The Council on American Islamic Relations is focusing particular attention on the US educational system. This fall, the radical Islamic front group will provide the keynote speaker for Minnesota State University Moorhead, executive director of CAIR-Chicago Ahmed Rehab: Hamas for Hipsters.

His speech will include “a discussion about 9/11.”

Ahmed Rehab has his own “reality.” Born in Cairo, Egypt, Rehab has been inspired greatly by the violent Muslim Brotherhood organization that was established in his birthplace in 1928. He stated as much, when he described – on his now-defunct personal website – the founder of the Brotherhood, Hassan Al Banna, as a “Contemporary Muslim Individual who influenced me” and when he labeled Brotherhood author and philosopher, Sayyid Qutb, his “Favorite Modern Personality.” This was, of course, the same Muslim Brotherhood that spawned Hamas 60 years later, in 1987.

In keeping with the anti-Semitic attitudes of the Brotherhood and its offspring, Rehab has attacked Jews with standard Jewish hate libels. Concerning such subjects as the Holocaust, he has written that he believes there is a “Jewish control over the media” and that “the history of the Jewish film producers in particular have shown that they predate on weak minorities by default.”

CAIR-Chicago’s website states that Rehab was an “activist in the field of interfaith collaboration” and that he “is a firm believer in the need to reach out and build bridges.” Rehab pulled his website from the internet this year. Are we to believe that Mr. Rehab has changed his views so dramatically over the course of the last few months?

Ahmed Rehab was also the one to break the story – through this author – that CAIR’s parent organization, the IAP, was no longer in existence. The group had been found liable for the murder of an American boy, David Boim, during a Hamas terror operation is Israel. The group was also based in Chicago, Rehab’s hometown. Furthermore, Rehab interviewed IAP President (and co-founder of CAIR) Rafiq Jaber, shortly before the IAP’s dissolution. Question: How close was Rehab to the IAP – one of three American organizations to be founded by the number two leader in Hamas today, Mousa Abu Marzook – that he knew of the group’s closure before anyone else?

All of the above are reasons why students and faculty at Minnesota State University Moorhead should have major concerns about allowing this individual to speak at its institution. Given CAIR’s terrorist ties, this event should never have been conceived in the first place. No matter what the CAIR-Chicago website looks like or what Rehab says – no matter how they dress up their words and imagery – Hamas masquerading in trendy garb is still Hamas.