A Victory in opposition to Muslim Day at the Florida State Capitol
March 11th was Muslim Day at Florida’s State Capitol in Tallahassee. Rain prevented a planned news conference and rallies by opponents from taking place outside, but some important developments occurred inside.
Muslim Day at the Florida State Capitol was sponsored by a group called United Voices for America (UVA). The founder and director of UVA is Ahmed Bedier.
There is certainly nothing wrong with anyone petitioning their elected officials. The issue raised by the FloridaSecurity Council (FSC), ACT! For America, Former Muslims United (FMU) and Americans against Hate (AAH) was the need for legislators to know who they were meeting with and understand the UVA’s agenda.
“The purpose of Muslim Day at the Capitol”, said Tom Trento founder of the FSC “was to deceive lawmakers into believing UVA is a benign civil rights organization, representing disenfranchised minorities and immigrants on such issues as healthcare and education. Since the Council of American Islamic relations (CAIR) was founded by HAMAS (Muslim Brotherhood of Palestine), and UVA was founded by a CAIR operative, this makes UVA the grandchild of a terrorist organization whose only reason for being is to wage a global Jihad against non-Muslims and former Muslims”.
On the prior day, a three hour information briefing was held in the IMAX Theater not far from the State Capitol building complex. A group of experts presented information on the background and alliances of the UVA founded by Mr. Bedier. Members of the Florida legislature, legislative staff, the media and the public were invited. ACT! For America chapter leaders, Tea Party Businessmen and 9/12 group activists were among those who attended the briefing.
Dr. Rich Swier of the FSC moderated the briefings. Dr. Swier is a retired US Army Lt. Col., who helped develop Counter-Terrorism policy for the Army during the Reagan Administration. Joe Kaufmann, who has investigated the CAIR Muslim Brotherhood connections since 2003 and who has successfully combated CAIR lawsuits in Texas, laid out the connections between CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and Ahmed Bedier, the UVA event organizer. Kaufman highlighted Bedier’s past associations with self confessed funder and national leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami al Arian. David Gaubatz, co-author of Muslim Mafia, described how the Muslim Brotherhood groups are financed, and how they infiltrate and influence Government. He indicated that the CAIR lawsuit against both him and his son had ironically confirmed the authenticity of more than 60,000 incriminating documents, 60 of which are included in Gaubatz’s book. Author and lecturer Nonie Darwish Executive Director and Jerry Gordon Director of FMU discussed the mission, values and goals of FMU. Darwish gave specific examples of apostate victims in her native Egypt and presented the results of Freedom Pledges sent to almost four dozen Florida Muslim leaders requesting that they abjuring death threats against former Muslims. They didn’t respond. Sharheryar Gill, Associate counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a non-profit organization working for the defense of religious liberties, addressed threats to former Muslims in his native Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world. A young American former Muslim discussed her successful defense by the ACLJ in a case involving a fraudulent marriage arranged by her Pakistani-born father. Rabbi Jonathan Hausman of Boston discussed the folly and dangers of interfaith outreach efforts with the Muslim community.
Following, the panels David Beamer, father of 9/11 Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer, spoke eloquently and articulately of the courage shown by his son and fellow passengers. As he noted this was the first victory in the war against Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately as he noted all of the heroes on Flight 93 died valiantly in diverting the aircraft to crash in a field in southwestern, Pennsylvania. Beamer was followed by Israeli American Tuly Wultz, a former IDF Special Forces officer whose teen age son Daniel was fatally injured in 2006 in a suicide bombing attack during a family vacation in Israel. Daniel Wultz lived for 27 days. Tuly was severely injured as well. Tuly told of the hatred of his son and Jews expressed by the Palestinian suicide bomber’s mother who considered her son a hero. Randy McDaniels, ACT! For America Jacksonville chapter leader, introduced the two final speakers, Michael Jackson, representing the Tea Party Businessmen’s Group and Jesse Johnson of the 9/12 organization.
Despite the rain, teams of activists fanned out to button hole and ask Florida legislators to question Bedier and Muslim representatives about why they didn’t sign the FMU Freedom Pledge to abjure threats to the lives of former Muslims mandated under Sharia law.
There was a significant victory in this effort organized by the FSC. The Attorney General’s Office cancelled an appointment with Bedier and his UVA entourage. In its place a briefing was held on the issues raised in the IMAX theater session. Among those attending the meeting with the representatives of the Attorney General were Dr. Rich Swier, Joe Kaufman, David Gaubatz, Rabbi Jon Hausman and Jerry Gordon.
The UVA held a private invitation only session from which more than 35 opposition activists were excluded. There were two shoving incidents involving Joe Kaufman and video producer J. Mark Campbell who were accosted by Dr. Bassem Alhalabi, a professor at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Kaufman had previously written , “ Prior to arriving at FAU, Alhalabi provided the school with a reference from PIJ leader and future convicted terrorist Sami Amin Al-Arian. Alhalabi had been a Research Assistant for Al-Arian at the University of South Florida (USF) from 1989 to 1990”.
Despite these confrontations, it appeared that the activists organized by the FSC achieved a victory in Tallahassee. As Rabbi Hausman said, “this was a lesson in how to conduct an effective counterinsurgency education campaign”.
Trashing Wilders: Is FoxNews the best PR investment ever made by Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal?
Last night, FoxNews Special Report fielded both a 'hard news' segment and pundit panel commentary drawing attention to Geert Wilders' whose poll standing has soared in The Netherlands in the wake of the dissolution of the Fourth Balkenende coalition government and a snap election for a new parliament is scheduled for June 9th.
A call from Andy Bostom drew my attention to the fact that despite FoxNews Channel labeling itself as “fair and balanced,” according to Bostom, it was “out-doing the BBC” in castigating Wilders as a populist demagogue. A man, who according to Charles Krauthammer doesn’t know the difference between Islam and Islamism. We wonder if Krauthammer knows much about the former to enable him to distinguish it from the latter. But neither does Glen Beck, after all he said he read the Quran and considers Islam a religion of peace and calls Wilders a “fascist.”
Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier featured a segment tonight on Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ blasphemy trial in the Netherlands. (See some of NRB’s John L. Work’s posts on it here and here.)
The segment featured these descriptors of Wilders:
“A man who inspires fierce emotions.”
“Anger on the streets of London. The object of the demonstration was a recent visit by Far-Right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.”
“His Anti-Muslim rhetoric makes him a target of critics.”
“Wilders says Muslim head scarves should be banned, he’s branded the Muslim prophet Muhammed a pedophile and likened the Muslim Koran to Mein Kampf.”
Later on Special Report they featured a panel in response to the story in which host Jim Angle questioned Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, and A.B. Stoddard. Krauthammer said that Wilders was wrong about Islam — that the Dutch politician did not see a difference between Islam and Islamism. *Rolls eyes.* So those who follow “Islam” ignore passages of the Koran and those who follow “Islamism” actually do what the book tells them to do? Is that right, Charles? Just want to make sure I’m up to speed on the preferred Orwellianisms on the Politically Correct Right.
Stoddard’s comments — she said that Wilders saw no difference between terrorist Muslims and non-violent Muslims — indicate that it’s likely that her first exposure to Wilders was the segment. And Kristol? He dismissed Wilders as a “demagogue.”
This is the latest evidence that makes Prince Alaweed bin Talal, the 22nd richest person in this world with wealth valued at over $16 billion in 2009 according to Forbes ,one savvy investor when it comes to influencing America’s opinion-makers and ultimately the American public about his version of Islam: Wahhabism. Bin Talal is the second largest stockholder of NewsCorp, Inc. that owns FoxNewsChannel. When he purchased 5.5 % of NewsCorp back in 2005, he immediately called his newfound friend, Rurpert Murdoch and asked him to pull those lurid filmed segments on French Muslims youths torching cars in Paris, and other major cities in France and instead talk about poverty and unemployment as the cause of these Jihadi-like outbursts. When that occurred, a lot us knew then that FoxNewsChannel was lost. So, when this Special Report segment aired last night, as night follows day, the pundits became an amen corner, to quote Pat Buchanan, not for Israeli, but rather for Saudi Arabian interests.
Diana West has been tracking Alaweed’s influence at FoxNews. In her “Death of a grown Up" blog post, Fox News: Best Investment Saudi Prince Talal Ever Made, she noted this about last night Special Report news and panel segment:
It was pile-on time at Fox News tonight as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, a gal whose name I missed and Bill Kristol all branded Geert Wilders beyond the pale tonight.
