The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) portrays itself as a U.S. civil rights organization. However, as numerous terrorist analysts and the U.S. government itself has noted, CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) retrial—the largest terrorism financing case in the nation’s history. NBC, however, has treated the organization as a credible source on the subject of Islamic extremism.

In an April 23, 2018 article, “John Bolton presided over anti-Muslim think tank,” NBC reporter Heidi Przybla used CAIR to attack Bolton, who is currently the National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump, and Gatestone Institute.

NBC quoted CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, who claimed that Gatestone is “a key part of the whole Islamaphobic cottage industry on the Internet.” Hooper asserted that Bolton’s association with Gatestone was “very disturbing.”

However, NBC failed to inform readers about CAIR’s troubling history. As CAMERA noted in an Aug. 9, 2016 Washington Times Op-Ed, at least five former staff or lay leaders from CAIR have been indicted, arrested or deported on weapons or terrorism-related charges. In an out of court settlement with the website www.anti-cair-net.org, the council did not contest assertions that it was founded and funded by some members of Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip and calls for the destruction of Israel.

As CAMERA’s July 2009 Special Report “The Council on American Islamic Relations: Civil Rights or Extremism?” pointed out, CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, stated in 1994: “I am in support of Hamas.” Richard Powers, an Assistant Director for the FBI, even sent a statement to members of the U.S. Congress, stating that the bureau was ceasing official cooperation with CAIR and its executives until the council could resolve, “Whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.”

Hooper himself was once quoted as saying that he “wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 4, 1993).”

Prior to working for CAIR, Hooper worked for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which fundraised for Hamas in America. In 2004, IAP was held civilly liable in a federal district court for financing the terrorist group. That ruling was upheld in 2008. At the HLF trial it was revealed that “numerous donation checks … made payable to … IAP” were “deposited into HLF’s bank account,” in some cases with the memo line, “for Palestinian Mujahideen [holy warriors] only.”

As CAMERA has highlighted, CAIR has a history of skewing statistics and data—a charge that NBC levels at Gatestone. NBC’s treatment of CAIR as a credible source—while failing to disclose disturbing aspects of the organization’s history and ties—evidences careless reporting.

After half a dozen corrections in over a decade, The Los Angeles Times again uses the term “Palestine” to refer to Palestinian Authority areas. In an April 19 movie review about the first female sharia jurist (“The Judge“), Kenneth Turan writes:

Al-Faqih’s research revealed that that lack was caused only by custom and convention, not the tenets of the Hanafi school of Islamic thought followed in Palestine.

The most recent Los Angeles Times correction on this issue, from last June, also concerned a calendar item. The June 28 correction states:

Roger Waters: An article in the June 22 Calendar section about Roger Waters’ new album said Waters supports Palestinians’ rights but incorrectly referred to tensions between Israel and Palestine. It should have said tensions between the Israeli government and the Palestinians.

The influential news agency Agence France Presse has taken it upon itself to redraw the map, placing eastern Jerusalem in the Palestinian territories. In the April 22 article (“No boycott fear, say organisers of ‘Giro’ in Israel“), AFP errs:

In a bid to avoid political tensions, the routes [of the Giro d’Italia cycling contest] carefully avoid the Palestinian territories, namely east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Eastern Jerusalem is not and never was Palestinian territory. Since 1967, eastern Jerusalem has fully been under Israeli control. From 1948 to 1967, it was occupied by Jordan. Before, that it was part of the British Mandate. The Nov. 29, 1947 partition plan had called for Jerusalem to be a corpus separatum, an international city administered by the UN for 10 years, at which point the city’s status was to be decided in a referendum. Before the British Mandate, the city was under Ottoman control, and so on. Going back through history, at no point was any part of the city “Palestinian territory.”

The Associated Press corrected the very same error this past February. The February 21 correction stated:

In a story Feb. 21, The Associated Press reported that east Jerusalem is Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The story should have made clear that this was quoting a speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the U.N. Security Council. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, a position backed by most of the international community. Israel considers the entire city, including the eastern sector, to be its undivided capital.

A majority of Palestinians living in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) fear the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey (PSR). The PA, dominated by the Fatah movement, rules the West Bank and is a major recipient of U.S. and international aid.

