UN Launches $65M Legal Pogrom to Hunt Down Israelis and Smear Israel as Criminal State - Anne Bayefsky

by Anne Bayefsky

Hat tip: Dr. Jean-Charles Bensoussan 
 

Except for UNESCO, which the United States no longer supports, 22% of the money will come from American taxpayers.

The United Nations has made a deal with the Palestinians to fund a $65 million legal pogrom directed at Israel. The party on the Palestinian side was referred to as the "Government of the State of Palestine."

More specifically, the "United Nations System in the occupied Palestinian territory" plans to pay eight UN bodies $64,838,510 between the years of 2018 and 2022 to hunt down individual Israelis and to smear Israel as a criminal state.

The eight UN bodies or agencies to receive the funds are:

1. Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
2. UNICEF (the children's fund)
3. The UN Development Program
4. UN Women
5. UNESCO
6. UN Habitat
7. The World Health Organization
8. UNRWA (the Palestinian refugee agency).

Except for UNESCO, which the United States no longer supports, 22% of the money will come from American taxpayers.

The deal, first signed and disseminated in Arabic on June 15, 2017, is part of the "UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for the occupied Palestinian territory for 2018-2022."

Lawfare at the UN in Israel's case goes by the stage name of "accountability." It includes accusing Israel of war crimes, apartheid, and crimes against humanity; sending spurious cases to the International Criminal Court; engaging in boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns to destroy the economic well-being of Israel; and making false accusations of violations of fabricated "international law" -- in particular criminalizing Israel's right of self-defense. The goal is unambiguous: the demonization and destruction of the Jewish state.

Lawfare is the converse of a negotiated, peaceful resolution of Israeli-Palestinian disputes, as required by existing agreements between the parties.

According to the report that details the deal, the outcome was a product of consultations that involved non-governmental organizations (NGOs) well-known for their extremist ideologies, including the promotion of terrorism and overt anti-Semitism.

An Annex lists some of the specific NGOs consulted -- such as Al-Haq, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and the Palestinian NGO Network -- while keeping others confidential.

Here is some of the language from the UN Development Assistance Framework:

Strategic Priority 1: Supporting Palestine's path to Independence

... the UNCT [the UN "country team"] will focus its interventions on providing support for Palestinian institutions, civil society and individuals to increase the effective use of international mechanisms to uphold accountability. This will be built on increasing knowledge of rights and mechanisms, strengthening capacities to document violations and their impact and on sharpening the ability to advocate effectively for rights to be respected ...

Outcome 1:

Human rights mechanisms are increasingly engaged to hold Israel accountable for its obligations under international law. The UN will increase its support for Palestinian institutions (state and non-government) and Palestinian victims of violations to effectively monitor, advocate and seek legal recourse for violations by the occupying power.

This will include training, capacity-building and technical advice to ensure that Palestinian victims and institutions are equipped with the knowledge and tools to effectively access international accountability mechanisms in order to hold Israel accountable for its violations under international law. It will also aim to strengthen the capacity of Palestinian organizations to advocate effectively for the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territory ...

Box 4: Summary of UNDAF Resources Required by Agency and Strategic Priority (US $)

Anne Bayefsky

Source: https://pjmedia.com/trending/un-launches-65m-legal-pogrom-hunt-israelis-smear-israel-criminal-state/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Lebanese PM Hariri steps down strengthening Iranian/Hizballah grip on Beirut and Israeli border - debkaFile

by debkaFile

Whatever the case, Hariri’s flight to Saudi Arabia must be seen in the light of the events leading up to it and its consequences.

 

Saad Hariri resigned as Prime Minister of Lebanon Saturday, Nov. 4. Speaking from Riyadh, he accused Iran and Hizballah of plotting his assassination, and said he would not be returning to Beirut for the time being.

Hariri boarded a plane to Saudi Arabia straight after meeting in Beirut Friday with Ali Akbar Velyati, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s senior adviser on foreign affairs. .

In the convoluted, lethal politics of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, 47, has changed his spots time after time before he took office last November as the head of a broad coalition government, including his own Sunni-led Future Movement and the Shiite Hizballah.

He has always lived in the shadow of the 2005 assassination of his father, prime minister Rafiq Hariri, who died in a huge explosion in Beirut that was contrived by Syrian intelligence and Hizballah agents, killed 21 other people and kept the country in turmoil for years.

