The White House condemned recent comments made by the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which he justified Hamas‘s Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the current war.
CAIR’s national executive director Nihad Awad said at a gathering of American Muslims for Palestine that the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, while Israel does not, in a speech that surfaced Thursday. He gave the speech two weeks ago, but it circulated more broadly once it was shared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors and translates Arabic and other media.
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“We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, reported by the New York Times. “The horrific, brutal terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 were, as President Biden said, ‘abhorrent’ and represent ‘unadulterated evil.’”
The Oct. 7 attacks, which included the murders of roughly 1,200 people, the vast majority of whom were civilians, “shock[s] the conscience,” Bates added, and he said that “every leader has a responsibility to call out antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head.”
The White House included CAIR in a “listening session on Islamophobia” in May with second gentleman Doug Emhoff. The organization was also included on a White House list of independent organizations dedicated to fighting antisemitism, though the White House removed CAIR from the online document on Thursday.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on Oct. 7,” Awad said in his controversial comments. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not allowed to walk in.”
“And yes,” he continued, “the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.”
Awad released a statement on Thursday arguing that his comments were taken out of context, explaining that he did condemn violence and all forms of bigotry including Islamophobia and antisemitism.
“Despite my clear remarks, an anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian hate website selected remarks from my speech out of context and spliced them together to create a completely false meaning,” he said. “What I actually said while discussing international law: Ukrainians, Palestinians and other occupied people have the right to defend themselves and escape occupation by just and legal means.”
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The Biden administration has largely stood by its most prominent Middle Eastern ally, Israel, even though it had repeatedly and publicly called for them to do more to protect civilians as they carry out their war in Gaza.
“Targeting civilians is unacceptable, no matter whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or any other nationality,” Awad added.
