The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose current leader, Nihad Awad, met with Hamas operatives in Philadelphia in 1993, issued a “forceful” condemnation of the September 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The condemnation came the day after CAIR and another group, the United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), condemned Israel for its September 9, 2025, attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar.
In its response to Kirk’s assassination, posted on the morning of September 11, 2025, CAIR forcefully denounced the murder and extended condolences to Kirk’s family. The statement continues:
We obviously had fundamental disagreements with Mr. Kirk’s rhetoric about Americans and others of various races, faiths, cultures and backgrounds. The values that led us to oppose many of Mr. Kirk’s stances are the same values that lead us to condemn his murder and reaffirm that political violence is not the answer to even the most hateful rhetoric. Such violence occurs far too often to people on all sides of debates in our nation, and the rhetoric which leads to such violence must end. Now.
CAIR Assails Israel
CAIR showed less restraint in response to Israel’s September 9 attack on Hamas operatives in Doha, which killed five Hamas associates and one Qatari security official. This attack took place the day after terrorists entered into Israel from the West Bank and killed six Israelis at a bus stop in Jerusalem. That incident did not elicit condemnation from Islamists in the U.S. or elsewhere.
This is all about whipping up anti-Israel sentiment, not educating policy makers.
In its over-the-top statement about the Doha attack however, CAIR described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “drunk on power” and condemned U.S. President Donald Trump as facilitating a “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
“The Trump administration must immediately clarify what it knew, hold Israel accountable, and stop enabling war crimes against Palestinians and our allies in the region,” declared Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action, the organization’s activist wing.
Along these lines, Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR’s chapter in Chicago who admitted he despised Charlie Kirk in a post-assassination statement on Facebook, took to Facebook to accuse the Trump administration of acting “as a Trojan horse betraying Qatar and conspiring with an enemy to come in and bomb the country that is acting as an official mediator during an official negotiation” adding that, “This level of depravity is unheard of.”
USCMO’s Response
The United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) used similarly lurid language in its condemnation of the attack on Hamas, describing Israel as a “pariah state” and “rogue entity” and the bombing as “criminal.” USCMO Secretary General Oussama Jammal described the attack as “a disgustingly repulsive act of international gangsterism. And if we’re going to speak the truth, this is the true origin story of the criminal enterprise called Zionism, its mobster leadership, and the virulent entity they’ve founded.”
Such lurid language is not geared toward influencing policy makers, but is meant to incite anti-Israel hostility, claims Benjamin Baird, a public affairs specialist who overseas MEF’s grassroots advocacy.
“Of course, both CAIR and USCMO condemned Israel for attacking Hamas ‘negotiators’ without acknowledging that Hamas leaders signed off on the October 7 massacre and kidnapping in the first place,” Baird said. “Hamas has held onto the remaining hostages in Gaza for almost two years. This is all about whipping up anti-Israel sentiment, not educating policy makers.”
USCMO Deleted Original Oct 7 Statement from Website
Both organizations have a long history of promoting virulent hostility toward Israel. On the day of the October 7 massacre, the USCMO issued a statement calling on countries in the Middle East to reconsider their willingness to make peace with Israel, lending credence to reports that the massacre was perpetrated to derail the Abraham Accords process. (The USCMO has apparently deleted the statement from its own website, but it can be seen on CAIR’s website here.)
Along these lines, Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national director, affirmed the October 7 attack a few weeks after it happened. Speaking at an event organized by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) in November 2023, Awad called Gaza a “concentration camp,” adding that he was “happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into” Israel. He proclaimed that Israel, which withdrew from Gaza in 2005, had no right to defend itself against attack because it was an “occupying power.” The Biden administration cut off ties to CAIR once Awad’s comments went public.
“Before the blood was dry on October 7, CAIR’s Hamas cheerleaders implicitly declared that Israeli families had it coming,” Baird added.
