Guardian frames CAIR – a group with proven ties to Hamas – as a voice against intolerance

There are few people who even try anymore to claim that the Council on American-Islamic Relations is a legitimate Muslim “civil rights” organization. In fact, a recent poll showed that only 11% of American Muslims believe that CAIR represents their interests.  

CAIR Director Nihad Awad (lower right) delivers speech under Hezbollah flag during speech in Washington, DC in 2002 (Photo from site of ADL)

The facts about the extremism, and terrorist affiliations, of the U.S. group are simply beyond dispute, and include the following:

  • CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-finance trial against the Holy Land Foundation and its former officials.
  • CAIR operates a Web site that makes anti-Semitic material, which includes Holocaust Denial, available for visitors interested in learning about Islam.
  • In 2007, U.S. federal prosecutors described CAIR as “having conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.”
  • In 2003, CAIR’s Florida chapter invited William Baker to its annual banquet. Baker, a known right-wing extremist, warned in his book, Theft of a Nation, that Jews throughout the world “can easily become agents for specific world powers in order to create unrest and disharmony.”

Yet, Alison Flood’s “9/11 children’s colouring book angers U.S. Muslims“, Aug. 31, (in the Guardian’s Children and Teen Books section) extensively quotes CAIR officials who condemned a book written to teach children the lessons of 9/11, as “disgusting”.   And, even more audaciously, given CAIR’s proven ties to Islamist terrorists, Flood quotes a CAIR official as complaining that the book “characterizes all Muslims as linked to extremism, terrorism and radicalism.”

Further, Guardian moderators also deleted comments beneath the line critical of CAIR – including those which merely pointed to reputable reports on the group’s extremist agenda.

Here, for instance, was my comment from last night:

“Just so we’re all clear, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) has been designated as an unindicted co-conspirator by the U.S. Justice Dep’t in the terror-finance trial against the Holy Land Foundation and its former officials, and are well-understood to be affiliated with Hamas.  Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/1854/doj-cairs-unindicted-co-conspirator-status-legit

And, then:

There were also, for instance, seven consecutive deleted comments between 9:40 and 10:02.

But, beyond their biased moderation process, the larger question is why the Guardian would legitimize, and frame as progressive, a group so unquestionably compromised by proven links to terrorist movements?

There is a word generally used which aptly describes those who sanction and approve of groups who are intolerant, misogynistic, antisemitic, and support violence:  At least in political terms it’s known as being Reactionary.   

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