[CAIR] The Wahabbi Lobby

[CAIR] The Wahabbi Lobby

My essay "Catholics and CAIR" runs on Catholic Exchange:

http://richleonardi.blogspot.com/2007/03/wahabbi-lobby.html

The zeal to build trust and greater understanding, though, has led to carelessness. During the past year, at least two dioceses, Cincinnati and Detroit, have co-hosted events with local chapters of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization with alarming ties to international terrorist groups.

In January of this year, Imam Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR in Michigan, and Msgr. John Zenz, moderator of the Curia of the Archdiocese of Detroit, took turns addressing the topic of religion and violence at an interreligious forum. And twice last year, the Catholic Social Action Office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati co-sponsored events with the Cincinnati chapter of CAIR.

CAIR has aggressively marketed itself as a "Moslem NAACP" since the terrorist attacks of September 11. Would that it were so. Steven Pomerantz, President Clinton's former chief of counterterrorism, has said "CAIR, its leaders and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups."

An illuminating report from Daniel Pipes, a Middle East scholar and former member of the President's U.S. Institute for Peace, explains why Catholics should be wary of entering into dialogue with CAIR. Let's start with this interesting fact from the report: "At least five of [CAIR's] employees and board members have been arrested, convicted, deported, or otherwise linked to terrorism-related charges and activities."

Ties between CAIR and terrorist organizations are longstanding. The Holy Land Foundation, which the federal government has charged with channeling funds to Hamas, provided CAIR with some of its start-up funding a dozen years ago.

And CAIR's founding personnel were closely linked to the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), which was begun by Ibrahim Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas operative. Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR's omnipresent communications director, was once an employee of IAP.

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."
-CAIR chairman, Omar M. Ahmad (as reported by the San Ramon Valley Herald in July 1998)

“Once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. ... There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means to do it… If we are outside this country, we can say, 'Oh, Allah, destroy America.'"
-Abdulrahman Alamoudi, 1996 at an Islamic conference in Chicago
-Abdulrahman Alamoudi served in the 1990s as State’s goodwill ambassador to Muslim countries
(In 2004 Alamoudi was sentenced to a 23-year prison sentence for violating anti-terrorism sanctions, including a plot to kill the Saudi ruler.)