Are you still waiting for your invitation to the State Department's Ramadan Iftar celebration?  Well, you can stop hovering around your mailbox...because it's never coming!

The State Department, which has made a practice of celebrating Ramadan every year since 1999, apparently will not be celebrating this year.

Several prominent Muslim-American groups in the Washington area [which] are normally invited to the Ramadan event told Reuters this week that they had yet to receive an invitation from the State Department, which they said was unusual.

"If they're having one, we haven't been invited," said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington. A representative for her group has been invited to the State Department event in the past, she said.

Maybe their invitation got lost in the mail?

In April, the State Department's Office of Religion and Global Affairs made a request to Tillerson's office that he deliver remarks at an Eid al-Fitr reception this year, and suggested a two-week range of dates in July. Several weeks later, that office and other offices at the State Department were alerted that Tillerson declined the request, the officials said.

Good for him.  Why should America celebrate Islamic holidays?  In addition to our being at war with radical Islam, there are a great deal of compatibility problems between "mainstream" Islam and what we know of as modern human rights.  In "mainstream" Muslim countries, women are treated like second-class citizens.  Homosexuals are brutalized.  Non-Muslims constantly run the risk of being killed, and in some countries, like Saudi Arabia, worshiping in other religions is enough to get you arrested.

So why should America celebrate an intolerant religion?  You should ask the Pentagon this question, because, unlike the State Department, it is celebrating Ramadan.  This is the very same Pentagon that recently decided to allow American soldiers to wear hijabs.  The policy started under Obama but continues under Trump.

 

The U.S. Army has issued a directive on grooming and appearance regulations that allows observant Sikh men and conservative Muslim women to wear religious head covering.

"The Army has reviewed its policies to ensure soldiers can serve in a manner consistent with their faith so that we can recruit from the broadest pool of America's best," Army Secretary Eric Fanning said in a statement.

It looks as though the military is still in the grips of Islamophiles.  Why is Trump tolerating this?  It is bizarre that we are fighting Islamic fundamentalism while permitting sharia-compliant soldiers to serve in the military.

It's just as bizarre as hosting a Ramadan dinner with people who may very well be our enemies.  Here's how the situation was in 1803:

The first documented White House Iftar occurred more than 200 years ago, when President Thomas Jefferson hosted the Tunisian envoy Sidi Slimane Mhlmyla on Dec. 9, 1805, to discuss the issue of piracy in the Mediterranean Sea.

And here's how it was just three years ago:

Yet even under Obama, celebrating Ramadan was controversial, most notably in 2014, around the time of the 2014 Gaza War. Invitees who showed up to mark Islam’s holy month were offended by the presence of the Israeli ambassador[.]

They were offended by the presence of an Israeli.  They sound really tolerant.

You have to wonder what is going on at the Pentagon.  Or at a White House that tolerates this.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.