by Aaron Klein
SCHMOOZING WITH
TERRORISTS
SCHMOOZING WITH
TERRORISTS
FROM HOLLYWOOD TO THE HOLY LAND, JIHADISTS
REVEAL THEIR GLOBAL PLANS-TO A JEW!
AARON KLEIN
In memory of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and the victims of Palestinian terrorism throughout the years.*
In eternal memory of my Grandmommy, Marilyn Sacks, one of the strongest women I knew; and my Grandmom, Sima Klein, who dedicated her life to her grandchildren.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................... xi
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. xiii
ONE: Madonna, Britney Spears Stoned to Death? Life if the Terrorists Win ..........................................................................1
TWO: Bible Used as Toilet Paper? ....................................................17
THREE: Hi, My Name Is Ahmed, and I Want to Be a Suicide Bomber ....................................................................................45
FOUR: No Jews Is Good News .........................................................69
FIVE: From Richard Gere to Rosie O'Donnell ................................89
SIX: How YOU Fund Terrorism ......................................................109
SEVEN: Terror Grinches Steal Bethlehem Christmas ..................133
EIGHT: Another 9/11 on Its Way ....................................................153
NINE: Terrorists Go Ga-Ga Over Hillary Clinton ........................169
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................189
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Susan Roth, nothing I do would be possible without you. From this book to my reporting to my survival in the harsh, dysfunctional jungle that is the Middle East, I have you to thank. You've gone above and beyond. You are a gift from heaven and a true Eshet Chayil ("woman of valor") in every sense.
Thanks to my loving family for their unceasing support: David and Carol Klein; Miriam and Amir; Asher and Gila; Josh; Sara and Joey; Rebecca; Chaya; Gabriella; Aliza; and the bar mitzvah boy, Mendy.
Joseph Farah-my editor-in-chief, mentor, and occasional (Christian-leaning, Arab) "rabbi," words cannot express my appreciation to you and Elizabeth for all you've done in support of me and my reporting the last two years. Looking forward to working together for many more eventful years to come.
Many thanks to all the wonderful editors at WorldNetDaily.com, including the patient David Kupelian; Art Moore; Ron Strom; Bob Unruh; and Jay Baggett. Thanks to Shannon and Michelle! A special thanks to Joe Kovacs, the world "Title Champion," for his creative help in naming some of the chapters.
To my translator, Ali Waked, who risked his life to accompany me on these terror adventures. Thanks for putting up with my ever-changing requests and deadlines and for all the many ways you helped these past few months. Looking forward to working together on Schmoozing with Terrorists-The Sequel!
Thanks to my trusty researchers, including Ashley "The Skipper" Rindsberg, Miriam Waxman, Aaron Sichel, and Mikael Tossavainen.
A special thank you to Irving and Cherna Moskowitz and David and Rachelle Bronfman for their valued friendship.
A shout out to the great folks at the Jewish Press, especially Jason Maoz and Avraham Shmuel Lewin; the editors of the NY Sun; and the staff of Ynetnews.
Thanks a million to all the great people at World Ahead Publishing, including Eric, Norman, Ami, and Judy.
And last but most certainly not least to all my radio host friends, I cannot possibly thank you guys enough! You've enhanced my reporting and enriched my Middle East experience in so many ways:
To John Batchelor, who gave me my first radio gig. You took a chance on an unknown kid who wandered into your New York studios one cold January evening. From being denied entry to countries to dodging Qassams to mixing up terror leaders to water sprinklers shooting into our radio equipment while broadcasting live from trucks on Gaza beaches, our many adventures together so far have been glorious.
To Sean Hannity for your help in getting out crucial stories and for being accessible despite your superhuman broadcast schedule.
To Rusty Humphries, my partner in crime-thanks for believing in me, for all the exposure and for not going nuts the many times I got us lost in the West Bank at two o'clock in the morning. We've wreaked so much havoc together I'm surprised an international law hasn't yet been proposed banning us from staying in the same country at the same time. (Not to give those worthless traitors at the UN any ideas.)
To the warrior, G. Gordon Liddy, who gets younger with each passing year, and to his Canadian producer Franklin Rafflooking forward to many more Mideast adventures together.
Thanks a million to Michael Reagan for all the segments and for continuing the legacy for all of us.
To the light in a dark world, Michael Savage-don t ever stop doing what you're doing. Thanks for the Jerusalem report segments.
To Tovia Singer-Our Thursday night broadcast has become an essential part of my life.
Thank you, Zelda Young, for giving me the opportunity to expand my audience to Canada on your great show.
INTRODUCTION
" iNCE ISLAM DOMINATES AMERICA, anyone living inside must abide by our rules. There is no choice. You don't like it? Too bad. Go somewhere else and go to hell. "
"If I saw you during the time of my [suicide] operation, I would not hesitate to blow you up."
"The Jews are corrupting humanity on earth. They are the source of all the problems in the world, and yes, they should be removed."
