On March 1, 2008, CAIR-Florida representative Jawhar “Joe” Badran, with CAIR-Florida Executive Director Altaf Ali by his side, proclaimed on camera that “Hamas is not a terrorist organization.” Statements such as these from CAIR officials come sparse, as the group’s support for its murderous Palestinian patriarch is usually hidden. However, it turns out that one of Badran’s CAIR-Florida colleagues, Omer Subhani, said the same months before. And he continues to do so.
Omer Subhani is a 25-year-old Pakistani-American, who currently holds the position of Communications Director for the South Florida office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Being an officer for CAIR, an organization aligned with terrorist groups overseas – most notably Hamas – Subhani has the burden of attempting to explain (or explain away) CAIR’s sinister connections.
But first, he must explain his own.
Subhani has been involved in radical Muslim organizations, since at least his teenage years. Last month, he wrote, on his personal blog, “I remember back when I was a freshman in high school, me and my closest friend initiated the first annual MYNA Basketball Tournament at Florida International University in 1996 I believe.” He stated that MYNA or Muslim Youth of North America was created by the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and admits that the MSA’s founders “were former members or nominally inclined to the Muslim Brotherhood and its teachings of activism (and world domination of course).”
In addition, Subhani was involved with Islamic Relief (IR), a “charity” that, like CAIR, has been recognized as being a front for Hamas. He was a contact for a fundraiser for the group, which was held at Nova Southeastern University, in December 2004.
As a child, Subhani gained knowledge of his relatives’ fondness for suicide bombers. In September 2007, he stated on his blog, “I learned, through my adult relatives’ conversations mostly, that Pakistan was a great regional military power that had fought and defeated India multiple times in warfare. Pakistani soldiers, I was told, were Muslim heroes who strapped grenades to themselves in the face of Indian tanks and laid down in front of the tanks in order to take out the more powerful Indian military. They sacrificed their lives for Pakistani freedom.”
Last November, Subhani, concerned over the leadership situation in Pakistan, predicted the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Following a duel suicide bombing that took place in Karachi, he wrote, “Bhutto escaped an assassination attempt on her life the first time she came back to Pakistan. She would likely not be as successful as Musharraf in avoiding assassination attempts on a regular basis.” And after the successful suicide attack that took her life in December, Subhani mercilessly ripped her apart, saying, “I am disgusted with the U.S. media. Their coverage of Bhutto as some sort of martyr is despicable and inappropriate... She was a crook, plain and simple.”
Indeed, Subhani has a strong connection to his native Pakistan. This is evidenced by the fact that he refers to it as the “mother land.” He is quick to point out, though, that he is “an American and a Pakistani second, if at all.” He has also said that he has “zero allegiance to any other country besides America.” Yet, in November of 2007, he wrote, “I recently saw Michael Moore’s latest movie, Sicko. It was very informative and also very depressing. I am seriously considering at some point in my life moving to either Canada or Europe... All of that makes me want to jump on a boat to Cuba; it’s only 90 some miles away from my home. Viva Fidel.”
In truth, Subhani has a sincere hatred towards the United States. Last month, he even wrote, “As an American we all have the right to like our country or even to hate it.”
But Subhani goes much further than to just have a simple disdain for America. In November, he wrote, “By our own definitions of terrorism... the US is a terrorist state.”
Mimicking our enemy overseas, Subhani has called our presence in Iraq an “illegal occupation,” whilst mocking our troops. Last May, he wrote, “It takes a massive level of indoctrination and in other cases, arrogance, to figure that another nation is ‘interfering’ in a country that our nation has illegally occupied... President Bush and other American officials, in public castigations of Iran, have said that Iran has been consistently meddlesome in Iraq and that the Iranians have long sought to arm and train Iraqi militias... Oh, but you know, those 150,000 American troops – they’ve been nothing but angels.”
Subhani has also compared both us and Israel to al-Qaeda, likening both countries to “cold blooded killers.” In April, he wrote, “The rationale is exactly the same, unsurprisingly. If you were to kill someone you would obviously blame your actions on either ignorance of the circumstance or situation, or on someone else’s actions. It seems al-Qaeda is just taking the approach that the U.S. and Israel have used for decades... What all of this implies is that cold blooded killers, no matter their ethnicity or religions or upbringings, think the same way.”
But while Subhani considers the United States and Israel to be terrorist entities, he refuses to say the same about Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups found on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). In November, he stated, “Hamas, Hezbollah, and other national liberation movements use every means at their disposal to fight occupation or oppression. It’s wrong to kill innocent people. It’s wrong to fire rockets indiscriminately at towns and villages. But that does not mean because they commit such actions that Hamas and Hezbollah are completely and utterly devout terrorist organizations, as the mainstream press here in the US likes to label them.”
In January, he wrote, “I do not agree with the idea that Hamas is a terrorist organization... Israel is far worse. Hamas has not been brutally occupying Israel for over 40 years.” And in March, he stated, “As far as saying that Hamas is a terrorist organization - that is a statement of opinion for anyone who makes it - even the State Department... [I]s Hamas a terrorist organization? Of course it’s not... Israeli war crimes, documented by the most respected human rights groups in the United States and Israel, far surpass anything Hamas or any other Palestinian organization could ever hope to accomplish.”
And in April, he admitted about his group that it has a policy of not denouncing either Hamas or Hezbollah. He wrote, “I’ve seen on TV and in print people demanding CAIR to ‘condemn’ groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. CAIR has openly condemned their violent actions, but as an organization it refuses to condemn them as groups.”
Subhani’s obsession with Hamas and Israel has led him to believe that hatred of Jews is justified. He calls this “legitimate antisemitism” and provides a laundry list of demands that Israel needs to meet, before anyone can, according to him, “expect antisemitism to dwindle.”
All of the above quotes were made starting the month Subhani joined the staff of CAIR, September of 2007. On the top of his blog, which even includes a piece calling for the release of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a disclaimer is found. It’s there for a reason. It’s to be used as an excuse to say, if an article ever comes out such as this, Subhani’s statements will be his alone.
However, Subhani’s outrageous words are a manifestation of CAIR’s true self – that being a group based on the destruction of Israel, support for terrorists, and a general disdain for the West (i.e. the United States).
Last April, Subhani wrote, “[I]f any CAIR officials have done any wrong doing then they should be punished.” While his words do not reach the level of any type of prescribed punishment, Subhani certainly has said enough to warrant his being watched as a potential threat. Who could expect any less for an individual that considers and proclaims Hamas to be anything but that which it is, a terrorist organization?
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