Daniel Pipes uncovers a ridiculously blatant pattern of exaggeration, distortion, and dishonesty in CAIR’s Hate Crimes Nonsense.

Of twenty “anti-Muslim hate crimes” in 2004 that CAIR describes, at least six are invalid – and further research could likely find problems with the other fourteen instances.

Nor is this the first unreliable CAIR report; earlier ones were just as bad. Speaking about the 1996 CAIR report, terrorism expert Steven Emerson noted in congressional testimony that “a large proportion of the complaints have been found to be fabricated, manufactured, distorted or outside standard definitions of hate crimes.” The 1996 report included the arrest of Musa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader, and the trial of Omar Abdul-Rahman, the blind sheikh and ringleader of the foiled “Day of Terror” plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

Even more absurdly, CAIR classified as an American hate crime the shooting of Ahmed Hamida in Jerusalem on February 26, 1996, as he fled after driving his car into a crowd of Israeli civilians, killing one and injuring twenty-three others. One wonders why the killing of a terrorist in Israel would be classified as an American issue; more of CAIR’s sloppiness?

Indeed, very little of what CAIR asserts checks out. CAIR’s significant inaccuracy has potentially great consequence. Note what happened after Newsweek reported in its May 9, 2005, issue that the Koran had been desecrated at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo, Cuba. Protests raged in the Muslim world, including demonstrations that turned violent in Afghanistan and killed at least sixteen people. Newsweek eventually retracted the story, but a bit late. Had things turned out otherwise, CAIR’s erroneous report could have provoked similar violence.

The staff at CAIR does not divulge to us its reasons for not retracting at least the provably false incidents embedded in its inflated “hate” figures, but we can think of two reasons: to scare its constituency, thereby raising more money; and to put the American public on the defensive, thereby winning more privileges for Islam, such as the 2000 U.S. Senate resolution inveighing against the “discrimination and harassment” suffered by the American Muslim community.