Texas recently designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), along with the nefarious Muslim Brotherhood. It’s time the U.S. State Department joined Texas in condemning CAIR as an un-American supporter of Islamist terrorism. The New York Times, neglecting details of CAIR’s incriminating past or present, covered the Texas action by characterizing the group as simply “one of the nation’s largest advocacy and civil-rights groups.”
Yet while CAIR indeed masquerades as a civil-rights organization, it is more accurately a front for Islamic extremism. The group promotes and supports the Muslim Brotherhood and also praises Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for the massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—the bloodiest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
CAIR leaders have repeatedly been convicted in court for terrorism-related offences, including in the United States v. Holy Land Foundation (HLF) for Relief & Development, the biggest terrorism financing case in American history, in which evidence associated CAIR with Hamas.
Nevertheless, the Obama and Biden administrations treated CAIR as a credible organization. Biden even named the group part of his national strategy to combat antisemitism.
It’s time the U.S. State Department followed Texas’s lead. In accordance with U.S. law, CAIR must be designated an FTO and stripped of its nonprofit status.
Fortunately, President Trump has moved to name the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and several U.S. lawmakers are working to designate CAIR similarly.
CAIR was created to conceal the Islamist designs of its founders. In his proclamation declaring CAIR an FTO, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott cited the FBI, which asserted that the organization was a “front group” for “Hamas and its support network” in the United States.
Indeed, CAIR was the brainchild of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee.” Among the committee’s goals were “increasing the financial and the moral support for Hamas,” and publicizing “the savagery of the Jews.” In October 1993, the FBI wiretapped a meeting of the Palestine Committee in Philadelphia, revealing internal discussions on how to improve activities in support of Hamas in America and shield them from the designation of Hamas as a terror group. The participants agreed to the creation of a new entity with no evident ties to Hamas and operating in ways to make it appear moderate in the eyes of Americans.
CAIR’s ties to terrorist organizations have been proven in federal court. CAIR members convicted in terrorism-related offences include figures such as Bassem Khafagi, a community relations director for CAIR, who pleaded guilty to federal bank and visa fraud in 2003, after funneling money to terrorist causes and publishing material advocating suicide attacks against the United States, as well as Randall Todd Royer, a communications specialist and civil-rights coordinator for CAIR, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2004 for conspiring to aid Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
In 2004, two groups—the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP)—were found liable for aiding Hamas in the murder of 17-year-old American citizen David Boim, whom Hamas members shot at a Jerusalem bus stop in 1996. Like CAIR, the HLF and IAP were created by the Palestine Committee. In particular, current senior Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook founded the IAP, which the U.S. Department of Justice classified as a propaganda arm of Hamas. Among IAP’s executives were Omar Ahmad, Rahim Jaber and Nihad Awad, the co-founders of CAIR.
The most significant case involving CAIR was the United States v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief & Development, the largest terrorism financing case in American history, in which CAIR was designated an “unindicted co-conspirator.” Abbott noted that during this case, “internal documents plainly identified CAIR as a subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
It ended in 2008 with five executives of HLF convicted of funneling more than $10 million to Hamas. One of the convicted was Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of the Texas CAIR branch and treasurer of HLF.
The FBI, as well as Obama and Biden, worked with CAIR despite its terrorist ties. From CAIR’s founding in 1994, the FBI engaged with CAIR through the U.S. Muslim community, but this collaboration ceased after the Holy Land Foundation convictions in 2008. Still, under the Obama administration, CAIR representatives participated in community outreach, civil-rights discussions and efforts to counter Islamophobia. Biden went further, including CAIR as a stakeholder in his National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
However, after Awad, its executive director, called Oct. 7 “a natural response to an occupation,” especially since Israel did not occupy Gaza in any way, Biden disavowed CAIR. In short, both Biden and Obama treated the organization as a legitimate civil-rights group, ignoring warning signs of CAIR’s terrorist involvement.
CAIR doesn’t deserve nonprofit status; it deserves a terror designation. Per 8 U.S. Code § 1189: Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), the U.S. Secretary of State can designate an entity an FTO if it is foreign, if it engages in terrorist activity as defined by U.S. law, or if its terrorist activity endangers U.S. nationals or the national security of the United States. The U.S. Government has identified CAIR as an affiliate of FTO Hamas, which should make it an FTO as well. Furthermore, several CAIR staffers have been convicted of participating in terrorist activity. CAIR also threatens U.S. security because of its ties to Hamas, which is determined to destroy the United States and its ally Israel. Moreover, per 18 U.S.C. §§ 2339A and 2339B, a nonprofit may not provide material support for terrorism.
U.S. lawmakers are finally starting to take action against CAIR. Fortunately, mountainous evidence tying CAIR to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood has pushed some U.S. lawmakers into taking measures to strip the group of its nonprofit status and designate it an FTO. For example, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) submitted HR 4097, a bill co-sponsored by two Texas senators directing the Secretary of State to review whether CAIR meets the criteria for designation as an FTO. In addition, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has asked the IRS to examine the nonprofit status of CAIR due to its terrorist ties.
In short, CAIR deserves designation under U.S. law for what it really is: a terrorist organization masquerading as a legitimate civil-rights group.
Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
