June 9, 2009
JihadWatch.org
Jihadists as heroes. "Napolitano adds adviser with ties to terror backers: Swears in leader of Arab group that hailed jihadists as 'heroes,'" by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily, June 7:
JERUSALEM - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in to her official advisory council the head of an Arab American organization whose officials have labeled deadly anti-U.S. jihadists as "heroes" and opposed referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, also has close ties to anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, whose association with President Obama - first exposed by WND - stirred controversy during last year's presidential campaign.
The ADC also leads the opposition to domestic anti-terrorism measures taken after the 9-11 attacks, such as watch lists, background check delays for visas and an initiative meant to more comprehensively screen visitors from select Mideast countries or specific individuals labeled as possible national security threats.
Last week, Napolitano swore in Damascus-born Kareem Shora, the ADC's national executive director, to a position on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, an outside-the-department group of national security experts that advises the secretary. Shora is the first Arab rights advocate on the panel.
At the ceremony in Albequrque, Shora reportedly recounted how he watched with his immigrant father Obama's address last week to the Muslim world. Shora said his father cried when he heard Obama's message of reconciliation.
The ADC takes an openly anti-Israel line. Its official material has accused the Jewish state of "apartheid" and "atrocities" against the Palestinians. In 2006, a local ADC group drew up a petition calling on the U.S. to stop providing Israel with weapons.
Scores of senior ADC officials have expressed positive views toward terrorist organizations.
In 1994, during one of the main peaks of Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, then-ADC President Hamzi Moghrabi said, "I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable. ... I don't believe Hamas, as an organization, is a violent organization."
Discover the Networks notes that two years later, Moghrabi's successor, Hala Maksoud, defended the Hezbollah terrorist group.
"I find it shocking," Maksoud said, "that [one] would include Hezbollah in ... [an] inventory of Middle East 'terrorist' groups."
In 2000, new ADC President Hussein Ibish characterized Hezbollah as "a disciplined and responsible liberation force."
When Israel released Hezbollah prisoners in early 2004, Imad Hamad, ADC's Midwest Regional Director, openly celebrated the freedom of "the heroes."...
