Muslim Brotherhood activities in the United States

The Muslim Brotherhood is a Pan-Islamic movement that seeks to reestablish a world-wide caliphate that rules based on Shariah Law. The brotherhood has expanded its influence throughout the world, including the United States, through building mosques, Islamic schools, and establishing various front organizations. Through these organizations it seeks to influence and penetrate U.S. government executive and legislative branches at all levels of government as well as the law enforcement community, intelligence agencies, military, penal institutions, media, academia, and policy groups.

Its early methods for achieving this end included bombings, assassinations, and armed conflict. Some of the Muslim Brotherhood's leading members in the U.S. have been imprisoned and some of its organizations shut down or named as unindicted co-conspirators for helping fund terrorist organizations and activities. Others have successfully infiltrated the government without much notice.

According to Peter Probst, a global terrorism expert with the National Security Associates WorldWide and 20-year CIA veteran, "the American Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has adopted the political play book of the Communist Party. As the Communists of an earlier era, it has established a web of front groups, media outlets, charities and other entities to promote an ideology that calls for the destruction of the U.S. Just as the Soviets, through the Comintern and similar mechanisms, mounted a more than 50-year campaign of subversion, covert action, deception, disinformation and misinformation against the Western democracies, so have the Radical Islamists through the Muslim Brotherhood. Like the Communists, they have been able to insinuate themselves into the highest councils of government and into the confidence of some of our most sensitive law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They meet with Presidents, policy makers, and those who shape American public opinion. Their assertion that they represent the voice of moderate Islam and Muslim America has largely gone unchallenged in the popular press and other media."

See also: Russian Influence Operations in Estonia and Russian Influence Operations in the U.S. and Russian Influence Operations in Canada

Steven Emerson, a counter-terrorism expert and Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), asserts that "Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations in the West have a goal of redefining moderate Islam and overseeing a separation between Western Muslim communities and their secular host societies in order to promote Islamism and reinforce loyalty to the global ummah and weaken Western resistance to Islam. Presenting themselves as the moderate voice of Islam, they have created a narrative to their community that the US government’s campaign against terrorism is a generalized 'war against Islam,' serving to demonize the efforts of the US government and the West, which ultimately serves to radicalize and alienate Western Muslims."

Muslim Brotherhood

 * Main Article: Muslim Brotherhood

Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailia, Egypt in March 1928 as a fascist, Pan-Islamic, religious, political and social movement. The organization’s ideology is based on the beliefs of 18th century Muhammad Ibn abd al-Wahhab, an Arabian Islamic theologian and founder of the Wahhabi movement. The Muslim Brotherhood believes that society needs to return to a literal reading of the Quran and that governments should rule based on Islam and Shariah Law. They seek to reestablish a worldwide caliphate. Al-Banna himself said, “it is the nature of Islam to dominate, not be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and extend its power to the entire planet.” Critics believe that the primary root of violent Sunni Islamic extremism in the modern era is the Muslim Brotherhood, as the vast majority of Sunni terrorist groups are derived from the Muslim Brotherhood, including Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In fact, Article II of Hamas’ charter states that Hamas is “one of the wings of the Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine.”

Early Political Action and Influence Operations
Al-Banna created an underground paramilitary wing of the Muslim Brotherhood called the “Special Apparatus,” which carried out attacks against the British as well as a campaign of bombings and assassinations that also targeted Egyptian Jews. The Brotherhood leadership regularly engaged in violent anti-Semitic rhetoric against Egyptian Jews which incited attacks against the community, including the torching of the Alexandria synagogue.

On the international level, Al-Banna supported Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who worked for the Nazis to recruit international Arab support for Germany. The Nazis provided subsidies to the Brotherhood, which were coordinated by Al-Husseini, and part of the funds were used to purchase arms. John Loftus, a former war crimes investigator, during his time in the government’s underground vaults, discovered information that connected al-Banna directly to the Nazis. “Mr. al-Banna was a devout admirer of a young Austrian writer named Adolf Hitler. His letters to Hitler were so supportive that when Hitler came to power in the 1930s he had Nazi intelligence make contact with al-Banna to see if they could work together,” Loftus said. Hitler had al-Banna establish a spy network for Nazi Germany throughout Arabia.

According to Yehudit Barsky, director of the American Jewish Committee's Division on Middle East and International Terorism, Members of the Brotherhood were also later recruited to take part in the 1948 war against Israel, which they considered to be part of their obligation to engage in jihad. The Brotherhood was declared illegal in 1948 after it was accused of assassinating Egyptian Prime Minister Muhammad Al-Nuqrashi. Later that year Al-Banna was assassinated, reportedly by a member of the Egyptian security forces.

