Archive for the ‘Anti-Zionism’ category

Georgetown University and Radical Islamists: It’s a Family Affair

March 28, 2017

Georgetown University and Radical Islamists: It’s a Family Affair, Investigative Project on Terrorism, March 28, 2017

Georgetown University’s Qatar campus is set to host Sami Al-Arian for a lecture tonight in Doha. According to a news release from the school’s Middle Eastern Studies Student Association, Al-Arian is a “civil rights activist” who hopes to challenge students to “make it a better, and more equitable and peaceful world.”

Those are charitable descriptions for Al-Arian, a documented member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Majlis Shura, or board of directors. According to the Islamic Jihad’s bylaws, which law enforcement agents found during searches of Al-Arian’s home and offices, there can be “No Peace without Islam.” The group’s objective is to create “a state of terror, instability and panic in the souls of Zionists and especially the groups of settlers, and force them to leave their houses.”

It’s an agenda Al-Arian took to heart. Following a double suicide bombing in 1995 that killed 19 Israelis, Al-Arian solicited money from a Kuwaiti legislator. “The latest operation, carried out by the two mujahideen who were martyred for the sake of God, is the best guide and witness to what they believing few can do in the face of Arab and Islamic collapse at the heels of the Zionist enemy…” he wrote.

“I call upon you to try to extend true support of the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue, so that the people do not lose faith in Islam and its representatives…” he wrote. Four years earlier, he spoke at a fundraiser in Cleveland, introduced as the head of the “active arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.”

Why, then, is a Jesuit university, albeit at a campus in Qatar, hosting a leader of a designated terrorist group’s “active arm”?

There’s a family bond between Georgetown University and the Al-Arians. Son Abdullah is an assistant professor at Georgetown’s Qatar campus, teaching history in its School of Foreign Service. He earned his Ph.D. at Georgetown, writing his dissertation about the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood during the 1970s, a time his father acknowledges being part of the global Islamist movement.

Jonathan Brown, Al-Arian’s son-in-law, also works at Georgetown, as the [Saudi] Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization. Brown recently drew criticism for a lecture in which he argued that slavery isn’t inherently “morally evil” if the slave is treated well. He also minimized sexual consent as a recent social more, arguing no one is really free enough to grant consent anyway.

Property records show Brown and his wife Laila Al-Arian bought a modest house just outside Tampa in 2015. Brown also owns a $1.1 million house in Mclean, Va.

Brown’s boss, Georgetown University Professor John Esposito, has been a staunch Al-Arian defender. Al-Arian is “an extraordinarily bright, articulate scholar and intellectual-activist, a man of conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice,” Esposito wrote in a letter to a federal judge.

Brown’s slavery and sexual consent lecture was hosted by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in Herndon, Va. The IIIT was a prime financial supporter of a think tank Al-Arian founded in Tampa called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). It provided cover for at least three other members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Shura Council, including his brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar, an academic named Basheer Nafi and Ramadan Abdullah Shallah – the Islamic Jihad’s secretary general since late 1995.

Federal prosecutors wanted Al-Arian to tell a grand jury what he knew about the IIIT’s financial support for terrorists. He refused. Al-Arian was charged with criminal contempt after maintaining that stance even after a judge granted him immunity for his truthful testimony.

The case never went to trial. Al-Arian was deported to Turkey in 2015, pursuant to terms in his 2006 guilty plea connected to his Palestinian Islamic Jihad support. He now works as “director of the Center for Regional Politics at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University,” the Georgetown Middle East students group’s news release said.

Al-Arian is a computer scientist.

Sabahattin Zaim opened in 2010 and claims to have about 1,100 undergraduate students.

While the Georgetown University program is organized by a student group, promotional material lists Mehran Kamrava as moderator. Kamrava directs the Georgetown School of Foreign Service’s Center for International and Regional Studies.

His presence adds the university’s imprimatur to the Al-Arian event. In addition, the School of Foreign Service posted the news release promoting Al-Arian’s lecture.

Qatar has supported Hamas, the Islamic Jihad’s rival Palestinian terrorist group, providing money and refuge for Hamas leaders. In that light, Al-Arian’s invitation doesn’t seem out of place. But it is still an event hosted by a Georgetown University campus, moderated by one of its prominent faculty.

While Al-Arian has tried to deny his Islamic Jihad activities, or at least minimize them, his work to advance the group’s bloody ambitions is undeniable. He self-identified as the Shura Council’s secretary. In his plea agreement, he admits lying about Shallah’s prominent role in the Islamic Jihad.

During his 1991 remarks in Cleveland after his “active arm” introduction, Al-Arian urged donations for jihad. “Your brothers in Palestine are struggling with their beings,” he said, “so let us struggle here with our money.”

“This is the way of giving,” he said earlier. “This is the way of struggle. This is the way of battle. This is the way of jihad. This is the way of martyrdom. Thus is the way of blood, because this is the path to heaven.”

The student association’s news release failed to mention this background as a convicted felon, describing the former University of South Florida professor as a “civil rights advocate.” It fails to mention Al-Arian’s guilty plea, and whitewashes his resulting deportation to Turkey by saying “Al-Arian relocated.”

The federal judge who saw all the evidence against Al-Arian, who watched him lie about his true identity and violent ambitions, called him a “master manipulator.” Old habits die hard, apparently. The question in this case is whether Georgetown and its student groups are being duped or are witting accomplices in whitewashing a terrorist into a “human rights advocate.”

I Denounce the Shameful Slanders Against Sebastian Gorka, Friend of Israel

March 19, 2017

I Denounce the Shameful Slanders Against Sebastian Gorka, Friend of Israel, PJ MediaDavid P. Goldman, March 17, 2017

“My father walked Jewish classmates to school to protect them from the anti-Semites during the war,” Dr. Sebastian Gorka (pictured above with the author) told me in Washington yesterday. He is still astonished by the allegations in left-wing media (and particularly Jewish media) that his father–a hero of the anti-fascist and anti-Communist resistance in Hungary–was a tied up with pro-Nazi elements in Hungary, and that he himself is linked to an Hungarian fascist organization.

Like the campaign of slander against his White House colleague Steve Bannon, these are lies from the whole cloth. As Liel Leibovitz (a liberal journalist at Tablet Magazine) wrote March 16: “I’d like to reach out to my friends and colleagues across town and ask, with clear eyes and a full heart: Have you lost your minds?”

There was an anti-Communist organization called Vitézi Rend, destroyed by the Communist government in the 1950s. Gorka’s father, Paul, was a dedicated member of the anti-Communist underground, and had risked his life to organize the Hungarian resistance and deliver vital information about the Soviets to western intelligence agencies, including the MI6. He was eventually arrested, badly tortured, and spent two years in solitary confinement and some more in forced labor in the coal mines before eventually escaping to England. The elder Gorka received a medal from the old Vitézi Rend and wears it on formal occasions to honor his father. After Communism fell in 1989 a number of new organizations called themselves Vitézi Rend, and some of them harbor anti-Semites. By this obtuse chain of indirect association, Sebastian Gorka–according to the liberal media–must also be an anti-Semite.

