Newsletter #56 – Someone else is talking about the Jerusalem Fund

Past newsletters have discussed the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development because the Chairman lives in Waverly, Tennessee and his daughter is the newly appointed International Director for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.

Yesterday’s Front Page Magazine posted “Tennessee’s Troubling Islamist Network” covering some of the same information.  At least one person who commented on the piece was planning to contact the Lt. Governor about this.

It would behoove the Governor and his staff to read it as well.


Newsletter #39 – Dr. Subhi Ali and the Jerusalem Fund

Deputy Governor Claude Ramsey recently took the opportunity to remind Tennessee leadership that among the reasons the administration was justified in hiring Samar Ali, were the impressive Tennessee credentials of her father, Dr. Subhi Ali.

However, just as with the administration’s repeated omissions with regard to Ms. Ali’s Shariah Compliant Finance credentials, the administration has also neglected to inform Tennesseans about Dr. Ali’s long-standing involvement with the Jerusalem Fund (the Fund).

Research at this time documents that Dr. Ali joined the Fund’s Board in 2000 and in 2004 served as Vice Chair alongside the Fund’s principal founder and Chairman, Hisham Sharabi (discussed below).  From 2005 until the present, Dr. Ali has served as the Chairman of the Fund’s Board.

While couched in the context of “cultural programming”, a review of the genesis of the Jerusalem Fund, its founders and their connections, and the continued political platforms, activities and current day governing board members highlights that nothing has changed – they remain as committed today as they were when the Fund was established, working toward the same objective of turning the U.S. away from its support and alliance with Israel.

I. What is the Jerusalem Fund?

As stated on its website:

The Jerusalem Fund for Education & Community Development is an independent, non-profit, non-political, non-sectarian organization based in Washington, D.C.  Funding for operational expenses is derived from investment income. This, together with donations from private individuals throughout the U.S., supports our humanitarian grants.”

The Jerusalem Fund (the Fund) in its current configuration, is comprised of 3 programs – “The Palestine Center”, “The Humanitarian Link” and “The Gallery”.

Despite the Fund’s self-description as “non-political”, a review of its leadership, programming, and issues of focus, reflect overtly pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas/anti-Israel positions.

“The Palestine Center”, noted as the educational arm of the Fund, offers (with disclaimers displayed), Information Briefs such as the one written by its 2010 intern titled  “Rising support for Hamas and the Roots of its Success in Palestine “ (“One of Hamas’ more distinctive qualities is its emphasis on Islam. In addition to its self-proclaimed role as a legitimate and honest replacement to Fateh, Hamas also acts as a religious alternative to the secular Fateh.”)

In addition to making grants for social services in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” as it is referred to on the website, “The Humanitarian Link” supports the Palestine Diabetes Institute.  As reported in her White House bio, Samar Ali served as the transatlantic liaison during the development of this project.

(Originally named the “Occupied Land Fund”, recall that the Holy Land Foundation was the largest Islamic charity in the U.S., which also claimed it was needed to bring humanitarian relief to needy Palestinians in the occupied territories.  The Holy Land Foundation was successfully prosecuted in 2007 for funding Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations).

“The Gallery” is solely focused on promoting “..the rich culture and national heritage of the Palestinian people, as well as that of surrounding Arab societies.”

II. The Genesis of the Jerusalem Fund -(Sharabi – WISE – PIJ – IIIT – Muslim Brotherhood)

In 1977 Dr. Hisham Sharabi, PhD. founded the American Palestine Education Foundation (APEF) which in 1981 was renamed The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development (the Fund).   Sharabi served as Chairman of the Board until he died in 2005.

In 1991 Sharabi founded the Centre for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP), which was added to the Fund, to “represent a Palestinian perspective in Washington, D.C.”  One example of CPAP’s activities was its 2003 annual conference entitled “Israel’s Policy of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing”.  As reported by the NGO Monitor, “Hisham Sharabi, chairman of CPAP, set the hostile tone for the daylong seminar with his opening remarks…”  In 2002 CPAP was renamed The Palestine Center.

Sharabi  advocated a Palestinian “armed struggle” if necessary, to end “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza”.  His 1998 paper “The Palestinians: Fifty Years Later”, called for Americans of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim backgrounds to organize using their “constitutional rights as Americans” to “influence a dangerously biased [toward Israel] American policy in the Middle East.”

III. Sharabi and WISE

Equally revealing about Sharabi is his membership on the Board of Trustees of the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE).  WISE was incorporated by Sami Al-Arian as an Islamic think tank designed to organize seminars and share libraries.

Al-Arian was sentenced on May 1, 2006, to 57 months in prison to be followed by deportation.  At his sentencing hearing, U.S. District Court Judge James Moody called Al-Arian a “master manipulator”, adding, “[y]ou looked your neighbors in the eyes and said you had nothing to do with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  This trial exposed that as a lie.”

WISE was named in a federal indictment as part of a “criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in acts of violence including murder, extortion, money laundering, fraud and issue of visas, and operated worldwide including the Middle District of Florida.”

WISE is related to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).  PIJ and Hamas are related in that they share the same outcomes but often have not been successful working together in that direction.   

Tarik Hamdi, identified as an officer/staff member of WISE is listed in a federal affidavit as providing material support to Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden and the PIJ.  He left WISE to work for IIIT.  He subsequently left the U.S. and relocated to the Middle East.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) was identified as one of the funders of WISE.  The IIIT was named in the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends.”

Other WISE Board members include:

Taha Jabir al Alwani -President, IIIT; cited as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Justice Department’s terrorism prosecution against al-Arian.

