Frontpage Mag Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
In Wisconsin, the dairy capital of the nation, Muslims and Nazis revisited their old alliance when Yousef Barasneh, the son of a Jordanian immigrant active in the Muslim community, joined the Neo-Nazi group, The Base (which shares the meaning of its name with Al Qaeda), and vandalized a synagogue.
The synagogue, Beth Israel Sinai Congregation in Racine, had the term, “Jude”, German for “Jew”, swastikas, the symbol of the Nazi Secret Service, and The Base white supremacist symbol, scrawled on it in September. Later that year, a Base leader ratted out Yousef as the perpetrator to the FBI.
When communicating with his Neo-Nazi pals, Yousef anglicized or polonized his Arabic first name to “Joseph” or “Josef”. Despite his Muslim convert mother’s Polish ancestry, Yousef might not have been confident of the welcome he would receive as “Yousef” from a white supremacist organization.
But when The Base called for vandalizing synagogues, the son of a Jordanian immigrant was eager.
“Imagine if across the country on local news, Everyone is reporting on new nazi presence,” he wrote in Nazi chat. “Our op will be a perfect f___ you to these kikes if we become terrorists.”
Yousef was overlaying the terrorism of his Islamic background on his new Nazi affiliation. Mass immigration advocates often claim that immigrants bring things to this country that we don’t have. Does America really have such a Nazi shortage that we need to import white supremacists from Jordan?
Later Yousef joined a Base session in Georgia where members trained with guns and sacrificed a goat.
It’s unclear if he took part in the ‘Blot’ goat sacrifice to pagan gods that white supremacists are reviving in order to banish Judeo-Christian values and revive the pagan beliefs championed by Nazi Germany.
Sacrificing a goat to the gods would have been frowned on by the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. But goat sacrifices are a regular part of Islam and Yousef would likely have had more experience sacrificing goats than his cosplaying Nazi pals who had to google Kristallnacht to find out what it involved.
And a Jordanian Muslim making blood sacrifices to Norse gods in a Neo-Nazi cult after vandalizing a synagogue is undeniably multicultural. It’s just not the multiculturalism anyone needs or wants.
According to media accounts, Yousef Omar is the son of Omar and Aliceann Basraneh. The Jordanian flag flies in the breeze outside Omar’s house in Oak Park and a photo in the Wisconsin Muslim Journal shows Omar and Aliceann in a gaudy hijab. An older photo shows Omar, Aliceann, and Yousef at the Dome of the Rock: the victory mosque that Muslims had erected on the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem.
Omar’s Facebook likes included a campus branch of the anti-Semitic hate group Students for Justice in Palestine at Marquette U, and the Muslim Student Association at the University of Michigan.
Omar, a coach at Salam High School, has been quoted in the media on Muslim issues. Aliceann also used to work at the Salam school. The Salam school is run by the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. The ISM was established by the Muslim Students Association which was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Othman Atta, the executive director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, regularly appeared at American Muslims for Palestine events. AMP has been described as another iteration of various Hamas front groups. Hamas is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood making the terror group and ISM cousins.
At an AMP conference, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee boss had attacked efforts by the United States to crack down on terror fundraising. “When the PLO was designated as a terrorist group – political decision – Hamas, Hizballah and other groups, when they’re designated as terrorist groups, it is a political decision,” he had complained.
The Islamic Society of Milwaukee is not just a threat to Jews or Israel, but also to the United States.
Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, the foreign affairs chairman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s party, spoke at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee in 2014. His message was one of theocracy. “The issue of the separation of religion from politics is a church issue and it does not apply to Islam,” he told ISM members. “Democracy is the rule of people, [for] the people, by the people within the limit of what Allah allows.”
What might have put Yousef on a pathway from a Muslim community run by the Muslim Brotherhood to joining up with a Neo-Nazi organization? The Brotherhood was inspired by Nazi Germany.