Walz’s iffy iftar

Stephen Montemayor reported in the Star Tribune Morning Hot Dish email newsletter earlier this week that Gov. Tim Walz and First Lady Gwen Walz hosted the first iftar dinner ever held in the governor’s residence on Tuesday: “Plans for the historic meal, which marks each day of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, have been in the works for at least a couple months: Walz first announced his intent to use the residence to host such a meal in March during a conference on Islamophobia [sic]. A spokeswoman confirmed that scheduled attendees include Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota chapter; Afro Deli founder Abdirahman Kahin; Imam Asad Zaman; Dr. Tamim Saidi and Arlene Al Amin, among others.”

We all know what CAIR is and understand that Hussein is its local operative. There is a good reason that the government named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator of the Holy Land Foundation at the trial of HLF in 2007. Andrew McCarthy tells interested readers everything they need to know in “The roots of CAIR’s intimidation campaign.”

What about Imam Asad Zaman? Montemayor doesn’t provide his affiliation. Zaman is the executive director of the local chapter of the Muslim American Society. The Muslim American Society is the Muslim Brotherhood’s semi-official American branch. Hamas is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. Between CAIR and the MAS, that’s one iffy iftar affair Walz hosted.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to get a clue about the MAS. Andrew McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad (excerpted in the article about CAIR linked above), for example, provides an extremely useful guide to the world of the Muslim American Society. As the lead prosecutor of the Blind Sheikh and his friends for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Andy acquired first-hand knowledge of this world.

Getting a bead on the MAS should be especially easy in Minnesota. As I say, Zaman is the executive director of MAS-MN. Readers may recall that Zaman first came to our attention as the principal of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. TiZA was the Islamic charter school that took public funds on the pretense that it was nonsectarian.

Let me emphasize the point: TiZA took taxpayers’ money on false pretenses. Zaman was the ringleader of the now shuttered TiZA operation. To say the least, he is a publicly compromised character. In my opinion, he should be on the inside of some Minnesota prison looking out rather than hanging out as an honored guest with the governor on the inside of the governor’s official residence.

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