Islam Online, the Islamic news portal associated with global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, has posted a telling photograph in an article about a letter recently written by Nihad Awad, a leader of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), to President Obama in advance of the President’s planned address to the Muslim World in Cairo. The photograph, which is likely to have been digitally altered, appears to show President Obama gazing mesmerized and in a posture of supplication as Mr. Awad speaks before a microphone.
The letter itself begins as follows:
As you prepare for your historic address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4th, I would like to offer an American Muslim perspective on what governments, leaders and individuals can do to improve the prospects for international peace and prosperity. As an American, I will first focus on what you can do to help repair relations with the Muslim world that have suffered such damage in recent years. Your statements since the inauguration have raised the level of hope for real change in our nation’s foreign and domestic policies. It is imperative that your positive statements now be backed up with concrete policy initiatives that will help move us all toward a more peaceful and prosperous future. Otherwise, we as a nation risk wasting the good will that has been garnered by your ongoing outreach to Muslims.
The letter goes on to enumerate three of Mr. Awad’s suggestions:
- First, America must champion political and religious freedom, human rights, the growth and stabilization of democratic institutions, and respect for the rule of law for everyone, not just those we favor.
- Second, we should do what is necessary to resolve long-standing conflicts, and particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that are the main source of anti-American feeling in the Muslim world. Now is the time to tell Israeli leaders that we will no longer support the denial of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and that we will take concrete actions to back up that declaration
- Third, our nation’s elected representatives, religious leaders, commentators, and citizens of all faiths must speak out forcefully against the rising level of anti-Muslim rhetoric and discrimination in our society.
Each of these positions is consistent with long-standing demands of the global Muslim Brotherhood. For example, the global Brotherhood has often pushed for “democracy” in the Muslim world using the concept as a kind of shorthand for creating conditions under which Islamist governments can come to power. The Global Muslim Brotherhood has devoted a large amount of its energy toward delegitimizing and fighting the State of Israel and is intimately related to Hamas whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Finally, the global Brotherhood, including organizations such as CAIR, have long insisted that bias against Muslims is on the increase despite evidence to the contrary in the U.S. for example.
A report recently issued by the Hudson Institute discusses the origins of CAIR and its founders/leaders, including Mr. Awad, in both the Palestine Committee of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and the U.S. Hamas support infrastructure. Mr. Awad is known to have attended a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia that was taped by the FBI and which was attended by many members of the Palestine Committee. Investigative research posted on GMBDW had determined that CAIR has a long history of support for fundamentalism, anti-Semitism, and terrorism.