Category: CAIR

New York Times Reporter a Stout Defender of Hamas

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/05/new-york-times-reporter-a-stout-defender-of-hamas;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The New York Times has a new reporter, even worse than those already covering Israel and the Palestinians. She is Raja Abdulrahim, who, when a college student, was helped by financial aid from CAIR, and she has remained loyal to that organization, an unindicted co-conspirator in the country’s largest terrorism financing trial. She has a special sympathy for Hamas, about which she has had nothing bad to say, and now that she works for the Times, her opinion pieces, masquerading as news reports, carry much greater weight. More on Abdulrahim’s sympathetic coverage of Hamas can be found here: “The New York Times’ Gift to Hamas,” by Tamar Sternthal, CAMERA, April 23, 2023:

In 2019 and again in 2022, Gaza residents launched the “We Want to Live” campaign, protesting Hamas corruption, taxes, and policies that condemn citizens to a life of poverty.

Whenever Hamas leaders want more money, they simply impose a new tax – on gasoline, on heating oil, on electricity, on food. Few dare to openly protest; on a few occasions when Gazans have been pushed to public protests, they have been clubbed into submission by the bullyboys of Hamas. Some protests dramatically show the depth of their immiseration: Gaza merchants were recently filmed dumping their produce as a protest of a heavy Hamas tax crushing Gazans struggling to make ends meet, making them unable to buy the products that the merchants had to sell.

But Hamas, it seems, can count on The New York Times’ Abdulrahim to be more compliant than ungrateful Gaza residents. Indeed, Abdulrahim’s 1200-plus word article highlighting the dire financial situation of the Gaza Strip does not mention Hamas once, a glaring omission sure to have brought great holiday cheer to the territory’s repressive regime (“As Gaza Celebrates Eid, a Gift for Women — and a Duty For Men,” in print April 21).

Since her university days, Abdulrahim was groomed to provide coverage favorable to Hamas. As a student sponsored by CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose executives were unindicted co-conspirators in the United States’ largest terror finance case in history), Abdulrahim defended anti-Israel terror groups, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terror organizations that have murdered innocent Israeli civilians. Now, as a Times reporter, she churns out propaganda on behalf of Palestinian terrorists, justifying CAIR’s long-ago investment in the young writer.

Two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Abdulrahim, then a student at the University of Florida, defended Hamas and Hezbollah in a letter to her campus newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. The Sept. 26, 2001 letter stated: “I decided to respond to Guy Golan’s letter (‘Jews must help all Arab people’) from Monday’s Alligator because he erroneously refers to Hamas and Hizbollah as ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘terror organizations’ that have ‘murdered innocent Israeli civilians.’”

Her latest lengthy feature [in the New York Times] in service of Hamas, covers in great detail the coastal territory’s enduring custom of giving cash gifts to female relatives despite severe economic hardship. “Despite economic pain, Palestinian Muslims follow a costly annual custom,” was the subheadline in the international print edition.

About the bankrupting tradition, Abdulrahim explains:

To give the eidiya [the gift given as part of celebrating Eid], some men will go into debt. Others will wait until their wives get their eidiya from relatives before turning around and using that money to give the gifts to their other female relatives.

However bad one’s financial situation is, we have to go and give,” said Mr. Helles’ father, Hamid al-Abid Helles.

Abdulrahim stresses the wretched state of the impoverished people of Gaza, who don’t even have enough money to buy the presents they are required to give to female relatives at Eid. Some go into debt to pay for the Eidiya gifts they will give, while others wait until their own female relatives receive their Eid gifts, and then they re-purpose them, sending them as their Eid gifts to others. We are made to feel keenly the economic pain of the Gazans. But Abdulrahim has no intention of putting the blame for their poverty where it belongs: on the despotic regime of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007.

Hamas has caused that impoverishment in two ways. First, the Hamas leaders have helped themselves to billions of dollars in aid money, which they then squirrel away abroad, in bank accounts, on stocks, or on real estate. Abdulrahim never raises the issue of Hamas’ corruption.

While Abdulrahim tactfully refrains from mentioning the word “Hamas,” she reserves blame for the coastal territory’s bleak financial situation solely on the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, writing:

These days, coming up with the money for the eidiya is especially onerous. The 16-year-blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt has undermined the living conditions of more than two million Palestinians and led an unemployment rate of nearly 50 percent, among the highest in the world.

