Hilton Hotel to face protests for hosting CAIR event

Imam Siraj Wahhaj

Amid threats by Muslims that have prompted hotels to cancel conferences warning of the encroachment of Islamic law in America, a group called DefendChristians.org is countering with a call to protest the Hilton Hotel in Anaheim, Calif., for hosting the annual fundraising banquet for the Los Angeles-area branch of the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations.

DefendAmerica.org points out that the featured speaker for CAIR-LA’s event Saturday night is Siraj Wahhaj, who was named by the Justice Department as a possible co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six Americans. CAIR itself was named
by the Justice Department as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the Holy
Land Foundation probe in Texas, the largest terrorism-finance case in
U.S. history.

Wahhaj also urges the violent overthrow of the “filthy” U.S. government and the establishment of Islamic law.

The imam testified as a character witness for convicted WTC terrorist mastermind Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as the “blind sheik.”

“CAIR is showing its true colors by aligning with such a notorious anti-American radical,” said Gary Cass of DefendChristians.Org. “We’re shocked that the Hilton Hotel will allow such an event on their property.”

Get your autographed copy of Pamela Geller’s “Stop the Islamization of America” directly from WND.

Cass said his group is inviting “fellow patriots” to gather at 4 p.m. Saturday in front of the Anaheim hotel to “expose the public to Hilton’s association with CAIR and Siraj Wahhaj.”

“Hilton Hotels must hear from thousands of patriots,” said Cass. “Muslims have successfully threatened and pressured other hotels to cancel conferences that tell the truth about Islam. Its time we tell Hilton to stop doing business with CAIR or we will stop doing business with Hilton.”

As WND reported last week, a Nashville hotel canceled its contract to host a conference on radical Islam after management said it had received “veiled threats that there were going to be protests that could easily erupt into violence.” The Preserving Freedom Conference, scheduled for Nov. 11, will now take place at a megachurch in a Nashville suburb, Cornerstone Church.

Meanwhile, a former Democratic state lawmaker in Maryland pressed a hotel in Annapolis to cancel a similar event, charging in an open letter backed by Islamic groups that the speakers include “the nation’s leading Islamophobes.” In addition, WND reported that the Hyatt Place Hotel in Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston, canceled an anti-Shariah event after complaints reportedly by CAIR.

CAIR has sued the co-author of a WND Books expose, “Muslim Mafia,” which uses primary source material to document CAIR’s founding as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Hamas.

Wahhaj also was a featured speaker last month at the annual banquet of CAIR’s national organization along with Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia.

Wahhaj’s presence at CAIR’s 2009 annual banquet prompted an activist group to launch a campaign to urge the hosting hotel, the venue for this year’s event, to cancel. As WND reported, Wahhaj, a regular CAIR fundraiser and a former member of its advisory board, initially was a featured speaker at that banquet but ended up giving only a short fundraising appeal at the banquet.

‘Filthy’ U.S.

Wahhaj is one of many Muslim leaders affiliated with CAIR who have been named or prosecuted in U.S. terrorism-related investigations. 

An imam at Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn, Wahhaj is on record urging a violent overthrow of the “filthy” U.S. government assisted by jihad warriors armed with Uzis.

In a videotaped May 8, 1992, sermon obtained by the authors of “Muslim Mafia” titled “Stand Up for Justice,” Wahhaj makes it clear that, contrary to CAIR’s media guide, he believes jihad means “holy war,” not merely a “struggle to better oneself.”

“If we go to war, brothers and sisters – and one day we will, believe me – that’s why you’re commanded [to fight in] jihad,” the Brooklyn-based Wahhaj says. “When Allah demands us to fight, we’re not stopping and nobody’s stopping us.”

Wahhaj preaches that Islam teaches violent insurrection in “infidel lands” such as America, points out the “Muslim Mafia” co-authors, counterterrorism investigator Gaubatz and “Infiltration” author Paul Sperry.

“Believe me, brothers and sisters, Muslims in America are the most strategic Muslims on Earth,” Wahhaj says in the 1992 sermon, arguing the government can’t drop bombs on warring Muslims in the U.S. without causing collateral damage.

The American government’s “worst nightmare is one day that the Muslims wake these people up in South Central Los Angeles and other inner-city areas,” he says in the video.

Wahhaj exhorts the faithful to go into the “hood and the prisons and convert disenfranchised minorities, and then arm them and train them to carry out an Uzi jihad in the inner cities.”

“We don’t need to arm the people with nine-millimeters and Uzis,” he says. “You need to arm them with righteousness first. And then once you arm them with righteousness first, then you can arm them [with Uzis and other weapons].”

CAIR tells the public in its media guide, however, “There is a common misperception among Westerners that the Quran teaches violence.”

Wahhaj makes it clear, nevertheless, he sees Islam as a uniquely militant religion.

“We don’t have a turn-the-other-cheek philosophy” like the Christians, he says. “Allah has given us permission to fight them” so that “the word of Allah can be uppermost.”

Wahhaj also was recorded telling New Jersey Muslims in 1992 that if only Muslims were more clever politically, they could take over the U.S. and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate, according to Islam and Middle East expert Daniel Pipes.

“If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir and give allegiance to him,” Wahhaj was quoted as saying. “[T]ake my word, if 6 to 8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”

Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson obtained a video of a Wahhaj speech in Toronto Sept. 28, 1991, titled “The Afghanistan Jihad” in which the imam declared:

Those who struggle for Allah, it doesn’t matter what kind of weapons, I’m telling you it doesn’t matter! You don’t need nuclear weapons or even guns! If you have faith in Allah and a knife! If Allah wants you to win, you will win! Because Allah is the only one who fights. And when his hand is over your hand. whoever is at war against my friends, I declare war on them.

Citing Emerson, “Muslim Media” notes Wahhaj once likened the U.S. to a trash bin and prayed it would “crumble” and be replaced by Islam.

“You know what this country is? It’s a garbage can,” Wahhaj said. “It’s filthy.”

The CAIR legal attack on WND’s author is far from over. WND needs your help in supporting the defense of “Muslim Mafia” co-author P. David Gaubatz, as well as his investigator son Chris, against CAIR’s lawsuit. The book’s revelations have led to formal congressional demands for three different federal investigations of CAIR. In the meantime, however, someone has to defend these two courageous investigators who have, at great personal risk, revealed so much about this dangerous group. Although WND has procured the best First Amendment attorneys in the country for their defense, we can’t do it without your help. Please donate to WND’s Legal Defense Fund now.