Basheer Nafi – was charged with “conspiracy to murder, maim or injure persons outside the United States.” and a significant leader of the PIJ. In 1996 he was deported from the U.S. back to England for visa violations. In 2003 the FBI indicted Bashir Nafi in abstentia, in connection with the U.S. PIJ  cell.

Mazin an Najjar- a founding member of WISE, was arrested on secret FBI evidence that he was supporting terrorism and was deported from the U.S. in 2002. In a one-sentence summary, Judge McHugh stated that al Najjar was “associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a threat to national security.”

Ramadan Abdullah aka Ramadan Shallah – Currently on the FBI Most Wanted List, co-founder of WISE, and listed as a “Specially Designated Terrorist”.  He was named the leader of PIJ in 1995.  Shallah was indicted in a 53 count indictment in the United States District Court, Middle District of Florida. The Rewards For Justice Program, U.S. State Dept., is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Shallah.

The Jerusalem Fund:  

Subhi Ali – Sharabi – WISE – PIJ – IIIT – Muslim Brotherhood

 


Newsletter #147 – What Would Haslam Do? (Part 3 of 3)

This past Labor Day weekend, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), held its 51st annual convention in Detroit. This is the largest annual Muslim Brotherhood event in the U.S.

ISNA is listed in the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood strategic plan for North America and was also a named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing prosecution. ISNA was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s first U.S. organization, the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Many of ISNA’s leaders were active in their respective college MSAs.

A look at ISNA’s website, leadership, annual convention speakers and partners shows why ISNA supports the BDS goal of destroying Israel as the Jewish homeland. ISNA supports Hamas, the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Hamas is a U.S. designated terrorist organization.

The Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN) warranty deed lists the same mailing address as ISNA. Why do the Nashville’s Family of Abraham apologists for Islam turn a blind eye to ISNA’s end goals? Is it because they think the same way?

ISNA’s 2014 conference

This year’s event theme made the absurd claim that Muslims living the U.S. constitute the next civil rights movement. Tennessee’s Muslim American Center for Outreach (ACO) tried a similar propaganda tactic during the 2013 “Black History Month.”

The biggest irony with ISNA’s choice of theme, is that this country’s most respected and powerful black American civil rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., defended Israel’s need for security and   spoke against anti-Semitism.

 

mlk

Speakers at the conference included the regular group of named unindicted co-conspirators from the terrorism financing prosecution who also happen to be regular speakers in Tennessee, including Syyid Syeed, Jamal Badawi, Nihad Awad, Zaid Shakir, Hamza Yusuf, Louay Safi and Siraj Wahajj.

And no large gathering of sharia advocates would be complete without Memphis Tennessee imam Yasir Qadhi.

And no Muslim Brotherhood inspired event would be complete without high profile representatives of anti-Israel Jew-hater organizations like CAIR-Hamas and Hatem Bazian, founder of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The highest profile speakers included former President Jimmy Carter, (author of “Apartheid Israel”), Rep. Keith Ellison and Michigan Governor, Republican Rick Snyder.

Governors Snyder and Haslam: two sides of the same coin?

In 2011 Michigan Gov. Snyder spoke at an event sponsored by CAIR-Hamas. Like ISNA, CAIR was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood organization and named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing prosecution. A letter campaign shortly thereafter “cautioned [Snyder] about Muslim Brotherhood influence operations.”

Either Snyder wasn’t listening or wanted to believe the “moderate Muslim Brotherhood” fantasy. Or that ISNA’s interfaith outreach with Jews is somehow complimentary to ISNA’s support for the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and delegitimization movement against Israel. Why else would Snyder choose the ISNA convention to remind his audience of Israel’s right to exist? ISNA promptly issued an action alert against the Governor for his “insensitive remarks.”

Like Snyder, Haslam has his Department of Homeland Security interface with the state’s Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) even though AMAC board members publicly assert their allegiance to known Muslim Brotherhood and lead pro-Hamas rallies. Would Haslam speak at an AMAC conference if asked? What about a CAIR conference? What if ISNA decided to use the new Nashville Convention Center? Any different than speaking at a KKK rally?

Haslam probably would show up and welcome the Islamists to his state. Just like he welcomed the sharia observant Mwafaq Aljabbary into the Republican political fold.

aljabbary with haslam

Would Haslam also show his support for Israel? It’s questionable.

Shortly after sharia finance specialist  Samar Ali was hired by the Haslam administration, Commissioner Hagerty said that Samar was hired after a phone call from her father, Subhi Ali. Did it matter that Subhi Ali’s organization the Jerusalem Fund, wants to destroy Israel? When questioned about why he hired a Muslim with a sharia finance background, Haslam defended his choice citing “freedom of religion.” Obviously Haslam doesn’t understand the “politics” of Islam and its sharia finance which sends money to support jihadis like Hamas or ISIS.

Just like Gov. Snyder, Islamists in Tennessee have ties to former President Jimmy Carter. Would it concern Haslam to know that Samar accompanied former President Jimmy Carter and his Carter Center team to witness the Presidential Elections in Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood candidate was elected?

subhi carter center

 

The same former President who is the author of “Apartheid Israel,” whose Carter Center took $1 million from the Bin Laden family, and donations in the range of $10,000 to $24,999 from Samar’s father and mother?

What should Haslam do?

He should start by being educated about the Muslim Brotherhood presence in Tennessee including the Pleasant View Islamic school in Memphis. He should find out why Anoor Academy in his hometown is teaching its children lies about Jews and Christians. He should learn more about why the pro-sharia advocates like Remziya Suleyman and her ACO organization are teaming up with CAIR-Hamas and Samar Ali.

He might even want to find out why his Commissioner of Safety and Homeland Security Bill Gibbons wasn’t truthful about his promotion of the American Muslim Advisory Council in Tennessee. Instead of keeping Tennessee’s law enforcement ignorant about Islamist activity in Tennessee, he should make sure they are properly and thoroughly trained.

