CAIR Fifth Columnists and Multiculturalists

By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com
June 27, 2006

In the realm of terrorism, the threat to America is not just concerning dirty bombs and terror cells. It’s not just about planes flying into buildings or suicide vests. No, the threat is a lot greater than that – a solid infrastructure finely cultivated into our society, paid for, at least in part, by Saudi royalty. It was created not to promote the values of our nation, but, instead, to impose Islamic law. A large part of that infrastructure is the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR. On one fine spring day this month, two institutions that we as Americans rely on – one from each of America’s coasts – gave CAIR the things that it so ardently craves and needs to survive -- cover and legitimization.

The date was June 5, 2006. A South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial that morning, entitled ‘Muslims: Group encourages volunteer work,’ began as follows: “To their great credit, many Muslim organizations in the United States have been working to counteract negative views of their religion resulting from the terrorism of Islamic extremists. One of the foremost of these groups is the Council on American-Islamic Relations…”

The piece was attributed to the Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board. The Board is made up of eleven individuals, the majority of which are accomplished writers with a vast amount of knowledge and experience in the widest range of subjects. That being the case, why would this distinguished group lavish praise on such an insidious organization as CAIR?

Was the Sun-Sentinel aware of the fact that CAIR, since its inception in 1994, had lost four of its officials, all linked to al-Qaeda and/or Hamas, all of which who’ve been either convicted or deported for their crimes? Or that one of its national advisory board members, Siraj Wahhaj, found his name placed on the list of potential co-conspirators to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center?

Did the newspaper know that, just prior to 9/11, CAIR had solicited funds for two terrorist charities related to Al-Qaeda and Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Global Relief Foundation, both shut down after 9/11?

Did the Sentinel recognize the fact that CAIR’s Executive Director, Nihad Awad, in March of 1994, had publicly stated his support for Hamas, saying that “after I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement…”?

Did the paper realize that CAIR had criticized the prosecution of the spiritual leader of the ’93 bombing, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, listing the trial as an “incident of anti-Muslim bias and violence”?

It seems none of this was taken into account, when the Board sat down to write its literary illusion. And anyway, it was only two weeks earlier that the Sentinel printed an op-ed written by the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida, Altaf Ali. Ali, exactly one month after 9/11, on a local radio show, derided this author for being Jewish and repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether he believed the people that perished during the World Trade Center attacks were innocent. Ali’s op-ed was about Daniel Wultz, the American boy that was murdered by a suicide bomber in Israel. The attacker was from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the terrorist groups that CAIR has its roots in.

The same day the Editorial Board put out its puff piece, CAIR received another unwarranted stroke of good fortune, as a representative from the FBI showed up to take part in one of the group’s events.

On June 5th, the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR sponsored a community town hall meeting at the Islamic Center of Irvine (ICOI), a mosque that propagates venomously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric. In a Khutbah (sermon) given at the ICOI last month, entitled ‘The Abuse of a Religion to sustain a Racist State,’ the ICOI’s Director of Religious Affairs, Sadullah Khan, stated, “Jews who came [to Israel] brought with them a Western arrogance…” In the sermon, which is found on the ICOI website, Khan liberally quoted alleged neo-Nazi William Baker and described Zionism as “racist,” “diabolical” and “sinister.”

Participating at the CAIR event was CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. Ayloush’s appearance at ICOI makes sense, as he, himself, has been known to exhibit an extreme hatred towards the state of Israel. According to Dr. Daniel Pipes, whom Ayloush has likened to “a KKK person,” he (Ayloush) has repeatedly used the term “Zionazi,” when discussing Israelis. He has referred to Zionism as “a political ideology whose tentacles are rooted in racism,” and he has stated that the violent Intifada (Uprising) that was twice perpetrated by the Palestinians against the Israelis “really indicates standing up against injustice.”

Ayloush has complained of the United States’ treatment of the terrorist group Hamas, who recently had members voted into power in the “Palestinian territories.” During a Khutbah speech he gave at the Islamic Institute of Orange County (IIOC), last May, entitled “Don’t Be Pessimistic,” Ayloush stated: “Compare your situation to the situation of our brothers and sisters in Palestine… They were starved, they were pressured and threatened with embargo, if they don’t have democratic elections. And then, when they have the democratic elections, because we don’t like the results, now they are being starved again, embargoed and punished.”

In addition, Ayloush has jumped to defend the likes of Wagdy Ghoneim, a radical Egyptian imam from IIOC. Ghoneim, who was deported from the United States, had been videotaped calling for suicide bombings and had referred to Jews, at a 1998 CAIR co-sponsored Brooklyn rally, as “descendants of the apes.” Ayloush lauded Ghoneim as a “highly regarded religious scholar” and a “worldwide, well known scholar.”

Ayloush has also defended the terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay. On June 15, 2006, CAIR placed on its national website an “ISLAM-OPED” written by Ayloush, calling for the Guantanamo Bay prison’s closure, entitled ‘Shut Down the Gitmo Gulog.’ The next day, the article was published by the Al Jazeerah Peace Information Center, a website that acts as a propaganda machine for Hamas. In the piece, Ayloush suggests that at least some of the individuals being detained are “innocent.” However, according to a statement issued by the United States military just prior to the op-ed’s release, the inmates “are enemy combatants being detained because they have waged war against our nation and they continue to pose a threat.”

Accompanying Hussam Ayloush as a participant at the June 5th CAIR event was the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI field office in Los Angeles, Stephen Tidwell. Tidwell, apparently, was there to quell concerns that the FBI was actively eavesdropping on local Muslims.

Like the Sun-Sentinel and its printing of Altaf Ali’s op-ed, the Los Angeles FBI had been down this road before. In fact, the L.A. FBI even created an entity, the Multi-Cultural Advisory Committee (MCAC), in which CAIR is one of the sitting members.

Did Assistant Director Tidwell, in joining the event, take into account that CAIR was created by a front for overseas terrorist organizations called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), whose founders include the number two leader in Hamas today, Mousa Abu Marzook, and the former North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian?

Did he understand that this front, the IAP, had been found liable for the murder of a young American boy, David Boim, whose life was taken during a Hamas terror operation in Israel?

Did Tidwell recognize that CAIR, itself, is currently the defendant in a lawsuit charging that the group played a role in the murder of former chief of the FBI’s counter-terrorism section, John O’Neill, on September 11th? One of his own. Or that Steven Pomerantz, former FBI assistant director and chief of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Section, has stated, “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups”?

None of the above can be disputed, yet many have chosen to ignore it. Unfortunately, those ignoring the information are also responsible for supplying us with our daily take on the news and providing us with our safety and security here at home. June 5, 2006 was indeed a great day for CAIR; but for all those that worry about the future of the United States, it will be yet another day that will live on in infamy.

Nearly five years after 9/11, we still don’t get it.

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Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the host of The Politics of Terrorism radio show.