Rashad Hussain's comments on Sami Al-Arian
Encyclopedia
Rashad Hussain's comments on Sami Al-Arian, became the subject of national coverage after Rashad Hussain
was appointed United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in February 2010. The controversy concerned remarks made by Hussain in 2004, criticizing the U.S. terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian
. He "drew sharp criticism from conservatives for calling the prosecution of some terror suspects 'politically motivated,' a comment both Hussain and The White House initially denied," but which was audible on a tape obtained by Politico. The conservative criticism became more vocal when it was discovered that the comments had been removed from an article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
(WRMEA). The Council on Foreign Relations
stated that, "The controversy led to a larger question of whether the United States should engage the Organization of Islamic Conference diplomatically."
at a Muslim Students Association conference in Chicago
. With him on the panel was Laila Al-Arian, a daughter of Sami Al-Arian, who at the time was the subject of an ongoing terrorism-related prosecution. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist
" organization, was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and ordered deported following his prison term. In November 2006 he was held in civil contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury
. He served 13 months in prison on that. In March 2008, the United States Department of Justice
subpoena
ed Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury. He refused to testify, and prosecutors charged him with criminal contempt in June 2008. As of January 2009, Al-Arian remained under house arrest
, as he awaits trial on criminal contempt charges.
During the 2004 panel discussion, and following Laila Al-Arian's comments, Hussain made critical statements about the U.S. terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, allegedly calling them "politically motivated persecutions." According to "Politico", a web-based newspaper that obtained a copy of the conference recording, "While the audio shows that Hussain did utter the phrase “politically motivated persecution
s” in the midst of his discussion about Sami Al-Arian, another comment Kandil attributed to Hussain, describing Al-Arian as being “used politically to squash dissent
,” is not audible in the recording POLITICO obtained, which cuts off before any question-and-answer period."
reported that Hussain's comments:
reported that, "Around three years after the WRMEA article quoting Hussain first appeared, it was edited to remove all references to him."
of Fox News reported that The White House attributed the "controversial remarks defending al-Arian" to Laila al-Arian. Later, Jake Tapper
, the Senior White House Correspondent for ABC News
, reported that the "controversy was all the more confusing because the remarks were reported in the WRMEA in 2004, but the editor
, Delinda Hanley, later removed the comments from the Web site, though she didn't recall why."
In an email to Politico, Delinda C. Hanley, editor of the WRMEA, wrote that "Laila Al-Arian said the things attributed to Rashad Hussain, and an intern who attended the event and wrote up the article made an error, which was corrected on our Web site by deleting the two quotes in their entirety."
Later, in the April 2010 edition of WRMEA, Hanley wrote:
The then-intern who reported Hussain's comments, Shereen Kandil, who currently also works for the Obama administration, stated that she quoted the comments accurately. Kandil told Fox News that she would never confuse the two individuals, and stated that if "I quoted someone, it's because they said it," adding that she no longer works for the magazine and was surprised to learn of the changes." Kandil also told Cybercast News Service that:
At first Hussain "implied that the comments were misreported and that they came from Laila Al-Arian, the daughter of Al-Arian and another panelist at the conference." Hussain later stated that when he "saw the article that attributed comments to me without context, leaving a misimpression, I contacted the publication to raise concerns about it. Eventually, of their own accord, they modified the article.”
article titled Rashad Hussain, a Muslim and new U.S. envoy, is bridge between two worlds, Hussain is quoted as saying that his "extensive writings on this topic make it clear that I condemn terrorism unequivocally in all its forms. I'd be happy to put that against one sentence from 2004 that I believe was taken out of context." In his May 11, 2010 interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Hussain was asked, "During your studies in law college in University of Yale you have criticize Sami Al-Aryan’s trial and you have considered it represents a kind of politically motivated prosecution. Do you think that the courts in U.S. still suffer from identification of terrorism with the Muslims?" Hussain responded, "You know in that case that I said very clearly on the panel that I wasn’t commenting on any of the specific allegations on him but I was making a comment about the process that was used in that case."
, and fear instead of cooperation. They set in motion a hurtful smear campaign to make the president withdraw the appointment.” According to Hanley, "It’s not only Muslim Americans who should be concerned about attempts to stifle free speech. While the attack on Rashad Hussein might look as though it is aimed at Muslims, in fact the ultimate goal is to prevent all Americans from understanding that Islam
, along with Judaism
and Christianity
, is one of the three monotheistic religions born in the Middle East, and that Muslims are as much a part of the Abrahamic tradition as Christians and Jews."
Marc Lynch
, the Associate Professor of Political Science
and International Affairs
at The George Washington University described the response as a "hit piece" that was:
have launched a vitriolic campaign against Indian American Rashad Hussain. They pilloried President Barack Obama for appointing him as Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference and called for Hussain's ouster, calling him a 'voice of radical Islam.'" M Junaid Levesque-Alam, of the Asia Times
wrote that "conservatives have gleefully cooked up charges against Muslims" including Rashad Hussain.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
, an American counter-terrorism
expert, wrote that "Though I strongly disagree with Rashad's 2004 comment (which he now describes as "ill conceived or not well formulated"), it does not justify the overblown attacks on Rashad: in my experiences with him, I know this kind of intemperate remark as the exception rather than the rule." Journalist Don Rich wrote that Gartenstein-Ross' article is "the best article I have seen about the Rashad Hussain controversy," and that "Rashad Hussain cannot be accused of defending just your garden variety madrassa going never been laid before jihaddist with a born to lose tattoo (movie Heat) on his forehead waiting for the next bus to immolate himself on." Josh Goldberg, a high school debate partner of Hussain's, stated that, "When Rashad joined the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice
in 2008, I received the standard background check
phone call. And as the interviewer asked me about Rashad, two words stood out – character and integrity." Faheem Al-Hamid, of the Saudi Gazette
, wrote that "Hussain was bitterly criticized in the US for critical comments about George Bush administration’s approach to terrorism." Soroor Ahmed, of the Radiance Viewsweekly, stated that "If a scholar of his stature can be dubbed a terrorist for supposedly making a comment in a democratic platform, the fate of others can just be imagined."
wrote that, "It is unfortunate that the U.S. Senate is not required to confirm special envoys. Hussain should be asked about his ideology and associations. If he is to represent America, he should represent what America stands for and not a personal ideological or religious agenda that is not just un-American, but anti-American." Author Ben Shapiro
said that Hussain's "intent isn't to protect the United States – it's to protect Muslims globally (including radical Muslims) from having to face additional scrutiny at the airports or in the press." According to writer Robert Spencer, Hussain "is an apposite choice for this position, since several years ago he defended a notorious U.S.-based leader of a jihad terrorist group, and that "Hussain attempted to whitewash the record of his statements about al-Arian by having the magazine in which they appeared alter its online archive." Journalist Hugh Fitzgerald wrote in Jihad Watch
that "Rashad Hussain made comments in 2004 at a public meeting that suggested that he believed that the prosecution of domestic Muslim terrorists, in many high-profile cases, was not warranted but was, rather, "politically motivated" – a belief, or a charge, that takes as its corollary the notion that those accused of terrorism in the cases Rashad Hussain cited were innocent. But while the American judges and juries disposing of the cases he cited appeared not to have been quite so convinced of the defendants' innocence as was Rashad Hussain, the most disturbing of all of his examples was the case of Sami al-Arian, the South Florida tenured professor who turned out to be in up to his neck in support of, and connections with others who were operatives of, Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
Steven Emerson
, a journalist who writes on national security issues, wrote "It turns out Rashad Hussain, the new White House envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, does remember blasting the Justice Department for "politically motivated prosecutions" during a 2004 panel discussion." Daniel Pipes
, an American academic, wrote that "Rashad Hussain, Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has run into a problem: He appears to be an Islamist. The evidence largely concerns a public statement he made six years ago." Journalist Jennifer Rubin
wrote, "Hussain is the designated man to continue the suck-uppery to the “Muslim World,” which Obama was personally conducting in Cairo and via his televised addressed to the Iranian Supreme Leader at the start of his presidency." Rubin also wrote that "The president’s choice to represent us to the OIC complained that a convicted terrorist was the victim of political persecution. Max Boot
, a military historian, said "Hussain has been accused of being, essentially, a terrorist sympathizer.
