The State Department web portal www.america.gov continues to whitewash radical Islamists. As we've reported, publications showcasing Muslims in America rely on radical Islamist organizations with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, while ignoring non-Islamist Muslims. Another example is a video, "Eid in America," about a Muslim religious holiday that can be seen here or here.
The video depicts the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va. as a model of American diversity. It is packed with statements and vignettes portraying congregants as patriots who love everything about the United States. But the video fails to say anything about the longstanding history of connections between the mosque, its leadership and radicalism.
On Dar Al Hijrah's website, there are links to the sites of two prominent organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, an 80-year-old religious movement that seeks to make Islamic religious law, or Shariah, the controlling basis for society: The Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The imam of Dar Al Hijrah is Shaker Elsayed, a former MAS secretary-general, who has spoken admiringly of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna, telling the Chicago Tribune that his ideas are "the closest reflection of how Islam should be in this life." Elsayed also accused the Justice Department of unfairly targeting Muslims like Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted of joining al Qaeda while overseas and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush. Abu-Ali, currently serving a 30-year prison sentence, worshiped at Dar Al Hijrah.
The Eid video includes Esam Omeish, a member of Dar Al Hijrah's board of directors who was recently defeated in his bid for the Democratic nomination in District 35 in the Virginia House of Delegates. In 2004, Omeish praised Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Hamas terror group who had been assassinated a month earlier by Israel as "our beloved Sheikh Ahmed Yassin." In 2007, Omeish was forced to resign from a Virginia immigration panel after a video was posted showing him praising Palestinians who chose "the jihad way" to liberate their land from Israel.
Read more about Omeish here.
In addition to Abu-Ali, other terrorists who attended Dar Al Hijrah have included Abdurahman Alamoudi, currently serving a 23-year federal prison sentence for illegal financial dealings with Libya and for participating in a plot by Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Another was Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader deported to Jordan in 1997. In March 2001, September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour were worshipping at Dar Al Hijrah when they met Eyad al Rababah after services. According to page 230 of the September 11 commission report, al Rababah helped them find an apartment. Al Rababah was deported to Jordan after being convicted in a fraudulent driver's license scheme.
There are thousands of mosques in America. This is the one the State Department chose to showcase.