Patriot News: 2013

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Christian and Muslim Egyptians Protest Obama Policies at White House

by John Rossomando
IPT News
August 23, 2013

Hundreds of Egyptians – Christian and Muslim alike – gathered outside the White House Thursday afternoon to call attention to the plight of Coptic Christians and denounce what they see as the Obama administration's tepid response to a recent spate of church burnings.
"Down, Down with Ikhwan!" they chanted in reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. Since Egypt's army cracked down on Muslim Brotherhood protesters, the Islamist group and its supporters have torched dozens of churches and attacked Christians.
Muslim women in hijabs could be seen mingling among their Christian neighbors and joining in the chants.
Protesters later marched to the headquarters of the Washington Post and CNN to express anger at the lack of coverage given to the attacks on Egyptian Christians. Then they went to the Council on American Islamic Relations' (CAIR) headquarters. Protest organizers consider CAIR to be the Muslim Brotherhood's "embassy" in Washington.
The sight of hundreds of angry protesters outside its building prompted the Washington Post to lock down its lobby.
Protesters defended the Egyptian military's decision to forcefully clear out the Muslim Brotherhood protesters staging sit-ins in Cairo, and they chided the Obama administration for condemning the military's action.

"Egypt right now is dealing with terrorists," said protester Sherif Mina. "I mean, he's talking about peaceful demonstrations in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood. Is it peaceful when you carry machine guns, and artillery weapons – and all these kinds of torture that they've done to the Egyptian people, and the neighborhoods that they were sitting in?"
Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the popular Egyptian belief that the military intervened at the request of the people. But talk of cutting off U.S. aid in the wake of the army's crackdown – in which hundreds were killed – seems to have reinforced protesters' perceptions that the Obama administration has sided with the Brotherhood.
Many Egyptians now consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization that destroyed the fabric of Egyptian society during its year in power, protesters said. That belief was proven by street protests against President Mohamed Morsi – the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate – which drew an estimated 30 million Egyptians. American foreign policy should back the majority of Egyptians who do not want the Muslim Brotherhood back, protesters said.
They also called for a secular, free and democratic Egypt.
Basic necessities became scarce under Muslim Brotherhood rule, electricity became sporadic, gas lines were common, and poor Egyptians were being hurt by the declining value of the Egyptian Pound by the time 30 million Egyptians took to the streets to say they had enough.
As the army violently clamped down, Islamists turned to Egypt's Christian minority as easy scapegoats or accused the military of promoting "Islamophobia." But that didn't fly with Muslims who joined Thursday's protest in Washington.

"All of the Egyptians they are found the Muslim Brotherhood they are just failures and liars about everything they are told us they will do it in my country," said Nessma Salem, an Egyptian Muslim woman who came from New York to attend the rally. "Unfortunately they make a lot of other things. They don't want to even admit they are liars. So the problem is all the Muslims, and all the Christians, and all of the Egyptian people they are just go to all of the street again after two years. They told us they do not want the Muslim Brotherhood to control the whole country again because they are failures and unfortunately they are support definitely terrorists."
Other protesters shared her angst about the damage done to Egypt's economy under Muslim Brotherhood rule. Given the massive popular outcry, Morsi's removal from office was not a coup.

"[30] million people came out in the street saying we don't want this regime. It's a terror regime – a terrorist regime killing everyone," said protester Fred Soliman. "They tried to rule the country by themselves and not share it with anyone else, so the whole country, the whole country [30] million people all over Egypt. They say no to that regime."
President Obama has not mentioned Coptic Christians by name since the violence began. The closest he came was a brief, veiled reference to churches being attacked by Islamists last week. "We call on those who are protesting to do so peacefully and condemn the attacks that we've seen by protesters, including on churches," he said. The State Department has issued several statements condemning the attacks on the over 60 churches over the past week, but the Copts feel these statements have not been forceful enough.
These tepid statements, together with the perception that the Obama administration was excessively deferential to the Muslim Brotherhood while they were in power, fueled their resentment.

"We as the Coptic Christians of Egypt would like to live in peace, would like the Egyptians to decide their future. We don't want anyone to interfere in our future, would like the American government as well to the media to listen to all of the parties and to decide it by themselves," said Fr. Mikhail E. Mikhail of St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Seven Hills, Ohio. "...We are here to say that what happened in Egypt is a revolution from the people, not a military rebellion."
"The army is not going to rule in Egypt," Mikhail said. "They chose a Supreme Court judge to be in the transition period, and at the same time they have a plan to give it to a civilian government. We want Egypt to be civilian and for Egypt to separate between religion and state like you do here in the United States of America."

