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A book from the library of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, March 2008

Terrorist groups, like Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, are enterprises like businesses, non-profits, and government agencies. Hamas, in fact, is a government, controlling the 141 square miles and 1.7 million people of the Gaza Strip.

Human enterprises are organisms with systems for sustenance, logistics, command and control, etc. They also have ideologies, and that of Hamas calls for violent jihad against the Jewish state. Its usual tactic is murderous terrorism against Jewish civilians. So, in 2008, a Hamas terrorist entered the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem and murdered eight students, seven of them teenagers, and wounded many others.

Enterprises can’t survive without nourishment. Hamas is nourished by a worldwide network of governments, Islamic charities and individuals that support its goal of killing or dispersing the Jews.

But the existence of the sources of nourishment isn’t enough. Since Hamas is a recognized as a terrorist organization and sanctioned by the US and other nations, there are impediments to transferring funds to it which can be translated into weapons, ammunition and jihadist expenses.

Sometimes this is facilitated by ‘respectable’ enterprises that are officially opposed to terrorism and murder, but in fact do whatever makes them a buck.

Like the Bank of China, according to the Israel Law Center — Shurat HaDin, which has filed a $1 billion lawsuit in a New York court accusing the bank of materially supporting Hamas terrorism.

The plaintiffs allege that starting in 2003, the national Chinese bank executed dozens of wire transfers for Hamas totaling several million dollars. These transfers were initiated by the Hamas leadership in Iran and Syria, processed through BOC branches in the United States and sent on to a BOC account in China operated by a senior militant. From there, the funds were transferred to Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

In April 2005, Israeli counterterrorism officers met with officials from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and China’s Central Bank. The Israelis demanded that the Chinese officials take action to prevent the BOC from making any further such wire transfers. “Despite these warnings the state-owned bank, with Beijing’s approval, continued to wire funds for terrorism, all while declaring that they did not consider Hamas a terrorist group,” stressed [Shurat HaDin director Nitsana] Darshan-Leitner. [my emphasis]

According to the complaint: “Most of these wire transfers were made to account #4750401-0188-150882-6 at a Bank of China branch in Guangzhou, China, in the name of ‘S.Z.R Al-Shurafa.’ The owner of the account, Said al-Shurafa, is a senior officer and agent of both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”

The Bank of China has released a statement saying, in effect, that they would never dream of doing anything to help terrorists. But the complaint is persuasive in its argument that the bank’s officials had plenty of information about what Hamas was doing with the money it was transferring.

This would not be the first time that Shurat HaDin — a private legal organization — has struck a blow for victims of terrorism. In May, it obtained a $330 million judgment against Syria for its part in a 2006 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed a 16-year old American. Although Bashar al-Assad is unlikely to pay it, it can be enforced against Syrian assets like bank accounts and real estate in the US.

Will the families of the Mercaz HaRav massacre victims be compensated? Maybe or maybe not, but if Israeli officials were unable to get the Bank of China’s attention in 2005, they have it now.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, terrorism, Bank of China, Merkaz HaRav, Israel Law Center

The controversial letter from Mohammad Morsy to Shimon Peres

News item:

Muslim Brotherhood leader Ahmed al-Hamrawy resigned from the group and its Freedom and Justice Party to protest a letter introducing the new Egyptian ambassador to Israel.

The letter was addressed from President Mohamed Morsy to Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Hamrawy, former secretary general of the Lawyers Syndicate in Alexandria, described the letter as “national and religious treason,” and added it a waste of the blood of the Egyptian and Palestinian “martyrs” from 1948 until the present day.

The article continues that there has been a great deal of criticism of the friendly tone of the letter, written to Israel’s President Shimon Peres. Some Egyptian Islamists even claimed that he didn’t write it, that it was a Zionist “fabrication.” But, interestingly, more radical Salafist elements understand that pretending to be friendly to enemies is a legitimate Muslim tactic:

Essam Zahran, former MP for the Salafi-oriented Nour Party, described the writing style of Morsy’s letter to Peres as similar to the letters sent by Prophet Mohamed to Byzantine Emperor Heraclius.

Zahran told Aswat Masriya, a political website, that what Morsy did “has its origin in Islam.”

He described the letter as “following the example of Prophet Mohamed, when he addressed the Byzantine leader, saying ‘from Mohamed the Prophet of Islam to Heraclius the Byzantine greatest,’ and the relations between Muslims and Byzantines then were very similar to our relationship with the Israelis now.”

“The way of writing the letter,” Zahran continued, “does not mean at all satisfaction of the presidency or the Islamic current with the Israeli policies toward our brothers in Palestine. We still see it as a usurper entity that has established their state on the ruins of another state.”

In Muslim tradition, the letter in question called on Heraclius to become a Muslim, and warned him that if he did not do so, “he would be guilty of misleading his subjects.” Apparently he he did not accept Islam, and his forces were defeated by the Arabs at the Battle of Yarmouk (Syria) in 636. The following year, the Muslims conquered Jerusalem.

