Palestinians: Mohammad Dahlan, the New Mayor of the Gaza Strip?

by Khaled Abu Toameh • July 3, 2017 at 5:00 am

Dahlan will be functioning under the watchful eye of Hamas, which will remain the real de facto and unchallenged ruler of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is willing to allow Dahlan to return to the Palestinian political scene through the Gaza Strip window. But he will be on a very short leash.
Dahlan's presence in the Gaza Strip will not deter Hamas from continuing with its preparations for another war with Israel.
Dahlan will find himself playing the role of fundraiser for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip while Hamas hides behind his formidable political shoulders.

Mohammed Dahlan addresses a political rally on January 7, 2007 in Gaza City. (Photo by Abid Katib/Getty Images)

Mohammed Dahlan is an aspiring Palestinian with huge political ambitions. Specifically, he hopes to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Knowing this, Abbas expelled him from the ruling Fatah faction in 2011. Since then, Dahlan has been living in the United Arab Emirates.

Hamas, the Islamist movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip for the past decade, used to consider Dahlan one of its fiercest enemies.

As commander of the notorious Preventive Security Service (PSS) in the Gaza Strip in the 1990s, Dahlan was personally responsible for the PA's security crackdown on Hamas. On his instructions, hundreds of Hamas activists were routinely targeted and detained

The enmity was mutual; Dahlan too considered Hamas a major threat to him and the PA regime in the Gaza Strip.

Dahlan's contempt for Hamas knew no limits. On his orders, Hamas founder and spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin was placed under house arrest.

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Islamic Relief Fails a Whitewash

by Samuel Westrop • July 3, 2017 at 4:00 am

Even if the Canadian branch of Islamic Relief claims not to have directly funded these Hamas groups, its own accounts reveal grants of millions of dollars to its parent organization, Islamic Relief Worldwide, which oversees the movement of money to a number of Hamas fronts.
Islamic Relief branches also receive money from several terror-linked Middle Eastern charities, including those established by Sheikh al Zindani, whom the US government has designated a "Global Terrorist."
Islamic Relief did not much care for the exposé. Reyhana Patel, a senior figure at its Canadian branch, first persuaded the Post to bowdlerize the article by removing some of the sourced material and adding sentences in defense of Islamic Relief.

Muslim cleric Nouman Ali Khan says that God gives men "license" to beat unfaithful wives, and that Muslim women are committing a "crime" if they object to the religious text that he says permits this abuse. (Image source: Rossi101/Wikimedia Commons)

On May 20, a Muslim cleric, Nouman Ali Khan spoke at a fundraising event in Toronto for Islamic Relief, one of the largest Muslim charities in the world.

Khan preaches that prostitutes and pornographic actors are "filth" and that "you have to punish them ... They're not killed; they're whipped. And they're whipped a hundred times." Khan has also declared that God gives men "license" to beat unfaithful wives, and that Muslim women are committing a "crime" if they object to the religious text that he says permits this abuse.

Before the event took place, this author had written about Khan and Islamic Relief in the National Post, with the help of colleagues at the Middle East Forum.

Islamic Relief did not much care for the exposé. Reyhana Patel, a senior figure at its Canadian branch, first persuaded the Post to bowdlerize the article by removing some of the sourced material and adding sentences in defense of Islamic Relief

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Tsar Vladimir and His 40 Daughters

by Amir Taheri • July 3, 2017 at 3:00 am

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 2013. (Image source: Kremlin.ru)

Will they? Won't they? These are the questions that are making the rounds in international political circles these days.

The "they" in question are the new US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin who may or may not hold a tete-a-tete on the margins of the G20 summit to be hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hamburg this week.

Despite conflicting analysis of the state of world there is consensus that a Trump-Putin meeting might help reduce international tension and pave the way for the solution of some burning issues.

The reason is that, despite its internal problems, the US remains the indispensable player in most theatres of global politics while Russia, having re-cast itself as the challenger, plays the nay-sayer in chief.

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