After repeated visits to Saudi Arabia in the last few days, Hariri announced his resignation as prime minister in a televised broadcast from Riyadh. He accused Iran and Hizballah of sowing “fear and destruction” in several countries, including Lebanon. “We are living in a climate similar to the atmosphere that prevailed before the assassination of martyr Rafiq al-Hariri,” he said. “I have sensed a covert plot to target my life.”

As recently as July 25, Hariri stood on the White House lawn in Washington beside President Donald Trump. He came to Washington to sell Trump on a plan for the Lebanese army to take part in a military operation led by Iran, Syria and Hizballah to root out the Islamist State and Nusra Front strongholds embedded in the Syrian-Lebanese border region.

The US President enthusiastically embraced the plan. However, neither Trump nor Harari – and even more surprisingly, Israel – grasped that the scheme for ousting the jihadists also opened the door for Iran to gain another segment of its strategic corridor via Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean.

The Lebanese Sunni politician made several visits to Saudi Arabian in the last few days. His most recent was last Tuesday, Oct. 31, when he sat down with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. Sources in Riyadh reported Saturday that, upon returning home, he escaped an assassination plot hatched by Iran and Hizballah. This may or may not be true. If it is, why would the Lebanese politician agree to meet Velyati on Friday?

Whatever the case, Hariri’s flight to Saudi Arabia must be seen in the light of the events leading up to it and its consequences.

1. Hariri himself contributed to the Iranian/Hizballah success in solidifying their grip on Beirut when, in October 2016, he helped the Christian leader Michel Aoun, friend of Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, become president of Lebanon, by joining a deal between the three rival factions of Lebanon, his own Sunnis, the Christians and the Shiites. He also stood by when the national Lebanese army was made into an operational arm of Hizballah, a step that gave Nasrallah the leeway for sending his troops to fight for Bashad Assad in Syria.
   In the light of these actions, Saudi Arabia cut its longstanding family ties with Prime Minister Hariri.
2.  Iranian and Hizballah sources attributed his flight to Riyadh to a conspiracy against them hatched between President Trump and Prince Muhammad, or more precisely US and Saudi secret services. But there is no denying its immediate consequence: Iran and its Shiite puppet have come out on the top of the political heap in Beirut and strengthened their control of Lebanon’s border with Israel, after shortening their distance to Israel’s border from Syria.

debkaFile

Source: https://www.debka.com/lebanese-pm-hariri-steps-strengthening-iranianhizballah-grip-beirut-israeli-border/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why There's More and More Truck Jihad - A.J. Caschetta

by A.J. Caschetta

Often these lone wolves are not lone at all but in fact are part of a cyber pack, directed by jihad ideologues like Anwar al-Awlaki

^{Originally published under the title "Freelance Vehicular Jihad."}

Notable vehicular jihad attacks have taken place (clockwise from top left) in Nice in July 2016, Berlin in December 2016, and London in March and June 2017.

Halloween afternoon got off to an ugly start in New York City as a 29-year-old Muslim Uzbeki man named Sayfullo Saipov drove onto a pedestrian path in lower Manhattan, killing 8 people.

Then came the usual spin. Police sources initially stated that incident wasn't terror related, but quickly backtracked after multiple eyewitnesses reportedt hat the suspect shouted "Allah Akbar" (God is greatest), the instantly recognizable battle cry of jihadists everywhere.

Then, just a few hours after the attack, came assurances from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, other officials, and most of the mainstream media that Saipov's killing spree was a "lone wolf" attack – the go-to misnomer for anyone seeking to disconnect Islam from jihad attacks. This despite the fact that police had discovered a note from the assailant claiming ISIS affiliation and an ISIS flag, hadn't had a chance to interrogate Saipov (in surgery for much of the afternoon) at any length, and presumably hadn't investigated his activities before arriving in the US in 2010 on a "diversity visa."

Few jihadists have ever been true 'lone wolves.'

In fact, no jihadists have ever been true "lone wolves." Scores of terrorists misidentified by law enforcement as lone wolves shortly after their attacks were later discovered to have significant links to ISIS, Al-Qaeda, or other jihad organizations. Often their social media and email accounts demonstrate that these lone wolves are not lone at all but in fact are part of a cyber pack, directed by jihad ideologues like Anwar al-Awlaki, whose sermons continue to recruit new members via the web years after he was killed by a CIA drone. Such attackers should more appropriately be labeled "freelance jihadists."

