In perhaps its biggest success towards legitimization to date, Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden has addressed the 57th annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a long-time component of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US. ISNA boasts that this is the first time a Presidential nominee has spoken before the event and Biden was introduced by Zaki Barzinji, the grandson of Jamal Albarzinji who was one of the founders of the USMB. According to video of his remarks, candidate Biden made three key points:

• He thanked ISNA for “supporting and engaging Muslim America” although the only available polling data reported that when a sample of Muslims was asked if ISNA represented their interests, the affirmative responses by both men and women were in the single digits.

• Biden claimed that there had been a startling rise of Islamophobia during the Trump administration, a claim made by USMB groups constantly over many years, although the only hard numbers in this regard are FBI hate crime statistics which reported in 2019 that 270 crimes were reported against Muslims and Arab-Americans, the fewest since 2014. It is hard to imagine that a vast rise in Islamophobia could be accompanied by a record decrease in hate crimes.

• Most ominously. Biden said that his administration would have “Muslim Americans serving at every level” despite, as discussed below, his campaign’s and former Obama administration’s seeming inability or unwillingness to vet appointees for ties to the US Brotherhood.

Biden’s relationship with the ISNA appears to date from at least 2013 when he met as US Vice-President with ISNA President Imam Mohamed Magid met n and other religious leaders to discuss gun violence prevention. ISNA had already scored a major in 2019 when Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Julian Castro attended the ISNA annual conference that year.

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The GMBDW reported at the end of July that Biden had spoken last week before a virtual conference that included two important US Muslim Brotherhood leaders as well as their allies and which was sponsored by a Muslim advocacy group that is part of an important coalition of USMB groups. We reported at the end of August on a virtual Democratic National Committee (DNC) Muslim delegate meeting that included numerous individuals tied to the USMB including Farooq Mitha, Senior Muslim Engagement Advisor to the DNC. The Biden campaign later issued a disavowal of the views Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian activist who participated in the delegate meeting and who is known as a harsh critic of Israel.

In 2016, the GMBDW reported that Zaki Barzinji (aka Zakaria Albarzinji had been appointed the new Obama Administration liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement. As we discussed in that post Zaki Barzinji is the grandson of the late Jamal Barzinji, one of the most important founders of the US Brotherhood.

Zaki Barzinji himself has participated actively with US Muslim Brotherhood organizations including as noted above the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) associated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and, as the GMBDW reported in 2008, appearing as a MYNA representative alongside important leaders of the US Muslim Brotherhood.

Since that time, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) announced in 2017 that Zaki Barzinji had joined the organization and would be

….consulting and advising our policy team in the MPAC DC office as a Senior Policy Advisor. Zaki will assist in developing a succinct policy agenda for federal and state issues, broadening MPAC’s network of advocacy partners, and establishing relationships with key policymakers.

MPAC is another part of the USMB that was established originally in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose leaders had backgrounds suggesting they were associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that since developed into the political lobby arm of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood MPAC has a long history of supporting a Palestinian terrorist organization as well as facilitating a wider range of terrorism by defending or justifying violence carried out by Islamic groups as well as a history of virulent antisemitism. Other GMBDW reporting on the relationship of former Democrat administrations to individuals and organizations linked to the US and Global Muslim Brotherhood has included:

• In 2013, we reported that a top Muslim Brotherhood advisor had worked for the Bill Clinton Foundation in Egypt.

• In 2012 we reported that former President Bill Clinton hosted then Egyptian President and MB leader Mohammed Morsi at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.

• In 2010, we reported on the family ties of Hillary Clinton Chief of Staff Huma Abedin to the Global Muslim Brotherhood.

• In 2010 we reported on the relationship with the US Muslim Brotherhood of President Obama’s newly appointed Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference.

• In 2009, we reported on the family ties of an Obama Faith Advisor to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

• In 2009, we reported that several Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members had been invited to attend President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

• In August 2008, we reported that the Obama campaign Muslim-outreach coordinator was part of multiple organizations tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood.

The GMBDW has also documented numerous White House meetings involving the US Muslim Brotherhood during the Obama Administration. The relationship of Democratic Administrations with the US Muslim Brotherhood appears to have begun in 1996 when Hillary Clinton first invited USMB leaders to a White House Iftar dinner. The GMDW judges that given the already strong relationship of Joe Biden with the USMB during the campaign, a Biden administration will likely see an unprecedented level of participation and influence by the USMB in the federal government.

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) describes itself as “an independent, open and transparent membership organization that strives to be an exemplary and unifying Islamic organization in North America by contributing to the betterment of the Muslim community and society at large. ISNA emerged out of the early U.S. Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure and documents discovered in the course of the terrorism trial of the Holy Land Foundation confirmed that the organization was part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. ISNA was named as a Holy Land unindicted co-conspirator as a result of what the US Justice Department called the organization’s ” intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case.”  In 2009, a US federal judge ruled “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” ISNA has had a long history of fundamentalism, anti-semitism, and support for terrorism.  Clearly considered to be “rehabilitated” by the Obama administration, ISNA has more recently issued robust condemnations of terrorism beginning with a 2008 ISNA statement that although denying culpability in the Holy Land terrorism financing case, for the first time condemned terrorism while identifying Hamas and Hezbollah by name. ISNA has also been engaged in an active program of interfaith cooperation that has included partnerships with Jewish organizations and visits to concentration camp sites in Europe. Yet despite these new efforts, ISNA continues to maintain strong ties to both the US and Global Muslim Brotherhood and has failed to date to acknowledge any aspect of its actual origins or its problematic history. The current ISNA President and Vice-President are long-time leaders USMB leaders who can in no way be said to represent any kind of reform within ISNA. For these reasons, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch concludes that ISNA remains, as it always has been, an integral part of the US Muslim Brotherhood.

For a dated but still relevant detailed analysis of ISNA and its recent history, go here.

(NOTE: Once again, the GMBDW notes that we have no political affiliation and urge US voters to make their Presidential choice on the totality of the issues facing the country).

French media is reporting that the Saint-Denis campus of the L’institut Européen des Sciences Humaines (IESH) is under investigation for “breach of trust” and “concealment of breach of trust”. Moreover, the bank accounts of the institute’s director, Ahmed Jaballah, are said to have too few transactions. According to the LeParisien report:

“July 29, 2020 We are in a position to reveal that the IESH, which is not well known to the intelligence services for advocating radical Islam, is the target of a preliminary investigation, opened on 18 June by the public prosecutor’s office in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) for breach of trust, complicity and concealment of this offence. The investigation has been entrusted to the financial squad of the Paris judicial police. […]According to our information, the authorities have reportedly found a discrepancy between the IESH’s turnover and its real estate investments. The justice system is particularly interested in the sources of financing that enabled the discreet construction, in 2018, of a 26-unit student residence in La Courneuve for 2 million euros. The university campus project is also in the crosshairs. […] The authorities are questioning several recent financial transfers between Gulf countries, Kuwait and Qatar, and the IESH.  [Google Translation].

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In June, the GMBDW reported that the Saint-Denis campus of IESH had been closed by a decision of the local government last year.

IESH is an educational and imam-training facility in France associated with the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe,  and its French member the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France. IESH has several branches across Europe, notably in France, the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Finland, and can be seen as an attempt of the Global Muslim Brotherhood to create its own educational infrastructure in Europe to train future imams and teachers based on own its ideology. According to unpublished GMBDW research on IESH in the UK:

Many of the individuals, organizations and companies identified in this report are also tied to the Brotherhood around the world. All of the known donors to the EIHS are also associated with the GMB as are its current physical locations. The EIHS functions as a recruitment, indoctrination, and/or cadre training organization for the MB in the UK and elsewhere.

Many of the teachers and students associated with IESH have a history of extremism.

Groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood in the US have criticized Joe Biden’s US Presidential campaign over its disavowal of Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour. The disavowal came shortly after Sarsour made an appearance at a virtual Democratic National Committee (DNC) Muslim delegate meeting.  According to an article in the Times of Israel:

August 20, 2020 Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, disavowed Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour after she appeared at an online meeting of Muslims who will be campaigning for Biden for president. “Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of anti-Semitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns her views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform,” Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday to CNN, referring to Sarsour’s embrace of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. “She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever.” Sarsour had appeared that afternoon at the Democratic National Committee Muslims and Allies virtual assembly. Republicans immediately seized on the appearance, with party officials posting a few seconds on social media.

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After the Biden campaign’s rejection of her views, Sarsour was defended by a number of Muslim and/or Arab advocacy groups including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood and which emerged out of the US Hamas support infrastructure. CAIR issued the following statement in her defense:

Our sister @lsarsour is an outspoken advocate of justice for all, including the Jewish community. Smearing her and other American Muslims as anti-Semitic for supporting Palestinian human rights is predictable, despicable and unacceptable. Our political leaders must stop doing it.

Also defending Sarsour was a group known as Emgage which issued the following statement:

Specifically, Mr. Bates’ statement that Joe Biden “condemns” Sarsour’s views is reckless and hurtful. Is the campaign telling Muslim voters that Biden condemns all of Sarsour’s views as a Muslim American progressive woman of color? The Democratic Party is a big tent party that welcomes diversity, including differing opinions on sensitive subjects. In the view of the numerous community members and allies that have reached out to us since this occurred, the message coming out of the campaign is that Joe Biden condemns those who hold certain views on Israel and its problematic treatment of Palestinians. If that is the litmus test for who is welcomed in the Party, then we are at risk of seriously fracturing it.

The GMBDW reported last month that Linda Sarsour had appeared at a Democratic virtual conference sponsored by Emgage and featuring Joe Biden as well as Biden‘s Muslim Engagement Advisor, Farooq Mitha who is also an Emgage leader. That post detailed the ties of Emgage to the USMB, most notably as a member of the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) established in 2014 by eight organizations, seven of which are part of the USMB. The conference also featured long-time USMB leaders CAIR Director Nihad Awad and Salman Al-Marayati, head of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

In the past Sarsour has drawn substantial media attention due to her role as co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington to protest the administration of President Trump, a position she had to step down from in 2019 following accusations of anti-Semitism, infighting and financial mismanagement. Sarsour is known as a harsh critic of Israel as well as a proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and has appeared at a 2015 march organized by anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. She has also accused US politicians of being more loyal to Israel than to the American people. Additionally, the GMBDW has reported on Sarsour’s family ties to Hamas.

