Hamas PA Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik
On Thursday, the IDF arrested the Hamas Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, Aziz Dweik near Ramallah. Dweik had been detained by the IDF in 2006. Dweik had figured prominently in the controversial Olive Tree Initiative at U.C. Irvine, when students had met students had met with Dweik during a visit to the West Bank in 2009. Orange County Jewish activist, Dee Sterling of Ha-Emet, the Truth had discovered through a California Public Records search evidenced that a Jewish Federation of Orange County (JFOC) affiliate, the Rose Project, had funded the Olive Tree Initiative program at U.C. Irvine.
Here is the Jerusalem Post report on Dweik’s arrest,“IDF nabs head of PA parliament” near Ramallah:
IDF soldiers arrested senior Hamas official, Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Authority parliament on suspicion of involvement with terrorist groups on Thursday, the IDF and Hamas said.
Hamas said Dweik was taken into custody at a checkpoint near Ramallah and it accused Israel of trying to prevent rival Palestinian factions from completing a unity deal. Dweik was arrested by Israel in 2006 and spent two years in jail.
Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a brief civil war a year later, since when parliament has been inactive.
Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a brief civil war a year later, since when parliament has been inactive.
Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah faction agreed a reconciliation deal last year, but it has yet to be implemented.
We noted the encounter between Dweik, the UC Irvine students and the involvement of the JFOC in a July 2011 NER investigative article, “Does the Olive Tree Initiative Lack Credibility?”
JFOC loses its Credibility- the smoking gun letter.
The JFOC’s credibility problem surfaced from a response to a California Public Records Act (PRA) request by local activists from Ha’Emet. That information surfaced a “smoking gun” letter sent by JFOC President Elcott to UCI Chancellor Drake in October, 2009 revealing a meeting between OTI students and Hamas representative Dweik. The JFOC leaders seized upon this letter as evidence that they had brought this to the attention of UCI administrators seeking an investigation. The JFOC leaders never informed the community.
In the JFOC letter the authors wring their hands about the fact that Jewish students on the 2009 OTI trip inadvertently met with a Hamas leader of the West Bank, Aziz Dweik, on September 16th. The students were told by an unidentified person, presumably, the field co-coordinator for the OTI program, to say nothing while passing through Israel or upon arrival back in California, as it might look as if under our laws they were giving material assistance to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Here are some excerpts of the JFOC letter to Chancellor Drake:
On Sunday, September 20, 2009, the second class of the Olive tree Initiative (OTI) returned from their travels in Israel and the west Bank. As its largest funder, Jewish Federation has strongly supported the concept and development of OTI from its inception.
{. . .} We expected, and believed we had received, full disclosure about program details. This is why we were quite surprised to learn, following the recent return of the OTI group, that they conducted an unapproved, off-itinerary meeting on September 16thwith Aziz Dweik, a notable Hamas figure.
One UCI faculty member and two UCI doctoral candidates were in charge of arrangements on the ground. [Name redacted] was well aware of Jewish Federation’s ‘redlines’ – what could or could not be done on an OTI trip. Taking UCI [students] to meet a Hamas leader crossed those red lines, and put the University and Jewish Federation in a precarious position. We are deeply troubled that this incident could potentially derail the substantial progress we have made together in building multicultural bridges at UCI.
Elcott goes on to wring his hands about the untoward consequences of this OTI Hamas meeting:
We expect that many in our Jewish community – in Orange County, nationally and around the world – - will be astonished and furious that a Jewish organization would sponsor any program that directly exposed students to a leader of a recognized terrorist organization. Our community’s relations with the Israeli government may be affected, and there may be cause for action by our parent organization, United Jewish Communities.
Towards the end of this letter to Chancellor Drake, the authors try “to connect the dots” between September, 2009 OTI Hamas meeting on the West Bank with the May, 2009 George Galloway Viva Palestina MSU fundraiser on the UCI campus that we wrote about in an NER investigative article,“Coming to a Mosque Near You: “Pimping for terrorists”.
The ZOA has reason to believe that this fundraiser may have provided material support to Hamas in July, 2009. While this is an entirely separate issue from the OTI concerns, you should take into account the possibility that both issues involving Hamas could be linked in any media story.
If JFOC President Elcott and Rose Project co-heads Margolis and Weiss wanted to inform Chancellor Drake and preserve the OTI program, why did they write this letter, instead of personally arranging a meeting with Drake, presenting the facts and getting the situation squared away quietly? Because the letter has so many co-authors we suspect that the counsel for JFOC suggested this approach so as to put the onus on the University. The existence of this letter was like a ticking time bomb in the JFOC’s files. They knew it was only a matter of time before someone would discover and disclose it.
