Iran’s Theater of Operations in Latin America - Janet Levy

by Janet Levy

As Islamic terrorist entities such as Iran’s proxy, Hizb’allah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) moved into the region, they joined with local radical groups such as FARC and Shining Path in their anti-Americanism and hatred of Jews and Israel.

In Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America (Lexington Books, 2014) authors and global security experts Joseph Humire and Ilan Berman elaborate on [retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John] Kelly’s position with a collection of essays that provides an alarming look at Iran's penetration of Latin America. That activity began in 1979 as part of Iran’s overall strategy to seek global power and develop nuclear weapons. Latin American experts featured in this revealing volume detail how Iran's infiltration of Latin America has been pursued under the cover of commercial activities and cultural exchanges and has been aided by an alliance and shared militancy with the Latin American Left. The experts maintain that, over more than three decades, Iran has been able to forge strong economic, political, and strategic links to the region. 

As the authors explain, Iran began its strategic infiltration of Latin America in 1982. International proxy groups exported Muslim revolutionary ideas using a global network of embassies and mosques under the cover of legitimate commerce and diplomatic, cultural, and religious associations. In this way, the Islamic regime concealed its intelligence activities, claimed diplomatic immunity and gained access to backdoor channels and local governments. Iran’s operatives traveled throughout the region unifying and radicalizing Islamic communities and recruiting, proselytizing and indoctrinating young Latin Americans.

Editor Joseph Humire recounts that in 1983 the regime sent an emissary, Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian cleric, as a commercial attaché to set up a trade agreement with Argentina, ostensibly to supply halal-certified meat to the Islamic Republic. Rabbani, who in 1994 would become the primary architect of a terrorist attack in Buenos Aires, fostered alliances with local Shiite Muslims, as well as radical activists who wanted to shift power away from democratic alliances and U.S. influence. Trade with Iran helped these activists buy political patronage to advance authoritarian rule and enabled them to funnel mass social spending into their countries and influence elections. As Islamic terrorist entities such as Iran’s proxy, Hizb’allah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) moved into the region, they joined with local radical groups such as FARC and Shining Path in their anti-Americanism and hatred of Jews and Israel.

The authors explore how, with a large Muslim population in place spewing hatred toward Israel, attention focused on the largest Jewish population in South America, the 230,000 Jews in Argentina. In 1992, a Hizb’allah-linked terrorist group claimed responsibility for bombing the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. In 1994, Hizb'allah committed the deadliest bombing in Argentine history when it bombed the AMIA Jewish community center also in Buenos Aires, killing 89 people and injuring hundreds.

The essay collection insightfully examines the role of Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez. After becoming president in 1999, he forged a close relationship with Iran and hailed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hizb’allah, as a hero. He also demanded criminal prosecution for Israel’s leader, Ariel Sharon, and President George W. Bush for mass murder. Chavez was able to help Iran overcome the hurdles of economic sanctions and engage in both licit and illicit commercial activity, including acquisition of strategic minerals for nuclear weapons development, drug trafficking, and money laundering. Chavez filled his cabinet with Islamists and became a close partner with then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to the authors, during this period Iranian influence in Latin American countries increased significantly. 

Chavez worked closely with Fidel Castro, the first leader to recognize the Islamic republic and to invite Iran to open in Havana its first Latin American embassy. Together, Chavez and Castro sponsored a socialist “Bolivarian Revolution” to establish a “new world order” in which Latin America was part of a global revolution, not unlike the one in Iran. In 2004, they founded the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or ALBA.

In Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America, the authors examine how, over a decade, ALBA grew in strategic importance in Latin America and helped cause the backsliding of democratic reforms in the region. ALBA’s goal was to create a Latin American coalition under Venezuelan and Cuban rule using non-state actors and transnational organized crime to bring about a post-American world. In 2010, Iran and Syria were admitted to the organization as observer states. Chavez worked with Iran and Hizb’allah to train his military in asymmetric warfare, the use of insurgency forces against established armies. Iran financed an ALBA military training school in Bolivia, as well as Hizb’allah training centers in other countries. Hizb’allah became heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering in the tri-border area of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. It made millions of dollars, sending cocaine from Mexico and Columbia to the Middle East and Europe. Hizb’allah used its presence in Latin America to raise money for its global operations from the Lebanese and Syrian diasporas and to recruit, indoctrinate and proselytize among the Latin American population.

Iran accrued great benefit from its relationship with the ALBA nations. Diplomatically, they stood against sanctions on Iran and tried to subvert any attempts to isolate the Islamic republic. They provided Iran with a media platform in the region and supported Iran's rejection of nuclear weapons scrutiny from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Additionally, through ALBA, Iran skirted international sanctions and evaded financial authorities by launching front companies, laundering money and injecting cash into the financial systems of ALBA countries for lucrative, commercial, and criminal enterprises.

Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America does a good job of providing an overall picture of Iran’s infiltration of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It also raises the question of what the future holds for the region. Since the death of Chavez and the economic decline in Venezuela and other Latin American countries, the trajectory of Iran-Latin America relations has shifted. Iran retains commercial interests in many countries in the area and is working to strengthen its political and economic ties. It continues to maintain its innocence in the AMIA bombing, despite substantial evidence to the contrary and heightened negative publicity from the suspicious death of chief prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, in January 2015. Many Latin American countries are wary of Iran’s influence, regional intelligence gathering and its status as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Donald Trump’s election may signal a game change in the region. Trump has emphatically and repeatedly stated his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal which calls up possible reimposition of sanctions. Similarly, a ruling by Columbia’s Constitutional Court to allow expedited congressional approval for a peace accord with the Hizb’allah-allied terrorist group, FARC, could limit the previously fertile ground for Islamic terrorism in South America. Additionally, the presence of increasingly Euro-friendly regimes in Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, could constitute welcome impediments to Iran’s continued hold on power in the region. Finally, and most optimistically, with retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly as the nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Iran’s use of Latin America as a nexus for terrorist operations could be dramatically curtailed, if not eliminated outright.

