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Jewish World Review July 28, 2008 / 25 Tamuz 5768 More Perils of Interfaith Dialogue By Steven Emerson
According to the reports, a presidential advisor from the United Arab Emirates urged attendees to "to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism," adding "I can speak to pacifists but not bellicists, who are in favor of war." Rabbi Marc Schneier, chairman of the World Jewish Congress in North America, responded, saying "Israel is not a political issue... If you want to understand Judaism, then you need to understand that Israel is a core issue of our religion." Jay Rosenbaum of Temple Israel in Lawrence, N.Y., went further, telling a New York Sun reporter that the comments were anti-Semitic, representing "the same old rhetoric that has led to more hatred and the building of a wall between the Jews and the Muslims for the last 60 years." Here's hoping that the episode opens more eyes than just Rosenbaum's. After all, if Jewish leaders such as Schneier, David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee legitimize these meetings with their presence, how can representatives of any other faith challenge their wisdom? The same holds true for interfaith dialogue back home in America. The Madrid conference is the latest in a long line of so-called interfaith dialogue initiatives between various leaders of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It was sponsored by the Saudi monarch and organized by a man who justifies Palestinian suicide bombings and is alleged to have links to a senior Al Qaeda financier. (See "Organizer's Past Raises Questions About Madrid Interfaith Conference" for background.) Now come new disclosures that the principal partner in domestic outreach, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood, the 80-year-old Egyptian society from which virtually all Sunni terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, emerge. The Brotherhood's long range goal is to make Islam dominant throughout the world, not to seek a path to mutual understanding. The time for ignoring these links or blaming the messenger has passed. It is a time for pointed questions, answered publicly. Those Jewish leaders, ever desperate to forge any common ground with self-styled mainstream Muslim organizations, must examine these new disclosures and explain why they believe in continued dialogue with people who are blatantly deceiving them. They must challenge their outreach partners for credible explanations. At a time when Sami Al-Arian admits he was in the Muslim Brotherhood when ISNA was created, and that he co-founded ISNA, as the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported Tuesday, it's time to stop the "dialogue" and demand real answers. Schneier, a participant at the aforementioned Madrid conference, and Eric Yoffie of the Union of Reform Judaism, are cases in point. Both have bent over backward to whitewash ISNA, currently named an unindicted co-conspirator by the government in a HAMAS financing trial in Dallas against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). As reported in the New York Sun, on the topic of ISNA, the major Muslim Brotherhood umbrella group in the U.S.:
Evolve? ISNA denies having anything from which it has to evolve. And this is Schneier at the Madrid Conference opening:
So the leading exporter of Wahabbi Islam, who refused to invite any Israelis (the one rabbi with Israeli citizenship at the conference, the AJC's David Rosen, was listed on the program as an American), let alone have the conference on Saudi soil, is somehow a voice of moderation. Adding to his "moderate" credentials, Abdullah invited a radical, pro-Islamist Jewish leader who attended the Iranian president's 2006 Holocaust denial conference:
Given that, how surprising is it to learn that the Madrid conference featured former neo-Nazi leader William Baker? There is no report of any protest for Baker's inclusion. The Associated Press quoted Rosen after the conference opened:
Michael Lerner, editor of the liberal Tikkun magazine. Lerner wrote a fairly glowing assessment of the conference's opening, acknowledging dramatic change could take years, but finding the Madrid meeting a key step in the right direction:
In an email to Lerner shared with the IPT, Ali Alyami, the executive director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, told the rabbi's his high hopes were not warranted:
Meanwhile, Yoffie, who spoke at ISNA's convention in Chicago last summer and has a history of partnering with ISNA, has said, in a statement posted on ISNA's website:
True, one can find this statement, "ISNA rejects all acts of terrorism, including those perpetrated by HAMAS, Hizbullah and any other group that claims Islam as their inspiration" on ISNA's website. ISNA rather slyly only generally "rejects" the violent acts: its officials refuse to condemn both groups, will not label either as terrorist organizations, but instead refer to HAMAS favorably as the "democratically-elected Palestinian government."[1] ISNA studiously ignores the HAMAS Charter, a virulently anti-Semitic tract which states that, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" and the fact that violent jihad is a core principal of HAMAS and Hezbollah. More on this below, as ISNA's own website contains similar anti-Jewish sentiments. And unfortunately for Schneier and Yoffie, their timing on ISNA's alleged evolution and condemnation of terrorist groups, respectively, could not have been worse. Just last week, in documents presented in the HLF case, federal prosecutors said of ISNA:
As I have previously reported, ISNA's support of HAMAS is not merely financial, but the group was also a vocal supporter of HAMAS leader Mousa Abu Marzook, using the pages of its magazine, Islamic Horizons, to both whitewash HAMAS' bloody history and engage in thinly veiled anti-Semitism. For example, in the November/December 1995 issue of Islamic Horizons, almost a full year after HAMAS was officially designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, an article titled "Muslim Leader Hostage to Israeli Interests" characterized Marzook as:
And, more than two years after HAMAS' designation as a terrorist group, in the September/October 1997 issue, Islamic Horizons published an article describing Marzook as:
This is an almost unbelievable contention, if not for the fact that it was uttered by the house organ of a major Muslim Brotherhood front organization. Now, despite the documented evidence, ISNA says it has no connection - and indeed that it never had any connection - to the Muslim Brotherhood. And apparently Rabbi Schneier not only takes the group's word - again, in face of the actual evidence - but claims that ISNA has somehow "evolved." Since ISNA unabashedly claims no connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, it is true the group has evolved, just not in the way Schneier suggests, since the transparent lies of ISNA's leadership have grown even bolder, which is an evolution of sorts. And ISNA's ties to the most virulent anti-Israel terrorist groups are hardly the only complication when it comes to "interfaith dialogue," especially with Jews, despite Rabbi Yoffie's assurances to the contrary. A cursory look at the "library" page on ISNA's website includes the following passages about Jews (as well as four other, similar in nature to those in the HAMAS Charter) used to justify extremist violence against both Israelis and Jews around the world by the most radical of Islamist terrorists:
Perhaps Schneier and Yoffie are unaware of ISNA's invocation of this Hadith - which plainly states that Muslims need to kill the Jews to bring about the end of times. Or perhaps they are aware, but choose to look the other way. Either way, pining for the mass slaughter of Jews by Muslims to usher in paradise should be a disqualifier for any sort of interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Jews. Schneier, who has a history of failed outreach efforts, should know better. In November 2006, he attempted "interfaith dialogue" with a leader of the largest mosque in New York, with less than optimum results:
Actual constructive interfaith dialogue can only come when Islamist groups own up to their past and present support for terrorist groups. For ISNA's part, only after a sort of "truth and reconciliation" construct, in which the group's leadership admits its history of support for HAMAS, former U.S.-based HAMAS leader Mousa Abu Marzook, and various and sundry other Palestinian and Islamist terror organizations (all documented by federal prosecutors, by the way) should the organization begin to earn trust. Indeed, the various Jewish representatives who overlook these ties in the name of "interfaith dialogue," themselves are engaged in a huge disservice to everyone who deplores Islamist terrorism and extremism, and have no place as religious or community leaders. [1] "US Muslim coalition condemns Israeli action in Gaza," The Muslim News, July 11, 2006, http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=11322. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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JWR contributor Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and considered one of the leading world authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations. He now serves as the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, one of the world’s largest archival data and intelligence institutes on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
© 2008, Steven Emerson
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