Haslam should look more carefully at the Israel and Jew-hating group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) that has established itself at UT Knoxville, and he should question why Tennessee has witnessed pro-Hamas rallies in Nashville, Chattanooga and Knoxville.

Could Haslam be counted on to do what he should do? Not based on past evidence he won’t.

 

 

 


Newsletter #134 – A Leopard Doesn’t Change Its Spots

Predictably, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) is standing in defense of Hamas using civilians as human shields as Israel ….

Predictably, the Executive Director of the pro-Palestinian D.C. think tank, the Jerusalem Fund/Palestine Center, when asked directly, will not answer the simple yes/no question:

            “Is Hamas a terrorist organization?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgeeXlLyKvM

mqdefault

CAIR was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Association for Palestine, which was created to promote and raise money for Hamas in the U.S. Federal prosecutors have established ample evidence tying CAIR to Hamas. In 1994 CAIR Director Nihad Awad publicly declared his support for Hamas.

The Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center was founded by Hisham Sharabi who described Hamas as “the true fida’i (self-sacrifice) resistance in Palestine since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada.” In 2003 he said:

 “In the face of relentless Israeli force, the only weapon the helpless and desperate have is to fling their bodies against the beast.  Suicide bombings are no longer the lone act of desperate fanatics, but have become a conscious weapon of resistance and war.  The culture of death and self-sacrifice is spreading in many Arab and Muslim countries.”

Jerusalem Fund Chairman is Subhi Ali from Waverly, Tennessee. He joined the Jerusalem Fund in 2000, became Vice-President in 2004 serving alongside Sharabi and then became President of the Board in 2005, a position he still retains. The Jerusalem Fund campaigns for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This is a campaign, the intent of which is widely recognized, to try and destroy the state of Israel.

Subhi Ali is the father of former Haslam appointee, sharia finance specialist, Samar Ali.

ECD Commissioner Bill Hagerty admitted publicly that Subhi Ali called him and asked him to look at Samar’s resume which includes work done on behalf of the Jerusalem Fund. After Subhi’s phone call, Haggerty hired Samar. Sounds like Haggerty knows Subhi Ali and his family pretty well. Samar’s resume includes work done on behalf of the Jerusalem Fund.

Shortly after Samar’s hiring, questions were raised about why the Haslam administration hired a sharia finance specialist but redacted these credentials from information about her that was released to the public.

*********

Subhi Ali immigrated from the West Bank town of Ramallah. As Samar says, “I will always be Arab and I will always be American and I will always be Muslim.” She also says that “My parents always taught us to never forget where we came from and to never forget where we are now.”

Now pro-Hamas rallies in Tennessee with Muslim organizations are spreading Jew-hatred. Given the information above, we shouldn’t be surprise


Newsletter #122 – Raising a Capitalism-Benefitting Socialist in Nashville Who Also Hates Israel

If you are a young adult Jew, like Hannah Cornfield, daughter of TN-ACLU Director Hedy Weinberg, you augment your socialist-progressive credentials by promoting the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace and support BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against the State of Israel.

Grow up in the expensive Green Hills neighborhood. Attend an expensive private high school (2013 high school tuition $20,000 plus books). Graduate from an expensive private college. Protest the evils of capitalism. Serve as a Field Organizer with Obama’s Organizing for America. Use connections in D.C. to learn how to undermine voting integrity.

How else can you expect to understand what it’s like for the disenfranchised? Be sure not to disavow the unfair advantage of “white privilege” until after graduation. Then assuage your guilt by attacking capitalism and the very system that provided for you.

cornfield on capitalism

If you are a young adult Jew, like Hannah Cornfield, daughter of TN-ACLU Director Hedy Weinberg, you augment your socialist-progressive credentials by promoting the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace and support BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against the State of Israel.

hannah c jvp

 

Jewish Voice For Peace (JVP), an extreme leftist group is ranked by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) among the top 10 “worst of the worst anti-Israel groups.” American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), are on the same list.

ADL characterizes groups likes JVP as “fixated with delegitimizing Israel” using campaigns like BDS.

BDS is the pro-Palestinian campaign that followed the 2000 intifada. The goal of BDS is to end Israel as a Jewish state. Period. The goal of BDS, is not peace. Its not justice. Its not democracy. The goal of BDS is to end the existence of the State of Israel.

JVP has been described as a “Jewish Voice for Hamas” because it advocates dialogue with Hamas and promotes what JVP believes are the “positive” aspects of Hamas despite the fact that Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of Israel. Unless of course that is what draws JVP to Hamas?

hannah twitter 1

Hannah might be surprised to learn that Hisham Sharabi, supporter of “radical Palestinian terror groups,” and founder of the Jerusalem Fund, understood how gullible progressive Jews are. He predicted that the intifada followed by a BDS campaign would be supported by “progressive Jewish forces in Israel and the United States….[any group] enlisted in the ‘progressive’ cause of the Palestinian Arabs – why not, anyone ‘progressive’ enough to embrace Hamas…is someone useful to Israel’s enemies.”

Cornfield is just the kind of Jew Sharabi liked. But maybe it’s Cornfield’s socialist morality that makes her support the Israel-hating JVP. After all, Israel could have been a socialist’s dream except for its successful capitalists.

It’s not the first time Jews were complicit with their demonizers. Judenrats in Germany didn’t legitimize Hitler any more than JVP legitimizes the goals of BDS.

