Israeli document poses 10 key questions about ‘irresponsible, dangerous’ Iran deal
Israel on Monday posed 10 questions to the US-led negotiators with Iran that it said underlined “the extent of the irresponsible concessions given to Iran” in the framework agreement reached last Thursday, and made clear “how dangerous the framework is for Israel, the region and the world.”Michael Oren: The Iran Deal and How Not To Buy a Middle Eastern Carpet
The questions were listed in a document distributed by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, a Likud party member and confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The document (see accompanying PDF here) reiterated Netanyahu’s assertion that “a better deal” can and must be reached. It protested that the framework agreement reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, and hailed by President Barack Obama as “historic,” “ignores the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program to Israel.” By contrast, it charged, “great consideration” was given to Iran, “an enemy of the Unites States, whose regime, even during the negotiations, continued to conduct aggression in the region and to call for the destruction of Israel.”
It charged that “the framework deal does not block Iran’s path to the bomb. By removing the sanctions and lifting the main restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in about a decade, this framework paves Iran’s path to a bomb.”
Echoing criticisms leveled by Netanyahu since the deal was reached, the document further protested that “not a single nuclear facility will be shut down. Iran will be permitted to continue its advanced centrifuge R&D, and [the issue of] its intercontinental ballistic missile program remains unaddressed.”
Want to purchase a carpet in the Middle East? If so, the first question the merchant will ask you is, “How much do you want to spend?” Seasoned buyers never answer. They know that whatever amount they cite will become the baseline for the negotiation. They understand that the merchant’s smiles, the many cups of tea he serves, his invitations to stroll along the riverbank, are all part of his selling tactic. So, too, are his protests — in response to any offer — of wounded pride. Veterans of Middle East carpet markets expect the give-and-take to be lengthy, even exhausting, but are always willing to leave the shop.Missing Peace: Israel: Nuclear Deal Is Capitulation To Iranian Dictates
The parameters agreement for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran is an ideal example of how not to buy a Middle Eastern carpet. In 2012, President Barack Obama declared that, “The deal we’ll accept is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the UN resolutions” demanding that Iran cease all uranium enrichment and dismantle its nuclear plants. The Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany could have offered the lowest possible price as their final bid — take it or leave it. Iran would have had little choice but to sell the carpet.
Yet, in reaching the parameters agreement, international negotiators were worn down by the protracted talks. They were persuaded by Iran’s displays of warmth and earnestness, and accepted its claim that the nuclear program was a matter of national pride similar to America’s moon landing. Most damagingly, when asked by the Iranians “how much do you want to spend?” the P5+1 replied by recognizing the Islamic Republic’s right to enrich and to maintain its nuclear facilities. This became the new baseline and the only remaining questions were: How much enrichment and how many facilities? The haggling had scarcely begun and already the merchant profited.
The compromise was the brainchild of Robert Einhorn from Brookings – a top State nonproliferation official stretching back to the Clinton era – and there was a lot of talk of Iranian flexibility when they accepted it. Then this week, it emerged that, in fact, the Iranians would be allowed to keep centrifuges spinning inside the mountain.
But instead of spinning uranium, the centrifuges would be spinning germanium or similar non-nuclear elements. That’s the administration’s talking point: that there will not be any “enrichment” going on at Fordow. The claim is – bluntly – false. Centrifuges spin isotopes into lighter and heavier elements, thereby “enriching” the material. That’s what they do. In fact, that’s all they do.
This isn’t a minor point. The concession has the potential to gut the whole deal for two reasons:
1. The deal allows N-generation centrifuge R&D beyond the reach of the West- since the process is the same process, Iran will have a hardened facility where it will be able to research and develop N-generation centrifuges. Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif bragged from the stage in Lausanne that Iranian R&D on centrifuges will continue on IR-4s, IR-5s, IR-6s, and IR-8s centrifuges–and that the pace of research will be tied to Iranian scientific progress. The development of advanced centrifuges would give the Iranians a leg up if they decide to break out, and it will put them instantly within a screw’s turn of a nuke when the deal expires.
