A radical Muslim group with ties to the Obama Administration will be featuring the head of the Democratic National Committee, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as the keynote speaker for its annual fundraising banquet this coming April. By agreeing to partake in the event, Wasserman Schultz is helping to further this organization’s nefarious agenda of placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence. It is this stealth jihad which threatens our country not from abroad, but from within.
EMERGE USA was founded as a non-profit corporation in the state of Florida, in November 2006, under its original name, Center for Voter Advocacy (CVA). In 2009, CVA merged with a Texas entity founded by current EMERGE board member and project manager of Shell Oil in Houston, Afaq J. Durrani, called the Coalition of New American Communities (CONAC). Apart from EMERGE, CVA still exists as a separate Florida corporation.
According to the organization’s mission statement, “EMERGE [Empowering Motivating Educating Resourceful Grassroots Entities] aims to politically empower and train its constituents to be effective community organizers and work in coalitions to advance beneficial policies and legislation that help protect and enforce the rights afforded by the United States Constitution.”
The mission, as does their name, sounds like a patriotic one attached to a noble cause. However, the extremism exhibited by the leaders of the group paints an entirely different picture – one of an organization with a sinister motive to place radicals within key circles of political power.
On Saturday, April 21st, the head of the Democratic Party, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will be addressing EMERGE. The theme of the event is “Investing in Tomorrow’s Leaders Today” and will include entertainment and a halal dinner. The previous year, former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham spoke in front of the group.
Wasserman Schultz likes to flaunt her Jewish identity and (false) pro-Israel persona, but how can she begin to do so, when the organization she will be addressing maintains staff who display animosity towards the Jewish state?
Laila Abdelaziz, the Field Coordinator of EMERGE, denounced Israel in a question she posed to President Obama, during a January 2010 town hall meeting he held in Tampa, Florida. "[W]hy have we not condemned Israel and Egypt’s human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people, and yet we continue supporting them financially with billions of dollars from our tax dollars?” she belligerently asked.
Before coming to EMERGE, Abdelaziz was the Project Coordinator for United Voices of America (UVA), a group founded and headed by Ahmed Bedier. Bedier, who had previously been involved with the Hamas-related Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was embroiled in controversy when he helped facilitate an October 2010 fundraiser for U.S. Senator Bill Nelson. According to Nelson, whom Abdelaziz was once a staffer for, when he learned about past anti-Israel statements Bedier had made, he returned a $500 campaign contribution that Bedier gave to him.
On the announcement showing Wasserman Schultz as EMERGE USA’s keynote speaker, the RSVP contact for the event is listed as one Rasheed Shihada. On Shihada’s Facebook site, apart from containing a long rant he authored against Christians, he displays on his homepage a video put out this month calling for support of Israeli prisoner Khader Adnan, who according to Israel is a “senior member” of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
This is only the tip of the iceberg with regard to extremism at EMERGE.
The Chairman and main face behind EMERGE is Khurrum Wahid, a practicing South Florida attorney. According to the Florida Bar, Wahid “has defended individuals charged with allegedly committing or conspiring to commit acts of terrorism…"
Some of Wahid’s clients include: Rafiq Abdus Sabir, who received a 25 year prison sentence for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was given a life sentence for being a member of al-Qaeda and for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, who is awaiting trial for conspiring with others to funnel at least fifty thousand dollars to the Pakistani Taliban for the purpose of murdering American troops overseas.
Wahid, as well, created a legal fund for Tashnuba Hayder, a girl who had been identified by the FBI as a potential suicide bomber and who was later deported to Bangladesh, as she was considered an imminent threat to the security of the United States. Currently, Wahid is soliciting funds on his law office’s website for the defense of his client Hafiz Khan (above) and his son Izhar Khan, whom Wahid calls a “rising star.”
Prior to helping found EMERGE, Wahid was a legal advisor for CAIR National and a director of CAIR’s Florida chapter. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. At CAIR-Florida, Wahid had taken the place of Foad Farahi, an imam of a radical mosque, who the FBI has suspected of having had dealings with al-Qaeda operatives – “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla and Adnan Gulshair el-Shukrijumah – and who was arrested last month for “transportation violations.”
Wahid is the Registered Agent for another radical entity, the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF). The Executive Director of EMERGE, Nauman Sabit Abbasi, is the President of Public Relations for IFSF. The IFSF Youth Group is run by Abdur Rahman al-Ghani, a fan of Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose Facebook site is littered with fanatical anti-America, anti-Israel and Islamic supremacist language. This month, al-Ghani posted to his Facebook, "[Y]es, Allah (SWT) has Decreed that we will over-take the World in numbers…"
Wahid also spoke at a May 2010 event sponsored by the American arm of the South Asian Muslim Brotherhood (Jamaat-e-Islami), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), an organization that has been connected to the financing of both al-Qaeda and Hamas.
In May 2009, the former Executive Director and co-founder of EMERGE, Farooq Mitha, wrote an article asking the question, “What if Hezbollah gains influence in Lebanon?” In the piece, he speculates about how the U.S. will deal with groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as they gain prominence and power in their territories. Mitha states, “It is impossible to imagine sustainable peace in the region without at least the implicit cooperation of these groups.”
While Mitha is careful to appear ambiguous regarding U.S. collaboration with these terrorist entities in print, he has himself spoken at a radical Muslim event – as have many of his EMERGE colleagues – sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA, like CAIR, was named by the Justice Department as a party to Hamas fundraising and is the largest Muslim Brotherhood organization in the United States and Canada.
In February 2011, Miha participated in an event sponsored by the Obama-linked Center for American Progress (CAP), a group exposed less than a year later as being a vehicle for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements and positions. Also participating was Khalilah Sabra, a representative from the Muslim American Society (MAS), a Muslim Brotherhood organization which has published numerous statements on the web calling for violence against Jews and cursing Jews and Christians.
Today, Mitha serves in the Obama Administration as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs (DOD OSBP). As such, it would appear that Mitha exemplifies EMERGE’s goal of placing those associated with Islamists into high positions of influence.
While Debbie Wasserman Schultz speaks to EMERGE USA’s audience this April, the group will no doubt benefit both financially and politically from her performance. As prominent figures, such as Wasserman Schultz, willingly address their group, leaders of EMERGE will continue to infiltrate and have an open door into American seats of power, thereby helping to bring about America’s destruction from within.
