The White House is refusing to name the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
The group, which has been labeled terrorists by many governments throughout the Middle East, has been supported in the past by the Obama administration when they were controlling Egypt.
A petition on the White House website called for the administration to join other nations in designating the group terrorists. Over 213,000 signatures were obtained in a month. When a petition reaches 100,000, the administration claims they will respond within 30 days.
“[The] Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of violent killings & terrorizing opponents. Also, MB has direct ties with most terrorist groups like Hamas,” the petition reads. “A book by one of their prominent figures, Sayyid Qutb, called Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, is the bible for many terrorist groups.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood has shown in the past few days that it is willing to engage in violence and killing of innocent civilians in order to invoke fear in the hearts of its opponents. This is terrorism. We ask the US government to declare MB as a terrorist group for a safer future for all of us.”
The White House dismissed the petition in a short reply.
“We have not seen credible evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced its decades-long commitment to non-violence,” the White House stated.
Israeli leaders said Thursday they had foiled a plot to bomb the largest soccer stadium in Jerusalem by the terrorist group Hamas.
Shin Bet security service said that 30 members of the terror group has been arrested and many had received weapons and explosives training in Jordan and the Gaza Strip.
The statement from Shin Bet also said that Hamas leaders in Turkey planned the plot against Teddy soccer stadium and also against the city’s light railway system.
“We have no information about these Israeli claims … It is clear Israel wanted to create a new story to divert the world’s attention away from the escalation in Jerusalem,” Hamas said in a statement.
Israeli intelligence services and Defense Forces have stopped a number of Hamas plots in the last few weeks. Eleven Israelis have been killed in the last month because of Hamas terrorist attacks.
Four Palestinians connected to the terrorist group Hamas have been arrested in connection with a plot to assassinate Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Israeli’s Shin Bet security agency reported the men had been working to obtain an RPG and had designs to fire it at the minister’s car outside his home in Nokdim in the West Bank.
The assassination plot is the latest action in a series of terror actions against Israelis conducted by Hamas and Palestinians. Last week two Palestinian terrorists attacked Jews praying inside a synagogue, killing four and an officer that responded to the terrorist attack.
“We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were met by reprehensible murderers,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the time.
Hamas would not state they knew about the planned assassination but did not condemn it.
“We have no information about this issue. However, we stress that leaders of the Occupation who are responsible for the killing of children and women and for defiling the sacred sites are legitimate targets for the resistance,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters.
An Israeli police officer has died from injuries sustained during the terrorist attack Tuesday at a Jerusalem synagogue.
The terrorist group Hamas is claiming that the attack was revenge for the killing of a Palestinian bus driver on Sunday despite the fact it was proven by multiple sources the bus driver committed suicide.
Hamas dismissed all the evidence that Yussuf al-Ramuni killed himself and said the death had to be caused by Jewish settlers.
“I strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack on worshipers at a synagogue in Jerusalem, which killed four innocent people, including U.S. citizens Aryeh Kupinsky, Cary William Levine, and Mosheh Twersky, and injured several more,” Obama said in an official White House statement.
“There is and can be no justification for such attacks against innocent civilians. The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the victims and families of all those who were killed and injured in this horrific attack and in other recent violence.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on world leaders to finally end their excuses for Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis and condemn Mahmoud Abbas for inciting violence against innocent civilians.
Netanyahu pointed out that the Palestinian Authority has been routinely spreading false statements to incite anger toward Israel.
“Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the PA are spreading false rumors, saying we are defiling the Temple Mount, that we plan to destroy holy sites — those are all lies,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu noted the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack but noted that in the same statement also included false propaganda about the Israeli government.
“I urge all world leaders… I want to see shock, utter denunciation of terrorism, of the murder of Jews in their prayer shawls,” Netanyahu said.
For the second time in two weeks, a terrorist has driven a car into a crowd of civilians in Jerusalem.
Security sources say that Ibrahim al-Acri, an Arab man with connections to Hamas, drove a car into four people at a light rail station in eastern Jerusalem. He then drove a quarter mile further to strike ten more people before crashing his vehicle.
He leapt from his car with an iron rod to attack people but fled when police arrived. He was shot as he attempted to avoid police.
Rescue workers on the scene say at least one of the victims at Shimon HaTsadik light rail station is dead.
Hamas claimed credit for the attack according to a statement obtained by USA Radio News.
“We call on the people of Jerusalem and the West Bank and all of the Palestinians to carry out more of these activities with full force in order to defend al-Aska,” said the Hamas statement.
The leader of Boko Haram, who the Nigerian government claimed to have killed, has appeared in a new video that was posted to the social media site YouTube.
“Here I am, alive. I will only die the day Allah takes my breath,” Abubakar Shekau says in the video. “Nothing will kill me until my days are over. … I’m still alive. Some people asked you if Shekau has two souls. No, I have one soul, by Allah.”
The video showed Shekau in the back of a pickup truck where he says they are running their Islamic caliphate. The video also showed them killing a man accused of adultery and lashing a woman for having sex outside of marriage.
Boko Haram also confirmed their alignment with ISIS, essentially spreading the terrorist group from the Middle East into Africa.
The executive director of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans says that President Obama needs to stop focusing only on ISIS and realize that Islamic terrorism is spreading throughout the world.
“Obama will need to include other terrorist groups like Boko Haram, Hamas and Hezbollah,” Pastor Laolu Akande said.
In their first meeting since the 50-day Israel-Hamas war, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a cordial tone.
Netanyahu praised President Obama for his commitment to destroy the Islamic terrorist group ISIS and his willingness to stand with Israel against Islamic terror. Obama said that Israel was dealing with a “turbulent neighborhood.”
Obama said there needs to be new and different efforts to end violence in the region.
“We have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe … but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well,” Obama said.
Netanyahu also took time to praise Obama and the U.S. Congress for their support of more funding for the Iron Dome rocket defense system. The PM said the system saved “so many lives” during the conflict with Hamas.
However, the PM took a more aggressive tone when he said that further steps need to be taken to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called out the hypocrisy of world leaders in condemning and attacking the Islamic terrorist group ISIS while not seeing the similarities between ISIS and Hamas.
Netanyahu spoke to the general assembly of the United Nations on Monday.
“Last week, many of the countries represented here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS, and yet weeks before, some of these same countries, the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu laid out the similarities between the groups including their expressed desire to destroy the nation of Israel.
“As Hamas’ charter makes clear, Hamas’ immediate goal is to destroy Israel, but Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists, and that’s why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered in 9/11, and that’s why its leaders condemn the United States for killing Osama bin Laden whom they praised as a holy warrior,’ Netanyahu explained.
Netanyahu said that ISIS must be destroyed and that Israel will back the effort to eliminate the extremist group.
In what is likely an attempt to strengthen their hand before talks with Israel in October, Islamic groups in the Gaza strip have agreed to allow a unity government to take control of the region.
The ceasefire that had been struck in August between Israel and Hamas called for the Palestinian Authority to take over as civil administration for the region. The deal with Hamas and Fatah announced today in Cairo calls for the unity government to take over immediately.
The deal was brokered by Egyptian intelligence services.
“All civil servants will be paid by the unity government because they are all Palestinians and it is the government of all Palestinians,” said Azzam Ahmed of Fatah on Thursday.
The groups reportedly have agreed to eliminate “all the obstacles” to a national unity government. They will also negotiate with the UN and Israel over border crossing access.
However, in what might be a blow to potential talks, the leaders of the unity government said they want Israel tried for war crimes.