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GROVER NORQUIST'S
STRANGE ALLIANCE WITH RADICAL ISLAM.
Fevered Pitch
by Franklin Foer
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date 11.01.01 | Issue date 11.12.01 |
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On the afternoon of September 26, George W.
Bush gathered 15 prominent Muslim- and Arab-Americans
at the White House. With cameras rolling, the
president proclaimed that "the teachings of
Islam are teachings of peace and good." It was
a critically important moment, a statement to
the world that America's Muslim leaders unambiguously
reject the terror committed in Islam's name.
Unfortunately, many of the leaders present
hadn't unambiguously rejected it. To the president's
left sat Dr. Yahya Basha, president of the American
Muslim Council, an organization whose leaders
have repeatedly called Hamas "freedom fighters."
Also in attendance was Salam Al-Marayati, executive
director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council,
who on the afternoon of September 11 told a
Los Angeles public radio audience that "we should
put the State of Israel on the suspect list."
And sitting right next to President Bush was
Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Islamic Society
of North America, who last fall told a Washington
crowd chanting pro-Hezbollah slogans, "America
has to learn if you remain on the side of injustice,
the wrath of God will come." Days later, after
a conservative activist confronted Karl Rove
with dossiers about some of Bush's new friends,
Rove replied, according to the activist, "I
wish I had known before the event took place."
If the administration was caught unaware,
it may be because they placed their trust in
one of the right's most influential activists:
Grover Norquist. As president of Americans for
Tax Reform, Norquist is best known for his tireless
crusades against big government. But one of
Norquist's lesser-known projects over the last
few years has been bringing American Muslims
into the Republican Party. And, as he usually
does, Norquist has succeeded. According to several
sources, Norquist helped orchestrate various
post-September 11 events that brought together
Muslim leaders and administration officials.
"He worked with Muslim leaders to engineer [Bush]'s
prominent visit to the Mosque," says the Arab-American
pollster John Zogby, referring to the president's
September 17 trip to the Islamic Center of Washington.
Says Zogby, who counts Norquist among his clients,
"Absolutely, he's central to the White House
outreach." Indeed, when Jewish activists and
terrorism experts complained about the Muslim
invitees to Adam Goldman, who works in the White
House public liaison's office, Goldman replied
that Norquist had vouched for them. (Goldman
denies this, but two separate sources say they
heard him say it.) "Just like [administration
officials] ask my advice on inviting religious
figures to the White House," says Paul Weyrich,
another top conservative activist, "they rely
on Grover's help [with Muslims]."
Norquist denies being involved in "micromanaging
the specifics" of White House meetings, but
admits "I have been a long time advocate of
outreach to the Muslim community." In fact,
the record suggests that he has spent quite
a lot of time promoting people openly sympathetic
to Islamist terrorists. And it's starting to
cause him problems. Weyrich, echoing other movement
conservatives, says he is "not pleased" with
Norquist's activity. According to one intelligence
official who recently left the government, a
number of counterterrorism agents at the FBI
and CIA are "pissed as hell about the situation
[in the White House] and pissed as hell about
Grover." They should be. While nobody suggests
that Norquist himself is soft on terrorism,
his lobbying has helped provide radical Islamic
groups--and their causes--a degree of legitimacy
and access they assuredly do not deserve.
Norquist is one of the undisputed masters
of Republican coalition building. And so it
is no surprise that he has turned his attention
to America's fast-growing Muslim population,
which by some accounts now stands at seven million
strong. (Although two other recent reports suggest
it is less than three million.) "He's worked
with [Rabbi Daniel] Lapin to bring Jews into
the fold," says one Norquist associate. "That
was an uphill effort. So he figured that he
could turn Muslims into the obvious counterweight
to the relationship between the Jews and Dems."
In the last few years, Norquist has pursued
a Republican-Muslim alliance with a two-track
approach. With conservatives, he has emphasized
that Muslims are a good demographic fit for
the GOP: well-off and socially conservative.
"American Muslims look like members of the Christian
Coalition," he wrote in The American Spectator
this summer. To Muslims, he has promised a sympathetic
hearing for their causes. He has pushed Republican
leaders to support a prohibition on the government's
use of "secret evidence" in the deportation
of suspected terrorists--an issue that jibes
with Norquist's own anti-government agenda.
And he has intimated that Muslim support for
Republicans could change U.S. policy toward
the Middle East. Appearing on a panel at a 1999
meeting of the American Muslim Alliance, alongside
activists who complained about the "Zionist
lobby" and Jewish "monopolizing" of Jerusalem,
Norquist announced that "[t]oo many American
politicians have been able to take their shots
at Muslims and at Muslims countries."
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orquist has not undertaken this crusade alone.
In the mid-1990s, he enlisted a partner, Khaled
Saffuri, then working as a lobbyist and deputy
director for the American Muslim Council (AMC).
After receiving a master's in management science,
Saffuri came to Washington in 1987 and worked
his way up through the city's Arab-Muslim political
apparatus, starting with a stint at the American
Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. In 1998
he left the AMC to help Norquist found the Islamic
Institute, an advocacy organization dedicated
to promoting a conservative agenda that would
appeal to Muslims. Saffuri served as executive
director and Norquist as chairman of the board.
