Dalia Mogahed and Dr. John Esposito are two individuals who were participants – along with Benghazi Accountability Review Board (ARB) chairman Thomas Pickering – at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar this past June. Mogahed and Esposito are well known to be close associates and have been for years, even writing a book together.

Dalia Mogahed

Mogahed apparently doesn’t think much of the persecution of Christian Copts in Egypt, at the hands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Instead of calling out the Brotherhood and denouncing the attacks, she’s blaming Egyptian media for granting what little attention the Copts are receiving, for their own persecution.

(Yes, that’s convoluted and you do not need to re-read it)

Via John Rossomando at IPT:

More than 80 Coptic churches were burned by Brotherhood supporters after the Egyptian military’s crackdown last month on Muslim Brotherhood encampments in Cairo. A local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party appeared to sanction violence in retaliation for the Coptic Church’s backing of the Egyptian military.

Nonetheless, Mogahed pointed the finger at the Egyptian media.

“The Egyptian media took advantage of the Copts to achieve many personal/political gains, which has angered the West,” Mogahed said in a Sept. 22 post which appeared on the Facebook page of the Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (EADHR).

The EADHR was founded by members of the Muslim American Society (MAS), which in turn was founded as an “overt arm” of the Egyptian Brotherhood. {emphasis ours}

That Mogahed would espouse such a position on a facebook page launched by the MAS says quite a bit all by itself. MAS is steeped in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Pickering: Attended Islamic Forum in Qatar with Mogahed

Western media has treated Mogahed as a moderate Muslim. Yet, she is blaming the Egyptian media for the Muslim Brotherhood’s persecution of Coptic Christians. This is obviously a pro-Muslim Brotherhood position and the Muslim Brotherhood is not moderate. It is precisely this kind of persecution that Rescue Christians is trying to stand against.

Since 9/11/01, Americans have voiced frustration many times at the silence of ‘moderate’ Muslims when it comes to terrorism. Mogahed illustrates perfectly why this frustration is misplaced. She is obviously supporting the Islamic extremists in Egypt. While she has long been portrayed as a moderate (As Rossomando points out, she was an adviser to the Obama administration). Another individual who has demonstrated an affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood is Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University.

John Esposito: Close colleague of Mogahed.

The mainstreaming of Mogahed has been going on for many years. In 2008, she was a participant at a forum about U.S.-Muslim Engagement. Joining her in this exercise into ‘moderate’ Islam was – among others – Madeline Albright, Richard Armitage, Feisal Abdul Rauf, ISNA President at the time Ingrid Mattson, and others.

Unfortunately, this leads us back to who ARB Chairman Thomas Pickering chooses to associate with – Mogahed and Esposito. Perhaps the reason Pickering’s attendance with the likes of Mogahed and Esposito isn’t viewed as controversial is because of the precedent that’s been set by things like the aforementioned forum.

Is it any coincidence no one was found to be accountable by Pickering’s ARB and that he defended the Board’s stonewalling at a recent Congressional hearing by stonewalling some more?

After all, the Benghazi attackers support the Muslim Brotherhood.