The PSR survey was published on March 27, 2018. It noted that 65 percent of Palestinians answered “no” when asked if “people in the West Bank today [can] criticize the authority without fear.” The answers to other poll questions led PSR to conclude that “a shadow of pessimism, frustration, and despair” has left the Palestinian public “with no trust in its leadership and very little optimism about the medium or even the long-term future.”

Nearly two-thirds of Palestinians polled believe that the PA security services eavesdrop on phone calls of citizens and “more than 60% believe that such eavesdropping is done illegally and without any just cause.” This finding comes after accusations by a former Palestinian intelligence head that PA President Mahmoud Abbas setup an electronic surveillance unit in mid-2014 to monitor political opponents and critics (“Abbas’ government sued over alleged CIA-backed wiretapping,” Feb. 6, 2018, Associated Press).

Indeed, dissatisfaction with Abbas is extremely high, according to the poll, which noted that 68 percent of the public demand that the octogenarian ruler—who is currently in the thirteenth year of a four-year term—resign. Abbas also controls the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization. As CAMERA has detailed, he has become increasingly autocratic in recent years; suppressing dissent, imprisoning journalists and consolidating complete control over the entities that he leads (see, for example “The Growing Autocracy of the Palestinian Authority,” Oct. 7, 2017, The Times of Israel).

Abbas has refused to hold elections—and perhaps for good reason. According to the PSR survey, if an election were held, Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Fatah’s rival, Hamas, would defeat Abbas. Similarly, Fatah’s Marwan Barghouti, a younger Palestinian leader and rival, would also defeat Abbas. Barghouti is imprisoned in Israel for carrying out several terror attacks during the Second Intifada (2000-05).

Although Abbas is unpopular—a mere 33 percent said that they were satisfied with his performance—the Fatah movement is slightly (36 percent) more popular than Hamas (31 percent). A minority of Palestinians (23 percent) said, “Palestinian democracy is good or very good.” By contrast, a majority (57 percent) said, “democracy in Israeli is good or very good.”

The PA itself is extremely unpopular. PSR reported: “Perception of corruption in PA institutions stands at 78% and a majority of 52% views the PA as a burden on the Palestinian people while 41% view it as an asset for the Palestinian people.”

The survey also showed that 48 percent of Palestinians polled in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip support “an armed intifada” (violent uprising) against Israel. PSR elaborated:

“When given three options to choose from, the largest percentage (35%) chose armed resistance as the most effective means of establishing a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel while 31% chose negotiation and 25% chose non- violent resistance effective. Three months ago, 44% indicated that armed resistance is the answer and 27% sided with negotiation. When the public is asked if it supports each of the following the responses were different: 74% support joining more international organizations; 63% support popular non-violence; 48% support a return to an armed intifada; and 49% support dissolving the PA. Support for a return to an armed intifada is higher in the Gaza Strip (67%) compared to the West Bank (39%), in cities and refugee camps (51% and 49% respectively) compared to villages/towns (34%), among the religious (55%) compared to the somewhat religious and the non-religious (43% each), among those who are opposed to the peace process (74%) compared to supporters of the peace process (34%), among men (52%) compared to women (45%), among those whose age is between 18 and 22 (58%) compared to those whose age is 50 years or above (48%), among Hamas supporters (74%) compared to supports of Fatah and third parties (36% and 42% respectively), among students (70%) compared to housewives and laborers (43% and 45% respectively), and among holders of BA degree (54%) compared to holder of elementary education and the illiterates (35% and 48% respectively).”

The public opinion poll was conducted from March 14-17, 2018 and used a sample size of 1200 adults that were interviewed face to face in 120 randomly selected locations. The survey has a margin of error of three percent. PSR’s survey can be found here.

“Hamas vows revenge for key member killed in Malaysia,” was the perfectly accurate and straightforward Associated Press headline (reproduced here in The Washington Post) about the killing Saturday of key Hamas member Fadi Batsh in Malaysia.

But The Los Angeles Times, which published the AP story in the April 22 print edition on page 4, replaced AP’s solid headline with the following biased and misleading headline: “Hamas says Israel killed scholar; Militant group vows revenge over what it calls an assassination in Malaysian capital.”

