A Deadly Embrace: MSM and CAIR

- "Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that..."

- "Asked in an America-Online-sponsored chat in August 1998...Mr. Hooper wrote..."

- "When asked in a subsequent phone interview with this columnist... Mr. Hooper said..."

- "When asked by The Washington Post in November 2001... Mr. Hooper responded..."

- "Asked by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in February 2002...Mr. Hooper called such questions..."

- "Hooper appeared on MSNBC's "Buchanan and Press" to complain..."

- "Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations was on Paula Zahn's CNN show tonight with Dennis Prager and Christopher Hitchens."

- "Appearing on Fox News recently, the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim Hooper, said..."

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Believe it or not, this is not going to be just another angry article about the seditious machinations of CAIR, or its infamous Islamist apologist, the disingenuous Ibrahim Hooper. And this isn't going to be yet another indictment of our irresponsible leftist main stream media. This is about something different and even more troubling: the insidious melding of the two. That deadly embrace between our most dangerous enemy and our most ubiquitous source of news and information.

Earlier this week in an article at Maggie's Notebook, Maggie Thornton included a video from CNN via You Tube, a report from Paula Zahn on the unwelcome appearance of Muslim prayer groups in one of our public schools. "How would you feel if your children came home from school and told you about this?" Ms. Zahn asks her audience. So far, so good. But then halfway through the piece she pointedly reminds us that for years "other (Christian?) religious groups" have been calling for special prayer classes in our public schools -- and that because Muslims are getting them they are now complaining. What?

The pontificating Paula makes it sound as though Islam is just another religion, no different than the others. She makes it sound as though the only objection to this outrageous practice is coming from thwarted and disgruntled competing religious groups, thereby totally obscuring the major issue here -- the continuing and successful Muslim infiltration into our still-vulnerable society. And then, for an authoritative reaction to this latest Muslim encroachment into our Judeo/Christian society we go to the ingenuous and ubiquitous Ibrahim Hooper.

I will not listen to Ibrahim Hooper or to any other CAIR representative. And I cannot understand or tolerate the way our empty-headed MSM still goes to CAIR for their "professional" take on Muslim/American issues. Don't these idiots know that they are talking to the enemy? That they are giving our adversaries a platform to spread their cynical propaganda? Don't they care? Or do they perhaps have some darker agenda?

Despite all that we have learned since 9/11 about the horrors of Islam and seditious activities of CAIR , despite all of the scandals and the indictments, incredibly, CAIR is still considered a legitimate Civil Rights group, the Islamic voice of reason. A trusted advisor, not just to our conflicted MSM, but to our own credulous government, and to some of our largest corporations.

How are we ever going to win this battle for our very existence if we can't even identify our true enemies? After all this time to still refuse to acknowledge that CAIR is nothing but the mouthpiece of the enemy is simply outrageous. And we cannot let this go by unnoticed.

The entire apparatus of CAIR should be immediately dismantled and its functionaries indicted or deported. How the hell are we ever going to stem this Muslim tide, this dangerous soft jihad if we can't even silence CAIR? If our own stupid MSM keeps treating them respectfully as experts and authorities, instead of treacherous terrorist-supporting enemy cells? - rg

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A few examples of CAIR at work:

- At the Islamic Association of Palestine's third annual convention in Chicago in November 1999, CAIR President Omar Ahmad gave a speech at a youth session praising suicide bombers who "kill themselves for Islam." "Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam — that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam, " he said.

· When the founder and the imam of the Masjid As-Salam mosque in Albany, N.Y. were indicted in 2004 on charges of taking part in what they thought was a plot to buy shoulder-fired missiles and to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat, CAIR warned that such sting operations could be used to "smear Muslims and to demonize Islam." Both men were convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison for their role in the plot.

· Three members of a jihad network in Northern Virginia charged in September 2003 with conspiracy to wage war against the United States and conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda were convicted the following March and sentenced, respectively, to life in prison, 85 years and 97 months. CAIR called the sentences "draconian" and cited a "near universal perception in the Islamic community" that the men never would have been charged had they not been Muslims.

· Spokesman Hooper roundly condemned the government's December 2001 action in shutting down the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) for allegedly funneling money to Hamas. He told Cox News the move was "ill-advised and counter-productive" because "the only specific accusation is that [HLF funds] feed the orphans of suicide bombers along with hundreds of other children."

Hussam Ayloush, CAIR-Southern California executive director, appeared on CNN to say that targeting "the most trusted and largest Islamic charitable organization in the U.S…. sends a wrong message to Muslims all over the world, basically, that Israel gets to dictate our foreign policy."

· Enaam Arnaout, executive director of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) was charged with perjury in April 2002 for stating under oath that BIF -- accused of giving financial support to Al Qaeda -- did not support terrorism. CAIR spokesman Jason Erb said the action "really makes American Muslims feel that they are not going to get a fair shake in the justice system," while Hooper accused the government of using "backhanded legal technicalities." In February 2003, Arnaout pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

· In September 2001 the FBI raided the offices of Infocom, a computer export company, in an action that was to lead to indictments the following year of the company and its officers on charges of illegally sending computer equipment to Libya and Syria and engaging in financial transactions with Mousa Abu Marzook, a Specially Designated Terrorist.CAIR joined in a statement blaming Israel. "American Muslims view yesterday's action as just one of a long list of attempts by the pro-Israel lobby to intimidate and silence all those who wish to see Palestinian Muslims and Christians free themselves of a brutal Apartheid-like occupation," the statement read. "We believe the genesis of this raid lies not in Washington, but in Tel Aviv."Convictions of some of the defendants obtained in July 2004 prompted CAIR Dallas-Fort Worth to issue a statement casting the verdicts as evidence of "a growing disparity and climate of injustice for Muslims, who we feel are being selectively prosecuted and given unfair sentences precisely because they are Muslim or Arab."

· In December 2004, a federal magistrate in Illinois held three American Muslim organizations -- HLF, IAP and the Quranic Literacy Institute (QLI) -- as well as Hamas operative Mohammad Salah, liable in the 1996 death of David Boim. Boim, a 17-year-old New Yorker, was killed by a Hamas gunman while waiting for a bus in the West Bank town of Beit El. Yaser Tabbara, then CAIR-Chicago's executive director, declared the verdict a travesty of justice.

· In August 1995, the Justice Department requested the arrest and extradition to Israel of Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, whom Israel sought to prosecute for murder. CAIR leapt to his defense in a press conference at which Executive Director Nihad Awad called the case "politically motivated" and charged that "this campaign has been orchestrated to serve as a wedge between America and Islamic countries." Marzook was deported to Jordan in May 1997.

· When University of South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian was charged in February 2003 with establishing and operating the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) network in the United States, CAIR alleged that his indictment was based on "political considerations."
· After Fawaz Damra, imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, was convicted in 2004 of concealing, on his citizenship application, his involvement in groups that advocated "violent terrorist attacks against Jews and others," CAIR-Ohio's executive director defended him as a "great interfaith leader in the Cleveland community." CAIR's defense came despite the fact that jurors in Damra's trial had been shown footage of a 1989 speech in which he said "terrorism and terrorism alone is the path to liberation."

· Radical Egyptian cleric Wagdy Ghoneim was arrested on immigration violations in November 2004 based on Immigration and Customs Enforcement concerns that "his past speeches and participation in fund-raising activities could be supportive of terrorist organizations." CAIR-Southern California Executive Director Hussam Ayloush questioned the arrest, complaining, "The whole Muslim community today is under a microscope of scrutiny.

Appearing on Fox News recently, the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim Hooper, said that in 20 years worth of trips to mosques, "I've never heard violence preached; I've never heard anti-Semitism or anti-Americanism preached."

From Jihad Watch March 17, 2004
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/001196.php