FLEOA, the largest association of federal officers in America, threw their support behind the investigatory committee in a letter sent Friday morning to Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.), the chief architect of a bill that would establish the select committee.

FLEOA President Jon Adler told Wolf that the federal officers believe the Obama administration has been stonewalling efforts to find the truth. They find this troubling, particularly in light of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) officer who was wounded in the attack that killed four Americans.

The FLEOA represents DSS officers such as those wounded in the terror attacks and has an interest in the outcome of the Benghazi investigations.

“We have grieving family members and a seriously injured DSS Special Agent that deserve the unwavering respect and commitment of our Congress,” Adler wrote. “Our heroes didn’t take pause while confronting fatal risk. Congress should not take pause in confronting the need to properly investigate this matter.”

Congress should be committing every resource it has to uncovering the truth, the letter says.

“When the questions involve the fatalities of two heroic SEALS, as well a the injuries of brave DSS Special Agents, every government resource should be committed towards answering them,” Adler wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “We don’t kick heroes under the carpet because we find an investigative inquiry administratively inconvenient.”

Recent testimony from State Department whistleblowers have only increased concerns that the Obama administration may be covering up information relating to the attack, according to the letter.

“In light of the recent testimony of three State Department witnesses, including a DSS Special Agent, it is imperative that a bipartisan Select Committee on the Terrorist Attack in Benghazi be formed immediately,” Adler wrote.

“The production of 1,000 documents by the State Department and the administration, as well as the testimony of former Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, has proven insufficient in addressing numerous unanswered questions,” the letter says.

“In supporting this measure, I would expect full bipartisan cooperation of both parties and save the sticks and stones feuding for trivial matters,” Adler wrote.

The Benghazi select committee would have subpoena power and be able to compel the testimony of senior administration officials who have remained silent about the attacks until this point.

Support for the committee has gained steam in recent weeks as more information about the Obama administration’s multiple failures during and after the attack have come to light.

More than two-thirds of Republican House lawmakers, including several high-profile committee chairmen, now favor establishing the committee.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) has been pushing since last year for the establishment of a House select committee that would streamline and target investigations into the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, that claimed the lives of four Americans.

Support for the committee has gained steam as more information about the Obama administration’s multiple failures during and after the attack have come to light.

The Benghazi select committee has earned the support of 154 Republicans, 40 of who have signed onto the effort in three weeks following the release of a congressional report that accused senior Obama administration officials of negligence.

Another 15 members have backed the effort in just the past week, with eight signing on to the legislation to create the committee in the past two days, according to Wolf’s office.

Of particular note is the addition of Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. McCaul’s support for the committee has been dubbed a game changer by Capitol Hill sources overseeing the legislation.

Opponents have claimed it would be incredibly expensive and would take a long time to establish despite widespread Republican support for the committee.

Wolf’s office issued a bulletin aimed at dispelling the “misinformation.”

“To clarify some misinformation about the legislation we have been hearing,” it would not cost $2 million to establish, as some have claimed, Wolf’s office wrote in a Thursday afternoon release. “There is a line in the bill that calls for using existing resources and existing staff.”

Additionally, the committee “could be formed immediately and build on what has already been done” regarding Benghazi, according to Wolf’s office. It would not “take months” to assemble the committee as some have claimed.

Wolf’s office also noted that the committee would have subpoena power, meaning that it could summon senior administration officials who have sought to avoid testifying until now.

“By empowering the select committee with this cross-jurisdictional subpoena authority, it will be able to conduct a complete and exhaustive investigation,” according to Wolf’s office.

The select committee currently has the support of 20 Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee, 17 on the Foreign Affairs Committee, 14 on the Judiciary Committee, and 13 on the Government Reform Committee.

Palestinian delivery workers have been seen smuggling black-market bags of the Colonel’s fried chicken through the illegal tunnels that connect the Gaza Strip to Egypt, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

The tunnels, which Israel has been known to bomb, have in the past been used to smuggle weapons and explosive materials to Palestinian terror groups operating in the Gaza Strip.

