Who is Raeed Tayeh?

From Discover the Networks:

• Former Executive Board member of the Islamic Association for Palestine
• Former research fellow for the United Association for Studies and Research
• Spoke at a 2001 rally along with Sami Al-Arian and George Habash
• Worked for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
• Official of the Muslim American Society
• “Islamists refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel or the peace agreement made with it, and vow to return the Holy Land to the Muslim nation.”

An American-born Palestinian activist, Raeed N. Tayeh was formerly an Executive Board member of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and a research fellow for the United Association for Studies and Research. He also has had connections to American Muslims for Jerusalem.

On June 21, 1999, Tayeh expressed his contempt for Israel on the Friends For Palestine (FFP) website, an extremist site run via the University of Memphis Web server, which posted diatribes against Jews and featured a map of Israel with the Palestinian flag superimposed on it. “Very nice Website,” wrote Tayeh. “I am very proud of the FFP, keep up the good work. It is our duty to return Palestine, ALL OF PALESTINE. I suggest that if any of you really want to get involved, to join the Islamic Association for Palestine -- IAP, they have chapters all over North America, and if you don’t have a chapter, I will help you start one. You should also read the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. This is one of your best sources for fair news about the Middle East.” [Tayeh was the Chicago correspondent for this vehemently anti-Israel publication.]

On November 29, 1999, Tayeh wrote a story for Islam Online -- a website that has published religious/legal opinions in support of suicide bombings -- about the Third Annual IAP Convention. In that piece, Tayeh stated, “Islamists refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel or the peace agreement made with it, and vow to return the Holy Land to the Muslim nation.” He also praised Issa Nakhleh as “a distinguished Palestinian Christian historian.” Nakhleh had called Yasser Arafat “an honorable Palestinian leader”; had called Ariel Sharon “an irresponsible terrorist, murderer and war criminal”; and had excused suicide bombings as understandable responses to “Israeli crimes.”

In his poem titled “Who Am I?” -- which originally appeared on the IAP website -- Tayeh says, "Oh how I dream of that wonderful day, when our flags are raised, and when the marching bands will play. When the young will cheer, and when the old will cry. When the refugees return, and when Zionism will die."

In November 2000 Tayeh was the spokesman for a group protesting against the Chicago Sun Times for having published an editorial blaming Yasser Arafat for Middle East violence.

In February 2001 Tayeh was the contact -- along with the pro-terrorist Palestinian activist and writer Hatem Abudayyeh -- for a solidarity march organized by the Coalition for Justice in Palestine.

On April 7, 2001, while he was still with the IAP, Tayeh was a featured speaker at a rally in New York City that included Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leaders Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar. The rally also featured a statement by George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Also in 2001, Tayeh was hired as Communications Director for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. But on November 28 of that year, he was forced to resign from McKinney’s staff when it was learned that he had written a “letter to the editor” questioning the loyalty of Jewish members of Congress. He stated in that letter: “What is more disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause. . . . The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress.”

At IAP’s 5th Annual Convention in December 2001, Tayeh was again a featured speaker along with Sami Al-Arian.From February 2002 to September 2002, Tayeh was the Washington Director of American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice (AMGPJ). During this period, he issued a press release “condemning” the U.S. government for conducting raids on northern Virginia Islamic organizations that were being investigated for their role in terrorist financing.

Tayeh was also the promoter of a boycott against Starbucks Coffee -- a campaign initiated in response to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s “support for various Jewish charitable organizations and his warnings about rising anti-Semitism around the world.”

Tayeh authored a book titled A Muslim’s Guide to American Politics and Government. It was published by the Muslim American Society (MAS), and its foreword was written by MAS President Souheil Ghannouchi.

Since September 2002, Tayeh has worked as the Public Affairs Director for the MAS Freedom Foundation. On April 26, 2003, Tayeh gave an MAS-sponsored “activist training seminar” with the organization’s Communications Director, Randal Todd “Ismail” Royer, who would later be sentenced to prison on firearms and conspiracy charges in relation to a group associated with al Qaeda.

The MAS 2003 annual convention was co-sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America. Tayeh was a featured speaker at this event, along with: Mustafa Abu Sway, who the Israeli government has labeled “a known activist” in the Hamas terrorist movement; Siraj Wahhaj, who was named as a possible co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; Zulfiqar Ali Shah, CEO of the Universal Heritage Foundation; and the neo-Nazi William Baker.

In February 2004, MAS sent Tayeh to the Cleveland Mosque to assist Fawaz Damra, who had recently been arrested for concealing his links to anti-Israel terrorist groups. Damra in 1991 had said that “[Muslims should be] directing all rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews.” Four years later, Damra was named as a possible co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

During an August 2004 appearance on CNN, Tayeh made the following remarks:

• “The United Nations needs to stop passing resolutions and start enforcing the ones that are on the books, namely returning to the 1967 borders and allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.”
• “The Palestinians ... fighting the people who have occupied their land, who have stolen their land …”
  “Well, the United Nations, in 1947, came up with a plan to divide Palestinian [sic], giving the Jews the majority of the country and the Palestinians the minority. The Palestinians rejected it because they said, hey, we live here. This is 100 percent of our land.”
• “Jews can have their land, but the Palestinians didn't commit the Holocaust. That was Germany under the Nazis. Why not create a state in Germany?”
• “Jews live in Arab countries and in some countries they live very well, and they're protected.”

What is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)?

Via Discover the Networks:

-- Anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian activist group founded at University of California's Berkeley campus in 2001
-- Has chapters on more than 25 major campuses throughout the U.S.
-- Advocates economic sanctions against Israel

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) originated on the University of California, Berkeley campus in 2001. Since then, SJP cells have spread to some 25 major campuses throughout the United States, including Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Georgetown, and the universities of Michigan and Maryland. SJP at the University of Maryland states that its mission is to pursue "freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people," a goal predicated on ending "[t]he Israeli military occupation, with its daily humiliation, abuse and brutal violence"; "[t]he right of return and repatriation for Palestinian refugees of war and ethnic cleansing"; and "[t]he cessation of settlement activity and the dismantling of settlements built outside of Israel's pre-1967 border." Toward the advancement of these objectives, SJP demands "[d]ivestment … from companies that invest or do substantial business in Israel," and an "end to U.S. tax-funded aid to Israel."

Calling Israel "this generation's South Africa," SJP vows to do for contemporary Palestinians what the anti-apartheid campaign did for blacks in South Africa. Toward that end, SJP exhorts college students to help punish the "Apartheid State of Israel" by demanding that their schools divest their financial assets from all companies that conduct business there. SJP has staged campus protests against Starbucks, General Electric, Disney, and scores of other companies.

SJP members, who denounce what they term the Israeli-sponsored "concentration camps" wherein Palestinians are purportedly forced to live, harass Jewish students when they emerge from campus synagogues. In one incident after a rally at San Francisco State University (SFSU), SJP supporters surrounded a small group of Jewish students and incited violence while shouting, "Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job," and other epithets. On April 9, 2002 (Holocaust Remembrance Day), pro-Palestinian groups at SFSU protested Israel's occupation of the West Bank and then circulated posters depicting Jews eating Christian babies. That same day, SJP members held a rally and a sit-in on the Berkeley campus, demanding that the university divest all its assets from companies that conducted any business in Israel. Police arrested 79 people that day, 41 of them students. Pro-Palestinian protests also erupted on several other campuses that same day, involving nearly 10,000 students at Ohio State, the University of Minnesota, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Carnegie Mellon University. In November 2002, Yale University's SJP set up a mock Israeli checkpoint on campus, harassing Jewish students with cardboard rifles.

