Tuesday, November 04, 2014
Alan Dershowitz: Why is the Obama Administration Provoking Israel?
Beyond the damage done with regard to Iran, is the damage done to United States-Israel relations by the insulting and demeaning words used by senior Obama administration officials to describe the Prime Minister of a close ally. Benjamin Netanyahu fought bravely for his country in one of Israel’s most elite and dangerous military units. He has rescued hostages, defended his country against terrorists and lost a brother at Entebbe. To call him a “chickenshit” or a “coward” is beneath contempt. Having seen the heavy cost of warfare, he has always been cautious and prudent about committing Israeli troops to battle. For this he should be praised rather than condemned.Caroline Glick: Obama and the definition of 'Islamic'
Netanyahu may soon have to make an existential decision about whether to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons that might be used against Israeli citizens or to authorize a dangerous military attack designed to destroy and delay Iran’s capacity to develop such weapons of mass destruction. This decision would be difficult for any leader, and it is even more difficult for a leader of a tiny country surrounded by enemies and isolated by much of the international community. To trivialize and reduce this decision to name-calling words like “chickenshit” and “coward” demonstrates extraordinary bad judgment on the part of those who used the words and those who may have authorized their use.
There are legitimate and important differences between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations over issues such as building in Jerusalem and the stalled peace negotiations. Each side has criticized the others position on their merits and demerits. But scatological name-calling on the record has no place in an alliance between friends. Those responsible for these provocative and dangerous ad hominems and for the unwarranted disclosure of classified intelligence assessments must be held accountable by the American public and by all those who care about peace in the Middle East.
Moreover, Obama had befriended radical Islamic leaders who openly support terrorism, including Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.Hamas opposes UN involvement in Gaza reconstruction
And of course, as we see more and more clearly each day, the centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy has been appeasing the Islamic Republic of Iran in the hope of achieving détente with the nuclear weapons pursuing state sponsor of terrorism.
The likes of IS, with its love of the video camera, discredit Obama’s narrative that radical, terror- supporting Muslims are peaceful. Since IS is openly evil, it is un-Islamic.
On the other hand, despite the fact that it is nearly as barbaric as IS, the Iranian regime is Islamic, because as far as Obama is concerned, it is good. And it is good because he wants to make a deal with the mullahs.
In other words, Obama is neither an expert on Islam, nor a man moved by moral indignation.
He opposes IS because IS makes it hard for him to defend Islam from bad public relations. And he coos about the “Islamic Republic of Iran” because he is dedicated to his mission of whitewashing and mainstreaming the regime born of an Islamic revolution.
Hamas is opposed to UN involvement in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge and has requested that the Palestinian unity government, rather than the international organization, carry out building projects, a Hamas official said late Sunday night.
Deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau Moussa Abu Marzouk claimed that Hamas was never shown the “Serry plan,” named for United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry, insisting that reconstruction work estimated at billions of dollars remain in Palestinian hands.
“A number of officials have claimed that Abu Marzouk agreed to the plan, which is a bald-faced lie, so I say the following: during the indirect negotiations in Cairo we rejected the UN as a recognized party to construction,” Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page, referring to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas in August. “Everyone insisted that the Palestinian Authority, through the national unity government, is to be responsible for construction.”
“The international envoy’s plan was never presented to us,” he added.
The Obama Administration’s Campaign Against Israel
The U.S. Department of State sent a strong expression of condolence to the family of Palestinian-American Orwah Hammad, who was killed by the Israeli military as he was throwing a firebomb at civilians, an act of terrorism under even the Department of State’s own definition.Who is the Real Chickenshit?
An Administration that is condemning the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, not to mention bombing them, has nothing but sympathy for a young man who died while trying to kill Jews.
For this Administration, there are good terrorists and bad terrorists. The Islamic State and Al Qaeda fall in the latter category. Hamas falls in the former.
What’s the difference? Hamas restricts its terror to Israel. Their victims are primarily Jews. The Administration’s mendacity is as palpable as is its hypocrisy.
Even when a three-month-old child was killed by an act of Palestinian terror, the Obama Administration described it as a traffic accident.