The Zionist Organization of America
published a press release that stated, "The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the Obama Administration for appointing an apologist for Islamist causes, Rashad Hussain, as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)." Journalist Claudia Rosett
wrote in Forbes Magazine that a controversy "is swirling around President Barack Obama's choice of a young American Muslim lawyer, Rashad Hussain, to serve as his special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Behind this fracas looms the even larger question of whether the U.S. should be sending the OIC any special envoy at all." Blogger Ed Lasky, of American Thinker, said that Hussain was, "caught fabricating his own personal history." In addition, Scott W. Johnson
of Power Line
devoted five critical articles concerning Hussain's comments and their deletion from the WRMEA website. Morton Klein
wrote in Algemeiner that Hussain is an "Islamist apologists" who "once denounced what he called the “politically motivated persecution” of Sami Al-Arian, the Florida professor found to have been illegally funding the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad." Pamela Geller
wrote in the American Thinker that Hussain "characterized the Bush Administration's prosecution of Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian as a witchhunt."
After Hussain's statement, the White House said it "is expressing its confidence in Hussain, despite his concession last week that he made ill-considered statements in 2004 about Bush
-era terrorism prosecutions." White House press secretary
Robert Gibbs
said, “We continue to have confidence. This is an individual that has written extensively on why some have used religious devices like the Qur'an to justify this [terrorism] and why that is absolutely wrong. And has garnered support from both the left and the right so we obviously have confidence.”
In the New York Times article, White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S., written by Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
journalist Andrea Elliott
, Congressman Keith Ellison
of the Minnesota's 5th congressional district said “Rashad Hussain is about as squeaky clean as you get.” Elliott reported that Congressman Ellison and others "wondered whether the administration would buckle under the pressure and were relieved when the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, defended Mr. Hussain." Ingrid Mattson
, president of the Islamic Society of North America
, said “The fact that the president and the administration have appointed Muslims to positions and have stood by them when they’ve been attacked is the best we can hope for."
Rashad Hussain
Rashad Hussain , is an American attorney, and U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation , an intergovernmental group with 57 member states. Hussain, a Muslim of Indian heritage, has served in the White House Counsel's Office, and in his role as Envoy, has advised the...
was appointed United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in February 2010. The controversy concerned remarks made by Hussain in 2004, criticizing the U.S. terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian
Sami Al-Arian
Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian , is a former resident of Temple Terrace, Florida, now living in Northern Virginia, who is a Muslim activist, and former University of South Florida professor of computer engineering...
. He "drew sharp criticism from conservatives for calling the prosecution of some terror suspects 'politically motivated,' a comment both Hussain and The White House initially denied," but which was audible on a tape obtained by Politico. The conservative criticism became more vocal when it was discovered that the comments had been removed from an article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine, published nine times per year in Washington, D.C., focuses on "news and analysis from and about the Middle East and U.S...
(WRMEA). The Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
stated that, "The controversy led to a larger question of whether the United States should engage the Organization of Islamic Conference diplomatically."
Background and comments
In 2004, Rashad Hussain was on a panel discussion on civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
at a Muslim Students Association conference in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. With him on the panel was Laila Al-Arian, a daughter of Sami Al-Arian, who at the time was the subject of an ongoing terrorism-related prosecution. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist
Specially Designated Terrorist
A Specially Designated Terrorist is any person who is determined by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to be a specially designated terrorist under notices or regulations issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control ....
" organization, was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and ordered deported following his prison term. In November 2006 he was held in civil contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
. He served 13 months in prison on that. In March 2008, the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
ed Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury. He refused to testify, and prosecutors charged him with criminal contempt in June 2008. As of January 2009, Al-Arian remained under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
, as he awaits trial on criminal contempt charges.
During the 2004 panel discussion, and following Laila Al-Arian's comments, Hussain made critical statements about the U.S. terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, allegedly calling them "politically motivated persecutions." According to "Politico", a web-based newspaper that obtained a copy of the conference recording, "While the audio shows that Hussain did utter the phrase “politically motivated persecution
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...
s” in the midst of his discussion about Sami Al-Arian, another comment Kandil attributed to Hussain, describing Al-Arian as being “used politically to squash dissent
Dissent
Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity...
