Hamas Ally CAIR Has Been Operating With Impunity Inside America For 30 Years

By Paul Sperry for RealClearInvestigations

After Hamas massacred 1,400 males, girls and youngsters in Israel final month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the phobia group “and its allies” might encourage assaults on Individuals “right here on our personal soil.” He additionally instructed the Senate that the FBI is conducting “a number of, ongoing investigations” into folks affiliated with the U.S.-designated terrorist group.

What Wray didn’t say is that the FBI has been investigating Hamas’ largest ally in America for the previous 30 years – with out submitting any expenses. Launched in 1994 as a secret entrance group to help Hamas, in accordance with declassified FBI wiretap transcripts and FBI testimony, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has, within the a long time since, grow to be an accepted member of Washington’s lobbying neighborhood. The New York Occasions and different influential newspapers routinely describe CAIR as a “Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.”

Though it has not repudiated its help for Hamas – which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish folks – CAIR was enlisted by the Biden administration in Might to participate in a White Home initiative to battle antisemitism.

On Oct. 7, the day Hamas terrorists butchered 1,400 Jews, together with 33 Individuals – raping many and abducting some 240 others to Gaza from southern Israel – CAIR’s nationwide government director, Nihad Awad, delivered an anti-Israel message in Arabic which appeared to justify what Hamas did. Translated into English, it learn: “All Arab peoples should exit on Sunday, Oct. 8 – and day-after-day – in demonstrations in help of the Palestinians and in rejection of normalization with the occupier and the apartheid regime [Israel].”

On Saturday afternoon, CAIR helped rally greater than 100,000 Muslims in D.C. to as an alternative condemn Israel for supposedly finishing up “genocide” in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 assaults. A number of audio system referred to as for the destruction of Israel – and, by implication, the Jewish folks there – by demanding Palestinians take all of the lands “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”

Awad was entrance and middle, delivering a fiery speech bashing Israel and President Biden for not calling on Israel to cease bombing Hamas targets inside Gaza, which he referred to as “genocidal assaults.” He threatened to harm Biden on the poll field in 2024 if he doesn’t urge a ceasefire.

“Now we have found the language that President Biden understands: ‘No ceasefire, no votes,’” Awad bellowed to the group, which erupted right into a chant repeating his phrases. “No votes in Michigan, no votes anyplace if you don’t name for a ceasefire now. He then led a chant: “Free, free Palestine!”

Additionally, Awad promised to supply authorized help to Muslim Individuals who protest in help of Palestine. “We’re with you,” he stated. “The folks of Gaza depend on your voices and activism.”

Protesters later marched on the White Home, the place they defaced the white brick gate of the Government Mansion with crimson paint symbolizing the blood of Gazans who’ve died from the Israeli military’s counterstrikes. Awad is on record declaring his help for Hamas. At Barry College in 1994, for instance, he stated: “I’m in help of the Hamas motion.”

CAIR didn’t reply to requests for remark, however with out addressing specifics, it has beforehand argued it “will not be a ‘entrance group for Hamas.’” The White Home declined to remark, whereas the FBI claimed charging CAIR or its executives was outdoors its authority. “The FBI is an investigative company and we don’t make the selections about submitting expenses or prosecuting a case,” FBI spokeswoman Susan McKee stated. “Prosecutors make these selections.” The Justice Division didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Whereas CAIR is now a mainstay of American politics – headquartered simply three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, with 35 workplaces throughout the nation – its historical past reveals its shut connections with terror teams reminiscent of Hamas, as detailed within the 2009 ebook this reporter co-authored with counterterrorism skilled P. David Gaubatz, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”

The story started within the Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan within the Nineteen Sixties, the place Awad and a co-founder of CAIR, Omar Ahmad, had been born. Each males ultimately got here to america for college research. By 1992, Awad was a key member of the so-called Palestine Committee in America, which helped finance Hamas. In line with a 1992 letter from the Gaza Strip, Hamas requested the Committee for cash to purchase “weapons, weapons, our brothers.” The letter continued: “The that means of killing a Jew for the liberation of Palestine can’t be in comparison with any jihad on earth.”

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Across the identical time, the FBI was eavesdropping on a number of Hamas leaders in reference to terrorist actions, which produced tapes documenting the incarnation of CAIR in 1993. At a secret assembly that October, Omar Ahmad referred to as to order the Hamas summit in Philly at a Courtyard by Marriott lodge in Philadelphia to debate the formation of a brand new entrance group to help their “motion” in America. Awad additionally attended the assembly.

In line with courtroom testimony by FBI agent Lara Burns, who runs a significant counterterrorism program for the bureau, Ahmad, Awad, and the opposite leaders who gathered there hatched a scheme to disguise abroad funds to Hamas terrorists and their households as charity. FBI wiretaps additionally recorded them stating the necessity to deceive Individuals in regards to the true goals of their deliberate American entrance group as Hamas launched a marketing campaign of terror assaults on Israel often called the “Intifada.”

They in contrast the deception to the “head pretend” in basketball, the place a shooter methods an opponent guarding him into transferring in a distinct route. The group, in accordance with the wiretap transcripts, envisioned an “various” group whose pro-Palestinian stripes had been “not very conspicuous.” Burns testified CAIR was what they’d in thoughts. In the course of the talks, they tried to mislead any authorities who could be listening in by referring to Hamas as “Samah” – Hamas spelled backward.

Ahmad would co-found CAIR in 1994, hiring Awad as government director that very same yr. Each males have expressed hatred towards Israel and resentment towards their adopted nation for serving to fund and arm the Jewish nation.

Burns testified through the 2008 terrorism trial of a charitable entrance for Hamas often called the Holy Land Basis. It was the most important terror funding case in U.S. historical past. As a part of the courtroom filings, the Justice Division included CAIR on a listing of co-conspirators underwriting Hamas terrorism – although CAIR and its founders had been by no means indicted within the case. The HLF, busted up as the primary fundraising arm of Hamas in America, commingled funds, belongings, and personnel with CAIR, in accordance with tax data and courtroom paperwork.

“CAIR has been recognized by the federal government as a participant in an ongoing and finally illegal conspiracy to help a chosen terrorist group [Hamas] – a conspiracy from which CAIR by no means withdrew,” stated former Assistant U.S. Lawyer James Jacks, who was the lead prosecutor within the case.

A federal decide agreed. “The federal government has produced ample proof to determine the associations of CAIR with Hamas,” then-U.S. District Decide Jorge Solis wrote in a July 2009 ruling.

Numerous FBI counterterrorism brokers had been annoyed that CAIR’s nationwide workplace and executives had been by no means charged within the conspiracy, though the founding father of CAIR’s Texas chapter was sentenced to jail. They stated politics intervened. After 9/11, they stated FBI headquarters seen CAIR as a hyperlink to the Muslim neighborhood by which they may receive tips on terror threats to the homeland. Brass even invited CAIR officers as much as the chief suites situated on the seventh ground of the Hoover constructing to debate outreach coverage.

“We stated, ‘These are the dangerous guys, that is Hamas. What are you doing?’” former FBI Particular Agent John Guandolo stated, describing how he and different brokers protested the particular therapy afforded CAIR.

After CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator within the HLF’s prison scheme to funnel greater than $12 million to Hamas terrorists, the FBI lastly disengaged from the group. The company stopped conducting formal outreach with CAIR’s nationwide workplace till, it stated, it might resolve points with Awad and different worrisome leaders.

“Till we will resolve whether or not there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI doesn’t view CAIR as an applicable liaison accomplice,” then-Assistant FBI director Richard Powers stated in a 2009 letter to the Senate.

However some investigators say the FBI ought to have shut down the group, not simply the outreach program, issuing search warrants and conducting extra intrusive surveillance, which they are saying would have allowed the federal government to run the Hamas entrance out of enterprise.

“CAIR is the main Hamas entity inside america, and the FBI has taken no motion to prosecute them,” stated Guandolo, who helped lead a number of main counterterrorism probes on the Washington subject workplace after 9/11. He defined that “politically right” FBI management is hesitant to go after a minority non secular group and is overly delicate to expenses of “Islamophobia” usually leveled by CAIR in opposition to its critics.

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The FBI’s reluctance to roll up the Hamas entrance has pushed non-public investigators to take issues into their very own fingers. In 2008, a counterterrorism specialist led a crew of investigators in a daring undercover operation of CAIR that included infiltrating its nationwide headquarters situated on New Jersey Avenue in Washington, D.C., close to the Capitol Constructing. Working as interns, the investigators, who posed as current converts to Islam sporting conventional Muslim garb, secretly video-recorded conversations with CAIR officers.

In the course of the six-month operation, in addition they intercepted greater than 12,000 pages of paperwork CAIR supposed to shred as trash. The proof, which was turned over to the FBI, is documented in “Muslim Mafia,” which additionally options an appendix with a number of key inner CAIR paperwork reprinted.

Amongst different issues, the ebook revealed that CAIR employed violent Islamic terrorists, after which supported the terrorists behind the scenes even after they had been convicted. It additionally uncovered an affect operation in opposition to members of key homeland safety committees in Congress that included planting CAIR operatives in congressional workplaces. Inner CAIR paperwork laid out a plan to elect dozens of pro-Hamas Muslims to Congress. CAIR even began holding Muslim prayer periods every Friday within the basement of the Capitol.

“Muslim Mafia” additionally traced the deeper roots of Hamas again to the secretive Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-jihad group based in Egypt that constructed a complicated community of Islamic nonprofits contained in the U.S. a number of a long time in the past. The ebook documented how Muslim Brotherhood leaders wrote a secret blueprint for “destroying [America] from inside … in order that it’s eradicated and Allah’s faith is made victorious over all different religions.” FBI investigators found the manifesto stashed in a sub-basement of a Brotherhood chief’s dwelling in Annandale, Va., after raiding his residence as a part of a terrorism probe.

A number of alarmed Republican members of Congress held a press conference in regards to the ebook’s findings, warning a Hamas terror entrance group was infiltrating Congress.

In addition to exposing Hamas’ political arm in America, the ebook uncovered the internal workings of the broader anti-Israel foyer, which incorporates a number of leftwing teams aligned with CAIR. This foyer is now revealing itself within the wake of Israel’s personal 9/11.

“The seeds for 9/11 had been planted in 1948,” in accordance with a draft of a “Proposed Muslim Platform” discovered at CAIR’s headquarters. “A decision of the Israeli-Palestinian battle must be primarily based on recognizing and correcting the hurt that was achieved to the Palestinians since 1948,” when the United Nations partitioned land for Israel.

Guandolo stated Hamas proved simply how harmful it’s on Oct. 7. He warned that the terrorist group has already penetrated American society, and CAIR is the tip of the spear.

“At the moment, CAIR is directing efforts on the floor stage throughout america with organizations identified for violent extremism,” he added in a current interview with RealClearInvestigations. “Once more, the FBI is doing nothing to stick to their oaths of workplace and defend the American folks.”

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

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