[](/sites/default/files/uploads/2015/03/Mitch.jpg)Last month, the Chairman of the Broward County Democratic Party, Mitch Ceasar, told a group of radical Muslims at their Florida annual banquet about how impressed he was of them and that he wished to work together with them to help educate children. This, after the national Chair of the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, cancelled her speech at the same event, just three years prior.
Emerge USA has a deceptive name. While it sounds like a patriotic title, the politically active group is run by extremist Muslims with a sinister agenda.
The main individual behind Emerge is Khurrum Wahid. Wahid, the group’s Co-Chairman, is a South Florida attorney who has built a name for himself by representing high profile terrorists. His past clients include: Rafiq Sabir, who received a 25 year prison sentence for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was given a life sentence for being a member of al-Qaeda and for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian.
Prior to helping found Emerge, Wahid was a legal advisor for the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a director of CAIR’s Florida chapter. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator in the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. In November 2014, United Arab Emirates (UAE) named CAIR a terrorist organization on a list that included such groups as al-Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram.
According to the Miami New Times, Wahid himself was placed on a federal terrorist watch list, in 2011.
Every year, Emerge holds an annual fundraising banquet, showcasing different speakers. This year’s event featured as a speaker the current Chairman of the Broward County Democratic Party, Mitch Ceasar. According to his bio, Ceasar also serves on the Executive Board of the Democratic National Committee, representing the fourteen southern states.
It is interesting that Ceasar would agree to speak at an Emerge function, as the head of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz canceled her keynote address in front of Emerge at the group’s 2011 banquet, after the group was exposed by this author as being an extremist front. Democrat Congressman Alcee Hastings also cancelled his participation at the same event.
As well, Ceasar desribes himself as being pro-Israel, having stated, “As an American Jew, I feel a strong kinship to Israel’s preservation.” Yet, Emerge USA has a troubling history when it comes to embracing those who consider Israel to be an enemy.
Saif Ishoof is a founding director of Emerge. Prior to getting involved with the group, Ishoof was the rally organizer and contact for the extreme anti-Israel group, March for Justice. While with March for Justice, Ishoof organized an event which labeled then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “the world’s longest standing terrorist.”
Laila Abdelaziz is the former Tampa-area Regional Field Coordinator of Emerge. In January 2010, during a town hall meeting for Barack Obama, Abdelaziz denounced Israel in a question she posed to the President. She belligerently asked, “[W]hy have we not condemned Israel and Egypt’s human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people, and yet we continue supporting them financially with billions of dollars from our tax dollars?”
While with Emerge, in November 2012, when Israel invaded Gaza in order to stop Hamas from continuing to target her citizens with rockets – over 2000 rockets in less than one year – Abdelaziz tweeted, “Don’t worry ya Gaza, we’re working hard for you in Florida.”
Last year’s Emerge banquet featured as one of its two keynote speakers Sayed Ammar Nakshawani, an Islamic lecturer who is a devotee of Iran’s deceased terrorist leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and who has called for the destruction of Israel.
In a speech made by Nakshawani, titled ‘Sayed Khomeini’s Quds Day,’ he states, “The shame in this world is that, if we put ourselves down to a two-state solution, we would allow a country which has broken 60 UN resolutions to have their own freedom of peace. It is barbaric that this Zionist state is allowed to continue.”
An Emerge-produced video of Nakshawani telling people to attend the 2014 emerge banquet he spoke at is currently located on Emerge USA’s Facebook page, the same page that contains photos of Ceasar speaking at the 2015 Emerge banquet.
At the banquet, Ceasar told Emerge about how impressed he was of them and how important their organization was. He stated, “I was here a couple of years ago for the very first time, and I was so impressed not just by the size of the turnout or the quality of the people, but by the enthusiasm and frankly the intellectual drive… about how important this organization is not just in Broward County, not just in Florida, but potentially nationwide.”
Ceasar thanked Emerge for their efforts to recruit candidates. He stated, “[W]e live in very perilous times… and I’d hate to think of a time for Emerge not to exist… [W]ithout Emerge, you hear about stories of radicalization and bringing people from the United States to other sides of the world and that type of recruitment. I’m thankful for Emerge for a different type of recruitment… a recruitment of candidates… [I]t is very important for Emerge to emerge and start to produce candidates for office, whether it’s in Broward County or South Florida or anywhere in the nation. That is the next logical step for this organization.”
For Democratic leader Mitch Ceasar to get involved with such a group as Emerge is reprehensible, and for him to encourage their expansion and recruitment (presumably of radicals) is worse. While it is true that Emerge leaders are and have been associated with the Democratic Party – Emerge Co-Chair Afaq Durrani is part of the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee and has served as a National Delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention – given Emerge’s extremism, this is no excuse.
For the above reasons and many more, Mitch Ceasar and all politicians should steer clear of Emerge USA. The only thing the group has to do with the USA is that it is found in the United States. Its Islamist values and true mission are anathema to our country.
At the 2015 banquet, Ceasar told the audience, “We all want our children to be educated as best they can. We all want the next generation to do better and go further than we did… We must all be together in this.”
Educating the next generation is important. Doing so with a radical Muslim organization, like Emerge, is dangerous – to our children and to our society.
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