A co-founder of the Berkeley SJP is Snehal Shingavi, a graduate student who gained notoriety in 2001 for teaching a controversial course called "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance." Explaining that his instruction would focus on "Israel's brutal oppression of Palestine since 1948," Shingavi in the course catalog urged conservative students not to bother registering for his class.

SJP's national conference at the University of Michigan in November 2002 was sponsored by the Islamic Association for Palestine, an organization that raises money for the families of suicide bombers. The conference also featured keynote speaker Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida who was the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad operations in North America.

In its literature, SJP demands an immediate end to the current Israeli military "occupation"; an immediate cessation of all U.S. material and political support to Israel; divestment from all corporations that conduct business in, or with, Israel; and the implementation of the right of return and the repatriation of all Palestinians.

Website

What is Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition?

What is Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition ?

-- Calls for the Palestinian "Right of Return"
-- Seeks the dissolution of Israel

Has quoted the Hamas slogan, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea"

Co-founded by Mazin Qumsiyeh, Zahi Damuni, and Jess Ghannam, Al-Awda (a.k.a. the Palestine Right to Return Coalition) describes itself as "a broad-based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, and to be granted full restitution of all their confiscated and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Viewing Israel as an illegitimate entity with no right to exist as a sovereign nation, Al-Awda condemns what it calls the "Zionist[s'] insatiable need for colonial expansion and the systematic destruction of the indigenous Arab population." "For almost sixty years," Al-Awda adds, "the genocidal Israeli government has been murdering, exiling and maiming innocent Palestinians who wished simply to be left to live on their land with dignity and peace."

The refugees on whose behalf Al-Awda agitates were never expelled from their homeland; they voluntarily (for the most part) left their homes during the period just before and shortly after the commencement of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. They sought out safe haven during what they anticipated would be a brief war that the Arab allies would undoubtedly win, and fully expected to return to their homes once the fighting had stopped and the Jews had been exterminated. Instead, the Arab armies were defeated. Today Al-Awda calls for the readmittance not only of the relatively few survivors who were among the 725,000 original refugees, but also for the admittance of more than 7.2 million of their descendants.

Al-Awda lists the following "Points of Unity" as the key axioms upon which its mission is founded:

(a) "[T]he Palestinian Arab people, regardless of their religious affiliation, are indigenous to Palestine. Therefore, they are entitled to live anywhere in Palestine which encompasses present-day 'Israel,' the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Al-Awda regards the 'Israeli' definition of Jewish nationals, granting exclusive rights to citizenship and land to any Jew from anywhere in the world, as part of the racism and discrimination inherent in Zionist ideology which underlies the policies and laws of the settler state of 'Israel.'"

(b) "Al-Awda unequivocally supports the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their original towns, villages and lands anywhere in Palestine from which they were expelled. Al-Awda also unequivocally supports the rights of all Palestinian refugees to compensation for damages inflicted on their property and lives, and to restitution of all destroyed and confiscated property."

(c) "Al-Awda will work to educate the public about 'Israeli' injustices the U.S. government subsidizes with billions of dollars annually. Until the dismantlement of the exclusionary and racist character of 'Israel,' and until all Palestinians are granted the right to return and achieve equality, Al-Awda is united in working for and demanding: an end to all U.S. political, military and economic aid to 'Israel'; the divestment of all public and private entities from all 'Israeli' corporations and American corporations with subsidiaries operating within 'Israel'; an end to the investment of Labor Union members' pension funds in 'Israel'; the boycott of all 'Israeli' products; ... [and] the formation of an independent, democratic state for all its citizens in all of Palestine."

With thousands of members worldwide, Al-Awda has 17 local and regional chapters (in nine U.S. cities, two American universities, two Canadian cities, Italy, Spain, Egypt, and the United Kingdom). These chapters regularly sponsor anti-Israel exhibits, film festivals, lectures, and protests. In September and October of 2002, Al-Awda held anti-Israel rallies where its members sold t-shirts donning the famous Hamas quote, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea."

A member organization of the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, Al-Awda lists New Jersey Solidarity as one of its "Coalition Committee Members" and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund as a "partner organization."

On July 14-16, 2006, Al-Awda and the General Union of Palestine Students at San Francisco State University co-sponsored the Fourth International Al-Awda Convention, which highlighted two main themes: (a) "Political and material isolation of the Genocidal Zionist State of Israel"; and (b) "Political and material support of the Palestinian refugee population." A featured speaker at the event was Michel Shehadeh, the host of "Radio Intifada," a KPFK-FM Los Angeles radio program named in honor of the Palestinian terrorist campaign seeking to destroy the State of Israel.

Source: Discover The Networks

What is the Palestinian Authority (PA) ?

What is the Palestinian Authority (PA)?

--Semi-autonomous Palestinian governing institution created by the Oslo peace process’s Declaration of Principles in 1993

--Rules Gaza and the West Bank, much as the PLO did in the 1970s

As the United States prepares to send approximately $86 million in financial aid to bolster Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah militias in the West Bank against possible threats from Hamas, it has been learned that in recent years two PA officials who were Fatah members stole tens of millions of U.S. dollars that also had been earmarked to help Fatah ward off Hamas. One of those officials, Mahmoud Dahlan, smuggled $27 million and invested much of it in construction projects in Dubai. His associate Rashid Abu Shabak, former chief of the Palestinian Security Services, smuggled another $25 million. Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad's office reports that of some $60 million in U.S. aid that was deposited in a bank account for Fatah’s exclusive benefit, only $7 million was not stolen. Dahlan and Shabak both fled the Gaza Strip prior to Hamas’ takeover of the region and all its U.S.-backed Fatah security compounds in June.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), alternately known as the Palestinian National Authority, was created by the Oslo peace process's Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangement, signed on September 13, 1993 by the Government of Israel and by the "Palestinian Delegation" that included representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Since then, the PA has acted as a semi-autonomous institution nominally governing approximately 99 percent of Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Authority has an observer status in the United Nations. It operates a "police force" with up to 45,000 members (three times the number permitted by the Declaration of Principles and subsequent agreements), many of whom carry automatic weapons and use armored cars as if they were a militia or an army. The PA operates at least 14 different security services, including secret police such as the Preventive Security Service, and controls intimidating street gangs entrusted with the duty of enforcing its edicts by means of fear.

The PA's chief executive from its inception until his death in 2004 was Yasser Arafat, who also retained his title as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO. Arafat was elected "President" (or more precisely ra'is, Arabic for "head") of the Palestinian Authority on January 20, 1996, garnering 88.1 percent of the votes. According to PalestineFacts.org, “The date of the elections was more than 18 months later than planned, a delay used by … Arafat to consolidate his grip on the Palestinian populace and silence opposition. Any independent news sources were intimidated into silence, and opposing political organizations quietly disappeared. Arafat manipulated the election with rules to forbid anyone from running against him without his express approval, as reported by the UN election observer team."

Arafat controlled all PA media by way of the 1995 Palestinian Press Law, which made it a crime for any newspaper to publish articles that "may cause harm to national unity." In practice, this vague phrase meant that both newspaper print runs and entire publishing companies could be expropriated if they reported anything that displeased Arafat and the PA.

Economically, the Palestine Commercial Services Company is the economic arm of the Palestinian Authority. It owns stakes in many companies and it operates monopolies in industries where the PA prohibits competitors, including the production of cement, commercial sand, flour, oil, and cigarettes. PA operatives are also reportedly involved in a wide range of money-making criminal activities, from extortion and shakedowns of businesses to the counterfeiting of money and merchandise.

The Palestinian Authority collects a five percent "Palestine Liberation Fund Tax" on the incomes of all Palestinians worldwide, which reportedly brings in about $50 million each year.

Under the 1994 Paris Agreement, Israel agreed to transfer to the Palestinian Authority the tax receipts it collected on imported gasoline in PA territory, an amount in excess of $400 million and, under the Oslo agreement, other sales taxes worth about $250 million per year. Israel also transferred to the PA the pension funds accumulated by Palestinians who worked for the Israeli Civil Administration. For Gaza employees alone, this amounted to $160 million, $140 million of which was promptly spent by Arafat for other purposes.

Moreover, during Arafat's tenure the PA received up to $1 billion each year in aid donations from the United States, Europe and Arab states. Total annual foreign aid to the PA rivaled, and may have exceeded, the level of funding the United States provides to Israel. Accounting for what happened to this money, as well as to other Palestinian Authority revenues, is difficult. "I refused and I will never accept!" said Yasser Arafat of oversight conditions proposed for aid by the International Monetary Fund in July 1994. "I completely refuse any controls by anybody on Palestinian Autonomy, except the Palestinians themselves. We didn't finish military occupation to get economic occupation."

According to financial investigator Rachel Ehrenfeld, "Jawad Ghussein, until 1996 the Secretary General of the Palestinian National fund, told the Ha'aretz newspaper in August 2002 that Arafat 'took aid money and contributions [approximately $8 million each month] that were earmarked for the Palestinian people to his own account.'" Ghussein had added up $540 million that he knew had been diverted into Arafat's personal bank account.

A United Nations report suggests that Arafat also diverted a large proportion of the aid money received by the PA to his various militias. In Spring 2000, Israeli troops seized documents in Arafat's Ramallah headquarters showing Arafat's approval for a $20,000 payment to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, many of whose members also received paychecks from the PA as official employees of its security services. Further evidence of PA malfeasance came to light in February 2004, when it was reported that the European Union's anti-fraud OLAF office was studying documents indicating that Arafat and the PA had diverted tens of millions of dollars in EU funds to terrorist organizations. Marwan Barghouti, leader of Arafat's Fatah/Tanzim militia in the West Bank, reportedly continued to receive his $2,500-per-month salary from the Palestinian Authority even after he was arrested and indicted for the murder of 26 Israelis.

Since 1994, when almost all Palestinians living in Israel came under the autonomous and independent control of the PA, the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been crippled by the Authority’s despotic rule. By 2003, the West Bank’s GDP had shrunk to about one-tenth of what it had been in 1992 -- a result of the PA's misappropriation of more than $5.2 billion into the personal accounts of Arafat and his lieutenants and militias. The Second Intifada, which began in September 2000, also contributed to the sharp deterioration in Palestinians' living standards. The poverty rate nearly tripled, from 20 percent in 1999 to 55 percent in 2003. Once-prosperous commercial towns became economic basket cases.

As early as 2001, the Government of Israel had designated the PA as an "Entity Supporting Terrorism." In 2004, Papal Nuncio Msgr. Pietro Sambi described the Palestinian Authority Constitution as the "framework for a totalitarian Islamic terror state." In April of that year, Arafat told the German magazine Focus that he was prepared to share power with the terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a new leadership structure that would operate in parallel with the Palestinian Authority. Arafat had released many members of both groups from PA jails.

After Arafat’s death, he was succeeded as the leader of both the PA and Fatah by Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen.

In a January 2006 election, Hamas became the dominant force in the PA by winning 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, giving that party the right to form the next Cabinet under President Abbas. On March 29, 2006, Hamas formally took the reins of Palestinian government. The new 24-member Hamas Cabinet included 14 ministers who had previously served time in Israeli prisons.

Source: DiscoverTheNetworks

What is Fatah?

What is Fatah?

- Terrorist group founded by Yasser Arafat in early 1960s
- Dedicated to annihilating Israel

Fatah, or al-Fatah, was co-founded in about 1959 by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. The organization's name is a reverse acronym standing for Harakat Al-Tahrir Al-Watani Al-Filastini ("the Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine"). As a word, "Fatah" in Arabic means "conquest by means of jihad [Islamic holy war]." From its inception, Fatah's overriding objective, as expressed in its original Covenant, was to bring about the annihilation of Israel. (Notably, this Covenant explicitly disavowed any interest in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were then under the control of Jordan and Egypt, respectively. Only in 1968, after Israel had taken control of these regions following its victory in the Six Day War, was the Covenant amended to demand the establishment of a Palestinian State on the entire territory of the nation of Israel.)

With the backing of Syria, in 1965 Fatah began carrying out dozens of terrorist raids each year against Israeli civilian targets, launching these attacks from Jordan, Lebanon and Egyptian-occupied Gaza. By 1969, Fatah had grown into the largest constituency of Yasser Arafat's multiparty confederation, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and was under Arafat's direct control.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, Fatah provided training to numerous European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African rebel and terrorist groups. Fatah was supplied with weaponry during this period by the Soviet Union, the Communist states of eastern Europe, and Communist China.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 (as a means of combating Arab terrorist groups that were using the region as a launching pad for artillery attacks against northern Israeli towns), Fatah members based in southern Lebanon dispersed to several Middle Eastern countries, among them Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, and Iraq. From 1982 to 1993, Fatah's leadership was based in Tunisia.

Fatah officially endorsed the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the PLO. Thirteen years later, In a July 4, 2006 interview on Alam TV, Fatah operative Ziyad Abu'Ein revealed the reason for that endorsement: "The Oslo Accords were not what the Palestinian people dreamt of. The dream of the Palestinian people is the return, self-determination, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and the liberation of its land. However, there would have been no resistance in Palestine if not for Oslo. ... If not for Oslo, the weapons we got through Oslo, and if not for the "A" areas of the Palestinian Authority [where the PA was given full political control], if not for the training, the camps, the protection provided by Oslo, and if not for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners through Oslo -- this Palestinian resistance could not have carried out this great Palestinian Intifada, with which we confronted the Israeli occupation."

Today Fatah defines as its principal goal the achievement of the "complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military, and cultural existence." According to Fatah, this objective is not to be accomplished by peaceful means; nor does it allow for Israel's continued existence: "Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine. … [T]he Palestinian Arab People's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated." Candidly opposed to "any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine," Fatah has made its organizational emblem a grenade and crossed rifles, superimposed on a map of present-day Israel. Fatah's military arm, Tanzim, is funded by the Palestinian Authority and has played a leading role in Palestinian violence in recent years.

Fatah enumerates as the "Essential Principles" of its Constitution the following tenets, among others:

-Palestinian struggle is part and parcel of the worldwide struggle against Zionism, colonialism and international imperialism.

-Liberating Palestine is a national obligation which necessities the materialistic and human support of the Arab Nation.

- UN projects, accords and reso[lutions], or those of any individual which undermine the Palestinian people's right in their homeland, are illegal and rejected.

- The Zionist Movement is racial, colonial, and aggressive in ideology, goals, organization and method.

- The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.

- Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious, and human obligation.

Fatah currently has "Observer Party" status at the Socialist International.On February 15, 2007, Fatah scored a political victory when it was announced that after months of difficult negotiations and violent street fighting, the Hamas-led Palestinian government resigned in order to pave the way for a "unity government" that would include both Hamas and its rival Fatah.

Source: DiscoverTheNetwork

What is the Muslim World League?

