This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2958

Government Documents Reveal CAIR is Hamas - ISNA also named as unindicted co conspirator in Holy Land terror funding

June 6, 2007

Case Closed - Government Documents Reveal CAIR Is Hamas

Council On American Islamic Relations [CAIR] Named As Unindicted Co-Conspirator In Holy Land Foundation Case

June 5, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a disclosure that will have significant impact on the way the public perceives radical American Islamist organizations who feign moderation, the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator [source List of Unindicted Co-conspirators and/or Joint Venturers] in the government's upcoming prosecution of those associated with the Holy Land Foundation.

Court documents name the Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR as being among "individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations."

In a precedent setting revelation, the government's trial brief sets forth in great detail incontestable evidence linking CAIR to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to documents seized from co-conspirator Ismail Elbarrasse, there is a straight line of associations going from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and terminating with the Islamic Association for Palestine, CAIR's immediate antecedent.

"the Muslim Brotherhood directed its Palestinian Committees throughout the world, including the United States, to carry out the mandate of assisting Sheik Yassin's newly-formed Hamas. In accordance with that mandate, the Palestinian Committee in the United States, which included the defendants Elashi, Baker and El-Mezain, created a number of organizations charged with varying missions calculated to comprehensively address Hamas' needs. These organizations included the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) ("think tank"), the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP) (propaganda and information) and the Occupied Land Fund (OLF) (money), later to become the defendant HLF. The defendant Shukri Abu Baker was in charge of the HLF and, along with the defendants El-Mezain and Elashi, set out to establish what would become the highest grossing Islamic charity in the United States.

...The IAP, which involved the defendant Ghassan Elashi as an original incorporator and bank account signatory, was designed as a propaganda facility, responsible for Intifada festivals (involving the defendant HLF), pro-Hamas publications, and the general rallying of support within the American Palestinian community. The IAP was the first organization to publish an English version of the Hamas charter, which, as previously explained, vows to replace Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza with an Islamic state. Further, during their existence, unindicted co-conspirator and Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the three organizations (UASR, IAP, OLF/HLF) during a time when he was an unemployed graduate student." [source Trial Brief, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al pg 10-11]

The IAP was involved in a criminal conspiracy to support Hamas.

"the United States-based Muslim Brotherhood and its sub-group the Palestinian Committee); organizations established by the Palestinian Committee, such as the defendant Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), as well as other organizations. See Superceding Indictment, pp. 6-7. Each of the above organizations, as well as its members, representatives and supporters were participants in the same joint venture or conspiracy -- the conspiracy to support Hamas." [source Government Trial Brief 5.27.07, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al, pg 32]

As noted in our December 5, 2006 piece Ghassan Elashi's Sentencing Proves CAIR's Terror Ties Ghassan Elashi is the pivotal figure in this chain of association. He was the founder of Texas Chapter of CAIR and the individual who was responsible for incorporating the IAP, he was also present at the Philadelphia Hamas funding meeting detailed later on in this piece. Elashi was recently sentenced in the InfoCom terror funding case and is a key defendant in U.S. v Holy Land Foundation case.

Elashi worked to aid the Muslim Brotherhood through its agent the Palestinian Committee in creating the IAP. Those associated with Elashi also worked to create other Islamist organizations [United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) and the Occupied Land Fund (OLF) later to become the Holy Land Foundation] with the intent of building support for the terrorist group Hamas and its primary goal, the destruction of the State of Israel.

"For Hamas, the Oslo Accords were a threat to its survival and in direct confrontation with its most valued tenet - the destruction of the State of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in all of what is today Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip." [source Government Trial Brief 5.27.07, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al, pg 12]

As noted by terror expert Matthew Epstein, CAIR's future senior leadership participated in a pivotal meeting to fund Hamas that was held in Philadelphia.

"CAIR actively raised money for [Holy Land Foundation] HLF via their mailing list. In 2001, HLF's assets were frozen by the Treasury Department, which found the organization to be a Hamas conduit. The Texas chapter of CAIR and HLF share a common founder in Ghassan Elashi. As stated above, Elashi himself was present at the 1993 Philadelphia meeting that planned Hamas fundraising in the United States. This meeting shows that future leadership of CAIR participated in meetings with senior Hamas leaders and discussed Hamas fundraising in the United States."

This meeting was deemed so critical in understanding Hamas' American operation that the FBI obtained a warrant through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [FISA] Court, to monitor it.

"The FBI learned of the Philadelphia meeting through the Ashqar investigation and, as a result, the FBI obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor the meeting," [source Government Trial Brief 5.27.07, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al, pg 13]

Mr. Epstein quotes from a page, since removed from the CAIR website in which CAIR's current Executive Director Nihad Awad describes his work at the IAP with his associate Omar Ahmad, now CAIR's Chairman of the Board.

"After the Gulf War was over, I was offered a job with the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) as their public relations director…In this effort I worked closely with IAP president Omar Ahmad...Omar suggested to me that we leave the IAP and concentrate on combating anti-Muslim discrimination...In June 1994, we used a modest donation as a starting budget to open the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington, D.C."

IAP events incited anti-American hate and barely concealed threats of violence. Below, Mr. Epstein quotes a Hamas supporter at a post Gulf War IAP conference.

"Dear brothers and sisters, we used to cross swords with America and with imperialism in a sportive way, by means of culture clash, by critique and writing in newspapers and journals and in debates. But the confrontation has reached a point of no return. All veils have fallen. All barriers have broken down. And today, America is right here at your doorstep, in everybody's house...The marines, dear brothers, are stealing the doors of your houses, and the doors of your mosques, in obstinate and open provocation. They are at our doors. Their plan is to penetrate the flesh of our girls. And our honor, and our values, in order to turn our society into a pervert nation." [source September 10, 2003 Senate Testimony of Mr. Matthew Epstein, Assistant Director, the Investigative Project]

Understanding the pivotal role of CAIR within the constellation of American Islamist group is key to unlocking how radical Muslims seek to impose their will. For the most part American institutions have accepted at face value, self-promoting foreign funded supporters of terrorism who claim moderation while working clandestinely to promote the butchers at Hamas.

Christian and Jewish religious groups, local and federal law enforcement officials and politicians at every level have conducted fraudulent "faith sharing" and/or "Muslim sensitivity" public relations exercises with groups like CAIR because they lack the moral courage necessary to adequately vet them.

Such excuses will no longer pass muster, the court documents and evidentiary materials that have been amassed for use in the Holy Land Foundation case now prove beyond all doubt that CAIR is Hamas.

The evidence developed by Federal law enforcement places CAIR within a top down hierarchical arrangement of terror supporters:

Muslim Brotherhood ==> Hamas ==> Palestinian Committee ==> the Islamic Association of Palestine ==> CAIR.

From this point onward it is indefensible for individuals and organizations to associate with CAIR.

This organization constitutes a clear a present danger to national security. A full-scale Federal law enforcement investigation is long overdue with the intent of adding it to Executive Order 12947 [Foreign Terrorist Organization Designations list] alongside its ideological parent, Hamas.

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cairholyland6507.htm

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2958