Sayyid Qutb's Influence
Sayyid Qutb was another key figure in the early history of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was an Egyptian author, educator, islamist theorist, and poet. After spending two years in the U.S., he returned to Egypt and published an article entitled "The America that I Have Seen." He was critical of many things he had observed in the United States: its materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, racism, brutal boxing matches, "poor" haircuts, superficiality in conversations and friendships,  restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling,  "animal-like" mixing of the sexes (which "went on even in churches"),  and strong support for the new Israeli state.

Qutb concluded that major aspects of American life were primitive and "shocking", a people who were "numb to faith in religion, faith in art, and faith in spiritual values altogether". His experience in the U.S. is believed to have formed in part the impetus for his rejection of Western values and his move towards Islamism upon returning to Egypt. Resigning from the civil service, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1950s and became editor-in-chief of the Brothers' weekly Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, and later head of its propaganda  section, as well as an appointed member of the working committee and of its guidance council, the highest branch in the organization.

He is best known in the Muslim world for his work on what he believed to be the social and political role of Islam, particularly in his books Social Justice and Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones), in which he promotes Shariah Law as a complete way of life and advocates forming a vanguard to fight Jahiliyya (non-believers) through preaching (daw’a) and Jihad for abolishing the organizations and authorities of the Jahili system.

Qutb had influence on Islamic insurgent/terror groups in Egypt and elsewhere. His influence on Al Qaeda was felt through his writing, his followers and especially through his brother, Muhammad Qutb, who moved to Saudi Arabia following his release from prison in Egypt and became a professor of Islamic Studies and edited, published and promoted his brother Sayyid's work. One of Muhammad Qutb's students and later an ardent follower was Ayman Zawahiri, who went on to become a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later a mentor of Osama bin Laden and a leading member of al-Qaeda.

Current Leaders’ Views
The current General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badie, has demonstrated adherence to Hassan Al-Banna's ideology by reiterating its principles in a series of recent sermons. In a September 2010 sermon he reasserted that the Qur'an should be the constitution of the state, and declared it the duty of Muslims to enact Islamic law.

Badi also promotes jihad as a central means of returning Islam to its former glory. In April 2010 he declared, "Muslim leaders, Islam, to which you belong, advocates jihad as the only means for setting the Ummah's [nation's] situation aright." He continued, "Our revival, majesty, and glory depend on the return to righteousness, which will only be achieved through resistance and the support of [resistance] in every way – with money, arms, information, and self [sacrifice]." Badi further proclaimed that it is the "obligation" of Muslims to stop all negotiations with Israel and to "support all forms of resistance for the sake of liberating every occupied piece of land in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all [other] parts of our Muslim world."

In a September 2010 sermon, Badi asserted that the U.S. "is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise...." He further declared that the victory of Muslims against their enemies was preordained and called upon Muslims to rise against Israel and the U.S.: "Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American [sic] arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it."

Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader and most prominent ideologue, is the author of fatwas legitimizing suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and U.S. military personnel, and expresses vehemently anti-Semitic views. Al-Qaradawi was named in the Holy Land Foundation trial as an unindicted co-conspirator for his involvement with that Hamas front.

World-Wide Expansion of Influence
Said Ramadan, al-Banna’s assistant for years and son-in-law, moved to Cologne, Germany where he received a law degree, and founded the Islamic Society of Germany. He presided over it from 1958-1968. In 1962, Ramadan founded the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia.

In the 1960’s, senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders planned and built a huge complex known as the Islamic Center of Munich which became an important staging point for the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. A new book by Ian Johnson entitled A Mosque in Munich describes the powerful force-multiplier this facility became for Ikhwan operations in Europe and beyond. It also reveals longstanding U.S. government ties to the Brothers, including Said Ramadan who contributed to the construction of this mosque.

Ghaleb Himmat a Syrian by birth and Italian citzen, directed the Islamic Society of Germany from 1973-2002. He established the Al-Taqwa Bank, which Italian intelligence dubbed “the bank of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Himmat ran Al-Taqwa and a group of front companies in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Bahamas with Youssef Nada. Before it was shut down in 2002, Al-Taqwa became known for its funding of al Qaeda, Hamas, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters, and other terrorist organizations. The U.S. Treasury Department deemed Al-Taqwa as an entity that funds terrorism.

In 1973, several dozen Muslim Brothers attended a meeting of the Islamic Cultural Centres and Bodies in Europe in London, England in order to organize the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in Europe. Ghaleb Himmat was present as the head of the Islamic Community of Southern Germany. While no agreement on strategy to develop a European Islamic network was reached, this meeting laid the foundation for such a plan.