Janet Levy

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/12/irans_theater_of_operations_in_latin_america.html

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Russian Hacking Conspiracy Theory Implodes - Matthew Vadum

by Matthew Vadum

The Left’s quest to overturn Trump’s election isn’t going very well.

The Left’s crusade against Republican presidential electors is kicking into high gear even as the CIA-attributed story that Russian hackers won the White House for Donald Trump is going up in flames.

There is still no evidence –at least none that has been made publicly available– that the Russian government or Russian-backed cyber militias hacked anything to help Trump win the election but that’s not halting the Left’s efforts to delegitimize his presidency before it even begins.

Against this backdrop, members of the Electoral College are preparing to gather this Monday in the 50 states and the District of Columbia to fulfill their constitutional duty. Adding to the drama, some electors are demanding intelligence briefings on the alleged hacking before they vote.

But sometimes not everyone on the Left gets the memo.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday undermined the Left’s post-election jihad against Trump by rejecting the proposition that the Russian government (or anyone) hacked into voting machines used in the recent election.

“We didn’t see any sort of technical interference that people had concerns about, in terms of voting machines and the like,” she said at an event hosted by Politico.

While community organizers across America whip their followers into a state of frenzy, stories are still being planted in the media by the Central Intelligence Agency or sources claiming to speak for the spy agency. Yet the CIA refuses to be held to account.

When federal lawmakers did their job this week and demanded proof of the Russian hacking allegations, intelligence agencies refused to show up to provide congressional testimony.

Most reasonable people would infer from this appallingly arrogant behavior by the CIA, which has long been home to left-wing Democrats and squishy moderate Republicans, that all this damning evidence we keep hearing about does not actually exist.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) blasted “Intelligence Community directors” for their “intransigence in sharing intelligence with Congress [which] can enable the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes.”

Intelligence overseer Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is hopping mad over the CIA’s obstructionism. It is “absolutely disgraceful,” he said, that the intelligence community is refusing to brief lawmakers about the alleged Russian hacking program while false information is being surreptitiously funneled to the media to discredit Donald Trump.

“There is no consensus opinion, and yet we find it in the New York Times and the Washington Post and yet the House Committee on Intelligence was told nothing about this,” King said.

“This violates all protocols and it’s almost as if people in the intelligence community are carrying out a disinformation campaign against the president-elect of the United States,” King said. He acknowledged it is possible that someone in Congress could also be leaking false information.

Obama White House press secretary Josh Earnest escalated the time-limited administration’s war of words against the incoming president.

Referring to Trump’s fabled July 27 press conference at which the media falsely reported the then-GOP candidate had invited Russia to hack Hillary Clinton, Earnest said matter-of-factly Wednesday that Trump asked Russia to use cyberwarfare against Clinton.

“There’s ample evidence that was known long before the election and in most cases long before October about the Trump campaign and Russia — everything from the Republican nominee himself calling on Russia to hack his opponent,” Earnest said.

“It might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he had available to him, that Russia was involved and their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent’s campaign.”

“That’s why he was encouraging them to keep doing it,” Earnest said.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose site released thousands of purported emails from senior Democrats during the recent election campaign, threw cold water on the Russian hacking conspiracy theory.

Assange told Sean Hannity yesterday, “Our source is not the Russian government.” He also said the information WikiLeaks received “has not come from a state party.”

What Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 17 suggests Assange may be right.

“As far as the WikiLeaks connection [to Russian hackers is concerned] the evidence there is not as strong and we don’t have good insight into the sequencing of the releases or when the data may have been provided,” Clapper said. “We don’t have as good insight into that.”

Assange told Hannity WikiLeaks received almost nothing on Republicans. “We received about three pages of information to do with the RNC and Trump but it was already public somewhere else.”

Interestingly, Assange, who has been built up in the media to be some kind of radical anarchist, stood by America’s constitutionally prescribed system for choosing a president.
He said:

There’s a deliberate attempt this week to conflate a whole lot of different issues together. It seems to be as a desire, an extremely dangerous and foolish desire, to flip members of the U.S. Electoral College around into getting up John Kasich or Hillary Clinton on the 19th. It’s foolish because it won’t happen. It’s dangerous because the argument that it should happen can be used in four years’ time or eight years’ time for a sitting government that doesn’t want to hand over power and that’s a very dangerous thing. There’s [Hillary] Clinton-aligned PACs putting out ads with lots of celebrities trying to push these electors to do it.

Who’s doing all this conflating? President Obama, Assange suggested.

Hannity asked Assange if the president knows Russia isn’t behind the Democrat electronic document dump and is “purposefully” pushing a false narrative to delegitimize Trump. Assange replied, “yes … there is a deliberate effort to conflate” underway.

Hannity piled on the CIA, noting that “for over 10 years WikiLeaks has never been proven wrong, not one single time.”

The radio talk show host said the CIA pushed the lie that the coordinated military-style attack on U.S. assets in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 arose out of a mere protest.

“The CIA advanced that false story that it was a spontaneous demonstration when we now know it was a terrorist attack. And they advanced it through the CIA in Langley,” Hannity said. “There were some people there that were playing politics at the CIA, advancing a false narrative, a story that we know is false.”

But facts are malleable things and reality is never an obstacle to the plans of the Left.

The fact that Trump never asked Russia to hack Hillary and the CIA apparently has nothing to back up its wild allegations is no reason for those who wish to overturn the recent verdict of the American people to back off.

Something called Electors Trust is claiming that somewhere between 20 and 30 Republican electors are considering not voting for Trump on Monday, the John Podesta-founded Center for American Progress Action Fund’s propaganda site ThinkProgress reports. Co-founded by radical Harvard law professor Larry Lessig, Electors Trust claims to provide “free and strictly confidential legal support to any elector who wishes to vote their conscience.”

