A Veteran Brother Emerges to Lead the USCMO Political Agenda

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The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) used the November 2014 midterm elections to advance a number of its operational objectives through mobilization of Muslim voters in Illinois. Sabri Samirah, a political analyst and leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, led USCMO efforts to “get out the vote” in Illinois. As will be recalled, Samirah, former chairman of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) in North America, a direct HAMAS off-shoot and the parent organization of CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), returned to Chicago, Illinois earlier in 2014 after 11 years in exile abroad. Samirah, no stranger to the Illinois political arena, quickly assumed leadership of several organizations: he is President of the newly-established American and Middle Eastern Affairs Center Think Tank (AMEAC) and CEO of the Development Institute for Consultation & Training, LLC, (DICT). Prior to his 2003 deportation from the United States, Samirah previously had served as President of United Muslim Americans Association (UMAA) from 1999-2003. Now, playing on the same theme of Muslim unity, as Executive Director, he also heads another new organization called “UMMA” (not an acronym but the full name), established in September 2014 with its forthcoming website at www.OurUMMA.org.

Each of these organizations, described in more detail in following segments, played a role in the 2014 USCMO voter mobilization campaign and appears to be positioning itself to expanding that role further in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential elections. USCMO members actively helped coordinate a campaign to endorse statewide and federal political candidates viewed as accommodating toward Islam and shariah, including Illinois Republican Governor-elect, Bruce Rauner (who will be inaugurated in January 2015). This segment, the first of three, will highlight the emerging leadership role being played within the USCMO by Sabri Samirah.

While he is self-described as a “moderate, modern, Muslim, Arab American thinker;” Samirah has a history of associations with Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have called for the annihilation of worldwide Jewry and the nation of Israel. In 2003, the U.S. Department of State prohibited Samirah from entering this country within the scope of security measures implemented after the attacks of 11 September 2001. Officially, the “District Director of the Chicago INS Office, acting on behalf of the Attorney General, revoked his advance parole because the INS had received information that he was a ‘security risk to the United States.’” None of this prior background, however, deterred U.S. officials in 2014 from allowing him to return to the country, once again to take a key leadership position among Brotherhood-affiliated groups with a presence in Illinois and across the United States.

Just weeks after returning to the U.S., Samirah was a speaker at a 5 April 2014 fundraising dinner held by USCMO member group, the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). He was introduced as “a longtime global and national Palestinian activist.” Another role model singled out for praise at the event was Rasmieh Odeh, a convicted terrorist who spent ten years in an Israeli prison. At this AMP dinner, she was praised by master of ceremonies Rami Bleibel as “a great community member, a great member for the Palestinian cause.” Later, in November 2014, Odeh would be found guilty of illegally entering the U.S. in 1995 for failure to disclose her prior terrorist record in Israel. Following her October 2013 indictment, Odeh was charged with naturalization fraud and eventually found guilty in the federal court case USA v. Odeh, Rasmieh Yousef of illegally entering the U.S. in 1995, when she did not disclose either her PFLP affiliation or her conviction and prison time in Israel in paperwork filed with U.S. immigration authorities.

The following picture is a screenshot of Samirah’s Facebook page, showing him at the speaker’s podium during the April 2014 AMP gathering of Muslim Brotherhood leadership.

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One month later, during a May 2014 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Samirah expressed his desire for a lower profile in the U.S. His highly visible, proactive leadership at July 2014 anti-Israel demonstrations with thousands of HAMAS and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in downtown Chicago would seem to indicate otherwise, as would his eventual emergence in top leadership positions of a clutch of Brotherhood-affiliated organizations. USCMO member organizations and Samirah himself figured prominently in protests organized for 5 July 2014 in response to initial Israeli actions that followed a finding of HAMAS responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens. Operation Protective Edge, that galvanized a further wave of protests, was launched on 8 July. As photos on his own Facebook page show, Samirah was an active participant in those early anti-Israel demonstrations in downtown Chicago. The following screenshot is from his Facebook account on 6 July 2014.

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He even praised Ahmed Rehab (Chicago Executive Director, Council on American Islamic Relations) as “brilliant” on 16 July 2014 for his mockery of U.S. citizens deemed ignorant by Rehab for their support of Israel.

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A week later, Samirah made the following post to on his Facebook page demanding action to stop military aid to Israel, including amounts included in the 2015 U.S. Department of Defense Appropriations Act.

