Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts

Saturday, January 06, 2018

From Ian:

MEMRI: 'Fatah Day' At Bir Zeit University: Fatah Youth Activists Wear Dummy Explosive Belts, Threaten Israel With 'Volcano Of Fire'
Amid tension with the U.S. over President Trump's announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the Fatah movement – both its leadership and its activists in the field – has also escalated its rhetoric against Israel, with emphasis on encouraging armed struggle (see also MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 7259, Fatah Social Media Accounts Glorify Armed Struggle Against Israel, Incite To Violence, January 2, 2018). One expression of this was a mass rally and parade held by Fatah's youth movement in Bir Zeit University on January 3, 2018, as part of events marking Fatah Day, i.e., the 53rd anniversary of Fatah's founding. The participants in the rally and parade wore military uniforms, and some were masked and wore shrouds and dummy explosive belts. One of the signs they carried bore Yasser Arafat's slogan, "millions of martyrs are marching on Jerusalem."

This report presents examples of incitement to armed struggle against Israel, including suicide attacks, at the Fatah Day events in Bir Zeit and in recent posts on Facebook pages affiliated with the movement and its activists.

Fatah Day Parade At BirZeitUniversity: "Millions Of Martyrs Are Marching On Jerusalem"

The Fatah Youth rally and parade at BirZeitUniversity were attended by several hundred students, many of them masked, decked in uniform and carrying Fatah flags. Some wore white robes resembling shrouds and dummy explosive belts, and held up copies of the Quran. Photos of this Bir Zeit event were posted on the Fatah's official Twitter page and on Facebook pages affiliated with the movement.[1] The message conveyed by the event was one of support for armed struggle, such as Fatah's actions before the Oslo Accords and during the second intifada.

Inside the Trump Team’s Push on Israel Vote That Mike Flynn Lied About
The last-ditch lobbying effort to scuttle a 2016 United Nations resolution on Israel by then-President-elect Donald Trump and top aides was more extensive than has been reported and went right up to the last moments before the vote, according to people familiar with the effort:
  • One transition member called the U.S. State Department’s 24-hour operations center for the phone numbers of officials, but the department declined to provide them.
  • Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, called the British ambassador to the U.S., Kim Darroch, urging the U.K. to delay the vote.
  • Mike Flynn, soon to be national security adviser, reached Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis about the vote while the minister was at a loud holiday party in Madrid.
  • Nikki Haley, now the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., tried to contact then-Ambassador Samantha Power, but she declined to take or return the call, telling her staff that Ms. Haley’s outreach was inappropriate.
  • Mr. Trump himself on the day of the scheduled vote told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi that putting the resolution to a vote would damage Egypt’s standing with his administration.
  • About two hours before the scheduled vote, Mr. Flynn called Malaysia’s Permanent Mission to the U.N., but mission staff refused to connect him to their representative.
  • As diplomats gathered in the Council chamber to vote, the cellphone of Uruguay’s deputy ambassador rang, and it was Mr. Flynn asking to table the resolution. The ambassador declined. The resolution passed.
Caroline Glick: Trump kicks America’s Palestinian habit
It was probably a coincidence that US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley hailed the Iranian anti-regime protesters and threatened to end US financial support for UNRWA – the UN Palestinian refugee agency – and the Palestinian Authority more generally in the same briefing. But they are integrally linked.

It is no coincidence that Hamas is escalating its rocket attacks on Israel as the Iranian regime confronts the most significant domestic challenge it has ever faced.

As IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said this week, Iranian assistance to Hamas is steadily rising. Last August, Hamas acknowledged that Iran is its greatest military and financial backer. In 2017, Iran transferred $70 million to the terrorist group.

Eisenkot said that in 2018, Iran intends to transfer $100m. to Hamas.

If Iran is Hamas’s greatest state sponsor, UNRWA is its partner. UNRWA is headquartered in Gaza. It is the UN’s single largest agency. It has more than 11,500 employees in Gaza alone. UNRWA’s annual budget is in excess of $1.2 billion. Several hundred million each year is spent in Gaza.

The US is UNRWA’s largest funder. In 2016, it transferred more than $368m. to UNRWA.

For the past decade, the Center for Near East Policy Research has copiously documented how UNRWA in Gaza is not an independent actor. Rather it is an integral part of Hamas’s regime in Gaza.

UNRWA underwrites the jihadist regime by paying for its school system and its healthcare system, among other things. Since 1999, UNRWA employees have repeatedly and overwhelmingly elected Hamas members to lead their unions.

In every major missile campaign Hamas has carried out against Israel since the group seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, UNRWA facilities have played key roles in its terrorist offensives. Missiles, rockets and mortars have been stored in and fired from UNRWA schools and clinics.

UNRWA teachers and students have served as human shields for Hamas missile launches against Israel.

UNRWA ambulances have been used to ferry weapons, including mortars, and terrorists.

UNRWA officials have served as Hamas mouthpieces in their propaganda war against Israel.

Friday, January 05, 2018

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: The Iranian rebellion the world wants to ignore
Elsewhere the silence indicates the dream-puncturing of an entire political class. In 2015 the UN security council agreed a deal with Iran to limit elements of its nuclear programme for a period. Iran’s incentives included a freeing up of trade and a delivery of billions of dollars in cash. For their part, companies and governments across Europe hoped to get their own cash bonanzas in the wake of that deal. Such deals always compromise the people who make them. One of the chief defenders of the 2015 deal, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, has spent recent days being studiously silent on the uprisings in Iran. When President Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital she couldn’t tweet enough condemnations of his action. Yet five days into the protests in Iran, she hadn’t even said that she is watching events closely. Europe’s leading foreign affairs ideologue needs Iran’s governing status quo to stay in place so that nothing about her own deal, future cash prize or putative Nobel award is in any way disturbed.

Even if the regime is one day toppled — far-off though that day looks at the moment — there are enough rival factions within Iran to make the result as unpredictable as it was for many people in 1979. Back then the New York Times published a memorable piece by Richard Falk (formerly of the UN, now professor emeritus at Princeton University) assuring readers that the depiction of Ayatollah Khomeini ‘as fanatical… and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false.’ He later added that ‘Khomeini’s Islamic republic can be expected to have a doctrine of social justice at its core; from all indications it will be flexible in interpreting the Koran.’ Charitably we might say that Iranian politics has long been hard to read. The classified advice of the CIA in August 1978 was that ‘Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation.’

Many people will dream their own dreams about the latest events in Iran, as experts and amateurs did in 1979. But for some people in the West — notably the Iranian regime’s paid and unpaid defenders — the mission right now will be to defend and otherwise cover for the regime. They will point out that the House of Saud isn’t at all nice: as though that is contested, or presently relevant.

If the Iranian people want freedom from the mullahs and can seize it for themselves, then we should wish them solidarity and luck. They will need it — for every succeeding stage, as well as this one. They are facing a regime that is not just the region’s chief destabiliser and terror sponsor, but a brutal theocracy. And that regime will certainly remain in power so long as the rest of the world remains as confused, compromised, sympathetic and supine as it has been in recent days and years.

PodCast: Iran's Uprising: Is this a rebellion the world wants to ignore?
With Douglas Murray, Nazenin Ansari, Nigel Jones, Sam Leith, Mark Mason and Freddy Gray.


Melanie Phillips: The Iranian uprising and Europe’s shameful silence
Obama believed the only reason Muslims attacked the West was that it had oppressed them. If the West offered Iran the hand of friendship, he suggested, it would turn into a model global citizen.

So he was determined to empower Iran, and Britain and the EU – driven as ever by a combination of greed and funk – fell into line behind him.

Obama thus bent over backward to give Iran a free pass. According to Politico, his administration stymied an FBI-led operation to shut down Hezbollah’s drug-running, terrorism- financing racket.

In the 2016 prisoner swap deal with Iran, he released several men who his own law enforcement agencies believed posed a danger to national security.

And in the 2009 Green Revolution, Obama abandoned the Iranian people by refusing to give the protesters support.

All of this was to secure the nuclear deal – which has merely empowered Iran to use the money released by sanctions relief to strengthen its terrorist infrastructure and step up its malign and aggressive meddling in the rest of the region.

The Iranian protesters offer the one hope that a catastrophic conflagration can be averted by regime change from within.

But the Western Left doesn’t want them to succeed – because that would shine the harshest possible light on the moral bankruptcy of the Obama administration that the Left supported to the hilt.

