Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > CAIR Refuses to Condemn Hamas While Attempting to Censor Michael Savage
CAIR Refuses to Condemn Hamas While Attempting to Censor Michael Savage
November 27, 2007
CAIR Refuses To Condemn Hamas While Attempting To Censor Michael Savage
CAIR Refuses To Condemn Hamas While Attempting To Censor Michael Savage
By William Mayer
November 27, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - CAIR's world of deceit was again evident today, displayed outside the Townsend Street, San Francisco offices of AM 910 radio station, KNEW.
At the carefully prepared but poorly attended "press conference," representatives of the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] castigated the allegedly "hateful" comments directed against Muslims made by the nationally popular talk show host Michael Savage, but in a redux of previous encounters with the organization, Basim Elkarra, Executive Director of CAIR's Sacramento branch [pictured to the left], refused to condemn the terrorist group HAMAS, specifically and by name, when challenged to do so by by this reporter - though he was given ample opportunity.
CAIR carries some heavy baggage in this regard. Last summer, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation [HLF] prosecution and the founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, Ghassan Elashi, was found guilty and sentenced in the Infocom terror case. Elashi remains a key defendant in the HLF trial.
Throughout its history, the Saudi funded CAIR has refused to condemn HAMAS, giving credence to charges made by critics and borne out in government documents that it is tied to the terrorist group via a complex of associations leading back to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Today's event, in addition to providing cover for the organization, however transparent, against the reasonable suggestions made by Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes, that CAIR is terror friendly, CAIR, "Moderate" Friends Of Terror was also structured to showcase the newly formed "Hate Hurts America Community And Interfaith Coalition," a coalition of seeming dozens, comprised of aging leftists and multi-culti diversity activists operating under the guise of religion.
Elkarra's intransigence to state that HAMAS is a terrorist organization, mirrors what has become the organization's boilerplate tactic in such matters, see CAIR Attack On Dr. Daniel Pipes Ludicrous, Given Its Own Refusal To Condemn Hamas.
"...on Thursday, October 25, 2007, we attempted to contact several CAIR offices by telephone.We were unsuccessful in directly reaching any of CAIR's DC office spokespeople, including Ibrahim Hooper and Amina Rubin, and did not leave a message, since numerous previous messages have never been returned. When contacted, the Sacramento, California CAIR office suggested that we call the Sunnyvale/Santa Clara branch, which we did.
When that office's spokesman was placed on the line, we asked him if CAIR was now willing to "condemn Hamas, specifically and by name as a terrorist organization" he repeatedly refused, though we gave him numerous opportunities to answer in the affirmative. All that he would say is that CAIR condemns "all terrorism," a familiar and specious ploy, since the group has traditionally alleged that Israel's campaign to suppress the Intifada, is terrorism:
"Israel is killing civilians and inflicting massive humanitarian suffering on both the Palestinian and Lebanese populations in order to achieve a political goal, which clearly fits the definition of state terrorism," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.
Awad said that more Americans are realizing that Israel is a strategic liability, not an asset to the United States, as outlined in a recent Harvard University report." [source, http://www.cairchicago.org/actionalerts.php?file=aa_israeli_attacks07132006]
The designation by federal prosecutors naming CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator, is a matter of grave concern for the organization. Failing in their efforts to have HLF trial judge A. Joe Fish reverse that ruling, they have now gone to Michigan Democrat Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to apply pressure to the justice department to remove the taint of that declaration.
These bully-boy tactics, were in full display today with the effort to force Michael Savage's advertisers to cancel their contracts.
CAIR has a history of attempting to force its critics into submission, with organizations as disparate as Fox Broadcasting [in the case of its hit show "24"] and with the post Bill Buckley, National Review magazine [which was cajoled into pulling ads for books critical of radical Islam] having suffered their considerable wrath.
Such methodologies clearly place CAIR at the forefront of the Islamist's stealth jihad in America, rendering the group's pompous railing against hate, truly ludicrous. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cair11.27.07%2Ehtm
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