,” is not audible in the recording POLITICO obtained, which cuts off before any question-and-answer period."
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs article
The PoliticoThe Politico
The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
reported that Hussain's comments:
Cybercast News Service
were deleted from a report on the conference that first appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), a magazine on the region with articles from the ArabArabArab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
and MuslimMuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
perspectives. In the current version of the story on the Washington Report’s website, there is no reference to Hussain’s comments, or even that he appeared at the 2004 conference. But earlier, cached versions of the same story do include the comments—initially adding to the mystery of why they were taken out and at whose request. The discrepancy was first noted last Sunday in a story in the web-based Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.
Cybercast News Service
The CNSNews.com , formerly called the Conservative News Service, is an American news website owned by the Media Research Center.-Background:...
reported that, "Around three years after the WRMEA article quoting Hussain first appeared, it was edited to remove all references to him."
Removal of comments
Originally journalist Shannon BreamShannon Bream
Shannon Bream is an American journalist for the Fox News Channel. She is Fox News's Supreme Court reporter as well as the Anchor of America's News Headquarters on Sundays from 12:00-2:00 p.m...
of Fox News reported that The White House attributed the "controversial remarks defending al-Arian" to Laila al-Arian. Later, Jake Tapper
Jake Tapper
Jacob Paul "Jake" Tapper is an American print and television journalist, currently the senior White House correspondent for ABC News in Washington, D.C...
, the Senior White House Correspondent for ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
, reported that the "controversy was all the more confusing because the remarks were reported in the WRMEA in 2004, but the editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
, Delinda Hanley, later removed the comments from the Web site, though she didn't recall why."
In an email to Politico, Delinda C. Hanley, editor of the WRMEA, wrote that "Laila Al-Arian said the things attributed to Rashad Hussain, and an intern who attended the event and wrote up the article made an error, which was corrected on our Web site by deleting the two quotes in their entirety."
Later, in the April 2010 edition of WRMEA, Hanley wrote:
Four or five years after the above item was published, this writer received a phone call or a phone message, I honestly can’t remember, on a date I can’t recall—we get so many calls I’m lucky if I can remember a conversation a week later!—saying Hussain had been misquoted in Kandil’s article. I don’t remember if it was a misquote or misattribution and, since Kandil had left the magazine years ago, I did not contact her. But I do remember asking our webmaster to remove the quote in question—because this sequence of events was unusual. Normally we publish a correction or objection as a letter to the editor (see, respectively, p. 6 of this issue and the letter from Daniel Pipes on p. 3 of our October 2001 issue). Years after the fact, however, that seemed pointless. Now that oversight has come back to haunt me—and, more importantly, hurt Obama’s envoy pick.
The then-intern who reported Hussain's comments, Shereen Kandil, who currently also works for the Obama administration, stated that she quoted the comments accurately. Kandil told Fox News that she would never confuse the two individuals, and stated that if "I quoted someone, it's because they said it," adding that she no longer works for the magazine and was surprised to learn of the changes." Kandil also told Cybercast News Service that:
When I worked as a reporter at WRMEA, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, and accurately. I have never mixed my sources and wouldn’t have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila al-Arian. If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you’re saying. They never once contacted me about an ‘error’ they claim I made.’
At first Hussain "implied that the comments were misreported and that they came from Laila Al-Arian, the daughter of Al-Arian and another panelist at the conference." Hussain later stated that when he "saw the article that attributed comments to me without context, leaving a misimpression, I contacted the publication to raise concerns about it. Eventually, of their own accord, they modified the article.”