The widespread Israeli embargo on the Hamas-controlled territory has inspired entrepreneurial smugglers to traffic less dangerous goods across the border.

“It has been a dream, and this company has made my dream come true,” Palestinian Rafat Shororo, told the Christian Science Monitor, which reported that an entire delivery company has been built around the cause.

“The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook,” according to the report. “It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple the price to 100 shekels ($30) to cover transportation and smuggling fees.”

The Palestinian-bound chicken makes a 35-mile trek from Egypt to Gaza, according to the report.

An al-Yamama employee told the Sun that the company has made at least four KFC runs since opening up shop. Palestinian consumers reportedly enjoy the KFC combo meals.

“We ordered and arranged to bring some meals for us and they arrive after four hours,” the employee was quoted as saying.

Hamas is aware of the activity but has yet to ban the fried chicken.

“Sometimes Hamas checks the meal boxes and sometimes the taxi that picks up the orders from Sinai is late,” the employee told the Sun, which included several pictures of KFC deliveries being run through the tunnels.

Middle East observers on Twitter responded to the news with tweets directed at Israel-bashers who have accused the Jewish state of turning Gaza into an “open air prison.”

“Nothing says humanitarian crisis & ghetto-living like paying $18 for cold KFC smuggled into Gaza via Egypt tunnels,” tweeted student Zach Novetsky.

“So KFC now delivers to gaza, via the tunnels,” write another bemused Twitter user. “Takes four hours and doubles the price due to smuggling markup.”

Patrick Disney worked as an assistant policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an Iranian-American advocacy group long suspected of lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime.

Disney sought to accommodate Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and later became enmeshed in a lawsuit that raised questions about the group’s potentially illicit lobbying activities during his two-year tenure with NIAC.

Now Disney is working for the NNSA, which overseas “the management and security of the nation’s nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, and naval reactor programs,” according to its website.

Disney’s new role dealing with sensitive nuclear issues is raising red flags among some government insiders and former intelligence officials who worry that he may be toeing Iran’s line from within the Obama administration.

“Putting an alumni of NIAC on a nuclear policy desk is the domestic policy equivalent of having David Duke monitor civil rights,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq.

Disney—who has personally met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—could be privy to classified information in his new role at NNSA, and he is likely offering top NNSA brass advice on Iran.

Critics called this situation dangerous given Disney’s past advocacy work and sympathetic writings on Iran.

“This is one of the single most bizarre appointments I’ve ever seen and I’ve been around a long time,” said one former senior Capitol Hill aide with personal knowledge of Disney. “I guess someone was impressed with what he’s said.”

Disney, who became an NNSA Graduate Program Fellow in June 2012, now conducts “analyses of proliferation threats,” which could include Iran, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He has “supported senior officials overseeing 15 international programs with $150M budget,” his profile states. “Conducted analyses of proliferation threats and program priorities utilizing interagency input and intelligence products.”

Disney also has “managed implementation of $2M nuclear forensics program” and has “coordinated interagency planning for major events, including creation of the briefing book for the Secretary of Energy and U.S. delegation to the 2012 [International Atomic Energy Agency] General Conference,” according to the profile.

As a NNSA graduate fellow, Disney is a full-time salaried employee.

“This 12-month, full-time, salaried fellowship program provides participants with specialized training and practical experience on projects and initiatives that contribute to a safer world,” according to a description of the program on the NNSA’s website.

“In addition to gaining valuable experience working with federal government programs, participants have opportunities to collaborate with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as well as other government agencies, national laboratories, and non-governmental organizations,” the description states.

Disney did not respond to a Washington Free Beacon request for comment on his precise role and duties at the NNSA. A DOE representative also did not respond.

Critics called the appointment mystifying and concerning.

“I presume he has a security clearance now or will get one,” said the former Capitol Hill aide. “It’s an extremely strange thing.”

“The question is what will he be doing? What will he has access to?” asked the source. “There’s a lot there that’s quite wrong.”

Disney has long pushed to roll back U.S. sanctions on Iran and increase engagement with Tehran’s radical leaders.

He also offered kind words about Ahmadinejad in a 2010 letter to the New York Times.

“I saw a man wholly convinced of the righteousness of his actions, not cynical in the least,” Disney wrote about his powwow with Ahmadinejad. “His combination of earnestness and cleverness convinced me of the need for the United States to drastically alter its current approach.”

“It’s not enough to wait for sanctions to work; nor is half-hearted engagement sufficient,” he wrote. “The United States must commit to one of only two remaining options: war or substantive and prolonged negotiations.”

Disney has also perpetuated conspiracy theories regarding Iran’s nuclear progress.

He has speculated that “Western intelligence agencies” may be “planting fraudulent evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program,” according to a 2010 post on his personal blog, Talking Warheads.

“Is it possible that American, Israeli, or some other intelligence agencies might have provided taken [sic] advantage of that and provided fabricated intel? Yes,” he wrote.

“Disney’s writings expose him as a conspiracy theorist, readily and publicly suggesting that the United States would fabricate intelligence to entrap those poor, innocent Iranian nuclear scientists,” Rubin said.

Disney also was named as a central figure in a longstanding lawsuit focusing on NIAC’s potentially illegal lobbying activities.

He was caught altering NIAC calendar appointments and other materials to make it appear as if the organization was not engaging in lobbying activities, according to court records.

The revelation led the judge in the case to express concern.

“The only alteration that gives this Court pause is that Patrick Disney, a NIAC employee, changed at least 82 references to ‘lobbying’ in his calendar entries to say ‘legislative direct’ in February 2010,” the judge stated in a 2012 opinion.

J Street, a far left advocacy group that bills itself as “pro-Israel” and was founded by Jewish Democrats, is scheduled to hold a dinner discussion tonight with members of Congress at the Hunan Dynasty Chinese restaurant in Washington, D.C., according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The event is taking place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which began Tuesday evening and commemorates the biblical day in which God is believed to have given the Jewish prophet Moses the Torah.

Observant Jews are required to obey the religious laws of the holiday, which include abstaining from work and other matters after sundown.

Observant Jewish Democrats told the Free Beacon that it is disrespectful and offensive for a supposedly pro-Israel organization to host an event during a major Jewish holiday.

“It’s in bad taste for an organization like this,” said one Jewish Democrat, who dubbed the dinner offensive. “I don’t expect everyone to be observant, but there are very few organizations” that has explicitly Jewish ties.

“These kinds of organizations shouldn’t be doing events like this on Jewish holidays,” the Democrat said. “There aren’t that many of them” and they should know better, the Democrat added.

The Chinese food dinner is scheduled to run from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at Capitol Hill’s Hunan Dynasty restaurant Wednesday. The holiday ends Thursday at sunset.

One former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said J Street is breaking a cardinal rule of pro-Israel advocacy.

“There’s a hard and fast rule about not doing events on holidays,” particularly major ones, said the source, who recommended that J Street officials visit a website listing the days that Jewish holidays take place before scheduling events.

“As Jews in America and Israel and across the world celebrate the holiday of Shavuout, I’m glad to see J Street is engaging in a time-honored tradition of eating Chinese food,” added the source.

Lawmakers attending the event are invited to talk about a recent trip to Israel they attended with J Street.

“The objective of the dinner is to share and discuss the insights of Members who participated in the mission [to Israel]—from thoughts on recent developments in the region to perspectives on advancing U.S. diplomatic leadership toward a two-state solution,” reads the invitation, which is signed by J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami.

“This discussion will also provide an opportunity for Members to learn more and ask questions about [J Street Educational Fund's] 2014 Congressional mission,” the invite reads.

“Nearly twenty Members of Congress (please see attached list) have participated in JSEF-sponsored delegations to the region and found them to be nuanced and valuable,” it says. “JSEF’s missions are designed to provide balanced insights into the roots and possible resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are not generally available on other trips to the area.”