Beck classified Geert as a fascist.
Krauthammer said Geert didn't know the difference between Islam and Islamism -- never mind that according to Krauthammer's idea of Islamic scholarship, neither did Mohammed.
The gal is the middle said she agreed with Imam Krauthammer and added that if people like this (Geert) are elected to lead Holland it will suffer the consequences.
Kristol called Geert a demagogue.
In other words, a stomach-turning display -- or should I say halal?
Fact is, this anti-Geert pundit solidarity will only delight Newscorp stakeholder Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. That's because it is Wilders in the Netherlands who stands as the unexpectedly strong spearhead of resistance to the Islamization of Europe and the wider West. As a scion of the most powerful sharia dictatorship in the world, Prince Talal doesn't like that. How fortunate for him that Fox News doesn't like it, either.
In an earlier TownHall.com column, West raised the question of FoxNews Channel ‘s pro-Muslim influence on its ‘fair and balanced’ new and commentary presentations might cause it to be registered as Foreign agent:
First off, is that a farfetched question? Not when a leading member of the ruling family of the Sharia-totalitarian "kingdom" of Saudi Arabia, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has made himself the second-largest shareholder of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Fox News' parent company.
There have been other eye-catching displays of Alwaleed's largesse -- $500,000 in 2002 to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Hamas- and Muslim-Brotherhood-linked entity, and a whopping $27 million, also in 2002, to the families of Palestinian "martyrs," aka suicide bombers. These, along with Alwaleed's self-described "very close relationship" with Murdoch son and apparent heir-apparent James, a left-wing global-warmist with virulently anti-Israel views, should only deepen Americans' concerns about Fox's ties to "the prince." Recently, Murdoch and Alwaleed have discussed expanding their business relationship through the Murdoch purchase of a substantial stake in Rotana, Alwaleed's huge Arab media company.
Before entering his Murdoch association, Alwaleed gave a remarkably candid interview in 2002 about what Arab News described as his belief that "Arabs should focus more on penetrating U.S. public opinion as a means to influencing decision-making" rather than boycotting U.S. products, an idea of the moment.
The Arab News reported: "Arab countries can influence U.S. decision-making 'if they unite through economic interests, not political,' (Alwaleed) stressed. 'We have to be logical and understand that the U.S. administration is subject to U.S. public opinion. We (Arabs) are not so active in this sphere (public opinion). And to bring the decision-maker on your side, you not only have to be active inside the U.S. Congress or the administration but also inside U.S. society.'"
When I commiserated with Bostom last night, we wondered what FoxNews would say, should Wilders be asked by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to form a ruling coalition as his Freedom party could emerge as the strongest party in the upcoming June 9th parliamentary election. Then, we’ll see whether FoxNews changes its line from trashing Wilders to consider him the equivalent of a wartime Churchillian figure rolling up his sleeves to stop “the tsunami of Islamification” of his native Holland and Europe.
Taliban leader arrested in Pakistan May not be Adam Gadahn
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that tha Taliban leader arrested in Pakistan may not be the quixotic American Al Qaeda media maven, Adam Gadahn. The WSJ reports cites Pakistani officials as saying now that the Taliban leader maybe someone by the name of Abu Yahya. The article,"Taliban Leader Arrested in Pakistan", notes :
Earlier, media reports quoted officials in Pakistan as saying the man was an American-born spokesman for al Qaeda, Adam Gadahn. But the senior Pakistani official said he didn't believe Mr. Gadahn had been arrested.
A second senior Pakistani official also denied that any American national has been seized. "Adam Gadahn has not been captured," he said.
The arrest of another al Qaeda leader would mark a victory in the U.S.-led battle against the extremist Islamic group, continuing what appears to be increased cooperation by Pakistan in the U.S. effort. The Pakistanis have recently detained several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement's second in command.
However, it wasn't clear late Sunday who Abu Yahya was, or what role he might have played in the extremist group.
Mr. Gadahn also is suspected of helping al Qaeda leaders improve English-language graphics in their Internet video messages.
The arrest of a U.S. citizen such as Mr. Gadahn could also expose the legal complexities that Washington faces in dealing with homegrown terrorists—if the suspect were to wind up in U.S. hands.
Mr. Gadahn was indicted during the Bush administration on charges of treason and material support for terrorism, civilian crimes that must be tried in a federal district court under full constitutional protections. As a U.S. national, he couldn't be tried by military commission.
Boston activist and J street Jive blogger extraordinaire, Hillel Stavis went to Harvard the other night and was ‘shocked, shocked” about what he discovered. Middle East Studies "expert" Stephen P. Cohen, leftist scholar at the J Street ally, Israel Policy Forum and habitué at the Aspen Institute with its wealthy Jewish liberal backers, wrote Obama’s Cairo speech. See Stavis’s post Revelation at Harvard, Who wrote Obama’s Cairo speech?
Not to be confused - there are two policy wonks by the name of Stephen P. Cohen. The other is a south Asian expert at the Brookings Institution and another dhimmi, given the latter’s sponsorship of his role as co-organizer of the Brookings "Islamic World and US Policy" forum that meets in Doha, Qatar every year.
Why did Cohen, who was tapped by Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff to write a speech for the President, convey such a blatant demonization of his own people and Israel before the audience at the Vatican of the Sunni world, al Azhar University, in Cairo last June? For answers read these excerpts from Stavis’ piece on Cohen, the Cairo speech writer, whom he closely questioned at the Harvard Center for Middle East Studies presentation (listen to the audio links in the Stavis post):
The much ballyhooed speech, originally scheduled for Morocco, was changed to Cairo to have the greatest impact in "correcting" the perceived Muslim hostility to the U.S.engendered by George.W. Bush. The Wall St. Journal and Politico guessed it was the product of Ben Rhodes, Obama's only foreign policy speechwriter (and erstwhile novelist: "The Oasis of Love") who traveled with him for his first major European speech, often dubbed the "Blame America First" speech.
Well, speculate no more. The writer wasn't Ben Rhodes or Chris Brose, former foreign policy speechwriter for Condoleeza Rice. If we can believe him - and there is no reason to doubt his word - it was Stephen P. Cohen. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called Cohen a week before the trip and asked him to prepare a first draft for the speech, "A New Beginning."
That's right! BHO chose a Jew to write the most important address by an American President -in the middle of a war against Islamic terrorists - to the Muslim world.
Steve Cohen, founder of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, Harvard PhD, visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Princeton and other high powered institutions, recently spoke at Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies beneath the smiling portraits of Harvard's stellar contributors to the landscape of failed foreign policy initiatives, notably, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. We all remember "Zbig", the guy who helped weaponize the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan along with someone called Osama Bin Laden. Now that was a brilliant move.
To trace the history of the Jewish People in Israel from a point 70 or so years ago is grossly and historically inaccurate - and a slander. Speechwriter Cohen quickly followed up the slap with another: Imputing the seemingly endless Middle East conflict to Israel's creation by visiting "the pain of dislocation" upon the Palestinian Arabs. That one, needles to say, went over big in Cairo and around the Muslim world.
To further woo and wow his Cairo audience, Cohen decided to recount the Isra, or The Prophet's miraculous "night journey" to heaven on the back of his noble, flying steed, Buraq, during which he hangs with Moses and Jesus. Cohen reads ecumenicism into what most of the Muslim world sees as triumphalism. Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran; only the term, al-Masgidu l'-Aqsa, the "farthest mosque." Considering the fact that Palestine had not yet been conquered and colonized by Muslim armies (621 CE), many scholars dismiss as ridiculous the notion that that "mosque" indicates Jerusalem. At any rate, Cohen not only buys into the story, but glorifies it.
For at least the past 75 years, Palestinian Arabs (and much of the Muslim world) have attempted to deny the abundant historical data and physical evidence that substantiate Jewish presence as the sovereign people in their own land for at least a thousand years before the birth of Mohammed and the Islamic conquest of Palestine. Official after official of both Hamas and the PA have denied Jewish existence there and have refused to acknowledge the historicity of Har ha Bayit, The Temple Mount, built by Herod the Great over 2000 years ago. The Islamic Waqf, or Holy Trust for the Haram al Sharif, has even attempted to destroy priceless Jewish (and other) artifacts uncovered on the Temple Mount during expansions of the Al Aqsa mosque.
