A new post this
week at Islamist Watch:
Last week the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released
yet another version of its "Islamophobia" report,
"Confronting Fear," replete with lists and fancy quantitative
analyses of groups CAIR opposes, dividing them into "inner
core" and "outer core," and estimating their incomes.
It's all very interesting for those of us (the Middle East Forum, in
my case) mentioned. But more amusing is that the report also provides a
list of 39 Islamists who, CAIR informs us, participated at an
"August 2015 strategy session" where they developed the outline
of this report and its conceit that we critics of Islamism should be
banished like the Ku Klux Klan.
The list of those 39, in fact, gives we critics a handy outline of
many of the worst lawful Islamists in the United States of America. Here
they are, organized by me into categories and with a few comments:
CAIR
· Roula Allouch
· Ahmed Al-Shehab
· Nihad Awad
· Zainab Chaudry
· Arlene El-Amin
· Sarwat Husain
· Robert McCaw
· Lori Saroya (the
founder of CAIR's Minnesota chapter, recently promoted to the national
level to help grow more local CAIR branches)
· Corey Saylor (the
report's author and CAIR's person most focused on pushing the meme of
"Islamophobia")
CAIR's
local leadership
· Zahra Billoo,
CAIR-San Francisco Bay Area
· Mongi Dhaouadi,
CAIR-Connecticut
· Alia Salem,
CAIR-Dallas-Fort Worth
· Hassan Shibly,
CAIR-Florida
· Imraan Siddiqi,
CAIR-Arizona
Islamic
Circle of North America
· Naeem Baig
· Zahid Bukhari
Activists
· Umar Ahmed, attorney
· Mohamed Elibiary,
Lone Star Intelligence (he brags about his Islamism openly at the top of
his Twitter profile bio "MB=ok,ISIS=bad")
· Maha Hilal,
National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms
· Ramah Kudaimi,
U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
· Meira Neggaz, Institute
for Social Policy and Understanding
· Linda Sarsour, Arab
American Association of New York (Be sure and note this entry
on Sarsour, who is developing her own variant of the ideology by
heavily blending it with new media narcissism:
"Selfie-Islamism".)
· Lakshmi Sridaran,
South Asian Americans Leading Together
Media
· Alex Kronemer, Unity
Productions Foundation
· Max Blumenthal,
journalist (Nation columnist Eric Alterman claimed his last
book "could
have been a selection of a hypothetical Hamas Book of the Month
Club," Hillary Clinton's response to his writing: "A very smart
piece – as usual.")
· Zainab Chaudary, Rethink Media
Religious
figures
· Abdul Malik Mujahid,
Sound Vision
· Johari Abdul-Malik,
Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center
· Omar Suleiman,
AlMaghrib Institute (the subject of my previous Islamist
Watch blog post, he gave a speech on "Islamophobia and the
Koran" at ICNA's conference last month)
· Yasir Qadhi,
AlMaghrib Institute
Academics
and educators
· Akbar Ahmed,
American University
· Altaf Husain,
Howard University
· Debbie Almontaser,
educator
· Hatem Bazian,
University of California, Berkeley
· John Esposito,
Georgetown University
· Jordan Denari, Bridge Initiative
· Muzammil
Siddiqi, University of California, Los Angeles
· Sahar Khamis,
University of Maryland
The list presents a useful cross-section of many components of the
Islamist movement in America today. CAIR stands in front as the de-facto
leader due to it possessing the most sophisticated and long-cultivated
media outreach network. But it relies on academics for intellectual and
tactical guidance, Islamic theologians for validation within the Muslim
community, and a broader network of media and activist organizations to
get out their messages. While men largely lead the movement, numerous
female leaders and activists also play substantive roles, sometimes even
surpassing their male colleagues. (Many of the Millennial and
Generation-X female leaders rising in CAIR and other Islamist groups are
starting to outpace many of the older baby boomer male leaders...)
Also included in the activist coalition are a handful of non-Muslims
who have embraced the Islamist ideological program for much the same
range of sad reasons that some Americans sympathized with the Soviet
Union during the Cold War: some are just duped and naïve, others true
believers, and the worst are morally blind cynics and secular nihilists
who realize many Islamists have deep pockets.
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