Jerusalem Viewpoints from JCPA

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Greetings from Jerusalem,

We just published two new and very insightful Jerusalem Viewpoints that I think you'll find of interest:

"The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to Al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?" by Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi

"The Palestinian Authority and Jewish Holy Sites in the West Bank: Rachel's Tomb as a Test Case" by Nadav Shragai

CAIR Identified by the FBI as part of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee

h/t Counterterrorism Blog, via Discover The Networks:

In testimony Tuesday, FBI Agent Lara Burns reported before the jury in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, right alongside HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). Agent Burns further testified that CAIR received money from HLF - a claim that Nihad Awad blatantly denied in a congressional testimony in September of 2003.

Burns also said that both Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad, CAIR co-founders who today serve as CAIR’s chairman emeritus and executive director, respectively, were also listed as individual members the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee in America.

Awad and Ahmed are further connected to the Palestine Committee based on their positions as president and public relations director of the IAP, a Hamas front group that was responsible for the dissemination of propaganda, and has since been closed down as a result of a multi-million dollar civil judgment in a trial involving the murder of an American teenager by HAMAS terrorists.

CAIR, which touts itself as America’s premier Muslim civil rights organization, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial. Burns’ testimony so far has placed both Ahmed and Awad at a 1993 Philadelphia meeting where the HAMAS members and supporters discussed a strategy to kill the Oslo Peace Accords, which threatened to marginalize HAMAS. The group also discussed ways to improve HAMAS fundraising in America.

Government testimony regarding the role of CAIR reflects the prosecution’s attempt to prove that the HAMAS network in America was established through the Palestine Committee, or what the indictment called “a sub-group of active Muslim Brotherhood members of Palestinian origin.” The leader of this Committee was Musa Abu Marzook, a Specially Designated Terrorist since 1995, and Hamas’ current Deputy Political Bureau Chief. Through this committee, a number of organizations were established to promote HAMAS politically and financially, including HLF, IAP and UASR.

What is the Palestine Committee

In 1988, the head of the Palestine Section (a.k.a. the Palestine Body) of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant came to America, where he met with fellow Muslim Brothers and established the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. This is revealed in a 1991 letter seized from the home of unindicted co-conspirator Ismail Elbarasse.

An October 1992 internal memo (also seized from Elbarrasse’s home) explains: Palestine is the one for which Muslim Brotherhood prepared armies – made up from the children of Islam in the Arab and Islamic nations to liberate its land from the abomination and the defilement of the children of the Jews and they watered its pure soil with their honorable blood which sprouted into a jihad that is continuing until the Day of Resurrection and provided a zeal without relenting making the slogan of its children “it is a Jihad for victory or martyrdom."

The Palestine Section of this memo explains the founding of the Section and notes that Palestine Committees were being established all over the world:

At the end of the seventies, the Shamm [Levant] Countries Movement opened a new section which was called “The Palestine Section” to oversee the affairs of the Ikhwan inside the Occupied Territories. It was considered the liaison between the followers of the Movement inside and outside.

In the beginning of the eighties, the Islamic action for Palestine experienced distinguished leaps. At the inside level, groups and apparatuses were formed to confront the Zionist enemy and they carried different names then such as “The Palestinian Mujahedeen” and other names. At the outside level, a number of associations, Islamic youths and students unions were formed to ally [sic] the masses in order to render the Palestinian cause victorious.

The memo calls on the Palestine Committees, to work to “increase the financial and the moral support for Hamas" to "fight surrendering solutions," and to publicize and focus on “the savagery of the Jews.”

The amended bylaws attached to the 1991 letter explains that the Palestine Committee in America will be composed of the heads of the following organizations and committees:

1) Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP)
2) Occupied Land Fund (OLF, which later changed its name to the HLF)
3) United Association for Studies and Research (UASR)
4) Rehabilitation and Coordination Committee
5) Political Work and Foreign Relations Committee
6) Money and Investments Committee

CAIR was not created until 1994 which explains why it is not listed here.

The remarks at the end of the bylaws note that the International Shura Council (leadership council) directed them to achieve eight goals. Among them were:

-“Collecting of donations for the Islamic Resistance Movement from the Ikhwan and others.”
-“Bringing to the media light the case of [HAMAS founder] Sheik Ahmad Yasin and his ailing condition.”
-“Making use of what relationships the Ikhwan have in all fields and gatherings to serve the cause.”

Additionally, the internal memo notes that the president of IAP was a member of a section affiliated with the executive council. This establishes that these organizations, including IAP, were members of the Palestine Committee established by the Muslim Brotherhood, and that their leaders sat on the Committee.

