Sensitive to CAIR
Yesterday John noted the Newsweek story by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reporting that Barbara Boxer has awakened to CAIR's terrorist connections and rescinded an award granted by her office to a CAIR terrorist official. It is striking how unfamiliar Newsweek and its reporters seem to be with CAIR's genesis out of a Hamas front group, with CAIR executive director Nihad Awad's support for Hamas or with the damning conviction of high-ranking CAIR officer Randall ("Ismail") Royer on terrorism-related charges. As for CAIR executive director Awad:
• Nihad Awad publicly declared his enthusiasm for Hamas at Barry University in Florida in 1994: "I'm in support of Hamas movement more than the PLO."Awad is a former official of the Islamic Association of Palestine, which was a front group for Hamas. As one can infer from the items above, Awad and CAIR appear to act as voices of the "Wahhabi lobby" and as a front for supporters of Islamist terrorism. Below is a photo of Awad speaking on April 20, 2002 in Washington, D.C. on a stage bearing the flag of Hezbollah.• This same year, according to the Weekly Standard, when Mike Wallace of CBS's "60 Minutes" asked Awad if he supports the "military undertakings of Hamas," Awad stood up for the terrorist group and told him, "The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation [the right] to defend themselves against illegal occupation."
• In an August 19, 2006 interview on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Awad rationalized suicide terrorism by suggesting it's really about fighting injustice. He refers to the writing of author Robert Pape on the subject: "He found out that it [suicide terrorism] has more to do with occupations and fighting injustice than religion. It really responds to the myth and the known notion now that has been used by several commentators and some politicians as a cliché because it sounds maybe dramatically well but factually it is not."
• Shortly after September 11, 2001, Awad and CAIR placed on their website a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and under it a call for donations. It read, "What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks," and by clicking on "Donate to the NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund" one was unsuspectingly sent directly to the website of the Holy Land Foundation. A week later, the wording of the site was changed, as visitors to the site were directly told to "Donate through the Holy Land Foundation." The link was on CAIR's website until early December 2001, when the information mysteriously disappeared.
• On December 4, 2001, the reason for the disappearance was apparent, as the Holy Land Foundation's assets were blocked by the United States government for funneling money to Hamas. According to the White House website, "The U.S.-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development [provided] millions of dollars each year that [was] used by HAMAS."
• On Sept. 16, 2000, at a Washington rally sponsored by CAIR, AMC, and MPAC, Awad declared: "They [the Jews] have been saying 'next year to Jerusalem,' we say 'next year to all of Palestine!'"
CAIR's chairman is Parvez Ahmed. Who is Parvez Ahmed? Ahmed was a prominent supporter of Sami Al-Arian, the convicted terrorist financier and head of the North American branch of the terrorist Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Ahmed called for Al-Arian's release before he pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges, admitting that the government's allegation that he was the head of the North American branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (For more, see the invaluable essay by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha: "CAIR: Islamists fooling the establishment.")
All honor to Senator Boxer, not only for awakening to CAIR's terrorist connections and CAIR's tropism to terrorists, but also to Newsweek for eliciting this revealing non-response from Awad:
CAIR Executive Director Awad refuses to say whether he would also condemn Hamas [in addition to a terrorist attack perpetrated by Islamic Jihad]—which has taken credit for similar attacks in Israel—as a group or even whether he considers it a terrorist organization like the U.S. State Department does. “We condemn these groups when they committed acts of terrorism,” he says. “But I’m not going to play the game of the pro-Israel lobby just so they can put words in our mouth. Our position is very clear.By contrast with Senator Boxer and Newsweek, the Transportation Security Administration is a victim of narcolepsy. Yesterday at NRO's Corner Andrew McCarthy noted CAIR's press release announcing that TSA has provided special sensitivity training to its employees on Muslims traveling to Mecca for Hajj. Andy linked to the report on the briefing posted by the State Department. The sensitivity training responds to CAIR's call in the wake of the case of the flying imams. The report states:"The entire issue is going back to Israel," Awad adds. "If you love Israel, you're OK. If you question Israel, you're not. If that is the litmus test, no American Muslim and no freedom-loving person is going to pass that test."
The training comes just one month after Department of Homeland Security personnel came under criticism for removing six imams from a domestic flight for what one passenger considered suspicious behavior.As a matter of fact, every responsible authority familiar with the behavior -- including the flight crew and other US Airways employees -- considered the flying imams' behavior suspicious. The motives for the behavior remain unclear; at the least it was intended to provoke, as it did.
In response to Jonah Goldberg's comment on his post on the TSA Hajj sensitivity training, McCarthy laid out the case for prosecuting the flying imams under federal law for their behavior. I think it's a great idea, evn though the Justice Department would never do it. It would give authorities the opportunity to plea bargain with the imams in exchange for their testifying to what is in my view the likely role of Minnesota Rep.-elect Keith Ellison and of CAIR itself in the incident.
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