Steve Emerson, Rep. Brad Sherman overcome MPAC, ISNA rage to expose Islamist-terror links among State Dept relations

On Tuesday 29 July, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) demonstrated in front of the Office of Congressman Brad Sherman, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation. The demonstrators demanded the cancellation of a subcommittee hearing on whether American foreign aid is going to organizations affiliated with terrorists.

“This hearing will go on. We need to make sure that the State Department is not giving U.S. tax dollars to those on the other side in the war on terrorism,” said Sherman. “I know there are many in our community so desperate for peace that they want us to sweep under the rug the pro-terrorism positions of some groups. There are groups in the Islamic world truly dedicated to peace, but we should not blind ourselves to the fact that some are not.”

An additional organization was involved in the effort to try to derail the hearings. The organization is the Islamic Society on North America. This group was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator by the Justice Department in the case alleging efforts to raise money for Hamas. Further, a recently declassified FBI memo on NAIT, the parent organization of the Islamic Society of North America, states as follows: “Within the organizational structure of the NAIT are those… who have declared war on the US… with the common goal being to further the Holy War (Islamic jihad).”

Steve Emerson, Executive Director of the Investigative Project, outlined some of the more troubling aspects of participation with these groups: namely their ties to terrorist entities and promotion of radical Islamic ideology. A number of groups that the State Department has cooperated with have links to entities such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hizballah - which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States government. The groups partnering with the State Department help to support an ideology that focuses on eliminating secular Western powers and promoting their stringent ideas of Sharia law, or law as governed by Islamic text.

(For detailed examples, see Emerson's complete written testimony here.)

In his testimony, Emerson argued that the State Department's actions in funding these programs only serves to legitimize fundamentalist voices who wish to promote a strict interpretation of Islam. This approach helps to increase support for terrorist groups and violence, which will help to aggrandize fundamentalist theology worldwide. The focus of the State Department's funding should promote genuinely moderate voices within the Muslim community, rather than reaching out to those who justify violence, support designated terrorist groups, and promote the funding and support of jihadist ideology globally.

While the outreach to the Muslim community by the State Department "is an honorable and worthwhile pursuit, the State Department has conducted outreach to the wrong groups, sending a terrible message to moderate Muslims who are thoroughly disenfranchised by the funding, hosting and embracing of radical groups that purport to be opposed to terrorism and extremism," Emerson wrote in his testimony further stressing the idea that the State Department's polices need to be reanalyzed in order to better select which Islamic organizations receive funding in order to promote peace and understanding.