More unthinkable still, it would mean giving some credit to Donald Trump. But the Left’s unhinged hatred of the US president will allow nothing – not even the liberation of an oppressed people and the safety of the world – to challenge their unshakable conviction that he can never do a single thing that is good.

If the Iranian uprising is stamped out, it will be because of the absence of support from Britain and Europe. Their silence makes them complicit with a genocidal regime at war with the West and has caused them shamefully to betray a brave people fighting for its freedom.
Hillel Neuer on Radio Sweden - "Margot Wallström's position on Iran is troubling"
Jan. 4, 2018 - UN Watch, an NGO which scrutinizes the United Nations, has criticized Sweden's foreign minister Margot Wallström for not condemning Iran strongly enough over its violent response to protests in the country. UN Watch has also criticised Sweden's lack of commitment to an emergency UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Iran. Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, told Radio Sweden: The position of the Swedish foreign minister is troubling. There are hundreds of thousands of people affected by what's happening in Iran and Iran is involved in conflicts across the region. Neuer claims Sweden is neglecting its duty to advocate for human rights, but in a statement to Radio Sweden, Margot Wallström's press secretary said that she was among the first foreign ministers to comment on the situation in Iran. He added: Discussions are currently underway regarding whether the situation in Iran should be brought up in the UN Security Council and, if so, in what format. Wallström’s office insisted that Sweden's position on the matter is as yet undetermined and that a vote on whether to call a Security Council meeting is expected later today. On Thursday afternoon, Wallström took to Twitter again to express concern over the deaths, mass arrests and restrictions on the internet in Iran.


From Ian:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Trump's bold moves just might jolt the Palestinians to finally negotiate with Israel
President Trump has sent a loud and clear message to leaders of the Palestinian Authority: Stop treating the United States like a giant ATM, withdrawing billions of dollars in aid without engaging in peace negotiations with Israel and being willing to make mutual compromises.

Has this message upset Palestinian leaders and their supporters? Absolutely.

But maybe – just maybe – President Trump’s bold and unconventional message will act like a shock treatment and jumpstart new talks between Palestinians and Israelis. If this happens – and it is far from certain – the president’s departure from past policies could go down as an historic turning point in what seems like a never-ending and frozen “peace process.”

The State Department reports that America has provided more than $5.2 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development to the Palestinians since 1994, including $290 million in 2016.

In addition, the U.S. has provided billions more to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), which has aided Palestinian “refugees” in several countries in the Middle East since 1949. This aid includes $355 million from American taxpayers in 2016 alone. America also provided an additional $55 million to Palestinians in 2016 for law enforcement.

The term “refugees” includes children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of people who left Israel when the nation became independent 70 years ago.

The president tweeted Tuesday: “… we pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel…. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

President Trump’s tweet comes on the heels of his announcement last month that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – and our United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s threat to make deep cuts to America’s financial contributions to the world body.
Fight against incitement
As Palestinian leaders call for more violence and Palestinians burn American flags alongside effigies of U.S. President Donald Trump on the streets, the prospects for peace appear more distant than ever.

But Palestinian terrorism did not begin with Trump's Dec. 6 declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel. It has been ongoing since the 1920s and it is fueled by violent indoctrination spread by the Palestinian leadership. It is only via incitement and indoctrination that innocent Palestinian children grow up to become terrorists.

More must be done to prevent the Palestinian children of today from becoming the terrorists of tomorrow.

The only way to stop young, impressionable Palestinian children from supporting terrorism in the future is to ensure that UNRWA schools no longer indoctrinate children into supporting terrorism.

Recently, the Center for Near East Policy Research published a comprehensive study on Palestinian school textbooks. The study argues that indoctrination continues to be a systematic problem in the Palestinian Authority school system.
Sexual Harassment East and West
"I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her." — Nabih Wahsh, Islamist lawyer, on Egypt's al-Assema TV, October 19, 2017.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 sparked off increasingly revolutionary movements across the Islamic world, and in the process saw women in many countries denied the freedoms they had started to acquire under earlier regimes. The veil returned widely, notably in Turkey, following the growing power of authoritarian and fundamentalist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with women's rights being increasingly denied.

We urgently need to drop our unwillingness to contrast Western and Islamic values -- whether regarding violence, treatment of religious minorities, anti-Semitism, or treatment of women. There are also growing numbers of Muslims, as we are seeing today in Iran, who find wider Islamic attitudes abhorrent and work hard, mostly against the odds, to bring their faith closer to modern values.

Thursday, January 04, 2018

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: The Palestinian Search for Peace
Fresh from his lung transplant in the US and follow-up treatment in Israel, Saeb “Massacre” Erekat had the chutzpah to once again rant on about supposed Israeli occupation, apartheid and heinous crimes.

Erekat slammed the American president for being unreasonable with the Palestinians and accused Trump, by his actions, of encouraging “the Israeli occupation to consolidate its occupation and apartheid regime.”

“Now, he is threatening to starve Palestinian children in refugee camps and deny their natural rights to health and education if we don’t endorse his terms and dictations,” Erekat said, referring to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“Instead of treating the Palestinians with fairness, President Trump has chosen a game of blame rather being an honest broker,” Erekat said. “His statements against the Palestinian people have encouraged Israel to continue its heinous crimes and violations of International Law.”


But I think fellow palestinian propagandist Hanan Ashrawi takes the cake with her response.

“President Trump has sabotaged our search for peace, freedom and justice. Now he dares to blame the Palestinians for the consequences of his own irresponsible actions!”

Yup, she really did claim that the palestinians – despite decades of rejecting peace offers and engaging in terrorism) have been searching for peace all this time.

Melanie Phillips: Our Crazy World - the Iran uprising
Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the Iran uprising, the excommunication from liberal Eden of Professor Alan Dershowitz and the inversion by the left of truth and lies.


From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: The West Should Stop Dithering and Show Its Support for the Protesters in Iran
An opinion piece in the New York Times recently argued that the best way for the U.S. government to help the Iranian protesters is to "Keep quiet and do nothing." It is vital to understand why failing to support the protesters at this critical juncture would constitute a moral and strategic mistake.

In 2009, when Iranians came out in large numbers to denounce their country's rigged presidential election, the response they received from the American government was decidedly tepid. This policy of non-interference discouraged protesters and reinforced the regime.

My experiences as a political prisoner and my decades of involvement with democratic dissidents around the world have shown me that all democratic revolutions have some elements in common. It is the drive of ordinary citizens to free themselves from government control over their thought, speech and livelihoods that has propelled dissidents and revolutionary movements around the world.

Any regime that refuses to respect its citizens' most basic rights, and especially the right to think and speak freely, can maintain its power only by intimidation and force. Revolutions take place when enough people simultaneously cross that fateful line between silent questioning and open dissent. Once they do so, the regime can no longer contain the upsurge of opposition and must either begin to liberalize or collapse.

World powers should warn Tehran - and thereby reassure protesters - that it must respect its citizens' rights if it wishes to continue receiving benefits from their countries. Articulating a clear policy of linkage would put pressure on the regime to make genuine changes and give hope to protesters that their sacrifices will not be in vain.

It is time for all those who value freedom to state clearly that the Iranian people - like all people - deserve to be free, and that when they fight for this right, those of us who already enjoy it will stand unequivocally by their side.

Iran’s Endgame In Gaza
One week of popular protests in Iran has brought into stark focus the country’s deep internal divisions, along with widespread resentment towards the mullahs, which have remained relatively dormant since regime forces brutally quashed the Green Revolution in 2009. What started last Thursday in the city of Mashhad as a small economic rally—with participants primarily venting frustration over the lack of trickle-down effect from some $100 billion in sanctions relief granted to Tehran in the 2015 nuclear deal—has morphed into nationwide, deadly demonstrations against the rulership of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Across Iran chants of “death to the dictator” have become common refrain as pictures of the ayatollah are set on fire. Among the many grievances being aired is anger over the Islamic Republic’s deep military, and thus financial, involvement in conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, in addition to support for Lebanese-based Hizbullah. Somewhat less pronounced is the regime’s bankrolling of the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, although protesters have reportedly recited slogans such as ‘Let go of Palestine’ and ‘Forget Palestine’ while invoking the Gaza Strip in particular.

In this respect, relations between Shiite Iran and Sunni Hamas have thawed since the former froze ties with Gaza’s rulers after they refused to support the Assad government at the onset of the Syrian war. Now, Tehran’s renewed funding of Hamas is part and parcel of the Islamic Republic’s attempt to increase its regional influence and, on the micro level, its presence along Israel’s borders. The latter entails accelerating Hizbullah’s militarization in Lebanon and establishing a permanent presence in Syria, including the entrenchment of Shiite proxies in the Golan Heights.