All the booze in Georgetown couldn’t have gotten Sen. Joseph McCarthy drunk enough to spin a dumb story like this one. As a writer, teacher and Fox News contributor, Dr. Gorka has been in the public eye for years. He is a fierce enemy of radical Islamic terrorism and a dedicated friend of Israel and the Jewish people. He has made this clear in countless public statements, for example, this one in the New English Review March 3. Dr. Gorka said:

There is no greater partner of the United States in the Middle East. We are very close and we help the Jordanians, Egypt, UAE  redressing and improving the very  negative relationship that was established between the White House under the Obama administration and Egyptian President Sisi’s government. Israel, as a beacon of democracy and stability in the Middle East, is our closest friend in the region and the President has been explicit in that again and again So it would be difficult  to overestimate just how important Israel is not only to America’s interest in the region but also to the broader stability of the Middle East.

Everyone in the Israel advocacy community in Washington knows Dr. Gorka’s strong commitment to the Jewish State.

As Congressman Trent Franks, the chairman of the Israel Allies Caucus in the House of Representatives, stated in a February 27 statement, “I have followed the recent press and social media attacks against Dr. Sebastian Gorka and am compelled to respond with disgust at the attempt to libel this American patriot. Most disturbing of all is the attempt to portray Dr. Gorka in any way as anti-Semitic. Having called upon his expertise on Counterterrorism repeatedly in Congress and used his analysis to inform our work, I can attest that Dr. Gorka is the staunchest friend of Israel and the Jewish people.”

The liberals at The Forward and other fake-news media should hang their heads in shame. Anti-Semitism is a serious business. We remember our dead at the hands of Jew-haters, from Pharaoh up to Hitler and Hamas. A false accusation of anti-Semitism dishonors their memory; it is what religious Jews call a hillul haShem, a desecration of the name of God.

Last year I denounced the “big lie” about Steve Bannon, who is one of the most philo-Semitic Gentiles I have ever met. I am disgusted that the same slander has been directed against Dr. Gorka. Israel is fortunate to have friends like Dr. Gorka advising the president. I personally am fortunate to know Dr. Gorka. The slanders directed at him are shameful and inexcusable.

Extremist Muslims’ One-Way Street

February 24, 2017

Extremist Muslims’ One-Way Street, Gatestone InstituteBurak Bekdil, February 24, 2017

Extremist Muslims’ understanding of freedom is a one-way street: Freedoms, such as religious rights, are “good” and must be defended if they are intended for Muslims — often where Muslims are in minority. But they can simply be ignored if they are intended for non-Muslims — often in lands where Muslims make up the majority.

Many Muslim countries, apparently, already have travel bans against other Muslims, in addition to banning Israelis.

Look at Saudi Arabia. Deportation and a lifetime ban is the minimum penalty for non-Muslims trying to enter the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Given the state of non-Muslim religious and human rights, and the sheer lack of religious pluralism in most Muslim countries, why do Muslim nations suddenly become human rights champions in the face of a ban on travel to the U.S.?

Meanwhile, Muslims will keep on loving the “infidels” who support Muslim rights in non-Muslim lands, while keeping up intimidation of the same “infidels” in their own lands.

President Donald Trump’s executive order of January 27, 2017, temporarily limiting entry from seven majority-Muslim countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for 90 days, until vetting procedures can be put in place — has caused international controversy, sparking protests both in the Western and Islamic worlds, including in increasingly Islamist Turkey.

This article does not intend to discuss whether Trump’s ban is a racist, illegal order, or a perfectly justified action in light of threatened American interests. The ban, right or wrong, has once again unveiled the hypocrisy of extremist Muslims on civil liberties and on what is and what is NOT racist. Extremist Muslims’ understanding of freedom is a one-way street: Freedoms, such as religious rights, are “good” and must be defended if they are intended for Muslims — often where Muslims are in minority. But they can simply be ignored if they are intended for non-Muslims — often in lands where Muslims make up the majority.

Muslims have been in a rage across the world. Iran’s swift and sharp answer came in a Tweet from Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who said that the ban was “a great gift to extremists.” A government statement in Tehran said that the U.S. travel restrictions were an insult to the Muslim world, and threatened U.S. citizens with “reciprocal measures.” Many Muslim countries, apparently, already have travel bans against other Muslims, in addition to banning Israelis.

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Sudan, host and supporter of various extremist Muslim terror groups including al-Qaeda, said the ban was “very unfortunate.” In Iraq, a coalition of paramilitary groups called on the government to ban U.S. nationals from entering the country and to expel those currently on Iraqi soil.

In Turkey where the extremist Islamic government is unusually soft on Trump’s ban — in order not to antagonize the new president — a senior government official called the order “a discriminative decision.” Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said:

“Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that rising Islamophobia, xenophobia and anti-immigrant feelings have a great weight on this decision. Taking such a decision in a country such as America, where different ethnic and religious groups are able to co-exist, is very offensive.”

The ruling party’s deputy chairman, Yasin Aktay, called the ban “racist,” and said: “This is totally against human rights, a big violation of human rights.” Aktay also said that he had started to “worry about the future of the U.S.”

Turkey’s top Muslim cleric, Mehmet Gormez, praised the Americans who rushed to the airports to protest the ban. “[This] is very important. It gives us hope,” he said — presumably meaning that non-Muslim protestors will continue to advocate for Muslim rights in non-Muslim lands.

Turkish government bigwigs and the top Islamic authority seem not to have heard of their own country’s dismal human rights record when it comes to non-Muslim minorities. Most recently, Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches noted in a report that hate speech against the country’s Christians increased in both the traditional media and social media. It said that hate speech against Protestants persisted throughout 2016, in addition to physical attacks on Protestant individuals and their churches.

Nevertheless, the Islamist’s one-way sympathy for human rights (for Muslims) and his one-way affection for discrimination (against non-Muslims) is not just Turkish, but global. What is the treatment of non-Muslim (or sometimes even non-extremist Muslim) visitors to some of the Muslim cities and sites in the countries that decry Trump’s “racist,” and “discriminative” ban that “violates human rights?”

In a 2016 visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the Muslim custodians of the site did not allow entry to this author, despite the Turkish passport submitted to them, saying “you do not look Muslim enough.” And Muslims now complain of “discrimination?” Incidentally, Al Aqsa Mosque is, theoretically at least, open to visits from non-Muslims, except on Fridays.

Look at Saudi Arabia. Deportation and a lifetime ban is the minimum penalty for non-Muslims trying to enter the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. In 2013, the Saudi Minister of Justice, Mohamed el-Eissi, insisted that “the cradle of the Muslim sanctities will not allow the establishment of any other places of worship.”