In a dramatic come-from-behind victory, Trump won 306 of the 538 available elector slots on Nov. 8. Left-wingers want to peel off enough GOP electors to deprive Trump of the magic number 270 he needs to formally secure the presidency in the official Electoral College vote this Monday.

There is almost no chance this coup will succeed but even if the Electoral College were to reach a stalemate Trump would still be on track to become president. With each state’s delegation casting a single vote, the current Republican-dominated House of Representatives would elect a president. The current GOP-dominated Senate would elect a vice president with each senator casting a single vote.

Trump-haters could still try and throw a wrench in the works when the new Congress convenes in January. When Congress begins to officially count the electoral votes, they could apply pressure to lawmakers to contest those votes. But it’s a very hard slog. A written objection has to be made to the president of the Senate, that is, Vice President Joe Biden, and it has to be signed by at least one senator and one House member.

Both chambers then debate the objection separately. Debate is limited to two hours. Afterwards, both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejoin and both must agree to reject the electoral votes for them not to count.

Making matters more difficult for the Trump-blockers, Lessig’s estimate of having as many as 30 sympathetic Republican electors in his pocket is almost certainly a hallucination on his part that helps to create the false impression that his anti-democratic campaign is succeeding.

More responsible whip counts place the number of likely faithless electors in the single digits – enough for an interesting historical footnote but not enough to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.

In an email Lessig cited “three groups that I know of working with/supporting electors,” and said that his faithless electors’ estimate is “based on my confidence in the reports from these three groups.”

Lessig told Chuck Todd on MSNBC Tuesday that he shares the goal of groups like Hamilton Electors to convince at least 40 Republican electors to say they’re contemplating dumping Trump.

Lessig is just one of many mass hysteria-afflicted leftists trying to stop Trump from becoming president.

Some officeholders are demanding a congressional investigation of the supposed hacking saga. Others liken the cyber-conspiracy they fantasize to 9/11 and are demanding an independent blue-ribbon commission be created. Maybe Jesse Jackson Sr. will invite the United Nations to participate.

Up to 55 electors –54 of whom are Democrats– have reportedly called upon Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to authorize intelligence briefings on the alleged Russian cyberattacks before the Electoral College votes. California elector Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is spearheading the effort.

Democrat activist Daniel Brezenoff is paying for full-page ads in newspapers across the country such as the Washington Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution asking electors to “vote their conscience” and reject Trump, Politico reports.

Then there are the left-wingers who have been doxxing Republican electors.

“Liberal groups, including a new one called Make Democracy Matter, have disseminated the names and contact information of the electors and encouraged people to contact Republican electors and ask them to change their vote,” hippy rag Mother Jones reports. “And those messages are arriving to electors' inboxes, voicemails, and homes by the thousands.”

So now at least we know where all the death threats Republican electors are receiving are coming from.

Left-wing activists call this kind of in-your-face harassment “accountability,” an Orwellian euphemism to be sure. Accountability actions focus on harassing and intimidating political enemies, disrupting their activities, and forcing them to waste resources dealing with activists’ provocations. It is a tactic of radical community organizers, open borders fanatics, and union goons. Taking a cue from Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse, they want to shut down, humiliate, and silence those who fail to genuflect before their policy agenda, or in this case, ignore the votes of the 63 million Americans in 3,084 of the nation’s 3,141 counties or county equivalents who chose Donald Trump for president.

Make Democracy Matter, by the way, shrieks on its homepage that “We can stop Trump from imposing his racist agenda on America … we can build systems and structures that protect people from harm and dismantle white supremacy.”

MoveOn plans to run a 30-second ad on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today featuring faithless Republican elector Christopher Suprun from the 30th congressional district in Texas.

“The CIA report is frightening,” Suprun says in the video even though as far as anyone knows he’s never seen the elusive report.

No doubt the Van Jones-founded Megaphone Strategies, a self-described “social justice media strategy firm” hired by parties unknown to turn Suprun into 2016’s Cindy Sheehan has helped put him in the media spotlight.

In a sanctimonious New York Times op-ed earlier this month, Suprun denounced Trump, saying, “He does not encourage civil discourse, but chooses to stoke fear and create outrage. This is unacceptable.”

After writing that “Mr. Trump lacks the foreign policy experience and demeanor needed to be commander in chief,” he repeats the proven lie that during the campaign Trump said “Russia should hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.” He adds, “This encouragement of an illegal act has troubled many members of Congress and troubles me.”

Suprun, by the way, is quite a piece of work. GotNews discovered he “joined and paid for cheating website Ashley Madison in 2012, using the same address registered to his 9/11 charity, while bankrupt, likely unemployed, and married with three young kids, after he and his working wife owed over $200,000 to multiple creditors.”

More than 35,000 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding Suprun “be removed” as an elector.

And then there are the famous college dropouts from Hollywood.

Something called Americans Take Action, apparently doing business as Unite for America, put together a celebrity-larded public service announcement to urge Republican electors to vote for somebody, anybody, other than Donald Trump on Dec. 19.

In the video we learn that idiot actors Martin Sheen, Debra Messing, Bob Odenkirk, James Cromwell, Noah Wyle, and singer Moby have suddenly become champions of the government-limiting U.S. Constitution.

“Our Founding Fathers built the Electoral College to safeguard the American people from the dangers of a demagogue, and to ensure that the presidency only goes to someone who is, ‘to an eminent degree, endowed with the requisite qualifications,’ ” Sheen solemnly intones in the video.

A somber Messing repeats Sheen’s words, “to an eminent degree.”

You get the picture.

It’s also been fascinating watching left-wingers embrace Founding Father Alexander Hamilton solely because he wrote Federalist No. 68 which explains the Electoral College and the qualifications of a president.

Because the Left’s narrative paints Trump as a rabid Russophile, these people who otherwise would use the Constitution as toilet paper are heeding Hamilton’s warning that foreign powers might seek to raise “a creature of their own” to the presidency.

