Militant Muslim connections: in selecting Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, for several high-profile events, President Obama has disregarded her organization's terrorist ties.(TERRORISM)(president Barack Obama)

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President Barack Obama's inaugural committee billed his January 20 National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral as a celebration of America's "diversity of faith." Among the official participants offering prayers at the event was Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. She was also a guest speaker later that evening at the first Muslim Inaugural Celebration at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, D.C. This was not the first time Mattson had been so honored at Obama shindigs; she was also given center stage at the Democratic Convention's opening interfaith prayer service last August in Denver.

In selecting Dr. Mattson for these high-profile events, Obama has pointedly chosen to disregard the fact that the organization she heads, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and its subsidiary foundation, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), have long-standing ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. government lists ISNA and NAIT as "unindicted coconspirators" in the terrorism-funding trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). The foundation was charged with conspiracy and providing millions of dollars to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. In November of 2008, a jury in Dallas, Texas, delivered guilty verdicts on 108 separate charges against HLF and seven of its officers.

ISNA and NAIT were not charged in the Holy Land Foundation case, and they (along with the ACLU, which is defending them) have accused the government of carrying out a smear campaign and a political vendetta against the organizations and the larger Muslim community.

The federal prosecutors vigorously denied these claims in a July 10, 2008 filing in federal court. "During last year's trial, numerous exhibits were entered into evidence establishing both ISNA's and NAIT's intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case," the prosecutors asserted. "They were intimately connected with the HLF and its assigned task of providing financial support to HAMAS.... That ISNA and NAIT appeared in these documents and share a common history with these defendants is a reflection of the evidence, not any attempt to 'disparage' or 'vilify.'"

Ingrid Mattson was not personally named in the indictment or charged with any crime. According to her many defenders, she is the voice of moderate Islam in America. According to her critics, she is the voice and face of "stealth jihad" or "soft jihad" in America, perpetrating a deceptive ruse of false moderation that uses ballots instead of bullets, words instead of bombs--but aimed at the same ultimate objective: the defeat and gradual Islamification of America.

Militants Masquerading as Moderates