Sep 8, 2012 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Excerpted from WND: A controversial Muslim lobby group known for its attempts to shut down criticism by labeling detractors “Islamophobic” is opposing a California resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the campuses of public universities in the state.
The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, was a signatory to a letter to members of the California state Assembly who passed a nonbinding resolution stating “no public resources will be allowed to be used for any anti-Semitic or any intolerant agitation.”CAIR’s national office was named by the Justice Department an unindicted co-conspirator in the nation’s biggest terrorist-financing scheme.
The letter argues the “highly ideological” resolution, HR 35, “stifles robust political debate on university campuses” and “contributes to a climate of intimidation faced by Muslim and Arab students on California campuses.”
Along with CAIR, the letter is signed by American Muslims for Palestine, Asian Law Caucus Center for Constitutional Rights, California Jewish Voice for Peace, National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles Chapter and Students for Justice in Palestine.
Islam expert Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.org, said that while he doesn’t support restrictions on freedom of speech, CAIR’s hypocrisy is “striking.”
He pointed out that CAIR has worked for years to get him and others banned from college campuses and has refused to debate or discuss issues with him,
“The idea of their coming down in favor of ‘robust political debate’ made me grin,” Spencer said. Republican Assemblywoman Linda Halderman, who wrote the resolution with Democrat Bonnie Lowenthal, told the San Francisco Chronicle that California schools “need to recognize that anti-Semitism is still a very real issue on college campuses.”
Halderman cited as an example the annual Israel Apartheid Week held on many campuses in which “students pretending to be Palestinians collapse as if they had been murdered en masse by Israeli Jews.”
The resolution, passed Aug. 28 on a voice vote, was prompted by a study commissioned by the University of California after Nazi swastikas were found on several campuses.
Pro-Palestinian protests that combine swastikas with the Star of David have become common on many University of California campuses
The UC report, released in July, said that while students have a right to protest against Israel, demonstrations often have crossed the line into discrimination. The report urged UC to ban hate speech on campus and to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism.
The resolution, which has no force of law, also condemns the assertion that Israel is a “racist” state and that Jews “wield excessive power over American foreign policy.”
Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, writing for National Review Online, called CAIR’s opposition to the resolution a “farce,” contending the group “has no real interest in hate speech per se.”
He noted that CAIR, which was formed by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, often collaborates with advocates of “social justice” on the left against what it calls “Islamophobia.”
McCarthy, who led the prosecution of “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others on the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, pointed out the term “Islamophobia” was strategically created by the Muslim Brotherhood to slur as “hate speech” any criticism of Islamic supremacism.
“That includes the ideology’s undeniable roots in Muslim scripture; its vow to destroy the West from within; and its promotion of terrorism against legitimate sovereign authority, spun as ‘resistance’ against ‘occupation,’” McCarthy said.
CAIR’s mode of operation, McCarthy said, along with other proponents of the global establishment of Islamic law, or Shariah, is protecting “any cause that increases Islamic influence and protesting any effort either to reduce Islamic influence or to subject Islamic-supremacist doctrine to scrutiny.”
“Consequently, CAIR’s precious fretting over hate speech extends only so far as Islam is advanced or imperiled,” he said.
CAIR has sued a co-author, David Gaubatz, of a WND Books expose that presents evidence for the Islamic group’s link to radical jihad. “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” co-authored with Paul Sperry, recounts CAIR’s origin as a front group for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the worldwide movement that has stated its intent to transform the U.S. into a Saudi-style Islamic state.
FBI wiretap evidence from the 2007 Holy Land Foundation case showed CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad was at an October 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in Philadelphia. CAIR was born out of a need to give a “media twinkle” to the Muslim leaders’ agenda of supporting violent jihad abroad while slowly institutionalizing Islamic law at home.
Rogues gallery of terror-tied CAIR leaders
As former FBI agent Mike Rolf acknowledges in “Muslim Mafia,” “CAIR has had a number of people in positions of power within the organization that have been directly connected to terrorism and have either been prosecuted or thrown out of the country.” According to another FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials, “Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters.”
A review of the public record, including federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election Commission records detailing donor occupations, reveals that CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations. The list is long and includes: was convicted in 2004 of illegally shipping high-tech goods to terror state Syria and is serving 80 months in prison. He was also convicted of providing material support to Hamas in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial. He was chairman of the charity, which provided seed capital to CAIR. Elashi is related to Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook.
Muthanna al-Hanooti: The CAIR director’s home was raided in 2006 by FBI agents in connection with an active terrorism investigation. Agents also searched the offices of his advocacy group, Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International Relations, which al-Hanooti operates out of Dearborn, Mich., and Washington, D.C.Al-Hanooti, who emigrated to the U.S. from Iraq, formerly helped run a suspected Hamas terror front called LIFE for Relief and Development. Its Michigan offices also were raided in September 2006. In 2004, LIFE’s Baghdad office was raided by U.S. troops, who seized files and computers. Al-Hanooti is related to Sheik Mohammed al-Hanooti, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
