PLO Official Protested Israeli Presence at Anti-Semitism Conference

PLO Ambassador to Washington Maen Areikat drew unwanted attention by suggesting earlier this week that a new Palestinian state would be Jew-free.

Asked about the rights of minorities in a future Palestinian state, Areikat told reporters Tuesday that Palestinians and Jews should be "totally separated" in a new Palestinian state. After decades of conflict and friction, "I think it would be in the best interest of the two peoples to be separated," he told reporters in the Nation's Capitol.

At a House hearing Wednesday, former presidential advisor Elliott Abrams called Areikat's remarks "a despicable form of anti-Semitism" and told lawmakers that the PLO office should be closed if the group continues trying to circumvent negotiations with Israel by getting the United Nations to declare Palestinian statehood.

Areikat later denied calling for a Palestinian state without Jews and said his remarks had been taken out of context. But Tuesday's comments were not the first time he had stirred controversy with comments about Israelis and Jews.

In August 2010, Areikat protested Yale University's decision to include three Israelis at a conference entitled "Global Anti-Semitism: A Crisis of Modernity" because he does not like their work. Areikat wrote to Yale President Richard Levin expressing "deep dismay" over the speakers and topics discussed at the conference.

He complained that it featured seminars led by "right wing extremists" and suspect individuals including "retired Israeli army officer Jonathan Fighel" and Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor, an organization that tracks nongovernmental groups seeking to delegitimize Israel and other democratic states.

But Areikat saved his harshest criticism for Yale's decision to permit "an Israeli settler named Itamar Marcus" to speak. Marcus, he said, "has spent much of his life attempting to 'prove' that Palestinians are unwilling or unable to make peace, thereby justifying Israel's continued military occupation of Palestinian lands."

What apparently upset Areikat was Marcus' work as director of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli research organization that documents anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian Authority media like this, this, and this.

Areikat apparently believes that people like Marcus who document anti-Semitism are dangerous because their findings encourage anti-Semitism against Arabs.

"It's shocking that a respected institution like Yale would give a platform to these right-wing extremists and their odious views," he wrote, "and it is deeply ironic that a conference on antisemitism that is ostensibly intended to combat hatred and discrimination against Semites would demonize Arabs – who are Semites themselves."

Report Documents Hamas Resurgence in West Bank

Israeli security forces have broken up 13 Hamas terrorist cells in the West Bank since May, according to a report released this week by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

The cells were in various stages of preparing for terrorist attacks and operated mostly in the cities of Hebron and Jerusalem. As a result of the exposures, dozens of Hamas operatives have been detained.

Israeli security officials arrested dozens of people just last week in connection with the murder of a British tourist and with an attempted suicide bombing.

"Interrogation of the detainees showed that their main objective was to kidnap Israeli citizens for bargaining," the report said. "Also planned were mass murder terrorist attacks, one of which was actually carried out [in March 2011]…Other operations planned by the cells were thwarted and the operatives were detained."

Interrogation of the detainees showed that the cells were directed and logistically supported by Hamas headquarters in Syria and the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia was the location for recruitment meetings and instructions from Hamas members there were transferred to operatives in Hebron.

"The exposure of these terrorist cells shows that Hamas headquarters are engaged in intensive efforts to rebuild the movement's military infrastructure in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] for the purpose of launching terrorist attacks against Israel," according to the report.

In a speech Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to seek full membership for a Palestinian state next week at the United Nations Security Council. U.S. officials have pledged to veto the move.

"It is possible that the motivation to carry out terrorist attacks has even increased (and may increase still) ahead of the PA's application to the UN," the report adds.

Media Ignores Abbas/Hamas Electricity Scam

In congressional testimony Wednesday, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies provided the intrepid Washington press corps what should be an important scoop: that one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, the Palestinian Authority, is helping the Hamas terror organization raise money.

Despite a bitter feud with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza, "the PA has secretly allowed the jihadist group to raise funds through an electricity scam," Schanzer told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Electricity in Gaza is produced by a power plant guaranteed by Mahmoud Abbas' Ramallah-based PA, but Hamas is responsible for collecting the money.

Hamas is supposed to forward the funds to the PA, but isn't doing so.

