Viva Palestina Begins Sixth Journey to the Gaza Strip

A British-based organization that has delivered millions of dollars to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip embarked Sunday on its sixth convoy to Gaza from Bradford, UK.

Viva Palestina 6, dubbed "The Right of Return Convoy," is organized by Viva Palestina Arabia (VPA), an affiliate group of Viva Palestina (VP). The convoy is "about the return to Palestine – the right of Palestinians to return and returning our attention to this central issue by contributing to the construction, the rebuilding, of a Palestine for all Palestinians, with Jerusalem recognized as its capital," according to the organization's website.

Newly elected British parliamentarian George Galloway founded VP, which has extensive ties to Hamas. He also has supported other terrorist organizations including Hizballah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Some political pundits in the UK note that Galloway's electoral victory in late March was due to his invocation of faith. At a campaign rally that month, he taunted his rival Imran Hussain, by claiming "I'm a better Pakistani than he will ever be. God knows who's a Muslim and who is not…A Muslim is ready to go to the US Senate, as I did, and to their face call them murderers, liars, thieves and criminals."

VPA and Galloway held a convoy fundraiser Friday in Bradford. Galloway did not accompany the convoy due to his "commitment to my constituents," but he plans to join the group before it reaches. During Viva Palestina 5 in October 2010, Galloway was barred from entering the Gaza Strip due to a ban that Egyptian authorities placed on him.

Past VP convoys have enjoyed support from the Hamas leadership in the countries they visited as well as in Gaza. Past VP convoys also received support from the Syrian regime, including aid, vehicles, accommodations and a warm welcome. The Investigative Project on Terrorism revealed in February that Galloway sought help directly from Bashar al-Assad, to whom Galloway pledged his loyalty despite Assad's brutal repression of anti-government protestors.

This convoy originally planned to bypass Syria by sailing from Turkey on a ferry. But that didn't materialize, meaning the path still goes through Syria, prompting VP's New Zealand and Malaysia branches to withdraw in protest.

Galloway and his close allies, on the other hand, have no problem with maintaining contact with dictators and terrorists in the Arab world.

Marzook: No Recognition, No Permanent Peace

Hamas' deputy politburo chief and former U.S. Muslim Brotherhood branch leader told The Forward this week that his group would view any agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as more of a hudna—or cease-fire—than a peace treaty in the conventional sense of the word.

"We will not recognize Israel as a state," and any agreement should be seen as paving the way for a relationship similar to that of "Lebanon and Israel or Syria and Israel" rather than one of mutual recognition, trade, and the like, Mousa Abu Marzook said.

This would hold true for Hamas even if the agreement was ratified by a popular "referendum of all Palestinians" he said during a five-and-a-half hour interview with the Jewish-American newspaper.

Marzook also stood firm on a number of Hamas' other perpetual and preposterous non-negotiable pre-conditions, including the fact that any future agreement would have to "include the unqualified right of Palestinians to return to land in what is now Israel." This oft-repeated qualification is a non-starter; as Jonathan Schanzer has said it would be "suicide for Israel."

Marzook was vague when pressed about the intentions behind the hudna strategy—that Hamas could use the time to build up its arsenal and strength for a future attack against Israel. "It's very difficult to say after 10 years what will be on both sides. Maybe my answer right now [about recognizing Israel] is completely different to my answer after 10 years."

His talk of timelines should not be glossed over. As Patrick Sookdheo notes in his seminal work Understanding Islamic Terrorism, Muslims who strictly following Islamic law—as Hamas claims to do—are permitted to make "[t]emporary peace" with the enemy through a treaty. But the limitations on such a treaty are clear: it "is only permissible if it advantageous for the Muslims, and preferably should not last for more than ten years."

"If Muslims were to make a peace treaty that was not in their own interests," Sookhdeo explains, "it would be tantamount to abandoning the war, and so disobeying God's command. Thus peace-making is justifiable only if it is seen as part of the long-term war effort."

If its track record of broken promises is any indication, Hamas will break its end of the bargain even if an agreement is made. And that will be just the start of it. Sookhdeo notes: "it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that in classical Islam peace is considered [nothing more than] a specialised (sic.) kind of war."

Occupy Movement Still Dogged by "Jewish Problem"

A Facebook page claiming to be associated with Tampa's chapter of Occupy Wall Street published anti-Semitic images Thursday morning, reviving an ongoing debate over the pervasiveness of Jew hatred in the Occupy movement.

The website Algemeiner.com reported that the page showed a cartoon depicting a hooked-nose Jewish man driving a car. In his right hand, the driver (his face almost completely hidden by sunglasses and a large beard) appears to be holding a gear shaped like President Obama's head. His left hand is on the steering wheel, which appears to be the United Nations logo.

