The end of Israeli air superiority over Lebanon? - David Rosenberg

by David Rosenberg

Hezbollah gets 'game changing' anti-air weapons, threatens to end Israel's air advantage and shoot down fighter jets.

The radical Islamic terror organization Hezbollah has deployed advanced air defense systems and is laying the foundation for a comprehensive anti-air network, IDF officials revealed to Walla! News on Sunday. 

Defense officials noted that Israeli aircraft are now being tracked by advanced radar systems operated by the Hezbollah terror group.  The revelation signals a dramatic increase in the capabilities of the organization.

The report is unwelcome news for Israel and its Western allies who have suffered from Hezbollah attacks in the past. Apart from its long and bloody history of attacks against Israel, the Iranian proxy organization claimed responsibility for, among other things, the 1983 bombing of an American military installation which killed 241 US marines and 58 French paratroopers.

The deployment of advanced anti-air defense systems could seriously impair the ability of Israeli forces to defend its citizens from Hezbollah missile attacks.

More important, however, are the greater implications of the increasing cooperation between Russia, Syria, and Hezbollah.  With high grade Russian military equipment flowing into the region, Hezbollah’s capabilities are rapidly increasing, reducing Israel’s historic technological advantage over the fundamentalist Islamic group. 

Nor is it clear how far Russia is willing to go with its support. Hezbollah recently claimed Moscow is supplying them with sophisticated weaponry, but the Kremlin itself has strenuously denied those claims to Israel.

The new weapons have also apparently boosted Hezbollah’s confidence in its ability to confront Israel.  The organization is openly displaying its new capabilities, targeting Israeli planes and letting them know they’re in Hezbollah’s sights. 

“This connection between Hezbollah and Syria to Russia has completely changed the rules of the game” an Israeli defense official told Walla! News.  “Hezbollah is signaling to Israel that it’s ready for the next round.”


David Rosenberg

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/207992#.VsB4iuazdds

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

Light at the End of the Tunnels - Michael Curtis

by Michael Curtis

Hamas is digging twice as many tunnels as were dug in Vietnam for use against Israel.

On July 8, 2014 the Israeli air force began to deal with rocket fire coming from Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip. In the preceding three weeks, Hamas had fired 250 rockets capable of reaching Israeli population centers. Many of those rockets were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome system, but Israel soon found that confronting it was a new and challenging menace, a labyrinth of highly sophisticated tunnels built by Hamas.

For years Hamas had been using building materials and an estimated 600,000 tons of concrete to build tunnels similar to, though much more skillfully constructed than, the Viet Cong tunnels dug in South Vietnam. The U.S. forces, the so called “tunnel rats” had to dispose of them using simply a pistol and a flashlight. Israel, between July 17 and August 5, 2014 using more advanced methods, disposed of 33 tunnels, 14 of which crossed into Israel, and one of which was 66 feet deep and 1.5 miles long.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has long been laughable. Its absurdity reached a zenith with the 284-page report on June 22, 2015 of its Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Gaza war chaired by the American jurist, Mary McGowan Davis who had replaced the discredited William Schabas. The Commission found there was no indication the Hamas tunnels were constructed to attack Israeli civilians. It did not say the tunnels were used as playgrounds for recreational purposes or for sightseeing trips, but it did say that it could not “conclusively determine the intent of Palestinian armed groups with regard to the construction and use of the tunnels.”

Yet the evidence to the contrary is abundant. Everyone was aware that Hamas had built tunnels in Sinai for smuggling people and communities between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. More important they had been built for both defensive and offensive purposes in connection with the State of Israel. Defensively, Hamas used the tunnels to store rockets, launchers, and explosives, and as military command centers. Offensively, they were built to attack Israeli civilians, or to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians. Hamas had done this in June 2006 when it kidnapped Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, and held him in prison until October 2011.

The UNHRC disregarded the Hamas violations of human rights and indeed war crimes by its construction of tunnels under civilian homes, among other violations. The Institute for Palestinian Studies recorded that Hamas between 2007 and 2012 had caused 160 Palestinian deaths in building the tunnels: by August 2014, 400 had died. The UNHRC also seemed unaware of the Hamas plot to use Rosh Hashanah, September 24, 2014, as an opportunity to initiate a mass attack on Israel. It had begun rebuilding some of its tunnels that been destroyed and planned to use a dozen of them to carry 200 heavily armed fighters into Israeli territory.

