Hamas: We are Not Terrorists; We Just Want to Destroy Israel

by Khaled Abu Toameh
March 18, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3629/hamas-terrorists

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Hamas wants be dropped from the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations not because it has changed, but because it feels that the world has changed, and that many naïve Westerners are now willing to tolerate its radical ideology and terrorism.

Hamas leaders are working hard these days to have their movement removed from the U.S. State Department list for Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The Hamas leaders are hoping to persuade a number of European Union countries to support their bid.
Hamas wants to be removed from the list without changing its strategy or charter, which call for jihad [holy war] and which do not recognize Israel's right to exist.
Hamas is also not prepared to dismantle its armed group, Izaddin al-Kassam, as part of its effort to persuade the US and EU to drop it from the list of terrorist groups.
Nor is Hamas prepared to stop smuggling weapons or give up thousands of rockets and mortars that it possesses in various parts of the Gaza Strip.
And of course Hamas is not prepared to renounce violence in the context of its effort to seek legitimacy in the international community.
The Hamas initiative comes at a time when senior officials of the movement, including Khaled Mashaal, continue to talk about their dream of replacing Israel with an Islamic state. In addition, they are continuing to call on Palestinians to abide by the "armed resistance" as the only option for achieving their goal.
Ironically, the Hamas request to be removed from the list of terrorist groups coincides with reports about the Islamist movement's involvement in terror activities in neighboring Egypt.
According to these reports, Hamas was behind the August 2012 killing of 16 Egyptian border guards in Sinai. Hamas has also dispatched thousands of its men to Cairo to protect Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi against his political opponents, the reports revealed.
Although Hamas has denied the reports, there are increased signs that the movement is cooperating with other Islamic fundamentalist groups in Sinai to turn the peninsula into a base for jihadists from different parts of the world. Some of these jihadists are believed to be linked to groups that are affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Hamas claims that it has won the secret backing of a number of EU governments -- a claim denied by the EU.
The Hamas demand was first raised by the movement's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, during a meeting with European supporters in the Gaza Strip last month.
Ghazi Hamad a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, says that his movement is putting pressure on several countries to change their position toward his movement. He believes that there has already been a "positive change" in the minds of Western and Arab societies toward Hamas.
It is not clear what Hamas bases its optimism on. But sources close to Hamas revealed that some Arab leaders, including Egypt's Morsi and Qatar's Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, have promised to work toward convincing the Americans and Europeans to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations.
Both Morsi and al-Thani, according to the sources, have raised the issue with US and EU officials over the past few weeks.
The two Arab leaders have argued that removing Hamas from the lost would actually have a moderating effect on the movement and boost the prospects of peace in the Middle East. They have also claimed -- according to the sources -- that removing Hamas from the list would pave the way for unity between the movement and Fatah.
The Hamas campaign to be removed from the list of terrorist groups also coincides with growing cooperation between the movement and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip, primarily Islamic Jihad.
During the last war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Islamic Jihad militiamen formed a joint command to coordinate rocket attacks against Israel. More recently, it was revealed that Fatah's armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, also helped Hamas fire rockets at Israel in recent years.
The Americans and most EU countries are opposed to Fatah's efforts to achieve unity with a movement that remains on their list of foreign terrorist organizations.
In private, however, Fatah leaders say they are also opposed to removing Hamas from the list out of fear that such a move would legitimize the movement and pave the way for the creation of a separate state in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas wants to be dropped from the list not because it has changed. Rather, Hamas wants to be removed from the list because it feels that the world has changed, and that many naïve Westerners are now willing to tolerate its radical ideology and terrorism.
Anyone who supports Hamas's bid should also vote in favor of removing Al-Qaeda from the same list.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

The Power of the Islamists in Bangladesh

by Mohshin Habib
March 18, 2013 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3627/jamaat-e-islami-bangladesh

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The United States and the European Union, on the other hand, advocate democracy – a term about which Bangladeshis used to dream, but which they now fear could bring about the same harsh cost as in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Bangladesh has been suffering a deadly conflict between the progressive forces led by iconless youngsters, and the fundamentalists led by Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest religious political party.
There is currently an uprising of progressive youths of Dhaka, especially university students, bloggers, and artists demanding capital punishment for some leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami: those on trial before an international criminal court for their actions during the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971, when they collaborated with Pakistan in massacring a large number of civilians.
The conflict has disclosed the strength of radical Islamist power in the country. On February 5, 2013, a movement triggered in downtown Dhaka by bloggers, students and youths in a non-violent protest was immediately supported by large number of Dhaka residents, intellectuals, journalists and the allied parties of the ruling government, who -- by singing, dancing, and depicting different works of art -- demanded banning the religious parties from the state politics. But tens of thousands of Islamists, led by Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, were prepared to counter the movement violently and protest holding the trials.
Since the start of the uprising by the progressive front, two meritorious bloggers were hacked to death and three have been seriously injured. Eyewitnesses stated that the killers were bearded, and wore religious attire.
On 22 February, after Friday religious services in over 250,000 mosques across the country, tens of thousands of radical Muslims came out, protesting. "The bloggers are atheists, and they insulted our Prophet." In course of the demonstrations, they vandalized more than a dozen Hindu temples and dozens of houses of the minority Hindus, and they attacked policemen and law enforcement officials. They used women and children as human shields to fight against the law enforcement agencies; there were more than 19 killed . On 28 February, to protest against the death penalty for one of the top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamists called a countywide strike. In a wave of violence that erupted across the country, 33 people, including four policemen, were killed, and scores were injured.
On 3 March, Jamaat-e-Islami's followers used a photoshopped image of the leader's face on the moon, and assembled locals through repeated announcements on loudspeakers from many mosques of a rumor that the Jamaat leader's face was seen on the moon and that it is holy duty of Muslims to save him from the tribunal court's verdict.
More than 20 people, including two policemen, were killed. In other violence and attacks by the Islamists in last 30 days, more than 100 people, including members of Jamaat, and 16 policemen, have died. Currently, banned Islamist groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Harkautl Jihad, and Hizb-ut-Tawhid are operating alongside Jamaat-e-Islami.
Jamaat-e-Islami was formally established from the thoughts of Mawlana Abu Ala Moududi, a strong advocate of the Wahhabi movement in British India. The party's objective has been to establish an Islamic state, governed by Sharia Law. The party was banned after the victory of Bangladesh over Pakistan in 1971. In 1975, however, in a coup, some military officers assassinated the founding father of the country, enabling the chief of the army at that time to seize power, and Jamaat-e-Islami to resume political activities again in Bangladesh.
The party's support is rapidly increasing. In the parliamentary election in 2008, it garnered only 5 out of 300 parliamentary seats. But in an apparent backlash, after the secularist forces won the majority to govern, Jamaat gained momentum. Now almost all the Madrassas [Islamic religious schools] are controlled by Jamaat-e-Islami and other ultra-Islamist groups -- and they are gaining vast support across the country. The Jamaat party also now has immense die-hard support in UK -- numbering in the thousands -- where the party chief, Golam Azam, now held in custody, has been exiled for years. According to Chris Blackburn, a UK based political intelligence analyst, the Jamaat-e-Islami controls influential religious organizations in UK, so the trend of fanaticism within these communities will probably rise at a greater rate than in Bangladesh.
Blackburn also stated that the Jamaat of Bangladesh has been repeatedly linked to terrorist organizations: the majority of the leaders Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh(JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata (JMJB) have histories of involvement with Jamaat and its student wing, Islamic Chatra Shibir.
Blackburn continues in the report that in 2004, Russian security agents from the Federal Security Bureau assassinated Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev, the former vice president of Chechnya, in a car bomb attack in Doha, Qatar. They believed he was meeting with wealthy Middle Eastern figures to collect funds for jihad, and that he was recipient of Jamaati funds to wage war on Russia. Jamaat-e-Islami is listed by Russia's Supreme Court as a leading financier and supporter of terrorism.
Not only Britain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and some of the gulf countries have impenetrable relations with the Jamaat leaders: John L. Esposito, a professor of International affairs at Georgetown University, disclosed in his book, The Future of Islam, how Saudi Arabia developed close ties with major Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami. Many pro-Saudi media outlets, such as Al Jazeera, Saudi Gazette, Ikhwan, and Muslim Observer also blindly support Jamaat-e-Islami.
The United States and the European Union, on the other hand, advocate "democracy" -- a term about which a large number of Bangladeshis used to dream, but which they now fear could bring about the same harsh cost as in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Related Topics: Mohshin Habib

Lord Ahmed: Disgrace to Britain

by Douglas Murray
March 18, 2013 at 3:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3630/lord-ahmed

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Instead of waiting and appointing Muslims who were qualified and decent examples of moderation and tolerance, they appointed this extremist.

Lord Nazir Ahmed was always a classic case of "positive discrimination" gone horribly wrong. The erstwhile Labour peer – elevated to the House of Lords in 1998 – is now in trouble yet again. This time it is for claiming that the Jews were behind his imprisonment for dangerous driving. That was the occasion a few years back when Lord Ahmed, on a motorway, while texting, ran over and killed a man. In the wake of his comments, Lord Ahmed has been suspended from the Labour party. He has, however, been suspended – but reinstated – before. When it comes to terrible things said by Lord Ahmed we have also been here many times before. For years, he has said disgraceful things; for years, he has then lied about them.
It is certain that nobody who has followed the sordid, untruthful career of Ahmed could be remotely surprised by the latest event. To recap – in 2009, Lord Ahmed was sent to jail for 12 weeks for dangerous driving. He was, surprisingly, freed by the court of appeal after only 16 days.
In what now looks like an even more dumbfounding statement than it did at the time, the court's reasons for releasing Ahmed so soon included the fact that he should be given the opportunity to "continue his work building bridges between Muslims and other faiths." In an interview on Pakistani television which has just been brought to light by the Times newspaper, Ahmed lived up to the court's wishes to "build bridges" by saying on video that it was the Jews "who own newspapers and television channels" who were behind his imprisonment.
In his Pakistan interview Lord Ahmed also claims that the judge in the case was appointed to his position because he helped a "Jewish colleague" of Briain's Prime Minister Tony Blair's during a case. In the Ahmed account, Justice Wilkie was specifically picked to sentence Lord Ahmed because no other judge would deal with the case. And why was it that "the Jews" would work so hard to appoint judges and buy newspapers and television stations in order to ensure the noble Lord was locked away? You must have guessed it: why, Israel of course!
"My case became more critical," Lord Ahmed explains to his interviewer, "because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this," he says.
In a textbook case of Lord Ahmed's misbehavior, he has already denied to the Times that he ever gave the interview in which he said these words. Fortunately the Times not only has the tape but the also the transcript and a number of translators who have all come to the conclusion that the words Lord Ahmed said were the words Lord Ahmed said.
This is a characteristic tactic of denial by Ahmed: we have been here many times before. Lord Ahmed has threatened legal action against many people in the past, including this author. Specifically, he has tried to sue me for reporting the words that came out of his own mouth. He has fired off lawyers' letters from well-remunerated London firms to attempt -- at some expense and inconvenience the "the accused" -- to coerce me into silence. He has done the same to others for the same crime: recounting the words that have come out of his mouth.
All the time the lies have continued. Just last year Lord Ahmed was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour party for calling for a bounty to be put on the head of President Barack Obama. This reportedly happened at a public meeting in Pakistan. The "amusing" offer was made in response to the US offer of a reward for the capture of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
According to the Express Tribune, at a meeting in Pakistan Lord Ahmed said: "If the US can announce a reward of $10m for the capture of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of £10m on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush." He went on to say that he would sell his house to provide the bounty. Of course, no sooner had the words made public than they were publicly denied.
"'I never said those words," he said. "I did not offer a bounty. I said that there have been war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and those people who have got strong allegations against them – George W Bush and Tony Blair – have been involved in illegal wars and should be brought to justice."
He also claimed that the Labour party had not asked to see evidence before suspending him, and demanded that they provide evidence.
It should be clear by now that this is a man who will literally say anything in order to deny that he has said something. Unbelievably, the Labour party reinstated him that time. We shall see if they do after this latest suspension.
It would be easy for them not to do so. Apart from his endless lies and extreme statements, Lord Ahmed has regularly hosted extremists, including people associated with terrorist groups, at the Houses of Parliament. Any panel invitation sent out at the behest of Lord Ahmed can be guaranteed to be a unique blend of conspiracy theorists, rabid anti-Semites and apologists for international terrorism. He has long been not just an embarrassment to the Labour party but an embarrassment to Parliament and a shame and disgrace to Britain.
The irony is acute. It was Tony Blair who put this terrible, unqualified and lying figure into the Lords in the first place. In a classic misconceived act, Ahmed was the only person ever put into the position he has so abused because the Labour party wanted Muslim peers. Instead of waiting and appointing Muslims who were qualified and decent and examples of moderation and tolerance, they appointed this extremist. There aren't many lessons to be taken from Lord Ahmed's career. But that Parliament never do this again should at least be one.

Related Topics: United Kingdom | Douglas Murray

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