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Trump says Syrian Christian refugees will be given priority

January 27, 2017

Trump says Syrian Christian refugees will be given priority, Jihad Watch, , January 27, 2017

(Please see also, Immigration Priorities: Translators, and Victims of Genocide. — DM)

“Pew Research Center said last October 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the United States in fiscal year 2016 from all countries – almost the same number of Christian refugees, 37,521.”

Reuters is being deliberately misleading. From Syria in 2016, the Obama administration admitted 12,587 refugees: 12,486 Muslims, 68 Christians, and 24 Yazidis. Trump is ending this obvious social engineering and saying that Syrian Christians, who have borne the brunt of persecution from jihad groups there, will be given priority.

This also shows the falsity of establishment propaganda media claims that Trump’s immigration ban would keep out non-Muslim victims of persecution by jihadis.

trumpwithpen

“Trump says Syrian Christian refugees will be given priority,” Reuters, January 27, 2017:

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that Syrian Christians will be given priority when it comes to applying for refugee status in the United States.

“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Pew Research Center said last October 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the United States in fiscal year 2016 from all countries – almost the same number of Christian refugees, 37,521….

Categories: Christian refugees, Syrian refugees, Trump and refugees
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Texas Officials Warn of ISIS Threat to U.S.-Mexican Border

January 27, 2017

Texas Officials Warn of ISIS Threat to U.S.-Mexican Border, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, January 26, 2017

A report by the Texas Department of Public Safety raises concerns about ISIS terrorists using the Mexican border both to enter and leave the country. It noted that at least 13 aspiring terrorists have tried to cross into Mexico, or considered trying, since 2012.

Most of those cases involved people who knew they were on the federal no-fly list but wanted to travel to join terrorists, the report said. Sneaking across the southern border “presents an opportunity for increasing numbers of aspiring foreign terrorist fighters to evade US interdiction efforts such as the No-Fly List.”

The most recent example happened in October. Texas authorities arrested two Milwaukee men near San Angelo, Texas on the way to the Mexican border. Jason Ludke, 35, and Yosvany Padilla-Conde, 30, wanted to go to Mexico, obtain fraudulent travel documents and travel to join ISIS in Syria or Iraq.

In another instance in April 2015, seven Somali men from Minnesota tried to cross from San Diego into Mexico in an effort to get to Syria and fight for ISIS.

Texas resident Bilal Hamed Abood, an Iraq-born naturalized U.S. citizen, successfully used the border in 2013 to travel to Syria, where he fought for a Syrian rebel group. The FBI arrested Abood for lying about his initial travel to Syria when he tried to come home through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Abood claimed he fought for a faction that was not prohibited under U.S. law. However, FBI agents search his computer and found that he took an oath of allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Texas authorities voiced concern in 2014 about ISIS social media threats to use the Mexican border to enter the United States.

In a criminal complaint filed last year, alleged ISIS supporter Erick Jamal Hendricks claimed to have had contact with an ISIS supporter known as “Abu Harb.” “Abu Harb” told Hendricks that he was in Dallas and that the “Islamic State had brothers in Mexico.”

Previously, government officials warned about threats to the U.S. border posed by other terrorist groups including Al-Shabaab and Hizballah.

President Trump touted the ISIS threat as a reason for building his wall along the Mexican border during the campaign. He signed an executive order Wednesday calling for the wall’s construction, but funding sources are not yet clear.

Categories: Islamic State, Islamic terror groups, President Trump, Texas, US Southern border
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Khamenei Associate Mehdi Taeb: ‘The Jews… Are The Only Ones Who Need Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Order To Rule The World – Because There Are 1.4 Billion Muslims And None Of Them Agree To Jewish Supremacy’

January 27, 2017

Khamenei Associate Mehdi Taeb: ‘The Jews… Are The Only Ones Who Need Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Order To Rule The World – Because There Are 1.4 Billion Muslims And None Of Them Agree To Jewish Supremacy’, MEMRI, January 27, 2017

In speeches and lectures that have been uploaded to the Internet in the past year, Mehdi Taeb, who directs the Ammar Strategic Base that advises Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has expressed antisemitic views. In his statements, Taeb has claimed that the Jews aim to control the world and therefore are obligated to kill anyone who is not willing to accept this control, particularly Muslims. He reiterated the antisemitic canard about the Jews controlling the global economy and the media, and stated that they hatch plots and sow division, strife and wars, especially among Muslims, in addition to creating and taking advantage of terrorism worldwide so as to ensure their global dominance. The Jews, he implied, even have power over God Himself. He urged his audience to awaken and act against the Jews, as instructed in the Koran, and to remove the cancerous growth of Israel, as commanded by the father of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

This report will focus on two of Taeb’s speeches, a 2011 audio recording[1] and a 2014 video,[2] that in the past few months have been posted online several times. The 2011 recording is part of a series of lectures by Taeb, and the 2014 clip is from a Friday sermon in which he referred to a video of statements by an Israeli rabbi with bogus Farsi subtitles added as “proof” of anti-Shi’ite Jewish plots and terrorist actions aimed at preventing the Mahdi – the Hidden Imam, who is the Shi’ite Messiah – from coming to save the world from the Jews.

6759aMehdi Taeb (image: nowruziran.wordpress.com)

Taeb In “Know Your Enemy” Lectures: “No One In The World Wants To Control It As Badly As The Jew, Who Says ‘Either Be My Servant Or Be Destroyed'”

In an hour-long audio recording dated September 23, 2011, which was part of a lecture series titled “Know Your Enemy,” Taeb explained why the Koran warned about the Jews and their global role. The Jews, he said, have special capabilities and they are using them to take over the world. To this end, the Jews have divided the world’s population into three categories: themselves, destined to control the world; another group, destined to serve the Jews; and a third group, comprising those who oppose Jewish rule, and which the Jews are working to exterminate. The Jews need atom bombs and weapons of mass destruction to destroy those who oppose them – that is, 1.4 billion Muslims – and they did not establish the State of Israel before conducting a nuclear test.

“He added that the Jews were keeping the Mahdi from arriving, saying: “The Koran speaks much of the Jews, and often warns about them… Surat Al-Maida [the fifth Surah of the Koran]… states that the Jews are your worst enemy… This surah says that you will ultimately realize this, whether you like it or not, but that if you are willing [to understand] and to avoid [falling for the Jewish deceit], then you will be saved. However, if you are remiss and are not willing [to understand], then one day they [the Jews] will awaken you. In the end, being remiss regarding [the Jews] will also bring about [your] awakening… but after you awaken, you will find yourselves in a grave already dug [for you] by the Jews… Why does the Koran warn so about the Jews? Why is it said that the world is a pawn in the hands of the Jews? … The reason the Koran warns so about the Jews is because they have [special] capabilities, and are the most hostile to us [Muslims, more so than] others. The Jews also know how to attack better than anyone else. They are No. 1 in four ways, and that is why Islam states that we must confront them…

“The Jews want the entire world [for themselves], saying ‘the whole world belongs to us’ and ‘God gave it to us and He cannot take it back.’ If you think about the Star of David, you will realize that the Jews want… to take over the world in three stages: The first stage is Jerusalem… the second stage is from the Nile to the Euphrates, and the third stage is the whole world. The Star of David has six points. This symbol is meant to shine in the [Jewish] Temple [in Jerusalem]. Its two upper lines symbolize [the territory] from the Nile to the Euphrates, [and once they control that] then the six points of the Star of David will spread across the world and connect up with each other… in controlling the whole world.

“They have divided humanity into three categories… The first class is the Jews, who are supposed to conquer the world… and as long as they do not take over the entire world, God’s hands are tied… The second class is those who are not descendants of Jacob, but who agree that the Jews are the first class… These people are entitled to live, but must serve the Children of Israel… The third class is those who are not Children of Israel and who do not agree to the supremacy of the Children of Israel, and reject their rule… The Talmud [of the Jews] states that such people should be killed as cheaply as possible – [that is], if you can kill them with a rock, don’t kill him with a sword, because that will dull the blade…

“According to this, under the global Jewish regime, the Muslims need to be killed… Who needs an atom bomb? … The Jews! They are the only ones who need weapons of mass destruction in order to control the world, because there are 1.4 billion Muslims and none of them agree to Jewish supremacy… In order to control the world, the Jews must kill 1.4 billion Muslims… and therefore need atom bombs… Until the Jews carried out an atomic bomb test, they did not establish the State of Israel… No one in the world wants to control it as badly as the Jew, who says ‘Either be my servant or be destroyed’… For 3,000 years, the Jews have been preparing the ground for this. Today, the world’s wealth is in Jewish hands… The world hates the Americans because of their relationship with the Zionists…

“The Imam [Khomeini] once said that the Jews say Iran purchased weapons from Israel – because [the Jews] know how lowly they are, and how they are hated, and know that anyone with a connection to Israel will be hated as well. They want Iran to be hated, so they say that it purchased weapons from Israel…

“America is not severing ties with Israel because 80% of American wealth belongs to Israel… Wherever there is fire and fighting in the world, such as in India and Pakistan, the reason for it should be investigated among the Jews. The same goes for Africa…

“Because three years ago Jacques Chirac supported Hizbullah, the Jews are causing chaos in France, so as to make trouble for him… If you Muslims want the Imam Mahdi to arrive, you must remove this stumbling block [to his arrival] – that is, the Jews… In order to control the world, the Jews create chaos…That is why it is said that the world is a pawn in the hands of the Jews…

“In order for you Muslims to attain world domination, you must remove this cancerous growth… That is why the Imam Khomeini said that Israel should be removed from the map of the world…

“The Koran said that the Jews must pay the jizya [poll tax], must deliver it with both hands, and must also present themselves [to the Muslim authorities] every week – because if you leave the Jews alone, they will scheme.”

Taeb On Video Of Israeli Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak And “The Jewish Deceit”: “This Is The First Time A Clip Of A Jewish Rabbi In A Jewish Synagogue Was Leaked… He Says That [The Jews] Should Do Something So That They [The Shi’ites] Cannot Bring Their Imam Mahdi”

A video dated July 18, 2014 and posted online several times in recent months shows Taeb giving a Friday sermon in which he refers to a July 8, 2014 video of Israeli rabbi Amnon Yitzhak giving a speech to a Jewish audience. Although in the video the rabbi is discussing the biblical story of Abraham’s hospitality to three visitors in Chapter 18 of Genesis, the Farsi subtitles show him talking about Jewish plans to sow divisions among the Shi’ites so as to delay the arrival of the Mahdi. Taeb says that the rabbi’s statements prove that a Jewish trick is preventing the arrival of the Mahdi.

Following are Taeb’s statements to his audience of worshippers about what he claims the rabbi is saying:

“The Koran states that the worst hostility towards the [Muslim] believers comes from the Jews… That is, if the Imam Mahdi cannot arrive, it is because of them. ‘Go break his [the Jew’s] hands’…

“This is the first time a clip of a Jewish rabbi in a Jewish synagogue has been leaked. He gives a speech, and [in it] says that [the Jews] should do something so that they [the Shi’ites] are not able to bring their Imam Mahdi [because the Jews fear]… that if their Imam Mahdi arrives, he will dismantle our entire [Jewish] enterprise…

“[This rabbi says:] We [Jews] created Sarkhi[3] so that [the Shi’ites] would be preoccupied. We promote world soccer, so do something in order for them [the Shi’ites] to be preoccupied with soccer, sports, and the like. Do something so that they fail and turn on each other…

“This [speech by the rabbi] reveals that they [the Jews] created ISIS so that we are preoccupied with each other and so that the coming of the Imam Mahdi will be delayed. These are the explicit statements by that Jewish rabbi.”

To watch the video, click the player below. For the translation of the Farsi subtitles, see Appendix A; for a translation of Amnon Yitzhak’s actual statements in the relevant segment, see Appendix B.

(Video at the link — DM)

APPENDIX A: Translation Of Farsi Subtitles Added To July 8, 2014 Clip Of Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak

“It is absolutely necessary to distance the Shi’a in Iraq from extremist elements, as well as from thoughts of assisting their co-religionists [elsewhere], as well as from the faith written in their books, and from their Imam Mahdi who [is supposed] to fight us – so that they [the Shi’ites] cannot help him [the Mahdi] in the end times.

“Therefore, a source [of religious guidance] must be created, in order to divert them [the Shi’ites] from their religion and faith, and keep them preoccupied with games, and lead them in the direction of sporting events. [Exploiting] their love of soccer is very important right now.

“Mahmud Al-Sarkhi, our agent in Iraq, whose projects we generally rely on – after Mahmoud Al-Sarkhi was assassinated, his brother became our agent, and we made him a mirror image of his brother. And his stupid friends confirmed that he was [indeed Sarkhi] himself, after we trained him, and now he attacks everyone to create division.

“I ask you to log onto Facebook, spread his words and attacks, and become his disciples.”

APPENDIX B: Translation Of Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak’s Statements

“It’s possible to enjoy this world and live a good and happy life, even in materialistic terms, but with blessings. You can eat delicious food and say a blessing over it, drink a delicious beverage and say a blessing over it. You can have fun, dance and celebrate – but always with a blessing, while [following the] religious commandments. Everything, even the most material things, can be [used as a chance to follow the] religious commandments. When our father Abraham hosted [the three visitors], he stood there, 99 years old, in the heat of the day, after his circumcision. It was the third day after the circumcision, which is the most painful. To make him go back into his tent [God] made the sun come out [and shine hot], but [Abraham] did not go back in. He sees three Arabians, who were [really] angels, approaching him. They looked like heathen Arabians to him, [yet] he invited into his home. He ran over to his cattle, slaughtered [a calf], did everything to be hospitable. He showed them charity, that is the Jewish [way]. What did he feed them? Three tongues of oxen in mustard. He took tongues from three oxen. [He could have] taken one tongue and divided it into three, because it is large, [but] no, he was 100% charitable. You know what was happening at the time? When those Arabians arrived, the Lord was with [Abraham]. ‘The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent.'”

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[1] Media.rasekhoon.net, September 23, 2011; translation starts at 26:00.

[2] Aparat.com, July 18, 2014.

[3] Apparently a reference to Mahmud Al-Hasani al-Sarkhi, an Iraqi Shia cleric in Iraq whose followers attacked the Iranian consulate in Basra in protest over criticism of their leader that was broadcast on Iranian television.

Categories: Antisemitism, Iran and Israel, Iran and Jews, Khamenei
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Dr. Jasser discusses Pres. Trump’s extreme vetting on Varney & Co 01.27.2017

January 27, 2017

Dr. Jasser discusses Pres. Trump’s extreme vetting on Varney & Co 01.27.2017 via YouTube

(Please see also, Immigration Priorities: Translators, and Victims of Genocide. — DM)

 

Categories: Islamist vetting, Trump and Islamic refugees, Trump and Islamists, Trump and refugees, Trump and Syria, Zuhdi Jasser
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They Teach Our Children, Advise Our Government, And Support Jihad

January 27, 2017

They Teach Our Children, Advise Our Government, And Support Jihad, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, January 27, 2017

1957

Esposito seems to want to aim his work beyond the ivory towers. He has spoken on Islam to the State Department, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security and other government offices.

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Since the rise of ISIS as an Islamic extremist group, and certainly since its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the official creation of the caliphate, researchers and intelligence groups worldwide have noted its popularity with Muslim women, even in the West. Unlike other terrorist groups, ISIS has pointedly recruited women. And many women have, on their own, found the promise of life in the Islamic State particularly appealing.

Along the way, researchers and intelligence agencies have argued that the Muslim women who join ISIS, especially those who travel to Syria from the West, take active roles in ISIS’s jihad. While they are largely barred from fighting on the battlefield, women have enrolled in the al-Khansaa brigade, the women’s moral police force which enforces strict codes of dress and public behavior. Al-Khansaa officers regularly arrest and beat women who violate sharia-based modesty laws or who appear in public without a male companion. Other women raise their sons to be jihadists, or bring their children with them from the West in the hopes that they, too, will grow up to support the Islamic State and its jihad.

