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Greece in Chaos: 50,000 Muslim Refugees Arrived in July Alone

August 8, 2015/in Culture War, Featured, Immigration, Politics, Religion/by Ann Corcoran

Invasion of Europe news…..

The Greek islands of Kos, Chios and Lesbos are in “total chaos” due to a heavy influx of refugees, the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR have warned.

The organisation said that around 50,000 migrants arrived in Greece in July alone, more arrivals than in the whole of 2014. The majority of them are refugees fleeing the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

UNHCR European Director, Vincent Cochetel said that refugee facilities on the Greek islands are “totally inadequate” and called on the EU to do more to ease Greece off its burden.

“On most of the islands there is no reception capacity, people are not sleeping under any form of roof, so it’s total chaos on the islands,” he said. “After a couple of days they are transferred to Athens, there is nothing waiting for them in Athens.”

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted that his country was unable to cope and that Greece’s economic problems meant it was facing a humanitarian “crisis within a crisis”.

Meanwhile in the US, the border flood is apparently underway again as July numbers reveal, here.

Go here for our ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.

What do you think? Could there be some planning in this invasion?

Proselytizing of Islam At Chautauqua

August 8, 2015/in National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Tabitha Korol

The Chautauqua Institution, deemed an adult education center, is less education than it is indoctrination to the world of The Left. In the month of July, in an idyllic setting, the Institution invited Islamists who speak of “Love and Justice in a World of Suffering,” hiding the truths about the suffering caused by Islam – both the harsh Sharia law already in effect for its adherents and to establish it in Dar Al-Harb (House of War), the countries not yet under Sharia – until the entire world will writhe under Islamic oppression.

Omid Safi, appointed director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center in July, 2014, spoke in terms to please the under informed. He and they would prefer that hideous acts of violence, such as perpetrated by ISIS, ISIL, Boko Haram, Hamas, and countless others with like purpose, be removed from the news media and replaced with stories of compassion. In so doing, of course, he would silence the reporters and critics and destroy our freedom to speak, report, and inform the masses about the evils perpetrated by Muslims, so that we would remain oblivious to Islam’s stealth control over our media and our minds. He would then pursue and obtain legal accommodations without obstacle, force Sharia law over our Constitutional laws without hindrance, and threaten all our freedoms through influence, treachery, and force.

The “pain and suffering” he referenced in Ferguson, Baltimore, and Staten Island, have been shown to be largely incitement encouraged by outsiders who represent Islam and the Left; conquest is best accomplished during turmoil and disorder. The mayhem forces the unprepared, unarmed victims into appeasement mode, to cede their rights and ability to speak and defend in favor of assuaging the unmanageable horde that cries “victimhood.” Peace at any cost. The chaos allows the aggressive to dominate and, under the guise of “love and justice,” impose its law on all nations – thus implementing the laws of Allah through jihad.

Safi was also sure to remind that there was insufficient money for social issues but a glut for our military – an absolute inverted fabrication to which the unaware nod in assent because Chautauqua provides no discussions, no debates, no visitors to provide an opposing view. The rhetoric that passes for intellect remains unchallenged; the audience is never encouraged to analyze and grasp that the narrative undermines their very survival.

In fact, the growth in national health spending and welfare programs have accelerated to levels that, unchecked, will bring our country to bankruptcy. The federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have expanded to cover additional and improved services for 200 million people; and an average of 46+ million people received food stamps on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during 2012, with more illegal aliens and “new Americans” still coming to our shores – unvetted for physical and mental illnesses, crime, or productivity. The programs thwart incentive to strive, inhibit growth and achievements, and cut back funds for investments, new jobs and opportunities for the many – a future of prosperity.

He advocates cuts to our military budget, already at a pre-World War II low, when the threat to our national security is at an all-time high. Severe cuts in defense spending have already subjected our nation to accumulating strategic risks to such as crisis-readiness, sustaining pilot skills with sufficient flying hours, and maintaining a Naval presence in key regions. Our military must continue diplomatic, economic and intelligence elements for preserving trade routes and stability in vital regions, and serving global interests. Financial support is crucial for military infrastructure and civilian and contractor defense workforce. Safi instigates his audience to desire further increases in social expenditures (higher taxation and prices, shrinking wealth, increased poverty, and compounded national debt) and to diminish our self-defense and military superiority against Islamic or any tyrannical expansionism. Disarmed, submissive subjects are easier to rule and more likely to provide the revenue and manpower needed for further conquest.

Safi reminded his audience of the human condition, always to plead for Muslim suffering, as though they are the eternal victim rather than the perpetual offender. As I mentioned in my previous essay, Mosquitoes in the Mosque, Islam is guilty of jihadi expansionism and the slaughter of hundreds of millions of victims since its inception in 824 A.D., unparalleled by any other people, and ongoing. The FBI has reported that ISIS exists in “every single state,” and Chautauqua has its numerous visitors from the Muslim Brotherhood, including the notorious Imam Rauf, who failed to develop his Cordoba Mosque on Ground Zero but is planning one for this vacation spot in southwestern New York state.

While Safi urged his audience to love and empathize with “the human condition everywhere,” he fails to address those who have fallen prey to Islam. An ardent champion for the end of a Jewish Israel, this corrupt jihadist has written fallacious articles that blamed Israel of atrocities against Arabs, using Holocaust-era photos of bodies from Buchenwald concentration camp! Who invites these speakers to so misinform those who presumably come to learn? How are they vetted and allowed these opportunities to propagandize against our liberties, our nation, and against Israel?

The Chautauqua Institution, originally designed to bring culture, hope, and promise during the Great Depression, now presents a façade of scholarship, intellect, and critical thinking, its attendees duped at a critical time in American history. Alas, idealism does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

EDITORS NOTE. To contact Tabitha click here, this column originally appeared on TPATH. To read Mosquitoes in the Mosque referenced above click here.

FBI Sending Potential Islamic State Muslim Jihadis to Counseling

August 8, 2015/in National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Jihad Watch

The FBI is bound as a matter of policy to ignoring and denying the ideological wellsprings of the jihad terror threat in Islamic doctrine. So it is understandable that it would look for causes in other places, no matter how implausible. There is also a whiff of Soviet-era totalitarianism in this: the Soviet Communists declared their political opponents insane and put them in asylums. In Obama’s weak and declining U.S., we are just putting them in “counseling” — but the underlying assumption is the same.

“FBI Now Refers Some Potential Terror Suspects To Counseling,” by Rachel Stoltzfoos, Daily Caller, August 6, 2015:

The FBI is now referring some potential terror suspects to counseling in a new strategy to defeat homegrown Islamic State supporters.

Rather than lock up everyone in the U.S. suspected of potential terrorist activity, the FBI will refer up to 10 percent of the thousands of people under investigation to counseling, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Proponents of the plan told TheWSJ it will ease the FBI’s investigative burden, and provide a possible “off ramp” from radicalization for some of the thousands of people in the U.S. interested in ISIS, especially minors.

“Nobody wants to see a 15-year-old kid go to jail if they don’t have to,” an official working on the new plan told TheWSJ, adding that the FBI will continue monitoring potential suspects referred to counseling and stand ready to arrest them….

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman told TheWSJ it works closely with the FBI and believes “successful interventions will be ones conducted with the appropriate participation of community leaders, educators, mental health professionals, religious leaders, parents, peers and law enforcement, depending on the specific circumstances.”

DHS is marketing citizenship to immigrants as part of its strategy to fight homegrown terror, betting potential access to shared citizenship rights will dissuade people from linking up with ISIS.