*****

The milieu of Cornfield’s genealogy (which will examined in later newsletters), is steeped in Marxist/Communist/Leftist/Socialist associations and alliances. Hannah Cornfield is merely a product of these familial influences. But Cornfield also reflects the newer version of the red-green alliance between the socialist progressives (reds) and the Islamists (greens), which share the goal of destroying America and western civilization as we know it.


Newsletter #117 – The Red-Green Alliance and the BDS Campaign Against Israel (Part 3 of 5)

“Progressives” – aka the Socialists, Alinskyites and Marxists Who Hide Behind Religion 

What do self-labeled socially progressive Christians, Jews and even some Muslims, have in common?  They either openly support the BDS campaign, or like Jewish Voice for Peace, give it their “Jewish” stamp of approval.

The Israel bashers and Jew-haters in their midst, including the Islamists and Arabs, have shrewdly embedded their objectives in the leftist jargon of social justice and human and minority rights.  This is the Red-Green alliance that explains why the language of BDS’ers describes Israel as an “apartheid state” and why Sabeel is grounded in Palestinian liberation theology, a socialist, dhimmi Christian ideology.

Liberals who view themselves as socially progressive believe man can perfect the world. Jewish liberals pervert the repair rhetoric of tikkun olam from a God-driven end to a man-made mission. The Islamist partners in the Red-Green Alliance steadfastly challenge man’s right to legislate over Allah and make laws of their own while the Christian leftists delight in practicing social justice with the Palestinians who support terrorism and rule over their own apartheid state.

As Jonah Goldberg writes in Liberal Fascism:

“In Italy they were called Fascists. In Germany they were called National Socialists. [later renamed Nazis] In         America we call them progressives…. Religion was a political tool, while politics was their true religion….”

But what Islamist Jew-haters and academics like Hisham Sharabi, founder of the Jerusalem Fund and supporter of “radical Palestinian terror groups” understood, is how gullible American progressives are. He predicted that the intifada followed by a BDS campaign would be supported by “progressive Jewish forces in Israel and the United States….[any group] enlisted in the ‘progressive’ cause of the Palestinian Arabs – why not, anyone ‘progressive’ enough to embrace Hamas…is someone useful to Israel’s enemies.”

“Any group enlisted in the cause of the Palestinian Arabs” would certainly include the groups highlighted in Part 2. It would likewise include the Tennessee groups listed as part of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation which include the Progressive Student Alliance at UT-Knoxville, the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center in Memphis and the Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility of UCC in Pleasant Hill.

Tennessee groups in the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

As discussed in Part 2, the U.S. Campaign is an umbrella group. The Progressive Student Alliance at UT-Knoxville supports BDS. To this end they partnered with UT-Knoxville’s new anti-Israel hate group Students for Justice in Palestine.

The Mid-South Peace and Justice Center(MSPJC), is itself a coalition of member organizations. One of its members is the Worker’s Interfaith Network (WIN), also located in Memphis. Methodist Rev. Rebekah Gienapp, founded WIN and served as its first Executive Director. She is a co-author on a study guide about Islam. She has also served as the Communications Chair of Interfaith Worker Justice located in Chicago.

WIN is a great example of the Red-Green Alliance. Some of WIN’s high profile members include:

Former AMAC (TN American Muslim Advisory Council) Board member Abdulkadir Gure lists an affiliation with many organizations including WIN, the far left anti-American TIRRC (TN Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition), ACO (American Center for Outreach) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA).

Kyle Kordsmeier, Organizing Director for WIN and MSPJC Board member traveled to Gaza in 2006 to “help defend the rights of Palestinians” in an area where just two days prior, Lebanese guerrillas killed three IDF soldiers and attacked two others. Kordsmeier was arrested by Israeli police after he tried to take a Palestinian prisoner away from the police. He claimed unprovoked brutality by the police.

WIN Executive Director, Alfredo Pena (arrested for theft between $10,000 – $60,000) served as Vice-President of TIRRC in 2010 and was also a former board member of MSPJC.

WIN Board members include Renee Dillard, associate minister, St. John’s UMC and Neal Gammill, Socialist Party, USA National Committee and Pres. Memphis Socialist Party.

Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility of UCC (United Church of Christ) also pushing BDS, signed a petitionprotesting the U.S. boycott of the 2009 Durban II conference. Countries like the U.S., were concerned that like Durban I, the 2009 conference was going to be used to promote anti-Semitism and a push for sharia-styled anti-blasphemy laws. Canadian Prime Minister Harper boycottedthe conference because he believed it would be used to “scapegoat the Jewish people.”

Withdrawing from the 2001 Durban I conference, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell stated:

            “I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism;’ or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust; or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel; or that singles out only one country in the world–Israel–for censure and abuse.”

Amazingly 13 years later, anti-Semitism, or more precisely, Jew-hatred, has re-energized the BDS campaign and has spawned such heinous documents as the PresbyterianUSA’s Zionism Unsettled. Equally contemptible are initiatives likethe “Christ at the Checkpoint” conferences whose speakers have included Holocaust deniers, and whose organizers want U.S. evangelicals to understand the Bible from a Palestinian Christian perspective, ie, the same narrative used by Sabeel (see part 2). Claiming to be evangelical Baptists, they are working the U.S. churches with the message that Zionism, not Hamas persecutes Christians. The “BDS in the Pews” report shows that there is a very short road from full-blown BDS and its end-game agenda.

Even direct statements by BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti and Ali Abunimah that the goal of BDS is to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state does not seem to make BDS’ers stop and reevaluate their commitment to this movement. Nor has it stopped the liberal progressive media from promoting the Jew hater agenda by “fram[ing] the plight of Arab Christians in the West Bank as a problem caused by Israel.”

The BDS Progressives faithfully adhere to Alinsky’s “rules for radicals,” Marxist revolution, and the socialists’ dreams of man-made perfection on earth. But first, they must destroy any and all obstacles that stand in the way of achieving their utopia. In the case of Israel, the interfaithers use the Kairos Palestine Document’s liberation theology as a guide.

The intense and sustained hatred for Israel and the Jews is fueled by the fact, that despite Israel being the sole democracy in the Middle East, it has moved away from its communal-by-necessity beginnings. What began as a socialist’s vindication has matured into a strong capitalist-based economy.

So they hate a country and its people, who despite being attacked without provocation by Hamas, provided medical care this year to the granddaughter of Hamas leader Hamal Haniyeh.

This act was true goodness and mercy.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Newsletter #115 – The Red-Green Alliance and the BDS Campaign Against Israel (Part 1of 5)

What is BDS? (boycott, divestment & sanctions)

BDS is an anti-Israel, anti-Zionism and by extension, anti-Jew bigoted propaganda campaign.  BDS’ers advocate:

  • boycotting Israeli products, academics and culture
  • pressuring companies to stop doing business with and divest economically from Israel, and,
  • sanctioning Israel for employing self-defense measures from attacks like the Hamas rocket and missile attacks, and terrorists that blow themselves up in crowded public gathering places

BDS is pro-Hamas and fueled by anti-Semitic rhetoric. The intended result is to eliminate the democratic state of the Jewish people.   For this reason, rallying BDS’ers use chants like “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea” which means there would be no Israel or Jews between the Jordan River and Mediterranean.  More chants are here.

BDS’ers call Israel an apartheid state, when in fact, many different races and faiths live and worship there. They work to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel and spread misinformation and lies. (See StandWithUs pamphlets for accurate information about Israel.)

BDS is a targeted political movement designed to advance an extremist political agenda.  It embeds its objectives in language about social justice and human rights in order to deceive people who have a conscience.

BDSers do not support a two-state solution.

BDS attacks Zionism, the movement that helped to establish the State of Israel.  Martin Luther King Jr., often cited by progressives as a symbol for social justice, understood that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. As he said, “When people criticize Zionist, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.”

Law school professor William Jacobson explains, “BDS should being seen for the anti-Semitic movement it is, a movement that demonizes only the Jewish State, holds only the Jewish State to the highest standards no one else meets (certainly not in the Middle East), and seeks the destruction only of the sole Jewish State in a sea of Islamic States.”

Natan Sharansky, a well-known former Soviet Jew and human rights activist, spent 9 years in a Siberian gulag. Upon his release, he immediately became an Israeli citizen, and eventually served in the Israeli Knesset. One of his duties was to monitor anti-Semitism.

He found the newer version of the classical anti-semitism was directed at Zionism and the State of Israel.  BDSers self-righteously allege victimization of the Palestinians by Israel but Sharansky exposed what really drives the BDS campaign in his “three D’s” test for anti-Semitism:

  • double standards – singling out Israel for criticism while ignoring the more egregious behavior of major human rights abusers in countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, North Korea, China, etc
  • demonization of Israel – distorting the Jewish State’s actions using false comparisons to Nazis or South Africa’s apartheid regime
  • delegitimization – denying only Israel’s fundamental right to exist among all other peoples in the world

Omar Barghouti, a prominent promoter of BDS who works to incite Israel and Jew hatred by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine, and who ironically, attends Tel Aviv University in Israel, openly admits that BDS is the public relations path to eliminating Israel as a Jewish state.

“I clearly do not buy into the two state solution,”… This is something we cannot compromise             on,… If the [Palestinian] refugees were to return, you would not have a two state solution,    you’d have a             Palestine next to a Palestine.”

BDS in Tennessee

Some BDS’ers are upfront about their Israel and Jew hatred, while others enable and legitimatize the BDS campaign by making BDS advocates their closest allies.  It is a convenient “good cop bad cop” tactic supported by Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, that the “end justifies the means.”

In Tennessee, for example, Islamist Drost Kokoye is a vocal BDS promoter, while her teammate Remziya Suleyman endorses the BDS message by aligning herself with vocal BDS promoters but remaining silent on the issue. Still others, like Hannah Cornfield, with the Jewish Voice for Peace and a member of the Nashville Jewish community, legitimatize the campaign by advocating for BDS.  Samar Ali’s father, Subhi Ali chairs the Jerusalem Fund in D.C. whose founder supported radical Palestinian terrorists, and whose director now openly advocates for BDS.

Besides these individuals, the same Family of Abraham (FOA) members that meet in Nashville to assure each other that they alone occupy the moral high ground, is mostly the same group of Abrahamic interfaithers that have organized to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel.

The Israel and Jew-haters in their midst including the Islamists and Arabs, have shrewdly embedded their objectives in the leftist jargon of “human rights,” “minority rights” and “social justice.”  This strategy is better known as the “red-green alliance”.  It explains why the language of BDSers describes Israel as an “apartheid state” and why they espouse Palestinian liberation theology.

There are four more parts to this series. Part 2 provides more detail about the BDS anti-Israel, Jew-hating “interfaith coalition.” Part 3 exposes the Tennessee “U.S. Campaign” BDS organizations. Part 4 provides details about the Nashville Family of Abraham and their Muslim Brotherhood speaker. Part 5 details more Family of Abraham events and other interfaith initiatives and explains their anti-Israel underpinnings.

 


Newsletter #113 – UT Knoxville Becoming a Progressive Socialist’s Mecca

Between new student groups SEAT (Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee) and SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine), UT Knoxville (UTK) is an emerging up-and-comer in the liberal left’s higher education arena.

SEAT promises that will organize and present Sex Week each year at UTK.  Last year’s inaugural Sex Week included a sessions on how students could have better sex, oral sex, transgender sexuality, a drag show and a few ……..

