A Bad June for CAIR

Update #1: Welcome RoP readers!

As I reported here earlier in the month, "CAIR's Finances Take Hit from Legal Woes", and in a subsequent FrontPage article, "CAIR's Financial Peril", June wasn't looking too good for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on the financial front. The Islamist group began June with anemic fundraising, as indicated by a running tally on the main page of their website, and it just kept getting worse.

Now that we are into July, we can see that CAIR had a disastrous month, in terms of both finances and public relations. With a budgetary goal of $250,000, according to CAIR's own statistics, they raised only $59,666 for the entire month - less than one-quarter (23.8%) of what they needed to make budget. In the period between June 20th and the end of the month, CAIR only raised $5,880 ($53,786 raised by 6/20) and $2,929 in the last week of the month - barely one percent (1.17%) of its monthly goal.

This has been a bad time for CAIR's finances to bottom out:

• Earlier this month, NY Sun reporter Josh Gerstein broke the news ("Islamic Groups Names in HAMAS Funding Case", 06/04/07) that CAIR has been named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in an upcoming HAMAS terrorism financing trial in Texas. (See my follow-up article, "CAIR Fingered by Feds")
• Then the organization received even more bad news following the Washington Times story that CAIR membership had dropped 90% since 9/11 to a staggering membership low of 1,700 for 2006, a story I had previously reported in February ("Numbers Don't Lie") and May ("CAIR by the Numbers") at FrontPage, and in a blog post ("Honey, I've Shrunk the HAMAS Front Group!").

CAIR hasn't taken this double gut-shot lying down, however. Immediately after the Washington Times story broke, CAIR put out a press release accusing the Times of "agenda-driven reporting". Perhaps one of the most comical aspects of this story was that in addition to slamming the Times, CAIR also issued an action alert asking its supporters to become members in response to the article - thereby proving the point made by the Times!

CAIR is also responding to the news of its being named as an unindicted co-conspirator, not by answering the charges, but by attacking their critics. This lash-back is taking the form of a "nationwide Islamophobia discussion", which according to another CAIR press release begins this weekend with a forum at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, FL; continues next week in Dallas, TX; leading up to an event at the National Press Club on Tuesday, July 17th in Washington DC (if I were the Press Club, I would get payment in advance).

According to CAIR, at the Dallas function next weekend, "Panelists will also discuss the government's actions in the case against officials of the closed Texas-based Holy Land Foundation Muslim charity." Hopefully, that will be an event attended by a more skeptical media than CAIR is used to. They have plenty to answer for.

What does all this mean? Will CAIR be able to weather they financial, legal and public relations perfect storm that they are experiencing? Will CAIR's Wahhabi and Muslim Brotherhood masters bail the group out once again, or will they leave them high and dry now that the Feds are finally on their trail (much as they did the American Muslim Council when it encountered similar travails)? Only time will tell, but CAIR's dismal June doesn't bode well for hopes of a bountiful July. We can only hope.