But, President Trump Hosted Saad Hariri at the White House

Posted on August 1, 2017August 1, 2017 by Denise Simon

So…surely President Trump knew who Hezbollah was and their history right? Oh..perhaps Hariri brought it up in the conversation that the ordnance for the next major battle against Israel has 150,000 missiles under ground in Lebanon, right?

Okay, how about how Iran and Hezbollah are one in the same in Lebanon..surely this was covered in that meeting….uh?

Did President Trump ask Prime Minister Hariri about what he knew regarding Iran’s missile launch and that satellite that failed? Did he ask Hariri why Iran needed a space program?

Anything? Well yes, Hariri asked the President Trump for money to control Hezbollah. The whole country is controlled by Hezbollah…what the heck?

Alright, more facts here.

Iran’s space program has emerged from a three-year dormancy initiated by Rouhani but probably issuing from technical and budgetary constraints as well. Further launches can be expected in the near future, likely renewing concerns over the nature of Iran’s missile and SLV programs. The scenario is especially worrisome when considering assessments that a ballistic-missile derivative of the Simorgh could potentially achieve intercontinental range. Iran insists its inherently military-run space program is for peaceful purposes only and that its ballistic missiles are for conventional deterrence at a range no greater than 2,000 kilometers. Such rhetoric and Iran’s technical limitations notwithstanding, the mere possibility of diverted know-how from an SLV to an ICBM program will unsettle many Western capitals. Previous close cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang will provide no further solace. Detailed summary here.

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Then we have those pesky missiles that seem to get ignored until the WSJ posted a chilling summary:

In a rare moment of disagreement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, Israel’s prime minister last month rejected a U.S.-Russia cease-fire agreement that he said could cement the buildup of Hezbollah and Iranian forces along Israel’s border with Syria.

Mr. Netanyahu has good reason to be concerned. Israel’s head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, confirmed in June a Kuwaiti newspaper report that largely went unnoticed: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in cooperation with Hezbollah, has been constructing missile-production facilities in Lebanon.

Buried more than 50 meters below ground and protected from aerial attack, these facilities could produce highly sophisticated rockets with ranges of more than 300 miles and equipped with advanced guidance systems.

Israeli officials now say that pre-emptive strikes may be necessary to destroy these missile capabilities before they’re operational. The result could be a bloody war that would see thousands of Hezbollah missiles hurled into Israeli airspace, with punishing Israeli reprisals and hundreds—if not thousands—of civilian deaths on both sides. It would be more chaos for Washington policy makers scrambling to manage a region already in flames.

Iran has long transferred missiles by ground and air through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In recent years, Israel repeatedly struck these transfers of what their officials call “game-changing” weaponry—weapons that could challenge Israel’s military superiority and pose severe threats to its civilians.

Despite significant success against many of these transfers, Hezbollah’s inventory has expanded to more than 150,000 missiles today from an estimated 50,000 missiles at the beginning of the second Lebanon War in 2006. And while many of these projectiles are crude, an increasing number are highly accurate, capable of delivering a massive payload to anywhere in Israel.

Israel, of course, has advanced short-, medium- and long-range missile defenses: the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow systems. But Iran and Hezbollah are now seeking an arsenal that can overwhelm these systems. More of the story here.

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A top North Korean politician recently left Pyongyang for a 10-day trip to Iran, a country that may still be cooperating militarily with the Kim Jong Un regime.

Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported Tuesday chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Assembly of North Korea Kim Yong Nam left Pyongyang on Monday to attend the inauguration ceremony for President Hassan Rouhani.

Lastly, the U.S. is detecting significant North Korean submarine activity. And from VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The U.S. Air Force was preparing Tuesday to test an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile with a launch from California, the fourth such test this year.

The 30th Space Wing says the missile was to be launched between 12:01 a.m. and 6:01 a.m. Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.

An Air Force statement said the test would show the effectiveness, readiness, and accuracy of the weapon system.

Minuteman missiles are regularly tested with launches from Vandenberg that send unarmed re-entry vehicles 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers) across the Pacific to a target area at Kwajalein Atoll.

North Korea Kim Jung un, Cyber Theft of Currency

Posted on July 31, 2017July 31, 2017 by Denise Simon

Going back to the 1970’s, North Korea was counterfeiting U.S. currency. In 2006, it was the super note, a perfect $100 dollar bill.

Training for such skills as counterfeiting, illicit drugs, weapons, cyber warfare and bootleg merchandise comes out of Office 39. Clandestine and fraudulent transactions including management operations flowing through Office 39 is estimate in the $6-8 billion range.

In 2014, one defector fleeing to Russia had $5 million of the Office 39 funds money with him.

Those highly selected North Koreans assigned to Office 39 arrive from having received an education in these specialties from elite universities or academies in China and Russia. Other highly selected North Koreans are also required to attend an in country school known as Mirim College. This school was founded by Kim Jong Il in 1986.

According to a defector:

this college has a highly confidential mission—education of world-class IT warriors—its security is so exhaustively kept that individual guard units are dispatched to the college solely for security. The security manual distributed to guards indicates that, “Without the permission of the college commander, no car should be allowed entrance to college grounds except for that of Kim Jong Il.”

Students of the college wear the same uniform as military officials, but on their shoulders they brandish special stars, on which hak (meaning is learning) is printed. A “Kim Il Political Military University” badge is worn on the left side of the chest.

Kim Jung Il lived the high life while his own people suffered to not only beatings but to death by starvation. His son, Kim Jung Un, taking over the country lives much the same yet due to sanctions and isolation by the international community, illicit activities continue.

Counterfeiting of currency is not so much a common practice in North Korea and the country has been dabbling in bitcoin fraud and now through cyber activity, they steal currency.

Just recently, Reuters published an item referring to a report analyzed suspected cyber attacks between 2015 and 2017 on South Korean government and commercial institutions, identified another Lazarus spinoff named Andariel.

“Bluenoroff and Andariel share their common root, but they have different targets and motives,” the report said. “Andariel focuses on attacking South Korean businesses and government agencies using methods tailored for the country.”

Pyongyang has been stepping up its online hacking capabilities as one way of earning hard currency under the chokehold of international sanctions imposed to stop the development of its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea has cooperated with China, Russia and Iran to improve their cyber capabilities. China is especially complicit in that cooperation by providing the communications network inside the DPRK and inside China. Additionally, China has provided hardware, servers, routers. Russia is not without major blame and shares the guilt by dispatching Russian professors from Frunze Military Academy to train North Koreans to be professional hackers.

Additionally, Russia has sold to North Korea GPS jamming equipment in the area of sea navigation and also provides financial aid to North Korea supporting it’s abilities to interfere and disrupt command and control systems.

North Korea operates yet another location known as Office 91. It has four units:

110= Technology Reconnaissance Team for DDoS attacks

35= External Offensive Cyber Operations

121= Strictly assigned for cyber attacks on South Korea

204= Enemy Secret Cyber Psychological Warfare Unit

In total, it is estimated that North Korea has close to 10,000 people assigned the the cyber and hacking operations in country. Additionally, North Korea maintains a force of up to 1000 in China performing cyber warfare.

While it is common for headlines to refer to Kim Jung Un as a nutcase, that is hardly a fitting description for him. While he may be militant and spontaneous, he is well educated. He attended Liebefeld-Steinhölzli Schule, a Swiss state school gaining access to Western culture, but had lousy grades. He has two degrees, one in physics from Kim il Sung University and another as an Army officer obtained from the Kim Il Sung Military University.

He does maintain an asymmetrical military strategy that has astounded the West and countries in the region with his advanced missile systems and launch abilities. All this is funded by cyber theft of currency and information and cooperation with Iran, China and Russia. North Korea does have IP proxy locations for operations that include New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia an several others. The ‘darknet’ is full of countries co-opting servers and jump points all doing the same thing.

The Frunze Military Academy Panorama

Blame Obama and Brennan for Venezuela, Maduro

Posted on July 29, 2017July 29, 2017 by Denise Simon

Some facts on Venezuela under Chavez and now Maduro. When it comes to blame on why the country is in a tailspin and on the way to be a failed state where people are suffering beyond measure, rogue foreign leaders flock together and Obama/Brennan knew this was coming.

VIR

Venezuela is part of SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. SWIFT knows precisely all the global transactions into and out of Venezuela including the country’s dealings with Syria, Iran, and Russia.

Venezuela has received at least $36 billion in loans from China that have helped finance two economic development funds focused largely on infrastructure projects. Five people in raids that we carried out in Caracas linked to the embezzlement of $84 million from the Chinese Fund and Bandes. Maduro pledged to stop the corruption. Right huh? What about $300 billion?

Oops, there is more: How about the loan for oil program?

Under Chavez, several global oil deals were signed that included India, China and Russia. Under Maduro, the production has failed to meet contractual agreements. Caracas needs the oil to pay debts to China and Russia, key political allies that have together lent Venezuela at least $50 billion in exchange for promised crude and fuel deliveries.

According to Reuters, former ministers Héctor Navarro and Jorge Giordani are accusing government workers of pocketing more than $300 billion in crude oil revenue over the past decade. They are demanding the government account for these funds and investigate into whose hands they went. Navarro has personally requested that “a state ethics council review the operations of the 13-year-old exchange control mechanism that opposition leaders have described as a ‘corruption machine.’”

Another former Chávez minister, Ana Elisa Osorio, petitioned the Republican National Council, a government watchdog group, to investigate the case. “In the last two years, we have found missing $20 billion from the Republic’s funds. This is why we resort here to calling for a meeting of regulators, the treasury, and the national attorney’s office,” Osorio said. More here.

Oh yeah, we cant leave out Goldman Sachs. In 2016, Goldman Sachs confirmed its asset management arm had bought $2.8 billion of another bond issued by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA at a steep discount.

SantiagoTimes

So on to some other facts that rogue leaders overlook, including the United States when it comes to heading off the tailspin and eventual failure of a state resulting in disgusting human rights violations.

2011: Iran began building intermediate-range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February. Amir al-Hadschisadeh, the head of the Guard’s Air Force, approved the visit, according to the report. Die Welt cited information from “Western security insiders.”

In 2015: Drug smuggling is thought to be on the rise in Venezuela, with many public officials complicit. According to the BBC, the US has already sanctioned at least 50 whom it accuses of human rights abuses and drug trafficking.

Pressure on the drug trade in neighbouring Colombia appears to have forced many narco-traffickers over the border. While Venezuela does not grow the coca plant or manufacture cocaine, estimates in the US State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports suggest that between 161 and 212 metric tons of cocaine are shipped from the country each year, although data is scarce.

In its most recent such report, published in March 2015, the US State Department reported that “public corruption is a major problem in Venezuela that makes it easier for drug-trafficking organizations to move and smuggle illegal drugs”. More here.

IBTimes

2017: Maduro named Tareck El Aissami as the Vice President.

That means that, in a country of complete and utter chaos — where people are starving, healthcare is nonexistent, electricity is scarce, and vigilante justice is becoming a norm — a suspected terrorist is one heartbeat away from the highest office in the land.

El Aissami is a known entity in the world of US intelligence. He is allegedly a part of Venezuela’s state drug-trafficking network and has ties to Iran, Syria, and Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Joseph Humire, coauthor of “Iran’s Strategic Penetration in Latin America” and founder of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS) think tank, testified to the same effect before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last year.

“Over the years, El Aissami developed a sophisticated, multi-layered financial network that functions as a criminal-terrorist pipeline bringing militant Islamists into Venezuela and surrounding countries, and sending illicit funds and drugs from Latin America to the Middle East.

“His financial network consists of close to 40 front companies that own over 20 properties with cash, vehicles, real estate and other assets sitting in 36 bank accounts spread throughout Venezuela, Panama, Curacao, St. Lucia, Southern Florida and Lebanon. This network became integrated with the larger Ayman Joumaa moneylaundering network that used the Lebanese Canadian Bank to launder hundreds of million of dollars and move multi-ton shipments of cocaine on behalf of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels as well as Hezbollah.

“This immigration scheme is suspected to also be in place in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as well as some Caribbean countries.”

In 2016: A jury in New York found two relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro guilty on Friday of attempting to import 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, both nephews of Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores, were arrested in November 2015 in Haiti in an investigation that saw Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informants pose as Mexican traffickers and meet with the nephews. More here.

Further on that case during trial it was revealed that Flores and Campo are the nephews of Cilia Flores, the wife of President Maduro and a politician in her own right. According to trial testimony, they were planning to move cocaine for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) through Venezuela via the president’s private hangar at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas.

They expected the deal to bring them as much as $11 million, some of which was to be used to help fund Cilia Flores’ re-election campaign.

Qatar Hires DC Lobby Part of the Swamp

Posted on July 27, 2017July 27, 2017 by Denise Simon

At least there is a FARA filing.

Qatar is a hub for harboring terrorists and funding terror organizations. Recently, Gulf States with Saudi Arabia in the lead have isolated Qatar for these exact reasons.

Yesterday, this site published an article about the historical details of Qatar’s relationship with manifesting global terror.

Avenue Strategies was founded by former Trump campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski. The first clients were Citgo and Puerto Rico were among their first clients. He has since left the company, but the placeholder remaining are opportunists that apparently are dismissing the terror facts for money in their own pockets. Citgo is headquartered in Houston, Texas, but is “owned by the leftist government of Venezuela.” Citgo took out a loan from Russian state-owned oil giant, Rosneft in December 2016 that it has been unable to pay. It is under threat of a takeover by Rosneft.

(Not all the items in the dossier were false)

At Avenue Strategies, there are names like Barry Bennett who previously worked for Ben Carson and Rick Perry. Then there is George Birnbaum who worked for Alfonse D’Amato, Charlie Crist and top leaders in Israel. Add in Ed Brookover, who worked for Ben Carson, John Boehner and Michelle Bachmann as well as leaders from various foreign countries. Bud Cummins is the last strategist who worked for Mike Huckabee’s campaign.

As you continue reading, remember, Qatar has a nasty historical connection to terror and has no plan to prosecute terrorists or to stop funding them including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, much less the Taliban. Testimony on the Hill regarding Qatar was hosted on July 27, 2017 and much of that testimony summary is found here.

Additionally, there is pressure and discussions underway where the possibility of moving the U.S. base in Qatar is ongoing.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Qatar has hired a Washington influence firm founded by President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and another specialized in digging up dirt on U.S. politicians, signaling it wants to challenge Saudi Arabia’s massive lobbying efforts in America’s capital amid a diplomatic dispute among Arab nations.

The Gulf rift already has seen slogan-plastered taxicabs in London, television attack ads in the U.S. and competing messages flooding the internet and state-linked media on both sides since the crisis began June 5.

Hiring a firm associated with former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski shows Qatar wants access to a White House with close ties to Saudi Arabia.

But matching Saudi Arabia, which scored a diplomatic coup by hosting Trump’s first overseas trip, could be a tough battle for Qatar even if it does boast the world’s highest per-capita income due to its natural gas deposits.

“The Qataris are belatedly working up to the scale of the challenge they face,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University who lives in Seattle. “This whole crisis, now that it’s kind of settled down into a prolonged confrontation or standoff, it’s become almost a struggle to win the hearts and minds in D.C.”

Qatar, in the midst of building stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, isn’t afraid to spend its money. Since the crisis began, Qatar paid $2.5 million to the law firm of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to audit its efforts at stopping terrorism funding, among the allegations levied by the Saudi-led nations.

According to documents newly filed to the U.S. Justice Department, Qatar has hired Avenue Strategies Global for $150,000 a month to “provide research, government relations and strategic consulting services.” The contract also says that activity “may include communications with members of Congress and Congressional staff, executive branch officials, the media and other individuals.”

Lewandowski founded Avenue Strategies just after the November election that put Trump in the White House. Lewandowski resigned from the firm in May, saying he was troubled by a firm-related project he hadn’t sanctioned. Others tied to Avenue Strategies had started a firm of their own, pitching Eastern European clients with promises of access to Trump and high-ranking White House officials.

The firm, which includes a former chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Qatar also signed a three-month, $1.1 million renewable contract with the opposition research firm Information Management Services, according to a Justice Department filing .

The firm, run by Jeff Klueter, a former researcher for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, did not respond to requests for comment. It advertises itself as doing so-called “oppo,” which includes digging into political opponents’ past and comments for incriminating or simply embarrassing material.

Qatar did not respond to a request for comment about the lobbying contracts. But it may serve as recognition that while Qatar has had success in speaking with the State Department and the Pentagon, it needs to make inroads to the Trump White House, Ulrichsen said.

Despite hosting a major U.S. military base, Qatar has been a target of Trump over its alleged funding of extremists, something Doha denies. Saudi Arabia enjoys close relations to Trump, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

In Washington, Saudi Arabia spends millions of dollars on lobbying, including a most-recent push to oppose a law allowing Sept. 11 victims’ families to sue the ultraconservative Muslim nation in U.S. courts . Its lobbying firms have been putting out memos on Qatar.

Meanwhile, an organization called the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee launched an online campaign called the Qatar Insider highlighting material critical of Doha. The committee also paid $138,000 to air an anti-Qatar attack ad on a local Washington television station, according to the Qatar-funded satellite news network Al-Jazeera.

“Our aim is to show the American people that Qatar has been employing a foreign policy that harms its neighbors and contributes to regional instability,” said Reem Daffa, the executive director of the committee, known by the acronym SAPRAC.

But while Daffa said SAPRAC does no lobbying, it has registered as a lobbying firm with Congress and tweeted a Qatar attack ad at Trump . It also has not filed paperwork with the Justice Department despite the committee being listed as entirely owned by a Saudi national .

The Foreign Agents Registration Act, first put in place over concerns about Nazi propagandists operating in the U.S. ahead of World War II, requires those working on behalf of other countries or their citizens to file regular reports to the Justice Department.

There aren’t similar rules in Britain, though the crisis recently could be seen on the streets of London. Pro-Qatar ads appeared on the city’s famous black taxis, bearing the message: “Lift the Blockade Against the People of Qatar.” Al-Jazeera Arabic even did a story about them.

But whether any of it will sway policy makers remains unclear.

“The prevailing view is that there are no perfect allies,” recently wrote Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. “So whatever money the Gulf countries are spending in Washington, they should know it is not very well spent.”

It is Qatar Again and Again

Posted on July 26, 2017July 26, 2017 by Denise Simon

Back it 2014, this site attempted to sound the alarm on Qatar. So, it is coming out of the shadows again and causing huge diplomatic chaos domestically and throughout the Middle East.

Related reading: The al Jazeera bin Ladin Dossier

Related reading: The chairman of the channel is Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani. Barack Obama hosted him at the White House.

Additionally, Obama attended a West Point Academy graduation, where al Thani’s son was graduating, the very same weekend that the Taliban 5 were swapped for Bowe Bergdahl. Side note: the largest U.S. military base outside the country is in Qatar.

(Merci à Guizmo – Copyright photos Qna)

AEI: As the current crisis between Qatar and many moderate Arab states approaches its second month, one of the key complaints which the anti-Qatar coalition has voiced is about Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel which was once the most watched Arabic station. Al Jazeera and its supporters argue that the station’s hard-hitting reporting is simply the manifestation of press freedom in a region sorely lacking it. Al Jazeera’s detractors, however, say it is an engine of extremism which fans the flames of terrorism and actively seeks to destabilize regional states.

Al Jazeera runs several different channels. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain object to Al Jazeera in Arabic which promotes the Muslim Brotherhood line and often seems to cross the line between news reporting and incitement. According to a State Department cable describing conversations between Qatari authorities and US diplomats, Qatar acknowledged that policy role and “leverage” which Al Jazeera represented for the Qatari state. The US military had significant experience with Al Jazeera Arabic in Iraq. It was not uncommon for an anonymous tip to direct US soldiers to an insurgent den which was empty of insurgents but rigged with explosives. When American forces would arrive on the scene, they would find Al Jazeera cameramen nearby and on neighboring rooftops, waiting to film the ambush.

Al Jazeera English is more familiar to many in Europe and the United States, but it would be wrong to assume the content between the two channels is equivalent. The English-language Al Jazeera launders the image of its Arabic sibling. Al Jazeera English, for example, dedicates far greater time to minorities, social issues, and women. Al Jazeera’s experiment with a separate American channel, meanwhile, sputtered and died.

If Al Jazeera English isn’t Qatar’s main means to influence the Western media environment beyond serving to obfuscate the truth about Al Jazeera, then, what is? Here, Middle East Eye (MEE) — an increasingly prominent web portal — often obscures its finances, but it increasingly fills the gap as Qatar’s chief agent of influence. Groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International incorporate MEE stories, as do newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Delving into the details of MEE, however, show that it acts far less as a traditional journalistic outlet and far more as an English-language front for Qatari-supported groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. British corporate records, for example, show that Jamal Awn Jamal Bessasso, a former official for both Al Jazeera in Qatar and the Hamas-affiliated al-Quds TV in Lebanon, owns and operates MEE through M.E.E. Ltd. A CV for Jamal Bessasso, since scrubbed from the internet, shows previous stints as director of planning and human resources for the Al Jazeera satellite network in Qatar and director of Human Resources for the Samalink Television Production Company in Lebanon. Samalink is the registered agent for Al Quds TV’s website. While David Hearst, MEE editor-in-chief, told the United Arab Emirates’ The National paper that Bessasso was “a colleague and the head of human resources and the legal director,” he denied that Bessasso was the MEE owner, despite his listings on corporate records. Neither Hearst, former news editor Rori Donaghy (in a tweet now deleted), nor other MEE employees, however, would identify who owned MEE if not Bessasso.

There are other links between MEE and Al Jazeera. Jonathan Powell, an Al Jazeera employee in charge of special projects in the chairman’s office and close associate of former Al-Jazeera Media Network chief Wadah Khanfar, acknowledged serving as launch consultant for MEE in an earlier version of his Linkedin profile (which he altered after an Emirati newspaper highlighted his role). Arwa Ibrahim and Jacob Powell also transitioned from Al Jazeera to work as MEE news editors, and Graeme Baker and Larry Johnson moved from Al Jazeera to MEE to become senior editors. At the very least, it appears that MEE recruited heavily from Al Jazeera.

The Hamas links run as deep. A former official of Interpal, a United Kingdom-based charity designated by the US Treasury Department as a financial supporter of Hamas, registered the Middle East Eye website. Prior to joining MEE, Donaghy worked for organizations founded by Hamas (such as the House of Wisdom in Gaza) and the Muslim Brotherhood (Emirates Center for Human Rights, which was set up with financing and assistance from the Cordoba Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood entity).

Bessasso, meanwhile, has openly supported radical groups. In 2012, he shared a Facebook post praising Hamas. The following year, he shared a quote from Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yusuf Qaradawi encouraging followers to utilize “violence against those who deserve it.” Over the years, the MEE has bolstered its content with “exclusive” access to Hamas, seemingly acting as the terrorist group’s preferred outlet to the English-speaking world. Hearst has penned editorials praising and defending the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam.

Long ago, political radicals and terrorists discovered that — so long as they called themselves human rights activists — journalists, other human rights activists, and even diplomats would accept their polemics at face value. It seems that the Qatari government and its Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood networks have discovered the same principle applies to news outlets and portals. Al Jazeera may be the most prominent example, but it seems that Al Jazeera’s managers now seek to seed other networks as well, and that Qatari funds mandate an agenda.