Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed
Latest update: May 15th, 2012
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Terrorists’ Memory Alive At Sports Tournament
The Palestinian Authority sponsored a sports tournament at a stadium named after a terrorist that featured four teams, each also named after prominent Palestinian terrorists and terrorist supporters.
The competition came days after President Obama ended a six-month freeze on aid to the PA, releasing $147 million to reportedly cover the costs of infrastructure, education, humanitarian aid and health projects for the Palestinians.
The official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reported on the sporting event in question, which saw the physical education department at Al-Quds University hold a competition for its scouts program. Reported the newspaper: “[The event] was held in cooperation with the university, and under the auspices and with the support of the [PLO's] Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, at the Martyr Salah Khalaf Center in Al-Fari’a, for 40 male and female scouts.”
Khalaf was a founder of the Black September terrorist group responsible for scores of deadly anti-Western and anti-Israel attacks, including the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes. Black September was also reportedly behind the murder of two American diplomats in Khartoum in 1973.
The Al-Hayat Al-Jadida report continued: “Participants were divided into four small groups, named for Martyrs: the Martyr Izz a-Din Al-Qassam group; the Martyr Abd Al-Rahim Mahmoud group; the Martyr Bajes Abu Atwan group; and the Martyr Dalal Mughrabi group.”
Al-Qassam was a Muslim preacher who led attacks against British, French, and Zionist organizations in the 1920s and 1930s. Hamas’s military wing is named after him. Mahmoud was a poet who composed the “Song of the Martyr.” Mughrabi led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history in 1978, when she and other terrorists hijacked a bus and killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children. Atwan was killed fighting Israel in the 1970’s.
Scores of official PA institutions, including schools, roads and sports teams, are named after Muhgrabi.
John Bolton: Talks With Hamas Inevitable If Obama Reelected
U.S. talks with Hamas are “almost inevitable” if President Obama is re-elected, John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, declared on WABC’s “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” this week.
“I think that’s almost inevitable,” Bolton said in response to a question about whether the former diplomat thinks the U.S. will engage Hamas during a second Obama term. Continued Bolton: “I think if you look at the record of the Obama administration in its first three years and the unrelenting pressure that they put on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority, that once freed from the prospect of ever having to face the voters again…I think it’s going to be Katy bar the door!”
Bolton, now a member of Mitt Romney’s campaign, said that since “many Europeans” already believe that Israel should negotiate with Hamas, the Obama administration “would come to the same conclusion.”
“I don’t know why, once any fear of political consequence is removed, why [the Obama administration] would be any different in that context then they have been in so many others,” he said.
Obama Official Doesn’t Recall His Own Writings
Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s “regulatory czar,” doesn’t “remember very well” a lengthy academic paper from 2008 in which he argued that the U.S. government should ban “conspiracy theorizing,” by, among other methods, sending agents to infiltrate websites, chat rooms and online social networks.
Among the beliefs Sunstein suggested banning was advocating that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.
When an activist earlier this week repeatedly challenged Sunstein on the 30-page Harvard Law paper, “Conspiracy Theories,” the White House official claimed, “I hope I didn’t say any of those things.” Sunstein, however, repeatedly refused to retract the controversial paper. The exchange was caught on camera.
Luke Rudkowski, founder of WeAreChange.org, confronted Sunstein about the paper at a New York question and answer session, asking him why he believes it is the government’s job to go after those who advocate such theories. Sunstein replied: “I think, as Ricky said, I have written hundreds of articles, and I remember some and not others. That one I don’t remember very well.”
Rudkowski, who identified himself as a student named Bill, persisted with his line of questioning, pointing out he’s asking “because you may be the next Supreme Court justice.”
Sunstein retorted, “All I can say is that there are a lot of things that I have written, I guess. And there are even more things I am said to have written. I may agree with some of the things I have written, but I’m not exactly sure.”
After Sunstein’s speech, Rudkowski approached him privately and asked whether Sunstein is now retracting his paper. “I don’t remember the article very well,” Sunstein said, still on camera. “So I hope I didn’t say any of those things.” Asked again whether he is retracting the paper, Sunstein replied, “I am focused on my job.”
This journalist was first to report on the 2008 paper. In it, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule, a Harvard law professor, ask, “What can government do about conspiracy theories?”
“We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.”
The paper argues that the best government response to “conspiracy theories” is “cognitive infiltration of extremist groups.” Government agents “might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”
A conspiracy theory is defined as “an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.” Among the “conspiracy theories” the paper recommends banning are:
● the CIA killed President John F. Kennedy
● a U.S. military missile caused the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800
● global warming is a deliberate fraud
● the Trilateral Commission is responsible for important movements of the international economy
● the moon landings were staged
● federal agents killed Martin Luther King Jr.
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 7-9 p.m. His website is KleinOnline.com.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York's 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m (CHANGE TO 7-9 p.m.). His website is KleinOnline.com
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