Friday, October 26, 2012

Gatestone Update :: Lee Kaplan: Freedom House Downgrades Israel, Based on Palestinian Deceit, and more



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Freedom House Downgrades Israel, Based on Palestinian Deceit

by Lee Kaplan
October 26, 2012 at 5:00 am
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This self-appointed, proclaimed monitor of freedom, not only cites Arab and radical propaganda taken off the internet as fact, with no checking, in order to declare Israel less free, but condemns the Jewish State for protecting itself from the terrorist organization, Hamas.
In a clear distortion of information, the once prestigious Freedom House, a not-for-profit organization that purports to monitor which societies in the world are truly free, appears deliberately to have omitted and misrepresented easily verifiable information in what can only be seen as an attempt to downgrade Israel from "free" to "partly free." This self-appointed, proclaimed monitor of freedom, itself only partly-free, not only cites Arab and radical propaganda taken as fact, with no checking, off the internet, to declare Israel as less free, but condemns it for protecting itself from daily bombardments of the terrorist organization, Hamas. Last week, in 24 hours alone, over 80 rockets were fired on a city in Israel's south, "Can you imagine, one writer asks," if even one rocket were fired on Washington, London, Paris or Moscow?"
While on the surface that might not seem a calamity, these falsehoods follow a pattern -- as with Human Rights Watch [see www.NGO-Monitor.org for details] or the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) -- maliciously and recklessly to distort the situation of human rights in the Middle East in general, and Israel in particular, apparently for no other purpose than to defame the only democracy in the Middle East, one which is daily threatened with eradication.
The ISM operates as a human shield for terrorist groups; it works cooperatively with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP. The Palestinians have found a formula of deception to put a good face on their terrorism sponsors' irredentist movement. They now claim they represent humanitarianism and freedom when in reality they promote the takeover goals of totalitarianism, arresting journalists wholesale and inciting violence from government-controlled media. A vast number of websites -- some have even crept into the classrooms of American colleges -- now claim to have valid research and have reversed the facts behind just who represents genuine freedom, and who is seeking the destruction of a free and democratic state, Israel, to install a new totalitarian one in its place.
Among its many reports which explain the downgrade of certain states' freedom rankings, the one about Israel not only distorts history but even reverses facts, when describing who has rights to pray on the Temple Mount.
According to the report, "Citing security concerns, Israel occasionally restricts Muslim worshippers' access to the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif, in Jerusalem. In October 2011, Jewish extremists burned and vandalized a mosque in the northern village of Tuba-Zangariya, leading to protests by hundreds of residents and minor clashes with police."
The report makes no mention that Israel gave complete administrative control of the Temple Mount, the Jews' holiest shrine, to the Waqf, the Muslim religious administration, in 1967. The Waqf does not allow any Jewish praying on the Mount, even arresting Jews who dare to move their lips or even close their eyes, for fear they might be praying. The Waqf also relies on the Israeli police, many of whom are Arabs and not Jews, to enforce this edict. Muslims are not restricted from praying on the Mount, except on high Muslim holidays, when the police -- after they had determined that younger males are more inclined to violence -- sometimes admit males only over the age of 40 to prevent riots and attacks on the police. In any event, as on many earlier occasions, when Arab worshippers have attacked the police, the number of worshippers admitted on Muslim high holidays days would be restricted for normal crowd control.
For Freedom House to try and suggest that Jews are keeping Muslims from praying on the Temple Mount is disingenuous, if not libelous, and reveals at best a substandard level of competence.
As for the mosque burning incident, this was not a government-sponsored crime, but conducted by individuals who are being sought by the Israeli police for arrest and prosecution; yet Freedom House would have its readers believe this was a government-sanctioned attack. Prosecutors in Israel prosecute any Jews who attack or deface Muslim shrines and Jews go to jail. This is tantamount to falsely suggesting Klansmen who burned black churches in the Jim Crow South were carrying out US government functions.
Similar distortions also abound in the Freedom House report on educational matters. Two paragraphs in particular are disturbing; they state,
Legislation passed in March 2011 requires the state to fine or withdraw funds from local authorities and other state-funded groups that hold events marking Al-Nakba on Israeli independence day; that support armed resistance or "racism" against Israel; or that desecrate the state flag or national symbols. Both Arab rights and freedom of expression groups criticized the law as an unnecessary and provocative restriction.
In July, the Knesset passed the so-called Boycott Law, which exposes Israeli individuals and groups to civil lawsuits if they advocate an economic, cultural, or academic boycott of the State of Israel or West Bank settlements, even without clear proof of financial damage. Petitions filed against the law were pending at year's end.
The article does not explain that Al-Nakba in Arabic refers to the founding of Israel as a "catastrophe" for the Arabs living in Israel. The "Arab rights" and "freedom of expression groups" (unnamed) which opposed the new law all advocate the destruction and replacement of the Jewish state by an Arab-dominated one which would not have religious or gender-based freedom, the same as other Arab states in the region. The boycott of Israel is even opposed by the Palestinian Authority government-in-the-making; it is a continuation of the Arab League's unending declared financial war on Israel, a war that began in 1922. Israel does not prohibit individuals from making such statements advocating destruction of the Jewish state, only the lawsuit rights of victims who pay Israeli taxpayer money to pay for it as a function of government.
