Joe Kaufman: Young Muslim's Secret Camp

Young Muslims’ Secret Camp

By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com August 1, 2006

The Young Muslims are in hiding. They are hiding the location of their August 2^nd youth camp, and the public has a right to know why.

The Young Muslims (YM) was founded well over a decade ago, as a subsidiary of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), an organization that was created specifically to emulate the violent Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami. Through ICNA, YM holds events that feature as speakers some of the most radical individuals in the Islamic community. These events include youth camps, which, prior to the attacks on 9/11, were referred to as “jihad camps.”

The latest YM camp, themed ‘Deen and Dunya: Finding the Balance,’ will be held tomorrow, August 2^nd through August 6^th. The organization has worked hard to keep the location of the destination under wraps. On the YM website, people are explicitly told not to discuss the matter.

Originally, the event was to be held in Villanova, Pennsylvania, at the 23-acre Foundation for Islamic Education (FIE), where many YM events are held throughout the year. [This includes one last April featuring UK Imam Sheik Riyadh ul-Haq, who, just two months later, was banned from entering Canada, “because his views could incite terror and hatred.”] However, the camp was to be a five-day affair – a violation of local zoning regulations – and after years of infractions perpetrated by FIE, the residents complained and got the Township of Lower Merion, where FIE is located, to threaten an injunction against the group.

YM had previously held its August 2004 camp at FIE, the theme of which was ‘A Few Good Men.’ Controversy erupted over it, when, shortly before the camp was to begin, one of the invited speakers, Mazen Mokhtar, had his house raided and his computers confiscated by the FBI. Mokhtar, currently the Youth Director for the New Jersey chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS), prior to 9/11, created a mirror (replica) website of a site that raised funds and recruited terror fighters for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The site was also used as a portal to the official website of Hamas, a group that Mokhtar has called “heroic.” He has also said he supports suicide bombings.

Mokhtar was an invitee to lecture at this year’s camp, as well. The “confirmed” list of speakers are as follows:

• Siraj Wahhaj, the Imam of the Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn and an individual listed as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, who has stated about the United States in a taped sermon, “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

• Abdul Malik, the chaplain of the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority and former Office Manager of CAIR-New York, who likened President George W. Bush to a “slave master” and, in a speech entitled ‘Service to Society: The Key to Reformation,’ stated, “Assalam alaikum [crowd responds: ‘wa alaikum assalam’]. I look forward to hearing that one day in the White House, and then paint it black.” And “…we don’t want to democratize Islam, we want to Islamize democracy.”

• Faisal Hamouda, who is a leading volunteer for Islamic Relief, a charity that Israel has named a front for Hamas.

• Nouman Ali Khan, a former representative of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), who, in February of 2005, gave a speech sponsored by the MSA of Hofstra University, entitled ‘Preparation for Death.’

• Shamsi Ali, the Deputy Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and Director of the Jamaica Muslim Center, who was the moderator at a February 2006 demonstration against Danish cartoons of Muhammad held outside the Danish Consulate in Manhattan, where a poster was seen being waived which read, “Insult the Prophet, you will pay, Allah’s wrath is on the way.”

• Amin Abdul Latif, the President (Ameer) of Majlis Ashura of NYC in Brooklyn, who signed his name to an open letter to President Bush in support of Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), the Islamist organization responsible for the creation of the terror group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).

The speakers are not the only problem with the YM camp. There is also a problem with the campers. Numerous pictures from previous camps depict the children fighting each other, as their fellow camp-mates stand around watching. It is not apparent whether or not there is any supervision while this is occurring, but given who their guest speakers are, that probably doesn’t make much of a difference.

One reason why the members of Young Muslims don’t want the location of tomorrow’s camp divulged is because there may be more impediments – zoning or otherwise – with the new locale, which could cause a cancellation. A further explanation could be because they don’t want what is being said by their guest speakers known to the public. Yet another reason could be far far worse. But we won’t know, because they’re not telling.

Law enforcement needs to find out -- now.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.

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Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the host of The Politics of Terrorism radio show.