Oh yeah, that will work.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Muslim World ‘Laughing’ at Pentagon Over Failure of Moderate Syrian Rebel Force

Mali: Jihadis storm hotels, murder 4, kidnap 6

Robert Spencer in FrontPage Mag: Malaysian Mufti Denounces Intellect and Logic as Un-Islamic

U.S. officials: Russia Hacked Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Shutdown Email for past 11 Days

Mideast Archbishops: Why is the U.S. discriminating against Syrian Christians?

August 7, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Ann Corcoran

They have noticed the disparity in the numbers too (see our post last evening).

From Christian Today: They need to be sending some of this anger toward the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who have been silent while resettling mostly Muslims from the Middle East as U.S. State Department refugee contractors.

Catholic archbishops from Iraq and Syria are speaking out in defense of displaced Christians who are having a difficult time in applying for US visas to enable them to escape persecution in their own country and settle in a new land, such as the US, where they can freely practice their faith.

Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, and Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart of Aleppo, Syria, spoke recently at the Knights of Columbus 2015 Convention press conference in Philadelphia, describing the plight of Christians in the Middle East, according to the Catholic News Agency.

They said they found out from official US government sources that since October last year, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria have been granted US visas. However, out of the 700,000 displaced Christians from Syria who applied for a US visa during the same period, only 28 succeeded in getting one.

Might not have come to the attention of the White House? Yeh, sure.

The archbishops said the apparent discrimination against Christians in the granting of US visas might not have reached the attention yet of the White House, but they said this is clearly a case of injustice.

“Our people are asking these questions: How come we apply for the American visa and are denied?” Archbishop Warda said. “This is a clear case of persecution. They’re being denied visas while others who have participated (in the violence) or at least were silent can go.”

See the related story here at WND about Chaldeans held in a detention center in California while others who came seeking asylum have been let go.

New York U.S. Senate Delegation splits on Iran Nuclear Plan

August 7, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Jerry Gordon

The New York Times and Medium reported a split decision in the New York Senate delegation over the mid-September vote on the Iran nuclear pact. Senator Charles Schumer came out in opposition; Senator Gillibrand came out in favor, despite some misgivings. Looks like President Obama might have a problem gathering votes among the remaining undecided Democrat Senators. The Times reported:

Senator Chuck Schumer, the most influential Jewish voice in Congress, said Thursday night that he would oppose President Obama’s deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

“Advocates on both sides have strong cases for their point of view that cannot simply be dismissed,” Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a lengthy statement. “This has made evaluating the agreement a difficult and deliberate endeavor, and after deep study, careful thought and considerable soul-searching, I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval.”

Mr. Schumer had spent the last several weeks carrying a dog-eared copy of the agreement in his briefcase and meeting with Mr. Obama and officials like Wendy R. Sherman, the deal’s chief negotiator. With his decision, he paves the way for other Democrats on the fence to join Republicans in showing their disapproval.

“There are some who believe that I can force my colleagues to vote my way,” Mr. Schumer said. “While I will certainly share my view and try to persuade them that the vote to disapprove is the right one, in my experience with matters of conscience and great consequence like this, each member ultimately comes to their own conclusion.”

New York U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her support for the Iran pact in a Medium report:

I have decided to support this deal after closely reading the agreement, participating in multiple classified briefings, questioning Energy Secretary Moniz and other officials, consulting independent arms control experts, and talking with many constituents who both support and oppose this deal. Here is why I believe this imperfect deal is worthy of Congressional approval:

First, Iran made essential concessions in the deal. After the failure of the 2004 Paris Agreement, Iran was defiant; it refused to negotiate seriously, it was uncooperative with international weapons inspectors, and it vowed never to cave to pressure and dismantle its nuclear production, which increased dramatically during the Bush years. Now, Iran has signed on to a sufficiently verifiable and enforceable deal that cuts off all paths to a bomb and has its entire nuclear supply chain closely monitored for years to come. A deal like this, widely supported by independent nuclear arms control experts, was unimaginable just a few years ago.
Second, this deal will provide international nuclear inspectors with access that they otherwise would not have had — and never will have if we reject this agreement. We will begin robust worldwide monitoring of Iran’s nuclear supply chain — uranium production, plants that convert uranium into a centrifuge-ready gas, centrifuges, uranium stockpiles, and spent nuclear fuel that contains plutonium — and inspectors will retain the right to request access to suspicious sites forever.
Third, while I’m skeptical that Iran won’t try to deceive us and our partners in this agreement, we’ll be in a better position to catch those attempts due to the monitoring and verification mechanisms that this deal secures. If Iran pursues a nuclear weapon, international inspectors and intelligence operations will know faster than ever before. We will then be able to snap back all of the American and United Nations sanctions, even unilaterally, and all options — including military action — will be on the table.

[…]

There are legitimate and serious concerns about this deal. For example, I would have liked to see a period shorter than 24 days to resolve disputes over access for inspectors. The U.N. embargoes on the sales of arms and ballistic weapons to Iran should have remained in place permanently, instead of lapsing after five and eight years. Hostages remain in Iranian custody. We will have to work hard to fight Iran’s malign efforts to wreak havoc in the region. While all of these issues are important, no issue matters more than ensuring that the Iranian regime does not have a nuclear weapon at its disposal.

So while upstate New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand chose to support the President’s Iran nuclear deal downstate Senate colleague and future Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer elected to oppose President Obama announcing he would vote to reject the Iran nuclear pact.

At the Times Square Rally on July 22nd you may recall there were shouts of “where was Chuck?” Looks like he succumbed to the thousands of calls from constituents, major donors and possibly the tawdry hearing record of facts piling up in Congressional testimony about how bad the deal was hailed by the President and Secretary Kerry.

The importance of Schumer’s decision will not be lost on the White House. Let’s see if this translates into a potential no vote by many of the remaining undecided Democrats in the Senate.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Remembering the Shoot Down of Navy SEAL Helicopter ‘Extortion 17’ on August 6, 2011

August 6, 2015/in National Security, Policy, Politics, Video/by Defend The Border

AUGUST 6, 2015 – Today, on the fourth anniversary of the shoot down of NAVY SEAL helicopter, call sign – Extortion 17, we re-release this critically important Press Conference that took place on May 9, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

Lest We Forget: Below is a composite of those who died on Extortion 17:

Israel in the Eye of the Storm By Tom Wilson

August 6, 2015/in National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Henry Jackson Society

Tom Wilson, Resident Associate Fellow at the Centre for the New Middle East, writing in The Journal for International Security Affairs, outlines the key geopolitical challenges facing Israel.

In a region convulsed by the turmoil of civil wars, revolutions, and insurgencies, Israel stands out as an island of relative stability, one that has successfully weathered the multiple storms of the Islamist winter that abruptly followed the so-called “Arab Spring.” Yet in the summer of 2014, the calm in Israel was shattered by rockets, terrorists emerging from tunnels, and amphibious attacks along the country’s shoreline. The abrupt intrusion of terrorism back into Israeli domestic life—with all of the country’s major cities within reach of missiles fired by the Hamas terrorist group—was reminiscent of the second intifada, when suicide bombers from Hamas and other extremist factions entered Israel’s busy city centers and transformed them into war zones, paralyzing daily life.

During the height of the summer 2014 Gaza War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented that Israel could not afford to give up control of the West Bank and risk the creation of “another 20 Gazas” there.(1) That remark resonated particularly strongly with many Israelis, not least because it came just months after a failed American-led effort to push for a peace agreement with the Palestinians—one that would have obliged Israel pull out of the vast majority of the West Bank. And whereas Netanyahu’s statement about the potential horrors of Palestinian terrorism appears to have been received approvingly by many in Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace-making efforts enjoyed far less popularity. Indeed, many sections of Israeli society came to resent the Obama administration’s focus on promoting a peace agreement, as did some in Israel’s political establishment.

