Tuesday, November 20, 2001

By The Washington Post and The Associated Press

WASHINGTON ' As President Bush hosts Ramadan feasts at the White House this week to bolster Muslim support for the war on terrorism, he is shadowed by criticism of the administration's outreach efforts to American Muslims during the past two months.

Jewish groups and some conservatives have been lobbying the president to stop courting certain Muslim leaders who, they say, have equivocated on terrorism by condemning the Sept. 11 attacks but praising Hamas and Hezbollah. Those two groups, which are fighting Israel, are on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

It's a very simple proposition, said Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress. The White House ought to be certain that the people they associate with don't defend, excuse or condone suicide bombing.

Some Muslim leaders acknowledge that they disagree with the State Department's designation of some of the groups fighting Israel as terrorist.

Hezbollah is a legitimate military operation, and many of its activities are social, such as running hospitals and schools, said Hussein Ibish, head of the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee. You will have a tough time convincing Arabs that Hezbollah are terrorists while the tactics of the Israeli military are not, whether it's kidnapping, bombing of civilians, torturing or shooting people.

And Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was chosen by the White House to attend a prayer service with the president, said at a Washington rally last year, We are all supporters of Hamas.

The pressure from Jewish groups and some conservatives presents the administration with a problem. Many Muslim leaders being criticized are popular in their communities. Their visible support for the president is critical to Bush's efforts to counter claims by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden that the U.S. is waging war against Islam.

At a Ramadan dinner last night at the White House attended by representatives of 53 Muslim nations, Bush expressed his appreciation for their support in the war on terrorism.

Tonight that campaign continues in Afghanistan so that the people of Afghanistan will soon know peace, Bush said. The terrorists have no home in any faith. Evil has no holy days.

Though Bush declined to halt bombing during Ramadan, which began last week, he is emphasizing his administration's humanitarian efforts in the region.

Since he began the military, financial and political campaign against terrorists, Bush has gone out of his way to seek support of Muslims abroad and at home.

The White House has rejected the idea that any U.S. Muslim leader would be excluded for statements he made in the past, and sources there say the White House is expanding its list of Muslim contacts. At the same time, these sources say, the White House has begun to vet more carefully leaders who appear with the president.

The pressure on the administration is coming not just from Jewish groups. A split is emerging between two wings of the Republican Party: libertarians who consider Muslims the party's greatest immigrant asset and conservatives who conceive of the war exactly the way Bush tries to avoid, as a cosmic one between Islam and the West.

The emerging spokesmen for the latter group are Paul Weyrich and William Lind of the Free Congress Foundation.

There is no such thing as peaceful Islam, Lind said. Islamics cannot fit into an America in which the first loyalty is to the American Constitution. They should be encouraged to leave. They are a fifth column in this country.

On the opposite side are people such as Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist calls Muslims natural conservatives. After the election, Norquist wrote an article in the American Spectator headlined: George W. Bush was elected president of the United States of America because of the Muslim vote.

Bush had campaigned at mosques and spoke out against a 1996 law permitting secret evidence to be used in deportation proceedings. He won the endorsement of most major American Muslim groups.