Two attorneys, Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman, were arrested eight days ago for allegedly passing out Molotov cocktails (improvised explosive incendiary devices) during riots in Brooklyn eight days ago. While police clashed with rioters at the 88th precinct stationhouse in Fort Greene, the two allegedly drove around in a tan minivan, handing out the devices. The two were photographed in the act with mages from the detention memo showing Rahman wearing a mask made from an Arab Keffiyeh, a sign of Palestinian militance, clutching a Molotov cocktail made from a Bud Light bottle. They were arrested after they stopped to allow Rahman to get out and tossed a lit Molotov cocktail into a cop car.
“During the arrest, officers observed in plain view several precursor items used to build a Molotov cocktail, including a lighter, a Bud Light beer bottle filled with toilet paper and a liquid suspected to be gasoline in the vicinity of the passenger seat and a gasoline tank in the rear of the vehicle,” prosecutors said.
They both face seven counts, including arson and civil disorder. If convicted, they could face between 5 and 20 years in federal prison and be disbarred. They were originally released on bail, a decision later overturned by an appellate court that ruled they should be returned to custody.
Mattis is a graduate of Princeton University and the New York University School of Law. He is an associate at corporate Manhattan firm Pryor Cashman. Brooklyn Community Board 5 in East New York lists Mattis as one of its members.
Rahman is also registered as an attorney in New York state, who was admitted to the bar in June 2019 after graduating from Fordham University School of Law.
“They knew their acts endangered the NYPD officers and protesters on the street, as well as their own futures, and the defendants were undeterred,” prosecutors wrote.
Rahman’s use of the Keffiyeh was intentional and consistent with her anti-Israel political beliefs. In 2014, she was awarded a Tollan fellowship which enabled her to spend the summer working in Haifa and the West Bank. There, she was a legal intern at Mada Al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Science Research/ Palestine Works, engaging in “research, fact-finding and advocacy work on political, social, economic and legal issues affecting Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
In 2009, Madah Al-Carmel issued a press release as part of the “One Day One Struggle” campaign claiming that Israeli soldiers routinely sexually assaulted Arab women. When challenged, Madah Al-Carmel denied responsibility for the press release.
The organization authored the “Haifa Declaration” which calls for a “change in the definition of the State of Israel from a Jewish state” and accuses Israel of “exploiting” the Holocaust “at the expense of the Palestinian people.”
Madah Al-Carmel has, along with several other anti-Israel groups, received significant funding from billionaire George Soros. DC Leaks reported in 2016 that the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Convention revealed that Soros used $700,000 of his $23 billion to fund Madah Al-Carmel via his Open Society Foundations.
Some of the other recipients of significant funding were the New Israel Fund (NIF), Adalah, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Adalah, Mossawa, and I’lam
The Soros Fund Management, Soros’ super PAC, also donated $7,044,600 toward Clinton’s 2016 election campaign.
In September 2016, Rahman authored an article in the Fordham Leitner Center Interns Blog describing her experiences titled, “Witnessing occupation, apartheid and resistance in Palestine/Israel.”
“My fieldwork confirmed for me that the lives of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as inside Israel are seen as expendable and less valued by the Israeli government,” Rahman wrote. “The systematic oppression they face is viewed as a necessary consequence to keep the Israeli military state in power and to assert dominance over the indigenous Palestinian population.”
“Foreshadowing current events in the US, she referred to the actions of the Israel Defense Force soldiers, which she referred to as the Israeli Occupational Force, as guilty of turning “peaceful protests” into violent clashes. She referred to the Arabs (i.e. indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula) as the “indigenous people of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.”
But her experience at Mada Al-Carmel wasn’t Rahman’s only connection with the Soros organization. She also interned at the Center for Constitutional Rights which is heavily financed by George Soros through his Open Society Foundations. NGO-Monitor describes the Center as a major hub for anti-Israel legal activism seeking to undermine Israel’s legitimacy.
It is interesting to note that after being charged, Rahman’s bail was guaranteed by Salmah Rizvi. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Rizvi was a former intelligence analyst who worked in both the State and Defense departments during the Obama administration. Rizvi described Rahman as her “best friend.” Rizvi’s bio at the Islamic Scholarship Fund described “her high-value work would often inform the President’s Daily Briefs.” Rizvi’s law school scholarship was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical anti-Israel organization that has been tied to the funding of global terror networks. While at law school, Rizvi was a fellow at Ramallah-based legal organization Al-Haq, which was founded to challenge the “legal status of Israel as an occupying power.”
Rhaman, and Rizvi both took part in the radical Palestine Works 2014, summer week-long fellowship program together. Rizvi also participated with Rhaman during the “human rights flashpoints” incident, which turned into a violent riot against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Source: Israel in the News
