Hollywood Islamists Reveal Extremist Agenda on October 7

(Screenshot of MPAC’s website)

An Islamist organization that has worked to portray itself as a legitimate civil rights group in the United States revealed its true colors by using the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre to demonize Israel and its supporters in America, accusing them of controlling American foreign policy and supporting an Israeli-perpetrated “genocide” in Gaza.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), which ironically tells its supporters that they “can build a future free from fear and bigotry” by donating to its coffers, trafficked in vague conspiracy theories about Zionist influence on American foreign policy in a statement it issued on the first anniversary of the October 7 massacre.

In the October 7, 2024, statement, MPAC complained of “pro-Israel foreign agents” undermining the electoral process in the United States and of politicians “reading of scripts written by Zionist extremists to avoid political blackmail.”

The statement is pretty aggressive and hostile for an organization that works to soften the the image of Muslims in America by running a “Hollywood Bureau” to influence how Muslims are portrayed in movies. Nevertheless, it conforms to MPAC’s long history of assailing Israel, condemns the Biden administration for “enabling Israel’s Genocide [sic].”

During a brief interview with a staffer from Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) on October 16, 2024, MPAC’s vice president of policy and programming, Haris Tarin, dismissed any suggestion that the organization had failed to hold Hamas to account for the October 7 massacre, citing a statement issued soon after the attack, which condemned violence on both sides. The statement to which Haris apparently referred includes an addendum that states, “There are confirmed reports of attacks against Israeli civilians by Hamas,” before lamenting destruction in Gaza and condemning Israel for shutting off water and power to the territory.

When asked if the suffering in Gaza would have taken place if Hamas hadn’t perpetrated the October 7 massacre, Haris asserted that the Palestinians had suffered at the hands of the Israelis for years prior to the massacre. In response to a question about the refusal of Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat to accept the 2000 Clinton Parameters, which would have given the Palestinians a state, MPAC’s vice president said everybody involved in the negotiations, which took place when Haris was in college, had made “mistakes.” (Haris refused to participate in a follow-up interview, as had been agreed upon previously. “I won’t be able to speak with you further,” he said on October 18, 2024.)

MPAC’s statement marks a return to a more truculent tone from MPAC, which in early 2023, came to the defense of Erika López Prater, the art professor who was dismissed from Hamline University in Minnesota after she displayed a fourteenth-century painting depicting Mohammad.

Soraya Deen, a prominent women’s rights activist and counter-Islamist, expressed outrage at MPAC’s statement, which stands in opposition to true peacemaking efforts.

“When groundbreaking efforts for peace in the Middle East and between Palestine and Israel were being forged with the likes of the Abraham Accords and other peace initiatives, it was Hamas who charted the world toward a darker and deadlier place,” she said, adding that, like MPAC, she mourns the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza, which ultimately, were caused by Hamas’s aggression.

“Muslims in America and the world over must hold Hamas accountable for this war and the massacre it perpetrated before they call on the Biden administration for policy changes,” she said. “If that is done, and if such a movement is headed by MPAC, we might have a better chance of peace in the Middle East.”