Tag Archives: West Bank

Obama Trip Map Cuts Jerusalem, the Golan Heights Out of Israel

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obamasisrael-275x350Front Page - By Daniel Greenfield:

Diplomacy. This administration is bad at it. Sure you could write this off as a graphic designer’s error, but it’s an error that hews closely to  the geography of an anti-Israel policy.

I wouldn’t expect Obama Inc. to include Judea and Samaria inside Israel. But cutting out Jerusalem and the Golan Heights would seem to be a bit much.

Obama Inc’s bids to get Israel to give up the Golan Heights stalled when Assad became an international war criminal and the odds of the new Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qaeda overlords making a deal with Israel for the Golan Heights seems wildly unlikely, even by the insane peace madness standards of the last twenty years.

But for some reason Obama Inc. is standing on principle. As for Jerusalem, cutting off all of it suggests what? A revival of the old international city plan?

And apparently Obama expects Israel to hand over territory within its 1948 borders to a Palestinian state on top of that?

The map of the Middle East displayed in an Obama administration video released days before President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel shows the Jewish state dispossessed of substantial parts of its current territory, including its capital.

The map of Israel, displayed repeatedly during the video, shows the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, northern Israel, and areas surrounding what is currently the West Bank as non-Israeli territory. The Golan Heights is shown as part of Syria; Jerusalem is shown as part of the West Bank; and northern Israel is shown as part of Lebanon.

The itinerary on the White House website also implies that Jerusalem is neither Israel’s capital nor even part of Israel.

The president’s schedule lists two stops in “Tel Aviv, Israel” and one in “Amman, Jordan” but his activities in Israel’s capital city are identified as taking place only in “Jerusalem” — with no country name attached. This keeps with a reluctantly-acknowledged administration policy of denying that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital or even a part of Israel.

Jerusalem? What, where is that.

 

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An Israeli Soldier’s song to the world for Passover:

 

 

Facebook’s “Accidental Mistake” and Free Speech in the Arab World

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FB censoringby Khaled Abu Toameh

Many Palestinian journalists, and those in the Middle East, are forced to use Facebook to publish what their own media will not accept. But the problem becomes worse when Facebook itself starts removing material that bothers dictatorships and tyrants. One can only hope that the same Facebook employee who “accidentally” removed the article will make the same mistake and and close down the accounts belonging to terrorist organizations and their leaders. It is the duty of Facebook and Western societies to side with those seeking freedom, and not to be complicit in suppressing there voices.

“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.” — George Bernard Shaw

Earlier this week, Facebook closed down this writer’s account for “security reasons,” arguing that he had posted an item that violates its terms of use.

Twenty-four hours later, Facebook issued a “sincere apology” and said that a member of its team had “accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was a mistake.”

Although Facebook did not say which “problematic” item had prompted it to take such a drastic measure, apparently it was referring to an article that had been published by Gatestone Institute: The Palestinian Authority’s Inconvenient Truths.

Facebook’s move came at a time when Arab dictatorships in general, and the Palestinian Authority in particular, have been cracking down on Facebook users.

During the past year alone, a number of Palestinian journalists and bloggers were arrested by Western-funded Palestinian Authority security services in the West Bank for criticizing the PA leadership on their Facebook pages.

Among those detained was Esmat Abdel Khaleq, a university lecturer in journalism. She was held in detention for two weeks for posting comments on her Facebook page that allegedly insult Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Many Palestinian journalists, and those in the Middle East, are forced to use Facebook to publish what their own media will not accept. The media in the West Bank is mostly controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which has repeatedly demonstrated a large degree of intolerance toward any form of criticism. The same applies, of course, to most Arab dictatorships.

Arab governments have obviously become wary of the use their critics are making of Facebook to air their grievances and opinions. In some countries, including the Palestinian Authority, intelligence services have set up special teams to monitor Facebook and other social media networks in search of critics and “dissidents.”

But the problem becomes worse when Facebook itself starts removing material that bothers dictatorships and tyrants.

One can only hope that the same Facebook employee who “accidentally” removed the article will make the same mistake and close down accounts belonging to terrorist organizations and their leaders.

Take for example, the account of senior Hamas official Izzat al Risheq, or the numerous accounts that promote hatred and violence and are openly affiliated with terrorist and jihadi groups.

All one has to do is log in to these accounts, especially the ones in Arabic, to see how most of them are engaged in all forms of incitement.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

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Israel’s jihad is mine

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Qanta Ahmed

Qanta Ahmed

IPT:

by Qanta Ahmed Times of Israel January 10, 2013

As Israel considers building a new fence to contain the Syrian conflict to the north, which fences can keep out Hamas’s even more lethal ideologies? While Gaza and the Muslim Arab world continue to claim victory in the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, for the sane observers among us, there is only ever defeat – the defeat of morality in the desecration of a great religion. While most Muslims laud Hamas and scorn Israel, for me, an observing Muslim, Israel’s war against Hamas remains my struggle – my jihad.

Israel’s eight-day operation “Pillar of Defense” sought to dismantle the Hamas apparatus from within Gaza. The predictably seamless alignment of the Muslim world against Israel was even more breathtaking than usual in the face of Syria’s 22 months of systematic genocide, one which has consistently failed to trigger unanimous Muslim protest. What does this say about us as Muslims?

We are hypocrites.

While Muslims define Israel as the enemy, we ignore Assad, and diabolically laud Hamas. Hamas is never sated – each year it devours ever more Palestinians, regardless of age or gender. If Israelis lose fewer citizens than the Palestinians in these conflicts it is for the same reason Israel exchanges more prisoners for each captive soldier: quite simply Israel values human life more than does Hamas, which relishes ground operations taking place among densely populate civilian areas.

Explaining this to Muslims in the Twitterverse, I get sharply reminded that Hamas does not have the “luxury of launch sites” that Israel enjoys. Have we lost our minds, Muslims? How can we speak of ‘launch sites’ as ‘luxuries’ while disregarding the culling taking place in Syria? Perhaps we have not lost our minds, but we have most certainly lost our religion.

As I am not one to speak for others, allow me to let Hamas speak for themselves. They are bald-faced about their mission, seeking glory through death, annunciation through annihilation:

We are ready to offer 1,000, 2,000 or even 10,000 martyrs every year. We are ready to keep offering martyrs for twenty years because we are sure we are moving in the right direction and that we will prevail in the end” (Hamas leader Khalid Al Mish’al in Gaza”

To Hamas, a Palestinian life is worth more when “martyred,” a dead child more of a blessing than one living. “The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds [martyrs] of tomorrow,” reads a sign displayed at a Hamas-run kindergarten. The martyrdom mantra is their anthem.

While observers speculate Hamas will shortly usurp the crumbling Fatah leadership and ideologically annex the West Bank, we must remember Hamas’ raison d’etre: Islamist nihilism, a totalitarian ideology, jet-fueled on the language and images stolen from mighty Islam. Israeli negotiators who must engage with this opponent are walking on the sharp-edged sword of Damocles and unlike Muslims, the Israelis certainly know it.

Coloring their fascism with Islam, Hamas claims religious legitimacy to openly seek destruction of the Jewish state and eradication of the Jewish people. By grafting themselves onto Into Islamic ideals – the vertebral column of that which is most sacred to Muslims – they render Islam itself heinous, representing their true ruthlessness: theirs is a willingness to sacrifice anything –including Islam – to portray Israel as evil.

This ethos was captured in a single unprecedented obscenity: Hamas’ morbid motorcade. Cocksure thugs, defiantly cruising on motorcycles trailed exposed cadavers of Palestinians – Muslim men – trousers pooled at dead ankles. To chants of ‘Allah-hu-Akbar’ as dozens of Palestinian onlookers silently watched, Hamas took its ghoulish victory lap explicitly to show Gazans how they execute ‘suspected informers to Israel’. This is the Islam of Hamas.

This is why Hamas does not represent me, or other believing Muslims. This is why Israel’s battle is mine. This is why Israel’s struggle – Israel’s jihad – is mine. These are the ‘Muslims’ that Israelis must confront and these are the “Muslims” who intimidate innocent Palestinians into subjugation to their monstrous political Islamism.

But we Muslims in particular, more than conflict-hardened Israelis, should hardly be surprised, for it was Muslims who were once forewarned of scourges such as Hamas.

The Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was once asked what he most feared for his followers. Centuries later, his response, recorded in the hadith, haunts, stating he feared those who:

…Interpret verses of the Qur’an out of context…A people that recite Qur’an….but it will not go past their throats, a people with excellent words and vile deeds. They will pass through the religion (of Islam) like the arrow passes through its quarry. They will no more come back to the religion than the arrow will come back to its course. They are the worst of human beings and the worst of all creation. They summon to the book of Allah, but they have nothing to do with it. Whoever kills them is closer to Allah than they.

This is the true nature of Hamas, which recites the Quran yet doesn’t hold it in their hearts, that “summon to the book of Allah but have nothing to do with it.” By the above, it would seem the IDF (that eliminates Hamas) is surely closer to Allah than Hamas.

Yet instead of condemning Hamas, and recognizing them as imposters among us, the Muslim world celebrates them, even as Hamas violates the most profound Islamic principle: the sanctity of life, a right man must protect even in preference to any rights God claims from man.

When Muslims support Hamas, we support no less than the signatories to Islam’s collective extinction. Muslim support renders Hamas legitimate, their methods acceptable, their ideals valid. Our support as Muslims is their lifeblood. In supporting them, we hemorrhage our only currency, our only asset – our great monotheism.

Two years into the Arab Awakening, the freshly turned soil is ripe for the seeding. Hamas operatives everywhere are already celebrated as ‘liberators’ of Gazans, when they have actually long been their jailers, ‘victors’ over Israel, when Hamas is the personal death knell of all pluralism in the region. Gazans so recently celebrating in the street are no more than hostages afflicted with the worst Stockholm Syndrome imaginable, heading to their own death through their misplaced hope in their virulently Islamist leadership.

During Operation Pillar of Defense, Jewish friends said “this must be such a difficult time for you, but I am glad of our friendship” implying that because I am Muslim, my loyalty must surely be to Gaza, my enmity automatically aligned with Israel.

Not so. As a Muslim, I am clear: my loyalty is with Islam, and therefore explicitly with justice, justice for all humanity, a humanity that must include Jews. Hamas is obscenely unjust, so how can my loyalty be with them? To be loyal to Hamas is no less than to abandon Islam. To be loyal to Hamas is the ultimate blasphemy.

While I understand the need for Israeli negotiators to engage with Hamas first to secure the current ceasefire and then for some sort of functional peace, the reality is their militant ideology must be suffocated out of existence or else the détente is little more than an illusion. For this, unlike for suicide bombers or Syrian rockets, there are no Israeli fences or walls, no Iron Domes, only Muslim barriers – robust barriers of counter-ideology.