Response
In The Washington PostThe Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
article titled Rashad Hussain, a Muslim and new U.S. envoy, is bridge between two worlds, Hussain is quoted as saying that his "extensive writings on this topic make it clear that I condemn terrorism unequivocally in all its forms. I'd be happy to put that against one sentence from 2004 that I believe was taken out of context." In his May 11, 2010 interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Hussain was asked, "During your studies in law college in University of Yale you have criticize Sami Al-Aryan’s trial and you have considered it represents a kind of politically motivated prosecution. Do you think that the courts in U.S. still suffer from identification of terrorism with the Muslims?" Hussain responded, "You know in that case that I said very clearly on the panel that I wasn’t commenting on any of the specific allegations on him but I was making a comment about the process that was used in that case."
Defense
Delinda C. Hanley, editor of WRMEA wrote that; "The appointment of an accomplished lawyer, a respected member of the American Muslim community, and a close and trusted member of Obama’s White House staff was intended to strengthen dialogue with the Muslim world. This did not sit well with numerous right-wing blogs and Web sites, however, whose raison d’être seems to be promoting the clash of civilizationsClash of Civilizations
The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world....
, and fear instead of cooperation. They set in motion a hurtful smear campaign to make the president withdraw the appointment.” According to Hanley, "It’s not only Muslim Americans who should be concerned about attempts to stifle free speech. While the attack on Rashad Hussein might look as though it is aimed at Muslims, in fact the ultimate goal is to prevent all Americans from understanding that Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, along with Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, is one of the three monotheistic religions born in the Middle East, and that Muslims are as much a part of the Abrahamic tradition as Christians and Jews."
Marc Lynch
Marc Lynch
Marc Lynch is an "Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs" at The George Washington University, where he is also director of both the Institute for Middle East Studies and the Middle East Studies Program. Lynch is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for a New...
, the Associate Professor of Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
and International Affairs
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
at The George Washington University described the response as a "hit piece" that was:
quickly picked up by the noise machine and disseminated through a range of right wing blogs and websites, migrating seamlessly to Fox News and Politico, and becoming the fodder for another manufactured scandal of the day. Within days, it has become standard to describe Hussain as a "terrorist sympathizer"... and the hate is flowing. It is no less despicable for being so commonplace. One irony is that Hussain is actually one of those Muslims who has been speaking out against extremism, forcefully and eloquently, and whose role in Muslim engagement was explicitly focused on building alliances with Muslims around the world to marginalize al-QaedaJournalist Haniffa Aziz wrote in Rediff that "Right wing US conservatives led by the likes of nationally-syndicated columnist Cal ThomasAl-QaedaAl-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
.
Cal Thomas
John Calvin "Cal" Thomas is an American conservative syndicated columnist, pundit, author and radio commentator.-Life and career:...
have launched a vitriolic campaign against Indian American Rashad Hussain. They pilloried President Barack Obama for appointing him as Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference and called for Hussain's ouster, calling him a 'voice of radical Islam.'" M Junaid Levesque-Alam, of the Asia Times
Asia Times
Asia Times was a newspaper launched in Thailand by Thai tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul in 1995. The newspaper hired talent from around the world to produce a regional English-language newspaper....
wrote that "conservatives have gleefully cooked up charges against Muslims" including Rashad Hussain.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is an American counter-terrorism expert and attorney living in Washington D.C. He is the Director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. He frequently consults on counter-terrorism...
, an American counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...
expert, wrote that "Though I strongly disagree with Rashad's 2004 comment (which he now describes as "ill conceived or not well formulated"), it does not justify the overblown attacks on Rashad: in my experiences with him, I know this kind of intemperate remark as the exception rather than the rule." Journalist Don Rich wrote that Gartenstein-Ross' article is "the best article I have seen about the Rashad Hussain controversy," and that "Rashad Hussain cannot be accused of defending just your garden variety madrassa going never been laid before jihaddist with a born to lose tattoo (movie Heat) on his forehead waiting for the next bus to immolate himself on." Josh Goldberg, a high school debate partner of Hussain's, stated that, "When Rashad joined the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
in 2008, I received the standard background check
Background check
A background check or background investigation is the process of looking up and compiling criminal records, commercial records and financial records of an individual....
phone call. And as the interviewer asked me about Rashad, two words stood out – character and integrity." Faheem Al-Hamid, of the Saudi Gazette
Saudi Gazette
Saudi Gazette is the leading English language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia. and is currently available both in print and online.As of July 1, 2011, Dr Omar S. Elmershedi is the Saudi Gazette Editor-in-Chief.Managing Editor: Shams Ahsan...
