Attendees of a White House dinner this week celebrating a Muslim holiday attempted to leverage their direct interaction with Barack Obama into a presidential commitment to discuss widespread and controversial surveillance of their communities.
They left feeling they had Obama's interest, but not much more.
Less than a week after the Intercept, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, showed US Muslim activists and attorneys had been targeted for surveillance, Obama gathered legislators, diplomats and US Muslim community leaders to the White House on Monday night for an Iftar dinner, the sunset meal during Ramadan. In remarks released by the White House, Obama stressed the value of pluralism, sidestepping the surveillance controversy.
Not everyone was satisfied with the omission.
Some of the people who attended were signatories of a letter sent to the White House in the wake of the Intercept story urgently requesting a meeting with Obama. Without that commitment yet in hand, took the opportunity to raise the issue with Obama personally at the Monday dinner.
"I specifically asked the president if he would meet with us to discuss NSA spying on the American Muslim community. The president seemed to perk up and proceeded to discuss the issue, saying that he takes it very seriously," said Junaid Sulahry, the outreach manager for Muslim Advocates, a legal and civil rights group.
Obama was non-committal, Sulahry said, but displayed "a clear willingness to discuss the issue."
Hoda Elshishtawy, the national policy analyst for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said that she brought it up as part of a "table-wide discussion" on post-9/11 surveillance of US Muslims.
"Our communities can't be seen as suspects and partners at the same time," Elshishtawy said.
That tension has plagued the Obama administration's domestic counterterrorism – or, as it prefers, "countering violent extremism" – for its entire tenure. The departments of justice and homeland security lead outreach efforts in Muslim and other local communities, stressing vigilance against radicalizing influences and dialogue with law enforcement.
Yet Muslim communities labor under widespread suspicion of incubating terrorism. Surveillance from law enforcement and US intelligence is robust, from the harvesting of digital communications to the recruitment of informants inside mosques. The Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles maps of Muslim businesses and religious institutions, without suspicion of specific crimes.
The mixed message comes amidst the freight of a foreign policy featuring drone strikes in Muslim countries, a reluctance to foreclose on indefinite detention that functionally is only aimed at Muslims, and difficulty concluding the war in Afghanistan – all of which have strained relations with American-Muslim communities.
Some of those community leaders have already come under fire for attending the White House dinner. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee urged a boycott over the surveillance and administration support for Israel during the current Gaza offensive, rejecting what it called "normalization of the continuous breach of our fundamental rights."
Representatives of organizations that rejected the boycott argued that they can exercise greater influence through access than through rejection.
"Our strategy is to worth through the system," said Farhana Khera, Muslim Advocates' executive director.
The White House declined comment on what it called "private conversations at a closed press event."