Keith
Ellison’s Bad Week
You
know Keith Ellison, Minnesota congressman and aspiring DNC Chair, has had a bad
week when yesterday’s news about his imam’s views on homosexuality is the third or
fourth worst bit of news for him in the past day.
Admittedly,
they’re tough to rank. Probably atop the list is the
Anti-Defamation League statement declaring Ellison
unacceptable as the head of the Democratic
party:
When
Rep. Ellison’s candidacy to be chair of the Democratic National Committee was
first reported, ADL did not rush to judgment. Instead, we took a hard look at
the totality of his record on key issues on our agenda. We spoke to numerous
leaders in the community and to Mr. Ellison himself. ADL’s subsequent statement
on his candidacy appreciated his contrition on some matters, acknowledged areas
of commonality but clearly expressed real concern where Rep. Ellison held
divergent policy views, particularly related to Israel’s
security.
New
information recently has come to light that raises serious concerns about
whether Rep. Ellison faithfully could represent the Democratic Party’s
traditional support for a strong and secure Israel. In a speech recorded in 2010
to a group of supporters, Rep. Ellison is heard suggesting that American foreign
policy in the Middle East is driven by Israel, saying: “The United States
foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a
country of 7 million people. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7
million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right? When the Americans who
trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything
changes.”
Rep.
Ellison’s remarks are both deeply disturbing and disqualifying. His words imply
that U.S. foreign policy is based on religiously or national origin-based
special interests rather than simply on America’s best interests. Additionally,
whether intentional or not, his words raise the specter of age-old stereotypes
about Jewish control of our government, a poisonous myth that may persist in
parts of the world where intolerance thrives, but that has no place in open
societies like the U.S.
Ellison
says his remarks were “selectively edited and taken out
of context.”
Then
there’s the Free Beacon, finding unsavory details of Ellison’s 2008 trip to
Saudi Arabia:
Ellison,
now a leading candidate to head the Democratic National Committee, was brought
to Saudi Arabia for a two-week trip by the Muslim American Society (MAS), a
group founded by members of the Muslim
Brotherhood to act as its “overt arm” in the United
States.
Details
of Ellison’s religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia are scarce, but photographs
discovered by the Washington
Free Beacon show that Ellison met with controversial figures during
the trip.
A
photo album of Ellison’s hajj trip
posted by MAS’s Minnesota chapter includes a picture of the congressman meeting
with Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, who was vice president of a Muslim
Brotherhood-created group that in 2004 issued a fatwa urging “jihad” against U.S.
troops in Iraq and supported the Palestinians’ Second Intifada against
Israel.
Then
there’s Tim Ryan, unsuccessful challenger to Nancy Pelosi, declaring that the next Democratic National Committee
chair has to treat the job as a full-time job, a fairly commonsense perspective
that would either eliminate Ellison as an option or require him to resign from
the House.
Ellison
is also sure to face questions about his younger years as a member of the Nation of Islam and defender of Louis
Farrakhan for a decade. Ellison renounced his membership in 2006. Ellison’s
imam, Makram El-Amin, is also a former member of the Nation of Islam. El-Amin’s father
was a minister in the Nation of Islam and a bodyguard for Elijah Mohammad, the
founder.
No comments:
Post a Comment