CAIR in a Nutshell

From Powerline:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR was founded by three leaders of a front for the terrorist organization Hamas, in June of 1994. Since its creation:

*Four of CAIR’s officials have been charged with terrorist activities, in relation to Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Two of those officials are behind bars in the United States; the other two have been deported. One of them, Ghassan Elashi, was just sentenced, this past Thursday, to seven years in prison. Another CAIR official was listed by the U.S. Attorney’s office as a potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

*CAIR has solicited money for two terrorist “charities” which were shut down shortly after the attacks on 9/11 for raising millions of dollars for Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Leaders of both these organizations were representatives of CAIR.

*CAIR has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit put forward by the family of the former Chief of the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Section, John P. O’Neill, for his murder during the 9/11 attacks.

*CAIR’s parent organization, the Islamic Association for Palestine, in 2005, was shut down after it was found liable for the murder of an American boy, David Boim, during a Hamas terror operation in Israel.

After hearing all of this, one could easily ask the question, “Why would this organization still exist?” It’s a good question – one that I have no real answer for.

Even more to the point, why would anybody listen to CAIR when they come out with press releases on the issues of the day? I used to think, well, maybe there are sincere people in the organization, maybe their beginnings were suspect but there are some real "moderate" Muslims in the group now. I wanted to believe. Forget that. If you're looking for more information on CAIR check out CAIR Watch. Any thoughts that CAIR represents the voices of reasonable people will go right out the window.