The Company They Keep

The truism that you know someone by the company they keep has rarely been more true than with respect to the Obama administration and its burgeoning ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. Just this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the latest member of Team Obama to consort with sworn enemies of the United States when she sat down with the newly installed Brotherhood president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi.

Despite official, media and academic efforts to portray Morsi – and, for that matter, the Muslim Brotherhood more generally – as the kind of people with whom the United States can safely deal in the evolving Middle East and here, the determination of such Islamists to impose their supremacist Islamic doctrine of shariah worldwide could not be more palpable. Their hostility to America, Israel, Western civilization and other infidels goes back to the founding of the organization in 1928 and is rooted in its guiding program – shariah – and it is absolute and unwavering. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves or deliberately deceiving others.

While it cannot be confirmed at this writing, presumably Mrs. Clinton was accompanied on her travels as usual – particularly in the Middle East – by her Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin. That would be all the more probable given that Ms. Abedin has myriad family ties to the Brotherhood. For example, her mother, Saleha Abedin, is a leader of the organization’s secretive women’s auxiliary, the Muslim Sisterhood, in which she serves along with Mohammed Morsi’s wife, Naglaa Ali Mahmoud.

The presence of an individual with such associations in the seniormost ranks of the State Department at a moment when the Obama administration is assiduously "engaging" with the Muslim Brotherhood has raised concerns on Capitol Hill. To their credit, five legislators, led by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, have asked for a formal inquiry into the role Ms. Abedin and perhaps others have played in the adoption of problematic policies favorable to the Islamists.

For her troubles, Rep. Bachmann has recently been assailed by one of her colleagues – the self-styled "first Muslim congressman," Keith Ellison. The congresswoman responded Friday with a detailed – and devastating – 16-page, 59-footnote letter (https://bachmann.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_to_rep._ellison.pdf) to Mr. Ellison’s rash charge that there was no basis for concerns about Ms. Abedin.

The documentation provided also lays bare the established connections between several Muslim-American organizations and the Muslim Brotherhood. The upshot of Rep. Ellison’s foray is that he has inadvertently called attention to the bad company he keeps – namely, with various known Brotherhood front groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Meanwhile, as Secretary Clinton headed off to Jerusalem, reportedly to assure Israeli leaders that Mr. Morsi means no harm to the Jewish State, a very different message is conveyed in a document (https://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/3431.htm) currently making the rounds. It is the transcript of an endorsement given at the kick-off rally of the Morsi campaign by one of his supporters, Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi. As the candidate looked on beaming, Higazi declared: "…The dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realized, Allah willing, by Dr. Muhammad Mursi and his brothers, his supporters, and his political party – that of the United States of the Arabs….The capital of the Caliphate – the capital of the United States of the Arabs – will be Jerusalem, Allah willing."

Rep. Bachmann and her colleagues also asked for investigations into the role being played in shaping U.S. policy by the president of ISNA, Imam Mohamed Magid. As documented at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com, that senior Brotherhood operative has been an advisor to President Obama, feted at the White House, State and Treasury Departments, literally embraced by the Justice Department and used as the vehicle for serial apologies by the Pentagon. Counterterrorism expert Patrick Poole has dubbed Magid Team Obama’s "Diversity Czar."

The fact that the Obama administration is keeping such company is made all the more appalling by the kind of company Czar Magid keeps. For example, as Mr. Poole observed, at a recent ISNA "Diversity Forum" in Dearborn, Mohamed Magid presented CAIR-Michigan executive director Dawud Walid with a "diversity award." It speaks volumes about Walid’s actual "sensitivity" to others that he is on record (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDS-BWqWORw&feature=share) justifying the destruction of Jews. The Investigative Project on Terror’s Daniel Rogell reported last month that, in an anti-semitic rant, Walid asked rhetorically "Did Muhammad order the killing of Jews?" He subsequently answered, "Muhammad didn’t order it. Sa’ad ibn Mu’aadh [one of his followers] ordered that punishment. It was a correct one. (Emphasis added.)

Another award handed out by Mohamed Magid’s organization recognizes "community service" and is named for one of ISNA’s founders, Mahboub Khan. It happens that Mr. Khan is the father of someone else who has long been keeping company with Magid and his fellow Islamists – a controversial member of the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union (ACU) named Suhail Khan. The younger Khan once declared at an ISNA conference, "What are our oppressors going to do with people like us? We are prepared to give our lives for the cause of Islam….I have pledged my life’s work…to work for the umma [Muslim nation.]"

Not only can you gain insights into people by the company they keep. When it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood and like-minded Islamists, it is downright dangerous to do otherwise.