Islamist Watch Monthly Newsletter - October 2017

October 2017 Newsletter Islamist Watch's monthly newsletter features our top blog posts and articles. This month, Islamist Watch's research fellow, Oren Litwin, examines the powerful influence of the SAAR network, a web of charities and business accused of financing terror. Political interference led to a criminal investigation against the network being dropped. We're calling on the government to re-open the case. Our steady focus on the international Islamist charity Islamic Relief continues. We report on the Bangladeshi government's decision to ban Islamic Relief and its partner charity Muslim Aid from providing aid to Rohingya refugees because of radicalization fears. As always, if you haven't already, please sign our petition against the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is subsidizing Islamic Relief's extremism. We continue to follow the growing divisions within American Islamism. This month, we explain the background to a lawsuit lodged by one extremist Salafi imam against another.  Make sure also to read our two pieces on the latest activities of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). And don't miss our exposé of yet another anti-Semitic hire at the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB). We will be publishing more information about the ISB and its seminary project soon. Stay tuned. If you or anyone you know is interested in interning with Islamist Watch, click here to find out more. And if you are interested in writing about Islamism for Islamist Watch, we would welcome your pitches. Send any ideas to submissions@islamist-watch.org   DONATE Terror Financing: It's Time to Take Care of Unfinished Business Under the Trump administration, American policy towards Islamist threats seems to be toughening. A reevaluation of America's stance toward Islamist threats is welcome; we badly need to correct the many missteps of previous administrations. In particular, this gives the United States the opportunity to revisit the sordid case of the SAAR network — an organization of Islamist terror financiers in the United States that has inexplicably escaped punishment. Read More Islamic Relief Banned from Rohingya Relief Effort On October 12, the Bangladeshi government barred two international Islamic charities from providing aid to the 500,000 Rohingya refugees who have entered the country from Myanmar since August. According to Mahjabeen Khaled, an MP for the ruling Awami League, Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief Worldwide are suspected of using their work as a cover to radicalize vulnerable Muslim refugees residing in the Cox's Bazar camps. Read more... Muslimedia Wants You to Think its Moderate Coming soon to a mosque near you: Muslimedia, a forum that promises to offer "blunt debate about the way journalists cover Muslims at home and abroad." For the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which organizes the events with the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the forum serves as an opportunity to deceive the press and attain legitimacy for its extremist worldview. Read more... When Islamists Fall Out The Bayyinah Institute, a Salafi religious training organization, has filed papers at the Dallas County District Court seeking at least $200,000 from Omar Suleiman, a prominent Salafi cleric and a former "instructor" at Bayyinah. Interestingly, Bayyinah's lawsuit was lodged just a week after a number of Muslim women claimed they had been sexually harassed by Nouman Ali Khan, the founder and CEO of Bayyinah. The harassment claims caused a powerful scandal within the American Muslim community, and was even reported in Buzzfeed and as far away as Pakistan. Read more... Georgetown University Stumps for the Brotherhood The Muslim "Brotherhood [MB] is traditionally a reformist, gradualist movement [which] is working on social change," stated the Egyptian MB member Amr Darrag at a Georgetown University panel last month. With that, Darrag and his fellow speaker, the British-Iraqi MB operative Anas Altikriti, added to Georgetown's longstanding history of enabling the MB's deceitful use of liberal language to mask totalitarian goals. Read more... Other Islamist Watch writings and research this month:   Most Important Islamism Stories in October 2017 This month's archive of links and excerpts to stories relating to Islamism both at home and abroad.   Obama and Northam Bring Islamists Together Lieutenant Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam has accepted over $6,000 in donations from figures linked to the SAAR Network, a web of organizations that funneled money to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and possibly Al-Qaida itself. CAIR Exploits a Tragedy There is no greater illustration of CAIR's duplicity and exploitation than the Los Angeles chapter's upcoming banquet. Only CAIR could offer "peace and love" along with violence and hate in the course of a single dinner.   Another Anti-Jewish Hire at the Islamic Society of Boston Abdul-Rahman posted a link to "The Ugly Truth," a website that describes itself as "intelligent 'anti-Semitism' for thinking Gentiles."