Related Topics: John Rossomando

Kuwait Funding Muslim Brotherhood Growth in Western Mosques

by Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
September 13, 2013

The completion of a new mosque in Amsterdam is doing more than opening the doors of worship to Dutch Muslims; it is opening new windows into unexpected avenues of terrorist financing and funding for the growth of radical Islam in the West.
For years, Western counterterrorism officials and pundits have expressed concern about the sponsorship of European and American mosques, Islamic schools, and other Muslim organizations by the Saudi government in efforts to expand its own extremist version of Islam, Wahhabism. Wahhabis adhere to strict, literal interpretations of the Quran and defend the use of violence against those who do not – Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Now, however, it seems we've been so focused on the Saudis, we may have missed a potentially even greater source of radicalization, and certainly a fast-growing one: the Muslim Brotherhood. And the government of Kuwait, with ties to al-Qaida groups and Hamas, appears to be among the largest financiers of Brotherhood infiltration into Europe.
This is where the Amsterdam mosque comes in. Located in the largely Muslim neighborhood of Sloterdijk, the Blue Mosque has been the subject of controversy in the Dutch press since its conception. A report that the government of Kuwait was paying salaries to its imam and other officers recently propelled the mosque – and its organization – into the headlines. Those reports have since been challenged, but the gist of them remains true: through a pan-European organization called the Europe Trust, Kuwait is tying Dutch and other European Muslims directly into the Muslim Brotherhood via complex financial, non-profit and religious networks that stretch from Spain to Ireland – and across the Atlantic to New York.
Based in the UK, the Europe Trust is funded largely by Kuwait (with help from the UAE-based Makhtoum Foundation, about which, more later), and, according to the Middle East Quarterly, "channels money from the Persian Gulf to groups sympathetic to the Brotherhood in Europe, primarily to build mosques." Indeed, the Blue Mosque was funded entirely by Kuwait, working through the offices of the Europe Trust Nederland (ETN). Others have tied the Europe Trust to the Brotherhood as well; but particularly notable is the fact that the Trust is led by Ahmed Al-Rawi, a UK-based Muslim Brotherhood leader, and Nooh al Kaddo, a Dublin-based Iraqi who runs the Islamic Cultural Center of Ireland (ICCI), well known as a Brotherhood institution. The ICCI also houses the European Council of Fatwa and Research, whose director, the Egyptian cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi, has reportedly "defended suicide bombing and advocated the death sentence for homosexuals, according to the Irish Independent. (Kaddo, for his part, defends Qaradawi, describing his views in the Independent as "representative of Islamic teachings and not assumed to be a violation of same.")
But here's what else: al-Kaddo, who serves as a trustee of the Hamas-linked charity, Human Appeal International, also directs the largest mosque in Western Europe: the Al Salam mosque in Rotterdam, a controversial monument whose 50-meter high minarets form the highest point in the city. And like the ICCI, Al Salam (also known as Essalam) was financed entirely by Hamdan ben Rashid Al-Makhtoum, deputy ruler of Dubai and (conveniently) UAE Minister of Finance. Makhtoum, as it happens, also is a generous donor to Hamas-linked CAIR in the U.S. (The Sheik has also provided funds for other European mosques.)
Thirty-five miles away, Amsterdam's Blue Mosque also has al-Kaddo to thank for his efforts to secure the money that built it – an achievement made possible in part through his affiliation with Yahia Bouyafa, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands and director (among other things) of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in the Netherlands (FION). FION, in turn, is a member of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) – which the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report identifies as a Brotherhood umbrella group that also embraces al-Kaddo's Europe Trust – and thus the Al Salam mosque in Rotterdam.
All in the same web. But there's more.
According to a fact sheet published by the Blue Mosque itself, a partnership developed early in the planning stages placed the ETN and FION – or al-Kaddo and Bouyafa – in charge of raising funds for the building. Bouyafa approached Kuwait's Ministry of Religious Affairs. But when his proposal was rejected, another local imam, Yassin Elforkani – suspected of ties to the Brotherhood – was called in to take over. With a few clever alterations to the construction and financing plan, Elforkani convinced Kuwait to provide the needed €2 million.
But with Kuwait now owning the building, sponsoring the ETN, and with extensive ties to Kaddo and Bouyafa (who has regularly exchanged places with Elforkani as director of FION and of the mosque board), the next step was inevitable: the appointment of Kuwaiti Minister for Religious Affairs (Awaqf) Mutlaq al-Qarawi, as chairman of the European Trust Nederland.
This means that one of the most active Muslim organizations in the Netherlands is now led not by a Dutch citizen, not even by a Dutch-speaking foreign imam, but by the government of Kuwait. More specifically, the Trust now sits in the hands of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Religious Affairs, which takes as its mandate spread of Islam to nonbelievers (dawah).
The Europe Trust has also not limited itself to Northern Europe: the NEFA Foundation has tied the group to properties in France, Greece, Romania, and Germany, where, NEFA notes, "funds for real estate purchased […] on behalf of a German Islamic association also came from the Makhtoum Foundation as well as the Awaqf Ministry [Ministry of Religious Affairs] in Kuwait and the Bayt al-Zakat in Dubai."
If all this sounds remote for Americans, too far across the oceans to matter very much, think again. According to a 2003 statement from former National Security and Counter-terrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, "several Al Qida operatives have allegedly been associated with the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood," including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramsi Yousef, a key figure in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
What's more, Clarke testified, "The Kuwaiti government allegedly provides substantial funding to charities controlled by the Kuwait Muslim Brotherhood, such as Lajnat al-Dawa. The U.S. Department of Treasury and the United Nations Security Council designated Lajnat al-Dawa on January 9, 2003 as a supporter of Al Qida. Lajnat al-Dawa and its affiliates had offices in the U.S. in Michigan, Colorado, and Northern Virginia."
If that's not enough, cables published by Wikileaks regarding the problems of policing money flowing to terrorist groups are even more damning. The New York Times summed up a series of these cables, which described Kuwait, the only Gulf country where terrorist funding has not been criminalized, as "a key transit point."
Other ties have been suggested between U.S. mosques and the Brotherhood, most notably the renowned Islamic Cultural Center in New York, founded by Egyptian-born Muhammad Abdul Rauf – father of former Ground Zero Mosque/Park51 imam Faisal Rauf – and funded in large measure by the Kuwaiti government.
Meanwhile, al-Kaddo, with continuing support from the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, is gathering funds for even more mosques throughout Europe. While the ETN, he insists, does not define the positions of those mosques, it does use its power to hire, appoint, and fire each mosque's officers and imams – all carefully selected from an inside Brotherhood group – and many of whom have ties to Hamas or al-Qaida.
With Europe now becoming one of the richest resources for Islamic jihad, and with the free ability of its citizens to travel visa-free to the United States, the threat a growing, radicalized European Brotherhood network poses is a lot closer than it seems.
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.

Related Topics: Abigail R. Esman

How Do We Know Nobody Helped Plan Columbine, Sandy Hook or Navy Yard?

How Do We Know Nobody Helped Plan Columbine, Sandy Hook or Navy Yard?

Submitted by Oliver Grant, Sep 25, 2013 00:07

Perhaps you are wrong, and the American mass attackers ARE just the point of a spear that was carefully planned and choreographed, and plan on being killed or arrested, they just don't leave any evidence of strings. When one plane crashes, it could be an accident. When two planes hit the towers, you don't need anymore evidence of a terrorist conspiracy. When one or two people get shot in Chicago, that's random crime. What do you call it when over 30 people random victims are shot in the open over two days and nights in two dozen locations? Is it possible somebody could be hiring "random" gangs and thugs to wreak havoc under the cover story of gang crime? The FBI and homeland security need to be asking the 4 just arrested who told them to do the shooting, and that we know the gang story is a lie.
Harvey Lee Oswald the classic lone guman obviously had lots of contacts with Russians and Cubans. We know Nidal Hasan traded e-mails with Al Qaeda fronts Anwar al-Awlaki and Revolution Muslim. The Litttle Rock recruiting station shooter WAS sent on a mission by Al Qaeda and trained in Yemen if his confession is to be believed instead of ignored. In Roseville MN a half-blind crack addict Enrico Darius Taylor just ran over 2 Army recruiters and dragged one for a mile under his jeep, yet no one in law enforcement or the media has a clue to a motive???
Why was the Columbine operation full of dozens of complex bombs and diversions, with walking around shooting people being a fallback plan? Why did the Aurora killer and Breivik craft complex plans in multiple locations using bombs and guns? How does an American black man become fluent in Thai by merely hanging out in a restaurant as a waiter?Who did he meet in Japan and Thailand, both areas where North Koreans and Muslim militants respectively operate? How does he get a job 1.5 miles from the Capitol, and who told him to leave a trail that would make people think he was going crazy before a meticulously pre-planned plot? How can we be sure the Boston bombers were acting alone? How do we know all terrorist acts aren't actually connected? The Nazis, SLA, Vietcong, Taliban, KGB, IRA, PLO, North Koreans, Japanese, Thai, Phillipines, Nigerian militants, mexican gangs, THEY ARE ALL ON THE SAME SIDE