But just in case you still think that Morsy is a secret Zionist, here is Morsy praying last week with cleric Fotouh Abd Al-Nabi Mansour. At about 25 seconds into the video, you can see Morsy’s lips move in prayer as Mansour says “Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters:”

Update [24 Oct 2012 2258]: MEMRI changed the translation in the video above. It no longer says “destroy the Jews,” merely “deal with the Jews; disperse them and rend them asunder.” Fine with me.

Update [25 Oct 2012 1000]: Apparently the distribution of the clip has caused embarrassment for Morsy. MEMRI explains:

In his daily column, Dr. Osama Al-Ghazali Harb of the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram discussed a MEMRI TV clip that shows Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi attending Friday prayers on October 19, 2012, at a mosque in the city of Marsa Matrouh, nodding his head and answering “amen” as the preacher curses “the Jews.” According to Harb, the clip is an embarrassment for Mursi and embodies the dilemma he faces, obliged as he is to honor the peace agreement with Israel by virtue of his office, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to take into account the majority view on the Egyptian street, which is opposed to the agreement. [my emphasis]

A transcript of Harb’s column is provided.

Technorati Tags: Mohammad Morsy, Egypt, Israel, Islam, Heraclius

On Friday, I called attention to a report that the US and Iran had made a secret agreement to end sanctions in return for a halt or pause in uranium enrichment. I suggested that this could be an “October Surprise:” the Obama campaign could claim that the President’s policy of partial sanctions and “tough diplomacy” had forced the Iranians to back down from their march toward nuclear weapons.

In fact, I said, such a deal would be more likely to guarantee the success of the Iranian program than to stop it. But by the time this became clear, the election would be over.

Yesterday the NY Times reported (based on remarks by unnamed Obama Administration officials) that in fact the US and Iran had recently reached a secret understanding, but only to hold one-on-one talks on the nuclear issue:

It has the potential to help Mr. Obama make the case that he is nearing a diplomatic breakthrough in the decade-long effort by the world’s major powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but it could pose a risk if Iran is seen as using the prospect of the direct talks to buy time. (my emphasis)

In what is perhaps a Freudian slip, the Times writers note a “risk” — to Obama’s reelection — if this gambit is perceived  by voters as futile, but not in that it might actually help the Iranian regime realize its plans!

Iran has denied the report. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor also denied it, in a carefully worded statement, saying “It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections.” The Times article suggests that there is an agreement in principle, but not a “final agreement.”

It seems to me that simply talking with Iran would not give a significant boost to the Obama campaign, especially if there were any concessions to the regime required just to begin talks.

But it would not surprise me to hear that secret negotiations were presently in progress to try to reach a substantive agreement of some kind before the election, because a deal that could be presented as a victory for the president and his policy would be huge.

This presents a clear moral choice for President Obama and his advisers. Should they go for a big “victory” that will at best give Iran more time and at worst provide it with the cover it needs to go nuclear — and gain 5 points in the polls?

It will certainly tempting for the administration to go for a deal. After all, they may rationalize, they can fix things up after they are reelected.

There is enough uncertainty already, about the amount of enriched uranium Iran already has, about secret installations, about the progress of their weaponization program, etc. The last thing we should do is give them any more time or wiggle room.

We don’t need a “diplomatic breakthrough.” We need to tighten sanctions and follow up with a credible threat of military action. That is the announcement I hope to hear from the president in the next two weeks.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Iran

The classic October Surprise, according to Wikipedia, was this one:

On October 26, 1972, twelve days before the election on November 7, the United States’ chief negotiator, the presidential National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, appeared at a press conference held at the White House and announced, “We believe that peace is at hand.”

Nixon was ahead anyway, but this announcement has been thought to add to the landslide over McGovern that followed. The Wikipedia article linked above lists several examples of last-minute ‘revelations’, some true and some not.

Can we expect an October Surprise this year?

We may already have one brewing. A former CIA operative calling himself “Reza Khalili” and claiming to have been an agent inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guards organization, who has previously made skeptically-received claims that Iran had already produced 90% enriched uranium, is now saying that the Obama Administration has struck a deal with the Iranian regime that will shortly be announced:

Iranian and U.S. negotiators have reached an agreement that calls for Iran to halt part of its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of many of the U.S. sanctions against the Islamic regime, according to a highly placed source.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, expects a letter from President Obama in a few days guaranteeing the details of the agreement, arrived at recently during secret negotiations in Doha, Qatar…

The agreement calls for Iran to announce a temporary halt to partial uranium enrichment after which the U.S. will remove many of its sanctions, including those on the Iranian central bank, no later than by the Iranian New Year in March. Iran is in the throes of massive inflation and citizen unrest because of the sanctions.

The article provides more detail of the alleged agreement, including the personal involvement of close Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett.

