CAIR has, in fact, never condemned Hamas or Hezbollah. Given repeated opportunities to do so by outlets such as the Washington Post and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, CAIR has flatly refused to denounce either. Asked point-blank by Newsweek just last month to condemn Hamas, CAIR Executive Director (and co-founder) Nihad Awad demurred, dismissing the question as “the game of the pro-Israel lobby.”

When unaware their words were being recorded, though, both of CAIR’s co-founders have freely discussed Islamic terrorism—by voicing their support. In a speech at Barry University in Florida in 1994, Mr. Awad declared, “I’m in support of the Hamas movement.” Addressing a youth session at a 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine convention in Chicago, CAIR’s other co-founder, Omar Ahmad, praised suicide bombers who “kill themselves for Islam”: “Fighting for freedom, fighting for Islam, that is not suicide. They kill themselves for Islam.” (Transcript provided by the Investigative Project.)

Neither statement endorsing Islamic terrorism is out of character for CAIR. When they founded CAIR in 1994, Awad and Ahmad, were both high-ranking officials with the Islamic Association of Palestine, and they maintained close relations for years afterward. IAP, which appears to have ceased operations within the past two years, was an openly anti-Semitic organization long believed to be Hamas’ political front in the U.S. A civil court judge in Illinois last year confirmed those suspicions when he declared that there was “strong evidence that IAP was supporting Hamas.”

Attacks on CAIR, however, require some degree of nuance, as the group doesn’t openly advocate on behalf of Islamic terrorist organizations. Though it has fiercely and loudly defended men charged with aiding terrorism, such as now-open Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzouk and former University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian, CAIR’s primary focus is stifling legitimate debate on the threat posed by radical Islam. Talk radio host Michael Graham was drummed out of Disney-owned WMAL in

Washington because of a campaign spearheaded by the group. More recently, talk host and columnist Dennis Prager was publicly flagellated for criticizing new Congressman Keith Ellison’s decision to swear his oath of office on the Qur’an.

If only CAIR exhibited anywhere near the same kind of hostility for the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah.

That its apologism for Islamic terrorism has been remarkably slick is probably why CAIR has thus far escaped scrutiny by the left or the mainstream media. Perhaps the best example is its much-ballyhooed fatwa against terrorism and extremism—terms that intentionally were not defined. No fundamentalist Muslim considers himself “extreme,” and Hamas and its boosters maintain that the only real “terrorist” in the region is the Jewish state. Not coincidentally, CAIR claims to condemn “all forms of terrorism,” yet it almost exclusively focuses on Israel’s actions.

Seeing through CAIR’s tapestry of lies and deceptions is admittedly a tough task, but by no means an impossible one. Sen. Boxer did it with little outside prodding. How many others in the media and on the left will follow suit?