"In other words, Abbas allows Hamas to raise funds by billing Gazans for electricity that they don't generate," Schanzer testified. "And because the PA is funded by U.S. taxpayer money, we are all enabling Hamas to raise these funds. It is a violation of U.S. law, and it must be addressed immediately."

Given that Abbas' Palestinian Authority receives upwards of $500 million a year from U.S. taxpayers (and the intense media coverage being given to Abbas' demand that the United Nations recognize an independent Palestinian state when it convenes next week) one might expect some interest in the question of whether he is aiding a terrorist group.

But thus far, the media has missed the story. The Washington Post briefly touched on the subject in a blog, but judging from a list of stories compiled by Google News, the issue has been otherwise ignored by the rest of the print and broadcast media.

While ignoring the Abbas story, on Thursday, the New York Times published some Arab and Israeli responses to this question: Can Israel Survive Without a Palestine?

The consensus of the respondents, among them Arabists like Rashid Khalidi, Shibley Telhami, and Rami Khouri and Israelis like journalist Ronen Bergman and public opinion researcher Dahlia Scheindlin seemed to be that Israel had no choice but to accept Palestinian statehood that does not come via negotiation – regardless of the Palestinians' behavior. There is no call for the PA to stop broadcasting anti-Semitic programming, or rescind honors it bestows upon terrorists.

Rather, the sharpest rhetoric directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies came from the Israelis. For example, Bergman suggested that Netanyahu wasn't serious about achieving a lasting peace with the Palestinians and wrote that continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank could jeopardize the Jewish state's international "legitimacy." Scheindlin depicted creation of a Palestinian state as a "liberal democratic" triumph over "Israel's security obsession" and likened Netanyahu's approach to the Palestinians to the behavior of Serbia's nationalist government after the fall of strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Shalem Center Fellow Daniel Gordis does note that Abbas refers to 63 years of Israeli occupation – referring not to the post-1967 borders, but to Israel's very creation. "If the U.N. votes to recognize Palestinian statehood in light of this attitude," Gordis writes, "it will simply be tightening the noose further."

PLO, Brotherhood Officials Seek Do-Overs

Officials with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Muslim Brotherhood are distancing themselves from remarks each made this week which have caused critical backlashes.

First, Maen Areikat, the PLO's ambassador to Washington, told reporters that a new Palestinian state would be free of Jews.

"After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated," Areikat said. PLO officials have announced their intention to have the United Nations declare a Palestinian state next Friday.

Former presidential advisor Elliott Abrams pounced on the remarks, calling them "a despicable form of anti-Semitism" and telling a House committee Wednesday that the PLO office in Washington should be closed if it proceeds with the UN initiative.

Now Areikat says his words were taken out of context. "Under no circumstances was I saying that no Jews can be in Palestine," he told the Huffington Post. "What a statement that would be for me to make! I never said that, and I never meant to say such a thing. This is not a religious conflict, and we want to establish a secular state."

Though reporter Joshua Hersh gives Areikat the benefit of the doubt, he also published the full quote:

"I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future. But after the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction I think it would be in the best interests of the two peoples to be separated at first."

Get that? "Totally separated" does not mean kicking Jews out of a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, Hassan al-Brince, a Brotherhood official from Alexandria, is denying an al-Masry al-Youm newspaper report saying al-Brince threatened a new wave of protests and martyrs if Egypt's military council did not set a date for elections by Sept. 27.

In a statement posted by the Brotherhood, al-Brince called the reports "completely devoid of truth … I consider it a cheap attempt to drive a wedge between the Brotherhood and the Military Council, the stridency of which has increased in the recent period."

The statement did not specifically address something else al-Masry al-Youm attributed to al-Brince:

"We will not allow the US and EU to enforce their agendas and homosexuality-promoting laws and the abolition of Islamic Sharia, as the people will not abandon Islam," he said.

Good thing he cleared that up.

U.S. Puts Indian Militant Group on Terror List

The State Department designated an Indian militant group as a foreign terrorist organization Thursday. The Indian Mujahideen (IM) is an India-based terrorist group whose ultimate aim is to impose an Islamic-style caliphate in South Asia. The group is suspected of being behind the serial bombings in Mumbai on July 13 that killed more than 20 people and injured at least 100 others.