Hamas never stops its war against Israel. Since the beginning of 2016 there have been five incidents when tunnels being built by Hamas in the Gaza Strip have collapsed with Palestinian operatives being killed in them. On February 9, 2016 one operative, a member of the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassan Brigades died in the tunnel near Khan Younis. He was repairing a tunnel that had been damaged by Egyptian authorities because it was being used to smuggle arms and fighters for affiliates of ISIS in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt has long been aware of the activity of Hamas and other terrorists. In late 2014 it began destroying hundreds of tunnels being built in Sinai for smuggling weapons.

Sometimes the truth seeps out, even from terrorist leaders. At the funeral service in the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City on January 29, 2016 for seven Hamas operatives who were killed when the tunnel on which they were working collapsed because of rain and flooding, Ismael Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, spoke truth. Hamas is getting stronger and will use any measures to prepare for the next confrontation with Israel. The Hamas military brigades, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and the al-Qussan Brigades are continuing with their preparation and training. East of Gaza City, the “heroes” are digging though rock and building tunnels: to the west of the city they are experimenting with rockets every day.

The Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot speaking at the Herzliya interdisciplinary Center on February 9, 2016 asserted that the Hamas tunnels were the main threat against his country. A major concern is their central tunnel, one of high quality, on which 1,000 terrorists are working that will lead deep into Israeli territory from which an attack can be launched. A considerable part of the resources coming into Gaza is being used for building an underground infrastructure. Israel is focusing intelligence operations and using nearly 100 engineering machines to counter the theat.

Hamas leader Haniyeh has given fair warning. He told us that his organization is digging twice as many tunnels as were dug in Vietnam. The United States and France, both involved in the morass of the Indo-China war that cost the lives of 58,000 Americans along with 300,000 wounded, and more than 89,000 French lives, can understand the parallel of the two conflicts. They must pay special attention to Haniyeh’s announcement, now that the two countries are pressing for peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinians to start as soon as possible.

The international community, if not the UNHRC or Amnesty International, is aware that representatives of Hamas, whose objective is the elimination of Israel, cannot come to the table with clean hands. Light will only come after the tunnels are ended.

Michael Curtis

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/light_at_the_end_of_the_tunnels.html

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

"Treason" In Turkey: Asking for Peace - Uzay Bulut

by Uzay Bulut

• The Turkish state authorities have made it clear that calling for an end to state violence in Turkey's Kurdish regions is "treason." This means that in Turkey, requesting peace and political equality between Kurds and Turks is illegal.
• The 1128 original signatories of the "Academics for Peace" declaration have been subjected to sustained attacks and threats from the Turkish government and nationalist groups. In the week after the publication of the declaration, at least 33 academics were detained by police. Some have lost their jobs. Associate Professor Battal Odabasi from Istanbul Aydin University, for instance, was fired for supporting the petition. At least 29 academics have been suspended from their jobs at universities.

On January 11, 2016, a group of academics and researchers from Turkey and abroad called "Academics for Peace" signed and issued a declaration entitled, "We will not be a party to this crime." In it, they criticized the Turkish government for its recent curfews and massacres in Kurdish districts, and demanded an end to violence against Kurds and a return to peace talks.

"We declare that we will not be a party to this massacre by remaining silent and demand an immediate end to the violence perpetrated by the state," the declaration said.

In total, 2212 academics and researchers from Turkey, and 2279 from abroad, signed their names onto the declaration.

Some of the signatories of the "Academics for Peace" petition in Turkey pose in front of a banner reading, "We will not be a party to this crime." The 1128 original signatories of the declaration have been subjected to sustained attacks and threats from the Turkish government and nationalist groups.

The Turkish President and PM immediately targeted the academics who signed the declaration. On January 12, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said,

"Unfortunately, those fake intellectuals say that the state is carrying out a massacre. Hey you, fake intellectuals! You are dark people. You are not enlightened. You are dark and ignorant to the point that you do not even know where the southeastern or eastern regions are [in Turkey].
"Today we are faced with the treason of the so-called intellectuals, most of whom get their salaries from the state and carry the ID card of this state in their pockets.
"You are either by the side of the nation and the state or by the side of the terrorist organization. We will not get permission from those so-called academics. They should know their place."

Immediately after the speech, Turkey's Council of Higher Education (YOK) also issued a statement: "The declaration issued by a group of academics that describes our state's ongoing struggle against terror in the southeast as 'massacre and slaughter' has put our entire academic world under suspicion. ... This declaration cannot be associated with academic freedom. Providing the security of citizens is the primary responsibility of the state," it said, adding that all rectors and an inter-university council would soon meet to discuss the issue.

Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu also joined in, saying, "It is an irrational declaration. They [the academics] will be ashamed when they read it once more. It cannot be evaluated within the scope of freedom of expression."

