Radical Muslim Organization attacks Trump and Carson as ‘Islamophobes’

WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy organization and an unindicted supporter of terrorism today condemned both leading Republican presidential candidates for “Islamophobic and unconstitutional” comments targeting American Muslims and Syrian refugees.

According to Discover the Networks:

CAIR was co-founded in 1994 by Nihad Awad, Omar Ahmad, and Rafeeq Jaber, all of whom had close ties to the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was established by senior Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook and functioned as Hamas’ public relations and recruitment arm in the United States. Awad and Ahmad previously had served, respectively, as IAP’s Public Relations Director and President. Thus it can be said that CAIR was an outgrowth of IAP.

CAIR opened its first office in Washington, DC, with the help of a $5,000 donation from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), a self-described charity founded by Mousa Abu Marzook. In May 1996, CAIR coordinated a press conference to protest the decision of the U.S. government to extradite Marzook for his connection to terrorist acts performed by Hamas. CAIR characterized the extradition as “anti-Islamic” and “anti-American.” When President Bush closed HLF in December 2001 for collecting money “to support the Hamas terror organization,” CAIR decried his action as “unjust” and “disturbing.”

Notable facts about CAIR’s pas de deux with Islamic extremism and terrorism include the following:

• Co-founder Nihad Awad asserted at a 1994 meeting at Barry University, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.” Awad wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the 1994 trial which had resulted in the conviction of four Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who had perpetrated the previous year’s World Trade Center bombing was “a travesty of justice.”
• On February 2, 1995, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named CAIR Advisory Board member and New York imam Siraj Wahhaj as one of the “unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in Islamic Group leader Omar Abdel Rahman‘s foiled plot to blow up numerous New York City monuments.
• On June 6, 2006, CAIR’s Ohio affiliate held a large fundraiser in honor of Siraj Wahhaj. Following the event, CAIR-Ohio issued a press release heralding the more than $100,000 that Wahhaj had helped raise that evening for the organization’s “civil liberties work.”
• In October 1998, CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as “the sworn enemy.” According to CAIR, this depiction was “offensive to Muslims.”
• In 1998, CAIR denied bin Laden’s responsibility for the two al Qaeda bombings of American embassies in Africa. According to Ibrahim Hooper, the bombings resulted from “misunderstandings of both sides.”
• In September 2003, CAIR’s former Community Affairs Director, Bassem Khafagi, pled guilty to three federal counts of bank and visa fraud and agreed to be deported to Egypt. Federal investigators said that a group Khafagi founded, the Islamic Assembly of North America, had funneled money to activities supporting terrorism and had published material advocating suicide attacks against the United States. Khafagi’s illegal activities took place while he was employed by CAIR.
• In July 2004, Ghassan Elashi, a founding Board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter, was convicted along with his four brothers of having illegally shipped computers from their Dallas-area business, InfoCom Corporation, to Libya and Syria, two designated state sponsors of terrorism. That same month, Elashi was charged with having provided more than $12.4 million to Hamas while he was running HLF. In April 2005, Elashi and two of his brothers were also convicted of knowingly doing business with Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook, who was Elashi’s brother-in-law. Elashi’s illegal activities took place while he was employed by CAIR, whose Dallas-Fort Worth chapter depicted the Elashis’ indictment as “a war on Islam and Muslims.”
• On September 6, 2001, the day that federal agents first raided Infocom’s headquarters, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad denounced the U.S. government for “tak[ing] us back to the McCarthy era.”
• FBI wiretap evidence which was introduced during the 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation (a trial that explored HLF’s financial ties to Hamas), proved that Nihad Awad had attended a 1993 Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and operatives who collaborated on a plan to disguise funding for Hamas as charitable donations.
• CAIR co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Omar Ahmad was named, in the same 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, as an unindicted co-conspirator with HLF. During the trial, evidence was supplied proving that Ahmad had attended, along with Nihad Awad, the aforementioned 1993 Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and operatives. Moreover, prosecutors described Ahmad as a member of theMuslim Brotherhood‘s “Palestine Committee” in America.
• The home of Muthanna al-Hanooti, one of CAIR’s directors, was raided in 2006 by FBI agents in connection with an active terrorism investigation. FBI agents also searched the offices of Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International Relations, al-Hanooti’s Michigan- and Washington DC-based consulting firm that investigators suspect to be a front supporting the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq.

CAIR condemned Donald Trump for refusing to rule out special IDs and a surveillance database for American Muslims and the civil rights group similarly condemned Ben Carson for comparing Syrian refugees to “rabid dogs.”

Yahoo News asked Trump whether increased surveillance of American Muslims could include warrantless searches. “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” Trump said. “And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”

When asked whether tracking American Muslims might require registering them in a database or giving them a form of “special identification that noted their religion,” he refused to rule it out.

“We’re going to have to — we’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” said Trump. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”

SEE: Donald Trump Has Big Plans for ‘Radical Islamic’ Terrorists, 2016 and ‘That Communist’ Bernie Sanders
http://tinyurl.com/nm525n9

While talking about Syrian refugees Thursday in Alabama, Ben Carson compared them to “rabid dogs.”

Carson said: “If there is a rabid dog running around your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog. And you’re probably going to put your children out of the way.”

SEE: Ben Carson Compares Syrian Refugees to Rabid, ‘Mad’ Dogs
http://tinyurl.com/pesawxc

“By mainstreaming Islamophobic and unconstitutional policies, Donald Trump and Ben Carson are contributing to an already toxic environment that may be difficult to correct once their political ambitions have been satisfied,” said CAIR Government Affairs Manager Robert McCaw. “Such extremist rhetoric is unbecoming of anyone who seeks our nation’s highest office and must be strongly repudiated by leaders from across the political spectrum.”

In October, CAIR condemned similar remarks Trump made about his apparent willingness to close down American mosques.

SEE: CAIR Condemns Donald Trump’s Statement on Closing U.S. Mosques
http://tinyurl.com/okz43so

In September, CAIR called on Trump to also clarify what he meant when stating that he was “going to be looking at that” to a question about the Muslim “problem in this country” and “When can we get rid of them?”

SEE: CAIR Calls on Donald Trump to Clarify ‘Looking At’ Getting Rid of Muslims
http://tinyurl.com/o67lzm7

Also in September, CAIR announced the renewal of its “Share the Quran” campaign in response to Ben Carson’s false claim that Islam is “inconsistent” with the Constitution and his bigoted belief that a Muslim should not be elected president.

SEE: CAIR Announces Quran Giveaway in Response to Ben Carson’s Anti-Muslim Remarks
http://tinyurl.com/okvrcgn

CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

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