AlleyCat
2023-03-04 01:31:13 UTC
Biden Admin Awards Grant to Palestinian Activist Group Whose Leaders Hailed
Terrorist as "Hero Fighter"
Community Development and Continuing Education Institute board members also
applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel
Alana Goodman
March 3, 2023
The Biden administration gave a $78,000 grant to a Palestinian activist group
whose leaders attended an anniversary event celebrating the founding of a
terrorist group and praised the murderer of a U.S. military attaché as a "hero
fighter," according to a funding announcement.
The Community Development and Continuing Education Institute (CDCEI), an
activist group based in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories, received
the grant to promote "youth participation and accountability in local
governance," the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced in
November.
But an anti-terrorism watchdog group is raising concerns about the funding,
after finding that the activist group's board chairman participated in a
celebration for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist
group, while other board members lauded convicted terrorists as "heroes" and
applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel.
NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that investigated the CDCEI funding, questioned
the federal government's vetting process for grantees. The news of the USAID
grant comes as the Biden State Department has faced criticism from lawmakers
for funding a Gaza-based journalist training program run by another charity,
Fares Al-Arab, that has worked with terrorists and has promoted anti-Israel
views.
"These findings reinforce the need for USAID to consult a wide array of
publicly available sources when vetting potential grantees, to ensure that
taxpayer funds are not provided to organizations led by individuals that
glorify violence, espouse anti-Semitic rhetoric, or embrace anti-
normalization," NGO Monitor said. "USAID grantees should align with U.S. goals
and values."
USAID did not respond to a request for comment. CDCEI did not respond to a
request for comment.
CDCEI is a "nonprofit organization established in Bethlehem in 2010" that
"promotes the values of human rights, pluralism, equality, good governance, and
civic participation within the Palestinian society," according to its website.
But Arabic-language news articles and social media posts provide a different
image of the group's leadership, according to an NGO Monitor investigation
shared with the Washington Free Beacon.
Imad Al-Zeer, who has served as chairman of CDCEI's board of directors since
2012, in Dec. 2019 attended a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
event celebrating the 52nd anniversary of the terrorist group's founding,
according to an Al-Hadaf news report translated by NGO Monitor. Photos from the
event showed Al-Zeer posing next to Popular Front signs.
In social media posts, senior board members also indicated their support for
terrorists.
Mike Salman, the deputy chairman of CDCEI's board, in an April 2, 2020,
Facebook post translated by NGO Monitor praised "hero fighter" George Abdallah
and called for Abdallah's release from prison. Abdallah is serving a life
sentence in France for the 1982 murder of U.S. military attaché Charles R. Ray,
as well as an Israeli diplomat.
"Together, with one another, to support the release of George Abdallah," wrote
Salman. "One of the idioms used by the hero fighter George is "I shall never
compromise, I shall keep resisting.'"
In a 2021 - post, Salman also celebrated six escaped Palestinian prisoners as
"heroes"-including Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror chief Zakaria Zubeidi and a
Palestinian Islamic Jihad member convicted of killing an Israeli teenager in
2006.
After the Israeli military killed five members of a Hamas terrorist cell in
Sept. 2021 - , Salman wrote, "May Allah have mercy on the spirits of
Palestinian hero martyrs, including the five martyrs that rose to the supreme
companion yesterday."
Yasser Shaheen, a CDCEI board member, in a May 10, 2021 - , Facebook post
translated by NGO Monitor applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel as "rockets
of the Palestinian resistance." He also mourned "hero martyr Omar Abu Layla,"
three days after Layla killed a rabbi and an Israel Defense Forces soldier.
Board member Jiries Abu Ghannam published a Facebook post in "solidarity with
the prisoner fighter Marwan Al-Barghouti in his 19th year in Israeli prison."
Barghouti is a convicted murderer who helped instigate the first and second
intifadas.
Rana Abu Farha, another board member, in a post last March translated by NGO
Monitor celebrated the "44th anniversary of Dalal Al-Mughrabi and 11
Palestinian revolutionaries" martyrdom" and praised the female terrorist as a
"beautiful and brave fighter."
The post was a reference to Al-Mughrabi's 1978 bus hijacking and massacre of 38
Israelis, including 13 children. Al-Mughrabi also killed American photographer
Gail Rubin, the niece of a then-U.S. senator, in the attack.