Four years later, the senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders met in Lugano, Switzerland, near the homes of Ghaleb Himmat and Youssef Nada, whom the U.S. Treasury Department designated as terrorism financiers in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, to discuss the strategy for moving the Brotherhood forward. Yousef al-Qaradawi, the current Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, was among those present at this meeting. One of the first actions taken afterwards was the establishment of the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), whose role was to maintain the ideological purity and consistency of the Brotherhood’s expanding operations. During a subsequent meeting in Saudi Arabia in 1978, the Brotherhood decided to set up IIIT near Temple University in Philadelphia, an institution where leading Islamic thinker and Muslim Brother Ismail Faruqi was teaching at the time. Later, the IIIT moved its headquarters to Herndon, Virginia.

At the University of Illinois in Urbana, the Ikhwan created the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in 1963. The initial leadership came from Arabic-speaking members, with the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood helping to establish the group. A Saudi Arabian charity, the Muslim World League, provided early funding for the group. Today, MSA chapters are present on many college campuses across the country.

In the 1970s, the Brotherhood formed a number of trade organizations in the U.S. including, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE), the Islamic Medical Association (IMA), the Muslim Communities Association (MCA), and others. The Brothers also formed other student groups in the 1970s, including the Muslim Arab Youth Assembly (MAYA) and Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA).

In 1973, the Saudis created the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which is the financial arm of the Muslim Student Association. NAIT “controls” approximately 80 percent of the titles/deeds to the mosques, Islamic organizations and Islamic schools in the U.S. A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood internal memorandum on its US strategy mentioned NAIT as an allied organization. In 2007, federal prosecutors brought charges against the Holy Land Foundation for allegedly funding terrorist activities of Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations. NAIT was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

In 1980, the Brotherhood created a new organization to extend the footprint made possible by the swelling ranks of Muslim Students Association alumni. It brought together most of its groups under the authority of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which is today the largest Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization in North America. The creation of ISNA ushered in an era of massive growth of the Movement in North America.

Swiss authorities, in pursuit of Youssef Nada, discovered the document outlining a “project” for the expansion of Islamic rule worldwide. The 14 page plan outlines 12 steps to “establish an Islamic government on earth” involving a multi-phased long-term “cultural invasion” of the West.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, the Brotherhood created hundreds of new organizations and built hundreds of mosques and Islamic schools across North America. It did so primarily with funding from Saudi Arabia.

Political Action and Influence Operations in the U.S.
In 2004 a Maryland transportation authority police officer observed a couple driving back and forth across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The woman in the car, dressed in the Muslim hijab, was taking pictures of the structural supports of the bridge, which the police officer observed as suspicious behavior. He pulled them over, ran their IDs, and discovered that the man driving the car, Ismael Elbarasse, was wanted on a material witness arrest warrant out of Chicago in connection with Hamas fundraising. The FBI obtained a search warrant to go into their home in Annandale, VA and discovered a secret subbasement, in which were 80 banker boxes filled with the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. These documents helped provide detailed information that was used in the Holy Land Foundation Trial, which was the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history. The Holy Land Foundation trial helped bring into sharp focus the nature and extent of the Brotherhood’s activities within the United States. One of the most important documents the government entered into evidence was a 1991 memorandum titled “On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” Written by a senior Muslim Brotherhood official, the document lays out the role of the Brothers or Ikhwan in America:


 * “The process of settlement [in the United States] is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Brothers] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose (SIC) to slack…”

The document also lists 29 groups under the heading “A list of our organizations and organizations of our friends…” and includes some of the most prominent and vocal Muslim-American organizations in the United States. Those listed include the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust, the Muslim Student Association (MSA), the Muslim Arab Youth Association, and the Occupied Land Fund which later became the Holy Land Foundation.

According to Dr. Israel Elad-Altman, a Senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel, "the Muslim Brotherhood believes that its purposes in the West are, for the moment, better advanced by the use of non-violent, stealthy techniques. In that connection, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to establish relations with, influence and, wherever possible, penetrate: government circles in executive and legislative branches at the federal, state and local levels; the law enforcement community; intelligence agencies; the military; penal institutions; the media; think tanks and policy groups; academic institutions; non-Muslim religious communities; and other elites. The Brothers engage in all of these activities and more for one reason: to subvert the targeted communities in furtherance of the Muslim Brotherhood’s primary objective – the triumph of shariah."