-Islamic NGO based in Saudi Arabia that advances Wahabi extremism
-Organization’s Pakistan office employed al Qaeda operatives
-Oversaw Rabita Trust, a charity that knowingly funded terrorist groups
-Oversees the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, which teaches religious hatred to Islamic children
-Enjoys observer status in the United Nations

Founded in 1962 by Islamic representatives from 22 countries, the Muslim World League (MWL), also called Rabita, is an Islamic non-governmental organization based in Saudi Arabia and controlled and funded by the Saudi government. Its objectives are “to disseminate Islamic Dawah and expound the teachings of Islam,” and “to defend Islamic causes in a manner that safeguards the interests and aspirations of Muslims, solves their problems, refutes false allegations against Islam, and repels inimical trends and dogma which the enemies of Islam seek to exploit in order to destroy the unity of Muslims and to sow seeds of doubt in our Muslim brethren.” All MWL leaders are of Saudi descent, and the organization's current Secretary General is Dr. Abdullah Al-Turki.

MWL promotes Wahhabism, the extremist form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. In the 1980s, the League's Pakistan office was run by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood and brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden. Khalifa was the co-founder of the Benevolence International Foundation and he helped to finance Operation Bojinka, a foiled 1995 plot that would have simultaneously detonated bombs aboard eleven U.S.-bound airliners, blowing them up in mid-flight over the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.

In addition, two members of an al Qaeda sleeper cell based in Boston worked at MWL’s Pakistan office. One worker, Nabil al-Marabh, number 27 on the FBI's list of wanted terrorists, was arrested by federal agents in Detroit shortly after 9/11; it was reported that he “intended to martyr himself in an attack against the United States.” The other operative, Raed Hijazi, was apprehended and tried in Jordan on charges that he planned to blow up a hotel filled with Americans and Israelis on New Year’s Eve in 2000.

In his book The Two Faces of Islam, Stephen Schwartz reports: "In 2000, the Muslim World League (a provider of funds to Osama bin Laden) hosted 100 prominent American Islamic personalities on hajj [a pilgrimmage to Mecca]. They were accompanied by a delegation of 60 Latin American 'academics and specialists.' All expenses for the latter were paid by Prince Bandar, Saudi ambassador to the United States."

MWL at one time oversaw Rabita Trust, a now-defunct charity whose professed purpose was to give aid to Afghani refugees in Pakistan. The Trust came under investigation by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee based on evidence that it had knowingly funded terrorist groups.

Today MWL oversees the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), one of the vehicles through which the Saudi government finances Islamic extremism and international terrorism.

In January 2006, MWL called for United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to denounce a derisive cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that had recently appeared in Danish and Norwegian newspapers. A letter sent by MWL Secretary General Al-Turki to Annan noted that Muslims around the world were offended by the cartoon and that international laws “prohibited scorning religions and other hatred-provoking practices.”

MWL is an observer member of the Organization of Islamic Conferences, an inter-governmental coalition dedicated to “liberating Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa from Zionist occupation.” MWL also has “Category A” observer status in the United Nations, and consultative status in the UN Economic and Social Council. Moreover, MWL is a member of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The League is also a founding member of the International Supreme Council for Dawah and Relief, an Islamic recruiting center based in Cairo.

Source: Discover The Networks

Discover the Network: If Americans Knew

From Discover The Network:

A profile of the group anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, If Americans Knew, which charges Israel with war crimes and human rights abuses:

- Tax-exempt research institute focusing on alleged "pro-Israel bias" in the American media
- Charges Israel with war crimes and human rights abuses

If Americans Knew (IAK) describes itself as a "research and information-dissemination institute, with particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. foreign policy regarding the Middle East, and media coverage of this issue." The organization was founded in 2001 by freelance journalist Alison Weir to counter what she deemed a pro-Israel bias coloring U.S. media coverage of Mideast events.

The group's website contains a number of glaring inaccuracies. It states, for example: "When the inevitable (1948) war broke out, the outcome was never in doubt … The Zionist army consisted of over 90,000 European-trained soldiers and possessed modern weaponry, including up-to-date fighter and bomber airplanes. The Arab forces, very much a Third World army, consisted of approximately 30,000 ill-equipped poorly trained men." Actually the reverse is true. The Arab League -- representing five neighboring Arab states, several of which had fought alongside Hitler -- declared war on Israel on the day of its creation. Armed with modern weaponry and aiming to destroy the new Jewish state, those five Arab armies invaded Israel.

If Americans Knew also mischaracterizes the 1967 Six Day War as a conflict that erupted when "Israeli forces launched a highly successful, Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack on Egypt [and thereafter] occupied the additional 22 percent of Palestine that had eluded it in 1948 -- the West Bank and the Gaza Strip." In reality, Egyptian dictator Gamel Abdel Nasser, who had declared Israel's existence "an aggression," blockaded the Port of Eilat and moved two tank battalions and 150,000 troops right up to Israel's western border -- an unambiguous act of war. For three weeks Israel tried, to no avail, to negotiate for peace. On June 5, 1967, after receiving military intelligence that Egypt was within hours of launching an invasion via the Gaza Strip, Israel launched its defensive pre-emptive strike, an air attack that destroyed the air forces of Egypt and its allies Jordan and Syria while they were still on the ground.

On its website, If Americans Knew provides statistics indicating that during the current Intifada (which was launched in September 2000), Palestinian civilians have suffered significantly greater numbers of deaths and injuries than have their Israeli counterparts. But IAK entirely omits the context in which those deaths have occurred. It does not mention the waves of Palestinian suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks deliberately targeting Israeli civilians; nor does it acknowledge that Israel's military efforts have been aimed entirely at terrorist operations, many of which use private homes and civilian areas as bases for their operations, thereby placing civilians in harm's way.

Calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, If Americans Knew states, "Empowered by American money, Israel is occupying land that doesn't belong to it, is breaking numerous international laws and conventions of which it is a signatory, and is promulgating policies of brutality that have been condemned by the United Nations, the European Union, the National Council of Churches, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and numerous other international bodies." U.S. support for Israel, says IAK, "interferes with: American relations with the oil-producing nations, with whom we previously had friendly ties; with Muslim consumers … and removes much-needed money from domestic American requirements — tax revenues that could be addressed to domestic needs are instead sent abroad to prop up a system of discrimination that is antithetical to American principles of equality and democracy."

In its "Synopsis of the Current Situation," IAK charges: "Israeli forces regularly confiscate private [Palestinian] land; imprison individuals without process - including children - and physically abuse them under incarceration; demolish family homes; bulldoze orchards and crops; place entire towns under curfew; destroy shops and businesses; shoot, maim, and kill civilians - and Palestinians are without power to stop any of it."

Paul Findley, a former eleven-term Illinois Congressman, is a board member of If Americans Knew. Findley has stated that President Bush "overreacted" to the September 11th terrorist attacks, and claims that Americans "have been misled by the American media, which is controlled by the Jewish lobby." These views have been endorsed by such institutions as Harvard Law School, Stanford University, Columbia University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, and the National Press Club -- all of which have made use of written materials and guest speakers provided by If Americans Knew.

If Americans Knew also produces annual "Media Report Cards" that evaluate major media outlets across the United States on their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For more examples of Weir's seething anti-Israel bias and bigotry, see this, from Northwestern University's Independent Newspaper.

Good grief, somebody get George Soros a muzzle

From CNSNews.com:

Reports of plans to set up a new, left-wingJewish group seeking to lobby the U.S. government on Mideast policy have worried some in Israel, who fear it could undermine the existing pro-Israel lobby in Washington and harm Israeli security. The reports indicated that among those considering funding the initiative is billionaire George Soros, a harsh critic of Israeli policies.

Ron Kuby, Daniel Barenboim, Deborah Fink, Adam Shapiro, George Soros, Stanley Cohen, "Rabbi" David Weiss, are just a sampling of Jews who are self-loathers when it comes to their acknowledgement and pride in being Jewish. Just Google each of them and read what each says about Israel and Jews, and see for yourselves. Listen to Ron Kuby on streaming audio on the internet at www.wabcradio.com or read how David Weiss believes that Israel is on stolen "palestinian" land.

These Jews and Jews like them do not want to be in a position to have to assert their rights and take their proper place in the Jewish family of nations; what is important to them is to be accepted, wanted, liked - and to achieve recognition and success in whatever part of the world they find themselves, no matter who they have to stab in the back in order to achieve their goals.

Manfred Gerstenfeld at The Jewish Center for Public Affairs writes:

Anti-Semitic attacks on Israel by Israelis and Jews are frequently indistinguishable from those by non-Jews. Among the specific aspects in the anti-Israel writings of some Jews are the use of their family's Holocaust experiences, their references to being Jewish, or an association of some kind with Israel. Assaults on Israel and Jews by non-Jews often use statements from Israeli or diaspora Jewish defamers as a legitimization. In order to fight verbal attacks against Israel by Israelis and diaspora Jews more effectively, a much better understanding of their background, motives, and methods is required.

A biography of George Soros on Discover the Network begins with these facts:

George Soros is a Hungarian immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1956, at age 26, and made his fortune as an international financier. His father, who was born into an Orthodox Jewish family, changed the family name from Schwartz to Soros in 1936 - a move that enabled the Soros family to conceal its Jewish identity and thus survive the Nazi Holocaust. In 1947 the family emigrated from Hungary to England, where an event occurred that greatly influenced the development of George's personality and worldview. He broke his leg and was cared for by England's National Health Service, free of charge, while the Jewish relief agencies of that era did not offer him the help he believed they owed him. In that convergence of events was born Soros' favorable opinion of Democratic Socialism, and his negative view of many Jewish groups.

It is pathetic that a Jewish relief agency would take the brunt of Soros' dysfunctional transferance, rather than the perpetrators of Nazism who tormented his family, but - hey, that's a symptom of his dysfunction.

George Soros funded MoveOn.org that created the ad which directly compared George W. Bush to Hitler and this nation’s policies with the Third Reich. George Soros loves to fund leftwing causes and groups. He supported the now convicted lawyer, Lynn Stewart, who aided Muslim terrorists. George Soros funds groups who oppose George Bush. He created the Open Society Policy Center, an organization that would obstruct U.S. law enforcement from prosecuting the "War on Extremism" and that would also direct illegal aliens into America's medical systems.

Somebody needs to give this leftwing rat a muzzle.

To learn more about George Soros, read David Horowitz and Richard Poe book, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, or any of the following dozen articles:

The Cult of Soros,

George Soros,

The PBS Foundation (pdf),

Obama Meets With Soros in New York,

George Soros's Democracy Alliance,

George Soros: A Bridge to Radicalism (pdf),

George Soros: Trading in Fallacies,

George Soros - The Left's One-Man Message Machine (pdf),

Soros Slams Terror 'War,' Compares White House to Nazis

Soros Goes after America's Judges

Securing a Safer & More Stable World

The Shadow Party

Blueprint for Democrats: Deceive and Conquer

The Shadow Party Defeats Lieberman

A New Alliance Of Democrats Spreads Funding

Soros Funded Stewart Defense

Soros: Abu Ghraib = September 11

Investigate George Soros

George Soros' Political Philanthropy

Christian-Hating Left Hails Soros as Leader

George Soros Betrays the Balkans

Soros and Schiavo

and

In Rare Jewish Appearance, George Soros Says Jews and Israel Cause Anti-Semitism

The Arab Lobby's scope and influence

The Arab Lobby's scope and influence, another excellent resource from Discover The Network:

Arab Lobby (Groups)

The Arab lobby consists of those groups and individuals that directly and indirectly seek to influence American policy to support Arab interests both in the U.S. and abroad. While focusing on Arab concerns, by no means is this lobby composed exclusively of Arabs. The lobby is defined by its ideology, not the ethnicity of its active constituents. That ideology tends to be pro-Arab on the one hand, and anti-Israel on the other. The Arab lobby in America generally seeks to promote its agendas by characterizing them as beneficial to U.S. national interests; conversely, it depicts pro-Israel policies as harmful to those interests.

The roots of the Arab lobby in America can be traced back to 1951, when King Saud of Saudi Arabia asked U.S. diplomats to finance a pro-Arab lobby to serve as a counterweight to the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (later renamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC).

While the pace of the Arab lobby's growth was initially slow, there were nonetheless signs of increased assertiveness. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, for example, the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) set up a fund to present the Arab perspective on the conflict. In May 1970, ARAMCO representatives warned Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco that American military sales to Israel would harm U.S.-Arab relations and jeopardize American oil supplies.

Driven by oil revenues, the Arab lobby's leverage in affecting American policy was demonstrated in early 1973 when Mobil published a pro-Arab advertorial in The New York Times. In July of that year, the chairman of Standard Oil of California (now called Chevron) distributed a letter asking the company's 40,000 employees and 262,000 stockholders to pressure their elected representatives to support "the aspirations of the Arab people." In a similar spirit, the chairman of Texaco urged the U.S. to reassess its Middle East policy.

When another Arab-Israeli war broke out in October 1973, the chairmen of the ARAMCO partners issued a memorandum warning the White House against increasing its military aid to Israel. Shortly thereafter, the OPEC oil embargo (enacted in retribution for Western support of Israel) ushered in an era where the Arab lobby became much more prominent and visible than ever before. "The day of the Arab-American is here," declared National Association of Arab Americans founder Richard Shadyac. "The reason is oil." Prior to October 1973 the price of oil had stood at $2.60 per barrel; within three months the price quadrupled to about $12 per barrel. Since then, it has risen to more than $60 -- for a commodity whose production costs are, at present, only $1.50 per barrel.

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter noted, in his diary, that the Arab lobby had pressured him mightily while he was involved in the peace negotiations between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. "They [Arab Americans] have given all the staff, Brzezinski, Warren Christopher, and others, a hard time," wrote Carter.

Among the more notable individual members of the Arab lobby in recent decades was the late Clark Clifford (died October 1998), who The New York Times described as a key adviser to four U.S. presidents, and as an influential paid lobbyist for Arab sources. In his memoir, Counsel to the President, Clifford wrote that he advised his clients: "What we can offer you is an extensive knowledge of how to deal with the government on your problems. We will be able to give you advice on how best to present your position to the appropriate departments and agencies of the government."

Another key figure in the Arab lobby has been Fred Dutton, former Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy. On July 19, 2005, The Hill, a newspaper about the U.S. Congress, reported that Dutton (a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia) had worked assiduously to persuade Congress to approve two major arms sales to that nation.

Axis Information and Analysis (AIA), which specializes in information about Asia and Eastern Europe, rated Prince Bandar Bin Sultan -- a Saudi ambassador to the U.S. from 1983 to 2005 -- as the single most influential foreigner in America. With links to high-ranking officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and CIA, Sultan was a key participant in many clandestine negotiations pertaining to U.S. interests in the Middle East. According to AIA, in 1990-91 it was Sultan who pushed President George H.W. Bush to launch the military campaign to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Moreover, his father -- Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz al Saud -- was a leading figure in the ruling Saudi dynasty. As such, he helped determine the extent of his nation's military cooperation with the U.S. in the Persian Gulf.

During a January 1998 U.S. Congressional Delegation briefing in Damascus, Syria, Congressman Nick J. Rahall (D - West Virginia), who is of Lebanese descent, said: "Our [Arab] lobby in the United States is growing in its influence and its participation in political campaigns across the spectrum. Our trip [was] sponsored by the Arab American Institute -- one of those most effective lobbying groups of the Arab groups in Washington -- and a relatively new group, the National Arab American Businessmen's Association. [Through] these groups … we are increasing our influence, and we are increasing our participation."

