The Massachusetts branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today encouraged its supporters to attend a fundraiser for a CAIR Connecticut branch, in order “to restart their chapter.”
Will CAIR-CT be any less extreme than its Massachusetts neighbour?
It seems unlikely. The keynote speaker at CAIR-CT’s fundraiser is Linda Sarsour, a prominent Palestinian-American Muslim activist and apologist for Saudi misogyny. One Brooklyn newspaper has reported that Sarsour’s Palestinian relatives have “been arrested for supporting the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas.”
Sarsour is an enthusiastic conspiracy theorist, having claimed that the New York Police Department “manufacture” terror plots; and that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the ‘underwear bomber’, was supposedly a “CIA” operative.
Underwear bomber was the #CIA all along. Why did I already know that?! Shame on us – scaring the American people.
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) May 9, 2012
The executive director of CAIR-CT is Mongi Dhaouadi, a Tunisian-American and long-time CAIR official. Dhaouadi’s social media is littered with extremist rhetoric.
Dhaouadi has condemned Muslims for visiting Israel for the purpose of interfaith dialogue.
Dhaouadi condemns the Australian Jewish businessman, Rupert Murdoch, as an “extreme right wing Israeli zionist”, and urges Tunisians to boycott a Murdoch-owned television station.
Further, Dhaouadi claims that “the actions of the Apartheid Israel” are responsible for anti-semitism, and has urged Palestinian “unity” with Hamas, the anti-Semitic terrorist organization in Gaza, while condemning Muslims who oppose the group.