Founder Of Texas Chapter Of Council on American Islamic Relations - CAIR - Ghassan Elashi's Sentencing Proves Group's Terror Ties
Flush with millions of dollars of Saudi funding and emboldened by the election of their candidate, Minneapolis Wahhabist Muslim convert Keith Ellison to Congress, the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] has been moving ever more aggressively to wage cultural jihad against American society.
CAIR's goal?
Nothing less than the replacement of the U.S. Constitution with sharia - Islamic law.
CAIR's MO?
Manipulation of events [often creating them out of whole cloth, expressly for that purpose] employing a generally accommodative media to establish the impression that Islamophobia is pervasive in America, thus justifying the organization's existence as a group uniquely qualified to deal with such "discrimination."
CAIR then brings to bear its not inconsiderable legal assault team to brow-beat and intimidate private citizens, civic institutions as well as governmental entities into adopting a "speak, see or hear no evil," attitude to the organization's radical Muslim agenda at the risk of being labeled anti-Muslim bigots.
This is a clever and effective policy in present day America [itself a battlefield in its own distinct but related internal culture war pitting progressive secularism against traditional values] where critical thinking skills have been over-run by an intellectually deficient, kumbaya form of multiculturalism, where submission to the supporters of terror [dhimmitude] is deemed preferable to being labeled Muslim haters.
Under this template CAIR has become the defacto spokesman for North American Islam.
This has happened despite the tremendous discontinuity between CAIR's make-nice public pronouncements and the malevolence that lurks at its heart.
While it was almost completely ignored by the media the October 13 sentencing of Ghassan Elashi on 21 charges of terrorism, should represent a huge crack in CAIR's public persona, if only for the simple reason that Elashi was the founder of the Texas Chapter of CAIR, though his ties to terror go far beyond that.
Ghassan Elashi's 6 year sentence is the least of his legal worries right now because he is scheduled to go on trial, along with seven co-defendants again on July 16, 2007 before U.S. Chief District Judge A. Joe Fish [Texas] in a much more serious terror case, that of U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
The Holy Land case is of great importance in that Ghassan Elashi is being charged with engaging in a conspiracy in which the now defunct [shut down by the Treasury Department's anti-terror funding investigation, "Operation Greenquest"] faux charity he created, the Holy Land Foundation was allegedly being used to fund Palestinian terrorism.
The Infocom prosecution is instructive as a case-book study in terror incorporated.
Infocom was a Texas based company, established in 1992 which engaged in the selling of computer systems, networking, telecommunications and internet services primarily to customers in the Middle East.
The company specialized in providing web hosting services to Islamist organizations such al-Jazeera but had a very large radical Muslim clientele here in the United States which included the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR], the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], the Islamic Association for Palestine [IAP] and the American Muslim Society [AMS].
The company was owned and operated by Ghassan Elashi [VP Marketing] and his four brothers - Bayan - CEO, Basman - logistics manager, Hazim - manager of personal computer systems and Ishan [aka "Sammy"] - systems consultant.
The Elashi brothers and many members of their immediate family were named in the indictment that centered on them selling restricted products to federally designated terrorist entities as well as individual terrorists, specifically Mousa Abu Marzook.
Marzook is a high ranking director of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. He currently residing in Syria and his official title is Deputy Chief of Hamas' Political Bureau. Marzook is married to one of the Elashi brother's cousins, Nadia so the relationship between the Elashis and Hamas is far more than commercial, its familial.
Marzook was deported to Jordan from the United States in 1997 because of his terrorist ties. Israel had originally asked to have him deported for purposes of prosecution, but due to a combination of threats, subtle and not so subtle by Hamas it was decided that Jordan would be less problematic for all concerned.
Marzook is the key to understanding Elashi and by extension, CAIR.
In 1981 Marzook founded the Islamic Association for Palestine [IAP] in Texas. The purpose of the organization was to act as a public relations clearinghouse for Hamas. The IAP's corporate officers included Nihad Awad as President and Omar Ahmad as Press Attaché. The IAP also employed Ibrahim Hooper.
When it became obvious that IAP's mission had been compromised because of its close linkage to Hamas, CAIR entered the picture - a more media friendly kinder-gentler IAP, albeit with the same mission - so it is by no means coincidental that all three of IAP kingpins now hold equally important leadership roles in CAIR - actually to be precise, they are CAIR's founders - Nihad Awad is currently the Executive Director of CAIR, Omar Ahmad is Chairman of CAIR's Board of Directors and Ibrahim Hooper is CAIR's spokesman.
CAIR was conceived as a shill for Hamas - even before it officially existed as a legal entity.
Noting the sinister ties CAIR has to Hamas, counter-terrorism expert Matthew Epstein testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism in 2003:
"Future CAIR leadership was present at the infamous "1993 Philadelphia meeting" which FBI documents describe as "a meeting in the United States among senior leaders of HAMAS, HLFRD [Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development] and IAP." According to FBI documents, the meeting was attended by future CAIR board chairman Omar Yahya Ahmed and future founding board member of the Texas CAIR chapter Ghassan Elashi." - Matthew Epstein/Investigative Project, testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, September 16, 2003. [a href="
http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/CAIRepsteintestimony.pdf">Link to Epstein testimony
The FBI thought this 1993 meeting was so important in understanding Hamas' ties to potential domestic terror that they wiretapped the event and provided the following analysis:
"The overall goal of the meeting was to develop a strategy to defeat the Israeli/Palestinian peace accord, and to continue and improve their [HAMAS] fund-raising and political activities in the United States...The participants decided that for fund-raising purposes, the United States theater was very valuable to them. They stated they could not afford to lose it. In the United States, they could raise funds, propagate their political goals, affect public opinion and influence decision-making of the U.S. Government.
[emphasis added] It was mentioned that the United States provided them with a secure, legal base from which to operate. The democratic environment in the United States allowed them to perform activities that are extremely important to their cause. In discussing financial matters the participants stated a belief that continuation of the Holy War was inevitable.
It was decided that most or almost all of the funds collected in the future should be directed to enhance the Islamic Resistance Movement and to weaken the selfrule government. Holy War efforts should be supported by increasing spending on the injured, the prisoners and their families, and the martyrs and their families."
CAIR was created the following year and organized along the lines discussed during the Philadelphia meeting; establishing the organization as an agent of holy war - jihad - against America.
You have Hamas' Mousa Marzook, Infocom, the Holy Land Foundation and Texas CAIR's Ghassan Elashi and Omar Ahmed, Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper all engaged in furthering the agenda of the Palestinian terror organization Hamas and working in close proximity -ideologically, corporately and physically - to each other.
This establishes a chain of associations that should have proved fatal to CAIR long ago, only the reluctance of the media stands in the way of CAIR crumbling under the weight of its history.
Ghassan Elashi is the fifth, though arguably the most high level CAIR official to run afoul of U.S. terror prosecution, others include:
cont'd
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