Quick Takes: <i>News You May Have Missed</i>

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

By: Aaron Klein

Published: July 28th, 2010

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Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan paid a secret visit to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to discuss the threat of Iran, according to informed Arab security sources.

The security sources did not disclose specifics of the discussions except to say the topic was Iran, which is accused of building a nascent nuclear program.

Saudi Arabia does not maintain an open diplomatic relationship with Israel. But the Sunni Muslim country, together with Egypt, Jordan and other so-called moderate countries, is threatened by the growing influence of Iran, dominated by Shiite Islam.

There have been multiple reports of Saudi cooperation with Israel on the Iranian nuclear issue.

In 2009, it was reported Dagan met Saudi intelligence officials to gain assurances that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets violating Saudi airspace during any raid on Iran’s nuclear plans. Both governments denied the reports.

In recent weeks, Internet rumors claimed Israel dropped off military equipment in Saudi Arabia. Some unsubstantiated reports even claimed Israel was building a secret military base in Saudi Arabia for use in a future conflict with Iran. Those reports are inaccurate, according to Israeli military officials speaking to this column.

Still, Sunni Arab countries have not disguised their fear of a nuclear Iran. Earlier this month, the United Arab Emirates’s Washington ambassador publicly expressed support for a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

PA Prepares For Israel Strike On Iran

The Palestinian Authority has told its intelligence and security agencies to study the consequences of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, this column has learned.

The PA directed its intelligence agencies to prepare a study detailing the effect an Israeli strike on Iran would have on so-called Palestinian refugees in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, according to Palestinian security sources.

The sources said PA agencies also were told to prepare a security contingency plan for dealing with Iranian retaliation against Israel that would include Hamas and other Islamic groups launching attacks against Israel from both the Gaza Strip and the PA-patrolled West Bank.

“Among other things, the PA is studying how to get refugees out of Lebanon if Israel retaliates there against Hizbullah,” said one security source.

Israel has long feared that any strike on Iran would result in counterattacks against the Israeli home front by Iranian proxies, including Hizbullah in the north and Hamas in the south.

Obama’s ISNA Connection

A religion adviser to President Obama has close ties to a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas. The group, the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, has an extensive relationship with the Obama administration.

In February, Obama named a Chicago Muslim, Eboo Patel, to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Patel is the founder and executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, which claims to promote pluralism by teaming people of different faiths on service projects.

Patel is listed on ISNA’s official speakers bureauand has written columns for the Washington Post and Huffington Post that promote ISNA events.

From his own comments, Patel apparently is a member of ISNA. Upon the August 2007 election of the group’s president, Ingrid Mattson, Patel told USA Today, “I’m proud to have her elected as my president.”

Patel also served last year on a panel at ISNA’s annual convention in Washington, D.C.

ISNA relationship with the Obama administration began even before Obama took office. One week before last year’s presidential inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of ISNA’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of Obama’s transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an executive order ending “torture.”

ISNA President Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama’s inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event. Mattson also represented ISNA at Obama’s Ramadan dinner at the White House.

In June 2009, Obama senior aide Valerie Jarrett invited Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett leads.

One month later, the Justice Department sponsored an information booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.

Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA’s 46th annual convention. According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama’s outreach to Muslims.

In February, President Obama’s top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks he made in a speech to Muslim law students at New York University. The event was sponsored by ISNA.

The ISNA, meanwhile, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case

Discover the Networks notes ISNA, through its affiliate the North American Islamic Trust – a Saudi government-backed organization – reportedly holds the mortgages on 50 to 80 percent of all mosques in the U.S. and Canada.

ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students’ Association. The two groups are still partners.

This reporter previously attended an MSA event at which violence against the U.S. was urged by speakers.

ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document as one of the Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends” who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation, according to Discover the Networks.

Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.”

Also, ISNA has reportedly held fundraisers for terrorists. After Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense. The group also has condemned the U.S. government’s post-9/11 seizure of Hamas’s and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s financial assets.

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for Internet giant 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.

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About 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

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

PA Prepares For Israel Strike On Iran

Obama’s ISNA Connection

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