New York Times readers’ representative Daniel Okrent tries to answer concerns about the paper’s refusal to use the word “terrorism:” The War of the Words: A Dispatch From the Front Lines. (Hat tip: davesax.)

Who does Okrent contact when he needs advice on this touchy subject?

The Islamic Circle of North America.

NOTHING provokes as much rage as what many perceive to be The Times’s policy on the use of “terrorist,” “terrorism” and “terror.” There is no policy, actually, but except in the context of Al Qaeda, or in direct quotations, these words, as explosive as what they describe, show up very rarely.

Among pro-Israeli readers (and nonreaders urged to write to me by media watchdog organizations), the controversy over variants of the T-word has become the stand-in for the Israel-Palestine conflict itself. When Israel’s targeted assassinations of suspected sponsors of terrorism provoke retaliation, some pro-Palestinian readers argue that any armed response against civilians by such groups as Hamas is morally equivalent. Critics on the other side say The Times’s general avoidance of the word “terrorism” is a political decision, and exactly what Hamas wants.

Here’s what I want: A path out of this thicket, which is snarled with far more than “terror” and its derivative tendrils. I packed the preceding paragraph with enough verbal knots to secure the QE2, so I’ll untangle them one by one.

“Pro-Israeli” and “pro-Palestinian”: Adem Carroll of the Islamic Circle of North America has pointed out to me that both epithets represent value judgments. Are Ariel Sharon’s policies pro-Israel? Not in the minds of his critics on the Israeli left. Is Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiation policy pro-Palestinian? I doubt that supporters of Islamic jihad believe it is.

In 1997, terrorism expert Steven Emerson spoke to the Middle East Quarterly about the Islamic Circle of North America.

MEQ: Are the AMC and CAIR the only groups you consider dangerous?

Emerson: Hardly. The Islamic Circle of North America (or ICNA) proclaims in writing its support for jihad, or holy war, against the “enemies of Islam”; its U.S.-based conferences and publications are replete with the need to support the terrorist regime of the Sudan and the need to support “Islamic movements” in which category they include Hamas and the Islamic Salvation Front among others. ICNA’s hatred of Jews is so fierce that it has taunted Jews with a repetition of what Hitler did to them.

Emerson’s book American Jihad, published in 2002, has more on the ICNA:

Formally established in 1971 the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is composed primarily of Muslim supporters of South Asian descent. It is allied with the militant fundamentalist movement of Jamaat-e-Islamiya in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terrorist attacks, issues incendiary attacks on Western values and policies, and supports the imposition of shari’a (Islamic code of law). It has created several nonprofit charitable organizations that collect tax-deductible contributions for militant Islamic causes. ICNA’s views are disseminated through regular conferences and a monthly publication called The Message.

In March of 1996, Senato Mitch Connell (R-KY), chairman of the Foreign Operations subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, stated that “One of the groups with Hamas ties is the Dallas-based Islamic Association for Palestine in North America, which, in turn, apparently is allied with the Islamic Circle of North America in New York.” …

From June 30 to July 2, 2000, in Baltimore, [an ICNA convention] featured the leader of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islamiya, Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmad. The Jamaat-e-Islamiya is the most prominent radical Islamic movement in Pakistan and its members openly supported the Taliban government and learn the ways of jihad. At the conference, Ameer Ahmad alleged that the principal duty of American Muslims is to unite in a single government with Muslims all over the world: “Now, this is the duty of the American Muslims, the Muslims living here, they have got a message … We have got a universal message and we are a universal government.”

Just the people to advise the New York Times on the propriety of the T word.