Israel’s Minister of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, attacked and threatened the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Chikli is one of the high-ranking officials in Prime Minister Netanyahu's Foreign Ministry.

Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has been a prominent advocate for civil rights.

CAIR is a nonprofit organization founded in 1994. The organization has its national headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 32 regional chapters spanning more than 20 states. Its current executive director is Nihad Awad.

Why would a foreign government like Israel attack a civil liberties organization? To accuse Nihad Awad and CAIR of being "outrageously antisemitic" is pure poppycock. For the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to join in attacking and smearing CAIR is both ludicrous and odd. I will explain later!

Chikli and the ADL publicly defended the Israeli genocide in Gaza as "self-defense." However, when Nihad Awad said, "Yes, I was happy to see people in Gaza breaking the 17-year-old illegal and inhumane siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on October 7," they falsely accused him of praising the October 7 attacks.

Defending Palestinians' right to freedom is one thing, but praising Hamas or PIJ is another. The fact is that Israeli officials and the pro-Israel lobby are accusing CAIR of what they themselves are doing: supporting Israeli terrorism and genocide against defenseless Palestinians in Gaza.

In his attack on CAIR, Israeli Minister Chikli stated in a Jerusalem Post interview that the UAE designated CAIR, along with 82 other foreign organizations, as a terrorist group in 2014. However, the UAE has not publicized its reasons for including CAIR.

As a Muslim American, it makes me hopping mad that neither mainstream media (MSM), the White House, U.S. officials, nor any pro-Israeli groups in America have condemned the attack and threats against CAIR.

Had such threats been made against a Jewish American organization, it would have been a front-page story with 24/7 news coverage. Shamefully, my Google search on the Israeli threat produces zero results. Americans remain unaware that a foreign government has threatened the largest Muslim-American civil rights organization.

Credit should be given where it’s due. CAIR cares about America and works to make it a better and safer place, not only for Muslims but for all of us. Here are highlights of CAIR's actions and missions since its creation 30 years ago:

• CAIR took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to condemn the 9/11 attacks. It urged American Muslims to contribute money, donate blood, and assist in medical relief operations (The N.Y. Times, September 16, 2001).
• In May 2009, CAIR assembled a delegation for a humanitarian mission to Iran on short notice to help resolve issues between the U.S. and Iran. The group discussed with Iranian officials the status of U.S. citizens held in Iran, including Roxana Saberi, Esha Momeni, and Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared on Iran's Kish Island two years earlier. The Swiss government, acting on behalf of U.S. interests in Iran, had limited success in addressing these issues, but CAIR carried a letter from Levinson's family to Iranian officials in hopes of resolving his case.
• CAIR was the first to defend a Jewish reporter who worked for a Kansas City Jewish newspaper and was fired one day after marrying a Palestinian (U.S. News Wire, April 9, 2003).
• When four members of the Christian Peacemaker Team were taken hostage in Iraq in 2005, CAIR demanded their immediate and unconditional release, stating that harming them would not advance the cause of innocent Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. forces.
• After American journalist Jill Carroll was taken hostage in Iraq in 2006, CAIR risked the lives of its members by sending a delegation to Iraq to plead for her release. She was eventually freed.
• CAIR recently succeeded in removing the name of a U.S. veteran in Oklahoma from the no-fly list and the terrorism watchlist, which was based solely on his name being unlawfully included in a federal database.
• In 2018, CAIR reached a settlement resolving EEOC charges on behalf of 138 Somali-American Muslim workers who were wrongfully terminated. The workers had been denied short breaks to perform obligatory prayers based on their sincerely held religious beliefs.

I should also point out that it is pro-Israel groups like ADL and AIPAC—not CAIR—that are allegedly involved in criminal and illegal activities in the United States. Here are five examples:

• A top AIPAC lobbyist pleaded guilty in 2006 to three counts of passing U.S. classified information to Israel.
• The ADL has a long history of attempting to smear and silence CAIR and anyone else who criticizes the Israeli genocide and the Israeli government's human rights abuses against Palestinians.
• The ADL was found guilty of conducting extensive domestic spying operations on numerous individuals and institutions across the U.S.
• Former Congressman Pete McCloskey (R-California) was among ADL’s victims. He was awarded a $150,000 court judgment against the organization.
• It is the IDF, ADL, and other Israeli entities that support terrorism in occupied Palestine—not CAIR, the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), or Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

With a strong patriotic record, CAIR should be commended for its civil rights work and humanitarian mission. This is also in compliance with Islamic teachings, which call on Muslims to "forgive those who oppressed you, give to whoever deprived you, and reach out to the one who ignored you."

Unlike its critics, CAIR’s mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. CAIR speaks for seven million American Muslims who seek better relations between their country and the Islamic world.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.com and ColumbusFreePress.com. He can be reached at [email protected].