The Elbarasse trove of Muslim Brotherhood documents contained an undated paper entitled, “Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan.” It specifies the five phases of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in North America. They are described, together with comments about the Ikhwan’s progress in realizing each goal as follows:


 * Phase One: Phase of discreet and secret establishment of leadership.
 * Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities (It greatly succeeded in implementing this stage). It also succeeded in achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various sectors of the Government. Gaining religious institutions and embracing senior scholars. Gaining public support and sympathy. Establishing a shadow government (secret) within the Government.
 * Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. Currently in progress.
 * Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable activities in this regard.
 * Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.
 * Phase Four: Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable activities in this regard.
 * Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.
 * Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.
 * Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.

Key Influence Operators in the U.S.
Abdurahman Alamoudi was a Muslim Brother who had established a couple Muslim groups in the U.S. associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and who was on the board of several other associated groups. He founded and was Executive Director of the American Muslim Council (AMC), which, for many years, was regarded as the premier American Muslim organization, was regarded by both Republican and Democratic administrations as the “go to guy” on issues that could affect Muslim America. Alamoudi was an honored guest at the White House, posed for photographs with American Presidents and their families, and rubbed elbows with political movers and shakers of both political parties. The government believed Alamoudi represented moderation and the best Muslim America had to offer. He even represented the Muslim American community at memorial services held at the National Cathedral to honor the victims of 9/11.

The Clinton administration used Alamoudi as a goodwill ambassador with Muslim communities, foreign and abroad, and made him responsible for identifying, training and credentialing chaplains for the United States military and penal institutions.He was also an advisor on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In 1998, Alamoudi provided at least $20,000 in checks enabling Republican activist Grover Norquist to establish what Paul E. Sperry, investigative journalist and Stanford University Hoover Institute fellow, believes is a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization targeted at penetrating GOP circles and the campaign of then-Governor George W. Bush. The new entity was called the Islamic Free Market Institute (better known as the Islamic Institute, or II). Alamoudi also detailed his long-time deputy, Khaled Saffuri to serve as its first executive director, with Norquist as the Chairman of the Board. Norquist’s old lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt, was a registered agent for Alamoudi, and received some $40,000 from him. (Norquist and his Muslim partner at the firm also represented the Pakistani government on military aid.)

In 2003, Alamoudi was detained at Gatwick Airport trying to enter the U.S. with some $340,000 of Libyan money. He was arrested on his arrival at Dulles and ultimately charged with making some 10 illegal trips to Libya in violation of U.S. law. As part of a plea agreement, he surrendered an estimated $910,000 he had received from the Libyan government, and acknowledged his role in a plot to assassinate then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. (Alamoudi had agreed to try to recruit the assassins). Alamoudi also acknowledged membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Treasury Department reports that he had raised a million dollars for al Qaeda. A July 14, 2005, U.S. Treasury Department press release stated: “According to information available to the U.S. government, the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to al-Qaida, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with al-Qaida and had raised money for al-Qaida in the United States.”

According to Frank Gaffney, founder and President of the American Center for Security Policy, Alamoudi sponsored Suhail Khan — Khan being the eldest son of one of the founding fathers of the Brotherhood in America – and got Khan into the Bush White House as the gatekeeper for Muslims, whereupon he got Sami al-Arian and other senior Brotherhood figures "past security." At the time, Sami al-Arian was running Palestinian Islamic Jihad from his University of Florida professorship. He directed Suhail Khan to lobby the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress to get rid of the secret evidence law, which stipulated that classified information could be used to make a deportation case against an illegal alien without having to share this information with the illegal alien. The purpose of the law was to protect sources and methods. Al-Arian’s brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, was being held at the time in a federal detention center in Florida on the basis of secret evidence. He enlisted Grover Norquist and two Congressmen, Tom Campbell and John Conyers, to help him abolish the secret evidence law. Gaffney believes, they persuaded George W. Bush to say, in a presidential debate against Al Gore, that if elected he would abolish the secret evidence law. On the eve of 9/11, Norquist personally went to the Hill and lobbied to, in his words, “get rid of the secret evidence laws which have been used to discriminate against Muslims and Arabs in this country.” After 9/11, he and his Islamic Institute lobbied against the Patriot Act.

After discovering that Suhail Khan’s parents were top Muslim Brotherhood figures, the Bush Administration moved him from the White House to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation as the Assistant for Policy, giving him Top Secret clearance. While he was working for the Transportation Department, Grover Norquist got him onto the board of the American Conservative Union — which means that he and Norquist, who is also on the ACU board, get to control a lot of what happens at CPAC, Conservative Political Action Conference.