The Only Commonality is Mass Killing

by Anat Berko
Special to IPT News
September 24, 2013

Aaron Alexis murdered 12 people and injured at least eight more at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard before he was shot and killed by law enforcement professionals. It is tempting to compare Alexis to a suicide bomber, especially now that we have heard rumors he opened a website under the name "Mohammed Salem." However, clear thinking demands that temptation be resisted. Let me explain why.
As an Israeli criminologist who has studied suicide bombers for almost two decades—making extensive observations of and conducting numerous interviews with those who failed, as well as with those who dispatch the bombers, with family members of suicide bombers and decision makers and elites in their society— I can say with confidence that the differences between mass killers in the West such as Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine, and yes, Aaron Alexis at the D.C. Navy Yard, and suicide bombers are categorical and insurmountable.
After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Eric Lankford, an American criminal justice professor, sought to show that America's lone shooters have more in common with suicide bombers than is commonly believed. But his op-ed piece, "What Drives Suicidal Mass Killers" (New York Times, 12/19/12), is fundamentally flawed. America has certainly suffered enough with the recent Sandy Hook, Aurora and other tragedies, but clear thinking demands we realize that even if someone is characterized as a "shaheed" (a martyr for the sake of Allah, including suicide bombers), the differences between mass killers in the West and suicide bombers are categorical and insurmountable.
The overriding distinction between the two is their native cultures: the suicide bomber's education and attack preparations are diametrically opposed to that of mass killers, as is their socialization. Suicide bombers are radical Islam's celebrated heroes, its darlings, whose acts are viewed by the larger culture as exemplary and heroic; in contrast, the West's mass killers are aberrant individuals isolated from their resolutely life-affirming culture.
Specifically and most importantly, Western culture in general, and American culture in particular, cherishes life. American children are raised in the belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; they are raised to embrace life and respect the lives of others. Clearly there are a disturbed few who kill others, but those are not the heroes of the American people: their murders and subsequent own deaths do not bring honor to their families or elevate them in their society's collective memory.
But that is exactly what does happen in radical Islamist culture. In Gaza, for example, children collect cards of shaheeds, the same way American children collect baseball cards. It is absurd to think that anyone would propose National Park Stadium be renamed Aaron Alexis Stadium, and the absurdity illustrates and emphasizes the difference between American mass killers and Muslim suicide bombers whose names emblazon schools, sports teams, stadiums and public squares.
The Western mass killer's acts are motivated by individual pathology rather than by collective ethos. The individual's aberrant thoughts trigger the plan for a mass killing. The suicide bomber is not driven by psychological pain, although he is selected because others see him as weak or vulnerable. A culture that celebrates death and declares to the West that "we love death as you love life" is the petri dish in which suicide bombers develop.
Another distinction is that suicide bombers are not lone gunmen, instead, they are merely tools in a comprehensive, well-advertised terrorist production, manipulated to achieve political goals. To understand the significance of the difference, try to imagine Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris as inanimate objects whose owner chooses not only the location of the killings, but also the date, the weapons and even the victims. The suicide bombers' locations are chosen by others to ensure that the greatest possible damage will be inflicted; the bombers usually have little or no advance notice. A suicide bomber, in contrast to Adam Lanza, will never embark on his mission by first killing his own mother—the most significant and beloved person in his life.
The mass killers choose their victims, the locations and the timing of their deeds, usually planning their acts meticulously over a long period of time. For the suicide bomber, his body is the murder weapon. His death is the only way to achieve his true goal: to enter paradise physically, where 72 virgins and the rivers of wine await him, and spiritually, by bringing honor to himself and his family. All this is possible only if his corporeal being merges with the bomb fragments to bring death to others, an ideal far removed from Western moral conceptions of life and afterlife.
A Western mass killer's death is not a precondition for the mass murder; the deaths of those they have selected is what matters. The suicide bomber, however, is on a mission aimed at propelling himself toward a better future in the afterlife, where he will be able to enjoy everything he was unable to enjoy or achieve while living. America's mass killers have no future: they will be vilified and not celebrated, and in contrast to radical Islamic culture, their families will suffer ignominy and isolation. We have already heard the anguish suffered by Aaron Alexis's mother, who, in a public statement, expressed deep sorrow over the pain caused by her son. She also said she was glad her son was in a place now where he can no longer do any harm to anyone.
The West's mass killers have no recruiters, handlers or dispatchers, all of whom are essential in a world where suicide bombers are the logical means to achieve the collective end. In the United States, anywhere and at any time, the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" does not elicit the answer, "A mass killer (or suicide bomber)." However, the Gazan child for example, will not answer "fireman," "policeman," or even "I'm going to work in an office like Daddy." The virtually guaranteed answer is "shaheed," and his mother will likely cheer.
Radical Islam's suicide bomber is the manipulated tool of an aberrant death-glorifying culture, while the West's mass killer is an aberrant member of a robust, life-affirming culture. There are similarities between the two, but it is a mistake to put them on the same level. To blur the distinction is to insult America.
Anat Berko, Ph.D, a Lt. Col. (Res) in the Israel Defense Forces, conducts research for the National Security Council, and is a research fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel. She was a visiting professor at George Washington University and has written two books about suicide bombers, "The Path to Paradise," and the recently released, "The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers" (Rowman & Littlefield)

