Tag Archives: Extremism

06/26/15

Reds, Racism, and Obama

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Professor Gerald Horne, the black scholar who revealed Obama’s personal relationship with Communist Party operative Frank Marshall Davis, is speaking in detail on the record. Professor Horne says that while the relationship is noteworthy and should have been uncovered by the press, there is no evidence that Davis turned Obama “into some sort of Manchurian candidate.” Horne also discusses the Charleston massacre, the killer’s alleged international connections, the history of slavery in the U.S., and whether we need a new Congressional panel to investigate extremism in America, including the Communist Party.

06/24/15

A Russian Link to the Charleston Massacre?

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), treated by the media as an objective source of information on right-wing “hate” groups, sent an email message to its supporters on Monday declaring evidence that the Charleston church shooter was “connected to [a] worldwide white supremacist movement.” This seemed like a big discovery. After all, the shooter, Dylann Roof, had declared in his alleged manifesto, that “We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the Internet,” when it came to racist support groups for his planned massacre of black people. The drug-abusing 21-year-old was complaining about a lack of organized support for his views.

Had the SPLC dug up some new evidence? Indeed, where was the evidence that Roof was “connected” to a global plot? SPLC President Richard Cohen informed his supporters in this email begging for financial support that “through his symbols and writings, suspect Dylann Storm Roof has expressed sentiments that are uniting white supremacists across the world—from the United States to Europe to Australia.” His symbols and writings made him part of an international plot? Is this the best the SPLC can do?

Welcome to the world of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the media’s designated “experts” on right-wing extremism. The SPLC “tracks hate groups” is the usual claim in the media. In fact, it helped inspire an actual terrorist attack on the Washington, D.C. offices of the conservative Christian Family Research Council (FRC), after a gay militant discovered the location of the FRC on an SPLC “hate map.” A security guard was wounded before he succeeded in taking down the attacker.

“Thank you [for] supporting this vital fight against hate and extremism,” said Cohen in the fundraising letter exploiting the Roof case. They are desperate to add to their $245.3 million financial endowment.

At the top of the email message was a “DONATE” button. Readers were also told they could become a financial “partner” through a planned gift, or a “friend of the Center” through monthly giving.

On the same day that Cohen inflated the facts in the Roof case in a crass appeal for money, he and his associate, Morris Dees, had written an op-ed for The New York Times including similar exaggerations. The piece, headlined, “White Supremacists Without Borders,” insisted that the “themes” adopted by the killer were “signs of the growing globalization of white nationalism.” The term “globalization” can apply to just about anything on the Internet, since that technology is international in scope. That was good enough for those who procure and place op-eds at The New York Times.

“When we think of the Islamist terrorism of groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, we recognize their international dimension,” said Dees and Cohen. “When it comes to far-right domestic terrorism, we don’t.” Perhaps that is because the “evidence” of Roof’s international connections is thin, if not non-existent. Indeed, as noted, Roof complains in the manifesto about the absence of even local grassroots support for his cause in the supposedly racist enclave of South Carolina.

The only evidence of an international connection, not mentioned by Cohen or Dees, is that several in the media have determined through a simple search on the Internet that Roof’s website was hosted by a Russian server, apparently located in Moscow. At a time of news about Russian and Chinese hackers getting access to federal and other websites in the U.S., this seems mighty interesting and newsworthy. Does this mean that Russian interests had advance knowledge of Roof’s manifesto and murder plans? This seems worthy of follow-up, but is not mentioned by the SPLC in its Times op-ed.

The op-ed ignores the real hard evidence of the international connections of the white supremacist movement in the form of former KKK leader David Duke once traveling to Russia and meeting with Alexander Dugin, a one-time adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party. We reported on this connection back in March of last year. Duke called Dugin “one of the leading intellectuals of Russia’s patriotic movement.” The SPLC is aware of Dugin, having published an article noting that he “has close ties to the Kremlin” and “supports a Eurasian empire made up of Russia and former Soviet republics such as the Ukraine and set against ‘North Atlantic interests.’” But it calls him a “fascist,” rather than a staunch ally of Putin and advocate of Russian imperialism.

The SPLC did report previously on what it termed a “Russian White Nationalist Conference” held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in March of this year, with various foreign groups and individuals in attendance. Strangely, however, there is no evidence that the SPLC seriously investigated a possible Russian connection to any of this in the Dylann Roof case. Instead, it claims a foreign connection through images and themes he invoked, a very weak case to present to the Times’ readers.

Euromaidan Press, a voice for Ukraine’s anti-Russian activists, reported extensively on the St. Petersburg conference, even publishing the names of those attending the event. An article noted “…the prevalence of statements in support of Russia and Putin in particular as the true conservatives that can save the world,” citing “quotes from now infamous speeches of Putin’s in which he talks of the emergence of nationalism and conservatism as a natural expression of Russian patriotism.”

As we have argued in the past, however, Putin’s alleged conservatism is a grand deception, designed to lure conservatives around the world into supporting Russian aggression. Putin has never given up his old KGB and Soviet ways.

In their op-ed, Cohen and Dees said, “Europe has also seen the rise of a powerful, far-right political movement that rejects multiculturalism. The anti-Semitic Jobbik Party in Hungary and the neo-fascist Golden Dawn in Greece are prime examples. In Germany, there has been a series of murders by neo-Nazis. Britain, too, is experiencing an upswing of nationalist, anti-immigrant politics.”

Left unsaid in the case of Greece is that the new left-wing ruling party, Syriza, is pro-Russia and anti-Western, and that Vladimir Putin has promised financial assistance if the European Union balks at another economic bailout.

It turns out that the SPLC has been conned by the Russians in the past. SPLC staffer Mark Potok, described by the group as a “leading expert” on extremism, actually appeared as a guest on Putin’s TV channel, Russia Today. Embarrassed over this fact, the group later published a “Full disclosure” disclaimer, noting that Potok had appeared on an edition of Russia Today’s “CrossTalk” program to discuss the rise of militias in the U.S. The SPLC then belatedly began to take note of the channel’s anti-American propaganda and disinformation campaigns.

Potok, their expert, apparently didn’t understand—or didn’t care—that Russia Today TV was actually linked to Russia and the Russian government. His expertise is clearly lacking about Russian influence operations.

We see similar blindness regarding other threats.

“We know Islamic terrorists are thinking globally, and we confront that threat,” Dees and Cohen declare in their Times op-ed. “We’ve been too slow to realize that white supremacists are doing the same.” The SPLC has been way too slow to investigate the Russian connection to the white supremacists it claims to be so concerned about. There is certainly no evidence of what they have uncovered in that Times op-ed.

