Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Republican Nominee for U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
The Florida chapter of CAIR has announced that it has hired a new Executive Director to replace its previous one, Hassan Shibly, who resigned his position after his then-wife accused him of physical abuse. The new leader, Abdullah Jaber, comes to CAIR-Florida by way of CAIR-Georgia, where he also served as Executive Director. The level of extremism of CAIR-Florida under Shibly’s direction was very high, so Jaber will need to strive to maintain its fanaticism. Jaber has his own radical background to work from, so it will probably be a smooth transition. Regardless of his performance, though, CAIR is CAIR, and as such it should be shut down.
CAIR has foundational and financial ties to terror. CAIR was established, in June 1994, as a part of a terrorist umbrella group, the now-defunct US chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood’s international Palestine Committee, headed by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the US government a co-conspirator to the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas via the now-defunct Texas-based Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a fellow alum of the Palestine Committee. HLF’s Chairman, Ghassan Elashi, founded CAIR’s Texas chapter, and CAIR had used the homepage of its national website to raise funds for HLF.
CAIR-Florida has not strayed much from its national counterpart. In July 2014, CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers repeatedly shouted, “We are Hamas” and “Let’s go Hamas.” The following month, CAIR-Florida’s then-leader Hassan Shibly tweeted, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of God.” Shibly has described Hezbollah as “basically a resistance movement” and “absolutely not a terrorist organization.” He has used Facebook to laud Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti as a “hero.” And he has used CAIR’s Tampa office to meet with convicted member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hatem Fariz.
This past January, Shibly resigned from his position in CAIR. Two weeks prior, his then-wife, Imane Sadrati, put out a video and written statement alleging she suffered domestic violence at the hands of Shibly. She stated, ““[W]hen I was 9 months pregnant with my first born, my marriage became volatile and abusive. What I assumed was ‘just a disagreement’ turned into screams. What would have been annoying remarks suddenly became violent blows… My husband hurt me mentally, emotionally and physically behind closed doors and openly in front of my children… I need your support to put an end to domestic violence in my home!”
Since then, many more allegations have surfaced regarding Shibly, including that of ‘secret marriages’ (outside of his legal marriage to Sadrati) and sexual harassment of CAIR co-workers. One former CAIR-Florida colleague of Shibly, Sam Bowden, posted this about him: “HASSAN SHIBLY IS A PERVERT, ABUSER, AND MANIPULATOR, AND I STAND AS A WITNESS TO ALL OF THIS BEHAVIOR… HE’S A MONSTER & NEEDS TO BE ISOLATED FROM PUBLIC ACCESS TO PEOPLE.” As reported by NPR, apparently both CAIR National and CAIR-Florida had knowledge of Shibly’s exploits but – for years – did nothing about it.
On March 29th, CAIR-Florida announced that it had hired a new Executive Director, Abdullah Jaber. Jaber had previously been involved with CAIR-Los Angeles as a member of its advisory committee and CAIR-Georgia as its Executive Director. While in Georgia, Jaber served as an imam at two Atlanta mosques, Masjid Omar Abdul Aziz and Al-Farooq Masjid, the latter of which was where convicted Atlanta-based terrorists Ehsanul Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed had first met. According to the US Justice Department, Sadequee and Ahmed had provided multiple overseas terror groups with video footage of potential targets for terrorist attacks inside the US.
While in California, Jaber co-founded Muslim Youth of Los Angeles (MYLA) and acted as its imam. During his tenure with the group, MYLA posted material on social media vilifying the US and Israel. One post MYLA made, in June 2019, madly claims that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi is “a slave of America and Israel” and Israel “ordered” the coup that propelled Sisi into office. Another post, from June 2018, was of an anti-Israel cartoon depicting a Palestinian medic getting shot; MYLA had taken the post from Gaza TV News, a vicious site that glorifies Palestinian terror groups and posts terrorist “WANTED” posters threatening IDF officers’ lives.
Several MYLA Facebook postings were of statements made by and videos featuring Noaman Ali Khan, a once-popular Islamist lecturer who, like CAIR’s Hassan Shibly, was accused of having inappropriate relationships with women, including ‘secret marriages.’ A couple of the videos ironically had Khan providing advice on courtships and marriage proposals.
Along with MYLA, Jaber attended at least one conference sponsored by Islamic Relief (IR), an organization that has been banned by a number of countries. Photos from the event, an IR gala in Anaheim, were posted on the MYLA Facebook page, in December 2015, and MYLA continued to use its social media to promote other IR events, including one featuring “unindicted co-conspirator” of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Siraj Wahhaj. Israel has labeled IR a Hamas front, and reports show that the group has sent millions of dollars to and received tens of thousands of dollars from entities related to al-Qaeda.
All of these things – the pro-terrorist content, the conspiracies, the elevation of alleged womanizers, the extremist events, and of course the anti-Israel vitriol – unfortunately make Jaber the perfect candidate to fill the shoes of the scandal-ridden Shibly and keep the fanatic CAIR culture going strong.
That is, until the group and its leadership are finally closed down.
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