Why wont they denounce Hamas and Hezbollah?

An influential Muslim pressure group that enjoys high-level access to the Bush administration says it backs the president’s position on Israeli settlements, his call for Israel to "halt incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas of the region and begin withdrawal from those cities it has recently occupied," and the need to respect the Palestinian people.

But in its news release, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is strangely silent about President Bush’s call to condemn and act against terrorist groups like Hamas.

In the president’s words, "All who care about the Palestinian people should join in condemning and acting against groups like Al-Aqsa, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all groups which opposed the peace process and seek the destruction of Israel."

CAIR has criticized certain individual suicide bombings such as the Passover massacre, calling it "counterproductive." But it has yet to criticize the terrorist groups by name. Indeed, as news reports have shown, its leaders publicly have supported Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Center for Security Policy has called on the administration to improve its Muslim outreach program by screening out supporters of State Department-designated terrorist groups.