Affront, Threaten, Sue

Now there's some news. The National Council of Canadian Muslims -- formerly CAIR-CAN (Council on American Islamic Relations (Canada) is demanding an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his spokesman Jason MacDonald for slander. A notice of libel has been filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice accusing Jason MacDonald of a malicious comment, injurious to the reputation of the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

What led to this unfortunate humiliation for the Muslim group was their demand that the PMO rescind its invitation to Rabbi Daniek Korobkin to join the entourage accompanying the Prime Minister on his recent trip to the Middle East, to visit Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. Rabbi Korobkin's sin was to have introduced Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer two distinguished opponents of violent Islam(ism) at a public Toronto meeting last September.

Mr. MacDonald had summarily dismissed the demand. Not necessarily saying that the government does not seek advice from any single-interest group on how it should comport itself and what its choices and values should represent, but by saying "We will not take seriously criticism from an organization with documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas". Hamas, as it is well enough known is on a Canadian terror list.

Which hasn't stopped fundamentalist Islamists in Canada from flying the Hamas flag, showing posters of its leader, and making common cause with its goal, primarily the destruction of the State of Israel, along with its day-to-day activities, overseeing the lobbing of rockets into Israel from Gaza.
Mr. MacDonald's statement was so outrageously unacceptable that the National Council of Canadian Muslims took deserved umbrage. And the notice of libel is the result. As a preliminary measure.

"Rather than responding to our legitimate concerns, the PMO's director of communications attacked us and attempted to smear our name by claiming NCCM had 'documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas'", grieved Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the council, during a press conference. "Nothing could be further from the truth. NCCM will not let the PMO's false statement stand."

There was a response from the Prime Minister's Office, a rather brief and to-the-point one: "As this matter may be the subject of litigation we have no further comment." For as Nader Hassan, lawyer for the council has warned, further legal action is possible. "Whether we go through with the lawsuit is going to depend on a number of factors, namely the quality, timing and content of the public apology and retraction", he intoned.

"The defamatory words were stated maliciously in order to discredit and insult an organization that did nothing other than exercise its constitutional right to freedom of expression to criticize a decision made by the prime minister" said the libel notice. "Mr. MacDonald simply made up that statement in an effort to discredit NCCM and deflect its criticism of Mr. Harper."

As that excellent journalist Robert Sibley pointed out in an Ottawa Citizen blog, David Harris, director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program at INSIGNIS Strategic Research, testified in 2011 before the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology that CAIR-CAN, as the NCCM was known in its earlier incarnation as the Canadian franchise of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations was funded by Saudi sources.

CAIR was named by the U.S. Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator connected to the "largest terror-funding trial in U.S. history, the Holy Land Foundation criminal prosecution." Further, CAIR-CAN leader Sheema Khan swore an affidavit in 2003 for the Ontario Supreme Court that "states categorically that CAIR-CAN is under the direction and control of the American CAIR organization."

A Quebec-based investigative group writes on their website that CAIR was established by three leaders of the Islamic Association of Palestine: Nihad Awad, Omar Ahmad and Rafeeq Jaber. The IAP was a front group for Hamas in the United States in the 80s and 90s.  A video archived by the Investigative Project on Terrorism has Nihad Awad expressing support for Hamas at Barry University in 1994. An American judge presiding the case Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development v.Ashcroft in 2002 reached the conclusion that the "Islamic Association for Palestine has acted in support of Hamas."

In his book Chasing a Mirage, Tarek Fatah points out that CAIR has been handsomely funded by Saudi Arabia, by the United Arab Emirates and by Dubai. A 2006 website of the government of the UAE stated that the "Deputy Ruler of Dubai UAE Minister of Finance and Industry has endorsed a proposal to build property in the United States to serve as an endowment for the Council on American-Islamic Relations."

NCCM is an unsavoury group of Islamists doing the bidding of the Muslim Brotherhood, its breakaway little cousin Hamas and Gulf State oil sheikdoms. They have infiltrated Canadian society, and some of its government agencies. Their agenda is to cast suspicion on Israel and any who support it, certainly inclusive of the current Conservative government.

The arrogance in which they felt entitled to 'advise' the PMO, and their subsequent threats to be carried out unless an abject apology reaches them, speaks volumes about their misplaced sense of their influence within Canada.