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Radio talk show host Michael Savage. (AP Photo/John Storey)

Michael Savage is changing his legal strategy in his lawsuit against a prominent Muslim group that posted on the web the radio talk show host's heated words about Islam.

The San Francisco-based Savage initially sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations last year strictly on grounds that (CAIR) violated copyright laws by using his words without his permission. But a U.S. District Court ruled that free speech protected CAIR. The judge said Daniel Horowitz, the lawyer for "The Savage Nation" host, needed to change the complaint or the case would be dismissed.

Horowitz told Insight he will soon file a new complaint that alleges that CAIR is, in fact, Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group whose activities in this country would be illegal. The Islamic Hamas openly calls for the destruction of Israel. Now in control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas regularly launches terror strikes on Israeli citizens, such as the recent killings of Israeli students in Jerusalem.

"If I can prove CAIR is Hamas with an American mask, with nefarious goals, but parading as a charity, that's racketeering," said Horowitz. "Hamas is an illegal organization so it would be illegal for CAIR to operate in the United States if they are part of the Hamas conspiracy, which I allege they are. If they are attacking Michael Savage as part of a plan to take over the United States by violence or any other means, it's not legal."

Ahmed Rehab, CAIR's director of strategic communications, dismissed the Horowitz charges.

"Horowitz’s allegations are rubbish," he said. "In his desperation to defend the indefensible he resorts to wild conspiracy theories that are figments of his warped imagination."

Horowitz said he will present documents to show that the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation, which the government indicted on charges of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas, provided seed money to start CAIR in 1994.

In the Holy Land case, prosecutors filed a brief listing CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator with Holy Land. "The court has entered into evidence a wide array of testimonial and documentary evidence expressly linking CAIR and its founders to the HLF and its principals; the Islamic Association for Palestine and its principals; the Palestine Committee in the United States, headed by Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook.”

Marzook is a Hamas leader who fled to Syria in 2004 after being indicted on terrorism charges. CAIR has publicly supported Marzook, as it has other Muslims arrested in this country on terror suspicions.

Insight published a story on CAIR in March that showed the group's founders belonged to organizations that supported Hamas. Details of these links surfaced in the Justice Department's prosecution of Holy Land and its officials. The first trial ended in a mistrial. A new trial is scheduled for August.

“The most important thing we have gotten on the Savage case is that CAIR admitted that their 9/11 "Help the Survivors" web ad then listed the Holy Land Foundation as one of the charities to donate to,” Horowitz said. “I accused them of that in paragraph 91 of the complaint and they admitted that fact in their answer.” 

Hororwitz's charge that CAIR is Hamas is not new. Anti-terrorism research groups, such as Steven Emerson's The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), have made the same allegation. What is new is the prospect that, if Savage's lawsuit goes to trial, Horowitz would have the opportunity to prove in a court of law what CAIR critics have asserted for years.

Savage is carried on over 300 radio stations nationwide. His signature is a highly emotional performance during which he may rant against liberals and President Bush in the same sentence. He bills his show as "psychological nudity."

He launched into a passionate, heated monologue against CAIR and the Koran during his Oct. 29, 2007 show. According to the excerpts posted by CAIR, he called the Koran a "hateful little book." He said Islam is trapped in the 7th century and wants to "kill homosexuals, cut the clitoris off women .... cut off any one's head who doesn't agree with you."

"I don't want to hear any more about Islam," Savage said. "I don't want to hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I am sick of you ...  Don't tell me I need re-education. They need deportation ... You can take C-A-I-R and throw them out of my country ... I'm so sick of the brainwashing."

On Nov. 15 CAIR cited his words to demand that advertisers boycott the show: "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced that OfficeMax, a leading office products retailer, has joined a growing list of companies that have stopped advertising on Michael Savage's nationally syndicated radio program because of the host's anti-Muslim views."

Horowitz's pending new complaint states, "CAIR edited the material in a manner deliberately designed to cast it in a light that was damaging to the reputation of Michael Savage, damaging to the reputation of the show and damaging to the impact of the specific performance. The deliberate damage to the work, to Michael Savage and to the performance was not done for 'fair use' but was done to promote an illegal political and Jihadist agenda that included the destruction of the enemies of Hamas by any means necessary."

"CAIR is Hamas. CAIR is not simply 'related to' or 'friendly with' Hamas. CAIR is Hamas in America."

Savage said on his show Friday his lawsuit has cost him $100,000 in legal fees to date.

Emerson's IPT has completed an investigation of CAIR and is posting a 10-part series on its Web site.

A March 28 installment cites CAIR's support of accused terrorists and some of the theories CAIR officials put forth to explain the September 11 attacks.

"CAIR's soft spot for terrorists extends well beyond the Hamas connections documented in yesterday's installment in this comprehensive series on the group," said IPT. "Today we focus on its portrayal of virtually any law enforcement action against radical elements as an assault on all American Muslims.

"Days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, CAIR-New York Executive Director Ghazi Khankan used an online chat with the Washington Post to launch a weeks-long campaign casting them as part of a conspiracy to discredit Muslims. Citing spurious evidence, he claimed that ‘many of the names of the terrorists are people impersonating innocent Muslims and Arabs.’"

Asked about Emerson's report, CAIR's Rehab said, "It’s the same old broken record material. It’s garbage. Calling Emerson’s work investigative and taking it with any degree of seriousness, is as ludicrous as calling Dr. Joseph Mengele’s race experiments scientific and bothering to analyze them as such. Emerson’s track record is crystal clear as an agenda-driven polemic who concocts half-truths with full-fledged lies in order to sell his prejudices and premeditated notions of Muslim conspiracy theories. The man is a die-hard radical Zionist and he sees Muslim enfranchisement as a threat to the lobby’s interests.”

-Rowan Scarborough, a former national security reporter at The Washington Times, is a special correspondent for Insight. He is the author of "Rumsfeld's War" and "Sabotage."