And they scream bloody murder about Holy Mother Russia, a country they were only too happy to serve in the days of the Soviet Union when Russian President Vladimir Putin was a colonel in the KGB.

KGB collaborator Ted Kennedy must be rolling in his grave.

Matthew Vadum

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265161/russian-hacking-conspiracy-theory-implodes-matthew-vadum

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The Fake Hijab Hate Crimes Witch Hunt - Daniel Greenfield

by Daniel Greenfield

Are roving Trump gangs hunting for hijabs?

They struck at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Two white males ran out of a car, tore off her hijab, hit her and stole her wallet. One of these mysterious muggers was wearing a Trump hat.

The president of the Muslim Students Association claimed that the attack had rattled the campus. The ACLU was “outraged” and was as eager as the “victim” to connect the attack to Trump. It was even more outraged that the imaginary attackers had, “shouted slurs and wore Donald Trump clothing.”

It was only hours after the election and the media eagerly jumped on the story. But the 18-year-old Middle Eastern student had made it all up and police charged her with filing a false report.

A month later they stuck again. Yasmin Seweid, an 18-year-old Baruch College student in New York City, claimed that “three white racists” tried to tear off her hijab, shouted Trump’s name, along with, "Look it's a fucking terrorist", "go back to your country" and "take that rag off your head".

“The president-elect just promotes this stuff and is very anti-Muslim, very Islamophobic, and he’s just condoning it,” she whined. CAIR got into the game. A hate crimes investigation was launched.

And the NYPD found that she had made it all up. Yasmin now faces charges for her deception. But her lies potentially endangered the “brown-eyed and brown-haired” man whom police had begun to suspect. A man who might have been arrested and charged for a crime that never happened.

What caused two 18-year-old Muslim women 1,400 miles apart to invent the same very specific attack?

On yet another November, a year before the nameless Muslim in Louisiana faked her hate crime, an 18-year-old Muslim woman in the UK claimed that she had been assaulted because of her hijab. The supposed victim, a Miss Choudhury, turned out to be a liar and was fined for wasting police time.

Despite their geographical separation the three cases have a great deal in common. All three of the perpetrators were 18-year-old Muslim women. All associated the fake attacks with their wearing of the hijab. And their lies were calculated to exploit recent events, the Muslim terror attacks in Paris and Trump’s election, which the media had played up as being traumatic to Muslims.

The rash of hijab attacks after Trump’s election was an especially extraordinary phenomenon.
At nearly the same time as the Louisiana Muslim hoax, a Muslim student at San Diego State University claimed that her attackers ripped off her hijab and invoked the dreaded name of Trump before stealing her purse and backpack. Like the UK hoaxer, one of her attackers was wearing a gray hoodie. The perps, a white and Latino man, who love Trump and hate Muslims, have apparently yet to be found.

Meanwhile at the University of New Mexico, a Muslim freshman, likely the same age as the other claimants, charged that a man in a Trump shirt had tried to tear off her hijab and accused her of being a terrorist. She insisted however that she did not want him to be charged for his attack and UNM’s Office of Equal Opportunity refused to confirm or deny the existence of the case.

Some versions of the post-Trump hijab attack escalated the real or threatened violence.

A day or so later, a University of Michigan student claimed that she was forced to remove her hijab by a drunk white man who threatened to set her on fire. Despite the horrific nature of this supposed attack, no arrests seem to have been made.

Nasro Hassan, an 18-year-old Muslim student at the University of Washington, claimed that a man in a black hoodie attacked her with a bottle likely because of her hijab. Esra Altun, a 19-year-old Muslim student at San Jose State University, claimed that she was choked with her hijab a day after Trump's win. Her alleged attacker was a "fair-skinned male" wearing a "dark-colored hoodie".

The attack was initially reported to have happened on Election Day, but Altun insisted that it really took place on the next day after Trump had officially won. “It is a weird coincidence that it happened after Donald Trump was elected.” Like so many of these cases, it was important to link the attack to Trump.

It certainly is a weird coincidence that a rash of these attacks by white men on Muslim women happened right then. Or that these attackers, when they aren’t wearing Trump hats and shirts on college campuses where that alone is nearly enough to trigger a hate crime investigation, favor the hoodie.

The stories follow a similar pattern. A burst of media coverage, a campus rally by activists from the local Muslim Students Association, followed by a fearful condemnation from the university president.

But then the stories die down and fade away. There is no big climax. Just dead air.

The women at the center of these stories are college freshmen and sophomores getting their first taste of campus life. They are away from their families, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in a different environment and tempted to relax their religiosity. And then the hijab-haters strike allowing them to show off their religiosity, to impress their families, and their victimhood, to wow their progressive peers.

They often tell their stories on social media and urge their friends to pass their tales along.

“Trump America is real and I witnessed it first hand last night!” Yasmin Seweid, the woman at the center of the latest hijab hoax, posted on Facebook. “I want to show people this is real,” the University of Mexico Muslim claimed.  There are loud assertions of Muslim patriotism and condemnations of hate.

But what is the truth?

Did a coordinated gang of Trump marauders suddenly assail a single Muslim woman one campus at a time across the country? Or was there an outbreak of hysteria fed by Islamist agendas and media noise?

It is curious that so many of the incidents occurred on campuses, where many Muslim teenagers dip their toes into political activism for the first time, and that so many of the supposed victims are teenagers who haven’t even reached their twenties. Are there really gangs of Trump supporters targeting 18-year old Muslim women on college campuses? Or is something else going on.

In Salem, the popular wisdom that witchcraft was a threat opened the door for teenage girls to offer up hysterical accusations. The accusations led to a mass hysteria of other accusers, collective panic and political persecution. Similar “witch hunts” have haunted us before. The Islamophobia witch hunt is only the latest manifestation of an obsession with an imaginary crisis exploding into mass hysteria.

