Category Archives: Insurgency

Jeh Johnson and his Quran

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Engaging Communities and Empowering Voices: Secretary Johnson Receives Award at MPAC Annual Gala

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh C. Johnson was honored earlier this week with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) Empowering Voices Award, for his dedication to and personal investment in engagement with Muslim American communities across the United States.

During the 2015 Empowering Voices Gala and before White House representatives, Members of Congress, and civil society leaders, MPAC DC Director Haris Tarin and President Salam Al-Marayati recognized Secretary Johnson for his dedication to public service and empowering the Muslim American community through forums, discussions, and meetings throughout the country.

Secretary Johnson honored with an award

During the past year, Secretary Johnson has made it a personal priority to engage community organizations to promote local efforts and partnerships to counter homegrown violent extremism. Since June 2014, Secretary Johnson has traveled to Boston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Columbus, and Chicago, and has used these opportunities to hear from hundreds of community leaders, and understand how the Department can better serve their needs.

In addition to Secretary Johnson’s personal commitment to the issue, the award recognizes the Department’s continued efforts to engage with local communities on this important issue. The Department, through its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), operates an interagency community engagement program anchored by regularly-held quarterly roundtables in 16 cities around the country. These roundtables, among other similar efforts undertaken by CRCL in partnership with all Department component agencies and offices, serve as a primary tool in the Department’s efforts at building trust, explaining policies, clarifying misconceptions, and addressing grievances.

As Americans, we all have an equal stake in the safety and security of our country, and the protection of our family, friends, and neighbors. DHS and Secretary Johnson remain committed to fostering public engagement in countering the extremist narrative and encouraging continued positive engagement in society, and full participation in the democratic process. We continue to become a stronger nation, and a more perfect union, as a result.

Courtesy of Twitchy   Click here to see the actual tweets.

 

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was honored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council last week for “for his dedication to and personal investment in engagement with Muslim American communities across the United States” and this happened during his post-award remarks:

We wonder what else in the Quran reminds Secretary Johnson of “quintessentially American values”? Specific examples, please.

And check out what else is MPAC is up to. Here’s a photo from their social media workshop on how to combat Islamophobia that shows two tweets on screen pushing phony narratives from the Chapel Hill Shooting:

We wonder: Does Secretary Johnson agree that the incident in Chapel Hill reportedly over a parking space is the same as the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris?

And for a little bit of background on the Muslim Public Affairs Council, here’s a great piece Andy McCarthy wrote for NRO back in 2012. An excerpt:

Established in 1988 by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood and admirers of Hezbollah, MPAC styles itself a “moderate, inclusive and forward-thinking organization with a history of fostering a strong Muslim American identity, and combating terrorism and extremism.” In reality, MPAC is yet another Islamist wolf in the “social justice” clothing of the hard Left. Its founders include Hassan Hathout, the former MPAC president who has described himself as “a close disciple” of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Hathout’s brother Maher, a senior MPAC adviser, is lavish in his praise of both Hezbollah’s “freedom fighting” and the social-justice pioneering of Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of Sudan’s National Islamic Front — the genocidal junta that gave safe haven to al-Qaeda in the early 1990s while imposing sharia on that war-torn east African nation.

Bergdahl to be Charged Officially Today

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Of particular note: 6 men died looking for Bergdahl and Susan Rice said he served with honor and distinction.

Update:  For the summary of the press conference today on Bergdahl, click here.

  • The Army’s2014 investigation is being treated as evidence in Article 32 hearing.
  • Colonel King says: Bergdahl charged with misbehavior before the enemy could result in life in prison.
  • Colonel King: Desertion includes a maximum of confinement of 99 years, a reduction to private and forfeiture of pay.
  • An Article 32 hearing will determine if there is sufficient evidence for a court martial to be held at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas
  • Bergdahl has been charged with Article 85 and one count of Article 99

Bowe Bergdahl Charged With Desertion

The Daily Beast’s Nancy Youssef reports that U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been charged with desertion, according to his attorney.

One of the released of the Taliban 5 has made official contact with Islamic State. The Taliban operates in Afghanistan and Islamic State is already making connections and cell operations in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military says it will make an announcement Wednesday on the case against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who left his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years before being released in a prisoner exchange.