Readers who glance only headlines, as so many so often do, would reasonably conclude that the man killed was a quiet intellectual, immersed, perhaps, in the intricacies of Islam. The Times’ skewed headline does not even specify that the “scholar” was a Hamas member, never mind an important Hamas member.

The accompanying article begins:

The Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas militant group said Saturday that a man who was gunned down in Malaysia was an important member of the organization, accusing Israel of being behind the brazen killing.

Hamas said Palestinian engineer Fabi Batsch was a “loyal” member and a “scientist of Palestine’s youth scholars.” It gave no further details on his scientific accomplishments but said he had made “important contributions” and participated in international forums in the field of energy.

Nine paragraphs later, the most intrepid readers learn: “However, Israeli media reported that he was also deeply involved in the Hamas drone development program.”

Thus, while the original AP headline commendably stuck to the important facts about which all agree — that Fadi Batsh was a key member of Hamas — The Los Angeles Times headline whitewashes the star engineer of the designated terror organization as no more than a “scholar,” not even one linked to the group.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has proxies serving as “sleeper cells” in the U.S., according to sworn congressional testimony. Yet, U.S. news outlets have largely neglected the story.

Several “intelligence officials and former White House officials confirmed to Congress” on April 17, 2018, that “Iranian agents tied to the terror group Hezbollah have already been discovered in the United States,” according to a Washington Free Beacon article by reporter Adam Kredo (“Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack,” April 17, 2018). The officials told members of Congress that it would be “relatively easy” for Iran to use its proxies to carry out attacks in the U.S.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed, U.S.-designated terrorist group. Hezbollah calls for Israel’s destruction and has murdered hundreds of Americans, as CAMERA detailed in its 2016 backgrounder on the organization.

Michael Pregent, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, and a former intelligence adviser to U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, told the U.S. Congress that Hezbollah was “as good or better at explosive devices than ISIS,” “better at assassinations and developing assassination cells” and “better at targeting.” Indeed, as CAMERA has noted, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage referred to Hezbollah as the “A team” of terror groups.

Although the majority of analysts testified that Iranian proxies like Hezbollah pose a threat to the U.S. homeland, many news outlets failed to report their testimony. A Lexis-Nexis search showed that The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, USA Today, among others, did not report the analyst’s remarks. By contrast, The Washington Free Beacon provided a detailed report.

The failure of journalists to cover the story is striking considering the gravity of the testimony. Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and author of The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, testified:

“A survey of cases prosecuted against Hezbollah operatives in the past two decades shows that the terror group remains a threat to the security of the U.S. homeland and the integrity of its financial system. Iran and Hezbollah sought to carry out high casualty attacks against U.S. targets multiple times. Additionally, they built networks they used to procure weapons, sell drugs, and conduct illicit financial activities inside the United States.”

Ottolenghi noted that U.S. law enforcement arrested two Hezbollah operatives, Samer El Debek and Ali Mohammad Kourani, indicting them in May 2017 for “casing targets for possible future terror attacks.” Both were members of Hezbollah’s External Security Organization (ESO), also known as the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO) or External Security Apparatus (ESA). ESO is tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks and other operations, such as money laundering and drug smuggling, throughout the world.

The two Hezbollah operatives—both naturalized U.S. citizens—underwent military training in Lebanon and procured explosives, as well as night-vision goggles and drone technology. Ottolenghi testified that El Debek scoped out potential targets, including New York’s John F. Kennedy and La Guardia International Airports and the U.S. Armed Forces Career Center in Queens, New York. In 2007, Iranian proxies planned to blow up the fuel tanks at JFK airport, but were thwarted by authorities.

Nader Uskowi, a former policy adviser to the U.S. Central Command, told Congress that Iran is believed to have an auxiliary fighting force of around 200,000 militants spread across the Middle East—many of them battle hardened from fighting in the Syrian Civil War. “It doesn’t take many of them to penetrate this country and be a major threat,” Uskowi said. “They can pose a major threat to our homeland.”

Such a threat warrants coverage from news providers; not silence.

Israeli officials have recently disclosed that an Iranian drone shot down by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) on Feb. 10, 2018 was armed. However, many major U.S. news outlets have failed to provide readers with the update.

The Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, was shot down thirty seconds after it entered Israeli airspace. The IDF also responded by carrying out airstrikes on the T-4 base in Syria where the drone was launched. An Israeli aircraft was downed in the incident, which received extensive—if often flawed—media coverage.