That they did speaks volumes about just how much Washington’s diplomats, like their counterparts in Europe, have fundamentally failed to appreciate the changes that have taken place in Israel’s calculus of risk over the preceding decade. Furthermore, they have failed to view Israel’s predicament in its full regional context.

Rather, ever since Barack Obama took office, his administration has pressed unrelentingly for reconciliation between the Israelis and Palestinians. It has done so, moreover, as if the parties in question were still operating in the relative stability of the Middle East of the 1990s. Thus, Kerry’s approach is reminiscent of the Clinton administration’s hammering out of the Oslo Accords with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and its subsequent full-court press for a final agreement at Camp David between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. But while it is true that the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is a somewhat more preferable negotiating partner to Arafat, the similarities end there; the political landscape for a peace agreement today is more inhospitable than ever before.

This is so for two reasons. The first relates to the changing regional circumstances now confronting Israel. The second is tied to the fundamental transformation that has taken place in Palestinian society and politics.

Region on fire

Half-a-decade into the “Arab Spring,” Israel faces numerous Islamist militant groups on its borders, from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria to Hamas in Gaza and al-Qaeda and Islamic State-aligned factions in the Sinai. The emergence of each of these groups has transformed Israel’s security outlook and diminished hopes for securing a durable peace. Rather than an environment ripe for a modus vivendiwith essentially pragmatic neighboring states, Israel now faces jihadist non-state actors, most of which are locked in power struggles with other militants as well as with the nation-states whose territory they now operate from.

The spread of this regional turmoil has had a mixed impact on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. To some extent, the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have made the mostly-cold confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians appear far less pressing and far less relevant. Whereas once the words “Middle East conflict” were shorthand for referring to the dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbours, now this expression is more likely to refer to the struggle between Sunni and Shi’a extremists, backed by the Gulf States and Iran, respectively.

It is particularly significant that many of these militant groups are now operating from territories that Israeli security forces have previously withdrawn from (the Sinai, Southern Lebanon, and Gaza) or are directly adjacent to strategically important territories that Israel has previously considered giving up (e.g., the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley). This naturally has had a considerable impact on Israel’s current willingness to make territorial concessions in return for peace agreements or international good will. From a strategic point of view, such moves have ultimately amounted to creating power vacuums that have eventually been filled by militants, so effectively moving a range of security threats ever closer to Israel’s civilian population centers and core national infrastructure.

Take Hezbollah, Iran’s most significant terrorist proxy. The Shi’ite militia represents one of the most formidable fighting forces in the Middle East, and is one of the greatest security challenges facing the Jewish state. Hezbollah and the Israeli military engaged in a deadly clash in 2006, one in which Israel’s military failed to strike a truly decisive blow against the Shi’a militants. Since then, Hezbollah is understood to have dramatically increased its military capabilities, and even with Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air defense systems operational, it is likely that Hezbollah could still inflict considerable damage in the event of a future conflict, since most of Israel’s territory is now well within Hezbollah’s reach.

The other major threat to Israel’s north has been the unfolding crisis in Syria. Stray projectiles from the fighting have impacted the Israeli-controlled parts of the Golan on numerous occasions, but it is the advance of Islamist groups close to the Syrian border that has caused the most alarm in Israel. For the moment, militants have been too absorbed with the fighting in Syria to direct their attention toward Israel. Nevertheless, the threat from chemical weapons and other capabilities falling into the hands of such groups must be taken seriously. Given that less than a decade ago, the Israeli government had contemplated a withdrawal from the Golan Heights—a territory that borders the Galilee, one of Israel’s most vital fresh water sources—these developments have done nothing to win public support for the notion of making further territorial concessions for peace. To the contrary, they have demonstrated that while Israel might hand territory into the possession of one regime, there is no guarantee that that territory will remain secure, or that the regime in question will survive long after the signing of any such peace treaty.

That, in part, has been the Israeli experience in the Sinai as well. True, Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government never officially revoked the peace treaty between the two countries, as many feared would happen after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Yet in Egypt—as in Lebanon and Syria—the threat to Israel has not come from the state itself, but rather from the weakness of those states and the prevalence of terrorist non-state actors moving into the resulting ungoverned and under-governed territory. Today, groups loyal to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to operate in the Sinai Peninsula. And while Israel has now constructed a security barrier along its Egyptian border, and jihadists there are currently occupied with battling Egypt’s military, the lawless nature of the peninsula represents a major security concern, among other things because of the way in which the Sinai has served as the primary channel through which weapons and weapons-related matériel have reached the Gaza Strip.

The one border from which Israel currently faces the least significant threat is the Jordanian one. Like other monarchies in the region, the Hashemite Kingdom has so far survived the ripple effects of the “Arab Spring” uprisings—but this may not remain the case indefinitely. The growing popularity of Salafism in Jordan(2) may well come to undermine stability in Jordan, creating a scenario that would almost certainly jeopardize Israel’s security. Although it has been the case that some Jordanian Salafists have been drawn away from that country to join the fighting in Syria, it is also true that Jordan’s proximity to both Iraq and Syria places it in a particularly fragile situation. Furthermore, the significant influx of refugees into Jordan from those conflicts may well have brought other extremists into the country. The resulting concerns about Jordan’s long-term future have contributed to Israel’s insistence that the Jordan Valley must remain its most eastern border, or at the very least that the Israeli military must be allowed to maintain a presence there.

The Islamization of Palestinian politics

Ever since the establishment of Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement) in 1987 at the outset of the first intifada, Islamist jihadist groups have played an increasingly prominent part in Palestinian political life in general, and in particular as part of the Palestinian clash with Israel. Hamas had, of course, grown out of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was operating in the area even during the days of the British Mandate in Palestine.(3) The group’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, had led the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza since 1968, but Islamists had always played a minor role in Palestinian terrorist activities compared to the secular and Marxist guerrilla groups as represented by the PLO.

The past two decades, however, have seen a veritable explosion of Islamist politics in the Palestinian Territories. Drawing from the lessons of Hamas, Palestinian militants began to adopt the tactic of suicide bombing as a preferred method of attack. As they did, other Islamist groups (such as the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad) became increasingly prominent across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And, beginning in the mid-2000s, Salafist- and al-Qaeda-aligned groups began to proliferate in Gaza. Among them were small groups, such as Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), Jaish al-Umma (Army of the Nation), and Fatah al-Islam (Islamic Conquest), all of whom began to make their presence felt in the Gaza Strip. (4)

The Islamist politics of the Gaza Strip have been far from harmonious. These factions were always fiercely critical of Hamas’s failure to fully implement Islamic law, in particular following the group’s takeover of the Strip in 2007, and have opposed the temporary cease-fires Hamas has agreed to with Israel from time to time. But while these groups certainly attracted some disaffected Hamas operatives,(5) they did not appear to represent an immediate challenge to Hamas rule—at least for a time. More recently, however, some of these factions have sworn loyalty to the Islamic State, and clashes have broken out between them and Hamas, which has found itself in the position of needing to eliminate more extreme Islamist elements to maintain its hold on power. At the same time, Fatah has been locked in a long-running struggle to prevent a takeover by Hamas Islamists in the West Bank, where it holds sway.

The heavy involvement of Islamists in the terror attacks of the second intifada was certainly an indication that radical Islam was playing an increasingly decisive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, few at that time predicted that Hamas would win a decisive victory when elections were held for the Palestinian national assembly in 2006. The group’s subsequent seizure of power in Gaza by force in 2007, and the ousting of Fatah there, further cemented the process of radicalization sweeping Palestinian society.

