The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) leader Zahra Billoo said last month that “pro-Israel work is pro-terror, pro-violence … and pro-apartheid.”
Days later, Billoo received the Community Builder Award from People Acting in Community Together (PACT) during the organization’s annual leadership event.
Billoo’s views, however, do not sound like she is someone who promotes societal cohesion or inclusivity.
Originally rescinding Billoo’s award in June, PACT caved to pressure from religious and civic figures, and reversed its decision.
But before agreeing to accept the award, Billoo said that she forced PACT to “acknowledge that the Palestinian struggle is inextricably connected to our collective liberation.”
It’s ironic that Billoo received public recognition as a “community builder,” given her history of propagating radical Islamist and anti-Semitic remarks.
Earlier this month, she openly stoked division by drawing a line in the sand between who is a legitimate Muslim leader and who is not, in her opinion.
“I’m really cautious of who I call a Muslim leader,” Billoo said at a gathering with the Ecumenical Peace Institute, warning others to be aware “as you see countries in the Middle East, and even Muslim activists in the United States, take problematic positions supporting the State of Israel or opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.”
For Billoo, one cannot be a Muslim leader or activist while opposing a boycott campaign targeting the world’s sole Jewish state.
“I don’t think of them as my leaders,” she said.
Advocating for sanctions and boycotts targeting Israel, while avoiding similar calls against other states that violate human rights on a far larger scale, is a double standard that amounts to anti-Semitism.
This sentiment is expected of Billoo, who, like other U.S. Islamist figures, consistently opposes any type of engagement or interfaith dialogue with organizations that maintain ties to Israel.
In May, Billoo attacked Muslims who engage in interfaith relations with the Anti-Defamation League. She offered to provide her followers with a “list” of “organizations who work with them [ADL], and half-a-dozen or so Muslim individuals who take their stages.”
During last year’s Islamic Society of North America convention, Billoo railed against supposed “Zionist influence” in the United States and sponsored visits to Israel.
“I definitely don’t agree with the brother that’s willing to participate in any Department of Homeland Security program, and don’t agree with elected officials or with Muslims who want to go on Zionist-funded trips to apartheid Israel and say that that’s going to build interfaith relationships.”
Billoo rarely refers to Israel without adding the word “apartheid” in conjunction. That is her way of systematically delegitimizing the Jewish state into an evil caricature, despite Israel being the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
Billoo not only discourages interfaith dialogue involving Israelis, she actively defends Hamas for firing rockets at Israeli civilians.
“Blaming Hamas for firing rockets at [Apartheid] Israel is like blaming a woman for punching her rapist. #FreePalestine v @KathlynGadd,” Billoo tweeted in November 2014.
On Monday and Tuesday, Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups fired more than 450 rockets into Israeli communities, killing one person and wounding dozens of others.
Israel retaliated with coordinated strikes targeting terrorist infrastructure and weapons depots.
But no matter what Israel or the U.S. governments do to defend their populations, U.S.-based Islamists like Billoo will defend the terrorists.
In the past, she has repeatedly equated Americans in the Israeli army with ISIS terrorists and accused the FBI of fabricating terrorist threats for public consumption. “Both ISIS and the IDF are violent, immoral gangs. They’re literally baby killers,” she wrote in May.
She has also urged Muslims to “build a wall of resistance” between themselves and law enforcement, discouraging contact with the FBI.
Perhaps Billoo is a “community builder”—just as long as “Zionists” or U.S. law-enforcement personnel are not involved in her sense of community. By singling out supporters of the Jewish state, Billoo is engaging in bigotry and actively working to breakdown interfaith and community relationships. By discouraging contact with the FBI, she promotes hostility against law-enforcement personnel who work to keep local communities safe.
Based on Billoo’s divisive track record, she does not deserve public recognition for anything related to community bonds.
Steven Emerson is founder and executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.