A terrorist finds a safe-harbor in Turkey.

Sami Al-Arian, admitted terror sponsor, finds a new home in Turkey. 

Old terrorists do not die, they just move to Turkey.

Announcement of United Arab Emirates and Israel normalizing relations has one repentant terrorist up in arms.

My latest JNS column:

 

Condemnation of Israel and Jews from terrorists and their supporters is not new, it just comes from different directions. One case in point is Sami Al-Arian, who was deported from the United States following a prison sentence for his guilt as a sponsor of the terrorist organization, Islamic Jihad.

Today, the Kuwaiti-born Al-Arian lives in Turkey, the only country that would accept him after his deportation, where he heads the Istanbul-based Center for Islam and Global Affairs. He’s often interviewed and quoted by Arab news outlets—most recently, about the announcement of the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

To many in the United States, Sami Al-Arian was the victim of a U.S. government conspiring with Israel to punish him for his pro-Palestinian views. To those of us who have suffered the loss of loved ones because of his support—financial and moral—of terror, he is an unrepentant murderer.

America’s attention was first called to Al-Arian in 1994 by Steven Emerson in his documentary, “Jihad in America,” where Al-Arian’s links to Islamic Jihad were outlined. But it was 1995 that would be the terror group’s defining year. It was in that year that Islamic Jihad conducted a series of deadly suicide bomb attacks in Israel, one of the victims being my 20-year-old daughter, Alisa.

Following the October 1995 death of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shikaki, an associate of Al-Arian—Ramadan Abdullah Shallah—surfaced in Damascus as new the leader of Islamic Jihad. A month later, Al-Arian’s business records were seized by the FBI in a raid on his home and office at the University of South Florida, where he was working as a computer-science teacher.

Al-Arian used his role at the university to establish two organizations: the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), and the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, both of these “think tanks” were nothing more than fronts used by Al-Arian to assist terrorists such as Abdullah Shallah to enter the United States.

Like many Americans at the time, the raids on Al-Arian’s home and office surprised me. Although Islamic Jihad had murdered my daughter just a few months earlier, no one in the Israeli or American governments made any assertion at the time that fundraising and moral support was coming from within America.

Despite my own meetings with U.S. Justice Department officials in the Clinton administration urging that something be done, the case against Al-Arian, if there was one, languished.

Al-Arian would continue to have photo ops with prominent politicians, including presidents Clinton

Pres. Bush & Al-Arian

and Bush; receive invitations to the White House and meet with

Justice Department officials; and go about his business defending his 

right to free speech—all the time denying any link to Islamic Jihad or 

terrorism in the Middle East.

Justice Department officials told me that the delays in the prosecution were due to difficulties translating faxes and other documents from Arabic to English, the fact that the Israelis were not providing information, and that they did not have the staff resources to pursue the case. All the while, President Clinton was trying to breathe life into a moribund Middle East peace process. I wondered, could the delay be attributable to a calculation that a prosecution of Al-Arian would embarrass the Palestinian leadership? I do not know.

What I do know is that in the summer of 2001, there was a new administration in the White House and a new attorney general at the Justice Department. In July, my attorney and I met with the FBI and Justice Department team working on the links between Al-Arian and Islamic Jihad in this country. The goal, I was told, was to bring Al-Arian to trial.

Many have subsequently ascribed the indictment of Al-Arian in February 2003 as a test of the Patriot Act. But the time line is clear to me that and the Justice Department was on his trail long before the law came into existence, and while the Patriot Act might have made the gathering of information against Al-Arian easier, it was not the impetus or the reason for his indictment. The fact of the matter remains that Al-Arian was accused of working for Islamic Jihad, which had killed Americans, and the crime could be addressed here.

I welcomed the idea of putting Al-Arian on trial. Let Americans and the world see the lengths that terror’s supporters go in order to murder civilians riding a public bus. But the trial turned out to be a disaster.

Experts arguing over the interpretations of Arabic words used in intercepted fax transmissions to Al-Arian from Islamic jihad headquarters in Gaza and Damascus asking for money and announcing terror attacks confused the jury. The jury acquitted Al-Arian on most charges and deadlocked on several others.

He eventually entered a guilty plea to supporting terrorism, and after serving a short prison sentence, he was to be deported from the United States. Denied access to Egypt, which has its own problems dealing with terror organizations, Turkey welcomed him and provided him with a platform to lambaste anything positive coming out of the Middle East when it involves Israel.

News of the breakthrough quickly brought Al-Arian’s condemnation. According to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, Al-Arian says the move to normalization “grants Israel the keys to Al-Aqsa [mosque] and Jerusalem,” and “[T]his is betrayal, not only of the trust that has been given to the Muslim world over 1,400 years ago, but also of the Palestinian cause and people.”

