CAIR Seethes, Whines, Lies After Boxer Rescinds Award

January 06, 2007

Charles Johnson at LGF has a terrific summary of how CAIR is putting pressure on Barbara Boxer for rescinding her award to Basim Elkarra. He ably documents Nihad Awad's disingenuous statements.

Here is Awad teaming with convicted terrorist Ismail Royer at IslamOnline.

And here is Daniel Pipes documenting that Royer was a CAIR official when he was arrested.

I fully agree with Charles that Boxer will cave forthwith, and Elkarra will get his award.

Posted by Robert at January 6, 2007 12:24 PM

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=23898_CAIR_Seethes_Whines_Lies_After_Boxer_Rescinds_Award&only

Saturday, January 06, 2007

CAIR Seethes, Whines, Lies After Boxer Rescinds Award

The Council on American Islamic Relations is seething, whining, and lying in response to Barbara Boxer’s surprisingly un-dhimmi-like action: Sen. Boxer rescinds award to Muslim leader after seeing criticism.

Boxer’s communication’s director, Natalie Ravitz, said a letter withdrawing the certificate was sent to Elkarra on Dec. 21.

Ravitz said two former members of the council had been sentenced to prison. She also said that CAIR had refused to label Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

Ghassan Elashi, a founding member of the Texas chapter of CAIR, was sentenced in October to 80 months in prison for engaging in financial transactions with Hamas leader Musa abu Marzook.

Ismail Royer, a former CAIR communications specialist, was indicted in 2003 on charges of being part of a conspiracy to support terrorist activities overseas and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Awad, the group’s national director, said CAIR strongly condemned bin Laden by name after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said Elashi and Royer were not involved with CAIR when they committed their crimes.

“This is true guilt-by-association,” he told The Sacramento Bee. “We have tens of thousands of members nationwide, and it will be very unfair to hold the organization responsible for the actions of an individual.”

Asked about criticism that the council had failed to condemn Hamas or Hezbollah, he said, “We have condemned attacking civilians regardless of whether they are Israelis or Palestinians.” [Notice that he fails to condemn Hamas or Hezbollah. —ed.]

I fully expect Boxer to cave in to the pressure and re-issue the award to Elkarra.

But it’s important to note that Nihad Awad is lying again. Both Ghassan Elashi and Ismail Royer were indeed working for CAIR when they committed the crimes for which they were convicted.

Ghassan Elashi: CAIR & Ghassan Elashi; Partners in Islamic Terrorism?

On April 13, 2005, Ghassan Elashi, founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations – Texas (CAIR – Texas) chapter, long-time associate of CAIR’s top leadership, and beneficiary of CAIR fund-raising support, was convicted on Islamic terrorism related charges in Dallas, Texas.

According to the federal indictment, Elashi was laundering money for Islamic terrorist organizations from 11/95 through 4/01 (pages 21 & 22).

Dating back to the early 1990s, Elashi had close ties to CAIR’s leaders. Elashi founded the CAIR – Texas chapter sometime before October, 2000 (CAIR – Texas first appeared as an affiliate on the CAIR National web site in October 2000).

Therefore, it is evident Elashi was a high-ranking CAIR official at the time he committed the pro-terrorist crimes for which he was found guilty by a jury of our fellow American citizens.

Here’s a page at the Saudi-funded site Islam Online in which Nihad Awad himself joins with none other than convicted terrorist Ismail Royer for a seminar on Mobilizing Muslims in America. (I’ve saved a local copy of this page in case it mysteriously disappears.)

More on Ismail Royer and CAIR’s ties to terrorists from Daniel Pipes: CAIR’s Legal Tribulations.

For several years, one of my severest and most persistent critics has been one Randall (“Ismail”) Royer, an American convert to Islam. Here’s a typical comment of his from his weblog dated Sept. 17, 2002: after calling me a “pop bigot” he comments on my “War on Campus” article with the following elevated and elegant commentary: “[Pipes] has served up another steaming shovelful of fertilizer. What a joy it is to read this guy. His stuff requires no real effort to deconstruct, no deliberate propaganda analysis to realize how he intends to deceive the reader.”

I mention this unsavory person because today he was indicted and arrested for his association with terrorism, specifically his having joined the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, traveled to Pakistan, done propaganda work for it, and “fired at Indian positions in Kashmir.” In addition, the indictment also states that Royer “possessed in his automobile an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition” in September 2001. The grand jury charges that Royer “did unlawfully and knowingly begin, provide for, prepare a means for, and take part in a military expedition and enterprise to be carried on from the United States against the territory and dominion of India, a foreign state with whom the United States was at peace.”

It’s also worth noting that Royer was working for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), militant Islam’s most aggressive political organization in North America, when he began training with Lashkar-e-Taiba. (He served there variously as a communications specialist and a civil rights coordinator; see an IslamOnline “Live Dialogue” for him sharing a by-line with CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad.) This means that CAIR now has a record of at least two former employees indicted and arrested in 2003 on terrorism charges; the other was Bassem Khafagi, CAIR’s director of community relations before his arrest this January. Oh, and one must not forget that a member of CAIR’s advisory board, Siraj Wahhaj, was named as one of the “unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments nearly a decade ago. So, CAIR not only apologizes for terrorism but is now implicitly accused of having more direct links to it.