Eyes Wide Shut There are none so blind as those who will not see the real Abdurahman Alamoudi
Macomber, Shawn
Eyes Wide Shut There are none so blind as those who would not see the real Abdurahman Alamoudi. BY SHAWN MACOMBER F A HOLLYWOOD STUDIO WERE TO RELEASE A FILM resembling Abdurahman...
...Dennis Kucinich...
...Even at this late date, he managed to hold himself up as a moderate practitioner of Islam...
...He said he had something for Alamoudi...
...In subsequent interviews with British officials from the National Terrorist Financial Investigations Unit, Alamoudi explained that fundraising for his charitable group, the American Muslim Foundation, an offshoot of the American Muslim Council, was "a constant struggle...
...Dialogue, perhaps, such as this gem Crossfire, but also on midday fluff talk shows where people called in to ask him questions about everyday Muslim life in America...
...The FBI has a history of harassing and harming minority and immigrant communities...
...By all accounts, however, he remained in control and kept a busy schedule...
...Alamoudi could be cruel himself...
...The Jewish Community Center...
...Alamoudi was routinely quoted as an expert on Islam in America in the nation's most prominent newspapers, from USA Today and the New York Times to the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times...
...THOSE WHO CHOSE TO PLAY THE GAME with Alamoudi are left desperately trying to put a good face on an increasingly bad situation...
...Arranged neatly inside was $340,000, conveniently strapped in bundles of sequentially numbered $100 bills...
...Anybody support Hamas here...
...Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and now presidential-candidate Ohio Rep...
...Can we really believe Hillary's professions of ignorance...
...But, then, so did Yasser Arafat...
...It's a legal fight...
...I think that the attacks that are being executed by bin Laden and other Islamic groups are wrong, especially hitting the civilian targets...
...We have other means to do it...
...The much-maligned Libyan government was only too happy to help, it seems...
...How kind indeed...
...If the crack research team at the FBI had looked at the AMC website in the aftermath of September 11, however, this is what it would have found under the heading, The Law Says You Don't Have to Talk to the FBI: "The FBI is looking for information to use against you, your family and/or your community...
...When these comments were reported in the Washington Post, political contributions were returned, and Alamoudi was forced to take a back seat in the AMC...
...Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent Brett Gentrup, Alamoudi resembles the very sort of stereotype he has denounced as unrealistic for years...
...On October 28, 2000, Alamoudi boldly addressed a cheering crowd in Lafayette Park, near the White House: "I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas...
...He gave money, both his own and the AMC's, to a diverse roster of political candidates, from conservative Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire to fringe leftists Rep...
...Wire are all supporters of llamas...
...The United States government had not, however, forgotten the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland...
...Alamoudi transferred the money to his own luggage, left the Samsonite for the maid to deal with, and headed off to board a plane at Heathrow Airport...
...How gracious...
...Yes, the AMC issued a condemnation of the September 11 attacks...
...In light of his current predicament, some of Alamoudi's other endeavors are being looked at more closely...
...How childlike...
...It's an occupation, stupid....Hamas is fighting an occupation...
...Among them, his founding of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council, one of only two organizations able to certify Muslim chaplains for service in the U.S...
...Many African Muslims have died and not a single American died...
...The plan was foiled during a routine customs search...
...Nevertheless, in the aftermath of September 11, Alamoudi, a man who voiced constant support for terrorists, was invited to a prayer session "I fear that, Hill Clinton...
...In October 2000 Hillary Clinton announced she was returning Alamoudi's contributions to her campaign...
...Clinton appointed him as a roving "Goodwill Ambassador" to the United Nations in 1997...
...Destination: Damascus, Syria...
...Hence, the truth in Alamoudi's claim of the American Muslim Council: "We are the ones who went to the White House and defended what is called Hamas...
...James Yee, now sits in a military jail on suspicion of treason...
...But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it...
...Cheers) Hear that, Bill Clinton...
...He is the most gracious person, softspoken...
...We are all supporters of Hamas...
...I wish they added that I am also a s-", ,:i,urter ple are spending a long time in jail because they or their friends talked to the FBI....FBI agents are trained to get you to make incomplete or contradictory statements—which later can be used against you in court...
...He helped Republican stalwart Grover Norquist get the Islamic Institute off the ground with sizable contri "I think if we are outside this country, we can say, oh, Allah, destroy America...
...Prominent Washington socialite and founder of the American Muslim Council (AMC) turned terrorist financier...
...In the end, most of the contributions were returned and it's certainly no crime to play both sides of the fence in an election year—just ask any pharmaceutical executive...
...If you see him, he is like a child...
...One of those chaplains, Army Capt...
...Surely the story of such a double life must be relegated to the pages of pulp fiction spy novels, scarcely memorable and shipped to your local book store by the dozen...
...On August 13, 2003, Alamoudi answered the phone in his London hotel room, and was greeted by the voice of a man speaking Arabic with a Libyan accent...
