Pennsylvania: US Senator Bob Casey and state reps organize events on “Islamophobia” with Hamas-linked CAIR
Would Casey and the state representatives co-organized events with a Nazi group? What’s the difference? CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements about how Islamic law should be imposed in the U.S. (Ahmad denies this, but the original reporter stands by her story.) CAIR chapters frequently distribute pamphlets telling Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has been proposed or implemented and has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates. CAIR’s Hussam Ayloush in 2017 called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. CAIR’s national outreach manager is an open supporter of Hamas.
Casey is a Democrat, but there are plenty of Republican Useful Idiots as well. That any American politician of any political camp would appear at any function of this unsavory group speaks to the confusion of our age, and of how casual U.S. officials have become in their acceptance of hatred for the country they are supposed to be serving.
“Pennsylvania Officials Join Bigoted CAIR for ‘Islamophobia’ Events,” by Steven Emerson, IPT News, June 27, 2019:
Last week, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) identified charitable organizations that recently showcased radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) activists with a history of bigoted and anti-Semitic views. Philanthropic organizations and foundations should be held accountable for failing to do their due diligence and looking into the backgrounds of the members they promote publicly. U.S. politicians, however, must be held to an even higher standard while representing their constituencies.Unfortunately, state and local officials participated in several events co-hosted by CAIR’s Philadelphia chapter (CAIR-PA) earlier this month.On June 6, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., organized a town hall meeting at Dickinson College and invited CAIR-PA Advisory Board member Aaysha Noor to moderate, according to a CAIR-PA update. Another town hall, taking place June 13 in Devon, Pa., “was co-sponsored by the offices of [state] Rep. Joe Webster and Rep. Melissa Shusterman.” On June 19, CAIR-PA co-hosted a second town hall meeting in Carlisle, Pa. including state representatives Movita Johnson-Harrell and Patty Kim. Both meetings focused on “Islamophobia” and condemning anti-Muslim bigotry.Either these politicians support CAIR’s radical agenda, or their staff failed to do their homework on the organization. Like other U.S.-based Islamists, CAIR-PA’s leaders have a long history of making bigoted allegations.In a 2010 op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Moein Khawaja, then executive director of CAIR-Philadelphia, leveled dual allegiance accusations at a pro-Israel lobby group. Khawaja argued that “CAIR is concerned about America, not Palestine, Pakistan, or any other foreign land – unlike the Emergency Committee for Israel and its supporters, who place Israel first and America a distant second.”This view is similar to recent comments by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who leveled dual loyalty allegations against American supporters of Israel. Accusing Jews of holding more allegiance to the Jewish state than to their home nation is a form of anti-Semitism.In addition, Khawaja’s claim about CAIR’s focus is false. CAIR and its officials routinely insert the organization into the debate over Israel and Palestine. After angrily rejecting a question about Hamas in 2013 as a bigoted effort to drag CAIR “into the Middle East affairs,” CAIR-Los Angeles leader Hussam Ayloush attacked Mayor Eric Garcetti for endorsing the U.S. decision to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The move was offensive “not only to the 12 million Palestinian Christians and Muslims, but also to the 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide,” Ayloush said last month.CAIR-PA’s current executive director, Jacob Bender, has since issued some outlandish statements of his own in recent years. For over a year, Israeli forces have been containing violent demonstrations on the Israel-Gaza border, which continue to this day. The vast majority of the Palestinian casualties in these confrontations are either formal members or affiliates of terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In fact, Hamas is in complete control of the tempo fueling these violent protests. Yet Bender, like other Hamas apologists, frames the ongoing border conflict as an Israeli “massacre.”“Here in the US, however, Israel’s massacre is met with either silence, or worse, open support for Israel in driving back what they deem to be barbaric Arab hordes bent upon visiting another Holocaust upon the innocent Jews and their ‘Jewish State.’ Shockingly, many Israelis and their supporters in the US are almost euphoric at the number of Arab dead,” Bender wrote in May 2018.Without any evidence, Bender claims that many pro-Israel supporters are elated when presented with Palestinian deaths. This is a bigoted assumption that blanketly paints pro-Israel Americans as evil. Bender has not rescinded his initial statement after Palestinian terrorist leaders acknowledged that most of the casualties were their operatives.It’s tough to hear how Bender “wanted to play a role as a bridge builder” when he has a history of demonizing the Jewish state and its supporters.In a 2014 letter, Bender explained that he works for CAIR “because this is a courageous organization that repeatedly denounces injustice and violence around the world, no matter the victim, no matter the perpetrator. Whether it is ISIS beheading American journalists in Iraq, or Israeli troops killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, or the Taliban murdering over 150 school children in Pakistan.”In that statement alone, Bender reveals two of CAIR’s most prominent and disturbing worldviews. First, that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is morally equivalent to jihadist groups who indiscriminately target civilians using the most brutal methods. CAIR officials Hussam Ayloush and Zahra Billoo have repeatedly compared Americans who move to Israel and join the IDF to ISIS terrorists. Second, Bender’s argument shows that CAIR and its officials are incapable of denouncing Hamas or Hizballah as militant organizations that engage in terrorism solely because those groups’ primary targets are Israelis and Jews.This type of sentiment should be condemned, not rewarded with ongoing political engagement from Pennsylvania officials…
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