More Baseless Israel Vilification From CAIR Rep

Cyrus McGoldrick, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) New York chapter advocacy director, has attacked the notion of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Supporters of a '2-state solution' in Palestine will share a page of history with the defenders of apartheid in South Africa," he wrote in a Twitter post Thursday. "Be careful."

Islamists and anti-Israel activists frequently invoke apartheid charges against Israel, but the claim does not hold up to scrutiny.

McGoldrick frequently utters extreme and false statements, both at CAIR events and in public.

In September, he went on Iran's state-controlled Press TV to blame America for deadly reactions to a crudely produced Internet video mocking the Muslim prophet Muhammad. In August, he used his Twitter feed to promote an Iranian-inspired anti-Israel rally.

In response to Thursday's anti-Israel post, a McGoldrick follower suggested Israelis could have better peace partners if the West stopped supporting Arab monarchies that spread hateful ideology. That contradicts McGoldrick's notion that Israel, and its very existence, is the source of all the turmoil.

He shot back: "you assume Zionists want peace. USA props up the Israeli/Wahhabi alliance, which is THE hateful ideology blocking justice."

To McGoldrick, lack of progress for Palestinians is everybody else's fault. America, Saudi Arabia and Israel are to blame, not Palestinian rejectionists – which McGoldrick's tweet indicates he is among – who refuse to renounce terror, recognize Israel's right to exist and negotiate peacefully.

McGoldrick's comments wouldn't be significant if not for his role as a representative of the nation's most visible Islamist political groups. His public behavior is a reflection on the organization he represents.

Syrian Jihadist Group Threatens United States

A Syrian opposition group tied to al-Qaida has issued a threatening statement against the United States two weeks after the U.S. Treasury Department designated its leaders as terrorists.

A statement published on a jihadist website from Abu Mohammad Tahawi, a leading Jordanian Salafi jihadist who often trumpets the Nusrah Front in Syria, taunts the United States and President Obama and promises bloodshed.

The Nusrah Front "placed you long ago on the terrorism blacklist based on injustice, tyranny and vanquishing people," Tahawi wrote. "They have made a pledge for themselves to obey the oath of Sheikh Osama [bin Laden] … and you will not know a pleasant life, nor quiet and happy sleep until you return to your homes, with bowed heads, weary, miserable; and you pay them the Jizya (tax on non-Muslims), and are humbled ."

It invokes the treatment of American Indians, the use of atomic bombs in Japan during World War II and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That history places the United States "at the top of the list of terrorists targeted for the fire of our weapons, and the fire of our weapons will not be extinguished upon until you the fire you until you are kept from your intent, your evil, your pride and your injustice, and Right is restored to its people and you return across the seas where you come from," Tahawi wrote.

In a statement, the Treasury Department said its Dec. 11 action was an attempt "to deny al-Qa'ida's attempts to subvert the Syrian opposition." Al-Nusrah has tried "exploit the instability inside Syria for its own purposes, using tactics and espousing an ideology drawn from AQI [al-Qaida in Iraq] that the Syrian people broadly reject. Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed responsibility for nearly 600 terrorist attacks, killing and wounding hundreds of Syrians. These activities are attempts by AQI to hijack the struggles of the legitimate Syrian opposition to further its own extremist ideology."

Tahawi's statement treats the U.S. action as a declaration of war:

The land of Greater Syrian awaits you with great suspense for your hearts to be roasted in a sea of hot coals, for your fat to melt, and your meat to be grilled; today you will no longer be able to manage a single battle much less several battles. This is by the Grace of God, then by the grace of the soldiers of Osama who will frighten you and paralyze your thinking; come to the land of Greater Syria, if you be you men or if there is in you the remains of rest manhood. Ah, why are you reluctant to come Oh, Obama? Perhaps you remember the tragedies of your friend Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the bad luck you inherited still bears the burden of its consequences.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's grip on power is seen as weakening dramatically. Reports indicate the United States is considering intervention to stop Syria's chemical weapons arsenal from falling into the hands of terrorists.

CAIR Leader Teams with Radical, Jew-Hating Imam

One leads an organization that poses as a mainstream civil rights organization, defending individual rights and fighting discrimination. The other is an influential cleric who has repeatedly expressed his wish to kill Jews before he dies.