Members attending the event will be able to discuss the Jewish state as they eat steamed meat dumplings, Imperial Shrimp, or Yaki Soba, a sautéed Japanese noodle dish, according to the restaurant’s menu. Adventurous eaters can enjoy squid or octopus.

J Street’s nonprofit arm will foot the bill, according to the invite.

“Dinner for each Member of Congress and one staff member will be paid for by the J Street Education Fund in compliance with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct ethics rules,” the invitation says.

J Street spokeswoman Jessica Rosenblum declined to comment on Hill staffers’ concerns about the event being held during the Jewish holiday.

J Street routinely attracts condemnation from conservative and pro-Israel critics for its efforts to force Israel to concede land to the Palestinians.

J Street’s education fund is a nonprofit organization that works in tandem with its political advocacy and lobbying operation.

The J Street dinner is also being held on a day Palestinians and Arabs refer to as the Nakba Day, or the day Israel was created. Palestinians typically engage in violent acts against Israel to mark the day.

Columbia Arab politics professor Joseph Massad wrote that the Nazis successfully “killed the majority of Jewish enemies of Zionism,” or those Jews who might oppose Israel today.

“While the majority of Jews continued to resist the anti-Semitic basis of Zionism and its alliances with anti-Semites, the Nazi genocide not only killed 90 percent of European Jews, but in the process also killed the majority of Jewish enemies of Zionism who died precisely because they refused to heed the Zionist call of abandoning their countries and homes,” Massad wrote, before discussing “the affinity between Nazis and Zionists.”

Massad also condemned America and the West for touting “pro-Zionist Nazi policies.”

One of Massad’s colleagues at Columbia said his piece “reflects profound ignorance of Jewish history.”

“The notion that the Protestant Reformation is the basis for Jews’ belief in the continuity of Jewish life from ancient times, or for their ties to the land of Israel, reflects profound ignorance of Jewish history,” Professor Paul S. Appelbaum, the university’s Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law, said in an email.

Appelbaum said that Massad skews history in order to slander Jews and Christians.

“The chain of Jewish tradition and the centrality of the land of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people have been a focus of Jewish thought, daily prayer, and self-consciousness since the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent exile of the majority of Jews,” Appelbaum said, refuting Massad’s core argument.

“The contention can only be understood as a rhetorical device aimed at slandering Jews and Christians simultaneously, setting the stage for the essay’s rather dubious conclusion that only the Palestinians stand ‘in the way of a complete victory for European anti-Semitism,’” he said. “Such an excursion into post-modern fantasy does not deserve to be taken seriously.”

Prominent Middle East observers such as Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg quickly criticized Massad for arguing that “all the good Jews”—i.e., those who opposed the creation of Israel—“were killed in the Holocaust.”

“Congratulations, al Jazeera,” Goldberg tweeted, “You’ve just posted one of the most anti-Jewish screeds in recent memory.”

Columbia University spokesmen and several other representatives declined multiple requests for comment on the controversy when approached by the Washington Free Beacon.

Massad argued in his 4,000-word piece that the state of Israel is the chief proprietor of anti-Semitism and that so-called Zionists colluded with and courted the Nazis and other anti-Semites in order to spur Israel’s creation.

These types of anti-Semitic theories are typically propagated by Holocaust deniers and other various anti-Semites.

“Israel’s claim that its critics must be anti-Semites presupposes that its critics believe its claims that it represents ‘the Jewish people,’” he wrote. “But it is Israel’s claims that it represents and speaks for all Jews that are the most anti-Semitic claims of all.”

Israel demands that “for there to be peace in the Middle East, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims must become, like the West, anti-Semites by espousing Zionism and recognising Israel’s anti-Semitic claims,” Massad wrote.

Massad incorrectly writes that Jewish Zionists rushed to befriend the Nazis in order to advance their political agenda.

“The Zionists would strike a deal with the Nazis very early in their history,” he wrote. “Zionist envoys were dispatched to Palestine to report on the successes of Jewish colonization of the country.”