Indications of what was happening should already have been apparent from the results of two surveys conducted in the mid-2000s. A 2004 survey by the Jordanian Center for Strategic Studies found support for al-Qaeda to be noticeably higher among Palestinians than in neighboring Arab countries, with 70 percent describing al-Qaeda as a resistance movement as opposed to a terrorist organization.(6) Similarly, a 2005 survey by the Norwegian group Fafo found 65 percent of Palestinians questioned supported al-Qaeda attacks against the West, and in Gaza that figure rose to 79 percent.(7) European observers living in Palestinian society at the time noted this trend of popular extremism, with one European diplomat stating that Palestinian society was undergoing “an accelerated process of broad Islamization and radicalization.”(8)

While the Palestinian Authority had itself noted the presence of Salafist evangelist preachers operating in the West Bank,(9) Palestinian sympathies for violent extremism had still tended to be expressed as support for nationalistic Islamist groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Indeed, by many estimations Hamas would have a strong chance of winning West Bank elections were they to be held again today. Although certain West Bank cities such as Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho have remained quite firmly under the control of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, there are other localities where Fatah has been severely weakened.

Abbas’s approval rating had clearly plummeted by the time of the summer 2014 war in Gaza. An indication of where the sympathies of West Bank Palestinians lay came shortly before major hostilities erupted. At the time, Israel’s security forces had undertaken a military operation to rescue three Israeli teenagers kidnapped by a Hamas cell based in Hebron in the southern West Bank. During that eleven-day operation, Israeli forces arrested some 350 militants, including almost all of Hamas’s leadership in the West Bank. But while this operation received the backing of the Palestinian Authority and the cooperation of its security forces, widespread anger erupted into several nights of anti-Fatah rioting in Ramallah.

The Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014 appeared to give Hamas a significant boost with the Palestinian public, with many believing that the organization was doing far more than Fatah to lead “resistance” against Israel. Polling shortly after the war revealed that support for Hamas had doubled among West Bank Palestinians, rising from 23 percent in March to 46 percent in September.(10) There are other indications to suggest that the pro-Hamas feelings that arose during last summer’s war have not dissipated. Student elections across West Bank universities in the spring of 2015 witnessed a surge of support for Hamas and the Islamist bloc, with the two being tied at the Palestinian Polytechnic University in Hebron, while the Islamic bloc won outright at Birzeit University.(11)

What Israel is now watching for are signs of whether or not sympathies for the Islamic State and its ideology are increasing among Palestinians. Unlike in Gaza, the security presence of the Israeli military throughout the West Bank will go some way to ensuring that IS militants are unable to establish fully operational cells in the West Bank. Nevertheless, there have been early indications of pockets of support for IS among West Bank Palestinians. Israel’s intelligence services have already warned of a process of militants defecting from existing terror groups, primarily Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and swearing allegiance to IS.

This process may have been underway for some time now. At the time of Hamas’ kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers in June 2014, a previously unknown group claiming to be aligned with IS attempted to take responsibility for that action. And during the Gaza war that followed, the Islamic State’s media wing, al-Battar, released a series of images depicting the Dome of the Rock and threatening Israel’s Jews that the Islamic State was coming for them, and in August images appeared online showing an individual displaying the group’s flag on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

In Gaza, the process of extremists shifting their allegiances to the Islamic State is far more advanced than in the West Bank. This is partly because in recent years violent Salafist groups have already been able to establish a foothold in Gaza, with some groups such as Suyuf al-Haq (Swords of Righteousness) launching IS-styled attacks against institutions and individuals accused of spreading Western influence. It had also become increasingly apparent that the military wing of The Popular Resistance Committees (Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades), the third-largest military group in Gaza, was displaying signs of radicalization, placing it further to the extreme than either Hamas or Islamic Jihad. It is out of this milieu that support for the Islamic State appears to have arisen.

Early indications of the growing support for IS in Gaza began to emerge in the fall of 2014. At that time, a group calling itself “ISIS-Gaza Province” began to establish an online presence, with a video appearing on YouTube showing a group of armed militants claiming to be the Islamic State in Gaza, complete with IS flag. Indeed, by late 2014 ISIS flags had become an increasingly common sight in Gaza, with eyewitnesses reporting their appearance everywhere from football stadiums to car windshields to wedding invitations. On November 3rd, the Shura council of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in the Sinai, as well as the group’s leader, Abu Khattab, formally pledged loyalty to the Islamic State. This was a telling indication that not only individuals but also entire Salafist factions are defecting to IS—a trend that Israel will need to grapple with in the not-so-distant future.

Mind the gap

As the surrounding Middle East increasingly descends into turmoil, Israel for the most part has managed to maintain relative calm and stability over the territory under its control. This stability is not a naturally occurring state of affairs, but rather the result of the extensive efforts of Israel’s security forces to keep a multitude of surrounding threats at bay. Almost all of these threats stem in one way or another from violent Islamism, which refuses to be appeased by any number of Israeli concessions.

International policymakers, however, do not appear to have adjusted to this new reality. The failing has been particularly noticeable in the policies of the Obama administration, whose representatives still seem to regard the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as one of the most pressing and problematic concerns in the region. In the early 2000s, at the height of the second intifada and prior to the second Gulf War, this may indeed have been true. Today, it is not. Yet American and European leaders continue to push for drastic changes in the current status quo, even at a time when much of the rest of the region is already in a state of extreme and unpredictable flux.

They are bound to be disappointed. Israel will naturally be reluctant to make any significant concessions while the surrounding region remains so unpredictable. It knows that the security and stability it enjoys has been hard fought and remains fragile. Under the present circumstances, a dramatic change in the existing status quo could begin a chain of events that would plunge Israel into one of the deepest security crises of its history, making it once again one of the region’s major flashpoints.

It is a reality that Israeli policymakers—and the Israeli public at large—understand well, even if officials in the West do not.

Tom Wilson is a Middle East analyst and a Resident Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society in London.

1. “Netanyahu: Gaza Conflict Proves Israel Can’t Relinquish Control of West Bank,” Times of Israel, July 11, 2014, http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-gaza-conflict-proves-israel-cant-….

2. See, for example, David Schenker, “Salafi Jihadists on the Rise in Jordan,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, PolicyWatch no. 2248, May 5, 2014, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/salafi-jihadists….

3. Jonathan Schanzer, Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 24.

4. Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz, Palestinian Pulse: What Policymakers Can Learn from Palestinian Social Media (Washington, DC: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2010), http://www.defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/documents/Palestinian_Pul….

5. Yoram Cohen and Matthew Levitt, with Becca Wasser, “Deterred but Determined: Salafi-Jihadi Groups in the Palestinian Arena,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus no. 99, January 2010, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus%20….

6. “Revisiting the Arab Street: Research from Within,” Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan, February 2005, http://www.mafhoum.com/press7/revisit-exec.pdf.

7. Gro Hasselknippe, “Palestinian Opinions on Peace and Conflict, Internal Affairs and Parliament Elections 2006,” Fafo Paper 2006:09, 2006, http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/300/320/327/fafo/reports/797.pdf

8. As cited in Cohen and Levitt, “Deterred but Determined.”

9. Ibid.

10. “We’re Back; Hamas in the West Bank,” The Economist, September 3, 2014, http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2014/09/hamas-west-bank.

11. Adnan Abu Amer, “Hamas Sweeps Student Council Elections in the West Bank,” Al-
Monitor, April 28, 2015, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/hamas-victory-student-….

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Journal for International Security Affairs.

Time for all Americans to read ‘The Camp of the Saints’

August 6, 2015/in Culture War, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Ann Corcoran

Invasion of Europe News…..

VDARE has pointed us to this Powerline post by Steven Hayward today entitled ‘Camp of the Saints, Revisited.’ I recommend this now over 40-year-old eerily prescient novel to all of you for your summertime reading ‘pleasure.’ Warning! It is not for the squeamish or faint of heart!

Hayward says what we have been saying and why we post as often as possible on the ‘Invasion of Europe’—the American media is not paying attention to the growing migration crisis in Europe.

