Ahmed Rehab of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), fresh from a victory over free speech at the American Library Association, claims that he supports the Constitution, but that’s the least of it. In this Fox News interview, he strews the path to any clear understanding of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamic supremacist conference in Chicago with red herrings.
Rehab says about Hizb-ut-Tahrir, “This organization has been on the record privately and publicly condemning terrorism.” (So has Rehab been in private contact with the leaders of Hizb-ut-Tahrir?) But terrorism is only part of the problem. Rehab has nothing of substance to say about Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s explicit desire to impose Islamic law upon the United States other than to assert blandly that he and others like him believe in the Constitution — which completely sidesteps the question of whether they want to exploit contemporary understandings of that Constitution’s protections and guarantees in order to bring elements of Sharia here.
He says he believes in capitalism, voting, and civic responsibility, but the reporters don’t ask him anything about Sharia. Nor do they ask him any probing questions about the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Its operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Several of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements (Omar Ahmad and Ibrahim Hooper are quoted at the link). CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams’ intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.
I suspect that this video also shows why Rehab ducked me instead of meeting me on the ALA panel — he could be reasonably sure that the Fox anchors here would not be informed enough to ask him uncomfortable questions, but I would not hesitate.