There is no way to know which of the unsolved cases is true. But mass hysteria is the dangerous symptom of a deeper conflict. And those who promote it ought to contemplate the consequences.

The obsession with an imaginary Islamophobia crisis has been called a witch hunt before. But the hijab hate crimes hysteria eerily resembles the mass hysteria of Salem with teenage girls, some of whom like Yasmin are clearly emotionally unstable, coming forward to tell fantastic psychosexual stories of being attacked for their hijabs by Trump supporters, and then being lavished with attention and praise.

The tales of roving Trump gangs tearing off the hijabs of Muslim teenage girls caters to the parochial xenophobia of Muslims convinced that their daughters are at risk of being dishonored by Americans, to the Islamist agendas of CAIR and the MSA who use victimhood to build a political empire of theocracy, and to the media which is desperate to attribute racist violence to Trump any way that it can.

The hijab witch hunts are as twisted as anything in Salem. And just as malignant and dangerous. 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265155/fake-hijab-hate-crimes-witch-hunt-daniel-greenfield

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Islamism in Europe - Khadija Khan

by Khadija Khan

Governments across Europe seem to be switching into panic mode to prevent the rise of European radicalism through the rise of the far-right, racism and nationalism throughout the entire continent.

• Ironically, those who dare to speak out against extremists either face severe consequences, such as death threats, or are called anti-Muslim bigots. This kind of response often discourages progressive voices from speaking out, and understates the progress of counter-extremism even within the Muslim community. Opposition voices still might be there -- more than ever. They just go underground.
• Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens across the Europe have been living in constant fear. They seem to be sick and tired of the Muslim extremists; children might be in danger on their way to school, and shopping takes place under the protection of soldiers.
• With Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and Italy's referendum, there seems to be a snowball effect. The growing influence of Alternative for Germany (AfD), the National Front in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party Austria and the Five Star Movement in Italy all appear to be byproducts of the same rhetoric.
• The dull reaction of a vast number of European Muslims to the rising wave of terror and violence has also contributed to this shift. Increasing numbers of native-born Europeans seem angry and distrustful of their fellow Muslim citizens, especially when everyone else has come out loud and clear in denouncing terrorist crimes.

German authorities and those across Europe seem finally to be strengthening their campaign against the militant far-right, including Muslim extremists, during the past few weeks.

This awakening, however, seems to be coming after a major price that Europe had to pay in terms of death and chaos unleashed by terrorists in Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, and so on.


Governments across the Europe seem to be switching into panic mode to prevent the rise of European radicalism through the rise of the far-right, racism and nationalism throughout the entire continent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sounds as if she is backing down a bit from championing the influx of migrants and her slogan of "We can do it!" in developing a multicultural society. She not only vowed to Germans in an address last week that the migrant crisis must never be repeated; she also called for an all-out ban on the full-face veil covering in Germany.

Following Merkel's lead, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière also proposed a partial ban on veils, and pronounced them contrary to assimilation.

The dramatic shift in policy might be a consequence of the planned and perpetrated acts of terrorism by extremist Muslims, many of whom are the migrants on whom Merkel placed her hopes. It might also be the result of the resultant rise of European neo-Nazis. More likely, it would appear to come from an eye to re-election.

Merkel was declared by many the only defender of the free world after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Perhaps, after the surprising victory of Donald Trump, she realized that it might be a good idea finally to address the grievances of her fellow countrymen.

The brutal rape and murder of a 19-year-old German woman, Maria Ladenburger, apparently by Afghan migrant who claims to be 17 years old, seems to have been the last nail in the coffin of Merkel's open-door migrant policy, which she had promised to not to let go even after extreme opposition from within her own party's leadership.

Ladenburger had been a medical student volunteering at a migrant housing facility. Her murderer had reportedly seen her in the shelter. The incident set off shockwaves not only in the Germany but also across Europe, especially after promises by Germany's interior ministry to deport as many Afghan citizens as possible after failing to confirm any credible claims for asylum.

In the meanwhile, authorities in Berlin last weekend announced the arrest of an Afghan citizen who was actively involved in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, while living part-time in Germany.

German police a few weeks back also launched an operation against a Salafist group in the country, whose members were brainwashing Muslim youths, mostly in Germany, to get jihadist training and join the Islamic State's battle against the world in Syria and Iraq.

The Salafist organization had registered itself as a social work entity under the cover of distributing the Quran in markets and public places, and claiming to be bridging the gap between the West and Islam.

One suspect was arrested in Aschaffenburg and another was detained in Mannheim, on the allegation of plotting an Islamically motivated attack on a public place.

This recent shift in strategy is also a lesson that the West has learnt a bit too late, despite having experienced similar assaults not that long ago by the Nazis, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin as well as terror organizations such as Baader Meinhof, al-Shebaab, ETA, the Red Brigades, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, to name just a few.

Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens across the Europe have been living in constant fear. They seem to be sick and tired of the Muslim extremists; children might be in danger on their way to school, and shopping takes place under the protection of soldiers.

Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens have been living in constant fear. In France, soldiers are deployed in the streets. Pictured: A soldier on guard at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (Image source: Kirsteen/Flickr)

With Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and Italy's referendum, there seems to be a snowball effect. The growing influence of Alternative for Germany (AfD), the National Front in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party Austria and the Five Star Movement in Italy all appear to be byproducts of the same rhetoric.

The dull reaction of a vast number of European Muslims to the rising wave of terror and violence has also contributed to this shift. Increasing numbers of native-born Europeans seem angry and distrustful of their fellow Muslim citizens, especially when everyone else has come out loud and clear in denouncing terrorist crimes.

Ironically, those who dare to speak out against extremists either face severe consequences, such as death threats, or are called anti-Muslim bigots. This kind of response often discourages progressive voices from speaking out, and understates the progress of counter-extremism even within the Muslim community. Opposition voices still might be there -- more than ever. They just go underground.

The majority of Muslims in the West seem oblivious to the fact that they would be the greatest victims of empowered lunatic extremists such as ISIS or neo-Nazis, because both would try to punish progressive Muslims either for remaining silent about terrorist attacks or for not joining the bandwagon for ISIS.

Progressive Muslims should realize that their voices matter at this sensitive time if they do not want to end up being losers between those two extremes.

The failed political policies of the global powers have started to translate into a dreadful future for humanity where a clone of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Anders Breivik or a Neville Chamberlain clone might be calling the shots, and the civilized world would become a hell for those caught in the middle, the rest of us.

Khadija Khan is a Pakistan-based journalist and commentator.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9566/islamism-europe

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To the Muslim Brotherhood: Quit Shouting Islamophobia and Quit Attacking Muslim Families - Saied Shoaaib

by Saied Shoaaib

Unfortunately, disagreeing with the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups can be dangerous and even fatal.

• Islamists, including Majzoub, have a long history of dragging prominent people and organizations into their arguments about extremism, terrorism and radicalization. These Islamists do not use their influence to drain the resources of Islamic terrorism in Canada and elsewhere, nor do they seek to stop young Canadians from joining ISIS. They do not use their knowledge or money to dismantle the infrastructure of extremism, nor do they attempt to dismantle the historical and religious arguments in favor of terrorism. Rather than do any of this, they instead make it their priority to intimidate, harass or sue those who speak out against Islamist extremism and its accompanying terrorism.
• The prevailing religious interpretation of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its adherents is that anyone who objects to their interpretation of Islam is to be considered a disbeliever. Because of their disbelief, they deserve to be killed in the present life and should then suffer the punishment of Allah in the next life. If killing them in this life is not an option, then spreading hate and anger against them is acceptable.
• The other main problem the Parliamentary action against "Islamophobia" is that it gives the false impression that groups such as the Canadian Muslim Forum or the Muslim Brotherhood can speak for Muslims. In fact, they do not. In the UK, it was recently revealed that only about 2% of UK Muslims feel that the Muslim Council of Britain represents them.
• It is not just that they have extremist literature in Canadian schools and mosques, it is that in some instances they have nothing but extremist literature. The Ottawa Public Library, for instance, has nothing but extremist literature in its Arabic language collection.
• The first victims of this will be secular and modernist Muslims who oppose extremism -- and their families.

Islamist front groups in Canada and the West have dragged the media and the political "elites" into their extremist messaging. Rather than learning about why extremism and terrorism come out of their religion, Islamists instead concentrate on preventing the victims of their violence from speaking out. They do this by shouting "Islamophobia" at every opportunity, and do so most loudly at modernist or secular Muslims.

The Parliament of Canada, for example, passed an "anti-Islamophobia" motion on October 26, 2016. Samer Majzoub, the president of the Canadian Muslim Forum, was the person behind the Parliamentary petition against "Islamophobia"; it generated some 70,000 signatures. The sponsor of the motion in the House of Commons was MP Frank Baylis.

Both Majzoub and the Canadian Muslim Forum have a rather long list of dubious connections to Islamist groups and the foreign money used to support them. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood.

What is the real intent of Samir Majzoub, the Canadian Muslim Forum and its exploitation of the over-hyped concept of "Islamophobia"? As noted, Islamists, including Majzoub, have a long history of dragging prominent people and organizations into their arguments about extremism, terrorism and radicalization. These Islamists do not use their influence to drain the resources of Islamic terrorism in Canada and elsewhere, nor do they seek to stop young Canadians from joining ISIS. They did not stop suicide bombers in Canada such as Aaron Driver or Calgary-based Salma Ashrafi, who became a suicide bomber in Iraq. They do not use their knowledge or money to dismantle the infrastructure of extremism, nor do they attempt to dismantle the historical and religious arguments in favor of terrorism. Rather than do any of this, they instead make it their priority to intimidate, harass or sue those who speak out against Islamist extremism and its accompanying terrorism.

Samir Majzoub (left), the Islamist president of the Canadian Muslim Forum, was the person behind the recent Canadian Parliamentary petition against "Islamophobia." Both Majzoub and the Canadian Muslim Forum have a long list of dubious connections to Islamist groups and the foreign money used to support them. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood. (Image sources - Majzoub: Canadian Muslim Forum video screenshot; Parliament: Saffron Blaze/Wikimedia Commons)

Why should life be dangerous for Muslims, their families and others who reject the charges of Islamophobia?

The prevailing religious interpretation of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its adherents is that anyone who objects to their interpretation of Islam is to be considered a disbeliever. Because of their disbelief, they deserve to be killed in the present life and should then suffer the punishment of Allah in the next life. If killing them in this life is not an option, then spreading hate and anger against them is acceptable.

The side effects of the supposed "Islamophobia" activity is an increased threat to Muslim families in Canada and the USA. Modernist and secular Muslims are afraid to speak out against extremism, for fear of being labelled as traitors to their own community. They also fear for their businesses and their children, who may come under verbal and physical attack. Because of petitions and Parliamentary actions such as those in Canada, modernist and secular Muslims and their families are forced either to agree with the false precepts of "Islamophobia" as advanced by extremist front groups, or to disagree with them but remain silent. Unfortunately, disagreeing with the Muslim Brotherhood and its front groups can be dangerous and even fatal.

The other main problem with the Parliamentary action against "Islamophobia" is that it gives the false impression that groups such as the Canadian Muslim Forum or the Muslim Brotherhood can speak for Muslims. In fact, they do not. Groups such as the Canadian Muslim Forum or the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have little evidence to show they have anything approaching majority support. In the UK, it was recently revealed that only about 2% of UK Muslims feel that the Muslim Council of Britain represents them. Moreover, CAIR, despite its claims of moderation, was declared to be a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates.

