It may be a cliche to compare a situation to a fox guarding the henhouse, but sometimes cliches offer real insight. Three Minnesota lawmakers are doing the fox-henhouse routine by proposing that anti-Semitic Islamist organizations be engaged to convene a task force on anti-Semitism.
Their sneak attempt to redefine anti-Semitism would be mere silliness if it weren’t part of a repeated strategy of making Islamists the arbiters of what is and isn’t allowable to say and do against Jews.
As reported by guest columnist Sam Westrop, director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, writing at the Jewish News Syndicate, Minnesota Democratic legislators Jay Xiong, Carlos Mariani, and Aisha Gomez have introduced H.F 2587, which seeks to “analyze the impact of Islamophobia and antisemitism, recommend actions to improve the safety of Minnesota’s Muslim and Jewish communities, increase participation by the Muslim and Jewish communities in civic life, and recommend possible legislative action.”
The bill sounds so even-handed as to be innocuous. Who could possibly object to peaceful integration of good-willed Muslims and Jews into civic life?
The problem is that the bill specifies that task force leaders include the executive directors of four organizations that have clear anti-Semitic histories of their own. Westrop notes that officials of two of the groups, for example, “were named by federal prosecutors as unindicted co-conspirators during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, which uncovered a vast support network for the designated, genocidally anti-Semitic, terror organization Hamas. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates named both [groups] as terrorist organizations.”
The point here is not to rehash Westrop’s reporting. Please do read it for yourself to see how anti-Semites try to create false fronts in order to gain power to further their anti-Semitic ends, in this case specifically including the power to use the patina of this official task force to “recommend possible legislative action.”
The bigger takeaway here is that this is part of a consistent strategy of Islamists to undermine Jews or Israel. They aim to promote groups or people as neutral arbiters even though they have given aid or comfort to terrorist affiliates. For example, Shamsi Ali is a prominent imam at one of New York’s largest Muslim community centers. He is a popular speaker at numerous “interfaith” events. But in social media, when not writing in English, he repeatedly blasts “Zionist Jews” and expresses “respect and amazement for the spirit of honest Hamas.” Hamas, of course, is a terrorist organization.
We’ve also noted how U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., spoke at an event billed as a humanitarian relief effort but sponsored by an anti-Semitic group, and how she regularly raises money for extreme Islamist groups under the guise of advancing intercultural understanding. And American media outlets regularly cite the Council on American Islamic Relations as a neutral or helpful civic participant despite CAIR’s long, long history of support for radical Islamists.
Perhaps most disturbing, the New School, a respected university in New York City, hosted a panel on anti-Semitism that featured notorious anti-Semite Linda Sarsour. As Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League Tweeted, “Having Linda Sarsour…leading a panel on #antisemitism is like Oscar Meyer [sic] leading a panel on vegetarianism.”
Don’t be fooled. Plenty of Muslims of good will are wonderful participants in intercultural efforts. But some of these full-time Muslim interest groups are actually extreme Islamists, and these ones play footsie or worse with groups that promote violent jihad. Never the twain should meet.