Notably, even on the narrow issue of the blockade, Abdulrahim violates the journalistic imperative to report basic information, neglecting to include even one word about the reasons for the Israel-Egyptian restrictions. In contrast, this recent AP report, which cites the Israeli-Egyptian blockade only in passing, commendably informs: “A crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas violently wrested control of Gaza in 2007 has made it difficult for Hamas to smuggle Iranian-made rockets into the coastal enclave in recent years.”

The blockade not only prevented the smuggling by Hamas of Iranian-made rockets into the Strip, but prevented “dual-use” materials that could be used to build weapons, or terror tunnels, from entering Gaza. Abulrahim makes no mention of why Israel imposes its blockade; in her telling, it seems inexplicable and cruel.

More broadly, Abdulrahim’s pronounced pro-Hamas agenda does not leave any space to note Hamas’ responsibility for stifling the local economy by investing in terror infrastructure as opposed to economic development and social welfare.

In Gaza, Hamas built an entire network of underground tunnels (since destroyed by Israel), where its operatives and their weapons could remain hidden from the view of Israeli pilots. The men of Hamas were thus able, until recently, to move across the Strip through these tunnels without being observed. Now Israel has both located and destroyed that network of terror tunnels. These tunnels cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, money that might have gone to schools, hospitals, and relief aid to the 65% of Gazans who now live below the poverty line. Abdulrahim has nothing to say about the spending choices Hamas has made, so scandalously indifferent to the wellbeing of Gazans.

Last May, the US Treasury Department revealed that Hamas’ Investment Office, which oversees a network of three Hamas financial facilitators and six companies, raised more than $500 million for the terror organization. “Hamas has generated vast sums of revenue through its secret investment portfolio while destabilizing Gaza, which is facing harsh living and economic conditions. Hamas maintains a violent agenda that harms both Israelis and Palestinians,” charged Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Elizabeth Rosenberg.

All that money, coming to Hamas from rich Sunni Arab individuals in the Gulf, from the state of Qatar, and now, too, from Iran, which has chosen to overlook sectarian differences with Hamas for the greater good of the cause – the destruction of the Jewish state — adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Where does it all go? Much of it goes to the tens of thousands of members of Hamas, who live well amidst so much poverty. And while 60% of Gazans are unemployed, Hamas members and their relatives are assured of well-paid government sinecures. Abdulrahim ignores the economic benefits of membership in Hamas, a source of great resentment among the general population.

Meanwhile. the New Arab reported in July 2022 (“‘We Want to Live’: Gazans revive popular online campaign against Hamas“):

Residents in Gaza revived a three-year-old digital campaign against the Islamic Hamas movement, blaming it for the deteriorating living conditions in the territory over the years.

Under the hashtag “We Want To Live”, thousands of Gazans, including expatriates, joined the campaign which holds Hamas mainly responsible for the economic, political and social problems in the impoverished and besieged coastal enclave….

But Abdulrahim won’t touch these folks’ stories….

Hamas runs the Gaza Strip like a Mafia family. Those who are in the family – the “made men” of Hamas — get everything they want, for themselves and their relatives, while the general population endures a steady impoverishment. At the very top are the leaders, whose colossal corruption is a constant source of resentment and rage. Just two of those leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa bin Marzouk, have each managed to accumulate fortunes of $2.5 billion. In addition, 600 “Hamas millionaires,” who have been allowed to take their more modest cuts from donors’ aid of between one and a few million dollars apiece, live in luxurious villas in the Strip.

Israel, meanwhile, is doing its best to improve the economic situation of Gazans. It has increased the number of work permits for Gazans from 7,000 to 17,000 in just two years and has now gone beyond even that number, providing more than 21,300 Gazans with work permits. And Jerusalem has made clear that if conditions are sufficiently peaceful, it is prepared to increase the number of such permits further still. Israel has similarly increased the work permits for Palestinians in the West Bank to more than 120,000. With these permits, Gazans can work in Israel and earn salaries seven times greater than what they can earn in Gaza – if that is, they can find work at all in the Strip. With these salaries, the Gazans working in Israel can support large numbers of people in their extended families. In fact, the only good economic news to report from Gaza is about an increase in the number of people who can now work in Israel.

Abdulrahim must know of the online protests against Hamas, and knows of the resentment and rage against Hamas felt by so many Gazans, but she fails to report on any of that. Hamas must be very pleased with Abdulrahim’s reporting. And so, it seems, is The New York Times.

All the President’s Islamists Biden’s 100 Muslim staffers include BDS defenders and terrorist allies.

