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Houston Muslim Charged With Lighting His Own Mosque On Fire

December 30, 2015

Houston Muslim Charged With Lighting His Own Mosque On Fire, Breitbart, John Nolte, December 30, 2015

Arsonist

Using surveillance video from other area businesses to identify the arsonist, Gary Nathaniel Moore, 37, was arrested and charged with starting the Christmas Day fire that devastated a Houston, Texas mosque. Moore is a devout Muslim who attended this same mosque for years, praying up to five times a day every day of the week.

Also up in smoke is the DC Media’s hoped-for anti-GOP Narrative. Before any facts were known, numerous DC Media outlets immediately exploited the tragedy to place the blame for the fire on Donald Trump.

CBS News:

Advocacy groups believe there has been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents across the United States in recent weeks that can be linked to the mass shooting in California and the inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. And they say that Muslims are fearful the backlash could lead to further harassment and violence.

CNN:

The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on authorities to investigate the fire for an anti-Muslim motive.

“Because of the recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide, we urge law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for this fire,” Mustafaa Carroll, the chapter’s executive director, said in a statement.

NBC News:

The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on authorities to investigate a possible bias motive in the case, citing what it called a “recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide.

Now that a devout Muslim has been charged, the DC Media will forget all about the incident.

The media’s playbook is always to immediately use any disaster or crime as a means to make the GOP answer for it. Then, once the facts come out and point to a member of the Protected Class, the story is memory-holed and the accusation against the Republican lingers.

 

Categories: CAIR, Islamic hoax, Islamic myths, Islamophobia, Western media
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Founding Fathers’ Criticism of ‘Musselmen’ Sinks Suhail Khan’s Islam-Is-American P.R.

December 30, 2015

Founding Fathers’ Criticism of ‘Musselmen’ Sinks Suhail Khan’s Islam-Is-American P.R., Breitbart, Jordan Schachtel, December 29, 2015

Suhail_Khan

Suhail Khan, an official in the George W. Bush administration, is engaged in a media campaign that claims Islam is ingrained in the founding of the American republic.

In his Foreign Policy piece, titled “Islam is All-American,” (which would later be re-published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with the title “One Nation Under Allah“) Mr. Khan begins by insisting that American Muslims are under attack–a plea to perpetual victimization that seeks to immediately quash any legitimate debate.

Khan targets GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, insisting he has called for the “registration of all Muslim-Americans,” which is not true. As Breitbart News has shown, this was a media-created suggestion.

Khan claims that “5 million to 7 million” Muslims are living in the United States, without offering any evidence.

He tells us to look to former President George W. Bush for a more “unifying message,” and claims that “poll after poll” demonstrates support for “anti-Muslim sentiment,” without citing one such poll.

What Khan does here, whether purposely or not, is conflate criticism of Islam’s doctrines with “anti-Muslim sentiment” aimed at Muslim individuals. Unsurprisingly, he never addresses whether criticism of Islam is legitimate.

In many Islamic countries, majorities or large percentages of the population favor the death penalty for “apostates,” which includes people who criticize Islam, according to Pew Research. These countries say that the Koranic Sharia law demands they live by such methods.

Across the globe, critics of Islam are slaughtered (see Charlie Hebdo, Bangladesh secular bloggers, Saudi atheists) simply for discussing the “religion of peace.” The “lucky ones,” such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, and others, have mere fatwas placed on their head.

While many in the Islamic world react violently to criticism of their religion, others, such as Suhail Khan, seek to delegitimize these free voices as ones that make Muslims “feel singled out.” He insists that our enemy “makes no distinction about our race, ethnicity, or religion – attacking us only because we are Americans.”

Americans turn on their televisions and see hundreds-of-thousands of Muslim men fighting on behalf of Islam, engaged in a wholesale murder campaign against religious and ethnic minorities. The free-thinking American people are gravely concerned to see these deeply-religious Islamic groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, targeting people simply because they’re Jews. Or whether it’s Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, and the Islamic State hunting down Christians simply because they’re Christians.

Yet, Mr. Khan tells us that the conflict is our fault. This supposed “anti-Muslim sentiment” trend in America needs to stop, he demands. How dare we start “casting suspicion on an entire faith group,” he suggests.

And the founders of the republic supported Islam, he claims, because they made clear their views on religious freedom, and their assertion that a belief in a particular religion should not prevent a man from holding office.

But in reality, the founders had plenty to say about Islam’s doctrines.

John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1814, stating that Islam’s Muhammad was a “military fanatic” who “denies that laws were made for him” and “arrogates everything to himself by force of arms.”

Ben Franklin, another founding father, said of Islam:

“Nor can the Plundering of Infidels be in that sacred Book [the Quran] forbidden, since it is well known from it, that God has given the World, and all that it contains, to his faithful Mussulmen (Muslims), who are to enjoy it of Right as fast as they conquer it.”

Thomas Jefferson, who would later become engaged in a war against the Barbary pirates, observed that peace was not possible with Islamic zealots, stating in a letter to Secretary of State John Jay:

“The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

Our 6th president, John Quincy Adams, wrote that the Islamic Prophet Muhammad “spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth.”

“He declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind …The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust: to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature … As the essential principle of his faith is the subjugation of others by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be dispelled, and his power annihilated.”

None of those critiques make their way into Khan’s piece, as he concludes, incoherently: “In this time of real danger, let’s not allow our zeal to defend our ideals destroy them.”

Categories: Islam, Islamic myths, Islamism, Islamophobia, U.S History
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“To Be or Not To Be: What ‘Muslim’ Actually Means

December 30, 2015

“To Be or Not To Be: What ‘Muslim’ Actually Means, Center for Security Policy, Clare M. Lopez, December 30, 2015

The entire debate about what it means to be “Muslim” and shariah-compliant might be solved with a quick lesson in Arabic grammar.

This is because the word “Muslim” contains in its Arabic meaning its own definition.

You see, the word “Muslim” in Arabic has two parts: the “Mu” prefix and the triliteral root that forms the word “Islam.” That root word, “Islam,” is a verbal noun that means “submission.” When an “Mu” prefix is attached to such a root in Arabic, the resulting noun means “a person who does the thing that root word denotes.”

Therefore, with “Islam” being a verbal noun meaning submission, “Muslim” therefore means “one who submits.” Submits to what? To Allah’s will, which is shariah. Islamic Law. Thus, anyone who presents as a Muslim is by definition shariah-adherent, because that’s what the word itself actually means. If someone claims to be a Muslim, or converts to Islam, or was born into Islam but does not apostatize or separate from it, then it is reasonable to conclude that such a person is shariah-compliant—at a minimum, tacitly—unless and until told otherwise. And the converse must also be true: one who does not submit to shariah, one who does not adhere to shariah, does not meet the linguistic definition of “Muslim.”

As for “shariah,” which is defined and understood by the Islamic scholars to be an all-encompassing, legal-military doctrinal system that features some religious beliefs, it is binding for Muslims, even as the word “Muslim” dictates. Although shariah includes a multitude of obligations, among which many are innocuous (to believe in the oneness of Allah; to pray five times per day; to avoid eating pork, etc.), jihad as warfare to spread Islam is also a core, compelling obligation. All who are Muslim by birth or conversion are obligated to actively support the establishment of a universal governmental system (Caliphate/Imamate) based on shariah and the replacement by means of jihad of any political system not governed by shariah.

It is this commandment to Islamic supremacism that is most problematic for non-Muslims and responsible for much of the debate about what exactly “being Muslim” means. But if we realize that the answer lies in the etymology of the Arabic word “Muslim” itself, then it will be understood that unless and until that identity as “one who submits” is abjured by the individual in question, the person is accorded full credit for living a shariah-adherent life.

Categories: Islam - submission, Muslims, Sharia law
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Hillary Clinton Finally Decides Christians are Suffering Genocide

December 30, 2015

Hillary Clinton Finally Decides Christians are Suffering Genocide, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 30, 2015

(Did Ms. Clinton refer to the non-Islamic Islamic State? If so, Muslims must not be doing it. Perhaps others might be. Mormons? Amish? Jews? Who knows?  Please see, Muslims “Have Nothing Whatsoever to do with Terrorism” — DM)

dd3cd-hilly2

How nice of Hillary.

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday called the killing of Christians and other religious groups in the Middle East a “genocide” -— a term she had previously been reluctant to use.

“Yes, I will now. I will because we now have enough evidence,” Clinton told a man during atown hall at Berlin High School, who asked whether she would join the Pope and other religious and political leaders in using the term.

What “new evidence” suddenly showed up to change her mind?

The statistics have been there for some time now. ISIS has been at it ever since it began its campaign in Syria.

Of course not. Only Muslims can really suffer. When Christians are killed, they are “these communities”. When Jews are killed, they’re “random folks in a deli”. But when a Muslim gets a dirty look, it’s an Islamophobic crisis that is immediately on the front page of every newspaper and requires immediate intervention by the Attorney General. Not to mention an Obama speech.

Tonight, Clinton said she had been asked to use the term a few months ago, but declined then.

“I said, you know that term carries with it, legal import. It’s a very important concept and label for behavior that deserves that name. And I said we are only beginning to see this and I’m not sure yet we have enough evidence,” she said, “I’m sure now we have enough evidence.”

So is ISIS is killing more Christians now than it was a few months ago? What missing evidence did Hillary suddenly come up with? Or is she just worried enough about a Webb independent run that she decided to admit what everyone knew last year?

Categories: Genocide, Hillary Clinton, Islam and Christianity, Islamic State
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Muslims “Have Nothing Whatsoever to do with Terrorism”

December 30, 2015

Muslims “Have Nothing Whatsoever to do with Terrorism” – Muslim Persecution of Christians, November 2015, Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, December 30, 2015

♦ Muslims “have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” — Hillary Clinton.

♦ “We have been forced to live under a climate of fear, this is not England. I grew up in in to a free decent country accepting British values and the British rule of law. … I think there is two laws, one for them and one for us.” — Nissar Hussain, a former Muslim living in West Yorkshire.

♦ “They wanted to kill us by burning us alive, but we managed to escape. We have lost everything.” — Ramni Das, 57, accused of witchcraft in Bangladesh.

♦ Iraq’s parliament passed a law that will force Christian children to become Muslim if their father converts to Islam or if their Christian mother marries a Muslim.

♦ In Pakistan, an 8-year-old girl, Sara Bibi, was beaten and locked in a school bathroom by her Muslim head teacher for using the same toilet as Muslims. She was then expelled from the school.

As Muslim jihadis, mobs and regimes terrorized Christians and others throughout the world of Islam, in the West, institutions — from governments to grade schools — empowered and praised Islam, often at the expense of Christians.

U.S. President Barack Obama described the idea of giving preference to persecuted Christian refugees as “shameful” — even though helping persecuted refugees is what America has always been doing and much of what it is about. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” Obama admonished. Unfortunately for the president, statistics were soon released, indicating that “the current [refugee] system overwhelmingly favors Muslim refugees. Of the 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States so far, only 53 are Christians while 2,098 are Muslim.” So, although Christians are 10% of Syria’s population — and possibly the most persecuted group — only 2% of the refugees entering America are Christian.

Adding to the confusion, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush falsely claimed that Syrian President Bashar Assad “executes Christians.” In reality, not only have Christian minorities long been protected under the secular regime of Assad — himself a member of a religious minority — but many Christian refugees who fled the jihad in Iraq went to Assad’s Syria for sanctuary.

Accordingly, the head of the Syrian Catholic Church, Mar Ignace Youssif III Youan, in a November interview, accused Western governments of “perpetuat[ing] the endless conflict in Syria” and of having “betrayed the Christians of the East. We explained from the beginning that our situation was different from that of other nations in the region, they were not listened to. And now we mourn deaths over the past five years. … It’s a shame that the West has abandoned Christians to this situation.”

Less than a week after jihadis murdered 130 people in Paris, Hillary Clinton asserted that Muslims “have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”

The same pro-Islamist, anti-Christian spirit floated through some Western schools. In the United Kingdom, pupils at Oldknow Academy were reportedly led in “anti-Christian chants” in assemblies that were “like a rally” with a “plainly divisive” attitude.” According to the Birmingham Mail, Asif Khan, a Muslim teacher, led pupils, shouting, “We don’t believe in Christmas, do we?” and “Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem, was he?” Children were also asked to shout: “Do we send Christmas cards? No!” and “Do we celebrate Christmas? No!” Khan denies the claims.

However, Ann Connor, an education adviser contracted to work for Department for Education who had earlier visited the school, said, “I found the school to be extraordinary. There was an element of fear.” A female staff member was said to be “frightened of Mr. Khan.” And a parent complained of the “increasing Islamic ethos in the school.”

In the United States, a seventh-grade teacher at Spring View Middle School in Huntington Beach, California, deviated from the district’s official curriculum and had students sing “This Is My Fight Song.” Lyrics from the song included, “Islam … Allah’s on the way. They will preach them loud tonight. Can you hear their voice this time? This is their fight song. Spread Islam now song. Prove that they’re right song.”

Parents only found out about the song after some students accidentally brought the pamphlet home. “I believe that by singing the song,” one of the angry parents said, “the children feel comfortable that maybe Allah is the only god and maybe that they should start following him. I’m not OK with that.” The school responded by sending an apology to parents and said it would continue looking into the incident.

Meanwhile, in the Islamic world, it was business as usual. November’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Muslim Slaughter of Christians and Savagery

Libya: Two Christians were killed by gunshots to their heads. The bodies of Wasfy Bakhit Gad Mikhail, 37, and his brother Fahmy, 27, were found on November 13 near Al Khums. On their bodies were black gloves with Islamic phrases. Like many other Christians killed in Libya — including the 21 who were slaughtered earlier this year by the Islamic State — the brothers were working as laborers and sent their earnings back home to support their families. “They were targeted and killed because they are Christians,” said Father Sulaiman Botros. “They kept the faith and refused to deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They are our church’s martyrs.”

Egypt: Marwa Ahmed, a 26-year-old former Muslim woman, was killed by her family for converting to Christianity and marrying a Christian. Three years ago she fled her hometown and moved to Alexandria with her new husband, where she gave birth to a boy and girl. But when her uncle and cousins learned that she was back visiting Taymiyya, they tracked her down and kidnapped her. According to the report, her uncle then forced her younger sister to “kill her to ‘punish’ her for her conversion.” Other reports say that the uncle killed Marwa himself.

Yet another Christian soldier was killed in his (Muslim majority) unit. Bishoy Nata’i Bushri Kamal, 21, was found dead at his military base in Cairo. The army told his family that he had committed suicide by hanging. However, the man’s uncle, Sami Bushri, said: “We completely reject this [claim that he had committed suicide].” The uncle added that Bishoy had recently gotten into a quarrel with a certain “Mustafa,” a fellow soldier. Injuries were found on Kamal’s abdomen, face and back — all of which indicate that he was tortured, then murdered. (See here for five more examples of Egyptian Christian soldiers found dead, followed by military claims of suicide or some other “accident,” and rejection of these claims by their families. They all point to conflicts with Muslim soldiers in the unit, including attempts to force the Christians to convert to Islam.

Yemen: Two Muslim converts to Christianity, in two separate incidents, were murdered because they left Islam. In Taiz, an al-Qaeda member shot a Christian man 15 to 20 times. The second Christian, shot once in his home, was killed either by another Islamic jihadi group or by members of his own family. A colleague of the second convert said that Muslims were harassing and threatening the man: “A lot of people didn’t like that he was a convert… I think it is because of his faith; there is no other reason.” Authorities, as usual, made no arrests.

United Kingdom: Former Muslim, Nissar Hussain, 49, was struck 13 times with a pickax and repeatedly punched and kicked by two hooded men, as he left his house in West Yorkshire. He suffered a shattered kneecap and a broken hand (video of attack here). According to the “apostate,” he became a target after he converted to Christianity in 1996 and his family appeared in a 2008 documentary exposing the mistreatment of Muslim converts. Since then, local Muslims drove his family from a previous home and have attacked them in the streets. “Our lives have been jeopardised and subjugated,” Hussain said. “We have been forced to live under a climate of fear, this is not England. I grew up in in [sic] to a free decent country accepting British values and the British rule of law. I think multiculturalism has failed, I think David Cameron’s Big Society has failed and I think there is two laws, one for them and one for us.”

Bangladesh: On November 18, three men attacked Fr. Piero Parolari, a 64-year-old missionary who had been working at St. Vincent Hospital since 1985. “They wanted to kill him,” said a colleague. “Three thugs were on the motorcycle. One shot him in the neck, but only grazed it, whilst another threw a knife (perhaps a Chinese knife) at the carotid artery. The cut did most of the damage. Fr. Parolari lost a lot of blood.” The priest fell and hit his head, had bruises on his eyes and body, and three broken ribs. He was reported suffering from respiratory problems, and fluid had to be drained from his lungs.

On November 5, four Catholic families narrowly escaped death when a group of Muslims burned down their homes on the accusation of witchcraft. A Muslim mob tried to lock them inside their houses before setting them on fire. “For more than a year, Muslim youths from a neighboring village accused us of practicing witchcraft and told us to leave the village. They abused us in public and threw bricks at our houses,” said Ramni Das, 57, who lost two homes in the attack. “They wanted to kill us by burning us alive, but we managed to escape. We have lost everything.”

Kenya: A man exposed as a secret Christian escaped his Muslim in-laws, who tried to stab him and seized his wife and children. Hassan Ali said that on the evening of November 11, Muslim neighbors and his in-laws, armed with knives, knocked on his door. He said that Muslims in the area may have become suspicious of his break from Islam since he had stopped attending the mosque. “I heard people talking outside my house and mentioning my name… I knew I was in trouble when they started questioning my wife about her faith. I then escaped through the window.” His wife’s relatives then seized the woman and their two children, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, and took them to her parents’ home.

According to a source, “The parents are telling Ali’s wife that the children should start going to a madrassa, an Islamic elementary school. … Ali’s wife is facing pressure from her parents to recant the Christian faith, and she is emotionally troubled.”

Ali said it will be “very difficult” to return to his house or see his family again. “What is worrying me at the moment is that communication between my wife and me has now been disconnected. I cannot reach her again. I know my wife and my two children, Hussein and Mariam, will be Islamized. This is making me to have sleepless nights.”

Central Nigeria: Hausa-Fulani Muslim herdsmen regularly commit atrocities against Christians that should be described as “ethnic/religious cleansing,” according to a report by the Nigeria Conflict Security Analysis Network (NCSAN). Despite the media narrative that Hausa violence is a result of environmental degradation and migration, the herdsmen are reportedly motivated by an Islamic agenda that seeks to cleanse the land of Christians no less than the more notorious jihadi organization, Boko Haram. Data from the report finds that in just a year-and-a-half (December 2013 to July 2015), the Muslim herdsmen slaughtered 1,484 Christians (532 men, 507 women, and 445 children), injured 2,388 Christians (1,069 men, 817 women, and 502 children), and burned or destroyed 171 churches, 314 houses and 39 shops and businesses of Christians.

The NCSAN report concludes that “for many people the atrocities committed by the Hausa-Fulani Muslim herdsmen can be, at best, described as ethnic cleansing, and at worst, as genocide. This is because, from the evidence presented, there is a deliberate and calculated infliction of physical destruction, targeted at particular religious [Christian] and ethnic groups. Such destruction is supported and driven by a religious supremacist ideology to ensure Islam dominates all aspects of life in Taraba State.”

Central African Republic (CAR): Thousands of people have been killed since 2013, when the Muslim militias known as “Seleka” seized power in the Christian-majority country. After months of killings, raping, and looting by Seleka, Christian militias known as “Anti-Balaka” emerged and were likely responsible for killing three Muslims. In retaliation, Muslims torched a church and slaughtered over 30 men and women, and torched their homes, in Christian-majority parts of Bangui (the CAR capital). According to a local witness, “The people have lost everything, and have nowhere to lay their head. They have become wanderers and vagabonds in their own country… [T]he objective continues to be to impoverish the Christians by burning all their homes and property… The threat of sudden death is on everyone’s mind, given what is going on in CAR far from the media cameras. We are defenceless, our very lives exposed, and only God can save us.”

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches

Spain: On November 2, a group of Muslims stormed the Church of our Lady of Carmen, in the town of Rincon de la Victoria, and smashed wooden statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on the cross. A spokesman for the Diocese of Malaga said the attack was not representative of all Muslims and that the diocese was committed to maintaining “respect and fraternity between different religious groups.” The month before, a Moroccan man was arrested in the same town after trying to destroy another statue of the Virgin Mary while screaming “Allahu Akbar!”

1408On November 2, a group of Muslims stormed the Church of our Lady of Carmen, in the town of Rincon de la Victoria, Spain, and smashed wooden statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on the cross. The month before, a Moroccan man was arrested in the same town after trying to destroy another statue of the Virgin Mary while screaming “Allahu Akbar!”

Iraq: The Islamic State reportedly blew up the convent belonging to the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena on the morning of November 5. The destruction of the convent also caused considerable damage to adjacent buildings. According to the Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights and other media, this latest attack by the “caliphate” occurred in Tel Keppe — “Hill of Stones” — one of the largest historically Assyrian Christian towns in northern Iraq, about 8 miles from Mosul.

Egypt: On November 12, three gunmen opened fire on an Evangelical church by the Giza pyramids, near Cairo. Separately, in the city of Rashid, a retired Muslim judge is attempting to destroy a church. Judge Mohamed Mostafa Kamel Tirana and his two sons claim that they purchased the church building in 1990, and say that it was their family’s ancestral home. However, Tirana only registered the purchase of the building in 2008 — 18 years after the alleged purchase. The lawyer acting for the church leaders says the building has been registered as a church since 1948 in the city’s real estate authority, the Property Taxes office and the 1946 Cadastral map. “His purpose of taking over the church is demolishing its building and rebuild[ing] big shopping malls on its land,” said church leader Luka Asaad Awad. Last September 2, the judge managed to infiltrate the church and tried to demolish the building from inside. “We beg President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi to intervene and protect the church and stop the demolition of it,” said the church leader.

Kenya: Muslims burned down two Christian churches, Faith Victory Church and Holistic Church, on the outskirts of Tiribe town. Prior to these arson attacks, church leaders received threatening messages from Muslims, including calls to “stop converting our people to Christianity, and if not you will soon regret changing our people to Christianity.” Christians have been since worshiping in tents, some of which have been flooded by heavy rains — five people were swept away by a downpour.

Indonesia: More than 1,000 Christian churches have been shut down in Muslim-majority Indonesia since 2006, when the “religious harmony” law was passed, according to a report. The law requires minority religious groups to secure 60 signatures of local residents of another faith, and a written recommendation from local authorities before obtaining permits to build houses of worship, which, as Christian leaders indicate, is often impossible.

Dhimmitude

Iraq: Parliament passed a law that will force Christian children to become Muslim if their father converts to Islam or if their Christian mother marries a Muslim. Leaders of the Assyrian Christians, Yazidis, Mandeans, Kakai and Bahai vigorously fought the law and their representatives walked out of the parliament session in protest after it was passed. They had requested adding: “Minors will keep their current religion until the completion of 18 years of age, then they have the right to choose their religion” — but the clause was rejected.

Iran: Fourteen Christians, among them converts from Islam, were arrested after agents from the Ministry of Intelligence raided a private house-church meeting. Most of the group had previously been members of the Emmanuel Protestant Church in Tehran, which Iranian authorities had forced to close in 2012. According to Christian Solidarity, “We are extremely concerned at the arrests of these 14 Christians and the fact that their whereabouts remain unknown, which gives rise to concerns regarding their wellbeing. These people had merely gathered peacefully and had not partaken in any illegal activities. It is unacceptable that the Iranian authorities continue to harass the Christian community without cause.”

Uzbekistan: On Sunday, November 8 in Tashkent, the nation’s capital, twelve Protestant Christians holding a worship meeting in a private home were detained, and some beaten, after eight plain-clothes anti-terrorism officers stormed their morning meeting. A large quantity of Christian literature — approximately 100 books — was also confiscated. Two Christians were handcuffed and another was “hit and kicked” in the head and in the abdomen by an armed officer. The Christians were then taken to the police station where they were held for nine hours. During that time, they were forbidden to use the toilet and denied water. Some of the Christians detained had infant children with them and were not allowed to feed them until they had written statements denouncing Sarvar Zhuliyev, in whose home they had met. Christian parents were forced to write statements declaring that Sarvar Zhuliyev had “taught them the faith of Jesus Christ.” Some of the children were also interrogated by police and forced to write statements. Problems began when the head teacher of a school in the capital’s Yashnobod District told police that two pupils were speaking about their Christian faith with other pupils.

Turkey: A survey revealed that “Eighty percent of minorities in Turkey say they cannot express themselves openly on social media, while 35 percent said they are subject to hate speech on the same platform.” The survey was conducted among 746 Turkish citizens who are members of the Greek, Armenian, Syriac, and Jewish communities. Over one-third of respondents also said they were subject to defamation, humiliation, obscenity or threats due to their minority identity on social media.

Pakistani Dhimmitude

♦ Sana John, a 13-year-old Christian girl, was kidnapped and converted to Islam by force in Haji Pura, near Silakot. On November 9, Muslim men stopped the girl while she was returning home from school and seized her. The Christian family was threatened not to file a complaint. According to her father, “In Pakistan there is no justice for the poor and, above all, no one cares for Christians, no one has heard my cry. The police do not pursue the culprits, no one is doing anything for us.”

♦ A few days later, a Muslim family kidnapped, beat and left naked on the streets an 8-year-old Christian girl, as a way to “punish” her uncle for pursuing a relationship with a female member of the Muslim family. The Muslims kidnapped the Christian girl, named Parwasha, on her way home from school, after which she was stripped naked and beaten. When the girl ran home to her family, they went to local police, only to find that the Muslim family had already filed a complaint against the entire Christian family for “shaming” the Muslim family.

♦ Another 8-year-old girl, Sara Bibi, was scolded, beaten and locked in a school bathroom by her Muslim head teacher for using the same toilet as Muslims. Headmistress of the school, Zahida Rana, locked Sara in the bathroom and then shouted at her: “You are a Christian, an infidel. How dare you use the same toilet as Muslim girls?” Despite vigorously pleading her innocence, Sara was beaten and only released from the bathroom 3 hours later, at the end of the school day. The girl has since been expelled from the school.

♦ A Christian activist, Aslam Masih, was shot in the legs by four Muslims in Lahore. The attack, says Christian lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill, “is a clear sign of intimidation towards our work.” Before shooting, the criminals asked him to withdraw a complaint that he had filed with the police. When he refused they opened fire.

♦ A group of masked men set fire to a Christian broadcasting outlet, Gawahi TV, in Karachi. The building collapsed. Gawahi television was established in February 2013 in a joint collaboration between Catholic and Protestant communities, to “spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people of all religions who live in Pakistan.” As reported by the television website, about 12 million people watched it regularly. Despite receiving many threats, and making many requests for security, police did not help.

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some — by no means all — of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Categories: Islam and Christianity
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Iran Executes Three Iranians Every Day; The West Rewards It.

December 30, 2015

Iran Executes Three Iranians Every Day; The West Rewards It. Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, December 30, 2015

♦ “Death sentences in Iran are particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or for acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty. Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation” — From a July 2015 Amnesty International report.

♦ How ironic that Europeans have no problem stuffing themselves with syrupy Iranian dates exported by this regime, knowing full well that there are thousands of prisoners are being tortured in Iran while awaiting their executions.

♦ Amnesty International reports that in the fall of 2015, cartoonist Atena Farghadani was forced to undergo a “virginity and pregnancy test” prior to her trial. The charge? “Illegitimate sexual relations,” for having shaken hands with her lawyer.

♦ Iran nevertheless won a top seat on the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women in April 2014. Not a single UN member, not even the US, objected.

On the UN’s Human Rights Day, observed December 10, an Iranian woman was sentenced to death by stoning in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran is believed to have imposed death by stoning on at least 150 people, according to the International Committees against Execution and Stoning.

“Stoning,” Iranian human rights activist Shabnam Assadollahi said, “is an act of torture. There are 15 countries in which stoning is either practiced and authorized by law or tolerated. One of those 15 countries is Iran. The last known execution by stoning was in 2009. In Iran under the Islamic law, stonings, hangings, and executions are legal torture.

“In Islam under Sharia law, the stoning (Rajm) is commonly used as a form of capital punishment, called Hudud,” Assadollahi explained.

“Under the Islamic Law, it is the ordained penalty in cases of adultery committed by a married man or married woman with others who are not her/his legal partner. Stoning is carried out by a crowd of Muslims who follow the Sharia law by throwing stones (small and large) at a convicted person until she or he is killed. The international community must pressure Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, and other countries where stoning is legally carried or tolerated. Why cannot the public loudly cry out and advocate for women oppressed by those regimes?”

Instead of cries of outrage, the West, in the wake of the nuclear “deal” Iran has not even signed, has been scrambling to ingratiate itself with the Iranian regime. Countries such as France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland have barely been able to contain themselves at the prospect of doing business with them. It has been years since the Europeans could legally engage in trade with the murderous regime of the mullahs, who still cry, “Death to Israel, Death to America” — the “Little Satan” and the “Great Satan’ — and they have not been wasting time.

In fact, the P5+1 negotiators (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) had just finished signing the “deal” with themselves, when Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, hurried himself and a group of representatives from German companies and industry groups onto a plane for a visit to Iran.

The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, who usually knows better, likewise, found it “… completely normal that after this historic deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations.”

1407French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that it is “completely normal that after this historic [nuclear] deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations.” Left, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif hugs Fabius at the close of nuclear talks in Geneva, Nov. 23, 2014. Right: A public execution in Iran.

Before the sanctions took effect in 2011, French companies such as Renault and Peugeot were making billions of euros from their involvement with Iran’s auto industry. Similarly, the French company Total was heavily involved in the oil sector. France was evidently not going to miss a beat in bringing this lucrative trade back to la République.

How ironic that the country of “liberté, egalité and fraternité” finds it “completely normal” to have normal diplomatic and trade relations with a country that treats its own citizens, especially women, worse than the mud under the mullah’s feet; that executes whoever disagrees with the regime, and that hangs homosexuals from cranes. How ironic that Europeans have no problem stuffing themselves with syrupy Iranian dates exported by this smiling regime, knowing full well that there are thousands of Iranian prisoners being tortured in Iranian prisons while awaiting their execution day.

Iranian authorities are believed to have executed 694 people between January 1 and July 15, 2015 — an average of three executions a day. Since the election of the “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani in 2013, the number of executions has markedly gone up. According to a July 2015 Amnesty International report:

“Death sentences in Iran are particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or for acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty. Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation.”

The report goes on to state that the majority of those put to death in 2015 were people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who were convicted on drug charges. “This is in direct breach of international law, which restricts the use of the death penalty to only the ‘most serious crimes’ – those involving intentional killing. Drug-related offences do not meet this threshold.”

Among those executed in Iran this year are members of ethnic and religious minorities convicted of “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth.” These include Kurdish political prisoners and Sunni Muslims. On August 26, 2015, Behrouz Alkhani, a 30-year-old man from Iran’s Kurdish minority, was executed despite awaiting the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal.

Iran is the second most prolific executioner in the world after China, according to Amnesty International’s latest global death penalty report.

Iran also tops the global list statistically for executioners of juvenile offenders, even though it is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit the imposition of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime, without exception. (Of course Iran was also a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it also violated repeatedly.) Iran continues to impose the death penalty against juvenile offenders, frequently deferring the execution until after they pass the age of 18. In 2015, at least four juvenile offenders are believed to have been executed: Javad Saberi, Vazir Amroddin, Samad Zahabi and Fatemeh Salbehi.

Iran is scheduled to be reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child on January 11-12, 2016. The Committee has already expressed deep concerns about the use of death penalty against juvenile offenders and asked Iran to provide information on the progress and outcome of the cases of juvenile offenders undergoing re-trial.

Despite all the atrocities that Iran commits towards its citizens, women hold a special place of denigration and humiliation in Iranian society. Young women are reported brutally arrested by the thousand every week for not wearing a “proper hijab.” A woman in Iran is de facto first her father’s property, then after marriage, her husband’s property. According to the UN Secretary General’s February 2015 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, child marriage is prevalent. The legal age of marriage for girls is 13; some as young as 9 may be married by permission of the court. In 2011, about 48,580 girls between the age of 10 and 14 were married; in 2012, there were at least 1,537 girls under the age of 10 who were reportedly married. Pedophilia is thereby widespread and legal.

Married women may not work, attend sporting events or leave the country without their husband’s permission. When arrested, they suffer unspeakable torture in prison. Rape is commonly used as torture in prison against both women and men.

Forced “virginity testing” is also commonly used in prison, a serious violation of international law. It violates women’s and girls’ human rights to physical integrity, dignity, privacy and right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. According to Amnesty International, satirical cartoonist Atena Farghadani, held in prison since January 2015, was sentenced in June 2015 to twelve years and nine months in prison for her peaceful activism, including meeting with families of political prisoners, and for drawing a satirical cartoon depicting legislators as monkeys, cows, and other animals. The cartoon was to protest a bill that sought to criminalize voluntary sterilization and restrict access to contraception and family planning services.

In December 2014, when Farghadani was out on bail, she released a video message on YouTube, detailing how female prison guards at Evin prison had beaten her, verbally abused her and forced her to strip naked for body searches. She was rearrested in January 2015, and in the fall of 2015 she was forced to undergo a “virginity and pregnancy test” prior to her trial. The charge? “Illegitimate sexual relations” for having shaken hands with her lawyer.

Iran nevertheless won a top seat on the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women in April 2014. Not a single UN member, not even the US, objected, to that election.

An exhaustive account of the atrocities that the Iranian regime continues to commit against its own people would require volumes. Nevertheless, the West, seems to remain unfazed in furthering its lucrative relations with the murderous regime.

Those politicians and executives scrambling to do business with the mullahs should realize that Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missiles can tomorrow be aimed at them. Those who comfort themselves with the thought that Iran only wants to annihilate Israel might do well to think again. Iran has tested a two-stage solid-fuel missile, the Sejjil-2, with a range of more than 2,000 km, allowing it to target southeastern Europe. In addition, Iran recently unveiled the Soumar cruise missile, reportedly a reverse-engineered version of the Russia’s Raduga Kh-55 — which was designed as a nuclear delivery system. It has a claimed range of 2,500-3,000 km.

Nevertheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has acceded to Iran’s demands toclose its 12-year investigation into whether Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program. The IAEA produced a report earlier this month that strongly suggested Iran did have a nuclear weapons program for the years up until 2003.

The West clearly not only fails to care about the plight of the Iranians — it does not even care about its own populations being within Iranian missile range.

Categories: Europe, France, Iran - human rights, Iran - sanctions relief, Iranian economy, Iranian nukes, Iranian prisons, United Nations
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Concentrated Russian air strikes may open Syrian-Hizballah door to Israeli border

December 30, 2015

Concentrated Russian air strikes may open Syrian-Hizballah door to Israeli border, DEBKAfile, December 30, 2015

Sheikh_Maskin_29.12.15Sheikh Maskin-Syrian Army’s 82nd Brigade base

On the face of it, Moscow and Jerusalem make a show of their smooth air force collaboration in Syrian air space. But this picture is wide of the situation: The Russian air force omitted to notify Israel ahead of its massive bombardment close to its border Tuesday.

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Israel’s military and political leaders became intensely anxious Tuesday, Dec. 29, when they saw how concentrated Russian air strikes were swiftly dislodging anti-Assad rebels from southern Syria and beginning to open the door for the Syrian and Hizballah armies to come dangerously close to the Israeli border.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Russian air strikes in other parts of the country have tapered off. Instead, heavy Russian bombardments are giving the combined Syrian-Hizballah force its first chance to recover Sheikh Maskin, the southern town housing the Syrian Army’s 82nd Brigade which has been passing from hand to hand for months. If the rebels lose that fierce battle, the way will be clear for the combined pro-Assad force to advance on the two key southern towns, Deraa and Quneitra on the Golan.

The rebel groups assaulted by the Russian air force Tuesday included moderate, pro-Western, pro-Israeli militias, such as the Southern Front and the First Column. Both suffered heavy casualties.

IDF unease as a result of Russia’s aerial intervention in the fighting in southern Syria is rising in proportion to the current military tensions with Hizballah. If the Lebanese Shiite terrorists manage to get the late Samir Quntar’s anti-Israel terror Front for the Liberation of Golan up and running, the Israeli air force would be severely hampered in launching its own strikes against this enemy by the dozens of Russian bombers using the same patch of sky without pause.

On the face of it, Moscow and Jerusalem make a show of their smooth air force collaboration in Syrian air space. But this picture is wide of the situation: The Russian air force omitted to notify Israel ahead of its massive bombardment close to its border Tuesday.

Some Israeli official circles suspect that Moscow is deliberately bringing Israel under pressure to accept a deal for southern Syria. One of President Vladimir Putin’s main objects from the outset of Russian’s military buildup in Syria was to eradicate the rebels in the South and the threat they posed to the Assad regime in Damascus.

More than once, Putin suggested to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that they work out a Russian-Israeli deal for that part of Syria. The Israeli leader was unresponsive, mainly because Israel is bound by prior understandings to coordination with the US, Jordan and moderate Syrian rebel groups. A deal with Moscow would counter those understandings.

However, The concentrated air strikes in the border region is intended by the Kremlin, according to some views, not just to push the rebels out, but to twist Israel’s arm for settling the issue with Moscow.

Categories: Golan, Hezbollah, Israel, Netanyahu, Putin, Russia - Israel, Russia - Syrian war, Russian airstrikes
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Progressive “Thought-Blockers”: Islamophobia

December 30, 2015

Progressive “Thought-Blockers”: Islamophobia, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Thornton, December 30, 2015

(Although the suffix “phobia” in “Islamophobia” still invokes the notion of irrationality, that seems to have disappeared in current usage. Now, Islamophobia “(or anti-Muslim sentiment) is the prejudice against, hatred towards, or fear of the religion of Islam or Muslims” — regardless of the rationality of such prejudice, hatred or fear. — DM)

Islamophobia(2)

A few days before the San Bernardino shootings, President Obama reacted to Donald Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims entry into the U.S. by saying, “It is the responsibility of all Americans––of every faith––to reject discrimination.  It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country . . . Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes.” Attorney General Loretta Lynch went even further. In an address at the Muslim Advocates dinner, she commented,

“Now obviously this is a country that is based on free speech, but when it edges towards violence, when we see the potential for someone . . . lifting that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric, or, as we saw after 9/11, violence against individuals who may not even be Muslims but may be perceived to be Muslims . . . When we see that, we will take action”––or as she warns, “They will be prosecuted.”

How is that Muslims have become “snowflakes” like those pampered college students so traumatized by opposing points of view that they need “safe spaces” from speech they don’t like, and demand scrapping the First Amendment? For an answer, look to another progressive “thought-blocker,” “Islamophobia.”

This made-up thought-crime is not a response to an epidemic of Muslim persecution in America. Sixty percent of anti-religious hate crimes are directed at Jews, not Muslims. Nor is it penance for historical crimes committed by Christians and Jews against Muslims, whether those are imperialism, colonialism, or Israel’s defense of its nation against incessant violence. Islam’s record of slaughter, enslavement, and occupation far eclipses that of the West.

Rather, “Islamophobia” is the product of peculiarly modern bad ideas. It surfaced in 1997 in a report by a British think-tank, the Runnymede Trust. The purpose was to explain the social dysfunctions and problems of British Muslims, which were laid at the feet of “anti-Islamic bias” that encouraged discrimination, hate crimes against Muslims, and distortions of Islam in the media and popular culture. In 2004 the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia––notice how the name begs the question––concluded that England was “institutionally Islamophobic.” Facts of illiberal Muslim behavior such as its unequal treatment of women, intolerance of other faiths, and radical mosques preaching intolerance and jihad were ignored.

So where does “Islamophobia” come from? Start with the suffix “phobia,” from the Greek word for “fear.” This is a vaguely Freudian psychological idea referring to an irrational fear that reflects not reality but repression of unsavory or frightening impulses. After all, fearing a dangerous black widow spider is not irrational. Fearing a harmless brown recluse is. The suffix as used in other ideological smears like “homophobia” or “xenophobia” always implies that the fear is baseless, and has more to do with irrational neuroses and bigotry than genuine threats.  “Islamophobia,” then, begs a huge question, for it is perfectly rational to fear a danger like terrorist violence justified by religious doctrine.

Thus the purveyors of this epithet have to downplay or minimize the very real threat of jihadist violence, reducing people’s reactions and demands for improved security to a mental problem. The president implied as much in his recent comments purged from a New York Times interview, when he said “he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,” implying that people were reacting to ginned up scare-stories on Fox News rather than a real threat. He added to this analysis when on NPR he claimed ISIS was not an “existential threat,” and said its real danger is “making us forget who we are” and our “values,” which obviously means in part irrationally indulging in anti-Muslim bigotry and “Islamophobia” out of neurotic fears stoked by Donald Trump.

More important than two-bit Freudianism for the currency of “Islamophobia” has been the work of Edward Said, the main source of most of the malign ideas that poison our discourse on Islam with self-loathing and dismissal of reality. The colonial West, according to Said in Orientalism, invented the Muslim “other” as inferior and violent in order to justify Western dominance of the region, creating a “Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the orient.” In a later book Said argued that the Muslim terrorist was another “other” fabricated to create “both a peculiarly immediate sense of hostility and a coarse, on the whole unnuanced attitude toward Islam,” the purpose of which is to serve “national and corporate needs.” These needs created the “highly exaggerated stereotypes” of Muslims highjacking airplanes and blowing up buildings. As Lee Smith points out, Said set the terms of how journalists and intellectuals talked about Islam and Muslims––as the crude “other” invented to mask Western oppression and “Islamophobia.” The reflexive self-loathing and guilt that lie at the heart of “Islamophobia” found their most influential enabler in Said’s work.

The fear of being “Islamophobic” in part explains the whitewashing flattery of Islam that has characterized the government even before 9/11. In the late 90s, when Osama bin Laden was already waging war on America, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gushed that Islam is a “faith that honors consultation, cherishes peace, and has as one of its fundamental principles the inherent equality of all who embrace it.” George Bush said that Islam’s “teachings are good and peaceful” and that terrorists like bin Laden “blaspheme the name of Allah.” And of course Barack Obama has been the most fulsome and groveling in his praise of Islam. He carefully says “the Prophet Mohammed” and “Holy Koran,” while never saying “Our Lord Jesus Christ” or “Holy Bible.” He has leached traditional Islamic doctrines from the motives driving jihadists, and regularly condemns “Islamophobia” as a greater threat to America than Muslim terrorist violence. But the top prize for such myopic pandering to Muslims goes to ex-Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey, who responded to the 2009 Fort Hood jihadist attack that killed 13 by saying, “As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

The worst consequence of the “Islamophobia” phobia has been the distortion of our analyses of the jihadists’ motives. The specious psychology of the apologists holds that the insults or policies born of “Islamophobia” offend Muslims and create more terrorists. Or as Obama said of Trump’s proposal to screen Muslims entering the country, “plays into the hands of groups like ISIL,” for “when we travel down that road, we lose.” Hillary Clinton has played this same card, calling Donald Trump ISIS’ “greatest recruiter” and “recruitment poster,” and falsely claiming that Trump is used in ISIS recruitment videos. Thus her constant calls to cater to Muslims in America, who she sees as genuine, peaceful Muslims, and thus our natural allies against the “hijackers” like ISIS. “We must work more closely with Muslim-Americans,” Clinton said recently, “not demonize them” or make them “feel left out or marginalized” since they’re trying “to stop radicalization.” Of course she ignores the fact that CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the most influential Muslim lobby in America, continually apologizes and rationalizes jihadist terror, and encourages Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI.

“Islamophobia” is not just intellectually incoherent and loaded with cringing self-hatred. It is deadly.  In order not to wound Muslim sensibilities and create a “backlash,” egregious rules of engagement are imposed on our warriors that sacrifice their lives by proscribing the destruction of mosques and dwellings harboring arsenals and snipers; common sense calls to limit Syrian economic immigrants are rejected; government security training documents are purged of references to Islamic jihadist doctrines; Guantanamo is demonized as a “recruiter” for terrorists from which actual terrorists must be released; Orwellian Newspeak is employed to “disappear” the precedents for terror in Islamic scripture and practice; and radical mosques and imams in America are given free rein to proselytize and recruit.

We’ve been at this tactic of flattery for decades, and there’s no evidence it works. America is no more liked among Middle Eastern Muslims today than when George Bush left office. Terrorist groups have multiplied and spread despite our anxious protestations of our admiration for their religion, even as we ignore the genocide of Christians in the Middle East. Jihadism is strong and growing, attracting thousands of Western Muslims to the fight against the infidel. And jihad, abetted by the anxiety over “Islamophobia,” is winning the hearts and minds of the youth demographic. As the Atlantic reports, globally jihad is “cool,” a false but glamorous promise of redeeming violence and transcendent meaning powerfully attractive in a Western world marked by anomic secularism and trivial hedonism.

“Islamophobia” blocks clear thinking. It ignores the traditional Islamic motives that drive jihadists, trivializing them into wayward teens who “act out” because their self-esteem has been damaged by insensitive adults, and who merely need their self-esteem boosted by recognition of how wonderful their religion and culture are. A foreign policy based on such pop-psychological superstitions is one doomed to fail.

Categories: Islamophobia, Progressives
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U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress – WSJ

December 30, 2015

Source: U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress – WSJ

National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders also swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined President Barack Obama last month for a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined President Barack Obama last month for a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. PHOTO: OLIVIER DOULIERY/BLOOMBERG NEWS

By

ADAM ENTOUS and
DANNY YADRON

Dec. 29, 2015 4:40 p.m. ET

President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.

But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.

Before former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed much of the agency’s spying operations in 2013, there was little worry in the administration about the monitoring of friendly heads of state because it was such a closely held secret. After the revelations and a White House review, Mr. Obama announced in a January 2014 speech he would curb such eavesdropping.

In closed-door debate, the Obama administration weighed which allied leaders belonged on a so-called protected list, shielding them from NSA snooping. French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders made the list, but the administration permitted the NSA to target the leaders’ top advisers, current and former U.S. officials said. Other allies were excluded from the protected list, including Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of NATO ally Turkey, which allowed the NSA to spy on their communications at the discretion of top officials.

Privately, Mr. Obama maintained the monitoring of Mr. Netanyahu on the grounds that it served a “compelling national security purpose,” according to current and former U.S. officials. Mr. Obama mentioned the exception in his speech but kept secret the leaders it would apply to.

Israeli, German and French government officials declined to comment on NSA activities. Turkish officials didn’t respond to requests Tuesday for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NSA declined to comment on communications provided to the White House.

The White House stopped directly monitoring the private communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel but authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on her top advisers.
The White House stopped directly monitoring the private communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel but authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on her top advisers.

This account, stretching over two terms of the Obama administration, is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and administration officials and reveals for the first time the extent of American spying on the Israeli prime minister.

After Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials gave his national-security team a one-page questionnaire on priorities. Included on the form was a box directing intelligence agencies to focus on “leadership intentions,” a category that relies on electronic spying to monitor world leaders.

The NSA was so proficient at monitoring heads of state that it was common for the agency to deliver a visiting leader’s talking points to the president in advance. “Who’s going to look at that box and say, ‘No, I don’t want to know what world leaders are saying,’ ” a former Obama administration official said.

In early intelligence briefings, Mr. Obama and his top advisers were told what U.S. spy agencies thought of world leaders, including Mr. Netanyahu, who at the time headed the opposition Likud party.

Michael Hayden, who led the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency during the George W. Bush administration, described the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and Israel as “the most combustible mixture of intimacy and caution that we have.”

The NSA helped Israel expand its electronic spy apparatus—known as signals intelligence—in the late 1970s. The arrangement gave Israel access to the communications of its regional enemies, information shared with the U.S. Israel’s spy chiefs later suspected the NSA was tapping into their systems.

When Mr. Obama took office, the NSA and its Israeli counterpart, Unit 8200, worked together against shared threats, including a campaign to sabotage centrifuges for Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies targeted one another, stoking tensions.

“Intelligence professionals have a saying: There are no friendly intelligence services,” said Mike Rogers, former Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Early in the Obama presidency, for example, Unit 8200 gave the NSA a hacking tool the NSA later discovered also told Israel how the Americans used it. It wasn’t the only time the NSA caught Unit 8200 poking around restricted U.S. networks. Israel would say intrusions were accidental, one former U.S. official said, and the NSA would respond, “Don’t worry. We make mistakes, too.”

In 2011 and 2012, the aims of Messrs. Netanyahu and Obama diverged over Iran. Mr. Netanyahu prepared for a possible strike against an Iranian nuclear facility, as Mr. Obama pursued secret talks with Tehran without telling Israel.

The NSA maintains the means to monitor the communications of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.ENLARGE
The NSA maintains the means to monitor the communications of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. PHOTO: YASIN BULBUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Convinced Mr. Netanyahu would attack Iran without warning the White House, U.S. spy agencies ramped up their surveillance, with the assent of Democratic and Republican lawmakers serving on congressional intelligence committees.

By 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies determined Mr. Netanyahu wasn’t going to strike Iran. But they had another reason to keep watch. The White House wanted to know if Israel had learned of the secret negotiations. U.S. officials feared Iran would bolt the talks and pursue an atomic bomb if news leaked.

The NSA had, in some cases, spent decades placing electronic implants in networks around the world to collect phone calls, text messages and emails. Removing them or turning them off in the wake of the Snowden revelations would make it difficult, if not impossible, to re-establish access in the future, U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House.

Instead of removing the implants, Mr. Obama decided to shut off the NSA’s monitoring of phone numbers and email addresses of certain allied leaders—a move that could be reversed by the president or his successor.

There was little debate over Israel. “Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that,” a senior U.S. official said, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname.

One tool was a cyber implant in Israeli networks that gave the NSA access to communications within the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Given the appetite for information about Mr. Netanyahu’s intentions during the U.S.-Iran negotiations, the NSA tried to send updates to U.S. policy makers quickly, often in less than six hours after a notable communication was intercepted, a former official said.

NSA intercepts convinced the White House last year that Israel was spying on negotiations under way in Europe. Israeli officials later denied targeting U.S. negotiators, saying they had won access to U.S. positions by spying only on the Iranians.

By late 2014, White House officials knew Mr. Netanyahu wanted to block the emerging nuclear deal but didn’t know how.

On Jan. 8, John Boehner, then the Republican House Speaker, and incoming Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed on a plan. They would invite Mr. Netanyahu to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress. A day later, Mr. Boehner calledRon Dermer, the Israeli ambassador, to get Mr. Netanyahu’s agreement.

Despite NSA surveillance, Obama administration officials said they were caught off guard when Mr. Boehner announced the invitation on Jan. 21.

Soon after, Israel’s lobbying campaign against the deal went into full swing on Capitol Hill, and it didn’t take long for administration and intelligence officials to realize the NSA was sweeping up the content of conversations with lawmakers.

The message to the NSA from the White House amounted to: “You decide” what to deliver, a former intelligence official said.

NSA rules governing intercepted communications “to, from or about” Americans date back to the Cold War and require obscuring the identities of U.S. individuals and U.S. corporations. An American is identified only as a “U.S. person” in intelligence reports; a U.S. corporation is identified only as a “U.S. organization.” Senior U.S. officials can ask for names if needed to understand the intelligence information.

The Obama administration included French President François Hollande on a so-called protected list, shielding him from NSA snooping.
The Obama administration included French President François Hollande on a so-called protected list, shielding him from NSA snooping.

The rules were tightened in the early 1990s to require that intelligence agencies inform congressional committees when a lawmaker’s name was revealed to the executive branch in summaries of intercepted communications.

A 2011 NSA directive said direct communications between foreign intelligence targets and members of Congress should be destroyed when they are intercepted. But the NSA director can issue a waiver if he determines the communications contain “significant foreign intelligence.”

The NSA has leeway to collect and disseminate intercepted communications involving U.S. lawmakers if, for example, foreign ambassadors send messages to their foreign ministries that recount their private meetings or phone calls with members of Congress, current and former officials said.

“Either way, we got the same information,” a former official said, citing detailed reports prepared by the Israelis after exchanges with lawmakers.

During Israel’s lobbying campaign in the months before the deal cleared Congress in September, the NSA removed the names of lawmakers from intelligence reports and weeded out personal information. The agency kept out “trash talk,” officials said, such as personal attacks on the executive branch.

Administration and intelligence officials said the White House didn’t ask the NSA to identify any lawmakers during this period.

“From what I can tell, we haven’t had a problem with how incidental collection has been handled concerning lawmakers,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He declined to comment on any specific communications between lawmakers and Israel.

The NSA reports allowed administration officials to peer inside Israeli efforts to turn Congress against the deal. Mr. Dermer was described as coaching unnamed U.S. organizations—which officials could tell from the context were Jewish-American groups—on lines of argument to use with lawmakers, and Israeli officials were reported pressing lawmakers to oppose the deal.

“These allegations are total nonsense,” said a spokesman for the Embassy of Israel in Washington.

A U.S. intelligence official familiar with the intercepts said Israel’s pitch to undecided lawmakers often included such questions as: “How can we get your vote? What’s it going to take?”

NSA intelligence reports helped the White House figure out which Israeli government officials had leaked information from confidential U.S. briefings. When confronted by the U.S., Israel denied passing on the briefing materials.

The agency’s goal was “to give us an accurate illustrative picture of what [the Israelis] were doing,” a senior U.S. official said.

Just before Mr. Netanyahu’s address to Congress in March, the NSA swept up Israeli messages that raised alarms at the White House: Mr. Netanyahu’s office wanted details from Israeli intelligence officials about the latest U.S. positions in the Iran talks, U.S. officials said.

A day before the speech, Secretary of State John Kerry made an unusual disclosure. Speaking to reporters in Switzerland, Mr. Kerry said he was concerned Mr. Netanyahu would divulge “selective details of the ongoing negotiations.”

The State Department said Mr. Kerry was responding to Israeli media reports that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to use his speech to make sure U.S. lawmakers knew the terms of the Iran deal.

Intelligence officials said the media reports allowed the U.S. to put Mr. Netanyahu on notice without revealing they already knew his thinking. The prime minister mentioned no secrets during his speech to Congress.

In the final months of the campaign, NSA intercepts yielded few surprises. Officials said the information reaffirmed what they heard directly from lawmakers and Israeli officials opposed to Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign—that the prime minister was focused on building opposition among Democratic lawmakers.

The NSA intercepts, however, revealed one surprise. Mr. Netanyahu and some of his allies voiced confidence they could win enough votes.

Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com and Danny Yadron at danny.yadron@wsj.com

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