The website IsraCampus has demonstrated repeatedly that Israel's academic institutions have been turned into a breeding ground of subversives who openly call for the dismantling of the Jewish state. Israel's top educational authority recently called in a board of inquiry of world renowned education experts to determine if the Political Science Department at Ben Gurion University was living up to academic standards. The nonpartisan committee determined that the department was little more than a place to recruit activists who call for the end of the Jewish state -- and that the department had no redeeming academic standards. But Freedom House would have readers believe this to be an erosion of freedom. How Freedom House could consider it a "violation of freedom" for the Israeli government to refuse to fund with taxpayer money groups on campus that "support armed resistance," better known as terrorism, is unfathomable. It has never, for example, objected to the US prohibiting funds being sent to Al Qaeda.
While Freedom House places the US as the most free country in the world, it knows the US would never allow Soviet propaganda courses to be taught in US schools during the height of the Cold War at taxpayer expense, yet faults Israel for trying to control a fifth column that is well-financed by Arab oil money and even the EU.
The Freedom House report could best be described a "lying by omission" to its readers. This is a clever way of not telling direct lies, but of leaving out just enough information to convey a false impression. The report even condemns Israel for restricting pro-Arab press reporters during the war in Gaza, when these are the same false sources for information on which Freedom House relies. The Goldstone Report, later retracted by Goldstone himself as full of falsehoods, is a perfect example of this.
Such intentional omissions can be found even in the report's "history" of the region that states, "Israel was formed in 1948 from part of the British-ruled mandate of Palestine, which had been created by the League of Nations following World War I. A 1947 UN partition plan dividing Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, was rejected by the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League, and Israel's 1948 declaration of independence led to war with a coalition of Arab countries. While Israel maintained its sovereignty and expanded its borders, Jordan (then known as Transjordan) seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip."
It is curious how the above paragraph, ostensibly true, was worded. While it mentions the Arabs rejected the UN Partition Plan, it does not mention at all that Israel accepted the Plan (although it gave Israel far less land, mostly desert, than the original mandate) and it blames the Jews' declaration of independence as the cause of the war rather than the five Arab countries invading Israel on the day of its birth to try to kill the new nation before it could even begin. No place is it mentioned that these armies attacked the new Jewish state first, costing the lives of 6,000 Jews. And no place does it mention that to this day, both the PLO and Hamas charters call for the obliteration of Israel in a language filled with religious and ethnic fanaticism against Jews. Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza were wiped out in 1948, including the old walled city of Jerusalem, which was seized by Jordan, and were retaken by Israel only in 1967. Freedom House fails to mention that Trans-Jordan was supposed to be part of Israel but was gifted by the British to the Hashemite dynasty to settle a feud with the Saudis. Although Israel slightly expanded its borders, it also lost territory in that war, notably in Gaza and the West Bank.
Further distortions include the reversal of the situation with religious shrines inside Israel and in the Palestinian Authority (not Israel proper, and subject to final peace negotiations between the parties). The Report states that Israel does not protect access to Muslim shrines when the reverse is true: it fails to mention, for example, that the Old Testament's Rachel's Tomb in Hebron was attacked, turned into a green canopied mosque, and that its rabbi literally torn to shreds, its Torah burned, and that an Arab Druze IDF soldier bled to death when Arab rioters prevented emergency medical personnel from reaching him during further Arab riots, before the Jewish shrine was completely overrun. Only recently, an Orthodox Jew caught praying at Joseph's Tomb was shot and killed by a Palestinian policeman.
For Freedom House to downgrade Israel as "less free," given the reality on the ground, one has to wonder at the non-profit's objectivity and research capabilities. Was such "lying by omission" simply errors due to sloppy research on the Internet that relied on Palestinian and ISM propaganda websites? Or was it possibly the result of donations from Arab or Muslim special interest groups? Repeated attempts to contact Freedom House about these discrepancies were ignored.
This is not the first time Freedom House has collided with the truth. In 2006, a member of its Board of Trustees, ironically the current president of the Gatestone Institute, resigned over a vote by the Board that would require every report, before being released, to be approved by all members of the Board of Trustees – a form of censorship. The decision was occasioned by a report, "Update: Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance," written by Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom (then a semi-autonomous a branch of Freedom House, but which also, after the vote, parted company with the organization). Shea's report, written at the request of Muslims in America who had brought her copies of the official Saudi Textbooks in Islamic schools in America; they claimed they were concerned about the hatred and violence toward people of other religions that was being promoted in these textbooks, and wanted it exposed. After the report was released, however, a member of the Board at the time, Farooq Kathwari, CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc., was apparently approached by Dr. Faroque Khan, a founding member of the Mosque and Islamic Center of Long Island, in Westbury, New York; Khan seems to have determined that Shea's report did not reflect favorably on the Muslim community and therefore, unlike the Muslims who had originally approached Shea, instead approached Kathwari to see if Shea's report could be suppressed. The Board evidently agreed with Dr. Khan.
Sadly, the integrity of a once-venerable organization, which claims to promote freedom throughout the world, is now more than suspect, as the supposed guardians of freedom work overtime to empower totalitarian movements and regimes.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Lee Kaplan

