MB Supporters Host Fundraiser for Virginia Democrat

John Rossomando 

http://www.investigativeproject.org/4310/mb-supporters-host-fundraiser-for-virginia

 

A Northern Virginia congressman will headline a fundraiser sponsored by a Muslim Brotherhood supporter whose organization, Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (EADHR), held an anti-Semitic rally in New York last month, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Participants at the EADHR rally outside the Saudi Arabian consulate in New York chanted, "Oh King of Saudi Arabia, why did you sell Egypt to the Jews?" and that the Saudis were "dirtier than the Jews."

Now, U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., plans to attend a March 22 fundraiser to benefit his re-election campaign that is co-sponsored by EADHR co-founder Akram Elzend. The Free Beacon published a copy of the invitation, which also lists Mohamed Mohamed and Sameh Elhennawy as fundraiser hosts.

Elzend told the Free Beacon that the fundraiser has "nothing to do with the organization" he co-founded. He indicated that he considers Connolly "a great man, a great congressman, who really abides our values, our American values, and principles, and he stands up for them."

Suggested contributions range from $150 for guest contributors to $400 for a supporter and spouse.

Elzend is an official with the Muslim American Society's Washington, D.C. area chapter. MAS was identified by prosecutors in a 2008 case as the "overt arm" of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

In 2010, Connolly attended a fundraiser to benefit the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va. Elzend serves as a mosque board member. The mosque's ties to radicals has attracted repeated law enforcement attention over the years. Federal agents have described Dar al-Hijrah as the subject of "numerous investigations for financing and proving (sic) aid and comfort to bad orgs and members."

These bad members include: American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who served as an imam at Dar al-Hijrah before leaving the United States; two 9/11 hijackers who attended services there, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and terrorist financier Abdurrahman Alamoudi.

Elzend was present at a Capitol Hill briefing in December hosted by the EAHDR that was attended by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) supporter Sami Al-Arian. An EADHR news conference last August protesting the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi featured Abdul Magwoud Dardery, the foreign affairs spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's now banned Freedom and Justice Party.

Muslim Brotherhood symbols such as the R4BIA symbol are common at rallies sponsored by the EADHR.

Connolly expressed outrage over Morsi's ouster last year and criticized the U.S. government for not supporting him, the Free Beacon reported.

"In my view it is not okay for the United States of America to say that it's okay to overthrow a democratically elected government, however fledgling and however much we disagree with them," Connolly said during a congressional hearing.