I Have Not Yet Begun To Fight!

An excellent article appeared today by the very able Alyssa A Lappen. It can be found at her site, as well as at The American Center for Democracy and at The Terror Finance Blog. I believe it was originally published at FrontPageMagazine.com: The Fly in the Bin Mahfouz Ointment.

I reproduce it here in its entirety, italicizing the name of Dr. Ehrenfeld's book in one place where that had not been done, and with my comments:

U.K. libel laws and courts have been among Saudi Arabia’s most successful tools to veil its Islamic proselytization and terrorist funding. The Saudi operator is billionaire Khalid Bin Mahfouz, who has sued or threatened to sue some 36 U.S. and U.K. publishers and authors and was given default judgments in all of them.

A big part of the reason that the United States was born a free country is that our mother country, Great Britain, had a history of pursuing greater liberties. Indeed, the first colonies in America to gain their independence from Europe were not Spanish or French colonies, but British colonies.

How far we have fallen that the love of freedom that burned in the hearts of Mad Dogs and Englishmen seems to be flickering out!

But there is a new fly in bin Mahfouz’ Saudi ointment—an U.S. legal precedent established by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on June 8, 2007. In 2003, U.S. investigative reporter and director of the American Center for Democracy, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, published Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed--and How to Stop It.

Unlike so many public and official figures in the UK, who simply rolled over, Dr. Ehrenfeld is fighting back, and is doing so effectively.

Among other things, Funding Evil reported bin Mahfouz’ well-documented terror funding. As always after such reports, bin Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for libel in Britain. In the High Court, bin Mahfouz’ attorneys informed Justice David Eady that former CIA director R. James Woolsey had written the foreword for Funding Evil. “Say no more,” declared Eady. “I award you a judgment by default, and if you want, an injunction, too.”

Justice Eady then ordered Ehrenfeld to apologize, retract, pay bin Mahfouz $225,913.37 in damages and destroy copies of her book.

I think that person's title should read Injustice Eady.

To be fair, Injustice Eady may be interpreting based upon a stupid law, instead of legislating from the bench. Still, a law that is that abhorrent to freedom should be battled with every legal means possible, including legislating from the bench. It should be battled until such legal means are exhausted.

Beyond that, this is why we have a Second Amendment in America: in case government refuses to honor the First!

A fearless U.S. citizen, published in the U.S., Ehrenfeld ignored the British default judgement. Rather than respond to false claims of libel, never tried on their merits, Ehrenfeld applied to the Southern District Court of New York to rule the U.K. court judgment unenforceable in the U.S.

Here's where the counterattack begins, as Dr. Ehrenfeld's legal maneuver opens up the fight not only on a new front, but even in a new legal dimension.

On June 8, 2007, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals justices unanimously found that Ehrenfeld’s case merits hearing in an U.S. federal court--and that the case has implications for all U.S. authors and publishers, whose First Amendment rights are threatened by foreign libel rulings.

Here in America in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals we found true justices.

The Second Circuit justices also took the unusual step of referring the matter of jurisdiction over bin Mahfouz to the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court --and underscoring its importance to other New York and U.S. authors.

The Second Circuit panel slammed bin Mahfouz again on June 27, 2007--unanimously denying his request to reconsider their decision on the merit of the case for trial in the U.S. And on June 28, the New York Court of Appeals agreed to hear the arguments on jurisdiction this autumn.

Hey, Sheikh bin Mahfouz: Did you just get smacked down by a girl?

These rulings have already weakened bin Mahfouz’ ability to conduct legal terrorism against U.S. authors and publishers.

Legal terrorism: that's exactly what it is. Sheikh bin Mahfouz is The Libel Terrorist.

In his latest libel case – against Cambridge University Press concerning Alms for Jihad (2006) – the Saudi billionaire did not even mention the book’s U.S. authors, J. Millard Burr or Robert O. Collins. Much less did he threaten or sue Burr (a former U.S. State Department official) or Collins (a University of California history professor, emeritus). He sued only the British publisher.

Read: his worshipfulness, Terrorist Financier and Oppressor of Women in Islam's Two Holy Places, Sheikh Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz, is afraid to take on Burr and Collins directly.

(How do you say "chicken" in Arabic?)

Bin Mahfouz’ attorney Laurence Harris explained, the Saudi sued Cambridge University Press in the U.K, “because the book was published in this jurisdiction.”

