Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an influential Muslim-American lobbying group, is standing by remarks he made during a conference in late November justifying the atrocities committed by Palestinian terror groups after they invaded southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on October 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in,” Awad said to audience applause at the American Muslims for Palestine’s annual gathering. “And, yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves. And, yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense,” he continued without referencing Hamas.
Reached for comment after the video was publicized by the Middle East Media Research Institute on Thursday morning, Awad said his remarks had been taken out of context and claimed he was not referring to the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered more than 1,000 Israelis on October 7.
“The average Palestinians who briefly walked out of Gaza and set foot on their ethnically cleansed land in a symbolic act of defiance against the blockade and stopped there without engaging in violence were within their rights under international law; the extremists who went on to attack civilians in southern Israel were not. Targeting civilians is unacceptable, no matter whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or any other nationality,” Awad told National Review in an exclusive statement.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad at AMP Convention: I Was Happy to See the People of Gaza Break the Siege on October 7; They Were Victorious; the People of Gaza Have the Right to Self-Defense – Israel Does Not #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians @CAIRNational @NihadAwad pic.twitter.com/WDbSRjFJo0
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 7, 2023
Israel believes that as many as 3,000 terrorists invaded the country on October 7 and that many everyday Gazan civilians exploited the border breach to participate in the atrocities.
“What I actually said while discussing international law: Ukrainians, Palestinians and other occupied people have the right to defend themselves and escape occupation by just and legal means, but targeting civilians is never an acceptable means of doing so, which is why I have again and again condemned the violence against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7th and past Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings, all the way back to the 1990s—just as I have condemned the decades of violence against Palestinian civilians,” Awad added.
However, the statements Awad cited as evidence of CAIR’s supposed evenhanded condemnation of Israeli and Palestinian human-rights violations do not include explicit criticisms of Hamas terrorism and are instead mostly dedicated to scolding Israel.
“Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right, openly racist cabinet ministers admitted that they planned to commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and that is exactly what they are doing by bombing schools, mosques, marketplaces, hospitals and apartment buildings while starving a captive population,” Awad said in a Cair statement released on October 10, just three days after the Hamas attack and before Israel had even begun to retaliate.
“The Israeli government’s medieval siege and mass bombing of Gaza are self-declared war crimes under international law. Our nation must be consistent in supporting international law and repudiating war crimes against all people, whether they are Palestinian, Israeli, Ukrainian or any other nationality. Allowing Netanyahu to turn wipe out tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians and turn Gaza into another Aleppo or Grozny will not bring peace or stability,” the statement continued.
In late November, CAIR also defended its decision to promote Hesham Ayyad’s story of an alleged anti-Palestinian hate crime after it was revealed that law enforcement had arrested the man, alleging it was a hoax. Ayyad, a twenty-year-old Ohio resident, was arrested at the time alongside his brother, Khalil, on counts of falsification, obstructing official business, false alarm, and domestic violence.
When reached for comment, CAIR’s national communications director Ibrahim Hooper directed National Review to the group’s official statement on Tuesday. “Hate crimes pose a serious and escalating threat to the American Muslim community. When we receive credible reports of such crimes, we report them to law enforcement and ask for an investigation, which is what happened here,” the group noted on Tuesday. “If false statements were made about this incident, that is unacceptable and should be addressed by law enforcement accordingly. In the meantime, we strongly condemn those anti-Muslim extremists who are already flooding social media with hateful messages that dismiss or even justify the very real rise in threats against American Muslims and others who support Palestinian human rights.”
Ayyad alleged he was struck by a driver on his way home for lunch in a Cleveland suburb. “The driver then allegedly turned around and hit the man [Ayyad] while shouting ‘DIE!’” a press release from CAIR released shortly after the incident in late October claimed beside a photo of a hospitalized Ayyad.
Despite walking back its claim that Ayyad was seemingly not an actual victim of a hate crime, CAIR has yet to retract its social-media post demanding “law enforcement authorities . . . fully investigate this disturbing attack and charge the perpetrator with a hate crime.”
Local law enforcement later investigated the incident and “found that injuries sustained at the time of the incident were caused by a violent fight that the alleged victim had participated in with his brother, which was confirmed by area video surveillance.”
The Biden White House included CAIR in a coalition of various faith groups dedicated to fighting antimsemitism.