Together, they are promoters of a new film venture about the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), shared a stage with Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, during a news conference in Qatar earlier this week.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, far right, joins radical cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, second from left, in discussing a film about Islam's prophet Muhammad in Qatar this week.

The Muhammad movie project carries an estimated $1 billion price tag. It will be produced in in English to appeal to non-Muslim audiences and is backed by the al Noor Holding Group, Qatar's al-Sharq newspaper reported.

During the news conference, Awad complained that the American film industry had generated 750 movies "in which Islam and Muslims were noted in a negative way," the article said. The seven-part Muhammad film was an important step in countering the resulting image, Awad said.

Qaradawi, whose extremist rhetoric prompted France to ban him from visiting the country, essentially blessed the script as acceptable under religious law despite its portrayals of the prophet and his companions. He was joined by other trustees from Qaradawi's International Union for Muslim Scholars in supporting the project.

The union's board includes Tunisian Islamist leader Rachid Ghannouchi, a Hamas supporter who has praised Hamas rocket fire toward civilians and blessed mothers of suicide bombers, and Salah Soltan, a former Ohio imam who has repeatedly called for the killing of Jews.

"There is no excuse for anyone to refrain from jihad after God has removed the affliction, which obstructed us from jihad to liberate Palestine," he said last year. In a speech last week, he called on Egyptians to approve the country's heavily-Islamist constitution, saying it would help lead to Jerusalem's liberation.

The Chicago chapter of Awad's organization recently launched a public relations campaign aimed at changing public perception of jihad in Islam. Rather than a call to violence, or holy war, the campaign shows individuals describing personal jihads to better their lives.

But Awad's partners, like Qaradawi, who has repeatedly advocated jihad, including attacks on American forces in Iraq, haven't received the message.

The campaign, like the Muhammad film, targets non-Muslim audiences in hopes of softening the image of Islamic radicalism. Awad and the film producers in Qatar should consider taking on those within their faith who advocate for violent jihad – people like Qaradawi and Soltan – with greater gusto.

U.S.-led Global Counterterrorism Forum Excludes Israel

A multilateral counter-terror initiative generated by the United States excludes Israel while featuring many states with terrorist ties. The Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) has 30 founding members including Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Nigeria, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel's exclusion is noteworthy, considering it is at the forefront of counterterrorism operations, constituting an unprecedented hub of expertise on the matter.

But including Israel would offend many of the GCTF's founding members, many of which are sworn enemies of the Jewish state and actively finance and support terrorist operations against it.

The GCTF can therefore be viewed as a U.S. attempt at forging closer ties with countries that have a history of sympathizing and actively supporting Islamist terrorism in the past. Israel was barred from participating in a June GCTF meeting, reportedly due to vehement protests by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

An unnamed State Department official was quoted saying "A number of our close partners with considerable experience countering and preventing terrorism are not included" in the GCTF and that they hoped to include Israel in future activities. That has yet to happen.

The GCTF started in September 2011 with an aim to "enhance global cooperation" and promote a long-term approach to addressing the international terrorist threat. It hopes to enhance countries' abilities to deal with their respective terrorist threats by finding messages to counter violent extremism and other actions.

But much of the rhetoric that fuels radical Islamist terrorism emanated from GCTF member state Saudi Arabia's ultra-conservative Wahhabi interpretation, which has been disseminated globally with petroleum revenue.

Meanwhile, Egypt co-chairs a criminal justice working group for the forum even though new President Mohamed Morsi has openly supported Hamas and his Muslim Brotherhood organization has called for jihad against Israel.

For more information on the GCTF, click here.

Spain Targets Pakistani Refugee Over Film

Cravenness in the face of Islamist censorship is on display in Spain, where the national government has warned a refugee political filmmaker he faces deportation for making a documentary critical of Islam.

The controversial documentary, "The Innocent Prophet: The Life of Mohammed from a Different Point of View, is a project conceived by Pakistani ex-Muslim Imran Firasat. In a new Gatestone Institute commentary, analyst Soeren Kern writes that the film, which was posted on YouTube Dec. 15, "purports to raise awareness of the dangers of Islam."

