Governor Christie's Dirty Islamist Ties

Daniel Greenfield

New Jersey, the Garden State, has just taken its first step toward becoming the Sharia State, with Governor Christie's nomination of Sohail Mohammed, an attorney to detained terrorist suspects, to a Superior Court judgeship in Passaic County. The Sohail nomination continues Christie's unfortunate pandering to the American Muslim Union and the Islamic Center of Passaic County. Passaic County has the second largest Muslim population in the country. And the Islamic Center of Passaic County is the state's largest mosque, and it's the only one run by an an Imam who was a member of the Hamas terrorist organization. But when the United States government attempted to deport Mohammed Qatanani, New Jersey's pols and wannabe pols like Christie, quickly came to his aid. Despite the fact that Mohammed Qatanani was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that is behind both Al Qaeda and Hamas, despite his own guilty plea to being a member of Hamas, and despite the fact that even in the United States, he had defended a charity that provided funds to children of suicide bombers (this is done as an incentive to reassure terrorists that if they die their families will be taken care of), Qatanani was not deported.

This is less a sign of his innocence, then of the power and influence wielded by Qatanani and the American Muslim Union. There was hardly a top New Jersey public official who did not come out for Qatanani. And that included both of the major candidates in the governor's race, Governor Jon Corzine and Chris Christie. Christie called Qatanani, "a man of great goodwill" and "a constructive force" and allowed Charles McKenna, one of his associate attorneys to testify on behalf of Qatanani. Afterward Christie tapped McKenna to head New Jersey's Department of Homeland Security. McKenna had spent a good deal of time on Muslim "outreach" and made numerous statements echoing their talking points.

The pioneering terrorism researcher, Steve Emerson called it, "a disgrace and an act of pure political corruption". He stated, "I know for certain that Christie and the FBI SAC had access to information about Qatanani’s background, involvement with and support of Hamas." Defending Qatanani required Christie to pit himself against the Department of Homeland Security, which wanted him deported. But the Department of Homeland Security wasn't running for office in New Jersey. Christie was.

The first Imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, Mohammad El-Mezain, was convicted of funneling money to Hamas. El-Mezain had actually boasted of raising almost 2 million dollars for Hamas. And his replacement, Qatanani, actually was a member of Hamas. An ordinary politician might have been forgiven for not knowing this, but Christie was the US Attorney for New Jersey. It's absolutely impossible that he would not have known the background of the Islamic Center of Passaic County. Yet Christie attended a Ramadan dinner, in the same place where terrorists had fundraised, and kissed Qatanani on the cheek.

Now Christie has nominated Sohail Mohammed, Qatanan's former lawyer, to a Superior Court judgeship. Sohail Mohammed is a board member of the American Muslim Union, an organization that has interlocking leadership with groups that have fundraised for Hamas and hosted a Hamas speaker. The American Muslim Union is closely interlinked with Qatanani's Islamic Center of Passaic County.

When five Muslims were convicted of plotting to murder US soldiers at New Jersey's Fort Dix, American Muslim Union president, Mohamad Younes, came out in their defense. When El-Mezain, the original Imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, was convicted, Younes claimed that he had only been convicted because he was a Muslim. The ICPC and the AMU shared five members in their leadership, which essentially makes them one and the same. Nominating an AMU board member is an indirect payoff to the Islamic Center of Passaic County's own leadership... and to Mohammed Qatanani.

Sohail Mohammed defended suspected terrorist detainees and was the go-to man for local and national media looking for a good quote. He lobbied against the use of both 'Islamic' in descriptions of Islamic terrorists, condemned the television show 24 for depicting Muslim terrorists and made an appearance outside the Qatanani trial. After the massacre of a Coptic Christian family, Sohail Mohammed tried to have some Copts investigated for opposing Muslim attendance at their funeral. And most importantly, Sohail Mohammed was Qatanani's original lawyer when the government began its case against him.

So after helping Mohammed Qatanani escape deportation, Christie then nominated his lawyer to a Superior Court judgeship. Sohail is the second Muslim Superior Court judge in New Jersey after Hany Mawla. And if you want a preview of New Jersey's future, you can see it in Judge Hany Mawla conducting the swearing in ceremony for Mayor Mohamed T. Khairullah in Passaic County's Prospect Park borough. And the opening prayer for the event is delivered by none other than Imam Qatanani, leading a prayer in the name of Allah.

There's still an American flag in place and the pledge of allegiance is recited, but those are symbols masking the hijacking taking place underneath the red, white and blue.

There have been setbacks. The Democratic party had to dump Sami Merhi, when some of his comments sympathetic to terrorists came to light. But his friend Mohamed T. Khairullah made it through. A critical flyer mailed out to local households was described as a hate crime and exploited by the media for the sympathy vote. Corzine and the local Democratic machine moved Hawla from a civil rights commissioner to a superior court judge. They put Sohail Mohammed on the same track. Christie could have stood up to the Democratic machine, but instead he sucked up to Passaic's Islamists, first by aiding Qatanani and then by nominating his lawyer to a Superior Court Judgeship.

Some might compare the situation in Passaic County to France with its "no go zones" where the local authorities and non-Muslims cannot enter, but it's actually a good deal worse. The government and the judiciary is being taken over, small pieces of Muslim ruled territory are being carved out and expanded with the support of the state's leading politicians, who trade political support and campaign contributions for something dangerously close to treason. It's not just New Jersey. America is being carved up this way, piece by piece. The areas with the highest Muslim population like Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey are ground zero for the Islamist hijacking of America, using front groups, media friendly spokesmen, lawyers, leadership training and the slow climb up the ladder.

If you wondered why Governor Christie intervened in the Ground Zero Mosque issue or why a New Jersey state employee who participated in a protest against the mosque by burning a few pages from the Koran, lost his job-- you were only seeing the tip of a very large iceberg. In Muslim heavy states such as New Jersey, politicians and law enforcement have been largely suborned. In their attempt to co-opt Muslims, they instead have been co-opted by them. Who is really working for whom? Decide for yourself.

When American Muslim Union president Mohamed Younes was detained in Dubai, he knew exactly whom to call. The deputy director of New Jersey's Office of Homeland Security who offered to vouch for him. Now remember Younes was a member of the board of trustees of a mosque that had conducted fundraising for terrorists and whoose Imam had been convicted of raising money for terrorists. But none of that mattered. No more than the IPCC's history mattered to Christie. The very same Sohail Mohammed boasted that the deputy director of New Jersey's Office of Homeland Security is "someone we can call 24/7".

Is this what the people of New Jersey really want in their officials? It doesn't matter, because they're not being given a choice. And that's the worst part of it. Whether you voted Corzine or Christie, you still ended up with a politician who was in bed with the IPCC and the AMU and who was going to nominate Sohail Mohammed to a Superior Court Judgeship. And that denotes a profound level of corruption that should cause intense scrutiny for any elected official from the Garden State who tries to run for national office. That includes Governor Christie who fought one brand of corruption, but surrendered to another, who was willing to stand up to the teacher's union, but not to the terrorist's union.