ANDREW C. McCARTHY ON "CAIR" - COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS

In an article subtitleld, "The group opposes a law curtailing Jew hatred," McCarthy sets the record straight on CAIR saying:

[...] CAIR is the Muslim Brotherhood bullhorn created to cheerlead for sharia, for Hamas, and for sundry other jihadists — all under the guise of “civil rights.” In unison with its “social justice” collaborators on the left, CAIR is most often found campaigning against “Islamophobia.” This is a term strategically created by the Brotherhood to slur as “defamation” or “incitement” (collectively, “hate speech”) any criticism of Islamic supremacism. That includes the ideology’s undeniable roots in Muslim scripture; its vow to destroy the West from within; and its promotion of terrorism against legitimate sovereign authority, spun as “resistance” against “occupation.”

It is farce. CAIR has no real interest in hate speech per se. Indeed, it has no real interest in civil rights — no proponent of sharia could. Its sole actual imperative is Islamic supremacism: promoting any cause that increases Islamic influence and protesting any effort either to reduce Islamic influence or to subject Islamic-supremacist doctrine to scrutiny. Consequently, CAIR’s precious fretting over hate speech extends only so far as Islam is advanced or imperiled.

The same is true of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — the supranational caliphate in the making — whose top goal at the moment is suppression of speech about Islam. Like its CAIR confederates, the OIC pretends to be a champion of universal “human rights.” Thus it feigns opposition to defamation or incitement against what it calls “religion.” But we know this is fraudulent — or at least we would know if examination of Islamist ideology were not so adamantly discouraged. It is a plain, irrefutable fact that Islamic countries repress the practice of other religions. Indeed, the practice of religions other than Islam is illegal in Saudi Arabia, the OIC’s de facto leader. Patently, it is not “religion” that the OIC cares about; it is Islam. “Religion” is invoked as a smokescreen, enabling these Islamist activists to pose as guardians of civil rights rather than the vanguard of Islamic supremacism.

All of this is worth sorting out because, unexpectedly, we have a teachable moment. The state of California has adopted a resolution decreeing that “no public resources will be allowed to be used for any anti-Semitic or any intolerant agitation.”

It is right up the Islamist alley — or it would be if, as CAIR and the OIC maintain, their concern is hate speech against “religion.” Yet CAIR has come out against the resolution. As Robert Spencer notes, CAIR’s Golden State chapter has issued a statement pleading with the legislature to reconsider. The resolution, according to the Islamists, “stifles robust political debate on university campuses.” Yes, with a curb on Jew hatred at issue, the guys who want to put you in jail for noticing that violent jihadists accurately quote Muslim scripture are suddenly worried that the marketplace of ideas may be shuttered! Islamic supremacists have to take this position. To be sure, it flies in the face of their long-running defamation scam. But the code is broken once we decipher that CAIR’s reverence is for sharia — that these Islamists reject a universal, rather than a sharia-dictated, construction of civil rights. We then realize it makes perfect sense that Islamists would oppose critical examination of Islam but favor incitement against Jews. . . . 

— Andrew C. McCarthy is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.