But will CAIR Care?

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 4:29 pm by Neal

Scott at Powerline alerts us that today “CAIR holds a panel discussion with David Keene and Parvez Ahmed on ‘Islamophobia’ at the National Press Club in Washington” in his post, A Bad CAIR Day. Among Keene’s excellent points is an analogy of CAIR’s behavior to that of the “Italian-American Anti-Defamation League” in the 1970’s, and how that group lost credibility by seeming to cover for criminals and trying to “define the mafia out of existence.” If CAIR truly wants to position itself as a human rights organization, it would do well to heed Keene’s advice.

Scott has now updated the post to include the full text of David Keene’s remarks. Another highly recommended read.

In the past, CAIR has attacked as ant-Muslim [sic] such disparate groups and organizations as The New Republic, US News & World Report, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Tampa Tribune and even Al Gore and our Weekly Reader. The breadth of CAIR’s attacks would seem to indicate that there is a widespread, deep bi-partisan conspiracy against Muslims in this country or CAIR is guilty over-reaching.

I would suggest that the latter is the case.

In a free society, individuals must expect to be treated as individuals rather than as members of favored or disfavored groups. No free society has ever achieved this completely, but those desiring to benefit from living in such a society have to realize that in asking fairness for oneself, one has to grant fairness to others.

Thus, the Muslim seeking respect for his or her views must respect the views of others. It is not enough to condemn those non-Muslims who mischaracterize Islam or unfairly attack Muslim’s as a group. It requires one to disassociate oneself form those who rightly or wrongly speak as Muslims to condemn other religions or unfairly attack other groups.

The Muslim who attacks Jews and Christians as “pigs” or “crusaders” is as responsible for the breakdown in civility in the modern world as the non-Muslim who implies that all Muslims harbor a desire to kill a Christian or Jew.

If CAIR wants respect as representing the best of Islam to the west, it must shun the role of enabler by siding with the enemies of terror and intolerance wherever they are found. The Washington Post reported that CAIR in one of its annual reports on “hate crimes” directed against Muslims listed the US apprehension and imprisonment of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman as evidence of US bias against Muslims.

The question we have to ask is whether Rahman was acting in furtherance of legitimate Islamic beliefs in plotting to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 or was he not…if he was, we all have a problem; if he wasn’t why would arresting him be an anti-Muslim act?

Read all of Keene’s statement here.

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