UN Condemns Israel As the World Marks Holocaust Remembrance Day

As the world commemorated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the United Nations (U.N.) compared Palestinians to the Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide, according to an opinion piece by Anne Bayefsky posted on FoxNews.

On Monday, the U.N. hosted a temporary exhibit called "Holocaust by Bullets," featuring extensive research by the French organization Yahad-In Unum, which focuses on the murder of 2 million Jews at gunpoint.

However, the Holocaust associated exhibit was preceded by the U.N.'s month-long December display of Palestinian children featured in "devastating" conditions, suffering from unwarranted Israeli "operations."

Palestinian U.N. Representative Riyad Mansour helped launch the provocative exhibit by blatantly inciting Palestinian kids to kill Jews.

"We are so proud that in this popular uprising, the backbone of this uprising are the youth of Palestine," Mansour said.

The uprising Mansour boasts about is the ongoing wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting innocent Jews and Israeli soldiers. Many of these attacks include stabbings, shootings, vehicular ramming, and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Moreover, on Tuesday, the Security Council held an explicitly anti-Israel discussion, "The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question," featuring seven hours of incitement and name calling targeting the Jewish state which was broadcasted internationally. Israel was accused of engaging in "crimes against humanity," "execution", "apartheid," "racism", "brutality," terrorism" and "torture of children" among other libels.

That day Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appeared to have justified Palestinian terrorism, saying that "it is human nature to react to occupation."

"Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process...as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism," Ban said.

Israel's U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, pointed out the hypocrisy surrounding recent Security Council resolutions. In the last four months, while "Israelis have been stabbed in their homes, shot at in the streets and run over by terrorists using cars as weapons...the Council adopted 12 resolutions against terrorism and condemned terrorist attacks in France, Sinai, Lebanon, Mali, Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Sudan." However, terrorist attacks against Israelis were never addressed, there was "no condemnation, no expression of solidarity, not even a statement of concern," Danon said.

Meanwhile, Iran's leader Ayatollah Khamenei posted a video to his official site challenging the extent of the Nazi's genocide against the Jews, reports the Times of Israel.

"No one in European countries dares to speak about the Holocaust, while it is not clear whether the core of the matter is reality or not," a narrator in the video says. "Even if it is reality, it is not clear how it happened. Speaking about the Holocaust and expressing doubts about it is considered to be a great sin," states the Farsi-speaking narrator, presumably Khamenei.

Investigation Reveals Hizballah Directed Palestinian Cell to Kill Israelis

Despite being bogged down in the Syrian Civil War, Hizballah continues to focus on expanding its terrorist infrastructure to multiple fronts in an effort to target Israel. Hizballah's entrenchment in the Golan Heights – at Iran's behest – has been well documented. Now, the Lebanese terrorist organization is trying to set up operations and recruit Palestinians in the West Bank to launch attacks against Israelis.

Last week, Israeli security authorities foiled a Palestinian terrorist cell planning a suicide bombing and shooting attack under Hizballah's command. Five Palestinian men, none of whom belonged to the terrorist organization, were arrested. The terrorists were also threw Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces in violent riots during the past year.

According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the operatives confessed that Hizballah's Unit 133 directed the operation and that Jawad Nasrallah, son of Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah recruited the cell's leader, Muhammad Zaghloul.

Jawad Nasrallah asked Zaghloul to recruit terrorists into a cell and scout potential targets for attack. Through encrypted email exchanges with a Hizballah handler, Zaghloul received instructions for conducting suicide-bombing attacks and he even offered a plan to kill an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer. Zaghloul admitted that the cell conducted surveillance of the officer and requested $30,000 to purchase arms to kill him.

The operatives received $5,000 from Hizballah, which covered the purchase of a sub-machine gun and magazine. The plot to shoot Israeli soldiers was likely in its execution phase since the two terrorists were arrested in possession of the firearm.

Unit 133 is a Hizballah division devoted to creating terrorist networks among Palestinians, but has failed to secure a major presence in the West Bank. Nevertheless, it is likely Hizballah will continue to seek making inroads in the Palestinian territory and recruit terrorists to attack Israelis.

Acting on Iranian orders, Hizballah was able to direct and coordinate dozens of Palestinian terrorist cells during the second Intifada. From 2002 to 2007, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hizballah directed and coordinated dozens of Palestinian terrorist networks, mostly cells that were part of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Throughout the 1990s and beginning of 2000s, Hizballah sent Lebanese operatives with foreign passports to Israel via Europe in order to support Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups devoted to sabotaging the Oslo Peace Process and damage the Palestinian Authority.

Similar to Hamas' recent attempts, Hizballah is trying to escalate the ongoing wave of Palestinian violence into a full-blown violent uprising by introducing an organized terrorist dimension to a phenomenon that has been largely characterized by individual initiatives.

MB Apologists Arrive In U.S. For Anti-Sisi Rallies

Three Muslim Brotherhood supporters who caused a row in Egypt last year after they met with Obama administration officials and members of Congress returned to the U.S. Wednesday, according to the Facebook page of Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFJ).

During their 2015 trip, Brotherhood leader Gamal Heshmat, former Egyptian Judge Waleed Sharaby and Maha Azzam, head of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC) lobbied State Department and White House officials for help against the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fatal al-Sisi.

The ERC formed in 2014 with the aim of toppling Sisi and bringing the Brotherhood back to power in Egypt. Sisi took power in 2013 after the Egyptian army ousted President Mohamed Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

Heshmat has a long history of supporting Palestinian terrorists and was photographed in June 2014 with Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal.

The State Department agreed with the delegation's position that Sisi had not brought stability to Egypt, and that his removal would pave the way for a transition to democracy, Sharaby told Egypt's Mekameleen TV in an interview last February. But that has not translated into concrete action to topple Sisi.

EAFJ leaders Mahmoud El-Sharkawy, Hani Elkadi and Aber Mostafa greeted Heshmat, Sharaby and Azzam at New York's JFK airport and posed for a picture with them displaying the Brotherhood's four-fingered Rabaa salute which has become representative among those wanting the Brotherhood's return to power in Egypt.

The three are scheduled to speak Friday at an event titled "Egyptian Revolution from Sacrifices to Victory" in North Bergen, N.J.

The event is timed to commemorate the Jan. 25 anniversary of dictator Hosni Mubarak's fall from power in 2011. Heshmat wrote that his group had no plans to meet with Obama administration representatives during this visit, due to their "position biased" toward Sisi's regime. They hope to speak with some congressmen, academics and others.

El-Sharkawy is a Brotherhood member and serves as liaison with Brotherhood members exiled in Turkey, Egypt's Al-Bawaba newspaper reported last April.

He frequently reposts Muslim Brotherhood communiqués on his Facebook page. In December, El Sharkawy encouraged "all youth and revolutionaries" to distribute the official page of Brotherhood spokesman Muhammad Muntasir.

Elkadi seemed to self-identify as a Brotherhood member in a March 9 Facebook post showing an cartoon of a man holding a sign with the Brotherhood logo and the words which translate to, "I am [Muslim] Brotherhood and I'm not threatened."

Last year, Elkadi, El Sharkawy and Mostafa posted graphics on their Facebook pages seeming to support violence in Egypt.

El Sharkawy and Elkadi posted a Feb. 10 communiqué from the Popular Resistance Movement (PRM) which has launched attacks against Egyptian police and other targets. It features an image of a blood-red map of Egypt with a fist superimposed over it. It claims responsibility for targeting two police cars. "God, martyrs, Revolution," it said.

Mostafa posted the personal information of a pro-Sisi owner of an Egyptian soccer team with the word "Attaaack!" the same day.

Palestinian Father, Social Media Praise Terrorist Who Murdered Israeli Mother

A mother of six is targeted by a Palestinian terrorist and stabbed to death Sunday. His father's reaction is not one of horror or shame.

"I am proud of him," the father of Murad Bader Abdullah Adais told Palestinian media, reports Israel National News.

Adais fatally stabbed Meir at the entrance of her house in the town of Otniel, south of Hebron, while three of six children were home. Meir's initial struggle with Adais forced him to flee the scene, perhaps saving her children from the attacker. Following an intense manhunt, Israeli authorities arrested Adais Tuesday morning.

A Palestinian news website – QudsN – celebrated the murder by posting an incendiary graphic that features the town's name Otniel in Arabic, with a bloody knife forming the last letter.

The Elder of Ziyon reported that dozens of comments glorified the attack, with some social media users hoping that Meir burns in hell.

A day after Meir's murder, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed and injured a pregnant Israeli woman in the West Bank Jewish community of Tekoa. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) shot and wounded the terrorist, before evacuating him to a hospital. The terrorist reportedly entered Tekoa through a hole in the border fence.

