John Esposito

Dr. John Espos­i­to is a pro­fes­sor of Inter­na­tion­al Affairs and Islam­ic Stud­ies at George­town Uni­ver­si­ty. He is also the found­ing direc­tor of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Cen­ter for Mus­lim-Chris­t­ian Under­stand­ing at George­town Uni­ver­si­ty. Espos­i­to, a for­mer U.S. State Depart­ment advi­sor,  has espoused views con­sis­tent with Broth­er­hood doc­trine and dur­ing the 1990’s was known for his claims that Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ism was, in fact, demo­c­ra­t­ic and posed no threat to the U.S. Dr. Espos­i­to has at least a dozen past or present affil­i­a­tions with glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood/Hamas orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing hav­ing served on the advi­so­ry board of the Insti­tute of Islam­ic Polit­i­cal Thought in the U.K. head­ed by Azzam Tami­mi, a leader in the U.K. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and often described as a Hamas spokesman. Dr. Espos­i­to has also served with thje late glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Youssef Qaradawi on the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee of the Cir­cle of Tra­di­tion and Progress and enjoyed a close rela­tion­ship with the Unit­ed Asso­ci­a­tion For Stud­ies and Research (USAR), part of the U.S. Mus­lim Brotherhood’s Pales­tine Com­mit­tee and part of the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture. In 2005, Sau­di prince Alaweed bin Talal, a finan­cial sup­port­er of the glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, donat­ed $20 mil­lion to the Cen­ter for Mus­lim Chris­t­ian Under­stand­ing at George­town, head­ed by Dr. Esposito.