Not to be outdone, scattered in between potentially useful info sessions on Women’s Health and Sexual Assault Prevention, this year’s Sex Week also includes Aphrodisiac Cooking Class. the LGBTQ Drag Show and a Condom Scavenger Hunt.  Of course no college level program would complete without gratuitous learning about the “Middle East and Sexuality.”

Also in 2013, UTK’s newest anti-Israel student hate group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization was established.  For now, it appears that the UTK SJP is engaging in “soft” BDS.  For example, their September 2013, “Occupation, Siege, and the Health Crisis in the Gaza Strip” by its very title, infers the classic anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian as victim bias.  

The program announcement for Dr. Mahmoud Daher’s pre-framed the issues around “Israeli authorities have continued to impose a strict blockade on the Gaza Strip.” Did Dr. Daher also explain the reasons a blockade has been imposed since 2007?  Did he tell them that in 2001, an Arab terrorist blew themselves up in a Sbarro pizza restaurant, killing15 civilians, including 7 children and a pregnant woman, wounding 130 others?  Did he tell them that Hamas claimed credit for the attack?

Did Dr. Daher explain to the students that the 2007 blockade of Gaza was imposed when the militant terrorist group Hamas was voted in to take over the Gaza Strip?  Did he detail the years of unprovoked but repeated Hamas missile attacks on civilians?  How about Israel’s repeated offers to reach a peace agreement and the Arabs’ repeated refusals? 

Doubtful since there is every reason to believe that the real path being laid by the SJP group and its faculty advisor, Brian Barber, will, just like every other SJP group, lead to more overt BDS initiatives on campus.

They may even get some help from Governor Haslam’s UT Board of Trustee appointee, Raja Jubran, an alum of UTK and a member of the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Ramallah Club of Knoxville.  Senator Massey, also from Knoxville, has introduced Senate Resolution 78 that if passed by the Tennessee State Senate, will reconfirm Jubran’s appointment to the Board.

The Ramallah Club of Knoxville.

The American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine(AFRP), is the parent organization of the individual state clubs like the one in Knoxville.  It describes itself as “the largest Palestinian Organization in the United States.”  It even publishes a bimonthly magazine.

Jubran, although raised in Lebanon, identifies as a Palestinian because his father was born in Ramallah.  He immigrated to the United States in 1977 to attend the University of Knoxville, and stayed.  Despite leaving the MIddle East, he continued his family’s legacy and spent over a year in Washington, D.C. advocating for “Palestinian rights.

Haslam appointee Samar Ali’s father, Subhi Ali, chair of the Jerusalem Fund in D.C., also immigrated to the U.S. from Ramallah.  Subhi Ali’s organization aggressively advocates BDS as a vehicle to destroy the Jewish homeland.

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The Tennessee state legislature took action on the UTK Sex Week resulting in a likely university policy requiring an “opt-in” by individual students so that student activity fees can be directed away from what someone might believe is objectionable programming.

Hopefully, the University will examine the policies of the SJP and the student hate group’s funding will go the way of Sex Week’s.

 


TCPJ Alert: UT-Knoxville’s Newest Student Anti-Israel Hate Group

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/david-james/tcpj-newsletter-ut-knoxvilles-newest-student-anti-israel-hate-group/

Seems to go along with what they are teaching the young kids at the Knoxville Islamic school – Newsletter #95

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“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvard University 1968.

In 2013, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)announced its status as an official student organization at UT-Knoxville.  With about 100 chapters at last count, SJP organizes extreme hate-filled anti-Israel activity on college campuses around the country, including:

  • Israel Apartheid Week – typically held between February – March and involves:
    • Staging mock checkpoints where they stop students and yell “Are you Jewish?”
    • Erecting “Apartheid Walls” with “Hamas posters describing Jews as baby-killers and maps showing the Jewish state erased and replaced with ‘Palestine.’”
  • Posting eviction notices on dorm room doors to simulate housing demolition in Israel.
  • BDS resolutions (boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel), calling for economic warfare agains the Jewish state. (The first divestment campaign was launched at UC Berkley on Holocaust Remembrance Day.)
  • Hosting extremist/radical anti-Israel speakers who support terrorism against the State of Israel.
  • Protesting pro-Israel groups, events and speakers. (SJP members at University of California, Irvine heckled Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren throughout his speech until they were removed by campus security.)
  • Disrupting campus Holocaust memorial events and even worse, their perversion of the famous Holocaust quote “never again.”

Reports about vandalism of campus Jewish facilities, harassment of Jewish professors and students and even physical attacks by members of SJP have been reported at some schools.

If this is what SJP is reported to do, is this what UT-Knoxville can expect?

UT-Knoxville SJP’s Faculty Sponsor is Dr. Brian K. Barber, a 1996-97 grant recipient from the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP), renamed the Palestine Center, which is the educational arm of the Jerusalem Fund.

The chairman of the Jerusalem Fund is Samar Ali’s father, Subhi Ali.  The Jerusalem Fund’s Executive Director openly advocates BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against the State of Israel. (See, “Samar Ali: Her Father’s Organization Wants to Destroy Israel.”)

About SJP

Like Jerusalem Fund founder Hisham Sharabi and community organizations that support “radical Palestinian terror groups,” SJP gives voice to student members who refuse to condemn terrorism.

SJP was founded in 2001 by co-founders Hatem Bazian, the Islamist, and Snehal Shingavi, the socialist — a “leftist-Islamist” alliance (also referred to as a “red-green” alliance).  This joinder has allowed the SJP to appeal to a broader coalition, which includes left-wing activists and religio-cultural political groups like the Muslim Students Association.

