The office of Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis has publicly disavowed the Council on American Islamic Relations.

It was in response to CAIR’s Twitter post claiming that the Governor had “recognized” them for their good work.

Thanks to this excellent article in Focus on Western Islamism (a project of the Middle East Forum) we have many wonderful quotes.

DeSantis’ Press Secretary, Bryan Griffin, responded to CAIR’s claims by saying,

“It is false for CAIR to claim that they were affirmatively selected to receive any sort of recognition. This was an automatically generated thank you note to any faith-based entity that self-enrolled in our Faith and Community Based Initiative via a website. Every person and entity that signed up received this automatically generated response.”

“The faith office will certainly review this oversight and remove CAIR from our list of partner organizations.”

“We welcome the efforts of any legitimate faith-based organization that wants to work to serve the needs of Floridians. However, CAIR does not reflect our shared values, and this will be corrected immediately.”

Focus on Western Islamism shows that DeSantis apparently knows about CAIR’s unindicted co-conspirator status in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

Susannah Johnston, the article’s author, knows a lot about CAIR, and their record in Florida. Ms. Johnston brings up the 2014 CAIR sponsored pro-Hamas rally in Miami.

She also very aptly brings up CAIR-FL’s You Tube channel.

It is there that CAIR’s ironically named video series “Exposed” shows us exactly where their loyalties lie. They lie with: Lady al Qaeda, Sami Al-Arian, and cop killer Jamil Al-Amin.

As Martha Lee of the Middle East Forum puts it:

“CAIR-FL despairs that a “a combination of passing time along with deliberate efforts to stifle the memory of civil/human rights giants cause us to forget some of the greatest infringements in our lifetime.”

But even if one believes the claim that the U.S criminal justice system did not treat CAIR’s four subjects fairly, it is undeniably, unbelievably dishonest to present a convicted murderer and other partisans of violent organizations as “civil/human rights giants.” These four radicals are bound together only by a commitment to violence and hateful, totalitarian ideologies. Misrepresentation of their plight serves only to reiterate CAIR’s long-standing extremist agenda.”

And,  now if we can only get the many Florida TV stations to stop promoting CAIR, we will truly be off to a better tomorrow.

DeSantis Accuses CAIR of Deception, Ousts it from Florida Program

News DeSantis Accuses CAIR of Deception, Ousts it from Florida Program

https://islamism.news/2022/09/01/desantis-accuses-cair-of-deception-ousts-it-from-florida-program/?goal=0_1ce70fade8-d690c8d382-34171553

BySusannah Johnston

September 1, 2022

The office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has told FWI it will be removing the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a partner in its Faith and Community Initiative.

In 2019, the governor founded the Governor’s Faith and Community Initiative “to facilitate the efforts of the state’s faith-based entities by improving communication and collaboration among them,” according to Dylan Fisher, the program’s director.

On August 18, a Facebook post by the Florida branch of CAIR claimed to be a leading member of the initiative, declaring, “Governor Ron DeSantis recently presented CAIR-Florida with a Certificate of Recognition for our continued work in service of the vulnerable populations of Floridians.”

Governor DeSantis has, however, previously taken a strong stance against CAIR, noting its identification by the U.S. government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation’s funding of the terror group, Hamas.

CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in 2014, at which participants yelled “We are Hamas.”  In 2017, then-director, Hassan Shibly, endorsed a conference that promoted violent jihad and personally referred to Muslims from the moderate Ahmadiyya as “heretical.”

When FWI asked the governor’s office how CAIR had received recognition, DeSantis’ Press Secretary, Bryan Griffin, explained “The faith office will certainly review this oversight and remove CAIR from our list of partner organizations.”

“It is false for CAIR to claim that they were affirmatively selected to receive any sort of recognition. This was an automatically generated thank you note to any faith-based entity that self-enrolled in our Faith and Community Based Initiative via a website. Every person and entity that signed up received this automatically generated response.”

Critics accuse CAIR-Florida of a history of misrepresentations.  In 2020, the Islamist group presented known terror supporters and a convicted murderer as misunderstood “activists” on a webinar to “highlight the government’s use of imprisonment as a fear and intimidation tactic targeting both individuals and communities, and eroding civil liberties.”

The first, Sami Al-Arian, is an advocate of violent jihad, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to supporting the designated terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The second, Moazzam Begg, is a leading British Salafi who, according to the Pentagon, “trained at three terrorist camps.” Begg says he told the CIA under interrogation that he “wanted to live in an Islamic state” and described the Taliban as “better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past 25 years.”

CAIR-Florida also picked a convicted cop-killer as another victimized “activist,” Jamil Al-Amin. Al-Amin shot two sheriff’s deputies, killing one in March 2000.  He has made the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list more than once, has been investigated in connection to multiple murders, and views the United States Constitution as “diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded.” Al-Amin also benefits from CAIR financially, as they seek to get him off the cop-killing charge.

The governor’s office responded to FWI’s inquiry about the “recognition” of CAIR saying, “We welcome the efforts of any legitimate faith-based organization that wants to work to serve the needs of Floridians. However, CAIR does not reflect our shared values, and this will be corrected immediately.”

CAIR-Florida did not respond to FWI’s request for comment.

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