U.S. Army Forces Command, based in North Carolina, said it will discuss the “next planned steps” in the case.

Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, has been reviewing the case and has a broad range of legal options. They include various degrees of desertion charges. A major consideration is whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of ever returning to his unit – a key element in the more serious desertion charges.

WH Ignoring the Expanding Global Shia Crescent?

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Iran and the ‘Shia Crescent’

By By Dr. Scott Catino
School of Security and Global Studies, AMU

Although the exact posturing and organization of the “Shia Crescent” is debated, there is no doubt a clear network exists of partners associated with Iran (Shia and non-Shia) who openly seek to undermine U.S. interests, and operate globally with increasing zeal and reach. Iran has long vowed, supported and operated alongside these partners like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, using a variety of soft and hard power.

Hezbollah Rockets

From Latin America, to Iraq and Afghanistan, to Bahrain and even Mexico, observers of current events will find the Shia Crescent at work. This term “Shia Crescent” is not an indictment against the moderate Shia believers who renounce radicalism, but it is a stark acknowledgment of the reality that Iran has co-opted many Shia communities, their grievances and legitimate concerns, and continues to orient them toward a radical agenda of confrontation, armed violence, and subversive activities penetrating legitimate political processes as well as criminal enterprises.

The following points are salient:

  1. Tehran’s Objective. Iran has a very clear agenda to use non-state soldiers to undermine Western interests and spread Iranian influence. Iranian constitutional law, high leadership declarations, military organization and posture, and a host of operations of its Quds forces in Iraq and the region and globally, provide overwhelming evidence of this fact. The link between state and non-state soldiers is thus important for our study.
  2. The nuclear threat. If Iran ever obtains nuclear weapons it will not have to use them to be effective. The mere threat of using them will check or checkmate an opponent by thrusting the fight to the level of non-state soldiers (Low Intensity Conflict) where Iran excels. This may prove to be the most important aspect of obtaining nuclear weapons. That said, many experts are convinced that Iran could and would use nuclear weapons.
  3. A Wide and Popular Appeal. Non-state soldiers surface in the Middle East under Iranian patronage and support even though these groups may not be Shia. The fact is Iran has developed an extraordinary ability to capture, partner with, and motivate disaffected young and middle-aged citizens, and partner with disaffected groups like Hamas, which are Sunni in belief. This wide appeal will continue to foster an environment where non-state soldiers thrive.
  4. Bottom up Strategy. The non-state soldiers under the Shia Crescent have aptly exploited the social and culture terrain by creating a social network offering jobs, emergency aid, religious identification and organization, and inspiration. Hezbollah has used this strategy, and developed a militant social movement into a political one, even though it vowed not to form a political party in Lebanon and participate in the parliamentary politics.
  5. Deadly strikes. Non-state soldiers working in this system have accomplished deadly attacks on US and partner personnel and assets. Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iranian influence and use of non-state soldiers are open and aggressive, we find high profile terrorist attacks like the Khobar Towers, where the regional Hezbollah conducted a major attack on a facility housing US and Saudi personnel.
  6. Geo-politics of the Shia Crescent. In context, it should be understood that the Shia Crescent emanating from Iran seeks to sweep through the Middle East, thrusting through Iraq, Syria, and extending into the Levant and Palestine.

Yet, Iran has a remarkable ability to “leap frog,” or move beyond a regional theater and operate globally. Despite Western efforts to contain Iranian influence and its use of proxies in the Middle East, Iran continues to support the development of hostile forces beyond this region.

The involvement of non-state soldiers in the Shia Crescent will remain a major challenge to U.S. security in the foreseeable future. Understanding these dynamics is essential.

Exploitation and Sanctions Violations

The sanctions on Iran are already falling apart

The Obama administration insists that the November 2013 interim nuclear deal with Iran gave Tehran’s economy only limited sanctions relief and that it can respond to Iranian misbehavior by snapping back sanctions at any time in.

Iran’s economic windfall, however, goes well beyond the monthly cash transfers and temporary easing on trade stipulated in the Joint Plan of Action, or JPOA.

