Middle East Insider · Issue 058 · Tuesday, October 6, 2026

CAIR Wrote It. San Diego Passed It, 8 to 0.

Good morning. The Forum’s investigation of San Diego’s definition of “Islamophobia” is now open to every reader, and this edition opens there. Then the Mecca pact, Yemen, Tehran, the strait, Israel and Britain.

City records show that CAIR’s San Diego office drafted the definition of “Islamophobia” the council adopted.

On September 15 the San Diego City Council adopted a working definition of “Islamophobia” and asked that it be sent to every city department, including the police. The vote was 8 to 0, and the resolution names no author. On Monday the Forum’s Focus on Western Islamism published the record of who drafted it, drawn from nearly 2,000 pages of city e-mail obtained under California’s public records law.

The draft sits on the city’s own website. Its file properties name the author, Ilias Benbatoul, a community canvasser in the San Diego office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the date, July 16. The council’s definition is the sentence CAIR wrote, with three words added: “or their property.” The council also adopted the first ten of CAIR’s twelve examples, in the same order, with light edits.

Thirteen days before the vote, Councilmember Jennifer Campbell wrote to Benbatoul: “I am happy to support the resolution you proposed as sent to me.” The staff report credits “San Diego Muslim community organizations” and names none. Of its 939 words, 508 repeat CAIR’s draft word for word.

Six months earlier the same council adopted a definition of antisemitism and put its author, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, in the title. The city’s Human Relations Commission voted on that definition and never voted on this one.

Federal prosecutors named CAIR, without charging it, as a coconspirator in a Hamas-financing case. The governors of Texas and Florida have designated it a terrorist organization; CAIR has challenged both designations in court, and the federal government has not designated it. The article does not allege that anyone in San Diego broke a law. It reports that the city let an outside organization write its words and did not tell the public.

San Diego can repair this in three steps. A resolution that an outside organization drafts should say so on its face. This definition should go back to the Human Relations Commission for the hearing it never had, and it should not go to the police until then. Before any official meets with CAIR California again, the city should ask it what the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Department of Health and Human Services have already asked, and publish the answers. Residents are entitled to know who wrote the words their government adopts.

MEF Observer, The United States Should Crack Down on Alleged Iranian Front Companies in Iraqi Kurdistan (Oct 5): Michael Rubin argues that, with American troops gone from Iraq, the Treasury should act against companies in Iraqi Kurdistan alleged to work with the Revolutionary Guards.

MEF Observer, Rethinking the Haj Hamed Network in Iraq (Oct 5): Ali Almrayatee argues that Iran is not abandoning Iraq’s militias; it is moving their most exposed operations into small cells that they and Baghdad can disown.

MEF Observer, Iran Sees United Arab Emirates as an Enemy Alongside the United States and Israel (Oct 5): Shay Khatiri on Tehran’s campaign against Abu Dhabi since the UAE renewed its claim to three Gulf islands and confirmed Netanyahu’s visit.

MEF Online, Are Israel and Turkey Headed for Conflict? (Oct 5): Jonathan Spyer on Netanyahu’s order to prepare a case against Erdogan at the International Criminal Court, and on where Israeli and Turkish interests collide, from Syria to the Red Sea.

MEF Observer, The Persian Gulf Arms Race and the Changing Security Bargain (Oct 4): Radhika Lakshminarayanan on why decades of Western arms purchases did not protect the Gulf states in this war, and why cheap drones push them toward more suppliers.

MEF Observer, The United States Must Close the Caspian to Iran and Russia’s Sanctions-Busting Trade (Oct 3): Leonid Baratz argues that the blockade is pushing Iran’s trade north across the Caspian, and that Washington should sanction the ships, insurers and ports on that route.

Also since Friday: Michael Rubin on the gaps in the blockade; Jim Hanson on why he expects Tehran to make a deal; Amine Ayoub on the vote inside Hamas for its Gaza leadership; Abdullah Bozkurt on the Financial Action Task Force’s review of Turkey and on a Russian forensics firm’s alleged Turkish cover; Nicoletta Kouroushi on Greece and Egypt; Rubin on India and drone warfare and on the State Department’s flags; and Jules Gomes on the imam, tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, at the Pope’s interfaith meeting in Metz. Forum donors receive Insider Premium; if your invitation has not arrived, write [email protected].