The Saudi ban on other religious houses of worship comes from a Salafi tradition that prohibits the existence of two religions in the Arabian Peninsula. In the Saudi kingdom, the law requires that all citizens must be Muslims; the government does not provide legal protection for freedom of religion; and the public practice of non-Muslim religions is prohibited.

In Iran, where even non-Muslim female visitors must wear the Islamic headscarf, the government continues to imprison, harass, intimidate and discriminate against people based on religious beliefs. A 2014 U.S. State Department annual report noted that non-Muslims faced “substantial societal discrimination, aided by official support.” At the release of the report, then Secretary of State John Kerry said: “Sadly, the pages of this report that are being released today are filled with accounts of minorities being denied rights in countries like Burma, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, many others”.

In Iran, marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men are not recognized unless the husband produces proof that he has converted to Islam. The mullahs’ government does not ensure the right of citizens to change or renounce their religious faith. Apostasy, specifically conversion from Islam, can be punishable by death. In 2013, 79 people from religious minorities were sentenced to a total of 3,620 months in prison, 200 months of probation, 75 lashes and 41 billion rials in fines [approximately $1.3 million].

That being the state of non-Muslim religious and human rights, and the sheer lack of religious pluralism in most Muslim countries, why do Muslim nations suddenly become human rights champions in the face of a ban on travel to the U.S.? Why, for instance, does Turkey never criticizes the extreme shortcomings of freedoms in the Muslim world but calls the U.S. ban “racist?”

Why does the Iranian government think that Trump’s ban is a “gift to the [Muslim] extremists?” In claiming that travel bans would supposedly fuel extremism, how come Iran does not think that its own persecution of religious minorities is a “gift” to non-Muslims?

Such questions will probably remain unanswered in the Muslim world. Meanwhile, Muslims will keep on loving the “infidels” who support Muslim rights in non-Muslim lands, while keeping up intimidation of the same “infidels” in their own lands.

The world’s obsessive hostility towards the Jews

January 13, 2017

The world’s obsessive hostility towards the Jews, Israel National News, Richard Mather, January 13, 2017

(Please see also, Obama’s Transparent Presidency. — DM)

Syria is dying, Islamists are murdering European civilians, ISIS and affiliated groups are on the rampage in the Middle East, food and water are in short supply in Africa. And so it is remarkable that the nations of the world have gathered against tiny Israel in order to dispossess Jews of what little land they have in order to create a twenty-third Arab state called Palestine.

Indeed, it is all the more remarkable when one considers the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have no historical, cultural or legal rights to the land of Israel.

That the Palestinian Arabs are endowed with so much international and economic patronage by the United Nations, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the Obama White House is testament to the world’s perpetual hatred towards the Jews. How did the Palestinians and their international backers manage to achieve such a feat? Why does the world revolve around the Palestinians?

There are several answers to this. One is the Palestinians’ cynical calculus of terror. They have learned that violence is rewarded by the international community. Palestinians do not want a peaceful political solution, not when terrorism reaps dividends. That’s why Yasser Arafat instigated the second intifada. He did it to mask his rejection of the Camp David deal in 2000. And what happened? The world blamed Israel for the “occupation,” which garnered further sympathy for the Palestinians.

Fatah and Hamas know that terrorism focuses worldwide attention on Israel. The Palestinians  want the conflict and the boycotts to continue because they exert unbearable pressure on the Jewish state. Should a Palestinian state come into being, don’t expect terrorism to go away. On the contrary, a Palestinian state will be the launchpad for further attacks on the shrinking Jewish state.

Indeed, ethnic cleansing of the Jews is the ultimate aim of the Palestinians. A Palestinian state does not entail a peaceful political or diplomatic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. When Palestinians and their supporters chant “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea,” they are calling for the genocide and/or mass expulsion of millions of Israelis – not just Israelis in the so-called ‘West Bank’ but Israel in its entirety.

There is another reason the world wants a Palestinian state: it is an opportunity for the nations to eradicate thousands of years of Jewish history. Places of importance have already been appropriated by our enemies. Me’arat ha-Makhpela (the Cave of the Patriarchs) and Kever Rakhel (Rachel’s Tomb) are now considered integral to a future State of Palestine.

Worse still, the Palestinians have appropriated the Kotel – the Kotel! – as an Islamic holy site named Al-Buraq. Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, has said that the Western Wall and “all its various parts, structures and gates, are an inseparable part of the al-Aqsa compound.”

And PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, believes that Kotel belongs to the Muslims alone. In an interview with German magazine Die Welt, he stated: “There is not a single stone in the Wailing Wall relating to Jewish history. The Jews cannot legitimately claim this wall, neither religiously nor historically. The Committee of the League of Nations recommended in 1930, to allow the Jews to pray there, in order to keep them quiet. But by no means did it acknowledge that the wall belongs to them.”

Since it is clear that the Palestinians are not interested in peaceful co-existence with Jews; since the decay of Arab nations in the Middle East looks set to continue; since Jewish holy sites are in grave danger; and since it is highly likely that a Palestinian state will be a human rights disaster, wouldn’t it be better for the international community to put aside childish notions of a State of Palestine and lavish their time and resources on more important matters?

Evidently not. Kurdish independence, the Syrian crisis, chronic starvation in Africa, Islamic State, child sex slavery, and so on, are apparently (and shamefully) very low down on the world’s list of priorities. Given that there are so many pressing issues, it is deliberately perverse of the nations to pursue the creation of an autocratic state (or worse still an Islamist republic) called Palestine, which will be the only place on the planet that is officially Judenrein, i.e. “cleansed of Jews.”

It is clear that the world’s desire to create an anti-Semitic Palestinian state – regardless of the human cost and at the expense of more urgent issues – is driven by an obsessive hostility towards the Jewish people and Jewish culture, as well as a hatred for Judaism. To put it another way, it is racially and religiously-inspired anti-Semitic bloodlust.

DNC Chair Candidate Forum to Be Held at Anti-Israel Restaurant

January 5, 2017

DNC Chair Candidate Forum to Be Held at Anti-Israel Restaurant, Washington Free Beacon, , January 5, 2017

(Please see also, The Man Who Most Deserves to be DNC Chairman. – DM)

The Democratic party’s slate of nominees have agreed to participate in a candidate forum hosted at a restaurant owned by a fierce critic of the Jewish State in the face of widespread criticism that one of the leading candidates to chair the Democratic National Committee is anti-Israel.

Candidates for the top DNC post will participate in a candidate forum later this month at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C., according to a Politico report. All the major candidates for the chairmanship except Labor Secretary Tom Perez have confirmed they will attend the forum, which is being hosted by Democratic advocacy group Democracy in Color.

Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-born political activist who uses his venue to advance a far-left political agenda, owns the restaurant.