As CAMERA detailed, several major U.S. press outlets carried headlines that confused the order of events and/or minimized Iran’s role in provoking the incident. The Washington Post, for example, initially filed a report with a misleading caption that falsely claimed that Israel used the Iranian drone attack as a “pretext” for its response. Following intervention by CAMERA, The Post corrected (“Updated: The Washington Post Corrects Claim That Israel Used Iranian Drone as ‘Pretext’ for Attack,” CAMERA, Feb. 11, 2018).

On April 13, 2018, the IDF revealed that the drone was armed with explosives. The IDF stated:

“An analysis of the flight path and operational and intelligence research performed on parts of the Iranian UAV that entered our territory on February 10 shows it carried explosive material and its mission was to carry out a destructive operation.”

Israeli officials said that they did not know the drone’s precise intended target in Israel. The Times of Israel noted that the IDF’s statement, “came after the airstrike in Syria this week — blamed on Israel by Syria, Iran and Russia — reportedly killed 14 people, including seven Iranian military advisers, one of whom was a colonel in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air force.”

Israel’s admission, and its recent targeting of Iranian bases in Syria, is seen as evidence of increasing tensions between Tehran and its proxies and Jerusalem. Iran’s rulers routinely call for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Yet, many U.S. news outlets have failed to update readers with the IDF’s important disclosure. USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, and others who covered the February 10th incident, did not note that the drone was armed when it violated Israeli airspace. The Washington Post, which provided several reports at the time of the drone attack, merely reprinted an Associated Press dispatch (“Israel Says Iran Drone Downed In Feb Was on Attack Mission,” Feb. 13, 2018).

Those who count on the media for balanced coverage of the Middle East and Israel deserve the full story—and too many in the press aren’t providing it.

Here’s a good rule of thumb. If someone from the Presbyterian Church (USA) tries to tell you their peacemaking agenda is not about the Jews, you can be sure it’s about the Jews.

The Presbyterian Church USA, a dying mainline church with a long history of attacking Israel, will convene its General Assembly in St. Louis Missouri in June 16-23, 2018.

As of this writing, there are nine resolutions before the committee charged with issues related to the Middle East.

Eight of those nine resolutions are related to Israel.

Only one is related to the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has cost half a million people their lives.

In the course of this war, the Assad regime has used chemical weapons to drive thousands of people from their homes. The regime has been accused of running extermination camps where its opponents are murdered and their bodies placed in mass graves.

The Assad regime has gassed its opponents, dropped barrel bombs on people lined up at bakeries to get bread. It has strafed, shot and starved half a million people, driven millions of Syrians into exile and displaced millions of its citizens internally.

Despite these manifest crimes against humanity, the denomination’s peace activists have gotten one — only one — overture on the agenda of the PCUSA’s upcoming General Assembly.

And this overture does not even mention Syrian President Bashar Al Assad or the Assad regime by name!
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Despite the fact that just last month Haaretz corrected a news story which erred on the status of east Jerusalem Arabs, an April 10 editorial again misrepresents about the rights of this population, stating:

Palestinians in Jerusalem, comprising almost 40 percent of its population, are not citizens of the country. . .

In fact, as last month’s correction indicated, some seven percent of east Jerusalem Arabs hold citizenship.

The Independent also corrected the identical error last month. The Independent‘s March 11 article originally stated that “Arabs living in [Jerusalem] do not have citizenship.”

Following communication from CAMERA’s UK Media Watch, The Independent corrected its story, which now accurately reports that “most Arabs” in the city don’t have citizenship.

In March 2015, CAMERA prompted a New York Times correction which made clear that those Jerusalem Arabs with Israeli citizenship may vote for Knesset election.

As of this writing, Haaretz has failed to amend its editorial.

Update: To its credit, Haaretz has also corrected its piece.

After intervention by CAMERA, the Associated Press and Times of Israel have commendably corrected stories relaying the outlandish claim that gunshot injuries with exit wounds larger than entry wounds are evidence of “explosive bullets.” You can find further details on that here.

Haaretz, which also published the misleading story, has thus far neglected to correct their copy.

We’ve contacted editors at Haaretz, and will update this space as needed.