“Despite the deal, the Palestinian people will remain defiant and vigilant against such attempts” and “will never give up their secret (sic) right, not only in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, but across Palestine,” said Al-Arian.

Always eager to burn his bridges, he now claims that the “United Arab Emirates has been involved in every aspect of evil doing across the region” and calls for “another wave of an Arab Spring movement in which the people will have their final say.”

There’s nothing like a call for revolution to make friends and influence people. But Al-Arian is never interested in building bridges, just destroying them. And his Turkish hosts give him the forum to do so.

Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror,” is now available on Kindle.  He divides his time between Jerusalem and New Jersey.

 

How do you say chutzpa in French?

Annexation driving EU countries crazy.

While Israeli leadership considers applying sovereignty to portions of Judea and Samaria, and the public rallies for and against that move, European states are having a meltdown.  Well, I think it’s time to look at the blatant hypocrisy of European Union members warning Israel against annexation.

Let’s start with the French as France recently urged the European Union to take punitive measures against Israel if it annexes anything.

That’s right, France—which has been ruling the 890-square mile Reunion Island, off the southeast coast of Africa, for more than 300 years. And the 144-square mile Mayotte Island for nearly 200 years. The area of the Gush Etzion communities is all of 45 square miles.

France, which has been occupying the five so-called “Scattered Islands” in the Indian Ocean in defiance of a 1979 U.N. resolution demanding that those islands be surrendered to Madagascar.

France, which in 1955 announced that the thousands of miles of what it calls “French Southern and Antarctic Lands” would henceforth be considered an official French Overseas Territory. By what right, exactly?

And France, the Grand Annexer, lectures Israel on annexation? How do you say chutzpah in French?

While it has one foot in and the other out of the European Union, England, too, has weighed in. The Brits are furious at the thought of Israeli annexation. Cabinet minister (and chairman of the ruling Conservative Party) James Cleverly told parliament that such Israeli action would be make it “harder” to achieve peace.

I wonder why the British never had such concerns when Jordan annexed all of Judea and Samaria—not just the tiny portion Israel is considering—back in 1950. In fact, England was one of only two countries in the entire world (the other was Pakistan) that recognized the Jordanian annexation.

So, it was OK for Jordan—a country that didn’t even exist until the British created it out of whole cloth in 1922—to annex it. But not Israel, even though the area has been at the heart of the Jewish homeland for 3,000 years.

London is hoping the rest of us won’t notice that there are no less than 14 “British Overseas Territories” that they have forcibly made and kept a part of the British Empire—from the Falkland Islands (that Britain went to war with Argentina in 1982 over the latter’s claims to the islands) to Bermuda. Some are in the South Atlantic, some in the North Atlantic, some in the Caribbean—pretty much everywhere you look on the globe, you can find pieces of the old British Empire still in operation.

What are some of the other E.U. member states who presume to lecture and threaten Israel?

There’s Portugal, which annexed the 908 square-mile Azores Islands some 500 years ago. Spain, illegal occupier of the 3,000 square-mile Canary Islands since the 15th century. Greenland was forcibly made part of Denmark in 1814. Don’t forget Curaçao and Aruba, which were annexed by Holland, along with Saint Martin, Saba, and Bonaire. There are many more examples.

The issue is not just that these countries are incredibly hypocritical for haranguing Israel about annexation while themselves annexing any territory they can get their hands on.

No, the main issue is that France, England, and the rest have no moral, historical or legal right to annex those territories, while Israel has every right to incorporate the parts of Judea and Samaria under discussion. Those areas have been at the center of the Jewish national home since biblical times. Israel won them in self-defense and by international law has no obligation to surrender them. And they have only a small Arab population, so annexation— “reunification” is more accurate—poses no demographic danger to Israel.

So, here’s my message to the European annexationists that criticize Israeli annexation: Mind your own business. I mean that literally. Go attend to the business of convincing your own governments to release the many lands that they have occupied and annexed—and then you can come talk to Israel about the subject.

Not very woman friendly

Not very woman friendly

The Palestinian Authority honors the wrong folks

Sometimes, I just don’t get Palestinian Arab society.

As the world was celebrating International Women’s Day, the Palestinian Authority took a different track.

In the words of the day’s organizers, “we can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women's achievements.”  Not so the PA.

Instead of honoring and celebrating the role women play, the PA marked International Women’s Day by praising and honoring terrorists who murdered women.

Official PA Television, which had been continuously broadcasting Coronavirus news, paused on International Women’s Day to devote some attention to an apparently more important topic. The broadcast began with an interview with Um Nasser Abu Hmeid.  If the name doesn’t ring a bell, she’s the mother of five terrorists who are serving life in prison for multiple murders. The interviewer praised them as heroes and their mother spoke about how proud she was of them.

One is Muhammed Abu Hmeid. On December 14, 1990, he and a fellow-terrorist burst into a factory in Jaffa. Using long knives, they murdered Ms. Iris Asraf, a 22 year-old clerk, and two male employees.

I will spare you the horrific details of what the “hero” Muhammed did to Ms. Asraf; I will note only what the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported at the time: “The body of one victim reportedly was sliced into quarters. Another was nearly decapitated, and the a third was disemboweled.”

After the glowing interview with the murderers’ mother, photographs of Arab women terrorists filled the screen. The narrator described their “heroic” deeds and hailed them as “martyrs.” (Thanks to Palestinian Media Watch for these translations.) The fact that many of their victims were women did not diminish their status as the PA’s heroes of International Women’s Day.

There was Leila Khaled, who twice hijacked airplanes on which there were many women passengers. There was Fatima Barnawi, who planted a bomb in a Jerusalem movie theater which many women were attending.

Most of all, there was Dalal Mughrabi. She occupies a special place in the hearts of the PA regime and the Palestinian Arab public. The PA has named numerous girls’ schools, public squares, and sports tournaments after her.

What did Mughrabi do that so endears her to Palestinian Arabs?

On March 9, 1978, she led a squad of Arab terrorists who set out from Lebanon towards Israel, in several small boats. They were members of Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. At the time, Yasir Arafat was chairman of the PLO and Fatah, and Mahmoud Abbas was his second in command. Today, Abbas is chairman of the PLO, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority.

The Mughrabi gang’s first victim was a woman.

When Dalal Mughrabi and her fellow-terrorists landed on a northern Israeli beach, they happened to encounter Gail Rubin, an American Jewish nature photographer, who was taking photos of rare birds. Her work had been exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York City and other prominent venues. She was also a niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut).

One of the terrorists, Hussain Fayadh, later explained to the Lebanese Television station Al-Manar what happened: "Sister Dalal al-Mughrabi had a conversation with the American journalist. Before killing her, Dalal asked: 'How did you enter Palestine?' [Rubin] answered: 'They gave me a visa.' Dalal said: 'Did you get your visa from me, or from Israel? I have the right to this land. Why didn't you come to me?' Then Dalal opened fire on her."

As Gail laying dying on the beach, Mughrabi and her fellow-terrorists walked to the nearby Coastal Road. An Israeli bus approached. They hijacked it. And they murdered 37 passengers. Eleven of their victims were girls or women.

Tali Aharonovitch. Naomi Elichai. Galit Ankwa. Mathilda Askenazy-Daniel. Rina Bushkenitch. Liat Gal-On. Naama Hadani. Rebecca Hohman. Malka Leibovitch-Weiss. Tziona Lozia-Cohen. Rina Sosensky. Gail Rubin. That is who should be remembered on International Women’s Day.

Instead, the PA turned the occasion into a veritable International Anti-Women’s Day. Where were all the protests from feminist groups who claim to care about women’s rights? Where was the outcry from the all the self-described progressives and peace activists? Do women’s lives mean so little to them?

This post and others like it can be viewed at Times of Israel

45 years later, aliyah to Israel

We sure picked a great time to make aliyah - now

Coming on aliyah is always a [worthwhile] hurdle, but you have to be an idealist to come on Aliyah during the time of Covid-19. 

Att'y Stephen M. Flatow

Stephen Flatow is a New Jersey attorney, vice president of the Religious Zionists of America and the father of Alisa Flatow, murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists in 1995 on a study trip to Israel when the bus she was on exploded on her way to the beach in Gush Katif. Her organs were donated to save others.

More from the author ►

It was the spring of 1960, I was 11 years old and living in Middle Village, Queens. My parents gave me a couple of dollars and told me to go to the movies for the afternoon because they had “to go to the closing on our new home.”  So, I walked up the hill on 75th Street to the Arion Theatre on Metropolitan Avenue.  You could do a lot of things with two bucks in those days, so I paid my 35 cents admission and bought some nosh.

The movie playing that day was “On the Beach.”  It starred the always stoic Gregory Peck, the sultry Ava Gardner, a still dapper Fred Astaire, and a new actor, Anthony Perkins.

On the Beach is set in 1964.  It’s a tale of the aftermath of nuclear war.  Spoiler alert – everyone   dies in the end.  Peck is a US submarine captain whose ship and crew made it through the war and is now in Australia.  The nuclear fallout cloud has spread around the world and Australia is the last remaining place on the planet where people are alive.  But they know the cloud is coming, the government is handing out cyanide pills, and it’s just a matter of time before the end comes. 

In 1960 New York City and many other major American cities were surrounded by the Nike missile system that was designed to shoot down high-flying bombers and we were still having air raid drills at PS 87.  A hallway alarm would go off, and we would get under our desks, direct our rears towards the classroom’s large windows and bend towards the floor with our hands folded behind our necks.

At the end of the movie, we are shown an Australian street scene where a sign warning of the end flaps in the breeze and discarded newspapers and trash swirl through the air. It was all very real to me.  And the specter of 1964 being five years away, kept me up for more than a few nights.

And here I am, 60 years later, sitting with my wife in Jerusalem in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak.  It’s our aliyah trip.

Rosalyn and I talked about making aliyah in the mid-1970s, Alisa had been born, and the subject just popped into our heads.  But I fretted about moving to Israel as a new American lawyer, not knowing the language, and worrying about how I’d put food on the table.  So, we put it out of our minds.

Please continue to the full article on Arutz Sheva, Israel National News

Wrong, Sen. Warren - creating a PA state is not 'official US policy'

Stephen M. Flatow: Wrong, Sen. Warren - creating a PA state is not 'official US policy'

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren has to get her facts straight when it comes to creating a state out of the Palestinian Authority.

My latest column on Arutz Sheva deals with Senator Elizabeth Warren's belief that the so-called "two state solution" is official US government policy.

Here's the column:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren has raised eyebrows with her not-so-subtle threat to withhold U.S. aid from Israel in order to extract Israeli concessions. But there was another disturbing element to Warren’s statement that is being overlooked.

“It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table,” Warren said at an Iowa campaign event this past week, in response to a question about whether she would use aid to pressure Israel.

“Official U.S. policy”?  Not even close.

It is not the policy of the Trump administration to support creating a Palestinian Arab state. In fact, administration officials have specifically said that their forthcoming proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement does not include a Palestinian state.

The London Guardian reported on September 5:  “Although little is known for certain about the Kushner-Greenblatt plan, Trump officials have made it clear it will not commit to supporting the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel…” Other media outlets have reported likewise.

But it didn’t start with President Trump.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t call for creating a Palestinian state. Neither did Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or George H.W. Bush. 

In addition, neither Bill Clinton nor Jimmy Carter ever publicly called for a Palestinian state while they were president. Palestinian statehood was not “official U.S. policy” during their administrations.

The first U.S. president to publicly call for a Palestinian state was George W. Bush. That was in 2002. But, significantly, Bush conditioned it on the Palestinians electing a new leadership, and permanently abandoning terrorism. Needless to say, the Palestinians never met those conditions. 

The first—and still only—sitting American president to call for creating a Palestinian state without preconditions was Barack Obama.

There are good reasons why Palestinian statehood has been “official U.S. policy” during only one administration in the past sixty-plus years:

—The Palestinian Arabs have a long record of fomenting regional instability, including an armed conflict with King Hussein of Jordan and a civil war in Lebanon. It’s only a matter of time before a Palestinian state would stir up turmoil and mayhem throughout the region. How would regional chaos be good for America?

—The Palestinians have always allied themselves with the most extreme and aggressive regimes in the world, including the Soviet Union, North Korea and Iran. “Palestine” would become a proxy-state for the world’s worst rogue regimes. How would an Iranian port in Gaza be good for America?

—From the Palestinian Authority’s practices over the past 24 years, we know what kind of state they would have: Islam would be the state religion; elections would be held rarely, if ever; dissidents would be tortured and suppressed; Christians would be intimidated; women would be second-class citizens. How would creating a regime that represent the opposite of American values be good for America?

—Creating a Palestinian state would reduce America’s only real ally in the region, Israel, to just nine miles wide. Making Israel so vulnerable would not only endanger the Jewish state, but would also undermine the confidence of all of America’s allies, and call into doubt the value of America’s promises. How could that be good for America’s strategic position in the Middle East, or its reputation anywhere in the world?

In short, the establishment of a Palestinian Arab fascist dictatorship—for that is certainly what it would be—would be bad for American values, bad for American interests, and bad for America’s allies.

I understand why advocates of the Palestinian cause like to claim that a Palestinian state is longstanding U.S. policy. It makes the idea sound more legitimate. It creates an air of inevitability. But it’s a lie. Somebody needs to explain that to Senator Warren.

* * *

I am pleased to announce that my book, "A Father's Story, My Fight For Justice Against Iranian Terror," is now available on Kindle.