A senior official with the California Civil Liberties Program publicly celebrated former President Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis and expressed hope that President Donald Trump will suffer a similar fate—comments she linked explicitly to the presidents’ support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a sitting member of California’s state civil rights advisory board, called Biden’s aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis “God’s wrath” for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. She added she hopes the president’s cancer proves “as aggressive” as the IDF in Gaza.

Billoo isn’t the only one celebrating Biden’s diagnosis. Former Bernie Sanders surrogate Shaun King called Biden a “genocidal monster” and added, “I hope his final days are painful.” Taylor Lorenz, a former Washington Post reporter, went further, writing, “Hopefully [Biden] rots in hell and rests in piss.”

Billoo’s remarks have sparked calls for California Governor Gavin Newsom to respond. Newsom’s office, which frequently collaborates with CAIR on civil rights and hate crime issues, declined to comment on the matter. Billoo was appointed to the state civil liberties advisory panel in 2018 by then-Governor Jerry Brown and continues to serve despite the board not having convened since last year due to budget constraints.

The episode is reigniting concerns about Newsom’s ties with CAIR, which has faced mounting criticism for inflammatory rhetoric and its leaders’ support of terrorist groups. In December 2023, CAIR’s national director Nihad Awad publicly declared he was “happy to see” Hamas’s October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians.

Billoo herself has previously mourned Hamas figures, describing the death of senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as “martyrdom” and saying his legacy would live on.

Despite such rhetoric, Newsom’s administration has awarded millions of dollars in state security grants to Islamic institutions with controversial affiliations. One such recipient, the Islamic Center of San Diego—linked to two of the 9/11 hijackers—received $500,000. The mosque’s imam later called Hamas’s October 7 attack “justified.”

In the days following the Oct. 7 attack, the Newsom administration publicly quoted CAIR leader Hussam Ayloush in a press release announcing increased funding to secure houses of worship. Newsom later met with Ayloush and other CAIR leaders in early 2024, shortly before he publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)