Iftaar at the White House

October 29, 2003

Source: Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1029-09.htm

On October 29, 2003 Inter Press Service reported that "the White House was clearly hoping its Iftaar dinner Tuesday evening, to which ambassadors from predominantly Muslim nations and individual U.S. Muslims were invited to break their Ramadan fast with the president, would send a reassuring message to the Islamic world... But a denunciation of the White House event by a number of national U.S. Muslim organizations just hours before it took place got more attention in the news media than the dinner itself, blunting whatever favorable impact Bush had hoped the gesture might make. 'It seems that the only time this administration wants to meet with us is for photo opportunities, not to hear our concerns about policies here at home and abroad,' Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, told reporters at the National Press Club on Tuesday. He and the leaders of several other Muslim organizations held their own Iftaar dinner across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. While the incident hardly made headlines, it spoke volumes about the growing anger felt by U.S. Muslims, a fast-growing and increasingly politicized minority of as many as five million citizens, towards the Bush administration."