Hamas

After New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa cleared the NYPD of misconduct in its intelligence-gathering efforts in N.J., he met with some Muslim leaders to discuss his findings. The full list of attendees hasn’t been publicized but there is one name that is known: Imam Mohammad Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic County.

N.J. Governor Chris Christie (shown right) has been feeling heat from anti-Islamist activists ever since the Investigative Project on Terrorism published a startling report about his relationship with Imam Qatanani, who the Department of Homeland Security wants deported. In 1999, he failed to disclose on his green card application that he was convicted by Israel in 1993 of being a member of Hamas. He also admits to having been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood but says he left it in 1991—not because he turned against the group, but because he simply didn’t have enough time in the day anymore.

The mosque that Qatanani currently leads, the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), was founded in 1989 by Hamas operative Mohammed el-Mezain, who has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for financing the terrorist group. El-Mezain also served as the ICPC’s imam and was the chairman of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that was shut down for being a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front.

A former chairman of the ICPC’s board is Esam Omeish. He is also a former president of the Muslim American Society, a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. Omeish calls the Brotherhood “moderate” and praised the founder of Hamas and Palestinians that understand “that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land.” One guest speaker that the ICPC featured is Abdelhaleem Ashqar, another individual with extensive ties to Hamas, though he was acquitted of charges brought against him. He was convicted of refusing to testify about Hamas’ fundraising in the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that his Qatanani’s brother-in-law, Mahmud al-Shuli, was a Hamas militant in the West Bank and the two maintained contact after Qatanani (shown left) moved to the U.S. in 1994. When Qatanani came to the U.S. to become an imam at the ICPC, he served alongside el-Mezain and even shared the same address with him. During this time, the ICPC donated to the Holy Land Foundation. The DHS also said that Qatanani sent thousands of dollars to the West Bank in cash and found his explanation to be “highly dubious.”

The July 29, 2008 court filing said Qatanani was guilty of “material misrepresentation,” “has engaged in terrorist activity” and “engaging in unauthorized employment…by allowing an out of status alien to reside with him.”

“It is certainly suspicious when a person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader, and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” the document reads.

Despite this evidence, Christie, then U.S. Attorney, sent his Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna to testify as a character witness on Qatanani’s behalf. After Christie was elected as governor, he appointed McKenna as N.J.’s Director of Homeland Security, a position he held from January 2010 until February 2012. In September 2008, Christie attended an event at the ICPC and praised Qatanani as a “man of great goodwill.” The next day, the immigration judge ruled in favor of Qatanani, granting him permanent residency and stating that the Israeli evidence against him was insufficient.

The DHS did not give up and the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled against the previous judge and Qatanani and said that the Israeli evidence was “properly authenticated and that there was no adequate basis for the immigration judge to give them ‘very low evidentiary weight.’” That’s where things stand now.

Since then, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has translated some of Qatanani’s sermons. In one from May 2009, he asks God to release the officials of the Holy Land Foundation that were convicted and said the ruling was a “political judgment, not a juridical judgment.” He then preached that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), two Brotherhood fronts, were victimized when the government labeled them as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the Holy Land trial.

In a sermon from January 2008, Qatanani preaches that “You see now you should do jihad or struggle, to change evil doing…You know I mention in so many times that jihad is greater than fighting. It is not only fighting. And you cannot just contain it in fighting.” Notice what he’s saying: Not that violent jihad is improper, but that is must not be limited to that.

On November 2, 2007, Qatanani preached that Muslims need to focus on the good in people. He chose to use one person as an example: Top Muslim Brotherhood cleric and Hamas supporter Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi.  “Sit with anyone about anyone, they will say ‘but’—What do you think about this Sheikh Qaradawi? ‘But,’ ‘He’s good, but.’”

In another sermon in 2007, he prayed that God would help “our brothers and sisters in Philistine [Palestine], and Iraq and Chechnya” to “remove occupation and oppression.” The “occupiers” in these countries were Israeli, U.S. and Russian forces.

The issue of Qatanani resurfaced in 2011 when Governor Christie appointed Sohail Mohammed as a Superior Court Judge. How’d Christie come to know Sohail Mohammed? He served as Qatanani’s attorney.

Unsurprisingly, Mohammed opposed terrorism prosecutions like those against the Holy Land Foundation and Sami al-Arian. He also was the general counsel of the American Muslim Union, an organization that has shared five officials with Qatanani’s mosque. One AMU newsletter claimed that a “Zionist commando orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.” The group also supports the Neturei Karta, a Jewish group that supports Ahmadinejad and Hamas and wants to see Israel gone. It also refused to support the 2005 “Free Muslims March Against Terror” that condemned all terrorist groups, including Hamas.

When all of this was pointed out, Christie lashed out. “It’s crazy. It’s crazy…So, this Sharia law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy [Mohammed] of things just because of his religious background,” Christie said.

And now we know that, after all of this, Qatanani is one of the Muslims selected to be briefed on the N.J. Attorney General’s conclusions about the NYPD’s counter-terrorism activity.

Christie is generally assumed to have his eyes set on higher office and is frequently suggested as a running mate for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. When it comes to the Islamist threat, Christie is far from ready.

Update: Since RadicalIslam.org published this story, the press has learned of  two more participants in the meeting with the N.J. Attorney General: Mohamed el-Filali, the executive director of the Hamas-tied Islamic Center of Passaic County (Qatanani’s mosque) and a representative of the N.J. chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, another group birthed by the Muslim Brotherhood and tied to Hamas.

Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

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To the outrage of some in the media, the NYPD secretly kept watch on Sheikh Reda Shata, the former imam of Brooklyn's Islamic Center of Bay Ridge, even though he condemned terrorism, dined with Mayor Bloomberg and, he thought, had a friendly relationship with law enforcement. On the surface, this sounds like the NYPD unfairly targeted a Muslim it should uphold. Left out of this story is an important fact: Sheikh Shata supports Hamas.

Shata was the subject of a glowing Pulitzer-winning New York Times series in 2010. In one article, the reporter describes him as viewing the Hamas terrorist group as a "powerful symbol of resistance." He condemns terrorism and violence but in 2004, he spoke at a funeral service honoring the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike. He told the crowd that the "lion of Palestine had been martyred." In another lecture, Shata bestowed the coveted title of "martyr" upon a mother who suicide bombed a border post in the Gaza Strip, killing four Israelis.

The Islamic Center of Bay Ridge (ICBR), where he served as imam from 2002 to 2006, has a "long history of association with radical Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, going back almost 20 years," said Patrick Dunleavy, a former Deputy Inspector General for the New York State Department of Corrections and author of The Fertile Soil of Jihad.

A 2006 NYPD document explains, "NYPD source reporting indicates that individuals believed to be supporters/members of Hamas may have links to the Bronx Muslim Center and the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, noting that in 2003, Mohammed El-Mazin, the suspected North American leader of Hamas, was a guest speaker at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge. In addition, in June 2003, the FBI arrested four individuals who were seen in of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge and who allegedly had links to Hamas."

Is it any wonder why the NYPD conducted surveillance on Sheikh Shata, when he is a vocal supporter of Hamas and the leader of a Hamas-tied mosque that brings in suspected Hamas leaders as guest speakers?

The NYPD designated Shata as a Tier One Person of Interest.  Those who qualify for this designation have a "threat potential based on their position at a particular location, links to an organization, overseas links and/or criminal history." It is very possible that the NYPD has even more concerning information about Shata and his mosque than is available to the public.

The ICBR first came under the microscope in 1994 when a Lebanese-Palestinian immigrant named Rashad Baz fired upon a van full of Hasidic Jews on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing a 16-year old, in retaliation for a massacre on Muslims in Hebron, Israel. According to two witnesses, the attack came shortly after Baz attended a service at the ICBR where the speaker said, "This takes the mask off the Jews" and "It shows them to be racist and fascist, as bad as the Nazis. Palestinians are suffering from the occupation, and it's time to end it." A witness said that he left the service in a rage. Two of Baz's family members helped him hide his weapons and were in contact with a member of Hamas. Two terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, praised him.

In 1998, a speaker at ICBR reportedly said that Jews murdered Mohammed, Islam's Prophet, and will forever wage war against Muslims. He vocally support jihad against Israel and distributed Hamas propaganda. Though these incidents happened before Sheikh Shata's arrival in 2002, it is important because it tells us about the leadership that chose him.

The NYPD also had good reason to keep a close eye on things in Bay Ridge, as there were several expressions of extremism. In August 2004, Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay were arrested for planning to bomb a New York City subway station. Siraj worked at the bookstore adjacent to ICBR, where the two met. During Siraj's trial, his attorney said the "entire Muslim community in Bay Ridge, the thought that the American government was responsible for bringing down the towers on 9/11 was common."

On Memorial Day in 2006, graffiti praising the Palestinian Liberation Organization was sprayed on cars, trees and homes. Notably, only houses that displayed the American flag were victimized. A 12-year old boy was arrested.

In May 2006, hundreds of Palestinians and anti-Israel activists held a rally in Bay Ridge and chanted, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." For that to happen, that means Israel must be destroyed. In January 2009, a hacker struck the Bay Ridge Jewish Center's website and had it display the words, "Death to Israel" and "For Palestine For Gazza [sic] For Hamas."

Sheikh Shata left the ICBR in 2006 and now is the imam of the Islamic Society of Monmouth County in New Jersey. His website states that he is known for his "moderate" interpretation of Sharia Law, but "moderate" compared to what? He told the Times that he is a moderate because he opposes suicide bombings of civilians, but approves of violence against Israeli soldiers in defense. He said that when he taught Sharia Law in Saudi Arabia from 1990 to 1995, he found them to be overly strict. In other words, he is a moderate because there's worse out there.

Shata won't shake a woman's hand and supports banning music that "encourages sexual desire." Shata's website doesn't have many sermons by him, but one is titled, "Why They Hate Islam." The sermon goes through five reasons why "we [Muslims] are prey for many predators" and why Muslims are targeted by "these animals" even in their own homes.

The first reason is because Islam was created by Allah and Islam's enemies are controlled by Satan. He explains that Allah created good and evil, with the good being created in the East, and the struggle never ended. Obviously, that means that the West is where Satan/evil was created.

The second reason is "widespread ignorance." The third reason is that there are people in "high, influential positions" that get rich off of destroying the lives of Muslims and promoting segregation. The fourth is "overwhelming fear," particularly of "Islamic politics." Sheikh Shata criticizes the notion that "if a nation is ruled by Islam," it will be war-like. In other words, the creation of an Islamic State (which is the goal of Hamas and its parent organization, Muslim Brotherhood) is a good thing. The final reason is "cursed, strict ideals and stubbornness."

Shata's website indicates he is also a frequent guest lecturer at the Islamic Society of Passaic County in Paterson, N.J., another mosque with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, led by Imam Mohammed Qatanani.

The case of Shata is part of an overall lesson. Participating in interfaith events, friendly engagements with public officials and meetings with government agencies doesn't automatically make someone a moderate. In fact, Islamist extremist groups usually do these kinds of things.

The real story here is that the NYPD decided it would be prudent to conduct surveillance on a mosque with a history of ties with Islamic extremism and its leader, who supports Hamas. If the NYPD declined to do that, that would be the real scandal.

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Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and a frequent security analyst for Fox News.

This article is sponsored by the The Institute on Religion and Democracy.

The Obama Administration and elected officials from both parties suffer from a profound misunderstanding of what the Muslim Brotherhood is. 

The State Department welcomes the Islamist group’s bid for the Egyptian presidency. It even told Customs and Border Protection not to conduct a secondary inspection of Brotherhood officials coming to the U.S., even though one of them was implicated in a child pornography investigation. Once in America, the Brotherhood delegation met with National Security Council officials. A spokesman defended the meetings because, in his words, it is “committed to democratic principles, especially non-violence.”

The claim that the Brotherhood does not advocate violence or terrorism is demonstrably false. It is only non-violent in Egypt because it would be counter-productive, but it supports violence in Israel and elsewhere. In September 2010, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badi, declared that Muslims are obligated to wage jihad against the U.S. and Israel and must commit to “raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."

The Muslim Brotherhood has never once condemned Hamas or its terrorist actions. In fact, the Brotherhood is an unwavering supporter of Hamas and the terrorist group is one of its affiliates. Hamas even changed its name to define it as “a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood-Palestine.”

The Muslim Brotherhood logo, (left). The Arabic word at the bottom of the circle is waidu, meaning “prepare,” and comes from the first word of Qur’anic verse 8:60, which tells Muslims to “Make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy.”   The Brotherhood's motto is: Allah is our objective, Muhammad is our Prophet, the Quran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest aspiration.                                     

The Vice Chairman of the Brotherhood’s political party in Egypt, the Freedom and Justice Party, says Hamas is a “resistance group” and that Egypt should host its offices. The Brotherhood’s website includes supporting “Palestinian resistance” as part of its platform. When Israel agreed to release over 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, the Brotherhood hailed it as a vindication of Hamas’ violent jihad. On November 24, top officials publicly called for attacks on Jews and a Brotherhood affiliate said Muslims must “revive the duty of jihad in all its forms.”

The Brotherhood is unflinching in its calls for the ultimate destruction of Israel. Former Supreme Guide Mehdi Akef says it will “resist them [Zionists] until they no longer have a country.” It flatly rejects a permanent two-state solution. Its most senior cleric, Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, below, is among the most influential supporters of violent jihad and suicide bombings, calling himself the “mufti of martyrdom operations.” He says that the Holocaust was a judgment upon the Jews by Allah and that he hopes Muslims deliver the next judgment. He turned down the Brotherhood’s request to become its Supreme Guide in 2004.

Brotherhood apologists are quick to point out that the group condemned the 9/11 attacks and has publicly clashed with Al-Qaeda and Iran. Their only difference is over strategy. The Brotherhood still considered Bin Laden to be a Muslim holy warrior and when he was killed, it honored “Sheikh Osama Bin Laden” and endorsed “legitimate resistance against foreign occupation.” Brotherhood officials regularly speculate that 9/11 was a Zionist conspiracy. As for Iran, Brotherhood officials went there last year and said Ahmadinejad is the “bravest man in the Muslim world.”

The Brotherhood’s participation in elections does not mean it is truly democratic. Qaradawi preaches "gradualism" towards the implementation of sharia-based governance. He is quick to point out that the Islamist definition of democracy is different than the West’s. He wants a “genuine type of democracy” that is “driven by the laws of sharia.”

Khairat el-Shater, the Brotherhood presidential candidate in Egypt who has won the affection of U.S. officials, says the same thing. “Sharia was and will always be my first and final project and objective,” he says. He met with the Salafists, the very people the U.S. hopes he will counter, and assured them that he’d create a council of clerics to review and approve all legislation. A translation of a concerning speech he gave on April 21, 2011 has been published. He said that the Brotherhood agenda is “restoring Islam in its all-encompassing conception,” “instituting the religion of God” and “Every aspect of life is to be Islamicized.”

How’d we get to this mistaken view of the Brotherhood? There are a few reasons.

Firstly, compared to the fiery rhetoric of Al-Qaeda and Salafist puritans, the Brotherhood does appear moderate—but moderate is a relative term. Condemnations of 9/11, use of Western-friendly language, pragmatic strategies of non-violence and participation in elections are mistakenly viewed as proof that the Islamists share our interests and values.

The second factor is the influence of Brotherhood front groups, Islamist apologists and efforts to marginalize anti-Islamist Muslim voices. Brotherhood fronts and allies earn the cooperation of government officials by casting themselves as the representatives of the Muslim community. This is a bi-partisan problem. Law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials are among those that have been won over, as well as major universities.

The U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, has a long history with Brotherhood groups. Azizah al-Hibri sits on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and says “Islamic fiqh is deeper and better than Western codes of law.” Her resume includes once having a top position with the American Muslim Council, a Brotherhood front and relationships with similar groups.

The person that most influenced President Obama’s speech in Cairo was Dalia Mogahed, left. She was appointed to the President’s Advisory Council of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She is a close associate of John Esposito, one of the top defenders of the Brotherhood and its groups in the U.S. Mogahed is a staunch defender of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America; two Brotherhood fronts that the federal government says are tied to Hamas. When the government labeled them as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the terrorism financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, she said it was part of a “concerted effort to silence, you know, institution-building among Muslims.”

Another close associate of John Esposito is William Taylor, who now leads the State Department’s Office of Middle East Transitions. When Taylor was vice president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, it sponsored a conference organized by Esposito’s organization on April 28, 2010 that the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report described as “perhaps the largest public gathering of global Muslim Brotherhood leaders and U.S. government officials to date.”

Taylor’s office provided election training to the Muslim Brotherhood. He defended it by saying that the U.S. isn’t picking sides. “As long as parties, entities, do not espouse or conduct violence, we’ll work with them,” he said. He further said we “should not be afraid of” working with Islamists and “we need to…judge people and parties and movements on what they do, not what they’re called,” inferring that the fear of the Brotherhood is inspired by the inclusion of the word “Muslim” in its title. He positively compares the Brotherhood with the Ennahda Party of Tunisia, another so-called “moderate” party whose extremism is ignored.

The failure to understand the Brotherhood was on display during Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s embarrassing testimony to Congress. The factual errors in his statements, such as calling the Brotherhood “secular,” overshadowed the greater point he was trying to make: The Brotherhood is non-violent, democratic and should be seen as a partner. In January, he described it as a “moderate Islamist” group that can serve as a counter to Al-Qaeda.

At the same time, the Brotherhood and its allies marginalize competing voices within the Muslim community and pressures government agencies, especially those involved in counter-terrorism, to blacklist their critics.  In the process, these groups get influence over counter-terrorism training and law enforcement policies. For example, the Chicago Police Superintendent recently spoke at a fundraising banquet for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

An example would be how the Brotherhood-tied groups are foaming at the mouth because Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, right, an anti-Islamist Muslim activist, was recently appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Jasser was previously nominated to the State Department Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy but was blocked at the last moment with no given reason. It’s safe to assume that these same groups were responsible.

This intelligence failure is the fruition of a decades-long Muslim Brotherhood campaign. And, like with other intelligence failures, we will one day look back and wonder how we could’ve gotten it so wrong.

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Ryan Mauro is a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and a frequent national security analyst for Fox News Channel.

This article appeared originally on The Institute on Religion and Democracy.

This Friday, March 30, 2012, a motley collection of leftists, aging anti-colonialists and assorted other antisemites intend to storm Israel’s borders (non-violently) from all directions in a “Global March to Jerusalem (GM2J),” Israel’s capital.

The idea is to stage a massive media stunt to demonstrate international solidarity with the Arabs who live in what formerly was known as Jewish Palestine and now aspire to yet another nation state of their own. Not surprisingly, the GM2J is sponsored by the Iranian regime in conjunction with its long-time terror proxies HAMAS and Hizballah.

There’s been no word yet on whether Iran’s other major terror affiliate—Al-Qaeda—intends to take part. Citing "the Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Judaisation policies affecting the people, land and sanctity of Jerusalem,” Arab and Muslim forces of Islamic jihad and their fellow travelers among the global witless left have created dozens of Facebook support group pages and some other online sites full of histrionics about the “very survival” of Jerusalem.

