Stephen M. Flatow is President of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA.) He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995 and the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon. Note: The RZA is not affiliated with any American or Israeli political party.
In most Americans’ minds, terrorism looks like bombs, rifles, and masked gunmen. But modern extremist movements have learned something more effective: legitimacy. You do not need explosives when you can secure endorsements, proclamations, and civic honors from Western governments.
That lesson was on full display this month when the city of Austin, Texas declared January 22 “CAIR-Austin Day," honoring the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its “community engagement." The proclamation might have passed unnoticed were it not for a glaring contradiction: just weeks earlier, Texas Governor Greg Abbott formally designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations under state law, citing what he described as longstanding ideological and operational ties to Islamist movements hostile to the United States and its allies.
In other words, one arm of government warned that CAIR represents a national-security threat, while another arm of government rolled out the red carpet.
This is not simply a local political squabble. It exposes a deeper problem: how Islamist political networks gain respectability in democratic societies without ever renouncing the ideology that animates them.
CAIR portrays itself as a civil-rights organization defending Muslim Americans from discrimination. That message resonates in progressive cities eager to display tolerance and inclusivity. Yet CAIR’s history tells a more complicated story. In the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case in the 2000s-the largest such prosecution in U.S. history-CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator.
A federal judge later wrote that the government had presented “ample evidence" of its association with Hamas-linked networks. The FBI has reportedly described CAIR as a front group tied to Hamas support structures. The Anti-Defamation League has documented early links between CAIR leadership and organizations affiliated with Hamas.
CAIR disputes these allegations and insists it condemns terrorism. But condemnation is not the same as severance. The ideological lineage matters. CAIR emerged from the same Muslim Brotherhood milieu that gave rise to Hamas. That is not a slander; it is a matter of record acknowledged even in court filings and academic research.
What makes the Austin proclamation so disturbing is not merely that it honors a controversial group. It is that it signals moral indifference to this history. It tells the public that alleged connections to terrorist movements are no longer disqualifying if the organization in question adopts the language of civil rights and social justice.
The irony is sharp. CAIR claims to defend minority communities, yet its leadership has repeatedly trafficked in rhetoric that excuses or celebrates violence against Jews and Israelis. After Hamas’s October 7 massacre-the largest slaughter of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust-the national head of CAIR said he was “happy" to see the attack. That was not the voice of peace or coexistence. It was the voice of ideological solidarity with a genocidal movement.
This is why the Austin decision matters far beyond Texas. It reflects a broader Western failure to distinguish between Muslim civil society and Islamist political activism. The former deserves protection. The latter seeks power.
Islamism is not simply a religion. It is a political project: the effort to impose religious law and authority through social pressure, legal activism, and ultimately state power. When violent methods fail or become inconvenient, softer tactics take their place-lawsuits, lobbying, public relations, and civic honors.
The Muslim Brotherhood perfected this model decades ago. Its strategy was to build influence through social organizations, charities, and community groups, while preserving loyalty to its long-term ideological goals. Hamas itself is a product of that system. Violence and respectability are not opposites in this worldview; they are tools used at different stages.
Seen in that light, “CAIR-Austin Day" is not just symbolic. It is strategic. It transforms a group accused of Islamist ties into an official partner of local government. It reframes scrutiny as persecution and radical politics as civil rights.
Supporters of the proclamation argue that designating CAIR as a terrorist organization violates free speech. But the issue is not speech. It is alignment. Governments are not obliged to honor every advocacy group that claims a moral cause. They routinely refuse to celebrate white supremacists, communist fronts, or neo-Nazi organizations even when those groups speak the language of protest and grievance. Why should Islamist-linked movements be treated differently?
The answer lies in fear-fear of being labeled intolerant, fear of accusations of Islamophobia, fear of confronting uncomfortable facts. Progressive politics has created a hierarchy of victims in which some ideologies are immune from scrutiny. As long as a group presents itself as defending Muslims, it is shielded from questions about what kind of Islam it promotes.
This is how extremist ideologies migrate from the margins to city hall. Not by force, but by flattery. Not by conquest, but by coalition politics.
There is another danger here. By honoring CAIR, Austin sends a message to Muslim Americans that Islamist activism represents them. It does not. Millions of Muslims reject Hamas, reject the Muslim Brotherhood, and reject political Islam altogether. They deserve allies who strengthen their integration into democratic society-not organizations that entangle them in imported Middle Eastern conflicts.
The lesson of October 7 should have been clarity. Instead, we are seeing confusion harden into policy. Hamas demonstrated, once again, that its worldview is incompatible with human dignity. Yet in the West, groups that emerged from the same ideological ecosystem are welcomed as civic partners.
This is not pluralism. It is self-deception.
The Islamists no longer need guns when they can get proclamations. And democracies that cannot tell the difference between civil rights and ideological warfare will find themselves defending their enemies and eventually surrendering to them in the name of tolerance.
Austin’s gesture may seem small. But history shows that radical movements rarely announce themselves with violence at first. They begin with legitimacy.
And legitimacy, once granted, is far harder to take back than a proclamation.