Wolf Demands FBI Punish Agents For CAIR Contact

IPT News
September 19, 2013

On a day when the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a report accusing its critics of bigotry, a Justice Department investigation reminds the public why CAIR does not merit the public's trust.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz found a series of incidents in which FBI field offices knowingly engaged in outreach activity with CAIR despite a 2008 policy banning non-investigative cooperation with the Islamist group. Only a summary of the report has been released publicly. The rest is considered classified, but has been made available to Congress.
The ban on interactions with CAIR, first reported by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, resulted from an FBI investigation into a Muslim Brotherhood-created Hamas-support network in the United States.
Internal documents seized by the FBI show that CAIR and its founders, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, were a part of that network known as the Palestine Committee. Both men appear on a telephone list of Palestine Committee members (Ahmad is listed under a pseudonym "Omar Yehya), and CAIR is listed on a meeting agenda listing the committee's branches.
"[U] ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," an FBI official wrote in 2009, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
But several FBI field office agents-in-charge balked at the policy, the Inspector General's report finds, and the FBI's Office of Public Affairs repeatedly offered field offices conflicting information. Despite a series of electronic communications explaining the CAIR ban – it does not apply to criminal investigations or civil rights complaints – issued from August-December 2008, and despite a mandatory meeting for Special Agents in Charge (SAC) of field offices, the head of the Los Angeles FBI office told his agents to ignore FBI headquarters.
"[W]e will decide how our relationship is operated and maintained with CAIR barring some additional instruction from FBI Headquarters," the Los Angeles SAC wrote. "Please instruct your folks at this time that are not to abide by the … [policy] but that their direction in regards to CAIR will come from the LA Field Office front office."
In a scathing letter to new FBI Director James Comey, U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., called the violations "intolerable" and demanded punishment for those responsible, including "separation from the FBI."
Wolf is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee responsible for the FBI's budget. He noted that the investigation only focused on incidents involving three field offices – Chicago, Philadelphia and New Haven, Conn., so the depth of the problem still is not known.
The Los Angeles SAC, Wolf added, exhibited "unacceptable and insubordinate behavior from a senior leader of the FBI."
"Despite repeated efforts to communicate the policy to the field," Wolf wrote, "this was undermined by conflicting guidance being inexplicably offered by the bureau's Office of Public Affairs as well as outright violations from several field offices."
That's what happened in New Haven, the report finds. As the IPT reported in 2011, officials in the field office helped organize a community outreach program knowing that two local CAIR officials were involved. Rather than hold to the FBI policy, they agreed to conceal their role in organizing the event. In addition, the Inspector General found, the Office of Public Affairs advised the field office that the interaction was okay.
In 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder was asked whether there was any "new evidence that exonerates CAIR from the allegations that it provides financial support to designated terrorist organizations."
"No," said a written reply from Holder.
Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller publicly reaffirmed the policy in two separate appearances before Congress a year later, saying "We have no formal relationship with CAIR."
"There should have been no confusion about this policy," Wolf wrote, "given the bureau guidance, Congressional direction and media coverage surrounding this directive." Horowitz seemed to agree. He faults the FBI for failing to provide "effective oversight to ensure compliance with the policy."
In addition to avoiding interaction with a bad actor, the ban on CAIR contact is meant to prevent the group from touting its connections with law enforcement as a way to enhance its image. That's exactly what happened in Philadelphia in 2010, the Inspector General's report found. A local CAIR official was invited to an FBI "Citizen's Academy" program despite the FBI policy's specific reference to the program as off-limits to CAIR representatives.
"A few days later," the report said, "CAIR-Philadelphia posted an article on its website describing its participation in the training program, with a link to the FBI's website."
While it boasted about FBI contact in this case, CAIR officials more often disseminate a message of fear to Muslim Americans, portraying FBI agents as ruthless and corrupt – willing to do anything to set up innocent Muslims. One CAIR chapter urged Muslims to "Build a Wall of Resistance" from the FBI and not cooperate in criminal investigations.
The policy did not come out of the blue. Awad, picked up on FBI recordings of Palestine Committee meetings, remains CAIR's executive director. He has never acknowledged his relationship with the Hamas-support network, and therefore, never disavowed it. In a 2003 deposition, he claimed not to remember whether he attended a weekend-long Palestine Committee meeting in Philadelphia called to discuss ways to "derail" American peacemaking efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. The group also talked at length about how to deceive Americans by hiding their Hamas support.
Those are among the things that make the FBI question "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS" and bar interaction between its agents and the group. Perhaps the Inspector General's report will prompt field office officials to stop ignoring their own leaders and the information gathered by their fellow agents.

Radical Imagery at NY Muslim Day Parade

IPT News
September 24, 2013

Hundreds of people marched in a "Muslim Day Parade" Sunday in New York City that was hosted by the Muslim Foundation of America.
The parade, an annual event held on the last Sunday in September, is intended to bring together "Muslim-Americans from the five boroughs and beyond, celebrating the rich, cultural traditions of a faith that has provided hope, support, and comfort to generations of New Yorkers."
According to its website, the parade "gives all New Yorkers an opportunity to renew their commitment to our city's diverse spiritual community and to commemorate the tremendous contributions of Muslim New Yorkers."
There were scores of people marching who seemed to buy into that, with Muslim law enforcement officers marching in uniform and some groups proudly waving American flags. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly made an appearance, seeming to indicate that the city wanted to support its Muslim community.
But many used the event to utter political messages. A sizeable contingent carried signs or wore T-shirts with images of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and with the "R4bia" logo indicating solidarity with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi was forced from office after an estimated 30 million Egyptians – nearly half the country – took to the streets to protest his year in office. Critics say Morsi was more focused on consolidating power for Islamists than in addressing social and economic crises in the country.
Upon closer inspection, an otherwise sweet scene of young children singing about their devotion to Islam, included the toddlers holding up R4rbia's tell-tale hand gesture.

Khaled Lamada, a parade trustee and founder of a group – Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights – which has staged several protests demanding Morsi's return to power, used his speech to drum up support for another upcoming pro-Morsi demonstration.
"So I'd like everyone to call our administration to recognize it's a coup," Lamada said. "Don't let the media lie to you, don't let the administration lie to you. It's a coup. The second thing, I would like every free person, American, Muslim and non-Muslim to go out on September 28^th in front of the United Nations to say it's a coup and to stop dictators from running countries."
More disturbing, the parade somehow managed to incorporate six marchers proudly waving the flag of Jihad. The flag, seen in the video below, is often used as a rallying call for radical Islamists who call for violent battle and the organization of a global caliphate. It is under this banner that so many jihadist attacks have occurred worldwide—including the most recent attack, the multi-day massacre of civilians in a mall in Nairobi, Kenya by the al-Qaida linked militant group Al-Shabaab last weekend.

It would have been an encouraging sight at this celebration of diversity and contribution if other Muslims in the parade chastised the minority advocating jihad and theocracy. It's unclear from our experience with the event that such a stand against terror was taken. But it would have been nice, and certainly worthy of commendation.

