Two days before Independence Day, the federal government participated in an annual conference in a very big way. Federal agencies sponsored booths. A top aide to President Barack Obama spoke to conferees. The conference organizer was the Islamic Society of North America, whose name is innocent enough.
But it isn't an innocent group, which means Mr. Obama has some explaining to do that will likely never be done.
ISNA, according to government records, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the notorious and recently concluded Hamas terror-funding trial. Hamas, you will recall, is the infamous terror group fighting with Israel in the West Bank. Muslims operating sub rosa in the United States were funding the group, and recently-released government documents show that ISNA is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Which raises, of course, the question of what the Muslim Brotherhood is. It is an organization, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports, that wants to destroy the United States from within. According to the Brotherhood's documents, it must wage "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
In other words, ISNA's parent organization would impose Sharia law in the United States. As well, ISNA itself is tied to terrorists, a television news station in Indianopolis, Ind., has reported.
Which bring us back to the conference. Among the speakers at this Islamic gabfest was Warith Deen Umar, former head of chaplains in New York's prisons. He is concerned about the "Israelis" running the Obama Administration, meaning Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, who are Jewish. One of Umar's videos asks "Why do this small number of people have control of the world?" and explains that Jews were "punished [in the Holocaust] because they were serially disobedient to Allah." Umar also praises the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Suffice it to say, one wonders why Mr. Obama permitted Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser for Public Engagement and International Affairs, as well as the cabinet agencies, to participate in this radical group's soiree. Indeed, Ms. Jarrett not only participated but also invited ISNA's president to join her White House Council on Women and Girls. Given Islam's Koranically sanctioned misogyny, that is either a sick joke or Ms. Jarrett is totally out to lunch.
Besides Ms. Jarrett's inappropriate appearance, the State, Justice and Homeland Security departments, as well as the U.S. Navy, sponsored booths at the conference. Imagine what would happen if a president permitted an aide to speak, or cabinet agencies to operate booths, at a Christian conference where similar things were said or sold.
During his campaign, Mr. Obama protested that people who called him a Muslim were smearing him. Now, he cuddles with Muslim potentates abroad and hops into bed with the domestic variety, the latter group closely tied to terrorist funding.
This has to end. It's about time for Mr. Obama to treat "mainstream" Muslim groups with the suspicion they deserve, and recognize that Islam is not a religion but rather a totalitarian political ideology.
Neither will likely come to pass. We can only hope it won't take another 9/11 to rouse Mr. Obama from his slumber.