson Give Speech To Terrorist-Connected ISNA?

The Washington Post is reporting that “Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson delivered an impassioned speech Saturday night at the annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conference in Chicago, holding forth on the subject of Muslim empowerment in America.” ISNA isn’t a benign organization, the Justice Department linked them to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood during the Holy Land foundation terrorist funding trial.

At the end of December 2008, the word guilty was read a total of 108 times in a Dallas federal court room. A jury convicted the Holy Land foundation and each of the five defendants of raising money to fund Hamas terrorism. The defendants were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group. Named as unindicted co-conspirators in the trial by the Justice Department were the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) which is part of ISNA.

Discover the Networks reports

Declassified FBI memos indicate that ISNA was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front as early as 1987. “The entire organization is structured, controlled and funded by followers and supporters of the Islamic Revolution as advocated by the founders” of the Brotherhood in Egypt, said one source. In August 1988, that same source furnished the FBI with a private ISNA document “clearly stat[ing] that ISNA has a political goal to exert influence on political decision making and legislation in North America that is contrary to their certification in their not-for-profit tax returns as filed both with the State of Indiana and with IRS.” And a 1988 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood document bluntly identified ISNA as part of the “apparatus of the Brotherhood.”

(…)In July 2015, Dr. Mark Christian wrote that since September 11, 2001, at least 251 Muslims had attempted some form of violent jihad in the United States. “Of these,” Christian added, “109 were interdicted by U.S. counterterrorism personnel. Another 121 American Muslims were involved in attempting to join, otherwise materially support or finance known terror groups. The remaining 21 succeeded in shedding innocent American blood in the name of Islam…. Of the 21 violent attacks on domestic American targets perpetrated by domestic Muslim jihadists (defined as American citizen, naturalized or on long-term visa) at least 12 of those attackers (arguably as many as 17) regularly attended or were significantly linked to Islamic Society mosques.”

Among the noteworthy Islamic terrorists who had regularly attended ISNA mosques, wrote Dr. Christian, were the following:

• Alton Nolen, an Oklahoma man who in September 2014 beheaded his co-worker and attempted to behead another;

• U.S. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who in November 2009 went on a shooting rampage inside the Army post at Fort Hood, Texas — killing 13 people and wounding at least 31 others;

• Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who planted bombs at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, killing 3 people and injuring as many as 264 others;

• Abdurahman Alamoudi, ISNA’s founder and first president, who in 2004 was sentenced to 23 years in prison for terrorism-related activities;

•  Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT scientist-turned-al-Qaeda agent, who in 2010 was sentenced to 86 years in prison for his role in plotting a chemical attack in New York;

•  Tarek Mehanna, who in 2012 was sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to use automatic weapons to commit mass murder in a Massachusetts mall;

• Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an ISNA mosque trustee and an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader who has issued numerous fatwas supporting Islamic extremism and denouncing Israel and the U.S.;

• Jamal Badawi, a former ISNA trustee who in 2007 was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plan to funnel millions of dollars to Palestinian suicide bombers.

With all these (and many more) connections to terrorism by ISNA why would the Homeland Security Secretary speak at their conference? Sadly, our feckless president praised the terrorist group.

In September 2013, President Barack Obama praised ISNA for having long “upheld the proud legacy of American Muslims’ contributions to our national fabric,” and for its commitment to “the vision that this country has always championed: that everyone deserves a chance to make their mark on our American story, no matter who you are, where you come from, or how you pray.”

Based on the history and present terrorist connections of ISNA the only mark on our American story they will leave is the blood of innocents.

Understand the objection here is not that Secretary Johnson (or the POTUS) is wrong for speaking and doing outreach toward the American Muslim community. However the two people most charged with the security of American’s within the 50 states should not be doing outreach toward of giving gravitas to terrorist-connected organizations. It is almost as if they don’t care.

If you want to read more about ISNA’s terrorist connections click here or click here.

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