Most Americans initially exposed to an organization usually assume the best, and this is especially so when a group has an innocuous or even high-sounding moniker that suggests altruistic intentions.
As for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), certainly most Americans would hope that there would be good relations with Muslims in their country. And, if an organization professes itself to be in favor of charity and calls itself the Holy Land Foundation, so much the better!
In 2004, a Dallas grand jury came out of session and levied several charges against the Holy Land Foundation, supposedly a charitable group which had its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The indictment specified that the Holy Land Foundation collected donations for charities operating on the West Bank, but in reality participated in fraudulent activity which saw the so-called charities funnel several millions of dollars to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization which has had a long-standing presence on the U.S. list of terrorist groups.
In the 2007 trial which followed in a federal court in Dallas, proceedings ended in a mistrial. However, in a second trial in 2008, the administrators of the Holy Land Foundation were convicted of aiding and abetting terrorism and received sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years. As for CAIR, the organization which bills itself as the leading American Muslim advocacy group, it was named a an unindicted co-conspirator.
Since the 1990's, reports of involvement with terrorist organizations and support from foreign powers have dogged CAIR. The charges of involvement with Hamas, especially, have been difficult to shed. The founders of CAIR, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, were alleged to have met with senior leaders of Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation in 1993. Both men have been described by FBI personnel running a surveillance operation as being linked to the top levels of Hamas leadership, and several members of Congress have called for a thorough, ongoing investigation of CAIR.
In 2009, Paul David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry published Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that's Conspiring to Islamize America. Gaubatz, an Arabist and former Air Force investigator, and Sperry, a Hoover Institute fellow, based their book on documents removed from the CAIR offices by Gaubatz's son, Chris, who had posed as a convert to Islam and served a six-month internship with CAIR.
With the "borrowed documents" lending credibility, the Gaubatz/Sperry book made what appeared to be a solid case that CAIR was indeed a revolutionary Islamist organization with extensive terrorist connections in the Middle East. Alleging in November 2009 that its documents had been unlawfully removed, CAIR brought suit only eventually to see the FBI present a subpoena to attorneys representing the authors, demanding that the material be turned over to a grand jury. In none of the legal maneuvering did CAIR ever declare that the authors were guilty of libel.
Not only are there indications that CAIR has received contributions from the Saudi monarchy, in 2011 Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia called attention to a 2009 letter from Nihad Awad to the late Muammar Ghadafi soliciting support for CAIR undertakings. Despite the letter, CAIR insists that it has never received money from Libya.
Late in 2012, a federal law suit was filed on behalf of the American Freedom Law Center alleging that CAIR, far from being a civil rights organization defending American Muslims from discrimination, was in fact a criminal conspiracy committing fraud and has consistently utilized its resources to undermine American law and security. In its painstaking work of discovery, counsel representing the AFLC traces questionable financial activity and links to questionable foreign sources.
If CAIR is, as it claims to be, the preeminent advocacy organization for American Muslims, then Islam in this country appears to be poorly served. From this quarter, dear readers, one can only surmise that CAIR is nothing but a front organization, engaging in what seems to be just another form of stealth jihad.
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