WASHINGTON – When the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, demanded the U.S. government denounce Israel for its response to rocket attacks from Hamas, Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity insisted Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, answer one question.
"Is Hamas a terrorist organization?" Hannity asked Munayyer repeatedly.
He refused to answer the question.
"I'm asking a question," Hannity repeated. "Is Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, is that a terrorist organization? That's a yes or no question."
"The United States certainly considers Hamas a terrorist organization; we all know that," he said.
"Is Hamas a terrorist organization? What part of this can't you get through your thick head?" Hannity pressed.
At the end of the exchange, Munayyer asked if he would "get to say anything in this conversation."
Hannity responded, "You had your chance, you didn't say Hamas is a terrorist organization. Goodbye."
Watch the heated exchange below:
CAIR and its Muslim Brotherhood network of organizations would be hard-pressed to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group.
That's because back in 2009, a U.S. federal judge determined that CAIR and Hamas are, for all intents and purposes, one and the same.
According to the federal court ruling, the Washington-based CAIR had been involved in "a conspiracy to support Hamas," a federally designated terrorist group that has murdered at least 17 Americans and injured more than 100 U.S. citizens.
The 20-page order, signed by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis, cites "ample evidence" that CAIR participated in a "criminal conspiracy" led by the Holy Land Foundation, Hamas's main fundraising arm in the U.S. As a result, the judge refused CAIR's request to strike its name from documents listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
"The four pieces of evidence the government relies on do create at least a prima facie case as to CAIR's involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas," Solis wrote in his July 2009 ruling.
The evidence includes documents introduced by the government showing CAIR and its founding chairman Omar Ahmad have operated as key members of Hamas' U.S. wing, known as the "Palestine Committee." In addition, FBI wiretaps and agent testimony have placed both Ahmad and CAIR's acting executive director – Nihad Awad – at a secret meeting in the mid-1990s with Hamas leaders in Philadelphia. Meeting in a hotel room, participants hatched a scheme to disguise payments to Hamas suicide bombers and their families as charity.
"The attendees agreed not to mention the word Hamas but to refer to Hamas as 'Samah,' which is Hamas spelled backwards," Solis said. "The Philadelphia conference essentially laid out the path that the Palestine Committee would take to accomplish its goal of supporting Hamas in the future."
During the meeting – which was organized and led by CAIR founding chairman Ahmad – the Hamas operatives agreed to form CAIR as an outwardly benign front group skilled in media manipulation.
"They did not want to be viewed as being aligned with terrorist groups," he said.
Counterterrorism expert and former FBI special agent John Guandolo affirms that CAIR was indeed created in 1994 by the U.S. branch of Hamas, the “Palestine Committee,” to function as the “political arm” of the terror group.
The government's evidence undermines CAIR's public face as a "civil-rights advocacy organization," while corroborating the findings of the bestselling book "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America." The book, shunned by many in the media, chronicles the undercover investigation of P. David Gaubatz and his son, who interned at CAIR's national headquarters.
CAIR has sued the Gaubatzes for trespassing but has not denied any of the book's explosive findings tying CAIR closer to terrorism.
CAIR maintains it is simply a Muslim-rights group, but the Justice Department says it is a front group not only for Hamas, but for its parent, the radical Muslim Brotherhood – a worldwide jihadist movement that prosecutors say has a secret plan to impose Islamic law on the U.S. CAIR has continued to be invited to air its views as a "Muslim civil rights group" on U.S. media despite the ruling.
CAIR filed suit in 2009 against the Gaubatzes. The Washington, D.C., think tank Center for Security Policy and three of its employees were later added to the suit for their part in commissioning a documentary about CAIR, along with attorney David Yerushalmi and his non-profit group SANE, which campaigns against the advance of Islamic law, or Shariah.
CAIR alleges it suffered damage after the younger Gaubatz, posing as an intern, obtained access to some 12,000 pages of CAIR internal documents under false pretenses and made recordings of officials and employees without consent.
WND has previously reported on CAIR's extensive ties to terrorism and extremism. Although CAIR is a nonprofit organization, it does not disclose complete directories of its staff or advisory boards and even refuses to make its federal tax filings readily available to the public. But a review of federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election Commission records detailing donor occupations reveals that Washington-based CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations.
"Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters," said one FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials.
WND has reported that at least 14 CAIR officials have been indicted or convicted in U.S. terror investigations.