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Brazil Deports Hamas Operative, Family After Being Alerted by US
Palestinian fighters from the armed wing of Hamas take part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Brazil has deported a Palestinian man and his family after Brazilian federal police were alerted by the United States that a “Hamas operative” was traveling to the South American country, Brazilian authorities said on Monday.
Muslim Abuumar along with his pregnant wife, son, and mother-in-law, were detained on Friday entering the country at Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos airport and put on a Qatar Airways flight back to Doha two days later, police sources told Reuters.
“The request came from the US Department of State,” a senior federal police officer said. “It was proven before a judge that [Abuumar] was deeply involved with Hamas,” he said.
A federal judge in Sao Paulo stopped the deportation on Saturday to request information from the police, which when provided led her to approve deporting Abuumar and his family.
Judge Milenna da Cunha, in her decision seen by Reuters, said Brazilian federal police received an alert via the US embassy that “a Hamas operative, Muslim Abuumar” would be arriving in Brazil from Kuala Lumpur.
According to an injunction filed by Abuumar’s lawyer, Bruno Henrique de Moura, the Palestinian family was detained by police on entry at Guarulhos airport without a warrant. It said they were coming to visit his brother who lives in Brazil.
Brazilian police sources, however, said Abuumar was not coming for a visit but to stay in Brazil and become a spokesman for Hamas. Once source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the large amount of luggage he brought with his family showed he was planning to stay longer.
Abuumar, 37, is executive director of the Asia Middle East Center, and his wife is Malaysian and his children Malaysian-born, the injunction filed by his lawyer said.
A police source said Abuumar had first flown to Brazil last year, arriving on Jan. 1, the day leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn into office for a new term.
Lula defends a two-state solution for the Palestinian conflict and has condemned the Israeli military response in Gaza to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The Palestine Liberation Organization has had a representative in Brasilia since Brazil recognized Palestinian statehood in 1975, and Lula’s government allowed a Palestinian embassy to be built in the Brazilian capital in 2010 at the end of his second term as president.
Palestinian ambassador in Brasilia, Ibrahim Al Zeben, said nobody officially contacted the embassy about Abuumar. “We trust Brazilian policy,” he said.
Moura said Brazilian police “simply agreed to a US request that was politically-motivated” and based on Abuumar’s name appearing on the US government’s terrorist watch list.
“The United States uses this list to make life difficult for pro-Palestinian activists,” Moura said.
Judge Cunha in her ruling approving the deportation cited Abuumar’s social media postings of him meeting in Doha with Ismail Haniyeh, a chief political leader of Hamas.
The post Brazil Deports Hamas Operative, Family After Being Alerted by US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
The post Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.