Controversy broke out last week concerning remarks Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made at a gathering of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Last week also marked the fifth anniversary since CAIR—widely regarded by American journalists and politicians as a legitimate representative of U.S. Muslims—successfully pressured Brandeis University into canceling its plans to grant an honorary degree to the apostate Muslim and women’s-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. At the time, Andrew McCarthy responded with an updated version of a chapter from his 2010 book, in which he explained how Hamas operatives created CAIR.

When 25 [Hamas] members and supporters gathered at a Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia on October 27, 1993, they were unaware that the FBI was monitoring their deliberations. The confab was a brainstorming exercise: how best to back Hamas and derail the Oslo Accords while concealing these activities from the American government? . . . In the U.S., Hamas was [by this time] perceived as the principal enemy of the popular “peace process.” . . .

That was where [a] new organization would come in. . . . The new entity’s Islamism and Hamas promotion would have to be less “conspicuous.” It would need to couch its rhetoric in sweet nothings like “social justice,” “due process,” and “resistance.” If it did those things, though, it might be more attractive . . . and effective. A Muslim organization posing as a civil-rights activist while soft-pedaling its jihadist sympathies might be able to snow the American political class, the courts, the media, and the academy. It might make real inroads with the . . . progressives who dominated the Clinton administration. . . .

Despite its Hamas roots and terror ties, the most disturbing aspect of CAIR is its accomplishment of the Muslim Brotherhood’s precise aspiration for it. Thanks to its media savvy and the credulousness of government officials and press outlets, which have treated it as the “civil-rights” group it purports to be rather than the Islamist spearhead that it is, CAIR has been a constant thorn in the side of American national defense.

As part of the deal that paves the way for the normalization of relations between Jerusalem and Rabat, the U.S. has agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a long-disputed territory on Africa’s Atlantic coast. The agreement comes a little less than a month after the Polisario Front—an Algeria-backed group fighting for Sahrawi independence—ended a 30-year ceasefire and resumed open conflict with Morocco. Raphael Bouchnik-Chen explains the geopolitical circumstances behind the Western Sahara conflict, and how they relate to Israel:

The conflict was sparked after Spain’s colonial withdrawal from the region in 1975, leaving Mauritania, Morocco, and the Polisario Front in an entrenched conflict over territorial sovereignty. . . . The timing of the [recent violation of the ceasefire] by the Polisario Front, which was undertaken seemingly out of nowhere, . . . warrants a closer look. It is possible that foreign powers encouraged this provocation as a means of interfering with the ongoing process aimed at concluding a peace agreement between Morocco and Israel.

Tehran is considered by Rabat to be its most dangerous rival, as it has been involved in subversive acts against the Moroccan regime. Tehran and its Lebanese proxy Hizballah were accused of training and arming Polisario Front fighters with surface-to-air missiles, with the deliveries conducted via Iran’s embassy in Algiers. Evidence of these deliveries prompted Morocco to sever relations with Iran in May 2018 and to expel the Iranian ambassador to Rabat.

It is reasonable to infer that the Palestinian Authority (PA) also played a role behind the scenes, as it too wishes to torpedo the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel. The PA is furious that the Abraham Accords changed the traditional rules of the game in the Middle East, leaving the Palestinian question behind.

In other words, by upholding Morocco’s territorial claims, the U.S. might not just be giving Rabat a gift, but shoring up the regional alliance against Iran.