The Muslim group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is ripping the NFL for fining Houston Texans player Azeez Al-Shaair for wearing anti-Israel eye black, and they are suggesting that the league should sanction Jewish New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft instead.
In its message blasting the NFL for the fine, the group complained that the league “permits the display of symbols from Robert Kraft’s Stand Up to Jewish Hate campaign.”
“If the NFL singled out Azeez Al-Shaair for punishment because of his anti-genocide message amid a backlash from the Israeli government’s enablers, then the NFL should apologize and reverse the fine,” CAIR-Houston Director of Operations Imran Ghani said in a statement, according to OutKick.
“The NFL apparently has no problem with coaches wearing pins from Robert Kraft’s ‘Stand Up to Jewish Hate’ campaign, and it should have no problem with an NFL player opposing genocide, whether the genocide is in Gaza or Sudan or elsewhere. It should approve the use of the slogan ‘Stop the Genocide’ going forward.”
The Houston, Texas, chapter of the unindicted terrorism co-conspirator Muslim group went on the attack on Sunday after the league announced that Al-Shaair, who is a Muslim, was being fined for breaking the NFL’s policy against “wearing eye black that contained a personal message” with eye blacking containing the message “stop the genocide.”
“We again applaud Houston Texans player Azeez Al-Shaair for using his platform to call for an end to genocide anywhere and everywhere, and we strongly object to the NFL’s reported decision to fine him for doing so amid pressure from pro-Israel extremists,” Ghani continued in his support for Al-Shaair.
“If NFL policies truly do require a fine for a player who makes a statement as generic as ‘Stop the Genocide,’ then the NFL needs to revise its policies,” he added.
“Azeez Al-Shaair’s message was rooted in basic human decency and concern for innocent lives. That should not be controversial, much less subject to a fine,” Ghani concluded.
Al-Shaair claimed that the so-called “genocide” he was referring to was the situation going on in Gaza, supposedly at the hands of Israel against the terrorist group Hamas and the “Palestinians.”
“I feel like it’s something that’s trying to be almost silenced,” the Muslim player claimed in 2024. “On either side, people losing their life is not right. In no way, shape, or form am I validating anything that happened, but to consistently say that because of [Oct. 7] innocent people [in Gaza] should now die, it’s crazy.”
“[People] try to make a disconnect and dehumanize people over there. And it’s like, they’re human beings. Being a Muslim, we see everybody the same; Black, white, Spanish, whatever you are; you can be orange, like, we’re all human beings,” he said.
Al-Shaair remains a controversial player due to his often political proclamations. Last year, for instance, Al-Shaair wore cleats with the message “Free Palestine.”
The cleats feature the unverified number of Palestinians supposedly killed by the Israeli military. But, naturally, don’t mention the Palestinian terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Al-Shaair wore the cleats during a practice at minicamp in July of 2025 and also donned the shoes at the press conference after the day’s activities.
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