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Despite his absence from the United States for 11 years, Samirah’s speech on 26 July 2014 in downtown Chicago did not miss a beat in “advancing Justice for Palestine and the Palestinian people” when he addressed thousands of pro-HAMAS and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the streets. The following video of Samirah speaking was posted online and shows him rallying the demonstrators.

As shown in the following screenshot from his Facebook page on 27 July 2014, Samirah already was moving from grassroots organization to strategizing about how to mobilize voters in advance of the November 2014 midterm elections. To this end, he urged formation of a “Grassroots Unified Voting Bloc” that would energize Muslim voters to unify and collectively think and work on participating in those elections. As would become increasingly evident shortly, the Gaza and Palestinian focus was only an initial wedge issue – and the USCMO had its sights set on a much broader political spectrum than that.

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Indicative of his goal to reach a broader American electorate, and already having achieved a measure of success with the participation by Jews and Christians who also took to Chicago streets to protest Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, Samirah noted in a Facebook letter posted on 31 July 2014 that “I should not remind you of how constructive our status would be if, we have a real public and political influence in serving our causes in America and around the globe; i.e. the catastrophe, now, in Gaza.”

The new USCMO member Islamic Center of Wheaton, IL invited Samirah to deliver a Friday afternoon khutba or sermon on 1 August 2014. The following screenshot is a post made by Samirah on Facebook, where he is leading the khutba on the 1st of August at Islamic Center of Wheaton.

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Their selection of Samirah was not a surprise, as he had previously solidified a relationship with their leadership. As shown in the screenshot below from his Facebook page, he had been at the Islamic Center of Wheaton in March 2014 along with leadership from the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOG) to help fundraise for the newly-opened Center.

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The Islamic Center of Wheaton would officially join the USCMO in the early summer of 2014. Prior to December of 2013, this property purchased by the Islamic Center of Wheaton, formerly was a Christian church named the First Assembly of God, as shown in the following picture.

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The next picture shows a sign that currently greets passersby traveling through this heavily trafficked area.

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Also prior to his August 2014 Friday sermon at the Wheaton Islamic Center, Samirah delivered a khutba on 12 July 2014 at the Islamic Center in Claremont, California—another community concerned about perceptions that Islam may be linked to Islamic terrorism. In a November 2012 news report, Islamic centers leaders were asked to respond to the fact that three of the four men accused of planning a terrorist attack on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan were from Riverside, Pomona, and Upland. When Sam Badwan, the chairman of the board of directors of the Islamic Center of Claremont in Pomona, was interviewed about this, he expressed concern “that whenever anyone is arrested who claims to be planning terrorist attacks in the name of Islam, he and other Muslims always worry that misunderstandings of Islam will spread.”

The following screenshot is from Samirah’s Facebook page where he describes his activities as “Friday Khutba & Prayer, Taraweeh, and Fundraising for the Center.”

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As reported in The Muslim Observer on 12 August 2014, Samirah joined nationally and internationally renowned leadership and organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood as a signatory to the “End Israeli Aggression and Occupation” statement under his newly established think tank, the American and Middle Eastern Affairs Center (AMEAC).

Samirah also was a speaker at the USCMO member Islamic Circle of North America’s Midwest convention “Islam: Faith, Submission, Service” held on 15-17 August 2014 in Peoria, Illinois. The following is a screenshot of Samirah from his Facebook page showing him speaking at the podium during a main session about “Muslims around the World Series I: Egypt & Palestine: Where to?”

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At the end of August 2014, Samirah traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he addressed Muslim Brotherhood supporters at the Celebrating the Steadfastness of Gaza event sponsored by USCMO member American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

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These various examples of Samirah’s active leadership in Illinois and throughout the U.S. over the course of a few short months in 2014 suggest rather strongly that Samirah has been selected by top levels of the international Brotherhood leadership to help catalyze the next phases in the settlement process described in its 1991 document “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” It would seem, however, that that role, however well-received among the U.S. Ikhwan network, was not necessarily intended to be highlighted more publicly outside of it. Samirah may in fact be a bit more publicity-shy than generally thought: sometime towards late December 2014 or early January 2015, his three different Facebook accounts Sabri Samirah, Dr. Sabri Samirah Page / in English / US America, and American Middle-Eastern Affairs Center were completely deleted. Additionally, his professional LinkedIn account Dr. Sabri Samirah and Twitter account @sbribrahim vanished altogether. Even the Twitter account for Samirah’s UMMA organization @ourumma was scrubbed of activity with only three tweets left now; the Twitter account has dropped accounts it is following and has a reduced number of followers. And finally, the Project M/Project Mobilize website no longer exists.

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Center for Security Policy

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