Hatem Bazian Brought His Middle East Hate to School

  • Virulently anti-Semitic Jew-hater who came as a college student to the U.S. from the Hamas stronghold of Nablus in the West Bank.
  • Served as President of the General Union of Palestinian Students, the student arm of the PLO and an organization that was banned in Germany after the Munich Olympics massacre.
  • Served as Muslim Students Association (MSA) president at Berkley
  • Was a fundraising speaker for Kindhearts, a Hamas front closed by the US government after being considered for designation as a terrorist organization
  • Co-founded Zaytuna College with Zaid Shakir, a repeat visitor to Nashville who tells his college audiences that, “under Islamic law the kafir won’t be equal with the Muslim.  The Christian or the Jew will be a dhimmi.  They won’t be equal with the Muslim.”  He was quoted in the New York Times as saying that “he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law.”
  • Founded and chairs the national extremist anti-Israel organization American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) which helps train and support SJP activists.  SJP’s 2002 national convention was sponsored by the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), with guest speaker Sami al-Arian.

The IAP was created by a Hamas leader to be its U.S. propaganda arm and raise money for Hamas. IAP was listed as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s likeminded organizations in the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan for North America. IAP’s leadership founded CAIR – the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Sami al-Arian was the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the U.S. In 2006 when he was sentenced to 57 months in prison in connection with PIJ activities, the judge described him as a “master manipulator.” This past December, he was on Capitol Hill advocating for the restoration of Morsi’s ousted Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Al-Arian also founded WISE (World and Islam Studies Enterprise).  Hisham Sharabi, founder of the Jerusalem Fund, was a WISE Board member. Subhi Ali, Samar’s father, served alongside Sharabi until taking over as Chairman of the Jerusalem Fund.  WISE was named in a federal indictment as part of a “criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in acts of violence including murder, extortion, money laundering, fraud and issue of visas, and operated worldwide,” including in Florida.

AMP

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), describes AMP as “anti-Semitism under the guise of educating Americans about the just cause of Palestine and the rights of self-determination.”

AMP’s first conference in 2006 featured several former IAP leaders including Rafiq Jaber, Kifa Mustapha (imam at the radicalized Bridgeview mosque and unindicted Holy Land Foundation co-conspirator), Nihad Awad (Executive Director of CAIR and also an unindicted co-conspirator), and Osama Abu Irshaid (IAP board member and now AMP board member).

At a George Washington University SJP event, Osama Abu Irshaid told his audience that he considers firing rockets from Gaza into Israel “legitimate resistance.”

AMP’s continuing allegiance to terrorist organizations like Hamas has continued throughout their annual conferences.  The opening speech at the2010 conference featured Holy Land Foundation (HLF) prosecution unindicted co-conspirator, Jamal Said, another imam at the radicalized Bridgeview mosque.  The HLF prosecution was the largest terrorism financing prosecution in the U.S. involving the HLF charity being used to funnel money to Hamas.

To get a sense of what AMP is really about, look at who it has speak at its events: Nihad Awad has stated publicly that “I am in support of the Hamas movement” and Rafiq Jaber (another founding member of CAIR), who wasquoted as “describ[ing] Jews to the audience as ‘the worst kind of people,’ who came to Jerusalem ‘with false pretenses.’”

Hamed Ghazali, chairman of the MAS Council of Islamic Schools, was also a speaker at the AMP conference.  He was quoted as saying that, “Allah gave us the Jews” as the primary historical and religious example of those who “take the wrong path.”  He is named in the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum and was hired by the Islamic Pleasant View School in Memphis, TN as the Islamic Studies consultant.

AMP also works with the high school Muslim Student Associations.  AMP’s 2012 “Palestine Activism” conference was co-hosted with a California high school MSA and featured Israel demonizer and former Jerusalem Fund fellow,Ali Abunimah.  AMP also held a high school training session, including media activism, at the Islamic Foundation School in Villa Park, Illinois.

AMP’s National Campus Coordinator, Taher Herzallah teaches students how to be radical activists.  He was one of the students arrested for heckling and disrupting Israeli Ambassador Oren’s speech at the University of California, Irvine.

Muslim Students Association and SJP

One researcher/writer describes the MSA and SJP as “genetically connected groups,” listing the many ways these two groups resemble each other and work together.  He cites to the civil rights lawsuit filed against the U of California, Berkley after a Jewish student was attacked by an SJP agitator:

“[T]he two groups [MSA and SJP] not only co-sponsor events and cooperate on strategic projects, but they even share the same office and campus facilities. The more publicly activist SJP may be understood as the militant arm of the outwardly benevolent MSA. Members of the former are often members of the latter.”

A good example is the UC Berkley Islamist Sadia Saifuddin, who was nominated to serve as the 2014 -15 student regent on the board that sets policy for the entire University of California system. She is a member of both the MSA and SJP and co-sponsored a BDS resolution in the Berkeley student Senate calling on the entire University of California system to divest companies that do business with Israel.

These student groups well understand that the overarching goal and intent of BDS is to ultimately destroy and eliminate the State of Israel.  A 2012 Northeastern University SJP rally included chanting “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea” which means there would be no Israel between the Jordan River and Mediterranean—and no Jews.

Alternatively, they will settle for a second Holocaust.  During a 2010 Israeli Apartheid Week at UC San Diego, speaker David Horowitz asked if an MSA member would condemn Hamas and Hizbollah. When the young woman tried to dodge the question, he rephrased: “I am a Jew.  The head of Hizbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally.  For or Against it?”  Her answer: “For it.”

SJP’s Faculty Advisor’s Connections

UT-Knoxville SJP’s Faculty Sponsor, Dr. Brian K. Barber, also heads the UTKCenter for the Study of Youth in Political Conflict (the Center).  The Center’s mission is to help adolescents find out the source of the political conflict they experience and endorse or refute it.

