Ontario Prosecutors Fail to Appeal Marital Sexual Assault Case

The deadline for prosecutors to appeal a judge's decision to acquit a Muslim man of sexually assaulting his wife has passed. It appears the ruling – that cultural and religious beliefs that he could have sex with her even when she was not willing trump secular Canadian law – will stand.

The now-divorced couple has not been identified. But Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith acquitted the Palestinian-Muslim husband, saying he "probably had sex with his wife on many occasions without her specific consent," but both believed their faith gave him that right. "as both he and she believed that he had the right to do so."

As we reported last week, Canadian law expressly requires actual consent, including from spouses, and specifies that not knowing the law is not a defense to breaking it.

The law gave the Ottawa Attorney General one month to appeal. There was little, to no public debate about the case, and no sign an appeal was filed.

This failure to act is alarming and means Ontario's government accepts a ruling which undermines the protections afforded by Canadian law to people vulnerable to sexual assault, It allows 'cultural' beliefs to supersede secular law. How is that acceptable in Canadian society?

The silence from Canadian opposition parties, both provincial or federal, or our self-described 'feminist' national government also is disappointing. Why were they silent?

These are questions that need to be asked and answered if the rule of secular law in Canada is to be preserved and protected.

Bin Laden Diary Shows He Wanted Cooperation with the MB in Libya

Osama bin Laden encouraged cooperation with all who wanted to topple late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, including with the Muslim Brotherhood and its leading ideologue Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the al-Qaida leader's recently declassified diary shows. The Libyan uprising "opened the door to the jihadists," he wrote.

Bin Laden encouraged al-Qaida branches such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) to disregard doctrinal or sectarian differences with other Islamists.

In an undated email, bin Laden acknowledged communication between al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood elements. He noted that a Brotherhood member sent al-Qaida an email describing "factions who now adhere to true Islam, and there is also a powerful Salafist faction within the Brotherhood."

U.S. officials became aware of LIFG's al-Qaida links after they agreed to back the group's fight to topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. LIFG's leaders "maintained ties to al Qa'ida during their struggle with the forces of former dictator Muammar al [Gaddafi]," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's confidante Sidney Blumenthal told her in a July 2012 email.

An April 2011 Libyan intelligence document noted that elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and the LIFG cooperated in the early stage of the Libyan rebellion. Bin Laden's missive could explain why this close cooperation took place. The Muslim Brotherhood resorted to "[taqiyya]" or intentional deception, to hide their bid to create a caliphate while telling the press they wanted democracy, the Libyan intelligence document said.

Evidence shows that LIFG worked with a Qaradawi representative who belonged to Libya's Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow Gaddafi.

LIFG cooperated with the "international network of the [Muslim] Brotherhood," the Libyan document said without going into detail. Ali Al-Salabi – a man referred to by Clinton aide Jake Sullivan as "a key figure in the Libyan Muslim [B]rotherhood and Qaradawi's man in Libya" in a Feb. 28, 2011 email – allegedly helped the LIFG during the spring 2011 uprising. He also helped move money from the Qatari government to the militias, the UAE based Khaleej Times reported in July.

The Muslim Brotherhood lamented bin Laden's death in a U.S. Seal Team raid, calling it an "assassination" and implying that he engaged in "legitimate resistance" against the West.

Bin Laden's diary shows a surprising degree of pragmatism that may have presaged cooperation between al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya.

Lawmakers Advance Measures to Block Aid to Hamas

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved legislative measures Wednesday targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

The approved measures include the Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act (H.R. 2712), that will impose sanctions to end support for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hizballah.

"Iran and Hizballah are clearly working to extend their influence over Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip through increased financial and military aid," said U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif.

The U.S. State Department designated Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997 and the Treasury Department named it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2001. So far, Hamas has been responsible for the deaths of 400 Israelis and at least 25 Americans.

Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that endorsed the bills, held Iran accountable for Hamas' control of the Gaza Strip for over a decade. "Iran is also why Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have thousands of missiles and rockets, and continue digging tunnels of terror under the border with Israel," he said.

The bill also focuses on "significant financial and military support" Hamas receives from Qatar, including its government-supported Al Jazeera news network, which has provided a platform to senior Hamas leaders, including the terrorist group's leader Khaled Meshaal.

Another bill approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee is the Taylor Force Act (H.R. 1164) that will block U.S. financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until it stops paying families of suicide bombers and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. payments to the Palestinian leadership averaged $400 million per year. The bill is named after an American officer who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Israel in March 2016.

The third piece of legislation advanced by the committee is called the Hamas Human Shields Prevention Act (H.R. 3542). It denounces Hamas for using civilians, prisoners of war, and other noncombatants as human shields and seeks to sanction the terrorist group for this reprehensible practice.

Radical UK Mosque Leader Also Represents Hamas Abroad

A trustee of a well-known British mosque with ties to extremism is also an official with Hamas' political bureau, reports Britain's The Times.

Mohammed Sawalha, a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London since 2010, represented a Hamas delegation to Moscow in September.

"British charity and has no relationship with Hamas," a mosque statement said. In his role, Sawalha is legally responsible for overseeing the mosque's management.

A recent study shows that nearly a fifth of UK jihadists attended sermons by Islamist clerics at Finsbury Park Mosque, including Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical imam suspended in 2002 who continued to offer radical sermons outside the mosque's gates.

The UK only bans Hamas' military wing from operating in the country. Therefore, Sawalha's Hamas-related political activities are not illegal.

The United States, European Union, and Canada, among others, designate Hamas as a terrorist organization in its entirety for its role in actively targeting and killing Israeli civilians.

In 2008, Sawalha was named in U.S. court documents for being "in charge of Hamas terrorist operations in the West Bank." He also met with two men who reportedly helped launder millions of dollars to the terrorist organization.

According to The Times report, Sawalha directed the Islam Expo for almost a decade, "which promoted Islamic lifestyles" and was a previous director of the Muslim Association of Britain – a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate.

Hamas has a long history of cultivating political bases of operations in Western democracies. Hamas' current deputy leader, Mousa Abu Marzook, established an extensive network in the United States devoted to supporting Hamas' terrorist activities. Marzook was instrumental in providing initial funds to the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) – a Hamas affiliated charity set up as a front organization to assist the terrorist organization.

Marzook accompanied Sawalha in the recent Hamas visit to Moscow.

Hamas Pursues Reconciliation - with Hizballah and Iran

Deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri met with Hizballah's chief Hassan Nasrallah Tuesday in Beirut, according to Hizballah's Al Manar TV and reported by Ynet News.

The meeting comes after Israel destroyed an offensive tunnel originating in Gaza and stretching into Israeli territory, killing several senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members. Al-Arouri and Nasrallah discussed "the Zionist aggression against Gaza and its ramifications," even though the tunnel was constructed to attack and abduct Israelis in a future confrontation.

The tunnel's construction started after the 2014 war with Hamas ended, according to Israeli military officials speaking to the Jerusalem Post.

Such a high profile meeting signals a major rapprochement between the terrorist organizations, after ties were formally severed in 2011 when the groups took opposite positions in Syria's civil war.

Arouri has led two Hamas delegations to Iran during the past three months to strengthen ties with the group's traditional terrorist state sponsor. He also helped facilitate the reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas, while remaining in charge of coordinating Hamas' terrorist activities in the West Bank.

While senior Palestinians officials around the world promote the unity deal to Western audiences as an effort to achieve peace, other Palestinian leaders from across the political spectrum explicitly call for Israel's demise.

"Gone is the time in which Hamas discussed recognition of Israel. The discussion now is about when we will wipe out Israel," Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar said Oct. 19, adding that "no one will disarm us."