In the past four-month wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks, 25 Israelis and an American student have been murdered. At least 146 Palestinians, 101 of whom were assailants, have been killed following terrorist attacks or in clashes with Israeli soldiers.

Another Dubious State of the Union Guest

A New Jersey Muslim community leader attending tonight's State of the Union Address with Sen. Cory Booker also serves as treasurer of a political group which strongly supports the Muslim Brotherhood and demands its return to power in Egypt, documents discovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show.

Ahmed Shedeed is president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City. In explaining his invitation, Booker said Shedeed "has spoken out for religious tolerance and mutual understanding" and shows "how the diversity of America makes us all better."

Shedeed also serves on New Jersey's Homeland Security Interfaith Advisory Council.

It is unclear whether Booker knows of another leadership post Shedeed holds – treasurer of the Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (EADHR). The group emerged in 2013, after Egypt's military ousted President Mohamed Morsi – a member of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party – from power.

The move came after millions of Egyptians took to the streets to protest Morsi and the Brotherhood's attempts to concentrate their power at the expense of the country's crumbling economy and infrastructure.

The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt more than 80 years ago and ideally wants to see Islam spread globally and see Islamic law govern society.

In the U.S., the EADHR launched rallies in several cities, including Washington, D.C. While they avoided mentioning the Brotherhood and emphasized a desire to see the "legitimate government" restored, Brotherhood political leaders spoke at the rallies and many organizers were part of groups serving the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Shedeed is listed in an August 2013 Facebook post as a contact for a New York rally.

Many Democrats in Congress made a point of inviting Muslim guests to the annual presidential speech, as a response to an "alarming rise in hateful rhetoric against Muslim Americans and people of the Islamic faith worldwide."

Booker's invitation of a Brotherhood supporter, however, is another example of elected officials making poor choices in trying to showcase the breadth of Muslim American ideology. As the IPT reported Monday, two Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) officials have been invited, too.

CAIR has its own direct connection to the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization was founded as part of a Brotherhood-led Hamas-support network in the United States. In addition, FBI records obtained by the IPT through the Freedom of Information Act include an eyewitness's claim that CAIR's founders sought the Brotherhood's blessings for their founding bylaws.

As we noted Monday, there are many Muslim Americans deserving the honor of an invitation to the State of the Union. Surely Booker could have done better than turning to a Brotherhood supporter.

Fatah Airs Video Urging Killing Israelis By Any Means

Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has called for killing all Israelis throughout the country – "in all their neighborhoods" – in a music video broadcast on Fatah-run Awdah TV channel on last week, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported.

"Pick up your weapon and advance, Jerusalem is calling in pain," the song's lyrics say. "Come on, strike them, you have the strength. Turn your anger into the fire of Hell... Besiege them in all their neighborhoods. Drown them in a sea of blood. Kill them as you wish."

Young Arabs are depicted knocking over and a beating a Jewish man running down a street in Jerusalem, wearing a prayer shawl.

This song is yet another blatant example of violent Palestinian incitement emanating from across the societal and political spectrum that continues to encourage near-daily attacks against Jews and Israelis.

The music video also praises two Palestinian terrorists, including Muhammad Halabi who killed two Israeli civilians in an October stabbing attack. Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have honored Halabi and other terrorists in the past.

Last April, Abbas awarded medals to the first male and female Fatah members and the group's first "martyred" terrorist. Abbas has often directly contributed to the violent Palestinian incitement that fuels the ongoing wave of terrorism targeting Israelis.

The latest example of incitement comes amid another terrorist attack, as a Palestinian man was killed after attempting to stab an Israeli soldier in the Hebron area on Tuesday, the Times of Israel reports. Last week, another Palestinian terrorist was killed after seeking to stab Israeli soldiers near the same site – Beit Anun Junction.

House Democrats Turn to the Wrong Muslims for SOTU

As many as 25 House Democrats are expected to have Muslim guests during Tuesday night's State of the Union speech. It's in response to a call from Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim voted into Congress, to counter an "alarming rise in hateful rhetoric against Muslim Americans and people of the Islamic faith worldwide."

The gesture might not generate much more than a shrug, except that in at least two cases, Democrats invited officials from a group the FBI formally avoids due to historic ties to a Hamas support network. Delray Beach Rep. Alcee Hastings invited Nezar Hamze, regional operations director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Florida. And San Jose, Cal. Rep. Zoe Lofgren invited Sameena Usman, a 10-year veteran government relations official with CAIR's San Francisco chapter, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.

CAIR officials routinely accuse federal law enforcement of entrapping otherwise innocent and peaceful Muslims in order to gin up terrorism prosecutions. Hamze's colleagues in CAIR-Florida are helping a family sue the FBI over the 2013 fatal shooting of a terror suspect who attacked agents after extensive questioning.

Usman's office published a notorious poster urging Muslims to "Build a Wall of Resistance [and] Don't Talk to the FBI." For its part, the FBI cut off contact with CAIR, except in investigations, in 2008 based on evidence its agents uncovered which placed CAIR in a Hamas-support network in the United States. Until it can be shown that those connections no longer exist, an FBI official explained in 2009, CAIR is not "an appropriate liaison partner."

In addition, several CAIR officials have compared Israel to ISIS.

Calls to press contacts in Lofgren and Hastings' offices were not returned Monday.

Last month, the IPT provided exclusive details from eyewitness accounts about CAIR's creation, including an account of how a co-founder sought approval from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for CAIR's bylaws, and how Executive Director Nihad Awad's move to Washington was "in order to represent Hamas."

Hastings and Lofgren either failed to check out their guests' employer or they don't care. These connections have nothing to do with the faith of CAIR officials. But the organization has a record that elected officials stubbornly insist should be ignored.

Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern of outreach House Democrats seek out with the wrong people. Last month, CAIR-Florida's Hassan Shibly was invited to the White House for a discussion about religious discrimination. Then, as with the State of the Union speech, no one from the new Muslim Reform Movement – which issued a declaration clearly rejecting "interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam" and standing for "peace, human rights and secular governance."

In 2012, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sat with Awad, the only executive director in the organization's history, at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

A seat in the House chamber for the State of the Union bestows undeserved clout to the CAIR officials. And, in trying to show the public that American Muslims are not a monolithic group of radicalized Islamists, Hastings and Lofgren are doing their cause more harm than good.

Two Middle East Refugees Charged In Separate Terror Cases

Two men who entered the United States as refugees have been charged separately with attempting to provide material support to terrorist groups in Syria.

Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, a Palestinian born in Iraq who came to the United States from Syria in 2012, is accused in a criminal complaint with lying to immigration authorities about a trip he took to Syria to fight alongside jihadi groups. Those groups include Ansar al-Islam, a U.S. designated terrorist organization that was founded by Mullah Krekar in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2001.

Al-Jayab communicated with several people on social media regarding his desire to return to Syria and wage jihad. Al-Jayab was then living in Arizona and Wisconsin. In an April 2013 exchange with an unnamed individual, Al-Jayab discussed his prior fighting experience with jihadi groups. "I was a little over 16 years old. My tribe, half of them are Mujahidin. I did not find any difficulty to get to Al-Jihad."

While in Syria between November 2013 and January 2014, Al-Jayab communicated with another unnamed individual saying he had joined Ansar al-Sham, "the same as Ansar al-Islam, just with another name."

"Brother, we do not sit and watch," he wrote in January 2014, the complaint said.. [...] Our headquarters is next to the [Islamic] State exactly, and we are against the Free Army. We have prevented the Free Army from entering the area and attacking the State's headquarters. And if the Free Army advances, we will fight it."

Al-Jayab entered Aleppo in Syria through Turkey on a temporary American passport. But when he came back to the U.S., he failed to mention the Syria leg of his trip to immigration officials, saying he visited Turkey to see his grandmother.

A separate indictment charged Omar Faraj Al Hardan, a Palestinian born in Iraq, of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS). Al Hardan came to the United States as a refugee in November 2009 and was living in Houston since being granted legal permanent resident status in August 2011.

The arrests of Al-Jayab and Al Hardan come in the wake of growing concerns regarding attempts by terrorists to enter the U.S. as Syrian refugees and calls for overhauling America's asylum and refugee system. In a recently published white paper, the IPT explained gaps in the immigration system that could allow terrorists masquerading as refugees to enter the U.S.

Pakistani Columnist Tells Muslims to Stop Blaming Others For Terror

Muslims must stop blaming others for the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism, according to a column Thursday in The Nation, one of Pakistan's largest English language newspapers. Among other things, it slams the tendency to label any critic who connects radicalism with Islam as an "Islamophobe."

"Instead of realizing the facts and the weaknesses that lie within our doctrine, or in our interpretation, Muslims have started playing the blame game. We have been making excuses in order to prove that Islam has nothing to do with extremism," Ammar Anwer, an 18-year-old Muslim who lives in New Zealand, writes in the column.

Muslims are in denial when it comes to Islamic extremism and become "paranoid" whenever someone highlights points they do not wish to hear, Anwer writes.

He draws the distinction between the religion of Islam and those who follow the political ideology of Islamism.

"Islamism is the ideology that promotes the idea of imposing a particular interpretation of Islam over a community," Anwer writes. "Not all Muslims are Islamists but every Islamist believes in Islam (and hence is a Muslim)."

He notes that Muslim Brotherhood members jailed under Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel Nasser coined the term "Islamist," saying they were the true Muslims and Nasser was a disbeliever.

The Islamist interpretation makes imposing Islam on every corner of the world whenever Muslims have the chance a "prime responsibility," Anwer writes. He traces Islamism back to the 14^th century Muslim scholar Ibn Tamiyyah, who has inspired numerous Islamic thinkers ever since. Twentieth Century Islamist thinkers such as Syed Abul Al Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb and Hasan Al-Banna further refined Islamist thought into its current form.

"This interpretation demands control over the entire world. In the last couple of centuries, this school of thought has come to prominence dominating the intellectual thought process and hence cannot be ignored. Jihad is central to this interpretation and the very purpose of jihad according to this school of thought is to spread the dominance of Islam over the world," Anwer writes.

He dismisses common Islamist arguments that blame other factors, such as poverty, for extremism.

"How can poverty make someone throw gay men off a tall building (like Isis does) or deny women their individual rights and freedom?" Anwer writes.

Meanwhile, prominent Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden didn't come from a poor family, neither did Pakistani terrorist Saad Aziz, who was involved in a Karachi bus bombing last year. Aziz was well-educated and wasn't poor, but still was radicalized. He notes the same was true of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, responsible for the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

"I think it's time we Muslims stop playing the blame game and start facing up to harsh realities," Anwer concludes.

Israel Foils Hamas Kidnapping and Murder Plot

Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence service says it foiled a Hamas terror cell's plan to kidnap and kill Israelis, the Jerusalem Post reports.

The terrorists wanted to use the bodies of their victims to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. A similar motivation encouraged the Hamas affiliated terrorists behind the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenage boys that sparked a wider summer conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

"The infrastructure was at an advanced state of planning, and [the operatives] began preparing a hiding place for the bodies of the kidnapped victims," the Shin Bet said.

"This case reconfirms that Hamas still aspires to carry out serious terror attacks, even now, in order to further egg on the recent wave of terror into a violent intifada," the Shin Bet statement added.

The Hamas cell featured six people, including three Israeli citizens living in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reports. The cell's leader is Maher Qawasmeh, from Hebron, was previously jailed for two years for helping coordinate Hamas terrorist attacks.

Another cell leader, Ziad Abu Hadwan, from Jerusalem's Old City, was jailed for participating in violent demonstrations on the Temple Mount and immediately joined the terrorist cell upon release in October.

The suspects met several times in Hebron in 2015, while Qawasmeh trained the Jerusalem operatives in creating improvised explosive devices. The operatives also intended to acquire firearms to carry out shooting attacks in the capital, eventually settling on kidnapping and murdering an Israeli citizen, according to Israeli security forces.

The operatives "examined caves, and dug pits in various area in the Hebron area, as part of their plot to hide the body of the kidnap victim. They divided their roles in the cell. They said they plotted to carry out the kidnapping through the use of two vehicles, with the kidnap vehicle driven by the Jerusalem-resident Amar Rajbi, 22, who is also a resident of the Old City," said Shin Bet.

The operatives sought to exploit Rajbi's fluency in Hebrew in order to lure and kidnap an Israeli.

Referring to confessions by the suspects, the Shin Bet said that the other cell members began to buy chemicals and fertilizers in order to make bombs, but were unsuccessful in their efforts.

Despite suffering from economic difficulties and a growing Salafi-Jihadist threat in Gaza, Hamas continues to invest significant resources in trying to attack Israeli civilians in order to escalate the recent wave of Palestinian terrorism into a full-blown violent uprising.

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