Now a young Dutch researcher, Aysha Navest, has come out with a different theory based on interviews she held with over 22 women now living in the caliphate. Navest, who is affiliated with the University of Amsterdam (UvA), says she knows several of those women. They reveal a very different portrait of the so-called “ISIS brides:” girls who are not recruited for jihad, but who willingly and eagerly make the perilous trip to Syria, where they live peaceful, happy lives as homemakers, mothers, and wives. Her findings appeared last April in the journal Anthropology Today, a peer-reviewed publication of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

There is just one problem: Aysha Navest allegedly also recruits women for the Islamic State.

This is the conclusion of journalists at the Dutch national daily NRC Handelsblad, who matched Navest’s birthdate, hometown, children’s first names and other identifying details with those of “Ought-Aisha,” a woman posting messages on the Dutch-Muslim website Marokko.nl. And according to “Ought-Aisha” (or “Sister Aisha”), life in the Islamic State is simply grand. In various posts, she has praised suicide bombers, honored Osama bin Laden, and insisted that jihadists will find rewards in Paradise. Additionally, the NRC reports, in Facebook posts she has referred to Shiites and apostates as “people who rape our women, torture our men, and kill our children.”

Unsurprisingly, the NRC’s findings put renewed focus on Navest’s reports and the nature of her research, which was performed under the tutelage of two well-known UvA professors – anthropologist Martijn de Koning and Modern Islamic Culture professor Annelies Moors. Both De Koning and Moors now admit that Navest’s subjects were interviewed anonymously, largely via WhatsApp, and that she did not share the women’s names even with them – a departure from standard research practices that call for transparency. Even so, according to Elsevier, they stand behind her research.

Others, however, voice considerable skepticism. The Dutch intelligence agency AIVD dismissed Navest’s report from the outset, noting that her conclusions stood in stark conflict not only with their own, but with other studies by UvA scholars. The UvA has now called for an independent investigation into Navest’s background and the reliability of her work.

Even fellow academics have been scathingly critical. In his column for Elsevier, Leiden University Professor of Jurisprudence Afshin Ellian observed that as a result of Navest’s online postings, “in normal situations, she would end up in prison for incitement to violence and hate with terrorist intentions.” Instead, the conclusions of her “research” showing that women do not join directly in jihad but simply enjoy idyllic lives as wives and mothers in the Caliphate, represent “the manner in which she pursues her own jihad: by pulling a smokescreen before the eyes of the unbelievers.”

But the situation also exposes a larger problem within academia internationally. In many institutions, subjectivity clouds social research, while students’ minds are too-frequently shaped by anti-democratic, anti-Western, and – worse – truth-challenged ideologues. For example, at UvA, De Koning has long been accused of sympathizing with Islamic extremists. Among other things, he co-authored a book describing Salafism as a “utopian idealism.”

Likewise, at Kent State University, the FBI is reportedly investigating history professor Julio Pino for ties to the Islamic State. A Muslim convert, Pino has made provocative comments on campus and in university-based newspapers, including shouting “Death to Israel” during a lecture by a former Israeli diplomat. In a letter to a campus publication, he declared “jihad until victory!” On Facebook, Pino once described Osama bin Laden as “the greatest.” He also posted a photograph of himself in front of the U.S. Capitol Building, adding the caption “I come to bury D.C., not to praise it,” Fox News reports.

Kent State officials say they “distanced” themselves from Professor Pino, whose tenured position poses legal challenges to dismissing him from the faculty.

In contrast, at nearby Oberlin, Assistant Professor Joy Karega’s Facebook posts calling ISIS an arm of American and Israeli intelligence agencies and blaming Israel for the attacks of 9/11 were enough to get her fired from her job teaching Rhetoric and Composition. As the industry newspaper Inside Higher Ed reported, despite initially defending her right to academic freedom, Oberlin officials ultimately determined that, “Beyond concerns about anti-Semitism, which fit into larger complaints about escalating anti-Jewish rhetoric on campus, Karega’s case has raised questions about whether academic freedom covers statements that have no basis in fact.”

Then there is John Esposito, Georgetown University’s professor of Religion and International Affairs and Islamic Studies. An extensive Investigative Project on Terrorism investigation into Esposito’s activities found that he has used his position to “defend radical Islam and promote its ideology- including defending terrorist organizations and those who support them, advocating for Islamist regimes, praising radical Islamists and their apologists, and downplaying the threat of Islamist violence.” He refuses to condemn Hamas and, according to the report, “remains a close friend and defender of Palestinian Islamic Jihad board member Sami Al-Arian.”

Al-Arian ran the PIJ’s “active arm” in America while working as a University of South Florida professor.

Like Navesh, Esposito seems to want to aim his work beyond the ivory towers. He has spoken on Islam to the State Department, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security and other government offices. Similarly, Navesh hoped that her “research” would help shape policy in the Netherlands, encouraging courts to issue lighter sentences on women who returned home from the Islamic State. After all, they hadn’t engaged in terrorism. They’d only lived in domestic bliss abroad. Where’s the crime in that?

None, of course, if it were true. But it is not.