From Powerline:

If you want to see the immigration crisis getting completely out of control, check out northern France, where several thousand “migrants”—as the press describes them—are trying to charge through the Channel Tunnel to Britain, where, they suppose, the welfare state will take care of them.It hasn’t been receiving much media coverage in the U.S., except for the Wall Street Journal, which notes today that the disruption at the Channel is bad for business.

As the Wall Street Journal quoted one aspiring client a few days ago:

“Here, no one looks after me,” the teenager said. “In the U.K., I can be a big man.”

No one looks after me. The Telos of the welfare state, in five words. More revealing is this passage:

“Stopping them is becoming very difficult since they’re just not afraid of the police anymore,” a French police officer said.

It looks more and more like Jean Raspail’s controversial 1973 novel, The Camp of the Saints, come to life.

Continue reading here.…

See our extensive archive on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ by clicking here.

EDITORS NOTE: Readers may download a free PDF version of Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints here.

Franklin Graham’s Comments about Halting Muslim Immigration has Refugee Resettlement Contractor Shaking

August 5, 2015/in Culture War, Immigration, Must Read, Policy, Politics/by Ann Corcoran

Could there be a little rebellion in the ranks?

I’m talking about federal refugee resettlement contractor World Relief (aka National Association of Evangelicals). It seems that in the wake of Evangelist Franklin Graham’s call for a halt to Muslim immigration following the Chattanooga murder of four Marines and a Naval officer by an immigrant Islamist, the multi-faith folks went into defense mode.

What did they do? They invited representatives of one of the most infamous mosques in the Washington area—All Dulles Area Muslim Society (Adams Center)—-and representatives of two leading Muslim Brotherhood front groups to join them in a multi-faith love fest in Washington (on Capitol Hill!) to send the message that they (including ‘Evangelists’) disagreed with Franklin Graham.

Here is the news at something called World Religion News (emphasis below is mine):

Denouncing Franklin Graham!

Know the opposition! Bob Roberts Jr.

But the gathering has an even more important purpose, and that is to denounce and contradict the statements released by another Evangelic leader, launched on his public social network account. Those statements were rather sensitive, not reflecting the tolerance and acceptance promoted by the Christian church, which may have detrimental backfires on a society already tried by so much violence.

It all started when Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, a well-known Evangelic leader, said on his Facebook profile that Muslim immigrants should not be permitted to enter the USA anymore. This happened due to a violent shootout in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where five out of seven people shot by a Muslim young man died. Ever since, even the organizations that help relocate religious refugees started facing issues. Not because they were imposed to stop helping Muslims, but because people started to be afraid to accept them. Many volunteers and churches involved in resettling actions regarding religious refugees are frightened by the fact that the Muslims will turn into dangerous terrorist or even install the Shari‘ah law, once they get settled on American land. [Gee! wonder where they got that idea!—ed]

As interesting as all that is, this (below) is the part that jumped out at me. So, could there be a rebellion brewing? Are there some not-so-happy Christians working with World Relief (one of the top nine resettlement contractors)?

This is so disingenuous! What is not being reported here is that World Relief does resettle significant numbers of Muslim refugees because they must in order to get their federal contracts (read: federal cold hard cash!).

And, by the way, the federal government disallows any proselytizing by its contractors. Some uninformed supporters of the federal contractors will tell you that they want to get the Muslims here to convert them to Christianity, don’t believe them.

World Religion News continued….

Graham’s statement is also not seen very well by World Relief, an organization based in Baltimore, which helps religious refugees to start a new life in America. Since they work mainly with church volunteers, they also faced the fear of some churches to accept Muslim refugees.World Relief mainly takes care of Christian refugees, but they never refused any person in need of help, regardless of their religion or background. Still, they know that by refusing to accept a Muslim refugee, they will also face problems with the Christian ones as well, as it will as well become harder for them to enter the resettling program. [Huh?—ed]

Here is Franklin Graham’s website. You might want to reach out to him and tell him you support what he said about Muslim immigration.

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EDITORS NOTE:

A reader suggested that when I write a post relating to Muslim immigration to be sure to remind you that this is the Hijra—Mohammed’s command to migrate and spread Islam across the world. In order to succeed in building a worldwide caliphate, what do they need? Numbers of course! And, two more things: My first post this morning is also labeled ‘Know the opposition.’ See our category entitled ‘The Opposition’ for more such posts. Follow me on twitter! There is so much happening that I can’t possibly post on it all, so I have been sending refugee/immigration articles to twitter. I am @refugeewatcher.

What are the Nominees saying about Iran, Islamic Radicalism and the Threat

August 5, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Clarion Project

We’ve scoured the speeches, interviews and statements of all 22 Democratic and Republican nominees and now bring them to you in one single, easy-to-navigate resource.

We will continue updating the information throughout the campaign so you will have all the facts at your fingertips to ask the right questions as election day approaches.

To what extent do candidates care about terror on American soil? What role should America play in the battle against the Islamic State? What about Iran – its nuclear program, terror and rampant human-rights abuses?

We’d love to hear your feedback too. And, if you’d like to help us in this important work, we’d appreciate your clicking on this link.

Learn more at ClarionProject.org.

Here is where the nominees stand on Iran, Islamic radicalism and the threats to the United States:

Jeb Bush

Former governor of Florida
Son of former president George H.W. Bush

“[Islam has] been hijacked by people who have an ideology that wants to destroy Western civilization, and they’re barbarians.”

View the Bush Platform

Ben Carson

Political activist and neurosurgeon
Famous for criticizing President Obama’s healthcare plan

Sees the war with Islamic extremism as ideological in nature.

View the Carson Platform

Chris Christie

Governor of New Jersey

As governor of New Jersey, Christie has had warm relationships with known Islamists, including an imam with ties to Hamas.

View the Christie Platform

Ted Cruz

Senator from Texas

A nuclear-armed Iran is “the single greatest National security threat” today.

View the Cruz Platform

Carly Fiorina

Former CEO of Hewlett Packard

“I believe that terrorists who kill in the name of Islam are subverting that religion.”

View the Fiorina Platform

Jim Gilmore

Former governor of Virginia. U.S. Army intelligence officer; served a three-year tour in West Germany as a counterintelligence agent

Gilmore endorsed an award given to Jamal Barzinji, an Islamist radical investigated for links to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad

View the Gilmore Platform

Lindsey Graham

Senator from South Carolina
Former Congressman from South Carolina

“You’ll never have peace with radical Islam … They want a master religion for the world like the Nazis wanted a master race.”

View the Graham Platform

Mike Huckabee

Former governor of Arkansas

“The Bush administration has never adequately explained the theology and ideology behind Islamic terrorism or convinced us of its ruthless fanaticism. The first rule of war is ‘know your enemy,’ and most Americans do not know theirs.”

View the Huckabee Platform

Bobby Jindal

Louisiana Governor
Former Louisiana Congressman

Views the conflict as ideological and defines the enemy as ‘all forms of radical Islam’ and sharia law

View the Jindal Platform

John Kasich

Two-term Governor of Ohio Former Ohio Congressman

“U.S. should send ground forces to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group with an international coalition.”

View the Kasich Platform

George Pataki

Former governor of New York

“We must understand that a hatred of our values exists, and acknowledge that interventions in foreign countries may well exacerbate this hatred.”

View the Pataki Platform

Rand Paul

Senator from Kentucky

“We must understand that a hatred of our values exists, and acknowledge that interventions in foreign countries may well exacerbate this hatred.”

View the Paul Platform

Rick Perry

Former governor of Texas

“To every extremist, it has to be made clear: we will not allow you to exploit our tolerance, so that you can import your intolerance.”

View the Perry Platform

Marco Rubio

Senator from Florida

“There is no greater risk to this country than the risk posed by radical Islamic terrorists … We need to make it unmistakably clear that we will take whatever it takes for however long it takes to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.”

