A review of Hamas-linked CAIR’s ‘Hostile’: Pro-Hamas propaganda

This KRON broadcast is representative of network affiliates’ presentation and promotion of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on television, because Justine Waldman did not read CAIR’s report. Instead, she promoted it uncritically on the broadcast. Compare KRON’s reporting of CAIR’s assertions as news with what one will find when actually reading CAIR’s report.

The word that best describes CAIR’s “Hostile” report is Hamas. The presence of Hamas in this report is intense. The report is loaded with examples of pro-Hamas propaganda. From CAIR’s “‘Hostile’: How Universities Target Anti-Genocide Protesters While Enabling Anti-Palestinian Racism and Islamophobia”:

As of May 2024, the Israeli government has killed over 34,500 Palestinians since October 2023.

This is a number supplied by Hamas. It is not true. There is no way anyone can know on a daily basis the accurate number of fatalities in Gaza. Even the UN now has a disclaimer on its website saying it is unable to independently confirm the totals supplied by Hamas, which come from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Government Media Office and Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas itself has had to revise its numbers.

In January, the International Court of Justice, the UN’s principal judicial body, declared that South Africa’s charge of genocide against the Israeli government was plausible.

But, that is not what the ICJ ruled. The ICJ ruled that South Africa had the right to bring a case before the court, not that there was a plausible case of genocide.

…mass graves on hospital grounds.

Again, this is not true. “Analysts debunk Hamas claims that Israel dug mass graves at Nasser hospital. Hamas had claimed Israel dug the graves to ‘hide’ evidence. Independent analysis found the graves were dug before the IDF arrived.”

Only a fanatical partisan would insist on maintaining such claims in the face of the facts.

In response, students have taken to their university campuses to take part in a long American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience.

The students were engaging in terrorism by making demands and refusing to leave until the university submitted to them. The protests were quite different from those of the 1960’s, when the students were protesting something that had a direct effect upon their lives: the Vietnam war. These Gaza protestors were merely virtue-signaling on behalf of Hamas.

…pushing the narrative that “outside agitators” have infiltrated campuses…

Here is only one of many outside agitators that the students were unable or unwilling to control. It is not going unnoticed that CAIR apparently has no concern about outside agitators committing violence in the name of the supposedly peaceful protesters.

In November 2023, Muslim and Palestinian students called on George Washington University to provide protection to students amid a rise in Islamophobic attacks on campus.

But, weren’t these just rumors?

There are eight references to “Palestine Legal” in in CAIR’s report. This is a pro-Hamas group whose leadership is pro-Hamas to its core. Here is a look at the leadership of Palestine Legal.

• Dima Khalidi, the Director, and founder of Palestine Legal assisted “in the acquittal of Palestinian-American Muhammad Salah on major federal criminal charges.”
  • Muhammad Salah was a former leader of Hamas in America.
    • “A Palestinian native and U.S. citizen since 1979, Salah was classified as a “specially designated terrorist” by the U.S. Treasury Department in the 1990s. He was imprisoned in Israel for 4 1/2 years after $95,000 was found in his East Jerusalem hotel room that police said was to bankroll terrorism.” – https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-muhammad-salah-acquitted-of-supporting-hamas-dead-2016apr25-story.html
    • Also see here – “Some roots of new Israel-Hamas War buried deep in old Chicago criminal case” https://abc7chicago.com/when-did-hamas-attack-israel-2023-massacre-charter-leader-killed/13977953/
• Lina Assi, Advocacy Manager “she helped to pass a historic BDS resolution at McMaster University that mobilized over 600 students.”
  • • BDS campaign is a Hamas project – https://youtu.be/hieI5sGQztM?si=M0T46M07nsLhGxJW&t=170
• Danya Zituni, Palestine Legal’s Communications Manager, has “5 years of experience developing communications and narrative strategy specifically for the movement for Palestinian rights as a Communications Coordinator for the U.S. Palestinian Community Network.”
  • • U.S. Palestinian Community Network “The U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) works closely with and unequivocally supports Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP);”
• Gloria Imseih Petrelli, Palestine Legal’s Social Media Coordinator, has “served as Co-Chair of the US Palestinian Community Network in Chicago”
• Eman Naga, a Legal Intern at Palestine Legal, was a “co-founding President of Law Students for Justice in Palestine”
  • • The woman that trespassed on the home of Erwin Chimerinski . Malak Afaneh is the head of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine
    • “At Berkeley, a Protest at a Dean’s Home Tests the Limits of Free Speech” – https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/uc-berkeley-palestinian-protest-free-speech.html
    • Video of the incident – https://youtu.be/qTbPo8lqJRI?si=jEFFZ0FM3e6jOhqi&t=264
• Rifqa Falaneh, is the “Michael Ratner Justice Fellow at Palestine Legal where she challenges the censorship, surveillance, and suppression of advocates for Palestinian liberation”. “She previously served as President of SJP DePaul and helped re-establish SJP Chicago in 2019.”
• Radhika Sainath, Senior Staff Attorney at Palestine Legal, “worked with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance movement.” Also, “she was a proud member of Law Students for Justice in Palestine.”

