It is not just an idea whose time has come; it’s an idea whose time came long ago, and was ignored. Maybe it won’t be this time. Fox News reported Thursday that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “called on the state’s attorney general to strip the Council on American-Islamic Relations of its non-profit status.”
Abbott pointed out that “under Texas law, the Texas Attorney General is the only elected official charged with regulating nonprofits that may be violating the law.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, meanwhile, states that “the spread of radical Islam in Texas must be stopped, and if school districts are continuing to promote or partner with organizations tied to an FTO, that ends now. I will ensure that taxpayers’ dollars are not materially supporting activities by Islamist terrorists in violation of Texas law.”
Abbott likewise noted that “voluminous documents detail the dangers posed to Texans by the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR and their affiliates. Regardless of the facade CAIR attempts to portray in press releases, CAIR cannot be allowed to use its ‘nonprofit’ status as a shield for sponsoring terror, advancing radical Islamism in Texas or fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood. The same goes for other entities pretending to engage in charity by day, while sponsoring terror by night.”
To this, the most apposite response is “What took you so long?,” but Abbott is to be commended rather than condemned, for all of his fellow governors aside from Florida’s Ron DeSantis aren’t doing a thing about the persistent problem of Hamas-linked CAIR.
The reasons why not remain shrouded in mystery. After all, the truth about CAIR has been known for years. Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad, two officials of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was listed as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s allied organizations in the notorious 1991memorandum in which the Brotherhood stated its goal as “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” founded the Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood group CAIR in 1994.
In 2005, the federal government shut down the IAP as a Hamas front. The Immigration and Naturalization Service reported in 2001 that the IAP was so close to its parent organization that it published and distributed Hamas communiqués on its own letterhead, “as well as other written documentation to include the HAMAS charter and glory records, which are tributes to HAMAS’ violent ‘successes.'”
Oliver Revell, a former chief of the FBI’s counterterrorism department, called the IAP “a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants.” In 2005, the U.S. government shut down the IAP as a Hamas front. But CAIR continues to operate here and is even taken seriously as a civil rights organization, with its spokesmen courted by politicians, regularly appearing in newspaper articles and on national TV whenever either jihad attacks or effective counter-jihad raise fears of “backlash” against American Muslims.
It should come as no surprise that several CAIR officials have been convicted of participating in violent jihad activities. Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer, CAIR’s former communications specialist and civil rights coordinator, participated in the “Virginia jihad group,” which was indicted on forty-one counts of “conspiracy to train for and participate in a violent jihad overseas.” Royer is served time in prison after pleading guilty to lesser charges.
Ghassan Elashi, the founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, was sentenced in 2009 to sixty-five years in prison for funneling over $12 million in charitable contributions to Hamas while serving as head of the Holy Land Foundation. Other former CAIR officials have been convicted of jihad terror activities as well, raising the question of how this supposedly moderate group failed so abysmally to distinguish “moderates” from “extremists.”
CAIR itself was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case. The organization not only facilitated donations to the Holy Land Foundation, but also received money from it — no less than half a million dollars. CAIR cofounder Nihad Awad vehemently denied this fact when terror researcher Steven Emerson confronted him: “This is an outright lie. Our organization did not receive any seed money from the Holy Land Foundation. CAIR raises its own funds and we challenge Mr. Emerson to provide even a shred of evidence to support his ridiculous claim.” Emerson then published an image of the canceled check.
Yet despite its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the terror convictions of several of its former officials, and its virtually unanimous opposition to counterterror laws, investigations, and other initiatives, CAIR remains widely respected. If that doesn’t change, and change soon, it will continue to engage in the subversive activities to which it is dedicated. How long can a nation endure the activities of such groups?
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