Occupy Tampa officials denied the Facebook site was officially sanctioned by their organization. "This is not a post made by Occupy Tampa," a spokesman said.

In the first four hours after the cartoon went up, more than 300 people commented on it, with many expressing displeasure over its publication.

"Perfect timing, right during the Israeli Holocaust remembrance day. I was rooting for you guys, now I think you're lead by a bunch losers (sic)," read one response.

Others suggested the cartoon was reminiscent of the scapegoating of Jews that took place in Germany during the 1930s.

"RACISTS! Shame on u!," one said.

"I am a left wing Israeli and extremely critical of many of my current government's policies. But this is just plain, old-fashioned anti-Semitism. Disgusting," said another.

Other Occupy supporters said the cartoon was simply telling it like it is. "But the Jews do control Obama and the UN. If someone is offended by a charichature (sic) they don't belong in charge," one man countered.

The Tampa cartoon and its defenders serve as one more reminder of the raw anti-Semitism demonstrated by time and again by some Occupy activists. In October, when the movement was just starting, Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin reported on a few of the many other examples.

In Los Angeles, a protester who identified herself as an employee of the local school district declared that "the Zionist Jews" running large banks and the Federal Reserve Board "need to be run out of this country." On the American Nazi Party website, one leader voiced support said the Occupy movement was needed to counter "the Judeo-Capitalists" destroying the United States.

New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser traveled to New York's Zuccotti Park last year, where she interviewed Occupy supporters who railed against "Zionists" dominating Wall Street and controlling the media.

Peyser wrote that many well-meaning Americans have deluded themselves into believing that if they ignore the movement's anti-Semitism, it will simply vanish.

"The movement has a serious Jewish problem," she wrote.

Subway Bomb Plotter Testifies Against Accomplice

The man who led a plot to bomb New York subways in 2009 told in a Brooklyn federal court Wednesday that he was trained to make explosives at an al-Qaida compound in Pakistan and he had no issues killing innocent people, even babies, in the attack.

Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty to his crimes, appeared as a government witness in the prosecution of an accomplice.

"We needed to send a message to the United States, especially Obama," Zazi testified.

In exchange for a reduced prison sentence, the 27-year-old Zazi agreed to cooperate with federal investigators in the prosecution of his alleged accomplice and former high school classmate, Adis Medunjanin.

Medunjanin, 28, is accused of conspiring to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, providing material support to al Qaida and plotting to use weapons of mass destruction on American soil. He claims that he backed out of the plot.

Zazi accepted most of the responsibility for the plot, saying he and convicted co-conspirator, Zarein Ahmedzay handled more details because they were better liars than Medunjanin.

Nevertheless, both Zazi and Ahmedzay, who also testified against Medunjanin, admitted that the three men traveled to Pakistan in August 2008 where they were trained at an al-Qaida compound in Waziristan. The men reportedly watched videos of al-Qaida attacks on the Danish embassy in Pakistan in 2008 and on the London Subway in 2005, and Zazi also learned to make explosives.

Zazi also testified to recording a "martyrdom video" while in Pakistan that was set to be released after his suicide operation.

"I just read Koranic verses and said some mentions about Afghanistan and Iraq and atrocities. 'This was payback for the woman that was gang-raped in Iraq'" he said.

Defense lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, asked Zazi if he thought it was moral to kill people on the subway.

"In America, yes," Zazi replied.

Despite his crimes, Zazi insists he can change.

"I hope for a second chance," Zazi said. "I believe my crimes were very bad. If God gives me another chance I would appreciate it and I will be a very good human being."

Pro-Hamas Exhibit Opens in France

The local government in the French city of Angoulême has provided a room for a pro-Hamas photography exhibit, a month after a French Islamist terrorist murdered a Rabbi and three Jewish youth to "avenge the Palestinian children."

The organizing Charente Palestine Solidarity Association explained that the exhibit was at the center of a Palestinian cultural event, "in order that people could understand better what Hamas really is," according to the Jerusalem Post.

The display of photography by Frédéric Sautereau, which the organizer says "shows the daily activities of Hamas and its active and positive role in the social, economic and cultural life of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip," has gone forward despite vociferous protests by French Jewish organizations.

The president of France's leading Jewish organization, Richard Pasquier, denounced the exhibit and the complacency of French society towards anti-Jewish, Islamist terrorist groups in an open letter about the event. The exhibit was part of the "perverse importation of this [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict onto French national territory," which has "almost always resulted in anti-Semitic attacks," he wrote

"What a beautiful tribute and what a blank check have been given to one the most odious terrorist perpetrators," Pasquier wrote. "Holding such an exposition under the false pretext of culture, while the blood of the [Toulouse] victims has not yet dried, is received by the community I represent as a new thrust of the dagger."

