Florida exposes Brotherhood and CAIR

Florida’s decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations is not “controversial.” It’s overdue.

For years, the Muslim Brotherhood has operated in a gray zone, presenting itself as a political or social movement while spawning or inspiring groups that openly embrace violence. 

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Syria and others have long since labeled it a terrorist organization, based on its record of assassinations, terror attacks and its explicit project of building an Islamist caliphate.   

When a movement’s ideological DNA keeps producing Hamas-style organizations, treating it as a harmless “political current” is wilful blindness.

CAIR has wrapped itself in the language of civil rights, but its track record raises serious questions. The organization was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror-financing case involving Hamas, and the UAE government formally listed it as a terrorist organization in 2014 because of its alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.   

In the United States, CAIR has spent years positioning itself as the gatekeeper of Muslim representation while routinely smearing critics as “Islamophobes” instead of answering substantive concerns about its associations and rhetoric.

Now Florida, following Texas, has done what Washington has been too timid to do: draw a bright legal line. DeSantis’ executive order directs state agencies to deny contracts, jobs and public funds to these organizations and those materially supporting them.   

That is not collective punishment of Muslims. It is a straightforward use of state power: taxpayer resources will not flow to groups credibly linked—ideologically, organizationally, or financially—to movements that glorify or excuse terror.

Critics protest that the federal government has not designated CAIR or the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. That’s true, and it’s exactly the problem.   

Federal paralysis doesn’t change the facts on the ground; it just leaves citizens exposed while bureaucrats argue. States are not required to sit on their hands while networks aligned with Hamas’s worldview operate freely on their soil.

This move also sends a wider message in the post–October 7 world: you cannot hide jihadist sympathies behind Western vocabulary about “rights” and “justice” forever. If your ecosystem keeps intersecting with supporters of groups that massacre civilians, eventually someone in authority will say: enough.

Florida’s designation will be challenged in court. Fine. Let there finally be a serious legal and evidentiary fight over what these organizations really are, whom they are connected to, and where their loyalties lie. Sunlight is healthy.

In the meantime, DeSantis has done what leaders are supposed to do: act. Protect the public. 

Shut off the flow of state legitimacy and money to those who play footsie with violent Islamism. Other governors who claim to take terrorism and antisemitism seriously now have a clear test in front of them.