The latest leak coming out of the very leaky Glenn Greenwald concerns Hamas operatives being surveiled in the US. The National Security Agency and FBI have been monitoring the emails of notorious Muslim-Americans with ties to terror organizations and individuals. Nihad Awad who has famously said, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement,” is one of them.
Two points I wish to make about this. I think it a very good thing that jihad supporters and co-conspirators named in the Holy Land Foundation trial are under surveillance. They should be. And every media outlet that gives the imprimatur of legitimacy to these Muslim Brotherhood leaders and their organizations should step back and re-evaluate their sanction.
I find it reassuring that our intel agencies know and understand that these subversives are working toward (and I quote an internal captured document from the Holy Land trial) “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”
Secondly, why is it that Glenn Greenwald and his partner in crime Edward Snowden only release classified info that supports the leftist/Islamic alliance? Do you notice how it’s all in the cause of the left’s war on America and their vicious agenda?
In light of this non-story, Muslim supremacists and their lefitst lapdogs are trying to drum up some controversy around this by using the hashtag #IAmATarget on Twitter. Ironic, is it not? Considering the millions of victims (targets) of jihad terror, who are the real targets? Every time you post a jihad news item on Twitter or Facebook, use that hashtag.
Shock horror: Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad under surveillance! (thanks to Jihadwatch)
Glenn Greenwald and his fellow jihad-enabling “journalist” Murtaza Hussain have a major expose out today about Muslim leaders who are being spied upon by the FBI and the NSA. The thrust of the article is that each one is as pure as the day is long, with the one sin of opposing U.S. government policies.
The idea, of course, that opposing U.S. government policies from the Left will get you placed under surveillance these days is beyond ridiculous: Obama’s IRS is targeting conservative groups, not Leftists, and claiming that “right-wing extremists” are a terror threat, with nary a word about genuinely violent Left-wing extremist groups such as the Occupy movement and others.
And so it is no surprise that Greenwald and Hussain make their case by glossing over the genuine reasons why the FBI and NSA have placed these men under surveillance — surveillance which, if it is still going on at this point, is sure to end now as a result of this article. Here are the facts about Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad; I will deal with the others separately.
“Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On,” by Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept, July 9, 2014:
The National Security Agency and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans—including a political candidate and several civil rights activists, academics, and lawyers—under secretive procedures intended to target terrorists and foreign spies.
According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the list of Americans monitored by their own government includes:
• Faisal Gill, a longtime Republican Party operative and one-time candidate for public office who held a top-secret security clearance and served in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush;
• Asim Ghafoor, a prominent attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases;
• Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor of international relations at Rutgers University;
• Agha Saeed, a former political science professor at California State University who champions Muslim civil liberties and Palestinian rights;
• Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country….
…“I’m outraged as an American citizen that my government, after decades of civil rights struggle, still spies on political activists and civil right activists and leaders,” says Awad. “I’m really angry that despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, we are treated with suspicion.”
The bulk of CAIR’s work is devoted to protecting the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans. (Full disclosure: Glenn Greenwald, a co-author of this story, has given paid speeches before CAIR’s regional affiliates.) The group frequently provides legal counsel to those who believe their rights have been infringed, and litigates constitutional challenges to state and federal laws. Awad says he is particularly incensed about the surveillance given the close cooperation that CAIR has provided the U.S. government in denouncing violent extremism. “The government knows very well that I am not a foreign agent,” he says.
Despite its political moderation and relationship to federal law enforcement agencies, CAIR became a primary target of hardline neoconservatives after 9/11. In 2007, the Justice Department named the group as one of more than 300 “unindicted co-conspirators” in its controversial prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, then the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., which was eventually convicted of providing material support to Hamas. The Justice Department later attempted to justify its inclusion of CAIR by referring to wiretap evidence showing that in 1993, a Palestinian advocacy group that prosecutors believed was linked to Hamas met in a Philadelphia hotel and talked about founding CAIR. In 1994, Awad voiced public support for Hamas—before the group’s campaign of suicide attacks against civilians and subsequent placement on the State Department’s terrorist list in 1997.