Jordan's Next Leader?
With Help from the U.S. Department of State

by Mudar Zahran
October 26, 2012 at 4:45 am
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Al-Rantisi claims in his article that "The US government and its intelligence services will support the Muslim Brotherhood goals of coming to power." The Muslim Brotherhood dismissed Al-Rantisi's claims and sued him for damages. Nonetheless, Al-Rantisi stick by the claims he had made when questioned by Al Arabiyya.
It might be helpful now to start wondering what sort of ideas Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, and its leader, Controller General Sheikh Hamam Sai'd, will advance if they seize power in Jordan -- possibly with the blessing and encouragement of the United States.
Sheikh Sai'd, of Palestinian origin, was elected to the leadership if Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood in 2008 by its hardline faction. They support a partnership with Hamas and the overthrow of Middle Eastern leaders who side with the United States.
The prominent Jordanian journalist, Osama Al-Rantisi, published an article on July 14, 2011, in the Jordanian daily newspaper, Al-ghad, in which he alleged that Sai'd had held a meeting in Turkey with "recently-retired officers from the CIA and the internal counter-intelligence and security agency, the MI5."
This was followed by Al-Arabiya TV Network, which also ran an article on its website on May 22, 2012, detailing allegations made by Al-Rantisi that: "Dr. Hammam Sai'd and former Egyptian Brotherhood leader Dr. Kamal Halbawi had met last June [of 2011] in Istanbul, Turkey with former CIA deputy director Steven Kappes, and former MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller."
Al-Rantisi goes on to say that both Kappes and Manningham-Buller pledged in the meeting that, "The US government and its intelligence services will support the Muslim brotherhood goals of coming to power," and "urging them [Muslim Brotherhood members] to fight terrorism and to establish peace with Israel".
Presumably, each side thinks it will co-opt the other, and neither side will budge. After all, if the US has tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, why not also in Jordan?
Not surprisingly, the Muslim Brotherhood dismissed Al-Rantisi's claims and sued him for damages. Nonethless, Al-Rantisi stuck by the claims he had made when questioned by Al-Arabiya, alleging his information was based on "unofficial minutes of that alleged meeting" between Hamam Sai'd and the officers mentioned above.
Sheikh Sai'd's son, Anes Sai'd. recently released a video on YouTube speaking of his woes with his father and with the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. The video provides a nightmarish glimpse of the Muslim Brotherhood's top man in Jordan, and only intensifies the fears of the liberal and secular Jordanians of an Egyptian-like Muslim Brotherhood takeover.
In the video, Anes describes his father as "an unfair, licentious and corrupt person;" he also details cruelties to which his father allegedly subjected him. He goes on to describe the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan as "trading in religion."
Anes starts by affirming his identity and exhibiting his academic qualifications: "Peace on all, my name is Anes Hammam Sai'd, an architect. I graduated top of my class from the University of Jordan in 1996; I run a design office with a partner and I have passed the qualifications exam of the Union [of Jordanian Engineers]." Anes then describes himself as a Baathist – from the secular pan-Arab nationalist movement, which shares the Islamists' hatred for Israel, but opposes the establishment of an Islamist state.