The Mecca pact orders forces to Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s government claims the coast at Bab el-Mandeb, Tehran calls talks meaningless, and oil exports pass prewar levels.

The pact. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan convened the defense committee of their Mecca pact in Riyadh on Monday. It decided to “move immediately to the practical implementation of the collective defense commitments” and to ensure the “rapid deployment” of agreed forces in the kingdom (joint statement). The statement names no adversary (Dawn). Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman said the committee agreed to “activate collective deterrence measures”; Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said the three also discussed what could be done “to resolve the issue peacefully and through dialogue” (Saudi Gazette).

Yemen. Yemen’s Saudi-backed government announced an offensive on Sunday. On Monday its forces, backed by Saudi air strikes, retook the coast around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as far as Mokha, the government said; four government sources told Reuters that troops had reached the city’s outskirts as the Houthis retreated into the highlands. Inland, government military sources said, the Houthis have surrounded Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city; one government source denied that the road into the city had been cut (Reuters). A Houthi-affiliated center warned airlines that Saudi skies “will be a theater for operations” (CBS News).

Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States “has a defense and security agreement with Saudi Arabia and we intend to live by it,” and that the Saudis “have a right to defend themselves” (State Department). One current and one former American official said more than 200 American analysts are helping to select targets from command centers inside the kingdom and that American aircraft are refueling Saudi patrols (New York Times and AP).

Tehran. President Masoud Pezeshkian called talks with Washington meaningless on Monday: “every time we come to the negotiating table, war is immediately imposed on us” (Iran International). The President said on Monday that he is open to talks and that the war is “essentially almost over” (Gulf News). Axios reported that his national security team met at Camp David on Friday to discuss Iran and Yemen (Reuters); Rubio called the meeting “long-term strategic planning” (State Department).

The strait. Britain’s maritime trade office reported two more tankers struck in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, and said the Revolutionary Guards ordered an inbound tanker north of Khasab, Oman, to turn back or be targeted; the master complied (gCaptain). Central Command said it has redirected 130 commercial ships since the blockade resumed on July 14, disabled three and destroyed 13; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Iran loaded no crude onto tankers last month (Iran International).

Oil. Middle East crude exports, excluding Iran’s, rose above their prewar average on several days last week, the tracking firm Kpler said. A Saudi energy source told AFP that a strike on Sunday stopped the East-West pipeline; Reuters and Bloomberg reported that oil was still flowing (CBS News). Brent fell 1.9 percent on Monday and settled at $100.32 (NDTV Profit).

Iraq. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said on Monday that five armed factions have agreed to surrender their weapons and that three have done so; Kataib Hezbollah has refused (The New Region).

Israel marks three years since October 7, the flydubai inquiry turns to Ben Gurion Airport, and the President says a threat linked to Iran moved the bombers from Fairford.

Israel. Israel marked the third anniversary of the October 7 attack on Monday with a state memorial at Mount Herzl, three weeks before the October 27 election. Netanyahu said that anyone involved in the attack “is living on borrowed time,” and said of Iran: “The tyrannical regime is weaker than it has ever been since its establishment” (JNS).

The flight. The co-pilot who attacked the captain of flydubai flight 1073 on September 30 has been named as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani under arrest in the United Arab Emirates. Channel 12 and Ynet reported, without naming sources, that he told investigators he meant to fly on as normal, obtain landing clearance and then crash the plane into a building or a jet at Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli investigators have not questioned him (Times of Israel).

Britain. The Pentagon confirmed on Sunday that it had moved its B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford, the base at the center of last week’s terrorism arrests, back to the United States (BBC). The President said on Monday that a threat prompted the move and that “we actually know the people that made the threat.” Asked whether they were linked to Iran, he said: “They would be linked to Iran” (Reuters).

Tuesday, October 13, 5 to 7 p.m., Manhattan: a private launch for Craig Considine’s When Marx Meets Islam. Admission is $250, including a signed copy and drinks; donors of $5,000 or more this year attend free; the address comes with registration.

I will be in California and Texas in November. If you would like to meet, or to host an evening for the Forum, reply to this email.

Corrections Desk. Friday’s edition referred to “flights from the UAE to Israel suspended since the attack” on flight 1073. Flydubai’s flights were suspended; Etihad kept flying between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. When this brief gets something wrong, write [email protected]; corrections run in print.

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