A window on the muslim brotherhood in america

RYAN MAURO: A WINDOW ON THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN AMERICA

An Annotated Interview with DHS Advisor Mohamed Elibiary

In another statement, he agreed with the Islamist (specifically al-Qaeda) opinionthat the West oppresses Muslims. In 2004, he wrote,¹⁴ “Just because I listen to Osama bin Laden’s tapes and agree that the West routinely insults Muslim dignity, that doesn’t make me al-Qaeda. By listening, I gain a better understanding of a philosophyI wish to counter.”

Elibiary (cont’d): I disclosed how, as a 16-year old teenager, I was solic­ited to become a donor, and my journey investigating what happened af­ter the government closed HLF. After sharing about my investigation, Iconcluded with a warning against the strategy being deployed againstHLF and a broader Muslim Brotherhood (MB) network, in the eyes ofthe government, as if they were an organized criminal syndicate akin tothe mafia.

I viewed this strategy in 2007 as counterproductive to our national inter­est and instead called for an honest dialogue between the US and Islam­ists to find common ground and turn the page on the past.

Elibiary opined in the 2007 article that the US government’s prosecution of theHoly Land Foundation is a mistake like believing that there were weapons of mass de­struction in Iraq: “This global war on terror needs a new strategy, because we’re de­stroying ourselves more than al-Qaeda ever could.” The fundamental error, in Elibiary’s view, is that the US government is treating Islamists as enemies (though he agrees thatHamas is a terrorist group).

Elibiary went on: “… Mr. Baker told me during our coffee the day before the juryverdict: ‘How does America expect to be able to reach a middle ground with overseas Islamists against the violent extremists when it can’t even dialogue with its own Islam­ists at home?’” In other words, Baker identified himself as an Islamist. His illegal fi­nancing of Hamas may have been concealed from us, but not his ideological orienta­tion.

Elibiary wrote that HLF CEO Baker is a victim of political persecution. “I foundthe Shukri Abu-Baker in whom I placed my trust 15 years ago to be an open book andnot what has been fed to the media and the jury by our government. I found, much likethe jury decided when presented with all the evidence, absolutely nothing ‘criminal’ and a case largely built on associations to convict First-Amendment-protected rights, whether we share those views or not.”

In a separate editorial in 2010¹⁵, Elibiary reacted to the guilty verdict in the HolyLand trial by again framing it as political persecution and warned of retribution:

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