The man rep­re­sents a group some con­tend is extrem­ist. Sup­port­ers say right-wingers are just try­ing to silence Amer­i­can Muslims.

by Ashraf Khalil
LOS ANGELES TIMES

Sen. Bar­bara Boxer has rescinded an award her office gave to a Sacra­mento Islamic activist after crit­i­cism that the group he rep­re­sents — the Coun­cil on American-Islamic Rela­tions — holds extrem­ist views and has ties to inter­na­tional ter­ror­ist organizations.

“I’m say­ing the four words that every elected offi­cial hates to say: ‘I made a mis­take,’ ” the Cal­i­for­nia Demo­c­rat said in a tele­phone inter­view Fri­day. “I hope they won’t believe that I did this to hurt the Mus­lim com­mu­nity…. We just have to be more care­ful when we reach out.”

The U.S. senator’s office rescinded a “cer­tifi­cate of achieve­ment” awarded in Novem­ber to Basim Elka­rra, head of the council’s Sacra­mento office. The rare pub­lic rever­sal fol­lows charges from right-wing activists that Boxer was court­ing Mus­lim extrem­ists by asso­ci­at­ing with the group.

The con­tro­versy high­lights the com­plex­i­ties fac­ing lead­ing Amer­i­can Mus­lim groups in their deal­ings with elected offi­cials — and vice versa.

It recalls a sim­i­lar dis­pute sur­round­ing a deci­sion by the Los Ange­les County Human Rela­tions Com­mis­sion to give an award to Dr. Maher Hathout last fall. A senior advi­sor to the Mus­lim Pub­lic Affairs Coun­cil, Hathout also faced charges of extrem­ism. After a bit­ter two-week pub­lic bat­tle, Hathout nar­rowly avoided hav­ing the award rescinded. In a rare revote, only four of the commission’s 14 mem­bers voted to reaf­firm Hathout, with the major­ity either absent or abstaining.

Coun­cil on American-Islamic Rela­tions offi­cials say they and other Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions have been tar­gets of an ongo­ing, and some­times effec­tive, cam­paign to silence and mar­gin­al­ize Amer­i­can Mus­lim voices.

“There is a mar­ket for Islam­o­pho­bia right now,” said Hus­sam Ayloush, head of the council’s South­ern Cal­i­for­nia office. “It’s the same group of right-wing extrem­ists who are inter­con­nected and feed off each other and keep recy­cling the same allegations.”

The con­tro­versy started when Joe Kauf­man, a Florida-based activist and long­time critic of the group, posted an online arti­cle attack­ing the award to Elka­rra. Kauf­man, who runs a web­site called CAIRwatch.com, has long con­tended that the coun­cil actively encour­ages and sup­ports groups such as Hamas and Hezbol­lah — both of which are on the U.S. government’s ter­ror­ism watch lists.

“We believe this orga­ni­za­tion should be shut down and that no elected lead­ers should have any­thing to do with them,” Kauf­man said.

One of the largest Amer­i­can Mus­lim polit­i­cal groups, the coun­cil has seen its pro­file and mem­ber­ship soar in the last five years. The group had only eight offices as of Sept. 11, 2001. It now has 32, along with an active lob­by­ing arm based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Founded in 1994, the coun­cil describes itself as the country’s lead­ing Mus­lim civil rights and advo­cacy orga­ni­za­tion. Its local chap­ters have tax-exempt non­profit sta­tus, and its lead­ers deny any ties to Hezbol­lah or Hamas.

Boxer, who said she was unaware of the ini­tial deci­sion by her office to honor Elka­rra, said inde­pen­dent research by her office later revealed trou­bling infor­ma­tion about the organization.

“It’s the vol­ume of things, not any one thing,” she said. “There’s a long list.”

That list includes sev­eral indi­vid­ual coun­cil mem­bers who have been indicted on terrorism-related charges, as well as harsh crit­i­cism of the orga­ni­za­tion by some of Boxer’s con­gres­sional col­leagues. In 2003, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said the coun­cil was “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its asso­ci­a­tions with groups that are suspect.”

In recent years the coun­cil has drawn a care­fully cal­i­brated line on ter­ror­ism — strongly crit­i­ciz­ing indi­vid­ual attacks and sui­cide bomb­ings but refus­ing to label Hamas or Hezbol­lah as ter­ror­ist organizations.

It’s also quick to con­demn Israeli attacks in Lebanon and the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries and label them as ter­ror­ism against civilians.

That crit­i­cism of Israel, coun­cil offi­cials say, is what’s really fuel­ing the cam­paign against their group. Noth­ing short of endors­ing Israeli pol­icy, they say, will spare them from alle­ga­tions of extremism.

“The minute we crit­i­cize Israel, then we become a non­mod­er­ate group,” Ayloush said. “You become pub­lic enemy No. 1.”

The group also has a com­pli­cated rela­tion­ship with fed­eral law enforce­ment agen­cies. For­mer FBI coun­tert­er­ror­ism chief Steven Pomer­antz once said the council’s activ­i­ties “effec­tively give aid to inter­na­tional ter­ror­ist groups.”

But coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives say they fre­quently meet with senior FBI offi­cials, and the group has helped train FBI agents in how to inter­act with the Amer­i­can Mus­lim community.

Kauf­man, who reg­u­larly con­tributes to the influ­en­tial web­site frontpagemag.com, denies asser­tions that he’s seek­ing to defame all Mus­lim groups. But he also said that none of the major Amer­i­can Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions qual­ify as mod­er­ates in his view. The web­site touts a vari­ety of pub­li­ca­tions, such as “Big Lies: Demol­ish­ing the Myths of the Pro­pa­ganda War Against Israel” and “The Truth About Muham­mad, Founder of the World’s Most Intol­er­ant Religion.”

The coun­cil has responded to Boxer’s snub by demand­ing a meet­ing with the sen­a­tor — an option Boxer said she would wel­come — and ral­ly­ing sup­port­ers of var­i­ous faiths. Among those sup­port­ers is Eliz­a­beth Sholes, direc­tor of pub­lic pol­icy for the Cal­i­for­nia Coun­cil of Churches, who has worked per­son­ally with Elka­rra in Sacramento.

“They’ve issued mul­ti­ple dec­la­ra­tions against extrem­ism and vio­lence both in the Mid­dle East and in the Amer­ica Mus­lim com­mu­nity,” Sholes said of the Mus­lim coun­cil. “I have found them in every instance to be absolutely ded­i­cated to the issues of peace and justice.”

The Mus­lim coun­cil is also encour­ag­ing sup­port­ers to con­tact Boxer’s offices to protest the deci­sion. A spokes­woman for Boxer said that as of Fri­day after­noon, the senator’s offices in Wash­ing­ton and Cal­i­for­nia have received 19 calls on the issue — 15 of them against the deci­sion to rescind the award.

But Ayloush acknowl­edged that the sit­u­a­tion rep­re­sents a set­back for the group’s attempts to make inroads into Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment and society.

“For us, the award has lit­tle value,” Ayloush said. “It’s the sym­bol­ism of a pro­gres­sive Demo­c­rat giv­ing in to pres­sure from right-wing Islamophobes.”