On February 23rd, CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly posted onto Facebook a New York Times puff piece written by former Muslim Brotherhood media spokesman Gehad el-Haddad, who is currently serving a life prison sentence in Egypt for inciting murder. The piece is titled ‘I Am a Member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Not a Terrorist.’ In it, El-Haddad states that he wrote the piece due to “an inquiry… underway in the United States regarding charges that the Muslim Brotherhood… is a terrorist group.” El-Haddad’s concern about labeling the Brotherhood a terror group is shared by Shibly, as Shibly’s own group becomes part of the conversation.
In November 2015, Ted Cruz and Mario Diaz-Balart introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2015, respectively in the US Senate (S.2230) and the US House of Representatives (H.R.3892). It has been a matter of speculation as to whether President Donald Trump will get behind this effort. Further speculation has revolved around including certain Islamist groups and entities who have their roots in the Muslim Brotherhood.
On February 12th, Hassan Shibly tweeted the following: “Trump’s plan to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terror group is about going after American Muslims.” The words were the same as the title of an article published in mic.com, an alternative news site, which Shibly provided a link to. The article quotes CAIR-National’s Government Affairs Director, Robert McCaw. According to McCaw, “[D]esignating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization is the Trump administration’s strategy to carry out McCarthyesque witch hunts on Muslim leaders and organizations within the United States.” And by “organizations,” of course, McCaw means CAIR, whose association to Hamas, the Brotherhood’s violent Gaza affiliate, is well known.
CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was created in June 1994 as part of an umbrella group led by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, called the Palestine Committee. CAIR has been named by the US government a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. CAIR had used its official website to raise money for the defendant in the trials, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). Many CAIR representatives have served jail time and/or have been deported for terror-related activity, including former HLF head and founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, Ghassan Elashi.
CAIR’s Florida chapter reflects the same violence-driven extremism of its parent organization. In July 2014, CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers repeatedly shouted, “We are Hamas,” “Let’s go Hamas,” and “Hamas kicked your ass.” Following the rally, the event organizer, Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, wrote in Arabic, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266782/why-cair-leader-hassan-shibly-fears-terror-joe-kaufman
