Greg Sargent notes that Rep. Peter King has divided his Muslim HUAC hearing into three panels, so that Rep. Keith Ellison will not be able to rebut the testimony of Rep. Frank Wolf. I think Ellison’s staff should be more concerned about the composition of the third panel:
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, President and Founder, American Islamic Forum for Democracy
Mr. Abdirizak Bihi, Director, Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center
Mr. Melvin Bledsoe, Private Citizen
Sheriff Leroy Baca, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
As a result of the panel compositions, the only Muslims on the third panel will be people prepared to parrot King’s unsubstantiated, negative views of Islam and American Muslims. Jasser is on the board of the Clarion Fund, an organization that produces fearmongering documentaries about Islam.
As I wrote this morning, Abdirizak Bihi is related to Burhan Hassan, who was killed after leaving to join the al-Qaeda linked Somali extremist group al-Shabaab. But as Nick Sementelli points out, Bihi was highly critical of the Muslim advocacy group CAIR for, in his view, obstructing the FBI’s investigation into Minnesota. CAIR aside, the FBI, for its part, reportedly views the “a workable model for engaging with the Muslim American community even in the midst of a terrorism investigation.”
With Ellison on a panel by himself, there won’t be any Muslim voices on the third panel to rebut what either Jasser or Bihi will have to say. This way King gets exactly what I wrote he wanted in the first place, an opportunity to “air controversial views through minority spokespeople” in an attempt to make right wing views on Islam appear legitimate instead of paranoid or driven by anti-Muslim animus.
UPDATE: Earlier, I put up a post that contained speculation that one of the witnesses in Rep. Peter King’s hearings had left a comment on a website suggesting Rep. Keith Ellison had been involved in the disappearances of Somali Americans in Minnesota who had gone to fight with the extremist group al-Shabaab. Given that I didn’t have independent confirmation that the comment was left by the person in question, and that person isn’t exactly a public figure, I’ve rewritten the post.