Biden’s Pier Is a Gift to Hamas Terrorists

Biden’s Pier Is a Gift to Hamas Terrorists

There are mounting concerns that the Biden administration’s pier plan could ultimately boomerang, especially, as Netanyahu himself has warned, if the US aid and the port itself end up in the hands More »

Ubwami bw’Ubupersi na bamedi (Persian’s Kingdom and Med’s Kingdom)

Ubwami bw’Ubupersi na bamedi (Persian’s Kingdom and Med’s Kingdom)

‘Yoseri’ Museveni ari kumwe n’ababyeyi be, Kuki Museveni yanga u Rwanda akomokamo? Umugambi w’Abatutsi bo munzu (y’Abasinga, Abashambo. Abega, Abashingwe) mu karere kibiyaga bigari uhereye mu gihugu cy’Ubuperesi (Uganda) aho bafashe ubutegetsi More »

Hamas’s Industrial Murder: Why Is Senator Chuck Schumer Not Demanding a Change of Leadership in Hamas and Iran?

Hamas’s Industrial Murder: Why Is Senator Chuck Schumer Not Demanding a Change of Leadership in Hamas and Iran?

When the terrorist organization Hamas murders, tortures, rapes and abducts Jews in Israel, do not be surprised that the Jews of today will respond with the righteous might of a nation that More »

Israel’s Strategic Game of Survival

Israel’s Strategic Game of Survival

“They wanted Israel’s counterattack, and then they wanted to hold in the tunnels and use the hostages just to buy time for the international community namely, the United States to stop the More »

“Biden’s actions are a violation of Israel’s sovereignty.”

“Biden’s actions are a violation of Israel’s sovereignty.”

  Israel Betrayed? It seems clear that the Biden administration would like to see the rapid creation of a Palestinian state or at least a “Palestinian unity government” — unfortunately composed of More »

 

Kabete MP George Muchai, two bodyguards and a driver shot dead in Nairobi.

Kabete MP George Muchai was shot dead early Saturday morning at the Kenyatta Avenue-Uhuru Highway roundabout in Nairobi.


 

Two of the MP’s bodyguards and his driver also died in the incident, Nairobi Central Police OCPD Paul Wanjama confirmed.

The incident, according to Mr Wanjama, happened between 3am and 4.30am.

The four were in the same sport utility vehicle ahead of another vehicle carrying family members, including the MP’s wife and a daughter.

The occupants of the second vehicle said the MP stopped at the roundabout when four people with big guns approached his car and started shooting.

“They just started spraying it with bullets. When we saw that, our driver sped past the other car and when we came back to the scene a few minutes later, all the occupants of the vehicle were dead,” the relative told detectives at the scene.

A newspaper vendor who witnessed the shooting told the police that one of the gunmen who led the shooting had a face mask.

The bodies of the four had bullet wounds in the head and chest.

They were taken to Lee Funeral Home at 6.30am.

THOROUGH INVESTIGATION

Lawmakers who arrived at the funeral home asked the government to do a thorough investigation into the killing, saying it would be easy to get the murderers as the scene of the crime is under the surveillance of CCTV cameras.

Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi said Mr Muchai had been threatened several times and had reported the threats to the police.

“The CCTV clips should be handed (over) to the detectives as soon as possible. There is no way the perpetrators will not be known,” he said.

Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko, who also arrived at the crime scene, asked the government to take the safety of lawmakers in the country seriously.

Other legislators who went to the funeral home included Gatundu North MP Kigwa Njenga, Kipipiri MP Samuel Gichingi, Ruiru MP Esther Gathogo, Juve Njomo, MP for Kiambu, and Kiambu Women Representative Anne Gathechu.

They all alleged that Mr Muchai’s death was a clear assassination whose execution was planned.

Journalism in Turkey: Newsroom vs. Courtroom by Burak Bekdil

  • According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015; 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on charges of “terrorism.” There are also many journalists among the 1,845 Turks who have been investigated or prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he was elected in August 2014.

  • After the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria, President Erdogan himself filed a criminal complaint against Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, and the Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul.
  • At a March 25 hearing, the Istanbul court ruled for the whole trial to be held in secret.
  • “We came here today to defend journalism…We said we would defend the people’s right to access information. We defended that and we were arrested.” — Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet.
  • The trial clearly exhibits how Erdogan’s authoritarian rule diverges from Western democratic culture.

“Turkey is where many journalists may have to spend more time at their attorneys’ offices or in courtrooms than in the newsrooms, where they should be,” a Western diplomat joked bitterly. “Don’t quote me on that. I don’t want to be declared persona non grata,” he added with a smile.

He was right. According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015; 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on charges of “terrorism.”

Needless to say, the unfortunate journalists are invariably known to be critical of Erdogan. There are also many journalists among the 1,845 Turks who have been investigated or prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he was elected in August 2014.

One of them is Sedat Ergin, editor-in-chief of Turkey’s most influential newspaper, Hurriyet. On March 25 Ergin had to appear before a penal court on charges of insulting Erdogan, with the prosecution demanding up to four years in jail for him. The veteran journalist says he is devastated to have been taken to court for the first time in his 41 years as a journalist on such an accusation. After his trial Ergin told reporters: “… in the year 2016 courthouse corridors and the hearing rooms have become the habitats of journalists in Turkey. Freedom of the press in Turkey in 2016 is now confined to court corridors.”

On that same day, two more journalists were in a courtroom, but they are not as lucky as Ergin in terms of the prison sentences demanded by the prosecution.

In May 2015, the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published on its front page video and photographic evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria. A month later, President Erdogan himself filed a criminal complaint against Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief, the prominent journalist, Can Dundar, and the newspaper’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul. In a public speech, Erdogan said: “He who ran this story will pay heavily for it.”

Dundar and Gul were arrested and remained behind bars for over 90 days, until Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that their detention violated their rights. They were released, but must now stand trial on charges of espionage, as well as aiding a terrorist organization that aims to topple Erdogan’s government. The case is a serious threat to the two journalists’ liberty, especially when Erdogan’s “weight” in the courtroom remains easily felt, if not seen.

Can Dundar (right), editor-in-chief of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Erdem Gul (left), Cumhuriyet‘s Ankara bureau chief, were arrested after the paper published evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria. They remained behind bars for over 90 days, until Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that their detention violated their rights.

At the March 25 hearing, the Istanbul court ruled for the whole trial to be held in secret. A group of opposition MPs protested the decision and refused to leave the courtroom. The court decided to file a criminal complaint against them for “obstructing justice.”

“We came here today to defend journalism. We gathered here before and said the same thing. We said we would defend the people’s right to access information. We defended that and we were arrested,” Dundar said.

It seems that Erdogan has no intention of leaving the journalists alone. The trial also clearly exhibits how his authoritarian rule diverges from Western democratic culture. On March 25, a group of Western consuls-general in Istanbul attended the journalists’ trial in a show of solidarity. The diplomats included Leigh Turner, the British Consul-General, who shared images from outside the court and messages of support for the journalists on Twitter. Now Erdogan thinks he has new enemies.

The day after the court hearing, Erdogan spoke:

“The situation of those who attended this hearing is very important. The consuls-general in Istanbul come to the courthouse. Who are you, what are you doing there? This is not your country, this is Turkey … Diplomats can operate within the boundaries of missions. Elsewhere is subject to permission.”

Now is that a new jurisprudence in diplomacy — that foreign diplomats in Turkey should be confined to their mission buildings and not observe most important political trials without permission from the Turkish government? In addition to the court’s blackout on the Dundar-Gul case, Erdogan now wants political confinement for the journalists.

By pursuing life sentences so aggressively for the journalists, Erdogan is in fact trying to achieve another political goal: He is giving messages at many wavelengths to any other investigative journalist who may in the future publish another embarrassing report on his administration.

Not really peaceful and free times for Turkish journalism.

Jordan: We Do Not Want Palestinians by Khaled Abu Toameh

  • “Improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees. Allow them to settle down. Give them citizenship so that they can live as human beings.” —


  • Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar, an Oslo-based Palestinian academic, blasting Arab the world for its continued mistreatment of Palestinians.

  • The Arabs do not care about the Palestinians and want them to remain Israel’s problem. Countries such as Lebanon and Syria would rather see Palestinians living as “animals in the jungle” than grant them basic rights such as employment, education and citizenship.

  • It is no surprise that refugees fleeing Syria have no ambitions to settle in any Arab country. They know that their fate in the Arab world will be no better than that of Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries.

A recent decision by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to cut back its services has left Jordan and other Arab countries extremely worried about the possibility that they may be forced to grant citizenship rights to millions of Palestinians.

During the last few weeks, many Jordanians have expressed deep concern that the UNRWA measures may be part of a “conspiracy” to force the kingdom to resettle Palestinian refugees.

According to UNRWA figures, more than two million registered Palestinian refugees live in Jordan. Most of the refugees, but not all, have full (Jordanian) citizenship, the figures show. The refugees live in 10 UNRWA-recognized camps in Jordan.

The “Cyber City” refugee camp in Jordan, where a number of Palestinians are being housed. (Image source: ICRC)

Jordan is the only Arab country that has granted citizenship to Palestinians. Still, many Jordanians see their presence in the kingdom as temporary.

Although there is no official census data for how many inhabitants are Palestinian, they are estimated to constitute half of Jordan’s population, which is estimated at seven million. Some claim that the Palestinians actually make up two-thirds of the kingdom’s population.

Over the past few decades, the Jordanians’ biggest nightmare has been the talk about resettling the Palestinians in the kingdom by turning them into permanent citizens. The talk about turning Jordan into a Palestinian state has also created panic and anger among Jordanians.

Jordan’s “demographic problem” resurfaced last week when a senior Jordanian politician warned against plans to resettle Palestinian refugees in the kingdom.

Taher al-Masri, a former Jordanian prime minister who is closely associated with the ruling Hashemite monarchy, sounded the alarm in an interview with a Turkish news agency.

Commenting on UNRWA’s severe financial crisis, which has resulted in cutting back services to Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, al-Masrisaid: “I believe this is part of a plan to turn the issue of the Palestinian refugees into an internal problem of Jordan. UNRWA is paving the way for liquidating the Palestinian cause.”

Al-Masri, whose views often reflect those of the monarchy, expressed fear that the UNRWA cutbacks would prompt the world to consider the idea of turning the Palestinians in Jordan into permanent citizens, especially as most of them already carry Jordanian passports.

Al-Masri and other Jordanian officials maintain that Jordan is entitled to protect its “national identity” by refusing to absorb non-Jordanians.

Earlier this week, Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour raised many eyebrows when heannounced that there were more than two million Palestinians living in Jordan who are not permanent citizens. Ensour was apparently referring to those Palestinians who carry temporary Jordanian passports.

Jordanian and Palestinian political analysts described Ensour’s comments about the Palestinians in Jordan as “fuzzy” and “controversial.” They noted that Ensour mentioned the Palestinians together with Iraqi and Syrian refugees who have found shelter in the kingdom in recent years, and that therefore the Jordanians consider the Palestinians’ presence in their country only temporary.

“The remarks of the prime minister are ambiguous, controversial and very worrying,”commented Bassam al-Badareen, a widely respected journalist in Amman. “He referred to the Palestinians as being part of the foreigners and Iraqi refugees in Jordan.”

Ensour’s remarks, like those of al-Masri, are further proof that Jordan and the rest of the Arab world are not interested in helping solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees. Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — the three Arab countries where most of the refugees are living — are strongly opposed to any solution that would see Palestinians resettled within their borders.

That is why these countries and most of the Arab world continue to discriminate against the Palestinians and subject them to Apartheid laws and regulations. Although Jordan has granted citizenship to many Palestinians, it nevertheless continues to treat them as second-class citizens.

In the past few years, the Jordanian authorities have been revoking the citizenship of Palestinians in a move that has been denounced as “unjust” and “unconstitutional.”

The Arab countries have consistently justified their discriminatory policies against the Palestinians by arguing that this is the only way to ensure that the refugees will one day return to their former homes inside Israel. According to this logic, the Arab countries do not want to give the Palestinians citizenship or even basic rights, to avoid a situation where Israel and the international community would use this as an excuse to deny them the “right of return.”

But some Palestinians reject this argument and accuse the Arab countries of turning their backs on their Palestinian brothers.

Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar, a Palestinian academic based in Oslo, blasted the Arab world for its continued mistreatment of Palestinians.

“All the Arab countries are opposed to resettlement and naturalization of Palestinians not because they care about the Palestinian cause, but due to internal and regional considerations,” Abu Matar wrote. “We need to have the courage to say that improving the living conditions of Palestinian refugees in the Arab countries, including granting them citizenship, does not scrap the right of return.”

Noting that Palestinians have long been deprived of their civil rights in the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon, where they are banned from working in many professions and live in camps that do not even suit “animals in the jungle,” Abu Matar pointed out that the U.S .and Europe have opened their borders to Palestinians and even given them citizenship.

Addressing the Arab countries, the academic wrote: “Improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees. Allow them to settle down. Give them citizenship so that they can live as human beings.”

But Abu Matar’s appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears in the Arab world. The Arabs do not care about the Palestinians and want them to remain Israel’s problem. Countries such as Lebanon and Syria would rather see Palestinians living as “animals in the jungle” than grant them basic rights such as employment, education and citizenship.

It is no surprise that refugees fleeing Syria have no ambitions to settle in any Arab country. They know that their fate in the Arab world will be no better than that of the Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries.

Jihadists Target Spain “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.” by Soeren Kern

  • The Islamic State document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

  • “We will kill any ‘innocent’ Spanish infidel we find in Muslim lands, and… whether we are European in origin or not, we will kill you in your cities and towns according to our plan.” — Islamic State document, May 30, 2016.
  • “We will recover al-Andalus, Allah willing. Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva. There are many faithful and sincere Muslims who swear they will return to al-Andalus.” — Islamic State video, January 31, 2016.
  • “Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah.” — Islamic State video, January 7, 2016.

Islamic militants are stepping up a propaganda war against Spain. In recent months, Islamic State and other jihadist groups have produced a flurry of videos and documents calling on Muslims to reconquer al-Andalus.

Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors (also known as the Moors) from 711 to 1492. Many Muslims believe that territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquest of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam. They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to re-establish Muslim rule there.

A recent Islamic State document includes a list of grievances against Spain for wrongs done to Muslims since the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on July 16, 1212, when the Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile routed the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. More than 100,000 Muslims were killed in the battle, which was a key victory in the Catholic Monarchs’ “Reconquista” of Spain.

The document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

The document concludes: “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”

On July 15, 2016, Islamic State released its first propaganda video with Spanish subtitles. The high quality of the Spanish translation, both in writing and in syntax, led some analysts to conclude that that the translator’s mother tongue is Spanish and that the subtitling may even have been done inside Spain.

On June 3, Islamic State released a video — “Month of Ramadan, Month of Conquest” — which mentions al-Andalus four times. Spain is the only non-Muslim country mentioned in the video.

On May 30, Islamic State released a two-page document in Spanish in which it issued threats directly against Spain. The document states:

“We will kill any ‘innocent’ Spanish infidel we find in Muslim lands, and if not we will reach your land. Our religion and our faith lives among you, and even though you do not know our names or what we look like and do not even know whether we are European in origin or not, we will kill you in your cities and towns according to our plan, in the same way that you are killing our families.”

On January 31, Islamic State released a video in which one of its Spanish jihadists warned Spain that it would “pay a very heavy price” for expelling Muslims from al-Andalus. The eight-minute video included the following statement:

“I swear by Allah that you will pay a very heavy price and your demise will be very painful. We will recover al-Andalus, Allah willing. Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva. There are many faithful and sincere Muslims who swear they will return to al-Andalus.”

An armed, masked Islamic State jihadist appears in a propaganda video, where he warns Spain that it would “pay a very heavy price” for expelling Muslims from al-Andalus hundreds of years ago. The Spanish subtitle above reads “Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva.”

On January 7, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is fighting Islamic State for hegemony of North Africa, released a video calling for jihadist attacks in Madrid as a strategy to help Muslims recover the Spanish North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

Another Islamic State video vowed to liberate al-Andalus from non-Muslims. A jihadist speaking in Spanish with a heavy North African accent said:

“I say to the entire world as a warning: We are living under the Islamic flag, the Islamic caliphate. We will die for it until we liberate those occupied lands, from Jakarta to Andalusia. And I declare: Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah.”

Meanwhile, 33 jihadists were arrested in Spain in 17 different raids during the first nine months of 2016, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.

Most recently, two Spanish citizens of Moroccan origin — Karim El Idrissi Soussi, 27, and a second man identified as 18-year-old O.S.A.A — were arrested in Madrid on jihad terror charges. One of the detainees is a 27-year-old computer science student who watched jihadist propaganda videos in class and threatened to massacre his fellow students.

According to the Interior Ministry, Soussi tried to join the Islamic State but was detained by Turkish authorities while attempting to cross the border into Syria. He was deported and just recently returned to Spain.

The Interior Ministry said Soussi’s penchant for radical Islam became evident in November 2015, when the secondary school where he was studying computer science held a moment of silence to honor the victims of the jihadist attacks in Paris. According to teachers and students, Soussi shouted slogans in support of the attacks which killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan Theater.

On other occasions, Soussi publicly justified jihadist attacks by Islamic State, which he said was the ideal form of government for all Muslims. According to the Interior Ministry, Soussi visited a public library almost daily to connect to the internet and browse jihadist websites. He allegedly created fake profiles and posted jihadist material on social media sites. Soussi also criticized so-called moderate Muslims and expressed hope that someday Spain would become an Islamic emirate.

Soussi allegedly watched Islamic State propaganda videos during his computer science class and repeatedly threatened to bring weapons to school to kill his classmates.

The other jihadist, O.S.A.A., was arrested for the offenses of “glorifying jihadist terrorism” and “self-indoctrination for terrorist purposes.” The Interior Ministry did not provide further details.

A total of 636 jihadists have been detained in the country since the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, in which nearly 200 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured.

A recent study by the Madrid-based Elcano Institute found that of the 150 jihadists arrested in Spain during the past four years, 124 (81.6%) were linked to Islamic State and 26 (18.4%) to al-Qaeda.

Of those linked to Islamic State, 45.3% were Spanish citizens, 41.1% were Moroccans and 13.6% had other nationalities. In terms of birth, 45.6% were born in Morocco and 39.1% were born in Spain. Only 15.3% were born in other countries.

In terms of immigration, 51.7% were first-generation immigrants, 42.2% were second- or third-generation immigrants, and 6.1% had no immigration background, which implies they are Spanish converts to Islam.

In terms of residency, 29.8% were arrested in Barcelona, 22.1% in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta, and 15.3% in Madrid. The others were arrested in more than a dozen other localities across the country.

Islamic State has suffered setbacks on the battlefields of the Middle East, but the jihadist terror threat remains undiminished. In the words of Spanish terrorism analyst Florentino Portero: “Islamic State is answering military defeats with more terror.”

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

Jihadist Groups in the US: What Next? by Benjamin Weingarten

  • Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) continues freely to operate in America. In the wee hours of election night 2016, in fact, its Los Angeles office leader called for the overthrow of the U.S. government.The Trump administration has stated its commitment to fighting Islamic supremacism, including the Muslim Brotherhood itself.

To what lengths would America’s leaders go to protect a group that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) deemed a terrorist organization?

A bombshell new report from the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) reveals the alarming answer.

It involves a man who in his almost 50 years of public life has done more for America’s enemies — first of the Communist variety and later of the jihadist brand — than perhaps any other: Iran lobbyist-in-chief John Kerry.

In the most recent case, he did so in secret, apparently well aware of the political consequences of exposing the potentially catastrophic policy he was pursuing to the light of day.

As IPT’s report details, Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) were classified as terrorist groups by the UAE in 2014, as two of the 83 entities identified as such for their ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

(Image source: Courtesy of the Investigative Project on Terrorism)

Furious at such a charge, CAIR pushed Secretary of State Kerry to lobby on its behalf. Kerry’s State Department reportedly complied, meeting with UAE officials regularly to plead CAIR’s case.

State signaled such a stance publicly almost from day one. As IPT notes:

At a daily State Department press briefing two days after UAE released its list, a spokesman said that State does not “consider CAIR or MAS to be terrorist groups” but that it was seeking more information from UAE about their decision. He added that “as part of our routine engagement with a broad spectrum of faith based organizations, a range of U.S. government officials have met with officials of CAIR and MAS. We at the State Department regularly meet with a wide range of faith based groups to hear their views even if some of their views expressed at times are controversial.”

“Controversial” is an interesting way of describing the views of a group that makes common cause with jihadists and jihadist sympathizers. There is an irony, as IPT recounts:

Just days before the UAE’s 2014 designation of CAIR as a terrorist group in the organization’s San Francisco chapter bestowed its “Promoting Justice” award to Sami Al-Arian and his family. Al-Arian secretly ran an American support network for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group in the late 1980s and early 1990s. PIJ was responsible for terrorist attacks which killed dozens of Israelis and several Americans.

CAIR’s jihadi ties are numerous and longstanding, involving not only the links of its founders and present leaders to Hamas, and as critics say, apologists for Islamic terrorism, but also for impeding counterterrorism efforts. Lawyers in a class-action lawsuit representing the family of slain former FBI counterterrorism official John P. O’Neill — who perished in the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center — named CAIR part of a criminal conspiracy to promote “radical Islamic terrorism,” and declared that CAIR has

“actively sought to hamper governmental anti-terrorism efforts by direct propaganda activities aimed at police, first-responders, and intelligence agencies through so-called sensitivity training. Their goal is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.”

More directly, as jihad expert Daniel Pipes noted in a 2014 expose, “At least seven board members or staff at CAIR have been arrested, denied entry to the U.S., or were indicted on or pled guilty to (or were convicted of) terrorist charge.”

Because of the litany of actions that CAIR has taken on behalf of and in association with Islamic supremacists — as was unearthed during the Holy Land Foundation trial, which represented the largest terror financing case in U.S. history and in which CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator — back in 2008 the FBI officially ceased contact with the group.

During the Obama years, however, groups like CAIR were embraced under the jihad-enabling “countering violent extremism” (CVE) paradigm. CVE outsourced “de-radicalization” efforts to “peaceful Islamist,” Muslim Brotherhood-tied groups. CVE was the antithesis of the comprehensive counterjihadist program America required.

With respect to John Kerry’s efforts on behalf of CAIR in particular, the story gets worse:

In December 2014, CAIR met with top officials of the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department, asking them to pressure the UAE to remove them from the list, according to reliable sources intimately familiar with the communications. On December 22, 2014, CAIR issued a press release asserting that “the two American Muslim organizations and the U.S. government pledged to work together to achieve a positive solution to the UAE designations.”

In response to a letter sent by CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad sent to Secretary Kerry protesting the UAE designation, Kerry responded on May 5, 2015 in a letter to Awad stating, “Let me reiterate, first, that the U.S. government clearly does not consider CAIR to be a terrorist organization. As your letter noted, the Department of State rejected this allegation immediately after the UAE designations were announced in November, and we will continue to do so….U.S. officials have raised the issue of CAIR’s inclusion on the UAE’s terror list with UAE officials on multiple occasions…”

That portion of the letter now appears on CAIR’s website. But at the time that the letter was sent to CAIR, according to knowledgeable sources, there was an agreement between CAIR and the State Department to keep the letter secret. An excerpt from it was posted on CAIR’s website only in May 2016, a year after it was received. The IPT has learned that Kerry and CAIR made this agreement to keep the letter secretto protect Kerry from public embarrassment. In light of CAIR’s numerous ties to Hamas and other unsavory aspects of its record, Kerry had good reason to believe that the letter could cause a public relations disaster for him.

Kerry’s efforts proved unsuccessful; the UAE did not budge.

The lifelong leftist enabler of America’s foes, whose public career commenced with propagandistic testimony to the U.S. Senate on the Vietnam War, redounding to the Communist’s benefit, and closed with his support for Islamists including CAIR — not to mention the mullahs in Iran — never paid a price for such efforts.

Meanwhile, CAIR continues freely to operate in America. In the wee hours of election night 2016, in fact, its Los Angeles office leader called for the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The Trump administration has stated its commitment to “eradicating” Islamic supremacism, including challenging the Muslim Brotherhood itself, which represents the tip of the Sunni jihadist spear. This stance is reflected not only in policy speeches delivered during the presidential campaign, but in the testimony, past public remarks and actions of the principal members of President Trump’s National Security Council.

The Muslim Brotherhood may very may very well come under scrutiny in the near-term, as will the efforts of those who oppose the group, as Senator Ted Cruz has re-upped a bill that calls upon the Secretary of State to submit a report on its designation as a foreign terrorist organization.

That bill’s text provides helpful background on just why it is that the Muslim Brotherhood deserves such a classification, noting:

  • The many countries that have declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization or barred it from operating
  • The explicit calls for violent jihad, with the end goal of imposing Islamic law over all the world of the group’s founder and spiritual leader Hassan al-Banna, and the consistently violent Islamic supremacist content of the Brotherhood’s core membership texts
  • The terrorist efforts of numerous jihadist groups explicitly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the efforts of individual Muslim Brotherhood members designated as terrorists by the U.S. government themselves
  • The litany of terrorist financing cases involving the Muslim Brotherhood, including the aforementioned Holy Land Foundation case, whereby:

Department of Justice officials successfully argued in court that the international Muslim Brotherhood and its United States affiliates had engaged in a widespread conspiracy to raise money and materially support the terrorist group Hamas. HLF officials charged in the case were found guilty on all counts in November 2008, primarily related to millions of dollars that had been transferred to Hamas. During the trial and in court documents, Federal prosecutors implicated a number of prominent United States-Islamic organizations in this conspiracy, including the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], the North American Islamic Trust [NAIT], and the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR]. These groups and their leaders, among others, were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the case.

According to a July 2008 Justice Department court filing:

“The mandate of these organizations [ISNA, NAIT and CAIR], per the International Muslim Brotherhood, was to support HAMAS, and the HLF’s particular role was to raise money to support HAMAS’ organizations inside the Palestinian territories.”

Should the Trump administration challenge the Muslim Brotherhood, it is reasonable to think that it may threaten its offshoots, one of which is the very Islamic organization in CAIR that the Obama administration specifically sought to protect.

Should CAIR come under fire, it is a safe bet that the Left will close ranks, arguing that conservatives are on a witch hunt akin to the Red Scare to snuff out peaceful Muslims in America.

Those who wish to triumph over the global jihad must challenge this narrative fearlessly.

The argument against CAIR and similar groups is simply this: If you aid, abet or enable to jihadists, you will be prosecuted, and swiftly. You are standing with those who wish to kill innocent Americans, and the government’s first job is to protect the life and limb of its citizens.

Efforts to rid America of jihadists, shut down their funding networks and punish those who give them aid and comfort are about defending the homeland against a subversive ideology of conquest that seeks to undermine our Constitutional system and supplant it with a totalitarian one based in Islamic law, Sharia.

“Liberals” or “Progressives” might seek to use CAIR as a cudgel to argue that “conservatives” wish to trample on the rights of Muslims. The task of the rest of us will be to expose a supposed civil liberties group as a cleverly-designed front for a theocratic, political Islamic supremacist movement that seeks to overtake the civil liberties of all Americans.

That is all the more reason why it is important to bring it to light.

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