CDCEI isn't the only Palestinian group funded by the Biden administration to
come under scrutiny in recent weeks. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) sent a
letter this week calling on the State Department to suspend funding to the
Gaza-based charity Fares Al-Arab, following a Free Beacon report that found the
group has worked with terrorists.
The group worked with the Hamas government as recently as 2021 - on a housing
project. The charity also gave a media award to a radio network run by the
Islamic Jihad Movement, honored a self-described journalist who belonged to the
Popular Front, hosted a press freedom event that featured a spokesman for
Islamic Jihad, and co-led a human rights training course with a convicted
terrorist.
alt.politics.trump,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.politics.democrats,alt.politics.
usa.republican,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,can.politics
===============================================================================
White Liberals More Likely To Have A Mental Health Condition
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021 - /apr/22/white-liberals-more-likely-
have-mental-health-cond/
Apr 22, 2021 - - Sixty-two percent of Whites who classify themselves as "very
liberal" or "liberal" have been told by a doctor they have a mental health
condition, as compared to 26% of conservatives and...
=====
White Liberals More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems... - Newsmax
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/white-liberals-mental-health-study/2021 -
/04/20/id/1018293/
The Pew Study, Which The Washington Free Beacon notes was published last year
but only gained attention in a recent article, showed that white liberals of
all ages were more likely to be diagnosed with a mental health condition than
moderates or conservatives, with the disparity particularly pronounced among
those aged 18-29, according to evie...
=====
Study: Young White Liberals More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021 - /04/22/study-young-white-liberals-
more-likely-to-have-mental-health-problems/
Apr 22, 2021 - - When sex and age were factors, 56.3 percent of white women
between the ages of 18 and 29 and who labeled themselves as "liberal," said
they had been given a mental health diagnosis, compared to 27.3 percent of
conservatives in the same categories and 28.4 percent of moderates:
=====
62% of "liberal" or very "liberal" whites have a mental health condition
https://www.independentsentinel.com/62-of-liberal-or-very-liberal-whites-have-
a-mental-health-condition/
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 62% percent of Whites who classify
themselves as "very liberal" or "liberal" has been told by a doctor they have a
mental health condition. Only 26% of conservatives and 20% of moderates have
been told they have such a condition, the study found.
=====
Pew Study: White Liberals Disproportionately Suffer From Mental Illness...
https://wibc.com/108211/pew-study-white-liberals-disproportionately-suffer-
from-mental-illness/
White women, ages 18-29, who identified as liberal were given a mental health
diagnosis from medical professionals at a rate of 56.3%, as compared to 28.4%
in moderates and 27.3% in conservatives. Zach Goldberg, a Ph.D. candidate in
political science, consolidated the study's info in a set of visuals and posted
them to a thread on Twitter.
SCIENCE: White Libs More Likely To Have Mental Health Problems
https://freebeacon.com/politics/white-libs-mental-health/
Within this demographic, 34 percent of liberals reported having mental health
problems, compared with 22 percent of moderates and 16 percent of
conservatives. Zach Goldberg, the doctoral...
=====
White Liberals Twice as Likely to be Diagnosed with Psychological Problems
https://www.hennessysview.com/p/psychologic-disorders-white-liberals
Nearly 1 in 2 (45.9%) of white liberals have been diagnosed with mental health
disorders. White liberals of all ages are more than twice as likely as
conservatives of any age to suffer from mental health disorders. White liberals
are almost twice as likely as non-white liberals to be diagnosed with mental
health problems.
=====
6 Reasons Why Liberalism IS A Mental Disorder (LOL) - The Political Insider
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/6-reasons-why-liberalism-can-be-considered-a-
mental-disorder/
In 2005, Michael Savage famously wrote a book titled, Liberalism is a Mental
Disorder, the subject of which is self-explanatory. Additionally, Dr. Lyle
Rossiter, a board-certified clinical psychologist, wrote a book in which he
diagnosed the ideology of the left as a tangible mental illness.
=====
Personality Traits, Mental Illness, and Ideology
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/2021 -
03/personality-traits-mental-illness-and-ideology
specifically, surveys on the " big five " traits of extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience have
found that people identifying as politically...
