The White House condemned recent comments the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Nihad Awad made about Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, when terrorists brutally murdered at least 1,200 Israelis.
As Katie reported Thursday, Awad drew condemnation for comments he made during a recent convention, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute:
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad at AMP Convention: I Was Happy to See the People of Gaza Break the Siege on October 7; They Were Victorious; the People of Gaza Have the Right to Self-Defense - Israel Does Not #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians @CAIRNational @NihadAwad pic.twitter.com/WDbSRjFJo0
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 7, 2023
The White House, which invited CAIR for a listening session on Islamophobia in May, denounced the remarks.
“We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement, according to 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,’” Bates added. “The atrocities of that day shock the conscience, which is why we can never forget the pain Hamas has caused for so many innocent people.”
Awad argued in a statement released Thursday that his comments were taken out of context:
“During my remarks at a conference two weeks ago in support of Palestinian human rights, I condemned violence against all civilians and all forms of bigotry, specifically including Islamophobia and antisemitism.
“As I said, ‘The hatred, the prejudice, the violence, the discrimination against Jews because of their faith or their life or their religious practices is a hateful mindset, behavior and action. We as human beings, as Muslims, as Palestinians, see it as evil the way it is, and [it] should be condemned because antisemitism is a real phenomenon, a real evil, and it has to be rejected and combated by all people regardless of their faith tradition, ideology, or those people who have no ideology. It is an attack on humanity and should be clearly condemned by all people.’
“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.
“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, but targeting civilians is never an acceptable means of doing so, which is why I have again and again condemned the violence against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7th and past Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings, all the way back to the 1990s—just as I have condemned the decades of violence against Palestinian civilians.
“The average Palestinians who briefly walked out of Gaza and set foot on their ethnically cleansed land in a symbolic act of defiance against the blockade and stopped there without engaging in violence were within their rights under international law; the extremists who went on to attack civilians in southern Israel were not. Targeting civilians is unacceptable, no matter whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or any other nationality.” (CAIR)