Exactly. As Ehrenfeld’s U.S. case against bin Mahfouz has clearly established, the U.K. High Court no longer has carte blanche to intimidate U.S. journalists.

Hey, Sheikh bin Mahfouz: You did! You did just get smacked down by a girl!

No wonder you want to impose sharia on the whole world, and keep women enslaved as property of men and unable to leave the house: when they have some freedom, they're not just smarter than you are, but they're smarter than all the brains your money can rent.

Who would you be without the corruption of the Kingdom and the oppression of Islamic Law? You'd be just another Jihad Man.

The former owner of Saudi Arabia’s biggest bank, the National Commercial Bank, bin Mahfouz objected to statements in the Burr and Collins book, that he and his family had reportedly supported Osama Bin Laden and funded terrorist activities.

In an American criminal court of law, your innocence would be presumed until your guilt was proven.

But, you aren't in an American criminal court room -- yet.

Why don't you just offer your side of the story to these authors? They're scholars, they're fair and honest, their work is peer-reviewed: show your documentation, and they'll be the first to admit they made a mistake!

However, Alms for Jihad is properly sourced, with hundreds of references. And Burr and Collins provided Cambridge University Press with all their materials on bin Mahfouz’ al Qaeda and Hamas financing, contrary to the false statements by both bin Mahfouz’ and Cambridge University Press attorneys.

Oh, there's the problem. The documentation would all just serve to further remove any lingering doubt about your guilt, Sheikh.

Since you can't dispute the truth, you must use every resource in your financial empire to silence it.

Such is the dysfunctional nature of your version of The Religion of Peace, which you seek to spread violently to the rest of the world.

Muslims, take heed: either you're with this khawarij terrorist, or you're with us infidels! (And that's not the way Yankee Doodle sees it -- that's the way they see it!)

Incredibly, the publishing arm of the world’s second oldest English speaking university (est. 1209), completely capitulated to bin Mahfouz, offering a comprehensive apology and substantial damages, according to an agreement read in the U.K. High Court on July 30, 2007. Cambridge University Press also promised to pulp the books, publish a detailed apology on its website and contribute to bin Mahfouz’ legal costs.

"Incredibly" is right.

Cambridge University went down faster than the Twin Towers.

As in Ehrenfeld’s Funding Evil, these authors’ statements and data were all previously well documented by the media and U.S. Congressional, Court, Treasury Department and other official statements.

These reports were further corroborated by French intelligence officials at the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), and published in the French daily, Le Monde. The DGSE reported that in 1998, they knew bin Mahfouz to be an architect of the banking scheme built to benefit Osama bin Laden; both U.S. and British intelligence services knew it, too.

You're a terrorist, pure and simple, Sheikh bin Mahfouz.

T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T

May Allah be pleased with you.

In short, Cambridge University Press had nothing for which to apologize. Thus, while they have also asked more than 200 major libraries to remove Alms for Jihad from their shelves, U.S. libraries should ignore the demand, based on bin Mahfouz’ false claims of innocence.

Let's see how the libraries here do.

The pre-existing British intelligence knowledge of bin Mahfouz’ terrorist ties render the British High Court announcement all the more appalling an infringement of free speech, to the extent that Britain’s parliamentary democracy protects it.

Mr. Justice Eady accepted Cambridge University Press’ apology, as well as its denial of previously proven facts.

It's called dhimmification.

But the U.S. authors of Alms for Jihad, like all U.S. journalists, are now protected by the precedent set in Ehrenfeld’s case, argued by Daniel Kornstein of Kornstein, Veisz, Wexler and Pollard. They no longer need fear the British courts, or the very biased Justice Eady.

Chalk one up for the counterjihad! Way to go, Dr. Ehrenfeld!

Ehrenfeld’s case, says American Civil Liberties Union heavyweight, Harvey Silverglate, “is one of the most important First Amendment cases in the past 25 years.”

No. It's one of the most important First Amendment cases since there was a First Amendment.

The heroic efforts of our troops and others would be completely undercut if we lost this battle. The terrorists know they can't defeat us on the battlefield, but if they can undercut our will to defend ourselves against their legal and financial jihad, if they can cause us to not speak the truth but repeat their hateful lies instead, then our brave troops will return undefeated from overseas, only to find themselves in the Islamic Republic of America.

Submit??


I have not yet
begun to fight!

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