Vandalism of a local Muslim school – and accusations that the perpetrators were anti-Muslim zealots incited by a recent PBS television documentary on Islamic fundamentalism – have raised questions about both the tactics and the ideological underpinnings of an increasingly active Islamic advocacy organization in Washington.
At the center of the tangled web of charges and countercharges lies the Council on American Islamic Relations and its executive director, Nihad Awad.
The council describes itself as a “nonprofit Islamic advocacy organization that challenges acts of discrimination against Muslims in America.”
It spearheaded an effort earlier this year to prevent the broadcast of Jihad in America, a one-hour documentary shown in November on PBS stations nationwide.
The council claimed the film, which chronicles the history of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and highlights its growing infrastructure in the United States, would precipitate an angry wave of anti-Muslim fervor.
The group, based in Washington, has since charged that the documentary has been responsible for incidents of vandalism and fires at various mosques in Maryland and New York.
In a news release, the organization claimed that on Nov. 26, the Muslim Community School in Potomac, Md. had been subject to hate-inspired vandalism.
“Less than one week after the airing of Jihad in America, a PBS documentary that made wide-ranging allegations against the Muslim community in America, an Islamic institution mentioned in that program has been attacked by vandals,” the release says.
“We believe this attack is a direct result of the distortions and stereotyping of American Muslims in the documentary,” Award, the group’s executive director said in the statement.
But Montgomery County, Md. police officials insisted the relatively minor attack was clearly not hate-related. In fact, they say the principal of the school, Salahuddeen Kareem, never mentioned to them the possibility of hate- related violence and told police the incident probably was instigated by a few of the older students at the school.
According to Officer Robin Xander, who visited the school while investigating the case, the possibility of this being a hate crime is “really far-fetched, if you ask me.”
Xander, who filed a report to the same effect, said that sometime during that afternoon or evening, the perpetrators emptied three fire extinguishers into a computer room, the nursery and the door to the principal’s office, causing minimal damage.
Officials from the Muslim Community School, which had the council handle its public relations, did not return phone calls. The council’s spokesman Ibrahim Hooper would not answer any questions about the case, other than to say the news release “speaks for itself.” Awad did not return phone calls.
Mohammad al-Asi, spiritual leader of the Islamic Education Center – which is housed in the same building as the Muslim Community School – also would not comment on the case.
Al-Asi, who ironically spoke before a Jewish-Islamic dialogue held a Washington Hebrew Congregation in March, is quoted on camera in the documentary saying, “The Jews have disproportionate control over the instruments of government.”
The incident in Potomac is not the only one the council has blamed on the documentary.
In late October, days after a fire was set on a stairway rug outside a small mosque in Brooklyn, the group sent out a news release entitled, “New York Mosque Set on Fire: PBS Jihad in America Documentary May Prompt More Hate Crimes.” The release continued, “We expect more of these hate crimes in the near future.”
But the fire outside the Al Ikhwa mosque occurred almost a entire month before the documentary aired on PBS.
According to New York Police Department spokeswoman Det. Kim Royster, the fire was being investigated as an arson, but the NYPD had not determined the fire to be a “bias crime.”
The case is still being investigated, said Royster, and there are currently no suspects.
Steven Emerson, producer of the PBS documentary, said that NYPD intelligence officials had told him that the Brooklyn fire was the “product of an internal dispute.”
Emerson, who has authored numerous articles and books on terrorism, said that blaming his documentary for these acts leaves him “no doubt that Mr. Awad is engaged in the same sorts of fabrications and hysteria that his parent organization, Hamas, is engaged in.”
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, a Palestinian terrorist organization based in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Concerning the Potomac incident, Emerson said that Awad “has been hoisted by his own petard here.
“If anything, this should show that he is part of a propaganda operation,” Emerson, adding that it is a “sad day for the larger Islamic American community, which has allowed itself to be manipulated by Awad.”
Links between Awad, who founded the council roughly one year ago, and Hamas, responsible for more than 100 murders in Israel in recent months, stretch through Texas.
Before starting his new organization, Awad served as public relations director for the Richardson, Texas-based Islamic Association for Palestine from 1992 through early 1994.
The association and its in-house newsletter, the Muslim World Monitor, repeatedly have published articles supportive of Hamas that were clearly anti- Semitic.
One pamphlet handed out at organization conferences, for example, was entitled, “America’s Greatest Enemy: The Jew!”
In a recent “60 Minutes” segment on the rise and dangers of Islamic fundamentalism in the United States, Awad admitted the group had distributed the crudely anti-Semitic pamphlet but said he had asked that it be canceled.
When asked what he thought of the undertakings of Hamas, Awad demurred and then excused Hamas’ terrorist acts, saying: “The United Nations charter grants people who are under occupation (the right) to defend themselves against illegal occupation.”
In the “60 Minutes” program, Awad denied he or his organization is tied to Hamas.
But Emerson and Oliver Revell, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation counterterrorism expert, strongly disagreed.
“I think there’s no question that there is a relationship between IAP and Hamas,” said Revell.
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