Israeli Leaders Unite in Condemning Revenge Killing

Israeli political and religious leaders of all stripes have forcefully condemned last week's brutal murder of a Palestinian teenager in an apparent revenge attack.

Three Israelis reportedly confessed Monday to kidnapping and killing 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, re-enacting the crime in which the teen was burned alive. Witnesses saw Abu Khdeir thrown into a car with Israeli tags Wednesday. His body was found badly burned in a Jerusalem forest.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Abu Khdeir's father, describing the murder as "abhorrent" and "reprehensible."

"We acted immediately to apprehend the murderers," he said. "We will bring them to trial and they will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. We denounce all brutal behavior, the murder of your son is abhorrent and cannot be countenanced by any human being."

Israel's leading rabbis, meanwhile, said the murder violated tenets of Jewish law.

Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef "fiercely denounce[d] the outrageous murder that was perpetrated against the innocent young man," his office said. Elyakim Levanon, a prominent rabbi among West Bank settlers, said Jewish law demands capital punishment for "such a cruel murder."

The Barkai Center for Practical Rabbinics, which trains communal rabbis, said that "revenge has absolutely no place in Judaism and that there is no such thing as murder in the name of God."

The Investigative Project on Terrorism joins in those condemnations. Abu Khdeir's murder was a heinous crime, every bit as evil as the Hamas killing of three Israeli teens – the incident which allegedly prompted this revenge attack.

"In the state of Israel, there is no difference between blood and blood," wrote outgoing and incoming Israeli presidents Shimon Peres and Reuven Rivlin in an Israeli newspaper column.

These unified expressions of horror and revulsion do show a difference in how Israeli and Palestinian societies react to terrorist violence. When teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel, were kidnapped, Palestinian social media responded with mocking images of people holding up three fingers and hoping the boys would be used as trade-bait for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

Meanwhile, as Palestinian Media Watch reported Monday, the Fatah Facebook page featured two direct threats of mass killing against Israelis.

"Sons of Zion, this is an oath to the Lord of the Heavens: Prepare all the bags you can for your body parts," a post seen Monday said. Fatah is the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and the primary power in the West Bank.

Netanyahu made a point of calling attention to this kind of incitement, which is common from the PA. "That is how we are different from our neighbors," he said. "Their murderers are hailed as heroes and public squares are named in their honor."

In the West Bank, dozens of public institutions, including a girls' school, a summer camp and other youth-oriented buildings, are named for Dalal Mughrabi, who led a team which hijacked a bus on Israel's coastal highway in 1978, killing 38 civilians – 13 of whom were children.

ISIS Threatens Holocaust Against Jews

A Twitter post Thursday by supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now calling itself the Islamic State (IS), has promised a Holocaust against the Jews.

"The Real Zionist Holocaust is Predicted in the Hadiths! The Hour [resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the tree will say: "Oh, Muslim, servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, kill him! THE PROMISED Holocaust," the terrorist group's Islamic State Media a graphic posted on its @ISIS_Conquests's Twitter account said.

This hadith has proven popular with Islamic extremists of all stripes, ranging from IS to Hamas – and even on television in the Middle East.

Daniel Pipes, an expert on jihadism, said the hadith likely was a recruitment tool.

"​Yes, ​calling for a holocaust against Jews refers to a violently anti-Semitic strain among jihadis and will surely appeal to some of them," Pipes said in an email to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Anti-Semitic propaganda has played an important role in the terrorist group's recruitment effort. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, placed Jews on the side of evil in a speech posted Tuesday on the Internet in which he called on Muslims to join him.

"O ummah of Islam, the world today has been divided into two camps and two trenches … The camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy … all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews," al-Baghdadi said.

In another such video released on Twitter, IS told jihadists to "Break the crosses and destroy the lin­eage of the grand­sons of mon­keys."

Some jihadist supporters are calling on the group to open a new front against Israel.

"@ISIS_Conquests Hey #ISIS please do us all a favour & open up a front against Israel. Surely they are the greatest enemy of humanity?" Akhmet Qassam, a supporter from Scotland, asked the group on Sunday. "@ISIS_Conquests If you open up a front against #Israel I'm sure your numbers will increase hugely. Also give you some legitimacy."

At the same time, IS may be growing cautious about drawing unwanted attention from Western intelligence and law-enforcement agencies even as it seeks new recruits.

"All Brothers and Sisters...Don't meet with IS members while you're living in the West...Move out of the West & than (sic) you get in touch with IS," @Dawla_Newsmedia wrote a day after U.S. law enforcement caught Shannon Maureen Conley, a 19-year-old woman from Denver, trying to leave the U.S. to join the IS.

Pew Finds Growing Muslim Fear Over Islamic Extremism

Brutal violence waged by Islamist groups from Nigeria to Iraq and Syria has created a spike in concern over Islamic extremism in predominantly Muslim countries, a new Pew Research Center survey finds.

Concern "about Islamic extremism" in their countries increased by more than 10 percent during the past year in Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan and Turkey, the survey shows. The poll, with a margin of error of 3.8 percent, questioned 14,244 people in 14 countries with significant Muslim populations throughout April and May. That was before the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized control of Mosul and other Iraqi cities.

When it comes to supporting violence in defense of Islam, however, Palestinians harbor some of the most extreme views in the Muslim world. A quarter of those surveyed in the Palestinian territories expressed a favorable view toward al-Qaida, while only 59 percent expressed unfavorable views. That's down 9 percent from last year, Pew wrote. In Egypt, 15 percent of the respondents view al-Qaida favorably.

When it comes to suicide bombings, a whopping 62 percent of Gaza residents said they are often or sometimes "justified against civilian targets in order to defend Islam from its enemies." In the West Bank, 36 percent agreed suicides are often or sometimes justified. Together, Palestinian support added up to 46 percent. That's down, however, from a similar 2007 poll which found 70 percent support.

Only Bangladesh scored higher this year. Nearly 30 percent of Lebanese Muslims justified suicide bombings.

The Lebanon-based Hizballah, fighting to save dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, saw its popularity plummet throughout the region. Among Palestinians, 32 percent view the Iranian proxy favorably. More than 80 percent had negative attitudes toward Hizballah in Turkey, Egypt and Jordan.

Hamas is viewed favorably by only 35 percent of the respondents in both the West Bank and Gaza. In Gaza, where Hamas has run society for seven years, nearly two-thirds of the people had a negative view of the group. Recently, Hamas and Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, joined in a fragile unity pact.

Hamas did not top 40 percent approval in any of the countries surveyed.

For more details, see the Pew survey here.

Bodies of Missing Israeli Boys Found, Cabinet Meets

Israel is in a state of national mourning Monday after troops found the bodies of three teenagers last seen near a school near Hebron two weeks ago.

Eyal Yifrach, 19, and 16 year-olds Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar were discovered in a field after more than two weeks of intense search efforts.

Israel's security cabinet is meeting this evening and an aggressive reaction is expected to follow. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Hamas will pay for the murders.

Two Hamas members from Hebron, Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Issa, are considered the prime suspects. Neither has been seen since the boys disappeared while hitchhiking June 12. Hamas continues to describe the boys falsely as soldiers. They were Yeshiva students. Frenkel also is an American citizen.

Many Palestinians celebrated the kidnappings, with editorial cartoons in Palestinian newspapers mocking them and people posed with three fingers held up as a salute.

It's likely they were killed almost immediately.

Police heard gunshots as one of the boys called police during the attack and a burned out car found nearby "had clear evidence of foul play," Buzzfeed reports. The government imposed a gag order on such details, and they clung to any hope of finding the boys alive.

"We have been operating, for some time now, with evidence that these boys were killed," an unnamed official told the site. "It is with a heavy heart that we realized we were looking for bodies."

The Times of Israel reports on how what started out as a kidnapping may have quickly turned to murder.

Israel Names Two Main Kidnapping Suspects

The Shin Bet security service released the identity of two of the main suspects in the abduction of three Israeli boys earlier this month.

Hamas members Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Issa, both from Hebron, drew investigators' attention almost immediately. The two men have not been seen since the kidnapping two weeks ago. The boys, Yeshiva students, two of whom are 16 and one 19 years old, were last seen near Hebron.

Troops raided Kawasme and Abu Issa's homes roughly three days after the abduction. Israeli military and security personnel continue a furious search for the missing boys, arresting dozens of suspects and seizing weapons stashes found inside homes.

Other suspects from their terrorist cell have been detained and are undergoing interrogation.

Both Kawasme and Abu Issa are members of Hamas' militant wing and have been previously jailed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Kawasme was first arrested at the age of 18 and has been detained four more times thereafter. He confessed to being a Hamas member and partaking in multiple military exercises, including training in Hebron area caves and obtaining bomb making materials. He also participated in the recruitment efforts of Palestinian youth on Hamas' behalf. Kawasme was released from prison in March 2012.

Ha'aretz reports that Abu Issa, 32, was also detained for approximately half a year in 2005 and was arrested again in 2007. Abu Issa's father has also spent time in an Israeli prison and his father was killed in 2005 when he attempted to throw an explosive at Israeli troops.

A senior security source told the Jerusalem Post that since both suspects were previously in administrative detention, such measures are justified to prevent explicit threats to national security.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu stated that following the release of the suspects' names and affiliation, he expects Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to abrogate the pact with Hamas.

Palestinians, meanwhile, continue to support the kidnapping, hoping it leads to a prisoner exchange to free terrorists held in Israel.

Sudan Detains Christian Woman Trying to Reach America

Dozens of Sudanese security agents reportedly stopped a Christian woman and her family from trying to leave the country Tuesday, a day after she was granted a reprieve from a death sentence for apostasy.

Meriam Ibrahim's case garnered international attention in May when she was sentenced to death for marrying a Christian man. She was pregnant at the time the sentence was issued. She also faced 100 lashes for adultery, after the court found her marriage was not valid.

An appeals court overturned those rulings. Her husband, Daniel Wani, is an American citizen. Ibrahim said she was raised as a Christian.

She was released from prison Monday after six months. Then, in a scene out of a bad movie, 40 National Intelligence and Security Service agents detained her at the airport Tuesday as she and her family tried to leave Sudan. "The authorities are saying she has been freed from prison but is not free to leave Sudan at this stage," an official told reporters."

Ibrahim, who gave birth to a daughter in prison, reportedly was released a few hours later, and officials claimed the hold-up was about her paperwork.

A State Department spokeswoman said the United States is working to arrange the family's safe passage out of Sudan.

"The [Sudanese] government has assured us of their safety," said spokeswoman Marie Harf. "The Embassy has been and will remain highly involved in working with the family and the government. We are engaging directly with Sudanese officials to secure their safe and swift departure from Sudan."

Hamas Leader Falsely Claims 3 Kidnapped Boys Were Soldiers

Hamas and Palestinian leadership continue to refer to three kidnapped Israeli teenagers as "soldiers" even though two of the boys are 16 and none serves in the Israeli military. During an Al-Jazeera interview Monday, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal would not say whether his organization is responsible for the abduction, but insisted that the boys were "settlers and soldiers in the Israeli army," the Times of Israel reports.

Meshaal also praised the kidnappings: "Blessed be the hands that captured them. This is a Palestinian duty, the responsibility of the Palestinian people. Our prisoners must be freed; not Hamas's prisoners – the prisoners of the Palestinian people."

The statement indicates that the main objective of the kidnappings is to facilitate a future swap for Palestinian detainees. The boys, Yeshiva students who disappeared June 12, are not "youths, as Israel calls them, but first and foremost settlers… and not even regular settlers, but armed ones."

Israel accuses Hamas of orchestrating the operation and points to a previous Meshaal speech that sanctioned the abduction.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to Meshaal's interview, emphasizing that Hamas is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state and is waging a war against all Israeli citizens and Jews around the world.

Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to break the recent alliance forged with Hamas in light of the kidnappings.

Meanwhile, the mothers of the three boys went to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to appeal for the release of their sons. Speaking to the council, Naftali's mother Rachel Frenkel addressed the council's president. She noted that international humanitarian law prohibits taking hostages.

"Mr. President, it is wrong to take children, innocent boys and girls, and use them as instruments of any struggle," Frenkel said. "It is cruel. This council is charged with protecting human rights. I wish to ask: Doesn't every child have the right to come home safely from school?"

Elibiary: America Is an Islamic Country

Last fall, a top Obama Homeland Security adviser generated controversy when he wrote that the U.S. Constitution was "Islamically compliant."

Mohamed Elibiary returned to the topic in a Saturday morning Twitter post: "… I said America was an Islamic country not a Muslim country. Pls study up on the difference b4 attacking me." The post appears to have been deleted from Elibiary's Twitter feed.

Elibiary declined to explain what he meant when the Investigative Project wrote to him asking for clarification. The tweets are puzzling considering that there were 2.6 million Muslims in the United States as of the 2010 census – roughly less than .2 percent of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims.

A source close to Elibiary told the IPT, however, that the Homeland Security adviser meant to say that he feels there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution and the American system that runs contrary to Islam.

Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, rejected the theory.

"His entire attempt to repeatedly say that 'American is Islamic' is pure deception in the context of an Islamist ideologue like him who has not only never critiqued Islamism but rather continuously advocates for it," Jasser said. "In fact it is not. American Islamists like Elibiary have consistently rejected debate with other anti-Islamist Muslims about the threat of Islamism and the way to separate Islam from Islamism.

"Why? If they lose that debate, his entire raison d'être inside the U.S. government ceases to exist."