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/all-the-presidents-islamists/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

In 2014, Abdullah Hasan was a recipient of the CAIR-SFBA Islamic Scholarship Fund. He went on to defend BDS for the ACLU. Now he’s an assistant press secretary at the White House.

CAIR is an Islamist organization that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the largest terror financing trials in America. Its founders were linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and it has opposed efforts to protect the United States against Islamic terrorism.

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant,” CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad had declared.

When Hasan received his scholarship in 2014-2015, the Islamic Scholarship Fund’s board members included Hatem Bazian, one of the country’s most notorious Islamic bigots, the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, and an alleged supporter of Hamas, who has spent decades trafficking in antisemitism.

Hasan’s fellow CAIR-SFBA recipients included Salmah Rizvi, a former fellow at Al-Haq, a BDS group listed by Israel as a terrorist organization over its connections to the PFLP. Al-Haq’s general director is allegedly a key terrorist leader in the PFLP. Despite this background, Rizvi got an intelligence position in the Obama administration and produced materials that went into the President’s Daily Brief. After leaving the administration, she bailed out her best friend,

Urooj Rahman, who had been accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a police car.

After conducting research around “primary Islamic texts and within a post-9/11 surveillance culture”, Hasan went into activism, opposing anti-BDS measures on behalf of the ACLU.

In an op-ed co-written by Hasan, he defended “lawful boycotts of Israel” and claimed that opposition to BDS was a “loyalty test”.

In 2019, Hasan ranted that, “Islamophobia is rampant even in our highest democratic institutions” like the Supreme Court.

Now he represents the Biden administration as one of its press secretaries.

Abdullah Hasan is one of a record number of over 100 Muslim staffers in the Biden administration. The growth has been especially astonishing considering that MOSAIC, an association of Muslim federal employees, could only gather 110 personnel for its second Iftar in 2016 and there are now almost as many aligned Muslims within the administration.

Kamala Harris commemorated Ramadan by posing with most of them on the steps of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and described them as “our administration’s incredible Muslim team.”

Biden’s incredible Muslim team includes men and women whom we have already profiled like Maher Bitar, a former executive board member of Hatem Bazian’s Students for Justice in Palestine and anti-Israel BDS activist who became Biden’s Senior Director for Intelligence on the National Security Council, Reema Dodin, Biden’s first “Palestinian” staffer who had defended suicide bombings, and Mazen Basrawi, Biden’s new Muslim liaison, who attended a conference honoring one of the unindicted co-conspirators of the World Trade Center bombing,

But there are many others who have not been fully investigated or profiled.

They include Aya Ibrahim, who started out as a legislative fellow to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the most vocal terrorist supporters in Congress, and then a legislative assistant and adviser to fellow Squad member Rep. Ayanna Pressley. Biden took her on and brought her into the National Economic Council and then elevated her to a senior adviser in the White House Office of Technology and Policy only six years after she had graduated with a BA in Political Science.

Sameera Fazili briefly served as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in the Biden Administration. At Harvard, she had served as president of the Harvard Islamic Society the year that it had conducted a fundraising dinner for the Holy Land Foundation: a Hamas front group.

(The event, part of the Harvard Islamic Society’s Islamic Awareness Week was co-chaired by Faiz Shakir who went on to become a top adviser to Senator Harry Reid, worked for Nancy Pelosi, and became Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager.)

At Harvard, Fazili had assailed counterterrorism expert Steve Emerson.

Fazili had a past with Karamah: Muslim Women for Human Rights which claims that “Islamic jurisprudence is the source of the knowledge base essential to the promotion of the rights of Muslim women”. The organization has defended Sharia law.

According to the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, Fazili was a leading member of Stand With Kashmir: “best known for praising and defending violent Islamists in South Asia.” Her organization had called for the release of Islamic terrorists including supporters of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Uzra Zeya started out as a staffer at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: an informal arm of the Arab Lobby started by former diplomats to Muslim countries. While there Zeya helped compile material for a book claiming that Jews secretly control the United States. Biden chose Zeya as his undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights.

After the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown, Zeya complained that “there are activists — including some in Egypt — who face criminal charges and intimidation for the peaceful exercise of their rights.”

Salman Ahmed, a former UN Peacekeeping official, was picked by Biden to oversee his transition team’s national security and foreign policy review before taking over as the Director of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff. When Biden allowed the Taliban to take Kabul, Ahmed was sent to negotiate with the Taliban in Qatar.