This is the second article by Khalili on this subject; the first was published on October 4, describing the meeting allegedly held in Doha on October 1. While it is not practical for me to check the details of the report, there is nothing obviously impossible in it.

Let’s assume that his account is in general correct, and that there will shortly be an announcement that sanctions will be (at least partly) relaxed in return for a halt in enrichment. What would this mean?

First, it would be a huge boost for Obama, since it would be characterized as a success for his engagement and “tough diplomacy” policy. Iran, the campaign will say, has been forced to ‘back down’ in the face of sanctions. War has been avoided! By the time it is determined if Iran’s weapons program has been impacted, the election will be over.

Second, it would help the Iranian regime domestically. Existing partial sanctions — or even much tougher ones — cannot stop a non-democratic country like Iran from pursuing a weapons program. But ending them would calm popular unrest as a result of economic problems partly caused by sanctions.

Third, it would preclude US military action against Iran, either alone or in cooperation with Israel.

Fourth, it would make an Israeli attack much more difficult. Israel would be cast in the role of an aggressor, and face almost certain UN sanctions if it hit Iran despite the agreement.

In the event that Iran doesn’t live up to the terms of the agreement, it will be that much further along, sanctions will be gone, Iran will have recouped much of its economic losses, and it may be too late for Israel, or even the US, to end the program by force.

Unless the deal were also to include verifiable dismantling of the enrichment facilities, it would at best represent a temporary slowing of Iran’s weapons program. At worst, enrichment would continue at secret facilities. According to Khalili, the deal is even worse than that, including significant concessions to Iran:

The [US] guarantees would ensure the regime’s right to peaceful enrichment, quickly remove many of the sanctions, accept that Iran’s nuclear program does not have a military dimension and relieve international pressure on the regime while it continues its nuclear program. Also, the U.S. would announce that the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists was the work of a foreign country, though Israel would not be named, to increase legal pressure on Israel.

So, while it is a disaster for Israel and for US interests in the Middle East, such a deal would be a win-win proposition for Obama’s campaign and for Iran. As the election draws closer, the pressure to give Iran a better deal increases exponentially.

An agreement like this would practically guarantee that Iran will become a nuclear power.

Could they possibly be this cynical? We’ll find out within the next two weeks.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Iran, October Surprise

The BBC massacres the truth (courtesy Honest Reporting)

The so-called “Jenin Massacre” of 2002 — a massacre that never happened — is emblematic of the way the truth is violated, over and over in this conflict.

I’ve written about this several times. I discussed Palestinian filmmaker Mohammad Bakri, and his “Jenin, Jenin,” an effective propaganda piece full of false accusations and made-up atrocities (including the bombing of a hospital wing that never existed). I wrote about the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by slandered IDF soldiers. I drew attention to biased journalist Philip Reeves, now a respected correspondent for NPR, who wrote some of the earliest reports from the site, suggesting that “hundreds of corpses” were buried in the rubble.

Dr. David Zangen, a doctor who works at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, was an eyewitness. As a reserve medical officer, he was present during the nine days of the  battle. He was interviewed recently by the IDF blog:

During the operation, we made a point to leave the hospital in Jenin unharmed so that injured people would be able to receive medical treatment. Whenever we passed by it snipers on the roof shot at us, but we didn’t fire a single bullet back at them.

Despite that, the people who were there at the time told the media that we killed 16,000 people — even though there were only 54 casualties — and that we shut off the hospital’s electricity. This lie drew a lot of harsh criticism from international organizations and news agencies.

Dr. Zangen wrote an article a few years ago called “Seven Lies about Jenin” in which he gives more details about what was in fact a massacre, not of Arabs, but of the truth.

The most shocking aspect of the affair, for me, was the cynical way in which Bakri and others were comfortable with inverting reality for ideological reasons. Bakri himself admitted that  many “details” were not exactly correct (a massive understatement), but that he served a higher truth.

And here is how Dr. Zangen, who was present at the scene (as Bakri, of course, was not) was treated when he tried to speak out:

A few months after the operation, Mohammed Bakri was about to release the movie ‘Jenin Jenin’, which projected many lies. A member of an Israeli bereaved family called me and asked me to try talk to a cinema manager in Jerusalem who was about to screen the film, and ask him to reconsider.

The manager called me and invited me to watch the film and give her my personal opinion. I came to the cinema and watched the movie, which was filled with lies. She still decided to screen the film, but invited me to stay and speak when the movie was over. I agreed. When I arrived, Mohammed Bakri was on stage and telling the audience that the reason he created the film was to show both sides of the conflict in order to promote peace.

Then I got up on the stage, told him and the audience who I was, and told him that the things he put in his movie never happened. The audience got upset, yelled at me that I was a child murderer and took the microphone from my hands. It was a tough moment for me. That’s why whenever I can, I fight to spread the truth.

Technorati Tags: IDF, Jenin, Mohammad Bakri, Philip Reeves