Will Biden Challenge Turkey/Erdogan for Funding Hamas?

Primer: The IDF spokesperson, LTC Jonathan Conricus declared in a recent briefing:

IDF had assassinated Hussam Abu Harbeed, who commanded Islamic Jihad’s northern Gaza brigade and led attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians for almost 15 years.

In a statement, the IDF said Harbeed “was behind several anti-tank missile terror attacks against Israeli civilians.” One of those attacks occurred on the first day of the current round of fighting when a civilian was wounded, Conricus said.

There was no immediate confirmation from Islamic Jihad or its armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, about the assassination.

Conricus also announced Monday it had destroyed just about 60 miles of militant tunnels.

“Our fighter jets neutralized 9.3 miles of the Hamas ‘Metro’ terror tunnel system overnight. That’s 9.3 miles that can no longer be used for terror,” it said in a statement before the updated information was provided by Conricus.

Air strike kills jihad commander in Gaza

I was asked 2 days ago who funds Gaza….there is no single name or organization actually…it is hardly that simple. The Islamic National Bank in Gaza served as a terrorist vault for Hamas, directly funding its rocket production operations. So, the U.S. Treasury has some extraordinary tools to investigate monies going in and out of financial institutions across the world, why not use them, or do they and just ignore their findings? Would other countries and nefarious organizations be cast in funding terror? Yes…much like Turkey.

Taken from The Investigative Project:

Turkish Support for Hamas

We should remember that Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Hamas have roots in Muslim Brotherhood networks. They share a similar anti-Western, anti-Israel ideology. Turkey’s ties to Hamas – and specific members who are Specially Designated Global Terrorists – have been extensively documented. Hamas officials and Egyptian Islamists have found shelter and have been free to pursue their financing and planning their operations there. For example, Hamas finance chief Zaher Jabarin developed a financial network in Turkey that enabled Hamas “to raise, invest, and launder money prior to transferring it to Gaza and the West Bank,” a 2019 U.S. Treasury Department statement said.

Turkish presence in the Palestinian territories, and especially the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, is cemented by official agreements and its actions are conducted under the guise of technical and humanitarian assistance. Turkey is already implicated in upgrading Palestinian military structures and forces against Israel.

Turkey has trained Palestinian Authority security forces, not only to fight organized crime, Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kıran said last year, but to “create a significant [Palestinian] resistance against Israel’s occupation policies and its oppression.”

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a relief agency, has permanent offices in the Gaza Strip and in Ramallah. TIKA funds are channeled to various field organizations controlled by Hamas, thus indirectly supporting Hamas operations. İHH (Humanitarian Relief Foundation) is a radical anti-Western and anti-Israeli Turkish NGO, also present in Gaza. İHH has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israeli authorities since 2008 due to its funding of Hamas’ military wing. IHH was also implicated in the notorious 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when a flotilla trying to break a blockade on Gaza was boarded by Israeli commandos. Passengers attacked the Israeli troops, causing the soldiers to fight back, killing 10 people.

Erdogan broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and accused it of lying about the incident.

In addition to supporting Hamas, İHH has cooperated with radical Islamist groups in Algeria and Iran by helping with counterfeited passports, weapons trafficking, and assisting mujahideen to reach various war zones, such as Bosnia and Chechnya.

As Turkey provides financial assistance to Gaza through TIKA and IHH, it consciously assists Hamas, which can focus solely on preparing its aggression against Israeli civilians. Once again, Turkey proves to be an invaluable diplomatic ally of Hamas.

By appealing to the Muslim world and using the Palestinian issue as a pretext, Turkey repeats its attempt to head the Islamist International. Turkey has since long decided to part ways with the Western world and its values by affiliating itself with radical Islamists. It is time for the United States and for NATO to realize that Turkey is a state acting in contrast to the shared values and the geostrategic interests of the West.

In part from JW:

Now that the Islamic terrorists of Hamas and the PLO have responded to a pro-terrorist administration in the White House by restarting a full-scale war, the Biden administration is sending their best man out to mediate between Israel and the terrorists.

S Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday that he is sending an envoy to the Middle East to “seek to calm tensions” even as he urged Israel to avoid killing civilians.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hady Amr, who oversees Israeli and Palestinian Authority affairs at the department, was to leave Wednesday. He is expected to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders.

If the man sounds at all familiar, it ought to.

“I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada,” Hady Amr wrote a year after September 11, discussing his work as the national coordinator of the anti-Israel Middle East Justice Network.

“I have news for every Israeli,” Amr ranted in one column written after Sheikh Salah Shahada, the head of Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was taken out by an Israeli air strike.

Amr warned that Arabs “now have televisions, and they will never, never forget what the Israeli people, the Israeli military and Israeli democracy have done to Palestinian children. And there will be thousands who will seek to avenge these brutal murders of innocents.”

He also threatened Americans that “we too shouldn’t be shocked when our military assistance to Israel and our security council vetoes that keep on protecting Israel come back to haunt us”

Amr then got a gig from Qatar: the state sponsor of Hamas.

A few years later, the Beirut-born extremist had become an advisor on Muslim relations to the World Economic Forum before heading up Brookings’ Doha Center for Qatar. The tiny Islamic tyranny is allied with Iran, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s a backer of Hamas.

A decade after Amr had responded to the death of a Hamas leader by ranting that “there will be thousands who will seek to avenge these brutal murders of innocents”, the Obama administration made him a Deputy to its Special Envoy for Israeli Palestinian negotiations.

At Brookings Doha, Amr had urged that the “Muslim brotherhood organizations across the Muslim World should be engaged”. Then he wondered, “in Lebanese and Palestinian society, the faith-based organizations are seen as the least corrupt… Hamas and Hezbollah are often cited by their populations as being non-corrupt. This needs more analysis. Is this the case?”

Over the past few years, Amr has repeatedly urged negotiations with Hamas. When the Trump administration unveiled its proposed peace deal, Amr co-wrote an article declaring that it should be scrapped in favor of focusing on a deal with Hamas.

“By laying out the terms of a three-way Hamas-Israel-PA/PLO deal now, and building an international consensus around it, the United States could create a pathway toward resolution,” the article had argued. That would potentially not only restart Obama’s attempt to impose a plan on Israel, but would do so not only on behalf of the PLO, but also on behalf of Hamas.

Hady Amr got the flow of US aid restarted. Now the fighting will help him bring Hamas into the “negotiations”.

In 2019, Amr had co-written an article arguing that the United States should lay “out the terms of a three-way Hamas-Israel-PA/PLO deal now” and “build an international consensus around it.”

That would mean the Biden administration and its point man developing a plan to legitimize Hamas, gaining the support of the Europeans and the Russians, and then imposing it on Israel.

Hamas, according to Amr and his co-authors, would offer Israel nothing more than a cease-fire, while Israel would have to “incentivize” by “offering a significant move” on peace.

You can’t have a cease-fire without a war.

 

Audio Proves John Kerry is a Traitor

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian Foreign Minister and long time friend of John Kerry, had an interview recording with an economist Saeed Leylaz in March. The call was recorded and leaked to a London based Persian news outlet called Iran International.

Inside the call, Zarif revealed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps actually runs the country and often is at odds with Zarif. Additionally admitted was the death of Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the Guard’s elite force known as the Quds Force has damaged the country. Suleimani exploited his power in the nuclear deal, the war plans in Syria as well as ground operations.

US senator tells John Kerry to resign from Biden ...

Based on how the New York Times twists the facts and alters the full truth, there are some details spelled out that are interesting, found here.

There are already calls in Washington DC for John Kerry to resign and there is justification for that however not before there is a full hearing in the Senate. Why you ask? Also included in the Zarif interview was the admission that John Kerry often spoke to Zarif and in a particular case shared the highly classified fact(s) that Israel was behind at least 200 airstrikes in Syria. Zarif says he was shocked that Kerry would reveal such protected information and betray Israel.

 


It cannot be understated that John Kerry has split loyalties and his advocacy for Iran continues to be extraordinary. Kerry does in fact maintain security clearance and does sit on the Biden National Security Council as the climate czar. Frankly that position is likely to be just an official cover to continue his foreign policy work with U.S. adversaries including China and Russia.

It is hardly as surprise that the Biden White House refuses to comment, stating they do not respond to leaked tape(s) or the authenticity. Well, hey Biden people, you opened communications channels with Iran to restart the nuclear deal talks, so pick up the phone and call Zarif to gain authenticity. Yeesh.

It should be noted that when one has security clearance, a signature is required that includes a major stipulation that the candidate is subject to Federal prosecution if classified material is divulged and not approved for release. Perhaps it is time to use the FISA court for a real intended purpose and issue subpoenas for John Kerry’s communication(s) records including enlisting the NSA for the validation of emails, phone calls, encrypted text messages or written documents. John Kerry should be suspended from all official government positions and activity until a full hearing is performed.

The next question is what will Israel do in this case? It is interesting that Israel did send an envoy to the U.S. just a few days ago including those from the Mossad for discussion at the Department of Defense. It should also be noted that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Israel on April 12/13th for discussions regarding the mysterious Natanz explosion where enriching uranium was advancing as a faster pace. There were likely many other items discussed during this confab, quite possibly the Zarif interview, John Kerry and sanctions.

This is a brewing scandal and the Biden White House needs to come clean.

US Seeks Forfeiture of the Oil from IRGC Tanker

A civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation. The United States bears the burden of proving that the oil in question is subject to forfeiture in a civil forfeiture proceeding. Funds successfully forfeited with a connection to a state sponsor of terrorism may in whole or in part be directed to the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund (http://www.usvsst.com/) after the conclusion of the case.

NEW YORK – The United States filed a forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that all oil aboard a Liberian-flagged vessel, the M/T Achilleas (Achilleas), is subject to forfeiture based on U.S. terrorism forfeiture laws. This investigation was led by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York and the FBI’s Minneapolis office.

U.S. Looks to Courts to Seize 2 Million Barrels of Alleged ...

The complaint alleges a scheme involving multiple entities affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to covertly ship Iranian oil to a customer abroad. Participants in the scheme attempted to disguise the origin of the oil using ship-to-ship transfers, falsified documents and other means, and provided a fraudulent bill of lading to deceive the owners of the Achilleas into loading the oil in question.

The complaint alleges in part that the oil constitutes the property of, or a “source of influence” over, the IRGC and the IRGC-QF, both of which have been designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations. The documents allege that profits from oil sales support the IRGC’s full range of nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad.

“This latest civil forfeiture action exemplifies the remarkable work of this multi-agency task force that works tirelessly toward furthering our shared goal of protecting the homeland from regimes that threaten our national security,” said Special Agent in Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh for HSI New York. “This investigation sends a message that the attempted circumvention of U.S. sanctions by the IRGC-QF will not be tolerated. HSI will continue to work with our partners and utilize the full scope of our authorities to disrupt the attempts of hostile countries and regimes to generate profits from oil sales used to support terrorism and the proliferation and delivery of weapons of mass destruction.”

“Iran uses profits from its petroleum sector to fund the malign activities of the IRGC-QF, a designated terrorist group,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael F. Paul of the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office. “The FBI will continue to prioritize the enforcement of sanctions, and we applaud the efforts of our agents and partners on this investigation.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia will continue working with our law enforcement partners to stem the flow of illicit oil from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Qods Force,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael R. Sherwin. “We will use all available tools, including our jurisdiction to seize and forfeit assets located abroad, to combat funding for terrorists and those who would do harm to the United States.”

“The forfeiture complaint filed today serves as a reminder that the IRGC and IRGC-QF continue to exert significant control over the sale of Iranian oil,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the National Security Division. “As we have demonstrated in the past, the department will deploy all tools at its disposal to ensure that the IRGC and IRGC-QF cannot use profits from the sale of Iranian oil to fund terrorism and other activities that threaten the safety and security of all Americans.”

A civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation. The United States bears the burden of proving that the oil in question is subject to forfeiture in a civil forfeiture proceeding. Funds successfully forfeited with a connection to a state sponsor of terrorism may in whole or in part be directed to the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund after the conclusion of the case.

HSI New York and the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office are leading the investigation of Iranian petroleum shipments. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael P. Grady and Brian P. Hudak of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney David Lim of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the National Security Division are prosecuting the case, with support from Paralegal Specialist Brian Rickers and Legal Assistant Jessica McCormick of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section’s Program Operations Staff of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division has provided extensive assistance throughout the investigation.

Biden Leaving Troops in Afghanistan Past the May Deadline

For many many months, the Trump administration was negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban. Frankly, all that the Taliban has agreed to, they have violated. Trump also issued a schedule to lower troop levels in Afghanistan to only a small tight residual number in May of 2021 along with contractors. With the new possible threat(s) of the Taliban and their growing connection to al Qaeda, Biden has decided to leave troop levels in the region at the present level with an increase in Syria and possibly Iraq. All the while, Iran just hosted a Taliban leader for talks where the topic(s) are unknown. Further, Taliban officials have been meeting in Moscow with Russian officials. Those details are found here. 

President Biden also has another immediate issue before him and that is the release of a U.S. contractor that went missing in Afghanistan about a year ago. Mark Frerichs, a navy veteran went missing about a year ago while he was working as a contractor on an engineering project. It is thought he is in the custody of the Haqqani network. The U.S. State Department is offering a $5 million reward that leads to Frerichs’ return. 

So, it is rather fitting that just this week, a very old FOIA request for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld documents have been released. Frankly, the questions which were referred to at the Pentagon as ‘snowflakes’ reflects his frustration of the layers of bureaucracy  within the Department of Defense and his anger at getting real answers and challenging the quality of intelligence reports. Sound familiar? It is clearly a problem that after 20+ years has not found a quality solution. Just read a few of his snowflakes and judge for your self.

***Donald H. Rumsfeld - U.S. PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY

35 of the most notable items from the new collection is below from the National Archives. 

A follow-on DNSA publication covering the rest of Rumsfeld’s tenure as secretary will appear through ProQuest later in 2021.

One such snowflake was written on March 3, 2003. At 8:16 AM, Rumsfeld wrote to Senior Military Assistant LTG Bantz J. Craddock and Department of Defense General Counsel William Haynes with the subject “KSM”. He wanted to know, “Do we know where the information to find Khalid Sheikh Mohammed came from? Was it from GTMO detainees?” There is no response from either Craddock or Haynes in the DOD release to the Archive, though Rumsfeld’s question is likely a push back to the false claims made by CIA Director George Tenet that the Agency’s resort to torture of Abu Zubaydah led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence torture report would later reveal that key intelligence on KSM as the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks came from the FBI’s non-coercive, rapport-building interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.[1] This success was prior to the CIA’s contract psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, taking over the interrogation at the CIA “Detention Site Green” in Thailand, which was created to house Zubaydah in 2002.  Their approach to Zubaydah would include 83 water board sessions yet fail to produce any valuable intelligence.  CIA clandestine services chief Jose Rodriguez (and perhaps Gina Haspel, who would later become DCI, though CIA redactions of documents continue to obscure her role) ordered the destruction of the torture videotapes, commenting that “the heat from destoying [sic] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain.”

Later on March 3, under the subject “Contingencies”, Rumsfeld wrote to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, stating, “We need to plan what we will do if Saddam Hussein is captured. We need to plan what we will do if we catch an imposter.” There is no record of Feith’s answer in the DOD release to the Archive.

Throughout Rumsfeld’s tenure, his snowflakes circulated daily through the highest levels of the Pentagon. With scant limitations on their subject matter, the all-encompassing documents are sometimes an hourly paper trail inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense during six years of tremendous consequence for U.S. foreign policy. The declassified documents also provide an account that at times contradicts DOD public statements.  For example, The Washington Post published a selection of the memos in the six part series “The Afghanistan Papers” in September 2019 revealing that officials misled the American public about the war in Afghanistan.

The entire corpus of snowflakes also details many aspects of the day-to-day operations of the Pentagon, the modernization of the U.S. armed forces, and Rumsfeld’s personal agenda against bureaucracy. “Bureaucracy is driving people nuts,” he wrote in an April 8, 2002, memo at 7:41AM. “If we can take two or three layers out of this place, we will be a lot better off.” In a separate April 8 letter, the secretary suggested cutting all major Pentagon programs by at least 20 percent. (The DOD budget increased by 37.54 percent between FY2001 and FY2006.) On March 11, 2002, Rumsfeld wrote to colleagues, “I am getting tired of seeing the word ‘joint’ everywhere.”

Rumsfeld, Snowflake by Snowflake - Open Source with ...

Other topics in the collection include:

  • the military budgeting process and efforts to rein in defense spending;
  • military planning, procurement, and expenditures;
  • nuclear issues – weapons, proliferation, safety;
  • decision making on military wages, benefits, tours of duty, and veterans issues;
  • military intelligence;
  • Defense Department relations with the CIA and Homeland Security;
  • Rumsfeld’s relations with the State Department and National Security Council;
  • U.S. relations with NATO;
  • U.S. military relations with Russia, former Soviet republics, and other countries;
  • Rumsfeld’s interactions with the news media, Congress, and the public;
  • Guantanamo detainees, interrogation, and torture;
  • concerns about the International Criminal Court and U.S. liability for war crimes;
  • the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists;
  • the Joint Strike Fighter program; and
  • the emergency landing of a U.S. EP-3 at Hainan Island in 2001

Donald Rumsfeld’s Snowflakes, Part 1: The Pentagon and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2001-2003 will be a critical research tool for historians and will be available through many college and research libraries. Part II, which covers the last three years of Rumsfeld’s tenure as secretary of defense from 2004 to 2006, will be published in 2021. Learn more about accessing the Digital National Security Archive through your library online and how to request a free trial here.

 

March 11, 2002
April 8, 2002
September 12, 2003
October 23, 2003

A few more:

October 10, 2001
Rumsfeld requests a daily report on the location of Osama bin Laden.

 

November 8, 2001
Rumsfeld inquires: “Why doesn’t Pakistan sever its relationship with [sic] Taliban?”

 

November 29, 2001
Rumsfeld accuses career employees in the OSD of undermining his decisions and working too slowly.

 

January 5, 2002
Rumsfeld complains to George Tenet about the CIA.

 

February 15, 2002
Rumsfeld directs his staff to develop a white paper on detainees and the Geneva Conventions.

 

March 11, 2002
Rumsfeld suggests further classification review of the already pre-reviewed Annual Report to the President and the Congress.

 

March 11, 2002
Rumsfeld says the DOD annual report is not conclusive or upbeat enough.

 

March 12, 2002
Rumsfeld recounts his conversation with Russian MoD Sergei Ivanov at a Washington Wizards basketball game.

 

March 14, 2002
Rumsfeld asks how to fix the requirements process.

 

March 16, 2002
Rumsfeld inquiries into U.S. nuclear policy.

 

March 26, 2002
Under the subject “Business As Usual”, Rumsfeld questions whether the Department should cut educational programs while at war.

 

March 28, 2002
Rumsfeld pushes to lift restrictions on contractors providing force protection.

 

March 28, 2002
Rumsfeld proposes a weekly meeting on Afghanistan, stating that it is “drifting”.

April 3, 2002
Rumsfeld’s thoughts on the Middle East.

 

April 8, 2002
Rumsfeld instructs his staff to create a list of all the major “processes” at the Pentagon and shorten them by atleast 20 percent.

 

April 9, 2002
Rumsfeld expresses concern about a “zero defect mentality” in promotion process.

 

 

April 12, 2002
Rumsfeld ruminates on the creation of a new Homeland Security Department.

 

April 15, 2002
Rumsfeld details a conversation with Henry Kissinger about the ICC.

 

April 15, 2002
Rumsfeld contacts Tenet about the ICC.

 

April 23, 2002
Rumsfeld considers possibly renegotiating a Russia-NATO arrangement.

 

April 23, 2002
Rumsfeld proposes using contractors to train the Afghan army.

 

April 23, 2002
Rumsfeld asks if a DOD chart of the PPB system is a joke, or whether it should be.

 

May 5, 2002
Rumsfeld tells Hank Crumpton to “speak up”.

 

May 22, 2002
Rumsfeld circulates a letter comparing interrogation techniques in Afghanistan to Guantanamo.

 

August 8, 2002
Rumsfeld questions whether it is right for pilots to use amphetamines.

 

August 17, 2002
Rumsfeld ruminates on the U.S. and Western Europe “stopping proliferation, reducing weapons of mass destruction and contrubitng to peace and stability” around the world.

 

August 19, 2002
Rumsfeld addresses the President, Vice President, CIA Director, and National Security Advisor on U.S. policy towards Iran and North Korea.

 

October 1, 2002
Rumsfeld sends handwritten notes from an interview with a detainee to Fieth.

 

March 3, 2003
Rumsfeld requests a contingency plan for the possibility of capturing an imposter of Saddam Hussein.

 

March 3, 2003
Rumsfeld contacts Tenet about the intelligence that led to capturing KSM.

 

March 26, 2003
Rumsfeld requests material to brief the President privately on a post-Saddam Iraq.

 

Biden Admin Anti-Israel, Pro Iran

First question is where is Trita Parsi, Ben Rhodes and Ploughshares….

Those answers may be related to –>

The Department of Justice charged a political scientist and frequent contributor to left-leaning foreign policy publications and mainstream newspapers with acting as an unregistered agent for Iran, according to an announcement from federal prosecutors.

Using the guise of a free-thinking academic, Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi has since 2007 been pushing regime propaganda in publications including the New York Times, Boston GlobeWashington Post, and the Nation magazine, as well as many academic journals. Afrasiabi was formally charged on Tuesday with “acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” according to an indictment unsealed in a Brooklyn federal court. More details here.

So, Breitbart has published an item that details several clues that the Biden administration will be more pro Iran and anti Israel and suggests much of that is already underway. It appears that Breitbart is accurate in this assessment when one also includes the fact that John Kerry is on the Biden team and Biden has chosen Wendy Sherman to be the #2 at the State Department. Sherman was John Kerry’s right hand person during the entire Iran nuclear deal. In fact Biden’s selections for key positions at the State Department are almost all Obama re-treads.

The Deal is for Real - Defense One

Gotta wonder if any of the White House press corps will even bother to ask some hard questions of Jen Psaki…

The Lincoln Project is Not Our Ally. | by Lauren ... source

Meanwhile, we know how disgusting and nefarious the members of The Lincoln Project are….but fair warning as it appears they are the newest version of Fusion GPS…opposition research. How is that related to Iran?

The experienced political grifters who founded the Lincoln Project aren’t going to let Donald Trump’s imminent departure or the end of the 2020 U.S. election cycle impede their cash flow.

Four founding members of the controversial super PAC, which recently parted ways with cofounder John Weaver after dozens of young men accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior, are taking their talents to Israel in an effort to make money by advising one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents in the Jewish state’s upcoming elections.

The Associated Press confirmed that Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens, and Reed Galen were recently hired to advise Gideon Sa’ar, a Netanyahu rival who left the Likud Party in 2019 after an unsuccessful campaign for party leadership. Sa’ar, who founded the New Hope party in December 2020, has accused Netanyahu of being too conciliatory to Palestinian interests.

Israel’s legislative elections will take place on March 23.

***

Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken a very hard stance against the nuclear deal and his opposition has been more soft on the approach. There is another fact that barely made any headlines stating that Iran is the new defacto headquarters for al Qaeda. Remember them?

Analysis: 2 wanted al Qaeda leaders operate in Iran | FDD ... source

For 37 years, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Tehran sponsors Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and other countries, Shia militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

In 1998, an indictment issued by a U.S. district court stated that al Qaeda had “forged alliances” with the “government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.”

In 2011, a federal judge in New York ruled that the Tehran regime had provided support for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

From 2011 to 2016, the Obama administration repeated in formal terrorist designations and other official statements that the Iranian regime had a “secret deal” with al Qaeda that allows the group to “to funnel funds and operatives through” Iranian territory.

Under President Obama, the Treasury and State Departments described this network inside Iran as al Qaeda’s “core facilitation pipeline,” identified its leader as Yasin al-Suri, who had been allowed by “Iranian authorities” to operate inside Iran since 2005. This month, the State Department revealed that he is still working inside Iran.

Another document seized during that raid, but not released until 2017, states that al Qaeda operatives in Iran were given “everything they needed,” including “money, arms” and “training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.”

Then, two months ago, it was revealed that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, al Qaeda’s second-in-command, a planner of the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, had been living comfortably in Tehran, permitted to maintain a false identity as a Lebanese history professor. He was about to go somewhere in his car when assassins — presumably dispatched by Israel — ended his career.

Which raised a question: To what extent are Iran’s rulers currently enabling al Qaeda? Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo provided an answer.

For the past five years, he told reporters at the National Press Club, Iran’s rulers “have provided safe haven and logistical support — things like travel documents, ID cards, passports — that enable al Qaeda activity.”

AQ leaders in Iran also are allowed to “to fundraise, to freely communicate with al-Qaeda members around the world, and to perform many other functions that were previously directed from Afghanistan or Pakistan.”

He added: “As a result of this assistance, al Qaeda has centralized its leadership inside of Tehran.”

He named and announced sanctions on two such AQ leaders, and designated three members of an al Qaeda-linked group that, he said, operates on the border between Iran and Iraq.

Most media covered Mr. Pompeo’s remarks dismissively. The Associated Press told readers that “many in the intelligence community” found Mr. Pompeo’s charges regarding the Tehran-AQ link “overblown given a history of animosity between the two.”

The New York Times accused Mr. Pompeo of “demonizing Iran,” in order to make “any effort by Mr. Biden to resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal more difficult.”

And, of course, those who sympathize with Iran’s rulers were outraged. Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), asserted that Mr. Pompeo has “leaked materials to the advocacy group Foundation for Defense of Democracies aimed at supporting the claim of Iran and al Qaeda ties.”

That’s false. Beginning in 2011, colleagues at FDD worked hard to persuade the U.S. government to declassify and release primary source documents retrieved from Osama bin Laden’s villa in Pakistan. Mr. Pompeo, as CIA director, did that in 2017.

These documents are key for understanding how al Qaeda operates — in Iran and many other countries. But, as noted, the fact that AQ had an “agreement” with the Iranian regime had been revealed by the Obama administration years earlier. Why NIAC would not want additional information released I leave for you to consider.

The Obama administration ended up transferring billions of dollars to Iran’s rulers in exchange for their promise to slow-walk their nuclear program. The money was used to develop missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, establish military bases in Syria, arm Houthi rebels, attack Saudi oil facilities, and similar purposes.

And while Iran’s rulers remained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) along with our European allies, they have repeatedly violated their obligations, for example announcing this past weekend that they were preparing to produce uranium metal, which they had agreed not to do for 15 years.

France, Germany and Britain urged the theocrats to “return to compliance with their JCPOA commitments without further delay.” A prediction: Iran’s rulers will promise to do that if the price is right. But they won’t keep their promise. Because they are not with us. They are with the terrorists — including those who attacked us on 9/11. source and hat tip