It is Muslims who must take the first steps to excoriate Hamas, to expose them as the ruthless nihilists they explicitly announce themselves to be. We must scorn Hamas for masquerading among the poor as their savior when they are instead their executioner. Muslims must hold all media accountable for telling the truth: Palestinians are the Muslims orphaned not by Israel but by the entire Muslim world itself. Land-grabs and permanent refugee camps are testament to such.

We must ask ourselves the difficult questions. Does Hamas, who prostitute their progeny in the service of terror, represent Islam? Is Hamas emulating our Prophet as they rain rockets on unarmed, civilian, non-combatants? Do their Fajr missiles, named after Muslim prayers no less, encompass the spirit of Islam as was revealed to its followers? Do Hamas’ stated goals – including elimination of Israel – represent coexistence with the People of the Book, who are cherished in the Quran as dear to God and their Messenger, Moses, particularly admired by our Maker for his courage in the face of fear?

Don’t be fooled by Hamas’ words Muslims; we have a duty to judge them on their vile deeds.

If Islam is to truly thrive, it will only do so when more and more anti-Islamist Muslims confront and extinguish radical Islamist ideologues. Otherwise, we stand to lose both Israel and Islam in one fell swoop of the Islamist axe. Whether rescuing Palestinians and Israelis captive to the whim of Hamas, or rescuing Islam from Islamist Hamas, this is truly our jihad and no one else’s, which is why Israel’s jihad is also mine.

Qanta Ahmed is a physician and author of In the Land of Invisible Women; Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science and Religion; @MissDiagnosis; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/

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No Peace For Israel

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by Justin O Smith

On November 29, 2012, the anti-American and anti-Jew organization of the United
Nations granted “observer” status to the Palestinian Authority (PA) under
Mahmoud Abbas, which has only served to intensify the already fierce struggle of
the Jews to survive in their own land. Beleagured, besieged and constantly
attacked by Her Arab neighbors since 1948, Israel is still surrounded by enemies
and their proxies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and Jaamat el-Fuqra, who
are dedicated to Israel’s destruction. This move by the U.N. materialized after
a year long defense by Israel against over 1500 Katusha and Iranian SR75 missile
attacks by the terrorist group Hamas from the Gaza Strip, which has become one
massive forward positioned armament depot and islamofascist military
base!

Just as a “palestinian state” or government, a palestinian homeland, a palestinian people and language (they are Arabs) are myths, fictions and lies created after 1948 (“palestini” is a Roman word used to describe Arab and Jew alike and translates from Hebrew as “invader”)…so too are the notions of the two state solution and a lasting peace between Israel and the “Palestinians” of Gaza and the West Bank.

In 1982 at Amman, Jordan, journalist and writer extraordinaire, Oriana Fallaci intensely questioned and prodded Yasser Arafat into outlining the desired borders for “Palestine.” Arafat stated that they could be the ones established under the British Mandate, but
continued with, “If we take the Anglo-French agreement of 1918, Palestine means
the territory that runs from Naqurah in the north to Aqaba in the south, and
then from the Mediterranean coast that includes the Gaza Strip to the Jordan
River and the Negev Desert.” When Fallaci pointed out that this included a large
portion of Jordan… and the whole region west of Jordan… Cisjordania, Arafat
replied, “What you call Cisjordania is Palestine.”

Reality and the crux of the matter are illuminated by the words of Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman: “We do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and
Israel has no right in Palestine… Our membership in the U.N. bodies is our
natural right, but without giving up any inch of Palestine’s soil.” In other
words, forget the 1917 Balfour Treaty and the 1922 League of Nations Mandate and
every other initiative taken in the name of a peaceful solution since then,
because Hamas and Bardaweel’s vision is a Palestine extending from the
Mediterranean Sea to the borders of Egypt, Jordan and Syria with Israel no more
and the Jews destroyed!

The U.N. vote was 138-9 to recognize Palestine as a nonmember observer state, and all but one European nation, the Czech Republic, voted with the Palestinians or abstained in the vote, as they cited concerns about settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem territories repatriated by Israel during the 1967 war. And, in a very real sense, this action has revealed an attempt to isolate America and Israel on this issue, as the world faces a rising islamofascist tide, so warmly embraced by the despot infested, anti-Freedom/human rights, anti-Jew crowd of the U.N.

In ‘The Meaning of the Yom Kippur War’, Yehuda Amital illustrated how deep seated fears of annihilation penetrated the psyche of nearly every Jew in Israel, as they were
reminded of their isolation in the Middle East and shown that they were
encircled by enemies. This raised the specter of the Holocaust.

Three months ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended the hand of peace to
Mahmoud Abbas, and, as noted by Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor, “He
reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples,
where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish
state.” And yet, the world has never heard the Palestinian leadership use the
phrase “two states for two peoples,” because they do not, nor will they ever,
recognize that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.

It is absurd for so many world leaders, including President Obama, to act so dismayed
over Israel’s retaliation through last Friday’s approval of 3000 new homes in
territory that was originally the land of the Jews, King David and King Solomon.
This should trouble them a damn sight less than a group of terrorists
unilaterally attempting to grab statehood without having to compromise with
Israel.

Saeb Erekat, the PA’s chief negotiatior, stated, “At a moment
where Palestinian leadership is doing every single effort to save the two state
solution, the Israeli government does everything possible to destroy it.” It
must be pointed out that in the West Bank where the PA has largely been residing
peacefully, as of late, Israel has left them to themselves; and in Gaza, Hamas
constantly initiates confrontation and attacks Israel, so the Hamas terrorists
get to fully enjoy the ire and wrath of the Israeli Defense Force… and, as for
the people of Gaza….their continued support of Hamas thugs… their
complicity… makes them responsible for their own misery!

