By Paul Sperry for RealClearInvestigations
After Hamas massacred 1,400 males, girls and kids in Israel final month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the phobia group “and its allies” may encourage assaults on Individuals “here on our own soil.” He additionally informed the Senate that the FBI is conducting “multiple, 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 line with declassified FBI wiretap transcripts and FBI testimony, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has, within the many years since, develop into an accepted member of Washington’s lobbying neighborhood. The New York Instances and different influential newspapers routinely describe CAIR as a “Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.”
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 combat 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 govt 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 must go out on Sunday, Oct. 8 – and every day – in demonstrations in support 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 a substitute 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 attacks.” He threatened to harm Biden on the poll field in 2024 if he doesn’t urge a ceasefire.
“We have discovered the language that President Biden understands: ‘No ceasefire, no votes,’” Awad bellowed to the gang, which erupted right into a chant repeating his phrases. “No votes in Michigan, no votes anywhere if you do not call 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 are with you,” he stated. “The people of Gaza rely on your voices and activism.”
Protesters later marched on the White Home, the place they defaced the white brick gate of the Govt Mansion with pink paint symbolizing the blood of Gazans who’ve died from the Israeli military’s counterstrikes. Awad is on report declaring his help for Hamas. At Barry College in 1994, for instance, he stated: “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”
CAIR didn’t reply to requests for remark, however with out addressing specifics, it has beforehand argued it “is not a ‘front group for Hamas.’” The White Home declined to remark, whereas the FBI claimed charging CAIR or its executives was exterior its authority. “The FBI is an investigative agency and we don’t make the decisions about filing charges or prosecuting a case,” FBI spokeswoman Susan McKee stated. “Prosecutors make those decisions.” 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 similar to Hamas, as detailed within the 2009 e-book this reporter co-authored with counterterrorism professional 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 Sixties, the place Awad and a co-founder of CAIR, Omar Ahmad, have 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 keeping with a 1992 letter from the Gaza Strip, Hamas requested the Committee for cash to purchase “weapons, weapons, our brothers.” The letter continued: “The meaning of killing a Jew for the liberation of Palestine cannot be compared to 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 resort in Philadelphia to debate the formation of a brand new entrance group to help their “movement” in America. Awad additionally attended the assembly.
In keeping 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 fake” in basketball, the place a shooter tips an opponent guarding him into shifting in a special course. The group, in line with the wiretap transcripts, envisioned an “alternative” group whose pro-Palestinian stripes have been “not very conspicuous.” Burns testified CAIR was what they’d in thoughts. Through the talks, they tried to mislead any authorities who is likely to be listening in by referring to Hamas as “Samah” – Hamas spelled backward.
Ahmad would co-found CAIR in 1994, hiring Awad as govt 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 have been by no means indicted within the case. The HLF, busted up as the principle fundraising arm of Hamas in America, commingled funds, belongings, and personnel with CAIR, in line with tax information and courtroom paperwork.
“CAIR has been identified by the government as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization [Hamas] – a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew,” stated former Assistant U.S. Legal professional James Jacks, who was the lead prosecutor within the case.
A federal decide agreed. “The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR with Hamas,” then-U.S. District Decide Jorge Solis wrote in a July 2009 ruling.
Numerous FBI counterterrorism brokers have been annoyed that CAIR’s nationwide workplace and executives have 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 via which they could acquire recommendations on terror threats to the homeland. Brass even invited CAIR officers as much as the chief suites positioned on the seventh flooring of the Hoover constructing to debate outreach coverage.
“We said, ‘These are the bad guys, this 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 legal 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 may resolve points with Awad and different worrisome leaders.
“Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” 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 leading Hamas entity inside the United States, and the FBI has taken no action 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 correct” FBI management is hesitant to go after a minority non secular group and is overly delicate to expenses of “Islamophobia” typically leveled by CAIR in opposition to its critics.
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The FBI’s reluctance to roll up the Hamas entrance has pushed personal investigators to take issues into their very own palms. In 2008, a counterterrorism specialist led a staff of investigators in a daring undercover operation of CAIR that included infiltrating its nationwide headquarters positioned 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.
Through the six-month operation, in addition they intercepted greater than 12,000 pages of paperwork CAIR meant 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 e-book revealed that CAIR employed violent Islamic terrorists, after which supported the terrorists behind the scenes even after they have 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. Inside 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 classy community of Islamic nonprofits contained in the U.S. a number of many years in the past. The e-book documented how Muslim Brotherhood leaders wrote a secret blueprint for “destroying [America] from within … so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other 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 convention in regards to the e-book’s findings, warning a Hamas terror entrance group was infiltrating Congress.
Apart from exposing Hamas’ political arm in America, the e-book uncovered the inside 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 were planted in 1948,” in line with a draft of a “Proposed Muslim Platform” discovered at CAIR’s headquarters. “A resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be based on recognizing and correcting the harm that was done 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.
“Currently, CAIR is directing efforts at the ground level across the United States with organizations known for violent extremism,” he added in a current interview with RealClearInvestigations. “Again, the FBI is doing nothing to adhere to their oaths of office and protect the American people.”
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
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