An influential Muslim adviser to the White House who has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in canceling a meeting between President Obama and the leader of the persecuted Maronite church in Lebanon, according to the Beirut news agency el Nashra

The Arabic-language report cited an unnamed U.S. source who said Dahlia Mogahed, "the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department," sought to block a White House meeting with Patriarch Beshara Rahi, according to a translation by blogger El Cid at BigPeace.com.

The report said the move heeded a request by top leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who want the U.S. to back the Islamist Sunni movement opposing Iranian Shiite influence in the region.

Maronites number about 1 million in Lebanon and more than 10 millions worldwide. About 1.5 million are in the U.S.

Along with her role on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Mogahed is a member of the advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security. She has testified before the Senate on engagement with the Muslim community. She is senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, where she led major surveys of Muslims worldwide that routinely concluded the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.

Mogahed was a leading voice in the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement that issued a 153-page advisory report calling for dialogue with Hamas and engagement with opposition parties in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

The U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, drew attention in February when he characterized the Muslim Brotherhood as "largely secular."

The Brotherhood, however, which was banned under Egypt's Mubarak regime, states in its charter that it is an "international Muslim Body, which seeks to establish Allah's law in the land by achieving the spiritual goals of Islam and the true religion." Furthermore, the prosecution of the Hamas-financing scheme in Texas two years ago presented evidence of the Brotherhood's aim to destroy Western civilization from within and establish an Islamic society under the rule of the Quran.

The terror-finance trial also presented evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood's lobbying in Washington is being carried out by front groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

CAIR and MPAC, the BigPeace.com blogger noted, are pushing to eliminate any intelligence analysis focused on jihadist violence, particularly against the Christian communities in the Middle East.

Coptic Solidarity International, which advocates for Coptic Christians in Egypt who have endured increased persecution from fundamentalist Muslims under the new regime, also have unsuccessfully tried to obtain meetings at the White House or with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Iraqi Christians have been ignored, as well, despite the many massacres against Assyrian Christians in the country over the past two years, according to BigPeace.com. Administration officials have declined invitations to speak at the annual Assyrian convention this year.

Defining Islam

In an interview with Islam Online in April 2009, Mogahed explained her role in the Obama administration is "to convey the facts about what Muslims think and feel."

"I see my role as offering the voices of the silenced majority of Muslims in America and around the world to the council so that our deliberations are informed by their ideas and wisdom," she said. "I believe that I was chosen because the administration cares about what Muslims think and wants to listen."

She once dismissed Osama bin Laden's connection to Islam, insisting he was not primarily motivated by religion but by "perceptions of imperialism and oppression and humiliation."

WND reported in April Mogahed was a partner in an Islamic project whose stated goal was to "define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times."

The project was founded and directed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the controversial Muslim leader behind the so-called Ground Zero in New York City. Mogahed and the Gallup survey provided key data for Rauf's "Shariah Index Project," which sought, according to its mission statement, to "define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times."

Mogahed in 2009 defended Islamic law on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist Muslim group, insisting the majority of women around the world associate Islam with "gender justice."

The group, Hizb ut Tahrir, has declared it wants to help foster the nonviolent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of a global Islamic state under Shariah.

Mogahed, appearing alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz, watched without objection as two members of the radical group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism."

As WND reported later that year, CAIR featured her as a headliner for its annual banquet. But on the eve of the event – after WND reported revelations about CAIR in the newly released WND Books' best-seller "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America" – a press release did not even mention her and she was quietly replaced by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.