According to Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser (ret.), former director general of the Israeli Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy, Iran’s growing involvement in Gaza is based on a convergence of interests. “On the one hand, Hamas has become weaker as it lost the ability to rely on its usual supporters, while its effort to forge unity with the Palestinian Authority appears to have failed. “On the other hand,” he explained to The Media Line, “the Iranians want to increase the strength of the ‘resistance’ axis that opposes Israel and promotes radical Islamic ideology and Hamas can be a useful ally in this cause.”
Sohrab Ahmari: More Iran Nonsense From the New York Times
Thomas Erdbrink is at it again. The New York Times Tehran bureau chief told readers in November that Donald Trump’s tough rhetoric had pushed the Iranian people into the arms of a regime they detest. Iranians begged to differ: A few weeks after Erdbrink’s story appeared, hundreds of thousands of them poured into the streets in opposition to clerical rule.

Confronted with this apparent discrepancy between reality and his thesis, Erdbrink filed a December 29 dispatch–from Niseko, Japan–that described the protests as “scattered” and concerned mainly with the “government’s handling of the economy.” Meanwhile, in actually existing Iran, the protests had spread from Mashhad, in the northeast, to some two-dozen cities. And the protesters were chanting “Death to the Islamic Republic,” “Death to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei,” and “Death to the Principle of the Guardianship” of the mullahs–not “Death to Inflation.” Erdbrink could have gotten wind of these slogans via Twitter and other social media outlets. Instead, he mostly relied on quotes from regime figures and pro-regime think-tankers keen to frame the uprising as apolitical.

Nearly a week since the protests erupted, Erdbrink remains committed to his earlier conclusions. Witness his January 2 dispatch, this time from the Iranian capital. “Hard-Liners and Reformers Tapped Iranians’ Ire. Now Both Are Protest Targets,” reads the headline, and the body of the article suggests that the current revolt was instigated by these two competing factions inside the regime.

The Tehran regime is invested in the hard-liners-versus-moderates-and-reformers narrative. It is a classic good-cop-bad-cop routine with many useful applications in foreign diplomacy. Numerous Western statesmen and intellectuals have fallen for it since the regime’s founding in 1979. Back then, another writer for the Times, Princeton’s Richard Falk, wrote of how the Ayatollah Khomeini’s “entourage of supporters is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals”–shortly before the Khomeinists staged a decade-long orgy of torture and summary execution. Ever since, finding and supporting regime moderates has been a cornerstone of U.S. and European policy toward Iran.

Wednesday, January 03, 2018

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Regime Change Is the West’s Best Hope for Iran
If the regime in Iran collapsed, there’s every reason to believe that Tehran would reassess its options. If the demonstrators have their way and compel a provisional Iranian government to abandon its support for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and rogue states like Syria, the threat posed by Israel’s nuclear arsenal (which it has possessed since at least 1968) diminishes significantly. Likewise, Iran’s regional non-nuclear competitors in the Arab World—chiefly Saudi Arabia and its allies—can be checked as effectively by conventional forces as they would be with a nuclear arsenal. Incentives provided to Tehran in the form of aid to induce verifiable nuclear disarmament and to transition toward a republican government would also facilitate this process.

To the self-described foreign-policy rationalists who engineered the Iran nuclear deal and now brood in exile, this all sounds like so much fancy. “Realistically, the best-case scenario is not that Iran becomes a Western-style liberal democracy, but rather that it follows the China model,” wrote current New York Times foreign affairs columnist Max Fisher, “of gradual economic and diplomatic opening, along with loosening some social freedoms.” Indeed, we have seen some social freedoms restored in the Islamic Republic—the abolition of the penalty of arrest for women who decline to wear the hijab, for example—but only as a result of protesters setting fire to government offices. Fisher’s isn’t just a failure of imagination disguised as sober calculation; it’s bet-hedging. No one will fault you if the government in Tehran collapses and you didn’t see it coming. Who could have? But if you were to advocate, much less hasten, the regime’s collapse and it survives anyway, your reputation as a policymaker or analyst might not.

Cracks are beginning to show as enraged demonstrators beat at the Islamic Republic’s foundations. Like the Soviet Union, Iran’s is a repressive regime that sacrificed its legitimacy long before its citizens took to the streets in revolt.The Iran deal has provided Iran with lucrative new trade arrangements and access to assets lost to it in 1979, but it has not induced a change in its confrontational posture toward the West. Nothing will. There will need to be new management in Tehran.
Eli Lake: The West Can Help Iranians Take Back Their Country
There is currently a Change.org petition urging Obama to speak out in favor of the demonstrations. That is a good start. But the former president should do more. He should devote his good offices to publicizing the cause of Iranian freedom. No American can lead Iran’s opposition, but Obama’s unique understanding of grassroots activism puts him in an ideal position to lead the Western cause of solidarity. He could organize lawyers, newspaper editors, teachers, librarians and human rights groups to partner Iranians under siege, following the Jewish-American movement to allow Soviet refuseniks to emigrate.

With all of this in mind, it’s also important to avoid past mistakes. Let’s start with hubris. Iranians will be the authors of their liberation. No State Department or CIA program will bring freedom to Iran. The expert class that has gotten so much of Iran wrong in recent years should step aside and listen to those Iranians driven out of their home country who live today in the West.

So far, the movement in Iran appears to have the advantage of being leaderless. Unlike the Greens of 2009, there are no Iranian leaders who have emerged as the personality or face of this new opposition. Let’s leave it that way. People’s Mujahedin leader Maryam Rajavi, or supporters of the Pahlavi dynasty that fell in 1979, should not be treated as leaders or spokesmen for this organic uprising. They seek to impose an agenda on a movement they did not create. Don’t let them do it.

The same goes for those who have emerged as a de facto lobby for President Rouhani and his faction within the Iranian regime. This network, based primarily in Washington, includes the National Iranian American Council, the Ploughshares Network and the many journalists and experts titillated by U.S.-Iranian diplomacy. For years they told us Rouhani was a reformer. Today they whisper that these demonstrators are really a ploy of Rouhani’s “hardline” opposition. They celebrate “elections” that have the legitimacy as those for student government. They want Trump to be silent today.

Finally, it’s important to not be discouraged. I hope the unrest in Iran spreads and the fanatics, thieves and terrorists who have infantilized Iranians for 38 years are toppled. But it’s likely the unrest today is the beginning of a longer process. This regime has survived mass demonstrations and riots before and restored the fear necessary to continue its misrule. It’s the West’s job in these coming weeks to support our real allies, the Iranian people demanding freedom.

Obama Betrayed Iranian People; Trump Stands with Them
As a long-time Iranian, I can tell you that the support of the US and President Trump is invaluable to the ordinary Iranians: they feel helpless and alone in the face of the monsters who have been oppressing them for so long.

On Persian social media outlets and apps such as Telegram, which is extremely popular among Iranians, people are cheering the US support. People are asking the US to support them in other ways as well, in addition to helping them bypass the internet-blocks and shut-downs that the Iranian regime recently implemented.

If the Iranians succeed in changing this Islamist regime, it will bring down the highest state sponsor of terrorism, the leading regime in human rights violations, the top state sponsor of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitic propaganda. Iran, with its current regime, is a danger not just to its long-suffering people, but to everyone. These protesters, who are flooding the streets and demanding that their voices be heard, are committing acts of heroism that will be felt throughout the world and throughout history.

From Ian:

Trump threatens to cut off US aid to Palestinians over Jerusalem dispute
Acknowledging his push to broker peace in the Middle East has stalled, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority, asking why Washington should make “any of these massive future payments” when the Palestinians were “no longer willing to talk peace.”

In a tweet, the president dismissed Palestinian fury over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying he had planned for Israel “to pay” in future negotiations for his declaration. But Palestinian intransigence was now preventing any progress on peace talks, he said

Washington was paying the Palestinian Authority hundreds of millions of dollars a year “for nothing,” he wrote, complaining that the US received “no appreciation or respect” in return.

“They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel,” he said. “We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more.”

“But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace,” he went on, “why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”


US warns it won’t fund UN refugee agency if Palestinians reject talks
Speaking with reporters Tuesday at UN headquarters, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley stressed the US remains committed to reaching a peace deal, and indicated it would cut off aid if the Palestinians refused to engage in peace negotiations.

Responding to a reporter’s question on whether the US will continue to provide funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to millions of Palestinian refugees, in light of a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution last month condemning the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Haley said Trump was prepared to cut aid to UNRWA if the Palestinians refuse to return to peace talks.

“I think the president has basically said that he doesn’t want to give any additional funding until the Palestinians are agreeing to come back to the negotiation table,” Haley said. “We’re trying to move for a peace process but if that doesn’t happen the president is not going to continue to fund that situation.”

“The Palestinians now have to show their will — they want to come to the table. As of now they are not coming to the table but they ask for aid. We’re not giving the aid,” added Haley. “We’re going to make sure they come to the table and we want to move forward with the peace process.”

The US was the biggest donor to UNRWA in 2016, giving $368,429,712. It is also the largest overall supplier of financial support for the Palestinians.
EXCLUSIVE - U.N. Palestinian 'Refugee' Agency Defends Budget After Census Finds Nearly A Third Less ‘Refugees’
I24 News added the census was “conducted by 1,000 Lebanese and Palestinian employees and was taken over the course of a year.”

In his statement, UNRWA’s Gunness said that “UNRWA looks forward to analyzing the survey results in detail and to discuss their policy implications with the Lebanese authorities, the Palestinian community, donor countries and the broader UN family.”

He stressed that the census “does not cover all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon – it covers those in the camps and gatherings.” However, the census was reported as a thorough accounting of most Palestinian “refugees” living in Lebanon.

Gunness added: “UNRWA continues to operate facing a large shortfall in its budget. UNRWA urges all donor countries to provide the funding needed in order to maintain and actually strengthen its capacity to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Lebanon.”

The U.S. is UNRWA’s single largest donor, providing about $300 million annually.

The definition of a Palestinian “refugee” and the actual numbers have long been the subject of debate.
Trump’s Mideast policy: Diplomatic Darwinism in the quest for the ultimate deal
US President Donald Trump’s bombshell tweets late on Tuesday demonstrated once again just how unpredictable the leader of the free world is.

In under 100 words, he questioned America’s longstanding financial support for the Palestinian Authority, contradicted his own position on Jerusalem, and indicated that Israel would have to “pay” in future peace negotiations.

With a president as impulsive as Trump, nothing is impossible. Tomorrow he really could, as he threatened on Twitter, announce that the US will cease funding the PA or demand painful concessions from Israel, or declare he is abandoning his pet peace project altogether.

At this point it appears more likely, however, that US officials will somehow try to downplay the president’s surprising tweets, indicating support for the status quo and vowing that the White House will continue unabated in its efforts to bring about a lasting peace.

Still, Trump’s tweets do provide fascinating insights into how he views international relations and the application of his “America First” foreign policy in the Middle East. It’s all quid pro quo, a system of bilateral transactions in which the strongest player dominates weaker ones. Call it diplomatic Darwinism.

Tuesday, January 02, 2018

From Ian:

Time for the US to Send a Message by Cutting UN Funding
The obvious purpose of the GA vote was to give certain members of the international community an opportunity not only to reject Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but to effectively reprimand the United States. The fact that Egypt, which receives $1.3 billion annually in US foreign aid, first authored the resolution makes this blatant display of anti-Americanism all the more egregious. The US must act to disincentivize UN members states from future attempts to neutralize its Security Council veto, and to try to humiliate it in the General Assembly.

The US provides 22% ($4 billion) of the UN’s mandatory contributions — far exceeding the contributions from other major countries — for administrative and programs costs, as well as for peacekeeping operations. The remaining $6 billion in US support are voluntary contributions that fund organizations such as UNICEF, the World Food Program and UNRWA (whose existence likely perpetuates the Palestinian conflict).

On December 24, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley offered an initial response to the resolution: that the US will cut the UN’s 2018-19 fiscal year operating budget by $285 million. Admittedly, this reduction is intended to “increase the UN’s efficiencies while protecting [American] interests.” Though a step in the right direction, more needs to be done to discourage the UN’s recent behavior.

The US, in the world of international relations, cannot always expect an unambiguously causal relationship between financial support and policies it wants. However, when illiberal actors hijack the UN, and pursue extraordinary measures to actively interfere with internal US policies, it is time to impose a consequence: reduced funding to the United Nations.
'The Palestinians have lost the support of the Arab world'
Middle East expert and senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University, Arutz Sheva weekly columnist Dr. Mordechai Kedar says that the Palestinian Authority is losing support in the Arab world, claiming that former allies are growing “sick of the Palestinians,” as they find support for PA efforts against Israel contrary to their national self-interest.

Interviewed by Channel 20, Kedar says that the Arab world is increasingly impressed by “Israel’s internal stability, its democracy - which even allows all sorts of thugs to say they don’t want to enlist - and the fact that Israel is comprised 20% of Arabs, and not one of them is fleeing. They even know that the Palestinians, who live under Israeli ‘occupation,’ live much better than all the other Arabs in the Middle East. They understand that Israel is something that doesn’t mesh with what they were taught about it - it is something different.”

Kedar explained that the Arab world was growing annoyed with PA efforts against Israel in light of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“What happened was that Trump warned that he would stop funding countries that voted against the US - in Egypt, nobody wants to lose their food just because the Palestinians want Jerusalem. Therefore, in this matter the Palestinians have succeeded in annoying many Arabs in the Middle East, to the extent that people say, ‘Why do we have to be held captive by the Palestinians in the peace process with Israel? If it’s in our interest to have peace with Israel, let’s get on with it, and let the Palestinians break their backs with Israel.’”

“In my opinion, the Palestinians have lost the Arab world to a large extent, and the whole Palestinian national project stands on brink of collapse, because Trump pulled the PA ‘Jerusalem card’ - which has no substance - from their tower of cards.”
JPost Editorial: Wanted: Palestinian pragmatism
Washington has largely remained silent in the face of extreme Palestinian reactions to US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Hardly a peep was heard from the Trump administration when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that the US, by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, had disqualified itself as a fair broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is despite the fact that the US transfers hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the PA every year.

Nor was there a reaction when Fatah officials such as Jibril Rajoub announced that American Vice President Mike Pence, who was supposed to visit the region in December, had become a persona non grata in areas controlled by the PA. Rajoub asked other Arab leaders to follow suit. Yet this snub was largely ignored by the US. Pence’s office said that his visit was canceled due to an important vote on US tax reforms.

While the US has remained restrained, the barrage of attacks from the PA has not let up. The official Fatah Twitter account continues to share outrageous posts since Trump’s decision, as reported by Palestinian Media Watch.

On December 14, for instance, a tweet was sent out that juxtaposed a picture of Trump with one of Hitler and added, “I don’t see any different [sic], do you?” Then, during a sermon on December 20, Mahmoud Habbash, Abbas’s adviser on religious and Islamic affairs, condemned the US by saying Trump’s recognition was “rubbish” and worth less than “the urine of one Jerusalem child.”

There was no sign that – as US officials originally hoped – the extreme initial reactions from the PA to Trump’s decision were quieting down.

Despite pressure from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and perhaps other Arab countries such as Jordan and Egypt, Abbas and other Palestinian leaders refuse to tone down their attacks on the US and take seriously a peace deal now being hammered out by the Trump administration.

From Ian:

PMW: "We shall not retreat" – the PA’s daily battle cry for violence
Nearly every day since Dec. 12, excluding the days around Christmas and New Years, the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has published a full-page of pictures of protests including rioters throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at Israelis. The only text on the pages is a giant headline repeated each day: "We shall not retreat." The locations of each event also appears on each picture, nearly are of which are from different Palestinian cities.

One page, from Dec. 18, shows pictures of peaceful demonstrations against US Pres. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from different countries around the world (Libya, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and Montenegro).

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the Palestinian leadership and Fatah have been attempting to incite more violence against Israel ever since US Pres. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The following pictures are further evidence:

Caroline Glick: The Iranian explosion of truth
The $100 billion in sanctions relief Iran received in the wake of the nuclear deal enabled the regime to give hundreds of millions of additional dollars each year to its proxy militias and armies in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

It is self-evident that if the protesters get their way and the ayatollahs are overthrown, that money would stop flowing to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and the Shi’ite militias in Iraq. Instead, that money, and billions more, would be spent developing Iran.

There are many ways that the nations of the world can help the protesters in Iran. The US and Iran’s other targets can expose the financial corruption in the Islamic Republic, including the bank account information of everyone from Supreme Dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei down to local Basij commanders. They can broadcast anti-regime information into Iran through multiple platforms outside the regime’s control. They can bypass the regime and unblock Twitter, Facebook, Telegraph and other social media platforms.

