Hat tip-Robert at www.jihadwatch.org
Lawmakers call on NYC to pull Islamic subway ads
Snapped Shot has some ideas for Wahhaj’s marketing campaign
video of Steve Emerson on Fox discussing this issue Click here to see the video
The ads are being paid for by the Islamic Circle of North America, which, as Marisol noted here, is one of the organizations listed in the infamous 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memo as participating in a “grand Jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Siraj Wahhaj, meanwhile, has warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has lamented that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” In the early 1990s he sponsored talks by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in mosques in New York City and New Jersey; Rahman was later convicted for conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, and Wahhaj was designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator.”
“Winner Takes Allah: MTA’s Islam Ad Furor,” by Jeremy Olshan for the New York Post, July 22:
Elected officials and straphangers called on the MTA yesterday to pull the Islamic subway-ad campaign being promoted by a controversial Brooklyn imam whom federal officials have linked to acts of terrorism.The push to promote Islam on the rails this September, in a $48,000 ad campaign sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America, was reported in The Post yesterday.
“I strongly believe the MTA should pull the ads,” said Rep. Peter King (R-LI), a ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee. “They are especially shameful because the ads will be running during the seventh anniversary of September 11, and because the subways are considered a primary target of terrorists.”
Although the group says the ads – which will coincide with the holy month of Ramadan – aim to educate non-Muslims and reach out to those interested in joining the faith, many are incensed that Imam Siraj Wahhaj was chosen as the pitchman in a YouTube video for “The Subway Project.”
In 1995, federal officials named Wahhaj an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to blow up city landmarks, although he was never formally charged.
A former member of the Nation of Islam, Wahhaj also served as a character witness in the trial of convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and has said that he hopes one day all Americans are “persuaded” to become Muslims.
MTA officials said the ads are protected as free speech under the First Amendment. Mayor Bloomberg agreed.
“If you were to advocate becoming a Muslim, I assume the First Amendment would protect you,” he said. The content of the ads themselves is not offensive or suggestive of violence or terrorism, officials said….
