The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) uses Press TV, the biased English-language channel run by the Iranian government, as a platform to peddle its favored meme of “Islamophobia” in the U.S. One clip spotlighted last month by the Investigative Project (IPT) features CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper lamenting “a cottage industry of Muslim bashers,” “Islamophobic groups,” and “right-wing politicians and commentators pushing anti-Muslim sentiment in our society.” However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Of the Press TV segments posted on CAIR’s YouTube page since July 1, 2010 — roughly a year ago — 28 include interviews of CAIR officials conducted by the network’s journalists. More often than not, those CAIR figures promoted the notion that life in America is a nightmare for Muslims. A few choice quotes from the Press TV clips, in reverse chronological order:

• Cyrus McGoldrick, CAIR-NY: “Muslims have become an acceptable target for a lot of America, of the bigotry and hate that, I think, a lot of people already hold in their hearts.”
• Ibrahim Hooper: “American Muslims pretty well assume now if they go to a mosque, they’re going to be either under surveillance or going to be in the hearing radius of some agent provocateur.”
• Nihad Awad, CAIR executive director: “The ones who are training the government … about Islam and the Muslim community in the counterterrorism area are the ones who see Islam as the enemy and the Muslim community as the enemy in the United States.”
• Ibrahim Hooper: “It should be the FBI’s role to stop terror attacks and terror plots. It shouldn’t be their role to manufacture terror plots. … We’ve seen too many cases where the FBI actually instigates the alleged plot.”
• Corey Saylor, CAIR legislative director: “What’s really disconcerting is how brazen certain elements of our country have become in attacking Muslims.”

Remarks of a similar tone can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

CAIR’s YouTube page does not even contain the complete set of its officials’ appearances on Press TV. The IPT-highlighted Hooper interview is not there. Also missing is a 2010 panel discussion during which he stated, “The same arguments that are used to target the American Muslim community and the European Muslim community are those types of arguments that were used by the Nazis in pre-war Germany.” Surely more clips await discovery and dissection.

The trend of CAIR spewing Islamist propaganda on the Iranian regime’s media mouthpiece is downright shameful — “the equivalent of Ted Kennedy going on Soviet TV to bash American capitalists during the Cold War,” in the words of one blogger. Of course, if CAIR’s leaders were capable of shame, they would not be working for CAIR in the first place.

 

Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.

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