Rashad Hussain, Biden’s “ambassador for religious freedom”, who has a degree in Islamic Studies and had memorized the Koran, had been Obama’s envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. During his time working for Obama, he had been caught lying about his past defense of an Islamic terrorist. Hussain had appeared at events with Muslim Brotherhood leaders. His wife, Isra Bhatty, became famous for volunteering as a translator for Islamic terrorists in Gitmo before moving on to a senior position at the Justice Department.

Even after Hussain’s appointment, he appeared at an Islamic Society of North America convention whose speakers had “promoted anti-Hindu rhetoric, called for the release of convicted terror supporters and for the establishment of a caliphate.” “One activist who spoke at the convention called convicted Hamas terror supporters, ‘the finest men.'”

Brenda Abdelall, the daughter of Egyptian immigrants, had participated in anti-Israel BDS protests in college. In a newspaper op-ed in 2002, she had falsely accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” as part of a “brutal occupation”.

“We cannot let the entire population of Palestinians suffer any longer, nor can we let the entire population of Chechens suffer either,” the Muslim activist had insisted.

Abdelall went on to work for the ACLU and then Muslim Advocates: a group working to stop America from fighting against Islamic terrorism. She taught a course at the University of Michigan Law School on ‘Islamophobia and the Law’. joined “Arab Americans for Biden” and was rewarded with a position at the Department of Homeland Security as “assistant secretary for partnership and engagement”.

Even after this appointment, Abdelall appeared at the same convention as Hussain where speakers had called for a caliphate ruled by Islamic law and for freeing Islamic terrorists.

This is a snapshot of not all, but some of the President’s Islamists. As the number of Islamic staffers in the administration continues to grow, it becomes difficult to keep track of more than a few of them. What was once ‘entryism’ has become a hijacking. And yet what we do see is troubling. Despite the denials, looking into the backgrounds of some of Biden’s more than 100 Islamic staffers, it doesn’t take much to turn up support for terrorists, hostility to America and Israel, and associations with the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups.

The Biden administration is not, as some call it, “soft on terror”; it’s a Trojan horse of terror.

In Eid message, Biden boasts of ‘inter-agency task force with senior government officials to tackle’ Islamophobia~CAIR celebrates Congressional Eid resolution which says there are ‘1,200,000 Muslim voters’ in the U.S.

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/in-eid-message-biden-boasts-of-inter-agency-task-force-with-senior-government-officials-to-tackle-islamophobia;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

This will mean more crackdowns on the freedom of speech. This is because the term “Islamophobia” is an illegitimate conflation of two distinct phenomena: vigilante attacks against innocent Muslims, which are never justified, and honest analysis of the motivating ideology of jihad terror, which is always necessary. The objective of this conflation is to silence that analysis by falsely claiming that it leads to or causes those attacks.

“Biden pledges to fight Islamophobia in Eid message,” by Anwar Iqbal, Dawn, April 22, 2023:

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden assured Muslims in his Eid message on Friday that his administration was committed to addressing Islamophobia as an ideology of hate.

“As we celebrate our blessings this Eid, let us also recommit ourselves to the timeless work of building peace and standing up for the rights and dignity of all people,” he said in a message released by the White House.

“My administration is also committed to addressing all forms of hate, including Islamophobia. This is why I established an inter-agency task force with senior government officials to tackle this and related challenges and encourage every American to build a more inclusive nation,” he added.

This year, the United Nations observed the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia on March 15. Since Pakistan had initiated the proposal, it was invited to chair the first observation at UN headquarters in New York.

March 15 was chosen as it is the anniversary of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, in which 51 people were killed.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, focused on remembering those who were away from their homes on Eid due to violence and persecution. “As we celebrate, let us not forget those who are unable to do so in the safety and comfort of their homes due to conflict, violence, persecution, or humanitarian crises,” he said in his Eid message.

He assured those separated from their loved ones on Eid that the United States would continue to work to reunite broken families. “The United States remains unwavering in its commitment to promoting peace, justice, and religious freedom for all. We wish you a blessed and joyful Eidul Fitr. Eid Mubarak,” he said.

President Biden said he was “moved by the generosity” shown during Ramazan and Eid when Muslims provide food and give charity to those in need. “We are proud to celebrate Eidul Fitr at the White House again this year to honour inspiring Muslim Americans who are making contributions across our country,” the US president said….

