Muslim Brotherhood preempts ban via suspicious charity

Asmaa Al-Batakoushi

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States have recently begun a series of moves to pre-empt a potential decision by the US administration to ban the brotherhood.

Many nonprofit organizations in the D.C. area and across the country stepped in, providing charitable resources for federal employees and those dependent on them.

Such organizations have took advantage of the federal government shutdown at the beginning of the year, which created some pressing problems for tens of thousands of Americans.

However, such programs sometimes had more than one purpose: not only to do good, but also to publicize the goodness of the programs’ architects.

Islamist groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) were quick to promote their charitable efforts during the shutdown, such as an initiative by half a dozen CAIR branches to distribute lunches to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents. Similarly, CAIR trumpeted an aid effort by a fellow American Islamist group, ICNA Relief, that focused on military members in South Florida.

Yet it is worth noting that CAIR and its allies had no similar national charitable efforts during the 2013 government shutdown under President Barack Obama, during which some 800,000 Federal employees were furloughed for 16 days.

However, even under Trump, CAIR’s attitude towards TSA, CBP and military workers has at other times been markedly less friendly. Most recently, as immigration restrictions are debated in Washington and enacted on the southern border, CAIR officials have repeatedly expressed their loathing for CBP and its officers.

In February, senior CAIR official Hussam Ayloush announced his intention to sue CBP agents for detaining him at the border. In March, CAIR San Francisco head Zahra Billoo condemned CBP officers for supposedly practicing “humiliation, harassment, and intrusion”.

In addition, CAIR has previously denounced the TSA as an “Islamophobic” organization that practices “guilt by association on steroids.”

Aside from the possibility of an executive order for the State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, over the years members of Congress have also tried, and failed, to do the same — four times. The most recent and fifth attempt came in January when Senator Ted Cruz and Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart introduced the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2017.”

Dr. Michael Morgan, a member of the London Center for Policy and Strategic Studies, and president of the American Pulse Foundation, said in earlier press remarks that the opportunity is now suitable to include the Muslim Brotherhood on the US terrorism list.

He added that Muslim Brotherhood members receive donations from the organization «CAIR», as well as that the organization receives large donations, under the guise of serving Muslims in the Middle East, while such organizations serve the Muslim Brotherhood scheme.

He pointed out that the draft ban on the Muslim Brotherhood depends on the approval of the US Congress, pointing out that attempts to include the group on the list of terrorism has been going on since 2016.