The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has long “enjoyed an unearned reputation as a civil-rights organization,” A.J. Caschetta writes, “in spite of its ties to Hamas, . . . the Holy Land Foundation charity [which was convicted in a federal court of supporting terrorism], and the Muslim Brotherhood.” In the past, critics of CAIR were often dismissed as anti-Muslim bigots. Recently, however, former CAIR board members, employees, and supporters have launched a coordinated effort to expose a different set of problems within the organization.

In 2008, when the FBI agents Lara Burns and Robert Miranda testified at the Holy Land Foundation trial that CAIR is a Hamas front, many anticipated an investigation that would result in criminal charges. Those charges never came. But times have changed, and men were getting away with behavior in 2008 that they wouldn’t get away with today.

Ever since January 2021, when Hasan Shibly, leader of CAIR’s Florida operations, resigned amid a scandal of spousal-abuse, polygamy, and sexual-harassment allegations, CAIR members and former members have been coming forward with accusations of gender bias and sexual harassment, and the group that bills itself as “a Muslim civil-rights and advocacy organization” is beginning to look like just another hostile workplace where the men in charge bully and harass the women who work for them with impunity.

Leila Fadal of NPR found an angle that couldn’t be dismissed as “Islamophobia” when she wrote about the sex scandal on April 15, 2021. . . . One of the women profiled in the NPR piece, Jinan Shbat, operates an Instagram account called cairvictimsforum, featuring testimonials from accusers. Another new social-media phenomenon exposing CAIR’s secrets is a group called WeCAIR. WeCAIR is a serious organization calling for reform, asking reporters to “be unafraid to investigate CAIR as you would any other major organization,” and helping CAIR’s victims air their stories.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.