New York A.G. is backing CAIR's efforts to silence a group that monitors Islamic extremism

What do you call it when government authorities side with anti-Semitic bigots and label those trying to monitor such extremists as bigots, and warn them that if they continue their work, they'll be subjected to legal action? That's the sort of thing you might expect in an authoritarian nation where Jews are subjected to informal or official discrimination, and where democratic values are either under attack or already extinguished.

Yet that is exactly what happened in New York this past week when that state's Attorney General Letitia James issued a "cease and desist notification" to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). The letter addressed to the IPT's Steven Emerson warned it not to "spy on Muslim houses of worship, Muslim advocacy groups and prominent Muslim leaders." Such activity, she said, "could violate the New York Civil Rights Law, and other state and federal laws."

The letter referenced reports about IPT's efforts to "infiltrate" Muslim groups, which she characterized as "a concerted effort to hamper Muslims in the exercise of their civil rights, including the right to worship, to peacefully assemble and organize politically, to petition the government and to vote." Such efforts were, she asserted, in violation of the "New York Civil Rights Law," which "prohibits discrimination or harassment against an individual exercising their civil rights on the basis of creed," as well as "intimidating an individual on the basis of their religion or religious practice."

But the tipoff that not all is as it seems comes from the mention in her letter that one object of IPT's "spying" was the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR raised a ruckus last December when it found out that one of the officials in its Ohio branch had been passing information to IPT.

Despite all the huffing and puffing from CAIR about calling down the wrath of the law on IPT, it's clear that was a bluff, and you don't have to be a legal expert to know why. If CAIR were to sue IPT, the Muslim group would be subjected to the same sort of scrutiny it has been seeking to avoid. Given its history and the nature of its activities, that's something that CAIR cannot afford to do.

Although it poses as a civil-rights group and pretends to be a victim of harassment, the truth is just the opposite. CAIR was founded as a front group for violent extremists and has, despite its sometime successful public-relations efforts, continued to be a haven for anti-Semites and radical hatemongers. By contrast, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has a long record of exposing extremists. Its job is to ferret out the truth behind the lies put about by those organizations that purport to represent the interests of American Muslims, but which are instead led by a radical minority dedicated to pursuing an extreme agenda in which terrorists are excused and Jews are targeted for hate.

CAIR was founded in the 1990s by the Holy Land Foundation, a group whose mission was to raise funds for Hamas terrorists in the United States. While their illegal fundraising operation was eventually shut down by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the political front group it set up to represent its interests lived on. Rebranding itself as a Muslim version of the Anti-Defamation League, CAIR has insinuated itself into the civil-rights community and achieved a faux respectability in many places. In recent years, it has sought to gain ground by depicting itself as fighting against "Islamophobia," a term that it interprets as referring to anyone who dares to scrutinize or criticize groups that engage in anti-Semitism, spread hatred for Israel and rationalize terrorism.

It has received a vital assist in that bogus effort from the growing popularity of intersectional ideology and critical race theory. These toxic ideas brand both the State of Israel and Jews as having "white privilege," and therefore can be categorized as oppressors while all Muslims are considered victims. In this way, a permission slip is granted to anti-Semitism and opposition to Jew-hatred is labeled is falsely labeled as hate.

https://www.jewishworldreview.com/0422/tobin041122.php