State Department designates son of Hizballah’s Nasrallah as a terrorist
The U.S. Department of State has designated Jawad Nasrallah and Al-Mujahidin Brigades (AMB) as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) under Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224, which imposes sanctions on foreign persons who have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.
Tuesday’s designations seek to deny Nasrallah and AMB the resources to plan and carry out terrorist attacks. Among other consequences, all of their property and interests subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them.
The Department of State has also reviewed and maintained the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of Hizballah, which was originally designated as an FTO in 1997 and as an SDGT in 2001. It is a crime to knowingly provide, or to attempt or conspire to provide, material support or resources to FTOs.
Tuesday’s actions maintain the momentum of the Administration’s snapback sanctions on Iran. Together with this Administration’s unprecedented campaign of targeted designations, these are the toughest sanctions that have ever been imposed on the Iranian regime. They are designed to deprive the regime of vital revenue it uses to conduct terrorism and support terrorist groups around the world, to include Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, Kata’ib Hizballah, and the Taliban.
Jawad Nasrallah is the son of Hizballah’s leader and SDGT Hassan Nasrallah, as well as a rising leader of Hizballah. Jawad Nasrallah has previously recruited individuals to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel in the West Bank. In January 2016, he tried to activate a suicide bombing and shooting cell based in the West Bank, but the Israeli government arrested the five Palestinians he recruited to the cell.
AMB is a military organization that has operated in the Palestinian Territories since 2005 and whose members have plotted a number of attacks against Israeli targets. AMB has ties to Hizballah, and Hizballah has provided funding and military training to AMB members.
Tuesday’ss actions notify the U.S. public and the international community that Jawad Nasrallah and AMB have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism. Designations of terrorist individuals and groups expose and isolate them, and deny them access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, designations can assist the law enforcement actions of other U.S. agencies and governments. – From U.S. State Department
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State Department offers rewards for information leading to capture of three terrorists
The U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program is offering rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the identification or location of Hamas leader Salih al-Aruri and Lebanese Hizballah leaders Khalil Yusif Mahmoud Harb and Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’i.
Salih al-Aruri is a deputy of the political bureau of the terrorist organization Hamas and one of the founders of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing. Aruri is currently living freely in Lebanon, where he reportedly is working with Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. Aruri funded and directed Hamas military operations in the West Bank and has been linked to several terrorist attacks, hijackings, and kidnappings. In 2014, al-Aruri announced Hamas’s responsibility for the June 12, 2014 terrorist attack that kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, including dual U.S. –Israeli citizen Naftali Fraenkel. He publicly praised the murders as a “heroic operation.” In September 2015, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated al-Aruri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) pursuant to Executive Order 13224.
Khalil Yusif Mahmoud Harb is a close adviser to Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Hizballah terrorist group, and has served as the group’s chief military liaison to Iran and to Palestinian terrorist organizations. Harb has commanded and supervised Lebanese Hizballah’s military operations in the Palestinian territories and in several countries throughout the Middle East. In August 2013, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Harb as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to Executive Order 13224. In May 2015, Saudi officials designated Harb as a terrorist and accused him of commanding Hizballah’s “central military unit” and of being responsible for Hizballah’s activities in Yemen.
Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’i is a key Hizballah military leader who has commanded Hizballah’s special forces in both Syria and Yemen. Tabataba’i’s actions in Syria and Yemen are part of a larger Hizballah effort to provide training, materiel, and personnel in support of its destabilizing regional activities. In October 2016, the Department of State designated Tabataba’i as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to Executive Order 13224. – From U.S. State Department
Hamas and Hizballah receive weapons, training, and funding from Iran, which the Secretary of State has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Department of State designated both Hamas and Hizballah as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) in October 1997, under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and as Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entities in October 2001 under Executive Order 13224.
More information about these reward offers is located on the Rewards for Justice website at www.rewardsforjustice.net. We encourage anyone with information on these individuals to contact the Rewards for Justice office via the website, e-mail (info@rewardsforjustice.net), phone (1-800-877-3927 in North America), or mail (Rewards for Justice, Washington, D.C., 20520-0303, USA). Individuals may also contact the Regional Security Officer at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. All information will be kept strictly confidential.
The Rewards for Justice program is administered by the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service. Since its inception in 1984, the program has paid in excess of $145 million to more than 90 people who provided actionable information that helped bring terrorists to justice or prevented acts of international terrorism worldwide. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Rewards4Justice.
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Vice President Mike Pence to address Israeli-American Council
The Israeli-American Council (IAC) announced today that Vice President Mike Pence will speak at the Fifth Annual IAC National Conference, which will take place from November 29 to December 2, 2018, at the Diplomat Beach Resort just north of Miami.
Vice President Pence will deliver a keynote address on the afternoon of Friday November 30th, joining a lineup of high-profile presenters from Israel and America, including Congressional Democrats and Republicans, Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Nachman Shai of Israel’s Zionist Union Party, Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Isaac Herzog, Israel’s U.S. Ambassador Ron Dermer, Israel Prize Winner Miriam Peretz, and philanthropists Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson as well as Haim Saban.
“The Israeli-American Council is thrilled and honored to host Vice President Mike Pence at our signature annual national conference. The keynote address by the Vice President elevates our movement to new heights and represents a historic moment for our rapidly growing nationwide pro-Israel community,” said IAC Co-Founder and Chairman Adam Milstein.
“Just one month after the deadliest attack on the American Jewish community in history, the IAC National Conference will provide a powerful display of unity and activism. More than 3,000 Israeli-American and Jewish-Americans will show the strength of our community, while discussing vital issues like escalating our fight against hate and anti-Semitism, strengthening the bond between Israel and the Jewish people, and building cutting-edge and dynamic community for future generations,” said IAC Co-Founder and CEO Shoham Nicolet. – From Israeli-American Council
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69 organizations want Education Department funds denied to BDS groups
Sixty-nine organizations wrote to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday demanding guarantees that taxpayer dollars will not be used to implement an academic boycott of Israel.
Two events hosted last month by departments at New York University (NYU) and the University of Michigan (U-M) to encourage and defend the right of faculty to implement an academic boycott of Israel are what prompted the groups’ concern. The U-M event was a direct response to disciplinary action against two faculty members who refused to write letters of recommendation for students wishing to study in Israel. The NYU event was explicitly intended to support faculty members’ right to implement an academic boycott of Israel at NYU and elsewhere.
The Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at U-M and the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at NYU, which hosted the events, are Department of Education-designated Middle East Studies National Resource Centers (NRCs). NRCs receive millions of taxpayer dollars to specifically “promote access to research and training overseas, including through linkages with overseas institution.” They were established by Title VI of the Higher Education Act in order to equip university students and faculty with a full and unbiased understanding of regions and countries vital to U.S. security.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, however, which the U-M and NYU directors, as well as several other NRC directors and many NRC-affiliated faculty have endorsed, urges faculty to shut down study abroad programs in Israel; refuse to write letters of recommendation for students who wish to study in Israel; scuttle colleagues’ research collaborations with Israeli universities and scholars; and cancel or shutdown student- and faculty-organized education activities about Israel or featuring Israeli scholars or leaders. All of these boycott-compliant activities directly subvert the purpose for which these Centers received federal funding.
An academic boycott “seeks to deny access to research, training and education in and about the targeted country, and to break linkages with the targeted country’s educational institutions,” noted the concerned groups, in the letter organized by AMCHA Initiative. “And while faculty members certainly have the right to express support for BDS, including an academic boycott of Israel, were these NRC directors or any of their fellow faculty to implement the academic boycott at their centers, in such a way as to restrict or limit the academic opportunities of their students or colleagues, their behavior would contravene the explicitly stated purpose of their federal funding.”
The organizations argued, “No area studies program should receive federal funding if its director or faculty members engage in behavior that thwarts the very purpose of that funding.” They called on the Department of Education to (1) “issue a statement warning NRC directors and affiliated faculty that implementing an academic boycott of one of the countries in the NRC’s purview would be a direct subversion of the stated purpose of the Title VI funding” and (2) require NRC directors to “sign a statement affirming that neither they nor any of their program’s affiliated faculty will, as part of their academic responsibilities, implement an academic boycott of any of the countries within the purview of their program in such a way as to restrict or limit the academic opportunities of their students or colleagues.” – From AMCHA Initiative
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