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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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July 30, 2019
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CAIR
Slams Pro-Israel Saudi Blogger
by John Rossomando
IPT News
July 30, 2019
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Saudi Arabian writer
Mohammed Saud last week in Jerusalem.
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The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) markets itself as a
civil rights group and claims that it is an American organization focused
on the interests of American Muslims.
"As a civil rights organization, we're not here in the business of
being dragged into the Middle East affairs and the conflicts in the Middle
East. We are an American organization," CAIR-LA Executive Director
Hussam Ayloush insisted in 2013.
As we've pointed
out, that was a convenient way for Ayloush to dodge a question about
whether CAIR denounces Hamas as a terrorist organization. (It doesn't).
CAIR, in fact, often thrusts itself into "Middle East affairs and the
conflicts in the Middle East" when it can bash Israel.
Last week's visit to the Jewish state by pro-Israel Saudi blogger Mohammed Saud proved too tempting
for CAIR to ignore. Saud was among a delegation of six Arab journalists who
met with Knesset members and diplomats in Jerusalem at the invitation of
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Palestinians kicked Saud out of the al-Aqsa Mosque, calling him "trash, traitor Zionist" and
spitting on him. Others hurled chairs at him as he walked through the narrow
streets of East Jerusalem's Old City.
"Saudi Arabia's vicious troll army has a new target:
Palestinians," CAIR wrote
Sunday on its Facebook page, referring to online "trolls" who
engage in deliberately provocative acts. "When Saudi Arabia's most
fanatical pro-Israel influencer was kicked out of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa
mosque this week, it was a gift for the kingdom's anti-Palestinian trolls,
tasked with pushing normalization with Israel at all costs."
CAIR linked to an article on its Facebook and Twitter pages written by pro-Hamas columnist Muhammad Shehada – who posted a selfie with
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2014 – that condemned Saud for his visit to
Israel.
Some people commenting
on CAIR's Facebook post called Saud's visit "evil," and one
poster said "these Arabs are no different from those
zionazis."
In his Haaretz op-ed, Shehada called Saud's visit a
"love-fest with Israel to demonize Palestinians." He noted that
the visit coincided with Israel's demolition of 70 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem
and that Saudi Arabia was silent. He complained about Saudi Arabia's
"severe repression of civil liberties," pointing to its control
over internal dissent while allowing criticism of the Palestinians and the
arrests of Saudis opposed to normalization with Israel.
Shehada also has kept silent about human rights abuses. Amnesty
International reported last year that Hamas authorities in Gaza
cracked down on peaceful demonstrators, beating them with batons and that
Hamas security forces used torture with "impunity." In March,
Amnesty International complained about an "alarming" crackdown on
press freedom and the activities of human rights activists concerned with
how Hamas runs Gaza.
"The Saudi regime seems desperate to systematically sow the
conviction that there's a sudden, yet mainstream, popular pro-normalization
current in the kingdom. That current is apparently infatuated with Israel,
while pro-Palestinian solidarity has abruptly diminished to zero. It's the
'true' voice of the people, not the regime, and they've grown tired and
weary of the Israel-Palestine conflict," Shehada wrote.
He claimed that visit only served to troll the
Palestinians and provoke a reaction aimed at showing them in a bad light
and closed warning Israel that cozying up with Saudi Arabia could
exacerbate anti-Israeli sentiment across the Middle East.
What Saud's visit has to do with Muslim civil rights in America is far
from clear. But by posting about it, CAIR certainly inflames anti-Israel
passions. It will do that voluntarily, but says it doesn't want to be
"dragged" into honestly answering questions about Hamas.
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