But these seemingly diverse messages are not contradictory. The main Palestinian factions may wish to attain a temporary state on 1967 borders now, while continuing to fight for the Jewish state's destruction in the longer run.

Hamas' latest reconciliation efforts with Iran and Hizballah only reinforces the view that its primary objective is to militarily confront Israel – whether or not a Palestinian unity deal is struck.

Palestinian Factions Unite in Calls for Israel's Destruction

In light of the recent national unity deal between Fatah and Hamas, Palestinian officials of all stripes continue to announce their true objective: destroying Israel.

The official Palestinian mission to Colombia issued a tweet Thursday calling for Israel's demise, citing a quote from former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"Our goal is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediations.... We don't want peace. We want WAR and victory — Yasser Arafat," read the Spanish-language tweet, according to the Times of Israel.

It was deleted after Israel's Channel 1 television reported on it.

Meanwhile, Yayha Sinwar – Hamas' Gaza-based leader – also called for Israel's destruction and vowed never to give up the means to do so in a speech on Thursday.

"Gone is the time in which Hamas discussed recognition of Israel. The discussion now is about when we will wipe out Israel," said Sinwar, adding that "no one will disarm us."

These types of statements directed to Palestinians around the world appear to conflict with other Palestinian officials seeking to promote the unity deal to western audiences.

"The deal that we signed with Hamas talks about building a Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 borders - which is in line with international law," Fatah spokesperson Osama Qawasmeh told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

But these seemingly diverse messages are not contradictory. The main Palestinian factions may wish to attain a temporary state on 1967 borders now, while continuing to fight for Israel's destruction in the longer run.

Beyond the recent reconciliation deal, Hamas and Fatah appear united on another front as well: the glorification of terrorists. On Sunday, Fatah's official Facebook page posted a photo of a ceremony for incoming students at al-Quds University, commemorating several prominent terrorists behind the deaths of hundreds of Israelis.

Senior Fatah official Jamal Muhaisen spoke at the ceremony, reports Palestinian Media Watch, which honored Yasser Arafat, Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin, Palestinian Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi, and leaders of other Palestinian terrorist organizations.

"Anyone who believes everything the Palestinians say must also believe them when they say this [call for Israel's destruction]," Marco Sermoneta, Israel's ambassador to Colombia, told Israel's Channel 1 following the Palestinian mission's hostile tweet.

Palestinian officials and leaders from across the political spectrum are openly calling for the murder of Israelis and genocide of the Jewish state. Western observers, who largely remain silent on these issues, should give all forms of official Palestinian statements equal attention – not just the diplomatic candor.

Hamas-Supporting CAIR Leader to Lecture Harvard Student Group

He has publicly endorsed Hamas and secretly schemed with the Palestinian terrorist group's supporters to thwart U.S.-led peace efforts.

Now Nihad Awad is preparing a prestigious lecture for Harvard University students on how "to inspire a deeper engagement with critical social issues on campus and in the wider community." He is scheduled to be honored the first weekend of November with the Phillips Brooks House Association's Robert Coles "Call of Service" Lecture and Award. Past recipients of the honor include former Vice President Al Gore and Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman.

A Harvard release describes Awad as "a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding, promoting dialogue and empowering American Muslims."

That's extraordinarily generous, as Awad's words and deeds foster mutual enmity, not understanding; deception, not dialogue.

He was a member of a Muslim Brotherhood-created network of organizations operating in the United States with a mission to help Hamas politically and financially. Awad appears on the "Palestine Committee's" telephone list. Internal records seized by the FBI also show that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which Awad co-founded in 1994 and has served as its only executive director ever since, was a Palestine Committee branch.

Before creating CAIR, Awad ran a second Palestine Committee entity, called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). The IAP served as a Hamas propaganda arm, publishing the terrorist group's communiques and articles advocating on its behalf. The FBI described his partner at both IAP and CAIR, Omar Ahmed, as a "leader within the Palestine Committee."

Again, all of this is drawn from internal Muslim Brotherhood/Palestine Committee records seized by the FBI. They were entered into evidence in a federal terror financing trial involving the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The foundation, another Palestine Committee entity, and five former officials all were convicted of illegally routing $12 million to Hamas through a network of charities.

All of this information is in the public domain.

So what prompted a Harvard student group – by definition smart, educated young people – to identify Nihad Awad as an inspirational paragon of service?

It turns out that the Phillips Brooks House Association's programming chair, Anwar Omeish, is the daughter of another advocate for Palestinian violence, former Muslim American-Society President Esam Omeish.

Omeish was forced to resign from a Virginia state immigration panel in 2007 after an exclusive IPT video showed him praising Palestinians for choosing the "the jihad way ... to liberate your land."

Awad was in Omeish's home for a 2010 political fundraiser where U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., accused Israel of controlling U.S. foreign policy.

We are First Amendment supporters, and the Phillips Brooks House Association is free to invite whomever it pleases. Whitewashing Nihad Awad's decades of work on behalf of terrorists and radicals, however, doesn't seem to be in the best interests of a group seeking inspiration on public service.

Edmonton Terrorist's Movements Highlight Threat to U.S. Southern Border

Fears about a terrorist using the U.S.-Mexican border as a gateway for an attack have been realized. Evidence shows that Somali Edmonton terrorist Abdulahi Hasan Sharif crossed the U.S.-Mexican border from Tijuana into San Diego at the San Ysidro border crossing on July 12, 2011.

Sharif allegedly hit an Edmonton police officer with a white Chevrolet Malibu on Sept. 30. He then got out of his car and stabbed the officer with a knife. A police manhunt ensued. The attacker then stole a U-Haul and drove it into four pedestrians before police apprehended him.

Investigators found an ISIS flag in his car, but the jihadist group has not claimed responsibility for his attacks.

Canadian press reports indicate that when he entered the U.S in 2011, Sharif lacked valid travel documents and almost immediately ended up in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). An immigration judge ordered Sharif deported to Somalia. But ICE released him because Somalia lacks a functioning government. He fell of the radar and U.S. authorities were unable to locate him.

He entered Canada in 2012 and obtained refugee status, Canadian officials said. It isn't clear why Canadian officials were unaware of Sharif's deportation from the United States. Privacy laws in both countries could keep that information secret, adding to widespread speculation that he received asylum in the U.S. Asylum applications are confidential, which further complicates the public's right to know.

Reports of Sharif's radicalism, including his open support for ISIS, first surfaced in 2015 after coworkers reported him to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Sharif would rant about how "polytheists" needed to die and how he hated Shiite Muslims, a coworker told the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC).

The other question is how Sharif got to the U.S.-Mexican border – nearly 10,000 miles from Somalia.

Sharif likely worked with "long haul smugglers," national security expert Todd Bensman theorized in a recent post on his LinkedIn account, using prior court-established smuggling patterns as a baseline. Bensman wrote his Master's thesis for the Naval Postgraduate School on Somali smuggling patterns.

Many Somalis travel from Kenya to South Africa on the first leg of their trip to the U.S. From there they make their way to Brazil and then made his way northward through Latin America until they reach the U.S.-Mexican border.

Sharif's penetration of the U.S.-Mexican border isn't unique, Bensman wrote. He notes that others with ties to Al-Shabaab have also been identified but were apprehended before they could do anything.

MIT MSA Alumni Protest Anti-Feminist Islamist Speaker

A rift has opened up between left-leaning alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) chapter of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and conservative Islamists in the group. At least two dozen alumni addressed an open letter to the club on Facebook asking them to disinvite an anti-liberal Muslim writer, Daniel Haqiqatjou.

MSA's Tufts University chapter disinvited Haqiqatjou last month.

The alumni say that Haqiqatjou's socially conservative views are "regressive" and that they should not be heard because he is not a researched academic. Haqiqatjou's writings attack feminism as the enemy of all religion, and claim that Muslim feminism puts self-described Muslim feminists a path to apostasy.

"From its very inception, feminism has been anti-religion. In fact, the most prominent figures of each wave of feminism have been viciously anti-religious," he wrote on his blog. Late Boston College radical feminist scholar Mary Daly received his ire because she encouraged women to have "courage to sin."

Haqiqatjou likewise questions gay rights and same-sex marriage.

The split is unusual given the MSA's roots within the global Muslim Brotherhood network. It was founded by Brotherhood members who came to the United States in the 1960 and some members push extreme rhetoric.

Opponents of Haqiqatjou's talk criticized the MSA for not holding a forum on Muslim feminism, describing Haqiqatjou's views as "deeply problematic and ... half-baked ideas that have no real intellectual basis. Haqiqatjou spreads vile ideas about women in general as well as critical social movements such as Islamic feminism, slanders Muslim feminists very frequently and undermines the struggles of an entire gender."

Oddly, no one took issue with Haqiqatjou's seeming embrace of another Islamist speaker who says he had a campus lecture canceled for failing "to show sympathy w/Charlie Hebdo and its satanic Shuhada." ISIS-inspired terrorists killed 12 people the magazine's Paris offices in 2015 as revenge for its caricatures of Islam's prophet Mohammed.

Haqiqatjou found Hamza wald Maqbul's canceled talk last year at St. Louis University, "Shocking, that's even more egregious."

German Intelligence: Hizballah Fighters Posing As Refugees

Hizballah terrorists are exploiting Germany's refugee policy and entered the country as part of the recent wave of Middle East migrants, according to the Jerusalem Post's review of a German intelligence report released this month.

"Since mid-2015 there are increased indications of fighters from Shi'ite militias entering Germany as legal refugees," the report says, and "roughly 50% [of the fighters] show a direct connection to Hezbollah."

A growing number of Hizballah operatives are settling in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, the report says. The region hosts the Imam-Mahdi Center – a traditional hub for Hizballah operatives. The report also cites a growing and open Hamas presence in North Rhine-Westphalia, despite Germany's terrorist designation of the Palestinian organization, where Hamas supporters exploit Germany to "collect funds" and "recruit new members to spread their propaganda."

There are roughly 950 Hizballah members throughout Germany, according to a 2014 Berlin intelligence report summarized by the Jerusalem Post. Though the number of Hizballah supporters is believed to be far higher in Germany than listed in the report.

Radical Islamists are "the greatest danger to Germany...Germany is on the spectrum of goals for Islamic terrorists," said Hans-Georg Maassen, president of Germany's domestic intelligence agency – the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

Hizballah operatives serve as senior employees of a German government-funded theater project aimed to assist refugees in the country, a 2016 Berliner Zeitung daily report said.

Germany's interior ministry previously accused Iran of conducting significant espionage activity in the country during the past decade, including plotting attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.

For example, German prosecutors allege that Haidar Syed-Naqfi was ordered to identify Jewish and Israeli institutions in Germany and other Western European countries for potential terrorist attacks. He allegedly monitored the headquarters of a Jewish newspaper in Berlin and identified several Israel supporters. German authorities believe his preparations were "a clear indication of an assassination attempt."

Between July 2015 and July 2016, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC) al-Quds Force paid Syed-Naqi more than $2,200.

While the European Union, including Germany, designated Hizballah's military wing as a terrorist entity, Germany allows Hizballah's political wing to operate freely. The U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands designate Hizballah as a terrorist organization entirely. Even senior Hizballah officials have noted the futility in distinguishing between its political and military wings, acknowledging that Hizballah is a hierarchical organization with a clear chain of command. The organization's terrorist and military wings answer to its senior leadership and political echelons, including Iran – its primary sponsor.

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