US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson

US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to launch an investigation into the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), claiming the nonprofit advocacy group has longstanding ties to terrorist organizations including Hamas.

In a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long dated Aug. 4, Cotton asserted that CAIR, which is registered as a nonprofit charitable organization that purports to protect the rights of American Muslims, has “deep ties to terrorist organizations.” Cotton pointed to what he described as “substantial evidence” from past government exhibits and public statements by CAIR officials, including its founding connections and remarks by its current leadership.

“Recent news and longstanding evidence demonstrate CAIR’s ties to terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and their activities,” Cotton wrote.

While Hamas is a US-designated terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood has not been proscribed as such, although lawmakers in Congress recently introduced legislation to designate the global Islamist movement, which has been banned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Austria.

In his letter, Cotton called on the IRS to conduct a full review of CAIR’s financial records, affiliations, and operations to determine whether the organization continues to meet the legal requirements of its tax-exempt status.

Citing a 2008 case, the largest terrorism-financing case in US history, Cotton said CAIR had been listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. CAIR was infamously named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas. Cotton also referred to government trial exhibits indicating CAIR’s founders participated in meetings with Hamas supporters in Philadelphia.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”

Beyond past associations, Cotton pointed to more recent comments from CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad. In a 2023 speech following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, Awas said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.” Cotton cited the remark as evidence of CAIR’s alignment with violent extremist rhetoric.

“These connections are not mere historical footnotes,” Cotton wrote, accusing CAIR of engaging in activities inconsistent with its stated mission of civil rights advocacy. He argued that 501(c)(3) organizations should not be permitted to operate under tax-exempt status if they are involved in or supportive of terrorism.

The IRS has not publicly responded to Cotton’s letter.

CAIR did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story but replied to Cotton on the X social media platform.

“Is that the best you’ve got, Tom? We figured your handlers would have given you something better to work worth, not debunked conspiracy theories and half-baked legal arguments,” CAIR posted. “Unlike [Cotton], our civil rights organization defends the Constitution, including its guarantees of free speech and religious freedom. Also, unlike Tom Cotton, we oppose injustice here and abroad, from hate crimes to terrorism to ethnic cleansing to genocide. That’s why we speak out against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and why we spoke out against attacks on civilians in Israel on Oct. 7th. Receipts below. This is called moral consistency, Tom. You should try it. Make sure to ask AIPAC first, though.”

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group in the US.

Cotton’s letter comes amid growing scrutiny of Middle Eastern and Muslim advocacy organizations as the Israel-Hamas war continues in Gaza and antisemitic hate crimes surge across the West.

The senator has spearheaded multiple efforts to tackle antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment within the US. Earlier this year, for example, Cotton introduced the “No Student Loans for Campus Criminals Act” and “Woke Endowment Security Tax (WEST),” legislation which would penalize students and universities that spread pro-terrorist ideologies.

Police officers block a street as pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in protest against Britain’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plans to proscribe the “Palestine Action” group in the coming weeks, in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy

There was a recorded rise in antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom the day after the English punk rap duo Bob Vylan called for the death of Israeli soldiers at the Glastonbury Festival in June, according to the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters.

CST on Wednesday published a new report detailing antisemitic incidents recorded from January to June 2025. The report stated that the highest daily total for such outrages in the first half of 2025 was 26 reported on June 29, 16 of which took place online.

On June 28, Bob Vylan vocalist Pascal Robinson-Foster led thousands in the audience to chant “Death, Death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, during the band’s set at the Glastonbury music and arts festival in Somerset, England. The performance was livestreamed by the BBC.

CST said the 26 incidents reported to the charity on June 29 involved “anti-Jewish responses” to events at Glastonbury, and CST’s statement on X that described Bob Vylan’s anti-IDF chants as “utterly chilling” and “an expression of mass hatred.”

The second worst day for “anti-Jewish hatred” in the first half of the year was May 17, when 19 incidents were recorded just a day after Israel announced the expansion of its military operation in the Gaza Strip, according to CST’s new report.

“In all of these incidents, anti-Jewish language, motivation, or targeting was evident alongside the rhetoric linked to Israel or Zionism,” CST said. “Both of these cases [on June 29 and May 17] illustrate how sentiment and rhetoric towards Israel and Zionism influence, shape, and drive contemporary anti-Jewish discourse, online and offline, often around totemic events that grab mainstream public attention.”

Because of their anti-IDF comments, Bob Vylan was dropped by their talent agency, as well as festivals and concerts worldwide. The duo also had their US visas revoked, and police in the UK launched an investigation to see if the band’s anti-IDF comments are a criminal offense.

The BBC apologized for broadcasting Bob Vylan’s “offensive and deplorable behavior” in their Glastonbury performance, during which Robinson-Foster also complained about working for a “f—king Zionist” and chanted “Free, free Palestine.”

According to Wednesday’s report, the CST recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the UK from January to June of this year. It marks the second-highest total of incidents ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following the first half of 2024 in which 2,019 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.

Fifty-one percent of all antisemitic incidents in the first half of this year “referenced or were linked to Israel, Palestine, the Hamas terror attack (on Oct. 7, 2023) or the subsequent outbreak of conflict,” CST noted. The group also recorded 73 antisemitic assaults in the first half of the year – with an additional three physical attacks categorized as “extreme violence” – and 572 cases of online antisemitism.

Members of the Hasmonean Brigade during their beret ceremony at the Western Wall on Aug. 6, 2024. Photo: Screenshot

The first set of troops from the Israel Defense Force’s new ultra-Orthodox Hasmonean Brigade completed seven months of basic and advanced training on Wednesday morning, when they received their dark blue berets during a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

“The army and the Torah go together, shoulder to shoulder. One strengthens the other, ” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth wrote in a post on X, congratulating the troops. “I bless the ‘Hasmonean’ Brigade – the first ultra-Orthodox brigade in the IDF, which completed its training course today and, in an emotional ceremony at the Western Wall, received their beret. Only together will we triumph.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid also congratulated the troops, saying that “there is nothing more Jewish than defending the land of Israel.”

Israel’s Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology Gila Gamliel added in a post on X that troops in the Hasmonean Brigade are “paving the way for combining faith with courage.”

“You are a symbol of dedication, mission, and contribution to the nation, and you light the path for all of us toward Israel’s unity,” she added. “Your brigade is proof that one can preserve identity while defending the homeland.”

The beret ceremony on Wednesday morning was attended by Shin Bet director and Maj. Gen. David Zini, who was crucial in the creation of the brigade, and brigade commander Col. Avinoam Emunah. Fifty ultra-Orthodox troops did a “beret march” that started in the hills of Jerusalem and ended at the Western Wall Plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem before the start of the ceremony. They blew shofars and sang songs calling for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, according to Israel’s Arutz 7.

Members of the brigade live a Haredi lifestyle both inside and outside the army and are given special accommodations, such as at least an hour of learning Talmud every day. Around 2,700 Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, have joined the army over the past year, according to Israeli media reports.