Then there was the matter of whether the Rose project provided funds to the OTI.
From the PRA discovery documents secured by Ha’Emet it appears that JFOC donated nearly $60,000 to the OTI over the period from 2009 to the present. Moreover, UCI provided $10,000 in support of the 2010 OTI trip in November, 2009 just weeks after the exchange of the JFOC letter with Chancellor Drake.
As noted in a recent FrontPageMagazine article, “The Patrons of Anti-Israelism”, U.Cal Chancellor Yudoff also provided funds to OTI:
. . . only a matter of weeks after the Hamas meeting was made known to Drake, University of California Chancellor Mark Yudoff donated $5000 to the OTI via the Lumina Foundation for Education. This was followed in May 2010 with a $2000 award to the STUDENT LEADERS OF OTI by Yudoff for the university’s Presidential Leadership Award.
These PRA disclosures began the unraveling of a conspiracy by JFOC and the Rose project to cover up the truth about the OTI.
Several Jewish Federations across the US have engaging in programs like the OTI that conflicted with Israeli government policies regarding encounters with Hamas representatives or sponsoring programs with anti-Israel groups like Jewish Voices for Peace and B’Tselem that espouse Boycott, Divestment Sanctions against the Jewish State. Then there is J Street which alleges it is pro-peace and pro-Israel while pro-Zionist Z Street has accused it of seeking an immediate declaration of a Palestinian state. Some Federations like the Sarasota- Manatee County Federation in Florida have adopted pledges against such activities. Groups like the Jewish American Affairs Committee of Indiana, JCC Watch in Manhattan, and the newly created National Council on Jewish Affairs have engaged in combating, “ what Harvard Medical School Psychiatrist, historian and author Dr. Kenneth Levin called The Oslo Syndrome: delusions of a People under Siege.”
IDF nabs head of PA parliament near Ramallah
By REUTERS01/20/2012 00:21
Talkbacks (40)
IDF soldiers arrested senior Hamas official, Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Authority parliament on suspicion of involvement with terrorist groups on Thursday, the IDF and Hamas said.
Hamas said Dweik was taken into custody at a checkpoint near Ramallah and it accused Israel of trying to prevent rival Palestinian factions from completing a unity deal. Dweik was arrested by Israel in 2006 and spent two years in jail.
RELATED:
2 Arab Israelis charged with helping Hamas
Hamas ‘council’ uncovered in east Jerusalem
'Hamas legislator Abu Tir arrested north of J'lem'
Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a brief civil war a year later, since when parliament has been inactive.
Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction agreed a reconciliation deal last year, but it has yet to be implemented.
Hamas said Dweik was taken into custody at a checkpoint near Ramallah and it accused Israel of trying to prevent rival Palestinian factions from completing a unity deal. Dweik was arrested by Israel in 2006 and spent two years in jail.
RELATED:
2 Arab Israelis charged with helping Hamas
Hamas ‘council’ uncovered in east Jerusalem
'Hamas legislator Abu Tir arrested north of J'lem'
Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a brief civil war a year later, since when parliament has been inactive.
Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction agreed a reconciliation deal last year, but it has yet to be implemented.
Coming to a Mosque Near You: "Pimping for Terrorists"
by Jerry Gordon (September 2010)Background
The eruption of mega-mosque conflicts across America has raised numerous questions, in more than a dozen cases, about who is funding these multi-million dollar projects. And, in addition, whether there could be any Muslim Brotherhood connections and any possibility of their raising funds for foreign terrorist groups like Hamas.
"Money continues to flow in the other direction, as well," said Mosab Hassan Yousef "Son of Hamas."
He noted the FBI documented that the Holy Land Foundation sent $12.4 million from the U.S. to Hamas committees. But based on his 10 years of experience as a spy for the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, he believes many times that amount has been smuggled to Hamas in cash.
As an example, Yousef cited the case of a Palestinian terror operative he met in prison who was arrested transporting $100,000 after Shin Bet provided information to law enforcement authorities.
"I guarantee you that there still people who collect money in mosques that go directly to Hamas in cash," Yousef said. "And this is a problem that the government doesn't have control over. Obama doesn't have control over this money."
The flashpoints of these conflicts stretch across the US from the Ground Zero mosque in lower Manhattan to the expanded Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in Tennessee and the Temecula, California mosque. Private investigative teams have become engaged in tracking down answers to these questions. My colleague at the New English Review, publisher Rebecca Bynum, noted these concerns in a recent Erick Stakelbeck CBN report "Mega Mosques target America's Heartland":
Locals also have other concerns--like where the millions of dollars are coming from to pay for the proposed complex.
Mosque officials say the money was raised in the community. But local journalist Rebecca Bynum said she isn't convinced.
"In other mosques, like in Boston and other areas where there have been huge mosques built, the funding did come from overseas, principally from Saudi Arabia, rich individuals from countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE," she said.
Murfreesboro is not alone. two more mega-mosques are now being planned for Tennessee--one in Memphis and another the town of Antioch, near Nashville.
"It does seem to be part of a larger strategy to build mosques in rural areas and create Islamic communities--large Islamic communities--in rural areas for some larger purpose," said Bynum.
Local public authorities have avoided raising these questions at public hearings, while pointing out the inalienable right under Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution giving freedom to establish churches and places of worship without government interference. These mega-mosques push the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood in America by making use of Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and exemptions from local land zoning processes under the Religious Land Use and Incarcerated Persons Act of 2000. That agenda, according to Frank Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy, is to carry out via stealth a "grand jihad" with the ultimate goal of supplanting our Constitution with strict Islamic Sharia law. In 1993, according to the Chicago Tribune, the US Muslim Brotherhood changed its name to the Muslim American Society and Brotherhood members agreed to refer to themselves as members of MAS rather than the Brotherhood.
Zakat and Hamas
One of the five pillars of Islam is zakat, the Muslim charitable obligation. Cited in the record of the Holy Land Foundation trial, prominent American Muslim Brotherhood fronts, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), North America Islamic Trust (NAIT), and the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), among others, have of funneled more than $12 million to Hamas, the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls Gaza.
Note what we said about the connections between "Zakat and Terrorism" in a July 2009, New English Review article:
Zakat recipients would include [ . . ]those fulfilling the "way of Allah", Jihad. [. . .] Zakat money should be used provided the effort is to raise the banner of Islam.
It is the application of Zakat proceeds to Jihad, especially in the US, that is most problematic and made application of counter-terrorism laws troublesome in the eyes of critics like the ACLU.
Jonathan Schanzer, former Treasury counter terrorism expert [now Vice President for Research at the Washington-based, Foundation for the Defense of Democracy] commented to the author that "US government seizures of the assets of Muslim charities were based on intelligence and investigations."
Private investigators, such as David Gaubatz, co-author with Paul Sperry of Muslim Mafia, have gone undercover and compiled a record of abuses of zakat. These include Muslim Brotherhood fronts' terrorist connections and allied mosque leaders violating federal laws giving material support to designated foreign terrorist groups under the provisions of the Patriot Act.
The Central Role of George Galloway of Viva Palestina in Raising Zakat for Hamas
George Galloway, whose Respect Party was defeated in the recent British general elections, lost his parliamentary immunity. In April of 2009, Canadian authorities barred his entry on behalf of Viva Palestina, a registered British charity he co-founded to raise funds for Gaza "humanitarian" convoys in direct support of Hamas. The US State Department did not declare him persona non grata and permitted his entry here in May and June of 2009. Galloway used that cover to considerable advantage. Over a period of a year, he was in the US virtually every weekend making appearances at universities such as Ohio State and the University of California at Irvine raising millions for humanitarian aid to be conveyed to the Hamas government via the Viva Palestina convoys. According to the IFCO website, Galloway is poised to conduct a fifth convoy to Gaza in aid of Hamas on September 18, 2010. The website notes:
Viva Palestina is launching "Viva Palestina 5 - a global lifeline to Gaza", a gigantic land convoy leaving London on Saturday, 18th September in conjunction with convoys leaving from Casablanca and Doha and timed to coordinate with a larger and even more international flotilla aiming to reach Gaza by sea at the same time as the land convoys reach by land.
Note the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) complaint and request for investigation about Galloway's appearance and fund raising at UC Irvine in this New University report:
In May 2009, the Muslim Student Union (MSU) at UC Irvine, hosted the school-sponsored event, "Israel: The Politics of Genocide" on campus, where over 850 people attended.
Present at the event was guest-speaker, and a member of the British Parliament George Galloway, notorious for his fervid support of the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The event promoted Galloway's cause "Viva Palestina," a humanitarian organization that sends convoys with aid to the Gaza strip. The MSU sent out collection boxes at the event to support Viva Palestina.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) posed complaints against the MSU because they believed that the convoys supported Hamas, a group identified by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
The ZOA deemed the event as anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic. They informed UCI and the U.S. Justice Department of complaints that they have received in response to the May conference. ZOA's president and director authored a lengthy letter to UCI Chancellor Diane F. Geocarris with courtesy copies to other high officials, including UC President Mark Yudof and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The correspondence strongly encouraged an investigation of MSU for possibly funding Hamas and practicing anti-Semitism. The ZOA accused the MSU on further grounds of violating university technicalities with the fundraiser.
Tom Trento, Director of the Florida Security Council, was at the UC Irvine event and said, "I could not believe that Galloway was overtly raising money for a US designated terrorist organization and he wasn't hauled away in leg irons!"
The Islamic Society of Central Florida Investigative Film and Its Impact
The Islamic Society of Central Florida Investigative Film and Its Impact
On June 14, 2009, George Galloway appeared at an event sponsored by the Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF). Also in attendance was Mahdi Bray executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation (MASFF) at Imam Muhammad Musri's Al Rahman mosque in Orlando, Florida. The mosque is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). They raised over $55,000 in support of Galloway's Viva Palestina, a Hamas terror finance conduit. An undercover team of investigators from ACT! For America Jacksonville and Orlando chapters attended the Viva Palestina event. They videoed Galloway and Bray raising funds for Viva Palestina using the cover of the 501(c)(3) tax exempt status of the MASFF.
Galloway and Bray were caught on video misleading the audience telling them their contributions were tax deductible as the MASFF is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) non profit institution.
NAIT have been identified as Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the prosecutor's exhibits of the Federal Holy Land Foundation trial. Evidence produced in the HLF trial record and cited in the You Tube video included a plan of the Muslim Brotherhood to engage in a "grand jihad" aimed at overthrowing our Constitution and replacing it with a Sharia Islamic State.
Noted uncover investigator and co-author of Muslim Mafia, David Gaubatz, takes us through the evidence from the Holy Land Foundation trial and identifies the NAIT as being engaged in activities in furtherance of the Grand Jihad plan of the Muslim Brotherhood to take over America by stealth.
California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, made a formal request to Attorney General Eric Holder on December 1st, 2009 to open an investigation into George Galloway and his organization Viva Palestina based on allegations that they are raising funds in America for the terrorist group Hamas. In his letter to attorney General Holder, Sherman noted:
Viva Palestina USA is not a 501(c)(3) entity and my staff could not determine whether the organization has any legal status in the United States.
Sherman went on to comment on the following statement made by Galloway as he handed over a substantial amount of cash to Hamas President Ismail Haniyeh in March, 2009 in Gaza as captured in this video:
Here is the money. This is not charity. This is politics. The government of Palestine is the best people where this money is needed. We are giving this money now to the government of Palestine. If I could, I would give them 10 times, 100 times, and more. [Emphasis added].
Sherman noted:
This statement [. . .] is compelling evidence that the major purpose of Viva Palestina is to provide material support to Hamas.
Citing a Zionist of America video of the Viva Palestina event at UCIrvine in May, 2009, Sherman requests an immediate investigation by Attorney General Holder of Viva Palestina USA stating:
Clearly, people and organizations in the United States cannot be allowed to solicit funds for foreign terrorist organizations. That such solicitation is occurring during the middle of the day at a public university is truly frightening.
At the behest of Republican Congresswoman Sue Myrick's office, the independent video evidence presented here was sent to Steve Emerson of the investigative project on Terrorism (www.investigativeproject.org). The video has since been released to the FBI, Treasury Department, and IRS for fraud, violations of the FARA Act and possible violations of providing material support for terrorism.
This documentary - in reality a film dossier - exposes Galloway, in the words of a Canadian government official, "pimping for terrorists." This documentary shows episodes of Galloway dispensing funds to Hamas representatives and making his pitch to the audience at the June, 2009 ISCF event. You will see film clips about the criminal record of MASFF leader, Mahdi Bray, as well as the global connections between Galloway and Iran, Hamas, Venezuelan dictator Chavez and Communist Cuba.
You will also see documented IDF footage of weapons and arms seized from cargos of Iranian vessels supplying Hamas with 'humanitarian aid.' The video shows the violence evident in the Free Gaza Flotilla encounter with IDF naval commandos in which several armed Turkish Islamic extremists were killed. You will also see that Galloway and Americans William Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn were part of the foreign contingent among the other ships of the Free Gaza flotilla of May 2010.
At issue is whether Attorney General Holder has authorized an investigation of Galloway, Bray, and Imam Musri concerning fraudulent fundraising for Hamas in America. This video dossier offers compelling evidence. The silence of the Justice Department and the Obama Administration to bi-partisan requests for investigation of the Galloway Hamas terror financing nexus in America is troubling. Perhaps this You Tube video dossier will raise public ire and result in Galloway being declared persona non grata in the United States. Moreover, it could result in federal prosecution of Bray and Imam Musri of ISCF for violation of IRS and Patriot Act provisions giving material support to the foreign terrorist organization, Hamas. This filmed dossier should raise serious local investigations of possible mega-mosque terror financing and abuse of IRS tax exemptions. Stay tuned.
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