The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
When the feds knock on the door of Democrat operatives engaged in election fraud, many will fold.
Attorney
General Barr just mobilized the Department of Justice to engage as
appropriate to investigate election fraud throughout America. He is on
very solid legal grounds. It is a very simple means of addressing the
greatest attempted political theft in American history and I would
rather be us, Trump Nation, than them, the Democrat party's illegal
operatives.
This is because President Trump and his team laid the legal ground work for identifying and prosecuting such criminal behavior in 2017:
Federal Prosecution of Election Offensives
Eight Edition 2017
“Our
constitutional system of representative government only works when the
worth of honest ballots is not diluted by invalid ballots procured by
corruption.
The
actual fact that AG late last night triggered the use of the DOJ legal
handbook bodes very ill for those who are involved in electoral
cheating.
For
them, when the men and women in suits arrive on their doorstep to
politely inquire "can you explain this," with “this” being one of many
the many felonies listed above, the campaign operative is likely
to immediately have a life-altering moment. As often is said: you can go
easy or you can go hard, but make no mistake, you are going to address
your behavior. And as the joke goes, never steal anything small and the
Democrat team certainly took that to heart.
At
the moment of an investigation asking a low-level operative 'what role
did you play' in this grand theft election, the massive conspiracy will
begin to crumble. After all what young campaign worker wants to go to
jail for Joe Biden? So far, it looks like Biden will have trouble even
keeping his own son out of entanglement with potential legal felony
charges.
Notice
I said men and women in suits. This is because of my very direct
personal experience working officially with very honorable FBI Special
Agents. I'm not talking about the deep state operatives at the top. I
have much faith in the dedicated honor and respect for the rule of law
enforced by Special Agents of the FBI in the field. Adding to that
phalanx of the FBI in the field, there is also the absolutely
no-nonsense U.S. Marshals Service. And, as the evidence may present
itself, there's also our world class diligent Secret Service agents.
The majesty
and mission dedication that all Americans expect of our
federal protectors is well placed. Please do not let the horrific
aberration of people like Jim Comey, and those like him in D.C. paint in
your minds FBI field agents as deep state swamp creatures.
Federal
prosecutors also have very solid legal guidelines because the Supreme
Court has already established precedent for nationwide election fraud
cases.
See “Anderson v United States, 417 U.S 211, 227 (1974) cited in the Department of Justice criminal file cited above.
Now
for the very big and scary surprise for election-stealing criminals:
there is a new federal team on the field of battle at the Department of Homeland Security. Note this:
ELECTION INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY
Fair
and free elections are a hallmark of American democracy. The American
people’s confidence in the value of their vote is principally reliant on
their confidence in the security and resilience of the infrastructure
that makes the Nation’s elections possible. Accordingly, an electoral
process that is both secure and resilient is a vital national interest
and one of CISA’s highest priorities.
CISA
is committed to working collaboratively with those on the front lines
of elections—state and local governments, election officials, federal
partners, and vendors—to manage risks to the Nation’s election
infrastructure. CISA will remain transparent and agile in its vigorous
efforts to secure America’s election infrastructure from new and
evolving threats
The practical result of these teams fighting in the 2020 election campaign can already be seen.
As
interviews are conducted in the field and hard evidence accumulated
with federal prosecutors building cases and the need for a “Rocket
Docket” directly to the Supreme Court, I suspect the conspiracy will
crumble as the minions and mid-level political miscreants scurry for
legal safe haven. It is simple: As the DHS team chases illegal computer
voting “trons,” many of those in criminal legal trouble may see an
opportunity to get out of jail free by singing to the feds.
Essentially,
“the computer ate my homework” defense, with the press calling it a
“computer glitch,” will collapse, and then significant votes may swing
back to the correct column.
Sadly, if it takes walking a few conspirators to identify and correct many machine-directed mis-votes, so be it.
President Trump will eventually win. Just look at this early headline at a very local level in the key battleground state of Michigan.
Fixed computer glitch turns losing Republican into a winner in Oakland County
A
computer error led election officials in Oakland County to hand an
upset victory Wednesday to a Democrat, only to switch the win back to
an incumbent Republican a day later.
Soon many “computer errors," I suspect, will be corrected.
However,
those election-thief conspirators that took the analog route by
corrupting hard-copy ballots, by either throwing away Trump votes and/or
adding illegal Biden votes, well, they can become cooperating
witnesses. Or else too bad for them because I hope they enjoy their stay
at a “Club Fed” and living with a lifelong felony conviction in the
thereafter.
Ed Timperlake is a former congressional staffer, a former Marine, and the author of several books on the Washington swamp.
President Trump continues to claim that the election is “far from
over,” and on Saturday vowed multiple lawsuits to contest the results
announced so far. And while the media has anointed former vice president
Biden the “president-elect,” just saying so does not make it so.
Regardless of what you think of either of the candidates, Trump is
right: the election is not over until either he concedes, or until the
states certify the election results. Certification deadlines are set by
statute and vary from state to state, but must take place before the
Electoral College meets on December 14.
In the meantime, there are multiple indicators and warnings of
significant and potentially result-changing election fraud that the
president’s team will be investigating in the coming days, including
unusually high voter turnout rates in Wisconsin (88%), denial by
election authorities in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia and elsewhere to
allow “meaningful” participation by Trump campaign poll-watchers, and
unusual midnight surges in Biden votes in multiple states where election
officials said they had sent their staff home for the night.
The most pressing of these anomalies is the computer “glitch”
announced by the Antrim County, Michigan, clerk of the court on Friday
that caused a 6,000 vote surge for Biden in a county that Trump won
handily in 2016.
Once the “glitch” was corrected, those votes were credited to Trump.
According to Michigan GOP chairwoman Laura Cox,
“since then, we have now discovered that 47 counties used this same
software in the same capacity.” That’s more than half of Michigan’s 83
counties.
A similar “glitch” was identified by election officials in two
Georgia counties on election day that halted voting for several hours.
As in Michigan, the counties used voting machines made by Dominion
Voting Systems and electronic poll books made by KnowInk. The companies
“uploaded something last night, which is not normal, and it caused a
glitch,” Spaulding County elections supervisor told Politico.
“That is something that they don’t ever do. I’ve never seen them update
anything the day before the election,” the supervisor added.
This is exactly the scheme I describe in detail in my new book, The Election Heist,
where malevolent actors upload a “patch” to a trusted VPN server
controlled by the voting equipment manufacturer to beguile unsuspecting
election officials.
As Spaulding County elections supervisor Marcia Ridley rightly said,
this is something that is not done. It is not normal. And it was not an
accident.
We are now learning that the same election equipment, made by Dominion Voting Systems, is used in virtually all the swing states that President Trump was winning comfortably on election night, only to lose by close margins as more votes were “counted.”
I put “counted” in quotes deliberately, since hand-recounts such as
occurred in Antrim County, Michigan, could well determine that these
votes were in fact mis-counted.
Dominion and its software subsidiary, Smartmatic, have run into
difficulties for years for failing to meet basic security standards.
They were accused for falsified election results in the Philippines in
2013, and were rejected “three times by data communications experts from
the Texas Secretary of State and Attorney General’s Office for failing
to meet basic security standards,” the Center Square reported on Saturday.
While my book is a fiction and was published three months before the
election, it is not a fantasy. It is based on extensive investigation
of the flaws of our electronic voting systems that I have been studying
for several years, comparing notes with cyber security experts in the
private sector and in government.
In my scenario, the owner of the fictional voting equipment supplier
is a left-wing billionaire based in northern California.
In real life, Dominion has donated voting equipment to the Clinton Foundation, giving them access to on-board software, while the board chairman of their software supplier, Smartmatic, is a former investment partner of George Soros and a current board member of the Soros-funded Open Society Foundation.
In my book, I also predicted that the national media would project
fake vote counts to create a perception that Trump had lost the
election, in order to discourage Trump voters and the Republican
officials from pursuing claims of election fraud.
It became obvious to me in my research that the only way for
Democrats to confidently predict victory over such an immensely popular
president as Donald Trump, whose last-minute rallies drew crowds in the
tens of thousands compared to the dozens who came out in their cars to
honk at candidate Biden, was to fake the polls and hack the election
software.
We can now see beyond a doubt that many of the polls were faked. An
ABC News-Washington Post poll had Biden winning Wisconsin by 17% just days before election day. In my opinion, this and similar polls were aimed at suppressing Trump voter turnout on election day.
In a Zoom call with reporters
just the day before the election, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley
Dillon ran through the math state by state, showing the election day
margins Trump would have to win in order to carry each state.
In Arizona, for example, she said that Biden had banked 53% of the
mail-in and early-votes, so that Trump “would need to win 60% out of all
the remaining votes to overcome this lead.”
On election day, Trump won 67.14%, according to unofficial results published by the Arizona secretary of state.
Similarly, in Pennsylvania she estimated that the Biden team had won
67% of the 2.4 million early and mail-in ballots. To overcome that
advantage, Team Trump needed 59% on election day.
The actual results showed that Trump won 66% of the election day
vote and still lost, because Biden had won 76.94% of the early and
mail-in vote.
I would be absolutely shocked if the Biden team had missed so many
early and mail-in votes in their pre-election projections. So what
happened? So far, we do not know.
But I know this for certain, and it’s a spoiler alert for my book:
the only way to catch these computer “glitches” is to conduct a manual
recount of the paper ballots. If the software has been hacked, as
appears to be the case, running the ballots through the same tabulators
will merely generate the same mis-count as it did the first time. Only
manual recounts can uncover the truth.
That is what’s about to happen in Georgia and Wisconsin, and should
be happening in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Let the
recounts begin.
NY Times best-selling author Kenneth R. Timmerman is the author of Deception: The Making of the YouTube Video Hillary and Obama blamed for Benghazi, and 10 other works of non-fiction. The Election Heist, a fictional account of the 2020 election, is his fourth published novel.
Mainstream news organizations called the election for Biden Saturday, but Trump has refused to concede, alleging election irregularities in several states --. Newsmax has not called the race and is waiting for the legal process to play out.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Richard Pilger, director of the Election Crimes branch of the Department of Justice, has resigned from his post.
The move came after Attorney General Bill Barr issued a memo to
federal prosecutors authorizing them to probe “specific allegations” of
voter fraud ahead of the results of the presidential race being
certified, according to NBC News.
“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its
ramifications, and in accord with the best tradition of the John C.
Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism (my most
cherished Departmental recognition), I must regretfully resign from my
role as director of the Election Crimes branch,” Pilger said in a letter
to colleagues.
“I have enjoyed very much working with you for over a decade to
aggressively and diligently enforce federal criminal election law,
policy, and practice without partisan fear or favor. I thank you for
your support in that effort.”
According to The New York Times, Pilger also told colleagues he would move to a nonsupervisory role working on corruption prosecutions.
Barr’s memo clears the way
for prosecutors to get around Justice Department policy that normally
would have prevented such overt measures before the election is
certified.
Barr's move effectively cuts Pilger's Election Crimes operation out
of the process, which may have contributed to his resignation, one source says.
President Donald Trump is claiming there has been a widespread,
multi-state conspiracy by Democrats to skew the vote tally in Joe
Biden's favor.
Mainstream news organizations called the election for Biden Saturday,
but Trump has refused to concede, alleging election irregularities in
several states, and has gone to court over the outcome. Newsmax has not
called the race and is waiting for the legal process to play out.
Democrat far-left puppet Joe Biden initially led in the presidential
race against Donald Trump in Michigan's Antrim County by 3,000 votes. Or
so it seemed. Then a software glitch was discovered and fixed, and lo
and behold -- Trump actually won the county by 2,500 votes. Apparently
47 other counties use that same software. Check out the short video
below, in which the Michigan GOP chair gives an update on the election
count:
And make sure to watch Barry Nussbaum, the founder of American Truth Project, discuss Confronting the Dems' Election Steal, where he unveils What the battle plan has to be:
The corruption of Philly Democrats is worse than you can imagine.
In October, someone got away with a laptop and USB drives full of encrypted data at the warehouse where Philadelphia's voting machines are stored.
Philadelphia city officials swiftly assured voters that there was
nothing to worry about because all the data was encrypted. Meanwhile a
local reporter was able to
enter the warehouse and stroll around the voting machines without
anyone in the warehouse stopping him. Others had noted that accessing
the USB slot for the voting machines was surprisingly easy.
But there were bigger problems at the warehouse than that. The serial numbers on the voting machines didn't match election records. In a familiar story, officials blamed clerical errors.
And there were a whole lot of errors.
The new voting machines had been incorrectly recording votes. In a
previous election, Northampton County voters who voted Republican suffered a
"weird technical glitch" in which votes cast for Republicans instead
went to the “instructional text box”. The manufacturer blamed the
problem on "human error" and claimed that it only affected some 30% of machines.
Northampton County, one of the bellwether counties, was said to have flipped for Biden. The margins in some key precincts were between “a handful to hundreds of votes.”
There were problems with 366 of the same model of voting machines in Philly.
According to the manufacturer, voting machines only accept "certified and approved USB flash drives containing encrypted data", which had apparently been stolen before Election Day.
The same month that the laptop and USB drives were stolen, elsewhere
in the state, an elections judge in Allentown was charged with,
"insertion and alteration of entries in documents, and prying into
ballots".
The judge, the Reverend Everett E. Bickford, or Erika, who now wears
flowers in his hair and heavy makeup, along with a clerical collar, was
hauled into court, but went on working as an election judge. Officials
promised to watch him closely on Nov 3.
The current numbers claim that Biden beat Trump in the Reverend's 3rd Ward by 522 to 173.
The media amplified stories about election fraud in Pennsylvania
largely when it affected Democrat primaries. That same media is vocally
denying that there could be any fraud now.
Why would anyone think there could be any fraud in the nation’s election fraud capital?
In '86, Councilman Lee Beloff, the son of a judge,
was charged alongside his legislative aide, and mob boss "Little Nicky"
Scarfo, with extorting $1 million and an apartment for his mistress.
Less glamorously, Beloff was also indicted, along with his wife and
two Democratic committee members for " conspiracy, voting more than once
and giving false information on voter registrations to elderly people
living in a nursing home."
Beloff had previously received a gubernatorial pardon for interfering with a poll watcher so he could run for public office.
After serving 6 years of his 10 year sentence, Beloff got out and became a Democrat ward chairman.
“We stay loyal to our people,” a local Democratic ward leader said.
A photo last year from the Philly Public Record shows a meeting of the "combined 39th Ward Democratic organizations".
One of the photos is titled, "A South Philly Classic" and features Lee Beloff and Ozzie Myers.
Ozzie Meyers, a former Democrat Congressman who had been convicted
of bribery and conspiracy, and spent three years in prison in the Abscam
scandal, was indicted again
this year for "conspiring to violate voting rights by fraudulently
stuffing the ballot boxes for specific candidates in the 2014, 2015, and
2016 primary elections, bribery of an election official, falsification
of records, voting more than once in federal elections."
Domenick J. Demuro, an election judge in the 39th Ward, pled guilty
to having "accepted bribes in the form of money and other things of
value in exchange for adding ballots to increase the vote totals for
certain candidates on the voting machines in his jurisdiction and for
certifying tallies of all the ballots, including the fraudulent
ballots."
Why wouldn’t you trust these guys?
As Judge Scirica noted in his ruling, voter fraud, "including the
practice of voting dead or non-resident citizens, is no stranger to
Pennsylvania, especially to the City of Philadelphia."
"Hispanics would sign anything," Democrat campaign workers joked in
the case that would lead to the state's biggest absentee ballot fraud
case. So of course it came out of Philly in the 90s.
William Stinson, an assistant Deputy Mayor to Mayor Ed Rendell, was
running for a State Senate seat with Democrat control of the Senate at
stake. A poll showed him 4% behind his Republican opponent and he
allegedly ordered campaign workers to get black and Latino voters to
sign absentee ballots.
Campaign workers were given a buck for every ballot, which they "helped" voters fill in.
Not satisfied to settle for actual voters, evidence was heard in
court that workers had filled in the names of dead people and prison
inmates.
When the votes were counted, Stinson had won a staggering 80% of the absentee ballots. The Republicans smelled a rat and The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed voters
and found 220 irregularities and 24 instances where documents were
forged. Mostly minority voters were told to check boxes, vote on behalf
of family members, and misled into voting for the wrong man.
In one investigation of the 37th Ward, only 15% of the absentee ballots had been legally cast.
"There were probably mistakes made by workers not understanding the
rules of absentee ballots," Rick Bloomingdale, the executive director of
the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and future AFL-CIO boss, argued. "It
was all intended to increase voter participation."
A federal judge removed Stinson and replaced him with his Republican
opponent, who had been winning before the absentee ballots arrived,
accusing the Democrat candidate and the Philadelphia County Board of
Elections of a "massive scheme"
A state investigation led to charges against Stinson and two
Democrat campaign workers. Stinson admitted to unlocking voting machines
and opening absentee ballots, but claimed he never actually looked at
them.
A judge took mere minutes to acquit him.
How could anyone possibly believe that there’s anything rotten in
Philly? Multiple trials, indictments, and judicial rulings, decade after
decade, don’t prove a damn thing.
Except that there’s no such thing as an honest election in Philly.
Some Democrat municipalities at least take pains not to look
crooked. That’s not the sort of thing they go for in Philly. That’s why
you can see that photo of Beloff and Myers in the Public Record, whose
motto is, "The Good Things We Do Must Be Made a Part of the Public
Record."
There’s a third man in the photo next to Beloff, who had been convicted of voter fraud, and Ozzie Myers, who would go on to be indicted for election fraud, and that man is Bob Brady.
Bob Brady is the Chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party.
Brady is famous for two things, winning every election with over 80% of the vote, and stealing the Pope’s cup.
“Like I’m not gonna take that cup?” he replied.
After spending 20 years as a House Democrat, including as a ranking
member of the Committee on House Administration and on the Subcommittee
on Elections, he stepped down after an FBI investigation into a $90,000
payment made by his campaign to get his opponent to drop out by disguising it as a payment for a poll.
Two of Brady's aides were sent to jail in the case, but neither of
the politicians were. After getting out of prison, Ken Smukler, one of
those aides, was back working together with Brady and other Democrat leaders on the fight to help Biden win Pennsylvania.
The Biden campaign denied knowing him.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and
Islamic terrorism.
It is official. Newsmax TV surpassed both Fox Business and CNBC in daytime ratings the day after Election Day.
Nielsen reported Wednesday that Newsmax drew 287,000 average
viewers per minute in the key daypart 9am to 4pm, outpacing CNBC with
285,000 viewers and Fox Business with 281,000.
Newsmax also outpaced Fox Business in primetime, with 205,000 viewers compared to 138,000.
The Nielsen rating only tells part of the story. OTT viewership
on platforms like YouTube added an additional 100,000 per minute live
viewers tuned into Newsmax TV on Wednesday.
"We're in less cable homes, our channel position is usually not
as good as competitors, and our brand is less known, yet we're beating
these guys," Chris Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax TV said. "We have a better
mousetrap and viewers are flocking to us."
Ruddy noted Newsmax's new programming lineup, including shows like "Greg Kelly Reports" and Sean Spicer's "Spicer & Co." only started this year.
"Our trajectory is like a rocket right now," Ruddy said.
On Election Night, Nielsen reported Newsmax TV's coverage was
watched by 3 million viewers, with as many as 600,000 viewers per
minute.
Nielsen also reported 1 million of Newsmax's election night
viewers watched exclusively and never tuned into Fox News or another
cable news channel.
When OTT viewers were factored in, Newsmax had over 1 million
per minute viewers most of the same night. For example, YouTube's live
stream showed over 70,000 viewers watching Newsmax at any minute during
election night.
While Fox News led ratings election night, Newsmax appeared to benefit from angry, defecting viewers.
Newsmax was the first network to project Trump the winner of
Florida, as Fox refused to call the state, despite more than 90% of
ballots counted.
Fox's decision to call Arizona early, with just 14% of balllots
counted and without other TV networks joining their decision, led to a
viewership revolt across social media.
Newsweek was the first to report on the outrage, headlining: "Conservatives Turn Against Fox News Over Election Coverage, Change Channel to Newsmax."
"No matter what the final results are tonight, one thing is extremely clear. @FoxNews can
no longer claim to be the fair and balanced network they once were.
There are a lot of biased hacks there now and a ton of folks are
noticing. It's now @newsmax for me for election results."
Nielsen Ratings for Nov. 4, 2020
9a-4pm
8pm-12a
Newsmax
287K
205K
Fox Business
281K
138K
CNBC
285K
208K
BBC America
85K
110K
Newsy
19K
25K
Important: See Newsmax TV now carried in 70 million cable homes, on DirecTV
Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch.
1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102,
CenturyLink 1209, Mediacom Ch. 277, Frontier 615 orFind More Cable Systems – Click Here.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has already called for restoring the nuclear deal. It could well be a loss for continuing peace in the region and for finally restoring the violated Iranian people's hoped-for human rights.
At the beginning, U.S.
President Donald J. Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which
Iran never signed and which paves the way for Iran to have nuclear
weapons.
Tehran's diminishing resources have also caused Iranian leaders
to cut funds to the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the Lebanese
militant group, Hezbollah. Hamas was forced to introduce "austerity
plans" while Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah,
has also called on his group's fundraising arm "to provide the
opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing
battle."
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has already called for restoring
the nuclear deal. It could well be a loss for continuing peace in the
region and for finally restoring the violated Iranian people's hoped-for
human rights.
Iranian
authorities view the chance that Joe Biden might take over the White
House as a definite win for Tehran. Headlines in state-controlled
newspapers celebrated the reported US election results. Pictured: Front
pages of Iranian newspapers from November 8, 2020. (Photo by Atta
Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iranian regime has excitingly announced former U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden's possible victory in the US presidential elections and is celebrating that the next US administration will, they hope, be from the Democrat Party.
Iranian authorities view the chance that Biden might take over the
White House as a definite win for Tehran. Hesameddin Ashena, an advisor
to Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted
that Iranians "stood their ground bravely until that coward's time
[Donald Trump] came to leave". Headlines in the state-controlled
newspapers, which celebrated the news, included, "World without Trump!" (Aftabe Yazd newspaper), "Mr Withdrawal is Close to Being Kicked Out of White House", "Go to Hell You Gambler!" (Sobhe Now newspaper) "Trump's Card No Longer Valid for Media!" (Aftabe Yazd newspaper), "The Bankrupt US President Got Humiliated" (Mardom Salari newspaper), and "Trump Must Leave" (Donyaye Eghtesad newspaper).
The last three years has indeed been a nightmare for the Iranian
regime and its proxies. No US administration before the current one has
imposed such a draconian pressure on the mullahs, their rogue state and
their allies.
At the beginning, President Donald J. Trump pulled the US out of the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran
nuclear deal, which Iran never signed and which paves the way for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Then, the Trump administration re-imposed
primary and secondary sanctions on Iran's energy, banking and shipping
sectors. During the last two years, several other Iranian entities were added
to the sanction list. The killing of General Qassem Soleimani was also a
huge blow to Iran's regime, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies across the Middle East.
The sanctions, in fact, have imposed significant pressure on the
Iranian government -- to such an extent that the Iranian leaders have
had to cut their funding to their allies, militia and terror groups.
A year into the pressure, the state-controlled Syrian newspaper Al-Watanreported that Iran halted its credit line to the Syrian government. Some of Iran's authorities publicly announced
that they also do not have money to pay their mercenaries abroad. In an
interview with the state-run Ofogh Television Network, for instance,
Parviz Fattah, the current head of the Foundation for the
Underprivileged (Mostazafan Foundation) stated:
"I was at the IRGC Cooperative Foundation. Haj Qassem
[Soleimani, commander of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by a US
drone strike] came and told me he did not have money to pay the salaries
of the Fatemiyoun [Afghan mercenaries]. He said that these are our
Afghan brothers, and he asked for help from people like us."
Tehran's diminishing resources have also caused Iranian leaders to cut funds to the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah. Hamas was forced to introduce "austerity plans" while Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group's fundraising arm "to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle."
The country's economic situation became so dire that the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani admitted
that the Islamic Republic is encountering the worst economic crisis
since its establishment in 1979. The political deputy of the province of
Bushehr, Governor Majid Khorshidi, told
a gathering on July 14 that they should not ignore US sanctions: "We
used to see this approach [of ignoring US sanctions] from the previous
[Ahmadinejad] administration and unfortunately it still continues," he added. "But I have to say that sanctions have broken the economy's back".
Thanks to the current administration's pressure, Iran's currency, the rial, has been in free fall in the last three years. As of November 7, 2020, a US dollar is worth
approximately 250,000 rials. Before the current US administration
imposed a "maximum pressure" policy against Tehran, a US dollar had equaled nearly 30,000 rials. During the last year, Iran's oil exports also sank to a record low. The country's budget heavily relies on selling oil.
As pressure kept mounting against the regime, Tehran also faced
several widespread protests in the country, which endangered the hold on
power of the ruling clerics. Now, the regime feels that all of the
current administration's pressures will be lifted soon and the golden
days will be back again.
It is unfortunate that Iran's ruling mullahs view a possible victory
of the Democrat Party in US elections as a win for the Tehran regime,
its proxies and militia groups. President Rouhani has already called for restoring the nuclear deal. It could well be a loss for continuing peace in the region and for finally restoring the violated Iranian people's hoped-for human rights.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and
advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of
Harvard International Review, and president of the International
American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
As people are now seeing what Democrats are up to, even some Biden voters are going to be cheering on Trump's recount.
Whenever
someone comes on TV introduced as a "national expert on American
election law," change the channel, because no such person exists. We
have 50 very different sets of state laws that govern elections and just
as many sets of courts with different ideas on how they work. Each
state has to be considered by itself, taking into account what a contest
or recount there might actually entail.
For example, Michigan has a unique law that excludes precincts with mistaken paperwork
from official recount totals. These are not necessarily fraudulent,
but often the work of sloppy, inept officials who give out ballots
without securing signatures and properly counting them. It happens
every time in most of the Detroit precincts. How well do you suppose
Biden would do in a Michigan recount if half of Detroit is tossed out at
the start?
Right
now, Republican lawyers in each close state are gathering evidence and
researching the options. The Trump team ought to take at least the 37
days Al Gore used to fight the 2000 election. The nominal date to wrap
up election challenges is December 8, and the Electoral College doesn't
vote until the 14th.
If
at the end Mr. Trump cannot prevail in the recounts and the courts,
then so be it. But never give the current opposition any shred of
respect or legitimacy. The Obama/Pelosi/Biden/Big Tech Democrats have
forfeited all that.
They
say that when a bear fights an alligator, the most important thing is
if it's in the forest or the swamp. Mr. Trump unfortunately has been
fighting the last four years in the greatest swamp of them all. Just
about all the people he brought with him either meant well but were
clueless, like Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, or were quick to betray
him to the Deep State — Rod Rosenstein, Dan Coats, and a host of others.
At
least now, the fight is back in the forests, where Republican state
parties will put their best election lawyers to work in venues they
understand and under rules they know. These are the real experts in
their respective jurisdictions, and they may have some surprises in
store.
As
a general rule, election recount contests rarely succeed, but that's
because even in close races, the loser is usually tapped out financially
and emotionally exhausted from the campaign. Spending months fighting
in court is daunting. That doesn't fit Mr. Trump. He loves the
fight. And this one might actually be somewhat fair.
There's
also a huge public relations element that will be crucial. "President"
Biden is promising to toughen the national lockdown and add mask
mandates. Gov. Cuomo, when told of the Pfizer vaccine, is actually
trying to stop its distribution. The lefty Democrats are who they are; the virus empowers them, and they won't give it up.
As
people are now seeing what these swine are up to, even some Biden
voters are going to be cheering on Trump's recount and his vaccine.
UAE Federal Council Member Dirar Belhoul al-Falasi: Hamas fired missiles from the roof of a Gaza hospital; Palestinians rejected COVID-19 aid because they wouldn't have been able to sell it.
Door after door is being slammed in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' face | File photo: AP/Mohamad Torokman/Pool
A member of the United Arab Emirates' Federal National Council
leveled scathing criticism at the Palestinian Authority in a recent
interview, calling its leaders "small-time hucksters who meddle in the
Palestinian cause" and who do not care about the Palestinians at all.
Speaking with Kuwait's Diwan Al-Mulla Online TV on Oct. 13, Dirar Belhoul Falasi said the best example of this was the Palestinians' rejection of coronavirus aid.
"The UAE sent them aid, but [their leaders] refused to accept it.
That is because they don't care about ordinary Palestinians. They only
care about their own interests," he said, according to a report by the
Middle East Media Research Institute.
"If these commodities got it [directly], they wouldn't be able to get
their hands on them, and they wouldn't be able to trade in them. They
are small-time peddlers."
Another example of this, he said, was PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.
"When he [Abbas] came here a few years ago, he came with his son. If
anyone asked him for a business card, he said he had agents or whatever …
are you here for the Palestinians or to promote your companies?"
Hamas, he said, was no better.
"People from the Red Crescent told us that they built a hospital (in
Gaza) and they were surprised when … this hospital was for treating
Palestinians … people from Hamas fired a rocket from the hospital's roof
so that Israel would bomb this hospital. Just see how low they can go."
Turning to the wider Middle East, Falasi defended the UAE's decision
to normalize relations with Israel, dismissing the criticisms of Iran
and Turkey and leveling criticism of his own against the Islamic
Republic.
"One would expect the [Iranian] Qods [Jerusalem] Force to march
towards Jerusalem. But where does it go? To Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait,
Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. All the tragedies [in those places] are
because of the Qods Force, which has lost the way to Jerusalem, and has
turned the other way and started harming us. No one – neither the
Turkish president nor the Iranian president – has the right to interfere
in a sovereign decision of the UAE. The decision (to normalize with
Israel) concerns the UAE alone. We are the ones who decide. We are
looking after our own interests, and we do not care what they are
saying," said Falasi.
"What do you think we should focus on? On our people's interests and
their development. And about living in security and peace, or about 70
years of wars that have not benefited us in any way? On the contrary,
for 70 years we have been losing time and again. It should be noted that
our only success was achieved by the late [Egyptian] President Anwar
Sadat. He did go to wars, that's true. But what did he get from these
wars? Ten square kilometers? On the other hand, by means of negotiations
and peace, he regained Sinai in its entirety, including Taba. Sinai
equals 2.5 times the size of Palestine," he said.
Peace, said Falasi, was "inevitable," adding, "As for the mercenaries
and those who profit from the Palestinian cause," it was time for them
to "step aside and leave the floor to a younger, peace-minded generation
that wants to live in peace after 70 years of wars, disasters and pain.
Many see Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party), which has existed for nearly 70 years and operates in 50 countries, as the precursor of al-Qaida and ISIS. A number of European and Arab countries have outlawed it, but Israel prefers to allow it to continue operating openly.
A member of Hizb ut-Tahrir speaks at a recent rally in Copenhagen, Denmark | Photo: AFP
The 15,000 Muslims who crowded into the courtyards of the Temple Mount mosques
two Fridays ago became another news story about a mass COVID infection.
But the real story was much bigger: the enormous anti-France protest
near Al-Aqsa Mosque was organized by the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement (the
Islamic Liberation party), about which the Israeli public has heard
little if anything.
A single line connects the ideology of the movement – which has
already been outlawed by a number of European and Arab states – and the
ideology of the throat-slashing Islamic terrorists
who recently resumed activity in France. At least in terms of its
goals, if not in tactics, Hizb ut-Tahrir is the twin of al-Qaida and the
Islamic State, whose people were behind the terrorist shooting in Vienna on Nov. 2.
In east Jerusalem, Hizb ut-Tahrir has tens of thousands of
supporters. The movement holds weekly lessons on the Temple Mount,
generally on Thursdays, and it has branches in Abu Dis, al-Azariya,
Ramallah, al-Bira, the Old City of Jerusalem, in Beit Hanina, in Beit
Safafa, and in Sur Baher, as well as one in Hebron. According to
security officials, the movement has been gaining popularity in recent
years. Now it turns out that its global threats are, too.
The Islamic Liberation Party is not new. Since it was founded in
Jerusalem in 1952 – by Sheikh Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani – it has been
preaching for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate as it existed
under Muhammad, which it calls "the pure period," and the establishment
of an Islamist state. The group says that the term "tahrir" (liberation)
refers to a total liberation from any western cultural influence. The
territorial liberation is only the second step.
Members of the movement, which also operates in Britain, Australia,
Indonesia, the US, and several Arab countries, aspire to replace every
national government with a global Muslim rule. Under this view, the
governments in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, as well as Fatah and even Hamas,
are all national in nature, and therefore obstacles in the way of the
dream of a worldwide caliphate.
Dr. David Koren, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy
and Security and a former advisor to the mayor on east Jerusalem
issues, explains that "The influence of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Jerusalem and
Jude and Samaria is much wider than it appears."
"The real question that the organization's activity has raised for
years is whether and when it will trade its dawa-based activity –
strengthening religious through persuasion and preaching – with violent
jihad like the recent events in France," Koren says.
Koren explains that "in the Palestinian context, Hizb ut-Tahrir
promotes two main issues: laying the groundwork to make Al-Aqsa Mosque a
future platform on which the world caliphate will eventually be
declared, and challenging Jordan's position as guardian of Islamic holy
sites in Jerusalem."
In 2016, then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan presented the
cabinet with a proposal to outlaw Hizb ut-Tahrir. The material given to
the ministers included examples from all over the world of how Hizb
ut-Tahrir was transitioning to terrorism. It included many quotes from
extremist, inciting sermons preaching by the movement's people in
Jerusalem. But the Shin Bet security agency opposed outlawing the group,
arguing that in Israel, the group was not making the move toward
violence and terrorism, and it should be allowed to operate openly to
avoid it going underground, which would make it harder for the security
establishment to keep tabs on its activities. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, who originally supported Erdan's position, eventually sided
with the Shin Bet.
A briefing at Mike's Place
That decision from 2016 has come at a price. Even if Hizb ut-Tahrir
itself does not carry out terrorist attacks, its influence outside its
own circle could and has led members of other organizations to plan or
attempt violent, terrorist acts. One example is the Islamic State cell
that was exposed in the Shuefat refugee camp in October 2016. Another is
a shooting attack against a bus in the Ramot neighborhood in March
2016. One of the two terrorists behind the shooting had a black Hizb
ut-Tahrir flag in his car.
An earlier example was the 2013 targeted killing of three Salafi
operatives from the village Yatta village who were planning terrorist
attacks against Israeli targets. Even the terrorist bombing at Mike's
Place bar on the Tel Aviv beach front in April 2003, which was executed
by two terrorists who held British citizenship and in which three people
were murdered, was linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir. Hamas might have claimed
the act itself, but it turned out that the bombing was perpetrated by
two Muslim Brits of Pakistani descent who had met in London with a
sheikh identified with Hizb ut-Tahrir.
The 2003 bombing at Mike's Place bar on the Tel Aviv promenade was inspired by Hizb ut-Tahrir ideology (AFP/file)
The cost of not outlawing Hizb ut-Tahrir includes accepting the
difficult content preached by the movement's spokespeople in Jerusalem
and on the Temple Mount itself. In many aspects it resembles the content
preached by Islamic extremists elsewhere in the world, including
France.
The most prominent spokesman for the group in east Jerusalem in
recent years has been Sheikh Issam Amira. Amira thinks that "The Islamic
caliphate should be recreated so it can lead the armies in the war on
heretics," and that "To achieve that, the activists must work together
with all Muslims and establish an Islamic state." According to Amira,
"This demands the destruction of institutions in the Islamic world,
without mercy or pity toward any of those entities."
In the past, Amira has also spoken about "enemies who believe in more
than one god," and offered them three options: to convert to Islam, pay
a jizya poll tax, or "for us to seek Allah's help in fighting them."
Another sheikh, Nidal Siyam, who at the protest Friday before last
spoke against France, called on "people of the nation who are loyal and
work in its armies to move ahead to turn the tables on the oppressor
leaders." Incidentally, back in 2017, Siyam prayed at Al-Aqsa for "the
slaughter of Europeans and Americans and our [Arab] criminal and
traitorous rulers."
"O Allah, do not leave any of them on earth … O Allah, replace with an emir of the believers," he prayed.
The current emir of Hizb ut-Tahrir is Ata Abu Rashta, 77, a native of
the Hebron area and a civil engineer by profession. Until 2003, he
lived in Jordan and then moved to an unknown location after he was
arrested a few times and Jordan limited his activity.
Against Crusader values
Another Hizb ut-Tahrir preacher, Ali Abu Ahmad, said recently that
the response to French President Emmanuel Macron, who "supported the
publication of offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad," would be to
reestablish the Islamic caliphate and "the destruction of Paris to
rubble by Muslim armies, led by the caliphate." These remarks and
similar ones, most of which were made on Muhammad's birthday, align with
an official statement by Hizb ut-Tahrir in Israel after the Muhammad
cartoons were republished in France that called French and western
civilization "false, atheist, and perverted… hated by the true religion
[Islam]" and called for jihad as a "true response to heretics."
Dr. Shaul Bartal of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at
Bar-Ilan University, an expert on jihadist groups, has spent much time
researching Hizb ut-Tahrir and its activity in Israel. France, he
explains, "is now defined by Hizb ut-Tahrir and similar groups as an
enemy of Islam. The way the organization sees it, France represents
Crusader values which at their core oppose the Prophet Muhammad. Islam
has an obligation to oppose Crusader values and defend Islamic holy
sites, including Al-Aqsa."
Bartal says that every time Islam clashes with secular France, "it
illustrates the Crusader spirit of the west for Islamic radicals. The
Crusaders, who conquered the Holy Land and now the French, are the
ultimate enemy. An ordinary person sees the Crusaders as history. Hizb
ut-Tahrir sees them as a reality, who must be killed. The event on the
Temple Mount was just part of the picture."
Q: Do Israel and Zionism, and Jews have a place in Hizb ut-Tahrir's world?
"Unlike other Palestinian movements, which present the Palestinian
issue as a problem with Zionism or western colonialism, Zionism isn't
mentioned in the writings of the Islamic Liberation Party. The conflict
is between Islam and the Jews. Israel is mentioned as a state of the
Jews or as a Jewish entity. They view Palestine as … an inseparable part
of Dar al-Islam and no Jew has the right to live there."
Bartal adds that Hizb ut-Tahrir "praises terrorists and terrorist
attacks and any aggressive activity against Jews. This is an
organization that preaches hatred of Jews, with extensive literature
against Jews and against the state of Israel and the west in general."
Modesty patrols in alleys
A few years ago, Lt. Col. (res.) Baruch Yedid, former advisor on Arab
affairs to the IDF's Central Command, wrote a position paper about Hizb
ut-Tahrir activity in Israel. Yedid fears that the veteran "liberation"
party is morphing into a jihadist group.
"No more spreading ideas in closed parlor meetings, but developing
violent groups, forming ties with global jihad organizations, and
setting up cells and bases," he warns. Right now, Yedid says, the
group's main base of operations is London.
Yedid says the group "is a political Islamist movement that does not
recognize the laws of any nation, Arab or western, and wants to
establish a religious state."
Yedid has found that membership in the group is kept secret, and members have been hiding their activity for decades.
"The only allow in Muslim men and women who adopt the most stringent
religious lifestyle. Recently, inspired by al-Qaida and Hamas, the
group's confidence has been growing and it isn't taking as much care as
it did to keep activities closed and secret, and members go door to door
to recruit," he says.
Yedid also talks about members of the group in east Jerusalem who
beat young people caught consuming alcohol, or who break the Ramadan
fast. In the alleyways of east Jerusalem and villages in the eastern
half of the city, they also beat young women who are not dressed
modestly enough. Yedid says that members of the group are the ones who
beat the Egyptian foreign minister with their shoes when he visited
Al-Aqsa Mosque, and notes that Hizb ut-Tahrir sees the Palestinian
Authority, as well as Arab governments like Egypt or Jordan, as
legitimate targets, because of their "un-Islamic" conduct which, it
feels, "delays" the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and the spread
of the religion and the arrival of Judgment Day.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is active in 50 nations and has about 1 million
registered members. Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, Azerbaijan, and
many other countries have arrested its members, and put some of them in
prison. In Egypt, Turkey, China, and most Arab states, the movement is
banned. Germany did the same after it turned out that the mind behind
the Sept. 11 attack, Mohammad Atta, had been influenced by Hizb
ut-Tahrir's ideology. Western observers view the group as having paved
the way for al-Qaida.
But for now, Israel has avoided outlawing Hizb ut-Tahrir in order to
make it easier for the security and defense establishment to track it.
Why is Israel allowing members of the extremist group to make the Temple
Mount a center for their activity? As yet, there is no answer to that
question.