Tom Friedman: Stone a Jew for Peace

Veteran Israeli journalist and former New York Times correspondent Michael Widlanski doesn't think much of Thomas Friedman's latest screed suggesting that Israeli policies toward the West Bank are blocking peace and advocating a new Palestinian strategy to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a diplomatic corner.

Friedman's April 3 New York Times column was "his newest seasonal Mid-East peace plan combining Friedman's own special home recipe of hypocrisy, lovingly layered with finger-licking idiocy," Widlanski writes in a new column published by Accuracy in Media. In it, Friedman advocated that, in order to highlight the evil of occupation, the Palestinians undertake "nonviolent" tactics ranging from boycotts to throwing rocks at Israelis.

In a letter to the Times, former New York Mayor Ed Koch noted the absurdity of Friedman's premise that rock throwing is peaceful protest. Koch pointed to the slaying of 1-year-old Yonatan Palmer, killed along with his father in the West Bank last year when their vehicle was struck by rocks and overturned. Five Arabs are currently on trial for allegedly plotting and carrying out the deadly attack.

Friedman should know better, Widlanski writes. He recounts a 1988 incident in which Friedman's car was stoned by Palestinians as he drove through Jerusalem.

"If I had a gun, I would have blasted the faces of all those sons of bitches," Friedman reportedly yelled after returning to the Times' office. Yoram Ettinger, then head of Israel's Government Press Office, told Friedman that the experience should make him more sympathetic to Israeli security concerns.

"Friedman was right to be upset. He was hypocritical not to report it then and is hypocritical to treat Arab rocks as a natural part of 'bargaining,' where Arab attacks in 1967 are repaid by the Arabs getting all the land back they used to attack Israel," Widlanski writes.

But Friedman's hypocrisy on rock throwing is only one example of his skewed perspective. In the same column, he lionized Marwan Barghouti, currently serving five life sentences for orchestrating terrorist attacks that killed Israelis, as an advocate of "nonviolent" Palestinian resistance.

Friedman argued that Barghouti should be freed in order to achieve a two-state peace settlement in which Israel relinquishes 95 percent of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

Friedman ignores the fact (as stated by President Clinton's point man on Mideast negotiations, Dennis Ross) that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected a virtually identical offer in the final weeks of the Clinton administration. In September 2008, Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas rejected a similar offer from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Read the full column here.

Jordan Poised to Ban Religious Parties

Jordan's Parliament is voting on a bill to forbid religious political parties, effectively banning the nation's dominant Muslim Brotherhood opposition, reports the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The move is seen as "retaliation" for the Brotherhood's opposition to another proposed election law, which would maintain the empowerment of tribal loyalists.

"This is only the latest in a series of measures by deputies to limit the influence of political parties and any dissenting views in parliament and political life in general," Zaki Bani Rsheid, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamic Action Front [IAF], told the German news agency DPA. The bill, which is being promoted as part of the monarchy's reforms, also bans parties on an "ethnic or sectarian basis."

Although the Arab revolution has toppled dictators elsewhere in the Muslim world, Jordan's king has so far sustained his regime on a fragile balance of tribal loyalists and "reforms." A collapse or decline of the kingdom would leave a religious and Palestinian majority in the state.

The IAF claims that it is still working with the regime. At a recent meeting of Islamist parties in Washington D.C., sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment, IAF foreign relations chief Nabil Al-Kofahi said that the Islamists were still willing to work within the monarchy framework to pursue political reform. It is unclear whether that was a political concession to Jordan's controlling intelligence apparatus or a genuine stance, especially as Al-Kofahi went on to present the regime as a hopelessly corrupt structure.

"Unfortunately, I would like to say that the regime in Jordan – even though we're still hoisting the slogan of reforming the regime – the king and the government and parliament and institutions, they're still stalling when it comes to reform," he said.

"The main – the first dilemma, it's a dilemma that relates to the political system, and the fact that the regime itself … is not serious about reform. But they respond to -- partially, to some of the pressure out on the streets, and also responding to the general state of unrest in the region. That's why there is a continuous attempt to absorb the reform movement and overpower it," he added.

Egyptian Election Panel Upholds Ban on Top 3 Presidential Contenders

Egypt's Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) has upheld the disqualifications of the Muslim Brotherhood's designated candidate, along with leading Islamist presidential contender, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, and former Mubarak Vice President and intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman.

