Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

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March 30, 2016, 6 PM ET

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Terrorist Warns America: You’re Next

The deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels last week and in Paris last November are dress rehearsals for a coming “big” attack inside the United States, a leading Islamic State-allied militant claimed in an exclusive interview. Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, a Salafist movement senior official in the Gaza Strip, made the claim in a pre-recorded, hour-long interview that aired on Sunday on this reporter’s program, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. Ansari is a well-known Gazan Salafist jihadist allied with ISIS ideology. During the interview, Ansari seemed to be speaking as an actual ISIS member, repeatedly using the pronoun “we” when referring to ISIS and even seemingly making declarations on behalf of ISIS. ISIS has been reluctant to officially declare its presence in Gaza for fear of a Hamas clampdown, but the group is known to be active in the coastal enclave and Ansari is a suspected ISIS leader. ISIS-aligned militants have taken responsibility for recent rocket fire from Gaza aimed at Israel. In the same interview, Ansari claimed the ISIS has agents working in Western airports, metro stations and “very sensitive facilities in the world.” No evidence has emerged indicating any ISIS penetration of the work force at Brussels airport or the metro system, the two targets hit in terror strikes on Tuesday, killing at least 34 people and wounding some 270. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks. He further warned that is only a matter of time before ISIS’s branch in the Egyptian Sinai carries out a “big operation” in the Israeli resort town of Eilat and other parts of southern Israel.

The Inane Speech Sanders Would’ve Given

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign released the text of the speech he would have given had he attended last week’s annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Here are five outrages in the text of Sanders’s speech, enumerated by this reporter in no particular order:

Sanders compares the democratic, pro-human rights, terrorist-condemning Israeli government and society to the anti-democratic, human rights abusing, terrorist-supporting Palestinian leadership and to Palestinian society, which is also mostlysupportiveof terrorism.

“The truth is there are good people on both sides who want peace. And the other truth is there are despots and liars on both sides who benefit from continued antagonism,” reads Sanders’s remarks. Sanders did not define which “despots” he believes exist on the Israeli side. He seems to be comparing some members of the Israeli government to actual despots on the Palestinian side.

Sanders calls for an end to Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

“Peace will also mean ending the economic blockade of Gaza,” his speech states. Here Sanders is echoing Hamas propaganda. There is no economic blockade of Gaza. In response to repeated rocket fire by Gazan terrorists aimed at nearby Israeli civilian population zones, Israel in 2007 imposed a land, air, and sea military blockade of Gaza to ensure that Hamas cannot bring more weapons and rockets into the coastal enclave. This was after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in hopes that the Palestinians would use the territory for peaceful means. Instead, the Gazans elected Hamas to power and the Strip was used as launching ground for thousands of attacks on Israel. Contrary to popular belief, all kinds and quantities of consumer goods can be imported into the Gaza Strip through border crossings with Israel. The only import restrictions, the Ministry explains, involve “weapons and a list of dual-use items which can be used in the production of weapons and terrorist infrastructure. Dual-use items can be imported into Gaza subject to a security screening.”

Sanders calls on Israel to ends its “disproportionate” responses to terrorist attacks.

“Peace will require strict adherence by both sides to the tenets of international humanitarian law. This includes Israeli ending disproportionate responses to being attacked – even though any attack on Israel is unacceptable.”