6/24 Links Part 1: Diplomatic Chess with Iran, Russia Rearming Iran, Hezbollah in Germany.

From Ian:

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Checkmate Iran

I have no doubt that The Black King (Ayatollah) will eventually place itself in a position of being Checkmated by White (Israel) because despite all the smoke and mirrors it is clear that President elect Rohani will not be able to enact nuclear reforms while still ensuring that he has the support of Iran’s supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the ultimate decision maker who has adopted a consistently hard line on the nuclear issue. Israel can Checkmate Iran through accurate information and diplomacy. However it may also need to remove many Black pieces from the board in order to do so, analogous to limited military actions.

Isi Leibler: Tea-time in Tehran

The challenge facing the West is no less critical than the battles fought to prevent Nazism and communism from achieving global domination. Democracies led by the U.S. must devise a realistic strategy including the option of employing force, to deter terror and efforts to undermine our social and democratic order.
This is no time for "hoping for the best." It is a time for facing reality.

Report: Russia Offers Iran Alternative to S-300 Missile System

Russia is attempting to avoid a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Iran over a failed deal to supply S-300 missile systems by offering an alternative defense system, the Russian Kommersant daily reported Saturday.
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources in the Russian arms trade industry, said the new offer on the table is for the Antei-2500, aka S-300VM. The missile defense system can simultaneously destroy up to 24 aircraft within a range of 200 kilometers or intercept up to 16 ballistic missiles.

Harriet Sherwood characterizes Hamas as a “conservative” group

Whilst in previous reports Sherwood has described Hamas a ”militant Islamic group” or an “Islamist group”, her recent work suggests movement towards such shameful moral inversions, by which Jews living on the ‘wrong’ side of the green line are “extremists”, while a radical Islamist movement whose leaders have openly called for genocide against Jews are merely “conservative”.
As we’ve noted on many occasions, one of the more disturbing elements of the Guardian Left ideology is this increasing tendency to grotesquely distort ordinary language in an attempt to shape political reality. It’s difficult to overstate the political toxicity of such activist journalism, which attempts to convince the public that a movement advancing a reactionary racist, violent ideology should arguably evoke greater moral sympathy than the Jews who represent the object of their malign fixation.

The Curious Case of the Israeli Ku Klux Klan Photo

With no accompanying caption, the most obvious conclusion that can be drawn by the average reader is some sort of connection between Israel and the racists of the Ku Klux Klan, something that could not be further from the truth.
When we traced the photo, the truth was surprising. Available from iStockphoto and Shutterstock image sites, the image was captioned:
Tel Aviv, Israel – December 9, 2011: Israeli activists dress as KKK members to satirize right-wing Israeli policies and politicians during in the annual human rights march in Tel Aviv.

BBC continues to ignore majority of attacks on Israeli civilians

Back in April the BBC claimed that attacks on civilians in Judea & Samaria “are rare”, later revising the statement to read “fatal attacks on settlers are rare”. We are all aware of the old journalistic adage “if it bleeds it leads”, but the BBC seems to have taken that several steps further by totally ignoring the vast majority of violent attacks directed at Israeli civilians.

Large Scale Swoop on Terrorists in Judea, Samaria

The operation involved about 200 Border Police under the command of Brig. Gen. Uzi Levi, and was fully coordinated with the IDF 's Judea and Samaria Division.
The police said that the suspects have already admitted to dozens of incidents in which they hurled rocks at security forces. In addition, the suspects have incriminated other people and more arrests can be expected.
The wave of arrests was mostly in response to an increase in the audacity of the terrorists, who began using improvised explosive charges and fire bombs against the security forces, said Brig. Gen. Levi.

In upside-down Gaza, rockets fired at Israel actually aim to hurt Hamas

The various Palestinian groups, including Islamic Jihad, didn’t even attempt to claim that the “Zionist enemy” was responsible for the current deterioration. The shooting is rooted in an internal Palestinian incident whose exact circumstances are unclear. What we do know is that a senior Islamic Jihad official was shot to death, apparently by Hamas policemen. The Jihad decided to “avenge” his death by attacking a very sensitive spot for Hamas these days — the ceasefire with Israel.

Israel hits Gaza targets in response to rocket fire

Two weapons storage facilities and a rocket-launching site in Gaza were targeted by the Israeli Air Force in the early hours of Monday morning, the IDF Spokesperson’s office said, after at least six rockets were launched from the Strip into southern Israel late Sunday night and early Monday.
“The IDF will not tolerate attempts to harm Israeli citizens, and our soldiers will continue to act against anyone who engages in terror against the State of Israel. The Hamas terror organization is held responsible,” the IDF said in a statement.

German mosque groups raising funds for Hezbollah

Hezbollah has long used German territory to raise funds for the families of suicide bombers involved in killing Israelis. A 2009 report from the European Foundation for Democracy titled “Hezbollah’s Fund-raising Organization in Germany” revealed that the Orphans Project Lebanon, based in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, is “the German branch of a Hezbollah suborganization” that “promotes suicide bombings” and aims to destroy Israel.