There is nothing new, of course, in respected journals publishing flawed research by people who aim to shape public policy or opinion – the infamous and now-debunked Andrew Wakefield study that claimed to link autism to vaccines is a prime example. But such examples only underscore the challenges, and the need to investigate better the accuracy of scholarly reports as well as the integrity of those who write them. Islamic jihad, after all, is not just about destroying our lives, but about destroying our culture. In the face of the “smokescreens” of that jihad, intellectual vigilance will be our strongest shield.

Categories: Academia and Islamists, Islam and females, Islamic State, Islamic terror groups
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Cartoons and Video of the Day

January 27, 2017

Via Capitol Steps

 

H/t Town Hall

focus

 

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

very-flat

 

huh

 

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

cleanup

 

H/t Freedom is Just Another Word

worry

 

pouty

 

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Sisi’s church donation stirs religious controversy

January 27, 2017

Sisi’s church donation stirs religious controversy, Al-Monitor, Amr Mostafa, January 26, 2017

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends a meeting with Egyptian Coptic Pope Tawadros II, head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, with some members of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church at the Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt July 28, 2016 in this handout picture courtesy of the Egyptian Presidency. The Egyptian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. - RTSK39U

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends a meeting with Egyptian Coptic Pope Tawadros II, head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, with some members of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church at the Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt July 28, 2016 in this handout picture courtesy of the Egyptian Presidency.

“In addition to making a donation for the building of a church, [Sisi] also donated his money to establish a mosque, thus putting both communities [Christian and Muslim] on the same pedestal.”

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CAIRO — Egypt’s Coptic Christians have become used to visits by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. On Jan. 6, for the third year in a row, Sisi celebrated Coptic Christmas at the Abbasiya Cathedral in Cairo, extending Christmas wishes to the country’s Copts and Tawadros II, the pope of Alexandria and patriarch of the See of St. Mark.

This year, the celebration was different. The cathedral where Sisi addressed the congregation and delivered Christmas wishes stands just meters from St. Peter and St. Paul Coptic Orthodox Church, where an explosion during a service on Dec. 11 claimed the lives of 27 people and wounded 48, mostly women and children.

Sisi responded to the attack not just by visiting the church, but by announcing a 100,000 Egyptian pound (roughly $5,200) personal donation toward building a church and mosque in the new administrative capital of New Cairo.

Hamdi Rizq, the host of the show “Al-Nazra” (“The View”) on satellite TV channel Sada al-Balad, reacted by announcing during his show Jan. 6 that donations were being collected for the building of a mosque and a church in the new capital.

Amina Naseer, a professor of religion at Al-Azhar University and a member of parliament, who also serves on the parliamentary education committee, said in a Jan. 7 phone call on “Al-Nazra” that she had also donated 100,000 pounds to be split equally between the mosque and the church.

During the same show, other donors came forward: Farag Amer, the chair of the parliamentary committee for youth and sport; member of parliament Mustafa Bakry; and businessman Mohammed Abul-Enein, the owner of the Sada al-Balad network.

“The president’s call for donations for a mosque and a church should be an example to all,” Alaa Wali, head of the parliament’s housing committee, told Al-Monitor. “I suggested setting up a fund to receive donations for places of worship in general, including for renovating churches damaged because of terrorist attacks, but the priority will be a mosque and a church in the administrative capital so they can be as beautiful as possible.”

Naseer told Al-Monitor she had urged all members of parliament to donate to the fund. “Those donations are for all Egyptians, not just for the Copts,” she said. “It is true that they will go toward building a church, but that is a reaction by all Egyptians against everyone who tries to impose a foreign mandate on us, as the US Congress tried to do.”

Naseer was referring to a bill debated in Congress on Dec. 28 that would require Egypt to report annually to the US State Department on its work to restore churches vandalized by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was toppled from power in July 2013. Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeed rejected in a press statement issued on the same day the bill and the debate, calling it flagrant intervention in Egypt’s affairs.

While Sisi’s donation was welcomed by some, the suggestion that Egyptians should donate to the fund was slammed by his opponents. Lawyer Tarek Elawady wrote on Facebook Jan. 6: “Sir, Egypt does not need mosques and churches; it needs schools, factories and workplaces.”

Magda Ghonem, a professor of economics and rural development at Ain Shams University in Cairo, tweeted on Jan. 7: “We have a surplus of places of worship, no smaller than the surplus in outbidding and hypocrisy. What about building the biggest home for street children, or the biggest university, or the biggest training center?”

In a lengthy post on Facebook Jan. 7, Cairo University political science professor Hazem Hosny said that the state may not have allocated the necessary funds for a church or a mosque, rather intending to rely on donations made by the citizens. “The president made the first donation, but the whole thing is an attempt to get Egyptians to pay for the new capital under the pretext of building a mosque or a church,” Hosny wrote.

Political activist Mamdouh Hamza satirized Sisi’s donation, tweeting Jan. 7: “Donate for the building of a mosque or a church, because the faithful are lining up outside thousands of mosques and churches; there’s a critical shortage of places for prayer.”

While some critics played down the importance of building mosques and churches at the present time, other bloggers and anonymous activists condemned the idea of donating for church building on religious grounds, saying it violates Sharia.

“The Christian faith is in opposition with Sharia and Islamic doctrine on many issues,” a Salafist scholar who asked not to be named told Al-Monitor. “It is haram for Muslims to donate to the building of any institution that will be a base for discussion and promotion of anything that contradicts Sharia and Islamic doctrine.”