The Institute operated out of the headquarters
of Americans for Tax Reform, from which it borrowed
not just a fax machine and conference room,
but an agenda. Soon the Institute was shilling
for all of Norquist's pet issues--a moratorium
on Internet taxation, fast-track trade negotiation
authority, and personal savings accounts. It
even published a paper on the Koran's compatibility
with capitalism. "People should remember that
Mohammed and his wife were businessmen," Norquist
notes. With the help of Saffuri, who brought
ties to a vast network of activists, the Islamic
Institute became a nerve center for Muslim lobbying
in Washington. As Norquist puts it, "They gather
at the Islamic Institute to plan and debrief,
when they have meetings [with administration
officials]."
Through the Islamic Institute, Norquist appears
to have developed close relationships with a
number of Muslim leaders. When I recently spoke
to the Muslim Public Affairs Council's Salam
Al-Marayati, the man who fingered Israel as
a potential sponsor of the World Trade Center
attacks, he recited Norquist's phone number
from memory. When University of South Florida
professor Sami Al-Arian e-mailed The Wall
Street Journal in response to an op-ed that
tied him to Islamic Jihad, he CC'd Norquist.
Last year at its annual dinner, the AMC presented
Norquist with an award for his service. As John
Zogby told me, "[H]e's played the role of interlocutor.
With all respect, many of the leaders are immigrants
and don't have years and years of experience.
Grover has filled that void."
And he has done so to their mutual political
benefit. During the 2000 campaign, Norquist
urged Karl Rove to focus on the Muslim vote--pointing
to, among other things, the thousands of Muslims
in the key state of Michigan. By all appearances,
the Bush campaign heeded Norquist's advice.
In an admirable departure from the usual Republican
script, Bush frequently integrated mosques into
his platitudes about churches and synagogues.
In the second presidential debate, Bush vowed
to repeal the use of secret evidence, just as
Norquist had promised. Bush even named Saffuri
as the campaign's National Advisor on Arab and
Muslim Affairs.
When Bush won, Norquist credited the Muslim
strategy. "Bush's talk about outreach and inclusion
had extraordinary results--the Muslim community
went 2-1 for Bill Clinton in 1996 and almost
8-1 for Bush in 2000," he told The Washington
Times. (That statistic is almost certainly
untrue, and Bush actually lost Michigan, the
state where Muslims are most heavily concentrated.)
Or, as Norquist put it in the Spectator,
"George W. Bush was elected President of the
United States of America because of the Muslim
vote."
Norquist quickly set about turning that supposed
electoral influence into legislative influence.
One day after Bush's inauguration, he and Saffuri
arranged for Muslim leaders to meet Newt Gingrich
and Congressman Tom Davis, head of the National
Republican Congressional Committee. Soon Saffuri
began regularly appearing at the White House,
accompanying imams and heads of Islamic organizations
to discuss the faith-based initiative and concerns
about law enforcement persecution of Muslims.
Suhail Khan, an administration adviser who helps
plan Muslim outreach, once served on the Islamic
Institute's board. And at one of his regular
Wednesday meetings, according to two witnesses,
Norquist announced that he had lobbied to get
Khan his White House post. On the afternoon
of September 11, a group of Muslim leaders happened
to have plans to meet the president in the West
Wing to discuss their grievances with racial
profiling and secret evidence. When they couldn't
enter the building, along with almost everyone
else, they headed a few blocks uptown and reconvened--in
the conference room of Norquist's office.
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ut the events of September 11 have cast some
of Norquist's relationships in a less flattering
light. Consider first the history and recent
statements of the American Muslim Council, the
organization that presented Norquist with an
achievement award, and whose officials attend
Norquist-arranged meetings with the Republican
hierarchy. In the 1990s it co-sponsored two
conferences with the United Association for
Studies and Research, which, according to The
New York Times, a convicted Hamas operative
named Mohammed Abdel-Hamid Salah in 1993 called
"the political command" of Hamas in the United
States. At a Washington rally last year, Abdurahman
Alamoudi, Saffuri's boss at the AMC, declared,
"I have been labeled by the media in New York
to be a supporter of Hamas. Anybody support
Hamas here?...Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are
all supporters of Hamas. I wished they added
that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah." In
press releases and forums, the AMC has defended
the terrorist-harboring Sudanese government
against charges that it massively violates human
rights and condones slavery. As late as June
of this year, the AMC put out a press release
entitled "SLAVERY IN SUDAN IS A SHAM.."
The record of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR)--which, like the AMC, sends
members to meetings organized by Norquist and
Saffuri--is no more encouraging. When interviewed
by Salon's Jake Tapper on September 26,
CAIR Communication Director Ibrahim Hooper refused
to condemn Osama bin Laden. CAIR founder Nihad
Awad, who appeared with Bush at the Washington
Islamic Center, has argued that "[t]here is
ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad
and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role
in the [1993 World Trade Center] explosion."
And Siraj Wahaj, who has served as a CAIR board
member, has been described by federal prosecutor
Mary Jo White as a possible conspirator in the
'93 bombing. As Harvard professor of Islamic
studies Ali Asani has complained, "There is
general concern among Muslim intellectuals about
how not only CAIR but some of these other organizations
are claiming to speak in the name of the Muslim
community, and how they're coming to be recognized
by the government as spokespeople for the Muslim
community in the U.S."
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nd Norquist hasn't only developed close ties
to American groups that apologize for terror.
He has also flacked for at least one Middle
Eastern autocracy: Qatar. Eager to improve relations
with the United States, Qatar worked with Norquist
and Saffuri to help portray itself as a liberal
outpost in the Islamic world. In April, Saffuri
sponsored the "First Annual Conference on Free
Trade and Democracy" in the Qatari capital of
Doha, for which the Islamic Institute received
over $150,000 in payments from the Qatar Embassy's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Account. (Saffuri
says these were reimbursements for the travel
expenses of congressional delegates.) A lobbyist
at Norquist's firm, Janus-Merritt, has solicited
pro-Qatari op-eds from at least one conservative
pundit. When the emir of Qatar came to Washington,
Saffuri hosted a Capitol Hill luncheon in his
honor. And just three weeks after September
11, Norquist wrote an op-ed in The Washington
Times in which he claimed that "Qatar has
taken great strides to enshrine values of universal
suffrage, a free press, and human rights." He
continued, "[S]he really means it on being a
reliable ally."
Qatar may not be Iraq, but Norquist's arguments
are still laughable. Freedom House, which monitors
religious liberty, rates Qatar "not free." Among
countries in the Middle East--a region hardly
known for its liberalism--Qatar finished in
the bottom half of a Heritage Foundation "Index
of Economic Freedom." Two days after Norquist's
op-ed, The Washington Post reported on
Qatar's refusal to support a widening of the
war on terrorism to include Islamic Jihad, Hamas,
or Hezbollah. And, just two weeks later, the
foreign minister of Qatar--our "reliable ally"--announced
that "[t]he attacks against Afghanistan are
unacceptable and we have condemned them. It
is our clear position."
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orquist's new associations--particularly his
links to groups like CAIR and the AMC--have
not gone unnoticed in conservative ranks. Paul
Weyrich says, "I have on at least one occasion
[confronted him] and he assured me that he knew
what he was doing and that I shouldn't have
any concerns." Another conservative says he
told Norquist about the two organizations' statements
on terrorism, but it didn't make an impression.
"We can't knock it off; we want them on our
own team," Norquist replied.
Norquist's relationships have even pitted
him against the GOP leadership. After the Republican
convention last year, he set up a lunch at the
Capitol Hill Club for Republican Party chairman
Jim Nicholson to plot strategy with Muslim leaders.
But in the week before the event, angry Jewish
groups provided the RNC with a set of damning
quotes from representatives of CAIR, the AMC,
and some of the other invited guests. When I
asked Cliff May, who was the Republican National
Committee's communications director at the time,
he confirmed the story. "I was approached and
apprised of their backgrounds and told the chairman
there's reason to be concerned." The event took
place--Nicholson didn't feel he could cancel
it--but not as originally planned. As one RNC
source explains it, Nicholson gave a "generic
five-minute talk about lower taxes and less
government and said thank you for your support
and got the hell out."
Since September, not surprisingly, conservatives
once willing to overlook Norquist's alliances
have more aggressively aired their grievances.
Consider William Murray, head of the Religious
Freedom Coalition. He had considered Norquist
a comrade, but now makes no secret of his displeasure.
"Grover has a very liberated view of Islamic
nations," says Murray, somewhat hyperbolically.
"So they behead people in the public square.
He thinks that's their business. Hey, it's no
big deal to have people beheaded for religious
crimes." Weyrich, too, has made his unhappiness
a matter of public record: "I'm afraid Grover's
woefully naive." Even Norquist's weekly confab
has become the scene of internecine fighting.
At a session earlier this month, Frank Gaffney
questioned the presence of terrorist sympathizers
at the White House. Norquist exploded, accusing
Gaffney of smearing Muslims. Later he choked
up as he addressed the meeting and asked Gaffney
to stand up and join him in condemning anti-Muslim
bigotry. One conservative who witnessed Norquist's
tirade says, "His response is powered in part
by a sense that this whole edifice he's created
is in danger of coming unraveled because of
[these groups'] stated and abiding positions."
When I visited Norquist, he was in a similarly
embattled frame of mind. He asked me to turn
off my tape recorder. Any quote I wanted to
use, he told me, would require his approval.
There were none of his usual passionate ideological
perorations. He just sat in his chair, seething.
"There are some people who spit on Muslims and
wouldn't like to see them have any role in American
politics," he told me in a near scream. Grover
Norquist's pursuit of the fabled Republican-Muslim
alliance, it seems, will continue for a long
time.
FRANKLIN
FOER is an associate editor at TNR.
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