Ellison's Name Disappears from Islamist Convention Program After IPT Report

After being featured among a list of speakers for an upcoming national convention hosted by two Islamist groups, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison's name does not appear on the convention program.

Ellison, a candidate to be the next Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair, was scheduled to speak Tuesday at the annual Muslim American Society-Islamic Circle of North America (MAS-ICNA) convention in Chicago.

An earlier program titled Ellison's speech as "Our Voice Will Be Heard." That talk still appears in the convention, but the program now identifies former Muslim Students Association (MSA) President Altaf Husain and an individual named Anthony Whitmore as the speakers.

Both MAS and the MSA were founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States.

Ellison's office declined to comment when the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) asked whether he no longer planned to speak at the event.

On Monday, IPT reported that the MAS-ICNA conference also will feature Ali Qaradaghi, secretary general of the pro-Hamas International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). The article also disclosed a 2010 email in which liberal Muslim scholar al-Husein Madhany described MAS as a "national security threat" due to its ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Like Ellison, Qaradaghi had been listed as a speaker on the convention's website, but his name likewise does not appear in the program.

Sheikh Mohammed Rateb Nabulsi, a Syrian imam who sanctioned suicide bombings in 2001 and met top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar earlier this month, still appears in the convention program.

Ellison's DNC candidacy was rocked by a Nov. 30 IPT report which included a 2010 recording in which Ellison described American foreign policy as disproportionately influenced by Jews.

"The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people," EllisonĀ said. "A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right? When the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything changes. Can I say that again?"

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) retracted its endorsement of Ellison after the IPT's report, calling his remarks "deeply disturbing and disqualifying" and that they "his words raise the specter of age-old stereotypes about Jewish control of our government."

Related Topics: John Rossomando, Keith Ellison, Democratic National Committee, Muslim American Society, Islamic Circle of North America, Anti Defamation League, anti-Semitism, Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Qaradaghi, al-Husain Madhany, Mohammed Rateb Nabulsi

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