“The Nazis’ Final Solution initially meant the expulsion of Germany’s Jews to Madagascar,” Massad said. “It is this shared goal of expelling Jews from Europe as a separate unassimilable race that created the affinity between Nazis and Zionists all along.”

Massad has a loose grasp on Nazism and history, his critics argued.

“Zionism, according to Massad, emerged not as a response to European anti-Semitism but in sympathy with its racialist precepts,” wrote columnist and blogger Liam Hoare.

“As for the comparison of Nazism and Zionism, I think such an attempt at equivalence says a good deal more about the author than he intends,” Hoare writes. “It is the statement of a sick and disordered mind. To compare the two and deem one as bad as the other is beyond the pale.”

Hoare excoriates Massad for his comments about the so-called “good Jews” being killed off by the Nazis.

“It is not much of a stretch to characterise Massad’s thesis as follows: All of Europe’s good Jews were the ones that did not heed to call to make aliya [immigration to Israel] and died in the Holocaust; the Zionist Jews who made it to Palestine and survived were (and are) bad Jews,” Hoare wrote, before summing up the essay thusly: “It’s enough to make you heave.”

Ann Dismorr, director of the United National Relief Works Agency’s (UNRWA) Lebanon bureau, posed on May 3 on Arabic television holding a map that clearly erases the Jewish state of Israel and replaces it with “Palestine,” according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which posted several photos of Dismorr.

“Above the map is the Palestinian flag and the inscription ‘Arab Palestine,’” PMW reported on its website, translating the original Arabic text. “The text at the bottom of the map also says ‘Palestine.’

“The neighboring countries Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are all named on the map as is the Mediterranean Sea,” PMW reports. “Israel is not mentioned or designated anywhere.”

The map was presented during a ceremony to launch a series of German-funded UNRWA projects in southern Lebanon.

UNRWA disputes the charge, claiming that just ”because its officials and stakeholders stood next to a map which does not show Israel,” does not mean it endorses the behavior.

“UNRWA categorically rejects accusations in the media that the Agency is ‘erasing Israel from the map’ because its officials and stakeholders stood next to a map which does not show Israel,” UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness told the Free Beacon.

“The map in question is an embroidery depicting a pre-1948 map and therefore ante-dates the creation of the state of Israel,” Gunness said, accusing PMW of publishing misleading information. “The allegations are therefore completely false.”

The map additionally turns cities in Israel into cities in “Palestine.”

“Several places and cities, both in Israel and from the Palestinian Authority, are included on the map of ‘Palestine,’” according to PMW. These include, “The Negev desert, Be’er Sheva, Rafah (Gaza), Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, and the Dead Sea.”

UNRWA, which cares for some 5 million Palestinian refugees throughout Israel and the surrounding region, has come under fire in the past for having what critics allege is an anti-Israel bias.

The map was offered to UNRWA as a present from the “Palestinian Women’s Union.” It was presented during the ceremony, which was organized to launch a series of water improvement projects funded in part by the German government.

UNRWA reported on its website that “a number of high ranking Lebanese and Palestinian officials” were present.

“Germany has contributed a total of US$ 53.9 million to UNRWA’s General Fund between 2007 and 2012 and US$ 12.9 million for UNRWA in Lebanon during the same period,” UNRWA noted.

PMW founder and director Itamar Marcus said UNRWA is “giving into basically the most fundamental impediments to peace” by justifying Palestinian attempts to delegitimize Israel.

“Even if it’s only passive and people handed [the map] to her, she held it aloft and posed for the picture,” Marcus said. “She knew what she was doing.”

“The U.N. is going along and has gone along with this message … of denying Israel,” Marcus said.

Meanwhile, the International Red Cross was recently criticized for engaging in similar behavior.

The well-regarded humanitarian organization teamed up with the Palestinian Red Crescent to plant 150 trees that were named after “veteran prisoners,” otherwise known as terrorists and other criminals imprisoned by Israel, according to PMW.

One tree was named after a terrorist who shot innocent college students in Jerusalem while another was named for a terrorist who received four life sentences for killing an Israeli.