The DNC Muslim delegate meeting also featured contributions by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has a long-standing relationship with the US Muslim Brotherhood and was once set to become the Democratic National Chairman. Other individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood who attended the delegate meeting included:

• Azhar Azeez, co-founder of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Senior National Director of Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA)

• Anwar Khan, IRUSA President

• Khurrum Wahid, Chairman of Muslim Political Action Committee Emgage Action, one-time CAIR legal advisor and officer of CAIR-Florida)

• Farooq Mitha, Senior Muslim Engagement Advisor to the DNC and Executive Director at Emgage Action

• Petra Alsoofy, Outreach and Partnership Director at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)

GMBDW reporting on the relationship of former Democrat administrations to individuals and organizations linked to the US and Global Muslim Brotherhood has included:

• In 2013, we reported that a top Muslim Brotherhood advisor had worked for the Bill Clinton Foundation in Egypt.

• In 2010, we reported on the family ties of Hillary Clinton Chief of Staff Huma Abedin to the Global Muslim Brotherhood.

• In 2010 we reported on the relationship with the US Muslim Brotherhood of President Obama’s newly appointed Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference.

• In 2009, we reported on the family ties of an Obama Faith Advisor to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

• In 2009, we reported that several Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members had been invited to attend President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

• In August 2008, we reported that the Obama campaign Muslim-outreach coordinator was part of multiple organizations tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood.

The GMBDW has also documented numerous White House meetings involving the US Muslim Brotherhood during the Obama Administration. The relationship of Democratic Administrations with the US Muslim Brotherhood appears to have begun in 1996 when Hillary Clinton first invited USMB leaders to a White House Iftar dinner.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch (GMBDW) has been in operation for over 13 years, publishing its first post in June 2007. Before that, the GMBDW editor had been working on the transnational, Islamist network known as the Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB) since September 12, 2001. The significance of that date is obvious and our interest in the Muslim Brotherhood began in earnest when early on, the US identified the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Al Taqwa Bank as a funder of Al Qaeda. Since that time, the Brotherhood has been mainly viewed through the lens of terrorism, with some claiming that the Brotherhood is directly involved with terrorist acts while others asserting that the Brotherhood is a “conveyor belt” of terrorism through the Islamist ideology which it promotes. While there is some truth in both these claims, there is no evidence that the GMB itself has been involved in the planning or execution of terrorism. That said,  a report published our companion website identified an international umbrella organization that brings under its wings Salafi, Salafi-Jihadi, Global Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas leaders, including US/EU/UN-designated terrorists.  As far as ideology, the GMBDW has seen no serious research demonstrating that Muslim Brotherhood ideology is a “conveyor belt” to terrorism although we cannot help but feel that the constant drumbeat of Muslim Brotherhood claims that the West is engaged in a “war on Islam” is, at the very least, unhelpful.

The above notwithstanding, the major focus of the GMBDW has always been on the GMB networks in the West, and it is in the West that the subject of the GMB has become intolerably polarized, particularly in the US. On the one hand, despite their Islamist/MB/Hamas origins and problematic records with respect to extremism and terrorism,, US Muslim Brotherhood groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) are increasingly treated by the mainstream media and most civil society organizations as the legitimate representatives of the US Muslim Community. (This occurs in the face of polling data demonstrate the exact opposite.) Whereas newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal had in the past covered the subject with investigative flair, there is today a complete absence of any informed discussion of USMB groups in the very same papers. On the other hand, US rightwing extremists operating loosely under the rubric of the “Anti-Shariah” movement have so inflamed sentiments with wildly inaccurate and exaggerated claims about the threat of “Shariah Law” that it is become almost impossible to talk about real threat emanating from Islamist networks without being lumped together with these voices. Nowhere can this polarization be better seen than in the recent example of the late Jamal Khashoggi, murdered by Saudis operatives in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The first view, common in the US media and exemplified by the Washington Post itself where he wrote as a columnist, is that Khashoggi was a shining voice for moderation and reform who wished nothing more than to bring freedom and democracy to the Arab world:

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When he began his self-imposed exile to Washington last year, Jamal Khashoggi described himself simply as one “independent journalist using his pen for the good of his country.” With his brutal killing in Turkey this month, the Saudi journalist became much more: the Arab world’s loudest dissenter and an international symbol for the cause of free expression….Ironically, Mr. Khashoggi had never sought to be a disrupter and instead, as a lifelong member of the Saudi political establishment, had been an advocate for modest reform within the system. Refusing to be labeled a “dissident,” he argued simply that his fellow Arabs deserved the “right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment,”

The opposing view, being pushed by large swathes of the Islamophobic right, is that Khashoggi was an Osama bin Laden supporting terrorist, even being compared to Adolph Hitler. In this example, the writer selectively cites from a BBC report, tellingly ignoring  Khashoggi’s negative comments about bin Laden at the end of the piece:

Media martyr Jamal Khashoggi is being described as a political dissident. Sure. So were Hitler, Khomeini and Osama bin Laden. By no coincidence, Jamal Khashoggi was an old friend of Osama bin Laden. In early 1990 Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and gave a lecture in which he predicted that Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait. Jamal Khashoggi, who had travelled extensively with Bin Laden in Afghanistan, attended the talk and afterwards asked his old friend how he could be so certain of the future. He recited a verse from the Koran,” recalls Jamal. “The verse means the one who practises jihad for God, for Allah, God will show them the right path. I wasn’t comfortable about it. He had given himself the position of ‘I am seeing things because God is directing me towards it’. That was the first time I felt that Osama began to have an inflated ego.” Jamal lost touch with Bin Laden in the mid-1990s and Khaled in the early 1990s as both completely rejected his ideology. Although it has been many years since either of them saw Bin Laden, both admitted feeling sad at the death of their old friend in a raid by US forces in Pakistan earlier this month. The media spins this as Jamal being a moderate. Only insofar as tactics go. He was a Muslim Brotherhood member and continued backing the Jihadist network.