Israel has long maintained its right to develop neighborhoods throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and more than 500,000 Jews are already living there; however, America and Europe have attempted to force Israel not to move into the E1
Development Area, which they see as a “red line.” And, when I hear former U.S.
Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, state, “This is one of the most sensitive
areas in the territory, and I hope the United States will lay down the law,” I
have to highly praise Netanyahu’s firm resolve to safeguard Israel’s interests
and national security concerns.

Shortly before the 1967 Six Day War, Rabbi Kook interrupted his usual sermon with a scream, as he asked a pointed and prophetic question. “Where is our Hebron, Schechem, Jerich and Anatoth, torn from the state in 1948 as we lay maimed and bleeding?” Three weeks later, the Israeli army entered these biblical cities. By the end of this war, Israel had conquered the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. Jerusalem, divided between Israel and Jordan since 1948, was annexed and declared the eternal capital of the Jewish state. Jews were once again able to pray at the Western Wall.

Yitzhak Shamir, one time Israeli Foreign Minister who also became Prime Minister, was a strong advocate for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from 1967 on, however, it was the December 9, 1987 Palestinian uprising (infitada) that deepened divisions between Israel’s leftists, who believed in making concessions to bring peace,
and the right, who believed that Israel’s days without Jerusalem, Judea and
Samaria and the Gaza Strip are gone forever and will not return.

Signing the Oslo Accords in 1993 also signed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s death
warrant. Many Jews and their rabbis saw Rabin as a “rodef”/pursuer, one who
actively threatens the life of a Jew. On November 4, 1995, Yigal Amir, an army
veteran and a student at Bar Ilan University, assassinated Rabin during a peace
rally in Tel Aviv; his study of Jewish law convinced him that Rabin was an enemy
of the Jewish people, and he believed that he had a duty to kill him.

The current crop of Hamas terrorists now occupying the Gaza Strip are no different
from the Muslim Brothers who published their vile “news” articles for decades in
their journal ‘al-Dawah’ (The Call). They describe the enemies of Islam as
Western Christianity (al-Salibiyyah, the Crusade, to  highlight its perceived
imperialism), communism, secularism Ataturk-style and Zionism. “Jewry” in
particular was linked inextricably to the other three enemies and specifically
targeted for destruction by Hamas in its charter. And, these are also the same
sort of islamofascists who followed the teachings of Al-Faridah al-Ghaybah, ‘The
Neglected Duty’ (jihad/holy war) and whose followers in the Muslim Brotherhood
assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981, because he dared
deal with “the Jews”; the ideas outlined in ‘The Neglected Duty’ were not
confined to a tiny group of extremists, but were more widespread in Egyptian
society than observers believed at the time.

Israel needs Her warriors to stand firmly beside Netanyahu… Where are the modern day Joshuas, Davids, the Maccabees, the Theodor Herzls, the Ben Gurions and those pioneers of Israel, who were seemingly possessed by their own mystical vision or mad genius?!?…Where are those like the Jews who settled on the site of the biblical city of Schechem in Nablus in the West Bank, because their sacred land was being profaned by the Palestinians?

With Iran still smuggling more powerful and longer ranged
missiles into Gaza by way of Egypt,  Israel’s only real chance for survival and
ensuring its national security and the safety of its citizens lies in the
following course of action. The annexation of the Golan Heights should be
further solidified and made permanent by extending settlements and defense
perimeters across the area; and in conjunction with this, Israel must also annex
the Gaza Strip, the Shaba Heights, the West Bank and the entirety of Jerusalem.
This should be followed with the immediate expulsion of Hamas and all
Palestinians not holding Israeli citizenship, just as Jordan’s King Abdullah
expelled the PLO and Yasser Arafat in the 1970s. The current climate and path in
today’s halls of diplomacy will only serve to hand Israel to Her
enemies!

“Each, the religious and the secularist, gazes at each other in
horror. Neither can see the other clearly. Both recall the excesses, the
cruelties, and the intolerance of ‘the other side’ and wounded to the core they
cannot make peace.” -Israeli novelist Amos Oz

U.N. Says ‘Aye’ to Palestinian Terror State

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large-450x313By P. David Hornik

Late Thursday evening, Israel time, the UN General Assembly voted to confer nonmember statehood on the Palestinian Authority by a sweeping majority.

Even Israel’s hopes of putting together a “moral minority” of Western-country nays had crumbled, with France and Italy pronouncing themselves in favor of the Palestinian nonmember state and Britain and Germany abstaining. Israel, the United States, Canada, and the Czech Republic stood virtually alone in opposing the move by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

The nonmoral majority of Western countries ratified Palestine (actively with ayes or passively with abstentions) even though doing so is a blatant violation of the Oslo Accords they had once piously sanctioned. And they did so even though last week and the week before, Gaza—where almost half of Palestinian Authority Palestinians live—had fired 1600 hundred rockets at civilian targets in Israel, every single firing a manifest war crime intended to kill and injure men, women, and children.

It is said that the Gaza eruption led some European countries to change their minds and vote in favor of the resolution (or abstain) so as to strengthen Abbas’s “diplomatic” approach over Hamas’s violence. Abbas’s diplomatic polish and peacemaking disposition were well in evidence when he addressed the General Assembly in September, saying among other things:

During the past months, attacks by terrorist militias of Israeli settlers have become a daily reality, with at least 535 attacks perpetrated since the beginning of this year. We are facing relentless waves of attacks against our people, our mosques, churches and monasteries, and our homes and schools; they are unleashing their venom against our trees, fields, crops and properties, and our people have become fixed targets for acts of killing and abuse with the complete collusion of the occupying forces and the Israeli government.

As Israel’s UN ambassador Ron Prosor noted in a stinging op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “Many countries in the Assembly are taking an approach to Palestinian statehood that is…Pavlovian…. For decades, the body has rubber-stamped any Palestinian whim no matter how ill-advised, ill-conceived or illogical.”

Prosor went on to list some glaring shortcomings of the Palestinian Authority/Gaza that—seemingly by any normal calculus of Western countries—would disqualify it rather than qualify it for statehood, such as:

● Lack of control over territory, with Abbas’s Ramallah-based, official Palestinian Authority having had zero control over Gaza since Hamas seized power there in 2007. Prosor could have added the tenuousness of Abbas’s rule in the West Bank itself, where towns are run by clan-based extortion gangs and Israeli forces are all that prevents a Hamas takeover.

● The fact that Gaza is a terrorist state in every sense of the term, “a haven for global jihadist organizations like al Qaeda,” a beachhead for Iran in its ongoing war for Israel’s annihilation.

● The fact that democracy has not exactly flourished in Islamist Gaza or, for that matter, in the West Bank, where “journalists, bloggers and activists continue to be jailed and tortured…for crimes such as ‘extending their tongues against the Palestinian President’” (see reports here and here).

● The fact that the Palestinian Authority is bankrupt, totally dependent on foreign aid, yet “devotes 6% of its annual budget to payments for imprisoned terrorists and the families of suicide bombers”—while using its educational autonomy to instill a culture of hatred of Israel.

And to all this Europe voted yes—or at best took refuge in a cowardly neutrality.

Read more at Front Page

 

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Hamas’ Tactic: Require Israel to Cause Civilian Casualties

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Bloggers Spot More Dead Child Fakery by Hamas; CNN Fooled

Gatestone Institute: by Alan M. Dershowitz:

As the rockets continue to fall in Israel and Gaza, it is important to understand Hamas’s tactic and how the international community and the media are encouraging it. Hamas’s tactic is as simple as it is criminal and brutal. Its leaders know that by repeatedly firing rockets at Israeli civilian areas, they will give Israel no choice but to respond. Israel’s response will target the rockets and those sending them. In order to maximize their own civilian casualties, and thereby earn the sympathy of the international community and media, Hamas leaders deliberately fire their rockets from densely populated civilian areas. The Hamas fighters hide in underground bunkers but Hamas refuses to provide any shelter for its own civilians, whom they use as “human shields.” This unlawful tactic puts Israel to a tragic choice: simply allow Hamas rockets to continue to target Israeli cities and towns; or respond to the rockets, with inevitable civilian casualties among the Palestinian “human shields.”

Every democracy would choose the latter option if presented with a similar choice. Although Israel goes to great efforts to reduce civilian casualties, the Hamas tactic is designed to maximize them. The international community and the media must understand this and begin to blame Hamas, rather than Israel, for the Palestinian civilians who are killed by Israeli rockets but whose deaths are clearly part of the Hamas tactic.

Every reasonable commentator has agreed with President Obama that Hamas started this battle by firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every reasonable commentator also agrees with President Obama that Israel has the right to defend its citizens. But many commentators fault Israel for causing Palestinian civilian casualties. But what is Israel’s option, other than to simply allow rockets to be aimed at its own women and children. As President Obama observed when he went to Sderot as a candidate:

The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if…somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

Israel should continue to make every effort to reduce civilian casualties, both because that is the humane thing to do and because it serves their interests. But so long as Hamas continues to fire rockets from densely populated civilian areas, rather than from the many open areas outside of Gaza City, this cynical tactic—which constitutes a double war crime—will guarantee that some Palestinian women and children will be killed. And the Hamas leadership prepares for this gruesome certainty by arranging for the dead babies to be paraded in front of the international media. In one such case, the Palestinian radicals posted a video of a dead baby who turned out to have been killed in Syria by the Assad government, and in another case, they displayed the body of a baby who had been killed by a Hamas rocket that misfired, falsely claiming that it had been the victim of an Israeli rocket.

As Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan has said, the Israeli Army does “more to safeguard civilians than any Army in the history of warfare.” This includes dropping leaflets, making phone calls and providing other warnings to civilian residents of Gaza City. But Hamas refuses to provide shelter for its civilians, deliberately exposing them to the risks associated with warfare, while it shelters its own fighters in underground bunkers.

The Hamas tactic is also designed to prevent Israel from making peace with the Palestinian Authority. Even Israeli doves are concerned that if Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank, Hamas may take over that territory, as it took over Gaza shortly after Israel ended its occupation of that area. The West Bank is much closer to Israel’s major population centers than Gaza. If Hamas were to fire rockets from the West Bank at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel would then have to respond militarily, as it has in Gaza. Once again, civilians would be killed, thus provoking international outcry against Israel.

What we are seeing in Gaza today is a replay of what happened in 2008 and 2009, when Israel went into Gaza to stop the rocket fire. The result was the Goldstone report which put the blame squarely on Israel. This benighted report—condemned by most thoughtful people, and eventually even critiqued by Goldstone himself—has encouraged Hamas to go back to the tactic that resulted in international condemnation of Israel. This tactic will persist as long as the international community and the media persist in blaming Israel for civilian deaths caused by a deliberate Hamas tactic.