Some members of the Arab lobby in America are heavily financed with money from the Arab world. Before his death in 2005, for instance, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd made several large donations to the Center, including a 1993 gift of $7.6 million. As of 2005, the king's nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, had given at least $5 million to the Carter Center. In 2001 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) gave the Center $500,000. The previous year, ten of Osama bin Laden's brothers had jointly pledged $1 million, as did Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman in 1998. The Saudi Fund for Development has been another major contributor, as has the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. And Morocco's Prince Moulay Hicham Ben Abdallah has collaborated with the Carter Center on various initiatives.

It should be noted that the Arab lobby does not, by any means, speak for all Arab Americans. According to the Arab American Institute, there are approximately 3.5 million people of Arab heritage in the U.S. today, about half of them concentrated in five states -- California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. Nearly 40 percent of these Arab Americans are Lebanese, mostly Christians, who tend to be unsympathetic to the Arab lobby's anti-Israel perspectives. By contrast, only about 70,000Palestinian Americans reside in the United States -- a small percentage of the Arab American population. But because of their high level of political activism, their views and concerns have received hugely disproportionate attention from political leaders and the media alike. Indeed, the Palestinian cause heads the Arab lobby's list of concerns.

Because Arab Americans do not constitute a numerically large voting bloc, the Arab lobby has focused considerable effort on cultivating sympathies among the general public as a means of influencing U.S. policy. To further maximize its influence, the Arab lobby has also formed alliances with many anti-war, civil rights, civil liberties, and social justice organizations of the political left. The aforementioned Carter Center is but one of these.

For the reader interested in learning about the Arab lobby, a couple of definitions are in order. A lobby, strictly defined, is a group of persons -- be they volunteers or paid professionals -- engaged in an effort to persuade public officials to pass laws or implement programs that promote the lobbyists' goals. Lobbyists pursue their objectives in different ways: some (direct lobbyists) privately cajole legislators via telephone calls or face-to-face visits; others (grassroots lobbyists) urge the general public to contact their legislators; still others organize or participate in public actions such as mass demonstrations; and some employ a combination of all these approaches. In cases where a particular issue is to be decided through a ballot initiative or referendum, appeals to the public are technically classified as direct lobbying, because in those instances the public acts as the legislature.

Lobbyists are not necessarily members of groups or organized campaigns; they can also be independent individuals who feel strongly about the passage or the defeat of certain pieces of proposed legislation. Some are on the payroll of foreign governments.

There is technically a distinction between advocacy and lobbying. The former aims to influence some aspect of society, be it individual behavior (e.g., campaigns to discourage smoking or to encourage vegetarianism), employment policy (e.g., affirmative action in hirings and promotions), or legislation passed by elected government officials. Lobbying refers specifically to those advocacy efforts that attempt to convince legislators and public policy-makers to vote in a certain way.

This section of Discover The Networks profiles not only those pro-Arab organizations (both in the U.S. and abroad) that lobby to affect specific legislation, but also groups that engage in what might be defined, more precisely, as advocacy on behalf of Arab interests anywhere in the world. Through their press releases, official statements, publications, and direct actions, these organizations seek to shape public opinion as a means of influencing voter decisions and thereby indirectly affecting legislation passed by elected representatives.

According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, "Assessing the influence and breadth of the Arab/Muslim lobby would be a difficult thing to do, since the metrics for assessing such things are not easily available. The lobby's real strength is felt on the local level, where its members receive community awards, participate in human relations councils, change the local educational curricula, persuade school districts to give them holidays off, and get local police and statewide officials to attend their events. Nationally, their influence is felt at the State Department in terms of their being invited to briefings, sponsored on road trips abroad, etc. The one recent time where they actually exacted an influence on President Bush was in persuading him to drop the use of the term 'Islamo-fascism.'"

While the Arab lobby has a few friends in Congress today, its effect is felt mainly as a result of its joint efforts with organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union to dilute anti-terror measures. The lobby, says Emerson, "is mainly in the process of building up a grassroots network around the United States, with the anticipation that, abetted by growing demographics, it will be in a position of political influence in the future."

Sources: Discover The Network, Arab Lobby (Groups), The Arab Lobby's scope and influence

What is the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund?

It is an anti-Israel Islamic children's charity.

With branches and volunteers in more than ten countries, the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund (PCWF) describes itself as "an enterprise that was established by a group of individuals whose goals are to improve the living standards of the children of Palestine in the refugee camps inside Palestine." The organization's mission is "to provide the children of the refugee camps with better educational opportunities, health facilities and a bright future without violence, hatred and discrimination." PCWF professes to be "not connected with any militant or political association of any kind, … a non-political, non-religious enterprise whose aspirations are purely humanitarian."

PCWF was founded by Bob Rossi, who along with Margaret Stephens (a.k.a. Margaret Phillips), published the Northwest Ethnic Voice, a now-inactive Oregonian newsletter that endorsed a "Call to Action" by the anti-war group International ANSWER, which is closely tied to Ramsey Clark's International Action Center and the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.

In January 2002, PCWF initiated a "Book Campaign" to collect donated educational books, videos, cassettes, and software for Palestinian students of all ages, particularly in the fields of mathematics, natural science, and social studies.

Through PCWF's "Sponsor a Child" program, sponsors send $10 per month to help pay for a given Palestinian child's food, education, clothing, and medical services. This program is coordinated by the Holy Land Trust, a Christian nonprofit organization through which all money received on behalf of the children is processed. According to World Net Daily Editor Joseph Farrah, Holy Land Trust not only promotes such anti-Semitic themes as "the standard lines about Jews robbing the homes of Arabs, stealing their land and brutalizing them in a repressive state of military occupation," but "even rationalize[s] terrorism."

PCWF also oversees a Union of Health Workers Committees project, which "provides medical services to needy children in Gaza and all other Palestinian cities." This program recruits "experienced medical personnel to go to Gaza and other Palestinian cities to work and train the existing staff and provide professional and moral support" on a volunteer basis for periods ranging from two weeks to six months. It also solicits donations of medical equipment and supplies, ambulances, medicine, and any material relevant to the operation of emergency rooms and hospitals.

Another PCWF program sells embroidery and clothing fashioned by Palestinian women in order to raise funds for the necessities of life in Gaza and the West Bank. Among the items that PCWF has sold was a T-shirt inscribed with a poem in praise of suicide bombers, which read as follows:

My Homeland
The youth will not get tired
Their goal is your independence
Or they die
We will drink from death
But will not be slaves to our enemies
We do not want
An eternal humiliation
Nor a miserable life
We do not want
But we will return
Our great glory
My homeland
My homeland

PCWF Director Riad Hamad, who the FBI has investigated on a number of occasions, has called it a misconception to assume "that most of us Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist."

To help finance the education of deserving Palestinian children, PCWF has established a "Rachel Corrie Scholarship Fund" in honor of its namesake, a young International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was accidentally killed in April 2003 while attempting to interfere with Israeli anti-terror activities.

The PCWF website provides links to the websites of such anti-Israel organizations as Holy Land Trust, Betselem, SUSTAIN, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Media Watch, Al-Awda Chicago, Northwest Ethnic Voice, and Women in Black.

PCWF praises the Palestinian-American rapper Iron Shiek as "one of the most brilliant new artist/activist[s] to take his message to the microphone." "His bold and insightful rap-style challenges traditional views on Palestinians," says PCWF. Maintaining that Israel's influence in the Palestinian territories is far more objectionable than are suicide bombings, Iron Sheik accuses Israel of practicing "apartheid," and graphically describes his desire to physically assault former Israeili Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. PCWF ordered 100 of Iron Shiek's CDs for a recent fundraiser.

In 2002, PCWF sponsored a drawing contest for children between the ages of six and fourteen, entitled, Why I love Palestine. The clear objective of the contest was to support the destruction of the Jewish state. Almost without exception, the judges rewarded entries that featured fierce and violent hatred of Israel. The overall winner was Bushra Ahed, whose picture depicted a bonfire, in the shape of a map of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, consuming the Star of David with the word "Israel" written inside the flag. Another entry, that of Jihad Alajarmeh, depicted a Palestinian flag dropping flames on an Israeli flag and immolating Israelis standing next to it.

PCWF identifies as its "Affiliated Groups" such anti-Israel organizations as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Union of Health Workers Committees in Gaza -- the latter of which accuses Israel of maliciously destroying Palestinian ambulances without cause (making no mention of the frequent exploitation of ambulances to transport Palestinian terrorists into Israel).

Source: Discover The Networks

What is the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY)?

From Discover The Network:

The World Assembly of Muslim Youth, founded by bin Laden's nephew, this youth group seeks "to teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews".

• Saudi-based Islamic organization with chapters in 55 countries
• Founded by Osama bin Laden’s nephew
• Holds conferences and distributes literature promoting jihad and anti-Semitism
• Raises funds for Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas
• Has been linked to both the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing

A non-governmental youth and student group affiliated with the United Nations, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) defines itself as "an independent organization and Islamic forum that supports the work of Muslim organizations and needy communities the world over." While WAMY's international headquarters are located in Saudi Arabia, the organization also maintains satellite chapters in 55 additional countries and is affiliated with some 500 other Muslim youth groups on five continents.

Specifically, WAMY aims to achieve the following: “Preserve the identity of Muslim youth and help overcome the problems they face in modern society”; “educate and train them in order for them to become active and positive citizens in their countries”; “introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its purest form as a comprehensive system and way of life”; “establish a relationship of dialogue, understanding and appreciation between Muslim organizations and the western societies”; and “provide assistance to Muslim and non-Muslim organizations to fulfil [sic] these goals through training and cooperation.”

Toward these ends, WAMY holds regional and local Muslim youth and student camps; helps to establish Muslim scout groups; organizes conferences, symposia, workshops and research circles “to address youth and students issues”; publishes books, brochures, reports, and exhibition material “that best introduce Islam to non-Muslims in its holistic vision”; organizes exchange visits, Hajj and Umra trips; and provides training and support to Muslim youth organizations around the world. These activities have earned WAMY the designation of “humanitarian and relief-works organization” from the United Nations.

The World Assembly of Muslim Youth is also one of the vehicles through which the Saudi Wahhabi government funds Islamic extremism and international terrorism. WAMY was co-founded by Kamal Helwabi, a former senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and by Osama bin Laden's nephew, Abdullah bin Laden (who served as WAMY's President through 2002 and is now its Treasurer). WAMY raises funds for the terrorist group Hamas, and in October 2002 made Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al an “honored guest” at a Muslim youth and globalization conference held in Riyadh. WAMY also helps finance the Kashmir insurgency against India, characterizing it as a "liberation" movement.

A Saudi opposition group reports that WAMY disseminates literature encouraging “religious hatred and violence against Jews, Christians, Shi’a and Ashaari Muslims.” As WAMY puts it, this literature is expressly designed "to teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors, and teach them that our youngsters will liberate Palestine and Jerusalem when they go back to Islam and make jihad for the sake of Allah." Some WAMY publications have included interviews with Saudi clerics such as Ayed al-Qarni, an adviser to Saudi Prince Fahd. In one such interview, al-Qarni stated that he prays for America's destruction daily, that he encourages students to go to Iraq to fight against U.S. forces, and that those who cannot go should at least contribute money to the cause. Another WAMY publication features a list of "martyrs" who have attacked and murdered Israelis; one of the individuals on this list is a man who drove 14 bus passengers off a cliff as a member of the group "Heroes from Palestine."

Investigations of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center uncovered, in an apartment of one of the terrorists, an envelope marked "WAMY" along with a training manual on how to set up terrorist cells in other countries and stage attacks.WAMY came under FBI scrutiny after 9/11, when it was determined that a radiologist, Dr. Al Badr al-Hamzi, whose credit card was found among the possessions of the hijackers, was receiving funding from the organization. The Senate Finance Committee requested that the IRS examine WAMY's U.S. branch for links to terrorism. WAMY was also named in a trillion-dollar lawsuit by the families of the victims of 9/11.

In May 2004, federal law-enforcement, immigration, and anti-terrorism agents raided WAMY's Alexandria, Virginia office, seizing all of its computers and hard drives, and arresting a volunteer board member on immigration charges. WAMY had been operating out of the office of Jamal Barzinji, who was involved with a total of seven organizations that were raided by federal agents in connection with terrorist financing. After the raid on its office, WAMY likened itself to the YMCA, saying that it was interested only in "youth education, youth development, and serving the Muslim community."

Though WAMY's activities in the United States were derailed, its operations elsewhere in the world continue unabated -- in many instances with the help of other, likeminded organizations. For example, WAMY's efforts in Somalia are supported by the "Christian charities" Novib and Oxfam, which are based in the United Kingdom and Holland, respectively.

One of WAMY's closest affiliates is the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which aims to spread fundamentalist Islam and implement Shari'a (Islamic Law) worldwide. Another organization with intimate ties to WAMY is the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada. And four directors of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) -- including Anwar Ibrahim, a terror-supporting Malaysian Islamist who co-founded IIIT -- are trustees of WAMY.

In December 1999, WAMY announced at a press conference in Saudi Arabia that it "was extending both moral and financial support to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) "to help it construct its $3.5 million headquarters in Washington, D.C." WAMY also agreed to "introduce CAIR to Saudi philanthropists and recommend their financial support for the headquarters project." In 2002, CAIR and WAMY jointly announced, again from Saudi Arabia, their collaboration on a $1 million public-relations campaign.

Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz calls WAMY “the Saudi equivalent of the Hitler Youth: a hate-mongering, ultra-extremist group preaching, among other niceties, that Shia Muslims are not real Muslims, but products of a Jewish conspiracy.” The website Militant Islam Monitor characterizes the organization as “part of the Saudi Wahhabist 'Jihad through conversion' drive.”

Charges sought against Rumsfeld over prison abuse

Folks, let me tell you a little bit about the organization The Center for Constitutional Rights, the extremist group which filed the war crimes lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld in Germany. (Sources include Mark Levin, constitutional lawyer and top-rated radio talk show host)

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) was founded by Communists and anti-U.S. radicals. The CCR was founded in 1966 by attorneys Morton Stavis, William Kunstler, Ben Smith and Arthur Kinoy--all members of either the Communist Party or the radical left. Before forming CCR, Kunstler and Kinoy drafted and circulated a detailed memo calling for the creation of a 'new Communist Party.' That never materialized. Instead, Kunstler and the other lawyers, some of whom were also members of the National Lawyers Guild, a communist front group, focused their energies on building the CCR and formulating and fulfilling its main mission of clearing legal roadblocks for leftist revolutionaries and enemies of the U.S. and capitalist economic system.

Time Magazine mentions this lawsuit in passing to give the false impression that this is an official action by the German government. Don't be misled. This is nothing more than a piece of crap paper filed by a piece of crap organization.

CCR is an organization that has worked 24 x 7 to undermine the United States. This group has represented every inconceivable terrorist and enemy in this country. CCR needs to be exposed because Time Magazine won't tell you, and the New York Times won't tell you, but this group, CCR, represents prisoners at Guantanamo Bay: aka terrorists. That's right, terrorists who want to decapitate you and mutilate your daughter's genitals.

Rachel Meeropol is an attorney for CCR. Rachel Meeropol is the granddaughter of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who were convicted and executed for providing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. Rachel Meeropol is one of CCR's trial lawyers. CCR has represented members of the radical anti-US United Front which financed itself by robbing banks from Connecticut to Virginia. Its members, later known as the Ohio 7, were convicted with the involvement of numerous bombings and the murder of a NJ state trooper. Members of the Marxist/Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have been clients of this group as well as several convicted spies, including Clatyon Lonetree who sold US documents to the Soviets and Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber, among others.

Stanley Cohen. a Jew apostate lawyer affiliated with CCR has defended the blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzuk, and other Muslim terrorists. CCR has been a strong supporter of radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who in February 2005 was convicted on charges that she had illegally "facilitated and concealed communications" between her client, the incarcerated "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman, and members of his Egyptian terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, which has ties to al Qaeda.

In March 2005, CCR joined with the parents of anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie (the International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was accidentally crushed to death while trying to obstruct the path of a bulldozer that was engaged in anti-terror operations by Israeli Defense Force soldiers in Gaza) in filing a federal lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc., the Illinois-based manufacturer of the bulldozers used for such purposes by the IDF. Arguing that Caterpillar had violated international and state laws by providing the IDF with this machinery, CCR sued the company, marking the first time that American citizens had filed suit against a U.S. corporation for alleged misdeeds in a foreign country.

CCR only defends clients whose political views it supports, among the more notable of whom was Tom Hayden. Other CCR clients have included members of the Black Liberation Movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, Women's Strike for Peace, the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, the Chicago Seven, and the Catonsville Nine. The organization has also taken up the cause of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian rights activist who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents in 1975, a crime for which he is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

This is the group trying to bring a suit against Donald Rumsfeld and Time Magazine tells you nothing about it. According to CCR, America lacks the fundamental right to defend itself. Do you see now why the lawsuit is a piece of crap?

Now you know why blogs like Smooth Stone are critical to disseminating the truth about the media and the truth about Islam's superobjective to colonize the global community under a sharia and jihadist umbrella. Folks, it's your head or theirs. Make a choice, before it's too late.

What is the American Muslim Council?

Via DiscoverTheNetworks:

Established in 1990 as a charity designed to protect the political and civil rights of Muslims in the United States, the American Muslim Council (AMC) developed into one of the most prominent Islamic organizations of recent times. Its importance has declined, however, since its founder and former Chairman Abdurahman Alamoudi was imprisoned in October 2003 on terrorism-related charges. Alamoudi was a supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) founder Musa Abu Marzook, and Islamic Group leader Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Alamoudi also conducted business with Libya's "World Islamic Call Society," a sponsor of terrorism.

AMC's ties to Islamic terror are not limited to Alamoudi. In December 2000, the organization's Dallas chapter presented an award to IAP official Ghassan Dahduli, who would be deported eleven months later because of his connections to al Qaeda and Hamas.

In January 2002, AMC's then-Executive Director Eric Vickers publicly defended University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, whose involvement with the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad had recently been uncovered. In June 2002, Vickers was asked on Fox News and MSNBC to denounce Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda by name. He refused, asserting instead that al Qaeda was "involved in a resistance movement" against outside aggressors. Vickers has since been replaced as AMC Executive Director by M. Ali Khan. The organization's current President is Raied N. Abdullah, and its Vice President is Nedzib Sacrebey.

In March 2002, federal authorities raided the Virginia house and business of AMC Board member Jamal Barzinji in an anti-terrorism investigation. Moreover, according to a U.S. prosecutor, AMC Advisory Board member Soliman Biheiri served as "the Muslim Brotherhood's financial toehold" in the United States.

In November 2002, AMC publicly urged American Muslims to give money to Islamic relief organizations to aid refugees who had fled their homes in response to America's post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. Included in AMC's list of recommended charities was the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), whose assets had recently been seized by the FBI and the Treasury Department because of its activities as a fundraising front for Hamas. AMC, which lauded HLF for its "strong global vision," called Bush's action against the charity "particularly disturbing … unjust and counterproductive." AMC also exhorted Muslims to send money to the Global Relief Foundation, another charity that was shut down by the U.S. government for having "provided assistance to Usama Bin Ladin, the al Qaeda Network, and other known terrorist groups."

In February 2003, AMC formed a coalition with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the American Muslim Alliance, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council to repeal and amend the Patriot Act -- alleging that it violated the civil liberties of Americans. AMC also endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting vital freedoms, national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath of 9/11, AMC's website linked to a document titled "Know Your Rights," which advised: "Don't Talk to the FBI."

AMC is a member organization of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), established in 1997 by Sami Al-Arian to litigate against U.S. counter-terrorism laws, to provide legal counsel to terrorist suspects, and to help overturn terrorist convictions. Fellow NCPPF members include the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the National Lawyers Guild.

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown), a one-time President of AMC's Executive Board, has been listed twice on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list. Today he is in prison, serving a life sentence without parole for murdering a policeman.

AMC created the National Islamic Prison Foundation, which has contributed to the proselytizing by radical Wahhabist Imams in U.S. prisons. AMC is a longtime supporter of Sudan's National Islamic Front (NIF) government, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. In 1992, AMC hosted the NIF leader during his visit to the United States.

The American Muslim Council's national headquarters are located in Chicago. The organization also maintains branch offices in California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

North Korea threatens New York, Washington

A high-ranking North Korean official who is called the unofficial spokesman for the mentally ill dwarf with the hairpiece, Kim Jong-il, issued a not-so-veiled threat to the United States in an interview with South Korean radio on Thursday, October 12.

"Everything will be settled in a week," said Kim Myong-chol on KBS Radio. "That is, whether we, Korean people, will remain as we are now, or lose, or New York will lose, or Washington, D.C., will lose, it will all be settled once and for all."

What did your children learn at school today?

Folks, I just don't understand the ban on Christianity in public schools, yet Islam has free rein. Clearly, cowardice has run amuck in our liberal school systems. Can you say no to a Muslim? Sure you can, but expect to get your head literally handed back to you. From WND:

Another school has been "teaching" Islam by having students study and learn Muslim prayers and dress as Muslims, and a lawyer who argued a previous dispute over this issue to the U.S. Supreme Court said such methodologies wouldn't "last 10 seconds" if it were Christianity being taught.

"Would it have been 'just cultural education' if students were in simulated baptisms, wearing a crucifix, having taken the name of St. John and with praise banners saying 'Praise be to Jesus Christ' on classroom walls?" asked Edward White III, of the Thomas More Law Center.

His comments came after a new protest arose in Nyssa, Ore., where one parent raised objections when the Islamic teachings came to light. The district there, according to Supt. Don Grotting, is teaching a chapter in a history textbook "Journey Across Time" that talks about "how civilization has developed and some of the particular aspects of Islam."
"We teach out of the book, and there are some supplemental class activities," he told WND. "The kids do some skits, they could bring a food from the region, you could build a prop that would have depicted (something) maybe during that time period.

"If you wanted to you could dress up (as a Muslim) for extra credit," he said.

He said students also learned about the climate of the Middle East, the food and everyday activities of Islam, and the geography and the lay of the land.

Still another assignment was to learn the "five pillars" of Islam, study Ramadan and listen to guest speakers including an American Muslim who arrived dressed in her religious costume to talk to the kids about her Quran.

Why is it okay to teach Islam in public schools? The Establishment Clause says you cannot teach religion in schools but I guess it's alright to do so as long as it's Islam.