The Terrorist among us. Know your Enemy on Domestic Terrorism. Isn't a Hispanic or Latino.




Why the Vigilantes Tomas (Tom) Tancredo, Louis (Lou)Dobbs, Esteban (Steve) King stereotyping and blaming Hispanics, Latinos as a Terrorists? That's Just ashamed...

MAN INVOLVED IN DOMESTIC TERRORISM PLOT TARGETING MILITARY AND JEWISH FACILITIES SENTENCED TO 22 YEARS

SANTA ANA, Calif.—A former inmate in a California state prison who became part of a domestic terrorist cell that planned to attack United States military operations, “infidels,” and Israeli and Jewish facilities in the Los Angeles area was sentenced this morning to 22 years in federal prison.

Levar Washington, 30, who was recruited into the terrorist cell while in state prison and subsequently recruited others into the plot, was sentenced this morning by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney. Washington pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to wage war against the United States and a weapons charge.

Two other defendants in the case—Kevin James, who formed the terrorist group which he dubbed Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS, while in a California state prison, and Gregory Patterson—also pleaded guilty last year to the terrorism conspiracy charge. Patterson is scheduled to be sentenced on July 9, and James is scheduled to be sentenced on February 9, 2009.

In plea agreements filed in federal court, James, Washington and Patterson admitted that they conspired “to levy war against the government of the United States through terrorism, and to oppose by force the authority of the United States government.”

The fourth member of JIS named in an indictment—Hammad Samana—has been found unfit to stand trial and is currently receiving psychiatric care at a federal prison facility.

“The JIS terrorist group posed a significant threat of violent action against a variety of targets,” said United States Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien. “Through the fine work of members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, potentially deadly attacks were averted. Now, one of the members of this terrorism cell will not pose a danger to the United States for nearly a quarter century.”

Salvador Hernandez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, stated: "This case reminds us that Los Angeles is an attractive target for homegrown or radicalized terrorists, as well as state-sponsored terrorists. Los Angeles was spared a potentially devastating attack because of excellent police work and a cohesive team effort by JTTF members. This case serves as an example of how local officers are serving in the front lines in the war on terrorism."

After forming JIS in 1997 while in state prison, James recruited Washington into the organization in late 2004 while both were prisoners at New Folsom Prison, where James had Washington swear an oath of loyalty and obedience to James and to JIS. After his release from prison several weeks after taking the JIS oath, Washington recruited Patterson and Samana into JIS and had them swear oaths of allegiance and obedience to JIS. After forming this cell, Washington and Patterson conducted about a dozen armed robberies of gas stations to obtain money for the group’s planned attacks in the Los Angeles area.

Samana researched targets and prepared a document called “Modes of Attack.” The document listed “LAX and Consulate of Zion,” “Military Targets,” “Army Recruiting centers throughout the county,” “Military base in Manhattan Beach” and “Campsite of Zion.”

After Torrance Police investigators linked Washinton and Patterson to a gas station robbery, various Jihadist documents were found at a South Los Angeles apartment where they lived. In addition to the “Modes of Attack” document, investigators discovered a document titled “Notoriety Moves,” which contained a James-authored statement to be given to the media after a deadly attack. The proposed press statement reads, in part, “This incident is the first in a series of incidents to come in a plight to defend and propagate traditional Islam in its purity.” The document also warns “sincere Muslims” to avoid a series of targets, including “Those Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of an Israeli state.”

The investigation into the terrorist conspiracy was led by the FBI's Long Beach Joint Terrorism Task Force, whose participating agencies include the Los Angeles Police Department; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Torrance Police Department; the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; the Long Beach Police Department; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Los Angeles Port Police; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service; the Defense Criminal Investigative Service; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and the Redondo Beach Police Department.

Substantial assistance during the investigation was provided by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Bureau of Investigations; the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; the California Department of Justice; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations; and the Department of Defense.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office worked collaboratively with the United States Attorney’s Office during the investigation

Jews second most targeted for hate crimes in Canada.


TORONTO — A survey of police-reported hate crimes released recently by Statistics Canada showed that in 2006, Jews were Canada’s most targeted group by religion and second only to blacks as the most victimized group overall.

Jews continue to be subjected to anti-Semitic vandalism

Of 220 hate crimes motivated by the victim’s religion, 137 were aimed at Jews, or almost 63%. Muslims were the next most affected religious group, with 46 incidents (21%) reported, followed by Catholics, who experienced 13 incidents (6%).

Overall, blacks were the most targeted group, whether considered on racial, ethnic, gender or religious bases. Some 238 hate events were reported involving blacks out of a total of 892 incidents. Blacks were victims in 27% of all occurrences, Jews in 15%.

The data were obtained from the Hate Crime Supplemental Survey, a study of hate crimes reported by police departments across Canada that cover 87 percent of Canada’s population. Statistics Canada reported that the number of hate crimes “accounted for less than one per cent of all criminal incidents reported to police.”

The study showed that half of all hate-motivated crime concerned property offences, while one-third involved violence. The highest rates of police-reported hate crime were in Calgary (9.1 per 100,000 residents), Kingston (8.5), Ottawa (6.6), London (5.9) and Toronto (5.5). “Hate crimes were most likely to involve young people, both as victims and accused persons,” the report stated.

“Most violent hate crimes are committed by strangers rather than persons known to victims. In 2006, 77 percent of victims of police-reported hate crime did not know their perpetrators, compared to 33 percent of victims of other violent crimes.”

The national hate-motivated crimes statistics parallel findings by the hate crimes unit of the Toronto Police Service. In its 2006 report, the unit found that Jews were the second most victimized group, behind blacks.

Twenty-eight of 162 incidents were aimed at Jews (17%), while 15 incidents (9%) targeted Muslims. Blacks were singled out in 30 per cent of occurrences.

Const. Wendy Drummond, a spokesperson for the Toronto Police, said the most recent data for 2007 again showed that Jews were the second most targeted group, behind blacks. Altogether, Jews were affected in 29 percent of incidents, while blacks were targeted in 33 per cent of events. Gays were next at 13 percent, followed by Muslims and Pakistanis at 9 percent each.

Police also recorded a “multi-bias” category – where the motivation involved more than one type of animus, such as a black and gay – in which Jews were the second-most-targeted group, she said.

Wendy Lampert, national director of community relations for Canadian Jewish Congress, said the findings are consistent with long-standing patterns.

“Historically, we have been targeted,” she said. “We really have to remain vigilant as a community and take appropriate measures to secure our facilities going forward.”

Air Force sued for Religious Intolerance.


A New Mexico man sued the Air Force on Thursday, claiming Air Force Academy senior officers and cadets illegally imposed Christianity on others at the school.

The suit was filed in federal court by Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and outspoken critic of the school's handling of religion.

Weinstein claims that evangelical Christians at the school have coerced attendance at religious services and prayers at official events, among other things.

There have been complaints at the academy that a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and that another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet. A banner in the football team's locker room read: "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/06/national/main919947.shtml?source=search_story

The Ha-Shoah the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European-Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler know is in Exhibition regarding the deportation of Jews opens in Berlin station.

An exhibition on the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps by train during World War II opened yesterday in a Berlin station after the national rail operator bowed to pressure and dropped its initial refusal to host it.
The exhibition traces the plight of, among others, 11,400 Jewish children who were deported from France to the Auschwitz death camp, often crammed together in cattle trucks, between 1942 and 1944.
It opened in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz station, four years after photographs and letters detailing the fate of the deported children were displayed in 18 railway stations in France.
State-owned rail operator Deutsche Bahn said the exhibition was meant to honour the memory of Holocaust victims and to reflect honestly on its own role in the abuses of the Third Reich.
The Nazi state paid Deutsche Bahn’s predecessor, the Reichsbahn, 25 Reichsmarks, the equivalent of 25 euros ($36), for each child it transported to the camp.
“No company should whitewash its past,” Deutsche Bahn chief Hartmut Mehdorn was quoted as saying recently. He did not attend the opening.
Susanne Kill, a historian employed by the company to research its history, said: “Without the Reichsbahn the systematic murder of millions of people would not have been possible.”
But the rail operator initially refused to give the go-ahead for the exhibition, saying its stations were not an appropriate venue.
“The subject is too serious. It deserves more than commuters’ divided attention as they run to catch their trains while gulping down a sandwich,” Mehdorn said in October 2006.
French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, whose foundation Sons and Daughters of Jews Deported from France has contributed to the exhibition, accused Deutsche Bahn of trying to disown a part of its past.
“We have noted with regret that the man whose predecessors transported millions of Jews to death camps has objected to an exhibition that would have drawn the attention of thousands of Germans to this tragedy,” he said.
German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee put pressure on Deutsche Bahn to relent, saying the exhibition deserved to be seen in the stations through which the deported children had passed more than 60 years ago.
“It was important to me that this exhibition should go ahead and expose the troubled past of the Reichsbahn,” Tiefensee said at the opening of the exhibition.
It will be at Potsdamer Platz until February 11 and will move on to at least eight other stations in Germany

Hispanic Community finding support in Jewish Community do to a lack of Political support.


Jewish community traditionally at the forefront of immigrant rights efforts has gone strangely mute as politicians fan public fury over illegal immigration. This week there were signs that is changing; the Anti-Defamation League issued a warning to the 2008 presidential candidates to cool their white-hot rhetoric on the issue.

But the ADL has been a lone voice; some critics say the timorous Jewish response is not commensurate with an anti-immigrant surge that could ultimately hurt all minorities – Jews included.

"What I fear is that on this issue, the Jewish community, which has taken such important principled stands in the past, has left some of those stands behind in favor of crasser politics,"

Maisel. "You don’t want to be on the side of an issue like this that is going to create enemies for you. And that’s very sad."

The same factors that have made illegal immigration an almost irresistible issue for candidates have made Jewish groups timid about speaking out, Maisel said.

Jewish leaders, he said, are as good at reading polls as politicians.

The anti-illegal immigration invective has reached new heights in key primary and caucus states such as Iowa, where surveys show the issue has risen to the top of voters’ agendas; analysts say it is only likely to increase as the election nears and candidates vie for red-meat issues.

It has been largely a Republican phenomenon as even candidates who have won praise from Jewish groups in the past for their immigration positions veer sharply to the right.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a long shot suddenly propelled into the top ranks of GOP contenders, once supported proposals to provide merit scholarships to some children of illegal immigrants. Now he is promoting what critics say is an impractical and harsh mass deportation proposal as part of his "Secure America Plan."

In a 2005 Boston Globe interview, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he favored programs that immigration critics say amount to "amnesty" for illegal immigrants already here, but in Iowa he is claiming Huckabee and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani are soft on the issue.

Giuliani — who as mayor "often defended illegal immigrants, ordering city workers not to deny them benefits and advocating measures to ease their path to citizenship," according to a New York Times report — is now touting proposals to impose tougher penalties on those here illegally and denying anything smacking of amnesty.

"What Giuliani is doing is despicable — catering to these interests, with the full knowledge that the city he once ran couldn’t operate without illegal immigrants," said Maisel.

One candidate, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), has made hostility to illegal immigration the centerpiece — some say the only piece — of his campaign. He is out for good know.

The Democrats mostly aren’t criticizing the intensifying anti-immigrant din, mostly out of fear of being caught on the wrong side of an issue that has politicians either joining the angry surge or scurrying for cover.

"All kinds of candidates are falling into this nasty immigration debate trap," said Hadar Susskind, Washington director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). "Instead of talking about the important things we can and should do on the issue, they are using this kind of rhetoric."

And that rhetorical escalation is "poisoning" the debate over other issues, he said.

Susskind said some lawmakers voted against expanded State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) funding, a top priority for a long list of Jewish groups this fall, "because of claims some of the money would go to illegal immigrants, which is not true. The rhetoric has been extremely damaging to our agenda."

The political agenda on immigration is being pushed, in part, by well-organized and financed advocacy groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) — which critics are saying are starting to sound more and more like classic American nativists. That is what led the Southern Poverty Law Center, a respected anti-extremist organization, to label FAIR a "hate group" earlier this month.

That blurring of the lines between classic hate groups, anti-immigration advocacy groups and mainstream politicians on the stump is a matter of deepening concern for Jewish leaders.

In October the ADL released a study claiming that some "mainstream" immigration advocacy groups, including FAIR, are "adopting the tactics and rhetoric of racist groups and moving it into the mainstream."

It added, "Like many other anti-immigrant groups, FAIR opposes legal immigration as well as illegal immigration."

At the same time, the ADL reported, classic hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have started echoing some of the themes of the more mainstream anti-immigrant organizations.

"The rhetoric of the hate groups is being brought into politics; the temperature is rising," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. "And you are seeing groups like the KKK taking the issue and riding it respectability," he said.

"I don’t think you have to scratch very deep to find xenophobia among the anti-immigration movement," said University of Florida political scientist Ken Wald. "This is at base a movement of cultural defense devoted to defending an imaginary Anglo-Saxon society."

He linked the surge to the nativist sentiment in the 1930s that helped keep the doors to sanctuary in the United States closed to European Jews – his own grandparents included.

Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society — a group at the forefront of the pro-immigration movement — said, "We are deeply concerned about the increase in anti-immigration rhetoric and the growing hatred that is seen in that rhetoric." The language and message of traditional hate groups is "infesting the national dialogue in a very serious way," he said.

This year’s failure of congressional efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which would have combined tougher border controls and enhanced enforcemenet with a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants already here, has encouraged politicians to play to public angst over the illegal immigration issue — and left Jewish groups, which had focused their efforts on national legislation, scrambling for new strategies, he said.

Jewish groups that have traditionally fought the immigration fight may have been less visible in recent months, Aronoff said, because they are shifting their focus to small local battles, and to narrowly focused skirmishes — such as the fight against a new Department of Homeland Security policy of staging dramatic raids against illegal immigrants in their homes and workplaces.

Jewish groups "have been active, but it’s harder to see because so much of the activity has been localized."

For now, local community councils and federations are at the forefront, not the national Jewish groups, he said.

Where Jewish groups have been less active, several observers say, is in openly challenging the politicians who have turned the election into a contest over who can be toughest on immigration. This week’s ADL warning to the presidential candidates represents the first real effort to tamp down the spiraling rhetoric.

And, like other Jewish groups worried about seeming too partisan, the ADL refrained from naming names.

"I think the Jewish community is ambivalent about speaking out forcefully" about politicians who play the anti-immigrant card, said Ken Wald, the University of Florida political scientist. Jewish organizations "simply don’t want to take sides in a partisan fight — unless it involves Israel."

"People are nervous about [angering] their political patrons, and sometimes their biggest donors, who are more conservative," said Daniel Sokatch, director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance in California.

And in the past, he said, Jewish leaders were more willing to wade into the immigration fight because they saw an immediate threat to Jewish interests.

"Now there’s a feeling that nativist anti-Semitism has been relegated to the David Duke-ish fringes," he said. "So it’s not seen as an immediate issue by some leaders."

The issue is taking on even more of a Jewish charge because groups like the Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR are waging an aggressive campaign to pry Jews away from their traditional support for progressive immigration policies.

Several activists noted that while concern about illegal immigration is high in the Jewish community, surveys show that most Jews reject the Draconian solutions suggested by the candidates who are beating the war drums on immigration

Jewish group bands with Latinos against discrimination.

Leaders of a national Jewish group say the hate being directed at Mexican immigrants resonates with their own experience. So they've taken up the cause and convened a series of meetings and workshops with immigrant and Mexican-American leaders, including some from North Texas.

Laura González, a Dallas college professor, and Jacobo Kupersztoch, a Dallas biologist, were among about three dozen Latinos from around the country who made the trek to Washington for sessions on organizing, fundraising and advocacy.

The American Jewish Committee co-sponsored the three-day workshop with Mexico's Institute for Mexicans Abroad, which includes an advisory council established by the country's Foreign Relations Ministry.

And immigration – an issue that has polarized the nation – took center stage."The whole immigration debate is not a Latino issue; it is an American issue," said Dina Siegel Vann, the director of the Latino and Latin America initiative at the American Jewish Committee.

Ms. Siegel Vann grew up in Mexico City – and was part of the small but active Jewish community of about 40,000 there.
"From a moral perspective, Jews feel that having successfully incorporated into the U.S., they now feel a responsibility to help other minorities," she said.

Beyond that, there are practical motivations, she said. The Jewish population is in decline in the U.S., she said, and now numbers about 5 million. The Hispanic population is growing and numbers 44 million.

"Both communities have a self-interest in building a coalition," she said. "The only way you can advance an agenda is through a coalition."

The American Jewish Committee has long been a strong supporter of immigration. Earlier this year, the AJC supported a broad plan to overhaul U.S. immigration laws. After the Senate failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, the AJC urged Congress to continue working on a "balanced and bipartisan bill."

"The Senate's failure to advance the immigration legislation only prolongs the national crisis in failing to deal humanely with the 12 million undocumented immigrants in our country," said Jeffrey Sinensky, AJC's director of domestic policy.

'Responsibility to lobby'

At the Washington meeting, workshops focused on everything from effective lobbying and letter-writing to the power of personal relationships to a point-by-point presentation on advocating on Capitol Hill.

"Script your meeting – practice speaking. ... Don't be afraid to show your passion, but don't let your passion overshadow your credibility," read one handout.

The group members met with legislative aides and with Rep. Howard Berman, a veteran Democratic legislator from Los Angeles who has supported measures to legalize immigrants who are in the U.S. unlawfully.

They also met with various leaders of the Jewish community in the Washington area, and with Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhán, whose grandfather immigrated to Mexico from Armenia.

"Now, more than ever, we must underscore a self-evident truth: Migrants are not a threat to the security of the U.S.," he said, according to a transcript of his remarks. "They are important actors in the fabric of what makes America great."

Mr. Kupersztoch said he identifies with the plight of illegal immigrants. "I was exposed to discrimination as a Jew in Mexico and exposed to discrimination as a Mexican in the U.S.," he said.

And he hopes to use what he learned to set up a network of people, possibly retirees, who can establish phone trees and e-mail trees to call on Congress, the state Legislature and municipalities when key issues arise.

The Jewish community is "so very organized, and I came away very positively impressed," he said. By comparison, he said, "we are not organized. The Latino community is not organized."

Another idea calls for developing training plans that would enhance the skills of the many blue-collar workers from Mexico in North Texas, he said.

Ms. González, who is active in the League of Women Voters of Dallas, said political advocacy was of keen interest.
"What we share with the Jewish community is discrimination," Ms. González said.

"They convinced us that it is not only our right and responsibility to lobby," she said. "We [as] U.S. citizens have the right to go and lobby for the issues that relate to our interests."

Mr. Kupersztoch and Ms. González both served on the first advisory board of Mexico's Foreign Relations Ministry from 2003 through 2005.

Praise and doubt

In North Texas, some immigrant leaders praised the AJC effort.

For years, some have discussed the merits of U.S. Latinos acting as a lobby on Mexican issues, just as U.S. Jews have done on behalf of Israel.

And for nearly as many years, Mexico's halting march toward democracy impeded such moves because Mexican-Americans wanted little association with the often-corrupt ruling party of Mexico.

But that political party rules no longer. And the current crackdown against Mexicans living illegally in the U.S. has served to galvanize many members of the community.

The Jewish people "have suffered much more than we have, and for that reason they are stronger than we are," said Jorge Navarrete, who served on the advisory board of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad. "That's why we need to take advantage of them as an example for ourselves. Hopefully, what these people [who've attended AJC seminars] learned will be shared with others."

Others question the AJC measure.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that wants restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration, said many times an organization's leadership doesn't represent the rank and file.

"Jewish opinion on immigration tends to probably be more sympathetic than the general population," said Mr. Mehlman, who is Jewish and co-founded the now-dormant American Jewish Immigration Policy Institute. "But it is not hugely out of step with the general population."

Mr. Mehlman noted that FAIR also helped form a group of Hispanics against illegal immigration and African-Americans against illegal immigration in 2006, as protests for immigrant rights swept through such U.S. cities as Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago.