UN General Assembly ignores Jewish ties to Temple Mount

From JPost, 1Dec 2016, by DANIELLE ZIRI,TOVAH LAZAROFF:

The UN General Assembly overwhelming voted to support a resolution that used solely Muslim language to describe the Temple Mount.

Out of the United Nation’s 193 member states, 147 voted in favor, seven voted against and eight abstained.

The Jerusalem resolution was one of six resolutions condemning Israel and supporting the Palestinians that the General Assembly approved on Wednesday, as part of its special annual session for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which began on Tuesday.

All the European member states present in the room voted in favor of the resolution – countries such as France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The states that opposed the Jerusalem resolution were the United States, Canada, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Naura and Palu.

Those that abstained were Australia, Guatemala, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Vanuatu.

The Jerusalem resolution, numbered A/71/l.22, addresses the situation in Jerusalem and its holy sites and states that “any actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever, and calls upon Israel to immediately cease all such illegal and unilateral measures.”

The text calls on Israel to have “respect for the historic status quo at the holy places of Jerusalem” and “urges all sides to work immediately and cooperatively to defuse tensions and halt all provocations, incitement and violence at the holy sites in the city.”

The resolutions were introduced by a group of mostly Arab countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority, but also some Asian countries, such as Indonesia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic, as well as a few African countries.

Resolutions A/71/l.18 and A/71/l.19, the first in the series, pledge respectively to support the UN’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in its efforts to end the Israeli “occupation,” and extend member state’s cooperation with and support to the division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat.

Draft resolution a/71/l.20, also adopted on Wednesday, with 153 votes in favor of it, seven abstentions and seven negative votes, aims to disseminate information on the Palestinian narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as on all the activities of the United Nations system relating to the question of Palestine. The resolution also states the need to organize and promote “fact-finding news missions for journalists to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.”

In resolution A/71/l.21, the General Assembly calls for “a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.” It also “calls upon Israel, the occupying power, to comply strictly with its obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, and to cease all of its measures that are contrary to international law and all unilateral actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The last draft text adopted by the assembly, resolution A/71/l.8, adopted by a vote of 103 in favor, six abstentions and 56 votes against it, demands that Israel withdraw from all of the Golan to the line of June 4, 1967, and hand it over to Syria.

Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said, “Today’s resolutions are yet another example of the daily bias Israel faces in the UN.

“At the same time that Israel is celebrating the historic decision to reestablish the Jewish state in our homeland, the UN continues to fund organizations and pass resolutions that do nothing to better the lives of the Palestinians.”

The United States voted against all the resolutions. The representative of the US Mission at the General Assembly session spoke out against the “disproportionate number of resolutions condemning Israel.”

He further stated that voting on these resolutions “damages the prospect for peace.”

“All parties to the conflict have responsibility to end the conflict,” he said.

The US representative added that his country is “disappointed” that the General Assembly chooses to single out Israel, which is “counterproductive.”

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed by the United Nations on November 29 each year, the date marking the anniversary of the General Assembly’s 1947 adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

Do you know where your money is going?

From Middle East Forum, 28 Nov 2016:

Ibrahim Cooper (L), spokesperson, and Nihad Awad (R), executive director, for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR was recently designated as a terrorist organization by an ally of the United States.

...The Middle East Forum encourages Muslims and non-Muslims alike to support several important Muslim groups that are anti-Islamist, including:

• American Islamic Forum for Democracy
• Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
• Center for Islamic Pluralism
• Iranian American Forum
• Muslims Facing Tomorrow
• Muslim Reformers
• Muslim Reform Movement

But there are also organizations masquerading as civil rights groups and humanitarian aid groups which raise tax-deductible funds to promote extremist ideals.

...we are providing a list of prominent Islamist organizations that should not be supported: 

• the Council on American Islamic Relations, 
• Muslim American Society, 
• Islamic Society of North America, Islamic Circle of North America, 
• Helping Hand for Relief and Development, and 
• Islamic Relief.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

CAIR presents itself as a civil rights organization fighting against bigotry, but its record tells a different story. During the 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terrorism financing trial, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Because of CAIR’s extremist associations, the FBI has banned outreach with CAIR since 2008. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates, a pious Muslim country, designated CAIR as a terrorist organization. The Anti-Defamation League believes CAIR is a key promoter of anti-Jewish sentiment.
 
Six CAIR leaders have been arrested, convicted, or deported for terrorism-related crimes: Randall (“Ismail”) Royer, Ghassan Elashi, Bassem Khafagi, Rabih Haddad, Nabil Sadoun, and Muthanna Al-Hanooti. These terrorism links are unsurprising, given CAIR’s promotion of hate preachers Regular speakers at CAIR events include Suhaib Webb and Omar Suleiman, who have respectively described homosexuality as an “evil inclination” and a “repugnant, shameless sin.” CAIR leaders seem to follow their imams’ theological instruction. In 2009, CAIR-Florida executive director Hassan Shibly called homosexuality a “quick way to earn God’s wrath” and “evil.”
 
Muslim American Society (MAS)
 

MAS was founded in 1993 by operatives of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Chicago Tribune reported in 2004 that a MAS summer camp for teens included study materials promoting the Brotherhood’s philosophy. According to the Investigative Project, one MAS website even featured “reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so.” The ADL has criticized MAS for being “the leading American Muslim organization organizing anti-Israel activity in the U.S.” In 2014, MAS was designated by the UAE as a terrorist organization.

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)

ISNA emerged from the Muslim Students Association, which was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood and continues to serve as a breeding ground for terrorists. A 1991 Brotherhood memorandum laying out its plan to infiltrate American institutions includes ISNA on its list of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”
 
ISNA was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF’s illegal financing of Hamas. Specifically, ISNA was named among the “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.” A judge later ruled that the government had “produced ample evidence” connecting ISNA to the HLF and Hamas. Indeed, ISNA had a joint bank account into which checks payable to “the Palestinian Mujahadeen” (Hamas) were deposited.

Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)

In 2000, ICNA identified itself as an American front for Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a Pakistani Islamist group that officials have linked to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations. JI’s extremist ideology pervades all aspects of ICNA: The 2010 ICNA handbook promotes the writings of JI’s anti-Jewish, pro-terror founder and outlines a strategy for building a “united Islamic state.” A war crimes tribunal recently convicted ICNA’s former secretary general Ashrafuzzaman Khan of murdering 18 intellectuals during the Bangladesh War of Independence. In 2013, ICNA openly protested the convictions of senior JI leaders in Bangaldesh, a fact that JI reported on its own website.
 
ICNA’s “charitable” wing, ICNA Relief, also backs extremist causes and was a top donor to the Al-Khidmat Foundation, a JI charity that, while being supported by ICNA Relief in 2006, delivered almost $100,000 to the head of Hamas.

Helping Hand for Relief and Development

Helping Hand is a large Islamist charity, boasting an income of over $40 million in 2015. Helping Hand was also a donor to JI’s Al-Khidmat Foundation. Helping Hand is notorious for promoting hate preachers at its events across the U.S. Recent speakers include Hussain Kamani, who advocates the use of female sex slaves and the killing of adulterers; and Sulaiman Hani, who writes that “‘freedom of speech’ is a facade of a tool that is used inconsistently by those in power.” It is used, Hani claims, to stifle “objective discussion” of the “Holocaust or Jews.”

Islamic Relief

The Islamic Relief franchise is the largest Islamic charity in America and the Western world, reporting an income of about $110 million in 2014. But it is a designated terrorist entity in Israel and even the UAE. Both UBS and HSBC have closed Islamic Relief bank accounts over reported concerns about terrorism financing. And the founders of Islamic Relief’s parent branch in Britain include Essam El-Haddad, who became the foreign policy advisor to Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president.

In America, a number of Islamic Relief officials, including board chairman Khaled Lamada, have been named by the Egyptian newspaper El Watan as prominent Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Islamic Relief USA staff include Omar Shahin, who, in 2002, gave a sermon in which he preached: “You will keep on fighting with the Jews until the fight reaches the east of Jordan river then the stones and trees will say: oh Muslim, oh (servant) slaves of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.” Islamic Relief’s headquarters, based in Britain, have a financial relationship with terror-linked charities. In 2004, 2007, and 2009, Islamic Relief Worldwide’s accounts revealed large donations from the Charitable Society for Social Welfare, founded by Al-Qaeda terrorist and “Bin Laden loyalist” Abdul Majeed Al-Zindani. According to the Washington Post, “U.S. and U.N. authorities accuse Zindani of recruiting for al-Qaeda camps and raising money for weapons for terrorist groups.”