In defense of CAIR against Israel's attack and threat

Amichai Chikli,Israel Minister of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism, defended Israel's 14 months of mass slaughter in Gaza (70 percent of those killed have been women and children) as "self-defense." (source)

An Israeli minister attacked an American nonprofit organization that has defended Americans of all faiths

By Mahmoud El-Yousseph, reposted from Free Press, December 22, 2024

Israel Minister of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli attacked and threatened the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Chickli is one of the high-ranking officials of the Crime Minister Netanyahu’s Foreign Ministry.

CAIR is a nonprofit organization founded in 1994. The organization has a national headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 32 regional chapters spanning more than 20 states. Its current executive director is Nihad Awad.

Why on earth would a foreign government like Israel attack a civil liberties organization to begin with? To accuse Niha Awad and CAIR of being “outrageously antisemitic.” That is pure poppycock. And for the Anti-Apartheid Defense League (ADL) to join in attacking and smearing CAIR is ludicrous and odd. I will explain later!

Chikli and the Apartheid Defense League (ADL) [see this] publicly defended the Israeli genocide in Gaza as “self-defense.” However, when Nihad Awad said, “Yes, I was happy to see people in Gaza breaking the 17-year-old illegal and inhumane siege, the walls of the contraction camp, on October 7” they falsely accused him of praising the October 7 attacks. Defending the Palestinian rights to freedom is one thing, and praising Hamas PIJ is another. The fact is that the Israeli officials and the pro-Israel lobby are accusing CAIR of what they are doing and supporting Israeli terrorism and genocide against defenseless Palestinians in Gaza.

In his attack on CAIR, Israeli Minister Chikli stated in a Jerusalem Post interview that the UAE designated CAIR, along with 82 other foreign organizations, as a terrorist group in 2014. Still, the UAE has not publicized its reasons for including CAIR.

As a Muslim American, it makes me hopping mad that none of the MSM, the White House, US officials, or any pro-Israeli groups in America have condemned the attack and threat against CAIR. Had such a threat been made against a Jewish American organization, it would have been the front-page story with 24/7 news. Shamefully, my Google search on the Israeli threat produces zero results. Americans were left in the dark that a foreign government had threatened the largest Muslim American organization.

So, credit is where credit is due; CAIR does care about America and wants America to be a better and safer place not only for Muslims but for all of us. Here are highlights of CAIR’s actions and missions since its creation 30 years ago:

Took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to condemn the 9/11 attacks, in which it urged all American Muslims to contribute money, donate blood, and help with the medical relief operation. (The N.Y. Times 16 September 2001)
In May 2009, CAIR assembled a delegation to fly on a humanitarian mission to Iran on short notice to resolve some of the issues between the US and Iran. The group discussed with Iranian officials the status of US-held prisoners Roxana Saberi, Esha Momeni, and Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who mysteriously disappeared two years ago on the Iranian island of Kish. The CAIR delegation is carrying a letter from Mr. Levinson’s family to be delivered to Iranian officials, hoping the letter might solve the case. The Swiss government, which acts on behalf of U.S. interests in Iran, did not have much luck solving this case.
CAIR was the first to come to the defense of a Jewish reporter who worked for a Kansas City Jewish newspaper and was fired from her job one day after she married a Palestinian. [April 9, 2003, U.S. News Wire]
When four members of the Christian Peacemaker Team were taken hostage in Iraq in 2005, CAIR demanded their immediate and unconditional release, stating that harming them would not advance the cause of innocent Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. forces.
After American journalist Jill Carrol was taken hostage in Iraq in 2006, CAIR risked the lives of its members by sending a delegation to Iraq to plead for her release. Eventually, she won her freedom.
CAIR has recently successfully removed the name of the USA veteran in Oklahoma from the no-fly list and the Terrorism list, which was based solely on his name being unlawfully included on a federal terror watchlist.
In 2018, CAIR reached a settlement to resolve EEOC charges filed on behalf of 138 Somali American Muslim workers for wrongful termination based on discrimination and the wrongful revocation of a religious accommodation policy that permitted them to take short breaks to perform their obligatory prayers on their sincerely held beliefs.

I should point out here that it is pro-Israel groups such as ADL and AIPAC and not CAIR who are allegedly engaged in criminal and illegal activities in the United States. Here are Five examples:

An AIPAC top lobbyist pleaded guilty in 2006 to three counts of passing US classified information to Israel.
ADL has a long history of trying to smear and silence CAIR or anyone else who criticizes the Israeli genocide and the Israeli government’s human rights abuses against Palestinians.
ADL was found guilty of engaging in extensive domestic spying operations on a large number of individuals and institutions around the country.
Former Congressman Pete McCloskey (R-California) was among ADL’s victims, who was awarded a $150,000 court judgment against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
It is the IDF, the ADL, and the Apartheid Defense League (ADL) that support terrorism in occupied Palestine, not the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), not the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and not Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) either.

Finally, with a solid patriotic record, CAIR should be commended for its civil rights work and humanitarian mission. This was also done in compliance with Islamic teaching, which calls on Muslims to “forgive those who oppressed you, give to whoever deprived you, and reach out to the one who ignored you.”

Unlike its critics, CAIR’s mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. CAIR speaks for seven million American Muslims who want nothing more than normal and better relations between their country and the Islamic world.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.com and ColumbusFreePress.com. He can be reached at [email protected].

“Reach out for those who ignored you, give to the one who deprived, and forgive those who oppressed you.” ~ Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him)

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