Having erased the nettlesome matter of Jewish patrimony, Cohen then goes beyond mere dhimmitude and starts writing like a true believer. His rhapsodic rendering of Prophet's miraculous night journey to heaven could have come from the pen of a ninth century compiler of the hadiths.
When asked during the Q&A why he had traced Jewish "aspirations" for their land only as far as the end of World War II, he did show a measure of remorse - but only to extend that connection back to 1920! He still refused to acknowledge the historicity of thousands of years of Jewish presence on the land.
Yes, "upsetting to Israelis", but apparently not so for Mr. Cohen.
Yet in spite of his regrets over making Israelis uncomfortable, he concluded by again warning Israelis to hew to the Administration line by heeding Joe Biden's upcoming admonitions in Israel, no doubt reiterating Obama's demands for a settlement freeze.
Again, the Academy has marched the world ever closer to the abyss in its insatiable desire to become the perfect dhimmi.
Here is a succinct piece on the Iran threat by Amb. (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, consultant on US affairs and Former Minister for Congressional Affairs at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC published by Israel National News. Perhaps it should be given to Vice President Biden and his minders at the State Departrment and the Oval Office as 'cliff notes' in preparation for his major policy speech to distrustful Israelis at Tel Aviv university when he visits there this week.
The former ambassador says it all in this short and succinct article: Take heed, world, Israel's destruction is not Iran's only goal.
1. Iran's super-goal: Domination of the Persian Gulf and its natural resources.
2. Iran's super-enemies: Those who undermine Iran's super-goal.
3. Iran's super-capabilities: Nuclear capabilities are developed in order to advance Iran's super-goal and defeat
Iran's super-enemies: Those who undermine Iran's super-goal. Iran's super-enemies.
4. Iran's nuclear would be leveraged, mostly, to force US and NATO out of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. It would be leveraged against Iraq – its arch rival since the seventh century – and against Saudi Arabia, which Iran considers an apostate regime. All Gulf States are perceived by Iran as a key prize, required to control the flow and the price of oil and to bankroll Teheran's megalomaniac regional and global aspirations.
5. US national security and US standard of living would be severely undermined by Iran's domination of the Persian Gulf. The prevention of a nuclear Iran constitutes a top US national security priority.
6. The Sanction Delusion plays into Teheran's hands: Russia and China consider the US their major long-term rival. Their assessment of Iran is dramatically different than the US assessment. Therefore, they (as well as some European countries) will not implement effective sanctions against Iran.
7. Preemption/prevention – and not deterrence or retaliation – is the only effective means to prevent the nuclearization of Iran and to spare the US and the globe devastating cost.
Is Geert Wilders the odds on favorite for the next Dutch PM?
Der Spiegel published an article yesterday, in the wake of Wednesday's local elections in The Netherlands - see here- suggesting that Geert Wilders represented a minority of "disgruntled Dutch voters". Further, the Der Spiegel article opined and that he would ultimately be unable to form a ruling coalition after the upcoming June parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. That is message nattering EU elitists are conveying in the wake of Wednesday's local election victories for the Dutch Freedom Party in both Almere and The Hague.
Apparently, those same naysayers in the EU haven't checked with the bookmakers on the real odds of a possible Wilders national victory in Holland.
Here in the US, the virtual on-line bookmakers are giving Wilders favorable odds in the early June parliamentary elections. Take a look at this latest Inkling, Inc. question:
Who will become the Dutch prime minister after the elections of June 9th 2010?
If you believe these odds, then Geert is running neck and neck with caretaker PM Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian Democrats for the top PM position. We wonder what the odds are on the Dutch PM race over at Ladbrokes. PLC, the UK bookmaker?
There is a quote from the fabled Afro American baseball pitching great, Satchel Paige that applies here: "don't look back, [someone] maybe gaining on you." The Dutch parliamentary elections are getting very interesting in large measure we believe because Wilders is listening to the concerns of Dutch "groundlings' on more than just the "tsunami of Islamification" issue. Meanwhile the parties on the left are arrogantly dismissive of the intelligent ordinary Dutch voters. The left in Holland is behaving like fawning Dhimmi to defend Muslim interests.
Radio Nederland reported that Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party made solid gains in its first local election contests in the new town of Almere northeast of Amsterdam and the Hague. Under the headline of Radio Nederland noted:
The anti-Islam Freedom Party of far-right politician Geert Wilders has made major gains in local elections held in the Netherlands. Taking part in two cities it has become the largest party in Almere and the second largest in The Hague.
Mr. Wilders was visibly buoyed by the results and was characteristically combative saying this was the first step in the upcoming campaign for parliamentary elections.
"The national campaign begins today in Almere and The Hague, tomorrow in all of the Netherlands… On 9 June, we'll conquer the Netherlands," said Mr. Wilders.
And, of course, Geert Wilders now has his eye on the larger prize. The Freedom Party has profited more than any other from the fall of the Dutch cabinet ten days ago. The party currently has 9 seats in parliament (out of 150).
If voters had elected a new parliament on Wednesday, the Freedom Party would have won between 24 and 27 seats. In one poll, it would be the largest single party. If his party does that well come June, Geert Wilders could become the next prime minister.
The national opinion polls also indicate that forming the next coalition will be more difficult than ever. Dutch coalition governments are usually made up of two or three parties. The next coalition will likely need four or more parties to reach a majority in parliament.
Meanwhile, the Times On-line highlighted Wilders arrival in the UK on Friday to show his anti-Islam Film, Fitna, in the House of Lords at the invitation of Lord Pearson, Chairman of the UK Independent Party and Baroness Caroline Cox. But there could be a bit of a punch up near Westminster, as the English Defense League could be squaring off at radical Muslim groups protesting Wilders. In a piece headlined: “Geert Wilders returns to Britain, looking for a fight”,Times-on-line noted:
Nicknamed “Mozart” on account of a platinum hairdo that looks strikingly like an 18th-century wig, Mr. Wilders has played on the discords in Dutch society with virtuoso skill. As in Britain, many Dutch voters are alarmed by the scale of immigration, battered by the global economic crisis, culturally anxious and increasingly receptive to his grim warnings about a “tsunami of Islamification”.
The political heir to Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch populist politician who called for a halt to Muslim immigration and who was murdered in the 2002 election campaign, Mr. Wilders has portrayed himself as the only politician in his country brave enough to stand up to militant Islam, a threat that he has compared to Nazism. “A century ago there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today there are about one million. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European civilisation,” he predicts.
In January a Dutch court ordered the public prosecutor to try Mr. Wilders on charges of fomenting hatred and discrimination. Mr. Wilders indicated that he would call witnesses in order to prove Koran-inspired violence, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the man convicted of murdering the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh in 2004.
Although he faces 16 months in prison if convicted, the trial represents a political goldmine for Mr. Wilders and helps to explain his recent rise in opinion polls. If he is convicted he will paint himself as martyr to political correctness; if he is acquitted he will claim vindication. The trial has been suspended until after the election.
Inadvertently, Britain also did much to boost his standing in February last year by banning him from entering the country as an “undesirable person”, citing EU laws enabling member states to exclude someone whose presence could threaten public security. Mr. Wilders loudly condemned Gordon Brown as “the biggest coward in Europe” and some 84 per cent of Dutch voters objected to the way that Mr. Wilders had been ejected by Britain.
The ban was later overturned by an asylum and immigration tribunal. On Friday, at the invitation of the UKIP leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Baroness Cox of Queensbury, he will show Fitna to MPs, peers and guests before giving a press conference at Westminster.
A comment posted on the Times on-line piece had a suggestion as to whom Wilders might invite in his defense, the “Green Prince”, Mosab Hassan Youssef, the son of a Hamas Sheik who converted to Christianity and became an effective spy for Israel’s Shin Bet foiling many suicide bombing attempts. The comment cited Youssef’s characterization of Islam from a recent interview in terms that appear as if they came from a Wilders’ script:
During his 50-minute interview, for which he arrived with armed security, Youssef took shots at Hamas leaders including political chief Khaled Meshaal. He lashed out at Hamas, saying the organization lives in the Middle Ages.
And he hurled his most inflammatory comments at Islam, which he called a religion that teaches people to kill.
