Last week, a leading Muslim Brotherhood front group in the U.S. met with a Palestinian television crew consisting of representatives from Al Quds Educational TV and the Jerusalem Center for Studies and Islamic media. The television crew, according to a State Department cable, is working on several documentaries on the life of Muslims in America and will travel to Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Salt Lake City between July 13-30 to conduct interviews with local Muslim leaders, visit Muslim organizations, and meet with U.S. government officials. The purported aim of the documentaries is to improve attitudes of Palestinians toward U.S. policies and Americans.

The visit, sponsored by the State Department under its International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), is yet another glaring instance of a government agency partnering with Islamist groups that are tied to terrorism or have links to the global Muslim Brotherhood and espouse its radical ideology. The Muslim Brotherhood group in question is the Muslim American Society (MAS). MAS hosted the Palestinian television crew at its Washington, D.C. office.

MAS was founded as the US chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, the international Islamist, anti-Western organization whose ultimate aim is to establish a worldwide caliphate dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic Shariah law.

A MAS press release following the event claimed the delegation met with Mahdi Bray, who represents the public face of MAS through his position as the executive director of its "activist wing," the Freedom Foundation. An African-American convert to Islam, Bray has a long history of defending individuals and groups having alleged and in some cases proven ties to terrorism. He has been overtly critical of American foreign and security policies, alleging the government is engaged in a war with Islam.

A murky criminal history precedes Bray's foray into political activism. Records unearthed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show that in the early 1980s Bray was convicted on drug and larceny charges and sentenced to three years in prison. Furthermore, during his incarceration and even earlier, Bray siphoned off more than $70,000 in workers' compensation money intended for his grandfather, even when the latter was deceased and no longer entitled to the benefits. Bray was later indicted and convicted for mail fraud and receipt of stolen U.S. securities and sentenced to 36 months in prison and ordered to make full restitution.

This is not the only instance of the State Department's collaboration with MAS and other Islamist groups. The press release claims MAS Freedom has hosted "numerous" other delegations from Muslim countries through the agency's International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP). A delegation of nine Danes had earlier met with CAIR-Chicago representatives at its Chicago office under the IVLP. CAIR, like MAS, has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and has a history of supporting groups and individuals linked to terrorism.