As far as Islamic terrorists are concerned, the SPLC turns things around by targeting the critics of radical Islam. A simple search of the group’s website brings forth several stories about the dangers allegedly posed by “Islamophobes,” not the terrorists themselves. Consider the article that begins, “In the weeks following the terrorist attacks in France, major players in the American anti-Muslim movement have unleashed a tirade of bigotry and renewed their energies in attacking the federal government. But not to be left out, prominent anti-immigrant figures and politicians have also joined the show.”

This is typical of how the SPLC operates. The problem is not radical Islam trying to kill Americans or others. Rather, the problem is the people who focus on the threat and want the federal government to protect the American people from the threat. Hence, Pamela Geller, later targeted in a terrorist attack on American soil, was an “Islamophobe,” according to the SPLC and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The term is usually applied to anyone who suggests taking the threat of Islamic terrorism seriously and takes action against it.

By attempting to orchestrate the coverage of terrorism in such a way as to ignore the threat posed by the terrorists themselves, the SPLC employs the tactic of “partisan tolerance,” meaning that the conservatives who want to protect America and its allies from Islamic terrorists or Russian aggression become the problem. This is why Dylann Roof must be transformed by the SPLC from a drug-abusing loner into a global right-wing terrorist. It is political exploitation of a national tragedy that confuses and misleads the nation.

It’s shocking that the major media continue to take the SPLC seriously. Liberal media bias helps explain, but not justify, this curious state of affairs. Another factor has to be laziness on the part of reporters, who don’t want to take the time to do their own research or work. It’s easier to cite the “experts,” even if they are frauds and con men.

06/9/15

America’s See-No-Islam Problem Exposed With Boston Jihadism

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

The Boston Globe published a column in the wake of the shooting of an Islamic State-linked jihadist from Rosindale, Massachusetts that is a quintessential example of why the West is losing to Islamic supremacists.

In “Are Boston terrorism cases a trend?” two Globe authors reach out to several “antiterrorism specialists” and ask why it is that Boston appears to be so “vulnerable to violent extremism.”

Some submit that Boston’s “emergence as an international hub may leave it exposed to strains of radicalized behavior.”

Others find the existence of Boston-based jihadists curious given these jihadists “cannot be traced to one network, and individuals and groups do not appear to be connected.”

One such expert who has written on the Islamic State, J.M. Berger, acknowledges that “There is some degree of social network here that seems to be involved in radical thought.”

Halfway through the Globe article, the reader is left utterly unaware of any link between Boston jihadists and…jihadism. In fact, readers will not find the word “jihadist” in the column.

What readers do see is the lexicon of our see-no-Islam national security establishment, including euphemisms such as “violent extremism,” “homegrown terrorist,” and “radical presence.”

Somewhat closer to the mark are comments of James Forest, director of security studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, who says: “The ideology that motivates these kind of attacks, there are no geographical boundaries.”

What this “ideology” is, the reader is left to guess.

Usamma Rahim was wielding a knife when he was shot by Boston police. Rahim had planned to attack “boys in blue” according to his intercepted communications. (Source: WCVB-TV)

Next quoted in the piece is Farah Pandith, the first special representative to Muslim communities in then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Pandith asserts that Muslim millennials are “asking questions that parents aren’t answering. The loudest voices seducing these kids are extremists.”

Pandith notes that “extremism” is not so much a matter of geography as “what’s happening in virtual space around the world.”

As for the “seductive” “extremist” voices and the impact of social networks, of course the young and impressionable can be brainwashed, but what are they being brainwashed in, and who is doing the brainwashing? Should not these millennials and their parents be both rejecting as well as rooting out this ideology from their communities altogether?

Some experts seem to recognize an ideological component to what we have seen in Boston – an Islamic supremacist ideology that can proliferate wherever computers or cell phones are found, that thrives especially in tight-knit Muslim communities in free Western countries — yet they cannot bring themselves to define this ideology.

Coughlin Chart

Credit: Steven Coughlin

Juliette Kayyem, another Obama administration official who served as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security, is next given the floor.

Kayyem believes that Boston — which the columnists describe as a “global city that is diverse, tolerant, and welcomes immigrants and students” – is “a breeding ground for the disaffected to either radicalize or hide.”

Kayyem asserts that “We are going to see this kind of radicalization in any urban area globally.”

But do global cities become “breeding grounds[s] for the disaffected to either radicalize or hide” in a vacuum?

Throughout world history, international locales have been free of the scourge of “violent extremism,” a politically correct term used to avoid offending Muslims while simultaneously drawing moral equivalence with and thereby smearing “right-wing” Americans.

One would think that modern, cosmopolitan, liberal urban areas by their very nature would consist of modern, cosmopolitan, liberal people.

Only to the degree to which these global cities invite in people with retrograde views antithetical to these ideals does their diversity and tolerance make them “breeding grounds” for jihadism.

It is hard to fault the piece’s authors for quoting “mainstream” “antiterror experts.” Yet these “experts” all seem to subscribe to the very see-no-Islam philosophy that paralyzes our national security establishment more broadly, rendering us unable to defeat our enemy.

Parenthetically, the idea of an “antiterror” expert should itself draw our ire, given that terror is a tactic, not the name of an ideologically-driven enemy. After all, during the Second World War we didn’t call upon anti-Blitzkrieg experts to define our enemies. We understood and were able to articulate that we were at war with a foe, not a fighting method.

Meanwhile, today there is nary a mention of Islamic religious tenets like jihad, abrogation and taqqiya, nor a discussion of Islam’s ultimate goal to create a global Ummah under which all submit to Shariah law.

This is not an issue of semantics. If we fail to be precise in how we describe our enemy and its ideology, it will defeat us.

How did we get to a point over a decade after Sept. 11, 2001 when columnists writing about Boston jihadists dance on egg shells around the Islamic supremacist ideology that by the jihadists’ own admission animates them?

While Nazism and Communism were political ideologies, jihadists subscribe to a theo-political ideology based in Islam’s core texts and modeled on the behaviors of Muhammad.

This offends the sensibilities of Americans either ignorant of Islam or uncomfortable with the idea that religion could be used to justify the slow motion worldwide slaughter of Jews, Christians, Hindus, infidel Muslims, gays, women, apostates, cartoonists and others.

In the case of the recently killed would-be jihadist Usamma Rahim, a simple set of Google searches regarding Rahim and the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) might have provided the Globe columnists and the antiterror experts they quote an illuminating fact pattern worth investigating in response to their question, “Is Boston more vulnerable to violent extremism than other parts of the country?”

Below are some of those relevant data points:

  • Usamma Rahim had been a security guard at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, Massachusetts, an affiliate of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB)
  • The ISB’s executive director pulled the ISBCC out of President Barack Obama’s own Countering Violent Extremism Summit, essentially deeming the program Islamaphobic
  • Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev prayed at the ISB’s Cambridge, Massachusetts mosque
  • Notwithstanding ISB denials, Tsarnaev had been the latest in a long line of jihadists linked to the organization:
  • The ISB was founded by Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah currently serving a 23 year prison sentence on terrorism charges
  • ISB’s Cambridge mosque is operated by the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Muslim American Society
    According to Discover the Networks, among other revelations:
  • “FBI surveillance documents show that two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Suhaib Webb, Imam of ISB’s Boston mosque, joined al-Qaeda operative Anwar Awlaki in headlining a fundraiser on behalf of the Atlanta-based Muslim extremist Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown), who had recently murdered two police officers in Georgia.”
  • “Aafia Siddiqui, who occasionally prayed at ISB’s Cambridge mosque, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 while in possession of cyanide canisters and plans to carry out a chemical attack in New York City. Siddiqui subsequently tried to gun down some U.S. military officers and FBI agents, and is now serving an 86-year prison sentence for that offense.”
  • “Tarek Mehanna, who worshipped at ISB’s Cambridge mosque, received terrorist training in Yemen and plotted to use automatic weapons to inflict mass casualties in a suburban shopping mall just outside of Boston. In 2012 he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to aid Al Qaeda.”
  • “Yasir Qadhi, who lectured at ISB’s Boston mosque in 2009 and again in 2012, advocates replacing American democracy with Sharia Law; characterizes Christians as “filthy” polytheists whose “life and prosperity … holds no value in the state of Jihad”; and accuses Jews of plotting to destroy Muslim peoples and societies. Further, Qadhi is an acolyte of Ali al-Timimi, a Virginia-based Imam who is currently serving life in prison for inciting jihad against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.”

The Boston Globe article is instructive because it represents the very line of thinking and questioning that is mandated in the halls of America’s national security institutions.

It is also instructive — in light of the facts about the ISB — that a see-no-Islam national security stance leads us to ignore the threats hiding in plain sight, to America’s great detriment.

Those who ignore the nature of the Islamic supremacist threat we face are doomed to submit to it.

03/2/15

America—You be the Judge

By: Retired Adm. James A. Lyons
Accuracy in Media

President Obama’s adamant refusal to link the barbaric atrocities committed by the Islamic State and affiliated al-Qaeda militias to Islam is an insult to the intelligence of all thinking Americans.  His insistence that these atrocities are the result of “violent extremism,” not associated with Islam, lessens his already diminished credibility. The Quran and Islamic Law (Shariah) prove him wrong since there are 109 verses in the Quran that can be considered to sanction violence. Furthermore, chapter 2, verse 106 (on abrogation) makes it clear that the later violent verses take precedence over the earlier, less violent ones.

In February, President Obama hosted a White House Summit on countering “violent extremism.”  As it turned out, it was essentially a public relations media event that had nothing substantive to offer in terms of countering the Islamic State’s barbaric acts of terrorism. Instead, it was more of a leftist, progressive agenda sympathetic to “Islamic sensibilities and grievances.” It cited lack of education and job opportunities as part of the root cause that enables IS to attract young Muslims. Mind boggling, particularly when Christians, women, and children are having their heads chopped off and are being buried alive.

If it were to have been a serious summit, you would have expected the Director of the FBI and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be full participants. However, they were not invited. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its front organizations were full participants, including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), both unindicted co-conspirators for funding terrorism from the 2008 Dallas, Texas Holy Land Foundation Trial. Another MB front organization, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was also represented.

The question must be asked: how can the Obama administration continue to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood when its declared creed, verified by the FBI, is to destroy the United States from within by our own “miserable hands,” and replace our Constitution with Islamic “Seventh Century” Shariah Law?

The MB today, with its deep penetration of all our national security and intelligence agencies, has now been institutionalized. With its carte blanche entry into the White House, it has, in effect, become a defacto cabinet member. All Americans should understand that there is no difference between the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Their objectives are all the same, it’s only the methods they use to achieve it that may be different. It is a totalitarian ideology bent on world domination (same as Communism), with Islam the dominant religion and Shariah the law.

The policies of the Obama administration in countering the Islamic jihadists of IS are clearly confusing to our allies. To understand President Obama’s strategy, everything this administration does must be viewed through the prism of his stated objective:  to “fundamentally transform America.” This strategy is clear. It is anti-US and anti-Western—but pro-Islam, pro-Iran and pro-Muslim Brotherhood. With his Marxist background, it can be assumed that Obama does not view American power and influence as a force for good in the world. Otherwise, why would he want to fundamentally transform America? Therefore, anything that undercuts US military power and influence is viewed as being “objectively progressive.” President Obama’s refusal to provide legitimate defensive weapons to Ukraine falls under this category. The net result is the emasculation of NATO.

The “leading from behind” strategy announced at the start of the Libyan war, and the unilateral disarmament of our military forces, also fall under this category. A defining moment in the Libyan war was when the Obama administration switched sides in the global war on terror and provided weapons and material support to al-Qaeda and MB-controlled militias. Furthermore, as we now know, the Libyan war was unnecessary since Muammar Gadhafi was prepared to abdicate.

The Middle East today is a disaster area with failed states in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and now Yemen. What’s astonishing is that we are now a de facto partner with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. By so doing, we are enhancing the expansion of Iran’s hegemony throughout the Middle East at the expense of our long term allies—Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Obama administration’s precipitous withdrawal from Iraq gave Iran a clear signal that we would not contest their influence over Iraq. It was a foolish, or worse, attempt to obtain a nuclear weapons agreement with the evil Ayatollah Khamenei regime. Today, Iran is already a nuclear threshold state that has sufficient enriched uranium to make 8 to 12 nuclear weapons within a few months. Furthermore, a reliable source has informed me that Iran secretly bought four nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Muslim Republic of Kazakhstan in 1992. They were said to have been transferred to Iran and stored in the Lavizan military site near Tehran.

More recently, it was reported by Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily, on 26 February, 2015, that Iran is operating another secret advanced, uranium underground enrichment site northeast of Tehran that was previously unknown to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

With thousands of American lives lost due to Iran’s more than 35 years of aggression against the United States, it is inconceivable that any American administration would agree to enter into such a critical agreement, like the one currently being negotiated with such an evil regime.

When you consider all of the above, as well as the Obama administration’s abuse of power and the many scandals including Benghazi, the IRS, Operation Fast and Furious, Obamacare, and the immigration fiasco, any other administration would be brought up on charges of threatening the security of the United States. America, it’s up to you to influence your representatives to hold President Obama accountable.

02/18/15

10 Troubling Aspects of President Obama’s ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ Summit

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

The White House’s “Countering Violent Extremism” summit is barely underway, yet the message is already clear: the conference is politically correct — and far worse — a charade.

And that is a charitable interpretation.

Its sponsors are engaging in intentional obfuscation (e.g., saying “violent extremism” is the enemy), as well as peddling ineffective and ill-considered policy proposals (more community “empowerment”). The conference will effectively aid and abet America’s increasingly ascendant jihadist foes.

Violent extremism is not an enemy, it’s a euphemism. Terrorism is not an enemy, it’s a tactic.

Reviewing the Obama administration’s summit preview, here are its 10 most disturbing aspects:

1. Contrary to its big government ethos, the Obama administration asserts that national security should be driven by the people, not the state.
Image source: BuzzFeed

(Image source: BuzzFeed)

According to the White House preview [emphasis mine]:

Really at the core of our approach is that the government does not have all the answers in combatting violent extremism. It is, at its core, a bottom-up approach. It puts communities with civic leaders, with religious authorities, with community power brokers, teachers, health providers, et cetera, in the driver’s seat. They know their citizens best. They are the first line of defense to prevent or counter radicalizing forces that can ultimately lead to violence. And so our approach is to really embrace and empower what local communities can do. So we’ve been working with our federal partners and our local partners to put in place this approach over the past couple of years.

Further:

Again, this is not about government, especially the federal government. The federal government doesn’t have all the answers. This is about building a comprehensive network to fight back against violent extremism. And we are explicitly recognizing the role that civil society plays, the private sector plays, and that families, et cetera, can play in countering violent extremism.

Who knew the Obama administration had so much respect for and faith in civil society?

Yet of course, this faith turns out to be dangerously misplaced as…

2. The groups the president wants to empower are those who may pose the biggest threat.

As Patrick Poole noted in an extensive report for TheBlaze:

In December 2011, the White House issued the “Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States” – the local partners, of course, being Islamic organizations, including those cited by the Justice Department as working to aid foreign terrorist organizations. All national security and law enforcement agencies on the federal, state and local level would now have to consult these groups and rely on “local partners” as a matter of policy. And as made clear in Salam al-Marayati’s Los Angeles Times op-ed, Islamic groups complaining about counter-terrorism policies or training would disrupt government efforts to “counter violent extremism” gave them an implicit veto over counter-terrorism policies. [Los Angels Times link added for context]

Why should we care about this 2011 report?

A senior Obama administration official noted in previewing the summit that the report details the very efforts the administration will be hawking during the three-day event.

Local partners such as the Council on American-Islam Relations — an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest Hamas funding trial in history — has advised members of the Muslim community not to work with the FBI, and religious leaders to lawyer up as opposed to working together with law enforcement when it comes to potential jihadists. On the eve of the summit, CAIR is reportedly calling for the Department of Justice to “protect those who act in good faith to prevent violent extremism by engaging with [Muslims] considering it in order to dissuade them.”

A partner of perhaps higher standing is the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), a group linked to numerous jihadis and jihadi-sympathizers, that is reportedly the primary liaison between the Muslim community and law enforcement in countering violent extremism. The Boston  program will be one of the three held up as a success story during the summit, despite the ISB’s Islamic supremacist efforts.

Looking to the heart of Muslim communities, according to the Mapping Sharia project, imams in over 80 percent of 100 randomly surveyed representative mosques in America recommended the study of violence-positive texts. The correlations with these texts are disturbing, as illustrated below:

Sharia Adherence Mosque Survey: Correlations between Sharia Adherence and Violent Dogma in U.S. Mosques (Image Source: http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/sharia-adherence-mosque-survey/html)

(Image Source: Sharia Adherence Mosque Survey: Correlations between Sharia Adherence and Violent Dogma in U.S. Mosques)

In Pew’s extensive 2011 report on Muslims in America, 21 percent of those polled indicated there was a great deal or fair amount of “support for extremism among Muslim American;” 19 percent did not indicate that “suicide bombing/other violence against civilians is justified to defend Islam from its enemies;” only 70 percent indicated that they viewed Al Qaeda “very unfavorably.”

As leaked Department of Homeland Security documents reveal, the second highest concentration of people designated as “known or suspected terrorists” by our government reside in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn’s population is 96,000, and it has the highest percentage of Arab-Americans of any city in the country.

In light of these figures, and the fact that jihadist groups worldwide claim they are at war with America, having committed over 25,000 attacks in the name of Allah since Sept. 11, 2011, one must ask, what exactly is the rationale behind leaving self-policing to Muslim communities when these are the very places from whence jihadists spring?

Such a policy of course is only baffling if you are of the belief that jihad is an Islamic tenet, and that Islamic supremacist ideology is what animates the vast majority of the world’s “violent extremists.”

But of course…

3. According to the administration there is no profile of a “violent extremist.”

Returning to the transcript:

[I]n the United States there has been violent extremists that come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and so the agenda for all three days is going to show a wide array of speakers and participants from all backgrounds who combat radicalization, violent extremism and terrorism in its many forms.

…In terms of the phrase “vulnerable community,” I think one is that we want to be clear that the evidence doesn’t show that there’s any particular community, there’s no profile that we can point to say this person is from this community, is going to be radicalized to violence.

4. The administration thinks a key focus should be on non-Muslim terrorist groups — like those in Colombia.

Per the preview:

Q:  I’m just wondering, in light of the current events that Andrea Mitchell and others mentioned during this call, almost all of those involves Muslim extremism. And I get that the phrase for this three-day event is “violent extremism.” Might some critics think that you’re avoiding the world “Muslim” as though extremists in the Islamic communities are the focus — or are they not the focus? That’s my question.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  …I think obviously we want to be taking into account the current concerns that different countries are facing. But as I think will be clear from the variety of presentations and case studies that are mentioned — to include some of the media that we have organized to help catalyze the discussion that features some of the longer-running terrorist threats that people sometimes forget about in the current context, such as the FARC in Colombia, which is now in negotiations, but has been a designated terrorist organization for some time, responsible for countless acts of violence.

I think we will see through the complexity of the discussion that violent extremism is a broader trend…I think we’ll see in the context of the meeting itself the diversity that reflects the reality of recent history.

5. The administration disavows a link between jihadism — a word it won’t use — and religion.
This image made from a video released Sunday Feb. 15, 2015 by militants in Libya claiming loyalty to the Islamic State group purportedly shows Egyptian Coptic Christians in orange jumpsuits being led along a beach, each accompanied by a masked militant. Later in the video, the men are made to kneel and one militant addresses the camera in English before the men are simultaneously beheaded. The Associated Press could not immediately independently verify the video. (Image source: AP)

This image made from a video released Sunday Feb. 15, 2015 by militants in Libya claiming loyalty to the Islamic State group purportedly shows Egyptian Coptic Christians in orange jumpsuits being led along a beach, each accompanied by a masked militant. Later in the video, the men are made to kneel and one militant addresses the camera in English before the men are simultaneously beheaded. The Associated Press could not immediately independently verify the video. (Image source: AP)

Per the administration preview:

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Let’s be clear. We recognize that violent extremism spans many decades and has taken many forms. But we all agree that the individuals who perpetuated — who perpetrated the terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere are calling themselves Muslims and their warped interpretation of Islam is what motivated them to commit these acts. They’re not making any secret of that, and neither are we.

But we are very, very clear that we do not believe that they are representing Islam. There is absolutely no justification for these attacks in any religion, and that’s the view of the vast majority of Muslims who have suffered huge casualties from the likes of folks like ISIL or al Qaeda. So you can call them what you want. We’re calling them terrorists.

6. The administration continues its “mea culpa” campaign, attributing radicalism to economic, social and political disparities — but not religion.

Per the White House preview [emphasis mine]:

The final panel will focus on secure and resilient communities, and it will, in particular, begin by looking at the role of civil society, particularly youth and women preventing violent extremism. It will look at community-police relations and community-security force relations as a critical element of prevention. And it will finally broaden that conversation to address social, economic and political marginalization, including the effects of integration of minority communities.

Based on all we have observed from this White House, do you think that the onus will fall on law enforcement to work on “improving relations” with “violent extremist” communities, or vice-versa? Reports on the Minneapolis countering violent extremism pilot program, one of the three that will be presenting at the summit, indicate that its Somali Muslim community mistrusts law enforcement because it fears being spied upon. Does this give you confidence in cooperation from a neighborhood that has produced over a dozen known jihadists in recent years?

The notion that “marginalization” and poor integration in minority communities is the root cause of jihadism, as echoed by State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf is a canard. Not only are there very wealthy families from the bin Ladens to the Saudi royals who drive jihadism worldwide, but conversely practically every group that has ever succeeded in America came to this country poor and marginalized, yet did not resort to strapping bombs to themselves or chopping off heads.

None of this is even to mention the fact that Muslims, other ethnic and religious minorities and the most important minority, the individual, has at least historically had more freedom and opportunity in America than in any other country in the world. Perhaps the White House wishes this forum to be a vehicle for revisiting Ferguson.

7. The administration wants to rehabilitate and reintegrate violent extremists.

Clearly the recidivism rate for Guantanamo Bay detainees has not sunk in to the collective mind of the public, as the White House continues:

The third session focuses on weakening the legitimacy and the resonance of the brand of violent extremism. So that will include a panel on strategic communications, social media. It will include a discussion of how non-violent religious issues and education can be elevated as a matter of international and local-level concern. And it will look at best practices with regard to rehabilitating and reintegrating violent extremists.

Note that this is also in keeping with the Obama administration’s efforts through Eric Holder’s Justice Department to treat terrorism as a criminal matter.

8. The Obama White House has regularly partnered with and enabled ”violent extremists,” without whom a countering violent extremism summit would not be necessary in the first place.

One of the more unbelievable indications of the Obama administration’s willful lack of self-awareness is that it has regularly partnered with the “violent extremists,” aiders, abetters and sympathizers with whom theoretically this summit is about countering.

The administration is currently negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program — the largest state sponsor of terror in the world.

Several weeks ago the White House met with the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization whose 1991 strategic memorandum on North America called for a “grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

In Libya and Syria we have armed jihadists to our own great detriment.

How can a president who so frequently makes common cause with, and whose interventions overseas have so consistently aided jihadists, have any credibility in countering violent extremism?

9. The summit’s very name tells us how fatally flawed the exercise is.

Little exemplifies better how ill-equipped America is to deal with the threats facing her than the fact that the Obama administration wants us to believe that we are fighting “violent extremism.”

Violent extremism is not an enemy, it’s a euphemism. Terrorism is not an enemy, it’s a tactic.

As many have said in recent weeks, if you cannot identify your enemy, you cannot defeat it. By not having the moral clarity, or even worse by exhibiting such cowardice in creating a mushy phrase like “violent extremism,” which not only obscures the enemy from the American people, but allows the Obama administration to associate all sorts of other peoples with jihadists is shameful.

Islamic supremacists are at war with us. It is quite evident we are not at war with them.

10. Finally, the key issues crucial to understanding the nature of, and means of best countering Islamic supremacism are not going to be addressed.

Were the summit actually to identify Islamic supremacism as the enemy, as the Center for Security Policy’s recent Defeat Jihad Summit illustrated, we might examine issues among many others including:

  • The Islamic doctrine that animates jihadists both Shitte and Sunni, and the goals, tactics and strategies set forth therein
  • The global funding of the jihadist support architecture
    • Activist groups
    • Educational institutions including America’s Middle East studies departments
    • Media organizations
    • Mosques
    • Other agents of influence
  • Jihadist infiltration of American political institutions
  • The undefended borders through which jihadists are surely entering
  • Legal immigration policies including visas for religious leaders, student visas and immigration from jihadist areas worldwide
  • Iran’s efforts to infiltrate South America
  • Radicalization in prisons

We should seriously consider the aforementioned 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum on its mission in North America:

The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.

…A mission as significant and as huge as the settlement mission needs magnificent and exhausting efforts. With their capabilities, human, financial and scientific resources, the Ikhwan will not be able to carry out this mission alone or away from people and he who believes that is wrong, and God knows best. As for the role of the Ikhwan, it is the initiative, pioneering, leadership, raising the banner and pushing people in that direction. They are then to work to employ, direct and unify Muslims’ efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a mastery of the art of “coalitions”, the art of “absorption” and the principles of “cooperation.”

02/18/15

The Betrayal Papers – Part I of V – Under Obama: The U.S. Captured by the Muslim Brotherhood

Muslim Brotherhood Control of US Govt

The Betrayal Papers will trace the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama administration’s foreign and domestic policies. The five-part series will present a picture of a conspiracy that is manipulating the American government to the benefit of a totalitarian, genocidal movement that seeks to establish a global Islamic State.

  • The Muslim Brotherhood is an international political, financial, terrorist and movement whose goal is to establish a global Islamic State (Caliphate).
  • They have and continue to exert tremendous influence of the American government’s foreign and domestic policies under President Barack Hussein Obama.
  • The violence in the Middle East and across North Africa is a direct consequence of the Muslim Brotherhood’s effective control over American foreign policy in the region.
  • They operate through various “civic” front groups, as well as through American institutions who take their money as operational funding (Georgetown University, Brookings Institution).

In America, we have a weak and struggling economy, growing public and private debt and millions are un- and underemployed. While a weaponized IRS targets Tea Party groups and other voices of liberty, and military veterans are labeled as “domestic terrorists” by the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government refuses to secure the southern border. Educational policy now includes the teaching Arabic and visits to mosques for schoolchildren.

Internationally, America is in retreat. The Middle East is in ashes, and in the midst of an ongoing genocide replete with daily horrors, the likes which have not been seen for centuries. Former allies have been abandoned and are embittered. Under the present leadership in the White House and State Department, Israel is considered the aggressor and Hamas the oppressed.

In sum, the world is at its most volatile point since the outbreak of World War II.

If you think that this is a result of something other than an “incompetent,” “stupid,” or “clueless” President, words regularly used by those who sense something is wrong but, can’t quite bring themselves to own up to the ugly truth, you’re not alone.

Millions of Americans are realizing that the Obama administration is not merely “misguided.” It is actually and consciously anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and broadly anti-Western. Yet , the American public does not yet fully appreciate why and how the administration always finds itself square against everything this country is based on – religious freedom, capitalism, and justice under law.

This series of articles will explain the force and mechanics behind Obama’s anti-American global agenda: the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon: The Root of Today’s Islamic Evil

Husseini speaking with Hitler in 1941

Husseini speaking with Hitler in 1941

Founded in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood (aka, the Society of Muslim Brothers, or Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon in Arabic) is an international movement (some would argue an international conspiracy) that seeks to establish a worldwide Islamic State (or Caliphate). When it was created in the late 1920s, the Brotherhood was a contemporary of the Nazi Party of Germany. Indeed, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, Amin al-Husseini, is considered by some as the man who catalyzed the Holocaust; for it was only after Husseini visited Hitler in Berlin in 1941 that the systematic extermination of Jews and other minorities began with industrial efficiency.

After the war, despite the insistence by many wartime leaders (Churchill included) that he be brought to justice, Husseini escaped to the Middle East. He lived there until his death in the 1970s, serving as a mentor to a young Yasser Arafat. Husseini and the Nazi Party are the connection points between the Holocaust and today’s Middle Eastern genocide.

The Allies conscious failure to arrest and prosecute Husseini haunts us today.

A Terror Hedge against Stalin and Soviet Russia

At the beginning of the Cold War, working with former Nazis, the American CIA began to court the Muslim Brotherhood as an ally against Soviet Russia. This calculus may have made sense when facing down Josef Stalin, a totalitarian tyrant hell-bent on world domination, but it has proved a costly strategy in the long run.

In the years and decades that followed World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved into a modern day Nazi International, not unlike the old Comintern (Communist International). It has a vast network of financial and business interests across the world; it has agents, supporters, and apologists within western governments; and it has a support network of “civic” organizations in the West.

These all serve as a cover for its darker and insatiably violent ambitions.

For despite all their intrigue and political gamesmanship, the Muslim Brotherhood is not strictly a political movement, nor a financial cabal. It’s also the mothership of virtually all Islamic terrorist groups operating in the world today, including Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and many more. Such groups, all children of the Muslim Brotherhood’s fanatical Islamic ideology, are today ethnically cleansing countries such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria of all traces of Christianity. No less than the President of Egypt, Muslim Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a devout Muslim, has said as much.

Considering how the Muslim Brotherhood and their terrorist pawns treat fellow Muslims in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iraq, butchering them by the bushel including women and children, it should come as no surprise that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have declared the them a “terrorist” organization.

It should also come as no surprise that the United Arab Emirates has designated Muslim Brotherhood front groups operating in the United States “terrorist” entities. In November, the UAE effectively declared that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Muslim-American Society (MAS) were no different than Al Qaeda. Why? It’s because they share a common origin in the Muslim Brotherhood. One could add to this list of domestic terrorist collaborators and enablers the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the Muslim Students Association (MSA).

A New HQ in America

Equally alarmingly, all-American institutions such as Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution have accepted so much money from the Muslim Brotherhood government in Qatar, that their political positions are virtually indistinguishable from the Muslim Brotherhood’s domestic front groups!

Yet, the United States government does not see these organizations and their employees as the enemy, as apologists for the worst kinds of barbarity. In fact, the highest profile people from these organizations advise the Obama administration, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the National Security Council. In January, the Department of State actually welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood to a meeting, and shortly thereafter Egypt exploded in jihadi violence. This is no magical coincidence.

To the detriment of our safety and well-being, the domestic Muslim Brotherhood front groups help dictate counterterrorism policies. It is their influence which leads to the farcical idea, recently expressed by Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, that the Crusades have something to do with ISIS and the mass murder of innocents in the Middle East today.

These front groups shape our foreign policy, which since the Arab Spring and continuing to this day is on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.

So-called “moderate Muslims” employed at these front groups have made the country of Qatar, a totalitarian sharia-based society, and an “ATM for terrorists,” the closest ally of the United States under Obama’s Presidency. With enthusiasm from Obama and Eric Holder, they have us emptying Guantanamo Bay of the most vicious killers and sending them to Qatar, with only the vaguest of security assurances.

The remaining four articles will explore the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on American policy, both foreign and domestic (including in Common Core, Obama’s position on illegal immigration and amnesty, and the hostility of the administration toward police officers). The exposé will also detail the operatives in the government who work to advance the Muslim Brotherhood’s ambitions for a worldwide Caliphate. And it will put into context the mysterious influence that George Soros and Valerie Jarrett have over Barack Hussein Obama, his administration, and the policies that affect every American.

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, William Palumbo, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, IQ al Rassooli, Jeff Bayard, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, Mary Fanning, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trever Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

Also see: Restoring Liberty: Joe Miller

02/16/15

Retired four-star admiral says the unsayable about Islam and President Obama’s foreign policy strategy

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

Recently we reported on retired Lt. Gen. and former DIA Chief Mike Flynn’s devastating criticism of the terms of President Obama’s Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS.

Another prominent retired member of America’s armed forces who has emerged as an outspoken opponent of the Obama administration’s foreign policy is four-star admiral James “Ace” Lyons.

During the Center for Security Policy’s recent Defeat Jihad Summit, the naval officer of 36 years, who served most recently as the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, made some simply astounding comments about Islam and President Obama’s foreign policy strategy:

Lyons’ remarks followed a scathing critique of the bipartisan failure of U.S. leaders to deal with the threat of Islamic supremacism, dating back to President Carter.

The Defeat Jihad Summit, held on February 11, was intended to serve as a corrective for the Obama administration’s forthcoming Countering Violent Extremism summit.

The event included prominent counterjihadists such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders and dozens of others.

You can watch full video of the conference here.

(H/T: Gates of Vienna)

02/6/15

Why the West is Losing to Islamic Supremacists

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

During a recent lecture on the nature of and threat posed by Iran, with whom President Barack Obama’s Chamberlainian negotiations continue apace, an existential question arose: Why does the West remain asleep regarding Islamic Supremacism and the doctrine on which it is based?

I posit that there are three main reasons, which also go a long way towards explaining why we are currently losing to the global jihad: (i) Progressive multiculturalism, moral relativism and materialism; (ii) Profound willful ignorance; and (iii) An inability to cope with the staggering implications of the threat we face.

Since the days of George W. Bush, we have heard the oft-repeated trope that Islam is a religion of peace, and moreover one of the world’s great religions, with the same ethics, values and principles as Judaism and Christianity.

Originally, the Western elite argued that those who killed in the name of Islam were merely misinterpreting and perverting the religion. These, one should note, were the relatively more clear-eyed ones. Others attributed genocidal jihadism to poverty, lack of education or global warming.

Now we have completely severed the jihadist head from the Islamic body (theo)politic, arguing that the barbarians who comprise Islamic State, or as the Obama administration obediently likes to say, Daesh, in spite of the first “I” standing for “Islamic,” are nihilists.

For a people steeped in progressivism for decades, this can be the only reasonable conclusion.

Islamic supremacism does not comport with the belief system of our elites, who assert that all peoples are the same, all religions consist of the same values and beliefs, and that material concerns trump all others, including spiritual or idealist ones.

For those who honestly believe such things — as opposed to the ones who spout platitudes out of political expediency and to gloss over threats they dishonestly claim to have already defeated – throwing up one’s arms and claiming that jihadism stems from an ideology of nothingness is the most coherent of an entirely incoherent set of answers. Even better is to declare that violent extremism is the enemy, so as to smear conservatives while they’re at it.

This pervasive misunderstanding of Islam reflects a profound ignorance, in that it neglects the fact that the Koran and hadith comprise a unique belief system fundamentally different from, and in fact antithetical to the historically Judeo-Christian West.

For those interested, there is a mass of literature from authors such as Dr. Andrew Bostom, Andrew McCarthy, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq and Bat Ye’or who lay this out in concrete and copiously sourced terms.

Better yet, look to the texts and words of leading Islamic scholars such as Hassan Al Banna and Sayyid Qutb, prominent modern-day figures like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ayatollah Khameini, Hassan Nasrallah, and the content being taught at mosques right here in America.

If you would like to ignore the compendium of Islamic doctrine that calls for and compels Muslims to bring about a totalitarian world under which all submit to Allah’s rule, all one has to do is look at states whose governments are based in Shariah law to see Islam in practice.

(Image Source: PEW Research - The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, Q79a, Q92a-c, dated April 30, 2013 and Spring 2014 Global Attitudes Survey, Q100.)

Theory and practice aside, I am willing to wager that the vast majority of those commenting on Islam in the media and political establishment have never opened up a Koran, let alone heard the word hadith. Of the small percentage who have, invariably you will hear the argument that while parts of the Koran are violent, others are peaceful. Such a view evinces further ignorance however, as it fails to address two essential Islamic concepts: (a) Abrogation and (b) taqiyya.

Abrogation refers to the fact that as the Koran reflects Allah’s divine revealed word, where there are textual contradictions, those passages revealed later must supplant those that preceded it. These later passages are frequently more violent than the earlier peaceful ones.

Taqiyya refers to strategic lying and deception – covering up one’s true intentions so as to defeat one’s enemies. This manifests itself in acts of sabotage, subversion and the propagation of strategic disinformation, not unlike what the Communists did during and after the Cold War.

Others will argue that just as the Koran has violent verses, so too do the Old and New Testaments. But Jews and Christians do not go out and slaughter in the name of their G-d in a modern-day global Crusade like the jihadists are waging. Moreover, the values and principles that flow from these two religious systems have led to the miracle that is Western civilization. The Muslim world on the other hand, especially where Islamic doctrine is followed in its purest form, resembles the seventh century one that preceded it.

Lest you think those who have studied Islam in schools are better off, in America’s universities taqiyya has become an art form. Many of the Middle Eastern departments at our country’s most prestigious academic institutions have been found to put on a “moderate” public face while serving as Trojan horses for anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Westernism — all consistent with Islamic doctrine.

This should come as no surprise, as these departments – and even K-12 schools — are often funded by Islamic nations who are the primary backers of Islamic supremacism themselves.

For those able to see past multiculturalism, moral relativism, materialism and actually study Islam in theory and practice, recognizing that the religion at the very least as understood by millions of Muslims is not only incompatible with, but hostile to our very existence, this is a staggering realization. It offends our pluralistic, tolerant sensitivities to think that such a massive, religiously-justified threat could exist. For while similarly savage enemies marched throughout the 20th century, none were tinged with theology, and Communism for its part was explicitly anti-religious.

Moreover, there are uncomfortable practical questions that such a threat raises. Who exactly are we fighting if there are millions of jihadists, aiders, abettors and enablers all over the world? How are we to fight them? What measures can we take to secure the homeland that are both sufficient and consonant with a free society?

Today, the West is clearly not even at the point of asking these questions, which reflects a lack of education on behalf of some, and denial on the part of others. That it is considered a bold act to utter phrases like “Radical Islam,” or “Islamic extremism” or “Islamism,” in the face of now over 25,000 jihadist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001 indicates as much. Imagine what kind of stones it would take to repeat after Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan, that in effect there is no such thing as “moderate Islam” or “Islamism,” and such “descriptions are very ugly…offensive and an insult to our religion…Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Rather than deal with reality, we figuratively bury our heads in the sand. Meanwhile, savage jihadists lop off and literally bury infidel heads in the sand.

If we are going to turn the tide in a war that we are currently not fighting, it is imperative that a sizable number of Americans wake up. It behooves all men and women of good conscience to educate their fellow citizens, and spark this awakening.

The future of Western civilization depends upon it.

02/5/15

Response and Defense

Arlene from Israel

My mother used to say, “Enough is enough, and too much is plenty.”  Well…we passed the “plenty” mark a long time ago where terrorism and threats by terrorist entities are concerned. But what I see is that the excesses of terrorists are beginning to stiffen backs a bit.  In the face of acts that are increasingly obscene, there is a growing recognition that tough stances are necessary.  Not nearly enough yet, mind you, but growing.

The most obvious example at the moment of a nation being pushed to a new stance by terrorist excesses is Jordan.  As most of my readers undoubtedly know, ISIS has executed a Jordanian pilot by locking him in a cage and burning him alive; this was captured on videotape.  Jordan is part of the US-led alliance against ISIS, and their pilot, Lt. Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, was captured when his plane went down over Syria.  There are no words for the inhumanity of what was done to him, and the Jordanians are beyond furious.  Thus have critics of action against ISIS now joined the chorus of rage.

The first thing Jordan did was to execute (apparently by hanging) two al-Qaeda connected Iraqi prisoners – already convicted and, as I understand it, sentenced to death, but being held long term in prison.  Now King Abdullah is quoted as saying:

“We are waging this war to protect our faith, our values and human principles and our war for their sake will be relentless and will hit them in their own ground.”

And a Jordanian government spokesman has spoken about intensifying “efforts to stop extremism and terrorism to undermine, degrade and eventually finish Daesh [the Islamic State].”  (Emphasis added)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4623133,00.html

Rhetoric in part, perhaps, because honor is involved. But a welcome perspective, none the less. And Jordan is already increasing bombing.

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Here at home, I’ve noted a number of ways in which the responses of our government seem to me to be increasingly tough.  These responses have nothing to do with declarations of war, and may seem relatively minor, but are not.  They send an important message regarding our strength, our rights, and our readiness to take action to protect ourselves.  Constant vigilance is required on a number of fronts:

Israeli-Arabs who leave Israel – apparently getting into Syria via Turkey – to join ISIS are being tracked and arrested on their return. In ISIS camps they are trained in torture and weapons use. After being interrogated, they are indicted, and, if found guilty sentenced.  Although it appears from news reports that sentences remain too lenient, European nations might take a lesson from this practice.

See here, for example:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4595249,00.html

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And speaking of ISIS, seven Arab Israelis were arrested recently for attempting to set up an Islamic State cell in the Nazareth area.

~~~~~~~~~~

Last month, the Shin Bet and a special police unit, working together, identified and then closed down three Israeli NGOs that were funneling money to activities intended to “inflame tensions on the Temple Mount.”

These groups were established last October by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel “with the purpose of funding activities meant to disrupt the security of visitors to the Temple Mount and in order to inflame tensions and cause disturbances, while harming the sovereignty of the State of Israel at the site.”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israel-police-Shin-Bet-close-three-Islamic-charities-for-causing-unrest-on-Temple-Mount-387507

There are groups of Arabs – often women – who have been paid to come up on the Mount and harass Jews both verbally and physically.

~~~~~~~~~~

Last Saturday night, an IDF unit in the Shomron came upon Palestinian Arabs throwing firebombs at on-coming cars.  The army opened fire on them, and one of the Palestinian Arabs was killed.

It is critical to consider the attacks upon cars – whether by firebombs or rocks and bricks, all of which can maim and kill – with utmost seriousness.

~~~~~~~~~~

This is a very modest response (TOO modest a response, in my opinion). But, as it is a first, it is a step in our asserting ourselves: The Israel Electric Company is now cutting back on service to the PA areas because of the enormous unpaid electric bill.  Service will be cut in half for two hours every day.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4620683,00.html

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The organization Im Tirtzu – “if we will it,” from Herzl – is staunchly Zionist, and prepared to expose those who are not.  B’Tselem, on the other hand, is an Israeli NGO that poses as a human rights group, but is in fact enormously politicized, and anti-Israel.  B’Tselem just released a report, allegedly documenting “war crimes” committed by Israel during our recent war with Hamas, Operation Protective Shield.  Their findings will be used by what was at least until this week referred to as the Schabas Commission, which has a UNHRC mandate to “investigate” Israel’s behavior during the war (more on Schabas below).

Now Im Tirtzu has exposed the fact that B’Tselem received funding for this report from Ramallah, from “a Palestinian foundation that, among other things, finances organizations related to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

Says Im Tirtzu: “Israeli citizens and the international community who will read B’Tselem’s report have a right to know that this report does not represent an objective investigation of truth with justice as its guiding principle. Rather, this is the result of a political agenda and the negative attitude toward Israel.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190804#.VM9kvpv9nIV

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On Monday, William Schabas – the Canadian legal academic who had been appointed to head the UN Human Rights Council investigation on Israel’s “war crimes” in Gaza this past summer – resigned. He had been exposed:

Turns out that in 2012, he wrote a legal opinion for the PLO and was paid for doing so.

He apparently did not see this as a conflict of interest that would disqualify him.  In fact, he declared, all innocence, that “this work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks.” He assumed the position, he maintained, with full commitment to “act with independence and impartiality. I have fully respected that undertaking.”

As Anne Bayefsky, who directs the Touro College Institute on Human Rights, wrote, “”Yea, right.”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-The-indelible-stain-on-the-UN-committee-once-chaired-by-William-Schabas-389928

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The UNHRC might have scrapped the work of the investigatory commission, but that would have been expecting too much.  One day later, Schabas’s successor – former NY judge Mary McGowan Davis – was appointed.  Davis, already a member of this commission, had served as well on the Goldstone Commission, the findings of which were subsequently repudiated by Goldstone himself.

As Bayefsky points out (emphasis added):

“Israel’s achievement in this whole affair…is not that it brought to light damning information about Schabas that compelled him to step down.

”Rather, the achievement is that, now that he has stepped down because of incontrovertible evidence of bias, it will be easier for Israel to dismiss the report as completely one-sided and useless when it does come out.

”This incident also provides real-time evidence to those tired of hearing Jerusalem argue that it does not get a fair shake in international organizations, that – indeed – it does not get a fair shake in international organizations.

”…Schabas has lost his credibility, and as a result so has the commission that he chaired, even before the paper it is working on even sees the light of day.”

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This is unreal, but not unexpected:

Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli coordinator for government activities in the territories, is in Europe to discuss better relations with the EU.  He was scheduled to meet with European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Israel, which is responsible for “maintaining and developing Parliament’s contacts and relations with the Knesset.”

The invitation to Parliament members said that his visit presented an “excellent opportunity to carry an open dialogue, as well as raise issues of mutual interest.”  But that visit never happened.  In the face of objections by left wing members, it was cancelled.

”Portuguese parliamentarian Marisa Matias, from the European United Left–Nordic Green Left grouping, was quoted as saying that ‘giving him [Mordechai] a platform to host a lecture would legitimize his violations of international law and human rights. Rather than giving a warm welcome to those who stand for repression and apartheid, the EU institutions should pressure the Israeli government to abide by the rules of international law and UN resolutions. We must bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.’”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Leftists-in-European-Parliament-torpedo-meeting-with-visiting-IDF-Major-General-390032

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Sigh…

What this tells me is that the Legal Grounds Campaign has quite a task to do, to set the record straight. There is no such thing as “the occupied Palestinian territories.”  Nor is Israel remotely apartheid. These are terms bandied about for political purposes with less than no respect for truth.