Stephen M. Flatow, whose daughter was killed in a terrorist attack in Israel in ‘95, decries John Esposito’s “obscene invitation” to speak before the New Jersey Dept. of Homeland Security conference. He focuses on the kind of company Esposito keeps.

Esposito teaches at Georgetown University in its His Royal Highness Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding…recall that bin Talal is the Saudi prince who shortly after 9/11 blamed the attacks on U.S. Mideast policy (prompting then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to throw the prince’s $10 million gift to the city back in his face). Esposito finds time to appear around the country at events sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – [praising and] helping the group raise funds to explain that the real problem fronting us today is less a clash of cultures than a clash of Islam with American foreign policy. The Esposito-CAIR position is that Americans constantly ask Muslims to understand them without scrutinizing our own actions. CAIR, by the way, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial against the Holy Land Foundation, which stands accused of diverting over $12 million of charitable contributions to the terrorist group Hamas… Esposito [also] described Sami Al-Arian as “a very good friend of mine.” Al-Arian is the Palestinian professor who pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to provide money to Palestinian Islamic Jihad – the group responsible for the 1995 bus-bombing murder of my daughter Alisa and seven others.

HS, stand tall and rescind this invitation, or you’ll soon be known as the “Homeland Insecurity” agency. And, thank you, Mr. Flatow, for this alert.