By Frank Gaffney Jr. ——Bio and Archives--March 28, 2011
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"He has been in bed with radical Islam for the last eight years.... He has aligned himself with the [Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas front] Council on American Islamic Relations, sent them letters of congratulations, agreed to speak to their banquets, fundraised for them, and most recently paid a visit to the Bridgeview Mosque, which... is... one of the largest mosques in the United States.... It is considered the senior center of Hamas activity in the United States, led by Imam Jamal Said. [He] was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case... against the fundraisers for Hamas, all of whom were convicted. "In [a] picture [taken at the mosque], which was printed in the Bridgeview Mosque newsletter online, it shows [Sen. Durbin] with eight people, six of whom are actually allied with Hamas. Five of whom have been listed as unindicted co-conspirators [in the Holy Land trial]. And four of whom have made statements calling for the killing of Jews."Scarcely less troubling are Senator Durbin's choice of witnesses. They include "civil rights activist" Farhana Khera, who Mr. Emerson recounts has discouraged Muslims from cooperating with law enforcement, and retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who is a prominent participant in "interfaith dialogues" manipulated by the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Unfortunately, the narrative Sen. Durbin is advancing has been taken up by some in government who should know better. For example, Mr. Emerson told me in his interview that Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, raised serious questions about his fitness to serve in that front-line capacity by announcing recently at a closed, $4 million conference that "al-Jazeera was his favorite television station, radical Islam was only a nuisance, a tiny problem, and that Islamophobia was the biggest problem we faced." Were the Congress and the nation more generally to adopt this narrative - to the effect that the greatest danger facing the nation emanates from efforts of those seeking to inform our countrymen about the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and other adherents to shariah, it would hand the Ikhwan perhaps its greatest bloodless victory to date: acquiescence to the sort of shariah blasphemy laws that forbid any expression that offends Islam. This act of submission will greatly compound the willful blindness that is facilitating the Brotherhood's stealth jihad here at home, even as it and its allies make immense strides abroad. Will Senator Durbin's colleagues sit idly by as he contributes to such a wholly unacceptable outcome? Will the rest of us?
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Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.