That should give the reader a good idea of what Palestine Legal is about.

Returning to CAIR’s “Hostile” report:

In January 2024, the Muslim Legal Fund of America filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of students at Harvard University…

The Muslim Legal Fund of America is a member of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Find more on the MLFA here.

In April 2024, Palestinian Muslim student Malak Afaneh was reportedly assaulted by UC Berkeley law professor Catherine Fisk during a dinner for graduating students at the home of Fisk and her husband Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school’s dean. (see Law Students for Justice in Palestine above) . . . “The university expressed dismay at the use of a “person’s private residence as a platform for protest” but reportedly did not comment on the attempted use of force by a member of its faculty in order to censor Afaneh.”

CAIR’s report then goes into a defense of Students for Justice in Palestine. Many of these claims are unsubstantiated, and are a good example of people demanding their rights while refusing to acknowledge the rights of others. Students for Justice in Palestine started the whole situation and cannot be considered victims.

A group of Muslim students at the University of Texas-Austin were reportedly harassed by three men during a Palestine Solidarity Committee meeting on campus in October 2023.

Palestine Solidarity Committee is a thuggish pro-Hamas group, whose alternate name is Students for Justice in Palestine.

A former student, whose number was still listed on the site for the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, reportedly received a voicemail in which a man called her a “terrorist,” used a racial slur, and said, “I can’t wait to see you dead.”

SJP is one of the main organizers of the pro-Hamas campus protests.

From the section in CAIR’s report on “Doxxing”:

Since October 2023, student activists in support of Palestinian rights have also been subjected to intense forms of doxxing.

The students are ashamed of their advocacy? I still do not understand what CAIR is trying to do here.

In April 2024, Palestine Legal filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleging that students at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law have been subjected to anti-Palestinian harassment and discrimination from fellow students and even faculty for several months.”

…students, who have threatened to dox them, as well as post pictures and videos of them online. Students also report that professors have “openly celebrated the doxing of Palestinian students at Harvard, as well as NYU law student Ryna Workman’s high-profile job revocation” from a corporate law firm after expressing solidarity with Palestinians.”

That should read “expressing solidarity with Hamas.”

In a letter from CAIR-Georgia and a number of community and civil rights organizations, students at Emory University have also reported being doxxed by university donors and alumni. In a LinkedIn post from October 2023, an alumnus reportedly listed and tagged the full names of a faculty member and at least four students affiliated with Emory Students for Justice in Palestine (ESJP) and also called ESJP a “terror-related” organization, asking the university to expel students affiliated with it.”

CAIR is consistently defending pro-Hamas activity on campus. CAIR then goes on to tip its hand by defending Hamas supporters who praised Hamas for the October 7 jihad massacre.

In October 2023, the University of Vermont (UVM) canceled a lecture featuring Palestinian poet and journalist Mohammed El-Kurd that had been organized months earlier, reportedly claiming it would be unable to “adequately provide safety and security for this event.” A professor at UVM and a board member of the lecture series”

From the Canary Mission profile on Mohammed El-Kurd:

• Mohammed El-Kurd called for massacres and the destruction of Israel during its war against Hamas terrorists in January 2024. He also praised Hamas on October 7, 2023, the day the terror group murdered 1,200 Israeli Jews.
• El-Kurd has expressed support for terrorists and spread anti-Semitism and incitement. In addition, El-Kurd has promoted hatred of Israelis and Israel on social media, including denying Jewish history.
• El-Kurd is best known for his activism in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, where his family’s residence was at the center of a long-standing property dispute. Incitement in 2021 that he and others spread regarding Sheikh Jarrah and the Al-Aqsa Mosque led to violence across Israel, including rocket attacks from Hamas.