Shortly after that, Anes starts criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization his father in Jordan controls. "The Muslim Brotherhood movement in Jordan is political child's play; in Egypt they [the Muslim Brotherhood] were tortured, executed, beaten and imprisoned; here the Jordanian Muslim brotherhood uses the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the Jordanian regime's tolerance for them, to gain popularity…In Egypt, the basic thing to do is either to stay at home or do something useful that changes things for the best. But here, joining a protest or a march to say, 'I am the Muslim Brotherhood, I am the opposition,' this is the utmost stupidity, nonsense and children's play; it is trading with religion, they [the Muslim Brotherhood] are trading with religion, they have not been elected, they were appointed."
Anes concludes by affirming that he thinks he would be hurt by the Muslim Brotherhood: "All that I said here, they [the Muslim Brotherhood] know is true. I swear to God if I am to say this in public I would be hanged, they would hang me in downtown Amman; all the harsh conditions I have endured and the hard days I have been through have made me cling more to life, and God is my witness that I forgive the Muslim Brotherhood in this life and the afterlife."
To verify the video, the author contacted one of Hamam Sai'd's family friends, who now resides in the United Kingdom, and who went to school with Anes. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he confirmed that the person in the video was actually Hamam Sai'd's son, Anes, and added that he was not shocked at all by the video: "His father has always been harsh and crude to him and everyone else who enters his circle, and he is indeed a very manipulative man who plays well on words."
While Anes might seem as if he is just a son angry at his father, it is important to bear in mind that his father head Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, and that his father is deeply radical.
Hamam Sai'd also recently headed the Muslim Brotherhood-Jordanian delegation to Cairo to discuss the possibility of Egypt's resuming the supply of natural gas to Jordan – a supply that had been interrupted after Mubarak was toppled. Jordan's Foreign Minister, Nasser Jodeh, described the visit as the result of a "discussion" between the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the Jordanian government.
A US Embassy Amman cable, made public by Wikileaks, reported that Hamam Sa'id, "in a posting on the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood website, wrote, "[The Muslim Brotherhood] has become an idea...it is no longer just a movement or group. No legislation will succeed in eliminating or abolishing it. Those who imagine that laws can curb the Brotherhood's activity are deluding themselves."
Another US Embassy Amman cable from March 2008, made public by Wikileaks, shows that the US Embassy in Amman has been in touch with Hammam Sa'id's close ally, Saud Abu Mahfouz, who—according to the leaked cable—told the US Embassy Amman political officers that Hammam Sai'd was "his Shaykh," as well as other senior members of Hamam Sai'd's associates.
The cable also affirms that, "The future of the Islamist movement in Jordan" is with Hammam Sai'd's religious conservatives, in addition to other conservative Islamist political activists; at the same time the cable highlights the admiration Hammam Sai'd's Islamist followers have for him.
It would be illuminating to know what further communication there has been, and is today, between the U.S. administration and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.
If the US administration continues to tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood's hijacking of the Arab Spring revolution, it appears that Hammam Sai'd holds serious political weight with the Islamists in Jordan, and seemingly knows how to attract followers, despite failing to impress his son.
With a US administration that has such a pronounced record of appeasing Islamists, it is not unlikely that Hamam Sai'd will be accepted and tolerated by the US establishment -- at the expense of moderate Jordanians and the secular Jordanian opposition.