...It is better to say nothing...
...Hillary returned the money because of her "serious disagreements" with Alamoudi's views, but defended her long record of involvement with him as part of the Clinton administration's attempt to "promote a framework for peace," by opening "lines of communication to many different groups and with other Muslims and President Bush...
...Eyes Wide Shut There are none so blind as those who would not see the real Abdurahman Alamoudi...
...But, as it turns out, the "goodwill ambassador" had a dark side, brashly held out all along for everyone to see...
...Consider this public statement Alamoudi made at a meeting of the Islamic Association of Palestine, a Hamas front organization, on December 29, 1996: from an interview with Marzouk in Beirut'sAl-Ahd in 1994: "First of all, martyrdom is the goal of every Muslim, and death represents the ideal wish of the Mujahad on the land of Palestine...
...The head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, was the keynote speaker at a June 2002 AMC convention...
...You can be violent anywhere else but in America...
...For example, how did the AMC end up labeled as the many different individuals...
...In 1991, a mere year after forming the American Muslim Council, Alamoudi attended the largest gathering of Islamic militants ever held in the United States, sponsored by the United Association for Studies and Research, widely considered to be the butions...
...In a wiretapped conversation made public in the recent criminal complaint, he praises a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires...
...Alamoudi whined on CNN's Crossfire: "If somebody was talking about the Holocaust and he was saying how horrible it was, people understand that, but you don't understand when seven million American Muslims are insulted...
...military...
...Alamoudi also gave an impassioned defense of the terrorists who plotted and carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 2003/JANUARY 2004 SHAWN MACOMBER and left a crater five floors deep...
...His AMC was labeled by an FBI spokesperson as the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States...
...Then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had him draw up the guest list for the first official White House celebration of Ramadan...
...This was in 1993, before he sent her money, before he drew up the Ramadan White House guest list...
...Dora then suggested Alamoudi 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 2003/JANUARY 2004 EYES WIDE SHUT cries of bloody revenge were not enough to raise a red flag in the eyes of the politically correct Washington establishment...
...So no deal...
...When the man arrived in the doorway, he silently handed over a Samsonite briefcase and left...
...Dora suggested that if Alamoudi could secure the release of any of Libya's frozen assets (using his high-level contacts in the Clinton administration and Congress, presumably), Libya would give Alamoudi an "unspecified share" of the cash...
...Alamoudi called the deportation of U.S...
...Among the conference's distinguished guests were members of al-Jihad and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, an Islamic Jihad front, as well as a slew of other radical leaders, foreign and domestic...
...In 1997, one year after he became a naturalized citizen, Alamoudi approached the Libyan Ambassador to the United Nations, Abuzed 0. Dora...
...I prefer to hit a Zionist target in America or Europe....I prefer honestly like what happened in Argentina...
...Military authorities found diagrams of the cells and facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along with lists of the detainees and their interrogators on Yee...
...I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezballah....I most mainstream Muslim group in America...
...Norquist's Islamic Institute, a free-market Muslim organization, was DECEMBER 2003/JANUARY 2004 AMERICAN SPECTATOR 21...
...He met personally with Al Gore and Bill Clinton at the White House and then-presidential candidate George W. Bush in Austin...
...I believe the judge went out of his way to punish the defendants harshly and with a vengeance, and to a large extent, because they were Muslims...
...Yet, in the story told by a recent affidavit filed by U.S...
...He also appeared many times on CNN, not only on political shows such as Alamoudi was routinely quoted as an expert on Islam in America in the nation's most prominent newspapers...
...Could he come up...
...According to the SITE Institute, "In January 2001, Alamoudi attended and was photographed in Beirut at a terrorist summit, alongside representatives of the terrorist groups Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezballah, and al- Qaeda...
...He sent money to both Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign and George W. Bush's presidential bid...
...Whatever it was, Alamoudi prospered...
...It is a worthy operation," Alamoudi tells an unidentified man, in Arabic...
...As active as she was in the White House, could she really have forgotten Alamoudi protesting President Clinton's decision to meet with the fatwa-burdened author, Salman Rushdie...
...GOP hero Grover Norquist has been similarly dismissive of the criticism...
...BY SHAWN MACOMBER F A HOLLYWOOD STUDIO WERE TO RELEASE A FILM resembling Abdurahman Alamoudi's life, it would likely be picketed as yet another example of the prejudice Muslims endure in post-9/11 America...
...There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way...
...He is for dialogue...
...voice of Hamas in America...
...based Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk for his involvement in several terror attacks in Israel, an "insult to the Muslim community" "I know the man, he is a moderate man on many issues," Alamoudi told the Washington Post...
...Apparently they were more keen on sensitivity than reality, or perhaps that up-for-grabs Muslim voting bloc was too tantalizing a prize...
...Some peo want you to send a message...
Vol. 36 • December 2003 • No. 7
