Robert Spencer : In one revealing portion of the KGO broadcast, Zaid Yousef, a UC
Berkeley student, inadvertently reveals that even Muslims do not see the
Islamophobia CAIR is looking for.
Especially after 911, we live in a world where
Islamophobia is so normalized that even Muslims sometimes feel that
Islamophobia is normal, and the causal life of a Muslim entails
Islamophobia at almost every level. And so we ask the larger community
to acknowledge this reality and work at undoing this normalization of
Islamophobia.
Since he doesn’t give any concrete examples of what he is referring
to, it sounds as if he and CAIR are trying to create a problem that
isn’t there. In fact, nowhere in CAIR’s report does the organization
offer an example of the problem of Islamophobia that could be verified
in a news report.
Here is another example from CAIR’s report:
Had 4 police officers try to intimidate me while creating
chalk art to protest the occupation. The administration has also been
limiting this chalk art and censoring it consistently, calling it
“offensive”, though it has been factually based and innocuous. I also
have been threatened with disciplinary action if I don’t stay within a
small boundary that they’ve designated as the “free speech” area.
HISPANIC OR LATINO MALE, FOOTHILL COLLEGE” (page 16)
In CAIR’s Methodology section, they explain how they chose participants.
The surveys were collected through two primary methods:
1) in-person distribution to college students attending “Know Your Rights” sessions held across the state and
2) digital distribution via QR codes provided through various
outreach channels, both online and in person. CAIR-CA used its network
of partners, including religious centers, student organizations, and
community-based organizations, to conduct outreach and request survey
responses. These efforts included making announcements at large
community gatherings such as Jumu’ah (Friday communal prayers), setting
up information tables and distributing flyers at relevant events,
reaching out to college-based student organizations, and using community
newsletters and email lists. Additionally, survey links were shared on
websites, social media platforms, and WhatsApp groups to ensure broad
visibility and accessibility.
In other words, they are sampling their friends, like-minded people. They always do this. It is true of all their reports.
On May 16, 2024, CAIR denounced a letter
sent by “U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman
James Comer and Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman
Virginia Foxx, asking the Department of the Treasury to disclose any
Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted by banks to the department
regarding various American campus student groups, civil rights
organizations, human rights groups, and advocacy groups supportive of
Palestinian human rights, as well as numerous left-leaning foundations
such.”
Those groups included Students for Justice in Palestine, the Council
on American-Islamic Relations, and American Muslims for Palestine, among
others.
Both CAIR and the AMP have their origins in the Islamic Association
for Palestine, a Hamas front in America. Before leaving to form CAIR in
1994, Nihad Awad, the current Executive Director of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, was the public relations director for the
Islamic Association for Palestine. Indeed, Awad attended and partially
led the 1993 Philadelphia Meeting, a summit meeting of senior Hamas
leaders in this country. The meeting was called for by the Palestine
Committee, the Hamas support group in America in response to the signing
of the Oslo Accords that threatened Hamas’ authority in Palestine. The
purpose of the 1993 meeting was to thwart the peace process, and to
continue to support Hamas in the likelihood that the U.S. government
declared Hamas a terrorist organization.
Nihad Awad, at least in the past, was among the inner circle of Hamas leadership in this country.
As for the American Muslims for Palestine, ten years after Nihad Awad
left the Islamic Association for Palestine, a jury found the IAP liable
in the Hamas drive-by assassination of David Boim. Rather than pay the
$156 million awarded to the Boim family, the IAP shut down, only to
return a short time later under a new name, the American Muslims for
Palestine. The Boims are now suing the AMP.
The American Muslims for Palestine is facing new legal challenges in the wake of the atrocities of October 7.
Also in May, a lawsuit
was filed by Greenberg Traurig, LLP, the National Jewish Advocacy
Center, the Schoen Law Firm, and Holtzman Vogel, on behalf of a group of
American and Israeli victims of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist
attack,
seeking compensatory damages from AJP Educational
Foundation Inc. (also known as American Muslims for Palestine or AMP)
and the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), alleging that
these organizations provided material support to Hamas, a designated
foreign terrorist organization.
Then in June, only a month after the letter sent by the U.S. House
Committee on Oversight and Accountability to the Department of the
Treasury, the Attorney General of Virginia began an investigation into the AMP.
Attorney General Jason Miyares today announced that a
Virginia court ordered the AJP Educational Foundation, Inc., also known
as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), to produce records requested by
a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) issued by his office. The Court
denied AMP’s petition to set aside the CID. Under Virginia law, the
Office of the Attorney General has the jurisdiction to investigate
possible violations of the Commonwealth’s charitable registration and
solicitation laws. In October 2023, the Virginia Office of the Attorney
General issued a CID to AMP seeking information regarding its compliance
with Virginia’s charitable registration and solicitation laws. The AJP
Educational Foundation Inc. is a public nonprofit with its headquarters
located in Falls Church, Virginia.
The following month, in July, the investigation proceeded with a major ruling that ordered the AMP to
turn over closely guarded financial documents requested
by the state attorney general as part of an investigation into its
funding sources, according to a statement released by his office. The
highly anticipated decision represents a significant setback for
American Muslims for Palestine, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization
that could now be compelled to turn over sensitive financial records,
including donor information it has long successfully shielded from
public view.
All this is the backdrop to H.R. 9495, which seeks to revoke the non-profit tax exempt organizations that support terrorism, such the AMP and CAIR.
On page 42 of CAIR’s Campus Climate report, they include in their
list of recommended student resources, American Muslims for Palestine.