In another development yesterday, prosecutors introduced a wiretap conversation between defendants Shukri Abu Bakr and Ghassan Elashi, in which they discussed IPT Executive Director Steven Emerson. Emerson first uncovered the ties between HLF and HAMAS in his 1994 PBS documentary, Jihad in America.

In the Aug. 2, 1995 call, Abu Bakr and Elashi discuss a Dallas Morning News editorial concerning U.S. plans to extradite Hamas political leader Musa Abu Marzook, who had been arrested while entering the country at John F. Kennedy airport in New York on an Israeli request that he face murder charges there.

Elashi reads from the editorial, which called for Marzook to be deported, but not to Israel. To release him, the editorial said, would send a message that America offers refuge to terrorists. According to a government transcript of the call, Elashi invokes Emerson's name after the editorial: "Sadly, Arab and Islamic organizations in America are perceiving the action against Mr. Marzook as 'anti-Islam' and 'anti-Arab.'"

"He says 'sadly,'" Elashi repeats. "Doesn't that bring you to Steven Emerson?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Abu Bakr responds. "Don't be surprised if Steven Emerson is the one who wrote it."

Elashi also expresses concern that the Morning News "is referring to us in a way or another" when it mentions the FBI has noted terrorist cells were operating in North Texas.

The trial continues Wednesday with the cross examination of Agent Burns by defendant Abdulrahman Odeh's lawyer.

Forty Years Later, Doing Nothing Is the Best Policy

From Forty Years Later, Doing Nothing Is the Best Policy:

In this week's torrent of 40th anniversary recollections about the Six-Day War, one TV image cut straight to the chase: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia staring into a camera to say, "The essential point remains the total elimination of Israel." The king's statement of principles was captured in "Six Days in June," an impressive two-hour documentary that aired Monday on PBS. For all the noise about peace in the 40 years since, the Saudi monarch's silver bullet solution is still the basic Arab mindset.

As do-gooders and militants reflect on what Israel should have done, what Arabs failed to do, what the UN ought to do, I vote for doing nothing. Regardless of the peace treaties with Israel forged by President Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, the overwhelming majority of Arabs need more time to dismantle their war posture. At this point, Israel's primary antagonists in this conflict, the Palestinian Arabs, are no longer an entity that can be engaged. Having dissolved into a myriad of warring gangs, there is no one to settle with.

And still more time is necessary to contemplate whether what has been achieved can be retained. Egypt's 1979 peace accord will not survive a day if the Muslim Brotherhood succeeds in its decades-old effort to topple President Mubarak's dynastic military reign. The Brotherhood is significantly closer to that goal now. In Jordan, since the peace treaty of 1994, the anti-Semitic discourse has grown thick, leaving little room to imagine that peace with Israel could survive a change in leadership.

It is pointless even to think about structuring new accords with Arab societies that are relentlessly marching toward various stages of radicalism, Islamic or otherwise. It would not help, and it would not hold. As for Israel, going forward with more unilateral evacuations, as in Lebanon and Gaza, has only liberated land for terrorist operations.

The Muslim Brotherhood "Project"

Via FrontPage:

One might be led to think that if international law enforcement authorities and Western intelligence agencies had discovered a twenty-year old document revealing a top-secret plan developed by the oldest Islamist organization with one of the most extensive terror networks in the world to launch a program of “cultural invasion” and eventual conquest of the West that virtually mirrors the tactics used by Islamists for more than two decades, that such news would scream from headlines published on the front pages and above the fold of the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Le Monde, Bild, and La Repubblica.

If that’s what you might think, you would be wrong.

In fact, such a document was recovered in a raid by Swiss authorities in November 2001, two months after the horror of 9/11. Since that time information about this document, known in counterterrorism circles as “The Project”, and discussion regarding its content has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson of Le Temps, and his book published in October 2005 in France, La conquête de l'Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (The Conquest of the West: The Islamists' Secret Project), has information regarding The Project finally been made public. One Western official cited by Besson has described The Project as “a totalitarian ideology of infiltration which represents, in the end, the greatest danger for European societies.”

Now FrontPage readers will be the first to be able to read the complete English translation of The Project.

Folks, this is a startling discovery; the blueprint for 9/11 and future conquests by Islamic madmen and madwomen. Click here to read the full article with links to the Muslim Brotherhood "Project".

To read the English translation of The Project, click here.

Keyword(s): Muslim Brotherhood; Islam

Think Israel: The Muslim Brotherhood, The Nazis and Al-Qa'ida

Folks, THINK-ISRAEL features essays, analyses and commentaries that provide context for current events in Israel.