 

Four Islamists on Gov. Christie’s Muslim Outreach Committee

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by: Ryan Mauro

A RadicalIslam.org investigation has discovered that at least four Islamists sit on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Muslim outreach committee, which was formed after Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa concludedin May that NYPD intelligence-gathering operations in New Jersey did not break any laws.

All of the information about the Islamist backgrounds of these four committee members is publicly available, yet the Christie Administration picked them to serve as liaisons to the Muslim community of the state. As a result, they are having private meetings with N.J.’s top security officials. This is just the latest example of Christie’s embrace of Islamists that should be shunned, not exalted.

The discovery that the Islamists were on the committee was made when RadicalIslam.org obtained a previously unreleased list of committee members present at a September 5, 2012 meeting at the Leroy Smith Building in Newark.

The four committee members of concern are:

  • Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whose deportation is sought by the Department of Homeland Security for not disclosing on his green card application that he was arrested and convicted by Israel in 1993 for his involvement with Hamas;
  • Ahmed Shedeed, a fervent supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and President of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, a mosque with a history of Islamist leadership. Its website currently contains disturbing statements about jihad, the West, wife beating and polygamy;
  • Mohammed Younes, the President of the American Muslim Union, a group with Islamist leadership and close ties to Qatanani’s mosque, which was founded by a Hamas fundraiser; and
  • Imam Abdul Basit of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded by a radical cleric. In July, it held a Brotherhood-linked seminar featuring multiple extremist speakers.

Addressing the committee were: Attorney General Chiesa, NJ State Police Superintendent Colonel Rick Fuentes and the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Director Edward Dickson. These addresses were followed by dialogue with committee members.

Other NJ officials that were present at the meeting were: First Assistant Attorney General Calcagni, Special Assistant Christopher Iu, Special Assistant Paul Salvatoriello, State Police Major Gerald Lewis and Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Community Affairs Chief John Paige.

Profiles of the Four Islamist Committee Members

Imam Mohammad Qatanani

Imam Mohammad QatananiThe most notorious of the committee members is Mohammad Qatanani. He was arrested in Israel in 1993 because of his links to Hamas, including the fact that his brother-in-law was a Hamas official in the West Bank. Qatanani told the Israelis that he had been a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood but left in 1991 because he had limited time for this project. The Israeli government says he admitted to being a Hamas member and was convicted, but he was released as part of a plea bargain. The Department of Homeland Security is seeking his deportation for failing to disclose this on his green card application.

In 1994, Qatanani moved to NJ to lead the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, a mosque founded in 1989 by Hamas fundraiser Mohammed El-Mezain. In November 1994, El-Mezain stated that ICPC was collecting money for Hamas, according to an FBI report. The two men jointly led the ICPC and lived together as El-Mezain raised money for terrorism until he stepped down in 1999. In July 2006, the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against Qatanani.

The DHS says Qatanani “engaged in terrorist activity” and is guilty of “material misrepresentation” and “engaging in unauthorized employment … by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.” It also describes a “highly dubious” transfer of thousands of dollars to the West Bank.

“It is certainly suspicious when a person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader, and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” the 2008 DHS court filing states.

Qatanani is the only Hamas supporter identified by name in a July 2008 NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness intelligence report about the Hamas network in the state. His preaching between 2007 and 2009 reflected his radical views, as shown in translations made by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. For example, he prayed for the defeat of “occupation and oppression” in Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya in 2007. The enemies of Islam are the U.S., Israel and Russia in this context.

He also preached that Jews and Christians “will be swiftly punished by Allah” and that Muslims should not speak poorly of Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a top Muslim Brotherhood cleric that endorses suicide bombings and Hamas. He also defended donations to the families of suicide bombers. Just this September, Qatanani said the U.S. should outlaw criticism of Islam.

Under Qatanani’s leadership, the ICPC has held various Islamist speakers, such as Hamas-supporter Imam Reda Shata, Hamas-linked activist Abdelhaleem Ashqar (who is now in prison for refusing to testify about the Hamas network in the U.S.) and Wagdy Ghoneim, who was voluntarily deported from the country in 2005 for his terror ties and now preaches extremism in Egypt.

In April 2004, a former chairman of the ICPC’s board, Esam Omeish, praised Palestinians who “[understand] that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land,” pointing out the “beloved” founder of Hamas as an example to follow. He also supports the Muslim Brotherhood as a “moderate” force and once was the president of the Muslim American Society, a Brotherhood front. He also “likes” Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi on Facebook.

Despite this record, Christie defended Qatanani against the DHS in 2008, calling him  a “man of great goodwill.” His Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna was as a character witness for him during the trial. The immigration judge granted Qatanani permanent residency, but the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the ruling. The next deportation hearing is scheduled for November 26.

In May, Attorney General Chiesa met with Qatanani after he cleared the NYPD of breaking state laws. On July 24, Qatanani attended an Iftar dinner at the Governor’s Mansion. During his address, Christie pointed out Qatanani, calling him a “friend” and attacking his critics as anti-Muslim “bigots.”

Mohammed Younes

The President of the American Muslim Union, Mohammed Younes, is also on the Muslim outreach committee. This organization is very closely tied to the Hamas-linked Islamic Center of Passaic County led by Imam Qatanani, having had five common officials as of 2004. For example, Younes has served on the mosque’s board of trustees.

