The New York Times reports today about the ongoing efforts to win Islamist scholar Tariq Ramadan entry into the United States. The State Department banned him from entering the country in 2004 after he was offered a job at the University of Notre Dame. Since then, the Swiss national of Egyptian ancestry has become a cause célèbre for intellectuals eager to show they don't support the war on Islamist terror. According to the Times, the American Civil Liberties Union appeal of his ban will be heard by the Federal Second Circuit next Tuesday.
The Times article treats the matter as just another example of the evil Bush administration's trashing of civil liberties. The sole reason given for the ban according to the paper is that he gave $1,300 to a Swiss charity that served as a front for Hamas. But the truth about Ramadan is that he is a vicious Islamist whose work is dedicated to delegitimizing the United States and the State of Israel.
Bringing him to this country to pose as an educator is a travesty. Nor is this a question of civil liberties, since unlike American citizens who have the right to say whatever they like without government interference, foreign foes of this country have no intrinsic right to travel or work here. Moreover, the effort to paint Ramadan as simply a controversial academic is false, as Fouad Ajami pointed out in a valuable article in the Wall Street Journal in 2004. A victory for Ramadan would be one more confirmation that under Barack Obama, America has slipped back into a complacent Sept. 10 mentality in regard to those who would destroy us.