The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, has issued a statement asserting that the yesterday’s resignation of the Obama campaign’s newly appointed Muslim outreach coordinator was “symptomatic of a nationwide effort by Islamophobes who seek to deny Muslims access to the political process.” According to the CAIR release:
A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said today that the resignation of a recently-appointed Muslim community liaison for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is symptomatic of a nationwide effort by Islamophobes who seek to deny Muslims access to the political process. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is “ironic” that Chicago attorney Mazen Asbahi resigned following Internet attacks on his ties to the mainstream Muslim community, an attribute that would seem to be a requirement for his position. “Muslim-bashers play a ‘six degrees of separation’ game of guilt by association with any Muslim who dares to engage in positive social or political activism,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR’s Chicago chapter. “As Americans, we should not allow intolerant and agenda-driven extremists to succeed in their tactics of exclusion based on smears and mischaracterizations of leaders or institutions at the forefront of civic engagement.”….He suggested that the rise in rhetorical attacks on Islamic leaders and institutions may be the result of increasing Muslim political activism and involvement.
CAIR is one of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations often asserting that U.S. Muslims are targets of various conspiracies and plots directed against them by “special interests.” In addition, the organization has its own problematic relationship with terrorism, having supported the Hamas infrastructure in the U.S. for many years. CAIR itself was an outgrowth of that infrastructure when it was created in 1994. CAIR and the other major U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations frequently conflate criticism of their organizations with criticism of the U.S. Islamic community itself, claiming that their organizations represent “mainstream Islam.” These same organizations also level the charge of “Islamaphobia” against their critics. In another statement, A CAIR official stated:
… Asbahi was a victim of Internet rumors. “This incident just shows how Islamophobic the political climate is right now,” Walid said. “Baseless smears about a Muslim with a very good reputation was used to marginalize not only him but the community from the political process. “If someone like Mr. Asbahi can’t be vetted to work for the Obama campaign, then who can?”
Rather than “internet rumors”, the information on Mr. Asbahi was based on public records as first reported in an earlier post. This post drew interest from the Wall Street Journal who then sought comment from the Obama campaign, prompting Mr. Asbahi’s’ resignation . Although the Journal only reported on Mr. Asbahi’s connection to one U.S. Brotherhood organization, he is in fact linked to three more such organizations