For his part, Abdel Fattah Idriss, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, told Al-Monitor, “There is no jurisprudence proof or any sunna in the holy Quran that prohibits a head of state from donating funds for the building of a church or any other house of worship for the monotheistic religions. Islamic Sharia had approved of this as per Prophet Muhammad who gave the right for Jews of Medina to build their temples.”

Idriss said, “The donation made by a head of state is widely welcomed, as he is considered the [protector] of all communities residing in Egypt and has the complete authority to build houses of worship. Such donations strengthen people’s patriotism and make them feel part of the nation, qualities that Islam has always sought to instill.”

He added, “In addition to making a donation for the building of a church, [Sisi] also donated his money to establish a mosque, thus putting both communities [Christian and Muslim] on the same pedestal.”

A similar controversy broke out in 2009 regarding Sharia rulings on Muslim donations for the building of churches. The sheikh of Al-Azhar at the time, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, met a delegation from the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, headed by Naguib Gibrael, an adviser to the Orthodox Church. The media reported he had ruled that Muslims donating for church building was permitted by Islamic law. His office denied the reports after a wave of opposition from scholars at Al-Azhar.

Egypt’s Dar al-Iftaa, a government body that advises on Islamic religious affairs, ruled on Jan. 7, 2016, “Christians in Egypt may, according to Islamic law, build churches if they need that for their worship, and Islam demands they be allowed to remain, according to the laws laid down by the Egyptian state. There is nothing in any reliable text on Islamic law to prohibit that.”

Sisi’s attempt to rein in the anger of the Copts after the bombing attack of St. Peter and St. Paul Coptic Orthodox Church thus prompted a range of criticism. But it appears that the opposition comes from a pre-existing state of antagonism between him and his critics who bemoan the lack of social, economic and educational progress in Egypt.

Categories: Christianity, Christians and Islamism, Egypt, Egypt's Parliament, Islam and Christianity, Sisi
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Trump Will Keep Vow on Jerusalem Embassy Move, Giuliani Says

January 27, 2017

Trump Will Keep Vow on Jerusalem Embassy Move, Giuliani Says, Bloomberg, Michael Arnold and Jonathan Ferziger, January 26, 2017

(President Trump is not doing everything first. How odd. He must be very lazy. — DM)

trumpsalutesPresident Donald Trump salutes as he exits Marine One at the White House, Jan. 26. Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President Donald Trump will keep his pledge to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said, despite Palestinian warnings that such a step would spark violence and sabotage the prospect of renewed peace talks.

Traveling to Israel with messages from Trump to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Giuliani said the new U.S. president and his advisers will probably take “six months or so” to develop a new strategy for American peace efforts in the Middle East. How and when the U.S. moves the embassy will be discussed when Netanyahu visits the White House in early February, Giuliani said.

“I think you’ve got to wait a little bit, but it will get done,” Giuliani said of the embassy move, speaking in an interview at the Tel Aviv offices of Greenberg Traurig LLP. He heads the law firm’s global Cybersecurity, Privacy and Crisis Management practice.

The fate of Jerusalem is among the most sensitive issues Israelis and Palestinians will need to address in any future peace negotiations. Israel took the eastern part of Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and considers all of the city as its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern portion as the capital of their hoped-for state.

Trump realizes the embassy decision “implicates four or five countries and how they’re going to react,” Giuliani said. “He needs to know how the prime minister of Israel is going to react and how he wants to see something like this done.”

Warm Relationship

Trump on Thursday told Fox News it was too early for him to speak publicly on the issue. Giuliani, who was known during his tenure for a hard-line attitude toward even petty crime in New York City, dismissed Palestinian warnings that moving the embassy would ignite the whole region.

“I think this country is capable of dealing with waves of violence,” the former mayor said.

Giuliani predicted Netanyahu and Trump would have a “very, very good, collaborative relationship,” as opposed to what he described as the “hostile relationship” between President Barack Obama and the Israeli leader.

The changed atmosphere was already evident in the first week of Trump’s tenure. While construction plans beyond Israel’s 1967 border were a recurring source of friction with the Obama administration, Trump was silent this week as Israeli officials approved plans for 2,500 housing units in the West Bank and hundreds of apartments in eastern Jerusalem.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, called the building plans a “flagrant violation of international law” and accused Israel of “exploiting the inauguration of the new American administration to escalate its violations and the prevention of any existence of a Palestinian state.”

Cybersecurity

Trump considered Giuliani for attorney general and secretary of state before ultimately naming him to head a committee on cybersecurity. Giuliani said he discussed cyberdefense with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials Thursday and will return in a few months for more substantive talks on the subject. Israel is among the global leadersin the field.

“We realize in the United States that we have a cybersecurity defense problem,” Giuliani said. His committee is tasked with organizing private-sector experts into groups that can help address the government’s cyber priorities, he said.

Categories: Cyber security, Jerusalem, Palestinian issues, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians, President Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Trump and Israel, U.S. Embassy
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Trump Could Follow Clinton’s Hamas Order In Outlawing Muslim Brotherhood

January 27, 2017

Trump Could Follow Clinton’s Hamas Order In Outlawing Muslim Brotherhood, Counter Jihad, Paul Sperry, January 27, 2017

There is a quick and easy way to designate the Brotherhood as the terrorist organization that it is. Thank Bill Clinton.

Instead of waiting for a bill authorizing a Muslim Brotherhood designation to wend its way through Congress, the State Department could blacklist the Brotherhood directly. All it would take is President Trump signing an executive order.

That’s what happened in January 1995, when President Clinton issued an executive order making it illegal for US funds to support Hamas, following a bus bombing in Tel Aviv and other horrific acts of terrorism carried out by the Palestinian terrorist group. In turn, the State Department officially declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization, making it a felony to provide any material support to Hamas or its related charities and front organizations, and the Treasury Department ordered a freeze on all Hamas banking assets.

While the Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed in other countries, the US has not yet designated the group a terrorist entity or foreign threat, even though it has stated clearly that it supports violent jihad and is dedicated to replacing the US with an Islamic theocracy.

That is expected to change with this administration.

In testimony earlier this month, soon-to-be-confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lumped the Muslim Brotherhood in with terrorist groups ISIS, al-Qaida and Hezbollah. He suggested America’s first priority in dealing with global terrorism must be to first defeat ISIS, then al-Qaida, followed by the Muslim Brotherhood, in that order.

Tillerson stated at his Senate confirmation hearing: “The demise of ISIS would also allow us to increase our attention on other agents of radical Islam like al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and certain elements within Iran.”

Founded more than 80 years ago in Cairo, Egypt, where the “mother group” is based, the Muslim Brotherhood is a secretive Islamist society that gave birth to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and al-Qaida. In fact, it is the ideological catalyst behind the entire global jihadist movement now threatening the West, and its tentacles have reached deep inside the United States.

Before joining al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Anwar al-Awlaki and the Blind Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman were all members of the Brotherhood, known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun. Its credo is: “The Quran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition.” Through both violent and political means, the Brotherhood seeks to impose Sharia — the rule of Islamic law — on the West. It also seeks the overthrow of Middle Eastern nations it views as too secular or close to the West.

As a result of recent violent unrest fomented by the Brotherhood, several Arab nations — including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — have designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, with UAE adding the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Brotherhood front organizations to the terrorist list. Russia has also outlawed the Brotherhood. US investigators have long sought to outlaw the group, complaining that Brotherhood-run mosques, charities and other elements show up in countless US terrorism cases, including the 9/11 attacks.

As former FBI Director Robert Mueller testified before the House Intelligence Committee in 2011, “I can say at the outset that elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.”

“Its ultimate goal is the creation of a global Islamic State governed by Sharia law,” former federal prosecutor James T. Jacks asserted in a 2008 court filing linking US Brotherhood front groups to terrorism, including moderate-sounding groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust.

“Muslim Brotherhood members first migrated to the United States in the 1960s, where they began their grassroots work on campuses through an organization called the Muslim Students Association,” Jacks explained. “By the mid-1980s, the US-Muslim Brotherhood had grown exponentially, established numerous front organizations, developed a solid hierarchical structure, and received direction from the International Muslim Brotherhood’s General Guide.”

“Hamas was established in 1987 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Jacks continued, further outlining the conspiracy. “In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the US-Muslim Brotherhood was controlled by Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood members,” including CAIR’s founders.

Since 9/11, several known US-Muslim Brotherhood leaders — including Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi — have been convicted of terrorist activities, with Alamoudi accused by the government of actively raising money for al-Qaida. Others, including CAIR founder Omar Ahmad, have been formally implicated by the government in major terrorism cases.

Some Brotherhood operatives have infiltrated US law enforcement and the military. Ali Mohamed, who emigrated from Egypt to spy for the Brotherhood in America, used his US Special Forces training to assist al-Qaida. Last decade, he pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy for his role in helping plan the al-Qaida bombings of the US embassies in Africa.

White House National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn says the Brotherhood has operated a terrorism-support network in America dating back to the first World Trade Center bombing. “We knew of close operational cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood” in that 1993 attack, he wrote in his 2016 book, “The Field of Fight.”

A Brotherhood manifesto seized by FBI agents during a 2004 raid of a Brotherhood leader’s home in the Washington DC area revealed that the US branch of the Brotherhood seeks the destruction of the US system — “from within.” Chillingly, the document directs Brotherhood members to engage in subversive action against the US:

“The Ikhwan [Muslim 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 Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Investigators believe the Brotherhood conspiracy may involve a network of as many as 2,000 organizations working inside the US to support jihad and subvert the US government. Hard evidence links CAIR, ISNA and many other radical Islamist organizations masquerading as moderate groups — as well as some of the nation’s largest mosques — to this massive infrastructure financed and controlled by the Brotherhood.

Investigators call it an insurgency run by “terrorists in suits,” and the new White House, led by Flynn’s team, is said to want to shut the entire network down.

“It is no accident that radical Islamists in America are pushing very hard and very systematically to gain legal standing for Sharia, and to forbid any and all criticism of Islam,” Flynn said. “These are all steps toward creating an Islamic state right here at home. We have to thwart these efforts.”

 

Categories: Executive order, Islamist objectives, Islamist organizations, Islamists in America, Muslim Brotherhood, President Trump, Sharia law, Terrorism, US Congress
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Immigration Priorities: Translators, and Victims of Genocide

January 27, 2017

Immigration Priorities: Translators, and Victims of Genocide, Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, January 27, 2017

Secretary Kerry described his understanding that Christian women were sold as sex slaves, and both women and men were massacred in areas of Syria and Iraq controlled by ISIS. But of the 10,801 refugees accepted in fiscal 2016 from Syria, only 56 (0.5 percent) were Christian.

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Prioritize two groups from the Middle East: those who have worked for the U.S. military as translators (and their families); and Middle East Christians who, according to then-Secretary of State Kerry, were being subjected to genocide in Syria and Iraq.

In 2008, Congress authorized 20,000 special visas for Iraqis who served the U.S. for a year or more; and in 2009, authorized 7,500 visas over seven years for Afghan translators. The idea was to get allies who had risked their lives for American troops out as quickly as possible, but thousands have waited for years.

Iraq and Afghanistan are countries in which being tagged as helpful to the U.S. military can be, and has been, a death sentence. And worse, in July 2016, an extension of the visa program failed to make it out of the Senate.

Of the 10,801 refugees accepted in fiscal 2016 from Syria, only 56 (0.5 percent) were Christian.

Making a concerted effort to bring those two desperately threatened groups to the United States would meet our commitment to the translators, give concrete expression to our revulsion at genocide, protect the interests of the American people, and ensure that America remains hospitable to immigrants and refugees.

If you want security clearances in the United States, the government “vets” you quite thoroughly. They begin by asking you questions and then ask for a list of people to interview — family, friends, employers, etc. They take your list and ask those people for more people who will talk about you, then take that list and ask those people for more people who will talk about you — and so on until the lists have the right number and combination of names that overlap. If you have a vindictive ex-wife, watch out. They do a credit check, a criminal background check, a motor vehicle records check, and a medical records check. Psychiatrist? That too.

When discussing visas for people coming to the U.S. from countries with terrorism issues, it is useful to know what it means to “vet” and why there is no possibility of vetting (or “extreme vetting,” whatever that means) refugees and potential immigrants who have no links to their former lives. Vetting — whether for security clearances or visas — is all about your life to this point.

President Trump’s executive order halting immigration from seven countries for 30 days — for a start — is a reasonable response to the increasing understanding that people from certain countries can pose more of a security risk than people from other countries, even when all the countries are Muslim-majority. The seven are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia; the U.S. government, under previous presidents, had cited all for terror links. Countries such as Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Oman and Tunisia and other Muslim-majority countries are not affected.

A “Muslim ban” would be racist, wrong, and a violation of deeply held American principles; but the claim by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that visa restrictions are tantamount to slavery and denying women the right to vote is slanderous, exaggerated, inaccurate and anti-American. Restrictions — and post-fact checks — on people who enter the United States from countries with clear links to terrorism, and to which we cannot turn for record-checks and interviews, are simply something the United States does.

In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was occupied by radical Islamists bent on war with the United States. The Carter Administration ordered all Iranians with student visas to report physically to U.S. immigration officials or face possible deportation. Ten months later (Carter’s order had to go through the courts), the New York Times, citing an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman, reported that nearly 60,000 students had registered as required, about 430 had been deported, and 5,000 had left voluntarily. In the interim, Carter ordered federal officials to:

“invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.”

Iran remains at war with the United States and al Qaeda and ISIS are no less at war simply because they lack a central government.

In 2015, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Consular Affairs told a House hearing that the U.S. government had revoked more than 9,500 visas over terrorism concerns since 2001 (the number is now more than 13,000). The attacks of 9/11 were followed by more attacks and plots against symbols of American military, law, justice, and governance as well as trains, bars, and shopping centers that are symbols of everyday life. Mass-casualty attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando were only the latest catalysts for Americans’ underlying concern that have been growing for years about terrorism and the government’s ability to protect us.

If “vetting” is not possible and American security requirements are real, is there a way to bring together our historic sympathy for refugees and historic welcome of immigrants with our reasonable concerns?

Yes.

Prioritize two groups from the Middle East: those who have worked for the U.S. military as translators (and their families); and Middle East Christians who, according to then-Secretary of State Kerry, were being subjected to genocide in Syria and Iraq.

In 2008, Congress authorized 20,000 special visas for Iraqis who served the U.S. for a year or more; and in 2009, authorized 7,500 visas over seven years for Afghan translators. The idea was to get allies who had risked their lives for American troops out as quickly as possible, but thousands have waited for years. Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Spencer Case wrote early in 2016:

“State Department numbers show that an Iraqi applying for a special visa could expect to wait for 292 business days before hearing back — and hearing back may just be another delay or a denial. In Afghanistan, the average wait time is 417 business days.”

Iraq and Afghanistan are countries in which being tagged as helpful to the United States military can be, and has been, a death sentence. And worse, in July 2016, an extension of the visa program failed to make it out of the Senate.

Secretary Kerry described his understanding that Christian women were sold as sex slaves, and both women and men were massacred in areas of Syria and Iraq controlled by ISIS. But of the 10,801 refugees accepted in fiscal 2016 from Syria, only 56 (0.5 percent) were Christian.

1261-1When a few persecuted Iraqi Christians crossed the border into the U.S., they were thrown in prison for several months and then sent back to the countries persecuting them, possibly to be enslaved, raped, or murdered. Pictured above: Members of California’s Iraqi Christian community and their supporters protest the months-long detention of Iraqi Christian asylum-seekers at the Otay Mesa detention center. (Image source Al Jazeera video screenshot)

Making a concerted effort to bring those two desperately threatened groups to the United States would meet our commitment to the translators, give concrete expression to our revulsion at genocide, protect the interests of the American people, and ensure that America remains hospitable to immigrants and refugees.

Categories: "Muslim ban", Christian refugees, Genocide, Military translators, Refugees
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