Neil Munro at The Daily Caller reported Friday that “Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi headlined a high-dollar fundraiser in May that was attended by U.S.-based Islamist groups and individuals linked by the U.S. government to the Hamas jihad group and to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood movement. The donors at the undisclosed May 16 event included Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, according to data provided by the nonpartisan Investigative Project on Terrorism.”
For Pelosi to appear at a fundraiser with Nihad Awad is as revolting, and should be as newsworthy, as if she had appeared at a fundraiser with David Duke or Bull Connor. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.
With a rap sheet like that, every self-respecting politician on both sides of the aisle should shun CAIR. Yet the political Left is so corrupt and willfully blind about the threat of the global jihad and Islamic supremacism that it is unlikely Pelosi hesitated even for a moment to appear at the fundraiser. And if she did, her suspicions would likely have been assuaged by the fact that, from her perspective, Awad and Hamas-linked CAIR had all the right enemies: “right-wing extremists,” Christians, Zionists, even Christian Zionists. The mainstream media likewise treat this Hamas-tainted group as if it were the respectable civil rights organization it portrays itself to be in its propaganda – and since they also portray Pelosi as if she were a political figure worthy of respect, it is not surprising that she would subscribe to the same view of CAIR that they have.
And Pelosi is by no means alone among Democrats in her dalliances with Hamas-linked CAIR. As long ago as 2006, the close relationship between Keith Ellison, who in 2007 became the nation’s first Muslim congressman (D-MN), and Awad was a matter of public record. Awad, who notoriously said in 1994 that he was “in support of the Hamas movement,” spoke at fundraisers for Ellison, raising considerable sums for his first congressional race. According to investigative journalist Patrick Poole, Ellison has appeared frequently at CAIR events since then. Poole also explained that “according to Justice Department, Awad is a longtime Hamas operative. Multiple statements made by federal prosecutors identify Awad as one of the attendees at a 1993 meeting of US Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Committee leaders in Philadelphia that was wiretapped by the FBI under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant. The topic of discussion during that 1993 meeting was how to help Hamas by working in the U.S. to help sabotage the Oslo Peace Accords.” But none of that fazed Ellison, or Pelosi.
Nonetheless, there is one small hopeful sign that even a figure as thoroughly compromised as Nancy Pelosi realizes that there is something not quite kosher about fundraising with Nihad Awad: the fact that the event was secret, held back in May, and only coming to light now. Apparently even the most politically correct liberal Democrats realize that collaborating too publicly with as unsavory a group as Hamas-linked CAIR could be, if not political suicide for Leftists, then at least liable to lead to a firestorm that they would rather not have to endure.
This phenomenon is akin to Barack Obama posing as a convinced and enthusiastic supporter of Israel during his third debate with Mitt Romney, as outrageous as his stance was after nearly four years of contempt for our only reliable ally in the Middle East. Leftists clearly know that they can only hang on to power by concealing their most egregious collaborations with and capitulations to the forces of the jihad, whether violent or stealthy.
This is not a hopeful sign unless the defenders of freedom against that jihad can learn to capitalize upon it, which so far they have not been able to do. But it does at least indicate that, even in these dark days, all is not lost, not yet, and not by a longshot.
