In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Journalists Union Fights Palestinian Journalists
- Raymond Ibrahim: Mexican Jihad
Palestinian
Journalists Union Fights Palestinian Journalists
Where Are the Media and So-Called
Human Rights Groups?
by Khaled Abu
Toameh
May 11, 2012 at 5:00 am
May 11, 2012 at 5:00 am
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In recent
weeks, Palestinian Authority security forces arrested at least nine journalists
and bloggers in the West Bank for exposing corruption. The Palestinian
Authority and its media group clearly do not want the outside world to receive
information about the situation in the Palestinian territories.
As journalists worldwide celebrated World Free
Press Day on May 3, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in the West Bank
chose to wage a campaign of intimidation against Palestinian reporters who
commit the "crime" of meeting with Israeli counterparts.
The decision to punish Palestinian journalists
who hold meetings with Israeli colleagues began after a series of joint
seminars that were held in Norway, Germany and France. At these seminars,
Israeli and Palestinian journalists discussed joint cooperation and ways of
promoting freedom of expression.
The syndicate, dominated by Fatah and
affiliated with the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah, threatened
sanctions against any Palestinian journalist who engages in
"normalization" with Israel.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate functions
more as a political body than a union that is supposed to defend the rights of
its members.
The syndicate wants Palestinian journalists to
serve as soldiers on behalf of the Palestinian cause. Journalists, according to
the syndicate, should first and foremost be loyal to their president, prime
minister, government, homeland and cause. As for the truth, it appears at the
bottom of the syndicate's list of priorities.
The syndicate's main task should be to defend
freedom of media in the Palestinian territories. But instead of fighting for
the rights of Palestinian journalists, who are facing a campaign of
intimidation under the two Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, the syndicate has also decided to join the clampdown on freedom of
expression.
A syndicate that reports directly to the office
of the president in Ramallah can never serve the interests of Palestinian
journalists.
Cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian
journalists has never been a new or unique phenomenon. Long before the
establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, representatives of the two
sides maintained close ties, often exchanging information and helping each
other cover stories both inside Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But the Palestinian Authority's syndicate is
now trying to put an end to this cooperation under the pretext of combating
normalization with Israel.
Sanctions include expulsion from the syndicate
and a boycott by Palestinian newspapers and other media outlets belonging to
the Palestinian Authority.
If anyone stands to lose from the ban on
holding contacts with Israeli media representatives, it is the Palestinian
journalists themselves. Over the past few decades, Palestinian journalists have
helped Israeli newspapers and TV stations cover the story on the Palestinian
side. Thanks to this cooperation, the Israeli public learned a lot about what
was happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In recent weeks, Palestinian Authority security
forces in the West Bank arrested at least nine Palestinian journalists and
bloggers for exposing corruption scandals and posting comments critical of
Palestinian leaders on Facebook. The affected journalists complained that the
syndicate did not make a serious effort on their behalf, limiting its response
to issuing laconic statements demanding the release of some of the detainees.
The Palestinian Authority and its media group
clearly do not want the Israeli public and the outside world to receive
information about the situation in the Palestinian territories.
This is why they are now waging the new
campaign of intimidation against journalists who are found guilty of meeting
with Israeli counterparts.
Related Topics: Khaled Abu
Toameh
Mexican Jihad
by Raymond Ibrahim
May 11, 2012 at 4:30 am
May 11, 2012 at 4:30 am
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"Our
porous southern border is a nightmare waiting to happen."
As the United States considers the Islamic
jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it might do well to focus on its
southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists,
who, through a number of tactics—from engaging in da'wa, converting Mexicans to
Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, to simple extortion, kidnappings and
enslavement—have been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage
the U.S.
According to a 2010 report, "Close
to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,"
which appeared in the NY Daily News:
Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah
network being built in Tijuana,
right across the border from Texas
and closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to
Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the
investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years,
Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by
cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S. In this,
it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been
forging close ties with Hugo
Chavez of Venezuela,
who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds
of havoc throughout the region.
Another 2010 article appearing in the Washington
Times asserts that, "with fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity
just south of the border [in Mexico], and numerous reports of Muslims from various
countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico,
our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to
happen." This is in keeping with a recent study done by Georgetown
University, which revealed that the number of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria
living in Mexico exceeds 200,000. Syria, along with Iran, is one of Hezbollah's
strongest financial and political supporters, and Lebanon is the immigrants'
country of origin.
A jihadist cell in Mexico was recently found to
have a weapons cache of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2,500 hand
grenades, C4 explosives and antitank munitions. The weapons, it turned out, had
been smuggled by Muslims from Iraq. According to this
report, "obvious concerns have arisen concerning Hezbollah's presence
in Mexico and possible ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO's)
operating along the U.S.—Mexico border."
As far back as 2005, an article entitled "Islam
is gaining a Foothold in Chiapas" showcased the inroads of Islam in
Mexico:
Long a bastion of Catholicism, southern Mexico
is quickly turning into a battleground for soul-savers. Islam, too, is gaining
a foothold and the indigenous Mayans are converting by the hundreds. The
Mexican government is worried about a culture clash in their own backyard…
Muslim women in headscarves have become a common sight….
"Life is cheap" in impoverished
Mexico. You want a job? Fine, pray five times a day, etc…
Kidnappings, as part of a drug cartel or as
part of a jihadist operation, which legitimizes crimes such as kidnapping and
child slavery, have become increasingly common. To convert non-Muslims to their
cause, Islamists also whip up—and then exploit—a sense of "grievance"
against the "white man."
In addition, according to counterterrorism
experts in this report, Islamic
terrorists blend in better with Mexicans than with Europeans, thereby enabling
them to sneak into the U.S. across the southwest border. This Muslim cleric, for
example, discusses how easy it is to smuggle a briefcase containing anthrax
from Mexico into America, thereby killing at least some 330,000 Americans in a
single hour.
Similarly, Michael Braun, formerly assistant
administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), said
that the Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and
human trafficking in South America; however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics
syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S. Hezbollah relies
on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and
transportation experts as the drug cartels."
Only a few months ago, Washington announced
that FBI and DEA agents disrupted
a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United
States," tied to Iran with roots in Mexico. The increased
violence—including beheadings, Islam's signature trademark—is even more
indicative that Islamists are well ensconced in Mexico's drug cartel.
The threat is not limited to Hezbollah; back in
2006, according to an ISN,
"Mexican authorities investigated the activities of the Murabitun [a da'wa,
or missionary-outreach, organization named after historic jihadists along
Spain's borders] due to reports of alleged immigration and visa abuses
involving the group's European members and possible radicals, including
al-Qaeda."
Even innocuous reports, such as this Muslim article,
are cause for concern: "Today, most Mexican Islamic organizations focus on
grassroots da'wa. These small organizations are most effective at the
community level, going from village to village and speaking directly to the
people." Although this may not sound problematic, the strain of Islam
being spread by many of these da'wa organizations is the radical,
"Salafist," anti-American variety. Here, for
instance, is a popular Egyptian TV cleric saying that while Muslims must never
smile to non-Muslims—who, as "infidels," are by nature the enemy—they
are free to do so if the Muslim is engaged in da'wa, trying to win over
the infidel into the fold of Islam, especially if the potential convert can
help empower Islam in any way.
These are but a few of the many reports on
Islam in Mexico. The evidence that many Islamists in Mexico are plotting
against the U.S., using all means—such as drug trafficking, which is not
forbidden in Sharia law if it serves to empower Islam—is overwhelming.
Under various methods—from the violent to the
subversive to the exploitative—Islam allows Muslims to lie and commit other
duplicitous acts in the furtherance of Islam. Taqiyya
[dissimulation] permits Hezbollah and other Islamists To engage in Mexico's
drug cartel, just as "pious" members of the Taliban in Afghanistan
pursued the heroin trade. Aside from sheer violence, justified as
"jihad," or holy war, tactics pursued by Mexico's Islamists include:
· Kidnappings and enslavement, for which
Mexico is already notorious. Sharia permits kidnapping, and even enslaving the
infidel, in this situation, any non-Muslim in Mexico. The Quran not only
approves of this, but allows male jihadists to have sex with female captives of
war (Sura 4, verse 3). Here, for
example, is a Muslim politician trying to legalize the institution of
"sex-slavery."
· Extortion and blackmail, features of
the Mexican landscape, are also permissible in Islam. According to Sharia,
during jihad, Muslims are permitted to hold for ransom infidels to be sold back
for large amounts of money. Here,
for instance, is a popular Egyptian sheikh saying that the Islamic world's
problem is that it has stopped plundering and enslaving its infidel neighbors.
He even boasts that under true Sharia, he could go to the local market and
"buy" a female "sex-slave."
In using subversive elements for da'wa,
Muslims might comfortably use false arguments to turn Mexicans against their
northern neighbors. They might, for instance, argue that Islam is a religion of
"racial equality," whereas Christianity is the "white
man's" religion, imposed on their ancestors by racist whites who sought to
keep them "impoverished" beyond the border. Islamist strategies in
Mexico amount to trying to win the unbelievers over to their side, whether
through conversion or just cooperation. For those who refuse to cooperate, they
are infidels to be used in any way that seems fit.
Raymond
Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center
and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum
Related Topics: Raymond Ibrahim
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