In The Muslim Brotherhood, The Nazis and Al-Qa'ida by John Loftus, is a fascinating view into John Loftus' experiences researching Nazi criminals and pursuing Arab terrorists. Of particular interest is his discussion of the linkage between Al-Qa'ida and the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that was founded in the 1920s, funded early on by Adolf Hitler and more recently by Saudi Arabia. He has also been active in the attempt to get some of the information out of government vaults to where it can do some good in helping in the fight against terrorists.

[Editor's Note: To date, Think-Israel has printed a significant article on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe ("The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest Of Europe") and a Blog-ed on "A Rare Look At Secretive Brotherhood in America".)

The "Rare Look" article includes some information on a Muslim Brother -- Yusuf Qaradawi, whose name also crops up in articles on the riled and indignant Arabs who demonstrate against the Danish cartoons of Mohammed (See Danish Cartoons.) What interesting linkages!]

READ MORE

Egypt's Muslim Brothers brand Israel a "cancer"

"I declared that we will not recognize Israel which is an alien entity in the region. And we expect the demise of this cancer soon," Mohammed Mehdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, told the state-owned Ahram Weekly in an interview published Thursday. "The Muslim Brothers do not recognize Israel....70 million Egyptians, 300 million citizens in the Arab world, and 1.5 billion Muslims across the world do not recognize Israel," Akef told the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat on Sunday.

Expert: Saudis Have Radicalized 80% of U.S. Mosques

Here's a juicy little story for all of you Muslim-o-philes: Over 80% of mosques in the U.S. "have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence," according to Yehudit Barsky, who heads the Division on Middle East and International Terrorism at the American Jewish Committee and is executive editor of Counterterrorism Watch.

For each mosque they invested in, the Saudis sent along their own imam (teacher-cleric), meaning that "the people now in control of teaching religion [to American Muslims] are extremists."

Discussing mainstream Muslim organizations in America, she noted that the Islamic Society of North America "supports the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi regime."
The Islamic Circle of North America "is composed of members of Jamaat e-Islami, a Pakistani Islamic radical organization similar to the Muslim Brotherhood that helped to establish the Taliban."

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded in the 1980s by pro-Hamas activists. Some of their leaders have even condoned suicide bombings in Israel and against American armed forces.

Who's Who Among Radical Islamic Thinkers - A Glossary

Hamed al-Ali - Kuwaiti scholar (in his 40s). Serves as lecturer and preacher. Graduated al-Madina University in Saudi Arabia. Published Islamic verdicts justifying suicide attacks committed by Palestinians against Israelis.

Saif al-Din al-Ansari (nom de guerre) - Senior al-Qaeda leader and ideologist. Expresses support for total extermination of infidels through jihad for the sake of Allah.

Salman bin Fahed al-'Auda - Prominent Saudi scholar. Born in Baser (Buraida, Saudi Arabia) in 1956. Serves as Islamic researcher, lecturer and preacher. Runs the Islamic website www.islamtoday.net. Arrested by Saudi security services in 1994 for his radical views and jailed until 1999. Al-'Auda considers jihad against the U.S. in Muslim countries as justified self-defense in reaction to American occupation. He attributes great importance to the daawa (spreading Islam by education and preaching).

Nasser bin Hamed al-Fahd - Saudi scholar. Born in 1968 in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Graduated Al-Imam University in Riyadh. Served as lecturer in Islamic affairs. Jailed by Saudis 1994-1997. Al-Fahd published articles and religious edicts supporting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and denouncing Muslims who cooperated with the U.S. In May 2003 he justified use of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. as a retaliatory measure. Along with Ali al-Khudeir and Ahmed al-Khaldi, he incited to commit attacks against Westerners and openly supported the Riyadh bombings. In May 2003 he was rearrested by the Saudi security services and charged with advocating violence in sermons in mosques and on the Internet. Under pressure by Saudi authorities, which began cracking down on militants believed responsible for a string of attacks in Saudi Arabia, al-Fahd renounced militancy and attacks against innocent people inside Saudi Arabia in an interview on Saudi TV (November 2003). He focused on the past tendency of clerics to widely use the doctrine of takfir, charging that Muslims have become infidels and should be treated accordingly.

Suliman Abu Ghaith - Born in the 1970s in Kuwait. Former religious studies teacher. Serves as al-Qaeda's spokesperson. He left Kuwait in 2000. Abu Ghaith was stripped of his citizenship after he called for retaliation against the U.S. during the war in Afghanistan. He is considered as one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates.