The IM is believed to be part of the Karachi Project, sponsored by Pakistan's powerful military spy agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI). The Project that includes Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and the Harkat ul-Jihad-Islami (HuJI), seeks to train Indian jihadists to wage terrorist attacks against key metropolitan cities in India.

The IM has been responsible for a number of attacks on Indian cities in recent years. In 2010, the group attacked a German Bakery in Pune, which is frequented by Western tourists, killing nine people, including two foreigners. In 2008, the IM launched attacks in Delhi and Ahmedabad that killed more than 60 people. The IM has also played a "facilitative role" in the November 2008 terrorist siege on Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

"These designations highlight the threat posed by IM not only to Western interests but to India, a close U.S. partner. The Indian populace has borne the brunt of IM's wanton violence and today's actions illustrate our solidarity with the Indian government," Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, said in a statement.

Competing Speech Rights Debated at Irvine Trial

SANTA ANA - Defense arguments in the Irvine 11 trial continued into their second day Wednesday, with attorneys arguing their clients' actions constituted protected speech and are not a crime. Other witnesses were called to testify on behalf of the defendants' character or to discuss how other university protests allowed for a greater right to disrupt without the fear of academic sanction or arrest.

Ten of the 11 students arrested for an orchestrated series of disruptions during a February 2010 speech at the University of California, Irvine by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren are on trial facing misdemeanor charges. Despite repeated admonitions from university officials, the students continued to interrupt Oren, reading from prepared note cards as their supporters cheered.

What happened at the speech is not really in dispute. The issue is whether the episode violated the law. Prosecutors charged the group with conspiracy. The disruptions were plotted by members of the Muslim Student Union, a chapter of the national Muslim Students Association (MSA), emails exchanged among the students show.

The case has called into question the bounds of free speech at university events, and whether the right to protest can be used to squelch a speaker's right to be heard.

Defense attorneys say the students have the right to protest as a valid form of free speech. To make the argument, UC Irvine Professor Rei Terada testified that the norms of free speech on campus allow for and even encourage protest. Demands by university officials that protesters remain "courteous, polite, and hospitable," were unreasonable expectations, she said, that could not restrict the students' right to disrupt the speaker and the university's sponsorship of him.

Other witnesses described participating in similar student protests that did not elicit a police response. Several character witnesses for the defendants also testified.

Prosecutors challenged Terada's testimony by asking whether students could have expressed themselves in other ways, rather than choosing only to be disruptive and restrict the ambassador's ability to be heard.

Third N.C. Man Pleads Guilty in Jihad Plot

A third North Carolina man admitted Wednesday to aiding others in a plot to wage jihad abroad.

Dylan Boyd, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting a conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

Boyd's plea deal follows pleas by his brother and father. His father and the ringleader of a North Carolina terror cell, Daniel Patrick Boyd, pleaded guilty Feb. 9 to one count of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim individuals in a foreign country in addition to one count of material support.

Dylan's younger brother, Zakariya a.k.a. "Zak," in June pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

From 2006 through 2009, prosecutors say that the Boyds conspired with others to provide currency, training, transportation and personnel to terrorists.

Daniel Boyd was recorded by the FBI preaching violence to his sons. "The blood of Muslims has become cheap…because most of the Muslims have abandoned jihad," Boyd told Dylan and Zak.

Another defendant in the case, Jude Kenan Mohammed, remains at large and is believed to be in Pakistan. The Wall Street Journal on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks identified Mohammed as a leader U.S. officials believe to be a particular threat because he used to live in the U.S.

A trial for the remaining co-defendants is scheduled to begin next week in New Bern, N.C.

Dylan Boyd faces 15 years in prison at sentencing.

Communities Get Smart about CAIR

Communities in Washington state and Ohio recently questioned the appropriateness of CAIR's involvement in community programs.

In Puyallup, Wash., a school district is considering whether it should allow CAIR to teach about Islam in the classroom.

"For America's sake, we don't think that it's fair that Islam gets a pass and the other religions don't, but also because CAIR is a front for the Muslim brotherhood," said a member of a local ACT! For America chapter.