Grover Norquist has also encouraged a man named Imad “David” Ramadan to run for a State House of Delegates seat in Virginia in the 2011 election. Ramadan is a Lebanese immigrant whose father-in-law is a major-general in the Lebanese intelligence service with links to Syra, Iran, and Hezbollah. Last year, Ramadan signed an open letter to Republicans in support of the Ground Zero mosque. He signed it with Khan and Norquist’s wife, who is a Palestinian Muslim.

Ramadan says he is involved in various “consulting” businesses in the Middle East. He also processes U.S. visas and green cards for Muslim immigrants. He has given large sums of cash to GOP officials, to shore up their support, as well as to his own campaign.

Ramadan's Muslim contributors include the Virginia Muslim PAC. Its president is Mukit Hossain, who also runs a charitable organization associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Herndon, Va., called FAITH. A few years ago, Wachovia bank closed FAITH’s accounts due to suspicious activity related to possible money-laundering. A year earlier, the so-called charity received a $150,000 donation from Brotherhood leader and Saudi M. Yacub Mirza, whose home and offices were raided by the feds after 9/11. Hossain keeps his FAITH office in the same raided building. Hossain’s benefactor was close to Alamoudi before Alamoudi went to prison. According to a federal affidavit (unsealed Oct 2003) for a search warrant of Mirza’s Herndon, Va., residence and offices, Mirza is president of SAAR Foundation, a suspected charitable front for al-Qaida founded by Saudi billionaire Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al-Rajhi (S.A.A.R.), one of the original Golden Chain sponsors of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida.

According to page 53 of the affidavit, written by special agent David C. Kane: “I believe that one source of funds flowing through (Mirza’s offices) is from the wealthy Al-Rajhi family in Saudi Arabia.” He cites one transaction of $3,388,000, along with others in the millions. The affidavit says Mirza has “signatory authority” over the bank accounts. SAAR had an active account with Wachovia before closing it within weeks of the 9/11 attacks. Some checks also were drawn on a bank account in the name of Al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corp., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Hossain serves on the board of a mosque run by imam Magid, the ISNA chief working with Khan and Obama. This Ramadan donor is also active in the Muslim American Society, which prosecutors say is a key node in the Muslim Brotherhood’s network.

Another Muslim listed as a donor to Ramadan’s campaign is Norquist protege Ali Tulbah, who replaced Khan at the White House when Khan landed a high-level spot at the Transportation Department. Tulbah’s father helps run a Brotherhood mosque in Houston. In the Holy Land Foundation trial the U.S. government entered into evidence information pertaining to a 1993 clandestine meeting held in Philadelphia. There, Omar Ahmad, then-President of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP) emphasized the need to strengthen radical Islamist influence within Congress. The IAP has been named by the government as both a Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS front.


 * “This can be achieved by infiltrating the American media outlets, university and research centers… If Muslims engage in political activism in America and started to be concerned with Congress and public relations we will an entry point to use them to pressure Congress and the decision-makers in America.”

According to an article by Nihad Awad, (IAP Public Relations Director) he, together with Omar Ahmad (IAP President) resigned from the organization to establish the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Joined by Rafeeq Jaber (who also had served as an IAP President), they wanted to create a new organization that would not be defined by the Palestinian struggle but, rather, had a broader mission and would project an image of moderation and accommodation. It was determined that CAIR would define itself as the premier Muslim American organization dedicated to combating anti-Muslim discrimination nationwide. Four federal judges have affirmed that CAIR is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and was spawned by one of its American affiliates – the Islamic Association for Palestine. Indeed, we know from wiretapped conversations at the time of its founding that CAIR was established by Muslim Brotherhood operatives as a political arm and fundraising mechanism for Hamas, a designated terrorist organization and the Brotherhood’s franchise in “Palestine.”

Counter Propaganda
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, has a “Hollywood Bureau” whose mission is to clean up the Muslim image in movies and TV. Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated CAIR has teamed up with UC Berkeley for an “Islamophobia” Campaign. The two organizations co-authored a report entitled “Same Hate, New Target.” The report recommends passing legislation banning racial profiling, speaking out strongly against smearing entire faiths or peoples and refusing to offer a legitimizing platform to those who spout anti-Muslim rhetoric. The report also names specific individuals and institutions that they believe are at the center of pushing “Islamophobia.” The two organizations also hosted a conference on April 21 and 22nd, 2011 called “Islamophobia Production and Re-Defining the Global ‘Security’ Agenda for the 21st Century.” Scholars, activists and experts, including representatives from CAIR, participated in panels discussions on topics such as, “Producing Islamophobia and Fomenting Fear,” “Islamophobia, Citizenship, Patriotism and the Security State,” “Race and Racism in US Elections: Wedge Issue and Who Benefits?” and “Clash of Civilizations Discourse and Muslim Otherness.”