A conservative group is calling on a Democratic congressional candidate in Virginia to return a campaign contribution from a Muslim leader with ties to the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) is asking Gerry Connolly, the chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, to return a $500 contribution from Nehad Hammad, an alias used by Nihad Awad. Awad is the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a former spokesman for the Islamic Association for Palestine – a group that raised money for Palestinian jihadists. TVC has also criticized Connolly's staunch defense of the Islamic Saudi Academy, a Saudi government-run school in northern Virginia that the Commission on International Religious Freedom has urged the State Department to shut down. The school has used textbooks that promote violence and hatred against Jews and Christians. James Lafferty, TVC spokesman, notes Connolly has yet to explain his acceptance of the contribution. "We've heard him go back and forth on what's being taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy," he explains. "At first he accused us of slander when we read excerpts from the federal report on the Academy. But now, just recently, I guess he's sensed a change or a shift in the political winds, and he's now calling on the State Department to do an investigation. So he's always ready to go with the flow, and I'm sure he's always paying attention to what public sentiment is," Lafferty contends. According to Lafferty, Connolly sees Muslims as a major voting bloc in northern Virginia. "Here where we live in northern Virginia, it's called the 'Wahabbi corridor,' and there is a growing number of radical Islam organizations here. [T]he Muslim community in general is growing, and he's pandering to the most violent people among the Muslims who live here. I don't believe all the Muslims who live here are as extreme as the people that Mr. Connolly works with, but I guess he thinks they are," Lafferty explains. He believes Connolly "needs to come clean and scrub his campaign of all terrorist influence and sympathizers." Lafferty says Connolly also needs to be asked whether the contribution from the CAIR founder affected his "vigilance" in protecting the people of Fairfax County from the "cell of terrorists operating within it."
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