Why Did 101 Lawmakers Send Letters of Support to Israel-Bashing Hamas-CAIR?

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The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is routinely presented in the mainstream media as a civil rights organization. Its consistent pattern of encouraging Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement is never mentioned. Reporters citing CAIR as a source or authority almost always fail to mention that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. During that case, a captured internal document of the Muslim Brotherhood was released, naming CAIR’s parent organization, the Islamic Association for Palestine, as one of its allied groups, and explaining that the mission of Brotherhood groups in the U.S. was “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Why hasn’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursued the mountain of evidence and prosecuted this traitorous terror-tied group? And why are these lawmakers supporting this unsavory group? Is there no limit to the left’s anti-Americanism?

“Why Did 101 Lawmakers Send Letters of Support to Israel-Bashing CAIR?,” by Steven Emerson, The Algemeiner, November 2, 2018 (thanks to Inexion):

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If the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stuck to its stated mission statement and only did civil rights work protecting Muslim Americans from discrimination and bigotry, you likely would never see it mentioned on this site.

But CAIR has a second, perhaps more paramount objective that it never directly acknowledges: To oppose Israel and promote Palestinian nationalism.

CAIR’s mission statement makes no mention of Palestine. Instead, it says it aims to “enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.” It describes its lobbying arm as focusing “on issues related to Islam and Muslims. The department monitors legislation and government activities and responds on behalf of the American Muslim community.”

But a review of CAIR’s activities shows a significant amount of time is spent on pushing Palestinian narratives, while never addressing Hamas’s obsession with pursuing terrorism at the expense of Palestinian civilians, or the Palestinian Authority’s ceaseless rhetoric fomenting hatred.

That’s especially true in times of conflict. CAIR also routinely teams with groups devoted to opposing Israel’s very existence. It should not be surprising to those familiar with CAIR’s origin story. It was created by a Muslim Brotherhood-run Hamas support network in the United States. Witnesses told the FBI that supporting Hamas was its mission from the start.

CAIR officials also have spent years casting the FBI as an imminent threat to the Muslim community, depicting agents as dark figures lurking outside their doors, as willing to threaten, lie and even break the law just to set up innocent Muslims, and as cold-blooded murderers. CAIR reflexively dismisses counter-terrorism indictments as entrapment.

Despite these facts, too many people remain ignorant to CAIR’s full slate of activities. CAIR takes advantage of this situation by using the visibility and influence its civil rights work provides to pursue its foreign policy aims.

That was made abundantly clear at CAIR’s recent national banquet and fundraiser outside Washington, D.C. The Oct. 19 event drew letters of support and congratulations from 101 elected officials and candidates, nearly all Democrats. That group includes 17 US senators, including likely presidential candidates Cory Booker of New Jersey and California’s Kamala Harris. Other prominent Democratic senators signing salutation letters to CAIR include Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Florida’s Bill Nelson, 2016 vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine from Virginia and New Jersey’s Robert Menendez.

Missing from the list is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom we called out in 2016 for a similar endorsement.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism obtained a copy of the booklet containing all the letters, which can be seen here. Many of the letters use similar language, likely supplied by CAIR. Most note the event and praise the organization for its civil rights and anti-bigotry work.

“As our country faces new threats to civil rights,” wrote Massachusetts US Rep. Joseph Kennedy, III, “it is crucial that active participation in our democracy be protected and allowed to prosper. CAIR’s efforts to provide American Muslims a voice in the public square and encourage civic engagement are vital as we work to unite against all forms of hate.”

Next to his signature, Kennedy hand wrote, “Many thanks for all you do.”

That note indicates Kennedy knew he was signing an endorsement of CAIR. But elected officials receive countless requests for salutations every month and the responses traditionally are handled by staff members. It’s unclear how many of the members of Congress knew they endorsed CAIR.

As we noted in the 2016 story about Schumer, the New York senator expressed concern about CAIR’s ties to terrorists as far back as 2003 and advocated a government cut-off of communication with the group. And in 2009, Schumer joined Republican colleagues Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) in asking FBI officials why they had enacted that very policy the previous year.

“We certainly support that action,” the senators wrote, “and it would be helpful to understand the situation more fully.”

Evidence collected during a Hamas-financing investigation connected CAIR and its founders within a Hamas-support network in the United States called the Palestine Committee, an FBI response said. “[U]ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”

The policy remains in effect, but somehow, dozens of members of Congress are comfortable endorsing CAIR anyway, or haven’t made it clear to their staffs to steer clear of a group which might have Hamas ties.

We’ve written exhaustively about CAIR’s pro-Hamas/Palestine Committee connections. Here are some key points:

· CAIR appears on a list of Palestine Committee entities written the month of CAIR’s founding.

· At least three CAIR officers, including Executive Director Nihad Awad, appear in a Palestine Committee telephone roster. The Palestine Committee’s mission was to “to support Hamas from abroad,” the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found.

· The FBI described Omar Ahmad, a CAIR co-founder along with Awad and a longtime past national CAIR chairman, as “a leader within the [Palestine] Committee” and internal records show he was one of the committee’s executives.

CAIR has never directly addressed these, and many other connections, or even tried to claim that it moved away from its past.

A look at CAIR’s activities shows why. The organization continues to lobby against Israel for every element of the conflict with Palestinians, and many of its chapter leaders express a blind hate for the Jewish state. San Francisco chapter director Zahra Billoo has repeatedly compared the Israeli military to ISIS. Los Angeles chapter director Hussam Ayloush has, too, in addition to angrily claiming that asking him about Hamas was an act of hatred since he works for “a civil rights organization we’re not here in the business of being dragged into the Middle East affairs and the conflicts of the Middle East.”

In rare moments of candor, CAIR officials say what they’re really all about. During a 2014 rally for convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmieh Odeh, CAIR’s Michigan chapter director Dawud Walid described CAIR as “defenders of the Palestinian struggle.”

CAIR partners with groups like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which has clear ties to the old Palestine Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and other groups which seek Israel’s elimination. In May, for example, CAIR joined AMP and JVP in protesting outside Booker’s and Menendez’s offices demanding they condemn Israel’s response to Palestinian riots at the Gaza border. The protesters went home disappointed.

Nearly all the casualties from the violence were members of Hamas or other terrorist groups.

During a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza triggered by Hamas rocket fire and the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, CAIR and its San Francisco chapter published a primer on how to help Palestine. It included calls to attend rallies and contact members of Congress to discuss “our country’s complicity in the ongoing attack on Palestine.”

During a similar conflict in 2009, also sparked by Hamas rocket fire at Israeli civilian communities, Awad spoke at a news conference at the National Press Club, demanding “the U.S. government, take immediate steps to end the immoral and illegal Israeli bombardment of Gaza.” Ayloush issued a similar statement. Neither mentioned Hamas or called on the terrorist group to cease firing at Israeli cities and civilians.

Last December, CAIR — the purported American civil rights group, the one Ayloush insisted was “not here in the business of being dragged into the Middle East affairs and the conflicts of the Middle East” when it comes to addressing Hamas — joined AMP, SJP and other groups at a rally to oppose another foreign policy issue, the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. To Awad, the move represented proof the U.S. placed the interests of another country over American interests.

Speaking in his capacity as CAIR executive director, he urged his audience to act:

“We cannot support the Palestinian people by just coming to Washington, D.C. and speaking at these rallies,” he said. “You know what’s next and what’s more important? You have to speak to your members of Congress, you have to meet with them …”

Everyone has the right to petition the government and have his or her voices heard. The issue here is CAIR’s deceptive marketing effort. It sells itself as a civil rights organization and does do aggressive work in that arena. But it all goes to building a platform that it uses to try to influence American public attitudes and policies in favor of Palestinians, and by extension, Hamas.

More than 100 members of Congress fell for CAIR’s ruse. In the end, whether it was out of ignorance or willful blindness doesn’t matter. They’ve enabled an organization born in a terror support network that continues to do the bidding of radical Islamists….

The Truth Must be Told

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felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

I stopped reading here:
“Why hasn’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursued the mountain of evidence and prosecuted this traitorous terror-tied group? ”
That is my question too. Is Jeff Sessions hiding something? Does someone have something on him?
Sessions needs to go! Hopefully the midterm results will be good and he can be quickly replaced.

mztore
mztore
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Actually, I stopped there also. That is the biggest question of the whole article. I think most of us are aware of what follows…..how that group works.

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR both need to be prosecuted. Is there a statute of limitations on this?comment image

mztore
mztore
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Since there are still around, we don’t need to worry about any statute of limitations, whey just need to be charged.

inner_explorer
inner_explorer
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Hassan al Banna in his own words!

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felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

It’s a spider web of Muslim jihad. CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood front group.comment image?w=600&h=448

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

comment image

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

VOTE RED – GOP!
I don’t care how much of a RINO they are. Vote the bastards back in.
They will be pressured to fly right. If I can vote for Lance in NJ, a thoroughly despicable human being,
you can vote for someone hideous too! DEMS NEED TO BE SMASHED.
comment image

Janet
Janet
5 years ago

I wanted to puke ???? reading some of these letters! I’ve never read so much BS then again anything the Democrats say are lies and BS so nothing here surprises me but it does infuriate me. Please vote tomorrow if you haven’t all ready! And don’t vote for a single Democrat no matter how moderate and unbiased they might claim to be. They have contempt and hate for not only America but for her citizens too. Vote completely red no matter what. We can’t take any chances or our country is doomed and future generations will no longer have the freedom that we cherish so much and so many lives have fought and died for! #RedWave ????

MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
MuhamMUDTheFakeProphet
5 years ago

Muslum “civil rights” always come at the expense of the kafir al najjis (and women and the LGBT community).

nag2
nag2
5 years ago

Not to worry though. There are many brain dead voters who will gladly vote these traitors back into office today. We are in serious trouble right here in America. The fact that a Democrat gets even one vote proves it.

iprazhm
iprazhm
5 years ago

“Why hasn’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions pursued the mountain of evidence and prosecuted this traitorous terror-tied group?” Pamela Geller

Because he is part of Washington’s Jihad Lottery. Using muslims to vote for democrats, weaken our society and to thin the herd. A country in turmoil is much easier to overthrow for installation of the new world government.
There’s a reason Trump hasn’t fired him.
There’s a reason Trump placed him in such a crucial gov position.

jerrys
jerrys
5 years ago

A vote for a democrat is a vote for islam to put America under sharia slavery!
No muslim should be permitted in a public position as they have all sworn to destroy and enslave America.
PROSCRIBE islam!!!!

Wayne Marion
Wayne Marion
5 years ago

Hate America?
Vote for the Dimms.

inner_explorer
inner_explorer
5 years ago

What is Emerson babbling about? Mission Statement? Here is their Mission Statement!

comment image

evangeline golding
evangeline golding
5 years ago

101 traitors.
Doesn’t have quite the same ring as 101 Dalmations, but not bad.
And now we know who they all are…

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