In “Take care when CAIR is quoted as a ‘reliable’ source” in JWeekly.com, February 4, Eric Rozenman of CAMERA offers the common sense on this unsavory and charmless group of thugs (Hi, Honest Ibe! Good morning, Brave Ahmed!) that we have noted many times at Jihad Watch, and that still eludes (on purpose) the great investigators in the mainstream media:
After the Fort Hood shooting massacre in November, allegedly carried out by Maj. Nidal Hasan, USA Today used a quote from Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations — but identified CAIR only as “a Muslim advocacy group.”
When five American Muslims from the Alexandria, Va., area were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of intent to wage jihad, the Washington Post in December reported without context that “two major groups — the Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR — said this week that they would launch counter-radicalization programs aimed at young people.”
News media often treat CAIR uncritically as a civil rights organization.
But CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism funding case. And at least five people associated with CAIR, including some who were staff members at the time of their charges, have been jailed or deported on terrorism-related charges.
In December, NPR introduced a segment with Hooper about the Americans arrested in Pakistan by alluding to something more: ” … It’s important to note that there’s been a contentious relationship between CAIR and the FBI in recent years.”
But details such as the following were absent:
“¢ In 2009, Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker, founding members of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once America’s largest Muslim charity, were each sentenced to 65 years in prison in a federal case charging HLF with funneling more than $12 million to Hamas.
Hamas is responsible for the murders of hundreds of Israelis. Elashi also was a founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter and had been convicted in a 2004 Hamas-related case.
“¢ Mousa Abu Marzook, a one-time CAIR official, was designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a “terrorist and Hamas leader.” He now helps direct Hamas from Syria.
“¢ Randall Royer, CAIR’s former civil rights coordinator, began serving a 20-year federal sentence in 2004 for, among other things, helping al Qaida and the Taliban fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadi network blamed for the 2008 Mumbai massacres.
“¢ Bassem Khafagi, CAIR’s former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America. IANA was suspected of aiding sheiks opposed to the Saudi Arabian government and linked to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Khafagi pleaded guilty to visa and bank fraud charges and was deported.
“¢ Rabih Haddad, once a CAIR fundraiser, was arrested on terrorism-related charges. In 2002, the U.S. Treasury designated the Global Relief Foundation, which Haddad had co-founded, as a terrorist-financing organization. He was deported.
“¢ In 2009, members of the Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis protested at a CAIR ice cream social, alleging that the group had discouraged local Somalis from cooperating with the FBI. The bureau was investigating the disappearance of at least 20 young Somali American men, who reportedly traveled to Somalia to wage jihad against the U.N.-supported transitional government….