With no mandate to speak on behalf of Muslims, Islamists such as Majzoub should not be regarded as "leadership" figures. They intimidate other Muslims and work to silence anyone who speaks against them. This is a sort of intellectual fraud: no one elected them to speak on behalf of Muslims. From an Islamic religious perspective, it should be noted that Allah has no agents or representatives on Earth, so their claim to speak on behalf of Muslims is theologically weak, at best.

At the same time, these Islamists do all they can to hide their finances; they refuse to show how much money they receive from Saudi Arabia or Qatar. They are constantly caught financing terrorism and their front-group members are often charged with criminal offences related to extremism and terrorism.

In Canada, Islamist-run schools use extremist literature from the Middle East to teach their children. It is not just that they have extremist literature in Canadian schools and mosques; it is that in some cases they have nothing but extremist literature. It is also not just Islamist-run schools and mosques that are the problem. The Ottawa Public Library, for instance, has nothing but extremist literature in its Arabic language collection.

Conclusions

The Parliamentary motion condemns all forms of "Islamophobia," without making any attempt to define what that means. As Judith Bergman put it:

The questions need to be asked: What exactly are they condemning? Criticism of Islam? Criticism of Muslims? Debating Mohammed? Depicting Mohammed? Discussing whether ISIS is a true manifestation of Islam? Is any Canadian who now writes critically of Islam or disagrees with the petitioners that ISIS "does not reflect in any way the values or the teachings of the religion of Islam now to be considered an "Islamophobe"?

The Canadian Parliamentary motion on "Islamophobia" is indeed a large stick that is designed to be swung at anyone who makes even the vaguest criticism of extremist Islam and its front groups. Rather than draining the extremist swamp or defunding their centers of activity, motions such as this are intended to weaponize words so that critics can be silenced by criminalizing anything that varies from political correctness, as in the clearly politically-motivated conviction of Dutch MP Geert Wilders last week.

The first victims of this will be secular and modernist Muslims who oppose extremism -- and their families.

Saied Shoaaib is a journalist and author originally from Egypt. He was the editor and manager of the Alyoum7 news website and the manager of "United Journalist." In 2007, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt raised questions about his work in the Egyptian Parliament. The questions were specifically aimed at the Attorney General of Egypt. For many years, his life and his family have been at risk because of constant threats aimed at his writings against and Islamists, terrorism and Islamic extremism. He has written several books on extremist Islam, journalism and the electronic media.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9577/muslim-brotherhood-shouting-islamophobia

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Muslim-Zionist Activist: ‘Antisemitism Is the Norm in the Islamic Community, But the World Will Come to Realize Its Mistake About Israel’ - Rachel Frommer

by Rachel Frommer

Israel has a lot of enemies, but I believe things will change. The world will one day realize its mistake

Nadiya Al-Noor. Photo: Courtesy.

Antisemitism and Israel-hatred is the norm among Muslims, including in the United States, even though the Koran can be read as a “Zionist text,” a devout American Muslim told The Algemeiner this week, explaining how she came to work to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding and how she thinks the world will come to see the Jewish state in a different light.

Nadiya Al-Noor — a graduate of Maryland’s Goucher College studying for her master’s degree at Binghamton University in upstate New York — was explaining her evolution into a person who warmly embraces both Jews and the Jewish state. On and off campus, Al-Noor said she constantly finds hypocrisy about antisemitism and Israel, and she has made a mission of letting the world know about these incidents through social media.

Recently, Al-Noor posted a picture on Facebook of a drop-down menu on an online Binghamton emergency contact form that listed “Occupied Palestinian Territories” as a location option. She told The Algemeiner, “Israel was also included, so that was a relief, but no other location was labeled ‘occupied.’ Not Northern Cyprus or Kosovo [both under military occupation]. Just the Palestinian territories.”

December 15, 2016 12:48 pm

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Raised in Stony Brook, Long Island, Al-Noor had many Jewish friends, but said antisemitism was still imbued in her at an early age. In an hour-long interview, she spoke of the journey that led to her change in outlook and why she started blogging about being a Muslim Zionist.

The Algemeiner: How did you get into pro-Israel activism?

Al-Noor: When I was at Goucher, I was trying to sign up for access to the Hillel’s kosher kitchen — because that was the closest thing to halal — but I filled out the wrong form. I had actually signed up for the pro-Israel committee, and then I was too scared to tell the Israel fellow my mistake. At that point, I was still pretty anti-Israel, but I had become very interested in Judaism, so I began going to the programs. I met Israelis and IDF veterans, started reading material from sources other than anti-Israel ones — before that, I was getting my information from places like Electronic Intifada and Al-Jazeera — and I realized how wrong I had been about it all.

The Algemeiner: What had drawn you to Judaism?

Al-Noor: One day I woke up with yearning in my chest to learn about Judaism. I just had to. It felt like a call from God.

The Algemeiner: What has it been like to be a Zionist at university?

Al-Noor: As soon as undergraduate students get on campus, they are bombarded by anti-Israel rhetoric and activists, and there is a light trained on you by such movements when you are Muslim. You are expected to join.

When I was at Goucher, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had disbanded, but its former members were still active and their perspective was festering. The pro-Israel group planned a program featuring Assi Azar [an Israeli television personality and LGBT rights activist], and the SJP tried to get the school to cancel the event. The college refused, so SJP stormed the event and protested so intensely that the program had to be stopped early. After I saw how SJP treated my Jewish friends, making them scared to be openly Jewish or go to class — one of my friends got his kippah knocked off his head while he was walking on campus — I decided that I had to do something, I had to act. I started with a blog post, “Open Letter from a Muslim Woman.”

Binghamton — which is 30% Jewish and far more pro-Israel than not — once had a very active SJP, but it has since disappeared. Today, the biggest problem facing advocates of Israel is apathy from the general student population.

The Algemeiner: Would you say those instances of your friends being afraid to be visibly Jewish on campus are isolated cases?