Earlier reports indicated that the Brotherhood's candidate, Khairat al-Shater, would be cleared to run. The three are among 10 candidates disqualified from next month's presidential vote. The commission, appointed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, determined al-Shater's conviction under Hosni Mubarak's regime of belonging to a banned organization - the Muslim Brotherhood - was cause for his disqualification, Egypt's Al-Ahram reports.

The commission is "responsible for its own decisions, including the disqualification of presidential candidates" and is "not subject to judicial authorities," Al-Ahram noted. The Brotherhood hedged its bets by offering Mohamed Mursi, head of the group's Freedom and Justice Party, as a late entry into the race.

For Ismail, it is quite the fall from grace.

As we reported Friday, the staunchly Salafist candidate was polling in second place with 28.8 percent support, only trailing former Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa. His confidence soared after claiming a moral victory in the initial legal challenge to his candidacy over the question of his late-mother's foreign citizenship.

But the issue remained unresolved, and with today's ruling, it appears to finally have brought his candidacy to its end. Considering the commission's independent status, the earlier legal ruling will have little bearing on the decision.

Al-Ahram's sources say Suleiman was ruled out because he failed "to collect a sufficient number of signatures from 15 Egyptian governates." Of those he did receive, "approximately half" are said to have been "forged."

Note: This story has been updated to reflect new developments.

Waiting for al-Qaeda in Libya

Libya is in chaos and ripe for a takeover by extremists, argues VICE News correspondent Sherif Elhelwa in his new documentary "Waiting for al-Qaeda." Traveling into the heart of the pro-al-Qaeda faction in Libya's east, Elhelwa shows the real life of Libya's Islamist movement.

"As an oil-rich country packed with rebels who were wary of authority, Libya had left the door open to extremist groups hungry for power. The question wasn't if al-Qaeda would spread into Libya, but when," Elhelwa states. His quest to bring the story to light began when he saw the black flag of al-Qaeda flying over the rebel central headquarters in Benghazi. When he confronted a local guard over the symbolism, he was told, "whomever speaks ill of this flag, we will cut off his tongue."

Elhelwa illustrates how the fractious nature of the rebellion means trouble for controlling arms and religious zealots. When he arrives at Tripoli's airport to travel to Benghazi, he finds it still in charge of the heavily armed rebel faction, the Zintan Martyrs Brigade. That group took control of Muammar Gaddafi's stockpile of MANPADS, portable anti-aircraft weapons used by the Taliban to halt Soviet airpower in the 80s. According to Elhelwa, the ragtag group is "babysitting enough firepower to arm every extremist group in North Africa."

Al-Qaeda is the "restaurant brand" of Islamic extremism in the Islamic world, Elhelwa states, as he journeys through Benghazi to the well-known city of Derna. Some local residents claim that supposed al-Qaeda sympathizers are just local Muslims, but others are more open.

"I support them because they are Muslims like us. We are all Muslims, and they are protecting Islam," one local says. "They helped us fight during the revolution. They helped families with food when they needed it. They did a lot of humanitarian work."

When asked if he is a sympathizers or participant in the group's activities, he says, "No. But I would love to be a member of al-Qaeda."

An interview with unofficial leader of Derna and the local al-Qaeda head yields more information about the local group's aims and views. Abdel Hakim Al-Hasadi claims that killing isn't enough for the forces that committed crimes at Abu Ghraib. Rather, "I'd wipe them out," he says with a wave of his hand. He says he isn't an al-Qaeda follower, although he previously called them "good Muslims" who "are fighting against the invader."

"It's all normal here," Al-Hasadi says, before laying out a bottom line for Islamists like him. "If you establish the Sharia, we're with you. We're your soldiers. We're ready to die alongside you if you establish Sharia law."

Elhelwa describes the fighters as "armed rebels without a cause" rather than "a nest of armed al-Qaeda operatives." They toppled a tyrant, but today's Libya is factionalized and tense. "All of the elements of extremism, strife, and conflict were in place."

Ultimately, Elhelwa asks, when the dust settles will the new Libyan rulers be at odds with the West?

American Al-Shabaab Leader Reported Killed in Somalia

Omar Hammami, an Alabama-native turned designated terrorist leader of the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab, was reported to have been executed by fellow commanders, according to unconfirmed reports posted Friday on the website of Mobile NBC affiliate WPMI-TV15.

Hammami, aka Abu Mansour al-Amriki, posted a YouTube video last month in which he told viewers that he feared for his life because of differences within his group over "matters of Shariah and matters of strategy." He did not elaborate on the controversy that allegedly put him at odds with the al-Shabaab leadership.

For its part, al-Shabaab claimed to pose no threat to Hammami, who joined the group in 1999.

The reports of his killing are yet to be confirmed by NBC News or by al-Shabaab's press office.

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