CLARITy Coalition’s Second Conference Sheds Light On Funding Sources for Islamist Organizations and Alliance of Wokeists and Islamists
Group photo of participants at the 2024 CLARITy Coalition Conference in Washington, D.C.
Published 6/26/2024:
The opinions in this blog and videos in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of AHA Foundation.
We are proud to share that the second CLARITy (Champions for Liberty Against the Reality of Islamist Tyranny) Coalition conference, “Defending the West,” was held on May 15 and 16 in Washington, D.C. The conference, organized by AHA Foundation and hosted by the Hudson Institute, comes as America and the West awaken to the problems CLARITy founders and members have been warning about for 20 years.
“The conference, organized by AHA Foundation and hosted by the Hudson Institute, comes as America and the West awaken to the problems CLARITy founders and members have been warning about for 20 years.”
The conference brought together courageous Muslim reformers, activists, academics, and researchers. They shared and discussed their ongoing efforts to raise awareness and counter the Islamist activities aimed at undermining Western societies and their freedoms, including the Islamist-supported antisemitism following the October 7 attack in Israel.
The conference participants agreed that the significant shift in global perspective since October 7 has increased public awareness of critical issues that Coalition delegates have warned about. However, the West is only beginning to realize the significance of these issues and is left wondering how we got to this point.
The conference panel “Stopping the Funding for Islamists” led by Sam Westrop (left) with Jeff Breinholt (middle) and Ryan Mauro (right).
The conference panel “Stopping the Funding for Islamists” was led by Sam Westrop, Director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum. The discussion covered various aspects of financing for Islamist organizations in the U.S., including the findings from the most recent analyses, challenges in identifying main sources of funding, the support coming from government grants, lack of prosecutions of extremist groups, and links between the U.S. campus protests and pro-terror groups.
Westrop discussed the misconception that funding is flowing into the U.S. from the East, while in reality, the reverse is true: funding is moving from the West to the East, sometimes even in the form of federal government funding, but mostly through enormous Islamist-run humanitarian aid charities and grant-making foundations. American Islamic organizations that file electronic tax returns, according to the latest filings available for some 1600 organizations, control over $2.85 billion of declared assets. This number excludes the assets of several thousand Islamic institutions that do not file tax returns, mostly because they do not meet financial thresholds or are not required to do so under an IRS exemption for religious institutions.
Westrop explained that extrapolations from the Middle East Forum’s annual study of the Islamist grip over American Islam leads the Forum to believe Islamist-controlled organizations in the United States wield at least between 1 and 2 billion dollars of these assets. Westrop and his colleagues estimate Islamists control or exert significant influence over at least a third of American Muslim institutions.
Sam also highlighted the scale of U.S. state and government funding of domestic Islamist groups, describing “astonishing amounts” that increased significantly over the past decade under both the Trump and Biden administrations, meaning taxpayers are helping already wealthy radical networks get even wealthier.
Ryan Mauro, Investigative Researcher for Capitol Research Center, shared findings from his study of the individual groups that were involved in campus protests after October 7 that show that over a hundred can be described as “terror-tied, meaning that at the very least, openly support terrorism, if not involved in it in some way.”
“Sam also highlighted the scale of U.S. state and government funding of domestic Islamist groups, describing ‘astonishing amounts’ that increased significantly over the past decade under both the Trump and Biden administrations, meaning taxpayers are helping already wealthy radical networks get even wealthier. “
“Defeating the Alliance of Wokeists and Islamists” panel with Collin May (left), Asra Nomani (middle left), Hussain Abdul-Hussain (middle right), Daila Zaida (right).
The speakers on the “Defeating the Alliance Between Wokeists and Islamists” panel discussed how their lives and careers have been negatively affected by their work in confronting Islamist demagogues. They also highlighted the organized radical Islamist influence behind protests on Western campuses and the lack of awareness among student protestors about the human rights record of radical Islamists in the Middle East.
Co-founder of Liberal Democracy Institute, Dalia Ziada, outlined that people leading the campus protest in the West are often from the most dangerous organization that sprung from her homeland of Egypt: the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
“(In Egypt) they hijacked our revolution very easily. But even before that, I saw their threat coming because of the influence they had at Egyptian universities using the same rhetoric, the same narrative that is now used in American universities and Canadian universities and the universities in the West, which is the so-called ‘Palestinian cause.’”
“They claim that they are sympathetic with the Palestinians. They are sympathetic with the innocent civilians with the humanitarian situation—which I’m sure all of us agree with that, like all of us, don’t want to see people suffering from war—but they use that as a cover to their antisemitic agenda that is mainly focusing on eliminating Israel and eliminating every voice that supports the existence of Israel in the Middle East or the integration of Israel in the Middle East, as actually a historical part of the Middle East,” Dalia warned.
“Ayaan said that she was not surprised by the displays of support for Hamas in the aftermath of October 7, but she was shocked by the number of people who showed up at protests.”
Speaker and host of the Never Again is Now Podcast, Evelyn Markus, spoke about the fight against antisemitism with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, founder of AHA Foundation and initiating founder of the CLARITy Coalition. Ayaan said that she was not surprised by the displays of support for Hamas in the aftermath of October 7, but she was shocked by the number of people who showed up at protests. She explained that social justice narratives, now widely accepted and taught at American universities, have opened the door for radical Islamist ideas, leading to an unlikely alliance between Islamists and Wokeists, the emergence of antisemitism on college campuses, and a “divorce from reality.”
Ayaan said. “I think what makes woke antisemitism and anti-Zionism sinister is the fact that because they’re pushing for “justice and equality” and opening up opportunities for people who are less represented in society, it puts down one’s sense of self-protection and self-preservation. It also dulls down one’s sense of intellectual curiosity just by throwing out these altruistic-sounding words.”
“I run around in academic circles and it is our job to do critical thinking, to (say) ‘hang on a minute. What are you saying? And if I follow the thread of your ideas, where is this going to take me?’ And I feel that a lot of people failed to see that with the woke.”
Ayaan also highlighted that the fight against these ideologies will be fought and decided on the battlefield of ideas and gave examples from the past.
When asked about the reasons why there are relatively few activists standing up to radical Islamists and why their work isn’t getting enough attention, Dalia explained:
“…after I condemned Hamas and was forced to leave Egypt…as a result of my statement…I was receiving many death threats, of course, but at the same time, I was receiving messages from people like myself, young Arabs, young Muslims, young Egyptians who some of them are Muslims, some of them are Christians who are applauding me for what I did. And they said we wish we had the courage just to go out and speak up as you did, but we are scared because we have families, we have education we want to complete. These people exist, there are many people like me who exist. But the issue is that they are not empowered… “
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, added: ”…there is the issue of physical security…there are dozens and dozens of people (who) say ‘we agree, but we can’t press like’ and it’s not only because of social shaming or the lack of funding, there’s actual physical threat to you.”
Through sharing their lived experiences, insights, and expertise on the inner workings of radical ideologies at the second CLARITy Coalition conference last month, Sam, Ryan, Dalia, Hussain, Evelyn, Ayaan, and other CLARITy Coalition members and conference speakers showed they not only understand how “the West got here,” but they can also offer solutions for how to defend Western values and freedoms. They called for strong support from funders as they aim to reach young people with education and engage in the battle of ideas with those on the opposing side.