At the Investigative Project on Terrorism: CAIR Exec’s Telling Interview.

In a recent interview with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islam Online website, and reported by the BBC Middle East Monitoring Service, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR), Executive Director Nihad Awad reflected on “interfaith dialogue,” the Bush administration, the upcoming presidential election, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Asked about the prospect of a new U.S. president, and whether American Muslims regret support for George W. Bush in 2000, Awad’s answer offers a disturbing window into his soul.

“We should not blame the Muslims for taking part in the political process, and we should not blame the United States alone for the 11 September 2001 attacks, but we should also blame the perpetrators.” (Emphasis added)

How noble.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone to see Awad give an interview with a Brotherhood-linked website. After all, the Brotherhood’s deputy chief, Mohammed Habib, recently acknowledged in an interview that there is a relationship between his group and CAIR. That’s what federal prosecutors in the Hamas financing case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) have said for more than a year, naming CAIR as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee.” That is less than thinly-veiled code for Hamas. Awad’s former employer, the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), was also named in the same document as part of the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, and has been named by two federal judges as a Hamas front group.

Incidentally, prosecutors reiterated CAIR’s role in the conspiracy last week, introducing their Second Supplemental Trial Brief for the upcoming case, which stated:

“Along with the HLF, whose function was to raise funds on behalf of Hamas, the Palestine Committee oversaw the Islamic Association for Palestine (’IAP’), the United Association for Studies & Research (’UASR’) and, later on, the Council on American Islamic Relations (’CAIR’).”

The prosecution sees CAIR as a sister-organization to the chief financial front group for Hamas in the U.S., and not without reason. In the days after the horrific 9/11 terror attacks, CAIR used its website to solicit funds for HLF, sending visitors who clicked on a button which read, “Donate to the NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund,” to the HLF website. In other words, CAIR used the occasion of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil to direct its constituents to send money to a Hamas-front group.