Younes sounds sympathetic to the cause of Hamas. He said in 2001, “I put myself in the Palestinians’ shoes, the suffering, the pain, the hunger. I don’t know what I would do. Are they dogs? Are they garbage? I don’t want to see anyone killed. But you can’t be selective.” He called the U.S. hypocritical for condemning Hamas but not Israel. However, he said he would not donate to Hamas because “they are killers,” but supports giving aid to the children of killed Hamas operatives.

During Qatanani’s deportation trial, Prosecutor Alan Wolf said that a pamphlet was found at the ICPC after the 9/11 attacks that explained what Muslims should not tell the police. Wolf also mentioned that a newspaper quoted Younes in 2002 where he advised against giving personal information to law enforcement. As he left, Younes complained, “The FBI is abusing us.”

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Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org’s National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

Video: Christie Says “Bigots” Attacking Him on Radical Islam

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by RYAN MAURO

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, often described as a “rock star” in the Republican Party, has finally addressed the criticism of his courtship of Islamists. On July 24, Christie held an Iftar dinner at the Governor’s Mansion, attended by Imam Mohammad Qatanani, a Hamas-linked cleric whose deportation is sought by the Department of Homeland Security. Christie reiterated his support for Qatanani and made the case to his Muslim audience that he is their ally by ridiculing the “bigots” attacking him.

Christie opens by talking about the attacks on “our relationship” (between him and, as he would characterize it, the Muslim community of N.J.) that show a “gaze of intolerance that’s going around our country that is disturbing.” You can watch the entire speech on YouTube.

Ramadan Iftar at Governor Christie’s Mansion 7/24/2012:

He mocked his critics, saying “You’ll all be fascinated to learn that in many publications around the country, I’m called an Islamist.” No one ever said he is an Islamist himself and only a handful of writers have covered the controversy, including myself,, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Dr. Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer and my fellow N.J. resident, Andrew McCarthy.

Christie blatantly accused us of having anti-Muslim motivations.

“These are the kind of red herrings that people put up who are bigots, who want to judge people based upon their religious beliefs, want to judge people with a broad brush,” he said.

He stood by his support for Imam Qatanani, pointing out that he was in attendance and “I’m glad to have you here.” He called him a “friend” that “has attempted to be a force for good in his community.”

To prove to his audience that he is their ally against “Islamophobia,” though he didn’t use that exact word, he cited the controversies surrounding three of his actions: His support for Qatanani, his nomination of Sohail Mohammed as a Superior Court Judge and how he stood against the NYPD’s intelligence-gathering operations in his state. Let’s address these cases one-by-one.

Imam Mohammad Qatanani

The story begins in 1993. The Israelis detained Qatanani for three months because they believed he was working with the Hamas terrorist group, partially because his brother-in-law was a Hamas leader in the West Bank. He told the Israelis that he had been a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood but left in 1991 because of time constraints, not over any ideological split. He admitted to being a member of Hamas as part of a plea bargain and was released.

Qatanani came to N.J. in 1994 to serve as an imam for the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC) in Paterson. The mosque was founded in 1989 by Mohammed el-Mezain, who later was convicted of being a Hamas fundraiser. It was in this mosque that el-Mezain boasted of having raised nearly $2 million in the U.S. for Hamas. Qatanani served alongside el-Mezain, even sharing the same address, until el-Mezain handed the reigns over to him.

Another extremist ICPC official was Esam Omeish, who once was the chairman of the board. He is the former president of the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood front. Omeish calls the Brotherhood “moderate” and has expressed admiration for the founder of Hamas and Palestinians who believe “that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land.”

ICPC had Abdelhaleem Ashqar as a guest speaker, who was accused of being involved with Hamas and was later convicted for refusing to testify about the terrorist group’s fundraising. Another guest speaker at ICPC is Hamas-supporter Imam Reda Shata. When he was the leader of Brooklyn’s Islamic Center of Bay Ridge, he had El-Mezain as a guest speaker. The NYPD put Shata under surveillance as a “Tier One Person of Interest.”

In 1999, Qatanani applied for a green card and did not disclose his conviction by the Israelis as a member of Hamas. The Department of Homeland Security began seeking his deportation in July 2006. A 2008 court filing by the DHS accuses him of “material misrepresentation” and “engaging in unauthorized employment…by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.” It also states that he “has engaged in terrorist activity.” Qatanani sent thousands of dollars to the West Bank and the DHS described his explanation that it was easier than a wire transfer to be “highly dubious.”

“It is certainly suspicious when a person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader, and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” the filing states.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism translated some of his sermons between 2007 and 2009 that show the radicalism he preaches. Here are some highlights:

  • 2007: He prayed that Allah will help “our brothers and sisters in Philistine [Palestine] and Iraq and Chechnya” to “remove occupation and oppression.” The enemy “occupiers” are Israel, the U.S. and Russia.
  • June 2007: He teaches that Christians and Jews “will be swiftly punished” with “the hypocrites [who] are in the lower pits of hellfire.”
  • November 2007: He instructs Muslims not to talk bad about fellow Muslims, using Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi as an example. Qaradawi is the top Muslim Brotherhood cleric who vocally supports Hamas and suicide bombings.
  • January 2008: “You see now that you should do jihad or struggle, to change evil-doing…You know, I mention in so many times that jihad is greater than fighting. It is not only fighting. And you cannot just contain it in fighting.”
  • May 2009: He prays that Allah will release the imprisoned officials of the Holy Land Foundation, who were locked up for financing Hamas. He said that they were the victim of a “political judgment” and that the U.S. government is persecuting the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America by labeling them as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the trial.

 

Qatanani was booked as a speaker on June 24 at Dar al-Hijrah, an extremely radical mosque tied to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and frequented by Al-Qaeda operatives.

So, how did Christie, then U.S. Attorney, react to the DHS’ efforts to deport Qatanani?

He sent his Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna to testify as a character witness on his behalf. In September 2008, Christie went to the ICPC to praise Qatanani as a “man of great goodwill.”

After becoming Governor, Christie appointed McKenna as his director of the N.J. Office of Homeland Security, a post he held until February. In July 2008, the office McKenna would later lead actually produced a report about Hamas networks in the state that contradicted McKenna’s assessment of Qatanani. The imam’s name was the only one to be mentioned in it.

The day after Christie’s endorsement, the immigration judge ruled in favor of Qatanani, granting him permanent residency and dismissing Israel’s evidence against him. The Board of Immigration Appeals overturned it, deciding that the Israeli evidence was “properly authenticated and that there was no adequate basis for the immigration judge to give them ‘very low evidentiary weight.’”  The Israelis provided three documents: A letter from their liaison and the military court’s verdict and indictment. The DHS points out that Qatanani never said he was forced into confessing that he was a member of Hamas and admitted that he underwent a trial process in Israeli custody, proving that he knew he was convicted when he filed his green card.

The deportation hearing continues November 26 and Christie is standing by him.

Sohail Mohammed

In his Ramadan dinner speech, Christie boasted of nominating attorney Sohail Mohammed as a Superior Court Judge and blasted the “hysteria” surrounding his decision and “all the nonsense and all this business about Sharia Law.”

Mohammed was the General Counsel of the American Muslim Union, which has had at least five common officials with the Hamas-founded ICPC. The organization’s newsletter stated that “Zionist commandos orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks” and supports Neturei Karta, a pro-Hamas, pro-Ahmadinejad Jewish group dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The group also declined to participate in the 2005 “Free Muslims March Against Terror,” which condemned all terrorist groups, including Hamas.

Mohammed also spoke out against the prosecutions of Sami al-Arian, a convicted leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Holy Land Foundation. The evidence against them was enormous. He dismissed it and is now a Superior Court Judge, thanks to Christie.

When the controversy first broke, Christie reacted with: “This Sharia Law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.”

In his speech on July 24, Christie said he had known Mohammed for years. What he didn’t say is how he knew him.

Mohammed was Qatanani’s attorney.

 
Read more: Family Security Matters

Ryan Mauro is Family Security Matters’ national security analyst. He is a fellow with RadicalIslam.org, the founder of WorldThreats.com and a frequent national security analyst for Fox News Channel. He can be contacted at ryanmauro1986@gmail.com.


Hamas Summer Camps Are Child Abuse

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For several years, the international human rights “community” has been claiming the situation in Hamas-run Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe. This is a lie, because the flow of food and medicine into Gaza has not been halted by Israel and residents of the terrorist enclave are not in danger of perishing for lack of essential materials (unless you think the munitions and construction materials needed for Hamas fortifications qualify under that category). But there is a human rights crisis in the Strip, although it is not the result of any Israeli action. Rather, it is the mass child abuse going under the guise of a summer camp program being run by Hamas.

As the Times of Israel reports, Hamas has replaced UNRWA, the UN agency devoted to caring for and perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem, as the main provider of summer programs for children in the Strip. But rather than fun activities or education designed to promote peace or productive skills, the Hamas camps are geared toward indoctrinating and training the terrorists of the future. The 70,000 children taking part in the “We Will Live Honorably” camps are forced to undergo paramilitary training that apparently includes forcing them to walk on nails and knife blades as well as preparing them for prison. Rather than worrying about what Israel is doing to protect the people living near the Gaza border from terrorist missile fire, human rights groups should be investigating and condemning what appears to be activities that would be labeled as abuse were it taking place in the West.

Israel’s detractors have begun to talk about Hamas as a “moderate” group that is embracing non-violence as it attempts to expand its reach into the Fatah-run West Bank. But Hamas is an Islamist group whose religious fundamentalism and commitment to violence remains undiminished. While UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas, its Summer Games program was clearly an improvement over what Hamas could offer. But under pressure from Hamas, UNRWA canceled the program this year, leaving the Islamist terror group the only provider of summer programs in Gaza.

Read more at Commentary

Also see this:

With UNRWA cutting back, Hamas dominates Gaza summer camp scene

Summer camp is supposed to be fun, right? Well, apparently not if you live in the Gaza Strip. Activities in the summer camps “We will live honorably,” organized by Hamas, include walking on nails and reliving the experience of prisoners in a mock Israeli jail.

“We will live honorably” provides activities to some 70,000 children across the Gaza Strip throughout the summer, the Quds News Network reported this week. But startling photos of the camp’s activities display children walking on nails and on knife blades.

The camp’s organizers even constructed a model of an Israeli security prison, to “reenact the daily suffering of Palestinian prisoners,” the Palestinian Maan news agency reported. The “prison,” made up of six rooms, is meant to demonstrate different aspects of treatment endured by security prisoners: an investigation room, a detention room, a confession extortion room, a solitary confinement room, a courtyard and an infirmary.

Ahmad Rantisi, one of the initiators of the prison idea, told Maan that it is meant to educate the youth about the suffering of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

“We learned that Palestinian prisoners suffer greatly for the Palestinian people. The occupation forces deny them the most basic human rights,” said camper Abdulaziz A-Saqa.