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BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/cair-celebrates-congressional-eid-resolution-which-says-there-are-1200000-muslim-voters-in-the-u-s;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Last year, United Press International announced that more U.S. public schools were closing for the Islamic holiday Eid al-Fitr. Last Month in San Francisco, schools rescheduled spring break to include Eid.

Since all are deemed equal under the law, should schools close for and accommodate every faith tradition? On the other side, there are those who would argue that there should not be Christmas holidays, completely dismissing the Christian foundations of America. Islamic countries, meanwhile, do not close schools for Christmas.

The formal congressional Eid Resolution recognizes “that there are 1,200,000 Muslim voters in the United States.”

CAIR has been influential in advancing Islamic interests above everyone else’s all over America, despite its claim of simply advocating for Muslim civil rights. In heavily Muslim Minneapolis, the city recently allowed the Islamic call to prayer to be broadcast over loudspeakers five times a day.

“CAIR Welcomes Congressional Eid Resolution, U.S. Muslims to Mark End of Ramadan Fast with Prayers,” CAIR, April 18, 2023:

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/18/23) – Today the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, welcomed a congressional resolution introduced by Representatives Debbie Dingell (MI-06) and Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) this week recognizing Eid al-Fitr, the observance of the conclusion of Ramadan.

On or about Friday, April 21,* the Muslim community in America will celebrate the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan with communal prayers around the country.

SEE: H.Res.299 – Recognizing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, commending a month of fasting and spiritual renewal, and extending best wishes to Muslims in the United States and across the globe for a joyous and meaningful observance of Eid al-Fitr

“CAIR welcomes Representatives Debbie Dingell and Rashida Tlaib congressional resolution recognizing Eid al-Fitr, one of the most important holidays in the Islamic calendar. Ramadan is a month of spiritual reflection and renewal, and Eid al-Fitr is a time of celebration and joy. This resolution is a sign of solidarity with the American Muslim community and a reminder that Muslims are a part of the American social fabric and story,” said CAIR Director of Government Affairs Department Robert S. McCaw.

McCaw noted last month CAIR welcomed a congressional resolution recognizing the start of Ramadan that was sponsored by Representatives Andre Carson (D-IN), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib….

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Shown Here:
Introduced in House (04/17/2023)

118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 299

Recognizing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, commending a month of fasting and spiritual renewal, and extending best wishes to Muslims in the United States and across the globe for a joyous and meaningful observance of Eid al-Fitr.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 17, 2023

Mrs. Dingell (for herself, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Pascrell, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Carson, Mr. Cárdenas, Ms. Wexton, Ms. Pressley, and Ms. Omar) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

RESOLUTION

Recognizing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, commending a month of fasting and spiritual renewal, and extending best wishes to Muslims in the United States and across the globe for a joyous and meaningful observance of Eid al-Fitr.

Whereas Ramadan is the holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal for Muslims worldwide;

Whereas this month of sacrifice and contemplation began at the end of March 2023, based on the visual sightings of the crescent moon;

Whereas Muslims in the United States and around the world observe Ramadan by fasting, emphasizing self-discipline, worship, charity, and reading the Holy Quran to improve patience, humility, and spirituality;

Whereas Ramadan continued until the celebration of Eid al-Fitr;

Whereas Eid al-Fitr begins each year with the sighting of the new moon, signifying a month-long end to fasting and reflection for all Muslim followers;

Whereas it is estimated that there are approximately 1,800,000,000 Muslims worldwide;

Whereas over 4,500 Muslims serve on active duty and over 2,300 Muslims serve as selected reserve personnel in the United States Armed Forces;

Whereas there are over 200 elected officials who identify as Muslim;

Whereas it is estimated that there are 1,200,000 Muslim voters in the United States;

Whereas the Muslim population has been growing in the United States and today’s American Muslim population is a tapestry of ethnic, racial, linguistic, social, and economic groups;

Whereas American Muslims have contributed to every part of society to make advancements in medicine, science, engineering, economics, sports, education, and the law; and

Whereas the observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan has concluded with Eid al-Fitr, a three-day celebration: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That—

(1) to demonstrate solidarity with and support for members of the community of Islam in the United States and throughout the world, the House of Representatives recognizes the importance of the Islamic faith; and

(2) in observance of and out of respect for Ramadan tradition, the Muslim holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal, the House of Representatives offers its best wishes to all Muslims celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the conclusion of Ramadan, while also expressing its deepest respect to Muslims in the United States and worldwide on this important occasion.