IPT Analysis Finds CAIR Donors Ignore Organization's Dubious History, Behavior

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) confronted dozens of non-Muslim foundations that have donated to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) with numerous anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist social media posts by CAIR leaders. When contacted they either defended CAIR despite seeing the rhetoric, offered no comment or ignored requests for comment.

They also dismissed the determination by the FBI, Justice Department prosecutors and a federal judge tying CAIR and its founders tied to a Hamas-support network.

CAIR chapters received 265 grants of more than $1,000 from dozens of non-Muslim foundations, totaling $5.47 million since 2010. In the wake of President Trump's travel ban, CAIR received an unprecedented haul of just less than $3 million from non-Muslim donors in 2017 alone.

Spokeswomen for the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) and California Wellness Foundation stood by CAIR even after reading extreme comments from CAIR officials, such as San Francisco Bay Area Executive Director Zahra Billoo: "Blaming Hamas for firing rockets at [Apartheid] Israel is like blaming a woman for punching her rapist. #FreePalestine v @KathlynGadd." On Nov. 29, she repeated the slogan "From the river to the sea, #Palestine will be free." Uttering that same statement during a United Nations speech caused CNN to fire Marc Lamont Hill. The slogan is commonly used by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists and amounts to a call for Israel's destruction.

That kind of extreme rhetoric, however, is consistent with CAIR's roots. FBI investigators uncovered evidence establishing CAIR's place in the "Palestine Committee," which was a Muslim Brotherhood-created network aimed at helping Hamas in the United States. The evidence led U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis to rule in 2009 that there is "at least a prima facie case as to CAIR's involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas."

Despite those documents, a spokeswoman for the California Wellness Foundation still claimed that "has not been tied to terrorism."

SOURCE Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)