Not only has the JPOA halted Iran’s slide into economic disaster, but the benefits the deal has prompted are a fraction of the dividends the Islamic Republic is set to reap the day a final agreement is reached.

These gains are only partly due to sanctions relief: Iran’s improved position also results from lax sanctions implementation by its neighbors, reluctance by European authorities to discourage their own economies from trading with the Islamic Republic, and Tehran’s fine-tuning of its talent for bypassing sanctions.

As a result, the interim nuclear deal looks increasingly like a slow-motion funeral procession for the sanctions regime.

Overwhelming evidence suggests Iran has successfully overcome banking sanctions to manage overseas payments. For example, email correspondence between a European manufacturer and an Iranian banking official, leaked last year to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, helpfully details how to bypass banking sanctions.

Seven Iranian banks not under EU sanctions can be used to process payments, but in the email, the Iranian banking official admits that European correspondent banks, out of zealous overreach, might refuse incoming funds.

To overcome this problem, he offers three alternative methods of payments: avoiding reliance on Letters of Credit by paying directly into suppliers’ accounts in Europe; using Iranian subsidiaries in Turkey and Dubai for payment and delivery of goods; and using a European company’s subsidiary branch in friendly countries like China, India, South Korea, and potentially Russia to handle sales and payments.

DubaiReutersDubai: Iran sanctions-busting central.

Such payment mechanisms work because they obfuscate the final destination of goods — namely Iran — and rely on banking institutions and Iranian front companies overseas to act as intermediaries for payment and shipment between Iran and Europe.

A recent Reuters article revealed that Iran not only knows how to process overseas payments. It has also regained access to foreign currency.

Tehran was able to repatriate $1 billion in cash through Dubai by relying on local money-exchange houses and moving the cash in hand luggage carried by businessmen flying on commercial flights. Moreover, an Iranian MP has publicly accused Iran’s Central Bank of sending cash suitcases of UAE dirhams outside Iran to buy dollars.

Further evidence points to cash moving out of Iran to enable illicit procurement. According to a Georgia-based Iranian businessman who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, couriers from Iran routinely fly to Tbilisi with cash suitcases (both FlyVista, a low-cost Georgian carrier, and Iran’s ATA air have scheduled Tehran-Tbilisi flights). With no limits on declared financial instruments brought into Georgia, Iran is able to bring foreign currency back into its borders through Dubai and transfer it to Georgia to finance procurement and trade.

Iran is able to run rings around the sanctions regime because of lax implementation of EU and US sanctions in the Islamic Republic’s “near abroad.” From the Persian Gulf through Turkey and the South Caucasus, Iran can rely on its neighbors to allow bilateral trade with Tehran to flow unimpeded. Turkey, for example, is home to more than 3,000 Iranian companies, including US-sanctioned Bank Mellat.

Ankara has cited the JPOA as the basis for loosening restrictions on Iranian banking, and in any case, none of Iran’s neighbors has fully signed on to EU and US sanctions. The interim deal and a looming final agreement are vindicating their approach: having kept their doors half-open to Iran’s business, its neighbors will be the first to gain from the demise of the sanctions regime.

Iran nuclearREUTERS/Brian SnyderU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) holds a negotiation meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) over Iran’s nuclear programme, in Lausanne March 18, 2015.

Direct trade is also getting a push from the new psychological environment that the interim deal has created. Few in Europe believe the sanctions will remain, and many are exploring future commercial opportunities. In the meanwhile, Europe’s bilateral trade with Iran is climbing back to pre-sanctions levels — further evidence that banking sanctions are no longer effective.

According to Iran’s Press TV, last month the French automaker Peugeot finalized a deal with Iran Khodro, the Islamic Republic’s largest car manufacturer, to launch a new joint venture. This is the latest in a long string of European trading overtures to Tehran, reflected in a steep increase in European exports there. The German-Iranian chamber of commerce has reported a 36%-increase in Germany’s exports to the country for 2014 and Iranian figures show an 18% uptick in exports across Europe.

The Obama administration may still believe it is able to snap sanctions back at any time if Iran cheats on its commitments under a final agreement. Developments thus far under the interim deal suggest otherwise.

 

Obama Snubs Europe in Favor of Russia

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In recent days, Barack Obama has been cozy with the president of Afghanistan, Ghani granted him the favor of extending the deployments of troops in the Afghan theater. Ashraf Ghani is visiting the White House and giving a speech to Congress that is full of gratitude for the United States commitment to the country.

This raises Obama’s reputation in dealing with foreign affairs, but does it really? When applied to matters in the Middle East, the Far East and Europe, his attention to nurturing those relationships continue to dive.

The NATO General Secretary, Jens Stoltenberg is in town for 3 days to deal with the crisis in Ukraine that is spilling over to Europe, the Baltic States and Ukraine. Obama has no time to meet with him, zero. The question is why?

President Barack Obama has yet to meet with the new head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and won’t see Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week, even though he is in Washington for three days.  Stoltenberg’s office requested a meeting with Obama well in advance of the visit, but never heard anything from the White House, two sources close to the NATO chief told me.

The leaders of almost all the other 28 NATO member countries have made time for Stoltenberg since he took over the world’s largest military alliance in October. Stoltenberg, twice the prime minister of Norway, met Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa to discuss the threat of the Islamic State and the crisis in Ukraine, two issues near the top of Obama’s agenda.
Kurt Volker, who served as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO under both President George W. Bush and Obama, said the president broke a long tradition.  “The Bush administration held a firm line that if the NATO secretary general came to town, he would be seen by the president … so as not to diminish his stature or authority,” he told me.

America’s commitment to defend its NATO allies is its biggest treaty obligation, said Volker, adding that European security is at its most perilous moment since the Cold War. Russia has moved troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine, annexed Crimea, placed nuclear-capable missiles in striking distance of NATO allies, flown strategic-bomber mock runs in the North Atlantic, practiced attack approaches on the U.K. and Sweden, and this week threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Denmark’s warships.
“It is hard for me to believe that the president of the United States has not found the time to meet with the current secretary general of NATO given the magnitude of what this implies, and the responsibilities of his office,” Volker said.

Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, declined to say why Obama didn’t respond to Stoltenberg’s request. “We don’t have any meetings to announce at this time,” she told me in a statement. Sources told me that Stoltenberg was able to arrange a last-minute meeting with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
According to White House press releases, Obama didn’t exactly have a packed schedule. On Tuesday, he held important meetings and a press conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the White House (Ghani will meet with Stoltenberg while they are both in town). But the only event on Obama’s public schedule for Wednesday is a short speech to kick off a meeting related to the Affordable Care Act. On Thursday, he will head to Alabama to give a speech about the economy.

Stoltenberg is in town primarily for the NATO Transformation Seminar, a once-a-year strategic brainstorming session that brings together NATO’s leadership with experts and top officials from the host country. The event is organized by the Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Atlantic Council.

“The focus of this year’s seminar is to think through how best to update NATO’s strategy given real threats in the east and the south, against the backdrop of a dramatically changing world,” said Damon Wilson, a former NSC senior director for Europe who is now with the Atlantic Council. “The practical focus is to begin developing the road map to the next NATO summit, which will take place in Warsaw in July 2016, a summit which will presumably be the capstone and last summit for the Obama administration.”

Last year, the seminar was hosted in Paris, and then-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen got a separate bilateral meeting with President Francois Hollande of France.

Last Friday, at the German Marshall Fund Brussels Forum, Stoltenberg talked about the importance of close coordination inside NATO in order to first confront Russian aggression and then eventually move toward a stable relationship with Moscow.

“The only way we can have the confidence to engage with Russia,” he said, “is to have the confidence and the strength which is provided by strong collective defense, the NATO alliance.”

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski told the Brussels Forum that there has been a worrisome lag between NATO’s promises of more defensive equipment for Poland and what has actually arrived, a blow to the alliance’s credibility. “It’s very important and necessary for everyone to have the conviction, including the potential aggressor to have this conviction, that NATO is truly determined to execute contingency plans,” he said.

The White House missed a perfect opportunity to reinforce that message this week in snubbing Stoltenberg. It fits into a narrative pushed by Obama critics that he would rather meet with problematic leaders such as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who will get an Oval Office meeting next month, than firm allies. The message Russian President Vladimir Putin will take away is that the White House-NATO relationship is rocky, and he will be right.

*** Putin is taking full advantage of this neglect and the means by which it plays out does not have a positive result. When it comes to Ukraine, we are bound by a long standing agreement to support and protect the country, to date that has not happened. Ukraine is working to increase the size of its forces against continued Russian aggression. Obama has refused to tend to the relationship with Poland. As a gesture, we have deployed 4 A-10’s to Poland. Even the country of Georgia is at risk of Russian juggernaut.

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that a recent Russian military exercise has marked the beginning of a series of such drills this year, a show of force that comes amid a bitter strain with the West over Ukraine.

Reflecting the tensions, U.S. and other NATO forces staged maneuvers in the Baltics, and a convoy of U.S. troops has driven through eastern Europe in a bid to reassure the allies.

Last week’s Russian maneuvers that spread from the Arctic to the Black Sea involved 80,000 troops, about 100 navy ships and more than 220 aircraft.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin Tuesday that the maneuvers were aimed at checking the readiness of the newly formed group of forces in the Arctic, as well as the military’s capability to quickly field troops to several theaters of operations.

“I proceed from the assumption that this was just the start of efforts to train the armed forces,” Putin said.

As part of the drills, the state-of-the art Iskander missiles were deployed to Russia’s westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad bordering NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and long-range, nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 bombers were sent to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine a year ago.

 

The move was intended to demonstrate Russia’s readiness to raise the ante amid a bitter strain in relations with the West, but for now the Kremlin apparently has stopped short of making the deployment permanent.

Shoigu reported to Putin that all troops involved in the maneuvers have returned to their home bases.

Asked specifically if the Iskander missiles also had returned to their location, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to Shoigu’s statement in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

Even though the latest maneuvers ended last week, the Russian military continued their training.

NATO said it scrambled Danish and Italian jets based in Lithuania early Tuesday to escort four Russian military jets flying with their transponders switched off in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. The alliance said the Russian planes were heading to Kaliningrad.

Child Soldiers Being Trained to Fight Israel

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Israel was granted land, of their own for their own. Since that time, Arabs, Islamists and Palestinians have been demanding land back as their own. Israel completely evacuated land called Gaza and turned it over. Jerusalem is divided, portions of the West Bank are off limits to Israelis, then there is the Golan Heights. How much more is to be given up?

The White House on Monday bluntly warned Israel that its “occupation of Palestinian land” must end, dismissing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s efforts to take back controversial campaign pledges.

In unusually tough language that underscores the fracture in relations between Washington and Israel, AFP reported, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said “an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.”

McDonough criticized Netanyahu’s pre-election pledge to block the creation of a Palestinian state and he questioned Netanyahu’s efforts to undo the damage.

“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the Prime Minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations,” he said.

“The Palestinian people must have the right to live in and govern themselves in their own sovereign state,” he added.

McDonough is one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisors, and his speech to the liberal pro-Israel lobby group J Street was followed closely in Washington.

Netanyahu’s pledge deepened a long-running disagreement with Obama but his top aide said, the row was not based on “personal pique.”

“America’s commitment to a two-state solution is fundamental to US foreign policy,” McDonough said. “It’s been the goal of both Republican and Democratic presidents, and it remains our goal today.”

The White House and the United Nations have expressed countless times, giving up more land is their immediate demand.

When considering the work of the United Nations, consider the stupid-ness of the United Nations, especially UNRWA.

Not only is Hamas training children but they are recruiting teenagers as well. Video here.

Israeli Group’s documentary accuses Hamas of Training Child Soldiers

A new documentary that shows senior Hamas figures in Gaza unabashedly discussing the training of child soldiers and glorifying suicide bombers at military-style youth camps will be Exhibit A for an Israeli group at a United Nations forum in Geneva Wednesday, where it plans to make the case that the world body’s relief arm is being used by terrorists.

The 11-minute documentary, called “Children’s Army of Hamas” and produced by the Israel-based Center for Near East Policy Research (CNEPR), in association with the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, is aimed at showing the UN that Hamas is breaking international laws, including those barring the training of child soldiers even as it works with the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.

“You are the generation that is being trained to fight – although you are young. You are being trained for jihad [holy war],” senior Hamas official Khala al-Hayya is seen telling young children at a Hamas military training camp.

In another scene, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad refers to the indoctrination of children and appears to acknowledge they are being trained to do battle.

“We are strengthening their religious awareness and inducing solidarity with their country. This solidifies their jihad, and their commitment to being a warrior, a curse to Israel,” Hamad declares.

According to its own 2014 figures, UNRWA received a budget of $1.32 billion from international donors, of which $409 million was donated by the U.S. alone. It runs 245 schools in Gaza, more than one-third of which were impacted in last summer’s fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness. Given that Hamas is in charge of Gaza, and UNRWA’s website makes clear that “Schoolchildren in UNRWA schools follow the host authorities’ curricula and textbooks,” the film suggests that the very group training children in military camps may also be dictating what they are taught in schools.

“You are being trained for jihad.”- Khala al-Hayya, senior Hamas official, talking to kids in Gaza

“Hamas’ relationship with UNRWA is good, very good,” states Ismail Radwan, Hamas’ minister of religious affairs. “The Hamas charter is part of the program we teach – insurrection, faith and education. We’re preparing to liberate Palestine.”

Gunness denied that UN-run schools play a role in training child soldiers.

“I am not aware of any reports of UNRWA schools being used by Hamas to do training courses,” Gunness told FoxNews.com. “Our education system is entirely independent and we have a completely different schooling system. There is no question of Hamas approving anything… We’re educating children after [last summer’s] conflict where hundreds of thousands were displaced. One thing that distinguishes us is that we teach human rights curriculum grades 1 through to 9.”

 

On Sunday, one UNRWA school in Khan Younis in Gaza was re-opened and 1,100 students returned to class, partly as a result of Noble Peace Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai – the Pakistani teenager and child education campaigner who was shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting to go to school – donating her $50,000 award to help fund a swift restoration of the damaged building. Rich Arab nations have pledged more than $5 billion to rebuild Gaza, but thus far only a tiny fraction of the money promised has actually been received.

“Since 2003, UNRWA schoolteachers and workers unions have been in the control of Hamas,” David Bedein, producer of the documentary alleges. “Only Canada has cut back on its donations as a result of the evidence of Hamas’ control. Even if Hamas is the dominant force in Gaza, UNRWA has to operate under the rules and regulations of donors. Countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and even the EU, do not allow funds to go to a social service agency where Hamas is on staff.”

“If UNRWA’s money was coming from Qatar or Iran it would be very difficult to talk about the moral responsibility of the donor nations, but many of the donor nations are western democracies,” Bedein concludes.

The documentary shows children as young as five or six being indoctrinated by Hamas. “We train children to use all types of weapons; machine guns, anti-aircraft [guns], tunnel training, in guerilla warfare, to fight the enemy with Allah’s help,” one masked military trainer explains.

“We are being trained to be mujahideen [warriors] to fight the evil Israeli presence,” one boy, aged around 13, proudly says. “They conquered our land and defiled our holy sites. We’ll liberate it all with Allah’s mighty help.”

At the end of the training camp top Hamas leader and former Gazan Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh addresses the children. “This generation is prepared to liberate the land. It will be victorious; it will fulfil the right of return, our independence. Beware! Beware! Jews beware!” Haniyeh cries. “This generation is not afraid to confront you in your centers. This is the generation of the stones. This is the generation of the missiles! This is the generation of the tunnels! This is the generation of the suicide bombers!”

The film is expected to give the UN pause for thought at they consider Hamas’ terrorist organization status and its exploitation of child soldiers. For the avoidance of doubt, and in case anyone wondered if Hamas is preparing to embark on a new direction, Hamas’ Deputy Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad clarifies, “The principles of Hamas have not changed since its inception. The principles of militancy remain as a way to end the Israeli conquest… We enforce a militant culture in Palestinian society.”