The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is unwilling to differentiate between Islamists and moderate Muslims.  The latest example is their defense of the radical Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR) as a polling place for the U.S. Presidential election.  ICBR was on the list of polling places but it was reported recently that the location has been switched to the Spanish River Library.  The president of the Islamic center, Bassem Alhalabi, said that the Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County Susan Bucher changed the polling location after receiving dozens of calls from individuals voicing their reservations about ICBR.  CAIR, as always, faults ‘Islamophobia.’ Spokeswoman for CAIR-Florida Laila Abdelaziz denounced Bucher’s decision to drop ICBR from being a polling precinct saying:

“Her discretion to designate or remove polling sites must never be based on religious, racial or ethnic bias. This apparent unconstitutional religious bias may need to be corrected by our courts.”

Abdelaziz also made it clear that CAIR will likely be taking legal actions in attempts to reverse the decision.  Should we expect anything else from CAIR?  A Muslim Brotherhood affiliated group who is dedicated to “civilization jihad,” a process that seeks to destroy “…Western civilization from within[.]”  CAIR and other Brotherhood groups are the first ones to invoke U.S. Constitutional freedoms — and would likely be the first ones to take them away from non-Muslims if they ever got their way and sharia became the law of the land.

This is the same CAIR-Florida whose Executive Director, Hassan Shibly, models for Muslims the defiance of law enforcement.  When Shibly was questioned by U.S. Customs at the airport, he defiantly responded by stating, “None of your D[#]mn Business.”

Let’s take a closer look at the Islamic center’s leadership, president Bassem Alhalabi.  Several weeks ago during an ‘Islamophobia’ panel discussion at Florida Atlantic University, Alhalabi supported Sharia law’s practice of severing the hands of thieves.  As noted previously at CounterJihad.com Alhalabi has been “…arrested on battery and assault charges, gave thermal imaging devices to state-sponsor of terrorism Syria, mentored by and co-authored books with convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian among others.”  There’s also a video of him from 2012 defending sharia blasphemy laws when questioned by a protester. Alhalabi’s actions reveal a radical Muslim who despises American values.

ICBR has been a hotbed of Islamic radicalism since its founding in 1998. The Clarion Project lists the terror connections of the Islamic center, such as:

…In 2000, the website promoted a website named “Jihad in Chechnya” that raised support for terrorists. The mosque donated money and received grants from the Global Relief Foundation before it was shut down by the U.S. government in 2002 because of its links to Al-Qaeda.

In October 2000, the ICBR imam and co-founder, Ibrahim Dremali, took part in a pro-jihad rally against Israel that featured young children in military fatigues and Hezbollah flags. There were chants of, “with jihad we’ll claim our land, Zionist blood will wet the sand.” Dremali encouraged the Muslims to honor martyrs and to be unafraid of sacrificing their lives for their beliefs.

Dremali was a character witness for Adham Amin Hassoun, a convicted terrorist who once attended ICBR. Hassoun was arrested in 2002 for trying to facilitate the travel of an Islamic extremist to Kosovo to engage in terrorism. It was concluded that Hassoun belonged to the al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya terrorist group…

…The imam who followed Dremali, Muneer Arafat, was arrested in 2003 for overstaying his visa. He met Sami al-Arian at an Islamic Association for Palestine event in 1988 and admits that he supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but a different faction than the one al-Arian belonged to…

…Another ICBR attendee was Rafiq Sabir, who was arrested in 2005 and convicted two years later. He sought to provide medical treatment to terrorists in Iraq. His friend pled guilty to conspiring to train terrorists in Iraq. Both swore their loyalty to Al-Qaeda. Sabir was also a friend of the ICBR spokesperson.

There seems to be a radical Islamic supporting trend at ICBR. As reported in 2014 by Frontpage Mag, ICBR displayed an essay on their website between October 1999 to September 2001 called Why can’t the Jews and Muslims live together in peace? The essay said:

“There cannot be harmony between Jews – who are usurpers and aggressors, who have oppressed and persecuted others… Jews are people of treachery and betrayal; it is not possible to trust them at all… As the Muslims and Jews are enemies residing in opposing religious and doctrinal camps, it is not possible for them to be brought together unless one is made to submit to the other by force… [Muhammad] said, ‘You will fight the Jews and will prevail over them, so that a rock will say, O Muslim! There is Jew behind me, kill him!’”

It sounds like the same anti-Semitism as well as anti-Christian sentiment still permeates the teaching at the Islamic center, given that Imam Fathi Khalfi is listed on ICBR’s website. Khalfi has previously stated:

“Damascus – used to be the capitol of every Muslim from Yemen to Andalusia [Spain] to Heng [China]. All of them, the capitol was Damascus, so it has a special place in the hearts of believers. Today, it’s controlled by Batiniyah Nusairiyah [sect of Shiah Islam]… Batiniyah have the same steps; they have the same direction – the same goal. You know what’s their goal? Destroy Islam… Bathiniyah, Ibn Taymiyyah [an Islamic scholar] said they are worse than Jews and Christians. So their goal is to destroy Islam – kill the Muslims and occupy their land…”

It’s no wonder why voters in Boca Raton, Florida — a city that has a large concentration of Jewish voters — are concerned about voting here.  This is an Islamic center that not only teaches hateful messages, but that also has a history of jihadist ties. Anti-American bastions like ICBR should not be given the opportunity to become polling centers in the first place.  Yet the Hamas-linked CAIR wants to make it happen. CAIR’s defense of ICBR only helps to expose their Islamist agenda, and discredits CAIR’s claim that they are representatives of moderate Muslims.  If they truly were moderate, they wouldn’t spend so much time defending Islamists.