View the Rubio Platform

Sanders_Bernie_Portrait

Bernie Sanders

Senator from Vermont

”The war with the Islamic State is “a battle for the soul of Islam.”

View the Sanders Platform

Rick Santorum

Former Senator from Pennsylvania

“Terrorism is a tactic that is not an ideology. [You have to] identify the ideology … and realize that’s their motivation.”

View the Santorum Platform

Donald Trump

Billionaire real estate mogul and president of the Trump Organization

“I say that you can defeat ISIS by taking their wealth. Take back the oil. Once you go over and take back that oil, they have nothing. ”

View the Trump Platform

Scott Walker

Governor of Wisconsin

“U.S. strategy against Islamism must target the radical Islamic ideology and not just the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups ”

View the Walker Platform

“I Will Always Remember Where I Was When Cecil The Lion Was Killed”

August 5, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, Religion/by Jihad Watch

This is the state of the world today. “I Will Always Remember Where I Was When Cecil The Lion Was Killed,” Duffel Blog, August 3, 2015 (thanks to David):

The following is an op-ed written by “Mohammed,” a Syrian War Refugee.

I am sorry it is taking me so long to post my outrage over Cecil the Lion. My village has been without electricity for the last week after the Americans bombed our power plant. I had to walk for two days — hiding from ISIS along the way — before I found this Internet cafe. But my anger over the death of Cecil is still hot as the desert sands.

I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard what had happened.

It started off as a normal day for my town, with the Syrian Air Force dropping barrel bombs on several neighborhoods and a local school. As I dug the bodies of several women out of the rubble, one of the other rescue workers asked if I’d heard that Cecil the Lion was killed.

I froze in shock, dropping part of what I assume was once a human arm on the ground. “Not Cecil the Lion!” I exclaimed. “Not him! Truly, is there no innocence left in this world?” I cried harder than when we discovered my brother was gay and ISIS forced us to throw him off a building.

The rest of the day was a numb blur: watching my neighbor getting beheaded by Sharia enforcers, foraging for food in bombed-out buildings, burying my daughter after she died of cholera, and registering my outrage that rich Americans can fly anywhere in the world and kill whatever they want.

My entire family — the ones not gassed to death — are also in shock. My sister was beside herself with tears from the acid that was flung in her face, but I am sure her tears were meant for poor, majestic Cecil.

It is times like this I thank Allah that my wife was kidnapped into sexual slavery last year and was spared the horror of learning what happened to this beautiful and majestic creature.

I often wonder what is wrong with America. You do not hear stories like this in Syria, partly because we already killed all our lions but also because we killed all our dentists….

Read the rest here.

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After Chattanooga: Refusing to See the Writing on the Wall by Tarek Fatah

August 3, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Clarion Project

For 15 years now the question, “How to combat Islamism” has been avoided in the West so as not to offend the powerful urban Islamist lobbyists and vote banks.

It has been almost two weeks since the Chattanooga terrorist Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez issued the equivalent of an Islamic declaration of war on the United States in a text message before killing four U.S. Marines and a Navy petty officer.

Yet there are still some Americans refusing to see the writing on the wall, and wondering about the 24-year-old jihadi terrorist’s “real” motives.

On July 15, the night before the mass murder, Abdulazeez texted a declaration on behalf of Allah, quoting from Prophet Mohammed’s sayings in the Hadith titled “The loyal friends of Allah”.

It reads: “Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, I [Allah] will indeed declare war against him.” This particular Hadith is from a collection of the 40 most important sayings of Prophet Mohammed.

The text message was not the only clue to Abdulazeez’s jihadi frame of mind. In a “manifesto” posted in early July, the mass murderer quoted Prophet Mohammed as saying for Muslims, life on earth should be seen as a life in a prison, but for non-believers (Christians, Jews, Hindus, pagans and atheists) earth is the Paradise.

This is a common call by Islamists when recruiting suicide bombers or jihadi fighters for the Islamic State, al-Qaida, the Taliban and Boko Haram.

In essence, they claim earth is merely a transit lounge in a journey that will take Muslims to eternal life in Paradise, surrounded by all things that were forbidden to them in this world. Abdulazeez mocked Muslims (like me) who separate Islam from politics, saying such a separation was contrary to Islamic practice.

He wrote in his manifesto:

“So this picture that you have in your mind that the Prophet’s companions were people being like priests living in monasteries is not true. All of them [were] leaders of an army at the frontlines … very involved in establishing Islam in the world … Every one of them fought Jihad for the sake of Allah. Every one of them had to make sacrifices in their lives.”

All of this evidence stares us in the face, yet we are now being asked to believe a statement from Abdulazeez’s family claiming that their son was a depressed youth on drugs.

The family claim they sent him to Jordan, so he could get away from the influence of the bad company he kept.

I find that hard to believe given Abdulazeez’s own declarations, plus the fact his father was investigated twice by the FBI for sending money to questionable charities in the Middle East — he was eventually cleared — and wanted to marry a second wife in the Palestinian Territories, saying this was allowed by Islamic law.

There is something wrong in America when as senior a person as Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is unwilling to conclude the mass murderer was a Muslim.

John Berman of CNN asked Fuentes “Now that we have the name (Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez) the key questions are what?” Fuentes replied, “I know … what the name sounds like, but we don’t know that it’s a Muslim name. We know it’s an Arabic name. On the opposite side are those like former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark, who has proposed the internment of U.S. Islamists identified as anti-American.

For 15 years now the question, “How to combat Islamism” has been avoided in the West so as not to offend the powerful urban Islamist lobbyists and vote banks.

Here are three suggestions that the United States, Canada and Europe should implement:

Interview and debrief every adult male arriving alone from Arab countries, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Somalia, irrespective of religion, colour or nationality.
Tell every mosque in North America and Europe to end any and all derogatory references to “kufaar” (Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists) including in ritual prayers, or lose their charitable status.
End cash donations in mosques and overseas donations from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab sources.

If the West does not take these steps now, there will eventually be a very large appetite for Clark’s harsh prescription to prevent Islamist terror on Western soil.

ABOUT TAREK FATAH

Tarek Fatah, is a Canadian writer, broadcaster and anti-Islamist Muslim activist. He is the author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State and the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

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Garland, TX: Islamic State Jihadi ‘radicalized’ by UK Muslim ‘computer geek’

August 3, 2015/in Cyberwarfare, Must Read, National Security, Religion/by Jihad Watch

He hacked the Pentagon. He apparently incited one of the Muslims who attacked our free speech event in Garland, Texas to do so. This is one piously lethal individual. One thing he would almost certainly deny being, however, is “British” — contrary to the witless Mailonline headline. His citizenship with the umma and only with the umma.

“British computer geek, 21, who hacked the Pentagon after fleeing to Syria is No3 on the ‘kill list’ of ISIS militants drawn up by US forces – just after Jihadi John and group leader al-Baghdadi,” by Imogen Calderwood, Mailonline, August 2, 2015:

A young computer hacker from Birmingham has been named as Number Three on the Pentagon’s ‘kill list’ of key ISIS operatives.

Junaid Hussain, 21, fled to Syria in July 2013 and is now believed to be leading the ‘Cyber Caliphate’, ISIS’ own branch of hackers.

US officials said there is an ‘intense’ desire to assassinate Hussain, who operates under the alias Abu Hussain al-Britani and was jailed in 2012 for stealing personal information of Tony Blair.

Only Mohammed Emwazi, the hostage killer known as Jihadi John, and the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are higher on the list, reported The Sunday Times.

After fleeing the UK, when he was on police bail for an alleged violent disorder offence, Hussain has risen rapidly through the ISIS ranks.

