Republicans Were Right about CAIR and Nihad Awad

By Noah Rothman

Friday, December 08, 2023

 

‘ Iwas happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk[ing] free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in,” declared Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), to the applause of an audience at this year’s American Muslims for Palestine conference.

 

Awad called the 10/7 massacre an effort by beleaguered Gazans to “break the siege” of their “concentration camp.” He called the slaughter of innocents, the rape and mutilation of women, the murder of whole families in their beds and in the homes Hamas terrorists burned to the ground around them an act of “self-defense.” “And, yes,” Awad added, “Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.”

 

There’s a lot wrong with these despicable comments. Gazans have no claim, historical or otherwise, to the Israeli territory Hamas militants invaded and occupied on 10/7. Permit-holding Gazans were, in fact, “allowed to walk in” to Israeli territory through government checkpoints, and many of them made their livings in the Jewish state prior to the October massacre. Equating the terrorist-occupied Strip with a “concentration camp” is an attempt to create an equivalence between Jews and their Nazi executioners that perverts the historical record and denies the experience of the Holocaust. And, of course, the bloodlust in Awad’s remarks exposes a void of basic human decency in CAIR’s executive culture.

 

In a response to National Review’s request for comment, Awad produced a sanitized restatement of his scandalous remarks — one that reflected the caution he typically observes when addressing mixed company. That cleanup operation has not dampened the outrage directed his way. Awad’s comments have received the attention they deserve, but the tone mainstream-media outlets have assumed in covering them is one of shock. Why? Anyone who has paid much attention to CAIR and to the Right’s warning about the direction in which the organization has been headed for over a decade should not be surprised.

 

Republicans began to express their concerns about the succor the organization appeared to grant the sponsors of radical Islamism as early as the mid Aughts. The organization’s close ties to Wahhabist donors in the Arabian Peninsula and its defense of American residents convicted of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations like Hamas were red flags by 2006. When California senator Barbara Boxer speedily revoked the issuance of a certificate of appreciation for the group under pressure from activists who branded her one of America’s “senators for terror,” her actions suggested those concerns were not without merit.

 

And yet, the organization’s allies in elite progressive circles and in the press ran cover for the group.

 

“Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares,” Michael Rolince, an FBI counterterrorism official who served from 2002 to 2005, complained to the New York Times in 2007. CAIR was described as a harmless civil-liberties organization, and its detractors were framed as paranoiacs. “Traditionally within the government there is only one point of view that is acceptable, which is the pro-Israel line,” read a quote Awad provided to the Times.

 

Still, the concerns about CAIR were not allayed. During a 2011 congressional hearing, then-representative Peter King called the organization “discredited.” CAIR had been implicated in “an attempt to stifle debate and obstruct cooperation with law enforcement,” said then-representative Frank Wolf. This is “basically” a “terrorist organization,” alleged then-representative Chip Cravaack.

 

These were “a puzzling set of comments,” according to Times reporter Scott Shane. Sure, the group was implicated as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a terrorism-financing bust. But it was just one of 200 such unindicted co-conspirators. Yes, there were disturbing indications that CAIR was aware of the disappearance of five Virginia men who later turned up in Pakistan following a raid that detained a number of aspiring Islamist militants. But the organization claimed it worked closely with the FBI — at least, eventually — to aid in their capture. “We have nothing to do with radicalizing young men,” Awad told the congressional panel before which he was summoned to testify. “We are the answer to violent extremism.”

 

Dr. Ben Carson was subject to a mix of condemnation and mockery for his 2015 warning about the group. “The Department of State should designate the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations that propagate or support Islamic terrorism as terrorist organizations,” he wrote in a white paper produced for his presidential campaign, “and fully investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a supporter of terrorism.” The proposal was branded part of the “anti-Muslim backlash” that erupted in the West amid the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Among others, Carson advocated the revocation of CAIR’s tax-exempt status — a claim based on his observation that Awad had violated the rules against political activity for 501(c)(3) organizations. But Carson was dismissed as a “paranoid nutcase” and his warnings went unheeded.

 

That was a scandal. The neurosurgeon and former Housing and Urban Development director was on sure footing when he questioned the legitimacy of CAIR’s activities. A contemporaneous piece by the Algemeiner’s Steven Emerson provides the substance:

 

FBI records recently obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism further illustrate why CAIR merits closer scrutiny, rather than free air time, from the mainstream media. The records cement CAIR’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas from its very foundation, including disclosures about the only executive director CAIR has ever had — Nihad Awad.

 

Before he helped create CAIR 21 years ago, Awad moved from Dallas to Washington, DC, “in order to represent Hamas,” an acquaintance said.

 

Awad’s co-founder Omar Ahmad sought the blessing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to proceed with the new political start-up. That approval went as far as getting the global Islamist movement’s blessing over CAIR’s bylaws.

 

“These accounts came from separate sources, each of whom ran in the same Islamist circles as Awad and Ahmad, during interviews with the FBI in 2005 and in 2009-10,” Emerson wrote of the more than 1,000 pages of FBI records obtained by investigative journalists following the fulfillment of a FOIA request.

 

Only those who maintain a steadfast commitment to the assumption that Republicans are paranoid lunatics experienced shock when they encountered Awad’s latest remarks. They fit a pattern that was studiously ignored by media outlets who treated Awad and his organization as responsible political actors. One might think that reporters would be haunted now by the question, what else are Republicans right about? One would also assume that those dangerous thoughts will soon be banished from journalistic minds lest they inspire an undesirable outbreak of journalism.