Abu Ayman al-Hilali (nom de guerre) - Senior al-Qaeda leader and ideologist. Supports uncompromising jihad against infidels and religiously justifies mass killings of Western civilians.

Abd al-Aziz al-Jarbou' - Saudi scholar. Published religious edicts justifying jihad against the U.S. and al-Qaeda's attack on the U.S. in September 2001. Considered a supporter of al-Qaeda's terrorist global network. Arrested in 2003 by Saudi security services.

Ali al-Khudeir - Saudi scholar. Born in 1954 in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Graduated Al-Imam University in Qusaim. Hamud bin Uqla al-Shuaibi, one of his teachers (see below), had great influence on shaping his Islamic views. Al-Khudeir published articles and religious edicts supporting the Taliban regime in Afganistan including the destruction of the Hindu statues, as a part of jihad against the infidels. He religiously justified al-Qaeda's attack on the U.S. in September 2001. Along with Nasser al-Fahd and Ahmed al-Khaldi, he incited to commit attacks against Westerners and openly supported the Riyadh bombings. He was arrested by the Saudi security services and charged with advocating violence in sermons in mosques and on the Internet. Under pressure from Saudi authorities, which began cracking down on militants believed responsible for a string of attacks in Saudi Arabia, in an interview on Saudi TV (November 2003), al-Khudeir reversed his religious edicts justifying attacks against innocent people including Westerners under regime protection inside Saudi Arabia and encouraging Saudi youth to join the jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like Nasser al-Fahd, he focused on limiting the application of takfir, which had largely internal implications.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi - Palestinian scholar (born in Nablus), living in Jordan. Al-Maqdisi was involved in directing Islamist terrorist groups in Jordan under various names - Bay'at al-Imam, Jaysh Muhammad, Al-Islah wal-Tahaddi - along with the Islamic Movement for Change, which carried out the terrorist attack in Riyadh in November 1995 in which five American officials were killed. He was imprisoned between 1995 and 1999 and detained again in the recent wave of arrests of Islamists in Jordan.

Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid - Saudi scholar. Born in 1961. Graduated Saudi University in Dhahran. The late grand mufti, Abd al-Aziz al-Baz, was one of his teachers, who had great influence in shaping his views. Serves as Islamic researcher and preacher.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi - Prominent Islamic scholar and well-known preacher. Born in Egypt (1926), lives in Qatar. Known as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi heads the Sunni studies department at Qatar University. He was the first Sunni Muslim scholar to give religious legitimacy to the suicide operations of Hamas (1995), and to the participation of women in suicide attacks. Qaradawi has generally defended bin Laden as a representative and defender of oppressed Muslims against the "American and Zionist evilness," even though he condemned the attacks on American soil against innocent civilians.

Hamud bin Uqla al-Shuaibi - Prominent and influential Saudi scholar. Born in 1927 in al-Shiqqa (Buraida, Saudi Arabia), died in 2001. Lost his eyesight in the age of 9 as a result of disease. Learned Islamic studies and law. Served as teacher of Islamic affairs. His students included a number of important Saudi religious leaders, including the current grand mufti. Al-Shuaibi published religious edicts supporting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan including the destruction of the Hindu statues, as part of jihad against the infidels. He religiously justified al-Qaeda's attack on the U.S. in September 2001 and gave religious legitimacy to the suicide attacks against Israel carried out by Palestinians. In October 2001, bin Laden cited al-Shuaibi when he spoke of his justification for killing Jews and Christians.

Abd al-Rahman al-Sudays - Imam of the central mosque in Mecca. Well-known for his radical Islamic views and ardent preaching against the infidels.

Suliman bin Nasser al-Ulwan - Saudi scholar. Born in 1969 in Buraida. Serves as lecturer and preacher. Published religious edict justifying the Palestinian suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. In 2001 he stated that the attacks on the World Trade Center were an act of jihad.

Ahmad Yassin - Palestinian religious leader; born in 1937 in Ashkelon (today in southern Israel); worked as teacher, preacher, and community worker; completely paralyzed following an accident in his youth; founder of the Islamic Center in Gaza in 1973, which soon controlled all religious institutions; founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, and its military wing, Izz al-Dinn al-Qassam, which is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis in terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, since the 1990s. An Israeli court convicted Yassin in 1989 of ordering Hamas members to kidnap and kill two Israeli soldiers. He was released from jail in 1997 to appease Jordan after Israel's failed attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Amman. Yassin opposed the previously signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and maintains that eliminating Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine is a religious duty.

Excerpt from Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs