WASHINGTON, 12 January 2007 — Sen. Barbara Boxer has withdrawn an award honoring a member of a Muslim advocacy group after criticism that the group he represents — the Council on American-Islamic Relations — holds extremist views and has ties to international terrorist organizations.
“I’m saying the four words that every elected official hates to say: ‘I made a mistake,’” the California Democrat told reporters. “I hope they won’t believe that I did this to hurt the Muslim community.... We just have to be more careful when we reach out.”
CAIR has responded to Boxer’s snub by demanding a meeting with the senator — an option Boxer said she would welcome.
The senator’s office rescinded a “certificate of achievement” to Basim Elkarra, head of CAIR’s Sacramento office. The rare public reversal follows charges from right-wing activists that Boxer was courting Muslim extremists by associating with the group.
CAIR’S Executive Director Nihad Awad said the organization did not support terrorism and was being misrepresented because of the actions of a couple of former officials.
“Anyone who doubts where we stand on the issue of terrorism does not understand Islam, the Muslim community or CAIR,” said Awad.
Elkarra, said the award reflected his group’s bridge-building efforts with Christians, Jews, minority groups and the FBI.
But Boxer’s communication’s director, Natalie Ravitz, said that former members of the council had been sentenced to prison and that CAIR had refused to label Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.
Awad told the Sacramento Bee newspaper that the group condemns all attacks on civilians and it is unfair to hold the entire organization responsible for the actions of individuals.
CAIR’s officials say they and other Muslim organizations have been targets of an ongoing, and sometimes effective, campaign to silence and marginalize American Muslim voices.
“There is a market for Islamophobia right now,” said Hussam Ayloush, head of the council’s Southern California office. “It’s the same group of right-wing extremists who are interconnected and feed off each other and keep recycling the same allegations.”
The controversy started when Joe Kaufman, a Florida-based activist and longtime critic of the group, posted an online article attacking the award to Elkarra. Kaufman, who runs a website called CAIRwatch.com, has long contended that the council actively encourages and supports groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah — both of which are on the US government’s terrorism watch lists.
“We believe this organization should be shut down and that no elected leaders should have anything to do with them,” Kaufman said.
It is criticism of Israel, CAIR officials say, is what’s really fueling the campaign against their group. Nothing short of endorsing Israeli policy, they say, will spare them from allegations of extremism.
“The minute we criticize Israel, then we become a non-moderate group,” Ayloush said. “You become public enemy No. 1.”
Kaufman, who regularly contributes to the influential website frontpagemag.com, denies assertions that he’s seeking to defame all Muslim groups. But he also said that none of the major American Muslim organizations qualify as moderates in his view.
In a recent editorial entitled: “Islamophobes Mislead Senator Boxer,” Parvez Ahmed wrote that Kaufman is “an anti-Muslim extremist in Florida who has a long history of seeking to marginalize the Muslim community in that state.
“Kaufman has in the past promoted terrorist organizations such as Kach and Kahane Chai on his website. In an article published on the forum of the radical Jewish Defense League in Florida, Kaufman [has] praised the Kahane movement and its founder Mier Kahane,” notes Ahmed, the board chairman of CAIR.
“The senator said she also relied on information from Steven Emerson, a ‘terrorism expert’ with a history of defamatory attacks on CAIR almost since its founding in 1994. Emerson was the commentator who first blamed Muslims for the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma,” said Ahmed.
And several published Op/Ed pieces in the Sacramento Bee have also come out in defense of CAIR. Most noteworthy was one by Walter Ballin, of Chico, California:
“As a Jewish American and a supporter of Sen. Barbara Boxer, I say that it was wrong for her to withdraw the award that she previously gave to CAIR, which works to build bridges between Christians, Muslims, Jews and people of color...
“I doubt that Boxer even believes in her decision to withdraw the award. The problem is that the Israel lobby, consisting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other organizations, has far too much influence on American policy in the Middle East. This policy of giving unconditional support to Israel is detrimental to the security of our country,” wrote Ballin.
