CAIR escalates its hate rhetoric

The Council on American Islamic Relations, an organization founded as part of a Hamas support network, and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest successful terrorist financing prosecution in U.S. history, has recently escalated its hateful rhetoric toward Jews and Israel.

The timing of recent statements regarding Jews and Israel by CAIR officers is curious, though impossible to know. It seems unlikely, however, that this escalation is coincidental.

The first statement came on 27 November when CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, a man who once stated publicly that he supported Hamas, quipped that he regarded Tel Aviv, Israel, the largest city in the Jewish State, as “occupied territory” and prays for it to be freed. Awad was speaking before the annual convention of the American Muslims for Palestine, a group linked to the same Hamas support network as CAIR.

This statement by Awad is significant because it makes clear that the CAIR founder and executive director supports the total destruction of the state of Israel, not just the creation of a Palestinian state in the disputed 1967 territories known as Gaza and the West Bank. To regard Tel Aviv as occupied is to regard all of Israel as occupied land. To deny that Israel has a right to exist is a fundamental form of Jew hatred. Awad’s view dovetails precisely with the stance of Israel’s jihadist enemies –Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

The only way Tel Aviv could be “freed” the way Nihad Awad means “freed” is by force, in other words jihad. This is something Israel has dealt with since hours after its declaration as a state. But this amounts to the head of a U.S. non-profit organization saying he hopes that the designated terrorist organizations Hamas, Palestinian Jihad and Hezbollah (not to mention Iran) are successful in conquering a nation with close, friendly relations with the U.S.

This is the clearest statement in a long time by CAIR that it continues to support the elimination of Israel.

Another recent statement indicating CAIR’s escalation of hate came from the head of its San Francisco chapter, Zahra Billoo. Speaking at the same conference as Awad, she declared that Jewish organizations, student groups and even synagogues are “enemies.”

This warlike rhetoric, especially given the fact that there has been a marked increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes across America in recent years, is troubling to say the least, and could even be considered a “dog whistle” for violent Islamists to target Jewish houses of worship and other institutions.

Billoo should apologize for her statement, which has been condemned by both right and left-leaning organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League’s Jason Greenblatt.

Statements by both Billoo and Awad ought to be a wake up call for American Jewish groups, some of whom have bent over backwards to embrace CAIR, despite the organization’s troubling ties, ties which have prompted  several US state legislatures to direct their law enforcement communities to refuse to conduct outreach with CAIR.