The ceremony titled “My Honor is My Freedom” was held in the Palestinian territory of Jenin and marked the Red Cross’s 150th anniversary, according to PMW.

“The Palestinian Authority uses the term ‘veteran prisoners’ to refer to those who have been in jail the longest and in most cases are serving life sentences for murder or multiple murders,” PMW stated in its report.

PMW identified more than 15 individuals tied to terror who had a tree named after them.

Red Cross official Giorgio Ferrario, a representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, attended the event.

“It is significant that the International Red Cross funds not only the general budget of the Palestinian Red Crescent but also ‘events,’” according to PMW, which noted that it remains unclear if the Red Cross funded the event or just participated.

Multiple Red Cross spokespeople did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment about the event.

PMW’s Marcus noted that while the Red Cross has not traditionally taken a biased stand against Israel, its presence at the event might mark a disturbing shift.

“It is so surprising and upsetting,” Marcus said. “It seems more and more organizations are getting into things that the world was once horrified by.”

Colin Kahl, who served as Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East until December 2011 when he transitioned to the president’s reelection campaign, writes in a new report that “if all else fails” the administration could be forced to “shift toward containment [of Iran] regardless of current preferences.”

Critics of the administration say the report appears to mark a significant departure from the administration’s stated policy of discounting containment as a viable option regarding Iran.

The 80-page report “outlines a containment strategy to manage and mitigate the dangers associated with a nuclear-armed Iran if prevention efforts—up to and including the use of force—fail.”

“This preference for prevention [of a nuclear armed Iran] should not be used as an excuse to avoid thinking through the requirements for effective containment,” the report states. It was authored by Kahl of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Georgetown University security studies student, and another CNAS official, a left-leaning policy shop with ties to the administration.

Kahl told the Washington Free Beacon that he is not advocating for containment, but recommending that the White House “plan for the worst.”

“I haven’t ‘pivoted’ to containment,” Kahl said via email in response to the Free Beacon. “As the report notes numerous times, we do not support a shift to containment. Prevention remains the wisest policy.”

Kahl said he is not giving up on preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capabilities.

“I still think prevention is possible and that all instruments of national power should be employed toward that goal,” he said. “But while I’m hopeful we can still succeed in preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, I also think that we should plan for the worst.”

The CNAS report also acknowledges that the White House is not likely to publicly give up on prevention.

“Although the United States is not likely to acquiesce to the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, Tehran may be able to achieve an unstoppable breakout capability or develop nuclear weapons in secret before preventive measures have been exhausted,” the report states.

“Alternatively, an ineffective military strike could produce minimal damage to Iran’s nuclear program while strengthening Tehran’s motivation to acquire the bomb,” the report states. “Under any of these scenarios, Washington would likely be forced to shift toward containment regardless of current preferences.”

One Iran expert and former Pentagon adviser said the CNAS report represents a significant step in a dangerous direction.

“Kahl and crew seemingly have no sense of the damage to America’s standing in the region that a nuclear Iran could do,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq.

“Why would any state in the Persian Gulf trust America to have its back after men like Kahl counsel the United States to cast aside its past promises to prevent a nuclear Iran?” he asked. “Why would they risk hosting the bases upon which containment would rest?”

Kahl, who acted as one of Obama’s top national security figures and a key campaign official, is sending the wrong message by lending his name to the report, Rubin said.

“Kahl fails to understand the reasons why containment and deterrence are so risky: He doesn’t address who would have command and control of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” Rubin said.

“In reality, it would be not only the Revolutionary Guards but the most hardline and ideologically pure faction inside that organization,” he said.

Kahl maintains that his views “don’t represent the administration position in any way.”

“Neither our allies nor Iran is likely to read what I say as representing official views,” he said when asked if the report could be misinterpreted by U.S. allies as a tacit endorsement of containment.

“No one would read the report and conclude containment is a great option,” Kahl said, explaining that the report clearly notes containment would be “very difficult, risky, complex, and costly.”

