Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is making a mistake. Last week, we posted about his refusal to apologize for comments he made about radical Islamists in the United States. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was at the front of the line, demanding that apology. Until now, Walsh has not backed down. Unfortunately, he has agreed to meet with over one hundred members of the Muslim community, led by a man who once served as an Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Chairman.
ISNA is a Muslim Brotherhood front group.
Via Sabrina Siddiqui at the Huffington Post:
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) is no stranger to controversy, but in the wake of his recent comments about radical Muslims “trying to kill Americans every week,” members of the Muslim community in Illinois are hoping to show the congressman they are just as American as he is.
According to the individuals leading the effort, Walsh, who represents Illinois’ 8th congressional district, has agreed to meet with members of the local Muslim community on Friday. At least 130 Muslims are expected to attend the meeting in Lombard, a suburb of Chicago located in DuPage County.
“It looks like Congressman Joe Walsh is not familiar with the diversity in his district at all,” said Moin “Moon” Khan, the county’s first Muslim elected official. “No matter how much he accused us, we are going to be very tolerant, and we would like to just show him our identity, our culture and how truly American we are.”
Walsh attracted criticism for warning of the “threat” of radical Islam at a town hall meeting earlier this month, shortly after Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and four other House Republicans ignited a firestorm by alleging that Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Khan is also a Republican:
Khan, a Republican, is the principal organizer of Friday’s meeting and said it took him several tries to connect with Walsh. His goal is to foster a dialogue between Walsh and the many Muslims who reside in Illinois, in order to both improve Walsh’s understanding of the community and its intentions and make him more aware of the consequences his words could carry.
Regular readers to this blog know that when a Muslim wants to ‘foster a dialogue’, your antennae should immediately go up. This is the language of Feisal Abdul Rauf and stealth Islamists. In fact, thanks to Arabic translations from Walid, we learned some interesting things about the former Ground Zero mosque Imam:
His suggestion to Muslims on how to deal with western Christians and Jews was:
“deal with them as one courts a pretty girl he wants to date; stop thinking like a typical Muslim. Then you can engage.”
In that metaphor, courting a ‘pretty girl’ is the equivalent of ‘foster(ing) dialogue’. The charm offensive is intended to lower defenses, which leads to a certain amount of control over an individual or group. This is why it is a mistake for Walsh to meet with this group, led by Khan. Khan’s ties to the ISNA should be more than sufficient to question his intentions.
There are other red flags as well. An interesting and disturbing dynamic is taking place within the Republican Party. Muslims who should more closely align with the Democratic Party – Suhail Khan and Nezar Hamze, for example – are registered as Republicans.
Suhail Khan (no relation to Moin Khan that we know of) is the son of a man who helped found the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). His mother reportedly works for CAIR. At CPAC 2011, Khan had the audacity to say, “there is no Muslim Brotherhood in the United States”. Hamze, the Executive Director for CAIR in South Florida, is also a registered Republican.
That leads us back to Moin Khan and Walsh’s ill-advised decision to meet with him and a large group of like-minded individuals (notice this is not a ‘racial’ thing). According to NBC 5 in Chicago, Moin Moon Khan is considered a leader within the Republican Party in his area of Chicago and once served on the York Township Board of Trustees as the only Muslim elected to public office in DuPage county.
A website identified as Friends of Moon Khan identifies the Muslim Republican as having served as the chairperson for the Islamic Society of North America’s 1997 National Convention’s Media Relations Committee:
In 2005, Moin Khan was listed by CAIR as someone who was able to get several elected officials to attend the Annual Islamic Foundation Dinner.
Interestingly, one of Walsh’s arguments in his criticism of CAIR is that the FBI has seen fit to break off communications with the group. Yet, in meeting with the former chairman of an ISNA group, Walsh comes precariously close to doing the opposite.
We would hope that Rep. Walsh would learn a lesson from Herman Cain who, after making comments critical of Islam, seemed to bow to pressure and visit ISNA President Mohamed Magid at his Mosque. The photo taken of Cain with Magid was a victory for ISNA and a defeat for Cain.