The truth, as always, and as we wrote in 2018, is far more nuanced and lies between these extremes.

Caught between these extremes, the GMBDW editor has long realized that the most profound and imminent threat of the GMB in the West was not the imposition of “Shariah Law” or sponsorship of operational terrorism within the developed democracies, but rather the presence of a large, well-funded network of organizations and individuals operating non-transparently in ongoing efforts to influence both public policy and Muslim communities in the interest of an Islamist agenda. In this light, the GMB can most usefully be viewed as a non-state, transnational influence operation that is competing within our democracies with various state actors,. This realization dates back to 2014 when we wrote:

The GMBDW will continue to provide open source intelligence on the global Muslim Brotherhood, but until media attention on the subject becomes more common and shifts focus solely from terrorism to the larger question of the role and influence of the global Brotherhood in our societies, its sympathizers and defenders will continue to succeed in diverting attention from important questions of national security as well as social policy.

Based on this realization, we have finally decided that rather than continue to tolerate the ongoing “weaponization” of information provided by the GMBDW in the interests of a rightwing agenda, or seeing the information ignored by their counterparts on the other end of the political spectrum, it is time to put our insight into action. We are in the process of developing a new publication that will place the threat of GMB in the context where it belongs– as one actor in the family of global influence operation that will be henceforth covered by the new publication. As we always have, the new publication will continue to monitor the GMB but in this new context and focusing on instances where the GMB has succeeded or is attempting to gain influence within western democracies. We will also be covering the threat of other influence operations around the world, most notably Russia and China but including other Islamist-dominated states as well such as Turkey under its current leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Even before the launch of the new publication, we will be reorienting the GMBDW fo focus more sharply on instances where the GMB is gaining or attempting to gain influence.

Stay tuned!

The GMBDW reported yesterday that US Presidential hopeful Joe Biden spoke before a virtual conference which included two important US Muslim Brotherhood leaders as well as their allies. As that post noted, the conference was sponsored by Emgage Action, the Political Action Campaign (PAC) associated with Emgage USA. That post also reviewed the US Muslim Brotherhood ties of the two Emgage co-chairmen as well as its membership in the US Council of Muslim Organizations, an organization founded by and dominated by organizations part of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US. Finally, our post reported that Emgage former Executive Director and board member Farooq Mitha serves as Biden’s senior advisor on Muslim-American engagement. Mitha, an attorney and former Defense Department employee, was also the Director of Muslim Outreach for the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Investigative research conducted by the GMBDW has identified another serious issue with Emgage, namely the family ties of Nada Al-Hanooti, the Executive Director of Emgage Michigan. According to her bio posted on the Emgage website:

Nada Al-Hanooti is Palestinian-American based out of Southeast Michigan where she serves as a community organizer. She was born to immigrant parents who have dedicated their lives to public service. Naturally, she was inspired by her parents’ efforts which led her to organize her own campaign for a seat on the Dearborn City Council. Nada led an aggressive race, personally knocking over 4,000 doors. Formerly, Nada served as a field coordinator for Rashida Tlaib for State Representative in Detroit, and was responsible for organizing events and door to door initiatives as well as recruiting and managing volunteers. While pursuing her graduate degree, she conducted ethnographic research on the Muslim women’s movement in Morocco. Nada’s mission is to educate and empower the Muslim community through civic engagement and political literacy.

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Omitted from this bio is that her father is Muthanna Al-Hanooti who was sentenced in 2011 to serve a year and a day in prison after he pleaded guilty to violating US sanctions against Iraq when he received the rights to 2 million barrels of oil in exchange for helping Saddam Hussein’s government. The GMBDW reported on this affair in March 2008 when Muthanna Al-Hanooti was first indicted. As a news report from that time explained, he was also accused of acting as an asset of Iraqi Intelligence:

March 26, 2008 Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. Al-Hanooti was charged with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. Al-Hanooti worked on and off from 1999 to 2006 as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a Michigan group formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. But prosecutors said he also was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam’s government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq. In exchange for coordinating the congressional trip, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, prosecutors said. Arrested Tuesday on returning to the United States from a trip abroad, al-Hanooti appeared Wednesday in federal court to face the charges, was released on bond and must wear an electronic monitor.

We also reported at that time on Muthanna Al-Hanooti’s role as the founder of the Michigan office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the relationship of CAIR to Life for Relief and Development (LIFE), and the ties from LIFE to the Global Muslim Brotherhood:

Mr. Al-Hanooti is a Palestinian who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1980’s. In December 1999, Arab-American media reported that Mr. Al-Hanooti was leaving LIFE to join the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and state records indicate that he founded the CAIR Michigan chapter in May 2000. At that time, the registered address for CAIR Michigan was the same as the headquarters for LIFE. Local media also reported at the time that Mr. Al-Hanooti became the director of CAIR”s new Michigan office. LIFE itself is an organization headquartered in a suburb of Detroit and was raided in 2006 by Federal agents for unknown reasons. LIFE board members and staff are almost all Iraqi-born or from families born in Iraq. Although purportedly a charity, LIFE has a long history of political advocacy and lobbying activities related to Iraq. LIFE has a number of connections to the global Muslim Brotherhood including sharing an address with the The Islamic American University whose chairman is Youssef Qaradawi, the head of the global Muslim Brotherhood.

