CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad pushes back on criticism for October 7 comment

CHICAGO (WLS) -- While Jewish advocacy groups, the Anti-Defamation League and the White House all condemned comments made by CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad on the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, he is pushing back on that criticism, saying his comments were taken out of context.

Awad made the controversial remarks during a convention in Chicago in November. Video of the comments was posted online by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a nonprofit which claims to help bridge the language gap between the Middle East and the West.

Awad said in part, "The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege the walls of the concentration camp on October 7. Yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their own land that they were not allowed to walk in. And yes, 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."

In a statement released Thursday, Awad wrote the website to took his remarks out of context and said in part, "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 October 7th and past Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians.

"It's depressing, but not surprising. CAIR does have a long history of demonizing Israel and diminishing assaults on the Jewish people," said Jay Tcath, executive vice president of the Jewish United Fund.

Tcath says words spoken by leaders matter.

"Jews - like Muslims, like everyone - are entitled to freedom, liberty and to pursue their life as they want to. They don't deserve demonization," he said.

A White House spokesperson also condemned the remarks, saying in part, "We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms... The horrific, brutal terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on October 7th were, as President Biden said, 'abhorrent' and represent 'unadulterated evil.'"

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League also responded to the comments from CAIR, saying there's no excuse for this kind of antisemitism and hate.

Full statement from CAIR Director Nihad Awad

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."