Al-Noor: Antisemitism is a problem at universities, and it goes unrecognized because people see Jews as white. They think white people can’t be oppressed, so it follows, in their minds, that Jews cannot be persecuted. Antisemitic tropes feed this thinking: Jews are seen as wealthy and powerful, as JAPs (Jewish American Princesses) with privilege. Even though 60% of religion-based hate crimes in the US are antisemitic, no one really talks about it. They say, “But there are Hillels on campus,” or, “A Jew almost became president [Democratic primary contender Bernie Sanders],” and so they conclude that there is no antisemitism.

Meanwhile, anti-Zionism is not counted as antisemitism at all. People say they are protesting and against Israel, not Jews. The deeply antisemitic tone of anti-Zionism and the antisemitic by-products of the movement are not considered valid examples of antisemitism.

The Algemeiner: How do you see your role in combating this way of thinking?

Al-Noor: When someone like me speaks out for Israel, I challenge everybody’s idea of what they think they know about Zionism and the country. It changes minds. Whenever non-Jews are pro-Israel, they get more attention and credibility, and are taken much more seriously. I can also speak to Muslims at a theological level that is rarely ever reached or talked about.

But, the Jewish and pro-Israel world needs to do more to reach out to people like me, to bring us into the community and make us allies. You have to start educating the public about Israel, because you aren’t getting anywhere when you’re only talking to Jews, while the majority of the public isn’t Jewish.

You have to communicate with Muslims, in particular. I’m actually pushed away by many Jews who are suspicious of my motives. I’ve been called a “lying terrorist” many, many times by people who think I only talk about peace so that I get infiltrate the Jewish community and attack from the inside.
This breaks my heart, because I’m here and trying to be an ally. I’ve devoted my life to this work.

The Algemeiner: What should the pro-Israel and Jewish world know about the Muslim community?

Al-Noor: First, that there is a big difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion that can exist in secular society; Islamism is the violent attempt to force that on other people, like ISIS.
Terrorism is a cycle: there is a terrorist attack, then the Muslim community is marginalized, which breeds more terrorism, and so on. We need more dialogue to stop this sequence, and not to give up on changing things before we even start.

It actually says in the Koran that some of its verses are metaphorical and some literal — and it states outright that there will be people who will select verses in order to harm others. It’s all about interpretation and education.

The Algemeiner: What is the attitude of mainstream Muslims?

Al-Noor: Antisemitism is entrenched in the community. Growing up, I had antisemitic thinking so ingrained in me, I didn’t even notice it until I was older and had learned more. Even though most of my friends were Jewish or Christian, not Muslim, I remember thinking, “Why are all the Jews rich? Why do they have big noses?”

And the community’s deep-set antisemitism only got much worse, exploded, after the establishment of Israel. We are all taught that the county is evil, that it’s a Nazi and apartheid state, committing genocide. In America, where there are a lot of Palestinians, it is particularly bad.

Muslims stand with our Ummah, the term for Muslim peoplehood. So, Palestinians are seen as our brothers and we are taught that they are being oppressed. I really don’t think Muslims would care about Palestinians if they weren’t Muslim — but, even more, if their “oppressors” weren’t Jewish. The Muslim world doesn’t care about what’s going on in Pakistan — and that’s an actual apartheid state — because the oppressors there aren’t Jewish. But Muslims need to start looking at the facts about Israel and stop getting their information from anti-Israel sources.

The Koran says — and I’m paraphrasing here — “The holy land belongs to the Jewish people and one day all the Jews from the corners of the earth will converge on Israel.” What is that if not the state of Israel?
The Algemeiner: So, what can be done to try and change these perceptions?

Al-Noor: I am the social media intern for the Institute for Jewish Muslim Action (IJMA), a young organization started by two Rabbis and a Muslim to educate people about the Judeo-Islamic tradition and what makes the two nations natural partners. I also work at Binghamton’s Center for Civic Engagement, where I help students volunteer and get politically engaged. I’m getting a double Masters in Public Administration and Student Affairs Administration, so I’ll be able to work in government or at universities to build interfaith dialogue.

The Algemeiner: How do you view the future of Zionism?

Al-Noor: Israel has a lot of enemies, but I believe things will change. The world will one day realize its mistake, like it realized with the Holocaust, and will become much more friendly to Israel. Don’t give up on hope and peace, because it can still happen. Try to build bridges, and if you can change one person’s mind, that will start a chain reaction.

Rachel Frommer

Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/11/10/muslim-zionist-activist-antisemitism-is-the-norm-in-the-islamic-community-but-the-world-will-come-to-realize-its-mistake-about-israel/

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Obama’s passivity in the face of genocide in Syria - Thomas Lifson

by Thomas Lifson

It turns out that it was easier posturing as indignant than doing something about it at the UN.

The world once again is watching genocide mass slaughter, despite having as our UN Ambassador Samantha Power, who parlayed a book denouncing American passivity in the face of genocide into a professorship at Harvard and her post at the UN. It turns out that it was easier posturing as indignant than doing something about it at the UN.

Resigning in protest when her boss failed to enforce the red line he proclaimed over chemical weapons apparently was out of the question for Power. And then all hell broke loose in Syria, with mass carnage.

A friend writes:

Thinking about self-described “genocide chick” Samantha Power and her boss and his wife and her hashtag responses to genocide, there was something gnawing at me. So, I did a bit of research and came up with this list:

Armenians in Turkey	1915-1918	1,500,000 killed
Stalin’s Forced Famine in Ukraine	1932-1933	7,000,000 killed
Rape of Nanking	1937-1938	300,000 killed
Holocaust	1938-1945	6,000,000 killed
Pol Pot in Cambodia	1976-1979	2,000,000 killed
Rwanda	1994	800,000 killed
Bosnia-Herzegovina	1992-1995	200,000 killed
Syria	2014 - present	500,000 killed

Eight genocides in the past 100 years.
Do you notice a pattern here?

Hmm, a clue might be found in American politics….

Thomas Lifson

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/12/obamas_passivity_in_the_face_of_genocide_in_syria.html

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