Prominent among the GM2J supporters are terror organizations such as Fatah and the Palestinian Resistance Committees plus Muslim Brotherhood associates like the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe and the Muslim Association of Britain.  International supporters include A.N.S.W.E.R., CODEPINK, Viva Palestine (of HAMAS terror flotilla infamy), anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, Princeton University professor Cornell West, the America-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright and MIT professor Noam Chomsky.   

Putting the prospective event into perspective, it is useful to consider how these piteous protesters got to this point. Mostly it’s because, despite their fervent desire to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, more than six decades of trying have resulted in an Israel that is more prosperous, vibrant and freer than ever while the Arab/Muslim world is a mess.

Certainly, it’s not for lack of effort on the Islamic jihadi side: After successive Arab armies went down to defeat repeatedly before the tiny Israeli powerhouse, they tried intifadas and terror—incessant, worldwide and utterly ineffectual; then came flotillas and a couple of border marches that got some publicity and not much else; followed by a diplomatic try for backdoor statehood at the United Nations that next to nobody wanted to support; and finally, a non-stop barrage of missiles and rockets out of Gaza aimed at Israeli population centers that’s been countered successfully by a high-tech system of missile interceptors.

So, now, it’s down to a rag-tag mob of hundreds or maybe thousands, lots of whom aren’t either Arab or Muslim, to seize what headlines they might with a “peaceful” march to and maybe across Israel’s borders. Jihadi frustration is palpable.

Blatantly false propaganda (right)  advertises the march. In fact, Jerusalem is one of the only cities in the Middle East where all religions have free access to their holy sites

So is the growing desperation of the Iranian regime. That regime is scrambling for recognition and acknowledgement by a surging and often indifferent Muslim Brotherhood, with which it shares affinity on many doctrinal issues (not counting the pesky succession question) but vies for political influence.

Shi’ite Tehran knows that even with its Axis of Jihad partners—Al-Qaeda, HAMAS, Hizballah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the tottering Damascus regime of Bashar al-Assad—it is outnumbered and being outmaneuvered for leadership of the international jihad movement by the majority Sunnis. Its one and only ally in the region, the minority Alawite dictatorship of the Assad clan in Damascus, has been fighting a stubborn uprising for over a year with no end in sight despite the slaughter of as many as 10,000 Syrian citizens to date.

Worse yet, fitna (civil strife) within the Iranian regime has become a real knife fight, with personal rivalries and power struggles among former partners of Khomeini’s revolution popping into public view from the cabinet, Majlis (parliament), Expediency Council, presidency and even the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Not helping has been a shadowy campaign that’s killed dozens of IRGC members (including ranking officers), assassinated nuclear scientists, and blown up depots, bases and a missile facility. Until the mullahs can complete their nuclear weapons program, including matching armed warheads to ballistic missile launchers, they need the breathing space that the U.S. Obama administration alone cannot provide, despite its best efforts. The GM2J seemed like just the thing.

Hossein Sheikh-ol-Eslam, a former “Ambassador” to Damascus who coordinated the HAMAS, Hizballah, PIJ joint terror campaign against Israel during the al-Aqsa Intifada and serves currently as the Speaker of the Majlis, is also the Secretary of the Board of Directors for the GM2J and reportedly a long-time member of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), as is his colleague and co-sponsor, Salim Ghafouri.

According to the Israeli Debka file, Sheikh-ol-Eslam and Ghafouri not only wrested a coerced statement of solidarity with the GM2J from Iran’s ancient and much diminished Jewish community, but are now also forcing it to send a delegation of young men to march as human shields at the front of the GM2J leftists and Muslims.   

Whatever the outcome at Israel’s borders on March 30, the objective is clear: A prime-time television event featuring Israeli border guards repelling, perhaps forcefully, hordes of marchers, possibly unarmed but obviously seeking to instigate violence for memorializing in the annals of victimology. Nothing would satisfy them more than images of Israeli “brutality” live streaming on the internet. We may all hope it turns out otherwise. The Israelis have had a long time to prepare for this march and say they are ready for “anything.” Game on.

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Clare Lopez is a senior fellow at the Clarion Fund and a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on the Middle East, national defense and counterterrorism. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).