"It is not a religion of peace," said Youssef, who converted to Christianity. "The biggest terrorist is the God of the Quran. I know this is very dangerous and this will offend many people. The more you follow the steps of the prophet of Islam and the God of Islam, the more you get close to being a terrorist."
We had suggested in a prior post that should Wilders’ Freedom Party do well in the March 3rd Dutch local elections Wilders could end up being elected and asked by Queen Beatrix to help form the next ruling coalition in the Netherlands as its Prime Minister. This despite his Amsterdam criminal trial on trumped up ‘hate speech’ and ‘racism’ charges.
Mosab Hassan Yousef: “A man of rare courage” , Apostate from Islam and A Hamas Prince spy for Israel
Read this New York Daily Newsarticle on the exploits of apostate Mosab Hassan Yousef, son a Hamas leader, who became a Christian convert and spy for Israel. His efforts saved countless lives from sucide bombings by misguided Palestinian Muslim martyrs.
Note this excerpt from the Daily News piece:
He was Israel's most valuable spy inside Hamas - and certainly the most unlikely.
For more than a decade, Mosab Hassan Yousef disrupted dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts by the militant group, saving hundreds of lives.
Infiltrating the upper echelons of Hamas came relatively easy for Yousef: He is the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef.
"So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," an Israeli security agent told the Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday.
"People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it."
Melanie Philips echoes these sentiments in The Spectator, today in an article about Yousef entitled, “A Man of Rare Courage. ” Note what Philips says:
Not surprisingly, Yousef has trenchant views about Israel releasing the very terrorists he helped put in jail, indeed, in this he shows rather more backbone than many Israelis:
‘I wish I were in Gaza now,’ Yousef said by phone from California, ‘I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done.’
And on Hamas, Yousef says this:
‘Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis,’ he said. ‘Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does.’
All those foolish Brits and others who want Hamas brought in from the diplomatic cold, take note.
Israel should surely make this man a roving ambassador, to fight for the truth and justice in the Middle East to which he has so remarkably dedicated – and for which he has endangered -- his life.
My colleagues at Former Muslims United (FMU) might consider inviting Yousef to join FMU given that he is in California.. He is a hero to all apostates from Islam. He has demonstrated his fearless courage for fighting against Islam and supporting Israel.
Jay Bergman: Russian history expert publishes new book on Sakharov –“Meeting the Demands of Reason”
Professor Jay Bergman of Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), a friend of long standing ,has published a fascinating new book, Meeting the Demands of Reason, about the life and ideas of the fabled Russian human rights advocate, Andrei Sakharov. Bergman is a long suffering conservative scholar and Israel supporter. He is currentlypresident of the Connecticut affiliate of the National Association of Scholars, an organization committed to academic freedom and reasoned discourse on American universities, and a member of the Connecticut Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is a tenured member of a faculty at CCSU riddled with leftists, Islam apologists and anti-Israel and anti-war advocates. Jay was the only member of the history department at CCSU to vote in 2003 against a department resolution recommending that the university award an honorary degree to Noam Chomsky; to its eternal shame, it did so a few months later.
Bergman, as he recounts in this Connecticut Jewish Ledger interview about his book on Sakharov, was motivated to write Sakharov’s biography in part because of relatives who were Communists ideologues in the 20’s and 30’s. Bergman also has family and relatives who have made aliyah to Israel. He is a graduate of Brandeis University, and received his doctorate in Russian history fromYale University.
What follows is the Jewish Ledger interview with Bergman.
NEW BRITAIN - Soviet nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov died 20 years ago in December. He is probably better known, along with Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, as the most outspoken human-rights activist and dissident in the Soviet Union before the fall of Communism.
On the 20th anniversary of Sakharov's death, Central Connecticut State University history professor Jay Bergman published Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov" (Cornell University Press). Bergman, a specialist in Russian history, spent 11 years researching and writing the book, mining the Sakharov Archives at Brandeis University before the collection was moved to Harvard University.
Bergman became interested in the subject while studying with the "superb" Marshall Shatz at Brandeis, a pioneer scholar of Soviet dissidents. But there's a personal connection to the subject matter as well: Growing up in New York, "several of my relatives were 'deep red' Communists in the '20s and '30s, which was not uncommon among Jews," Bergman says. "I was intrigued by how and what they thought, and what they chose not to discuss."
"Meeting the Demands of Reason" is an Alternate Selection of the History Book Club.
Bergman spoke with the Ledger about Sakharov's evolution as a dissident and influence on human rights today.
Q: Why did you write this book?
A: There are books that describe Sakharov's life and activities vividly, but didn't analyze his ideas. I was interested in the larger phenomenon of Soviet dissidence, and in the dissidents themselves, mostly because of their opposition to the Soviet State. I wanted to understand on what grounds they came to oppose the state, and what effect they had on the collapse of the Soviet Union. I wrote a number of articles on the topic and then wanted to narrow down the subject matter and write a book on Sakharov. He and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were the two most prominent members of the dissident movement. The story of Sakharov and the Soviet dissidence is important because they indirectly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Q: What was Sakharov's relationship to the Jewish community? Do you see any similarity between the Jewish and non-Jewish dissidents?
A: Sakharov was not Jewish, but his second wife, Elena Bonner, is Jewish. Through her he met Jewish refuseniks - Soviet Jews who wished to leave the Soviet Union, in many cases to emigrate to Israel - and championed their cause. The most famous refusnik, Anatolii (now Natan) Sharansky, considers Sakharov his intellectual and ethical inspiration. Indeed, one of the human rights Sakharov championed especially energetically was the right of all people, not just the refuseniks or the Soviet people, to choose their country of residence. Bonner was an equal partner both in their marriage and politically. Though he was not her puppet - as Soviet propaganda continually claimed - he took her views seriously. In turn, she suffered many of the same indignities and hardships that he did.
I really don't see much difference politically between Jewish and non-Jewish dissidents, though there was a profound difference between the dissidents and the refuseniks: the former wanted to reform the Soviet Union while the latter wanted to leave it. Despite the longstanding and deep-rooted antisemitism in the Soviet Union, or maybe because of it, the dissidents did not consider their particular religion or ethnicity something that should preclude their working together on behalf of shared objectives. In the Soviet Union, Jews were legally an ethnic group. And non-Jewish as well as Jewish dissidents decried antisemitism in the Soviet Union and considered the refusal of the Soviet government to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate emblematic of the government's more general violation of human rights.
Q: How did Sakharov the physicist become Sakharov the human-rights activist? What is most compelling to you about him?
A: Sakharov the physicist became Sakharov the human rights activist through a slow accumulation of experiences and observations, from which he was able to extrapolate the conclusion that the evils and inadequacies of the Soviet system he experienced and observed were emblematic of a much larger systemic failure that could only be ameliorated by the Soviet government undertaking major reforms, the most obvious and important of which was granting the Soviet people human rights.
It's interesting to me that, having been raised and educated in a country whose political system denied its people human rights, Sakharov was able nevertheless, as I write in the last paragraph of the conclusion of my book, "to comprehend the concept of human rights, to grasp their centrality in a just society, and champion them tirelessly and eloquently under circumstances that cowed lesser men into silence."
I was surprised to learn that Sakharov and the other physicists who were put to work constructing thermonuclear weapons (i.e. hydrogen bombs) for the state were allowed to discuss sensitive political issues and even manifestly anti-Soviet works such as George Orwell's "1984." They could do this because they were isolated from the Soviet people in an installation bounded by barbed wire and defended by guards with guns and police dogs. I knew that scientists considered essential to the objectives of the Soviet leaders enjoyed a vocational autonomy that no other category of Soviet citizens was allowed. But I didn't know that they had that much of it.
Q: What is Sakharov's legacy, both in the Former Soviet Union and among human-rights activists throughout the world?
A: Sakharov's legacy consists mostly in the strength of character that enabled him to persevere in his struggle for human rights when lesser men would long ago have retreated to the pursuit of personal and purely professional interests. In the last sentence of the book I write that Sakharov's story is one of the few in history from which one can draw inspiration as well as enlightenment.
I wish I could say that Sakharov's influence on Russia, its politics, and its people continues today, 20 years after his death. But the creeping authoritarianism under Putin, which shows no signs of stopping, serves to corroborate what I wrote at the end of my book, namely, that, at the beginning of the 21st century, "Russia is not ready for Sakharov." But I also wrote that "perhaps one day it will be." National culture, which in my view is hugely important in the kind of political habits and institutions countries develop, is not immutable. Cultures, and therefore countries, can change, albeit slowly and incrementally. For that reason I remain hopeful that the humane values Sakharov fought for with great courage, intelligence, and perseverance will one day come to pass not only in Russia but in the other countries in the world where these values are absent.
Florida Security Council Protest of Muslim Day 3-10-10 in Tallahassee
Tom Trento of the Florida Security Council (FSC) is once again leading the charge of grass roots activists and concerned Floridians in protesting the second annual Muslim Day in Tallahassee on March 10th and 11th.
Watch this riveting FSC You Tube video on “Progressive Islam” created by J. Mark Campbell with the assistance of many activists.
This video connects the dots between the ‘grand jihad’ plans of the Muslim Brotherhood and front groups like CAIR, the ISNA and others here in America. These groups promote adoption of supremacist Sharia to replace the US and State Constitutions.
Muslim Day is the creation of Ahmed Bedier, founder of United Voices for America (UVA), former CAIR Tampa chapter leader and spokesperson for convicted terror supporter Professor Sami al-Arian. Al-Arian pled guilty in 2006 to a federal charge of funneling funds to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. White House Deputy Counsel Rashad Hussain, President Obama’s Ambassador -designee to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, made comments in 2004 at a Muslim Students Association (MSA) conference. These comments by Hussain have figured prominently this week in what is being called ‘SamiGate’. The SamiGate controversy arose when Hussain denied his remarks at the 2004 MSA conference about al-Arian’s trial being “political”. Note this Politco comment about the controversy:
A White House spokesman, who asked not to be named, said Tuesday afternoon that Hussain 'certainly doesn't recall making that statement [about politically motivated prosecutions]. He was on the panel to talk about his legal writing on civil liberties. Ms. Al-Arian spoke about her father.
Steve Emerson’s The Investigative Project has more on the SamiGate controversy, here.
The UVA cloaks Muslim advocacy by lobbying the Florida State Legislature and the Administration in Tallahassee on bread and butter issues. In 2009, Bedier and UVA concentrated on health and education, this year, Muslim Day in Tallahassee is focused on support for disadvantaged minorities and immigrants.
It is believed that Bedier created UVA to work around the FBI ban on meetings with local CAIR chapters in the wake of the 2009 Federal Dallas Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial. HLF founders were given life sentences for funneling $12 million to terror group Hamas. CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood fronts like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) were identified as unindicted co-conspirators. Louay Safi, an ISNA leader was listed as one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the HLF trial record. Safi is caught in another swirl of controversy given his lectures in December on Islam at Fort Hood following the massacre by Jihadist Major Nidal Hasan. He has been suspended from the multi-million dollar Pentagon contractual program providing lectures on Islam to US military forces and is the subject of an investigation by NCIS.
The 2010 FSC protest of Muslim Day in Tallahassee will feature a security briefing for state legislators and their staffs on March 10th. This will be followed by a rally and press conference on March 11th. Watch for more details as arrangements are finalized.
It's Official: the Dutch Election for a new government June 9th
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands today accepted the resignation of the center right ruling coalition led by Jan Peter Balkende of the Christian Democrats setting the stage for election of a new coalition government on Wednesday, 9 June 2010.
After the fall of the cabinet Balkende IV on 20 February, Queen Beatrix accepted the resignation of the PvdA ministers on 23 February.[1] Members of the CDA and CU replaced the resigned ministers and will continue as a demissionary cabinet with limited authorities until the elections.
Note this from Radio Nederland concerning the Dutch poltical system, the interim Balkende caretaker government and the likely time required to form a new ruling coalition. and the standing of Geert Wilders and the PVV (Freedom Party):
A caretaker government is now officially in charge of The Netherlands. In the wake of the Labour Party pulling out of the coalition late Friday night, the Christian Democrats and the Christian Union will continue to govern, but with limited authority. They will 'mind the store', as Dutch people like to put it.
Parliamentary elections will be held on the 9th of June. The caretaker government must prepare for elections, but it will not be done with its work on June 10th. It will stay in place until a new coalition government is installed. The Netherlands has a multi-party system, eleven parties currently have seats in parliament. In the best of times, forming a coalition after an election can take weeks, if not months. The record is 208 days. The average since 1945 is 72 days.
Tough formation
The upcoming formation is expected to be particularly difficult. Most coalitions have consisted of two or three parties. That's how many it usually takes to command a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament. The Netherlands is not accustomed to minority governments.
But according to the opinion polls over the past year or more, four parties may be needed to form a majority after the next election. The far-right Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders also complicates the next formation. His party is expected to become one of the largest, but due to his radical anti-Muslim stance, many are concerned about him entering a coalition. So from now until a new coalition can be formed a caretaker government will run the country.
There is no doubt that Wilders and the Freedom party may well be part of the ruling coaltion given condemnation by other Dutch political parties of the Labour Party exclusion of a role for the PVV in whatever next Dutch government is formed.
Given the Freedom Party fielding candidates for upcoming local elections in the Hague and Almere on March 3rd, there will be great interest in the results. Note what Radio Nederland said earlier this month prior to the fall of the latest Balkende government:
In just over three weeks time local council elections are due to be held in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders' Freedom Party is only fielding candidates in two cities, The Hague and Almere. However, the same poll predicts the Freedom Party would be the largest party in a general election with 26 seats. The coalition's Christian Democrats would be close behind with 25 seats followed by the conservative VVD with 23 seats.
Should the Freedom party win council seats in the two local elections, and given the likelihood that the PVV would be part of an ultimate center right ruling coaltion, Wilders' press conference at a U.K. House of Lords presentation of the film "Fitna" on March 5th should garner significant international media attention.
The suspension of Wilders' trial in the Amsterdam Court until September comes at a very interesting time in view of the fall of the Balkende government and the likelihhod that his Freedom Party may make a strong showing.
Former Muslims United leaders say:” U.S. needs to ‘wake up’ about tolerance of shari’a in America “
Former Muslims United (FMU) leaders Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan and Amil Imani acquitted themselves ably in several meetings and media interviews the group held in Washington, DC on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday morning an interview was held by Matthew Drake of ABC national TV with Wafa Sultan and the FMU contingent on apostasy, that will air later this month.
The strategic meeting with Jay Sekulow, and his legal team from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), an international non-profit law firm. The meeting focused on protections for apostates' civil rights in the U.S., U.K. EU, Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Several African human rights representatives were present at the ACLJ session with the FMU. They told of how Libya and the Saudis are funding massive Da'wa efforts in sub Sahara Africa fueled by Sharia banks and property purchases. Darwish, Sultan and Imani were interviewed by Sekulow of the ACLJ which will air on Cable TV next week.
The FMU Capitol press conference was well attended by several Congressional staffers and media representatives, notably the Washington Times (read the Water Cooler blog account below) and al Jazeera. The press conference was held to reveal the overwhelming non - responses to more than 111 letters sent to American Muslim leaders. The letters requested that they sign a Freedom Pledge abjuring Sharia death fatwas against former Muslims. Two responses to letters were received, one from Dr. M. Zudi Jasser of the American Forum for Islam and Democracy, and the other from Dr. Ali Ayami, executive director of the Washington based, Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Saudi Arabia. Read the comments from Sultan, Imani and Darwish at the Capitol Hill press conference in the WT Water Cooler blog account, below.
There was an exchange with an Al Jazeera correspondent during the Q+A at the FMU Capitol Hill press conference. She questioned Sharia death threats against apostates. This despite evidence of such death threats presented by Sultan. Imani responded to the allegations by the al Jazeera correspondent that the late Shah of Iran and his Savak secret police were worse than the Islamic Regime. Imani cited the the Islamic Regime's well documented human rights violations including rape, torture and summary execution of Iranian dissidents.
Thursday evening the FMU team had a dinner at the Wardman Park Marriott, site of the CPAC meetings, with prominent UK apostate, Sam Solomon, who was in the US for a series of lectures. We have made arrangements to interview Solomon for the NER.
Friday, the FMU team had a meeting with a US Department of Justice senior lawyer engaged in religious bigotry issues that focused on how to handle death threats against apostates for possible FBI and federal prosecution. We returned to the CPAC meeting site for interviews by Bill Whittle of PJTV with the FMU leaders, which will be up on their website shortly. Many thanks are due to Christine Brim and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy for faciliating many of these events. Having been present at these Washington FMU events the issue of Muslim treatment of apostates both here and abroad is catching a wave.
Here is the Washington Times Water Cooler blog post on the Washington, DC FMU press conference held at the House Rayburn office building:
Apostasy killing of former Muslims could become widespread in the United States if the U.S. government and Americans don't "wake up," a panel of three former Muslims said on Capitol Hill Thursday.
The talk, hosted by three members of the new civil rights organization Former Muslims United, marked the first public appearance as a self-proclaimed "apostate" of Iranian journalist Amil Imani, secretary of the group. Imani and the panel's two other speakers, authors Nonie Darwish, President, and Wafa Sultan, told the audience that ingrained American religious and ethnic tolerance and myths about Islam are combining to gravely threaten the West.
"Shi'a radical Islam and Wahhabism is coming to this country," Imani said. "There are 6,000 mosques in the United States now. All the money [we] put into gasoline comes back here and is used in the teaching of hate, violence, etc., etc." in American mosques, he said.
Sultan, who said she regularly gets death threats and emails from people saying they will cut off her fingers and rape her daughters because she left Islam, said it is merely a myth that Islamic terrorists misinterpret 'true' Islam for nefarious purposes.
Westerners "don't want to judge anybody based on their [religion]," Sultan said, "[But] Islam is not a religion. Islam is a very dangerous political ideology. ... There is no such thing as radical Islam and regular Islam or spiritual Islam. ...There is only one Islam."
In the fall of 2009 FMU sent a pledge in 111 letters to 50 Muslim organizations in the United States affirming the right of Muslims to leave Islam and not be punished or killed. (Shari'a, Muslim law, calls on Muslims to kill those who convert or otherwise leave the faith.) The document asked recipients to sign and return the pledge to FMU. Just two groups did.
The response is proof of a silent, creeping tolerance in the West for radical ideology, a development that augurs very badly for a free society, panel members said.
"You might think the threat is over there in the Middle East," said Darwish, author of "Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror." "The problem is, we have books in America teaching that apostates must be killed. ... The problems emanate from Muslim leadership in America. They won't sign any document that says, 'We are against shari'a.'"
Western governments seem oblivious to the apathy of supposedly legitimate organizations about apostasy killings and the growing ubiquity of fatwa (death warrant) issuances, the panel said.
"A fatwa of death can be issued from any country," Darwish said, citing the 2008 handing down from the Middle East by Al Qaeda of a fatwa on Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders for an "insulting" film Wilders made about the Koran. "Fatwas are issued on Arab T.V. on a regular basis. ... And these fatwas are following us right here in America. Why we are sleeping and not making a big deal about that is beyond me."
Darwish said if free reign for such practices continues, they "will change the culture in America. (They've) already changed the culture in Europe."
Did Israel's Mossad assassinate a Hamas Military Leader in Dubai?
A mysterious hit team of 11, including a woman, fly into Dubai from several European locations on January 19th with fake Irish, British, France and German passports. Posing as businessmen and tourists, some dressed in tennis togs, they efficiently tracked, forced entry and assassinated a top Hamas Military leader, allegedly involved in supply of Iranian arms and weapons to the Palestinian terror group in Gaza. After completing the hit they left a 'do not disturb sign' on the target’s Dubai hotel room and left for several destinations. A smiling woman of the hit team was caught on a CCTV film clip, as were the activities of the other members of the team. That is the likely scenario given the fascinating reports of this latest alleged Mossad assassination mission. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military wing leader was likely lured from his long term home in Damascus to Dubai by prospects of another Iranian arms deal. At least that this speculation in a Times on-line article, “Mossad ‘murder mystery has plenty of red herrings.” Note this comment:
While Israel once used to trumpet its successes, mostly against Palestinian groups responsible for terrorist attacks, in recent years it has become more circumspect, in part because the nature of the game is changing. No longer are high-profile hits meant to deliver a warning to PLO groups or a morale boost at home: now, Mossad is chiefly engaged against a far more dangerous enemy, Iran.
Al-Mabhouh’s assassination has all of the hallmarks of a classic Mossad hit straight out of the pages of a Daniel Silva Mossad thriller, with fictional kidon team leader, Gabriel Allon, whose cover is as an internationally renowned art restorer.
It would appear from reports that several British residents in Israel had their identity stolen and used for forged passports for the hit team, thereby providing the ultimate shield of deniability. Irish and British authorities quickly indicated that the passports were forgeries. The Dubai police authorities have issued arrest warrants in the names of the forged passport holders, who appear to have been made up to resemble the original holders.
The Israeli secret service has a reputation for rigorous screening, training of efficient, but ruthless assassination teams as noted by Gordon Thomas, author ofGideon’s Spies,“Mossad's licence to kill”, in a UK Telegraph article,
In the past year, al-Mabhouh had moved to the top of Mossad's list of targets, each of which must be legally approved under guidelines laid down over half a century ago by Meir Amit, the most innovative and ruthless director-general of the service. Born in Tiberius, King Herod's favourite city, Amit had established the rules for assassination.
"There will be no killing of political leaders, however extreme they are. They must be dealt with politically. There will be no killing of a terrorist's family unless they are also directly implicated in terrorism. Each execution must be sanctioned by the incumbent prime minister. Any execution is therefore state-sponsored, the ultimate judicial sanction of the law. The executioner is no different from the state-appointed hangman or any other lawfully-appointed executioner."
I first met Amit in 2001 and through him, I talked to the spies of Mossad, the katsas, and finally, to the assassins, the kidon, who take their name from the Hebrew word for bayonet. They helped me write the only book approved by Mossad, Gideon's Spies. Amit said the book "tells like it was – and like it is".
Amit showed me a copy of those rules at our first meeting. After two years of training in the Mossad academy at Herzlia near Tel Aviv, each recruit to the kidon is given a copy.
The killing in Dubai is a classic example of how Mossad goes about its work. Al-Mabhouh's 11 assassins had been chosen from the 48 current kidon, six of whom are women.
It has yet to be established how al-Mabhouh was killed, but kidon's preference is strangling with wire, a well-placed car bomb, an electric shock or one of the poisons created by Mossad scientists at their headquarters in a Tel Aviv suburb.
The plan to assassinate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had been finalised in a small conference room next to the office of Meir Dagan, who has run Mossad for the past eight years. The 10th director-general, Dagan has a reputation as a man who would not hesitate to walk into a nameless Arab alley with no more than a handgun in his pocket.
Only he knows how many times he has asked a prime minister for legal permission to kill a terrorist who could not be brought to trial in an Israeli court, along with the kidon to whom he shows the legally stamped document, the licence to kill.
Note Thomas’ comments about the Mossad kidon hit on Hezbollah terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyeh in Damascus two years ago.
Two years ago this week, Dagan sent a team of kidon to Damascus to assassinate Imad Mughniyeh. His Mossad file included details of organising the kidnapping of Terry Waite and the bombing of the US Marine base near Beirut airport, killing 241 people. The United States had placed a £12.5 million bounty on his head. Dagan just wanted him dead.
Mossad psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioural scientists, psychoanalysts and profilers – collectively known as the "specialists" – were told to decide the best way to kill Mughniyeh.
They concluded that he would be among the guests of honour at the Iranian Cultural Centre celebrations in 2008 for the celebration of the Khomeini Revolution. The team rigged a car-bomb in the headrest of the Mitsubishi Pajero they discovered Mughniyeh had rented, to be detonated by a mobile phone. As Mughniyeh arrived outside the Culture Centre at precisely 7pm on February 12, the blast blew his head off.
At Mughniyeh's funeral in Beirut, his mother, Um-Imad, sat among a sea of black chadors, a sombre old woman, who wailed that her son had planned to visit her on the day after he died. She cried out she had no photograph to remember him by. Two days later she received a packet. Inside was his photograph. It had been posted in Haifa.
The Mugniyeh and the al-Mabhouh are part of the Israeli secret war directed at foiling Iran’s ambitions in the Middle East, as depicted by Israel Investigative Journalist, Ronen Bergman in The Secret War with Iran,Al Quds forceleaders of the Revolutionary Guards engaged in the secret war against Israel and the US have got to be concerned about this latest Mossad hit. After all many of the Revolutionary Guard leaders have’ boat holds’ in Dubai where they also transferred funds for a rainy day, should the Islamic Republic Regime fall. What the Mossad secret war objective may be is to destabilize the Revolutionary Guard leadership in Iran by demonstrating that they are not safe to travel abroad for fear of being ‘turned’ by Western and Israeli intelligence services or targeted for assassination.
Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan and Amil Imani are all directors of Former Muslims United Incorporated. Former Muslims United is a new civil rights organization formed in late 2009 to advocate for the rights to religious freedom and freedom of speech for people who have left Islam, also known as apostates. Under the Islamic Shariah legal doctrine, Muslims are not permitted to leave Islam. Under Shariah law, apostates may be the victims of violence, forced divorce, discrimination and murder. Apostates are also denied free speech under Shariah law, as numerous Shariah authorities describe any criticism of Islam or Shariah by apostates as “treason.”
In the fall of 2009, Former Muslims United mailed copies of the “Freedom Pledge,” asking Muslims to repudiate the Shariah law consensus permitting execution of apostates from Islam, to over 100 Muslim American leaders. Only two pledges were returned.
In the meantime, since September 2009, Former Muslims United has submitted cases of threats and discrimination against apostates to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice; has assisted in several individual cases of apostates seeking help; and has issued a proposal to the Islamic Society of North America to conduct a parallel session on "Civil Rights, Social Justice, and the Rights of Former Muslims to Religious Freedom and Freedom of Speech in America" at the ISNA July 2-5 Annual Convention. The three panelists will discuss the ongoing threats to civil rights of former Muslims in America, the positions on apostasy taken by the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America’s Director of Communications and Leadership Development Louay Safi, and their plans to expand their activities on behalf of former Muslims in the U.S. and in partnership with organizations for former Muslims worldwide.
Copies of the list of individuals and organizations who have been mailed the Freedom Pledge will be provided at the event, as well as the full text of the FMU proposal for an open dialogue on the civil rights of Former Muslims sent to ISNA for the ISNA annual convention.
For more information, contact Nonie Darwish at (866) 760-6682
President Obama’s Muslim Ummah media blitz in Washington, New York and Doha
Last weekend, the Obama White House rolled out a media blitz directed at members of the Muslim ummah both here, and in the Middle East. The elements of that orchestrated PR effort can now be seen in several actions. Those included the appointment of White House Deputy Counsel Rashad Hussain as special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan’s speech at NYU Law School and President Obama’s opening remarks to the US - World Islamic Forum in Doha. In contrast Secretary of State Clinton pushed for support of sanctions against Iran’s pursuit of nuclear hegemony in the Middle East at the Doha conference.
This is a furtherance of Obama’s outreach to the Muslim ummah unveiled in speeches in Ankara and Cairo during his first year in office. This has been abetted by appointment of American Muslim staffers like Hussain and others at the White House, as well as ‘shadow warriors’ from the intelligence community like Brennan.
Obama Counterterrorism advisor John Brennan's speech last Saturday at NYU Law School under the dual sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood front, the ISNA and the Islamic Law Students Association is a furtherance of official dhimmitude in the Obama Administration begun under the prior Bush Administration. Brennan by the tenor of his NYU Law School speech- see here-is a member of what Ken Timmerman calls in his book, Shadow Warriors". The Shadow Warriors are members of the intelligence community who have fought against American national security during the Bush years. Among them are CIA veteran Brennan and former Acting Director of Central Intelligence, John McLaughlin, now ensconced in the Obama White House. In my view, they have been actively thwarting the war against Islamic terrorism.
On the same day as Brennan's NYU speech, Obama announced the appointment of Deputy White House Counsel, Rashad Hussain as Special Envoy with ambassadorial rank to the 56 Islamic nation OIC . The OIC's primary objective is world adoption of Sharia, strict Islamic law, directed at replacing the written and unwritten Constitutions of Western Democracies. White House Deputy Counsel Hussain's views, on Islam and Counterterrorism are reflective of the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine of stealth Jihad in the West. Now it is revealed that he espoused the innocence of convicted felon, Sami al Arian former University of South Florida computer science professor and financier of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al Arian was caught on FBI wire taps in 1995 with ISNA senior official Louay Safi espousing anti-American Jihadism, see here.
Safi, who lectured to troops at Fort Hood, Texas, has now been suspended from a multi-million dollar Pentagon contract contract program to teach members of our Armed forces about Islam. Safi was only suspended because of Congressional complaints about his checkered career.
Another element in the White House media blitz of the Muslim ummah last weekend was dispatching Secretary of State Clinton to the US - World Islamic Forum in Doha to unveil the long overdue sanctions against Iran. Meanwhile the Mullahs in Tehran have imprisoned Iranian people protesting the rising military dictatorship. The Saudi representative at the US -World Islamic Forum in Doha refused to back demands by Secretary Clinton and the Obama Administration for tougher sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program.
Last Saturday's speech by Brennan, a graduate of Jesuit education at Fordham University, was laced with Arabic learned during his graduate stint at the American University in Cairo (AUC) in the 1970’s. He noted using this linguistic skill during his State Department and Intelligence postings to Saudi Arabia. Brennan is an obvious example of a traditional Arabist who has risen in the ranks of official government service to be the willing agent of President Obama's Muslim outreach both here and abroad. He has effectively limited the war against Islamic terrorism by focusing on 'extremist' al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen in a game of counterterrorism, 'whack a mole'.
Rabbi Jon Hausman is another AUC graduate, who also speaks fluent Egyptian dialect Arabic. The difference between Hausman and Brennan is that Hausman is well versed in the dark inner core of hatred for unbelievers (Brennan and us) in the Quranic Canon. Something that Brennan never addressed in his NYU Law School speech sponsored by the ISNA and the Islamic Law Students last Saturday.
No wonder there is a rising chorus among Congressional opponents of Obama Administration counterterrorism policy by such critics as Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Ranking Republican House Intelligence Committee Member, and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham calling for removal of Brennan. Obama appeasement of the Muslim ummah should be viewed against the evidence of official lassitude by Brennan and others. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi dhimmitude in official Washington.
Controversial ISNA Leader Louay Safi to appear in Nashville
You have read about the controversy surrounding Louay Safi, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Director of Communications and Leadership Development. Safi gave lectures on Islam at Fort Hood under a Pentagon contract, only to be suspended following Congressional and other complaints about his checkered past.
Now, we understand that Safi is on a tour of American Mosques entitled, “Awakening the Leader Within,” check out the ISNA web site, here. Safi is part of this traveling road show team of ISNA officials including Safaa Zarzour, Secretary General, and Iyad Alnachef, Director of Youth Programming and Services.
One of the first stop, in conjuction with the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN), is in Nashville at the Saladeen Center on the weekend of February 19th-20th.
Among the topics the ISNA program will cover are:
·Educating Muslims in America: In the Classrooms and Beyond;
·Awaken the Compassionate Leader in you;
· Communicating Effectively in Diverse Social Settings “turning an adversarial communications into a friendly one’; · The Shield: Connecting with Our Youth: a parenting program for parents;
· Meeting with Youth Leaders, 14+ and up; and
·The GPS we lost and how to find it for youths, ages 12-18.
The ICN has been prominent in Inter Faith dialogue. Witness these photos from a Muslim-Jewish teen dialogue this past January. Or try this ICN Da’wa You Tube video showing Sheyk Yusuf Estes, former Christian preacher, who saw the light and became a Muslim, giving instructions to a young woman convert.
The ICN provided an open forum this past weekend to counter a vandalism event at the al Farooq Mosque last week. The al Farooq Mosque caters to the large Somali Muslim community in the Music City has been plagued with its own controversies- see the Iconoclast post on the alleged hate crime here and one from the investigations of Muslim Mafia author, David Gaubatz, here. According to this Channel 4 WSMV news report,After Hate Crimes, Muslims Spread Message of Peace, more than 100 people showed up at the ICN gathering. Among the comments made by attendees were these:
Saturday, the Islamic Center of Nashville opened their doors to inform, educate, and clear up any misconceptions about Islam. Salaad Nur, one of the leaders at the Al-Farooq Mosque said, “This is our home. If they indicated that they want us to go home, we want to let them know, we are already here.”
Hayat Liban is Muslim and is proud that her children were born in Nashville. She says, “I believe every single U.S. American is equal, no matter what they believe. Islam is a peaceful religion.”
Amir Arain, with the Islamic Center said, “People to people contact certainly decreases the ignorance and ignorance is certainly the main reason for hatred.”
Saturday, Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of all faiths joined together to learn more about Islam.
An open house was already planned long before this past week's hate crime.
Kathy Chambers, who attended the event said, “The idea that there was defacement on the mosque just breaks my heart. I wanted to come out and hopefully be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.”
Chambers is getting her P.H.D. in religion and feels the biggest problem is widespread generalizations.
“It’s very easy for people to say 'all Muslims are blank, they are all one way or another' and the fact is, as there are many different ways of behaving and acting and living out Christianity or Judaism, the same goes with Islam," said Chambers.
The center has had open houses before, but on Saturday two things were different; the turnout was much larger and the topic is a little modified.
Arain said, “The topic is Islam 101; beliefs and the concepts, and the misconceptions of Islam.”
Some of the biggest misconceptions about Muslims is that everyone is a terrorist.
Liban said, “Islam is peaceful no matter where we live. We don't believe in killing, we don't believe in destroying.”
This brings us back to the ISNA road show this coming weekend at the Nashville Saladeen Center which is featuring Louay Safi and others of the ISNA. We seriously doubt that the Nashville WSMA TV Channel Four team would attempt to interview Safi and ask him about his less than peaceful views about apostates, his support for terrorist groups, the current government investigations into his role in 2002 Safa group activities, and why the Pentagon will not bring him to military installations to teach Da’wa about Islam, the religion of Peace.
Why is the ISNA Incensed that the Dallas Morning News revealed the truth about Louay Safi?
Last Sunday, the Dallas Morning News (DMN) had the temerity to publish a dossier, “U.S. torn over whether some Muslims pose threat or offer insight,” on the controversy surrounding Louay Safi, a senior official at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), who lectured on Islam at Fort Hood following the mass shooting by Major Nidal Hasan.
The Army brought Safi down to Fort Hood in December to lecture troops there about that ‘peaceful religion’, Islam. An Islam whose Quranic Canon compelled Hasan to fire 100 lethal rounds killing 14 and seriously wounding another 29 others at Fort Hood. Safi according to the DMN, even brought, what we called in an Iconoclast post ‘blood money,” a check for $10,000 promising another $100,000 to be paid to an Army benefit fund to console and comfort the survivors. It appears based on the DMN article that Safi and the ISNA have reneged on that promise.
Safi’s lecture at Fort Hood prompted complaints and a letter signed by 13 Republican members of the House Anti-Terror Caucus led by Rep. Sue Myrick sent to Defense Secretary Gates requesting Safi and be removed from future lectures.
In their letter they laid out their concerns:
It has come to our attention that the Department of Defense has invited Louay Safi, a top official at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), to give lectures on Islam to our troops at Fort Hood. If this is indeed true, we respectfully request that you end this practice.
According to the Justice Department, ISNA is a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with a network of known and suspected Islamic terrorist organizations spread throughout the world. The Brotherhood and its partner organizations regularly espouse violent jihad and anti-Semitism.
More specifically, ISNA was identified by the Justice Department at the successful Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing conspiracy trial as an un indicted co-conspirator. Literature distributed by ISNA at its annual convention in Washington in July featured books and pamphlets portraying prosecution of terrorist and terror-supporters as “anti-Muslim bigotry;” revisionist history that denied Arab and Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel; and anti-Semitic tracts.
Safi himself has been connected to an entity called the “Safa Group.” Search warrants executed in 2002 were supported by an affidavit alleging its involvement in moving large sums of money to terrorist fronts. He was also caught on a 1995 FBI wiretap of Sami al-Arian. Safi was concerned that an executive order, issued by President Clinton prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist organizations, would negatively affect al-Arian. In April 2006, al-Arian pled guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – a specially designated terrorist organization.
The Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.” What better way to carry out its plans to “sabotage” our efforts than to have one of its own invited to lecture on Islam to the very troops called to defend this country against those the Brotherhood supports. We ask that you immediately stop any lecturing by Louay Safi or ISNA affiliated speakers.
The DMN clearly spent considerable resources and conducted wide ranging interviews and editorial reviews before publishing the Safi article. Here are some telling revelations:
But when The Dallas Morning News first inquired about the instructor, Louay Safi, military officials praised him. Only later did they say that Safi had been suspended from working on military bases pending a continuing criminal inquiry.
The Safi affair reveals the deep divisions within the U.S. government over how to combat terrorism and over what constitutes moderate Islam.
Safi is a senior official of the Islamic Society of North America, the country's largest Muslim organization. ISNA has been consulted for years by Washington and is described as a partner in the fight against terrorism. In addition to serving as ISNA's communications director, Safi runs its program certifying Muslim chaplains for work in the U.S. military and prison system. He publicly denounces terrorism and advocates peace.
Safi was also named by government prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in one terrorism case in 2005. His last two employers were implicated in other government terrorism investigations while he worked for them. He was never charged, nor included among the targets of those investigations.
He is one of seven lecturers in the Army's Islamic education program, overseen by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Much of the work is contracted out to Huntsville, Ala.-based Camber Corp., the privately held firm that hired Safi.
The training on Islam is part of a broader military educational program for which Camber is paid about $17.7 million annually, Navy Commander Brenda Malone said. Camber spokeswoman Rivka Tadjer declined to comment, citing instruction from the military.
In January, military officials told the newspaper that Safi was under investigation and that his lectures had been suspended. The investigation, begun by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was recently referred to the Army, said Ed Buice, an NCIS spokesman. He would not elaborate, but other military officials said the inquiry began after a Dec. 3 complaint about ISNA. The complaint came in as Safi concluded three days of lectures at Fort Hood, which is still traumatized by the Nov. 5 massacre.
Also in 2007, an expert on Islamist ideology working on contract for the Pentagon repeatedly warned that the U.S. risked undermining its anti-extremist efforts by working with ISNA and similar organizations. "Despite a track record of self-serving denials with regard to extremism, ISNA continues to function as an important component of the Saudi/Muslim Brotherhood global network," analyst Stephen Coughlin wrote.
He named Safi as one example of the "numerous" connections between ISNA and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, the Virginia group raided in 2002, and he alleged that the institute was also a Muslim Brotherhood entity.
The ISNA launched a campaign in the American Muslim community demanding a retraction of the article They asked Muslims to contact the DMN news editor, Ms. Maud Beelman and the staff writer Brook Egerton and express their anger at the alleged ‘misrepresentations and untruths’ in the newspaper's investigations.
The negative article by Brooks Egerton was published on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News. ISNA appeals to members of the Muslim community in general, and the Texas Muslim community in particular, to let the newspaper know about their feelings regarding this negative presentation. Please make sure that you speak respectfully but firmly on this issue.
Please contact Ms. Maud Beelman, the DMN News Editor, and Brooks Egerton, the article writer, at the Dallas Morning News and request that the newspaper issue a retraction and allow ISNA to publish rebuttal on the DMN op-ed page.
We don’t think Ms. Beelman or Mr. Egerton need reply to this threat from the ISNA. After all, as the DMN knows the ISNA was one of the Muslim Brotherhood fronts that was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Dallas federal Holy Land Foundation trial. Moreover, the ISNA requested that that listing be deleted from the court record, which obviously failed.
In view of Mr. Safi’s long rap sheet of dalliance with convicted felons like former University of South Florida Professor Sami al Arian, a fund raiser for terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, we think the Camber, Inc. consulting arrangements with the Pentagon should be re-evaluated. The ISNA should be decertified as one of the three groups accrediting Muslim military and federal bureau of prisons chaplains. This should also be applied to the Hartford (Connecticut) Seminary chaplaincy accreditation program run by none other than ISNA President, Dr. Ingrid Mattson.
Those actions and the resurrected government investigation of Safi should address why the government aligns itself with such Muslim advocacy groups as the ISNA and pays them to mislead us by engaging in Stealth Jihad under the guise of promoting multi-culturali diversity. That is sheer bafflegab.
Boston activist and J street Jive blogger extraordinaire, Hillel Stavis went to Harvard the other night and was ‘shocked, shocked” about what he discovered. Middle East Studies "expert" 
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