“I do not support Hamas,” Awad says today, pointing out that the group was not involved in terrorist activities at the time he made the statement. “It was not on the list of organizations that sponsor or conduct terrorism by the State Department. And when the organization took those acts, CAIR has condemned it, repeatedly.”…
Very well. So Awad supported Hamas in 1994, but in 1997, when it was placed on the State Department’s terrorist list, he stopped supporting it. Here is part of the old Hamas website’s “glory record” of attacks against Israelis – the terrorist organization’s own record of its murderous actions. Here are some of Hamas’ self-described exploits from before 1994, when Awad made his statement about supporting Hamas:
3. Boureen Operation: The militant Hamdan Hussein Al:najar, a member of Hamas, killed the Israeli settler Ya’coub Berey using a big rock as his weapon. The militant was shot down as a martyr after he had ambushed an Israeli patrol using the dead settler’s weapon….
6. Bus No. 405 Operation: Militant Ahmed Hussein Shukry, a member of Hamas, was able to lead an Israeli soldier to a secluded place in Tel Aviv where the militant hit the soldier with a chisel and killed him on 8 September 1989. The following day, the militant got on bus No. 405 and stabbed the driver to take over the bus; however, the passengers were able to stop the militant….
12. Keryat Youval Operation: The militant Mohammed Mustafa Abu Jalala stabbed four Israelis and injured another at a bus station in Keryat Youval in Jerusalem before he was arrested by the Israeli forces.
13. Askalan Road Operation: While driving a taxi, the militant Jameel Ismail Al:baz, a member of Hamas, ran over a group of Israelis waiting on this road on 19 July 1991….
15. Shailou Operation: A military group belonging to Al Qassam Brigades attacked an Israeli bus carrying some settlers on their way to Tel Aviv to participate in demonstrations organized by the extremist party Likud against the peace process. The bus was completely destroyed; two Israelis were killed and five more were injured….
17. Eid Al-maskhara Operation: The militant Ra’ed Al:reefy attacked an Israeli crowd in Jaffa on 17 March 1992. He was able to kill 2 and injure 21 Israelis who gathered to celebrate Eid Al:maskhara, also known as Al:boureem.
18. Beit Lahya Operation: On the third anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s arrest, a group belonging to Al Qassam Brigades attacked an Israeli settler at Beit Lahya and shot him down then withdrew safely….
21. Carlo Factory Operation: Four militants belonging to Al Qassam Brigades broke into a citrus packing factory (Carlo) near Nahal Oaz at 2:30 p.m. on 25 June 1992. Three militants stabbed two Israelis while the other was guarding….
So Greenwald and Hussain claim that Awad only supported Hamas “before the group’s campaign of suicide attacks against civilians” began. Yet on Hamas’s own website at the time Awad expressed his support for the group was a celebration of the murders of civilian Ya’coub Berey; the civilians on the bus to Tel Aviv; the civilians in the crowd in Jaffa; and the civilian at Beit Lahya; as well as the stabbings of the driver of bus No. 405, the Israelis at the bus station in Keryat Youval, and the citrus packers, as well as the victims of cabbie Jameel Ismail al-Baz.
Also, when Awad says that he and CAIR do not support Hamas today, it should be recalled that in March 2004, when Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin was killed by Israel, CAIR condemned his killing — without ever mentioning that Yassin was the mastermind and director of suicide killings for Hamas: “We condemn this violation of international law as an act of state terrorism by Ariel Sharon’s out-of-control government. Israel’s extra-judicial killing of an Islamic religious leader can only serve to perpetuate the cycle of violence throughout the region. The international community must now take concrete steps to help protect the Palestinian people against such wanton Israeli violence.”
The way they deal with Awad is typical of the dishonesty of the entire Greenwald/Hussain piece.
