Profiles in Collaboration

Part II of the Series:

A Who’s Who of the „Free Muslims Board

In Part I of this series, we examined the activities of Jon „Yani“ Haigh, a longtime Queensland resident who operates and monitors a network of racist troll groups on Facebook, and Kamal Nawash (for whom Haigh provides a range of web design and programming services) of the „Free Muslim Coalition Against Terror“ , a group that advocates the political repression and surveillance of the US Arab and Muslim communities (related to the Facebook group „Free Muslims“). This, the second part of the series, examines some of the other shady characters who make up the „Free“ Muslims Coalition.

 

The board of the Free Muslims are exactly what you’d expect of a group with the stated purpose of putting a Muslim face on the plethora of repressive measures, human rights violations, and outright war crimes that make up the „war on terror“.

Particularly fitting is the presence on the Board of Ray Hanania, who began his career as a journo in Chicago, covering local and regional politics for the Sun-Times and other print, radio, and TV outlets. During this period, he also hosted call-in radio chatshows on WLS, and appeared regularly on Dick Kay’s City Desk on WMAQ-TV. In 1990, he served as a panellist at the Chicago mayoral debate, which resulted in yet another electoral victory for the Daley clan. Two years later, he delved headfirst into the world of Chicago machine politics, founding the Urban Strategies Group, a full-service PR agency whose clients include Mayor-For-Life Daley himself, various city agencies, aldermen, Democratic committeemen, and „three successful candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives“.

Hanania boasts particular expertise in „crisis management“ for „those with serious public relation [sic] challenges“. One imagines that such expertise was quite useful during his stint providing „basic media training“ to the propaganda agency of Israel’s „Palestinian Authority“. Nor could it have hurt when he was called upon by the U.S. State Department and U.S. „Information“ Agency to „provide media training sessions, meetings and presentations…to foreign media and government officials.“

The public sector propagandists in Washington appear to have been satisfied with his work, and invited him to participate in meetings with Clinton and Israeli and PA officials towards „strengthening the Oslo Peace Accords“, which gave legal cover to the apartheid system in the occupied West Bank and cemented the role of al-Fatah as a collaborator with the Zionist regime.

His „successful clients“ include Chicago alderman Bernard Stone, County Commissioners Maria Pappas and Allan Carr, Congressmen Danny K. Davis, Bobby Rush, the Hispanic Democratic Organization, Louis Gutierrez, Alderman Danny Solis, Democratic Central Committee member Iris Martinez, and an „independent slate“ in some Indiana local municipal election. His unsuccessful clients are not listed, though one imagines that his Fatah clients probably fell in that category no later than the 2006 election.

One of Hanania’s hobbies is bashing Palestinian and solidarity activists who expose and condemn Zionist crimes and call for a political solution in Israel/Palestine based on the principles of democracy and equality for the entire population, whether Israeli Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel, or Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian-American activist and journalist Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada has earned Hanania’s undying hatred for his adherence to the boycott/divestiture/sanctions campaign supported by a broad spectrum of Palestinian civil society groups, and his call for a single, democratic, secular state „from the river to the sea“.

Demonstrating the „damage control“ skills of which he boasts, Hanania describes Abunimah thusly:

 

Based at the University of Chicago, Abunimah is one of four founders of the online „Electronic Intifada,“ where Palestinian moderation is regularly browbeaten and defamed. Abunimah is also the author of the convoluted manifesto and the rejectionist’s bible titled One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Basically, the „one-state“ theory goes like this: If Palestinians will just refuse to compromise and to create two states, Israelis and Jews will simply give up so Palestinians can replace the Jewish homeland with an Islamic homeland.

             „Moderation“ here is to be understood in the standard sense of „obedience“. The rest of this description, like much of Hanania’s smearing of activists of integrity in the struggle for Palestinian freedom, is patently false, and makes any organisation that would include him on the board at best a questionable bedfellow for someone who, like Haigh, claims to support the Palestinian struggle.

Equally shonky is another member of the „Free“ Muslims Board, one Sheikh Ahmed Mansour.  An Egyptian native, Mansour sought and received political asylum in the US in 2002, and has found some interesting new friends since his arrival.