Additionally, and based on unpublished GMBDW research from 2006, LIFE was found to have been conducting business at that time with at least six Islamic charities that had a documented connection to terrorism including two that have been designated by the US as terrorist entities. In addition, Muthanna Al-Hanooti was serving as an officer of the Focus on American & Arab Interests & Relations (FAAIR), an organization that largely overlapped with LIFE. One of the other FAAIR officers was Mohammed Alomari, another Iraqi refugee who administered a website for the Daru Salam Center located at the same Southfield, Michigan address as LIFE, FAAIR, and the Islamic American University. Available home pages from that time period display a long list of links to an assortment of conspiracy theories, anti-Iraq sanctions material, anti-Israel stories, and a handful of fundamentalist Islamic concepts. Mr. Alomari also published a book entitled “The Secrecy of Evil” which was described on the Daru Salam website as an:

….explosive expose’ of the secret societies and their secret religion inside their lodges. Today’s wars and upheavals have their roots in an ancient conspiracy. When former President George Bush uttered the phrase “New World Order,” he was restating an ancient goal of certain secret societies.

The book was described by one Amazon.com reviewer as “flat-out nutty conspiracy theories and blatant anti-Semitism.”

The GMBDW has also discovered that Muthanna Al-Hanooti is related to Mohamed Al-Hanooti who died in 2015. In our obituary at the time, we provided extensive information regarding Mohamed al-Hanooti’s ties to the US Muslim Brotherhood including serving as a former Imam for the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Northern Virginia, as a former Imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic, and as a member of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA). All three organizations have close ties to the US Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas. In addition, a GMBDW research report on the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) described Mohamed Al-Hanooti’s additional ties to Hamas: 

A 2001 FBI memo identifies current ISNA-affiliated Fiqh Council of North America member Mohammad Al-Hanooti as a participant in a 1993 Philadelphia meeting of “senior leaders of HAMAS, the Holy Land Relief Foundation and the Islamic Association of Palestine.” The memo also cites FBI informants who said that Al-Hanooti “was a big supporter of HAMAS ” and that “it was well known in the Palestinian community in the northern New Jersey area that Al-Hanooti was an active HAMAS supporter, purportedly holding fund-raising activities, as well as supporting visitors to the United States from Israel and Jordan, to speak on behalf of HAMAS. ” Another FBI informant stated that “In 1993, that Al-Hanooti collected over six million U. S. dollars for support of HAMAS in Israel. ”  

Finally, a report authored by the GMBDW editor identifies Mohamed Al-Hanooti as a leader of the US Muslim Brotherhood and explains how a 1988 US Brotherhood document included him as one of the heads of its committees: 

The same spreadsheet identifies a number of committees, focusing on such issues as finance, politics, social issues, curricula, security, and Palestine. Those identified as heads of committees may include individuals mentioned throughout this report: Mohamed Hanooti, Jamal Badawi, Bassam Othman, Abdurahman Alamoudi, and Hammad Zaki. The spreadsheet also identifies several organizations as being part of the U.S. MB. These groups were AMSS, AMSE, IMA, ISNA, MAYA, MSA, MISQ, and NAIT. 

Eulogies for Mohamed were provided by leaders of CAIR and Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), another part of the US Muslim Brotherhood. The GMBDW was not able to confirm the exact relationship between Muthanna Al-Hanooti and Mohamed Al-Hanooti but from their respective ages and their multiple addresses in common, ascertained with public records, we presume that Mohamed Al-Hanooti is the father of Muthanna Al-Hanooti and the grandfather of Nada Al-Hanooti.

As for Nada Al-Hanooti herself, she has a history of engagement with and support of groups tied to the US Brotherhood, notably with CAIR and with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a group whose Scholars,  Board of Advisors, and Staff includes a number of prominent figures ties to the USMB including:

• Ihsan Bagby

• Hatem Bazian

• Altaf Hussain

• Akbar Ahmed

• Muneer Fareed

• John Esposito 

• Sherman Jackson

• Dahlia Mogahed

None of the above should be taken as an assertion of “guilt by association” but we note that it was Nada Al-Hanooti herself who invoked her family in the above bio which states she “was born to immigrant parents who have dedicated their lives to public service” yet failed to demonstrate any transparency with respect to who her father and likely grandfather actually were. That said, her family background, as well as her engagement with US Brotherhood groups, does raise further questions about the nature of Emgage and the role of Farooq Mitha as Joe Biden’s advisor, questions that would become even more salient should Biden become the next US President and Mitha an advisor within a Biden Administration. Current US government guidelines for those holding sensitive positions clearly raise the issue of “foreign influence” which would need to be addressed during any security clearance procedure. The ties of Emgage to the US Muslim Brotherhood in general and the family background one of its leaders with a history in both the US Brotherhood and Hamas as well as ties to a foreign intelligence organization would surely be relevant items for consideration in the clearance procedure.

The last time the GMBDW raised a question of this nature was in June 2016, during the waning days of the Obama Administration when Zaki Barzinji, was appointed as the new liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement. As we noted, Zaki Barzinji is the grandson of the late Jamal Barzinji, of one of the most important founders of the US Brotherhood. As we also noted, Zaki Barzinji joined a long list of individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood or to Saudi Islamists who were invited by the Obama Administration to serve as important advisors including:

• Mazen Asbahi

• Huma Abedin

• Dahlia Mogahed

• Rashad Hussain

In late May, the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) organized a conference call to view Eid greetings delivered to US Muslims in a video posted on Twitter by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The remarks covered various topics including Palestine, COVID-19, Islamophobia in the West, a call for a re-design of the global system, as well as Syria and Libya. A Turkish media report provides the flavor of what Erdoğan said about the Mideast conflict:  

May 25, 2020 Istanbul -Anadolu Agency: Turkey’s president on May 24 reiterated his country’s support for Palestine as the Muslim world celebrates Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. “We will not allow the Palestinian lands to be offered to anyone else,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a video message on Twitter addressed to U.S. Muslims. “I would like to reiterate that al-Quds Al-Sharif, the holy site of three religions and our first kiblah, is a red line for all Muslims worldwide,” Erdoğan said. “It is clear that the global order has long failed to produce justice, peace, serenity, and order,” he said. “Last week we witnessed that a new occupation and annexation project, which disregards Palestine’s sovereignty and international law, was put into action by Israel,” he added.

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For video of Erdoğan’s remarks, go here.

The USCMO conference call was hosted by UCSMO Secretary General Oussama Jamal and notable participants included:  

•  Nihad Awad (head of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR))

• Serdar Kılıç (Turkish Ambassador to the United States)

• İsrafil Demir (Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC) Vice Chairman, speaking on behalf of Halil Mutlu, TASC co-chair and a cousin of Erdoğan)

Other participants included various USCMO representatives from various USCMO member organizations and/or US Muslim Brotherhood leaders including:  

• Irshad Khan (Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago Chairman)

• Javaid Siddiqi (Islamic Circle of North America President, USCMO Board Member)

• Esam Omeish (Muslim American Society, CAIR) 

• Khalil Meek (USCMO Board Member, CAIR, Muslim Legal Fund of America Executive Director)

• Osama Abuirshaid (American Muslims for Palestine National Policy Director and board member, USCMO Board Member)

• W. Deen Mohammed II (The Mosque Cares, USCMO Treasurer)

• Nakibur Rahman (Muslim Ummah of North America, son of executed Bangladeshi Jamaat-e-Islami leader Motiur Rahman Nizami)

Erdoğan’s message was precluded by a still image stating the following while an Erdoğan campaign song played in the background: “Thank you Mr. President for helping our country with medical supplies when we needed them the most. Thank you for cheering our Eid.”  

Several of the participants praised Erdoğan prior to watching the video:  

• Esam Omeish thanked Erdoğan for his support to the US for the pandemic and for supporting “democracy and the rule of law in Libya.”

• Mohsin Ansari called Erdoğan the leader of the Muslim Ummah and thanked Erdoğan in regard to Kashmir.

• Oussama Jammal thanked and praised President Erdoğan and Turkey for sending medical aid to the United States. He also noted that Turkey continued to give medical aid to the US and others despite being hit hard by the coronavirus itself. Jammal also praised Ambassador Kılıç for helping to bring aid to the US.

After playing the video, Jammal thanked Erdoğan for his message calling it a “beautiful message” and a “message of justice” and called Erdoğan:   

“a leader that really have (sic) exemplified the hopes and the aspiration of many who lived in the Muslim World and the Middle East in particular. We are very hopeful that inshallah Turkey will be a good example of human rights, of equality, of democracy, of progress, and of opportunities for young people, young generation (sic) who are looking to have a decent life.”

The USCMO was  established in 2014 by eight organizations, seven of which are part of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US. The inaugural conference for the USCMO was held two years later and was attended by a wide variety of European Muslim Brotherhood leaders as well as US government officials. Since its founding, the USCMO has grown to include 35 member organizations, almost half known to be part of the USMB and including almost every important component of the Brotherhood in the US. The GMBDW reported yesterday that Presidential hopeful Joe Biden addressed a virtual conference organized by the USCMO.  

A 2011  report  authored by the GMBDW editor concluded that since 2006, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood. That report also detailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ideological ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood network, ties which date back to Erdoğan’s affiliation in the 1970s with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). The GMBDW has previously reported on the growing relationship between Turkey and the US Brotherhood including:  

• In October 2016 we reported on a meeting between Erdoğan and a group of US Muslim leaders, 19 of which are known to be tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood or Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood or which have significant associations with the Brotherhood.

• In April 2015 we reported that the USCMO had taken Turkey’s side in choosing not to characterize the “events of 1915” as genocide. 

• In June 2013 we reported that the Islamic Society of North America’s Director of Community Outreach met with then Prime Minister Erdoğan. 

In the latest and most egregious example of Democratic politicians legitimizing US Muslim Brotherhood groups, US media is reporting that Presidential hopeful Joe Biden spoke last week before a virtual conference which included two important US Muslim Brotherhood leaders as well as their allies. According to an NPR report:

July 20, 2020 Joe Biden spoke to a notable Muslim American advocacy organization on Monday. Just his presence — albeit virtually, due to the pandemic, from his home in Delaware — was rather historic for Muslim leaders, who can’t recall another presidential nominee speaking directly to such a large group of Muslims. The group, Emgage Action, says 3,000 people RSVP’d for its livestreamed event. Biden didn’t introduce any new policy priorities, but his tone marked a noticeable departure from how many politicians have addressed Muslims in recent years.

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Speaking extensively before Biden’s appearance was Nihad Awad, the long-time head of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The GMBDW has described the problematic aspects of CAIR as follows:

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) describes itself as “a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group and as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group.” CAIR was founded in 1994 by three officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine, part of the US Hamas infrastructure at that time. Documents discovered in the course of the the terrorism trial of the Holy Land Foundation confirmed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood and that CAIR itself is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood. In 2008, the then Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood acknowledged a relationship between the Egyptian Brotherhood and CAIR. In 2009, a US federal judge ruled “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” CAIR and its leaders have had a long history of defending individuals accused of terrorism by the US government, often labeling such prosecutions a “war on Islam”, and have also been associated with Islamic fundamentalism and antisemitism. The organization is led by Nihad Awad, its longstanding Executive Director and one of the three original founders.

Following Awad, the conference was addressed by Salman Al-Marayati, the long-time leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Similarly to CAIR, the GMBDW has described the troubling aspects of MPAC:

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) was established originally in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose leaders had backgrounds suggesting they were associated with the  Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. A 1989 US Muslim Brotherhood document introduced as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial refers to the last name of one of the MPAC leaders, Mather Hathout, in a list of “Islamic Centers and Groups in the field.” MPAC has since developed into the political lobby arm of the US Muslim Brotherhood and has opposed almost every counterterrorism action proposed or carried out by the US government, often suggesting that the efforts were aimed at the US Muslim community. MPAC has also acted to support a variety of Palestinian terrorist organizations as well as facilitating a wider range of terrorism by defending or justifying violence carried out by Islamic groups. Nevertheless, MPAC has developed particularly extensive relationships with agencies of the US government including meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI. MPAC and its leaders have made anti-Semitic statements that assert or imply an organized Jewish effort to defame and exclude US Muslims from US political life and has engaged in frequent and virulent demonization of Israel including describing Israeli actions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “rape of the soul of the Islamic people”, asserting that the objective of Israeli actions in Gaza was “gross killings of Palestinian civilians, including women and children”, and accusing supporters of Israel of using tactics similar to Hitler’s. In December 2009, MPAC reported that “Israeli doctors had extracted human organs from dead Palestinians during the 1988 intifada and into the 1990s.”  MPAC leader Salman Al-Marayati suggested on a talk radio show on September 11, 2001 that Israel might have been behind the 911 attacks.

Another notable conference participant was activist Linda Sarsour. The Washington Post reported in September that Linda Sarsour and two others had resigned as co-chairs of the Women’s March following accusations of anti-Semitism, infighting, and financial mismanagement. In August 2012, GMBDW was the first to report on Linda Sarsour’s family ties to Hamas. Other conference participant included:

• Khurrum Wahid (Emgage, one-time CAIR legal advisor and officer of CAIR-Florida)

• Ilhan Omar (US Congresswoman from Minnesota and former advisory board member for CAIR Minnesota)

• Abdul El-Sayed (former Michigan gubernatorial candidate and former VP of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Michigan)

Emgage Action, the conference sponsor, is the Political Action Campaign (PAC) associated with Emgage USA describing itself on its website as follows:

Today there is a blue wave. There’s a progressive wave that’s trying to align the American values with policies. We see the squad in the Congress saying to all of us that justice is indivisible. If we care about justice at home, we have to also care about justice abroad, especially countries and states that we support like the state of Israel. Where does the Biden campaign stand on conditioning the aid to Israel if Israel is planning to annex the West Bank. We care also about the Muslims in China, what’s happening to them. We hear that the Trump administration gave the green light for concentration camps against Muslims. The people in Kashmir, Myanmar population, all of them, they need our support and American Muslims are very concerned about this. We look forward to hearing concrete policies so that we excite the community for a change in the next administration. Thank you.

Some of the board members of Emgage USA have links to US Muslim Brotherhood organizations. For example, as noted above, Co-Chairman Khurrum Wahid was at one time a legal advisor to CAIR as well as an officer of the CAIR-Florida branch while AJ Duranni is associated with a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, in turn with ties to the North American Islamic Trust. Durrani also has relationships with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and with MPAC. That said, neither individual appears to play a major role as a leader with the USMB structure.

However, EMGAGE does engage in coalitions with US Brotherhood groups. Most importantly, EMGAGE is a member of the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) established in 2014 by eight organizations, seven of which are part of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US The inaugural conference for the USCMO was held two years later. and was attended by a wide variety of European Muslim Brotherhood leaders as well as US government officials, Since its founding, the USCMO has grown to include 35 member organizations, almost half known to be part of the USMB and including almost every important component if the USMB:

• American Muslims for Palestine
• Council on American-Islamic Relations 
• Islamic Circle of North America 
• Muslim Alliance in North America 
• Muslim American Society
• Muslim Legal Fund of America
• Muslim Ummah of North America
• Islamic Shura Council of Southern California
• Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago
• ICNA Relief (Islamic Circle of North America)
• Helping Hand for Relief & Development
• Mosque Foundation
• Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center
• Dar Al-Hijrah
• International Institute of Islamic Thought
• American Muslim Alliance

USCMO Secretary-General Oussama Jammal has long been a leader of the Bridgeview Mosque and its Mosque Foundation, the focus of a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation which revealed that as much as $1 million a year had been raised from mosque members which was then sent to overseas Muslim charities, principally in support of Hamas. The article also detailed the mosque’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The ties of the EMGAGE leaders along with its membership in the USCMO should be enough reason for concern given Biden’s presence at the conference. Further aggravating this situation is EMGAGE former Executive Director and board member Farooq Mitha who serves as Biden’s senior advisor on Muslim American engagement. Mitha, an attorney and former Defense Department employee, was also the Director of Muslim Outreach for the Hillary Clinton Campaign and has claimed to be an “advisor to the Democratic Party” since at least July 2008. As with the two EMGAGE co-chairmen, there is no evidence that Mitha plays a role as a leader within the USMB structure.

Unfortunately, the history of the Democratic Party and its leaders with respect to the US Muslim Brotherhood has not been good, beginning in 1995 when Hillary Clinton initiated what would become a growing relationship between the Clinton Administration and MPAC. According to unpublished GMBDW research:

The relationship with the Clinton White House in December began in 1995 when MPAC leader Mather Hathout was invited to the White House to discuss the Bosnia peace agreement with senior administration officials. The relationship drew national attention in May 1996 when Hillary Clinton attended a lunch hosted by MPAC. Then, in January 1998 Ms. Clinton invited MPAC and the Muslim Women’s League, an MPAC-affiliated organization, to organize an Eid al-Fitr celebration for 100 persons at the White House. The relationship continued through 2000 when MPAC director Salam Al-Marayati was included in a group of Arab-American leaders who met with President Clinton and again in April 2000 when MPAC representatives attended a White House briefing that included President Clinton, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mousa.

A complete review of the relationship between the Democratic Party and the USMB is beyond the scope of this report but notable examples include President Obama’s appointment of Dahlia Mogahed as his Faith Advisor and the DNC’s consideration of Keith Ellison for the Post of Democratic National Chair. It should be noted, however, that the Republican Party has not been free of USMB influence. Examples include Abdurahman Alamoudi, a USMB leader currently imprisoned in connection with a plot to kill a Saudi prince, who appeared alongside Present Bush at a 2001 rally and, more recently, the meeting of the USCMO at the US State Department under the Trump administration.

Vice-President Biden’s appearance alongside major USMB leaders at a conference sponsored by an organization that is part of a USMB coalition and whose former Director serves as his Muslim Outreach advisor raises the likelihood that a Biden Administration will see the US Brotherhood accorded easy access to the White House along with the possibility that more individuals tied to the US Brotherhood being appointed to government positions. The GMBDW has no special insight into the reasons why successive Democratic administrations have seen fit to allow USMB influence inside the government. One likely explanation is that US Muslims are an important constituency for Democrats even though polling data suggests that the USMB groups have no real standing within that community. (A more comprehensive look at why the influence of the US Brotherhood on government is of concern will be covered in a future post.)

(NOTE: The above should not be taken as commentary on the US Presidential campaign per se and certainly not as an endorsement of any candidate. While our remit is to cover the implications of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, the US is facing a multiplicity of critical issues and US voters are urged to vote for the candidate who, overall, represents the best choice given the entirety of those issues.)

Global media are reporting that the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has been dissolved by the country’s highest court. According to an Al-Monitor report:

Jul 16, 2020 Jordan’s highest court has dissolved its branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an official told Agence France-Presse (AFP), saying the organization had failed to resolve its legal status in the country. “The Court of Cassation yesterday issued a final verdict ruling that the Muslim Brotherhood group is dissolved … for failing to rectify its legal status under Jordanian law,” the official said, requesting anonymity. Since its founding in Egypt in 1928, the Islamist umbrella movement has grown to include various offshoots and millions of members throughout the Arab world. The Brotherhood is branded as a terrorist organization in Egypt and is banned in several other countries. The organization had operated legally in Jordan since the 1940s. The group’s political wing, the Islamic Action Front, is the country’s largest opposition group. In 2015, a more moderate branch formerly split off and named itself the Muslim Brotherhood Society.

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Presumably, but not confirmed, the decision also includes the Brotherhood’s political arm in Jordan known as the Islamic Action Front. One Arab media report says the move brings Jordan into line with Saudi Arabia and the UAE who in recent years have become staunch opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The GMBDW last reported on the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood in August 2017 when the group scored unexpected gains in local elections. Other GMBDW reporting on the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood has included:

• In October 2016 we reported that the Jordanian Brotherhood had returned to the country’s parliament after deciding to play down the role of religion in the party’s platform. 

• In April 2016, we reported that police in Jordan had shut down the headquarters of the Jordanian Brotherhood in the capital Amman.

• In February 2016, we reported that the Jordanian Brotherhood had allegedly ended its official affiliation with the Egyptian organization.

• In December 2015, we reported that key members of the Jordanian Brotherhood had resigned in the ongoing dispute between rival factions of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

For a history of extremist statements made in the past by the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, go here.

For an analysis of the relationship between the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the government, go here.