Judging by their actions, most Arab leaders do not want to create yet another terrorist Islamist state, dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology and to toppling their regimes. We do want a Palestinian state, but please, only one that will provide responsible governance.Jennifer Rubin: Where the real ‘peace process’ will take place
According to the "Arab street," it is the Americans and Europeans who are cowards, afraid to take significant steps against Iran, and terrified of the Islamic ghettoes in their cities, which have been exporting terrorists to fight for the Islamic State, and providing housing to the seasoned fighters who return.
To Arabs, the ultimate irony is that America is paying Qatar to have its airbase there, while Qatar is paying terrorists to kill Americans.
When John Kerry claimed it was the unresolved Palestinian issue that caused a ripple effect that crated ISIS, he simply inspired the Palestinians to use Al-Aqsa mosque as a religious trigger for future bloodshed.
The Obama administration should be pounding the table and applying pressure to Hamas’s backers to force their cooperation, but the administration is still fixated on the “peace process.” Unfortunately, it has its eye on the wrong process if it wants peace.US veto at Security Council may no longer be a given
The process that will engender the most progress economically and politically for the Palestinians and move the parties closer together would entail a resolution of the Gaza standoff. Here is where the chance for peace grows or evaporates. The removal of Hamas (or at least the diminution of its influence), the reform of the Palestinian Authority and the insistence by the international community on Palestinians renouncing terror will help put the parties on the road to eventual reconciliation.
With a U.S. administration, however, blinded by animus toward Israel, one suspects that the focus will be on an entirely irrelevant set of facts — how many apartments are being built in Jerusalem (wrongly identified as “settlements”) and whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can be coaxed back to the bargaining table. This is a distraction as well as a counterproductive obsession that lessens attention on the real sources of the problem — the continuation of a terrorist mindset, the preeminence of Hamas and the corrupt and timorous Palestinian Authority.
Watch instead what happens in Gaza. That is where progress will be made or stalemate will endure.
It’s no secret that Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama have little love lost for each other, between disputes over an Iranian nuclear deal and building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.Rice Mocks Israeli Ambassador: ‘He’s Too Busy Travelling to Sheldon Adelson’s Events’
Less discussed publicly is the fear that the administration will abandon Israel on the Palestinian question at the UN. The Palestinians are planning to go the United Nations Security Council with a draft resolution calling for an Israel withdrawal by November 2016 from all areas captured in 1967. They originally wanted to submit it by October but will probably wait for January, when the Security Council membership will be more favorable to their cause.
A few years ago, there would have been no question that the US would have vetoed any such resolution. In February 2011, Washington vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements (despite the US’s longstanding opposition to settlement-building), thwarting the council’s other 14 members, who all voted in favor. A year later, the administration successfully blocked the Palestinians’ attempt to become full UN members.
But since then, ties between the Jerusalem and Washington have gone drastically downhill, and the American veto can apparently no longer be taken for granted.
Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice rudely mocked Israel’s ambassador during a recent meeting with an American Jewish leader.Beneath the ‘chickenshit,’ political and diplomatic uncertainty fuel U.S.-Israel divide
Rice, who is known to dislike the Israeli government, was asked in a recent meeting with a top American Jewish leader why she had not taken meetings with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer.
“Rice responded, with her characteristic sarcasm, ‘He never asked to meet me,’” Haaretz reported Rice as saying.
The president’s top aide then mocked Dermer and conservative casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.“Besides, I understood that he’s too busy traveling to Sheldon Adelson’s events in Las Vegas,” Rice reportedly said with contempt.
Top officials in the Israeli and U.S. governments are bracing themselves for possible radical changes within the next months in how the world relates to Iran and how the Palestinians pursue their quest for independence, as well as for increased turbulence in Jerusalem and the prospect of political change in Washington.New EU foreign policy chief: I’d like to see a Palestinian state by the time I leave office
“The rhetoric from both sides, and this has been going on for some months, is a reflection of frustration, of ‘the other side doesn’t understand us the way we want to be understood, the other side is not sensitive enough to our interests,’ ” said Tamara Coffman Wittes, the director of the Brookings Institution Center for Middle East Policy.
Coffman Wittes helped shape Middle East policy at the State Department in President Obama’s first term.
The latest scuffle comes as U.S. officials are expressing greater optimism about the likelihood of a nuclear deal with Iran and Israelis fret that the parameters of the deal could leave Iran on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.
“The bottom line is that Benjamin Netanyahu sees the potential for even a modified, defanged nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel,” said Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that consults closely with Congress on Iran policy. “President Obama views a deal with Iran as perhaps one of the only remaining opportunities for a foreign policy legacy.”
Schanzer added, “To analyze this flap without understanding the centrality of Iran ignores the majority of what is fueling this conflict.”
The EU’s new foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told the European media on Monday that she would like to see a Palestinian state by the time her five-year term is up.US: Kerry won’t unveil peace plan in talks with Palestinians
“The important thing for me,” Mogherini said, “is not whether other states, European or not, recognize Palestine. What would make me happy, is if a Palestinian state existed at the end of my term.”
She issued her statement to the French daily newspaper Le Monde in advance of her visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Friday and Saturday.
Mogherini told Le Monde that the trip emphasized the significance she places both on the need to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the need to increase Europe’s role in making that happen.
“European action can be decisive in this key moment, which is probably the most difficult moment the region has ever seen,” she said.
Top US diplomat John Kerry on Monday was to meet the chief Palestinian negotiator but would not unveil an American peace plan, an official said, adding such a move would be unproductive.Khaled Abu Toameh: Erekat to US, EU: Support PA plan seeking Palestinian state on pre-1967 lines
“There are no current plans to introduce a peace plan,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, dismissing reports that proposals would be laid on the table during Kerry’s meeting with Saeb Erekat in Washington.
Kerry’s bid to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians ended in failure earlier this year, leaving bitter recriminations on both sides.
US officials have insisted progress was made during some nine months of intense shuttle diplomacy, but have resisted calls to formulate Washington’s own peace plan as a means of bringing the two sides back to the negotiating table.
Chief PLO Negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday urged the US and EU to support the Palestinian Authority’s plan to seek a UN Security Council resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.Erekat: Approval of 500 East Jerusalem homes a ‘slap in the face’
Erekat’s appeal came in response to the Israeli government’s decision to promote a plan for the construction of 500 new apartments in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood.
Erekat said that US and EU support for the Palestinian statehood bid at the Security Council would salvage the two-state solution. He also called for international recognition of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines.
Chief Palestinian negotiator to the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Saeb Erekat, panned Israel’s decision to move ahead with plans for the construction of 500 apartments in the capital’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which is situated over the Green Line in East Jerusalem.Sorry, Tony: UNSC 242 says borders are negotiable
“Israel’s latest settlement announcement is a slap in the face to US Secretary [of State John] Kerry, to the international community, to the Palestinian people, and to peace. The message is clear: The Netanyahu government chooses settlements over negotiations,” he said in a statement Monday.
Tony Walker's recent column "First Principles in the Middle East" (AFR, October 25) resurrected a specious claim about UN Security Council Resolution 242 - the blueprint passed in November 1967 that created the land-for-peace formula for peace between Israel and its neighbours.US expresses 'unequivocal' opposition to new east Jerusalem housing plans
Walker claimed that the "Lack of the definite article ‘the' before the word ‘territories' has been misinterpreted by Israeli propagandists to argue [UNSC 242's call for Israeli withdrawal] does not extend to all territories occupied in 1967."
In making this claim, Walker in effect rewrites history.
Not "Israeli propagandists" but the people involved in drafting the language of the resolution itself themselves said UNSC 242 did not require Israel to withdraw from all ‘the' territories occupied in 1967.
The construction announcement came as a Palestinian delegation led by PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat was in Washington to discuss the frozen peace process with US Secretary of State John Kerry.Swedish meatballs, moose and the Middle East
“We continue to engage at the highest level with the Israeli government to make our position absolutely clear – that we view settlement activity as illegitimate and that we unequivocally oppose unilateral steps that prejudge the future of Jerusalem,” said Edgar Vasquez, a spokesman for the State Department.
Washington has issued no fewer than three condemnations of construction activity approved by Jerusalem in the past month.
Vasquez issued his remarks hours after the Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee gave preliminary approval to the construction of 500 homes in Jerusalem’s Jewish Ramat Shlomo neighborhood.
Not every country is blessed to have Norway and Finland as neighbors, or to live without threat or fear of annihilation.'Israel faces more challenges than all of the EU put together,' Liberman says
In an act of inexplicable folly, the Swedish government decided last week to formally recognize a state that does not exist, has no finite borders and which fails to meet even the minimal criteria for statehood under international law.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom announced that, “Today, the government takes the decision to recognize the state of Palestine. It is an important step that confirms the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”
While three other European Union (EU) countries – Hungary, Slovakia and Poland – already recognize a Palestinian state, they took this step prior to becoming members.
Thus, Sweden now holds the ignominious distinction of being the first EU nation to confer recognition on the “state of Palestine.”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman chastised Europe on Monday for its hyper-focus on Israeli building over the Green Line, while it ignored the violence that raged in other countries in the region.Israel’s Netanyahu Rushed to Underground Room After Car Bomb Scare
“Every day hundreds of people are killed and slaughtered around Israel. We are facing many challenges, more than all of the EU together,” he said.
Europe, he said, “is disregarding this reality.”
“We are trying to survive in a very difficult reality and instead of supporting Israel, you blame Israel every day,” Liberman said.
He spoke in Jerusalem during a joint press conference with Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard.
Tension briefly soared at the tightly guarded Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem Monday morning when security officials got an alert about a suspicious vehicle parked nearby, Israel’s Ch. 2 News reported.Knesset passes law aimed to prevent Palestinian prisoner deals
Bodyguards rushed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to an underground room, while ministers attending a Housing Cabinet meeting elsewhere in the building were rushed to a safe area.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid, Housing Minister Uri Ariel and Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver were discussing solutions for several thorny housing issues, when security chiefs broke into the session and initiated a security protocol in which VIPs are hurried to protected areas away from the threatened sector of the heavily-patrolled compound.
Meanwhile, officials checked out the suspected car bomb left in a nearby lot, which turned out to be a false alarm.
The Knesset on Monday gave final approval to a contentious law to prevent Palestinian prisoner releases for those serving life sentences, effectively removing the option to use prisoners as a bargaining chip with the Palestinians.Push to Reroute Jerusalem Light Rail Due to Violence
Thirty-five Knesset members voted in favor of the bill, with 15 MKs opposing.
The measure, sponsored by MKs Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) and David Tzur (Hatnua), dictates that courts will henceforth be allowed to convict murderers under “aggravating circumstances,” in which case discussion of sentence commutation shall not occur before 15 years of imprisonment, and at any rate sentences will not be reduced to under 40 years.
The law will prevent leaders from being able to offer prisoner releases in exchange for political concessions in talks with Palestinians.
It only applies to prisoners convicted from this point onwards, however, and not to those already incarcerated for their crimes.
The key to changing the security situation in Jerusalem may be changing the route of the Light Rail, Jerusalem Municipality member and former mayoral candidate Moshe Leon stated Monday - as a means of forcing Arab rioters to see consequences for their actions on the large scale.Police uncover bomb workshop near Beit Shemesh
"This is a total of 1700 meters (5557 feet) that we should lay alternative track for to bypass Shuafat," Leon stated, in an interview to Arutz Sheva.
According to Leon, under the current situation - which has seen large portions of the light rail shut down for several months - some 90,000 residents of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaakov have been deprived of access to the intra-city train.
"There is no reason that many Jerusalem residents suffer from lack of access to the light rail," he continued. They are afraid of traveling on it."
"There has been a 20% decrease of light rail travel and there is no reason for it to continue that way," he added. "When the storm calms down we must go back there."
A 23-year-old man was arrested by Beit Shemesh police after investigators discovered a homemade weapons lab at his home, Israel police said on Tuesday.Weekend rocket fire from Gaza was response to Temple Mount tensions.
During the searches, detectives found wholesale drugs as well as dozens of kilograms of chemicals that could be used to produce fireworks and explosives.
Bomb disposal experts were brought to the scene, Israeli news site Ynet reported.
The suspect, who hails from a town near Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, will be brought before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for a remand hearing.
The rocket from Gaza which targeted Israel over the weekend was likely launched by an extremist Salafi terror group in response to the recent tensions at the Temple Mount, Army Radio reported on Tuesday, citing defense establishment estimates.Israel reopens Gaza crossings
The rocket strike on the Eshkol Regional Council on Friday was just the second such attack since Operation Protective Edge came to an end on August 26.
The defense establishment has noted a strengthening of extremist Salafi Islam in Gaza, challenging Hamas in the Strip, according to the report.
Israeli security sources said Sunday that Hamas has arrested five suspects in the firing of the rocket. It is believed that Salafists fired the rocket against Hamas's wishes as part of its inner power struggle with Gaza's rulers.
The Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings had been ordered shut after a rocket fired from Gaza struck Israeli territory on Friday, without causing any casualties or damage.Egypt, Gulf states consider joint force against extremists
The rocket was the first to hit Israeli soil since September 16, and the second since the end of the Jewish state’s 50-day war on Gaza terrorists.
Erez is the main humanitarian crossing, while Kerem Shalom is the primary crossing used for goods, including those intended for reconstructing Gaza following the conflict.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East, The Associated Press has learned.Nasrallah: Hezbollah ready to fight Israel despite Syrian war
The alliance would also serve as a show of strength to counterbalance their traditional rival, Shiite-dominated, Iran. Two countries are seen as potential theaters for the alliance to act, senior Egyptian military officials said: Libya, where Islamic militants have taken over several cities, and Yemen, where Shiite rebels suspected of links to Iran have seized control of the capital.
The discussions reflect a new assertiveness among the Middle East’s Sunni powerhouses, whose governments — after three years of post-Arab Spring turmoil in the region — have increasingly come to see Sunni Islamic militants and Islamist political movements as a threat.
Hezbollah “is fully ready in southern Lebanon,” Nasrallah said, addressing via video thousands of Lebanese Shiites commemorating the Ashura holiday in southern Beirut, Naharnet reported.Hezbollah Scrambles to Secure Syria-Lebanon Border Amid Mounting Casualties, Declining Support
He said the group’s activities fighting in support of the Syrian regime had not affected its battle readiness.
Hezbollah’s campaigns in Syria has cost the group over 1,000 fighters, according to some reports.
“Israel’s threats of another war on Lebanon do not stem from its power because it has lost hope and is concerned…the resistance is a real threat to Israel,” said Nasrallah.
Hezbollah’s secretary-general also pledged that the Shiite organization’s rockets would force Israel to close its sea ports and main airport in the next conflict.
“Israelis are saying in the media that they would have to close down the Ben Gurion Airport and the Haifa port and yes, that’s true,” said Nasrallah, the Daily Star reported.
“You should close all of your airports and your ports because there is no place extending on the land of occupied Palestine that the resistance’s rockets cannot reach.”
Observers seem increasingly convinced, however, that Lebanon will end up being dragged into the conflict. The Associated Press (AP) reported a few weeks ago that – though the crisis had been “slow in coming” – both the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Hezbollah fighters were now finding themselves in regular firefights along the Syrian border.Hezbollah Condemned in Lebanon For Harming National Interests
Lebanon’s Daily Star subsequently reported how “residents and political movements in… villages [along the Syrian border] have voiced fears that Hezbollah and the Syrian regime might push” fighting into their areas. By last Monday The New York Times, describing sectarian clashes in Tripoli between Sunni fighters and LAF soldiers, was ready to bluntly note that “the expanding border conflict threatens to engulf residents of Shiite, Christian and Sunni villages.
Further criticism (Arabic link) came from Lebanese justice minister Ashraf Rifi. In an interview published in the Saudi newspaper Ocaz, Rifi accused Hezbollah of causing the tense atmosphere in Lebanon, and said that Nasrallah is the main reason for terrorism and for the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.J Street Helps the Obama-Iran Honeymoon
Hezbollah combatants have been fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad since the eruption of the civil war. That war, which began as a peaceful conflict in March 2011, has left more than 200,000 people dead and millions more as refugees.
In the past year, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces have grown increasingly active on Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria. Working together, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra forces kidnapped two dozen Lebanese soldiers from a border post in August.
Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said that an agreement with Iran is as important to the President as passing Obamacare · Coincidentally, J Street and radical left-wing organizations are working with the Iranian lobby to pressure congress to quash the sanctions as part of such an agreement · Meanwhile the head of IAEA says that the Iranians have stopped cooperating · Just how far is the White House willing to go to avoid annoying the Iranians?Iranians mark fall of US embassy with flag-burning
The left-wing Jewish lobby J Street is trying these days to pressure Congress to suspend sanction to pave the way for Obama to make a nuclear deal with Iran. Along with a long list of radical left and pro-Iranian organizations, J Street signed a petition beseeching Senators and Congressmen to allow Obama to suspend sanctions against Iran as a first stage of the agreement.
Several thousand Iranians gathered outside the former US embassy in Tehran on Tuesday to mark its storming by students 35 years ago, burning the American flag.Role for Russia Gives Iran Talks a Possible Boost
In what has become an annual spectacle, demonstrators chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel, Death to Britain.”
This year’s gathering coincided in Iran with Ashura, the commemoration of the killing of Imam Hussein and one of the holiest days in Shiite Islam, the country’s predominant faith.
The crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 demonstrators was older and bigger than in recent years mostly because of the religious event being a public holiday.
Iran has tentatively agreed to ship much of its huge stockpile of uranium to Russia if it reaches a broader nuclear deal with the West, according to officials and diplomats involved in the negotiations, potentially a major breakthrough in talks that have until now been deadlocked.Female volleyball fan jailed in Iran starts hunger strike
Under the proposed agreement, the Russians would convert the uranium into specialized fuel rods for the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran’s only commercial reactor. Once the uranium is converted into fuel rods, it is extremely difficult to use them to make a nuclear weapon. That could go a long way toward alleviating Western concerns about Iran’s stockpile, though the agreement would not cut off every pathway that Tehran could take to obtain a nuclear weapon.
A British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran after trying to watch a volleyball match is on a hunger strike, refusing food or liquids, her brother told AFP on Monday.Acid Attacks on Women in Iran
Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 25-year-old law graduate from London, is protesting because the judge has yet to confirm her one-year prison sentence, making it official, her brother said.
“She’s been on hunger strike from Saturday,” Iman Ghavami said in a phone interview. “She’s not eating any solid foods and she’s not drinking any liquids.”
To reduce their own fear, the clerics try to raise the fear levels among the public.PreOccupied Territory: Chemical Makers Betting On Upsurge In Iran Acid Attacks (satire)
Rare as they are, media accounts of attacks are minimized; victims are blamed; women's voices are omitted, and the attackers are regarded sympathetically.
A young woman with two inches of hair showing is the small "hole in the dyke" that can with time, break the dam and flood the country with all the things the revolution was carried out to prevent: liberalism, individual freedoms, religious and political tolerance, democracy, free speech, equal rights for women and on and on.
One curly lock in the open air convulses the totalitarian with fear, the fear that he may be shown to be, in the last analysis, irrelevant.
Manufacturers of caustic chemical compounds are ramping up production of certain products in anticipation of more attacks on women, a spokesman for an industry trade group said today.
A recent spate of attacks in this central Iranian city has companies in the Middle East and beyond thinking that the trend of vitriolage, as it is known, appears to be spreading beyond the confines of Southeast Asia where it has been common for decades. If that proves true, demand for sulfuric and nitric acids will increase, and those companies are already gearing up for the prospect, says Ayman El-Efantaman of the Association of Chemical-Industrial Distributors.
“Our members have been watching the developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, right next door, and wondering when this exciting phenomenon would come to Iran,” said El-Elfantaman. “The preferred materials for acid attacks are the really nasty sulfuric and nitric acids, but a lot of people apparently prefer the cheaper, if less lethal, hydrochloric acid, and manufacturers can turn that stuff out basically on demand.”