Ever since, the academics have been under serious political, legal and social pressure. The 1128 original signatories have been subjected to sustained attacks and threats from the Turkish government and nationalist groups as well as double investigations -- administrative investigations by the universities they work for, as well as legal investigations by state prosecutors.

They are being prosecuted for "insulting the Turkish nation, the state of the republic of Turkey, Turkey's parliament, government and judicial organs" (Turkish penal code: Article 301) and for "making propaganda for a terrorist organization" (Anti-terror law: Article 7).

In the week after the publication of the declaration, at least 33 academics were detained, and then released after prosecutors took their testimonies.

At least 29 academics have been suspended from their jobs at universities until their investigations are finalized.

Some have actually lost their jobs. Associate Professor Battal Odabasi from Istanbul Aydin University, for instance, was fired for supporting the declaration. Odabasi was first exposed to an investigation by the university and was told to withdraw his signature. When he did not, he was dismissed. "So they essentially told us to choose between our bread and our honor," said Odabasi. "I chose my honor."

Some pro-government newspapers also targeted the signatories. The newspaper Yeni Akit, for instance, wrote: "This is the full list of the academics that signed that declaration of treason."

The newspaper continued telling the authorities to "Fire these men!" and calling the academics "perverts with diplomas," "whores who call Muslims 'sons of bitches.'" The newspaper also called the academics "gay-loving," and "Armenian-lovers." The academics sought legal help and demanded that the reports that included threats and insults be blocked to the public. An Ankara criminal court rejected the demand. The court said that the reports and expressions were within the "freedom of the press."

Several universities across Turkey have on their official websites showed extremely negative reactions to the academics who signed the declaration; some even called them "traitors" or "terrorism supporters" and emphasized that the universities support the military operations of the state.

The rectorate of Abdullah Gul University in Kayseri, for instance, demanded that Professor Bulent Tanju, who signed the declaration, resign. The head of the Turkish nationalists in the city affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) referred to Tanju and other signatories as "barking dogs," and in a public declaration, threatened him. The prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against Tanju, but not against those who threatened him. His alleged "crime" is "inciting the population to enmity or hatred" and "openly insulting state institutions." (Turkish penal code - Articles 216 and 301)

Some academics withdrew their signatures after receiving threats on campuses or on social media.

The offices of two academics -- Kemal Inal and Betul Yarar -- from the Department of Communication at Ankara's Gazi University, were marked with red crosses by Turkish nationalist students. Notes saying that "We do not want the academics that support the PKK at our university" were left at their doors. Inal said he withdrew his signature after violent threats from students and even a colleague.

The newspaper Agos reported that academics in smaller cities have been under enormous pressure from their universities as well as the public. The academics in Samsun, for instance, had to lock themselves in their homes for a while. Those in Yalova say they are scared of using public transportation and those in Bolu say they are scared of parking their cars in secluded places.

Some of the academics were also targeted by local media. Arin Gul Yeniaras, a lawyer offering legal support to the threatened academics, told Agos that "a local newspaper in the town of Yalova, for instance, published the names and photos of the signatories, and made remarks such as 'The rector is still silent; the citizens are uneasy' in an attempt to make the rector take action against the academics. After that, the rector declared that the university launched an investigation against the signatories."

Ramazan Kurt, a lecturer of philosophy at Erzurum's Ataturk University, sought help from the Erzurum branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD).

"Two people raided my room, and threatened me," Kurt told Agos.

"On the same day, the Grey Wolves [a Turkish nationalist organization] made a call at the university to stage a march against me. I filed a criminal complaint against them and demanded security. It was on that day that I learned that I was suspended from my job. They organized a massive march, saying 'We do not want a terrorist lecturer at our school.' I also learned that they came to the door of my office and swore the oath of the Grey Wolves. No one from the university called me to support me."

On January 15, Kurt was detained and interrogated at the anti-terror branch of the local police station. His lawyer said he was accused of "making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization," "inciting the population to enmity or hatred" and "publishing the documents of a [terrorist] organization." He was released on the same day, but banned from travelling.

In an interview with Dicle News Agency (DIHA), Kurt said that when he asked the Erzurum police for a security guard after the attacks, "a police officer there threatened me, and said: 'If you know that signer, I will shoot him in the head'."

"After I saw the attitudes of my colleagues," he said, "there was no point in staying." As he had no safety, he said, he left the province.

The detentions of academics continue. On January 29, five academics in the province of Bolu, who signed the petition in solidarity with three colleagues who had been taken into custody earlier for signing the declaration, were also detained after house raids. Their homes, cars and offices were searched, and the copies of their computers and telephones as well as some of their documents were seized by police. The academics were released after the police took their testimonies.

