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Inside the Terrorist-Connected Michigan Conference Where Rashida Tlaib Spoke
US Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), left, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) listen during a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, July 18, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
An anti-Israel conference that featured US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) as a surprise speaker over the weekend has extensive links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a widely designated terrorist organization.
The gathering, titled “The People’s Conference for Palestine,” shared video endorsements from PFLP founding member Salah Salah and PFLP member Wisam Rafeedie. The terrorists leader urged Arab Americans to attend the conference and “expose” Israel as a “racist” entity.
“This is an initiative of extreme importance,” Salah said. “I call on members of the Palestinian and Arab communities and friends and supporters of our cause to participate in this People’s Conference, to assert their stance with full boldness, bravery, and honesty, and to expose the heinous crimes and massacres that the Zionist forces are committing in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem with the full backing of the United States.”
“It is a racist vitriol that offers a new model to Nazism, targeting children, the elderly, and the sick and destroying public facilities, particularly hospitals and schools,” Salah added.
Rafeedie also endorsed the conference as an opportunity to “expose the Zionist project and its methods of genocide against our people.”
Speaking directly to the conference via video stream, Rafeedie stated that Hamas, the terrorist group that launched the war in Gaza on Oct. 7 by slaughtering 1,200 people in southern Israel, is a resistance force acting on behalf of the interests of the Palestinian people.
“This is not a struggle between Hamas and Israel. Hamas is part of the resistance of the Palestinian people. The core issue is between the Palestinian people and the project of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing,” Rafeedie said.
Rafeedie also lambasted “Zionists” and called for the replacement of Israel with a “democratic” Palestine.
“These Zionists lie like they breathe,” Rafeedie said. “I want to assure everyone that there is no longer a place for a two-state solution for any Palestinian. The only solution is one democratic Palestinian land which will end the Zionist project in Palestine.”
Several speakers applauded Hamas’ terrorist actions against Israel. They also seemingly praised Hamas’ construction of terror tunnels beneath Gazan infrastructure, an act that, according to warfare experts, intentionally endangers Palestinian civilians during military conflict with Israel.
“We also want to take a moment to honor our brave and noble resistance that defends our people from beneath the ground,” Palestinian Youth Movement member Mohammed Nabulsi said during a speech.
“In all its forms, resistance is our right and our way,” added Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian information minister who defended Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.
Palestinian writer Abdaljawad Omar voiced support for the Palestine Liberation Organization and praised multiple deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
“Without the PLO, Palestinian identity would have been erased. Without the first and second intifadas, Israel would not have withdrawn from Gaza and besieged it from the outside and Oct. 7 and the promise of liberation it holds would not have manifested in our conference today,” he said.
Thousands of anti-Israel activists descended upon Detroit, Michigan from Friday through Sunday to discuss strategies on how to dismantle the Jewish state. The event, which was organized by The People’s Forum and National Students for Justice in Palestine — anti-Israel and anti-US organizations — suggested that Israel and the US are guilty of perpetrating “genocide.”
“All backers of Zionism, Israel, and US imperialism have been put on notice. The perpetrators of genocide and occupation have names and faces, and the masses of people around the world stand against them in the millions,” the group wrote on its website.
Tlaib, one of the most vocal anti-Israel voices in the US Congress, similarly accused Israel of genocide and lambasted US President Joe Biden for supporting the Jewish state, calling on voters not to support him in November’s presidential election.
“It is disgraceful that the Biden administration and my colleagues in Congress continue to smear [anti-Israel students on college campuses] for protesting to save lives — no matter their faith or ethnicity. It is cowardly. But we’re not going to forget in November, are we?” Tlaib said.
The post Inside the Terrorist-Connected Michigan Conference Where Rashida Tlaib Spoke first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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