Shallal is a vocal anti-Israel activist, stating that Israel is an “occupation” force guilty of “terrorizing” the Middle East. He has said the United States receives its “marching orders from Tel Aviv.”

“Israel continues to violate international law … while the U.S. and its allies sit on the side, getting its marching orders from Tel Aviv,” Shallal said during the World Says No to the Israel Occupation rally in 2007. “Folks, this is not an accident—this is a plan to create a new American-Israeli century, and those who dare to speak out will be squashed.”

“A century where the military will continue to call the shots, and where Israel, America’s largest arms depot, will continue to control and terrorize the region,” Shallal said.

Shallal also said during the speech that “Palestinians continue to be ethnically cleansed, humiliated, harassed, imprisoned, serially murdered, and assassinated,” adding that “over 300,000 Palestinians have been killed directly because of the occupation.”

 

Shallal’s sentiments are shared by the staff he hires to work at the D.C. chain.

In 2013, a group of customers tipped a waitress less because she was wearing an anti-Israel shirt that said “Occupation isn’t pretty.” The shirt, created by radical anti-war group Code Pink, is sold at Busboys and Poets.

The restaurant said in response that it “encourages” staff to wear shirts that are “in line with the beliefs of Busboys and Poets owner Andy Shallal.”

“We’re a restaurant with a specific political point of view,” the restaurant’s marketing director said in response to the incident.

Busboys and Poets has become the go-to venue in D.C. for events held by radical left-wing groups such as Code Pink. It has hosted 9/11 “truther” organizations, domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, and a series of pro-Hugo Chavez events sponsored by the Venezuelan government.

Shallal hosted a fundraiser at the restaurant in honor of the man who was killed attempting to stab an Israeli soldier during the 2010 Turkish flotilla to Gaza.

Shallal also produced a play called “The Admission,” which centers around the fictional slaughter of Palestinian civilians by an Israeli soldier.

The Democratic Party has faced criticism while selecting its new chairman over the anti-Israel comments made by Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), who is considered a frontrunner to win the job.

In comments similar to those made by Shallal, Ellison said in 2010 that United States foreign policy is governed by “what is good or bad” for Israel.

The comments drew condemnation from left-leaning groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, which said they were “deeply disturbing and disqualifying.”

Haim Saban, a top donor to the Democratic Party, said that Ellison “is clearly an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual,” adding that he would “be a disaster for the relationship between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party.”

The DNC appears to have no involvement in the upcoming candidate forum, but it has hosted events at Shallal’s restaurant in the past. One was headlined by Ellison. The DNC did not respond to a request for comment.

Shallal and Democracy in Color did not respond to inquiries into how much involvement Shallal would have in the candidate forum.

Ellison also did not return a request for comment.

Archbishop who smuggled arms for Palestinian jihad killers dies in the Vatican

January 2, 2017

Archbishop who smuggled arms for Palestinian jihad killers dies in the Vatican, Jihad Watch

Archbishop Hilarion Capucci earned everlasting infamy for running guns to the Palestinian jihadis who would have oppressed and subjugated his own people if they had had half a chance, and the Vatican in turn earned even more infamy by sheltering him all these years.

But Capucci’s jihad-enabling actions were no surprise: he comes from an ecclesiastical tradition that is deeply, insidiously, and inveterately anti-Semitic. Recently I encountered a bishop of that tradition who is openly and viciously anti-Semitic, dismissing Pamela Geller’s work on the sole grounds that she is a Jew. Capucci’s superior, Gregory III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East, has proudly declared: “We, the Arab Christians, always defend Islam and our Muslim brothers – no one defends Islam like the Arab Christians do.”

Gregory III has also blamed “Zionists” for jihad attacks on Middle Eastern Christians. He is the Patriarch who walked out of a Ted Cruz speech in a rage over Cruz saying he stood with Israel. He, like so many of his peers, appears to have thoroughly imbibed the “Palestinian” jihadis’ hatred of and contempt for Israel, despite the fact that it is a more hospitable place for his own people than the Muslim countries he weeps over and offers a better life for Christians than the Islam he so ardently defends. They think that the jihadis will go easy on them if they echo their political line, loving what they love and hate what they hate. They will be in for a rude awakening when the jihadis to whom they have been so solicitous and accommodating turn on them.

Patriarch Gregory III and the now-dead Archbishop Hilarion Capucci are not alone in selling out their people and aligning with jihad murderers. Much of the Melkite clergy, and Catholic clergy in general, in the U.S. as well as in the Middle East, cower before jihad killers and pretends their cowardice is “respect.” The contemporary Catholic hierarchy in general is making nice with the jihad force, and thereby enabling its advance. And it will reap what it is sowing.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

hilarion-capucci

“Hilarion Capucci: Arms-smuggling archbishop dies aged 94,” BBC, January 2, 2017:

A former Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem who was convicted of smuggling arms for Palestinian militants has died aged 94.

Monsignor Hilarion Capucci served two years of a 12-year sentence in Israel before the Vatican helped secure his release.

He had a history of activism linked to Middle East conflicts.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered his condolences and described him as a great “freedom fighter”.

The Vatican confirmed his death on Monday, but did not say exactly when he died or give any more details.

Capucci was born in Syria’s second city, Aleppo, in 1922.

He was ordained a priest of the Basilian Alepian Order of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in 1947 and was appointed Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem and Archbishop of Caesarea in 1965.

In 1974, he was travelling from Beirut to Jerusalem in a car bearing Vatican diplomatic plates when it was stopped by Israeli security forces.

Inside were four Kalashnikov rifles, two pistols, ammunition and grenades intended for members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Capucci insisted he had been forced to transport the weapons, but an Israeli court convicted him of smuggling and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

He was freed in 1977 following a personal appeal by Pope Paul VI….

In 2010, he was on board the Mavi Marmara when the Turkish-owned ship was intercepted by Israeli commandos as it took part in an aid flotilla attempting to breach the blockade of the Gaza Strip….

“Hate Spaces” Film Exposes Campus Intolerance

December 13, 2016

“Hate Spaces” Film Exposes Campus Intolerance, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Noah Beck, December 13, 2016

hatespaces

A new documentary, “Hate Spaces,” exposes the epidemic of campus intolerance favoring Muslims and anti-Israel activists over Jews and Israel supporters when it comes to free speech, academic freedom, and protection from abuse.

The film is being released theatrically by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), a Boston-based non-profit dedicated to raising public awareness about the increasingly hostile campus environment. “Hate Spaces” premiered Nov. 30 in New York, and will be screened at select locations around the country (contact info@peaceandtolerance.org for details). The film will also be available on DVD in early 2017 and eventually on YouTube. Click here to sign up for alerts.

The film’s title refers to the concept of “safe spaces” that has been used to silence unpopular speech on universities around the United States.

Executive Producer Avi Goldwasser, who also wrote and directed “Safe Spaces,” first noticed the extent of the campus problem in 2004, when he produced “Columbia Unbecoming.” That film documented the intimidation by Columbia University professors of Jewish students who supported Israel. “Jewish students were abused by faculty members and the administration ignored it,” Goldwasser told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). “The abusing professor got tenure.”

Indeed, anti-Israel lies, incitement, and hate speech are often tolerated under the banners of academic freedom and free speech. Last September, for example, the University of California, Berkeley reinstated a student-led course that presented a demonizing, one-sided history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after public outcry claimed that free speech and academic freedom were jeopardized by the course’s suspension. In contrast, pro-Israel speech is attacked by Israel critics who demand the right to have “safe spaces” free from “hate speech.”

“Any support of Israel is hate speech!” one protestor in the film proclaims.

Groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) leverage their politically favored status to exercise rights and protections that they try to deny their political opponents. At Northeastern University, SJP violated school policies over a two-year period, including “vandalism of university property, disrupting the events of other student organizations, not getting the appropriate permits when required, distributing unauthorized materials inside residence halls and sliding them under the doors of private rooms, not providing a ‘civility statement’ which was required after a previous sanction [and] not meeting with university advisers,” according to Northeastern spokeswoman Renata Nyul.

“We have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, zero tolerance for racism or any kind of hatred,” Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun said in the film, defending his school’s decision to suspend SJP.

But SJP successfully reframed the school’s response as suppression of free speech and rallied public and media pressure until their suspension was lifted. Thus, in an SJP-dominated campus, speech that violates school policies and harasses Jews and Israel supporters is protected as “free speech” rather than punished as “hate speech.”

By contrast, critics of Islam have been silenced with accusations of “hate speech” and “Islamophobia.” In 2014, Brandeis University canceled a speaking invitation and honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a campaigner for women’s rights and a fierce critic of Islam, after she was branded an “Islamophobe” by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Around the same time, CAIR used similar accusations to stop the screening of a documentary on honor killings.

Meanwhile, Jewish students and organizations are targeted with impunity, as feckless college administrators hesitate to take remedial action (as happened at Connecticut College). One of the reasons for their reluctance, the film suggests, is fear of jeopardizing funding – collectively, over $1 billion over the last six years – from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Through brazen lies – like claiming that Israel “commits genocide” and “apartheid” – SJP and MSA have created campus environments that are hostile to Jews and pro-Israel students, while suppressing support for Israel as “hate speech.”

“Hate Spaces” was a story that had to be told, Goldwasser said, because “most people do not realize how the hostility is being institutionalized, made fashionable by a combination of forces including radical faculty, radical student organizations, and an enabling university administration. While many anti-Jewish incidents and the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel) campaign are reported by the media, few are willing to connect the dots and report on the underlying ideology and extremist organizations that are inciting the hostility.”

The film shows how such campus hostility can reach as far as student council meetings, events that should be focused on campus affairs and otherwise far-removed from Middle East politics. It features UCLA sophomore Rachel Beyda, who applied for a leadership position on the Undergraduate Students Association Council. She was challenged by an SJP-backed campaign that claimed her Jewish background would make her biased when deciding sensitive campus issues. For about 40 minutes, students questioned whether her Jewish identity would make her a less fair-minded leader, even though three other students deciding her fate had been similarly active in their respective communities (Iranian students’ group, the MSA, and the Sikh students’ group).

The film also highlights the extent of SJP’s infiltration into academia. The organization, which has ties to Muslim-Brotherhood-linked groups, has chapters on more than 600 campuses. “Hate Spaces” underscores how there is “sensitivity training” on many campuses for just about every group (including for bestiality and incest at Yale) but not when it comes to groups relating to Jews or Israel.

The film includes footage of SJP founder Hatem Bazian calling for an intifada in America during a 2004 San Francisco rally. In addition to heading the University of California, Berkeley’s Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, Bazian is AMP’s founder and national chair. AMP provides funding, printed materials (including “Apartheid walls” for public demonstrations), and staff to SJP chapters.

“Hate Spaces” cites the IPT’s 2015 report about AMP support for Hamas and terrorism against Israel.

It includes footage from an AMP event with several disturbing quotes. “When I look at the people who fight with the Israeli Occupation Forces,” says AMP’s Munjed Ahmad in one example, “I don’t think we understand how many American Jews who were involved in the assault of Gaza the past summer were American…Of those people massacring those 500 children and those civilians, there were American Jews.”

Taher Herzallah asks: “What if as Muslims, we wanted to establish an Islamic State? Is that wrong? What if, as Muslims, we wanted to use violent means to resist occupation? Is that wrong?”

“Hate Spaces” attempts to explain how campuses became so hostile to Israel. By manipulating identity politics, SJP created an anti-Israel alliance of hard-left groups. They exploit the academically trendy concept of “intersectionality” – the idea that all injustices are interconnected – to demonize Israel and make common cause with activists from totally unrelated movements, like the campaign to address police violence.

SJP also attracts well-meaning students concerned about equality and social justice by portraying Palestinians as blameless victims of wholly unjustified Israeli attacks. “What drew me to SJP was my motivation to support equal human rights,” one student says in the film.I joined them because I felt that the Palestinian people were being oppressed.”

Another student explains how “SJP deliberately works with anti-Zionist Jewish organizations because working with those organizations helps to immunize them …against charges of bigotry and anti-Semitism. It gives SJP cover.”

“Hate Spaces” points out that student demographics have also helped SJP, because tens of thousands of students from Muslim countries that are traditionally hostile to Israel have arrived on U.S. college campuses in recent years. As noted by a former-SJP activist interviewed in the documentary, “There’s definitely a lot of ethnic solidarity between Muslims and Palestinians because [a] majority of the Palestinians are Muslims, so it’s almost like a brotherhood.”

Goldwasser describes the intended audience for “Hate Spaces” as “decent Americans, especially, those in leadership positions.” He believes that “once they are educated about this outrage on campus, there is a chance that changes will be made. All we ask is that Jewish students be treated equally, receive the same protection as any other minority on campus.”

The film notes that professors and administrators have only exacerbated the campus movement promoting BDS, through their indifference or open complicity with the movement’s campus leaders and tactics: “Many university officials are uncomfortable dealing with hatred that comes from a non-Western minority, preferring to selectively invoke the concepts of academic freedom and free speech instead of fulfilling their responsibility to Jewish students.”

White House “Champion” Blasts Muslims Who Talk to Any Pro-Israel Jews

December 7, 2016

White House “Champion” Blasts Muslims Who Talk to Any Pro-Israel Jews, Investigative Project on Terrorism, December 7, 2016

1900

Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour took to Twitter Nov. 22 with a quick, venting post: “You know what I can’t stand? Bitter people. That’s all.”

Sarsour spoke at the annual American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference three days later. Evidently, she can’t stand herself.

Sarsour, who describes herself as a “racial justice and civil rights activist,” lashed out at Jews who extended a hand of friendship and solidarity over concerns that increasing hostility toward Muslims in America might lead to draconian government action. And she lashed out at fellow Muslims who accepted the gesture and joined in a new inter-faith dialogue.

Why the bitterness?

The Jews at issue support the state of Israel, support its existence and its vitality. Sarsour wants none of that.

“We have limits to the type of friendships that we’re looking for right now,” Sarsour told the AMP conference, “and I want to be friends with those whom I know have been steadfast, courageous, have been standing up and protecting their own communities, those who have taken the risk to stand up and say – we are with the Palestinian people, we unequivocally support BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctioning Israel] when it comes to Palestinian human rights and have been attacked viciously by the very people who are telling you that they’re about to stand on the front line of the Muslim registry program. No thank you, sisters and brothers.”

It’s a message that fit right in at the AMP conference. AMP claims its “sole purpose is to educate the American public and media about issues related to Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage.” But in practice, the group has defended Hamas and its leaders admit they seek “to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel.”

1901

Sarsour, a media darling honored by the Obama White House as a “Champion of Change” and a high-profile surrogate for Bernie Sanders‘ failed Democratic presidential nomination campaign, seems to strike a different tone in public appearances. Her biography says she is “most known for her intersectional coalition work and building bridges across issues, racial, ethnic and faith communities.” That clearly wasn’t her intent at the AMP conference.

She acknowledges there’s a rift among Islamists about how hard a line to draw in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, yet she was intent on pouring gasoline on the fire.

The “cracks in our community” are so wide, she said, they’re visible to “right-wing Zionists, Islamophobes, white supremacists.”

“They know where we’re divided. They know that we’re segregated,” she said. “So they, we could easily be targeted when we’re a fragmented community. But if we were a strong, united, steadfast community that stood up for each other first and foremost, you’d better believe that no opposition would ever be trying to take us down, because we’d be too big, too strong and too united.”

Some of her comments likely were directed at Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt. Should a Trump administration create a registry for Muslims, an idea that does not seem to be on the table, Greenblatt recently pledged that “this proud Jew will register as Muslim.”

Sarsour not only rebuked the gesture, she cast Muslims who might respond more positively as sellouts of the Palestinian cause. Cooperation and solidarity gestures should only be reserved for those who share the depth of her hatred toward Israel, she said.

“I am tired of Muslims working towards acceptance and not respect of our communities. And I’m also tired of the Muslims willing to sell Palestine just for a little acceptance and nod from the white man and white power in these United States of America,” Sarsour said.

1902Sarsour, in the red hijab, poses with others at the White House Eid celebration.

Despite this extreme stance, Sarsour is a rising star among American Islamist activists. She has been welcomed to the White House at least 10 times during President Obama’s tenure, most recently in July for a celebration of the Muslim Eid holiday. Last year, a glowing New York Times profile described her as “a Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab.”

“But the most apparent thing about her voice is that it is exceedingly Brooklyn,” the story said. “She says ‘swag’ instead of ‘charisma.’ (‘Mr. B. has swag …) She calls her father, a Palestinian immigrant in his 60s, ‘Pops.’ Like the actress Rosie Perez in a hijab, Ms. Sarsour has perfected her delivery of the head-swaying ‘Oh no you dih-int’ and pronounces the word ‘Latino’ like, well, a Latino.”

Sarsour also says “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” and all-but accused the CIA of faking an attempted terrorist attack.

Those statements didn’t make the Times profile. And they didn’t prompt the Obama administration to reconsider the wisdom of elevating Sarsour’s clout with repeated White House access.

In February, just over a year after terrorists massacred the staff at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, saying they “avenged the Prophet,” Sarsour told a Council on American-Islamic Affairs (CAIR) banquet in Chicago that she would not stand with the victims. The magazine was “a bigot and a racist” for publishing caricatures of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, she said. The images served to “vilify my faith, dehumanize my community [and] demoralize my prophet.”

Building off Sarsour’s rejection of anyone who breaks bread with Zionists, former AMP New York President Raja Abdulhaq defined the BDS movement – not as a tool to lead to peaceful negotiations – but as way to break Israel into total surrender.

“The rights are non-negotiable. And that’s the whole point of BDS, is that we demand, we want to apply pressure,” Abdulhaq said, “not sit down in a negotiated setting and figure out what you can give up so that I can give up something in return, because what you’re essentially doing is you’re asking the other side – give up your illegality, stop your illegality and I will give up my rights. What kind of negotiation is that? No, I demand my rights, and you stop your illegality. And that’s the whole basis of BDS.”

Among the non-negotiable “rights” Abdulhaq says AMP and the BDS movement insist upon is the so-called “right of return” for Palestinians. That would lead to a huge influx of Palestinians into Israel, swamping the country demographically and ending its existence as a Jewish homeland.

That’s just fine with conference speaker Lamis Deek, an attorney and board memberfor CAIR’s New York chapter. She repeatedly described Israelis as “serial killers” intent on ethnic cleansing.

“There is a serial killer in our home,” Deek said. “And what do you do when you are confronted with a serial killer, right? You protect yourself. You protect your family. You scream for help. And you expect that when you scream for help from a serial killer everybody is gonna come to your aid, they’re gonna come protect and defend you. Right? You don’t expect somebody to intervene on behalf of the serial killer … and say ‘the serial killer has some rights, let us tell you about the rights the serial killer has’ as he begins to kill you. Right?”

Like Sarsour, Deek expressed frustration at Muslims who accept other viewpoints.

“Nothing has set back the Palestinian movement in the U.S. more than demands by people who want to work and focus their efforts on [Washington] D.C., by their demands that we tame our demands for Palestine,” she said.

Dawud Walid, CAIR’s Michigan director, echoed the message about Muslim groups who appear too accommodating. “If these organizations claim to represent the Muslim community,” he said, “then when we see them doing things that go outside of the mainstream of the (UI word) of our community, we need to hold them accountable, and if they continue to step outside of the boundaries, then we should withdraw our support and make that very public.”

Walid has acknowledged that his employer, which works hard to project an image as a civil rights organization, really sees itself as “defenders of the Palestinian struggle.”

Deek, meanwhile, spoke of the harm done to the Palestinian cause by the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords. While that initiative may have given Palestinians autonomy, it came at the cost of unity, she said.

It’s not clear what she means. But, since 2006, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has governed the West Bank while Hamas controls Gaza.

Oslo also made it more difficult to engage in terrorism – what Deek calls “armed resistance.”

“Now armed resistance, self-defense, has been the only direct challenge to Zionist colonial expansion. Nothing else is a direct challenge,” she told the AMP conference. “Everything else is an indirect challenge, right? Pressure – economic pressure, diplomatic pressure. So this national united Palestinian body was able – by supporting the resistance – was able to be part of directly impacting and influencing Zionist policy.”

Advocating more Palestinian violence is consistent for an AMP gathering. The organization’s message never mentions peaceful co-existence. An Investigative Project on Terrorism investigation found connections between at least five AMP officials and speakers and the defunct Hamas support network called the “Palestine Committee.”

During the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, AMP’s then-National Campus Coordinator Taher Herzallah posted images of wounded Israelis, calling them “The most beautiful site (sic) in my eyes.” He defended indiscriminate Hamas rocket fire at Israeli civilian communities as “an audible cry for help” and “an act of resistance.”

Two clear messages emerged from the AMP conference. “Resistance” is better than renouncing violence and seeking peace. All Muslims who might disagree, even if they see eye-to-eye on other issues, are no longer welcome.

These extreme stands came from speakers who enjoy prominent political profiles and high-level contacts.

Sarsour is right about one thing. There is a rift in her community. She and her AMP panelists are the ones widening it.

David Horowitz Takes on Administrators Bullying Students at Tufts

November 30, 2016

David Horowitz Takes on Administrators Bullying Students at Tufts, Front Page Magazine (The Point), Daniel Greenfield, November 30, 2016

hamas_finger_poster_2016_cropped_0

The free speech movement has become the anti-free speech movement. And as the Freedom Center fights the anti-Semitic SJP hate group, its poster campaigns are touching nerves from GMU, where Oleg Atbashian was arrested and spent 14 hours in jail and has been threatened with years of prison time, to Tufts, where the administrators are bullying students.

Now David Horowitz is fighting mad and fighting back.

November 29, 2016

James M. Glaser, Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, Tufts University

Jianmin Qu, Dean of the School of Engineering, Tufts University

Gentlemen,

I have just received your letter of November 14, conveying your “serious concerns regarding the posters placed on the Tufts University campus on October 19, 2016,” for which we took responsibility. The posters in question identify a hate group – Students for Justice in Palestine, which is sponsored by your institution. SJP calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, receives funding from the terrorist organization Hamas, and sponsors campus resolutions to boycott Israel, which liberals ranging from Larry Summers and Alan Dershowitz to Hillary Clinton have condemned as anti-Semitic. The statements in our posters are factual, or are reasonable opinions based on the facts.

Your “serious concerns” are summed up in two claims. First that “the posters in question violate our community standards” and, second, that they “violate our poster policy which requires notification and authorization by a university office or recognized student group prior to placing posters on campus.” You ask us in future to seek such permission.

Really. The two of you have already sent a letter to every member of the Tufts student body warning them that the university condemns our posters and that, “The university will be sending a statement to the posters’ sponsors in order to make clear that such materials are not welcome on our campus.” Now what student or student group, knowing that the university condemns these ideas, and has taken the extraordinary step of warning the entire student body that our ideas are unwelcome, would be willing to risk authorizing our posters? Which is why we took the step of putting up our posters without asking permission, since we are well aware that institutions like Tufts seek to be “safe places” for a politically correct orthodoxy and can be ruthless in acting to hermetically seal off dissenting ideas like ours.

I have read your terse email many times without being able to find a single reference to anything we actually said in our posters that might violate your community standards. Nor do you mention a single community standard that we might have violated. This is just another way in which you choose to show your contempt for individuals who express ideas that make you uncomfortable. And who wouldn’t be uncomfortable in your position when someone comes along to point out that you sponsor and support organizations that accuse Jews – falsely – of stealing Arab land, maintaining an “apartheid state,” and murdering innocent women and children, while giving full-throated support to the terrorists of Hamas?

Just to be duly diligent, I went up to the Tufts’ official website and found your community principles, prominent among which is the following statement: “Freedom of expression and inquiry are fundamental to the academic enterprise.” Too bad you and the Tufts administration have abandoned this principle, and too bad you lack the candor to admit it

If you had a shred of integrity you would invite me to your campus to debate this issue. Instead you will no doubt go on suppressing our efforts, all the while pretending to support the free exchange of ideas.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz

Freedom of expression these days means leftist harassment of opposing viewpoints with the aim of suppressing them.

Islamist Organization Threatens Violence against the Trump Administration

November 28, 2016

Islamist Organization Threatens Violence against the Trump Administration, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 28, 2016

(This article is based in part on a Clarion Project article posted here earlier today. The views expressed here are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

An article posted today by The Clarion Project — which supports the reformation of Islam and opposes Sharia law and Islamic jihad — states that an Islamist organization named “Muslims of America” is planning violent confrontations with the Trump administration.

Khalifa Hussain Abdallah, (foreground) known as ‘K1’ within the group for his top ranking as an original founder, is said to be a key supervisor of these preparations for armed conflict.

Khalifa Hussain Abdallah, (foreground) known as ‘K1’ within the group for his top ranking as an original founder, is said to be a key supervisor of these preparations for armed conflict.

Here’s an interview by Bill O’Reilly with Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro.  Presented on January 15, 2015, it deals with Muslims of America and other Islamist groups active in Obama’s America:

The Clarion Project article published today states that,

Multiple confidential sources inside of a powerful jihadist group within the United States have informed the Christian Action Network and the Clarion Project that members have been told to arm themselves in anticipation of raids by the Trump Administration.

It seems odd that sources inside the organization would give advance warning of its intentions, but they appear to have done so. The organization seems well motivated, equipped and trained to carry out its threats.

The members believe that President-elect Trump is part of a satanic-Zionist conspiracy to destroy Islam, and that he is fulfilling apocalyptic End Times prophecies. Any action taken against MOA is seen as part of a war on Islam, a situation that permits violent jihad.

The preparations for armed confrontation are described as “self-defense measures,” but one source cautioned that the group could decide to take “offensive” action if it believes armed conflict is imminent. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

The Pakistan-based spiritual leader of Muslims of America (MOA), Sheikh Gilani, told top MOA officials (known as “khalifas”) to order all unarmed members to obtain firearms, licenses and hunting permits in order to resist raids on the group’s approximately 22 compounds that they expect to happen under the Trump Administration. Additional “security” was also called up and assault rifles have been mentioned as desirable.

The group now expects the FBI “to reopen its cases against them as a homegrown terrorist organization,” one of the confidential sources told Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network and Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project.

The sources independently stated that members across the country were told of instructions from Sheikh Gilani to “be prepared to fight.” The message reportedly relayed to members was to “hear and obey,” using language identical to the oath of allegiance members sign when they join the group. He predicted, “You will be tested.” [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

MOA members have a long history of terrorism, extremism and criminal activity including weapons trafficking. A 2007 FBI report obtained by Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project states:

“The documented propensity for violence by this organization supports the belief the leadership of the MOA extols membership to pursue a policy of jihad or holy war against individuals or groups it considers enemies of Islam, which includes the US Government.” [Emphasis added.]

It warned that MOA “possesses an infrastructure capable of planning and mounting terrorist campaigns within the U.S. and overseas.”

According to an article posted by The Clarion Project in 2013,

A secret Canadian intelligence report described al-Fuqra as a “militant Sufi sect” that believes “there is a Satanic Zionist conspiracy to destroy Islam and that the Fuqra is God’s chosen instrument to defeat the enemies of Islam.” Among those they say are complicit in the conspiracy are Jews, Hindus, other Muslims and the governments of the U.S. and Canada.[5] Gilani has said, “We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.”[6] He says that the “U.S. has become a pawn of hidden hands that use America’s wealth and the innocent blood of their sons and daughters to wage their wars against Muslims.[7] [Emphasisadded.]

MOA says it has 22 settlements across the United States.[8] A 2006 report for law enforcement put the number at above 35 and estimated that the organization has 3,000 members. It said that the organization is set up like “classically structured terrorist cells” and that Gilani is “now known as an international terrorist.” It said that at least seven of the communes are used for paramilitary training and that members are also sent to Pakistan for further instruction. [9]There are unconfirmed reports of members being trained in Sudan.[10]

A former high-level MOA operative that was a NYPD informant says that MOA also has set up operations in Trinidad, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Venezuela. He said that the paramilitary training is now only given to a select group. He describes MOA as being cult-like and said that most of the children are taught privately on its premises and are illiterate. He says he witnessed vicious punishments, including the beating of a 50-year old woman, for violating the strict moral code set by Gilani.[11] Two former female MOA members were interviewed by a filmmaker in 2011 and told stories of abuse, polygamy, forced marriages, brainwashing and terrorist activity.[12]

MOA believes that Gilani is a miracle-making representative of Allah. He claimed he exited his body to meet Jesus and the forthcoming Mahdi in 2009. Khalid Khawaja, a former pilot for Osama Bin Laden and a close friend of Gilani’s, says that “One white American [follower of Gilani’s] told me that there are thousands of people in America, who, if they are asked to cut off one limb so that they can stay with him, they are ready to do that.”

“If you push him to that stage, that he has no option but to declare jihad on America… it will blow like a volcano,” he said.[13]

He also said, “I am sure of one thing, Osama does not have even one of his followers as committed as Sheik Mubarak Gilani. Osama does not have even one as committed as the least of his people.”[14]

Gilani says that Jews are “an example of human Satans”[15] and that “I have never seen, in the whole of my life or even in the past thousand years, a Jew who will tell the truth.”[16] In making that case for Muslim-Christian relations, Gilani says, “the Jews tried to murder Jesus, son of Mary.”[17]

MOA believes that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were part of a Satanic-Zionist conspiracy to wage war on Islam and stop Muslim-Christian unity. Gilani has referred to Osama Bin Laden as a “Saudi activist.”[18] MOA’s newspaper, the Islamic Post, praised Iranian President Ahmadinejad when he called for an independent investigation into 9/11 at the United Nations.[19]

The MOA also believes that evil “jinn beings” possess human beings. It says that the movies Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, The Exorcist and Harry Potter were part of “jinn” plots to corrupt minds and spread Satanic influence.[20]

Jamaat ul-Fuqra has a history of terrorist and criminal activity. At least a dozen members have been convicted and its members have been accused of involvement in at least 10 assassinations and 17 firebombings since 1980.[21]

A 2004 report funded by the Justice Department said that “members of the Fuqra group have raised money by taking advantage of a variety of social service programs, including worker’s compensation, public health care, welfare, and food stamps programs. Other crimes committed by Fuqra members include the creation and use of false identification cards, birth certificates, and other forged documents.”[22] The group recruits heavily from those with criminal backgrounds.[23] The group is also known to use security companies as fronts. [Emphasis added.]

A secret tape made by Gilani’s followers in Pakistan in the 1980s proves that the purpose of the camps in the U.S. is to facilitate paramilitary training. In the video, Gilani boasts of having “one of the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare” and invites interested Muslims to contact MOA offices in Pakistan or in several states in the U.S.

The film shows Gilani followers receiving the training and practicing the hijacking of vehicles, use of firearms, hand-to-hand combat, setting off explosives and other violent acts. In one scene, an instructor says, “Act like you are a friend, then kill him.”[24]

In 1989, the FBI raided a storage locker in Colorado Springs used by a Fuqra member and discovered weapons, explosives and plans for terrorist attacks, including the murder of Imam Rasad Khalifa in Arizona. He was a Muslim that was branded an apostate for his interpretations of the religion.[25] He was killed in 1990 exactly as the plans described.

The FBI discovered that the Fuqra members had to pledge, “I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah’s sake.”

The biggest Fuqra terror plot was attempted in 1991 and it aimed to kill 4,500 people. Five operatives tried to bomb a Hindu temple and an Indian cinema in the Toronto area during the Hindu Festival of Lights. The terrorists possessed a book authored by Gilani that says, “The mission of this Jamaat ul-Fuqra is to lead Muslims to their final victory over Communists, Zionists, Hindus and deviators.”[26]

In October 1992, law enforcement authorities shut down Fuqra’s 101-acre commune at Buena Vista and discovered that it was essentially a terrorist training camp financed through crime. A poem was found that reads, “Come join my troops and army/Says our Sheikh Gilani/Prepare to sacrifice your head/A true believer is never dead/Say ‘Victory is in the Air’/The kafir’s blood will not be spared.”[27]

One terrorist involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Clement Rodney Hampton, was a Fuqra member and had been trained by the group near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was convicted for his role in another campaign to bomb several New York City targets.

In December 1993, Sheikh Gilani reportedly attended a terrorist conference in Khartoum, Sudan. Among the groups represented were Hamas, Hezbollah, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and others. [28] Some reports say that Osama Bin Laden was present, a believable claim as he lived in the country at the time.[29]

In 2001, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and executed in Pakistan when he was on his way to interview Gilani. He has never been charged and denies involvement but says that Pearl was sent to assassinate him.

In 2009, Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro obtained two MOA tapes. One showed women training at its Islamberg headquarters in military fatigue. Only the first two digits in the on-screen date could be seen, indicating it was made in 2000 or afterwards. The trainees were seen marching in formation, practicing hand-to-hand combat, learning to use knives and swords and firing guns into a lake.

A second video showed MOA leaders declaring that the U.S. is a Muslim-majority country and vowing to defend it from foreign and domestic enemies. The speakers said they would never declare jihad on their country but “will not sit idly by and let our country be destroyed by this hidden hand.”[30]

In February 2010, Pakistan refused entry to two high-level MOA members.[31] It was reported in early 2010 by multiple sources that a large number of MOA members had suddenly moved out of their communes.

The current threat by Muslims of America must be taken seriously. Although many of their notions are loony, that makes them more, not less, dangerous.