 Carol Mosely Braun |
Muslim Americans are experiencing a “new version” of the civil rights struggles faced by African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun told a radical Islamic group that is an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
“The Islamic community today is faced with a new version of an old struggle,” Braun said. “My late mother used to say it doesn’t matter whether you came to this country on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, through Ellis Island or the Rio Grande. We’re all in the same boat now.”
Braun was speaking in an unannounced appearance at the 40th convention of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, held in September 2004.
At the time of her speech, Braun, a former Illinois senator, was attempting a run for the presidency, making her the first and only presidential candidate to address a forum of the ISNA. She reportedly asked the ISNA crowd to support her for office.
ISNA is known for its enforcement of Saudi-style Islam in mosques throughout the U.S. It was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in its case against the Holy Land Foundation in Texas, which was found guilty in 2008 of raising money for the Hamas terrorist organization. Last year, Holy Land founders were given life sentences for “funneling” $12 million to Hamas.
ISNA also was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document – “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” – as one of the Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends” who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation, according to Discover the Networks.
And ISNA, through its affiliate, the North American Islamic Trust – a Saudi government-backed organization – reportedly holds the mortgages on 50 to 80 percent of all mosques in the U.S. and Canada.
Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.”
According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA “is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation” that publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that “often champions militant Islamist doctrine.”
The group also “convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred,” states Emerson. Emerson cites an ISNA conference in which al-Qaida supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al Qaradhawi was invited to speak.
Emerson further reports that in September 2002, a full year after 9/11, “speakers at ISNA’s annual conference still refused to acknowledge [Osama] bin Laden’s role in the terrorist attacks.”
ISNA also has held fundraisers for terrorists, notes Discover the Networks. After Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense. The group also condemned the U.S. government’s post-9/11 seizure of Hamas’ and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s financial assets.
Radicals key to Braun’s career
Braun, meanwhile, also is tied to extremists. WND reported yesterday Braun’s career has been facilitated for years by a slew of radicals, including communists and socialists.
Braun’s former campaign staff has included socialist activists and the founder of an academy which teaches the community organizing tactics of radical Saul Alinsky.
The field operations director for Braun’s successful 1992 bid for the U.S. Senate in Illinois was Heather Booth, founder of the Midwest Academy, which models its curriculum on Alinsky.
WND first reported that the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit on which Obama served as paid director alongside Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, provided funding to Midwest Academy.
WND also broke the story that the executive director of Midwest Academy was part of the team that developed and delivered a group of volunteers for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.”
Meanwhile, Jeremy Karpatkin, former Youth Organizer for the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, also directed Braun’s field operations for her 1992 race.
Braun has been closely linked throughout her political career to the DSA, one of the largest U.S. socialist groups. She also has been linked to the Communist Party USA and to U.S.-based communist activists.
Chicago’s DSA contributed both volunteers and money to Braun’s 1992 campaign.
DSA activist Milt Cohen boasted of helping to recruit Braun for her first legislative race in 1978.
At the 34th annual Chicago DSA dinner, DSA member Sue Purrington was hailed for being instrumental in persuading Moseley Braun to start her senatorial campaign and for producing votes to back up her pledge of support.
Braun’s alliance with communist activists traces back to at least November 1979, when she was a co-sponsor, with Congressmen Ron Dellums and John Conyers, of the founding conference of the Communist Party-led U.S. Peace Council, an affiliate of the Soviet controlled World Peace Council.
Dellums is a founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. WND previously exposed how the caucus was founded as an arm of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Braun is a protege of former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, who openly affiliated himself with the Communist Party USA. Braun was a legislative floor leader for Washington when he was a congressman and later joined Washington’s so-called “Dream Ticket” to successfully run for the office of recorder of deeds.
The KeyWikiwebsite documents how in May 17, 1987, Braun helped sponsor, with Communist Party leaders Angela Davis and Herbert Aptheker, a benefit for Chicago Communist Party leaders.
On September 7, 1991, Braun spoke at the funeral of Communist Party USA national committee member, Claude Lightfoot, telling attendees of “having been enriched by a dinner conversation with her late father and Lightfoot, which gave her a deeper insight into the struggles of the unemployed in the 1930s.”
Braun was also officially supported by the Communist Party USA in her 1992 senatorial race.