"The Innocent Prophet" shows images of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, along with the March 11, 2004 Madrid bombings that killed approximately 190 people and the July 7, 2005 London bombings that killed 52. It features Quranic passages threatening nonbelievers with violence, and promises to answer the question: "Was Mohammed an inspired prophet of God, or was he a madman driven by his own demons, thus producing a religion of tyranny of violence?"

Firasat was granted political asylum in Spain two years ago after receiving death threats in Pakistan and Indonesia for marrying a non-Muslim and criticizing Islam. He made "The Innocent Prophet" in cooperation with Terry Jones, the American pastor best known for Quran burning.

In response, the Spanish government is reportedly threatening to deport Firasat. Media accounts say the country's interior ministry has initiated a process to review his refugee status, and there is speculation that Spanish authorities would try to arrest him for "offending religious sentiments."

Spanish authorities have told him he will lose his refugee status and "will be deported back to Pakistan where the death penalty is waiting for me" if he releases the movie, Firasat said in an interview last week with the International Business Times. After detaining him for questioning, Spanish authorities suggested he leave the country and burn the Quran, he said. Firasat replied he is a Spanish citizen with the same rights as anyone else.

In Belgium, government officials declared that the trailer for "The Innocent Prophet" can "be perceived as Islamophobic" and increased security threat levels in an effort to head off violence in response to the documentary. In September, hundreds of Muslims clashed with Belgian police in Antwerp, the country's second-largest city to protest the release of "The Innocence of Muslims."

CAIR's Campaign Obscures Jihad's Meaning

The Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) Chicago chapter has launched a website and ad campaign aimed at convincing Americans that the term jihad only refers to a spiritual struggle and has no violent connotations.

"MyJihad is a public education campaign that seeks to share the proper meaning of Jihad as believed and practiced by the majority of Muslims," the MyJihad website says.

The group says the term has been "widely misrepresented" by the actions of Muslim extremists and by "Islamophobes" who claim that most Muslims are wrong.

"We are taking ownership of our faith and taking it back from Muslim and anti-Muslim extremists, which both have hijacked the conversation, one through bloody actions and the other extreme rhetoric," Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR-Chicago told The Christian Science Monitor.

It's a curious campaign from a group whose officials have established a long history of rationalizing jihadist violence and refusing to condemn jihadist groups such as Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

CAIR has stood by people convicted of helping jihadist groups abroad, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian and former Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra, though both had documented records of advocating violent jihad. See Damra here and Al-Arian here.

Ignoring this history, the MyJihad website says that "Jihad is more about peace and education than anything else" and says that it involves "confronting our weaknesses, vices and shortcomings."

The site features several videos including one titled "The Savages" Respond: My Jihad Ad Campaign, which depicts several young Muslim men and women wearing hijabs set against title cards saying "My Jihad is a photo shoot" or "My Jihad is a free Syria."

Similar messages appear as advertisements on buses in Chicago.

The site relies heavily on the opinions of Sufis, who stand almost alone in global Islam in rejecting the concept of violent jihad and who comprise 20 percent of the world's Muslims, and pacifist Ahmadiyyas to convey their message.

The Ahmadiyyas stand for the peaceful propagation of Islam and are regarded as heretics or fakes by many Muslims around the world.

Examples of this include a video on the site a lecture by Sufi Imam Habib Ali Al-Jufri discussing jihad as a peaceful struggle. Other articles posted feature an Al-Azhar-endorsed fatwa on terrorism written by Sufi scholar Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri and another, "The Spiritual Significance of Jihad," by Sufi scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

There is one article featured, Ahmadiyya Muslim Qasim Rashid's "Muhammad's Rules of War," which clearly criticizes "Hamas rocket attacks and PIJ terrorist attacks." That's something CAIR's leaders have been unwilling to do themselves.

Turkish Jews Forced to Choose

Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) is investigating the possibility that five Turkish citizens (all apparently Jewish) cooperated with Israel during the May 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara ship, part of a flotilla attempting to flout Israel's blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. Passengers attacked IDF commandos with knives, clubs and other weapons as they attempted to board, triggering a brawl in which nine Turkish Islamists died.

