by Jane Bate and Bryan Hermansdorfer, ©2022
(Jun. 4, 2022) — As the midterm elections are approaching, it is prudent to include a discussion of a relatively new political party which is designed to strengthen the Islamic vote; we’re speaking of the USCMO, an umbrella group that came into being in 2014. The USCMO unites several Muslim organizations, many of which are Muslim Brotherhood groups: The Mosque Cares; Muslim American Society; American Muslims for Palestine; Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA); Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA); Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA); and the Muslim Umma of North America (MUNA).
One project undertaken by the USCMO is a National Muslim Advocacy Week in which Muslims visit their legislators and make a case for projects of their choosing. Among other items, members were urged to tell their legislators to support Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Combating International Islamophobia Act, which would criminalize criticism of Islam, thus ending the freedom of speech granted by our Constitution’s First Amendment.
Several names of USCMO board members may ring a bell: Imam Siraj Wahhaj; Ousama Jammal, and Nihad Awad, to name three. Wahhaj is a founding member of CAIR and supporter of HAMAS; Jammal is president of the terror-tied Mosque Foundation in Illinois; and Awad is another founder of CAIR, and his face is likely to be familiar to you since he was photographed several times with President George W. Bush.
The Islamic influence in our election process is unsettling for several reasons: 1) Too many Americans don’t understand that Islam is counter to our freedoms; 2) The pablum taught in schools about Islam gives students the false idea that Islam really isn’t so different from Christianity or Judaism. Please do everything you can to educate those around you.