Aside from that, the Trump administration can take immediate steps to constrain even further the regime’s access to the international monetary system and force European and US firms to cancel their multi-billion dollar deals with the regime.

There are many reasons to fear that the protests will fail to achieve their goal of overthrowing the regime. The regime is already sending its forces out to repress the protesters through killing and mass arrests.

But even if the protesters’ prospects of success are small, there is no excuse for not supporting them, as constructively, enthusiastically and unconditionally as possible. There is certainly no excuse for working to preserve Obama’s foreign policy legacy at the expense of a popular uprising that has the potential to avert a world war.
Peter Kohanloo, Sohrab Ahmari: An Iranian Revolution of National Dignity
Iran is convulsing with the largest mass uprising since the 2009 Green Movement. Demonstrations that began last week in the city of Mashhad, home to the shrine of the eighth Shiite imam, have now spread to dozens of cities. And while the slogans initially addressed inflation, joblessness, and graft, they soon morphed into outright opposition to the mullahs. As we write, the authorities have blocked access to popular social-media sites and closed off subway stations in the capital, Tehran, to prevent crowd sizes from growing. At least 12 people have been killed in clashes with security forces.

What is happening in the Islamic Republic?

After nearly four decades of plunderous and fanatical Islamist rule, Iranians are desperate to become a normal nation-state once more, and they refuse to be exploited for an ideological cause that long ago lost its luster. It is a watershed moment in Iran’s history: The illusion of reform within the current theocratic system has finally been shattered. Iranians, you might say, are determined to make Iran great again.

Their movement is attuned to the worldwide spirit of nationalist renewal. From the U.S. to India, and from South Africa to Britain, political leaders and the voters who elect them are reaffirming the enduring value of the nation-state. Iran hasn’t been immured from these developments, as the slogans of the current protests indicate. No longer using the rights-based lexicon of votes and recounts, Iranians are instead demanding national dignity from a regime that for too long has subjugated Iranian-ness to its Shiite, revolutionary mission.

It’s notable, for example, that protestors chant “We Will Die to Get Iran Back,” “Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, My Life Only for Iran,” and “Let Syria Be, Do Something for Me.” Put another way: The people are tired of paying the price for the regime’s efforts to remake the region in its own image and challenge U.S. “hegemony.” Some have even taken to chanting “Reza Shah, Bless Your Soul,” expressing gratitude and nostalgia for the Pahlavi era, which saw the modern, pro-Western nation-state of Iran emerge from the shambles of the Persian Empire.

Monday, January 01, 2018

From Ian:

Even the Beatles preceded the Palestinians
Since then…since 1964…the “Palestinians” have been the world’s number one concern, even though they have been nothing but a headache and exist in no history books. Nothing to be found about them before June 2, 1964. That’s when the Arab League certified them as the PLO.

That’s when they became a “people” -- a people still in search of an ancestry. So far, no luck.

Abbas keeps trying. He names himself and his “people” heirs to every ancient civilization on record.

But there is not even a single page about them; not in the Hebrew Bible, or the Christian Bible. The Koran never heard of them, and neither did Josephus.

Consider the Beatles. They made their splash February 7, 1964. That’s four months BEFORE the “Palestinians” got noticed...
If the 1960s are your idea of “ancient times,” okay; consider the Beatles. They made their splash February 7, 1964.

That’s four months BEFORE the “Palestinians” got noticed and they, The Beatles, never asked for favors besides “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

It’s the song that launched them on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” (Originally known as “Toast of the Town.”) Anybody remember Ed Sullivan? Of course not.

Yes, Millennials, we did have TV back then, though to change channels Americans had to get up off the couch. Imagine such a thing!

Since math is not my strength, I will trust you to check my figures, to which I say that the “Palestinian people” have been around for 54 years.

For that, they want their own country deep in the heart of Israel, where the Jews go back 3,800 years – and a share of Jerusalem, Israel’s capital for 3,000 years.
Hezbollah and Hamas rank at top of Forbes’ ‘Richest Terror Groups’ list
Eight of the ‘Top Ten’ terror groups in terms of income are Muslim, with Hezbollah and Hamas ranked #1 and #3 respectively.

One of the more far-reaching consequences of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is on display in Forbes Israel’s latest ranking of the richest terrorist groups in the world, as in 2017 Iran-backed Hezbollah leaped to the top of list with a whopping $1.1 billion in revenue.

That is not to say that all their income stems from Iran. Terrorist organizations in general also fund their purchase of arms, training and salary payments to their members from such criminal activities as drug smuggling, money laundering, kickbacks, kidnappings, ‘protection’, etc., just as organized crime does.

But the nuclear deal, it should be recalled, allowed for the release of billions of dollars into Iran’s state coffers from the lifting of internationally imposed sanctions, and the unfreezing of its assets abroad. This, in turn, allowed the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism to open the spigots to its proxies, and the results can clearly be seen by comparing this year’s “Top Ten” list with the previous one, made in 2014. Lebanese group Hezbollah, which has been fighting in Syria for years for Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad, was then ranked fourth, with $500 million – only half of what it has today.

Hamas has $700 million
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas, meanwhile, is now in third place, having actually dropped a rung from 2014. (The Taliban now occupy second place, with a revenue of $800 million). Forbes lists them as currently receiving about $700 million a year, vs. a billion dollars three years ago. They have two well-known state sponsors, Qatar and, again, Iran. But in the decade since it took over Gaza, Hamas also became expert in extracting money from its own citizens.

According to Forbes’ 2014 report, Hamas makes most of its money from a sophisticated tax system aimed at, among other things, pocketing large portions of the international aid that flows into Gaza. It also runs hundreds of businesses, controls several banks, and has levies on all consumer goods entering the Gaza Strip. All in all, the report says, about 15% of Gaza’s economy ends up in this organization’s pocket.
Riyadh chess champion criticizes Saudi visa discrimination against Israeli players
Winner of the world speed chess championship in Riyadh, grandmaster Magnus Carlsen from Norway, said in an interview with the Norwegian NRK broadcasting network that if the Saudi visa issue is not regulated until next year, Saudi Arabia should not host the next tournament. “I really hope they solve the issue of visas for all countries,” said Carlsen.

The four-day chess championship ended December 30 amid controversy surrounding Riyadh’s refusal to provide visas for Israeli players. Seven Israeli chess players reportedly requested visas for the event. Head of the English Chess Federation Dominic Lawson said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia should be stripped of the right to host chess championships. "This contract for the World Rapid Chess Championship was signed on the understanding that the Saudis would ensure that Israeli masters would be able to play,” Lawson said.

Criticism surrounding the tournament also concerned the Kingdom’s treatment of its women. This year will reportedly be the first-year female chess players were not forced to wear an Islamic abaya garment to the games; instead, they were apparently permitted to wear a long blouse. Ukrainian chess champion Anna Muzychuk told reporters she decided to turn down a chance to participate in the event due to Saudi human right violations and its treatment of women. (h/t Zvi)

From Ian:

PMW: Murderers of 179 Israelis honored by Fatah including 4 female suicide bombers
The official Facebook page of Abbas' Fatah Movement celebrated Fatah's 53rd anniversary by glorifying eight terrorist murderers from its ranks, four of them female suicide bombers. Fatah posted photos of the killers with the same text and logo on Dec. 30, 2017:

"The Palestinian National Liberation Movement - Fatah
Mobilization and Organization Commission - Communications Office
The 53rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution"


The following are the photos of the terrorist murderers posted on Fatah's official Facebook page, with PMW explanatory notes:

Khalil Al-Wazir - Abu Jihad - former head of the PLO's military wing, was responsible for the murder of at least 125 Israelis, according to the PA's news agency Wafa.
Text:
"Heroic Martyr (Shahid)
Fatah Movement Central Committee member,
Khalil Al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad'"


The number "53" represents the 53rd anniversary of the "Launch" of Fatah. In the upper right corner is the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as "Palestine".
JPost Editorial: Support the Iranian people
There was a time not so long ago when Israel and Iran were allies. And if one day the Iranian political leadership will go, there is no reason why Israel and Iran cannot once again collaborate.

A free, democratic, and independent Iran would give full expression – not only to the richness of Persian culture, one of the oldest on the planet – but could also tap into the extraordinary talents and energies of this remarkable people. Imagine the synergies of combining Israeli and Iranian abilities.

The only way there is even an outside chance of this happening, however, is if the US under Trump’s leadership, along with other nations, make it clear to Iran that they will not tolerate continued repression of the Iranian people.

As part of restoring the deterrence lost during the Obama era, the US should meet every case of repression with clear consequences, whether in the form of renewed sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the curtailing of imports, or the suspension of business ties.

You might not be able to tell by reading leading newspapers or watching the major TV news outlets, but we could be witnessing unprecedented signs of change in Iran. World leaders should, through both words and deeds, take advantage of this propitious time.
The Regime Chants "Death to America", Iranians Chant "Death to Mullahs"
Now, people are demanding not just limited reforms but regime change. After almost four decades of living under a theocracy -- with Islamist mullahs controlling them, rampant corruption, and the regime's persistent dissemination of propaganda -- the people have reached the boiling point. The government has been doing all it can to stoke the flames of hatred, but has been trying to deflect it to "Death to America" and "Death to Israel".

Protesters, risking their lives, have been chanting, "Death to Khamenei" -- a serious crime according to the clergy, and punishable, according to the Sharia law of the regime, with death.

People are also chanting, "Death to Rouhani", "Shame on you Khamenei, step down from power", "Death to the Dictator" and "Death to the Islamic Republic". Protesters are tearing down the banners of Iran's Supreme leaders, Khomeini and Khamenei.

Chants being heard all over the nation are, "Forget about Palestine, forget about Gaza, think about us", "Death to Hezbollah", "The people live like beggars / [Khamenei] lives like a God," and "Leave Syria alone, think about us instead".

The outcry leaves no question about the needs of the people, and the real voice of Iran. Demonstrators are making a clear distinction between the Iranian people's desired policies and those being carried out by the regime. All political and economic indications are that protests in Iran will continue to grow.

The Trump administration in the United States is taking the right side by supporting the Iranian people; they are the principal victims of the Iranian regime and its Islamist agenda.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

From Ian:

Trump says Iranians tired of having wealth stolen, ‘squandered on terrorism’
US President Donald Trump again encouraged the protesters in Iran on Sunday, saying that the Iranian people were no longer prepared to see the country’s resources “squandered on terrorism” as mass protests continued.

“The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism,” Trump tweeted, saying that it looks like the Iranians “will not take it any longer.”

“The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!” he said.

Trump’s tweets the previous day angered Iran’s government, leading the Foreign Ministry spokesman to say the “Iranian people give no credit to the deceitful and opportunist remarks of US officials or Mr. Trump.”

Trump’s remarks came with the Iranian interior minister cautioning that Israel, the US, and other regional powers do not understand the nature of the clashes and that their delight at anti-government demonstrations is misguided.

A third night of unrest in Iran overnight Saturday saw mass demonstrations across the country in which two people were killed, dozens arrested and public buildings attacked.


Stephen L. Miller: Iran's protests are powerful and real. Why are mainstream media outlets so hesitant to report on them?
How will the Obama Presidential Library wing look celebrating a nuclear deal with an oppressive Iranian regime that could possibly be deposed by security forces and the military joining with protesters, thirsty for democracy and a return to an Iran before the 1979 revolution?

More to the point, how will it look if the Trump administration, of all things, facilitates and encourages such change in Iran?

The prospect of this is not lost on the self-styled resistance and anti-Trump media, all too anxious to witness the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Obama Library or hand a Nobel Prize to former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Overseeing the fall of an oppressive, hardline Iranian regime that sponsors terror all around the globe – followed by the rise of a democratic Iran not interested in aggression against its neighbors – would be a foreign policy victory for President Trump, one of the biggest for a president since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

If the Iranian regime is ousted, the move would neuter Hezbollah’s primary source of funding. It would diminish Hamas at a time when the United States rightfully is moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in defiance of the United Nations.

Replacement of the Iranian government could signal that Assad’s days in Syria are finally coming to an end, without powerful bullies to back him up. A new Iranian government would also no doubt give Russia pause about meddling in Middle East affairs – a hesitancy it did not have when the Obama administration gave Russian President Vladimir Putin “flexibility.”

Combative media reluctant to give President Trump credit for any policy victories – along with reluctance by anti-Trump analysts on the right (this one included) – should not divert our attention from Iranian citizens risking their lives to take to the streets. These Iranians hope the United States and the rest of the world do not ignore them again.
Why Can’t the American Media Cover the Protests in Iran?
Selling the protesters short is a mistake. For 38 years Iranian crowds have been gathered by regime minders to chant “Death to America, Death to Israel.” When their chant spontaneously changes to “Down with Hezbollah” and “Death to the Dictator” as it has now, something big is happening. The protests are fundamentally political in nature, even when the slogans are about bread. But Erdbrink can hardly bring himself to report the regime’s history of depredations since his job is to obscure them. He may have been a journalist at one point in time, but now he manages the Times portfolio in Tehran. The Times, as Tablet colleague James Kirchik reported for Foreign Policy in 2015, runs a travel business that sends Western tourists to Iran. “Travels to Persia,” the Times calls it. If you’re cynical, you probably believe that the Times has an interest in the protests subsiding and the regime surviving—because, after all, anyone can package tours to Paris or Rome.

Networks like like CNN and MSNBC which have gambled their remaining resources and prestige on a #Resist business model are in even deeper trouble. Providing media therapy for a relatively large audience apparently keen to waste hours staring at a white truck obscuring the country club where Donald Trump is playing golf is their entire business model—a Hail Mary pass from a business that had nearly been eaten alive by Facebook and Google. First down! So it doesn’t matter how many dumb Trump-Russia stories the networks, or the Washington Post, or the New Yorker get wrong, as long as viewership and subscriptions are up—right?

The problem, of course, is that the places that have obsessively run those stories for the past year aren’t really news outfits—not anymore. They are in the aromatherapy business. And the karmic sooth-sayers and yogic flyers and mid-level political operators they employ as “experts” and “reporters” simply aren’t capable of covering actual news stories, because that is not part of their skill-set.

The current media landscape was shaped by years of an Obama administration that made the nuclear deal its second-term priority. Talking points on Iran were fed to reporters by the White House—and those who veered outside government-approved lines could expect to be cut off by the administration’s ace press handlers, like active CIA officer Ned Price. It’s totally normal for American reporters to print talking points fed to them daily by a CIA officer who works for a guy with an MA in creative writing, right? But no one ever balked. The hive-mind of today’s media is fed by minders and validated by Twitter in a process that is entirely self-enclosed and circular; a “story” means that someone gave you “sources” who “validate” the agreed upon “story-line.” Someone has to feed these guys so they can write—which is tough to do when real events are unfolding hour by hour on the ground.

Saturday, December 30, 2017

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: How Palestinians Silence Palestinians
The talk that Al-Dayeh would soon be prosecuted before a Palestinian Authority "military" court aroused further surprise. Was the former bodyguard arrested, many wondered, for committing a serious security-related offense?

Speculation on the Palestinian street even reached the point of considering whether Al-Dayeh was being charged with spying for Israel. Or, perhaps this was the man who had put the "poison" in Arafat's soup and which, according to the conspiracy theorists, led to the death of their beloved leader and hero – Arafat.

For years, Palestinian leaders and officials have been telling us, without any evidence, that Israel was behind the "assassination" of Arafat and that it was carried out with the help of a Palestinian, whose identity remains unknown to this day. Could it be, they wondered, Al-Dayeh?

None of the above. Al-Dayeh apparently did not commit any crime against Palestinian security. Nor was he involved in the "assassination" of his father figure and boss.

According to Al-Dayeh's lawyer, Rawya Abu Zuheiri, her client is suspected of "bad-mouthing" senior officials and criticizing corruption of Palestinian leaders on Facebook. Al-Dayeh, she said, has been under interrogation on suspicion of establishing and managing two Facebook pages – "Sons of the Martyrs" and "No to Corruption." The Palestinian Authority claims that both accounts were used to wage a smear campaign against top Palestinian officials and accuse them of financial and administrative corruption.

Such are the main charges against Al-Dayeh; they are not related to any security issues, according to his lawyer. He has been ordered remanded into custody for 15 days for violating the Palestinian Authority's controversial Electronic Crimes Law. His lawyer, however, says there is only one small problem regarding the charges against Al-Dayeh: The man cannot read or write, and as such there is no way he could have posted the offensive remarks on Facebook. In other words, the lawyer is telling is that the man who was entrusted with the personal security of Arafat and was his closest confidant is illiterate.
Sohrab Amari: Iranians Shatter a New York Times Myth
So much for the New York Times theory that, thanks to Trumpian and Saudi bellicosity, the Iranian people have closed ranks behind their rulers. In November, the paper’s Tehran bureau chief, Thomas Erdbrink, devoted an extended feature to making this case, and it proved wildly popular with the pro-nuclear deal crowd in Washington.

