American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (19 page)
Read American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us Online
Authors: Steven Emerson
Tags: #Politics, #Non-Fiction
[O]ften I’m dealing with very sensitive controversial issues, and I don’t want to be quoted about the Taliban, you know, but I want to put the Taliban into context for a reporter. So I’ll say well, you know, CAIR doesn’t comment on international issues where there is not an American component so we just don’t have any comment. But, can we go off the record, and then I’ll go off the record in trying to explain what is going on so that they don’t just go away with a stereotypical, one dimensional portrayal….
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CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, explained his views regarding the Palestinian situation in a speech delivered in 1994 at Barry University in Florida: “After I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement….”
37
In 2000 Awad appeared at a rally in front of the White house in Washington, D.C., and rejected any peaceful settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians: “they [the Jews] have been saying ‘Next year in Jerusalem’—we say ‘Next year to all Palestine.’”
38
He also stated that Hollywood had distorted its treatment of groups engaged in violence in the Middle East by referring to them as terrorists: “Hollywood is not our friend. Hollywood has distorted the facts. Hollywood has shown freedom fighters as terrorists. Hollywood has done the work that Zionists cannot done [
sic
].”
39
CAIR officials have defended the action of suicide bombers. On the one hand, Awad told CNN’s “Crossfire” that “Suicide is an act of disbelief, because we Muslims believe that God is only in charge of life and death. And to take one’s life or other people’s life is an act of disbelief and it goes in sharp contradiction with Islamic teachings.”
40
On the other hand, at a conference of the Islamic Association for Palestine held a week later, Omar Ahmad, chairman of CAIR’s board of directors, told a youth session: “Someone in Islam is allowed to fight…. Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam—that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam.”
41
Much of CAIR’s time is spent trying to persuade the press not to “overreact” to acts of Muslim terror and trying to prove that Muslims themselves are victims of discrimination and prejudice. A year after the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224 people, Jeff Jacoby of
The Boston Globe
wrote: “On that occasion, prominent Islamic voices in the United States
did
speak out. But their chief message was not one of horrified sympathy for the victims and their families or of shame that anyone calling himself a Muslim could perpetrate such an atrocity. No—what [these] Muslim leaders were eager to communicate was a warning to the media not to speculate about a possible Islamic connection to the slaughter.
“A release issued by the Council on American-Islamic Relations was typical: ‘American Muslims Ask Journalists to Exercise Restraint in Reporting on Embassy Bombings,’ ran the headline. At the time, despite the ferocity of those bombings, America’s major Islamic groups made no move to distance themselves from bin Laden—or even to label him a terrorist.”
42
CAIR has several ties to the Hamas-connected organizations and individuals discussed in
Chapter 5
. At its founding, CAIR received funding of $5,000 from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. According to annual reports filed in the state of Illinois, Mohammad Nimer, the director of CAIR’s Research Center, was on the Board of Directors of the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). After September 11, 2001, and up until the U.S. government froze the assets of the Holy Land Foundation in December, CAIR’s Web site included a feature, “What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks,” with a link to the Web site of HLF (“Donate through the Holy Land Foundation”).
When Federal Judge Kevin Duffy ordered the extradition of Hamas leader Mousa abu Marzook in 1996, CAIR coordinated a press conference on May 10 to protest the decision. CAIR also signed a letter, printed in a June 1996 “Newsletter of the Marzuk [sic] Legal Fund,” arguing that the extradition order was “anti-Islamic” and “anti-American.”
Steve Pomerantz, former chief of the Counterterrorism Section of the FBI and former assistant director of the FBI, says: “CAIR has defended individuals involved in terrorist violence, including Hamas leader Musa abu Marzook…. The modus operandi has been to falsely tar as ‘anti-Muslim’ the U.S. government, counter-terrorist officials, writers, journalists and others who have investigated or exposed the threat of Middle East–based terrorism…. Unfortunately, CAIR is but one of the new generation of new groups in the United States that hide under a veneer of ‘civil rights’ or ‘academic’ status but in fact are tethered to a platform that supports terrorism.”
Seif Ashmawy, former publisher of
Voice of Peace,
wrote: “It is a known fact that both the AMC and CAIR have defended, apologized for and rationalized the actions of extremist groups and leaders such as convicted World Trade Center conspirator Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, Egyptian extremists, Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese National Islamic Front, and extremist parliamentarians from the Jordanian Islamic Action Front and others who called for the overthrow of the Egyptian government…. As a proud American Muslim…I bow to no one on my defense of Muslim civil rights, but CAIR…champion[s] extremists whose views do not represent Islam.”
The American Muslim Council (AMC) was established as a tax-exempt organization in July of 1990 to “educate [the] public about Muslims.”
44
The AMC, in fact, supports radical Islamist causes. Its leaders have openly championed Hamas terrorists, defended Middle Eastern terrorist regimes, issued anti-Semitic and anti-American statements. The AMC supports “the worst, most vicious and most radical terrorist movements and regimes in the Middle East and Africa,” says Michael D. Horowitz, Director of the Hudson Institute’s Project for Civil Justice Reform.
The AMC is a founder, corporate parent and supporter of several militant Islamic groups including: American Muslims for Jerusalem, a militant group that routinely invokes “Zionist” conspiracies and has featured calls at its conferences for the killing of Jews; and the Kosovo Task Force, an organization that has promoted jihad around the globe, including in “Palestine,” and has condemned the seizure by the FBI of funds in Chicago used to support the radical Hamas terrorist organization as an “attack on Muslim civil rights.”
The AMC served as the headquarters of the U.S. office of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a militant fundamentalist group whose U.S.-based representative was jailed pending deportation proceedings for his support of terrorism. The AMC has aggressively attacked Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a leading moderate voice in the American Muslim community (see
Chapter 8
).
The AMC has also spoken out against counter-terrorism legislation as being a product of the Jewish influence on American policy. In 1995, in reference to an executive order and to a bill proposed by President Clinton, then-AMC President Mohammed Cheema stated, “It is now well known that this Executive Order, and the Omnibus Anti-Terrorist legislation proposed by the White House a few days later, are the result of intense Jewish pressure on the White House. With Bill Clinton being frequently regarded as a one-term president, it is expedient to secure Jewish political support for 1996.”
45
According to Nazir Khaja, who resigned as chairman of the Board of Directors and president of AMC, no one in the organization really knows “where the funds for AMC are coming from, how are they being raised and spent, and who is actually controlling this whole process.” Khaja explained, “It has been repeatedly brought up that the money is being raised abroad in the Middle East by one person, Mr. Abdulrahman al-Amoudi, who has built contacts overseas only in the name of, and because of, AMC, and who chooses to dispense with it as he pleases with no knowledge or approval of the Board. These are serious concerns, which have the potential for damage to not only just AMC, but also the possibility of severe collateral damage to the overall image and the efforts of the American Muslim community.”
46
The AMC has routinely featured or honored Islamic militants or supporters of terrorism at its annual conferences. At its 1997 convention, the AMC hosted Layth Shubaylat,
47
a terrorist implicated in an Islamic plot to topple the regime of then-King Hussein in Jordan.
48
Shubaylat has managed a legal defense fund for Ahmed Daqamisa, the Jordanian soldier convicted in the killing of Israeli schoolgirls in Naharayim in 1997.
49
In early 1995, AMC hosted a visit by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Al-Qaradawi, a renowned Muslim cleric, has blessed “martyrdom operations in which a given Muslim fighter turns himself or herself into a human bomb that casts terror in the hearts of the enemy…. If we can’t carry out acts of Jihad ourselves, we at least should support and prop up the mujahideen financially and morally so that they will be steadfast until God’s victory.”
50
At its 1998 National Convention, the AMC hosted Dr. Sami al-Arian, who is under investigation by the FBI and the INS for his role with WISE and ICP in Tampa, Florida (see
Chapter 6
). On August 30, 2000, the INS showed a videotape during bond redetermination proceedings which showed al-Arian stating, “Let us damn America. Let us damn Israel, let us damn their allies until death. Why do we stop?” In another segment al-Arian refers to Jews as “monkeys and pigs” and states, “Mohammad is leader. The Koran is our constitution. Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution! Revolution! Until Victory! Rolling, rolling to Jerusalem.”
At the 1999 AMC Convention, the organization bestowed annual “awards” on the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). It also honored the
Washington Report
on Middle East Affairs,
a publication that routinely invokes Jewish conspiracies and champions Islamic extremism. Its editors, Richard Curtiss and Andrew Killgore, have been featured speakers before the Liberty Lobby, labeled by the Anti-Defamation League as the most active anti-Semitic organization in the United States.
51
The AMC has cosponsored conferences together with the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). AMC’s Abdulrahman Alamoudi has served on the Board of Directors of UASR. On UASR’s 1997 annual report filed with the state of Illinois, where it is incorporated, Aly Abuzaakouk, AMC’s president, was listed as president of UASR.
On October 28, 2000, pro-Palestinian protesters marched from Freedom Plaza to Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., singing “Victory comes from Allah and Hizballah is our model” and “Oh dear Nasrallah, we are allied with you in liberation.” On arriving at Lafayette Park, a rally commenced that included Abdulrahman Alamoudi, former AMC executive director and now secretary of AMC’s Board of Directors. Alamoudi addressed the cheering crowd:
“I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas. Anybody supports Hamas here? [
Crowd cheers responsively.
] Anybody is a supporter of Hamas here? [
Crowd repeats cheer.
] Anybody is a supporter of Hamas here? [
Crowd cheers even louder.
] Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are ALL supporters of Hamas. Allahu akbar! [
Crowd cheers.
] I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hizballah…anybody supports Hizballah here? [
Crowd cheers responsively.
]”
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At the end of January 2001 in Beirut, the same Abdulrahman Alamoudi attended and participated in what the U.S. State Department called a terrorist conference with a “destructive agenda.”
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The conference brought together leaders of Hamas, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, and Osama bin Laden’s organization. The communiqué issued at the end of the conference stated, “The only decisive option to achieve this strategy [the destruction of Israel] is the option of Jihad in all its forms and resistance….” The communiqué also called for a boycott of American products (in addition to Israeli products): “The American products are exactly like the Israeli products. America today is a second Israel.”
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Formally established in 1971, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is composed primarily of Muslim supporters of South Asian descent. It is allied with the militant fundamentalist movement of Jamaat-e-Islamiya in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terrorist attacks, issues incendiary attacks on Western values and policies, and supports the imposition of the
shar‘ia
(Islamic code of law). It has created several nonprofit charitable organizations that collect tax-deductible contributions for militant Islamic causes. ICNA’s views are disseminated through regular conferences and a monthly publication called
The Message.
In March of 1996, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), chairman of the Foreign Operations subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, stated that “One of the groups with Hamas ties is the Dallas-based Islamic Association for Palestine in North America, which, in turn, apparently is allied with the Islamic Circle of North America in New York.”