=====
Study claims over 50% of liberal women under 30 have mental health...
https://theliberal.ie/study-claims-over-50-of-liberal-women-under-30-have-
mental-health-issues-men-and-women-with-liberal-views-more-likely-to-be-
mentally-unwell/
Study claims over 50% of liberal women under 30 have mental health issues, men
and women with liberal views more likely to be mentally unwell April 24, 2021 -
-
12:01 Gerard Clarke Irish News
Terrorist as "Hero Fighter"
Community Development and Continuing Education Institute board members also
applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel
Alana Goodman
March 3, 2023
The Biden administration gave a $78,000 grant to a Palestinian activist group
whose leaders attended an anniversary event celebrating the founding of a
terrorist group and praised the murderer of a U.S. military attaché as a "hero
fighter," according to a funding announcement.
The Community Development and Continuing Education Institute (CDCEI), an
activist group based in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories, received
the grant to promote "youth participation and accountability in local
governance," the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced in
November.
But an anti-terrorism watchdog group is raising concerns about the funding,
after finding that the activist group's board chairman participated in a
celebration for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist
group, while other board members lauded convicted terrorists as "heroes" and
applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel.
NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that investigated the CDCEI funding, questioned
the federal government's vetting process for grantees. The news of the USAID
grant comes as the Biden State Department has faced criticism from lawmakers
for funding a Gaza-based journalist training program run by another charity,
Fares Al-Arab, that has worked with terrorists and has promoted anti-Israel
views.
"These findings reinforce the need for USAID to consult a wide array of
publicly available sources when vetting potential grantees, to ensure that
taxpayer funds are not provided to organizations led by individuals that
glorify violence, espouse anti-Semitic rhetoric, or embrace anti-
normalization," NGO Monitor said. "USAID grantees should align with U.S. goals
and values."
USAID did not respond to a request for comment. CDCEI did not respond to a
request for comment.
CDCEI is a "nonprofit organization established in Bethlehem in 2010" that
"promotes the values of human rights, pluralism, equality, good governance, and
civic participation within the Palestinian society," according to its website.
But Arabic-language news articles and social media posts provide a different
image of the group's leadership, according to an NGO Monitor investigation
shared with the Washington Free Beacon.
Imad Al-Zeer, who has served as chairman of CDCEI's board of directors since
2012, in Dec. 2019 attended a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
event celebrating the 52nd anniversary of the terrorist group's founding,
according to an Al-Hadaf news report translated by NGO Monitor. Photos from the
event showed Al-Zeer posing next to Popular Front signs.
In social media posts, senior board members also indicated their support for
terrorists.
Mike Salman, the deputy chairman of CDCEI's board, in an April 2, 2020,
Facebook post translated by NGO Monitor praised "hero fighter" George Abdallah
and called for Abdallah's release from prison. Abdallah is serving a life
sentence in France for the 1982 murder of U.S. military attaché Charles R. Ray,
as well as an Israeli diplomat.
"Together, with one another, to support the release of George Abdallah," wrote
Salman. "One of the idioms used by the hero fighter George is "I shall never
compromise, I shall keep resisting.'"
In a 2021 - post, Salman also celebrated six escaped Palestinian prisoners as
"heroes"-including Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror chief Zakaria Zubeidi and a
Palestinian Islamic Jihad member convicted of killing an Israeli teenager in
2006.
After the Israeli military killed five members of a Hamas terrorist cell in
Sept. 2021 - , Salman wrote, "May Allah have mercy on the spirits of
Palestinian hero martyrs, including the five martyrs that rose to the supreme
companion yesterday."
Yasser Shaheen, a CDCEI board member, in a May 10, 2021 - , Facebook post
translated by NGO Monitor applauded Hamas missile attacks on Israel as "rockets
of the Palestinian resistance." He also mourned "hero martyr Omar Abu Layla,"
three days after Layla killed a rabbi and an Israel Defense Forces soldier.
Board member Jiries Abu Ghannam published a Facebook post in "solidarity with
the prisoner fighter Marwan Al-Barghouti in his 19th year in Israeli prison."
Barghouti is a convicted murderer who helped instigate the first and second
intifadas.
Rana Abu Farha, another board member, in a post last March translated by NGO
Monitor celebrated the "44th anniversary of Dalal Al-Mughrabi and 11
Palestinian revolutionaries" martyrdom" and praised the female terrorist as a
"beautiful and brave fighter."
The post was a reference to Al-Mughrabi's 1978 bus hijacking and massacre of 38
Israelis, including 13 children. Al-Mughrabi also killed American photographer
Gail Rubin, the niece of a then-U.S. senator, in the attack.
CDCEI isn't the only Palestinian group funded by the Biden administration to
come under scrutiny in recent weeks. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) sent a
letter this week calling on the State Department to suspend funding to the
Gaza-based charity Fares Al-Arab, following a Free Beacon report that found the
group has worked with terrorists.
The group worked with the Hamas government as recently as 2021 - on a housing
project. The charity also gave a media award to a radio network run by the
Islamic Jihad Movement, honored a self-described journalist who belonged to the
Popular Front, hosted a press freedom event that featured a spokesman for
Islamic Jihad, and co-led a human rights training course with a convicted
terrorist.
alt.politics.trump,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.politics.democrats,alt.politics.
usa.republican,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,can.politics
===============================================================================
White Liberals More Likely To Have A Mental Health Condition
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021 - /apr/22/white-liberals-more-likely-
have-mental-health-cond/
Apr 22, 2021 - - Sixty-two percent of Whites who classify themselves as "very
liberal" or "liberal" have been told by a doctor they have a mental health
condition, as compared to 26% of conservatives and...
=====
White Liberals More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems... - Newsmax
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/white-liberals-mental-health-study/2021 -
/04/20/id/1018293/
The Pew Study, Which The Washington Free Beacon notes was published last year
but only gained attention in a recent article, showed that white liberals of
all ages were more likely to be diagnosed with a mental health condition than
moderates or conservatives, with the disparity particularly pronounced among
those aged 18-29, according to evie...
=====
Study: Young White Liberals More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021 - /04/22/study-young-white-liberals-
more-likely-to-have-mental-health-problems/
Apr 22, 2021 - - When sex and age were factors, 56.3 percent of white women
between the ages of 18 and 29 and who labeled themselves as "liberal," said
they had been given a mental health diagnosis, compared to 27.3 percent of
conservatives in the same categories and 28.4 percent of moderates:
=====
62% of "liberal" or very "liberal" whites have a mental health condition
https://www.independentsentinel.com/62-of-liberal-or-very-liberal-whites-have-
a-mental-health-condition/
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 62% percent of Whites who classify
themselves as "very liberal" or "liberal" has been told by a doctor they have a
mental health condition. Only 26% of conservatives and 20% of moderates have
been told they have such a condition, the study found.
=====
Pew Study: White Liberals Disproportionately Suffer From Mental Illness...
https://wibc.com/108211/pew-study-white-liberals-disproportionately-suffer-
from-mental-illness/
White women, ages 18-29, who identified as liberal were given a mental health
diagnosis from medical professionals at a rate of 56.3%, as compared to 28.4%
in moderates and 27.3% in conservatives. Zach Goldberg, a Ph.D. candidate in
political science, consolidated the study's info in a set of visuals and posted
them to a thread on Twitter.
SCIENCE: White Libs More Likely To Have Mental Health Problems
https://freebeacon.com/politics/white-libs-mental-health/
Within this demographic, 34 percent of liberals reported having mental health
problems, compared with 22 percent of moderates and 16 percent of
conservatives. Zach Goldberg, the doctoral...
=====
White Liberals Twice as Likely to be Diagnosed with Psychological Problems
https://www.hennessysview.com/p/psychologic-disorders-white-liberals
Nearly 1 in 2 (45.9%) of white liberals have been diagnosed with mental health
disorders. White liberals of all ages are more than twice as likely as
conservatives of any age to suffer from mental health disorders. White liberals
are almost twice as likely as non-white liberals to be diagnosed with mental
health problems.
=====
6 Reasons Why Liberalism IS A Mental Disorder (LOL) - The Political Insider
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/6-reasons-why-liberalism-can-be-considered-a-
mental-disorder/
In 2005, Michael Savage famously wrote a book titled, Liberalism is a Mental
Disorder, the subject of which is self-explanatory. Additionally, Dr. Lyle
Rossiter, a board-certified clinical psychologist, wrote a book in which he
diagnosed the ideology of the left as a tangible mental illness.
=====
Personality Traits, Mental Illness, and Ideology
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-else/2021 -
03/personality-traits-mental-illness-and-ideology
specifically, surveys on the " big five " traits of extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience have
found that people identifying as politically...
=====
Study claims over 50% of liberal women under 30 have mental health...
https://theliberal.ie/study-claims-over-50-of-liberal-women-under-30-have-
mental-health-issues-men-and-women-with-liberal-views-more-likely-to-be-
mentally-unwell/
Study claims over 50% of liberal women under 30 have mental health issues, men
and women with liberal views more likely to be mentally unwell April 24, 2021 -
-
12:01 Gerard Clarke Irish News