Elibiary also compared criticism of Islamism, or political Islam, with "segregation era standards," and invoked the memory of the "separate & unequal doctrine" that marked that era.

Elibiary's defense of Islamism ignores how Islamist luminaries such as Sayyid Qutb – whom he previously praised – advocated forcing non-Muslims to enjoy an inferior legal status under the "protection" of the Islamic state.

Wherever Islamists have exercised power through violent or non-violent means, religious minorities such as Christians and Jews have found themselves facing violence or discrimination. This has certainly been the case in Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

A week earlier, Elibiary tweeted that the restoration of the long-defunct Muslim Caliphate was "inevitable."

Elibiary also predicted that conservatives would evolve on the foreign policy front to accept a "Muslim majority world."

"Islamism is incompatible with liberty and is a supremacist doctrine for which he deceptively argues is Islam the faith," Jasser said. "In all of his work, you will not find any critique of Islamism, the Islamic state, or government imposed shariah in his opinions or any admission of the deep reforms necessary for American ideals to be compatible with Islam."

NYPD Intel Chief Worried About Returning Syrian Jihadists

A top law enforcement official says he is "hyper-concerned" that New Yorkers who return from fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra or other Islamist groups could threaten his city upon their return.

"If their mindset is to return to American and to engage in terrorist activities, they're likely going to end up in New York," John Miller, the NYPD deputy commissioner for intelligence, told the New York Daily News.

Syria has attracted jihadists from all over the world, and Miller says that he believes that New Yorkers have been among them.

The threat to New York may be like nowhere else in America, as evidenced by the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Faisal Shahzad's failed attempt to set off a car bomb in 2010 was the most recent reminder of the jihadists' desire to wreak havoc in the Big Apple.

"I would be hyper-concerned about the people over there from New York City on the presumption they are going to return to New York City," Miller said.

Osama bin Laden used Afghanistan as a safe haven to build terrorist training camps and establish a logistical infrastructure, he said. The breakdown of central governance in Syria and now in Iraq creates similar conditions that Islamic extremists can exploit.

"There's a factory over there in Syria and Iraq that turns out terrorists," Miller said. "The situation in Syria is a cancer and now that has spread to Iraq … They're going over, getting trained, getting radicalized."

U.S. intelligence estimates suggest that about 100 Americans are fighting for jihadist groups in Syria.

Among those include as many as 15 Somali-Americans from Minnesota who have left to fight for ISIS in Syria, but some may now be involved in the fighting in Iraq.

"A Muslim has to stand up for [what's] right," Abdirahmaan Muhumed, one of the Somali-Americans, told Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) through a series of Facebook messages.

FBI officials would not discuss specifics, but told MPR they are investigating the departure of several Somali-Americans for Syria in recent months.

Muhumed said in one Facebook posting that ISIS was "trying to bring back the khilaafa (the Caliphate)" and that "Allah loves those who fight for his cause."

British PM Warns ISIS Plans Attack on UK

Ignoring threats posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) would be shortsighted and foolish, British Prime Minister David Cameron told members of Parliament Wednesday.

"I disagree with those people who think this is nothing to do with us and if they want to have some sort of extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq that won't affect us – it will," Cameron said.

ISIS, he warned, plans to attack British soil. Consequently, Cameron said working to stabilize governments in places like Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria and Mali where jihadist insurgencies are is of the utmost importance.

An estimated 400 British nationals fighting in Syria present a "particular risk" to the U.K. if they return home, said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. Many of those British nationals are fighting for ISIS.

"The government's own figures show more UK citizens are joining ISIS than signing up for the Armed Forces Reserves. This is shameful, embarrassing and will cause deep concern," said MP Vernon Croaker, the shadow defense minister.

ISIS has taken its propaganda recruiting campaign to social media where it has posted English-language videos calling Muslims from around the world to jihad.

One such video posted Thursday features a British Muslim fighter, speaking under the nomme de guerre Abu Bara' al-Hindi, telling people to open the Quran and read the verses about jihad, then give up what they have and join the fight.

"Are you willing to sacrifice the fat job you've got, the big car you've got and the family you have?" al-Hindi asked. "If you are going to sacrifice this for the sake of Allah … then Allah will give you 700 times more."

Britain is not alone in worrying about the current escalating crisis in Iraq. Australia this week warned jihadists looking for refuge in Australia to stay away. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told jihadists he will tear up their visas. An estimated 300 Australians have traveled to join the jihad in the Middle East, with many believed to be trying to join ISIS. About half of them have been identified, and reports say the Australian government has begun to void their passports.

"I don't want anyone to think this is just a difficulty in a far away country that has no consequences of its own," said Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

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