Hamas-linked CAIR also states:

In November 2023, thirty minutes before it was set to begin, Columbia Law School reportedly canceled an event with Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, citing security concerns.”

Canary Mission on Omar Shakir:

• Omar Shakir [Omar S. Shakir] was deported from Israel in November 2019 for promoting anti-Israel boycotts while serving as the Israel and Palestine Country Director for Human Rights Watch (HRW).Shakir has defended terrorists, whitewashed violent protests and demonized Israel.Shakir was the 2011-2012 co-president of Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER), a forerunner to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Stanford University (Stanford). As an alumnus, Shakir has defended SJP and has been a featured speaker at SJP events.

It would not be right for CAIR’s to leave out of its report the pro-Hamas member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib:

An event with Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) at Arizona State University was reportedly canceled in November 2023 due to “procedural reasons.” In a statement posted to their Instagram, Students for Justice in Palestine argued that “ASU cannot impose requirements on the event not imposed on other ASU groups or faculty when they sponsor a lecture.””

Rashida Tlaib is a good example of Hamas in Congress.

In a later statement, Emory University President Gregory L. Fenves reportedly admitted that the university’s earlier claim that protesters were not affiliated with the school was “not fully accurate.”

Fox5 Atlanta reported: “In total, officials say 20 out of the 28 people arrested were “Emory community members.”

Only 30% were outside agitators. It is very telling that CAIR has no regard for the large presence of agitators in the campus protests.

A civil rights complaint later filed with the U.S. Department of Education reportedly claimed that the university police department published the home addresses of the students following their arrests, which “they refused to take down even after the doxing and the shooting of three Palestinian students in nearby Burlington, Vermont.”

Jason Eaton did not shoot the students in Vermont because they were Palestinians. In fact, he was a supporter of Hamas on social media, and has a history of mental illness. To this day, he still has not been charged with a hate crime.

In November 2023, 20 members of “Jews for Ceasefire Now,” a student group at Brown University, were arrested after launching a peaceful sit-in in a university building to call on the university to divest from “companies that enable war crimes in Gaza.” The students were reportedly held in cells for multiple hours by Providence police and charged with trespassing. In a letter, more than 200 faculty members and 60 staff members condemned the decision to have students arrested and argued that “freedom of speech… includes the right to protest and perform civil disobedience.” The charges were reportedly dropped following the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vermont”

Jason Eaton has nothing to do with this. Why keep bringing him up? Is this part of an effort to spread misinformation on CAIR’s part?

In April 2024, Columbia University was reportedly “aided by ‘an outside firm led by experienced former law enforcement investigators’” to investigate students for an unauthorized event. Students claim that a private investigator had visited a Palestinian student’s home and rattled “the doorknob as if trying to break in.” Students also report that investigators “demanded to see the private text messages of students in order to ‘comply’ with the investigation.” At least four students were reportedly suspended indefinitely and evicted from university housing.”

The students were suspended for refusing to cooperate with the university’s investigation into the “Resistance 101” event:

A student group at Columbia University hosted an event on Sunday called “Resistance 101,” in which a series of speakers, some of whom have direct ties to terrorism and have been banned from entering the European Union, praised Hamas for its October 7 attack on Israel and explicitly endorsed terrorism as a means to win back “every inch of Palestine.”

CAIR’s recommendations include:

Stop responding to nonviolent protesters with increased policing, which jeopardizes the safety of students, staff, faculty, and other university affiliates. Universities who have engaged in this behavior must apologize and call for law enforcement to drop all pending charges against nonviolent protesters. ”

Reject attempts to frame overwhelmingly peaceful sit-ins organized by diverse groups of college students and often led by Jewish and Palestinian students as hateful or violent.

These are pro-Hamas activities.

…condemning the Israeli government’s policies, which is legitimate political speech, should not be conflated with hate speech in order to silence political views one does not agree with.

So as can be seen, this is not “cherry-picking,” or misrepresentation in any way. CAIR’s report is a clear testament to its affinity with Hamas, as well as the extent of Hamas’ support network in this country. Moreover, we can also clearly see local TV newscasters working to promote this group in America.