Yesterday, tape broke of Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, openly celebrating the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israelis — the worst terror attack in the West since September 11.
“I was happy to see people breaking the siege,” he proclaimed:
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad at AMP Convention: I Was Happy to See the People of Gaza Break the Siege on October 7; They Were Victorious; the People of Gaza Have the Right to Self-Defense – Israel Does Not #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians @CAIRNational @NihadAwad pic.twitter.com/WDbSRjFJo0
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 7, 2023
Awad’s words were perfectly in line with CAIR’s generalized anti-Semitism and radicalism.
On October 7, the date of the Hamas massacre, CAIR National tweeted:
We join @USCMO and the American Muslim community in reaffirming our support for the Palestinian people’s right to freedom and calling for an end to the Israeli occupation, which … sparks the deadly violence that we see again and again, including today.
We join @USCMO and the American Muslim community in reaffirming our support for the Palestinian people's right to freedom and calling for an end to the Israeli occupation, which kills hundreds of Palestinian civilians every year, subjects millions of Palestinians to racist… pic.twitter.com/eW4waBJGc2
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 7, 2023
On October 7, before any Israeli response, they also called for an end to American aid to Israel and the Abraham Accords. The group has not offered a single word condemning Hamas.
Yet CAIR remains a go-to organization for the media and Democrats in politics. In May, in an attempt to counter accusations of anti-Semitism from inside the Democratic Party, the White House organized a National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism. That strategy included a group dedicated to “cross-community” solidarity — and that group included CAIR, which the White House said would launch a tour:
…to educate religious minority communities about steps they can take to protect their houses of worship from hate incidents, such as appropriate security measures, developing strong relationships with other faith communities, and maintaining open lines of communication with local law enforcement.
Why was CAIR included in this enterprise? To support the intersectional coalition the Biden administration has attempted to build. The Jews don’t truly fit in that intersectional coalition, of course. They don’t fit comfortably in the oppressor-oppressed matrix that underscores the coalition because Jews are both highly targeted and also highly-successful.
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But the Left likes the pretense that Jews belong in the coalition.
CAIR is the price of Jewish belonging: Since there is no substitute for CAIR in that organizational coalition, Jewish groups are expected to swallow hard and pretend CAIR is legitimate.
Tablet Magazine’s Armin Rosen has written on this topic, saying:
The ADL and CAIR might not get along, but they are protected by the same dynamic: They both provide a nearly identical service to the same larger coalition, which returns the favor by keeping both groups at a level of prominence that crowds out any potential rivals.
That’s the Biden administration’s program: Activate the coalition of the oppressed at all costs. That means covering up radical Muslim hatred for Jews — and that means including radical Muslims in the program to fight anti-Semitism.
At least, that was the plan. Biden Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt admitted CAIR was problematic, but said they could be included in the White House working group on anti-Semitism because: “If they’re really willing to change, if they’re really willing to say, ‘Hey, we now see this is a serious problem,’ then they are welcome.”
But, of course, CAIR wasn’t willing to change.
That was obvious.
To actively oppose Hamas would violate CAIR’s raison d’être.
The roots of CAIR are fascinating and frightening. As prosecutor Andy McCarthy writes about in his book, “The Grand Jihad,” Hamas supporters gathered at a Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia on October 27, 1993, with the intent of creating a new public relations organization in the United States. Those Hamas supporters included one Omar Ahmad, president of the Islamic Association for Palestine; concerned about being recorded, Ahmad referred to himself as “Omar Yahya” and referred to “Samah” instead of “Hamas” — “Samah” is “Hamas” backwards, of course. Ahmad, at the meeting, said it would be worthwhile to lie about the agenda, that the new organization could not admit “We represent Samah” or that “Ahmed Yassin,” the head of Hamas, “represents me.”
Awad, who was at the time the PR director for IAP, was at the conference too. There, according to McCarthy, he was an active participant in the meetings, where he agreed with Ahmad about adopting lying to Americans: “When I speak with the American,” he said, “I speak with someone who doesn’t know anything. As for the Palestinian who has a martyr brother or something, I know how to address him, you see?”
Less than a year later, CAIR was born. CAIR was linked with the Holy Land Foundation and the Muslim Brotherhood from its foundations. Daniel Pipes elaborated on the creation of CAIR in a National Review article, saying,
Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many other governments, indirectly created CAIR and the two groups remain tight. Examples: In 1994, CAIR head Nihad Awad publicly declared his support for Hamas; the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a Hamas front group, contributed $5,000 to CAIR; in turn, CAIR exploited the 9/11 attacks to raise money for HLF.
Multiple board members and staff at CAIR have been arrested or denied entry to the United States or were indicted on and pled guilty to terrorism charges. CAIR defended the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, calling their convictions a “travesty of justice,” did not condemn Osama Bin Laden for September 11 until Bin Laden himself claimed the crime, opposed the deportation of terrorist Rasmea Odeh, and steadfastly tied virtually all anti-terror efforts to phantom “Islamophobia.”
In 2008, the FBI cut off relations with CAIR.
But under Democrats, the American government has never been willing to let go of the illusion that CAIR represents a crucial part of the intersectional coalition. In 2011, the Obama Justice Department declined to prosecute CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad; Ahmad worked closely with the Holy Land Foundation, as well as the Islamic Association of Palestine. That declination to prosecute came despite the fact both Attorney General Eric Holder and then-FBI Director Robert Mueller had serious reservations about CAIR. Reporter Patrick Poole reported on the indictments, saying they “were scuttled last year at the direction of top-level political appointees within the Department of Justice (DOJ) — and possibly even the White House.”
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The Trump administration cut off relations with CAIR. But under the Biden administration, CAIR returned to prominence.
Nihad Awad has spent years being feted by the media because the Left-wing media require a Muslim organization within the intersectional coalition, no matter how extreme. Thus, Awad is welcomed to national television to pretend at moderation, even while he spouts Hamas talking points.
Now, of course, we’ve heard the radicalism from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. The question is whether the Left will be willing, this time, to admit what is plain: that CAIR is a radical Islamist organization.
Don’t hold your breath.