In an op-ed piece for USA Today, the communications director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) cites the organization’s record of condemning terrorism:
Since 9/11, I have personally written dozens of statements condemning terrorism in all its forms, whether suicide bombings in the Middle East, terror attacks in London and Madrid, the killing of Christian missionaries in Yemen, or a shooting at a Jewish center in Seattle. In the past six years, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has coordinated the release of a fatwa (Islamic religious ruling) repudiating terrorism and religious extremism, initiated an online petition drive called “Not in the Name of Islam,” and distributed a related TV public service announcement that has been seen by some 10 million viewers nationwide.
While these actions are factual, many of the condemnations of terror cited by CAIR have been weak and qualified and the organization has a long history of portraying counter-terror efforts as part of a “war on Islam.” CAIR also has organizational ties to Palestinian terrorism which includes links to the Hamas infrastructure in the U.S and has actively defended individuals implicated in such terrorism. An earlier post has documented the recent trip by a CAIR leader in which he presented a seminar at the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Saudi Arabia, an organization long suspected by the U.S government of supporting terrorism.