Family of 4-year-old killed by Gaza mortar fire slams UN hypocrisy in letter to Ban Ki-moon
Gila and Doron Tragerman, who lost their 4-year-old son Daniel in a mortar strike from the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge, have called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to speak out against Hamas's crimes.Hamas's War Crimes and Crimes against Islam
In a letter sent to the UN chief on Thursday, Gila Tragerman describes the death of their son and the experience of living under constant rocket threat in recent years at their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. In addition, she slammed the UN's decision to open an investigation into Israel's actions during Operation Protective Edge.
"I am an Israeli citizen, a resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz which borders Gaza. A week ago we lost our oldest son, four-and-a-half year old Daniel, who was killed by a mortar shell fired from Gaza at the kibbutz. I am turning to you as a result of your announcement to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu about your decision to form an international committee to investigate 'Israel's crimes' during the recent fighting in Gaza."
She explained that the family had learned of Ban's decision to probe Israel's actions during the operation in Gaza while the family was sitting shiva, the customary Jewish period of mourning.
"You sent the announcement to Prime Minsiter Netanyahu - we learned - exactly a half hour after our Daniel was killed...you informed the prime minister that the committee would probe 'Israel's crimes.' The investigative committee will not be asked to probe how it is possible that terrorists fire weapons from inside UN buildings and from schools," she charged.
"The committee also will not be checking how it can be that, inside UN buildings and inside hospitals in Gaza thrives a terror infrastructure, precisely planned over a long period, or how murderers exit those same buildings to perpetrate terror attacks against innocent people."
There is no horror more appalling than forcing the Gazan population to endure the stockpiling of rockets in mosques, the construction of tunnels under their kitchens, the situating of terrorist headquarters under their hospitals and the perverted use made of UNRWA facilities (some of whose personnel collaborated with Hamas and willingly concealed weapons). The West must disband UNRWA.PA: Hamas shot Fatah members in the legs during Gaza war
The tragedy is that the Gazans, in fear of their lives from Hamas terrorists, are afraid to protest.
Hamas leaders should be tried for war crimes, and Abbas should remember that since he heads the national consensus government with Hamas, he himself is liable to be tried in the Hague for the war crimes Hamas has committed against the Israelis.
Why is the Oslo II Agreement of 1995, assuring the complete disarmament of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, even being renegotiated, and why was it not implemented in the first place?
As Qatar is a country without a people and the Palestinians are a people without a country, Qatar should be turned into the national home for the Palestinians, "Palestine."
WSJ: Palestine Needs Better Friends: Defenders of Hamas practice the bigotry of low expectations
There is a term for describing the Middle East in a cartoonishly inaccurate but politically self-serving manner that reduces local populations to passive actors in a morality play meant to reinforce prejudices: "Orientalism." The coinage belongs to the late Columbia professor and pro-Palestinian activist Edward Said, who believed that modern Western commentary on the East was simplistic and racist. "Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life," he wrote in 1980, "has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world."
So it is today, but not in the way that Said identified. The custom now is a pro-Palestinian neo-Orientalism that glosses over the real conditions of Palestinian life, focusing instead on condemning Israel. Yet the effect of this neo-Orientalism isn't pro-Palestinian. By ignoring the pathologies of Palestinian politics, it condemns Palestinians to live under leaders who would rather impoverish and endanger their own people than compromise with Israel.
Whatever their intent, neo-Orientalists provide cover for a political structure in Palestine that they would never accept for themselves—which is a form of bigotry. Countless articles are written about intricate details of Israeli coalition politics, typically with hand-wringing conclusions about the election of this or that hard-liner. Seldom do you read about Palestinian politics, where hard-liners throw their rivals from rooftops or shoot them in the street. Perhaps journalists consider such savagery the unremarkable fate of Palestinians who aren't entitled to politics as Westerners are. Textbook Orientalism.
Neo-Orientalist thinking treats both Israelis and Palestinians unfairly. A better approach would expose and reject the terrorist thugs claiming the mantle of a nationalist movement that deserves accountability and sobriety from its leaders. Then popular discussion of the Middle East may regain some humane sense of right and wrong—and the Palestinians may finally achieve security, prosperity and statehood.
The Guardian: Op Ed: Hamas is the single biggest barrier to peace in Gaza
Reading the British papers in recent days, one could easily become confused regarding the outcome of this latest conflict between Israel and Hamas; headlines pronounced victory for both sides, and only a few commentators wrote what many are surely thinking: no winners here, only losers.Kerry has ‘constructive’ talks with Palestinians
One realisation that has emerged from the current round of violence, and should be clear to any right-thinking person interested in a two-state future, is that Hamas today is the single greatest obstacle to the prosperity of Gaza, and in the longer run, to a peace agreement. The facts are there for everyone to see: Hamas is an internationally recognised terror group, which has earned that dubious title honestly, by virtue of dozens of suicide bombers, exploding buses and thousands of rockets. Its leaders sit in Qatar, its weapons smuggled from Iran, it trains alongside Hezbollah, and its ideology, clearly spelled out, is both radical Islamist and antisemitic. Its actions, as seen recently with the 18 executions of alleged collaborators with Israel in Gaza, resemble those of Isis and al-Qaida.
Throughout its history, Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have worked hard to derail the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. At the height of the Oslo process, they blew up buses in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, sending suicide bombers to explode among Israeli civilians. It was then that the late prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said: “We must fight terrorism as if there’s no peace process, and work to achieve peace as if there’s no terror.”
It was Kerry’s first face-to-face talks with Palestinian negotiators since Washington found itself sidelined from the Gaza ceasefire talks in July, when the top US diplomat failed to broker a truce in the war between Israel and Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip.Efrat Mayor: Annexation is New False Accusation Against Israel
“Kerry met with Saeb Erekat and Majed Faraj for about two hours this afternoon,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
“It was a constructive conversation that covered a range of issues, including Gaza, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and recent developments in the region,” she said, adding they had agreed to talk again in coming weeks.
Kerry had also spoken Tuesday by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he expressed his concerns about new Israeli plans to confiscate some 988 acres of land in the West Bank for settlement building.
The US has called on Israel to reverse the decision.
Mayor of Efrat Oded Revivi spoke to Arutz Sheva on Wednesday about the media firestorm over Israel's declaring 4000 dunams as "state land" Sunday, explaining that the term "annexation" is a misnomer.Obama Silent on Plans for New Homes for Jerusalem (Arabs)
"Despite the fact that Israel didn't do any annexation, despite the fact no legal change has happened, despite the fact that Israel has only decided to redeclare state that had already been declared state land at the time of the Turks, people are starting to accuse Israel of 'annexation,'" Revivi explained. "That needs to be put to a stop right now before it gets to be used like the term 'occupied territories."
Roughly 4,000 dunams (988 acres) of land, mostly in and near Gush Etzion (where Efrat is located) were declared 'state land' Sunday, in a move linked to Operation Brother's Keeper to crack down on terror in Judea and Samaria in June.
Jerusalem’s announcement Wednesday that a new Arab neighborhood for Arabs will be built was met by a thundering silence by the European Union and the United States, which throw a tantrum every time plans are drawn up for a single house for a Jew in parts of the capital claimed by the Palestinian Authority.Report: IDF Quietly Investigating Hezbollah Terror Tunnels
The Jerusalem Local Building and Planning Committee approved building 2,200 housing units on 375 acres in the Arav al-Swahara neighborhood.
Approval was secured after pressure by the judicial system, which was approached by a human rights legal council of the Hebrew University. Right-wing activists and Haredi city councilmen previously have blocked the plan, Haaretz reported.
“The planning of neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem by the municipality is a clear expression of Israeli sovereignty over all parts of the city and strengthens the unity of Jerusalem,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
The Chief of the Northern Command, Major General Yair Golan, met last month with the mayors of communities near Lebanon and addressed concerns from residents that Hezbollah is actively digging tunnels toward Israel.Mortar shells from Syria land in Golan Heights
Golan said that the IDF is prepared to deal with any attempt to act against the inhabitants of the region, including against Hezbollah. However, no security protocols have been enacted yet to actively combat the problem.
But despite statements by military leaders, sources say that, quietly, the IDF acknowledges a very real threat from terror tunnels in southern Lebanon and has not ruled out the possibility of their existence, Arutz Sheva learned Wednesday.
Several mortar shells exploded in an open area in the Israeli Golan Heights Thursday, apparently the result of inadvertent spillover from fighting in Syria, according to the IDF.Israeli firm busts 13-year-long Europe hack attack
Israel responded by firing a Tamuz missile at the origin of the attack. An IDF spokesperson said the strike was successful.
Artillery from Syria has landed frequently on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights for the past week as regime and rebel forces fight over the Quneitra crossing.
One of the biggest and certainly longest-living professional hacking operations in the world is history — thanks to an Israeli company that discovered that thieves have been using a single system to break into computers for more than a decade.Probe reveals how Eyal, Gil-ad and Naftali were kidnapped
Israeli cyber-security firm CyberIntel said Wednesday that it has broken the “Harkonnen Operation,” which attacked government servers, banks, and large corporations in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, using over 800 phony front companies — all with the same IP address — using unique malware to siphon secret and sensitive data off the servers.
The most shocking part, said CyberIntel CEO Koby Ben-Naim: “This scam has been going for more than a decade, since 2002.”
New details emerged on Thursday surrounding the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli teens in June, just as Israeli authorities were preparing to indict alleged ringleader Husam Qawasmeh.IDF grants special status to girlfriends of fallen soldiers
Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel were kidnapped while hitchhiking in Gush Etzion on June 12, and were killed shortly thereafter. Their bodies were discovered three weeks later, buried on land belonging to Qawasmeh, who has been arrested and has confessed to involvement in the murders.
On Thursday, the Shin Bet security agency lifted a gag order placed on Qawasmeh's arrest, revealing that the suspect had planned to flee to Jordan after the bodies were discovered, but was arrested at his hideout in the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem before he was able to carry out his plan.
Qawasmeh is a Hamas operative living in the West Bank. In 1995 he was jailed in Israel for seven years for Hamas terrorist activity. One of his brothers, Mahmoud Qawasmeh, was sentenced to 20 years for his involvement in the murder of 16 Israelis in a double suicide bombing in Beersheba in 2004, but was released as part of the prisoner exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in 2011.
During the course of the investigation, Qawasmeh disclosed that he and another one of his brothers, living in Gaza, had managed to raise 220,000 shekels ($61,000) to use toward the abduction operation. The money was reportedly used to buy the vehicle, two rifles and two pistols used in the kidnapping.
Arab ‘Travel Terror’ Continues Around Jerusalem
Col. Yaffa Mor, of the IDF Personnel Directorate's Casualty Division, told the committee that as part of the changes the military has instated, the partners of unmarried soldiers who are killed in the line of duty will be notified of the death by an IDF official. They will also be entitled to a special leave, to allow them to observe the traditional seven-day mourning period.Committee Chairwoman MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) called the meeting saying, "The difficult circumstances that unfolded during Operation Protective Edge have forced us to deal with this issue, which cannot ne neglected further. The military cannot simply refuse a request made by the parents of a fallen soldier to deliver an official notice [of death] to his girlfriend, his partner or his fiancee."
Arab ‘travel terror’ attacks resumed bright and early Thursday morning in and around the greater Jerusalem area.PM Caves to Jordanian Pressure on Temple Mount Renovations
At around 9 am, Arabs hurled a large rock at the back window of a bus in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh where IDF soldiers were seated, as it was exiting the community.
“There was a lot of panic on the bus,” one passenger told the Hebrew-language 0404 website. “The window was smashed.” The source said there were elderly and children on the bus as well. “They took us off and ordered another bus to take us instead.”
About two hours later, the Jerusalem Light Rail was pelted with a hail of rocks in the northern neighborhood of Shuafat, in what is becoming a daily occurrence.
Less than two weeks after construction began, and before it could be used, Israeli police began dismantling the new bridge to replace the unstable wooden walkway to the Temple Mount on Wednesday.Pro-Islamic State gathering on Temple Mount filmed by Israeli TV
The new bridge was announced two weeks ago, and would have replaced the shaky wooden construct of the bridge leading up to the Mount near the Rambam (Mughrabi) Gate in the Western Wall Plaza.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) has ordered the bridge to be dismantled, however, due to pressure from the Jordanian Royal Family, according to Haaretz.
A senior Israeli official said that the construction of the temporary bridge was done by local officials, and was known to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, but not the Jordanian Waqf Muslim Authority - and without the Jordanian government's approval.
Israel’s Channel 10 on Wednesday night broadcast what it said was footage from a recent “Islamic State gathering” on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.Authorities to prosecute public displays of ‘terrorist flags’
The report, which is to be broadcast in full next week, said the gathering underlined that Islamic State intends to focus on Israel in the future.
Formally, the gathering, attended by thousands, was organized by the Tahrir party, which the report described as being the “Palestine branch” of Islamic State.
Speakers were filmed anticipating the liberation of Jerusalem and decrying Jewish pollution of the city. Several black IS flags were seen in the footage.
While Weinstein issued a sweeping order against flags of some organizations, such as “Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.,” he dictated that while the PLO is still officially designated a terrorist organization, “in view of the change of relations between the PLO and Israel,” those who display the PLO flag would not be subject to prosecution, according to a letter circulated by Deputy Attorney General Raz Nazri.Former MK sentenced to a year in prison for Syria visit
However, in certain situations where the subjects were showing solidarity with terrorists, or the display of the PLO flag could disturb public peace, Nizri wrote, then law enforcement officials should remove the flags and prosecute individuals when appropriate.
The Nazareth Regional Court on Thursday sentenced former MK Said Nafa to a year in prison over trips he made to Syria and Lebanon when he was still a member of the Israeli parliament.Following Ex-MKs Conviction, Calls to Charge MK Zoabi
Nafa, who is Druze, was convicted in April of meeting with a foreign agent and traveling to an enemy country. On Thursday he was also given an additional six months on probation. The former MK intends to appeal the sentence in the High Court.
In 2007, when he was still an MK for the Balad party, Nafa traveled to Syria where he met with Talal Naji, the deputy director of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP is designated a terrorist organization by the EU, US, Israel and Canada.
“Balad continues to be a nest of terrorists in the Knesset,” Wortzman said. “Its members are keeping up the tradition of traitorous MK Azmi Bishara, and operate against the interests of Israel. We will work to ensure that this fifth column does not have a part of Israeli democracy. Let them have their place of honor in the Syrian or Qatari parliaments,” he said.No alleged Gaza collaborators were Israeli spies -- intel official
Ironically, Nafa was chosen to replace another rogue MK – Azmi Bishara, who also met with enemy agents and disclosed to them Israeli military secrets. Bishara, who fled Israel in 2007, is still a fugitive from justice, accused of treason and espionage during the Second Lebanon War.
Next on the target of right-wing MKs is another Balad MK, Hanin Zoabi. On Sunday, MK Danny Danon (Likud) filed a petition with the High Court demanding that the Attorney General begin the process of filing an indictment against Zoabi on charges of incitement for her comments justifying the abduction and subsequent murder of Israeli teens Eyal Yifrah, Naftali Frenkel, and Gilad Sha'ar.
None of the Palestinians summarily executed in Gaza on charges of collaboration during Operation Protective Edge were Israeli sources or assets, an intelligence officer told the Times of Israel Wednesday.The World Protests Israel, Yet Is Silent Regarding ISIS
“Not even one of the 27 was a source,” he said, adding that, during the duration of the Second Intifada a decade ago, “only one-and-a-half” actual sources were killed amid a spate of Palestinian executions of alleged collaborators that claimed many dozens of lives.
When Israel acts in Gaza to protect themselves from Muslim vows of killing every Jew, there are protests in every single city in the world to protect the “innocent.” From New York City to London, Paris to Melbourne, the streets are filled with protestors against Israel to supposedly “protect the innocent.”ISIS’s Cruelty Toward Women Gets Scant Attention
When Muslims are shooting innocent men, women and children in the exact same region in the world, however, there is quiet. When ISIS chops people’s heads off, there is no one protesting to say, “ISIS, don't kill Muslims.” The silence is deafening. No anarchists, no yelling from a concerned Muslim organizations, and no peace-loving liberals concerned about justice. Just silence.
Compared to a few weeks ago, when firebombs were thrown at synagogues, and innocent Jews attacked in the streets, today there is silence. No radical mosque was subjected to protest, nor did citizens talk of boycotting terrorist supporters.
In Britain, France, Denmark and elsewhere it is quiet – Why are those attacked by ISIS not worthy of anyone giving a damn? Are they unimportant?
Or, could it possibly be that it’s a double standard against Israel? Is life only precious when it comes to Jews protecting themselves?
Tucked away in a recent New York Times story on military operations against ISIS by Iraqi special forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga was a brief description of what these troops discovered when they entered a village in Iraq that had been occupied by ISIS fighters. A naked woman, tied to a tree, who had been repeatedly raped by ISIS fighters. Another woman was discovered in a second village, similarly naked, tied down and repeatedly raped. The fighters, it appears, are “rewarded” by being allowed to have their way with captured women.After Sotloff beheading, Israel officially outlaws Islamic State
ISIS has received considerable world attention for its savage beheadings, executions of captured soldiers and men in conquered towns and villages, violence against Christians and Shiites, and the destruction of non-Sunni shrines and places of worship. But its barbarity against women has been treated as a side issue. Arab and Muslim governments, vocal on the threat ISIS poses to regional stability, have been virtually silent on ISIS’s systemic degradation, abuse, and humiliation of women. To the men of ISIS, women are an inferior race, to be enjoyed for sex and be discarded, or to be sold off as slaves.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon signed an order on Wednesday officially banning the Islamic State group. The decree defined the Islamic State as an "unauthorized organization" and outlawed any meetings between Islamic State members. The order also applied to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a Sunni jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaida.Islamic State Terrorists Torture and Kill Christian Man for Refusing to Convert
Ya'alon's order, which was based on a Shin Bet recommendation, means that Israel will now be able to take legal and other steps against these groups and individuals acting on their behalf.
An Assyrian Christian man from the Iraqi Christian village of Bartalah, which was conquered by Islamic State jihadists in early August, was reportedly tortured and then killed for refusing to convert to Christianity after hiding in his home for several weeks.NATO would ‘seriously’ consider Iraq request for help
According to a relative, Salem Matty Georgis, 43, was suffering from heart disease and could not leave the town with his family when Islamic State terrorists invaded. Georgis hid inside his home for more than three weeks since Islamic State’s occupation of the area began on Aug. 7.
NATO would “seriously” consider any request from Iraq for assistance in a war against insurgents from the radical Islamic State, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday.Jordanian MPs Demand: Let's Stay Out of Fight with IS
“We will discuss what individual allies and what NATO can do to counter the threat from the terrorist organization, so-called Islamic State,” he said before the start of a two-day summit of leaders from the Western military alliance in Newport, Wales.
“We haven’t received any request for NATO engagement. I’m sure that if the Iraqi government were to forward a request for NATO assistance, that would be considered seriously by NATO allies,” the secretary general said.
A group of Jordanian deputies demanded on Wednesday that the kingdom stay out of any war against Islamic State jihadists who have captured swathes of territory in neighboring Iraq and Syria, AFP reports.Silicon Valley firms halted spread of grisly video
21 MPs, who represent various factions in the 150-seat parliament, sent a memorandum to speaker Atef al-Tarawneh demanding "the government not involve Jordan (in the fight) against the Islamic State", the report said.
"This war is not our war. Accordingly, we reject categorically any Jordanian contribution in a battle that is not ours," they said in the document seen by AFP.
"We do not want to be dragged into an international coalition," said Khalil Attia, one of the deputies who signed the memorandum.
Jordan's King Abdullah is to attend a NATO summit on Thursday of Western leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, according to the report.
The video Tuesday showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff was first uploaded onto a different website and quickly deleted when copied onto YouTube, slowing the spread of posts linking to it, said a Silicon Valley insider, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.Washington Wants UN Action on Foreign Terrorist Fighters
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others all have policies banning terms of service regarding images of gratuitous violence or that incite hatred. But grisly images, once viral, are hard to restrain.
“It’s been very interesting, with this second beheading, how very little of those images have been passed around,” said Family Online Safety Institute CEO Stephen Balkam, who serves on Facebook’s safety advisory board. “It’s very difficult to find them unless you know of some darker places on the web.”
The United States is hoping for unanimous approval of a UN resolution calling for global action against the growing phenomenon of foreigners traveling to fight for terrorist groups, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press (AP).Fox Acquires Rights To New ISIS Reality Show ‘Convert Or Die’ (satire)
Power told reporters that foreign fighters like those in Iraq and Syria participate in "brutal atrocities" and often return home radicalized by their experiences, "posing threats of the most profound kind to their fellow citizens."
She added that the resolution the U.S. is drafting is aimed at strengthening the ability of governments to curb the flow of their citizens to war zones. It calls for improved information and intelligence sharing, and will also underscore the importance of countering violent extremism through programs that would give would-be fighters alternatives to violence, she said.
To leverage both the growing influence of ISIS and the compelling drama in the stories of those Westerners facing arbitrary torture, murder, and psychological abuse, Fox developed the concept for the series, which they expect to run for fifteen episodes or until the last member of the group is beheaded by their captors, whichever comes first.US, Iran to resume nuclear talks Thursday
“We’re very excited to embark on this production project,” said Fox president Prurient Voyeur. “It will give our audiences a window into an area of the world where they could never themselves go, in a way that rivets them. We expect Fox’s proven formula of high drama and high-stakes, dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics, combined with the striking contemporary relevance of people held hostage by a genocidal regime, to resonate with viewers all over the world.”
American and Iranian officials will resume negotiations in Geneva on Thursday as they seek to hammer out a full nuclear deal ahead of a November deadline, US officials said.Will ISIS Help Pave Way for Iranian Nuke?
The US team led by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman will meet with Iranian officials on Thursday and Friday in the Swiss city, the State Department said in a surprise late-night statement on Wednesday.
Global powers and Iran agreed in late July to extend a deadline to reach a comprehensive and complex deal on curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions until November 24.
Even before the current crisis in Iraq, there seemed little likelihood that the administration would show any resolve in the nuclear talks with Iran. Rather than persuading the Iranians to negotiate safeguards that would mandate the end of their nuclear program, Secretary of State John Kerry’s concessions seemed to have persuaded Tehran that it can keep its uranium stockpile, nuclear plants, and military research facilities while sanctions gradually collapse. The fact that the administration thinks it needs to appease the Iranians on Iraq will only deepen their conviction that they can hang tough without facing any consequences.IAEA to Report 'Little Progress' in Iran Investigation
If anyone doubted Iran’s resolve and its arrogant dismissal of Western attempts to monitor their nuclear program, the regime’s continued stalling of the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate their program should convince them. Without real information about Iran’s military nuclear research any agreement, whether one with tough terms or one as weak as the document signed last fall by Kerry, will be meaningless.
It is to be hoped that President Obama will finally show some grit and destroy ISIS before it is too late. But if in the course of that effort he is prepared to appease Iran further, that will be a poor bargain. The U.S. doesn’t have to choose between an ISIS-run Iraq and a nuclear Iran. Both are disasters that must be averted at all costs. Strong American leadership could rally the world behind the fight against ISIS and efforts to isolate Iran until it renounces its nuclear ambitions forever. Unfortunately, that appears to be the one thing lacking in Washington these days.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog is expected to issue a report this week showing little progress is being made in its long-running investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Iran, diplomats told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.
The unnamed diplomats said the quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran was likely to confirm that Tehran failed to meet a late August deadline for answering questions about its atomic activities.
Western officials may see the lack of movement as a setback for broader efforts to end a decade-old dispute over a nuclear program which Iran says is peaceful but which they fear may be aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability.
The IAEA is expected to issue its confidential report to member states on Thursday or Friday, ahead of a September 15-19 meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors.
There was no comment from the Vienna-based UN agency to the diplomats’ remarks.
Iran has promised to cooperate with the IAEA since Hassan Rouhani was elected president in 2013.
It agreed in May to carry out five specific steps by Aug. 25 to help allay international concerns, noted Reuters.