The executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spoke on a Hamas-linked television channel, telling Arabic-speaking viewers that right-wing ideologues are fueling violence against Muslim Americans. It's not the first time that a CAIR official has hyped American Islamophobia to hostile foreign media sources.
According to a summary issued by the government's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, CAIR's Executive Director Nihad Awad appeared via telephone with the head of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood group, the Islamic Action Front, and others for a July 23 broadcast of Hamas-linked Al-Quds TV.
Discussing the terrorist attack in Norway and right-wing extremism, Awad said American hostility towards Muslims was bound to turn into violence. The Norway attack marked the beginning of a wave of violence against Muslims and left-wingers in the West, he said. Right-wing media in the West is living in a state of self-denial by claiming Muslims are dangerous and that their incitement isn't fanning violent hate.
As a consequence, Awad said his organization asked President Obama to stop U.S. intelligence agencies from allowing right-wing ideologues to "train" political and military leaders about Islam.
On the same program, a Hamas spokesman was cited blaming Anders Breivik's attack on an "ongoing instigation of the Zionist enemy and Zionist lobby against the Palestinian people" and their allies.
Ali Abu al-Sukkar, the head of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood Shura Council, also spoke by phone about the Zionist lobby's role in militarization and instigation against Muslims. To al-Sukkar, violence against Muslims in the West should be considered a part of Western attacks on Islamic countries, and thus a clash of civilizations. It is also part of the Western double standard of blaming Islam for attacks by Muslims but not Christianity for Christian extremists.
It is not the first time a senior CAIR official appeared on hostile foreign media channels to criticize American policy and attitudes. "It's really a disturbing situation where, primarily right-wing extremists are exploiting and promoting anti-Muslim sentiment for their own political gain," spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told Iran's state-run PressTV on June 6th. "And I think we're going to see more and more of it leading up to the 2012 elections." Hooper added that anti-Muslim sentiment is raging in America.
He made similar comments to PressTV on Wednesday.