The Baltimore Sun’s “Muslims work to dispel myths about Islam” (May 26, 2015) omitted important details regarding the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Mentioning the organization’s laudatory work helping victims of Baltimore’s April riots as well as its upcoming convention, the paper failed to give readers key ICNA background.

Omitted by The Sun were ICNA’s roots as a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of North America, itself a spin-off of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian-based, Sunni Brotherhood seeks to spread sharia (Islamic law) globally. Part of a network of groups stemming from the Brotherhood or its North American initiatives, ICNA originated in 1968 as an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Student Association.

The Islamic Circle has a history of questionable associations and rhetoric (“Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad’s Stealthy Legions,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter, 2005). For example, in 2009, five young men from an ICNA Alexandria, Va. mosque were arrested in Pakistan for seeking to join the Pakistani Taliban. ICNA stated that “extremism has no place in Islam, and ICNA works tirelessly to oppose extremist and violent ideology.” But the Anti-Defamation League termed ICNA’s joint anti-extremism effort with MSA bogus.

If sincere, an ICNA anti-extremism campaign would have represented an about-face from the group’s 1997 Southeastern Conference, which honored Lawrence Nicholas Thomas (also known as Jibril Abu-Adam)—a U.S. citizen and convert to Islam—for traveling to Pakistan and dying while fighting for Lashkar-e-Taiba (“ICNA’s Search for Radicalism Should Start Within,” Dec. 15, 2009, The Investigative Project on Terrorism). Lashkar-e-Taiba later was designated by the U.S. government as an al Qaeda support organization.

ICNA’s rhetoric also has been troubling. A December, 1997 article in the group’s magazine, The Message, glorified Abu Adam’s decision to join the terrorist affiliate and exhorted others to follow his example. More recently, at a December 2010 joint conference with the Muslim American Society, ICNA featured several speakers who, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “made anti-Semitic and conspiratorial remarks, portraying Jews as a privileged group with undue power.”

ADL also noted that a December, 2009 conference featured calls to destroy Israel (“Muslim-American Organizations’ Anti-Radical Effort ‘A Sham,’ ” Jan. 11, 2010, ADL). The writings of Anwar al-Awlaki—an American-born leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula later killed by a U.S. drone strike—were featured at that conference along with speeches by Rafiq Jaber, former president of the Islamic Association of Palestine—an affiliate of Hamas, another U.S.-listed terror organization. Ra’ed Salah, the leader of Israel’s Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement who served jail time in Israel for financing Hamas, was listed as a conference speaker although he apparently did not attend.

A convention of 20,000 people certainly was newsworthy. That being so, Sun coverage of the Islamic Circle of North America should have provided readers fuller disclosure of group’s activities, associations and rhetoric.—by Sean Durns

(A shorter version of this SNAPSHOT was submitted to The Baltimore Sun as a letter to the editor but neither posted online nor published in the print edition.)

Not for the first time, Haaretz whitewashes the violent past of a Palestinian prisoner.

The following prominent, four column, above the fold, stand alone Agence France Presse color photograph appears on page 2 of the English print edition today:

The accompanying caption reads:

The father of Khader Adnan, a Palestinian prisoner who is on a hunger strike in protest over his detention without trial, sits next to a framed poster of his son in the West Bank village of Araba, near Jenin, yesterday.

Haaretz‘s caption includes no mention of Khader Adnan’s senior position in Islamic Jihad, a designated terror organization, although the original AFP caption (below) did specify Adnan’s affiliation.

The original AFP caption states:

The father of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, a senior member of Islamic Jihad who is jailed in Israel, sits next to a framed poster of his son inside his house in the West Bank village of Araba, near Jenin, on June 2, 2015. Adnan has been on hunger strike for nearly 28 days to protest against his detention without trial. (Emphasis added.)

There is room on the Haaretz page for the additional six words (“a senior member of Islamic Jihad”), which are essential to the story, but an editor at Haaretz made the deliberate decision to strike them.

In a publicity video produced in March to publicize a July 2015 gathering of young adults under the rubric of the Christ at the Checkpoint movement, filmmakers have juxtaposed the victims of ISIS who have been set on fire and decapitated with Palestinians going through a checkpoint.

They have also juxtaposed the ISIS flag with the Israeli flag.

If you watch the video (which is located beneath the jump and is not for the faint of heart), you’ll see horrific images of the Jordanian Air Force pilot standing behind metal bars as he is being set on fire followed by images of Palestinians walking through a checkpoint, which itself is comprised of metal bars.

The inference that the viewer is encouraged to draw is that there is a connection between the plight of the Jordanian pilot stuck in a cage, about to be set on fire, and the Palestinians going through a checkpoint.

The same video also juxtaposes ISIS fighters driving down the road and through the streets of a city (flying the easily recognizable ISIS flag) with images of a vehicle flying an Israeli flag as it travels away from the camera.

The implications presented to readers are that the plight of the Palestinians is somehow similar to that of the Jordanian pilot who was set on fire and that there is a meaningful similarity between support for ISIS and support for the Jewish state.

Neither of these messages is supported by the facts, but that’s what the filmmakers who made this video would have viewers believe.

The video ends with a summons for the viewers, who are presumably young Palestinians, to attend an upcoming conference that will take place during July 16-18, 2015.

The Christ at the Checkpoint movement, supported by Christians associated with Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank, is well-known for its efforts to demonize the Jewish state, but this video is a new low.

Click the “Continue Reading” link below to see the video, but again, it’s not for the faint of heart.
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