Rep. McKinney to headline Muslim fundraiser
By Alexander Bolton
On Sunday, Oct. 7, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) will headline a fundraiser for a Muslim political group that terrorism experts say has ties to militant Islamic organizations operating in the United States.
The group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is dedicated to advancing Muslim causes on Capitol Hill and in the media and has opened a political action committee within the last year.
Since the beginning of last October, the number of Muslim PACs has doubled from three to six as the number of Muslims in this country has grown. Many are immigrants and first-generation Americans.
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| Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) |
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McKinney failed to respond to telephoned requests for comment.
The political clout of the Muslim community is especially important now when anti-Islamic sentiment in the country threatens to grow as a result of last month’s attacks on New York and the Pentagon that law enforcement officials suspect was the work of militant Islamic fundamentalists.
Government officials are already pressing for anti-terrorism legislation that would likely impinge upon the freedoms of law-abiding Muslims and the United States.
But the ability of pro-Muslim PACs and lobbyists to defend Muslim rights on Capitol Hill may be undermined by the past relationship of CAIR to the militant Islamic group Hamas.
The military wing of Hamas is responsible for numerous acts of terrorism in Israel.
At one time, CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, worked for the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). Oliver Revell, the former associate deputy director of investigations at the FBI, who headed terrorism investigations for the bureau from 1985 to 1991, says IAP is a front group for Hamas operating in the United States.
“It is an organization that has directly supported Hamas military goals,” he said. “It is a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants. It has produced videotapes that are very hate-filled, full of vehement propaganda. It is an organization that has supported direct confrontation.”
Revell said that IAP and CAIR have had “intertwined membership in the past” and that CAIR has used materials produced by the IAP.
For example, Rafeeq Jaber, the current president of IAP, was one of the founding directors of CAIR, though he says he is no longer affiliated with the organization.
CAIR’s spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, said Awad, the group’s executive director, worked at IAP “years ago,” but denied any current affiliation between CAIR and IAP or the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). Hooper said IAP is a legal organization. Jabar said he terminated his position with CAIR in 1996.
CAIR also has ties to another group that has been identified in the press as a domestic political wing of Hamas.
CAIR’s director of research, Mohamed Nimer, worked for the UASR in the early 1990s. And UASR’s director of media and public affairs, Anisa Abd el Fattah, also serves on the board of CAIR.
Anti-terrorism expert Steven Emerson, who exposed a number of links between CAIR and pro-militant Islamic groups in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism in 1998, then described UASR as “the strategic arm of Hamas in the United States.”
The founding member of UASR, Dr. Mousa Abu Marzook, became the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Jordan after leaving the organization, according to Fattah.
A New York Times article dated February 1993 quoted a convicted Hamas operative describing UASR, located in Virginia, as “the political command of Hamas in the United States.”
Emerson said even though the groups may not be officially linked, their common origin deserves scrutiny.
“Their mutual origins show they were born of the same parent,” he said. “They were ideologically tethered at birth and continue to be ideologically tethered. … [To say they are not connected] is like saying families sprung from a Mafia family and sprouted off into independence are no longer connected to the Mafia.”
Nimer, CAIR’s research director, said he ended his affiliation with UASR in 1993 and has not contacted the group in years. He said it was unfair to impugn him for his past connections.
“[To say] A knows B and B knows C and C has met with D, that is a shoddy type of research,” said Nimer. “I’m a highly regarded researcher. I have had tremendous impetus on how to situate the American Muslim community in mainstream America.”
Fattah said her organization does not have any official relationship with CAIR other than her position on their board of directors, a position she says she holds in name only.
“We have no relationship other than we are all Muslims,” she said. “We have worked together because we have been subjected to a common type of attack.”
Fattah said the “pro-Israel lobby” has played up links between her group and Hamas “to discredit Muslim associations” and called the methods “shady.”
“Both [sides in the Holy Land] are guilty of very horrible things,” she said. “The situation is out of control. It’s going to require that there are two perspectives present. We represent the other side.”
Before the Senate Terrorism Subcommittee, Emerson testified that IAP had distributed terrorist recruitment videos that showed Hamas fighters preparing machine guns and Molotov cocktails and boasting about killing Jewish collaborators.
Jabar said his organization only distributes news videos and likens IAP to “NBC News” and “Sixty Minutes.”
“How would they be training videos?” asked Jabar. “Do you think the FBI would be standing still? Don’t you think we would be closed by now? We’ve never been questioned by the FBI or any authority.”
But Revell, who used to head investigative and intelligence operations for the FBI, said the agency is powerless to do anything.
“The bureau has no authority to shut down IAP for engaging in First Amendment-protected activities,” he said. “Free speech is not subject to scrutiny even if it is hateful.”
CAIR’s Ibrahim says his organization’s critics have their own agenda.
“[Emerson] has been the attack dog of the pro-Israel lobby,” he said. “When they want to attack somebody, they send him in. Who pays Steven Emerson?”
Emerson and Revell have denied ever taking money from an Israeli or Jewish group.
Though pro-Muslim groups have doubled the number of PACs under their control, their contributions to Congress are dwarfed by Jewish and pro-Israel PACs.
Of six operating Muslim-affiliated PACs identified by Political Finance, a monthly newsletter published by Edward Zuckerman, only three donated money to politicians in the last election cycle. They raised just under $200,000.
By contrast, 35 Jewish and Israeli PACs raised over $3.8 million.