So, what did this particular freelancer need? A rented Home Depot flatbed truck. Trucks are as easy to acquire today as they were when Ramzi Yousef's cell bombed with World Trade Center in a rented Ryder truck from New Jersey. But Yousef was nowhere near the scene when the bomb went off in the North Tower on February 26, 1993. Vehicular jihad requires a driver, who rarely survives the attack, making it technically a form of suicidal terrorism.

Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar pioneered the practice of vehicular jihad.

Vehicular jihad seems to have originated in 2006 when Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove a rented Jeep into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jihad theorists soon recognized that even larger vehicles unleashed on even larger crowds could bring about mass casualties.

Capitalizing on the ease of acquiring vehicular killing machines through rental or theft, and of finding online guidance on technique and targets, freelancers have carried out high-profile vehicular jihad attacks in France, Germany, Sweden, England, and Spain. And those are just the highlights. The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) documents "at least 34 vehicular terrorist attacks since 2006, collectively resulting in the deaths of at least 194 people and the injury of at least 1,049 others."

Vehicular jihad has become an ISIS specialty. Issue 7 of Dabiq, an ISIS online magazine, calls for Muslims in the West to kill non-Muslims "whether with an explosive device, a bullet, a knife, a car, a rock, or even a boot or a fist." Later exhortations to commit vehicular jihad became more explicit. One year ago, Issue 3 of Rumiya (another ISIS online magazine) contained a veritable seminar of vehicular jihad in a feature candidly titled "Just Terror Tactics." It advised that the most effective weapons are large, load-bearing, heavyweight vehicles, with the rear axles bearing "Double-wheeled, giving victims less of a chance to escape being crushed by the vehicle's tires."

We must start addressing the ideology that creates freelance jihadists.

It's a relatively simple and inexpensive way to kill, so more of it is likely. The question is, how to prevent it? Governmental reactive approaches to counterterrorism will lead to more jersey barriers and security bollards appearing around pedestrian areas. Knowing Andrew Cuomo, he'll be calling for truck control.

But the best first step is to stop looking for lone wolves and start addressing the ideology that creates freelance jihadists. Calling them "cowardly" (as New York Mayor Bill de Blasio did) or "wolves" is no substitute for understanding their thought process and motivation.

A.J. Caschetta is a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum and a senior lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/6993/freelance-vehicular-jihad

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

PM warns: Iran could have substantial nuclear arsenal within weeks - Erez Linn, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

by Erez Linn, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff 

At foreign policy panel in London, PM Netanyahu says that once free of the 2015 deal's limitations, Iran "will have enough [fissile material] for a hundred bombs"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with British Prime 

Minister Theresa May in London, Thursday

Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke out against the Iran nuclear deal at a panel on Israel's foreign policy priorities at London's Chatham House on Friday. The prime minister is in London to mark the centennial of the Balfour Declaration, which officially recognized the Jewish people's right to a national home in the land of Israel.

Asked if the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is the best possible option for reining in Iran's nuclear, Netanyahu replied that "Iran bought a few years" with the agreement. He said that once the restrictions placed on the Islamic republic as part of the deal are removed, Iran "will have enough [fissile material] for a hundred bombs within weeks if it decides to break out."

He said he appreciates U.S. President Donald Trump's statement saying he believes Iran is the problem in the Middle East, calling that a "big shift" in U.S. policy.

On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Netanyahu said he hopes a U.S. peace initiative will work and praised Trump for taking a fresh approach to bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.

Asked if he felt that, given Trump's involvement in peace efforts, now is the moment for peace in the region, he said: "I hope so."

"What's being discussed now is an American initiative. Obviously, we make our interests and our concerns known to Mr. Trump. He's coming with a sort of refreshing 'can-do' [approach]. ... They're trying to think out of the box," Netanyahu said.

Speaking with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London on Thursday, Netanyahu said he was looking forward to discussing  "concrete ideas" with her for correcting the Iran nuclear deal.

"The goal I have in mind is not keeping or eliminating the deal, it's improving the deal and correcting its main flaws. And I think those who want to keep the deal should cooperate in correcting the deal," he said.

"There are great things that are happening in the Middle East because many Arab countries now see Israel not as an enemy, but as their indispensable ally in the battle against militant Islam. The threat we all see is a resurgent Iran that is bent not only on dominating the region, but bent on developing nuclear weapons."