, wrote that "Hussain was bitterly criticized in the US for critical comments about George Bush administration’s approach to terrorism." Soroor Ahmed, of the Radiance Viewsweekly, stated that "If a scholar of his stature can be dubbed a terrorist for supposedly making a comment in a democratic platform, the fate of others can just be imagined."
Critical response
Ryan Mauro, of FrontPage Magazine, wrote that, "Hussain’s past association with Muslim Brotherhood-connected entities raises major questions about the type of outreach he envisions for the Muslim world." Syndicated columnist Cal ThomasCal Thomas
John Calvin "Cal" Thomas is an American conservative syndicated columnist, pundit, author and radio commentator.-Life and career:...
wrote that, "It is unfortunate that the U.S. Senate is not required to confirm special envoys. Hussain should be asked about his ideology and associations. If he is to represent America, he should represent what America stands for and not a personal ideological or religious agenda that is not just un-American, but anti-American." Author Ben Shapiro
Ben Shapiro
Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator, radio talk show host, attorney, and media consultant. A native of Los Angeles, Shapiro graduated from high school at age 16 and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard Law School...
said that Hussain's "intent isn't to protect the United States – it's to protect Muslims globally (including radical Muslims) from having to face additional scrutiny at the airports or in the press." According to writer Robert Spencer, Hussain "is an apposite choice for this position, since several years ago he defended a notorious U.S.-based leader of a jihad terrorist group, and that "Hussain attempted to whitewash the record of his statements about al-Arian by having the magazine in which they appeared alter its online archive." Journalist Hugh Fitzgerald wrote in Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch is a blog affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is run independently by American author Robert Spencer. It is considered an important platform for the counterjihad movement....
that "Rashad Hussain made comments in 2004 at a public meeting that suggested that he believed that the prosecution of domestic Muslim terrorists, in many high-profile cases, was not warranted but was, rather, "politically motivated" – a belief, or a charge, that takes as its corollary the notion that those accused of terrorism in the cases Rashad Hussain cited were innocent. But while the American judges and juries disposing of the cases he cited appeared not to have been quite so convinced of the defendants' innocence as was Rashad Hussain, the most disturbing of all of his examples was the case of Sami al-Arian, the South Florida tenured professor who turned out to be in up to his neck in support of, and connections with others who were operatives of, Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
Steven Emerson
Steven Emerson
Steven Emerson, is an American journalist and author, who writes about national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism.Emerson is the author of six books, and co-author of two more. His television documentary Jihad in America won the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary, and...
, a journalist who writes on national security issues, wrote "It turns out Rashad Hussain, the new White House envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, does remember blasting the Justice Department for "politically motivated prosecutions" during a 2004 panel discussion." Daniel Pipes
Daniel Pipes
Daniel Pipes is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and its Campus Watch project, and editor of its Middle East Quarterly journal...
, an American academic, wrote that "Rashad Hussain, Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has run into a problem: He appears to be an Islamist. The evidence largely concerns a public statement he made six years ago." Journalist Jennifer Rubin
Jennifer Rubin (journalist)
Jennifer Rubin is an American columnist and a blogger for the Washington Post. Previously she worked at Commentary Magazine, the Pajamas Media, Human Events, and the Weekly Standard...
wrote, "Hussain is the designated man to continue the suck-uppery to the “Muslim World,” which Obama was personally conducting in Cairo and via his televised addressed to the Iranian Supreme Leader at the start of his presidency." Rubin also wrote that "The president’s choice to represent us to the OIC complained that a convicted terrorist was the victim of political persecution. Max Boot
Max Boot
Max Boot is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian. He has been a prominent advocate for American power. He once described his ideas as "American might to promote American ideals." He self-identifies as a conservative, once joking that "I grew up in the...
, a military historian, said "Hussain has been accused of being, essentially, a terrorist sympathizer.
The Zionist Organization of America
Zionist Organization of America
The Zionist Organization of America , founded in 1897, was one of the first official Zionist organizations in the United States, and, especially early in the 20th century, the primary representative of Jewish Americans to the World Zionist Organization, espousing primarily Political Zionism.Today,...
published a press release that stated, "The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the Obama Administration for appointing an apologist for Islamist causes, Rashad Hussain, as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)." Journalist Claudia Rosett
Claudia Rosett
Claudia Rosett is an American writer and journalist. She is journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute based in Washington, D.C. A former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, she writes a weekly column for Forbes, blogs for Pajamas Media, and...
wrote in Forbes Magazine that a controversy "is swirling around President Barack Obama's choice of a young American Muslim lawyer, Rashad Hussain, to serve as his special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Behind this fracas looms the even larger question of whether the U.S. should be sending the OIC any special envoy at all." Blogger Ed Lasky, of American Thinker, said that Hussain was, "caught fabricating his own personal history." In addition, Scott W. Johnson
Scott W. Johnson
Scott W. Johnson is an American lawyer, executive and a blogger at Power Line.- Legal and business career :Johnson was born in Fargo, North Dakota to a Jewish family...
of Power Line
Power Line
Power Line is an American political blog, providing news and commentary from a conservative point-of-view. It was originally written by three lawyers who attended Dartmouth College together: John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff...
devoted five critical articles concerning Hussain's comments and their deletion from the WRMEA website. Morton Klein
Morton Klein
Morton A. Klein is currently president of ZOA, The Zionist Organization of America.- ZOA :In 1993, while serving as the organization’s Philadelphia chapter president, he was elected national president....
wrote in Algemeiner that Hussain is an "Islamist apologists" who "once denounced what he called the “politically motivated persecution” of Sami Al-Arian, the Florida professor found to have been illegally funding the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad." Pamela Geller
Pamela Geller
Pamela Geller is an American blogger, author, political activist, and commentator. She is known primarily for her criticisms of Islam and opposition to Muslim activities and causes, such as the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near the former site of the World Trade Center...
wrote in the American Thinker that Hussain "characterized the Bush Administration's prosecution of Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian as a witchhunt."
Aftermath
Hussain later acknowledged that he was accurately quoted in 2004 as calling the treatment of Sami al-Arian as an example of “politically motivated persecutions.” Hussain made the admission after Politico acquired an audio recording of the Muslim Students Association event, and his comments. Hussain stated that he "made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated." Hussain had previously said, through a White House spokesmen, that he could not recall making the statements.After Hussain's statement, the White House said it "is expressing its confidence in Hussain, despite his concession last week that he made ill-considered statements in 2004 about Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
-era terrorism prosecutions." White House press secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
Robert Gibbs
Robert Gibbs
Robert Lane Gibbs was the 28th White House Press Secretary. Gibbs was the communications director for then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign...
said, “We continue to have confidence. This is an individual that has written extensively on why some have used religious devices like the Qur'an to justify this [terrorism] and why that is absolutely wrong. And has garnered support from both the left and the right so we obviously have confidence.”
In the New York Times article, White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S., written by Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing has been awarded since 1979 for a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award.-List of winners and their...
journalist Andrea Elliott
Andrea Elliott
Andrea Elliott is an American journalist and a reporter for The New York Times. She received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for a series of articles on an Egyptian-born imam living in Brooklyn.-Biography:...
, Congressman Keith Ellison
Keith Ellison (politician)
Keith Maurice Ellison is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. The district centers on Minneapolis. He was re-elected in 2010. Ellison is a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.He is the first Muslim to be elected to the...
of the Minnesota's 5th congressional district said “Rashad Hussain is about as squeaky clean as you get.” Elliott reported that Congressman Ellison and others "wondered whether the administration would buckle under the pressure and were relieved when the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, defended Mr. Hussain." Ingrid Mattson
Ingrid Mattson
Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian Muslim convert professor and activist and a former president of the Islamic Society of North America ....
, president of the Islamic Society of North America
Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America , based in Plainfield, Indiana, USA, is a Muslim umbrella group. It has been described in the media as the largest Muslim organization in North America.-History:...
, said “The fact that the president and the administration have appointed Muslims to positions and have stood by them when they’ve been attacked is the best we can hope for."