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By Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker

Approximately two weeks ago, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute published an article on the AEI website entitled “Lobbying for terrorists, more on the MEK”^[1], in which she takes to task several high profile advocates for the MEK based on her reading of the Washington Post article by Joby Warrick and Julie Tate, “High-priced advocacy raises questions for supporters of Iranian exile group”^[2]. Unfortunately, neither Pletka, nor Warrick and Tate bothered to do the necessary background research in order to present an accurate picture of the situation. The Warrick and Tate article is riddled with inaccuracies and they rely on an Iran “expert” who has been named as an agent of the Tehran regime—not exactly an unbiased and creditable source. By presenting a biased portrait of the MEK, all three writers skew the picture and present a warped portrait.

Warrick’s and Tate’s mistakes are lamentable in the case of a major newspaper not taking greater care to present an accurate picture; Pletka on the other hand should know better than to attack the high profile advocates of the MEK. She herself played the same role for the disgraced Iraqi Shiite conman Ahmad Chalabi[3], advocating passionately on his behalf in 2004 in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times[4] when things began to unravel for the Iranian agent[5]. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Had Pletka bothered to do some proper homework of her own, instead of relying on shoddy investigative reporting at the WP and disinformation being peddled by the State Department’s Iran Desk, she could have bothered to ask fellow AEI Senior Fellow Ambassador John R. Bolton about the group.

Unfortunately Ms. Pletka has been remiss on the subject of the MEK in the past as well. Thirteen months ago she wrote an article—“Lobbying for Terrorists”[6] on the AEI blog that cited a screed by Michael Rubin[7] and an alleged FBI report[8] that strangely is authorless and lacks an FBI file number, issues to which counter-terrorism expert and former 17-year veteran FBI Special Agent Richard Schoeberl draws attention in a reply[9] to Pletka’s 2011 article. Schoeberl writes: “I’ve seen the so-called ‘report’. I, myself, have written reports on terrorist organizations. And believe me, this amateurish collection of vague and unsubstantiated charges is no FBI ‘report’.”[10] Further into his reply, he writes: “This document could not have been prepared in November 2004…” and goes on to show that it is a poorly fabricated fake.[11] One would think that Pletka had learned her lesson from her poor scholarship and done the necessary homework, but apparently she wants to keep her position with the State Department, and the truth be damned.

Now one may ask whether Pletka is simply asking for the law concerning registration of foreign agents not to be flouted here—ostensibly that’s what her article is requesting. However, Pletka knows that the situation is a bit more complicated. Indeed, let’s take a look at a few points about the MEK’s terror designation and the record[12] of court review of the MEK’s status. Note the following:

• On June 1, 2012, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled[13] that the State Department’s delay in deciding the MEK’s delisting petition was “egregious”[14] and added[15] that if the State Department fails to make a decision, the court will unilaterally drop the terrorist designation itself.
• According to The Washington Post[16] another court order[17] in July 2010 asked the State Department to reconsider the MEK’s designation or produce credible evidence, “strongly suggesting” that the designation should be removed. To date, the State Department has delayed relisting the MEK for over 600 days due to a lack of a single piece of evidence.
• In 1997, a senior Clinton administration official candidly told the Los Angeles Times that “inclusion of the People’s Moujahedeen was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammad Khatami.”[18]
• In the past decade, two dozen rulings by French, English and European courts have said in one way or another that the MEK has no links to terrorism. Indeed, the French Investigative Magistrate ruled in May last year that the MEK’s actions against the Iranian regime were “resistance against tyranny.”[19]

The public appearance of former U.S. government officials as advocates for the human rights of the residents of Camps Ashraf and Liberty, calling upon the administration to abide by U.S. court rulings and side with a majority of the Members of Congress, is an act of conscience, an act of honor, and an act of sanity. It is an act of conscience as the 3400 members of the MEK at these two camps have all been threatened by the current Iraqi government that is taking orders from Tehran and which is permitting agents of the Iranian secret police to terrorize and oppress the MEK members in these two camps. It is an act of honor because these American officials have not forgotten the promise made to each one of the MEK residents of Ashraf and Liberty that they would be protected by the United States as certified protected persons under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a promise made in writing[20] in 2004. And it is an act of sanity as these brave and honorable Americans realize that the MEK is on our side in the war on terror, and the State Department unfortunately is continuing to try to appease our enemies in Tehran.

Ms. Pletka, were you registered as a foreign agent under the rules of the Foreign Agents Registration Act[21] when you lobbied the White House on behalf of Ahmad Chalabi? If not—and I seriously doubt that you were registered—what gives you the hutzpah to ask others to do so? Do your homework and dig deep enough, and you will realize that the MEK is made up of true Iranian patriots that prize liberty, democracy, and religious freedom for their country, and for all the nations of the world. The real terrorists are the mullahs of Iran. It’s the mullahs and their lobbyists inside the Beltway that should be targeted, not their sworn enemies.

Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker is founder and Chairman of the Board of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East, a grassroots organization dedicated to teaching the public and its elected officials of the need to promote genuine democratic institutions throughout the Middle-East region as an antidote to the dangers posed by Islamic fundamentalism. He may be contacted at contact@ADME.ws.

“… she said, the Jewish Federation  “cravenly submitted to Islamic supremacists who wanted to suppress free speech.”

An interfaith coalition of Jewish, Islamic and Christian groups expressed outrage Saturday over the federation allowing her to speak. “We are extremely shocked and alarmed to see a mainstream Jewish organization associating itself with one of the nation’s leading Islamophobes,”

Hours before the activist was set to give a lecture, the Jewish Federation cancels the event. She later speaks at a hall a few miles away.

By Rick Rojas, Los Angeles Times

June 25, 2012

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-geller-speech-20120625,0,1699316.story

Pamela Geller, the controversial author and activist, was set to deliver a lecture Sunday morning to the Zionist Organization of America that she had given many times before, billed by organizers as a revelation of the “root cause of war in the Middle East.”

But instead of taking her place before the few dozen people inside the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Geller and those who had come to see her milled around the sidewalk on Wilshire Boulevard. The Jewish Federation, just hours earlier, canceled the event.

Cancellations, just like death threats — “I have a huge file of death threats,” Geller says — are something of an occupational hazard, particularly after the Southern Poverty Law Center deemed her organization a hate group. Both Jewish and Islamic associations have condemned her as a “fear-monger.”

But in this instance, she said, the Jewish Federation “cravenly submitted to Islamic supremacists who wanted to suppress free speech.”

Officials with the federation declined to comment Sunday.

Continue reading at the LA Times

rick.rojas@latimes.com

Written by Mytheos Holt

WASHINGTON (AP/The Blaze) — The Supreme Court – the only legal authority with the power to directly interpret the United States constitution – has refused to hear an appeal challenging President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship and his eligibility to serve as commander in chief.

Without comment, the high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Alan Keyes, Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the challengers did not have legal standing to file the lawsuit. At the time, the Los Angeles Times reported that:

None of the “birthers” who filed suit on Inauguration Day 2009 can show that they suffered any harm from the Obama presidency that would give them the right to sue him, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in dismissing the lawsuit brought by dozens of opponents.

Even the political candidates who lost to Obama in 2008 would only have had standing to sue if they had filed their complaint alleging unfair competition from an ineligible candidate before the election, the 9th Circuit judges said.

Given that this decision was passed over without comment, one is safe in assuming that the US Supreme Court found nothing worth relitigating in the reasoning involved. There is also this crucially important point from the LA Times story:

The 9th Circuit judges noted at the hearing as well as in their ruling Thursday that aside from the plaintiffs’ lack of standing, the challenge of Obama‘s legitimacy to serve as president is a political question beyond any federal court’s power to decide. Only Congress can impeach a president, and any citizen petition for a common-law writ to initiate an inquiry into the legitimacy of the president would have to be brought through the federal court in Washington, D.C., the 9th Circuit panel noted.

In other words, given that the Supreme Court has declined to rule without comment, all Federal courts within the purview covered by the 9th Circuit Court are categorically barred from tackling this question.

Moreover, even if Federal courts were to declare President Obama ineligible to hold office, they would have no authority to enforce that ruling. Why? Because removal of a President from office (IE impeachment) is a power only enjoyed by Congress, pursuant to Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution says only “a natural born citizen” may serve as president. The challengers allege that Obama, whose father was Kenyan, was born in that African country, rather than in Hawaii. They claim his Hawaii birth certificate is a forgery.

However, not only have Hawaii officials have repeatedly verified Obama’s citizenship (Related: See Hawaii‘s Official Form Verifying They Have Obama’s Birth Certificate), but the website snopes.com, which is devoted to debunking urban legends, has done an exhaustive run-through of the various claims that the certificate is a forgery and debunked them all. These include the claims that parts of the document are anachronistic, that the hospital name is wrong, and that layering appears in the document when it is put into Adobe Illustrator. On this last point, the Snopes article links to an analysis by an actual expert at Adobe software, who had this to say, according to Fox News:

Read more at The Blaze.com