First Muslim Women in US Congress Misled Voters About Views on Israel: Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute, Nov. 16, 2018— Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan will be the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the US Congress.
Is Canada Knowingly Funding Extremism and Terrorism?: Tom Quiggin, IPT News, Oct. 18, 2018— Canadian taxpayer money may be finding its way to Hamas, a listed terrorist group.
Laïcité Can Help Block Advance of Political Islam: Lise Ravary, Montreal Gazette, Oct. 22, 2018 — “We must get involved in all domains where we can have more Islam …”
Congress Has the Chance to Combat Terrorist Use of Human Shields: Rabbi Abraham Cooper, The Hill, Oct. 10, 2018 — Innocent civilian casualties are an inevitable legacy of any war.
On Topic Links
Don’t Expect Democrats to Obstruct Trump’s Pro-Israel Policies – or Punish Netanyahu: Jonathan S. Tobin, Ha’aretz, Nov. 8, 2018
Canada’s Welcome Mat for Jihadis Poses Threat to US: Clarion Project, Nov. 18, 2018
Jihad Jane’s Recruiter Sentenced to 15 Years: Abha Shankar, IPT News, Oct 31, 2018
Islamic State’s Future in Afghanistan – Part II: Daud Khattak, BESA, Nov. 19, 2018
FIRST MUSLIM WOMEN IN US CONGRESS
MISLED VOTERS ABOUT VIEWS ON ISRAEL Soeren Kern
Gatestone Institute, Nov. 16, 2018
Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan will be the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the US Congress. Most of the media coverage since their election on November 6 has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history. Less known is that both women deceived voters about their positions on Israel. Both women, at some point during their rise in electoral politics, led voters — especially Jewish voters — to believe that they held moderate views on Israel. After being elected, both women reversed their positions and now say they are committed to sanctioning the Jewish state.
America’s first two Muslim congresswomen are now both on record as appearing to oppose Israel’s right to exist. They both support the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Both are also explicitly or implicitly opposed to continuing military aid to Israel, as well as to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — an outcome that would establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Instead, they favor a one-state solution — an outcome that many analysts believe would, due to demographics over time, replace the Jewish state with a unitary Palestinian state.
Ilhan Omar, who will replace outgoing Rep. Keith Ellison (the first Muslim elected to Congress) in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, came to the United States as a 12-year-old refugee from Somalia and settled in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, in the late 1990s. In her acceptance speech, delivered without an American flag, Congresswoman-elect Omar opened her speech in Arabic with the greeting, “As-Salam Alaikum, (peace be upon you), alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah), alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah.” She continued: “I stand here before you tonight as your congresswoman-elect with many firsts behind my name. The first woman of color to represent our state in Congress. The first woman to wear a hijab. The first refugee ever elected to Congress. And one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.”
Omar faced some controversy during the campaign, including a disturbing report that she had married her own brother in 2009 for fraudulent purposes, as well as a tweet from May 2018 in which she refers to Israel as an “apartheid regime,” and another tweet from November 2012, in which she stated: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
After the tweets came to light, Omar met with members of her congressional district’s large Jewish population to address concerns over her position on Israel, as reported by Minneapolis’s Star Tribune. During a Democratic Party candidates’ forum at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park on August 6 — one week before Omar defeated four other candidates in the party’s primary — Omar publicly criticized the anti-Israel BDS movement. In front of an audience of more than a thousand people, Omar said she supported a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and that the BDS movement aimed at pressuring Israel was not helpful in trying to achieve that goal.
Pressed by moderator Mary Lahammer to specify “exactly where you stand on that,” Omar replied that the BDS movement was “counteractive” because it stopped both sides from coming together for “a conversation about how that’s going to be possible.”
Less than a week after being elected, however, Omar admitted that she supports the BDS movement. On November 11, Omar’s office told the website MuslimGirl.com that she favors BDS against Israel: “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.” On November 12, Omar told TC Jewfolk, a website catering to the Jewish community in the Twin Cities, that her position on the BDS movement “has always been the same” and pointed to her vote as a state lawmaker against House bill HF 400, which prohibits the state from doing business with companies or organizations that boycott Israel.
In a recent interview with the Star Tribune, Omar characterized the controversy over her tweets about Israel as an effort to “stigmatize and shame me into saying something other than what I believed.” In a July 8, 2018 interview with ABC News, for a segment entitled, “Progressive Democrats Increasingly Criticize Israel, and Could Reap Political Rewards,” Omar defended her tweets. She said the accusations of anti-Semitism “are without merit” and “rooted in bigotry toward a belief about what Muslims are stereotyped to believe.”
On September 22, Omar was the keynote speaker in Minneapolis at a fundraiser focused on providing monetary support for Palestinians in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas. The US Department of State has officially designated Hamas a terrorist group. After the event, Omar tweeted: “It was such an honor to attend the ‘Dear Gaza’ fundraiser … I know Palestinians are resilient people, hateful protesters nor unjust occupation will dim their spirit.”
Writing in the New York Post, political commentator David Harsanyi noted that Omar’s rhetoric had anti-Semitic undertones: “Now, it isn’t inherently anti-Semitic to be critical of Israeli political leadership or policies. The Democratic Party antagonism toward the Jewish state has been well-established over the past decade. But Omar used a well-worn anti-Semitic trope about the preternatural ability of a nefarious Jewish cabal to deceive the world….
In Michigan, meanwhile, Rashida Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, won a largely uncontested race for the open seat in state’s heavily Democratic 13th congressional district. In Tlaib’s acceptance speech, delivered with a Palestinian flag, she credited her victory to the Palestinian cause. “A lot of my strength comes from being Palestinian,” she said.
Like Omar, Tlaib has changed her positions on key issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During her race for the Democratic nomination in the state primary, Tlaib actively “sought out the support and received the endorsement of J Street.” J Street is a left-leaning organization that is highly critical of the Israel government, and through “JStreetPAC,” it also allocates financial support to those who back J Street’s policies. J Street endorsed Tlaib “based on her support for two states” with the JStreetPAC website claiming that she “believes that the U.S. should be directly involved with negotiations to reach a two-state solution. Additionally, she supports all current aid to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”
After her primary win on August 7, however, Tlaib radically shifted her positions on Israel, so much so that Haaretz suggested that she pulled a “bait-and-switch.” In an August 14 interview with In These Times magazine, Tlaib was asked whether she supported a one-state or two-state solution. She replied: “One state. It has to be one state. Separate but equal does not work…. This whole idea of a two-state solution, it doesn’t work.” Tlaib also declared her opposition to US aid for Israel, as well as her support for the BDS movement…[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
IS CANADA KNOWINGLY FUNDING EXTREMISM AND TERRORISM?
Tom Quiggin
IPT News, Oct. 18, 2018
Canadian taxpayer money may be finding its way to Hamas, a listed terrorist group. The Criminal Code of Canada forbids funding terrorism, as well as forbidding the facilitation of those funding terrorism. But last Friday, Minister of International Development Marie-Claude Bibeau announced that Canada would send $50 million in the next two years to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This is in addition to the $110 million that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to UNRWA since 2016. UNRWA has been repeatedly accused of supporting extremism, promoting violence and not checking beneficiaries against a list of known terrorists provided by the police. The announcement made no reference to UNRWA’s alleged connections, and said the money is meant to help provide education and health services to Palestinians.
Funding UNWRA is not illegal in Canada, although given the agency’s reputation, it is a questionable use of taxpayer money. For instance, in August President Donald Trump withdrew $300 million in UNRWA funding. The U.S. government would no longer “shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs,” a U.S. State Department press release said, calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation.” In addition to funding UNRWA, the Trudeau government gave millions of taxpayers’ dollars to Islamic Relief Canada. Some of this money is forwarded to Islamic Relief Worldwide (UK), which has been repeatedly linked to Hamas…
The Canadian aid is funneled through government programs, including International Humanitarian Aid Program (2017), M103 Islamophobia Funding (2018), Canada Summer Jobs Program (2017 and 2018), Myanmar Crisis Relief Fund/Islamic Relief (May 2018), Canadian Humanitarian Assistance Fund CHAF, Canada’s Humanitarian and Development Assistance to Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, and Prime Minister Trudeau’s volunteer work and promotional video for Islamic Relief Canada.
In June, MP Iqra Khalid of Mississauga announced that $23 million Canadian dollars would help fund her M103 Parliamentary Motion on “Islamophobia.” The money, she said, would go to Islamic Relief Canada and a local boys and girls club. Other members of Parliament who appear to have played a role in directing money to Islamic Relief Canada include Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Immigration and Refugees Minister Ahmed Hussen, Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, International Development Minister Bibeau and Parliamentary Secretary Omar Alghabra.
A variety of independent and credible sources have identified Islamic Relief Worldwide as funding extremist and terrorist activities. This includes American think tank studies and international actors. The following is a partial list of statements concerning the activities of Islamic Relief International. 1. In 2014 the United Arab Emirates produced a list of organizations they deemed to be terrorist entities. Among those was Islamic Relief Worldwide and Islamic Relief UK. 2. In 2017, Bangladesh banned three organizations, including Islamic Relief, from working with Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar out of concern about potential radicalization in refugee camps. 3. In 2014, Israel banned Islamic Relief from operating in the occupied West Bank, accusing Islamic Relief Worldwide of being a source of funding for the Palestinian Hamas Islamist movement. That led the UK Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) to remove Islamic Relief from its online donations page. The Financial Post of Canada similarly removed Islamic Relief from a charity page “since its international arm has been banned elsewhere (though not in Canada) for allegedly funneling funds to the terrorist organization Hamas.” 4. In 2015, the HSBC Bank of the United Kingdom closed Islamic Relief accounts citing fears that money could wind up with terrorist groups. 5. In 2012, the UBS cut ties with Islamic Relief due to concerns about counter-terrorist regulations.
The use of federally registered charities to fund terrorism is not a new practice. In the United States, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was considered the country’s largest Muslim charity until it was shut down in 2001 for funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. Canada revoked the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN)’s charitable status in 2014 for similar Hamas support. The Islamic Society of North America in Canada has suffered four different charity revocations – two of which were for funding the Jamaat e Islami terrorist group.
What is different in this case, however, is how the money is getting directed down the path to terrorism. In the recent past, it was private citizens exploiting weaknesses in government oversight of registered charities. Now, however, it appears that Canadian MPs are using their positions to direct millions of dollars to Islamic Relief Canada. Some of this money is passed to Islamic Relief Worldwide, which is in turn passing money to extremist and terrorist groups. Given that it is generally known about Islamic Relief Worldwide’s terrorism financing connections, Canadian officials appear willfully blind. Even if they don’t know better, this practice violates Canadian law and Canadian values. An investigation could determine if the money could wind up in the hands of a terrorist organization.
LAÏCITÉ CAN HELP BLOCK ADVANCE OF POLITICAL ISLAM Lise Ravary
Montreal Gazette, Oct. 22, 2018
“We must get involved in all domains where we can have more Islam …” “The more we are present, the more women are seen wearing hijab, discussing it, explaining their approach, explaining who they are, the more we will create habits and things will change.” “We must control school programs and stop them from propagating values that do not conform to our principles.” “We must move into public schools, using empty spaces to dispense complementary religious learning.”
These words by Swiss-born global superstar Muslim preacher Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, explain why so many francophones see hijabs and niqabs as symbols of political Islam, or Islamism: using the tools of the state in order to further a religious agenda. Before being jailed in France to await trial on rape charges, Ramadan was a frequent visitor to Quebec, where he gave interviews to mainstream media and spoke to large crowds at the Palais des congrès.
Francophones read newspapers, books and magazines from France, where relationships between immigrants from North Africa and Français de vieille souche are bad for reasons that mostly don’t exist here. France failed at integrating les Maghrébins who moved there after her North African possessions became independent. Algeria, in particular, was not just a colony, it was a full-fledged French territory, its inhabitants French citizens. The terrible war of independence created a lot of hatred, bitterness and resentment before de Gaulle said “enough” in 1962.
Islamists continue to make inroads in France. Newspapers often report comments by radical imams on women, non-Muslims or Jews that make people’s hair stand on end. Salafist imams are regularly expelled and hundreds of mosques have been closed in recent years. More than 500 French Muslims joined ISIS. Who can forget Charlie Hebdo, le Bataclan and the people killed in Nice on Bastille Day?
Many francophones worry that Quebec will turn into France, where crowds pray in the streets, because Canada’s multiculturalism, they feel, promotes apartness instead of togetherness. As Ramadan said to L’Express: “We are in favour of integration as long as we control the content.” Although his speeches in Arabic have always been more strident and extreme than in French, he cultivated the image of bridge builder, a man of peace. People bought into his mystique. The sexual assault accusations have not stopped many Muslims from admiring Ramadan. Being the grandson of Hassan al-Banna confers a lot of prestige although he denies being a member of the Brotherhood.
Laïcité, which has never been explained to Quebecers, cannot and should not silence people like Ramadan, unless they promote hatred or incite violence. In itself, political Islam is not a crime. But many Quebecers feel that laïcité could at least prevent attempts to change things toward “more Islam.” However, this strategy did not work so well in France, where laïcité has been the law of the land since 1905. Yet, with laïcité, public schools could not set aside rooms for prayer, separate boys and girls — even non-Muslim — for gym, pull students from music lessons or sex education, or agree to some parents’ requests for segregated school yards.
Last spring, a public school in Montreal was set to rent out its premises for the annual “cérémonie du voile,” a Shiite ritual during which 9-year-old girls agree to wear the hijab forever. Many Muslims feel the girls are too young to take on such a commitment. Religions should be kept out of all state institutions, not only to stop people like Tariq Ramadan and other insidious promoters of Islamism from scoring political points, but also to allow the faithful to worship without having fingers pointed at them. Let’s not forget that many Muslims who emigrated here did so to escape Islamism.
CONGRESS HAS THE CHANCE TO COMBAT
TERRORIST USE OF HUMAN SHIELDS
Rabbi Abraham Cooper
The Hill, Oct. 10, 2018
Innocent civilian casualties are an inevitable legacy of any war. But the idea that armies would use civilians as human shields to protect armed combatants from the enemy’s bullets is considered by most civilized nations and adherents to International Law (1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, and the 1998 Rome Statute) to be a War Crime.
During World War II, across Europe and in Asia, the Axis partners were accused of deploying human shields to secure military objectives, root out insurgents and in the Battle of Okinawa, use civilians in a ferocious battle the Japanese knew they would lose. Over 100,000 Okinawans perished.
Saddam Hussein took the deployment of human shields to a whole new level. In the lead up to the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Hussein detained hundreds of citizens of Western countries as human shields in an attempt to deter nations from launching military strikes. A number of these hostages were filmed meeting Hussein, and kept with him to deter any targeted attacks, whilst others were held in or near military, nuclear and industrial targets.
More recently, in 2016, Islamic State fighters began using human shields — hostages — in Fallujah. Fox News reported that the shields consisted of “several hundred” families — in other words, an entire neighborhood. USA Today reported that Islamic State thugs were “locking some families down inside the hospital building.” The Iraqi government and the UN also estimated at least 50,000 innocent people were trapped in Fallujah.
Which brings us to the new Capitol Hill initiative. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) have introduced an increasingly rare bipartisan bill to counter the use of human shields by Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Nigeria’s Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. Why the need for the bill now? What can it achieve? Most of the examples of cited above about the use of human shields in the past took place in the heat of battle or as a desperation move on the eve of a military confrontation.
In our time, we are confronted with Iranian-backed terrorist groups who brazenly have established the deployment of human shields as a core tactic and strategy for present and future battles with the enemy. For months now, Hamas has been using children as part of orchestrated riots at the Gaza-Israeli border. When Israel soldiers rush to the area and see children, their first reaction is to hesitate targeting children. These traps have already cost the lives of an Israeli soldier.
Rather than condemn Hamas, as outgoing US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley tried unsuccessfully at the Security Council and General Assembly tried to do, UN members always vote to condemn Israel for defending herself. This only encourages Hamas to put more children at risk. Every dead child is a social media bonanza. In early wars with Israel, Hamas used civilian infrastructures, including UNRWA schools to store missiles and launch them against the Jewish State. While using children as cannon fodder, the Hamas brain-trust found safe haven beneath a civilian hospital. Palestinian children have died building terror tunnels burrowing into Israeli communities…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
On Topic Links
Don’t Expect Democrats to Obstruct Trump’s Pro-Israel Policies – or Punish Netanyahu: Jonathan S. Tobin, Ha’aretz, Nov. 8, 2018—The 2018 U.S. midterm elections were a mixed bag for U.S. partisans.
Canada’s Welcome Mat for Jihadis Poses Threat to US: Clarion Project, Nov. 18, 2018—Canada’s welcome mat for jihadis — including returning ISIS terrorists as well as numerous Islamists immigrants — is well known. This not only threatens our northern neighbors but is an increasing threat to the U.S. as well.
Jihad Jane’s Recruiter Sentenced to 15 Years: Abha Shankar, IPT News, Oct 31, 2018—An Algerian man was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for conspiring with Americans and others to recruit men and women in Europe and the United States to a terrorist cell to wage violent jihad in the West.
Islamic State’s Future in Afghanistan – Part II: Daud Khattak, BESA, Nov. 19, 2018—Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) emerged in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, on the border of Pakistan’s volatile tribal region.
