News & Analysis Focusing Primarily on Issues Affecting Israel

 
May 17, 2013 0

Muslim Brotherhood Marks Nakba Day With Contemptuous Anti-Israel Statements

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Moham­mad Badie’s article

As Pales­tin­ian sup­port­ers across the Mid­dle East were demon­strat­ing in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the nakba, the Ara­bic term mean­ing ‘cat­a­stro­phe’ used to refer to Israel’s estab­lish­ment in 1948, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and its Gen­eral Guide Moham­mad Badie issued state­ments to their fol­low­ers laced with con­tempt for Israel and Jews.

In a com­mem­o­ra­tive state­ment on its English-language web­site, Israel is described by the Broth­er­hood as a “hos­tile ter­ror­ist racist expan­sion­ist mon­stros­ity” that “con­stantly and actively works to Judaize Jerusalem and other Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries,” with assis­tance from the U.S. and West.

Moham­mad Badie wrote in his weekly Arabic-language newslet­ter a piece titled, “Pales­tine … the Soul of the Islamic Nation.” In the arti­cle, Badie warns “Zion­ists to stop play­ing with fire by insult­ing the Al Aqsa by defil­ing and enter­ing the mosque to sing and play in its courtyard.”

Badie also described the nakba not as an event that only affects Pales­tini­ans, but one that has been felt across the Arab and Mus­lim worlds. Badie char­ac­ter­ized Israel’s cre­ation as “the mem­ory of con­fis­cat­ing land and prop­erty, and insult­ing Mus­lim and Chris­t­ian holy places in the Holy City [Jerusalem]; in short, it is the mem­ory of the inva­sion, rape and occu­pa­tion of a sacred and blessed place in the Mus­lim and Arab abode.”

He went on to urge believ­ers to “lib­er­ate the home­land from the filth of the bru­tal Zion­ist occu­pa­tion, which is backed by the West­ern forces that claim free­dom and human rights.”

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May 13, 2013 0

Spotlight On Al Aqsa Television

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Al Aqsa TV describes Salama and Al-Kumi as “Martyrs”

Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV, a Trea­sury Depart­ment Spe­cially Des­ig­nated Global Ter­ror­ist entity, has been the focus of media scrutiny after a deci­sion by the New­seum to honor two Al Aqsa TV mem­bers as part of its ongo­ing memo­r­ial to jour­nal­ists who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2012.

On Sun­day, the Anti-Defamation League described the inclu­sion of Hus­sam Salama and Mah­moud Al-Kumi in the New­seum Jour­nal­ists Memo­r­ial as “a dark day for an Amer­i­can insti­tu­tion devoted to free speech and the First Amendment.”

Today, the New­seum issued a state­ment on its web­site indi­cat­ing that it has “decided to re-evaluate their inclu­sion as jour­nal­ists on our memo­r­ial wall pend­ing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.” ADL wel­comed the museum’s decision.

Al Aqsa TV was estab­lished by Pales­tin­ian Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil mem­ber and cur­rent Hamas Inte­rior Min­is­ter Fathi Ahmad Ham­mad. It began broad­cast­ing in the Gaza Strip in Jan­u­ary 2006.

Mod­eled after Al Manar, which is owned and oper­ated by the Lebanese-based ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion Hezbol­lah, much of Al-Aqsa TV pro­gram­ming reg­u­larly glo­ri­fies vio­lence and incites hatred of Jews and Israelis focuses on chil­dren or is geared towards children.

For exam­ple, at the begin­ning of Oper­a­tion Pil­lar of Defense in Novem­ber 2012, Al Aqsa TV inter­viewed the chil­dren of Hamas mem­bers who were killed in Israeli airstrikes. One of the boys inter­viewed said that he wants to fol­low in his father’s path, “I want to fol­low the path of Jihad like daddy and I want to be mar­tyred like daddy.”

Over the years, Al Aqsa TV has fea­tured music video aimed at rad­i­cal­iz­ing chil­dren. For exam­ple, a few years ago a music video aired by the net­work depicted a 4-year-old girl singing to her “mother,” iden­ti­fied as “mother Reem,” (an appar­ent ref­er­ence to Hamas’s first female sui­cide bomber Reem Riyashi).  Later in the video, the woman det­o­nates her­self and kills four Israeli soldiers. After her mother car­ries out the attack, the lit­tle girl holds an explo­sive and sings to the cam­era, “I am fol­low­ing Mommy in her steps.”

In April 2007, the show “Tomorrow’s Pio­neers” fea­tured a Mickey Mouse-like char­ac­ter called “Far­four” pro­mot­ing a mes­sage of rad­i­cal Islam, anti-Semitism and hatred for the West. The “Far­four” char­ac­ter and child actors on the pro­gram taunt West­ern lead­ers and urge chil­dren to take up AK-47 assault rifles to defeat Israel and the United States.al-aqsa-tv

The Newseum’s Jour­nal­ists Memo­r­ial pre­vi­ously included Ahmed Haidar, a cam­era­man for Al Manar who was killed in 1993. Al Manar was des­ig­nated a Spe­cially Des­ig­nated Global Ter­ror­ist entity in 2006.

This year’s memo­r­ial also plans to honor Maya Naser, a cor­re­spon­dent for Iran’s Press TV, Iran’s gov­ern­ment-run Eng­lish lan­guage satel­lite news net­work. Press TV has emerged as the Iran­ian government’s pri­mary pro­pa­ganda tool to pro­mote a wide range of per­ni­cious anti-Semitic con­spir­acy the­o­ries in Eng­lish to a world­wide audience.

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May 10, 2013 0

Muslim Brotherhood Expresses Support For Hamas In Gaza

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Meet­ing between Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, Hamas and Yusuf Qaradawi in Gaza

A senior mem­ber of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s Guid­ance Bureau in Egypt expressed sup­port for Hamas dur­ing a visit to Gaza on Wednesday.

Abder­rah­man Al-Bar, who is vis­it­ing Gaza with a del­e­ga­tion headed by rad­i­cal Mus­lim Broth­er­hood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Inter­na­tional Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS), deliv­ered the greet­ings of Moham­mad Badie, the Gen­eral Guide of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, to Hamas leaders.

“I report to you the greet­ings of the Gen­eral Guide of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and all of his broth­ers and our broth­ers in Egypt,” Al-Bar said. “They are all yearn­ing to be in this meet­ing and they are behind you with food and supply.”

Al-Bar also expressed his “over­whelm­ing hap­pi­ness to be in the com­pany of the Mujahid Imam, Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi,” and to “meet our broth­ers and beloved ones and the sym­bol of Jihad in this time.” 

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh described Qaradawi as “The Sheik of the Arab spring” and sug­gested that his visit a step toward the lib­er­at­ing all Pales­tin­ian land from the Israelis. The visit is “a first step towards Al-Quds, a first step towards Al-Aqsa, a first step towards Pales­tine — all Pales­tine,” he said.  

Dur­ing the meet­ing with Hamas, Dr. Salah Sul­tan, an anti-Semitic media per­son­al­ity and head of the Jerusalem com­mit­tee of the IUMS, said, “We hope, with the Will of God almighty, that this sig­nif­i­cant visit announces the inau­gu­ra­tion of a project to lib­er­ate al-Quds [Jerusalem] and Palestine.”

Qaradawi, who recently boy­cotted an inter­faith con­fer­ence in Doha because he refuses to dia­logue with Jews, report­edly said yes­ter­day, “This land has never once been a Jew­ish land. Pales­tine is for the Arab Islamic nation.”

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