On April 23, the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad was the guest on FOX News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor. The host, who has repeatedly given CAIR a platform, confronted Awad over his denial that radical Islam is the main driver of worldwide terrorism. When cornered, Awad claimed O’Reilly was attacking his faith and “playing politics.”
Awad opened up the segment with a long speech about how CAIR condemned the Boston bombings, and how he personally participates in marathons. He then argued that O’Reilly’s statement that radical Islam is driving terrorism is an attack on the faith as a whole.
The tactic’s purpose is to avoid acknowledging the ideological roots of Islamic terrorism so that it can instead be attributed to anger over U.S. foreign policy. CAIR previously engaged in a campaign to pressure the media into deleting the word “Islamist” from its vocabulary.
At one point, Awad claimed that O’Reilly was “making up stuff” about Islam when he stated that Islamic terrorists believe they are engaged in a jihad. Ironically, Awad then proved O’Reilly right by countering with “jihad is a legitimate struggle.”
That’s exactly how the Boston bombers and other Islamic terrorists view their actions, just as O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly wouldn’t be surprised about Awad’s obfuscating if he knew of CAIR’s background. In a 2007 court filing, federal prosecutors stated: “From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists … the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”
In that trial, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-funding trial in U.S. history, where the Holy Land Foundation was convicted of funneling $12 million to Hamas.
CAIR’s origins lie in a secret U.S. Muslim Brotherhood meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 that was wiretapped by the FBI. One of the participants was Nihad Awad. At the time, Awad was with the Islamic Association for Palestine. A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo identified that group as one of its fronts.
The topic of the secret meeting was, in the words of U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis, “goals, strategies and American perceptions of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
A Hamas operative said, “Forming the public opinion or coming up with a policy to influence … the way the Americans deal with the Islamists, for instance. I believe that should be the goals of this stage.”
Deception was a key theme of the meeting. Shukri Abu Baker, the head of the Holy Land Foundation (and sentenced to 65 years in prison in the trial), repeatedly said, “War is deception,” emphasizing that it was a quote from Mohammed, the founder of Islam.
Awad’s colleague, Omar Ahmad, specifically discussed how to edit language about destroying Israel to fit an American audience.
The meeting concluded with a decision to make a new organization because “it is known who we are.” Awad and Ahmad founded CAIR the following year.
And now Awad is appearing on US national media, doing exactly what was discussed in that U.S. Muslim Brotherhood meeting.
Watch the interview below: