Funding From Foreign Donors Shows CAIR's True Agenda

Steven Emerson is one of the only people that can lay out so well the true agenda of C.A.I.R. here in the United States. In an article here at Family Security Matters, Emerson lays out all of the damning evidence of CAIR's lies and deceit and how their links to the Holy Land Foundation and other islamic groups worldwide are proof of CAIR's real intentions. Look at some of these excerpts:

- HLF made a $5,000 donation to the then-newly formed CAIR as early as 1994. Apparently sensitive to the impact public disclosure of their group's funding by HLF could have, CAIR's leaders repeatedly denied any such connection.
Asked during a 2003 civil deposition, "Did they [HLF] give you any money to help start CAIR?" Omar Ahmed, one of its incorporators, flatly responded, "No."

- CAIR, in turn, repeatedly co-sponsored fundraisers for the Hamas-linked organization. Such funding appeals were made in 1999, ostensibly to help refugees forced to flee Kosovo, and again in 2000, at a time when the U.S. Agency for International Development already had announced plans to terminate HLF's USAID registration on grounds that it was "contrary to the national defense and foreign policy interest of the United States."

I hope that comes through loud and clear. CAIR LIED about receiving donations and at the same time, was sponsoring the efforts of a terrorist organization. The proof is there and no amount of spin or lies from CAIR will deny it. Here's another example:

- A Saudi embassy press release issued in August 1999 reported that the Islamic Development Bank, a Saudi-based entity, donated "$250,000 as a contribution to the purchase of land in Washington D.C. to be the headquarters for an education and research center under the aegis of the Council for American Islamic Relations."
- In an article headlined, "US Muslims Split Over Saudi Donations," the Associated Press reported that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had given CAIR $500,000.

The evidence is massive and in my view, the U.S. better get back in court with CAIR fast - it's time that CAIR escapes this "unindicted" status and becomes the accused. Under the noses of Congress, CAIR set itself up as a veiled organization that is busy working to support worldwide terrorism and to bring a soft jihad to America. They are a wolf in the midst of a flock of sheep. This evidence doesn't need to be seen in an online magazine's pages but in the middle of a Federal Court. It's my view that the leaders of CAIR need to be tried in the same manner as the terrorists at Ft. Dix - conspiracy is conspiracy.

Funding Ties with HLF and Foreign Donors Show CAIR's True Agenda
Steven Emerson

The Council on American-Islamic Relation (CAIR)'s financing over the years challenges its self-description as a benevolent group out to protect the civil rights of the Muslim community in the United States.
The clichéd admonition to "follow the money" gives a clear picture of the group's actual role as an enabler for organizations linked by the U.S. government to Islamic terrorism, prominently including the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).
Indeed it shows a two-way flow of support both to and from HLF, which since has been named as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization and indicted on charges of providing material support to Hamas. Our examination of CAIR focuses today on its finances.

- CAIR has received significant financial support from the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi-supported group that publishes materials promoting religious hatred – for example, advising Muslims to "teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors…and make jihad for the sake of Allah." In December 1999, WAMY announced at a Riyadh press conference – attended by Awad -- that it "was extending both moral and financial support to CAIR in its effort to construct a $3.5 million headquarters in Washington, D.C."
- Again, in November 2002, The Muslim World reported that CAIR and WAMY would cooperate on a million dollar public relations campaign and that Awad was scheduled to meet with Prince Walled Ibn Talal.
- CAIR has received repeated donations from the International Relief Organization (IRO), the American branch of the Saudi-funded International Islamic Relief Organization. IRO's Virginia offices were raided by the FBI in 1997 as part of a money laundering and terrorism investigation, and again in 2002 by Operation Greenquest, a federal task force targeting the financiers of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.
Between 2000 and 2003, CAIR received $19,500 from the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). Significant financial, ideological and personal connections exist between IIIT and the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which the U.S. government has identified as a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.