Last week, it was reported that Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed had received $175,000 in support from a political fund affiliated with CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations). The story helps shed some light on the milieu surrounding the Michigan politician’s insurgent campaign.

CAIR presents itself as a Muslim-American civil-rights advocacy group, working to counter discrimination, promote inter-faith dialog, and so on. After 9/11, such representatives were in high demand in the media, helping CAIR expand its profile. But the organization also became notorious in the 2000s as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), then the largest Muslim charity in the US, which was shut down for channeling millions of dollars to Hamas.

The evidence gathered in the HLF case showed that CAIR grew out of a “Palestine Committee” set up to coordinate several US-based chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the early Nineties, one of which became HLF. The Committee’s stated goals included increasing financial and political support for Hamas, a branch of the Brotherhood at the time.

As the Oslo peace process gathered momentum and Hamas opposed any compromise with Israel, the Committee concluded that it needed a new organization, without visible links to terrorist violence, to “support the cause politically on the American front”. The cause, per the Hamas Charter, was undermining Palestinian-Israeli compromise and promoting Islamism. CAIR emerged from this milieu, with Nihad Awad among its founders, and was established in Washington, DC, in 1994.

An FBI agent involved in the HLF case described CAIR in 2016 as “a front group for Hamas”. There is little evidence it has evolved in the decade since. The group’s executive director declared he was “happy to see” the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023. In 2024 a senior CAIR official mourned the “martyrdom” of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, while there was a legal dispute two years ago when a former employee suggested the organization was financially tied to Hamas. Last October, a CAIR leader participated in an event with a blacklisted Hamas finance official.

CAIR rejects these allegations and frequently accuses its critics of Islamophobia. This tactic has been remarkably successful in preserving the group’s foothold and influence in Democratic politics. At a 2019 gala, headlined by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, CAIR unveiled letters of support from 120 members of Congress, who were overwhelmingly Democrats. In 2020, it spearheaded a Muslim get-out-the-vote effort that delivered for the Democrats. As late as 2023, CAIR was still engaging with the Biden White House on civil-rights issues, including antisemitism.

Mainstream Democrats have distanced themselves from CAIR since the 7 October massacres, but parts of the American Left have drawn closer to the group. In the 2024 election, CAIR Action backed candidates who supported a permanent ceasefire and arms embargo, while withholding endorsements from some Democrats who supported Israel’s war against Hamas.

Its political influence has also increasingly been accompanied by financial support for progressive Democrats. Rashida Tlaib is a notable example, while the CAIR-linked Unity & Justice Fund was reportedly the single largest donor to a PAC backing Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign for mayor of New York City last year.

Even so, a charge of hypocrisy against El-Sayed might have been expected, given his sloganeering about getting nefarious “money out of politics”. Yet he appears to be referring solely to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the central villain in his speeches.

It is a sign of how pathological American politics has become that El-Sayed’s framing has basically been accepted by everyone. He neither feared nor paid a political penalty for taking CAIR’s money, while his Republican opponent has had to ask Aipac not to get involved in the race. Hostility to Jewish political influence was once largely confined to the fringes of American politics. It is now increasingly visible in mainstream Democratic campaigning.