Public Row Emerges Within US Muslim Brotherhood- USCMO v. EMGAGE

The US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO) has issued a state­ment sev­er­ing its rela­tion­ship with EMGAGE, the spon­sor of a recent vir­tu­al con­fer­ence addressed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Joe Biden and that also includ­ed two impor­tant US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers and their allies. Accord­ing to the USCMO state­ment:

Offi­cial USCMO State­ment Regard­ing Emgage

Oct. 8, 2020

Assala­mu alaykum Broth­ers and Sisters:

On behalf of the entire US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions, we pray that you are doing the well and stay­ing safe. We are reach­ing out to share an impor­tant com­mu­ni­ty update regard­ing one of our mem­bers, the polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion Emgage. In recent weeks, numer­ous Mus­lim and Pales­tin­ian Amer­i­cans have expressed con­cern about report­ed ties between Emgage and Emgage lead­ers with anti-Mus­lim and anti-Pales­tin­ian groups. Some of the spe­cif­ic con­cerns expressed to USCMO relate to:

• Emgage board mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Mus­lim Lead­er­ship Ini­tia­tive (MLI), an offen­sive pro­gram which seeks to under­mine Mus­lim sol­i­dar­i­ty with the cause of Pales­tin­ian freedom.
• Emgage direct­ly part­ner­ing with the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL), which the weaponizes Islam­o­pho­bia, lob­bies to restrict the right to boy­cott for human rights, and reg­u­lar­ly smears Amer­i­can Mus­lims who speak up for Pales­tin­ian human rights, includ­ing elect­ed offi­cials like Rep. Ilhan Omar, among oth­er unac­cept­able conduct.
• Emgage and Emgage lead­er­ship direct­ly work­ing with the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee (AJC), which has praised anti-Mus­lim big­ots like Daniel Pipes and Ayaan Hir­si Ali while also tar­get­ing Mus­lim Amer­i­cans who sup­port Pales­tin­ian free­dom, among oth­er Islam­o­pho­bic conduct.

Over the past month, USCMO has been work­ing to inves­ti­gate these con­cerns, address them with our friends at Emgage, and devel­op a pos­i­tive way for­ward. Despite strong efforts by every­one involved and some progress, we were not able to reach agree­ment. As a result, Emgage is no longer a mem­ber of USCMO.

In turn, EMGAGE issued its own state­ment refut­ing and or deny­ing the above alle­ga­tions. Wher­ev­er the truth lies with respect to these mat­ters, the dis­pute clear­ly rep­re­sents some kind of rare pub­lic divi­sion  between ele­ments of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the US (USMB) as both the USCMO and EMGAGE are both tied to the USMB. The fact remains that Biden and his cam­paign have trou­bling con­tacts with the USMB as evi­denced by his recent address to the vir­tu­al con­ven­tion of the Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca (ISNA), one of the most impor­tant com­po­nents of the USMB. Only time will tell to what degree the USMB will play a role in Biden Admin­is­tra­tion as it did under Barack Obama.

Report­ing by the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch (GMBDW) on the rela­tion­ship of for­mer Demo­c­rat admin­is­tra­tions to indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions linked to the US and Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has included:

• In 2013, the GMBDW report­ed that a top Mus­lim Broth­er­hood advi­sor had worked for the Bill Clin­ton Foun­da­tion in Egypt.

• In 2012 the GMBDW report­ed that for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton host­ed then Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent and MB leader Mohammed Mor­si at the annu­al meet­ing of the Clin­ton Glob­al Initiative.

• In 2010, the GMBDW report­ed on the fam­i­ly ties of Hillary Clin­ton Chief of Staff Huma Abe­din to the Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In 2010 the GMBDW report­ed on the rela­tion­ship with the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s new­ly appoint­ed Spe­cial Envoy to the Orga­ni­za­tion of Islam­ic Conference.

• In 2009, the GMBDW report­ed on the fam­i­ly ties of an Oba­ma Faith Advi­sor to the Egypt­ian Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In 2009, the GMBDW report­ed that sev­er­al Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood mem­bers had been invit­ed to attend Pres­i­dent Obama’s speech to the Mus­lim world in Cairo.

• In August 2008, the GMBDW report­ed that the Oba­ma cam­paign Mus­lim-out­reach coor­di­na­tor was part of mul­ti­ple orga­ni­za­tions tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

The GMBDW also doc­u­ment­ed numer­ous White House meet­ings involv­ing the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood dur­ing the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion. The rela­tion­ship of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Admin­is­tra­tions with the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood appears to have begun in 1996 when Hillary Clin­ton first invit­ed USMB lead­ers to a White House Iftar din­ner. The GMBDW judges that giv­en the already strong rela­tion­ship of Joe Biden with the USMB dur­ing the cam­paign, a Biden admin­is­tra­tion will like­ly see an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion and influ­ence by the USMB in the fed­er­al government.