He married 45-year-old Sally Jones, a former punk rocker from Chatham, Kent, who converted to Islam and fled to Syria with her 10-year-old son.

Yet another convert somehow gets the idea that Islam requires treason and violence. Yet no authorities are in the least interested in studying this phenomenon.

Jones, who now uses the nomme de guerre Umm Hussain Al-Britani, is believed to have snuck into Syria at the end of last year after an online romance with Hussain.

She is suspected of leading the violent all-female ISIS contingent, known as the Khanssaa Brigade. The group imposes strict Sharia law in the de facto capital of the so-called Islamic State, Raqqa.

The couple, who have been dubbed Mr and Mr Terror, also reportedly used Twitter and the hashtag #LondonAttack in May to incite terror in Britain.

US officials believe he is behind the online radicalisation of at least one of the two gunmen who opened fire at a Prophet Mohammed cartoon competition in Garland, Texas, in May….

Canada: How Multiculturalism Thwarts Religious Freedom [Video]

August 2, 2015/in Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion, Video/by Jerry Gordon

Ezra Levant is not your typical Canadian. He is outspoken and driven to seek out the truth about dangers to free speech and homeland security in our neighbor to the north. Fortunately for Canadians his truth telling appears nightly on his program, The Source on the Sun News Network. His opinion pieces frequently appear as columns in Sun Media publications. Starting in law school in the Province of Alberta in the 1990’s Levant was involved in the Reform Party and the “unite on the right” that morphed into the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives. The Party is now led by incumbent PM Stephen Harper. Levant had filed to run in a West Calgary riding as a Conservative candidate in 2002. He withdrew at the behest of party leaders in favor of Stephen Harper who ultimately became Canada’s Prime Minister in 2006. Levant maintains cordial relations with the Harper family and was a volunteer in the Harper 2008 election.

In February 2006, he had the courage to publish the Mohammed cartoons from the Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, in The Western Standard. That action, while lauded by many Canadians, became the subject of complaints brought before the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission (AHRCC) by Syed Soharwardy of theIslamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC) and the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities (ECMC). Levant shrewdly requested permission to videotape an interview by an investigator from the AHRCC that he uploaded on YouTube. That may have brought pressure on Soharwardy to withdraw his complaints before both the Commission and the Calgary police. Ultimately, the ECMC compliant, identical to the one filed by Soharwardy and the ISCC, was dismissed by the AHRCC. Levant’s dramatic and successful defense of free speech coincided with complaints brought before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Ontario Human Rights Commission by the Canadian Islamic Congress against McLeans Magazine and columnist Mark Steyn over an excerpt published from Steyn’s book America Alone. Levant roundly criticized these various human rights bodies in his 2009 book, Shakedown: How our government is undermining democracy in the name of human rights. In 2011, Shakedown won the Writers’ Trust of Canada and Samara Best Political Book of the last 25 Years competition. His 2010 book Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands advanced the view that development of the low sulfur Athabascan bitumen deposits would reduce Canada’s dependence on imported oil from countries with notorious human rights records. This development would contribute to competition in the world’s energy markets and would be environmentally sound. It was given the National Business Book Award in Canada in 2011. Following the re-election of President Obama in the US in November 2012, Levant proposed an Eight Point plan to “Innoculate Canada’s Economy” from economic problems in the US through paying off of its external debt, directing energy resources by trading with Asia and adopting positive immigration and economic development policies to foster economic growth.

Levant vigorously opposed the return of Canadian Al Qaeda terrorist, Omar Khadr from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay in October 2012. Khadr had killed U.S. Amy Special Forces medic Sgt. Christopher Speer in Afghanistan in 2002. Levant criticized PM Harper’s cabinet for consenting to the deal with the Obama Administration – a deal that reduced a 40 year conviction at a 2010 Military Trial in Guantanamo to eight years with seven years of the commuted sentence to be served in a Federal Canadian prison with eligibility for parole in 2013. In his 2011 book, The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, Levant relied heavily on the expert evidence of renowned American forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Welner, presented at the Guantanamo Tribunal. See our June 2012 Iconoclast article on the Sun News The Source presentation of “Welcome Back Khadr?” with Dr. Welner.

Watch this Sun News presentation by Ezra Levant on the return of Omar Khadr to Canada on October 1, 2012:

Jerry Gordon: Ezra Levant, thank you for consenting to this interview.

Ezra Levant: Thank you for inviting me.

Gordon: What was your background in fostering the merger of the Reform Party with the Progressive Conservative Party an antecedent to the Canadian Alliance?

Levant: I don’t want to overstate my role in that merger, which was the result of many people working over several years. But it is true that while I was in law school, along with a couple of other conservatives, I helped organize a convention to “unite the right” in Canada — to lay the groundwork for the merger of the two parties. It was attended by dozens of key conservatives, including Stephen Harper, currently the Prime Minister.

Gordon: You stepped aside in the 2002 contest for the Calgary Southwest riding under pressure from the Canadian Alliance leaders to facilitate the election of Stephen Harper, Canada’s current PM. What relationship did you subsequently have with PM Harper?

Levant: I have kept in touch with Stephen Harper and Mrs. Harper, and with his staff. I occasionally visit them, and in the 2008 election I was a full-time volunteer in the Conservative Party’s election headquarters.

Gordon: In the late 1990’s you were an advocate for granting Quebec separatism. Given the renaissance of the Bloc Quebecois do you still hold the same opinion and why?

Levant: I wrote one column in 1995, slightly tongue in cheek, pointing out how the rest of Canada would benefit from Quebec secession. The Bloc Quebecois is nearly defunct federally. The provincial win by the Parti Quebecois was with the slimmest margin, and it is a minority government. No-one believes they have a mandate for secession.

Gordon: What prompted your founding of The Western Standard in 2004?

Levant: The demise of the Alberta Report left a void for a conservative magazine, and I sought to fill it. Given the rise of the Internet, the idea was likely obsolete before it was even started.

Gordon: In 2006, The Western Standard published the Jyllands Posten Danish newspaper cartoons of Mohammed. What was the reaction in Canada that became the subject of your award winning bookShakedown?

Levant: Most of our subscribers loved it – we were the only magazine (or newspaper or TV show) in the country to treat our readers as adults – that is, to show them what the fuss was about for them to make up their own minds about it. The general public reaction was similar – people were sick of political correctness. Most journalists were supportive of us, as they had been restricted from doing the same thing. A small minority of journalists opposed what we did, either out of political correctness or out of a sort of jealousy or embarrassment.

Gordon: How did your actions during the Alberta Human Rights Commission hearings expose the threat to Free Speech by Islamist groups in Canada?

Levant: By videotaping my interrogation and putting the videos on YouTube, and by blogging about the investigation, I was able to shine a light of public scrutiny on a shadowy kangaroo court that was not well known or understood by the public. I sought to denormalize the human rights commissions, and put it on trial in the court of public opinion.

Gordon: Were Islamist groups also behind the complaints brought by the Canadian Islamic Congress before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and Ontario Human Rights Commission against former Macleans columnist Mark Steyn?

Levant: The complaints against Mark Steyn were brought by the Canadian Islamic Congress, led at the time by Mohamed Elmasry. Different Islamic groups complained about me.

Gordon: Did the cost of your defense during the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) hearings result in a decision to sell the remaining assets of The Western Standard?

Levant: No. The prosecution did not help The Western Standard financially, but it had been in financial duress even before the AHRC investigation.

Gordon: When did you begin your new career as a daily commentator for the Sun News and how much editorial freedom do you have?

Levant: I have written for the Sun newspapers on and off since 1995. I started up again in the summer of 2010 and have had a daily TV show on Sun News Network since April of 2011. I believe I have tremendous freedom, and in fact I call myself the freest journalist in Canada.