"The academics who exercised their freedom of thought and expression by signing this text that states a wish for peace have been targeted and exposed to insults and threats for days," said a recent press release from the academics.

"As of January 18, investigations have been launched against 1128 signatories in accordance with the Turkish penal code and the anti-terror law.
"Among our colleagues there are those who have been detained, banned from going abroad, exposed to administrative investigations, fired or suspended from their jobs. We find all of these things unjust and unacceptable."

In the meantime, the journalist Nurcan Baysal, based in Diyarbakir, reported on January 22 that the bodies of two Kurds, Isa Oran and Mesut Seviktek -- murdered during a curfew and their bodies left in the street for 29 days -- were finally allowed to be retrieved.

Oran's father, Mehmet Oran said,

"I went to the morgue. My son's head was not recognizable. It had been burnt -- as if a chemical substance had been spilled over it. He had been disemboweled; his intestines were lying outside his body. The rest of my son's body was all in pieces as if chunks of meat had been ripped out of him by an animal. They had torn my son into pieces. I was only able to recognize my son from his arm."

Mesut's brother, Ihsan Seviktek, said:

"My brother had already fallen a martyr with bullets to his head and chest. But they [Turkish soldiers or police] then shot hundreds of additional bullets into him. His face became unrecognizable. Why mistreat a dead person to such an extent? The Kurdish issue will not be resolved like this."

As the Turkish state authorities and university administrations accuse intellectuals of being "traitors," scores of Kurds have been murdered by Turkish armed forces in Kurdish districts under curfew. Dead bodies of many Kurds are still rotting in the streets and waiting to be retrieved.

At least 224 Kurdish civilians lost their lives between August 16, 2015 and February 5, 2016, according to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV). Forty-two were children, 31 were women, and 30 were over the age 60. The districts of Sur, Cizre and Silopi have been under an uninterrupted military siege and assaults for two months. Eight people were killed by security forces shooting arbitrarily in streets close to curfew zones during peaceful protests against the curfews.

The Turkish state authorities have made it clear that calling for an end to state violence in Turkey's Kurdish regions is "treason." This means that in Turkey, requesting peace and political equality between Kurds and Turks is illegal. Apparently, the only way to be a "Turkish patriot" or "a good citizen of Turkey" is openly to support the murders of Kurds -- or at least be silent about them.

• Follow Uzay Bulut on Twitter

Uzay Bulut, born and raised a Muslim, is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7398/turkey-kurds-peace-treason

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

UK to ban public bodies from boycotting Israel - Ari Soffer

by Ari Soffer

British government taking serious steps to prevent discriminatory boycotts, enable boycotters to be defeated in court.

The British government is to announce measures aimed at preventing local councils, unions and other public institutions from launching boycotts against the State of Israel this week.

Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock told The Times the new guidelines were important to prevent discriminatory boycotts against the Jewish state, which he said both stoked anti-Semitism and harmed the UK's valuable trade relations with Israel.

The guidelines would enable the government itself to take action against organizations which boycott Israel, as well as empowering other bodies to take boycotters to court.

They would prevent any public body from promoting a boycott of country signed up to the World Trade Organization's government procedural agreement, the paper reported.

Recent years have seen far-left-dominated unions and several local councils embarking on highly politicized, controversial campaigns to boycott the Jewish state - campaigns Jewish rights groups say have helped fanned anti-Israel hysteria which often spills over into acts of anti-Semitism.

Such boycotts have also been criticized by others as a waste of resources and utterly irrelevant for local bodies which don't actually play any role in foreign policy. In most cases, such moves are launched at the initiative of extreme anti-Israel groups, who encourage activists to infiltrate otherwise apolitical organizations and table and lobby for anti-Israel boycotts.

"We need to challenge and prevent these divisive town hall boycotts," said Hancock.

"The new guidance on procurement, combined with changes we are making to how pension pots can be invested, will help prevent damaging and counterproductive local foreign policies undermining our national security."


Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/208000#.VsDtd-azdds

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

Tension in the Middle East: Turkey Attacks Syrian Army Posts, Saudi Arabia Threatens Ground Entrance - Dan Arkin

by Dan Arkin

Despite the "ceasefire" recently signed between Russia and the United States, the fighting in Syria does not cease. Turkey shelled Syrian military positions it claims attacked Turkish military targets in collaboration with Kurdish forces. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia announces plans to deploy ground troops

Tensions between the Middle East countries on the issue of civil war in Syria reached a new high: According to foreign media reports, Turkey attacked Syrian military targets, because they claim that Kurdish forces and troops loyal to President Assad fired at Turkish army posts.

This event comes after a "ceasefire" was signed over the weekend between Russia, the US and other powers. According to the agreement, the fighting in Syria will cease by next week and shipments of humanitarian supplies will be sent to civilians in areas under siege. The agreement itself does not include terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Al-Nusra Front and others - against which fighting will continue.

However, many doubt the ability to enforce the agreement. Saudi Arabia plans to send ground troops to fight ISIS in Syria, and announced that in the coming days it will engage in a multi-dimensional and multi-national military exercise.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter commented on the news of Saudi Arabia's intention send military forces to Syria and said that the US is waiting for more details. He made it clear, however, that as more countries join the fighting, it will be easier for the US to increase the pressure on ISIS. Lawrence Korb, a former deputy defense minister, said that the participation of Saudi military forces in the fighting in Syria is of great significance and constitutes a serious escalation.

Dan Arkin

Source: http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/tension-middle-east-turkey-attacks-syrian-army-posts-saudi-arabia-threatens-ground-entrance

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

TSA: Total Security Abyss - Michelle Malkin

by Michelle Malkin

Who exactly is screening the screeners?

While a TSA agent pawed my hair bun this weekend, presumably on high alert for improvised explosive bobby pins, I pondered the latest news on the Somalia airplane terror attack.

Intelligence officials released video footage of airport employees in Mogadishu handing a laptop to a jihadist suspect before he boarded Daallo Airlines Airbus Flight D3159 last week. The device allegedly contained a bomb that exploded on the plane, which created a massive hole out of which the bomber was fatally sucked. Two other passengers were injured in the blast before the pilot successfully made an emergency landing.

Several airport workers have now been arrested and the FBI is in Africa assisting the investigation.

The Somalia incident is not the only suspected in-flight inside job of late. Investigators believe a ramp worker at Egypt's Sharm el Sheikh airport was recruited by ISIS to plant a bomb on the Russian airliner that crashed last fall in the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. All 224 passengers and crew members aboard Metrojet Flight 9268 perished.

America can rest easy knowing that TSA aggressively tackled my harmless chignon like the Denver Broncos on Super Bowl Sunday.

But as the TSA carries out its multibillion-dollar charade of homeland security on babies' bottles of breast milk, veterans' prosthetic devices and suburban moms' updos, who is screening the screeners?

Last summer, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general raised the alarm on the TSA's faulty aviation worker vetting process. The IG's testing showed "that TSA did not identify 73 individuals with terrorism-related category codes because TSA is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related information under current interagency watchlisting policy." Nor does the transportation bureaucracy have effective controls in place for ensuring that its employees "had not committed crimes that would disqualify them from having unescorted access to secure airports areas" and "had lawful status and were authorized to work in the United States."

On top of that, "thousands of records used for vetting workers contained potentially incomplete or inaccurate data, such as an initial for a first name and missing social security numbers," investigators found.

"TSA did not have appropriate edit checks in place to reject such records from vetting."

Stunningly, the IG disclosed that TSA has had to "deny credentials to 4,800 individuals that the airports had previously cleared for work in the United States because it could not verify lawful status for those individuals." The report does not specify when exactly these 4,800 potential illegal immigrants from around the world finally had their badges yanked.

Eight months after this disclosure, the IG reported this week, "as few as one percent of all aviation workers applications" at larger airports are subjected to the inspections process to screen out aliens here illegally, visa overstayers and individuals convicted of disqualifying crimes.

Only in the last year has the Obama administration cracked down on airport and airline employees' unfettered access to sensitive areas and ability to bypass security checkpoints.

Only in the last week has the federal government finally changed its policies to allow TSA to access counterterrorism databases.

Actually, it's not clear from the DHS inspector general John Roth's follow-up testimony on Capitol Hill this whether and when exactly this will happen. "TSA now or will soon have access to this information," he told Congress. Hmm.

Even if and when TSA officials gain access to terrorism data, however, the question is whether that information is worth anything at all. DHS whistleblower Philip Haney, a 15-year veteran of the bureaucracy, reported last week on politically correct purges of counterterrorism databases ordered by his superiors. He says he was forced to "delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System."

It gets worse. "Going forward," Haney recounted, "my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database." Whitewash in, whitewash out.

A budget of $7 billion. A workforce of 55,000. Useless explosives-screening "puffing" machines. Unreliable full-body scanners. Thousands of lost and stolen badges and weapons. Unknown numbers of criminals, illegal aliens, imposters and terror operatives with security clearance to do as they please on ramps and runways across America.

Welcome to TSA: The Total Security Abyss.

Michelle Malkin

Source:

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

Mosque Linked To Muslim Brotherhood Has Received Millions In Federal Grants - Chuck Ross

by Chuck Ross

Hat tip: Dr. Carolyn Tal

At the Holy Land Foundation trial, evidence was presented that ISNA diverted funds from the accounts it held with NAIT to institutions linked to Hamas and to Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader.

A Kansas City mosque owned by an Islamic umbrella organization with deep ties to the U.S. arm of the Muslim Brotherhood has received millions of dollars in federal grants over the past several years, according to a federal spending database.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has received $2,739,891 from the Department of Agriculture since 2010, a Daily Caller analysis has found. The money largely went to the mosque’s Crescent Clinic to provide services through the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program, known as WIC.

The most recent federal payment — in the amount of $327,436 — was handed out Oct. 1.

Property records show the mosque is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which acts as a financial holding company for Islamic organizations. It offers sharia-compliant financial products to Muslim investors, operates Islamic schools and owns more than 300 other mosques throughout the U.S.

Founded in 1973 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Muslim Students Association, NAIT’s most controversial connection is to the 2007 and 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing cases. Along with other Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), NAIT was named a co-conspirator in the federal case but was not indicted.

At the Holy Land Foundation trial, evidence was presented that ISNA diverted funds from the accounts it held with NAIT to institutions linked to Hamas and to Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader.

Federal prosecutors introduced evidence in the case that “established that ISNA and NAIT were among those organizations created by the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of checks drawn from ISNA’s account and deposited in the Holy Land Foundation’s account with NAIT were made payable to “the Palestinian Mujahadeen,” which is the original name for Hamas’ military wing.

While Hamas was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 1997 and is considered the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the larger Muslim Brotherhood is not itself designated as a terrorist group.

And while the Obama administration has largely remained agnostic towards the organization, the British government released a scathing report earlier this month noting that the Muslim Brotherhood remains supportive of Hamas and that much of its ideology and many of its tactics “are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security.”

Some American politicians, such as Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz , seem to agree with that sentiment. Both Republicans introduced legislation this year to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.

NAIT has other ties to the Holy Land Foundation case. Its newly-appointed executive director, Salah Obeidallah, was a founding member and former president of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, N.J.

In the 1990s, the imam at that mosque was Mohammad El-Mezain, a founding member of the Holy Land Foundation who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping fund Hamas. Obeidallah has said that he was not aware of El-Mezain’s terror funding activities.

In being owned by NAIT, the Kansas City organization is in company with numerous mosques with ties to known terrorists, terror sympathizers and fundamentalist Islamists.

Purportedly backed by money from Saudi Arabia and supporting a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, NAIT holds the deed to the Islamic Society of Boston, which operates the mosque attended by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the so-called Boston Marathon bombers.

It also controls the Islamic Center of San Diego, which was attended by Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two al-Qaeda members who helped fly American Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

According to a 2002 Newsweek investigation, members of the San Diego mosque helped the two terrorists obtain housing, driver’s licences and social security numbers. They claimed not to have known about the men’s terror plans.

NAIT also owns the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Fairfax Co., Va. — a known hotbed of terrorist activity. Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki served as imam at that location in 2001 and 2002. He was killed by an American drone in Yemen in 2011.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has its own loose links to terrorist activities. The mosque made news earlier this year when it held the funeral for Nadir Soofi, one of the two jihadis who attempted to pull off a terrorist attack in Garland, Tex. Soofi, who was 34, and his accomplice, 30-year-old Elton Simpson, opened fire outside of an art exhibit featuring cartoons of Muhammad, but were killed by a security guard.

Both Soofi and Simpson attended the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix, which land deeds show is owned by NAIT.

That particular mosque posted $100,000 bond for Simpson following his 2010 arrest for lying to FBI agents about his plans to travel to Somalia to join a terrorist group. Simpson was given three years probation in that case.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has also hosted Imam Khalid Yasin, an American-born convert to Islam, who has publicly supported sharia law and claimed that homosexuals should receive the death penalty.

As a May 2010 Yahoo! message board post shows, Yasin visited the Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City and other area mosques that month to hold a series of lectures and workshops about Islam.

That was nearly two years after Yasin touted the virtues of sharia law and capital punishment in a speech at a British mosque.

According to a journalist for The Telegraph, Yasin said that sharia law works because:

Then people can see, people without hands, people can see in public heads rolling down the street, people got [sic] their hands and feet from opposite sides chopped off and they see them crucified…they see people put up against the pole and see them get lashed in public they see it, and because they see it, it acts as a deterrent for them because they say I don’t want that to happen to me.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City did not respond to an email from TheDC seeking comment about its relationship with NAIT and for more information about its federal grants.

Several other Islamic organizations have received grants from the Department of Agriculture, the federal government’s spending database, USASpending.gov, shows. One is Ar-Razzaq mosque in Durham, N.C., which received nearly $820,000 in grants from 2011 to 2014. It does not appear to be affiliated with NAIT.

Fox News reported last year that NAIT itself has directly received $10,000 in farm subsidies since 1998 for all of the land that it owns. The subsidies were put on hold for several years following the organization’s involvement in the Holy Land Foundation case but resumed in 2011.

Follow Chuck on Twitter


Chuck Ross

Source: http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/28/mosque-linked-to-muslim-brotherhood-has-received-millions-in-federal-grants/

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

EU backs down from product-labeling bid - Shlomo Cesana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

by Shlomo Cesana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

"The conversation resolved the tensions and we are, Israel and the EU, back to good and close relations," says Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon, following new agreement that will see EU countries individually determine product-labeling policy.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini |Photo credit: EPA

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The Foreign Ministry reported that relations with the European Union are "close and friendly" again after tensions arose last year over the bloc's decision to label Israeli exports manufactured beyond the Green Line. 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the sides had "overcome the crisis" after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini spoke by phone Friday.

 

Credit: Reuters 

 

He said Israel received assurances the move "is not a political step to determine future borders or to boycott Israel." 

 

The conversation between Netanyahu and Mogherini followed a negotiation process on the issue led by Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold. After the agreement was reached, Mogherini invited Netanyahu to Brussels, an offer which he accepted.

The European Commission's original labeling resolution was set to be adopted by all 28 member states and to include goods manufactured in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

In November, Israel suspended contacts with EU officials on the political process with the Palestinians to protest the move.

Under the new agreement, the EU said it will leave product-labeling decisions up to each individual member country.

Israel has said that it will continue to fight bids to label products in each country that intends to do so.

The EU also promised that it would not assist in labeling efforts and that it would oppose any boycott or isolation campaigns against Israel. The EU further announced that it is opposed to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, that it is dedicated to Israel's security and that it condemns terrorism and incitement to violence.

In response to the move, Nahshon said that Israel would no longer insist on the exclusion of EU bodies from peace talks with the Palestinians.

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in April 2014. While the United States has traditionally played the lead role in peace efforts in the region, the EU is Israel's largest trading partner and is the biggest donor to the Palestinians, and is looking to play a larger role in peace negotiations.

"The conversation resolved the tensions and we are, Israel and the EU, back to good and close relations," Nahshon said in a message to the media.

Speaking to Israel Hayom about the product-labeling initiative, Gold said: "In addition to the economic damage that it may cause Israeli industries beyond the Green Line, I feel that there was also an attempt here to predetermine the future borders between Israel and the Palestinians when the Europeans had said in the past that the borders would be determined exclusively through direct negotiations between the two sides.

"We received a clear commitment from Mogherini that there is no attempt here to determine the borders between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel stood its ground on each issue discussed with the European Union."

Meanwhile, Mogherini told journalists on Friday that the Middle East Quartet "was seriously concerned about the viability of a two-state solution".

The Quartet is represented by Mogherini, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and a special envoy of the U.N. secretary-general.

"The [Middle East] Quartet expressed its serious concern that current trends on the ground, including continued acts of violence against civilians, ongoing settlement activity and the high rate of demolitions of Palestinian structures, are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution," Mogherini told journalists on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

"The Quartet underscored that both sides must swiftly demonstrate -- through policies and actions -- a genuine commitment to a two-state solution in order to rebuild trust and avoid a cycle of escalation. It emphasized that a robust Palestinian economy and an enhanced government capacity would serve as a cornerstone of a Palestinian state and that genuine Palestinian unity on the basis of democracy and the PLO principles is essential to uniting Gaza and the West Bank under one legitimate democratic Palestinian authority," she added.

Shlomo Cesana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff  

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=31753  

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

Israel has the right to defend itself against NGOs - Giulio Meotti

by Giulio Meotti

Many of the NGOs acting in Israel are foreign Trojan horses.

Israel’s government is pursuing the approval of the law on transparency for NGOs working in Israel. There is no scandal or attack on democracy, as the Western newspapers, full of anti-Israel resentment, have repeated in the last few weeks. It is, more simply, to ask for transparency if an NGO receives contributions from foreign countries. Israel aims to expose the groups which are ostensibly only dedicated to the cause of civil rights but which receive funds from abroad to wage a war of de-legitimization on the Jewish State.

Take groups such as Breaking the Silence, which took 42 thousand euro from Holland after Operation Cast Lead to provide 90 testimonies by former Israeli soldiers on “war crimes” in Gaza. When I visited Hevron last year, I did see apartheid, but not that claimed by Breaking the Silence: I saw Jews barred from walking in certain areas just because they were Jews. That is apartheid.

Former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky, who with his battle to be released from prison was the cause taken up by large NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, said that many of these organizations are now “a tool in the hands of dictatorial regimes to fight democracies”. Why should Israel not ask for transparency if the Norwegian embassy in Tel Aviv, the European Union, a Dutch association or the Saudi sheiks are paying an NGO to say that Israel’s “apartheid state” is committing “crimes against humanity”?

Want to talk about the behaviour of these NGOs? Last May, the Jewish National Fund, the nonprofit organization born before the State of Israel existed, the pioneering NGO that reclaimed barren land and planted 280 million trees, was banned in Finland from participating to the Maailma Kylässä, the World Village, the festival organized by the multicultural organization Kepa, which includes three hundred different NGOs and is funded by the European Union and the Red Cross. But at the World Village of 2014, the Palestine Forum distributed - and was allowed to distribute by these NGOs - maps of the Middle East from which Israel was absent.

There is no other country in the world which is the target of manipulation by foreign governments through such a massive intervention in its domestic affairs. It’s Israel’s Trojan horse. And the Jews have the right to fight it.


Giulio Meotti

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18399#.VsB5l-azdds

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Don't Let Obama Fill Scalia's Seat - Bruce Walker

by Bruce Walker

Congress has the power here. If Republicans don't use it, then the party should be finished.

Congress has frittered away virtually every constitutional power save one:  the power of the Senate to deny presidential appointments to the federal bench.  If Senate Republicans expect conservatives to ever trust them on anything, then they must decline to consider Obama's nominee to replace Justice Scalia. 

There is precedent for this.  In 1968, when Republicans were a Senate minority possessing only the power of filibuster, Everett Dirksen prevented Lyndon Johnson from appointing Associate Justice Abe Fortas to replace retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren and then appointing Homer Thornbury to take Fortas's seat as an associate justice.

Senate Minority Leader Dirksen did not run the Senate or control any Senate committees.  Republicans, in fact, held only 36 Senate seats, and several of these were leftists.  Yet Dirksen was able to cobble together enough senators to prevent Johnson from filling a Supreme Court office during a heated election year.  The left, of course, squealed and yelled, but it lost, because Senate Republicans and a handful of Senate Democrats stood firm.
If Everett Dirksen, who was only a moderate conservative holding a very weak hand, was able to thwart LBJ, who had been Senate majority leader before he was vice president and who knew all the ropes and all the tricks of the Senate, then Senate Majority Leader McConnell clearly has the power to do the same.

In fact, all McConnell and the Republican leadership have to do is to decline to consider any nominee appointed by Obama.  State clearly that the Senate is exercising its constitutional power and, unlike Obama who presumes powers he does not have, that the power to confirm or deny a presidential appointment is at the heart of the Senate's control of the Executive Branch.

This is also crunch time for any candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.  The argument is quite simple: the presidency and the Supreme Court threaten to overwhelm all other parts of our constitutional system.  Let the American people this November decide who will pick the next Supreme Court justice.

In fact, make this presidential election a battle about the proper role of the federal bench in our constitutional system.  Those who want more power flowing to unelected and unaccountable figures in Washington vote for the Democrat nominee.  Let those who think that lawyers and judges ought to run our nation support the Democrats.  Let those who want power to devolve back to the people and to the states support the Republicans.

The president could, of course, make a recess appointment to the Supreme Court – an appointment that would end with the new Congress and new president – but there is no right of any president to insist that his nominees be confirmed or even considered.  Any president who has acted as arrogantly and contemptuously toward the powers of Congress as Obama deserves no special consideration from the Senate at all.

The stakes are monumentally high.  Winning the presidency while delivering the Supreme Court to a radical leftist majority means guaranteeing that the drift of our nation into secular humanism and unconstitutional a[b]rogations of power to judges, federal administrators, and others who are immune to our wishes will continue toward a cataclysmic end of the America we have known.

Moreover, this is a battle that we can win, if those Republican leaders who seek our help every election cycle will stand boldly against the left.  It has been a long, long time since Republican leaders in Congress have actually given conservatives anything like a political victory.  If these Republicans cannot or will not do so now, then it is truly time for conservatives to abandon the Republican Party and form, instead, around a political party and movement that are serious about what happens to our nation.

The timing, in some ways, is awful for conservatives, but in other ways it is perfect.  Do this one thing – let the next president and next Senate fill this seat – and we will begin to trust you again.  Fail, and there is no reason for conservatives to ever trust Washington Republicans again.

Bruce Walker

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/dont_let_obama_fill_scalias_seat.html

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