Meanwhile, British and Israeli leaders commemorated the Balfour Declaration's centennial with a banquet in the gilded halls of London's Lancaster House on Thursday.

May and Netanyahu addressed guests at the dinner, which was hosted by the descendants of Lord Arthur Balfour, then Britain's foreign secretary, and the recipient of his declaration, Jewish community leader Baron Walter Rothschild.

At the dinner, May rejected Palestinian calls for the U.K. to apologize for the declaration.

"When some people suggest we should apologize for this letter, I say, absolutely not," she said. "We are proud of our pioneering role in the creation of the State of Israel. We are proud to stand here today, together with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and declare our support for Israel. And we are proud of the relationship we have built with Israel. And as we mark 100 years since Balfour, we look forward to taking that relationship even further."

May rejected the BDS movement, saying, "There can never be any excuse for boycotts, divestments or sanctions; they are unacceptable." She called for "renewed resolve to support a lasting peace that is in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians. There will need to be compromises from each side if we are to have a realistic chance of achieving this goal – including an end to the building of new settlements and an end to Palestinian incitement too."

Netanyahu thanked May for inviting him to mark "with pride" a great historical event.

"The history of modern Zionism is intertwined with the history of Britain, the actions and words of Britain," he said. "It was the Balfour Declaration that galvanized international support for Zionism as never before and paved the path for Zionism's entry on the world stage. Now, a once stateless and powerless people have found their rightful place among the nations.

"Prime Minister May, the Balfour Declaration put Britain on the right side of history. In marking that declaration today, you are keeping Britain on the right side of history. On behalf of the government of Israel and the people of Israel, I thank you."

He also thanked May for her "unequivocal denunciation" of anti-Semitism.

Netanyahu also said, "While we mark with pride the Balfour Declaration today, Palestinian leaders call it a tragedy. But the real tragedy of the Balfour Declaration is that it took three decades to fulfill its promise – too late for one-third of the Jewish people who perished in the Holocaust. Had Israel been established in 1928 or 1938, and not in 1948, millions could have been saved. Some people mistakenly believed that there is an Israel because of the Holocaust. In fact, it's only because there was no Israel that the Holocaust could occur, because there was no sovereign Jewish power to protect the Jewish people or to provide refuge for the 6 million murdered by the Nazis. "

Netanyahu said that now, a century after the declaration, "Our two countries, our two democracies – Israel and Britain – are strong allies and partners. We cooperate closely on intelligence. We cooperate closely in the battle against terrorism. And we’ve saved, through this cooperation, countless lives – British lives, Israeli lives. We cooperate in cybersecurity, in technology, in business and enterprise. We share the values of freedom and democracy and peace. Israel is committed to peace, I’m committed to peace.

"A hundred years after Balfour, the Palestinians should finally accept the Jewish national home and finally accept the Jewish state. And when they do, the road to peace will be infinitely closer. In my opinion, peace will be achievable."

Netanyahu's call appeared to fall on deaf ears though, as Palestinians across Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip staged protests against the centennial celebrations on Thursday.

Protests in Ramallah and Jerusalem were also attended by a group of British activists who marched from London to Turkey where they boarded a flight to Israel to present to the British Consulate General in Jerusalem with a 67-word "new Balfour Declaration," which they said calls for equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis.

In Jerusalem, protesters briefly clashed with Israeli police in front of the British Consulate after a Palestinian flag was raised.

Erez Linn, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/11/03/pm-warns-iran-could-have-hundreds-of-nuclear-bombs-within-weeks/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Israel vows to protect embattled Syrian village from rebels - David Rosenberg

by David Rosenberg

IDF pledges to intervene in Syrian civil war to 'prevent capture, occupation' of Druze town by rebel forces after suicide bomber kills 9.

Fighting near Druze town of Hader in Golan

FLASH90

Israel has offered to intervene on behalf of a Syrian village near the Israeli border, one of the few times the Jewish state has expressed a willingness to wade into Syrian civil war raging for the past six years on Israel’s northern border.

The Israeli army said Friday that fighting has escalated in and around the town of Hader on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

Hader, a Druze town, has backed President Assad’s regime, making it a target for rebel forces, including the radical Al Nusra Islamist movement, which is seeking to gain a foothold in the Syrian Golan.

A suicide car bomber killed at least 9 people in Hader Friday, AFP reported, with another 23 injured. The Syrian SANA media outlet blamed the Al Nusra movement for the bombing.

Senior IDF officials pledged Thursday afternoon to intervene on Hader’s behalf and to protect its inhabitants from rebel forces.

Israel, said Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, is prepared to act “to prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied as part of our commitment to the Druze population.”

Manelis also denied “claims of Israeli involvement or help to global Jihadi elements in the fighting.”

The Druze, a small stateless ethno-religious community spread across Syria, Lebanon, and northern Israel, have often suffered persecution at the hands of despots and radical Islamists in the region. The 145,000 Druze citizens of Israel are by and large loyal to the state, with most Druze men enlisting in the IDF and even serving in high IDF positions. Not a few have given their lives for the state..

Druze tradition calls for being loyal to whoever rules the area in which they reside and Druze in the past even spawned terrorists such as Lebanese Druze Samir Kuntar who carried out the barbaric terror attack against the Haran family in Nahariya. However, the family ties between Israeli and Syrian Druze are many and trump those factors.

One Druze resident of Israel was wounded Friday morning by stray gunfire from the Syrian side of the border.

The victim, a resident of Majdal Shams in the Israeli Golan Heights, was lightly wounded in the incident and was treated at the scene.



David Rosenberg

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/237620

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why Israelis are Successful Fighting Terror - Shoula Romano Horing

by Shoula Romano Horing

The Israeli public does not hide or run away from the terrorists to save themselves, but rather confronts the terrorists in an effort to save their fellow citizens.

After the recent Islamic terrorist vehicular attack in Lower Manhattan, people ask me as an Israeli: “what is Israel’s secret to living daily with Palestinian Arab terrorism and the country’s ability to prosper in spite of it?”

The answer is: Israel’s secret weapon is the Israeli civilians who feel responsible for each other and therefore are willing to sacrifice themselves fighting and defeating terror to save others. The Israeli public does not hide or run away from the terrorists to save themselves, but rather confronts the terrorists in an effort to save their fellow citizens. From airline hijackings, suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings, and vehicle attacks, Israel has seen them all and has adapted accordingly

While other countries in the West rely solely or mostly on the police and security services to stop terrorists, in Israel the public is a full, independent partner in the fight. Thirty percent of terrorist attacks have been thwarted by civilians in Israel, who fight back by striking the terrorists with everything they had such as a pizza tray, an umbrella, a selfie stick, a guitar, chairs, pepper spray, and guns. While in England the police want the schoolkids to be taught the message of “hide, run, tell,” a child growing up in Israel, is encouraged always to think what will he do proactively if he or she were facing a terrorist.

The most popular YouTube videos posted online are those that show the heroic actions of citizens fighting back or impeding a terrorist. Family, friends, and society applaud, admire, and approve of such actions to defeat terrorism in order to survive, and those people are treated as heroes.

As the most persecuted people in history, Jews have a large amount of experience of living under threats to their very existence as a people and surviving therm. The Israelis have used these experiences to chart a new path and develop a new mental strength and determination that “never again” will Jews timidly be led like a sheep to the slaughter. One of the most popular Hebrew expressions which echoes daily in each Israeli’s mind is: “Ain Brera” which means “there is no other alternative.” In other words, the Jews in Israel will fight for their survival with their backs to the wall or to the sea and with any means available and as long as it takes. After 2000 years of being the “wandering Jew,” fleeing persecutions to other places is not an alternative. Israelis are in their own state with their own army and they will fight and as live a normal life at the same time. There is the realization among the citizens that after having others decide out future, we at last control our own destiny in our homeland and are willing to sacrifice ourselves to protect this home.

Israel has become the most successful country in the fight against terrorism by first, becoming accustomed to living with it and accepting it as a long-term challenge. Second, Israelis have adapted to terror by as quickly as possible returning to normalcy after every attack. Israel developed a protocol that says that all bombing locations, even bus bombings with multiple casualties, must be cleared and declared safe within four hours, so life can return to normal in the quickest time possible. While other countries hold emotional commemorations for days after a terrorist event and engage in seemingly endless second guessing, discussions about what they might have done to cause it, and media analysis, Israelis try to quickly move on to restore normalcy. We wash the blood and remove the bodies the same day and quickly bury our victims, usually with the participation of thousands of our fellow citizens. The press and media cooperate by not paying daily attention to terrorist events. This bouncing back prevents the post-traumatic stress and emotional scars other countries go through.

Third, Israelis make changes in their daily lives as a means of caution and immediately notify the authorities of suspicious behavior or suspicious objects in the street and in enclosed spaces. There are security guards everywhere frisking every person and their bags in entrances to shopping centers, restaurants, sports stadiums, concerts, hotels, and supermarkets.

Finally, Israelis are lucky that we know who our enemy is and that evil does exist despite our best efforts to fight it. Maybe we are lucky that that as citizens we trust and highly respect our security forces, police, and the army who are deployed everywhere, despite our political differences and there. In Israel, there is a high level of cooperation between citizens and security forces and a policeman under attack can rely on a nearby citizen to come running to save him while citizens know that the policemen will be there for them.

Between September 2000 and 2005, 1030 people were killed by Palestinian terrorists in Israel which is proportional to 295,000 Americans being killed in the United States, when considering Israel’s small population. Between September 2015 and July 2016, 40 Israelis were killed. In this period, there were 157 stabbings, 101 shootings, 46 vehicular attacks, and one bus explosion.

Despite the death and destruction, Israelis have been found to be happy and optimistic about the future. According to the UN’s 2017 World happiness report released in March, Israel is the 11 happiest country in the world above US, UK, Germany, and France.

Shoula Romano Horing is an Israeli born and raised Israeli attorney. Her blog: www.shoularomanohoring.com

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/11/why_israelis_are_successful_fighting_terror.html

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Dawa: Sowing the Seeds of Hate - Judith Bergman

by Judith Bergman

"The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with strict sharia." — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

• "In Western countries, dawa aims both to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and to bring about more extreme views among existing Muslims. The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with strict sharia." — Ayaan Hirsi Ali in her book, The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It.
• The ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic state in the United States could hardly be much clearer. The pretense of caring for "diversity" and "inclusion" that ICNA displays on its public website cannot be characterized as anything other than an attempt at dissimulation, as is the stated goal of "establishing a place for Islam in America."
• If Western leadership is unable to fathom the danger posed by organizations such as Tablighi Jamaat, iERA and ICNA, and, according to critics, others such as CAIR and ISNA -- let alone do something about it, instead of endlessly obsessing over "Islamophobia" -- Qaradawi could be proven right.

While the West is preoccupied with fighting "hate speech", "Islamophobia" and white supremacist groups, it appears more than willing to ignore the cultivation of Muslim hate speech and supremacist attitudes towards non-Muslims.

It is a cultivation that occurs especially in the process of dawa, the Muslim practice of Islamic outreach or proselytizing, the results of which seem to have been on show this week in a downtown New York terror attack. The terrorist, Sayfullo Saipov, originally from Uzbekistan, was apparently only radicalized after he moved to the United States. The mosque he attended in New Jersey had been under surveillance by the NYPD since 2005. A 2016 U.S.-commissioned report said Uzbek nationals were "most likely to radicalize while working as migrants abroad," according to the U.S. State Department.

On the surface, dawa, or outreach -- in person or online -- appears to be a benign missionary activity, about converting non-Muslims. Legal in Western societies, it is allowed to proceed undisturbed by the media or government. Dawa generally attracts little attention, except when members of an outreach organization suddenly turn up in the headlines as full-fledged jihadists.

Politicians and the media in the West seem to prefer viewing Islam solely as a religion and not as a political system that, according to critics, seeks to impose its own laws and regulations, sharia, on the world.

According to the Somali-born Muslim dissident and author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, however, in her recent book, The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It:

"The term 'dawa' refers to activities carried out by Islamists to win adherents and enlist them in a campaign to impose sharia law on all societies. Dawa is not the Islamic equivalent of religious proselytizing, although it is often disguised as such... [It] includes proselytization, but extends beyond that. In Western countries, dawa aims both to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and to bring about more extreme views among existing Muslims. The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with strict sharia."

Somali-born Muslim dissident and author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, wrote in her recent book that in the West, the ultimate goal of dawa (the Muslim practice of Islamic outreach or proselytizing) "is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with strict sharia." (Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

Presumably, the last thing a society would want are groups that cloak political activity in religious practices, protected under the precepts of freedom of religion.

In the Philippines, recently, members of the dawa organization known as Tablighi Jamaat ("Group that Propagates the Faith") entered the country under the guise of missionary activity -- that they were going to participate in the Tablighi Jamaat's annual gathering there. It turned out, however, that they had come to wage jihad together with Isnilon Hapilon, the late "emir" of Islamic State in Southeast Asia.

The Tablighi Jamaat has been described by the expert on Islam and journalist, Innes Bowen, in her 2014 book, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Trent, as "a Deobandi missionary movement and one of the largest Islamic groups in the UK... it has quietly grown into one of Britain's most successful Islamic movements. Vast numbers of British Muslims have spent time in its ranks"[1]. However, the Tablighi Jamaat was largely unknown in the UK, until it emerged that several British Muslims charged with terror offences had all spent time[2] in the organization. Among these terrorists were Richard Reid, the "shoe-bomber," and three of the four perpetrators of the London 7/7 terrorist attacks. The American enemy combatant, John Walker Lindh, who aided the Taliban, was associated with the Tablighi Jamaat; and the San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook prayed in San Bernardino at the Dar al Uloom al Islamiyyah mosque, described as a "haven for Tablighi Jamaat activists."
The movement, according another expert on Islam, Yoginder Sikand, in his 1998 study of the Tablighi Jamaat , sought "to promote a sense of paranoia and even disgust of non-Muslim society"[3]. He quoted a prominent British promoter of the Tablighi Jamaat as saying:

"a major aim of tabligh is to rescue the ummah [Muslim community] from the culture and civilization of the Jews, Christians and (other) enemies of Islam to create such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine... and excreta...".

The Tablighi Jamaat has been described in the Middle East Quarterly, in an article called "Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions", as a wolf in sheep's clothing:

"Tablighi Jamaat is not a monolith: one subsection believes they should pursue jihad through conscience...while a more radical wing advocates jihad through the sword ... in practice, all Tablighis preach a creed that is hardly distinguishable from the radical Wahhabi-Salafi jihadist ideology that so many terrorists share".

Nevertheless, Tablighi Jamaat remains a legal, active organization, which yields a considerable influence over Muslims in Europe, especially the UK and the United States. Already in 2003, the deputy chief of the FBI's international terrorism section, Michael J. Heimbach, said, "We have a significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States and we have found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past." One 2011 undercover video segment from the Darul Ulum Islamic High School in Birmingham, England, associated with the Tablighi Jamaat, showed that Muslim children were taught Muslim supremacy. Eleven year olds were taught that Hindus "have no intellect" and "drink cow piss". The teacher also said, "You are not like the non-Muslims out there... All that evil that you see in the streets... people not wearing Hijab properly, people smoking... you should hate it..." The children were also told:

"You need to free yourself from the influence of the Shaitan [Satan] and of society... The Kuffar [derogatory term for non-Muslims] have brought so many new things out there...They are controlling your minds... Are you part of those who prefer their way of life: The way of the Kuffar over the way of the Prophet?"

Both US and Dutch intelligence once seemed aware of the imminent danger of dawa organizations. In 2004, a Dutch government report identified threats to Dutch society from the practice of dawa and concluded that an "interaction or even interwovenness of Dawa and Jihad demonstrate the relationship between the various forms of radical Islam and the phenomenon of radical-Islamic terrorism."

The study also distinguished various kinds of dawa, both overt and covert, and the threats emanating from it:

"Dawa may be aimed at trying to convince Muslim communities that non-Muslim communities are hostile towards Islam and wish to oppress or even destroy it. Dawa may also serve to convince Muslim communities that the values and standards of non-Muslims are incompatible with those of Islam and should therefore be considered as depraved. In such a form of Dawa, Muslim communities are often encouraged to emphasise (in a provocative way) the differences with other groups and sometimes also to express their contempt and hatred towards standards and values and the culture of non-Muslims".

It would appear that Western governments have largely unlearned -- at least officially -- these insights into dawa as a tool for fostering feelings of Muslim supremacy and hatred of non-Muslims. Instead, they engage in endless, misguided obsessions over "Islamophobia." Their unlearning should be a cause for concern.

Other dawa organizations also operate in the West. One is the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), led by two converts, Abdur Raheem Green and Hamza Andreas Tzortis, that works globally to spread Islam. Unlike the Tablighi Jamaat, it focuses its missionary efforts on non-Muslims. Its leaders have made racist, supremacist and anti-democratic statements such as, again, calling non-Muslims, "kuffars." Green has said that, "The purpose of the jizya [protection money, or "tax", paid by non-Muslims to Muslims] is to make the Jew and the Christian know that they are inferior and subjugated to Islam," and "If a Jew or Christian is found walking down the street, a Muslim should push them to the side". He has also said that the "immediate problem" for Muslims in Britain is being surrounded by "kuffar" and that one of the only justifications for Muslims to remain in the UK is to "call the kuffar to Islam."

Tzortis has said that apostates who "fight against the community[...] should be killed" and that, "we as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of freedom." He has also spoken in favor of child marriage. He admits that he used to be a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic organization, but that he left the organization for "scholastic and philosophical reasons." In a statement on the iERA website, Tzortis and Green try to distance themselves from some (unspecified) past statements by writing, "some of the anachronous statements attributed to iERA personnel have been either clarified or publicly retracted, and were never made at university campuses."

The iERA evidently enjoys a large platform on UK campuses. According to a report on extremist events on UK campuses in the academic year 2016/17, iERA was behind 34 out of the total 112 events that took place that year. Unlike the far-right fringe groups recently banned by British Home Secretary Amber Rudd -- the mere support of such groups is punishable by up to 10 years in prison -- the iERA is free to carry on its dawa activity undisturbed[4] and does so at an incredible pace. According to the organization's Facebook page, in October 2017 alone iERA or its representatives were active doing dawa in Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and in the United States. The iERA also trained 15 dawa leaders from all over the world -- from Iceland and Poland to Honduras and Finland -- in a recent online dawa training program.

In the United States, the iERA works with the Muslim American Society (MAS) and Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), according to the iERA website. ICNA, a leading Muslim organization in the US, is actively involved in dawa, and in 2015 ran "Global Dawa day," which referred to Tzortis's training course.

According to ICNA's 2013 Members Handbook (for its female members), the organization considers itself an Islamic movement which is an

"organized and collective effort waged to establish Al-Islam in its complete form in all aspects of life. Its ultimate objective is to achieve the pleasure of our Creator Allah and success in the hereafter through struggle for Iqamat-ad-Deen [the establishment of Islam in its totality]. Islamic movements are active in various parts of the world to achieve the same objectives".

The ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic state in the United States could hardly be much clearer. The pretense of caring for "diversity" and "inclusion" that ICNA displays on its public website cannot be characterized as anything other than an attempt at dissimulation, as is the stated goal of "establishing a place for Islam in America." ICNA already has a place for Islam in America -- it presumably wants to expand that place until nothing else is left.

The 2013 Members Handbook describes that ICNA's work proceeds in "stages." One of the stages is dawa, or "effective outreach."

"Those who accept the truth of Islam are provided with appropriate Islamic literature and given the opportunity to become a Muslim. They are made part of the Islamic Ummah as brothers and sisters."

The Members Handbook goes on to describe how already in the 1970s:

"ICNA established its own forums for dawah work at the local, regional, and national level. It established vital institutions at the national level for support of its dawah activities... Recognizing other movement oriented groups in this land, ICNA continues to coordinate and combine its efforts with them".

In fact, ICNA has a separate project called the "WhyIslam Dawah Project," which

"aims to organize the dawah work in North America in a professional and effective manner. Highlights of the project are Toll-Free number for non-Muslims; Distribution of Islamic literature... Dawah through Media; Dawah in Prisons; Campus Dawah Support; Dawah Flyers Online; Dawah through Email".

ICNA is considered by experts such as Steven Emerson, Founder and Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its spiritual leader, Yusuf al Qaradawi, has preached that the West will be conquered by Islam -- not through the sword, but through dawa.

If Western leaders are unable to fathom the danger posed by organizations such as Tablighi Jamaat, iERA and ICNA, and, according to critics, others such as CAIR and ISNA -- let alone do something about it, instead of endlessly obsessing over "Islamophobia" -- Qaradawi could be proven right.

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

---

[1] Innes Bowen, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Trent (Hurst 2014), p 35.
[2] Innes Bowen, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Trent, p 41.
[3] Quoted in Innes Bowen, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Trent, p 47.
[4] The only hurdle for iERA, so far, appears to have been that the Charity Commission opened an inquiry into iERA for possible funding of jihadists in Syria. Several jihadists who travelled from the UK to Syria were apparently linked to iERA, doing dawa work for them. Green has spoken favorably of dying for the cause of jihad.


Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11283/islamic-dawa-hate

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.