“Our allies and partners know that the administration has zero desire to pursue containment,” he said. “But I also believe that we should plan for the things we don’t want to happen, not just the things we hope will happen.”

Former George W. Bush administration adviser Elliott Abrams said Kahl’s presence on the report suggests “that all options may not really be on the table.”

“This kind of report, from someone who held a key job relating to Iran in the Obama administration, suggests just as the Hagel appointment does that all options may not really be on the table,” Abrams said.

“But as I read the report, the list of things the United States would need to do to try and contain a nuclear Iran actually proves the opposite—that containment is impossible,” he said.

“I think reports like this telegraph to Tehran that they need not take our threats seriously,” he said.

CNAS has been funded in part by the progressive anti-nuclear arms group Ploughshares Fund, which aggressively advocates in favor of engagement with Iran and for a rollback of economic sanctions.

CNAS has received funding from Ploughshares since at least 2009 and was awarded a $100,000 grant in February 2013.

The Ploughshares grant is to “support high-impact research and analysis of the Iranian nuclear question and its ramifications for security in the Middle East and the United States,” according to a description on the group’s grant database.

Ploughshares donates to many pro-Iran groups that have lobbied to lift economic sanctions on Iran.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was a member of the group’s board until his nomination to head the Pentagon. Ploughshares helped fund a media campaign to boost Hagel’s image during his contentious nomination process.

The Newseum made the announcement just minutes before the induction of several new reporters into its Journalist Memorial, which honors members of the media who have been killed in the line of duty.

“Serious questions have been raised as to whether two of the individuals included on our initial list of journalists who died covering the news this past year were truly journalists or whether they were engaged in terrorist activities,” the museum said in a statement posted to its website.

“We take the concerns raised about these two men seriously and have decided to re-evaluate their inclusion as journalists on our memorial wall pending further investigation,” the statement said.

“Terrorism has altered the landscape in many areas, including the rules of war and engagement, law, investigative and interrogation techniques, and the detention of enemy combatants. Journalism is no exception,” the statement continued.

“To further our First Amendment mission to provide a forum where all may speak freely, the Newseum will establish a new initiative to explore differing views on the new questions facing journalism and journalists,” it added.

“The Embassy of Israel appreciates the Newseum’s decision to reconsider the inclusion of members of Hamas, a terrorist organization, on its list of journalists who lost their lives covering the news,” the Embassy of Israel said in a statement to the Free Beacon. “The decision taken by the Newseum reflects a core journalistic value that it works to honor: the pursuit of understanding the full story.”

The museum sparked controversy last week when it decided to honor Hussam Salama and Mahmoud Al-Kumi as reporters.

The two were killed by Israel while working for the al-Aqsa Television station, which is funded and controlled by the terror organization Hamas. The station is known to promote terror and indoctrinate children and has been designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department.

The Newseum originally stood by its decision to honor Salama and Al-Kumi as reporters, telling the Washington Free Beacon on Friday that the two “were cameramen in a car clearly marked ‘TV.’”

Pro-Israel advocates and others quickly condemned the Newseum’s decision.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism, said the Newseum has made a “shameful decision” to honor the terrorists.

“Duct Tape on car with the letters TV does not a journalist make,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean. “A shameful decision based on a falsehood that besmirches the true heroes of journalism who died while pursuing their mission of seeking and reporting the Truth.”

Cathy Trost, the Newseum’s vice president of exhibits, programs, and media relations, told the Free Beacon that the two Hamas operatives in question could be included in the Journalist’s Memorial at a future ceremony.

“The process is that serious questions were raised and we’re going to look in to the nature of their work,” Trost told the Free Beacon following the ceremony. “Based on a pending investigation, yes,” the two could be included in the memorial.

“We’ll look into the nature of their work,” Trost said. “We’re reevaluating.”

Despite being formally removed from the ceremony, Salama and Al-Kumi were still pictured Monday morning in a full page New York Times ad “honoring fallen journalists.”

Click to enlarge

“Some were targeted deliberately  while others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the Newseum stated in the ad. “All were working to expand the reach of a free press around the world.”

Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, addressed the controversy during his keynote remarks at the ceremony, which honored scores of fallen reporters from conflicted areas such as Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Iran, and Iraq,

“I frankly agree there is a distinction and several people on this list aren’t strictly journalists but political activists,” Engel said. “Just because you carry a camera and a notebook doesn’t mean you’re a journalist.”

Engel told reporters after the ceremony that he sympathizes with those who fought against the inclusion of the Hamas operatives, comparing them to other “political activists” in countries such as Syria.

“There was a campaign against not just against those two Palestinian journalists, but some state broadcasters” and reporters who have fought to topple the Syrian regime, Engel told several reporters.

“I can understand where they’re coming from because there’s a distinction between people who are political activists, not just the ones who work for Hamas TV, but some of the Syrian activists.”

“If you’re a political activist and your job is to bring down a regime you are different” than typical reporters, Engel said. “The difficult part is who gets to decide which groups are represented and which groups are not.”

“With the Hamas issue it’s clearly more controversial,” he said.

“Hussam Salama and Mahmoud al-Kumi were cameramen in a car clearly marked ‘TV,’” Newseum spokesman Scott Williams told the Washington Free Beacon via email on Friday. “The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers all consider these men journalists killed in the line duty.”

Here are six things you need to know about Salama and al-Kumi:

1. They worked as “reporters” for a Hamas-backed television station.

Image taken from Al-Aqsa TV / AP

They worked as so-called reporters for the Hamas-backed al-Aqsa Television, which the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a terror group in 2010.

“Treasury will continue to expose Hamas’s efforts to create institutions with the trappings of legitimacy that are in fact controlled by and used to support a terrorist organization,” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey said at the time, calling al-Aqsa a terrorist front posing as a news organization.

“Al-Aqsa is a primary Hamas media outlet and airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood,” the department noted.

2. Salama and al-Kumi were on Hamas’ payroll.

Mahmoud al-Kumi, Hussam Salama / newseum.org

“Hamas leadership raised the initial capital for the station shortly after the January 2006 Palestinian elections,” the Treasury Department noted. “At that time, donors contributed half a million dollars for the channel, which was to be headed by members of Hamas, and shortly thereafter, Hamas leaders negotiated broadcasting arrangements with a satellite television provider.”

3. Hamas hailed both Salama and al-Kumi as martyred jihadi fighters.

Hamas hailed the two men as martyred jihadi fighters after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed them in an airstrike on terrorist targets.

Salama is identified in one post on a prominent Hamas Internet forum as ”mujahid” or martyr, as well as a “jihadi fighter.”

Al-Kumi is identified in another forum post as a “martyr.” Pictures of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh meeting with al-Kumi’s family also are posted in the forum.

4. The two were “part of the resistance” against Israel.

The two purported journalists were apparently “part of the resistance” against Israel, the television station’s top figure was quoted as saying.

“Being ‘part of the resistance’, in other words, could mean that those carrying a camera during the day could be carrying rockets at night,” the Weekly Standard reported.

5. They posed as television cameraman while carrying out terrorist operations.

Salama and al-Kumi posed as television cameraman as they carried out terrorist operations on behalf of Hamas. The van they drove in was crudely marked with a sign that read, “T.V.,” a move meant to deceive Israeli authorities.

“Duct Tape on car with the letters TV does not a journalist make,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Weisenthal Center’s associate dean, told the Free Beacon.

6. Critics of the Newseum took to social media sites to express opposition to its decision.

Newseum / Wikimedia Commons

Critics of the Newseum took to Twitter and other social media sites on Friday to express opposition to the honoring of Salama and al-Kumi.

“Maybe [terrorist mastermind] Anwar Al-Awlaki should have called himself a reporter, not a preacher, so @Newseum could have honored him, too,” tweeted Josh Block, the Israel Project’s CEO and president.

Others wondered if terrorist operatives who write for al Qaeda’s various publications should receive honors from the Newseum.