Related Topics:  Mudar Zahran

Turkey in the Syrian Crisis: What Next?

by Veli Sirin
October 26, 2012 at 3:15 am
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But Erdogan is, to many, no more than an impotent, tantrum-prone, and dangerous demagogue – which the Obama administration and other "concerned powers" will not admit. Presumptions that he can act consequently to rescue the Syrian people are mistaken.
Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad treats Turkish military reprisals as pin-pricks. Nonetheless, while massacres continue inside Syria, confrontations and counterblows proliferate along the country's border with Turkey, including exchanges of mortar-shell fire. But how long will this stalemate continue?
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his public comments, is addicted to candor, if not bluster. He condemns the weakness of the United Nations in the face of the Syrian bloodletting, yet is even more dismayed, it seems, to realize that Turkey cannot wage war on the Al-Assad regime. Turkey cannot save Syria; it cannot march to Damascus; it cannot remove the Al-Assad state apparatus, and it cannot reconstruct Syria as a Turkish protectorate.
The Syrian Army is a significant military force, and would respond with a wholesale offensive, devastating poor Turkish villages. The Syrian war is spreading into Lebanon; its extension northward could produce a general conflagration in the area.
For these reasons, and not out of sympathy for the Syrian tyrant, the overwhelming majority of Turks oppose a military campaign against Damascus. The Turkish political opposition calls on Erdogan to renounce his bellicose rhetoric. Turkey will, it is hoped, avoid a war with Syria, even as Erdogan postures as a great military figure and proposes a "vision" for resolution of the crisis.
Erdogan tours the Middle East and in many places is applauded. This, of course, increases his popularity at home. Arab sympathy for Erdogan most likely reflects his adoption of an anti-Israeli stance. He has also called for Islamic unity. "Brotherhood" and "community" are the pillars on which Erdogan has constructed his project for a Muslim-dominated Mediterranean.
Turkish "neo-Ottomanism," combining Islamist supremacy with patriotic fervor, is not limited to Ankara's initiatives in foreign policy. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has made Ottoman nostalgia a central feature of Turkish cultural life.
Examples of this attitude are plentiful. With an AKP municipal government, Istanbul every year now celebrates May 29, commemorating the conquest of the city by Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. In 2010, Istanbul considered itself the "European Capital of Culture," and the budget for the program emphasized renovation of Ottoman architectural sites. Istanbul no longer projects itself only as a bridge between east and west, but as the center of Ottoman civilization. None of these developments is reassuring.
NATO, in an urgent meeting on the Syrian disaster in June, declared clear support for Turkey. The hurriedly-assembled NATO ambassadors described Syrian attacks on the Turkish frontier as a breach of international law and a menace to regional security. But NATO concluded diffidently, "As indicated on June 26, the alliance is monitoring closely the Syrian situation."
The U.S. promised to support Turkey. Tommy Vietor, National Security Council spokesperson, said late last year, "We continue to call on other governments to join the chorus of condemnation and pressure against the Assad regime so that the peaceful and democratic aspirations of the Syrian people can be realized. President Obama has coordinated closely with Prime Minister Erdogan throughout the crisis in Syria and will continue to do so going forward." The U.S. appealed to Al-Assad to step down from power, agree to an armistice in the fighting, and initiate a political transition.
After Turkey forced a Syrian passenger aircraft to land in Ankara on October 10, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle visited his Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in Istanbul. Westerwelle placed his country unambiguously on the side of Turkey. The German representative declared, "Under international law, Turkey must not tolerate transport through their airspace of weapons or military supplies to Syria." In a similar case, with a violation of German airspace, said his government would have done the same thing. "Turkey is our partner," Westerwelle added, "and they can count on our solidarity."
The German foreign minister, however, distanced Germany from Erdogan's harsh criticism of the UN Security Council, which Erdogan has said should be reformed, as at present two permanent members, Russia and China, possess veto power over any action on Syria.
Erdogan repeats to the world that a humanitarian disaster is taking place in Syria. "If we wait for one or two of the [UN Security Council's] permanent members... then the future of Syria will be in danger," he insists. But his opinion is not supported by most of the rest of the world. Erdogan, in an October 13 speech in Istanbul, invoked the Balkan tragedy that occurred two decades ago. "How sad is," he said, "that the UN is as helpless today as it was 20 years ago, when it watched the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people in the Balkans."
No one can predict where all this oratory will end up. It is only certain that there are victims on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border, and in the conflict inside Syria. Since the beginning of October, the Turkish army has directed fire at 87 locations inside Syria, and has killed at least 12 Syrian soldiers, according to a report based on Turkish military sources, and published in the Turkish daily Milliyet on October 20. The paper stated that Syria had launched mortar rounds or other shells across the border 27 times, and that in the Turkish response, five Syrian tanks, three armored vehicles, one mortar, one ammunition transporter and two anti-aircraft guns were destroyed, with many more military vehicles damaged.
The Europeans tend to their own affairs, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council negotiate among themselves, Turkey claims it is considering unilateral action against Syria. But Erdogan is, to many, no more than an impotent, tantrum-prone, and dangerous demagogue – which the Obama administration and other "concerned powers" will not publicly admit. Some say that notwithstanding a possible Erdogan strategy for the establishment of Syria as a Sunni Islamist ally – or vassal – of an AKP-led Turkey, he and his party are needed for any positive action by NATO against Al-Assad. But presumptions that he can act consequently to rescue the Syrian people are mistaken. And the rest of us can only wait and hope for the best.
Related Topics:  Syria, Turkey  |  Veli Sirin