Coptic Leaders Condemn Obama Adviser's Anti-Coptic Tweets

by John Rossomando
IPT News
October 11, 2013

Major Coptic leaders are condemning Mohamed Elibiary, an Obama administration Homeland Security adviser, for suggesting that Copts who raise awareness of anti-Christian violence in Egypt promote "Islamophobic" bigotry.
Elibiary sent out a series of tweets that Coptic leaders found offensive last month. The tweets appeared to chastise the Coptic community for lobbying on behalf of their relatives in Egypt. He targeted them because they had aligned themselves with conservative groups that he called "Islamophobic."
"VERY disturbing if true: bit.ly/18xotzi US DHS adviser accuses #Coptic #Christians of inciting Muslims! #Speechless! Pls comment!" Bishop Angaelos, Coptic Pope Tawadros II's personal representative in the United Kingdom wrote in a Sept. 28 Twitter post.
Elibiary personally attacked Michael Meunier, president of Egypt's al-Haya Party, two days earlier after Meunier spoke with The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) about Elibiary's earlier offensive tweets against the Copts.
"Sad2c #Coptic @MichaelMeunier aid #Islamophobes anti US Muslim community agenda ....," Elibiary wrote.
Meunier denounced Elibiary's personal attack, saying the issue had nothing to do with Islamophobia – but that Elibiary threw out a straw man to protect the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood.
"If you look at him you can definitely see that he is a sympathizer of the Brotherhood," Meunier said. "If you are in the Brotherhood you don't have a card. The guy put up the sign for R4BIA [on his Twitter account], a symbol for people who burn churches and kill people."
Brotherhood defenders are trying to smear their critics as anti-Muslim bigots, rather than people concerned about Brotherhood violence and repression, Meunier said. "He has a grudge against my activism, my spending two months in Washington, highlighting the vicious activities of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Elibiary initially defended sporting the R4BIA on his Twitter profile, saying "#R4BIA=#Freedom4ALL." But he relented to pressure Friday and removed it. "While I did remove #R4BIA twibbon as I updated my profile, my view & support of its human rights & pro democracy values continue. #AntiCoup," Elibiary wrote.
R4BIA takes its name from Cairo's Rabia ad-Alawiya Square, where hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood protesters were killed in armed clashes with Egyptian security forces in August.
The #R4BIA platform includes a litany of principles that run in open opposition to Western values. It invokes concepts such as: "pure martyrdom"; "unification of the Muslim World"; "the end of Zionists"; "the birth of a new movement for freedom and justice"; "justice for everyone against rotten Islamic values"; "the end of oil sheikhs"; and "the end of capitalists."
"Western concepts such as democracy, human rights, freedom, equality and right to life, often exercised in a double standard, have utterly collapsed in Palestine, Syria, Bosnia and lastly in Egypt. With the spirit of the Rabia sign, these and similar concepts will be reinterpreted based on Islamic principles," the section "How did R4BIA emerge?" says.
In a Twitter exchange with the IPT, Elibiary said that he has a nuanced view of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But does his "nuance" include a private endorsement of the #R4BIA movement's stated goals? Elibiary is not talking despite several invitations by the IPT on Twitter to sit down in person and talk about his views on R4BIA and other issues despite his challenge for dialog.
The R4BIA platform page makes extensive positive references to Sayyid Qutb, a Muslim Brotherhood leader executed in 1966 who explicitly called for violent jihad against infidels; his books are replete with massive anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma and conspiracies such as the Jews' control of world finance.
Yet Elibiary repeatedly defends Qutb on Twitter and elsewhere. On Sept. 28, he posted a clip of an Arabic documentary about Qutb.
He seemed perplexed when others questioned him about Qutb's extremism, telling one questioner he was "curious" about the label.
Qutb called on Muslims to fight non-Muslims unless they pay the jizya or poll tax. That's a tribute given by non-Muslims to Muslims in exchange for allowing them to practice their religion and keep their lives safe. Qutb also advocated using violence against those who do not convert to Islam.
Posting the #R4BIA icon on his Twitter has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood, Elibiary claims, although it has been exclusively used by the Brotherhood and its supporters.
He also insists that sporting the Muslim Brotherhood R4BIA banner on his Twitter account does not have anything to do with his professional duties as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
But Elibiary takes a page straight out of the Muslim Brotherhood playbook, blaming "Israelis" for the torrent of criticism he has faced for his accusations against Christians and for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He went on offense on Twitter against the dozens of complaints about the yellow #R4BIA salute on his profile and accused them of "#R4BIAobia." Moreover, pictures of Hamas terrorists flashing the R4BIA salute have emerged on the Internet – reinforcing the ties between the terrorists and their Egyptian parent group.
In the IPT's new documentary, "The Grand Deception," former Brotherhood member Abdurrahman Muhammad explains that even universal principles such as 'justice' have a different meaning to the Brotherhood than it does for Americans. Justice in the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood's eyes, Muhammad says, only exists when a state is ruled as a theocracy under Islamic law.

"We will never have justice until we have an Islamic state because whoever doesn't rule by what Allah has revealed is an oppressor," Muhammad says in the film, explaining Muslim Brotherhood thought.
Brotherhood apologists such as Elibiary attempt to define the Brotherhood as "moderate." Yet Rafik Habib, a Coptic Christian Brotherhood apologist whom Elibiary respects, told American diplomats that even the "left-wing" of the Islamist group were not "moderates" in a Western sense. He said their goal was a "religious state where Sharia is applied to all aspects of life."
Habib has been among the Muslim Brotherhood's most noteworthy non-Muslim defenders in Egypt and was appointed to head the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in September.
Elibiary did not reply when the IPT asked him if he was willing to condemn extremist and racist statements and actions by Muslim Brotherhood leaders. These included threats of expelling the Copts if they did not accept Sharia, Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie's description of Jews as the sons of "apes" and "pigs," and Qutb's violent statements about Muslim relations with non-Muslims.
Elibiary deflected and attacked the IPT instead.

Again taking a page out of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas strategy, Elibiary claims that much of the opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States "is really anti-Islam bigotry."
Although his Twitter account and other public statements clearly support the Muslim Brotherhood, he denies being a member. Any such belief is an accusation fabricated by "Islamophobes," he says.
Meunier was not impressed.
"This guy should not have access to the information he has access to [as a DHS adviser with a security clearance] or be able to provide the expertise he provides," Meunier said. "By putting this sign on his picture, he is declaring himself to be a terrorist sympathizer…. This guy is an anti-Christian."
Elibiary dismisses the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood has engaged in terrorism and says those who connect the two are mistaken. But Meunier points to the attacks against his fellow Copts by Muslim Brotherhood supporters in August as evidence the terrorist designation is warranted. "To have a U.S. official who even declares himself a counter terrorism expert supporting terrorists is jeopardizing the national security of the U.S." says Meunier.
Elibiary Attacks the Coptic Community Again
He attacked the Copts again late last month after an IPT blog highlighted the connections and sympathies many American Islamist groups have with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Elibiary lectured the Copts after the blog appeared for attacking groups such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) because of their historic connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, and for their alignment with so-called "Islamophobes". He then called the Copts' work with "Islamophobes" and their criticism of American Islamic groups contrary to the cause of religious freedom.
The tweet specifically referenced an article in the Arabic-language online publication "Copts Today." It featured a reference to Investigative Project on Terrorism founder and Executive Director Steven Emerson discussing ISNA's extremist ties.
Pointing out ISNA's Muslim Brotherhood roots is not an attack. It's an established fact. Federal prosecutors say exhibits admitted into evidence in a Hamas-support trial show ISNA's "intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood." The federal judge in the case found "ample evidence" connecting ISNA to Muslim Brotherhood operations known as the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Islamic Association for Palestine and Hamas.
HLF was an Islamic charity convicted in 2008 of being a Hamas money-laundering operation.
In a 2007 op-ed, Elibiary dismissed the evidence submitted in the HLF trial as "a case largely built on associations to convict First-Amendment-protected rights." He reaffirmed his earlier position in his recent interview with journalist Ryan Mauro published by the Center for Security Policy.
ISNA tried to moderate its public image; however, it has kept radicals such as Jamal Badawi on its board of directors, and granted a 2008 community-service award to Jamal Barzinji, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, as well as a former ISNA board member.
Badawi has defended violent jihad including suicide bombings, the beating of women by their Muslim husbands, and has suggested that Islam is superior to secular democracy. Barzinji was named in a federal affidavit as being closely associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
Barzinji's name appears in a global phone book of Muslim Brotherhood members recovered by Italian and Swiss authorities in November 2001 from the home of Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano founder Youssef Nada, one of the leaders of the international Muslim Brotherhood. He was listed as an al-Qaida financier by the United Nations but was later removed for reasons that are unclear. His name also appeared in an address book belonging to Mousa abu Marzook, deputy director of Hamas's political bureau.
Elibiary ignores these court-tested links between ISNA and the Muslim Brotherhood and casts them as conspiracies "against US Muslims 2manufacture controversies."
But Elibiary rejects just about everything dealing with the HLF case. Despite his stated opposition to Hamas, Elibiary remains a staunch apologist for the HLF.
"The purpose of creating the Holy Land Foundation was as a fundraising arm for Hamas," U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis said when he sentenced five HLF officials following sweeping convictions.
Marzook founded HLF, originally called the Occupied Land Fund, or OLF. Internal records and FBI recordings show the group was the official fundraising arm of the Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization created by the Muslim Brotherhood for Hamas-support in the United States.
Elibiary criticized federal prosecutors for releasing a list of 300 unindicted co-conspirators in the trial, including ISNA and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), because it "implicates most of the Muslim community in a wider conspiracy." Despite the verdicts, Elibiary slammed the underlying law criminalizing material support for terrorists and claimed it criminalized "traditionally innocent activities such as charity."
"We are using the Al Capone approach a lot of times in these material support cases where we're trying to get people prosecuted for one thing because of some other issue we have with them," Elibiary said at a March 2010 House Homeland Security Committee hearing. "Sometimes it's because of the lack of evidence that's available to convict them directly, as well as we have, in the Holy Land Foundation trial, lumped in a whole bunch of unindicted co-conspirators and caused a great deal of damage to community relations between law enforcement and the community.
"And then that's counterproductive, and it's a defeat for us long term as a country to increase cooperation."
Elibiary's assertion that there was "a lack of evidence" in the unanimous conviction of Hamas funders in the HLF trial speaks for itself. As for his claim that there was no evidence to designate other radical Islamist groups as un-indicted co-conspirators, both the presiding judge and the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals reject attempts to purge the co-conspirator list.
In defending HLF, Elibiary failed to disclose his personal ties to HLF and its convicted president, Shukri Abu Baker.
Elibiary discussed his ties to Abu Baker at length in his interview with Mauro, saying he had been involved with Abu Baker and the HLF since he was 16 years old.
Trial evidence, especially from secret FBI recordings, show that Abu Baker was a staunch Hamas supporter. He attended a 1993 meeting of Hamas activists monitored by the FBI that was called to plot ways to "derail" U.S.-led peacemaking efforts. Part of the concern was that the deal on the table would marginalize the Islamist Hamas movement. Abu Baker suggested that American Islamists should "camouflage" their work in order to be successful.
"I swear by God that war is deception. War is deception. We are fighting our enemy with a kind heart, and we never thought of deceiving it," Abu Baker said at the 1993 meeting. "Deceive your enemy.
"Yes, politics – like war – is deception."
Other exhibits showed the flow of millions of dollars from HLF to Palestinian charities controlled by Hamas. A 1991 letter to Abu Baker detailed that control. Other exhibits showed Abu Baker authorizing the wire transfers.
Despite such overwhelming evidence and Abu Baker's conviction, Elibiary accused the federal government of engaging in a "political" prosecution. Abu Baker never did anything criminal, Elibiary argued.
Only participation in active terror plots should be subject to law-enforcement scrutiny, he said in subsequent remarks.
"What the government should be working to counter is violent extremism, which is the action part or the planning for an action to do some violence because it's the violence that's illegal," Elibiary said in a March 2009 forum at the Roxbury Mosque near Boston. "Holding the viewpoints or expressing them is constitutionally protected."
So in Elibiary's view, raising money to help the families of suicide bombers and imprisoned terrorists should be considered "protected speech." That's a rather strange formulation for a man advising the federal government on homeland security.
In other Twitter posts, Elibiary claimed to understand and sympathize with the plight of the Copts. Elibiary suggested that as a Muslim, allegedly oppressed by political "Christianists," he understood what the Copts have experienced better than most Egyptians since Morsi's fall.
But no Christians are seeking a jizya from American Muslims. And no Christian groups are rampaging through Muslim communities, torching mosques and beating Muslims along the way. That's the reality Copts endure in Egypt. The situation faced by Copts in Egypt is akin to that faced by blacks in America in the era of Jim Crow laws, when they were denied equal protection under the law.
"It is not Anti #Copt when I welcome fair analysis encouraging US #Copts 2 stop working w/ #Islamophobes 2attack American Muslim Ldrs & orgs," Elibiary tweeted on Sept. 15 in defense of his attacks on Coptic activism in the U.S.
He mentions the church burnings in an Aug. 20 tweet in which he thanks the Washington Post for publishing an account by an anonymous "high-ranking Western official" denying the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement.
"… Sad what copts experiencing & I'm aware also MB condemned," Elibiary tweeted on Aug. 18.
Yet an Aug. 14 memo that appeared on the Facebook page of a local office of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party appeared to give its blessing to church burnings and other attacks.
"Burning houses of worship is a crime. And for the Church to adopt a war against Islam and Muslims is the worst crime. For every action is a reaction," the memo said.
Elibiary's defense of extremist ideologies and figures raise questions about his judgment and fitness for the advisory position he currently holds that he and administration officials refuse to answer.

Dar al-Hijrah Imam Affirms MB Sympathies on Facebook

by John Rossomando
IPT News
October 22, 2013

For a guy who claims to have nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood, Imam Shaker Elsayed dedicates a surprising volume of his Facebook page to the Egyptian Islamist group.
Elsayed, head of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., features a picture of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi – the Brotherhood's candidate in 2011 – across the top of the page. Teenage girls post smaller images of Justin Bieber.
In the corner, Elsayed features a dark green variant of the Brotherhood's symbol of opposition – the R4BIA hand – emblazoned with the Muslim Brotherhood's motto: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest aspiration."
Other posts seem to scapegoat Egypt's Coptic Christian minority for the Muslim Brotherhood's failure in power after one year. In fact, the Egyptian army moved only after Morsi refused to negotiate with opponents or call new elections as tens of millions of Egyptians took to the street. They felt Morsi focused more on consolidating power for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists at the expense of Egypt's crumbling infrastructure and economy.
Elsayed denied connections with the Brotherhood during an August news conference on the eve of a pro-Morsi rally organized by Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (EADHR) when asked about them by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).
"This is not about the Muslim Brotherhood. It is not even about Dr. Morsi," Elsayed said.
The rally was in defense of democratic values and a stable Egypt, he said. "So we have nothing to do with your claims."
Neither he nor the EADHR, which also prominently features the R4BIA symbol on its Facebook page, has anything to do with the Muslim Brotherhood, he said. But Elsayed also served as head of the Muslim American Society (MAS) before becoming Dar al-Hijrah's imam in 2005.
MAS was founded in 1993 as the "overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America," federal prosecutors wrote in 2008. "Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood," Abdurrahman Alamoudi, once the most influential Muslim American political activist, told federal investigators in a January interview from a federal correctional facility where he is serving time.
In a 2004 story about the Muslim Brotherhood in America, the Chicago Tribune quoted Elsayed describing Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna's ideals as "the closest reflection of how Islam should be in this life."
Al-Banna aimed to restore the caliphate and reunify the Islamic world with sharia as its guide and the convert Egyptian secular society into a thoroughly Islamic one. According to his 50-point Manifesto written in 1936, his principles included: strengthening the bonds between Islamic nations with the interest of restoring the caliphate; establishing an Islamic spirit of governance; segregating the sexes; banning dancing; and imposing "severe penalties for moral offenses" among other things.
Elsayed's mosque has a history of ties to radicals and has attracted repeated law enforcement attention over the years. Federal agents described Dar al-Hijrah as the subject of "numerous investigations for financing and proving (sic) aid and comfort to bad orgs and members."
Among those bad members, American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki served as an imam at Dar al-Hijrah before leaving the United States; two 9/11 hijackers attended services there, as did Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and terrorist financier Abdurrahman Alamoudi.
Elsayed is named in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document detailing the group's plan to wage a non-violent civilization jihad to destroy "Western civilization from within." A portion of the document describes people building organizations which spread the Islamist message.
"We have a seed for a "comprehensive Dawa' educational" organization: We have the Daw'a section in ISNA + Dr. Jamal Badawi Foundation + the center run by brother Harned al-Ghazali + the Dawa' center the Dawa' Committee and brother Shaker al-Sayyed are seeking to establish now + in addition to other Daw'a efforts here and there...," an FBI translation of the Arabic document says.
Elsayed's Facebook page isn't devoted solely to supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. It also includes a post demonizing Coptic Christians supporting the Egyptian army's overthrow of Morsi and his government. Copts have been subjected to physical violence, including the burning of approximately 80 churches, and incendiary rhetoric from Muslim Brotherhood supporters since Morsi was deposed in July.
Four people were killed Sunday night, including an 8-year-old girl, when masked gunmen opened fire on guests leaving a wedding ceremony at a Coptic church outside Cairo.
Copts, representing about 10 percent of the population, may be the weakest element in Egyptian society with few internal or external political resources at their disposal. But that did not deter Elsayed from setting them up as a boogeyman in Egypt's internal turmoil. He posted a video quoting the Book of Isaiah out of context, suggesting that the Copts believe they need to undermine Egypt.
"This book is the main incitement to what is called sectarian strife in Egypt," the video says. "This is what the Copts teach to their children in churches every day."
Copts have co-existed peacefully in Egypt for centuries.
Elsayed has a record of inflammatory rhetoric. During a speech last February at an Alexandria, Va. high school, he said Muslim men shouldn't resist giving "arms for jihad" out of fear they will be labeled as terrorists.
"You are a terrorist because you are a Muslim," Elsayed said. "Well give them a run for their money. Make it worth it. Make this title worth it, and be good a Muslim." Although the United States and the European Union classify Hamas has a terrorist group, Elsayed sees no problem with supporting its aims.
Elsayed defended Hamas's use of suicide bombers in December 2002 remarks objecting to the media's use of the term "suicide bomber" as "unfairly" used.
"Nobody who is not Muslim has any right to decide for us, we the Muslims, whose is a martyr or another. We as Muslims will decide that. It is in-house business," Elsayed said.
Despite this rhetoric, Dar al-Hijrah has enjoyed a strong relationship with government agencies. A State Department web site featured the mosque in a 2009 video as a model of American diversity. In 2008, the General Services Administration (GSA) leased office space from the mosque for use in the Census. The contract paid Dar al-Hijrah $582,000, or about $23,000 per month, through the end of 2010.
Days after the IPT exposed that deal, the State Department sent a class from its Foreign Service Institute – future diplomats – to the mosque to hear "attitudes and perspectives that immigrants from Muslims countries had about America before arriving and how their understandings have changed."
Elsayed also has defended convicted terrorists. For example, he served as the unofficial spokesman for Ahmed Omar Abu-Ali's family after Abu-Ali was charged by American prosecutors in 2005 with providing support to al-Qaida.
Elsayed dismissed the charges as "revenge" against the Abu Ali family's claim that his confession to Saudi Arabian officials was the result of torture and abuse. Abu Ali told interrogators that he was "determined to kill the president" and that he believed he "could have succeeded." He plotted to get close enough to shoot President George W. Bush or use a car bomb to kill him.
Abu Ali was convicted in Virginia in 2006 of several criminal counts stemming from his status as the second-in-command of an al-Qaida cell in Medina, Saudi Arabia, including a plot to assassinate then-President Bush.
Elsayed also claims that the FBI has actively framed Muslims instead of investigating terrorist operations.
"Our experience here at al-Hijrah was very positive with the FBI leadership in Washington Field Office, until we found out that getting very close to the FBI came at a very serious price," Elsayed said in a January 2011 interview with Iran's Press TV.
The imam made his comments referring to the November 2010 arrest of Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud on charges he planned to detonate a vehicle bomb at a Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Oregon.
Elsayed's record over the past two decades has been one of a repeated defense of Islamist extremists and terrorist activities and an effort to downplay the threat they pose to Americans. His denials about Muslim Brotherhood sympathies ring hollow in view of his record. And the pictures on his Facebook page paint a thousand words.

Tamarod Targets Hamas Rule in Gaza

by Paul Alster
Special to IPT News
September 4, 2013

Haifa, Israel – While the world's media rightly focuses on high-profile crises in Syria and Egypt, another potential hotspot is bubbling up somewhat under the radar: the rising opposition to the Hamas regime in Gaza.
Hamas is growing increasingly jittery having seen one friend after another disappear or desert the group over the last few tumultuous months. Now it faces growing internal dissent from the 'Facebook generation' through the rise of the Tamarod movement that contributed significantly to the fall of the Egyptian government this summer. Tamarod has already penciled in Nov. 11 – the anniversary Yasser Arafat's death – as the date for mass demonstrations in Gaza against Hamas. Unlike Hamas, the rebel movement vows to use peaceful protests to bring about change.
"You [Hamas] won't rule after November 11 even if you finish us off" a Tamarod Gaza spokesman declared in an online video message. "All our options are open, except for using weapons. We are different from you. Unlike you, we don't use weapons against our brothers. Unlike you, we don't kill children, the elderly, women and youths. Unlike you, we don't destroy mosques. We will face you with bare chests."
In the same statement, translated by the Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency, Tamarod Gaza declared, "It is time we rejected death forcibly under Hamas' pretext of security. Our people, regardless of their political and even religious affiliations, have been targeted by their criminality."
As recently as June, Hamas – despite token gestures from President Morsi against their smuggling tunnels and activities in Sinai – could rely on Egypt's essential support, expecting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood government, (spiritually aligned to the Hamas doctrine and acknowledged as the parent organization of the Gaza terror organization), to stand with them on regional issues.
That arrangement changed quickly in July. The Egyptian Tamarod movement gathered a reported 22 million signatures calling for Morsi to go. The Egyptian military – reacting to the groundswell of popular opposition driven by Tamarod to the democratically elected government – gave Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum to revoke controversial laws he had recently changed, but he refused. The military stepped in, Morsi was arrested, and his government fell. Hamas suddenly was without its biggest regional supporter.
Qatar, Morsi's biggest financial benefactor, disappeared rapidly from the scene, and its promise to Hamas of up to $400 million of financial support has also been left hanging in the air. Iran is rumored to have reduced its financial support for Hamas in Gaza, and even Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, Hamas' highest profile international advocate, has cancelled a planned visit to the enclave.
In an interview published Wednesday by the Arabic-language Al Quds al-Arabi, Tamarod Gaza spokesman Qaws al-Barudi explained what is driving the fledgling movement.
"Everybody knows how bad the situation of our people is. There is no electricity and no water, besides the ruin, unemployment, immigration, and the crisis of graduates, let alone the pitiful situation of hospitals," al-Barudi said. Hamas' failures threaten "the whole national project" for a Palestinian state.
"We are not against HAMAS as a political movement as it is part of this people and a partner in the homeland. We are against those who practiced injustice and oppression. We are against the lords of [smuggling] tunnels and who make the homeland a commodity for trade through suspicious projects."
The first signs of Tamarod spreading to the Palestinian scene coincided with Morsi's ouster. It is not confined to Gaza, but it also opposes the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The first Facebook posts reflected dissatisfaction with the corruption and cronyism of both Hamas and Abbas' Fatah party. There were small demonstrations in Ramallah in the West Bank in July. But it is Hamas that has come in for the lion's share of comment from Tamarod, and Tamarod Gaza – now with more than 46,000 followers on Facebook – has Hamas rattled and wondering how to deal with this new rising force.
Tamarod likely has more supporters, but many haven't signed on publicly for fear of Hamas reprisals, Orit Perlov, a Tel Aviv-based expert in social networks in the Arab world, told the IPT. Discontent toward Hamas has risen since the Muslim Brotherhood's fall in Egypt. But Tamarod sees both Hamas and Fatah as illegitimate.
Tamarod's success is due in part on its simplicity, Mohamed El-Sayed Abdel Gawad of Egypt's Almasry Studies and Information Center wrote last month. "The campaign took to the street and engaged with citizens directly, encouraged by earlier successes by youth movements that followed the January 2011 revolution."
And its emphasis on peaceful opposition has helped "it to gain a favorable view among a wide spectrum of society."
In a nutshell, that focus is the big challenge to Hamas. Aware of Tamarod Gaza's potential rise in popularity, Hamas has tried to neutralize the effect of the new movement. It has increased Internet censorship and is closely monitoring Facebook and Twitter activity. Hamas also has offered a number of anti-Tamarod theories, including that the movement is sponsored by the Egyptian military that overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood, and now, Hamas says, wants to interfere in the internal affairs of neighboring Gaza.
In a video released to counteract the allegations, a Tamarod spokesman flatly denied that the popular movement is being sponsored and trained by the Egyptian military. He also re-iterated an earlier call for a huge popular uprising on Nov. 11.
If it's not the Egyptian army, Hamas claims it's Fatah driving the peaceful rebel movement. "We are witnessing attempts by Fatah to instigate tensions in the Gaza Strip," a Hamas official said in a Jerusalem Post report. "Our people, who threw Fatah out of the Gaza Strip, will not be deceived by this new conspiracy."
Fatah, Hamas' bitter rival, outraged the Gaza regime by publicly supporting Morsi's ouster. Fatah's resumption of peace talks with Israel also incensed Hamas, as did Fatah's call – seen by some as adding wind to the sails of the Tamarod movement in Gaza – to hold long overdue elections in Gaza this autumn. Travel permits for Fatah officials in Gaza recently have been revoked, and a senior Fatah intelligence officer, Mohammed Abu Diya, recently was arrested by Hamas in Gaza, accused of carrying documents that showed Fatah working with the Egyptians to implicate Hamas in civilian unrest in Egypt.
"How can we hold elections under the current tense situation and while the negotiations [with Israel are] taking place with the goal of liquidating the Palestinian cause?" senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil asked.
It is clear that Tamarod is not one movement but an amalgam of disenchanted Gazan youth groups opposed to the Hamas regime, representing a wide spectrum of interests from secular youth to rival Islamist fringe groups.
"60 percent of people in Gaza are under the age of 25. Most of the social networks users in Gaza are very young, between 18-25 years old," says Orit Perlov. "35 percent of Palestinians actively use social networks, mostly Facebook, mostly in Arabic, and more women than men. The interesting part is that there is no call for any violence. It's more about rights and freedom."
Comparing Tamarod Gaza to its Egyptian equivalent, Perlov believes there is still a long way to go before it can be seen as a genuine force for change.
"They are very emotional and very populist. The leaders of social networks need to embrace them. It is not – at this stage – something that could be considered irreversible. It's more of a show saying to Hamas, 'You are not legitimate.'"
Anyone hoping that any future success for Tamarod might lead to better relations with Israel will be disappointed. Many in Tamarod contend that Hamas is not doing enough in the fight against Israel.
"We want Hamas to return to its senses, to its true path of resistance against the occupation [Israel]," a masked Tamarod spokesman stated. "We will not be silent any more. You can't silence us. You will not rule us."
Tamarod (Egypt) has also called for the tearing up of the long-standing peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and for the rejection of all U.S. foreign aid. On Thursday, it called on the Egyptian army to block U.S. warships from traveling through the Suez Canal on the way to the eastern Mediterranean in preparation for a possible strike on Syria.
A spokesman further made it clear that being anti-Hamas does not mean the Gaza Tamarod movement is pro-West. "If you think that rejecting oppression and suppression means coordination with Western or Arab security agencies, you are suffering from many psychological complexes," he said in a Jerusalem Post report.
"There is no real resistance [against Israel] and your [Hamas'] ostensible resistance is nothing but a public relations stunt."
Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist who blogs at paulalster.com and can be followed on Twitter @paul_alster