Mansour is on the board of „Americans for Peace and Tolerance„, which presents itself as

a Boston-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting peaceful coexistence in a ethnically diverse America by educating the American public about the need for a moderate political leadership that supports tolerance and core American values in communities across the nation.

   

         In April 2011, Mansour testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence to raise the alarm of a supposed fifth column of Arab and Muslim „extremists“, and to propose a wide-reaching programme of political surveillance and propaganda to counter Arab and Muslim opposition to US and US-sponsored Israeli policies in the region, which he describes as an „Online War of Ideas to defeat the terrorism and promote the American Image in the Muslim world„. Targets are not limited to Islamist groups, but also to:

 the fanatic secular sites. They are owned by communists and leftists and the Arab fanatic nationalists who are against America and Israel. There are some Arabic sites that are owned by ex- communists who become Muslim brothers. Their discourse is not pure religious but it is strong and very active in fabricating lies and rumors to tarnish the American image. (emphasis supplied)

Some might object here that one hardly needs to fabricate lies and rumours in order to „tarnish the American image“, since the blood-soaked record of worldwide US opposition to independence and democracy is more than enough to cause the odd blemish. The same people might also suggest that the best way to hammer out the dents in „the American image“ caused by these policies is to stop supporting mass murderers and refrain from slaughtering and torturing people.

Mansour, however, has a better idea. In his 2011 testimony, he proposed a wide-reaching propaganda network, which includes a „war of fatwas“, in which „moderate“ Muslim leaders counter religious teachings critical of the US by issuing counter-fatwas attacking religious figures critical of the US, as well as what he termed „Daily Guards Groups“:

 This group will search all the Arabic sites to defend America. Some of this team will comment on everything said about America to clear the American image. Other will write article to support the American policy. They will prove that the real enemy to the Arabs and Muslims are not the U.S and Israel. It is the local dictators and the fanatic Wahhabists and Muslim Brothers. They will also make a comparison between the American values and the Arabic Muslim dictators, and how the American Muslim Community enjoys the freedom of belief and speech in America while there is no freedom in the Muslim World. They also will prove to the Muslim World that the American values are the same original Islamic values of justice, freedom and tolerance and loving humanity. (emphasis supplied)

 

We can begin to understand how Mansour puts these „American values“ of „justice, freedom and tolerance and loving humanity“ into practice by having a look at the activities of his Boston-based group, „Americans for Peace and Tolerance„.

„Peace and Tolerance“ is headed by one Charles Jacobs, who co-founded the Boston branch of the „Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America“ (CAMERA) in 1989. CAMERA is a hardline „pro-Israel“ propaganda organisation dedicated to justifying and whitewashing US-sponsored Israeli crimes. The group still recommends Joan Peters‘ From Time Immemorial, a book that claims that there is no such thing as a Palestinian and that the Zionist forces‘ 1948 mass expulsion of them was therefore kosher, more than twenty years after the book was conclusively and publicly shown to be a complete fraud, based on falsified statistics and a literal rewriting of the historical record on which it claims to rely.

As I wrote last year, one of CAMERA’s current projects is popularising a falsification of an obscure 1920 document known as the San Remo Resolution in an effort to deny the reality of the illegal Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a hoax on which the Israeli Palmer Commission’s „report“ – which denies that the occupied Palestinian territory is in fact occupied – is substantially based.

When guys like this team up to promote „Peace and Tolerance“, it’s not hard to imagine what sort of group it actually is.

Mansour and Jacobs do not disappoint. On the „Peace and Tolerance“ website, the group boast of their successful opposition to a Newton, MA city council initiative offering to take in a released Algerian Guantánamo Bay victim by the name of Abdul Aziz Naji. Even the rigged „military commissions“ at the GITMO camp couldn’t find or manufacture any proof that Naji had ever picked up a weapon, but that didn’t matter to the „Peace and Tolerance“ mob, who organised a scare campaign based on Naji’s alleged political views.

            As a result of the „Peace and Tolerance“ initiative, Aziz, who had just spent eight years in the Guantánamo bay torture centre on no credible pretext, was deported to Algeria, despite evidence that he was highly likely to face (further) torture upon his arrival. He is now in an Algerian prison, having been convicted based on the same allegations that didn’t hold water even by the extremely elastic standards of the GITMO „court“.

This condemnation of an innocent torture victim to even further suffering, „Peace and Tolerance“ celebrate as a story of „people-power and grass-roots democracy in action“. In a clear demonstration of what the group’s name truly means, the report on the Newton,MA initiative on the group’s website closes by noting that „we are pressing the offending aldermen to apologize and undergo sensitivity training or face a campaign to recall them.“

There is, however, no better indication of the notion of „freedom of belief and speech“ supported by Mansour and his colleagues at „Peace and Tolerance“ than a look at the „Campaigns“ page of the group’s website. There, the only campaign to be found is a scare campaign against political prisoner Tarek Mehanna, a Massachusetts-born pharmacy school graduate. As Glenn Greenwald reports, „[h]e was found guilty of supporting Al Qaeda (by virtue of translating Terrorists’ documents into English and expressing “sympathetic views” to the group) as well as conspiring to “murder” U.S. soldiers in Iraq (i.e., to wage war against an invading army perpetrating an aggressive attack on a Muslim nation)“ This, according to the U.S. District Court, constituted „material support for terrorism“, entitling him to 17 years in federal prison. The statement Mehanna read to the court at his sentencing hearing ranks with Eugene V. Debs‘ statement  upon being convicted under the Espionage Act for giving an anti-war speech amongst the most important speeches ever delivered before a US court. It merits quotation in full:

Exactly four years ago this month I was finishing my work shift at a local hospital. As I was walking to my car I was approached by two federal agents. They said that I had a choice to make: I could do things the easy way, or I could do them the hard way. The “easy ” way, as they explained, was that I would become an informant for the government, and if I did so I would never see the inside of a courtroom or a prison cell. As for the hard way, this is it. Here I am, having spent the majority of the four years since then in a solitary cell the size of a small closet, in which I am locked down for 23 hours each day. The FBI and these prosecutors worked very hard-and the government spent millions of tax dollars – to put me in that cell, keep me there, put me on trial, and finally to have me stand here before you today to be sentenced to even more time in a cell.

In the weeks leading up to this moment, many people have offered suggestions as to what I should say to you. Some said I should plead for mercy in hopes of a light sentence, while others suggested I would be hit hard either way. But what I want to do is just talk about myself for a few minutes.

When I refused to become an informant, the government responded by charging me with the “crime” of supporting the mujahideen fighting the occupation of Muslim countries around the world. Or as they like to call them, “terrorists.” I wasn’t born in a Muslim country, though. I was born and raised right here in America and this angers many people: how is it that I can be an American and believe the things I believe, take the positions I take? Everything a man is exposed to in his environment becomes an ingredient that shapes his outlook, and I’m no different.  So, in more ways than one, it’s because of America that I am who I am.

When I was six, I began putting together a massive collection of comic books. Batman implanted a concept in my mind, introduced me to a paradigm as to how the world is set up: that there are oppressors, there are the oppressed, and there are those who step up to defend the oppressed. This resonated with me so much that throughout the rest of my childhood, I gravitated towards any book that reflected that paradigm – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I even saw an ethical dimension to The Catcher in the Rye.

By the time I began high school and took a real history class, I was learning just how real that paradigm is in the world. I learned about the Native Americans and what befell them at the hands of European settlers. I learned about how the descendents of those European settlers were in turn oppressed under the tyranny of King George III.

I read about Paul Revere, Tom Paine, and how Americans began an armed insurgency against British forces – an insurgency we now celebrate as the American revolutionary war. As a kid I even went on school field trips just blocks away from where we sit now. I learned about Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown, and the fight against slavery in this country. I learned about Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, and the struggles of the labor unions, working class, and poor. I learned about Anne Frank, the Nazis, and how they persecuted minorities and imprisoned dissidents. I learned about Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the civil rights struggle.

I learned about Ho Chi Minh, and how the Vietnamese fought for decades to liberate themselves from one invader after another. I learned about Nelson Mandela and the fight against apartheid inSouth Africa. Everything I learned in those years confirmed what I was beginning to learn when I was six: that throughout history, there has been a constant struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. With each struggle I learned about, I found myself consistently siding with the oppressed, and consistently respecting those who stepped up to defend them -regardless of nationality, regardless of religion. And I never threw my class notes away. As I stand here speaking, they are in a neat pile in my bedroom closet at home.

From all the historical figures I learned about, one stood out above the rest. I was impressed be many things about Malcolm X, but above all, I was fascinated by the idea of transformation, his transformation. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “X” by Spike Lee, it’s over three and a half hours long, and the Malcolm at the beginning is different from the Malcolm at the end. He starts off as an illiterate criminal, but ends up a husband, a father, a protective and eloquent leader for his people, a disciplined Muslim performing the Hajj in Makkah, and finally, a martyr. Malcolm’s life taught me that Islam is not something inherited; it’s not a culture or ethnicity. It’s a way of life, a state of mind anyone can choose no matter where they come from or how they were raised.

This led me to look deeper into Islam, and I was hooked. I was just a teenager, but Islam answered the question that the greatest scientific minds were clueless about, the question that drives the rich & famous to depression and suicide from being unable to answer: what is the purpose of life? Why do we exist in this Universe? But it also answered the question of how we’re supposed to exist. And since there’s no hierarchy or priesthood, I could directly and immediately begin digging into the texts of the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, to begin the journey of understanding what this was all about, the implications of Islam for me as a human being, as an individual, for the people around me, for the world; and the more I learned, the more I valued Islam like a piece of gold. This was when I was a teen, but even today, despite the pressures of the last few years, I stand here before you, and everyone else in this courtroom, as a very proud Muslim.

With that, my attention turned to what was happening to other Muslims in different parts of the world. And everywhere I looked, I saw the powers that be trying to destroy what I loved. I learned what the Soviets had done to the Muslims of Afghanistan. I learned what the Serbs had done to the Muslims of Bosnia. I learned what the Russians were doing to the Muslims of Chechnya. I learned what Israel had done in Lebanon– and what it continues to do in Palestine– with the full backing of the United States. And I learned what America itself was doing to Muslims. I learned about the Gulf War, and the depleted uranium bombs that killed thousands and caused cancer rates to skyrocket across Iraq.

I learned about the American-led sanctions that prevented food, medicine, and medical equipment from entering Iraq, and how – according to the United Nations – over half a million children perished as a result. I remember a clip from a ’60 Minutes‘ interview of Madeline Albright where she expressed her view that these dead children were “worth it.” I watched on September 11th as a group of people felt driven to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings from their outrage at the deaths of these children. I watched as America then attacked and invaded Iraq directly. I saw the effects of ’Shock & Awe’ in the opening day of the invasion – the children in hospital wards with shrapnel from American missiles sticking but of their foreheads (of course, none of this was shown on CNN).

I learned about the town of Haditha, where 24 Muslims – including a 76-year old man in a wheelchair, women, and even toddlers – were shot up and blown up in their bedclothes as the slept by US Marines. I learned about Abeer al-Janabi, a fourteen-year old Iraqi girl gang-raped by five American soldiers, who then shot her and her family in the head, then set fire to their corpses. I just want to point out, as you can see, Muslim women don’t even show their hair to unrelated men. So try to imagine this young girl from a conservative village with her dress torn off, being sexually assaulted by not one, not two, not three, not four, but five soldiers. Even today, as I sit in my jail cell, I read about the drone strikes which continue to kill Muslims daily in places likePakistan,Somalia, andYemen. Just last month, we all heard about the seventeen Afghan Muslims – mostly mothers and their kids – shot to death by an American soldier, who also set fire to their corpses.

These are just the stories that make it to the headlines, but one of the first concepts I learned in Islam is that of loyalty, of brotherhood – that each Muslim woman is my sister, each man is my brother, and together, we are one large body who must protect each other. In other words, I couldn’t see these things beings done to my brothers & sisters – including by America– and remain neutral. My sympathy for the oppressed continued, but was now more personal, as was my respect for those defending them.

I mentioned Paul Revere – when he went on his midnight ride, it was for the purpose of warning the people that the British were marching to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, then on to Concord to confiscate the weapons stored there by the Minuteman. By the time they got to Concord, they found the Minuteman waiting for them, weapons in hand. They fired at the British, fought them, and beat them. From that battle came the American Revolution. There’s an Arabic word to describe what those Minutemen did that day. That word is: JIHAD, and this is what my trial was about.

All those videos and translations and childish bickering over ‘Oh, he translated this paragraph’ and ‘Oh, he edited that sentence,’ and all those exhibits revolved around a single issue: Muslims who were defending themselves against American soldiers doing to them exactly what the British did toAmerica. It was made crystal clear at trial that I never, ever plotted to “kill Americans” at shopping malls or whatever the story was. The government’s own witnesses contradicted this claim, and we put expert after expert up on that stand, who spent hours dissecting my every written word, who explained my beliefs. Further, when I was free, the government sent an undercover agent to prod me into one of their little “terror plots,” but I refused to participate. Mysteriously, however, the jury never heard this.

So, this trial was not about my position on Muslims killing American civilians. It was about my position on Americans killing Muslim civilians, which is that Muslims should defend their lands from foreign invaders – Soviets, Americans, or Martians. This is what I believe. It’s what I’ve always believed, and what I will always believe. This is not terrorism, and it’s not extremism. It’s what the arrows on that seal above your head represent: defense of the homeland. So, I disagree with my lawyers when they say that you don’t have to agree with my beliefs – no. Anyone with commonsense and humanity has no choice but to agree with me. If someone breaks into your home to rob you and harm your family, logic dictates that you do whatever it takes to expel that invader from your home.

But when that home is a Muslim land, and that invader is the US military, for some reason the standards suddenly change. Common sense is renamed ”terrorism” and the people defending themselves against those who come to kill them from across the ocean become “the terrorists” who are ”killing Americans.” The mentality that America was victimized with when British soldiers walked these streets 2 ½ centuries ago is the same mentality Muslims are victimized by as American soldiers walk their streets today. It’s the mentality of colonialism.

When Sgt. Bales shot those Afghans to death last month, all of the focus in the media was on him-his life, his stress, his PTSD, the mortgage on his home-as if he was the victim. Very little sympathy was expressed for the people he actually killed, as if they’re not real, they’re not humans. Unfortunately, this mentality trickles down to everyone in society, whether or not they realize it. Even with my lawyers, it took nearly two years of discussing, explaining, and clarifying before they were finally able to think outside the box and at least ostensibly accept the logic in what I was saying. Two years! If it took that long for people so intelligent, whose job it is to defend me, to de-program themselves, then to throw me in front of a randomly selected jury under the premise that they’re my “impartial peers,” I mean, come on. I wasn’t tried before a jury of my peers because with the mentality grippingAmericatoday, I have no peers. Counting on this fact, the government prosecuted me – not because they needed to, but simply because they could.

I learned one more thing in history class:Americahas historically supported the most unjust policies against its minorities – practices that were even protected by the law – only to look back later and ask: ’what were we thinking?’ Slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese during World War II – each was widely accepted by American society, each was defended by the Supreme Court. But as time passed andAmericachanged, both people and courts looked back and asked ’What were we thinking?’ Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the South African government, and given a life sentence. But time passed, the world changed, they realized how oppressive their policies were, that it was not he who was the terrorist, and they released him from prison. He even became president. So, everything is subjective – even this whole business of “terrorism” and who is a “terrorist.” It all depends on the time and place and who the superpower happens to be at the moment.

In your eyes, I’m a terrorist, and it’s perfectly reasonable that I be standing here in an orange jumpsuit. But one day,Americawill change and people will recognize this day for what it is. They will look at how hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed and maimed by the US military in foreign countries, yet somehow I’m the one going to prison for “conspiring to kill and maim” in those countries – because I support the Mujahidin defending those people. They will look back on how the government spent millions of dollars to imprison me as a ”terrorist,” yet if we were to somehow bring Abeer al-Janabi back to life in the moment she was being gang-raped by your soldiers, to put her on that witness stand and ask her who the “terrorists” are, she sure wouldn’t be pointing at me.

The government says that I was obsessed with violence, obsessed with ”killing Americans.” But, as a Muslim living in these times, I can think of a lie no more ironic.

One might imagine that Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, who wishes to win over the hearts and minds of Muslims the world over by telling them „how the American Muslim Community enjoys the freedom of belief and speech in America while there is no freedom in the Muslim World“ would be appalled at this outcome, in which a painfully eloquent, US-born Muslim who never picked up a weapon in his life, was sentenced to nearly two decades in a maximum-security federal prison for speaking his mind. Surely, this would be a crushing blow to the message he and his colleagues seek to disseminate.

Mansour & Co. were indeed appalled – at those who protested in defence of Mehanna’s freedom of speech, or, as the „Peace and Tolerance“ website would have it:

 Pro-Mehanna activists harassed the U.S. Attorney’s office with persistent phone calls and sit-ins. They accused the Justice Department of racism and targeting of innocent Muslims. Mosques like the Islamic Center of Worcester and the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury, held events and fundraisers in Mehanna’s support.

[…]

 The guilty verdict against Mehanna is a welcome development and APT thanks the U.S. Attorney’s office for a skilled prosecution and for steadfastness in the face of extremist pressure.    (emphasis supplied)

 

On their „Campaigns“ page, „Peace and Tolerance“ are flogging a video about Mehanna called „The Boston Terror Plot“, seeking to link Mehanna to an imaginary terrorist plot for which he was never charged. This is particularly absurd, given that the only „terrorist plot“ Mehanna has been associated with is one for which a paid FBI informant tried to recruit him. Mehanna turned the offer down, preferring the pen to the sword[1].

Evidently, Free (read: „bought“) Muslims board member Mansour’s „Peace and Tolerance“ outfit has about as much to do with peace and tolerance as the National Endowment for Democracy has with democracy.

As it would happen, Mansour was in fact a fellow of the National Endowment for Democracy in 2002. The NED, for those unfamiliar with the organisation, is a US government „soft power“ front group, dedicated to what is euphemistically known as „civil society enhancement“ and „democracy promotion“. This consists of forming and funding organisations and political candidates in targeted countries who are compatible with US interests. The group was heavily involved in the 2002 military coup attempt in Venezuela, which ushered in the 48-hour dictatorship of businessman Pedro Carmona, as well as the successful 2009 coup against democratically elected Honduran president Manuel „Mel“ Zelaya, who had strayed too far from the Washington Consensus.

At this point, it is worth recalling Mansour’s testimony before the Intelligence Committee. There, he proposed that the US engage in a „war of ideas„, a propaganda war, against those critical of US and US-sponsored Israeli crimes, spying on their websites and spamming them with comments and posts extolling „American values“. For someone who, like Mansour, seeks to militarise public debate as a „war of ideas“, there is no more dangerous person than  someone who is sufficiently knowledgeable and articulate to express the outrage millions feel at the plague of torture, murder, and plunder visited on them by the United States, under the cynical pretext of bringing „freedom“.

Some may be thinking at this point that we’ve come rather far afield of where we started. Isn’t this series about Jon „Yani“ Haigh? What is any of this to do with him?

As we saw in Part I, and in the reporting published by Benjamin Doherty at Electronic Intifada, Haigh provides programming, webmaster, and assorted other services for Nawash[2]. In that capacity, Haigh has initiated, maintained, and participated in a network of racist troll groups bringing some of the nastiest white supremacists to latch on to the Palestinian solidarity movement together with their hasbara-spouting Zionist counterparts. Haigh participates in the trolling, watches the sparks fly, and meticulously monitors the goings-on in these groups supported by a collection of extremely detailed mindmaps, which, by his own account, serve to „track troublemakers“ in over 200 groups.

The activities of Jon „Yani“ Haigh, who claims to be a supporter of Palestinian rights (and accuses anyone who calls out his racism of not doing enough for the cause), are dubious enough taken alone. But when one takes into account that he is working for Kamal Nawash, a Washington, DC lawyer with close connections to high-ranking Bush II administration officials and proto-fascist pundits who operate private intelligence services, and who has publicly advocated for the state’s right to spy on dissident groups, things take on an entirely new dimension. When combined with the fact that the Advisory Board of the group Nawash founded – a group that openly calls on people to report „extremists“ to them – also includes Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, who proposed the creation of an international network to spy on and interfere with journalists and political activists critical of the US and Israel, this raises serious questions as to what side Haigh is really on.

In the next part of this series, we will see what happens when Nawash & Co. decide to try their hands at reviving the „peace process“ between Israel and the Palestinians. The result? The Best Plans, a programme only Ray Hanania could love. What exactly is The Best Plans? Who is behind it? Find out in Part III.

---