“After years of cynicism, sneering or simply tuning out all things political,” wrote Erdbrink, “Iran’s urban middle classes have been swept up in a wave of nationalist fervor.” He went on: “Mr. Trump and the Saudis have helped the government achieve what years of repression could never accomplish: widespread public support for the hard-line view that the United States and Riyadh cannot be trusted.”

Erdbrink’s argument echoed rhetoric from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Responding to October’s announcement of new U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Zarif tweeted: “Today, Iranians–boys, girls, men, women–are ALL IRGC.”

Or not.

This week, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to register their anger, not at Donald Trump or the House of Saud, but at the mullahs and their security apparatus. It was economic grievances that initially ignited the protests in the northeastern city of Mashhad. But soon the uprising grew and spread to at least 18 cities nationwide. And the slogans shifted from joblessness and corruption to opposition to the Islamic Republic in toto. These included:

“Death to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei!”

“Death to Hezbollah!”

“Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, Our Life Only for Iran!”

“We Will Die to Get Our Iran Back!”

“Clerics Out of Our Country!”
Elliott Abrams: The Iran Protests -- and The New York Times
The Times story is written by its bureau chief in Tehran, Thomas Erdbrink, one of the very few Western reporters (he is Dutch) accredited to report for U.S. media. Must he pull punches for fear of being expelled from Iran? After all, this is a regime that has invaded embassies (most recently, for example, the British Embassy in 2011) and in 2009 the entire BBC bureau there was shut down and the BBC’s correspondent expelled. In 2014, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was arrested and then imprisoned for 18 months. He and his wife are now suing the government of Iran for their maltreatment and torture while in captivity.

So perhaps it is wise for reporters in Tehran to watch what they say. But the Times’s report and headline that these are merely economic protests are misleading. Both should be corrected.

Meanwhile the U.S. Department of State issued a very strong statement on these protests—which rightly regards them as political:

We are following reports of multiple peaceful protests by Iranian citizens in cities across the country. Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos. As President Trump has said, the longest-suffering victims of Iran's leaders are Iran’s own people.

The United States strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.

On June 14, 2017, Secretary Tillerson testified to Congress that he supports “those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of government. Those elements are there, certainly as we know.” The Secretary today repeats his deep support for the Iranian people.


The Iranian people rose up against their oppressors in June 2009. Now we are again seeing that this regime rules by brute force, is widely despised, and would be dismissed by the people if ever they got a chance to vote freely.

Friday, December 29, 2017

From Ian:

Who Truly Occupies Whom?
Who truly occupies whom?
Palestinians occupy Jewish land.

Jews are the true indigenous people and owners of the land of Israel.
The ancient Philistines have long disappeared from the earth, and current Palestinians have absolutely no connection to them.

On September 19 2015, Obama’s then-White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough said: “an [Israeli] occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.”

Jerusalem was always the capital of a Jewish State, never an Arab one.
Jerusalem is mentioned 687 times in the Hebrew Bible.
Jerusalem is mentioned 146 times in the New Testament.
Jerusalem is not mentioned — not even once — in the Koran.
Jerusalem is the Jewish holy place.
Rome is the Christian holy place.
Mecca is the Muslim holy place.

Jews have always maintained a presence in all the land of Israel — including Gaza and the West Bank — despite being oppressed, persecuted and murdered, by world empires like Babylonia, Persia, Assyria, Greece, Rome, etc.

To find these cultures today, you need bulldozers to dig up the sands of time.

Palestinians are an “invented” people — their origin stamped into their family names: al-Masri (the Egyptian), al-Djazair (the Algerian), el-Mughrabi (the Moroccan), al-Yamani (the Yemenite) and even al-Afghani are so common among those claiming to be Palestinians.

Yasser Arafat himself was Egyptian.
Yisrael Medad: What Was That "Whole"
Pro-Arab advocates who seek to deny the Jews a state in the area that was the Palestine Mandate usually point to the White Paper of 1922, the Churchill White Paper.

And they note it draws

attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to [that is, the Balfour Declaration - YM] do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded `in Palestine.'

To comment:
Palestine included the territory both West and East of the Jordan River but as a result of British machinations, all the areas east of the Jordan River were to have the application of the articles of the League of Mandate Mandate postponed. Not cancelled. Simply postponed.

Here:
In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions...

Therefore, to establish a Jewish state in all of Western Palestine is quite an appropriate interpretation to this document.
Defining ‘Occupied’ — and the Semantic Battle for Peace
In a demonstration of how completely at odds his views are from those of the foreign policy establishment, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman reportedly asked the State Department to stop using the term “occupied territories” and instead refer to the area as the “West Bank.”

According to accounts that have filtered out of Foggy Bottom, the State Department said no. But we are also told that after pressure “from above” — i.e. President Donald Trump — the issue has yet to be decided.

If this strikes you as a lot of bother about mere words, you’re wrong. These words are part of a high-stakes battle to determine the outcome of the debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For some observers, Friedman’s request demonstrated anew that he was a bad choice for ambassador — since he has a record of support for the Jewish presence in the West Bank. But Friedman is correct that using the term “occupied” isn’t neutral. It backs up the Palestinian narrative that Israelis are alien colonists in territories where only Arabs should have rights.

Israel’s position is that the ultimate disposition of the West Bank — or, to use the biblical as well as geographic term that was applied to the area before 1949, “Judea and Samaria” — is a matter of dispute in which both sides have a legitimate argument. To call the territories Judea and Samaria is also a political statement, just like “occupied territories.”

But the use of words as weapons can lead to a muddle. The term “West Bank” is itself geographic nonsense. It is a relic of the illegal Jordanian occupation of this area, as well as the Old City of Jerusalem from 1949-1967. At that time, the Hashemite kingdom had two “banks,” with an East — the area currently known as Jordan — as well as the West, which was taken by Israel during the Six-Day War.

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Facing a Tamimi government
As Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was among the seven children murdered at Sbarro, reported on his website, Jordanian Prince Ali’s wife, former CNN reporter Princess Rym Ali raised donations from the governments of Europe, Australia and Canada to establish a journalism school in Amman. On every page of the Jordanian Media Institute’s website, Ahlam Tamimi is presented as a “Success Model.”

Three of Ahlam’s victims were US citizens. King Abdullah has rejected repeated US requests to extradite her for trial.

Back in Nabi Saleh, Nariman and Bassem and their kids man the barricades against Israel, for their sponsors.

In 2012, Bassam was convicted of inciting a riot against IDF soldiers. An observer from the EU was present throughout his trial.

Then-EU foreign affairs commissioner Catherine Ashton touted Bassem as a “human rights defender.”

Bassem and Nariman are “volunteers” in B’Tselem’s “camera project.”

B’Tselem, an anti-Israel political warfare group funded by the EU, EU member governments, the State Department and far-left American groups, distributes video cameras to Palestinians and trains them to use them. It then posts their films online to advance its one-sided propaganda offensive against Israel.

In 2015, a consortium of anti-Israel groups including Amnesty International, Code Pink and Jewish Voices for Peace brought Bassem Tamimi to the US on a speaking tour.

In one particularly hair-raising episode, reported by Legal Insurrection at the time, Tamimi addressed an audience of third-graders in Ithaca, New York.

He urged the children to support terrorism against Israel and to join the war against the Jewish state.

Videos of Ahed were a prominent component of his presentation.

The Turkish government is also a big supporter of the Tamimi brood. After a past video of Ahed hitting and cursing Israeli forces was posted online, she and her parents were brought to Ankara to receive recognition from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In a very real sense, the Tamimi family is at the nexus of a global war against Israel.

The Tamimis have connections with nearly every government and group involved in that war. The Israeli and American Left, the EU, Jordan and Turkey and of course Hamas and the PLO all support them. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
The Palestinian masquerade
As part of his diplomatic-political address, Abbas presented his captive audience with his take on the historical and theological basis for the war between Islam and the Jews. His remark, outlining the raison d'etre of this conflict, was tacked on to his main address like a footnote.

"This land is the birthplace of Jesus," he said. "Jesus Christ was a Palestinian, take note of that."

"Yes, believe in our right and God's promise to us, that this holy Palestinian city, since it was founded by the Canaanite Jebusites 5,000 years ago, was and will be the only capital of our independent state, under the sovereignty of the state of Palestine."

"This is also a good opportunity to note that I don't want to discuss history or religion, because there is no one better at falsifying history or religion than them [the Jews]. But if we read the Torah, it says that we, i.e., the Canaanites, lived here before Abraham and haven't left since that time. It hasn't been interrupted. That's in the Torah. If they want to fabricate, 'to distort the words from their [proper] usages,' as God said [a reference to Sura 4 of the Quran that mentions Jews who falsified the Torah]. I don't want to get into religion. We don't want the issue to become a religious issue. We just want to prove that we are here, and we have an eternal right to this city [Jerusalem] and to other cities."

3.
So according to Abbas, Jesus was Palestinian and Jebusite Jerusalem was never the capital city of any nation other than the Palestinians since time immemorial. Furthermore, the Palestinians are actually Canaanites, and God promised them this holy city before Abraham came along, and so on.

We are laughing now, aren't we? It's not just one lie, but a culture of lies. The Arab leader's simple ability to stand in front of the world and lie in a way that almost seems like he is trying to convince himself. Jerusalem has always been the capital of the Palestinian nation? Really? But no nation ever ruled here other than the Jewish nation and its various Jewish kingdoms!
MEMRI: Senior Jordanian Columnists Warn Against Cancelling Peace Treaty With Israel
U.S. President Donald Trump's December 6, 2017, announcement of U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and his plan to move the American embassy there ignited a vast wave of protests against the U.S. and Israel across Jordan. These demonstrations included calls to cancel the agreements signed by Jordan and Israel, including the peace treaty.[1]

Loud calls to revoke the peace agreement with Israel and to cease normalization with it were also voiced in the Jordanian parliament. In its session on December 10, 2017, which was dedicated to Trump's announcement, the parliament empowered its legal committee to reexamine the agreements with Israel, including the peace treaty, and to document all of Israel's legal violations and present them to parliament so that a decision may be taken on this issue. On the following day (December 11), the committee met with Justice Minister 'Awad Abu Jarad to request all the material on the signed agreements with Israel,[2] and one day later it reconvened to discuss the matter.[3]

At the same time, 14 MPs submitted to the government a memorandum calling to "promote legislation to cancel the Jordan-Israel peace agreement due to Israeli violations of it" and due to the American announcement about Jerusalem.[4] On December 17, several MPs signed another memorandum calling on the government to terminate the leasing to Israel of the Al-Bagoura and Ghamar areas on the Jordan-Israel border, claiming that it is an infringement of Jordanian sovereignty and the rights of its citizens in those areas.[5]

Calls to revoke all agreements with Israel were also posted on social media, under existing hashtags such as "#Wadi Araba [peace agreements] will be cancelled" and "#boycott the Zionists," which were brought back into use, and under a new hashtag, "#Cancel it," which went viral within hours.[6] One Jordanian tweeted: "Jordanian members of parliament and decision-makers! Cancel the Araba [peace] Agreement, cancel the gas [import] agreement [with Israel], and sever all overt and covert relations [with it]. Out! Out, the Zionist embassy."

Thursday, December 28, 2017

From Ian:

How the International Red Cross failed the Jews
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a startling and consistent history of anti-Semitism, despite its founding and reputation as an “independent, neutral organization.” Although mandated to eschew taking sides in international and internal armed conflicts and to protect victims of those conflicts — including wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, refugees and civilians — ICRC anti-Semitism emerged prior to World War II, broadened to encompass anti-Israelism after creation of the Jewish state and has continued ever since.
  • In the 1940s, it failed to intercede on behalf of Jewish Holocaust victims and was complicit with the Vatican’s protection of Nazi war criminals and collaborators.
  • Its modern-day expression of anti-Jewish sentiment was manifested in an initial refusal to accept the symbol of Israel’s own emergency aid organization, the Magen David Adom, while welcoming the Red Crescent of Muslim countries.
  • It provided solicitous aid to Arab-Palestinian terrorists whose homes were destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces in reprisal for and to prevent deadly attacks against Israel.
  • The ICRC also supported and glorified terrorism in a tree-planting ceremony honoring imprisoned Islamic terrorists who were guilty of murdering Jews.
  • It has unfairly singled out Israel as an “illegal occupier” and has falsely labeled Israel guilty of an apocryphal “Jenin massacre.” In addition to these actions, the ICRC has failed to condemn Hamas’ use of human shields and has not recognized Israel’s right to self-defense. Instead,
  • it has demonstrated a complete lack of sensitivity for the plight of Israeli civilians as perennial victims of rocket attacks and suicide bombings.
  • Remarkably, the ICRC — arbiters of the humanitarian standards of war by dint of their stewardship of the Geneva Conventions — recently instituted new policies prohibiting return fire upon civilian-inhabited areas. In effect, it empowered terrorists to fight worry-free amongst the general population.
Given this recent history, the organization’s reputation as a purveyor of “neutral humanitarianism” rings hollow.
Josh Meyer Gets an Echo Chamber Beat-Down
A week after Josh Meyer’s Politico expose,“The Secret Backstory Of How Obama Let Hezbollah Off the Hook,” former Obama officials are still berating Meyer for his 13,000-word article detailing how the Obama administration killed a nearly decade-long DEA effort to stem a global Hezbollah cocaine-smuggling-and-organized-crime ring to help secure its nuclear deal with Iran. “This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” former Defense Department analyst David Asher explained in the article. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

Asher helped establish and oversee the project, codenamed Cassandra, that looked into Hezbollah’s wide-range of illicit activities across the globe, including weapons procurement, drug trafficking, and money laundering. Senior Obama officials, according to Asher, ignored the legal and financial instruments that he and others had provided to target a terrorist organization with American blood on its hands and was still plotting against the United States.

In response, a Twitter mob of mid-level bureaucrats and former intelligence officers orchestrated in the usual fashion attacked Asher in tandem with the media echo chamber used to sell the Iran Deal, with former political operatives from the Obama White House supplying the usual talking points to their hatchet-men. Meyer’s “on the record sources have undisclosed anti-Iran deal bias,” tweeted former Obama speechwriter Tommy Vietor, who has remade himself as a podcast host. Meyer’s “entire piece,” tweeted Obama lieutenant and former CIA officer Ned Price, “is based on pure speculation by these ‘1 or 2 sources’ w undisclosed anti-Iran deal bias.”

The catchphrase, “undisclosed anti-Iran deal bias,” is an extended replay version of the catchy slogans Team Obama used to market the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Opponents and critics of the nuclear deal were “warmongers” beholden to “donors” with “agendas” whose concerns were shaped by their loyalties not to America but rather to the Jewish state. Now, the echo chamber insisted, Meyer’s sources aren’t to be trusted because they were against the Iran deal, or have associated with think tanks that opposed the Iran Deal—which means that they are secret neocon slaves of Israel, of course.
Yair_Rosenberg: Confessions of a Digital Nazi Hunter
Like many Jewish journalists who reported on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, I spent the 2016 election being harassed by a motley crew of internet racists who coalesced around the future president. They sent me threats, photoshopped me into gas chambers and hurled an uncreative array of anti-Semitic slurs my way. A study by the Anti-Defamation League found that I’d received the second-most abuse of any Jewish journalist on Twitter during the campaign cycle. My parents didn’t raise me to be No. 2; fortunately, there’s always 2020.

As a result, I’ve become something of an unintentional expert on alt-right trolls and their tactics. For the most part, these characters are largely laughable — sad, angry men hiding behind images of cartoon frogs, deathly afraid that their employers will uncover their online antics. But there are also more insidious individuals, whose digital skulduggery can be more consequential than the occasional bigoted bromide.

And so last November, in the wake Trump’s victory, I decided to turn the tables on them. My target? Impersonator trolls.

You probably haven’t heard of these trolls, but that is precisely why they are so pernicious. These bigots are not content to harass Jews and other minorities on Twitter; they seek to assume their identities and then defame them.

The con goes like this: The impersonator lifts an online photo of a Jew, Muslim, African-American or other minority — typically one with clear identifying markers, like a yarmulke-clad Hasid or a woman in hijab. Using that picture as a Twitter avatar, the bigot then adds ethnic and progressive descriptors to the bio: “Jewish,” “Zionist,” “Muslim,” “enemy of the alt-right.”

False identity forged, the trolls then insert themselves into conversations with high-profile Twitter users — conversations that are often seen by tens of thousands of followers — and proceed to say horrifically racist things.

In this manner, unsuspecting readers glancing through their feed are given the impression that someone who looks like, say, a religious Jew or Muslim is outlandishly bigoted. Thus, an entire community is defamed.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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