Gordon: In 2008, you testified before the US Congressional Human Rights Coalition about radical Islamist groups’ Lawfare effectively stifling free speech. Do you view UN Human Rights Council Res.16/18 on Combating Religious Intolerance as an attempt to insinuate Shariah blasphemy codes suborning protected speech here and in Canada?

Levant: I believe that the United Nations is a threat to free speech in the U.S. and Canada, because it is dominated by countries that do not respect freedom of speech as much as we do. However, there are other domestic organizations in the U.S. that are also actively undermining free speech. Campus speech codes are one example.

Gordon: Four states in the US (Arizona, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kansas) have adopted anti-Sharia statutes. Would the Harper Government in Ottawa consider adopting something similar at the federal level?

Levant: I can’t speak for them of course. I doubt that a stand-alone bill would be proposed like that, unless there was a specific problem of Sharia law taking root. Right now in Canada, there is a growing problem with so-called “honor killings”, which is receiving increasing media attention. It is more likely that a pressing problem like that would receive some sort of policy attention.

Gordon: Muslim immigration in Canada has witnessed significant growth under both Liberal and Conservative governments. There is concern in Canada about radical Muslim growth. Do you support a moratorium on immigration from “extremist producing countries”?

Levant: I think we ought to screen immigrants for Canadian values, including non-violence, equality of men and women, pluralism, etc. There are obviously some truly liberal Muslims who wish to flee authoritarian regimes and to adopt a Canadian lifestyle.

Gordon: In your book, The Enemy within: Terror Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, you made a compelling case as to why the Canadian –born al Qaeda Terrorist should not have been returned to Canada. What was your position based on and why in your opinion did the Harper Government consent to his return to Canada in October 2012?

Levant: Omar Khadr is lawfully detained until the war on terror is over. He is analogous to a German soldier captured in 1940: he can be detained until hostilities cease. In addition to that indefinite detention, he was tried and convicted for war crimes including murder, for which a jury gave him 40 years in prison.

The U.S. government pressed Canada to accept a transfer of Khadr after just one year (with paperwork it turned out to be two years). This was clearly against the will of the Conservative government (and of the previous Liberal government) but it was something insisted upon by the Obama Administration.

Gordon: What dangers could there be in Canada if Khadr is released under existing parole laws?

Levant: Khadr is an unrepentant terrorist, he is more fundamentalist than ever, and all of his peers — his family in Canada, and his friends and connections from Guantanamo Bay — support terrorism. This makes it quite likely that he will be dangerous. That is also the unrebutted testimony of Dr. Michael Welner, the forensic psychiatrist who testified at Khadr’s sentencing hearing.

I do not know if Khadr will engage in violence again. I think it is likely that he will be an Al Qaida poster boy — fundraising, recruiting, and generally engaging in public relations for Al Qaida, which is more valuable to them.

Gordon: In the wake of the Obama re-election you have advocated that Canada take advantage of its natural energy resources, international trade and immigration policies. Why do you hold these views?

Levant: In short, Canada can no longer count on hitching an economic ride with the U.S. If the American economy continues to stagnate, and if President Obama continues to block an important oil pipeline from Canada, than we must take steps in our own economic self-interest. These include increased trade with Asia, including selling our oil there.

Gordon: Why has the Harper Government been the best friend of Israel in the West?

Levant: Stephen Harper and his cabinet take a principled view of foreign affairs that supports democracies and liberty and countries that share our western values. That makes supporting Israel a natural fit.

Gordon: What should Canadians do to preserve Free Speech?

Levant: Canadians need to adopt an attitude of non-compliance with regards to censorship. At every opportunity, they ought to take steps to incrementally expand the scope of free speech – and to stare down those who would censor them, and who have come to expect obedience and compliance.

Most normal people will not encounter censorship in their lives. But some will – students on campus facing a speech code; some government bureaucracy’s internal “equity committee” telling you what words you can say and what you can’t, etc.

I found, in my fight with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, that censors are typically bullies who are good at attacking, but not good at defending – especially if their censorship is dragged into the spotlight of public scrutiny.Gordon: Ezra Levant thank you for this timely interview.

Levant: Thank you for this opportunity.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Garland, Texas: Islamic State Jihadi Illegally Purchased Weapon from Fast and Furious Operation

August 1, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Jerry Gordon

The Los Angeles Times reported, Nadiv Soofi one of two Garland, Texas jihadis, the other was roommate Elton Simpson, killed in the May 2015 attack illegally purchased a weapon in 2010 from a Fast and Furious front in Phoenix, “Assailant in Garland, Texas, attack bought gun in 2010 under Fast and Furious operation”. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) picked up on this and senate investigators are looking into how a terrorist killed in the Texas purchased a weapon illegally from the much maligned Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) “gun walking” program. Fast and Furious first came to light in 2010 with the tragic killing of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry by one of the ” gun walking” weapons used by a drug cartel member.

You may recall that former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder criticized Republicans in 2011 for “politicizing” the furor over the revelations. In testimony before Congress Holder eschewed knowledge and responsibilities simply saying it was “flawed in its concept, and flawed in its execution”. He was charged with contempt of Congress for his testimony.

The Times investigative report by Richard Serrano noted:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi’s history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers.

Late Nadir Soofi, Garland, Texas Mohammed Cartoon contest assailant.

What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Texas gunman’s mother: ‘He just had a normal American upbringing’

Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Soofi’s attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter.

As the owner of a small pizzeria, the Dallas-born Soofi, son of a Pakistani American engineer and American nurse, would not have been the primary focus of federal authorities, who back then were looking for smugglers and drug lords.

He is now.

In May, Soofi and his roommate, Elton Simpson, burst upon the site of a Garland cartoon convention that was offering a prize for the best depiction of the prophet Muhammad, something offensive to many Muslims. Dressed in body armor and armed with three pistols, three rifles and 1,500 rounds of ammunition, the pair wounded a security officer before they were killed by local police.

A day after the attack, the Department of Justice sent an “urgent firearms disposition request” to Lone Wolf, seeking more information about Soofi and the pistol he bought in 2010, according to a June 1 letter from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, to U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch.

Though the request did not specify whether the gun was used in the Garland attack, Justice Department officials said the information was needed “to assist in a criminal investigation,” according to Johnson’s letter, also reviewed by The Times.

The FBI so far has refused to release any details, including serial numbers, about the weapons used in Garland by Soofi and Simpson. Senate investigators are now pressing law enforcement agencies for answers, raising the chilling possibility that a gun sold during the botched Fast and Furious operation ended up being used in a terrorist attack against Americans.

Among other things, Johnson is demanding to know whether federal authorities have recovered the gun Soofi bought in 2010, where it was recovered and whether it had been discharged, according to the letter. He also demanded an explanation about why the initial seven-day hold was placed on the 2010 pistol purchase and why it was lifted after 24 hours.

Asked recently for an update on the Garland shooting, FBI Director James B. Comey earlier this month declined to comment. “We’re still sorting that out,” he said.

This is mind numbing. Nadir Soofi, one of the two jihadis killed in the May 2015 Garland, Texas AFDI Mohammed cartoon contest attack purchased a weapon illegally from the Fast and Furious sting front in Phoenix, with the ironic name of Lone Wolf Trading. Ask yourself why this illegal transaction occurred despite Soofi’s drug and assault charges record. This latest revelation demonstrates that the BATF sting operation was totally misguided and worked against apprehension of suspects giving material aid to Islamic terrorism. Notice this info occurred after record checks were run on weapons seized by local Garland police and run through the federal gun clearance data base.

Too bad that former attorney general Eric Holder, now at premier D.C. law firm Covington and Burling, and the former BATF program officials were never investigated or referred for possible prosecution for this lame brained scheme.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is from Twitter.