MIT believes the five suspects either assisted Israel Defense Force troops boarding the ship or participated in the subsequent interrogation of activists in Israel.

Despite its longstanding terrorist links, the Istanbul-based IHH, the charity that helped drive the Mavi Marmara clash, has received strong support from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Weeks before the ship sailed, Erdogan told flotilla organizers he would support their efforts to break Israel's "oppressive siege on the Gaza Strip."

IHH officials have sought to focus investigators' attention on the purported treachery of Turkish Jews. Ugur Yildirim, an IHH attorney, claimed Turkish citizens wearing IDF uniforms had been brought in to act as Israeli interpreters. IHH Deputy Chairman Huseyin Ersoz said that once the names were published, "everyone will know who the Turkish Jews are that served in the Israeli Army and killed Turkish civilians on the Mavi Marmara."

According to Rafael Sadi, spokesman for the Association of Turkish Immigrants in Israel, Turkish authorities "are trying to intimidate the Jews" and to send Israel a message that if Turkish government demands for an Israeli government apology aren't met, the Turkish Jewish community could suffer the consequences.

This follows the start of last month's trial in absentia of four former senior Israeli commanders over the ship clash. In what Israeli officials describe as a "show trial," former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi; former Navy Commander Eliezer Marom; former Air Force Commander Amos Yadlin; and former Air Force intelligence chief Avishay Levi face up to 18,000 years each in prison.

The Jewish population of the country, just over 80,000 in 1927, has fallen to no more than 20,000 today. Paris-based researcher Rifat Bali, who closely monitors Turkish Jewry, said in a recent interview that in the wake of the flotilla incident, a growing number of conspiracy theories have appeared in the Turkish media, and the nation's tiny Jewish community has come under mounting pressure to support Erdogan and to denounce Israel.

Some Jewish journalists have declared their hostility towards Israel and expressed their solidarity with the Palestinians. For his part, Erdogan alternates between vowing to "protect" Turkish Jewry on one hand and labeling Israel a "terrorist state" on the other. Given the Islamist leader's fierce hostility towards Israel, Turkish Jews who want his protection will likely think long and hard before saying positive things about Israel.

Beijing's Role in Arming Israel's Enemies

U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered evidence that North Korea has agreed to secretly ship Scud missile components through China to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-backed government.

Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon reports that intelligence information about the transfers was circulated last month to senior State and Defense Department officials, but the Obama administration has not challenged either China or North Korea over the deal.

Such shipments would violate United Nations sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its missile and nuclear weapons tests. U.S. intelligence officials told the Free Beacon that Beijing has repeatedly violated those sanctions by providing technology and goods to the communist regime in North Korea.

Richard Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said China's proliferation activities leave Israel facing a three-pronged Chinese-originated missile threat. It includes Egypt's Chinese-enabled missiles; North Korean missiles transferred to Iran with Chinese assistance; and Chinese missiles supplied to Hizballah.

During its 2006 war with Israel, Hizballah used this weaponry to devastating effect. A Chinese-supplied C-802 anti-ship missile struck an Israeli ship, the INS Hanit, off the coast of Lebanon, killing four Israeli sailors. The attack could have been much worse; most of the 80-member crew was eating dinner in the Hanit's mess hall, a location away from where the missile struck.

The Chinese missile strike "highlighted a tragic blindness in the Israeli military: It simply refused to believe that Chinese authorities would put a dangerous missile system of this magnitude in the hands of a nonstate actor" like Hizballah, Brett Decker and William Triplett wrote in their study of the Chinese strategic threat, Bowing to Beijing. Israel's military commander told a board of inquiry that the prospect of Chinese advanced conventional missiles like the C-802 missiles being transferred to Beijing seemed "unrealistic and imaginary."

This weapons trafficking is unlikely to end anytime soon because it is so lucrative. The weapons are usually produced by Chinese state-owned enterprises dominated by "princelings" – sons, daughters and grandchildren of senior Communist Party officials. It's not going to change absent a new willingness by Israelis and their American counterparts to challenge this behavior publicly, Decker and Triplett wrote.

But there seems to be no similar sense of urgency within Israel about Beijing's arming of its enemies. Israeli media accounts like this tend to focus on cultural issues, differing perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and the benefits of increased trade and improved diplomatic ties. An IDF honor guard welcomed a senior Chinese People's Liberation Army official during an official visit to Israel last year.

Israeli officials say privately that they are aware of China's duplicity but they think they can change it through engagement with the regime. That may ultimately prove to be the case, but thus far there isn't much evidence on the public record to support this theory.

Falk Targets Israel, Whitewashes Hamas at UN

United Nations "Special Rapporteur" for Palestine Richard Falk, who has suggested Israel was planning a "Palestinian Holocaust," touted 9/11 conspiracy theories, and called for a corporate boycott of the Jewish state, now blames Israel for the recent violence in Gaza.

An organization calling itself International Movement for a JUST World posted a U.N. press release on its website Thursday touting Falk's recent weeklong trip to Cairo and Gaza.

Falk said he initially planned to travel to the region "to assess the overall impact of Israel's prolonged occupation and blockade against the Gaza Strip." But the fighting triggered "an urgent need to investigate Israel's seemingly deliberate attacks against seemingly civilian targets during recent hostilities," he said.

Israel "killed and harmed civilians in a grossly disproportionate manner and thus clearly violated international law," Falk said, and warned that "Israel is not likely to carry out its obligations under the ceasefire agreement."

The press release said nothing about inconvenient subjects that conflict with his anti-Israel narrative, like Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005; terrorist rocket attacks from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians; or Hamas' use of children as human shields in fighting Israel.

The release followed a lengthy essay Falk posted on his own website in which he tried to whitewash Hamas statements calling for the destruction of Israel. He praised senior terrorist operatives Khaled Meshaal and Mousa Abu Marzook as "moderates" and declared that Palestinians were "unquestionably" entitled to the "Right of Return," which most Israelis regard as a formula for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Falk mocked the argument that that Israel had the right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks by targeting Gaza-based terrorists. A "more accurate " interpretation would take into account "the American plot to reverse the outcome of the 2006 electoral victory of Hamas" and "the Israeli punitive blockade" and "many instances of provocative Israeli violence," including targeted assassinations of terrorists, he wrote.

Claiming that Israel has "absolute impunity" for "violations of international criminal law," Falk asked why Americans don't treat Hamas with the same respect accorded anti-Nazi resistance groups during World War II: "Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honored as martyrs. Meshaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what are Palestinians supposed to do in the exercise of resistance" given the failure of traditional diplomacy "to secure their rights under international law."

UN Watch has been closely monitoring Falk's actions. Read more here and here.

Report: War Crimes Charges Against ICNA Official Imminent

Another report indicates that a prominent Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) figure is about to face war crimes charges in his native Bangladesh.

Questions about Ashrafuzzaman Khan's role in death squads during Bangladesh's 1971 civil war have lingered for years. Now a website covering New York immigrant communities reports that Khan could be among four people to face charges within weeks.

Khan has denied any wrongdoing, but Global City NYC reports that a Bangladesh war crimes tribunal issued a report in October placing Khan amid a Pakistani military-orchestrated what the tribunal's prosecutor described as a "master plan" targeting Bengali intellectuals and academics "who might have played key roles in the new state" in the civil war's closing days.

Bangladesh won its independence in the war.

Khan has served as ICNA's president and secretary general and remains president of its New York chapter. ICNA was organized by South Asian Muslims in the U.S. and follows the extremist ideology of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which advocates for revolution to create an Islamist state in Pakistan. Its curriculum emphasizes the teaching of conservative Islamists like Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan Al-Banna, current spiritual leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, and Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul 'Ala Maududi.

It is not clear whether U.S. officials would allow Khan to be extradited if charged and the Justice Department's top war crimes officer declined to address the issue. Officials in Bangladesh indicate they would try him in absentia.

Relatives of some of Khan's alleged victims also live in the United States and expressed support for the case. And a group called the Forum for Secular Bangladesh expressed dismay at seeing Khan holding leadership positions in New York.

"There is enough evidence to prosecute Khan," forum Vice President Abdul Baten, told Global City NYC. "If he is innocent, then he can prove his innocence in front of the tribunal."

ICNA spokesman Naeem Baig told Global City that Khan continues to enjoy the organization's support.

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings