Rubin Issues Challenge on Islamists and Foreign Money

The American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin challenged the University of Delaware's Muqtedar Khan in a blog post, "Who Should Fund U.S. Muslim Groups" for criticizing the American Islamic Congress (AIC)'s American financial support.

Rubin hails the AIC's founder and director Zainab al-Suwaij as a moderate Islamic voice frequently denouncing Islamic extremism and a true champion of women's empowerment and individual freedom. A native Iraqi who grew up under brutal dictatorship, Rubin argues Suwaij wholeheartedly understands the values that contribute to America's greatness.

But Khan takes issue with the AIC's American funding.

"If AIC is surviving on U.S. money, then they have no legitimacy, especially if they came to the fore in the [George W.] Bush era," Khan told the Washington Post.

Rubin criticizes Khan for failing to specify why Muslim groups should shy away from American financing, but willingly accept Saudi money, like the more radical Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) have done.

"If Saudi Arabia is a cash cow for organizations like CAIR and ISNA that often apologize for terrorism, shouldn't organizations that take a more moderate tack and seek to promote both empowerment and respect for American values also have access to resources?"

Ironically, Khan is no stranger to American financial support. In 2007, he was in charge of managing a $50,000 State Department grant to the University of Delaware. The grant was intended to foster discourse between clerics in American and Muslim countries.

If the AIC's government money is no good, critics like Khan and other advocates should "foreswear foreign money," Rubin concludes. "It does say a great deal about Suwaij that she'd rather compete for American grant money and also a great deal about her critics that they see Saudi money as less tainted."

Attacks on Israelis Thwarted At Home and Abroad

A terrorist cell from a village north of Jerusalem plotted to kidnap an Israeli soldier to trade for the release of terrorist leaders imprisoned in Israel, according to the Israeli Shin Bet Security Agency.

The cell was headed by 42-year-old Rajab Aldin, an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). His plan was to kidnap an Israeli soldier and offer him/her to the relatives of former PFLP leader, Ahmed Sadat, or jailed Tanzim leader, Marwan Barghouti, in exchange for cash.

Sadat is serving a 30-year prison sentence for leading a terrorist organization responsible for attacks against Israel during the Second Intifada as well the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rechavam Ze'evi in 2001.

The latest plot reflects increased PFLP efforts to free Sadat and a rising determination among all Palestinian terror groups to kidnap Israeli soldiers, Shin Bet said. Israeli Defense Forces reported approximately 20 attempted kidnappings of soldiers in the West Bank in 2011.

Another potential crisis involving Israeli tourists abroad also seems to have been averted recently after security authorities in Cyprus arrested a Lebanese man on July 7 who is alleged to have been tracking Israeli tourists on the island with plans to launch an attack.

The 24-year-old suspect, who has a Swedish passport, has not been charged with any offense but is being detained by Cypriot authorities following hearings held behind closed doors. A government source said the arrest was the result of information obtained from foreign intelligence agencies.

This incident marks the second time this year a Lebanese-Swedish man has been arrested for targeting Israelis abroad. Thai authorities arrested Hussein Idris in January along with another Lebanese man who were suspected of orchestrating bomb attacks against Israeli targets in Bangkok. The plots are believed to part of a Hezbollah mission to avenge the assassination of its military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who the group believes was killed by the Mossad in Damascus in 2008.

There are conflicting reports still emerging about the latest plot in Cyprus, although it seems to have been in the preliminary stages.

"It is not clear what, or whether, there was a target in Cyprus," a senior government official told Reuters. "That is under investigation."

Elashi Brothers in Gaza

As we reported Friday, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) issued a grossly misleading news release lamenting the plight of two Palestinian brothers ripped away from their families and dumped at the airport in Cairo.

ADC failed to identify the brothers, Basman and Bayan Elashi, or note that they were convicted felons tied to terror financing who did not appeal immigration court orders that they be deported. Rather, it cast the government action as an unjust action executed clumsily. The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the case "are alarming, troubling, and intolerable," the release said. They were left at the airport in Cairo with no place to go "and appear likely to be detained indefinitely."

"Indefinitely" turned out to be a day or two. Palestinian media had several stories over the weekend about the brothers' return to Gaza. On Saturday, a paid notice from the Elashi family offered congratulations "on the arrival of The Honorable Engineers Bayan and Basman Medhat Elashi to Gaza." Well-wishers would be received until Thursday at relative Abu Yasser Elashi's home.

A second paid notice published Sunday offered congratulations from Hamas member Ahmad Bahar, deputy speaker of the Legislative Council, offered the Elashi family "warmest congratulations and blessings on the occasion of the release of the two honorable brothers."

The notices appeared in the newspaper Felasteen, which is tied to Hamas. On Monday, Felasteen ran a story with a picture and interview of the Elashi brothers describing their case and blasting the American judicial system.

"American justice in political cases is not independent," Bayan Elashi said, "and proceeds according to government opinion and directives, regardless of the evidence or the justice of the cause of the accused, as long as the matter is one of security."

Despite the disclosure of the Elashi brothers and their history, and despite their public welcome in Gaza, the release remained the top story on the ADC homepage Monday afternoon.

Former Muslim Stereotype Fighter Charged with Hizballah Support

Canadian officials have charged a woman with trying to smuggle parts for AR-15 rifles to Hizballah operatives in Lebanon. Mouna Diab, 26, originally was arrested in May 2011 as she tried to leave Canada with the parts in her luggage, and later charged with exporting gun parts, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) statement said.

Further investigation determined Diab was following instructions from a Hizballah operative. In addition, she persuaded others in her community to carry weapons parts in their own travels to Lebanon, but the statement said "that her victims were unaware of what was in the packages."

Diab is the first woman charged under anti-terror laws Canada enacted after 9/11, reports Stewart Bell at the National Post. She formerly served as vice-president of the Association of Young Lebanese Muslims, Bell reported, saying the group worked to fight "hurtful" stereotypes against Muslims.

Canada has listed Hizballah as a terrorist group since 2002, the RCMP release noted. It is part of the agency's mandate to investigate support for terrorist groups in Canada. "In doing so, the RCMP plays a crucial role in reducing threats posed to national security, whether they are in Canada or elsewhere in the world," the statement on Diab's arrest said.

Hizballah support in North America is well established and often involves criminal activity ranging from fraud and other financial crimes to supplying weapons and other military supplies.

MB Leader Advocates Ethnic Cleansing of Israel

Mohamed Badie, leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, called for the purification and cleansing of Palestine through jihad in a July 5 sermon. He also told the audience that Jews' desire to destroy Islam and therefore, Muslims need to be proud of the jihad against them.

"Thus every Muslim must strive to purify it from the hands of usurpers and cleanse Palestine from the clutches of the Occupation - that is an individual duty on all Muslims," he said. "They must wage Jihad with their money and lives and free it, and free its prisoners, male and female … and enable all of the displaced to return to their homeland, their homes, and their possessions."

The return of all Palestinian refugees to Israel would spell the demographic doom of the Jewish state, aside from the violence Badie advocated.

Badie's colleague, Mohamed Morsi, is Egypt's new president. As we noted after a similar speech last month, Badie's rhetoric raises questions about Morsi's ability to moderate the Islamist group's beliefs and behavior.

In the July 5 sermon, Badie also said that the Jews aligned themselves with those pretending to be Muslims, classically identified as the Hypocrites. "As for the Hypocrites, the Jews tried as is their custom to make the Muslims question their faith through intrigues, strife and spreading toxins, instructing their fellow hypocrites to spread rumors among the Muslims," Badie said.

He also claimed that because "Jews gathered from all parts of the earth in the name of an alleged right to their illusory Temple" in order to create Israel, it was time for the Muslims to take their religion seriously and fight them.

"Has not the time come for word of the Muslims to come together and unite for what is supported by verses from the Book of God and Hadith with the guidance of the Messenger?" he asked rhetorically. "And do not be ashamed to declare Jihad in the Way of God; for in it is your life and your glory, and the exit of the occupiers from your land, and the return of your holy places, and the dissemination of safety and security throughout your homes."

Despite the group's violent speeches and support from other Islamist organizations, the Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, has successfully marketed itself as a nonviolent group to its Western allies. But the continued inflammatory rhetoric raises questions about the Brotherhood's true intentions, if not by motivating Egypt to attack Israel then certainly in individual attacks carried out against the Jewish state.

U.S. Aid to Palestinian Authority Threatened

Concern about alleged corruption by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and over the prospect of a renewed attempt at seeking a unilateral United Nations recognition of statehood is sparking new talk of cutting off American aid to the PA.

The United States "threatened to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Liberation Office in Washington if the Palestinian leadership submitted another membership bid to the United Nations," Khaled Mesmar, a Palestinian National Council official admitted Tuesday.

The threat came through official channels during a recent visit of an American envoy to Ramallah, Mesmar said. He denied the PA is considering another bid for U.N. recognition after Abbas realized he would lose in the Security Council and withdrew his first request last year.

The question of malfeasance in Abbas' administration is another matter.

Abbas has "used his position of power to line his pockets," Rep. Steve Chabot, R- Ohio, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said during a hearing Tuesday.

"Our policy must aim to empower those who seek to serve the Palestinian people instead of themselves," Chabot said.

Abbas allegedly deposited $13 million of U.S. taxpayer aid into a secret bank account in Jordan during his seven-year tenure. He also is suspected of exploiting political connections to profit from the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process and profiting from secret land deals. Witnesses at the hearing say he helped his two sons earn millions of dollars through their stakes in U.S.-backed companies.

The Obama administration is failing to properly monitor the $600 million in U.S. foreign aid to the PA, said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. This is happening even though Abbas' corruption is widely recognized, even in the Arab world.

In an apparent effort to move the PA in a positive direction, the U.S. threatened to withhold aid if the Palestinian government doesn't drop all pre-conditions for resuming peace talks with Israel.

Though the PA is generally considered to be the more moderate of the two Palestinian governments—the alternative being the designated terrorist group Hamas—experts and lawmakers accuse Abbas of deliberately sabotaging peace talks to solidify his power.

"The consistent choice of Palestinian President Abbas is a path that has kept him in office," said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., the subcommittee's ranking member. "It is the failure of the Palestinians to say 'Yes' that has prevented them from having a state of their own—not the [security] fence, not the settlements … not the [Israeli Defense Forces], not [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu or anyone else," Ackerman added.

To view the complete subcommittee hearing, click here.

Documents Reveal al-Shabaab Western Plots

The Toronto Star has obtained documents from an intelligence cache of a dead Somali al-Qaida leader revealing detailed plots against Western and Jewish targets, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The videos and reports show that the besieged Islamist group al-Shabaab hasn't given up its 'international operations,' despite tremendous pressure from a joint African military offensive and infighting among the group's remaining leadership.

"Our objectives are to strike London with low-cost operations that would cause a heavy blow amongst the hierarchy and Jewish communities," says the document labeled "International Operations," discovered on the dead body of leader Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.

"These attacks must be backed with a carefully planned media campaign to show why we chose our targets to refute hypocrites, clear doubts amongst Muslims and also inspire Muslim youth to copy."

The report lays out specific plans to attack London hotels, the prestigious Eton College, and London's largest Jewish neighborhoods. East African embassies in Kenya's capital Nairobi, and the kidnapping of Sudan's ambassador stationed there, are also listed as viable targets. London's Summer Olympics this year was not mentioned, despite British caution over a plot.

The call to inspire local Muslims to join in attacks, as well as the unclear authorship of the documents, raises questions about the continued viability of the plots and the involvement of other al-Qaida branches.

Mohammed, who was indicted in the U.S. for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, functioned as a key link between al-Qaida central and al-Shabaab. His autobiography, posted to a jihadi website in 2009, showed that he was also highly critical of the African group and believed that they were unjustly attacking civilians.

Originally from the Comoros Islands, he was shot dead by Somali government troops after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden, making him the third major al-Qaida leader slain in six weeks in 2011. The U.S. Department of State had offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction.

How UNRWA Promotes Palestinian Victimhood

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, the Middle East Forum's Steven J. Rosen and Daniel Pipes highlight some fundamental flaws in the mission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the lead international organization responsible for aiding Palestinian Arab refugees.

UNRWA, which has been operating for 62 years, "does not work to settle refugees," Rosen and Pipes write. "Instead, by registering each day ever-more grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have never been displaced from their homes, or employment, artificially adding them to the tally of 'refugees,' it adds to [the] number of refugees aggrieved against Israel."

To further inflate the numbers, UNRWA insists that 2 million people who have been granted citizenship in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan (who comprise 40 percent of UNRWA beneficiaries) are still "refugees."

As a result, Palestinian refugee numbers haven't declined due to resettlement and natural attrition as would normally happen. Instead, the number of refugees under UNRWA jurisdiction has soared from 750,000 in 1949 to 5 million.

"At this rate, UNRWA refugees will exceed 8 million by 2030 and 20 million by 2060, its camps and schools endlessly promoting the futile dream that these millions of descendants someday will 'return' to their ancestors' homes in Israel," Rosen and Pipes wrote.

But friends of Israel in the West encountered resistance from the Israeli government when they tried to defund UNRWA. Jerusalem sees a critical distinction between UNRWA's harmful activities and its role as a social-service agency that aids one-third of the population in the West Bank and 75 percent of those in Gaza. Without that funding, Israeli officials worry that Palestinian institutions would collapse and the military would have to enter hostile areas to run schools and hospitals.

The critical question, according to Rosen and Pipes, is how to maintain UNRWA's role as a social service provider without letting it create millions of new Palestinians dependent on international largesse. They suggest allowing Palestinians to receive UNRWA assistance without formally registering as refugees.

A more dire view of UNRWA's role comes from policy analysts Asaf Romirowsky and Nicole Brackman. In an op-ed for The Times of Israel, they write that "the United States, as the third largest donor to UNRWA, is an unwitting accessory in perpetuating a state of utter dependency in which the Palestinian upper class fobs off all economic responsibility onto the international community."

Romirowsky and Brackman add that supporting UNRWA "is a poor strategic choice for both sides. For Palestinians, it delays and stunts the growth and maturation of civil society and constructive nation-building; and for the Israelis, it legitimizes and enables those who would use UNRWA as a base for terrorist activities."

Brotherhood, Salafists on the March

While world attention has been focused on the political faceoff between the Egyptian military and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Muhammad Morsi, away from the cameras Islamists continue pushing to consolidate power.

Egyptian Salafists are demanding the legalization of Islamic "sex-slave" marriages and are calling on Morsi to expel all Shi'ite Muslims and Bahai from Egypt. Prominent Muslim clerics are demanding the destruction of Egypt's Great Pyramids.

Morsi, whose ascension to the presidency ended 60 years of military rule, several months ago advocated violent jihad and establishing an Islamic theocracy in Egypt.

On Sunday, just nine days into his term, Morsi moved to defy last month's ruling by Egypt's highest court dissolving the Islamist-led Parliament. On Tuesday, lawmakers held a session lasting just a few minutes and authorities made no move to stop them. While the court decision has drawn strong support from the Egyptian military, it angered the Brotherhood and other Islamist parties who won two-thirds of the seats in parliamentary elections earlier in the year.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was traveling in Asia, called on the parties to resolve their differences in order to "avoid any kind of difficulties that could derail the transition that is going on."

But it's doubtful that Egyptian Islamists have any genuine interest in moderation or compromise. While the Brotherhood reportedly wants to institute a caliphate in Egypt, it can appear almost moderate when compared to the Salafists.

In March, Salafi leader Wagdy Ghoneim celebrated the death from kidney disease of Pope Shenouda III, the 88-year-old Coptic Christian leader. "We rejoice that he is destroyed. He has perished," Ghoneim said. "May God have His revenge on him in the fire of hell – he and all who walk his path."

In May, Salafi leaders accused Copts of being "traitors" and "anti-revolutionary" for voting against Islamists in May presidential elections.

Read more here.

Court Adds to Iran's Terror Damages

Iran's sponsorship of the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah has cost it $813 million in damages in a lawsuit brought by victims of the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon and their families. The ruling by Chief Judge Royce Lamberth in the District of Columbia federal district court is the latest in a series of claims against the Iranian government stemming from the bombing which is nearing $9 billion in total damages.

"Regardless, no award—however many billions it contained—could accurately reflect the countless lives that have been changed by Iran's dastardly acts," Lamberth wrote last week.

Similar claims against Iran for supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas resulted in billions of dollars in additional damages. Collecting on those judgments, however, has proven difficult so far.

The 1983 attack, carried out by a Hizballah suicide bomber in a truck laden with explosives, killed 241 U.S. servicemen in Lebanon on a peace-keeping mission. A subsequent Pentagon report said the massive explosion "ripped the building from its foundation. The building then imploded upon itself," crushing most of the victims.

As we have noted, several American Islamist groups refuse to label Hizballah a terrorist organization despite that and other attacks, and a longstanding designation by the United States.

Officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) routinely appear on Iran's state-sponsored English language television outlet, Press TV, never criticizing Iran's financial support for terrorists or its suppression of dissidents, opting instead to lament the conditions facing Muslims in America. On Sunday, CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper complained about "a rising level of Islamophobia in the United States."

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), which enjoys access to top-level government officials, called the barracks bombing of U.S. peacekeepers "a military operation, producing no civilian casualties – exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington's enemies."

Judge Lamberth doesn't see it that way.

"The court concludes that defendant Iran must be punished to the fullest extent legally possible for the bombing in Beirut on October 23, 1983," he wrote.

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings