CAIRing for the Muslim Brotherhood

by Joe Kaufman

The Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak is about to fall, and the leaders of the nation’s most vocal Islamist group, CAIR, couldn’t be happier. Is this sudden euphoria all about the bringing of “freedom” and “democracy” to the region, as they say it is, or is their happiness built out of something sinister? Given the radical background of these individuals, and given the background of the group itself, it is this author’s opinion that the reason is the latter.

On top of the homepage of the national website of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the following headline is read: “CAIR Asks Americans to Support Freedom in Egypt, Muslim World.” The statement is an entirely innocuous one. However, it comes from a group that has known ties to terrorist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which stands to gain substantially from the unrest in Egypt.

CAIR was founded in June 1994 by three leaders from the then-American propaganda wing of Hamas, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). Upon CAIR’s establishment, the group immediately fell under the umbrella of Mousa Abu Marzook’s American Palestine Committee, of which the IAP was already a member. Marzook, at the time, was based in the United States as the global head of Hamas and a main cog of the Palestinian faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas sprang in 1987.

The hierarchy of CAIR has changed little from its IAP days. The original Executive Director, Nihad Awad, is still the Executive Director, and the original Communications Director, Ibrahim Hooper, is still the Communications Director. Considering this, one can surmise that the Islamist ideology of the group has remained intact as well, and no evidence has been provided to show that this is not the case.

This ideology is contained not only in the national organization, but also in its local chapters, where an innumerable amount of extremist statements and terror-related associations have been made and have been cultivated. So when leaders of these chapters discuss the riots in Egypt, as CAIR National has, in terms of “freedom” and “democracy,” we would be negligent if we did not question the sincerity of the statements and their true motives.

Ahmed Rehab is the Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, one of CAIR’s main local offices. According to him, for the next month he will be residing in the city which houses the global headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) – the place where CAIR gets its name from – Cairo.

While in Cairo, Rehab, who is originally from Egypt, has taken part in a number of demonstrations against the Mubarak government and has been blogging about his pseudo-peaceful experiences.

He wrote that he had joined the front lines of the protestors, during “Rage Friday,” and in at least one instance had, along with others, “broken through the police security line” and “pushed into the main square.” In another instance, he said that he and his friends “had to shake down a large iron fence to allow people to run for cover.” He saw armored vehicles that had been “torched,” and within one protest day which lasted eight hours, he “suffered two dozen tear gas fits.”

He said that his and others’ actions are “about reforming Egypt’s system of government.” He continued, “This is about the separation and independence of parliament and the judiciary from the executive branch and each other. This is about making the law supreme above and beyond whoever happens to command special powers or special interests.

“This is about ending corruption, incompetence, apathy, political monopoly and suppression of freedoms. This is about reclaiming the dignity of the Egyptian citizens. This is about transforming Egypt into a society that embraces political transparency and accountability, fair competition, merit, and opportunity.”

Rehab’s flowery language rings with the best of intentions. After reading his words, one could be left thinking that this individual dreams of an American-style liberty reaching Egypt’s shores. That is, unless he/she is aware of Rehab’s Islamist background, well past his association with the Hamas-related CAIR.

Up until February 2006, on his personal website, Rehab referred to the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, as a “Contemporary Muslim Intellectual who influenced me” and described MB icon Sayyid Qutb, who is considered by many to be the father of the modern Islamic extremist movement, as his “Favorite Modern Personality.”

In keeping in line with the vitriol MB has for the nation of Israel, Rehab has openly attacked the Jewish state. On his site, he wrote, “I hate Zionism,” and about former President Harry S. Truman, whom he derogatorily refers to as “Harry S. Falseman,” he stated that he was one of the “worst Presidents,” because he was the “first to recognize Israel unjustly and unjustifiably.”

Given all of this, one can surmise that Ahmed Rehab’s reasoning in flinging himself head-first into these protests, in a country half-way around the globe – albeit the country he was born in – has absolutely nothing to do with freedom and democracy for the people of Egypt. To the contrary, it has to do with getting the Muslim Brotherhood, a group whose members are routinely tortured, imprisoned and ostracized by the Mubarak government, into power.

It has to do with throwing Hosni Mubarak, who is seen in the region as a key ally of Israel, out of power. It has to do with tearing down the fence that separates Egypt from Hamas in Gaza and tearing up any peace agreements that Egypt has with Israel. It has to do with bringing back the Islamic Kingdom or Caliphate that the Ikhwan (Brotherhood) believes was stolen from the Middle East by the West in the 1920s, which led to the creation of the Brotherhood.

For at least some of the people of Egypt, no doubt, they are longing for the freedom and democracy CAIR and Rehab speak of. But for CAIR and Rehab, themselves, it is nothing of the sort, and they are cynically exploiting the situation in Egypt to further their Islamist agenda.

For them, freedom and democracy are only words – merely a vehicle – leading towards the destruction of the West, as well as all her liberties, and the recreation of the Islamic Kingdom, throughout Egypt and beyond, which is why CAIR is asking Americans to support freedom in Egypt and the “Muslim World.”

As Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan once ominously stated, when comparing democracy to a street car, “You ride it until you arrive at your destination. Then you step off.”

The CAIR Car is just getting ready to be boarded.

Original URL:http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/10/cairing-for-the-muslim-brotherhood/

Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch. He has been responsible for the closure of at least one terror-related charity and has convinced a number of government officials to shun the Hamas front group, CAIR. In June 2009, he won a lawsuit brought against him by seven Dallas-area radical Muslim organizations

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.