Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has honored the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. The group’s website says the exhibit at the event “includes a photograph illustrating CAIR’s fight against Islamophobia.”
The video shows Mayor Nutter mentioning Jacob Bender, the Jewish Executive-Director of CAIR-PA, as one of the “brave, courageous and forward-thinking individuals” being honored for their civil rights activism. Bender was appointed to the position in October 2013.
The Clarion Project has sent a message to Mayor Nutter’s office and will post the reply here if one is received.
In 2007, the Justice Department designated CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood front in Texas whose leaders were found guilty of financing Hamas.
The Justice Department listed CAIR as an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, specifically its secret Palestine Committee that was set up to support Hamas. The FBI officially stopped using CAIR as an outreach partner thereafter.
In another court case in 2007, federal prosecutors stated in a court filing:
“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 his introductory letter, Bender said one of his duties is “defending CAIR against the unfounded and hate mongering attacks of the Islamophobic network.”
He spoke of his friendship with Sayyid Syeed, former Secretary-General of the Islamic Society of North America, another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator. In 2006, Sayyid was recorded preaching, “Our job is to change the constitution of America.”
Bender was previously a filmmaker. He directed Out of Cordoba, a film that terrorism expert Joe Kaufman writes was financed by ISNA, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity) and the Alavi Foundation, which the U.S. government has confirmed to be an Iranian regime front.
The Philadelphia chapter of CAIR held a fundraiser on March 16, 2013 with the radical Imam Siraj Wahhaj. His mosque, Masjid At-Taqwa, has been monitored by the New York Police Department because of its links to extremism and evidence of terrorist activity. Wahhaj himself has been outspoken in his anti-Americanism and Islamist extremism.
“If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a Caliphate. If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. Take my word, if eight million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us,” he said in 1992.
At a speaking engagement at the University of Central Florida on February 25, 2011, he was videotaped saying that the Islamic punishment for fornicators is 100 lashes. He was paid $1,250 by the school’s Muslim Students Association chapter for the speaking engagement.
CAIR-PA’s Outreach Co-Chair is Carlin Saafir. According to his bio on the CAIR-PA website, he is the president of the board of the United Muslim Masjid. He was also the legal officer and 1st lieutenant of the Jawala Scouts, a boys’ group started by a radical anti-American organization in Pennsylvania named the Sankore Institute of Islamic African Studies International. The founder of the United Muslim Masjid, Kenny Gamble, was listed as the email contact for the Jawala Scouts.
CAIR-National cannot be separated from its chapters. They are registered independently but they operate as one. As explained, CAIR-PA’s choosing of Carlin Saafir as an outreach co-chair and Siraj Wahhaj as a fundraiser shows that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
CAIR has a documented history of extremism. It does not fire or publicly criticize its chapter leaders who spout extremism, such as those who suggested that fallen U.S. soldiers shouldn’t be honored on Memorial Day, criticized Independence Day and preached that Muslim-Americans should reject nationalism.
This is all in the public record. Mayor Nutter’s staff must not have vetted CAIR or they were not bothered by its history, perhaps trusting Bender’s reassurance that CAIR’s critics are bigots without facts. Either scenario is an embarrassment for Philadelphia.