Dr. Barber has been traveling to Palestine for over 20 years; perhaps that is how he connected with his Center’s Board member, Ms. Cairo Arafat.  She was born in the U.S. but has resettled in the West Bank.  She actively participates in the BDS movement there.  She complains about security checkpoints and the security fence, without of course mentioning the Palestinian suicide bombers who blow themselves up in civilian settings like the Sbarro pizza restaurant and the terrorists who are subsequently glorifiedby their media.

“Zionists are the new Nazis! Zionists are the new Nazis!” was the hate-filled chanting of Arafat’s BDS protest group.  Arafat says that she believes BDS will force Israel “to see [Palestinians] as equal partners, not as in a captive market or a group of people that they can exploit.”

BDS protestors persist in attacking Israeli businesses, such as SodaStream, that employ hundreds of Palestinian workers who are paid the same as Israeli employees, have all religious needs accommodated, and are working in an environment of respect where genuine relationships are reported to be taking hold.

The Interfaith Boycott Coalition includes “Jewish Voice for Peace, the Presbyterian Church USA’s Israel-Palestine Mission Network, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s Palestine-Israel Network, United Church of Christ Palestine-Israel Network and Response, the United Methodist Kairos Response” along with Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamists.

AMP is also a member.  Zaid Shakir and CAIR Director Zahra Billoo (a friend and colleague of Remziya Suleyman, who tweets support for Hamas), are supporters.  All have ties to Tennessee.

Other Anti-Israel BDS Efforts in Tennessee

Endtheoccupation.org lists the following Tennessee member groups: Progressive Student Alliance at UT-Knoxville, the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center in Memphis and the Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility of UCC in Pleasant Hill.

This coalition’s focus on delegitimizing the State of Israel, is also designed to convince black Americans that they have more to gain by aligning with the Palestinian “cause.”  This premise is more than disingenuous given that the  Arabic word “abeed” (sometimes spelled “and”), meaning “slave,” is used by Muslims to refer to black people, an issue that CAIR Director Dawud Walid complains about often.

Stunning Revelation That Tennesseans Should Heed

Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh had this to say after visiting several U.S. university campuses:

“Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.

I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s ‘apartheid system’ is worse than the one that existed in South Africa …

What struck me more than anything else was the fact that many of the people I met on the campuses supported Hamas and believed that it had the right to “resist the occupation” even if that meant blowing up children and women on a bus in downtown Jerusalem.

The so-called pro-Palestinian “junta” on the campuses has nothing to offer other than hatred and de-legitimization of Israel. If these folks really cared about the Palestinians, they would be campaigning for good government and for the promotion of values of democracy and freedom in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Their hatred for Israel and what it stands for has blinded them to a point where they no longer care about the real interests of the Palestinians, namely the need to end the anarchy and lawlessness, and to dismantle all the armed gangs that are responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent Palestinians over the past few years……

What is happening on the U.S. campuses is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the “occupation” as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel…..

What is happening on these campuses is not in the frame of freedom of speech. Instead, it is the freedom to disseminate hatred and violence. As such, we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.”

What Can UT-Knoxville Expect From Its SJP Chapter?

Perhaps there could be a surprise visit from Jerusalem Fund Chairman, Subhi Ali, since Waverly, TN is only a four-hour drive away.  Former college Middle Eastern Student Association activist, daughter Samar Ali, could be a featured speaker and talk about why she chose a career with a Middle East focus including “Sharia compliant transactions” and her work on behalf of the Jerusalem Fund.  With JF’s support for BDS, they would be a natural fit for an SJP meeting.

The Islamic Center of Nashville, (owned by Muslim Brotherhood front group ISNA), might be inspired to restart its pro-Palestinian anti-Israel demonstrations.  Better yet, Knoxville Muslim youth minister AbdelRahman Murphy, who works with both students at the Knoxville Islamic school Anoor Academy and the Muslim Students Association at UTK, can help spread the BDS message throughout the Knoxville Muslim student community.  Not only would this be consistent with what students are being taught about Jews at the Anoor Academy, but also with his colleague and BDS promoter, Suhaib Webb, with whom he presents programs to the MSA.

There are any number of challenges facing the UT-Knoxville campus regarding anticipated anti-Israel hate activity.

Between SJP’s faculty advisor Dr. Brian Barber’s focused interest and support for all things Palestinian, his own early connection to the Jerusalem Fund, his board member Cairo Arafat’s commitment to BDS, the MSA’s history with SJP and the UT-K MSA’s choice of speakers, and SJP’s raison d’être, we can reasonably assume that UT-Knoxville will soon see this radical anti-Israel hate activity on its campus.


Newsletter #104 – Has the Jewish Federation Ever Heard of BDS?

Samar letter
  • Back in 2012, representatives of the Nashville Jewish Federation were quick to applaud Gov. Haslam’s appointment of Samar Ali, noting her “impressive” personal and professional background
  • included in Samar’s professional background is her work as the transatlantic liaison on behalf of her father’s organization the Jerusalem Fund when they were setting up the Palestine Diabetes Institute
  • the Jerusalem Fund refers to the “Occupied Palestinian Territories”
  • Jerusalem Fund director Yousef Munayyer openly advocates BDS against Israel
  • Samar’s father has served on the board of the Jerusalem Fund since 2000, became Vice-Chair in 2004 and from 2005 to present as the Chairman

It seems the Jerusalem Fund’s anti-Israel bent has not wavered much since its founding.  It’s very public advocacy for BDS against Israel makes this organization’s position crystal clear.

Does the Jewish Federation understand the end goal of BDS is to destroy the State of Israel?


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