Treasury Designation Latest of Hamas Challenges

The Treasury Department announced Thursday that it designated two Lebanese-based charities which help fund Hamas.

Al-Waqfiya Al-Ri'aya Al-Usra Al-Filistinya Al-Lubnanya and the Al-Quds International Foundation, both Beirut based, were targeted by the designation, which makes it illegal for people in the United States from doing any business with them. The groups are controlled by Hamas and raise money for relatives of Hamas terrorists and prisoners, along with other projects in the Palestinian territories aimed at boosting Hamas's standing.

Al-Waqfiya is described as "a central component of the Union of Good" in the Treasury announcement. The Union of Good was designated in 2008 and is led by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian.

"The Treasury Department will continue to work to disrupt Hamas's efforts to radicalize vulnerable communities and undermine regional stability," said Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. "Today's action represents another step in our effort to ensure that charitable fronts are not used to finance terrorism."

The designation comes amid difficult times for Hamas. A Washington Times column notes that its cause is being lost amid Arab Spring activity, especially the bloody battle for control of Syria. By siding with opposition leaders against dictator Bashar al-Assad, who along with his late father have allowed Hamas to operate out of Damascus, the group has alienated some supporters, including Iran which has financed Hamas for years.

And Human Rights Watch issued a 43-page report Wednesday detailing a pattern of abuse and torture of prisoners in Hamas custody in Gaza, "including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, torture, and unfair trials." Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, "executed at least three men convicted on the basis of 'confessions' apparently obtained under torture," a Human Rights Watch release said.

There were 147 complaints of torture by Hamas police agencies last year alone.

Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas's parent organization – to rein in the abuse.

"There is ample evidence that Hamas security services are torturing people in custody with impunity and denying prisoners their rights," said Joe Stork, the group's deputy Middle East director. "The Gaza authorities should stop ignoring the abuse and ensure that the justice system respects Palestinians' rights."

Pipes: The Line Between Mockery and Hatred

Images of the Muslim prophet Muhammad may be offensive to believers, but they do not constitute hate speech, Daniel Pipes points out in a column this week.

In the wake of violent protests tied to an online video depicting Muhammad in unflattering ways, Pipes proposed a daily tide of images depicting Muhammad until Islamists grow callous to the whole concept. "Freedom of speech means the freedom to insult and be obnoxious," he wrote. "So long as it does not include incitement or information that urges criminal action, nastiness is an essential part of our heritage."

Criticism and satire have long targeted other faiths, he notes, so the onus is on angry Muslims need to accept modern realities rather than demand the rest of the world conform to ancient mores.

This drew a retort calling Pipes' idea "irresponsible" because "hate speech" won't make anything better.

Words and phrases can lose meaning over time, and Pipes argues that by definition, hate speech involves inciting hatred against a defined group of people. In the wake of a string of perceived offenses against Islam and Muhammad, however, there are no instances in which non-Muslims rampaged against Muslims.

Rather, rage and hatred stemming from those cases were limited to Islamists expressing their fury about cartoons and an online video.

"When attacks on Muslims take place," he writes, "they occur in response to terrorism by Muslims; that's no excuse, to be sure, but it does indicate that violence against Muslims has no connection with lampooning Muhammad or desecrating Korans. Muslims need to grow thick skins like everyone else; this is one of the by-products of globalization. The insulation of old is gone for good."

Read the full column here.

"Moderate" New Jersey Imam Calls for Blasphemy Law

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's favorite imam believes that the producer of an online video insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad should be prosecuted criminally.

Americans enjoy free speech, but "have no right" to mock things holy to Islam, Mohamed Qatanani, imam at the Islamic Center of Passaic County told The Blaze in an interview published Monday.

"My position is that White House has to say strong in its condemnation [of the filmmakers] and take this person to court," Qatanani said. "If he is innocent, we will accept that… The government has strong case against this person."

Qatanani has a history of Hamas support and was related by marriage to a leading Hamas operative in the West Bank. He is due to return to a New Jersey immigration court in November for a rehearing in a deportation case based upon his failure to disclose this when he sought a green card in 1999. An appellate board determined his original hearing was flawed.

While Islamist political activists and religious leaders have condemned the violence and murder that erupted in recent weeks over the film and other factors, Qatanani is not alone in using the incident as a justification for blasphemy laws.

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), for example, called a news conference to decry the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. But the group also posted a Saudi cleric's declaration to its home page which clearly called for insults against Islam to be crimes.

"Provoking the feelings of over one billion people" can threaten world peace, wrote Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, vice-chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and president of the Global Centre for Renewal and Guidance in Jeddah.

"We are extremely concerned with a small active minority in your countries that seeks to perpetuate a state of conflict and war. We estimate that such objectives do not serve the general interest. Therefore, it is our hope that you reconsider and criminalize the denigration of religious symbols, as such provocations do not serve the principles of free speech, principles that you and us both seek to uphold.

A Council on American Islamic Relations official went on Iranian-controlled television to say America need to reassess its military and foreign policy to calm Muslim anger.

All of this makes a column last week by Canadian anti-Islamist Muslim Tarek Fatah a must read. He reveres Mohammad as God's messenger, but recognizes the rest of the world may not. The belief systems of others, even when it rises to insult against Islam, shouldn't affect him. But "getting offended, it seems, is the most identifiable attribute of my Muslim brothers."

That leads to deadly violence throughout the world, often against wholly unrelated targets.

"What alarms me," Fatah wrote, "is the devious, unethical and immoral nature of a critical mass of Muslims who are not offended when Saudi Arabia destroys the 7th century home of Mohammed, but freak out at a film they have not seen or a book they have not read."

Salafi Cleric: Ambassador's Murder Justified

The murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was justified under Islam because American embassies engage in espionage harmful to Muslims, a prominent Salafi cleric wrote in a fatwa discovered (subscription required) by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

In fact, MEMRI reported, Sheikh Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti wrote on the Salafi-jihadi website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad that a violent response is required to "make the infidels think hard before insulting Islam or the Prophet."

His fatwa came in response to reader questions about Stevens' murder at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya last week. Readers wondered if Stevens was an appropriate target since he had nothing to do with the online video, "Innocence of Muslims," that is being used to generate violent protests throughout the region. Another asked why Stevens wasn't considered off-limits as a diplomat.

"When the enemies of Allah act in impudence and cross all red lines, there must be a response that will be on the same level as the event and that will make the infidels think hard before insulting Islam or the Prophet," Al-Shinqiti wrote. "America's embassies and diplomats are no more sanctimonious than the Prophet."

Stevens was no mere messenger, Al-Shinqiti wrote. He was part of a state attacking Islam. And he invoked the "war on Islam" narrative considered especially effective in radicalizing Muslims.

"The war being waged on Islam, such as the fight against jihad (which they call terrorism), and the propagation of the religion of democracy – all this is planned from within these embassies," he wrote.

He named other Muslim leaders who condemned the violence, calling them "defeatist opportunists" and "collaborators and traitors who boast their treason and collaboration with America."

Chicago Teen Vows to Fight Bomb Plot Charges

Prosecutors describe Adel Daoud as someone committed to bringing jihad to Chicago. In court Monday, his attorney described him as "an immature 18-year-old" and promised to contest terrorism charges against him.

FBI agents arrested Daoud Friday evening and charged him with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to damage and destroy a building by means of an explosive. He had just tried to detonate a bomb inside a Jeep Cherokee parked outside a Chicago bar.

Like many similar sting operations, the fellow terrorists Daoud had been dealing with were FBI agents or informants. The bomb was inert and did not pose a threat to the community.

During a year-long investigation, Daoud was given several opportunities to reconsider his plans, according to a Justice Department press release announcing the arrest. Driving from a suburb to the bar he targeted, "Daoud led the undercover agent in a prayer that Daoud and the agent succeed in their attack, kill many people, and cause destruction," the release said.

He used e-mail accounts to obtain and distribute material relating to violent jihad and the killing of Americans, an FBI affidavit said. That's what drew attention from law enforcement, which saw some of the material he posted online.

An informant introduced Daoud to an "operational terrorist" living in New York. Daoud drew up a list of 29 potential targets that included military recruiting centers, bars, malls, and other tourist attractions in the Chicago area in e-mail communications with the informants.

He also registered with an online jihad-related Internet forum and e-mailed individuals a PowerPoint presentation titled "The Osama bin Laden I Know."

"Osama wasn't crazy for wanting to destroy America," he wrote. "This superpower killed millions of people."

Daoud also praised American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, writing that "those people insulting awlaki can go kill themselves" and prayed that Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last year, would be accepted as a martyr.

Court records indicate Daoud's desire to carry out a terrorist attack was spurred by instructions from al-Qaida's Inspire magazine: "I live in the United States of America/hypocrisy. I want to in the future insha'Allah go for jihad in the Cause of Allah….i hate the oppression of the USA and i would love to do something that would hurt it from the inside."

American civilians were "legal targets" for attack, he wrote, because Americans "pay their taxes which fund the government's war against Islam" and they "VOTE for the leaders who kill us every day."

Daoud faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Rubin: We've Seen This Movie, Too

For all the debate over what sparked the ongoing violent demonstrations across the Islamic world, writer Barry Rubin points out that such a violent reaction to a contrived provocation is nothing new.

It's about Islamists seeking power by fostering hatred of the West, he writes, and "not some act of Islamophobia."

"As long as free speech exists in the West, there will always be events that provide pretexts for outrage. Radical Islamists will make sure that even the most obscure of events can be used," Rubin writes.

So it's not surprising to see calls for the United States to restrict speech that offends Muslim sensibilities, from a Muslim Brotherhood minister in Cairo to the cleric at one of America's largest mosques.

For Islamists throughout the world, there's little to lose in fanning the flames of hatred against the West. "The Brotherhood regime would like to figure out a way to prove it hates the United States without any cost. Now it knows how to do so," Rubin writes. "Let the radicals go into the embassy with no interference by the security forces, and the Obama administration will still give it $1.6 billion (including security assistance to an army now controlled by the Brotherhood!), help it buy two German submarines, plan to cancel $1 billion in debt, and make its president an honored guest at the White House."

There's no shortage of causes to trigger violent mobs. Egypt increasingly is focused on the imprisonment of blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman – convicted of plotting real terror attacks in New York City – and hatred of Israel is an easy rallying cry. Protests get the media coverage, Rubin writes, but incitement takes place every day in schools, mosques and in Arabic media.

While those storming U.S. diplomatic outposts represent a relative handful in the total population, Rubin concludes, it would be a mistake to dismiss the past week as a brief, but passing crisis.

"This is not a theological dispute. This is not a therapy session. This is not a contest to say the right things so you get invited to a Washington dinner party. It is a political struggle for power in which the losers end up dead or fleeing into exile or having their diplomats shot dead."

Chilling Free Speech to Appease Radical Islamists

Violent protests continued Monday in the wake of an online film trailer considered insulting to the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Dozens of Afghan police officers were injured in clashes, at least one person died and several buildings were torched in northwest Pakistan and Hizballah called for a major demonstration in Lebanon.

Google has announced that it will not pull the video, "The Innocence of Muslims," from YouTube, despite a White House request to see if the video violated any policies against hate speech. The video is "clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube," a statement said.

The White House involvement triggered criticism from free speech advocates.

"I am actually kind of distressed by this," Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Politico. "Even though there are all these great quotes from inside the White House saying they support free speech....by calling YouTube from the White House, they were sending a message no matter how much they say we don't want them to take it down, when the White House calls and asks you to review it, it sends a message and has a certain chilling effect."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted this isn't the first time the Obama administration wavered in its commitment to the First Amendment. It has worked with the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation on blasphemy resolutions, even hosting an event this year called a "High Level Meeting on Combating Religious Intolerance." It included a resolution that does not "criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence."

McCarthy called that a smokescreen because soliciting violence "is already criminal and has always been exempted from First Amendment protection. There is no need for more law about that … The First Amendment permits us to criticize in a way that may provoke hostility — it would be unconstitutional to suppress that regardless of whether the law purporting to do so was civil, as opposed to criminal."

Rather, the policy allows public pressure to suppress controversial speech, "effectively saying it is perfectly appropriate to employ extra-legal forms of intimidation to suppress speech that 'we abhor,'" McCarthy wrote.

In this case, the administration "endorses extortionate 'peer pressure' and 'shaming,' but condemns constitutionally protected speech."

That's all too often a Western response, echoed Ayaan Hirsi Ali in a Daily Beast column Monday. Pointing to the 1989 fatwa against author Salman Rushdie and her own experiences as a critic of Islam, Hirsi Ali described "the utterly incoherent tendency to simultaneously defend free speech—and to condemn its results."

Those waging violent protests value religious icons more than life, she wrote. But sounding an optimistic note, she predicted the eventual marginalization and defeat of radical Islamist fury after newly empowered governments fail to deliver on a better life for their people.

"We must be patient," Hirsi Ali wrote. "America needs to empower those individuals and groups who are already disenchanted with political Islam by helping find and develop an alternative. At the heart of that alternative are the ideals of the rule of law and freedom of thought, worship, and expression. For these values there can and should be no apologies, no groveling, no hesitation."

Love of Allah Fueled Capitol Suicide Bomb Plot

A Virginia resident who thought he would be serving Allah by becoming the first suicide bomber in the United States was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday.

"I just want to say that I love Allah. That's it," Amine El-Khalifi, 29, told U.S. District Judge James Cacheris before the sentence was issued.

Public defender Kenneth Troccoli echoed that sentiment, telling the court El-Khalifi's "motivation was simply to do what he thought God called him to do."

El-Khalifi hoped to detonate a suicide bomb inside the U.S. Capitol in February and was willing to shoot guards who might block his entry, court records show. Law enforcement officials were drawn to him after an informant reported in August 2010 that El-Khalifi had responded to a Facebook posting from Afghanistan inviting people to join the mujahideen.

He was motivated by a belief that the war on terrorism was a war on Muslims. He scouted several potential targets before settling on the Capitol. Undercover agents made sure none of El-Khalifi's weapons were operable.

According to a statement of facts signed as part of his guilty plea, El-Khalifi admitted he took an AK-47 and bomb vest from a van parked in a Capitol Hill garage. He was arrested as he "walked alone from the vehicle toward the United States Capitol, where he intended to shoot people and detonate the bomb."

Such sting operations routinely are criticized by Islamist groups as entrapment, but courts have rejected that argument. Prosecutors say El-Khalifi was determined to kill and had to be stopped.

"On his own initiative, a man living right here in Alexandria selected the target and date of his suicide attack and engaged in surveillance to ensure that his attack caused maximum casualties," U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement.

"We cannot wait until there are real, dead victims to enforce our laws," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg added in court Friday. El-Khalifi stopped to pray at a mosque before he went Capitol Hill. He listened to a recording of the Quran during the drive into Washington.

"The threat posed to the United States and its citizens by those willing to carry out suicide bombings on United States soil cannot be overstated," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. "The United States justice system has limited opportunities to address this threat, and the message sent by this Court's sentence, therefore, must be crystal clear; those who are willing to commit violent terrorist attacks on United States soil will be detected, apprehended, and sentenced to serve decades in prison."

El-Khalifi likely will be deported to Morocco when he completes his sentence.

American Hamas Operative Sues Treasury Over Designation

Attorneys for a Chicago man believed to be the only American citizen designated as terrorist sued the U.S. Treasury Department this week, saying he's been virtually unable to hold a job or engage in everyday transactions as a result.

Muhammad Salah was designated a terrorist in August 1995, months after an executive order by President Bill Clinton named Hamas a terrorist group and prohibited transactions with the group. Salah was in an Israeli prison at the time after pleading guilty to a Hamas support charge.

He returned to Illinois after his release in 1997, but with limited exceptions has been unable to open a bank account, buy groceries or gifts for his family because of the Clinton order's ban on transactions with a designated terrorist, the lawsuit said.

"There is no endpoint to the designation and its restrictions," the lawsuit said. It argues the designation was never court-tested, violating Salah's due process rights and essentially punishing him without a trial.

He is joined in the suit by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the American Friends Services Committee, a Quaker organization.

The groups say they would like to champion Salah's plight, but fear crossing restrictions on providing support to a terrorist that are spelled out in the executive order.

The ADC took up for two other Hamas supporters in July, issuing a release complaining about the deportation of two brothers from Texas. The brothers turned out to be Basman and Bayan Elashi. Each is a convicted felon tied to a Dallas-based Hamas support network. Salah is an unindicted co-conspirator in that case, listed among people Hamas deputy political leader Mousa Abu Marzook "utilized as a financial conduit on behalf and/or for the benefit of HAMAS."

Salah was indicted on racketeering charges in 2004, but convicted only of lying in a civil suit related to Hamas financing. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said jurors did think Salah was connected to Hamas and she didn't buy his claims that his confession to Israeli officials had been coerced.

Prosecutors say Salah continued serving for Hamas after the designation "including directing and financing travel to Israel and the West Bank in or about October 1999 of a Chicago-based associate."

CAIR Rep Applauds Shunning Law Enforcement

New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa held his first meeting Wednesday with a new committee aimed at improving relations between law enforcement and Muslims.

It took place over the objection of some Muslim activists who wanted a boycott of the meeting because of Chiesa's previous finding that public surveillance of New Jersey Muslims by the New York Police Department did not violate state law. That surveillance has ended, Chiesa said in the meeting.

In an op-ed piece published Tuesday, Arab American Forum President Aref Assaf cast any Muslim who attended as a sell-out. "Our dignity and our rights are too precious for a passing photo-op," he wrote.

In addition to Chiesa's finding – which came in response to a request from Muslim activists – Assaf objected to the meeting because the 10 Muslim representatives primarily come from mosque leadership and not from Islamist political groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

"While honored and respected in their own mosques, and we of course do not doubts (sic) their intentions," Assaf wrote, "these people were not presented to the Muslim community with their credentials and none appear to be of legal or academic backgrounds."

This drew praise from 3,000 miles away, as CAIR-San Francisco Executive Director Zahra Billoo posted a comment on Twitter feed directing people to Assaf's column. "Great Piece About Who Gets to Decide Who Represents the Community in Engagement with Law Enforcement," she wrote.

While CAIR claims to be a friend to law enforcement, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has repeatedly demonstrated the group's hostility and the paranoid message it conveys to Muslims. That includes a new profile of Billoo, showing her reflexive criticism of terror-related arrests by the FBI and her open advocacy of extreme positions.

Given that, her enthusiastic support for Assaf's stance makes sense. Assaf wants veto power over the people a state official chooses to engage. And he argues Muslims should shun Chiesa until he agrees with them.

"Unless the AG is about to change his opinion [on the NYPD surveillance], I fail to see a tangible value in talking. 'Our' representatives fundamentally disagree with the AG's view. Or don't they?"

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