Paypal has banned Alex Jones and other conservatives from its platform while allowing CAIR, which had its share of controversies over the years, to run Paypal fundraisers.
The United Arab Emirates blacklisted CAIR, short for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, along with 82 other groups in 2014 after the UAE said it had ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Given the controversy, you’d think a company like Paypal would at least create some distance so to not appear too political, but since then Paypal has helped CAIR run major fundraisers on its platform.
Donations to CAIR are apparently funneled through the PayPal Giving Fund, a 501(c)(3) charity.
Although it officially claims to be “non-partisan,” CAIR has attended numerous events alongside leftist organizations throughout the years.
“The political contributions by the CAIR officials that could be identified so overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party that I was only able to find three donations in the two-year 2006 political cycle that went to Republicans,” reported Front Page Magazine’s Patrick Poole in 2006, as reposted by the Free Republic.
This suggests that Paypal does take political sides, and that the banning of Alex Jones – and other conservatives – was politically-motivated.
Although CAIR did enjoy good relations with the Obama administration, the FBI cut ties with the organization back in 2009.
“Despite its good standing in Washington, CAIR has had its share of controversy,” reported Fox News in 2014. “In 2007, the organization was named along with 300 others as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case regarding funding to extremist group Hamas.”
“Its critics have long accused the group of having ties to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.”
CAIR downplayed the accusations, but that didn’t stop the FBI from severing ties.
“The FBI is severing its once-close ties with the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, amid mounting evidence that it has links to a support network for Hamas,” Fox News reported in 2009. “All local chapters of CAIR have been shunned in the wake of a 15-year FBI investigation that culminated with the conviction in December of Hamas fundraisers at a trial where CAIR itself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.”
“The U.S. government has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.”
The FBI started distancing itself from CAIR during the aforementioned trial.
“The FBI took a new slap at the Council on American-Islamic Relations today at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial,” reported the Dallas Morning News while covering the trial in late 2008. “FBI Special Agent Lara Burns was going over more transcripts from the Philadelphia meeting – the 1993 gathering of Holy Land officials and Hamas sympathizers that the government contends was meant to brainstorm ways to downplay the Foundation’s extremist ties – when talk turned to a passage from defendant Shukri Abu Baker.”
“He is quoted on the wiretap transcript talking about how it would be beneficial to have more traditional, secular American organizations to help spread the Islamist message.”
Over the past year, Paypal has been following the lead of Soros-funded groups who lobbied against conservative outlets.
“PayPal banned Jihad Watch and the American Freedom Defense Initiative from receiving online donations using their platform because of the site’s ‘activities’ after being designated as ‘hate sites’ by left-wing groups,” the Daily Caller reported in 2017. “Jihad Watch was reportedly banned from PayPal on Saturday after ProPublica – a George Soros funded investigative group – targeted the site and its director Robert Spencer (not to be confused with white nationalist Richard Spencer) in a hit piece that claimed the site was guilty of ‘extreme hostility toward Muslims.’”
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