CAIR Features Imam with Ties to Hamas

by Joe Kaufman
October 26, 2012 at 3:00 am
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What kind of message is CAIR sending to the community, Muslim and non-Muslim alike?
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, founded in 1994 by operatives from Hamas, this month continued its tradition of embracing individuals with ties to terrorist organizations, such as Mousa Abu Marzouk and Yusuf al Qaradawi, by featuring, as the speaker for the annual banquet of its Florida chapter, Kifah Mustapha, an imam from Chicago, whom the U.S. government has named a party to Hamas financing.
In November 2008, a federal jury found the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and five of its leaders guilty of "providing material support and resources to a terrorist organization." That organization was Hamas, and the money raised for it by HLF was in the millions. HLF was shut down by the FBI in December 2001.
Besides the five persons found guilty in the HLF trial, the U.S. Justice Department listed a number of other individuals who had been considered involved in the conspiracy but whom the government chose not to indict ("unindicted co-conspirators"), among whom was Kifah Mustapha.
At the time of the trial, Mustapha was an imam at the Mosque Foundation, a Chicago-area Mosque, itself a hub for Palestinian terror-related activity. A Hamas operative and one of the founders of CAIR, Rafiq Jaber, has acted as president and spokesman of the Mosque Foundation. The mosque has held fundraisers for different terrorist conduits, including the HLF and Palestinian Islamic Jihad's [PIJ] co-founder, Sami al-Arian, indicted in 2003 for "contributing services" for the benefit of a "specially designated terrorist" organization, PIJ. Mustapha is still an imam at the Mosque, as well as being the Mosque's associate director.
Also at the time of the trial, Mustapha was listed as the Registered Agent of the Illinois corporation of HLF -- as he still is today.
None of this has seemed to faze CAIR, which was also named a co-conspirator in that trial. CAIR had told people on the homepage of its official website to donate money to HLF. The group appeared more than happy to have Mustapha participate at its 12th annual South Florida banquet held on October 6, 2012.
In addition, the Chicago chapter of CAIR has had Mustapha participate at a number of its functions, as well, including joint events with the Mosque Foundation. However, as CAIR and the Mosque Foundation have close relations, it makes perfect sense for CAIR to invite Kifah Mustapha to give a speech at its banquet.
Further, according to CAIR-Florida's Facebook page, one of the attendees to the banquet was Bassem Alhalabi, a director of a radical mosque in Boca Raton, Florida. In June 2003, Alhalabi was found guilty by the U.S. Commerce Department of illegally shipping military equipment to Syria.
One would think that CAIR would be concerned about its group featuring someone named in a Hamas fundraising trial to help raise money at its annual banquet. What kind of message is CAIR sending to the community, Muslim and non-Muslim alike?
As CAIR's joint co-founder, Omar Ahmad, put it, "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant." [Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States, Vol. 1, p. 167].
Joe Kaufman is a former candidate for United States Congress. He is an expert in the fields of counter-terrorism, foreign affairs and energy independence for America.
Related Topics:  Joe Kaufman

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