"We have a real problem with organizations with ties to terrorism that come into the public schools."

One parent said that school is not the time or place to learn about religion. Dozens said that they did not believe that CAIR should teach Islam in the classroom while other religions went unrepresented.

In August, an Ohio Catholic school cancelled an interfaith event with CAIR after the school received a flood of emails advising against the partnership. School president Kirsten MacDougal said the emails were from those who follow news about CAIR's national office.

"We share the concern over safety, but it is sad that this had distracted from our positive intent on both sides," said MacDougal.

CAIR was incorporated in 1994 by three members of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a propaganda outlet for a U.S.-based Hamas support network. The FBI severed relations with the group three years ago after reviewing evidence from a terrorism-financing prosecution which showed CAIR's founders were part of the Hamas support network. Prosecutors cast CAIR as "a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization, a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew."

CAIR's petition to be removed from a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case failed. A district court judge ruled that "the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR…with Hamas."

IHH Delivers Aid to Somali Terrorist Group

Two Turkish aid workers were arrested Monday near the Somalia capital of Mogadishu after meeting with a U.S.-designated terrorist organization during a humanitarian aid mission to the region.

"The Turkish aid workers were arrested because they did not coordinate with our national security. They met with al Shabaab without clearance or approval from government security," a government humanitarian coordinator told Reuters.

The pair was released following talks between Turkey's ambassador to Somalia, President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and the Horn of Africa country's chief of intelligence. One of the workers is an emergency aid official working with the Hamas-tied Turkish charity IHH.

An IHH official who declined to be named dismissed the incident as "normal, because of the security situation there."

The Turks were arrested after delivering food and supplies to an area outside Mogadishu known as KM 50, where thousands of Somalis are living in refugee camps. KM 50 is controlled by al-Shabaab, the Somali militant group tied to al-Qaida and fighting to overthrow the Somali government.

This was the first aid group to visit the region controlled by al-Shabaab, which has banned aid agencies from operating in areas they control. The group arrived at the refugee camp on Monday, and a Turkish delegate said they were warmly welcomed by al-Shabaab officials in the region. The official added that the group will deliver aid to other regions controlled by the terrorist group.

Sheikh Hassan Abu Ayman, a member of al-Shabaab's committee for drought, said the Turkish men reached them to deliver humanitarian aid and food to the famine-hit Somalis.

An IHH-sponsored humanitarian aid ship named "Gazze" arrived in Mogadishu on Monday, and was welcomed by the IHH aid teams in the region. IHH also intends to dispatch the Mavi Marmara ship, the site of the controversial May 2010 Gaza flotilla clash, on a humanitarian mission to Somalia.

Three Pakistani Men Plead Guilty to Terror Charges

Three Pakistani men pleaded guilty Monday to terrorism-related charges of supporting the Pakistani Taliban, according to a release from the U.S. Justice Department. At a hearing before U.S. District Judge John Bates in the District of Columbia, Irfan Ul Haq, Qasim Ali, and Zahid Yousaf pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to provide material support to the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Ul Haq, Ali, and Yousaf were arrested in Miami on March 13 and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling. The three men allegedly ran an alien smuggling operation out of Quito, Ecuador. As part of an undercover operation, federal agents directed confidential sources to ask the men to smuggle a fictitious person tied to the TTP from Pakistan into the United States. According to the DOJ press release, the defendants agreed to smuggle this person despite being fully aware of his purported affiliation with the TTP.

"These defendants sought to smuggle someone they believed to be a member of a terrorist organization from halfway around the world into the United States," said Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny Breuer.

The defendants allegedly told the confidential sources that it was "not their concern" what the men "want to do in the United States—hard labor, sweep floor, wash dishes in a hotel, or blow up. That will be up to them," the DOJ press release said.

The defendants also accepted payment from the confidential sources for the smuggling operation and obtained a false Pakistani passport for the fictitious TTP operative.

The investigation was carried out by the Homeland Security attaché office in Quito with the FBI and the Ecuadorian National Police.

The sentencing has been scheduled for December and each defendant faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

A separate case in South Florida also alleges material support to the Pakistani Taliban by an imam in one of the city's oldest mosques and his family.

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