(May 27) Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) can’t seem to stay away from Islamist conferences featuring radical speakers. This time, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is joining the questionable proceedings as well.
Omar, the consistently antisemitic left winger, has a history of scheduling remarks at radical Islamist conferences. Saturday evening, she is slated to speak at a conference in Baltimore sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America. Ellison will speak there Sunday. ICNA in recent years has been the subject of congressional inquiry because of its allegedly extensive ties to terror-financing networks, with three congressmen describing ICNA and a sister organization as “arms of one of the most radical networks in the world.”
As outlined at great length by a publication of the Middle East Forum, a respected anti-Islamist group, the list of conference speakers is a who’s who of Islamist extremists “who have declared Western society to be ‘filth,’ sanctioned sex slavery, called on Muslims to hate homosexuals and to support jihad in countries throughout the world,” the MEF document reads.
“The convention is also giving a platform to Siraj Wahhaj, the well-known radical imam of At-Taqwa Mosque in New York City,” reports MEF. It continues, “According to the Wall Street Journal, Wahhaj allowed Omar Abdel-Rahman, the ‘Blind Sheikh’ who masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, to speak at his mosque prior to the attack. Wahhaj testified in Abdel-Rahman’s defense during the trial.”
In his long career, Wahhaj has argued that U.S. democracy should be replaced with a caliphate, has advocated stoning people to death, has said he “would cut off the hands of my own daughter” if she stole anything, and has embraced the concept of violent jihad.
As I wrote back in 2019 when Omar was scheduled to speak in similarly discreditable company, “Any sound-minded member of Congress would run for her life from the podium of such a group.” Instead, Omar (and, in this case, her apparently like-minded fellow Minnesota officeholder, Ellison) continues to join forces with Islamists, traffic in antisemitic rhetoric, and make excuses for Palestinian radicals. … [The full column is here.]