These are just some of the things Islamic terrorists-usually well-armed terrorists-said while I interviewed them in their strongholds.
When I was growing up, an Orthodox Jewish boy in Philadelphia, the last thing I thought I'd do for a living was schmooze with terrorists. I saw myself becoming a nice Jewish doctor-not a reporter who travels into war zones to interview anti-Semitic terror leaders. But sometimes life throws us curveballs.
I first became familiar with the name Osama bin Laden in the summer of 1998 after the terror chieftain issued a worldwide call for Muslims to kill American civilians and soldiers. His al-Qaida global jihad group then bombed United States embassies in East Africa, killing hundreds of people.
At the time, I was a biology student at Yeshiva University in New York City. I didn't really care much for international affairs. Like most other college kids my age, I grew up during a period of seeming calm and major economic growth for our country. War was something we studied in history class. The Middle East was a dysfunctional region that made the news every once in a while but didn't really affect our lives. The threat of terrorism, the pros pect of an attack on American soil, was the furthest thing from my mind.
But there was something in bin Laden 's fatwa against Jews and Crusaders that caught my attention and prompted me to take a second glance at the state of things. The rise of al-Qaida with attacks on tourists and U.S. troops in Somalia and the 1993 car bombing of our World Trade Center; the growing militancy of Islamist organizations, including those operating on U.S. soil and in Europe; the extremism brewing in Gulf states like Saudi Arabia; the very clear emboldening of terror-supporting dictators like Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat all pointed in one directiona c
oming major conflict with militant Islam.
I researched bin Laden and terrorism on the Internet. I read books about jihad. I talked to some Mideast experts. But I felt those sources were missing something. Terrorism was mostly portrayed as a regional issue, a tool used by "militants" to gain specific political or ideological ends. I thought there was more. Something told me Islamic terror wasn't just about pieces of territory or getting U.S. troops out of the Middle East.
At the age of nineteen, I thought I'd investigate things for myself. I traveled to London and spent a weekend with the leadership of an Islamic extremist organization there called Al Muha- jiroun that supported the goals of al-Qaida and held rallies in Britain calling for the downfall of America, Israel, and the U.K. and for the establishment of an Islamic regime.
Identifying myself as a Yeshiva student, I met with Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, the leader of Al Muhajiroun, who later fled Britain. He told me all Muslims must work to "establish an Islamic state anywhere in the world, even in Britain [or America]."
I asked Muhammad about al-Qaida's operations. He explained attacks against U.S. interests had nothing to do with local politics. He said Islam was on the rise and America and its allies represented Satan on Earth. Muhammad informed me the Quran dictates the universe must be ruled by Allah's laws and that a worldwide Muslim caliphate would soon be created.
Muhammad explained Muslims were being called to join the jihad to bring down the West and spread Islam. He said men who died carrying out "resistance operations" against the U.S. and its allies would be sent by Allah to paradise. I penned an article on the interview experience, entitled "My Weekend with the Enemy," which was published in a few major newspapers, including the Boston Globe and Jerusalem Post.
I was surprised Muhammad agreed to meet me. My friends and family were shocked I would dare sit down with him. We are polar opposites. Muhammad's a jihad-urging sheikh. I was a Talmud-studying modern Orthodox Jew. I attended Jewish religious schooling my entire life from nursery school through college. I came from a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community. I didn't even have a single non-Jewish friend until I moved to New York for university.
I returned from interviewing Muhammad a changed person. One conversation with an extremist sheikh taught me more about terrorism than all the Internet searches I could conduct. I was shocked by Muhammad's statements about Islam gearing up for war to destroy the West. This was not the picture presented by the news media, which failed to tell the larger story and many times seemed to almost justify terror.
Then came the September 11 terror attacks. Muhammad's statements and bin Laden 's threats clearly weren't empty rhetoric. The war against our values became all too real. I quickly decided against medical school and went into Mideast journalism instead. After college I moved to Jerusalem and started reporting from there. I spent time with and interviewed Mideast terror groups on a regular basis.
I noticed upon speaking with terrorists that sometimes they tell it like it is. Still, sometimes they lie, and these lies need to be pointed out.
But you need to hear what the terrorists have to say. In the midst of America's war on terror, in the midst of our grand showdown with Islamofascism, with our boys and girls deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world to defend liberty, with Israelis dying in the Jewish state against the exact same enemy, it is crucial for all of us to understand the adversary we are up against. It is crucial for us to know how our enemy thinks and what they want to do with us. Even how your tax dollars-no, how you-fund terrorism.
Ever wonder what goes through the minds of terrorists when our mega-celebrities protest against the war in Iraq or against some of our anti-terror actions? Ever ask yourself who the terrorists want in high office, or how our nation's policies resonate with those seeking our destruction? Or what motivates a teenager or a grandmother or a professional to blow him- or herself up among a crowd of civilians? We'll schmooze with terrorists to answer these questions and many others.
I mostly interview Palestinian Arab terror groups openly allied with the global jihad. They say they see Israel as an outpost of America and for that reason the Jewish state has become the canary in the minefield in the war on terror. While some of the conversations presented in this book focus on terror against Israelis, the vast majority of the interviews are about the larger picturethe war against America.
Some people say it's controversial to interview evil, to dignify terrorists by talking with them. But from the way I see it, the problem isn't in talking with the enemy, it's with who's doing the interviewing.
My colleagues in the news media talk all the time to venomspewing jihadists, to terrorist-sponsoring dictators and they ask softball questions and give terrorists a platform from which to spew their anti-American propaganda. These so-called reporters don't confront the terrorists with their lies; they don't give readers the proper context to understand things. Our reporters in the Mideast just take the terrorists' lying responses and go on to the next question.
The vast majority of the news media, the vast majority of reporters I work with here in the Middle East, are individuals who don't have the ability to tell good from evil. These reporters have absolutely no moral compass whatsoever. They think being a reporter means being "balanced;" they think it means one thingthat the truth is on both sides, that both sides are equal.
These reporters regularly refer to terrorists as "militants" with legitimate grievances. They go around presenting America's military campaign to eradicate terrorism as equivalent to attacks from terrorists. They think our anti-terror operations, which target terrorists who hide amongst women and children, which target jihadists launching rockets from civilian apartment buildings, which target gunmen who fire from a crowd of unarmed civilians, are morally equivalent to suicide bombers or terror leaders who fire rockets into population centers.
This is the lens through which most of our news is filtered today. This is the sick, twisted perspective of the so-called "balanced" reporters stationed with me, and it is these reporters who should not be interviewing terrorists.
In this book, you'll find no pandering to America's enemies. You'll find no excuses for terrorism. You'll find no rewording of the word "terrorist." As far as I'm concerned, if you're a member of a group that deliberately kills or threatens to kill civilians, you're a terrorist. If your organization sends suicide bombers into restaurants or nightclubs, you're a terrorist. If you call on teenagers to blow themselves up to achieve maximum casualties for the reward of eternal paradise with seventy-two dark-eyed virgins, you're a terrorist. If you fire rockets into cities to kill innocents, you're a terrorist. And if you harbor or support groups who seek to kill civilians, at the very least you're a terror supporter.
Why did the terrorists agree to talk with me? Why wasn't I killed or kidnapped?
I think a lot of Palestinian terror leaders I met were somewhat fascinated at the prospect of meeting a Jewish reporter. For many, I was the first Jew they'd ever knowingly interacted with. Some were stunned I'd debate them from a Jewish perspective. A lot of terrorists didn't know the kinds of questions I'd ask.
Some of these terrorists are interviewed regularly by other reporters. They are quite used to interacting with the media. Incredibly, some terror groups even have sizable "public relations departments" that are quite skilled at dealing with the news media.
But I believe the main motivation of the Palestinian terror groups in dealing with me is that they can claim to the Englishlanguage media they are not anti-Semitic. They can claim they are only fighting "occupiers" and not all Jews or Americans. This, of course, is a big fat lie. They admit so in Arabic. These terror groups are at war with America, with Jews, and with Judeo-Christian values.
Still, the in-person interviews were quite dangerous. There were several times I thought I would not make it out alive. Other times I had some very entertaining experiences.
For me, though, the danger was worth it. I wrote this book ultimately because I believ
e America is in trouble. While we've made enormous advances in the war on terror the past few years, our great nation is encouraging terrorists to attack us and we don't even know it. That's right. Our actions, our media, our culture and our politicians are having a very deadly effect on the ground that could soon become disastrous.
Our response to terrorism since September 11 has been one of utter confusion and of mixed messages. Sometimes we take forceful action, sometimes we bend over backwards to accommodate the enemy and many times we think we can separate Islamic terrorism based on particular regions, as if terror in one part of the world is somehow different from terror elsewhere when the jihadists themselves admit they are fighting for the same cause.
We have failed to carry out a coherent policy against terror. We have failed to understand global terror and how to annihilate it. As a result, the terrorists are much stronger today than before September 11, when our war on terror began.
If the American approach to identifying, understanding, and dealing with terrorism is not reexamined in the very near future, if we don't immediately begin to understand how the terrorists think and respond to our policies, we face a devastating reality, with global jihad beating down our doorstep before we even realize what happened.
So brace yourself. You're about to take a trip into the viper's den of some of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world. And when you emerge from this journey, you might just see the world in a different way.
CHAPTER ONE
MADONNA, BRITNEY
SPEARS STONED TO
DEATH?
LIFE IF THE TERRORISTS WIN
I rE MUST NOT RECOGNIZE any government authority, or any authority at all besides Allah," said Faheed, a twentythree-year-old student leader addressing about twenty Muslims gathered in the large classroom. I was the only non-Muslim in attendance.