2. The deal leaves Iranian nuclear infrastructure running beyond the reach of the West. If the Iranians kick out inspectors and dare the world to respond, the West will have zero way to intervene. The Iranians will have a head start on enrichment–and a place to do it beyond the reach of Western weapons. The administration’s early pushback has been that the breakout time will still be a year, so they could, in theory, reimpose sanctions–but it takes more than a year for sanctions to take an economic toll. So, there are zero options to stop a breakout.
Analysis: Iranian hard-liners are already saying that Tehran gave away too much
Iran renewed its nuclear program at the tail end of its war with Iraq more than a quarter of a century ago. Approximately a decade ago Iran accelerated the program, and despite this, it still does not have a nuclear weapon.Obama: Weakened Israel would be ‘failure’ for my presidency
Countries with less developed infrastructure and less advanced technological knowledge, such as Pakistan and North Korea, were able to build a nuclear weapon in five to seven years.
Thus, it can be concluded that Iran was afraid of making a bomb and remains so.
Iran did tirelessly endeavor to become a nuclear threshold state that would be a screwturn away from the ability to produce a bomb. In order to achieve this, it was willing to go very far, subjecting itself to painful, international sanctions and risking military repercussions.
It was all kosher in the eyes of the leadership, especially Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The leadership secretly established purchasing networks, schemed, concealed and blatantly lied. When its lies were exposed, Tehran hemmed and hawed, became more entangled, half-way confessed and went back on its tracks of lies. This behavior flew in the face of all of Iran’s international obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
US President Barack Obama said it would be a “moral” failure for his administration if Israel was weakened as a result of his policies. “I would consider it a failure on my part, a fundamental failure of my presidency, if on my watch or as a consequence of work that I’ve done, Israel was rendered more vulnerable,” Obama said in an interview conducted Saturday and published Sunday with veteran New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman.White House: Iran would never agree to give up nuclear program
He said he would consider it “not just a strategic failure, I think that would be a moral failure,” adding that no disagreements between Israel and the United States could break the two countries’ bond.
Obama also said that accusations that his administration is not doing all it can to ensure Israel’s security have made recent months a “hard period” for him personally.
“It has been personally difficult for me to hear… expressions that somehow… this administration has not done everything it could to look out for Israel’s interest — and the suggestion that when we have very serious policy differences, that that’s not in the context of a deep and abiding friendship and concern and understanding of the threats that the Jewish people have faced historically and continue to face,” he said.
The White House said Sunday that no deal could be reached that would see Iran dismantling its nuclear program, pushing back against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public criticism of the framework agreement, in which he called for an arrangement that would sharply curtail Tehran’s nuclear activities.Leading GOP senator: Let next president negotiate Iran deal
“Obviously that’s the preferable solution,” Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told CNN. “But the fact is Iran was never going to agree to a deal in which they got rid of their entire nuclear infrastructure.”
Netanyahu warned the same day that the political framework for the nuclear deal reached Thursday in Switzerland would keep Tehran’s vast nuclear program in place, and that its inter-continental ballistic missile system (ICBM) — an issue not addressed in the deal — was more of a threat to the US than to Israel.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday that the next US president should negotiate a final nuclear deal with Iran, since the Iranians don’t fear or respect current President Barack Obama.Verifying Iran Nuclear Deal Not Possible, Experts Say
Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation, the prospective 2016 GOP presidential candidate said, “Is there a better deal to be had? I think so. What I would suggest is if you can’t get there with this deal is to keep the interim deal in place, allow a new president in 2017, Democrat or Republican, to take a crack at the Iranian nuclear program.”
“The best deal I think comes with a new president. Hillary Clinton would do better. I think everybody on our side except maybe Rand Paul could do better.”
Obama said Saturday that the framework nuclear deal reached in Switzerland would provide “unprecedented verification.”The secret history of Iran and John Kerry
International inspectors “will have unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program because Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world,” he said in a Saturday radio address.
“If Iran cheats, the world will know it,” Obama said. “If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.”
But arms control experts challenged the administration’s assertions that a final deal to be hammered out in detail between now and June can be verified, based on Iran’s past cheating and the failure of similar arms verification procedures.
Everything you could want to know about the Middle East’s current situation was foretold at a 2007 panel discussion in Davos, Switzerland called, “The Future of the Middle East.” I remember watching it at the time and being struck by how John Kerry, then a former US presidential candidate, sat next to Mohammed Khatami, the former president of Iran (1997- 2005) and coddled Iran’s policy in Iraq.Senator Feinstein calls on Netanyahu to 'contain himself'
Khatami was candid; as usual with Iranian leaders he was all smiles, knowing that his country was on the march to victory. He spoke about how “extremism” threatened Iraq, and warned that the “reformists are being deserted.” Reformists? Iran supports “reformists” in Iraq, while suppressing its own? Of course, what he meant was “our reformists” in Iraq, those extending Iranian influence.
“We were wishing for a stable Iraq,” he claimed, referring to the period just after the US invasion of 2003. But by 2007, with the Iraqi insurgency in high gear, sectarian fighting in the country and the US troop surge allying with Sunni “awakening councils,” Iran realized it would need to step up its influence in Baghdad through its proxy Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014 who did Iran’s bidding and was very likely an Iranian plant. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called him such in 2009 in a meeting with a US counter-terrorism adviser.
Veteran Democratic Senator Dianne Feistein criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netantyahu Sunday for continuing to rail against the framework agreement reached with Iran over its nuclear program without offering an alternative plan.Obama sold the Sunnis down the river, Saudi media say
“I wish that he would contain himself, because he has put out no real alternative,” Feinstein said in an interview with CNN.
"I don’t think it's helpful for Israel to come out and oppose this one opportunity to change a major dynamic – which is downhill – in this part of the world," she said.
She rejected Netanyahu's assertion that the deal would endanger Israel.
Saudi officials may have been masking their dismay over the framework nuclear agreement reached last week in Switzerland between world powers and Iran, but the kingdom’s official media outlets are expressing a sense of betrayal loud and clear.'Skeptical' Canada Won't Lift its Iran Sanctions
“Gulf states — and especially Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain — have been experiencing the nightmare of an Iranian attack for decades,” the former editor-in-chief of Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat, Abdul Rahman Rashed, wrote in an op-ed titled “Iran vs. Saudi Arabia” on Monday. “Now, after the nuclear agreement, there is no doubt that the danger has doubled. People are angry with the Obama administration for selling this region cheaply. He left it to its own devices to face an evil state.”
US President Barack Obama’s vague recent promise to defend Saudi Arabia’s borders from possible Iranian aggression requires better clarification, Rashed insisted.
“As long as the Americans don’t explicitly state their commitment to defend Saudi Arabia from Iran and Iraq, we will face large-scale regional anarchy as a result of the nuclear deal,” he asserted. “The Iranians are claiming that Obama is uninterested in the security of the Gulf and his American allies in the region. This Iranian thinking will lead to more regional wars.”
The Canadian government has not shared US President Barack Obama's enthusiasm over the deal reached with Iran over its nuclear program last Thursday, by which the Islamic regime continues enriching uranium at reduced levels in exchange for the removal of sanctions.Iranian, US Versions of Nuclear Deal Contradict Each Other
Canadian Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson responded to the deal, warning that the Islamic regime may still be able to obtain a nuclear weapon even with the agreement.
"We have to make every possible diplomatic effort to ensure that Iran will never be able to achieve the ability to develop a nuclear weapon," said Nicholson, noting such a development could spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
The foreign minister added that "Iran's track record is not one that encourages trust."
While US President Barack Obama's administration has been so busily celebrating the framework deal sealed last Thursday with Iran over its nuclear program, official Iranian statements in Farsi appear to disprove Obama's claims about what has or hasn't been agreed.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said ‘preparing for war’ in case deal collapses
The New York Post outlined on Saturday the different statements about the agreement. Those statements include one by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy head Federica Mogherini, as well as an official Iranian text, a text in French, and US Secretary of State John Kerry's summary which presents the framework as being a done deal.
The paper notes that Mogherini's statement and the French text are so vague that they are "ultimately meaningless."
Meanwhile the Iranian text is careful to state that nothing has been agreed to by the Islamic regime, and is titled as merely a press statement as opposed to the US text entitled "Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action."
Examining the bodies of the American and Farsi text, the paper found stark differences, including outright contradictions.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards “are preparing for war” in the event that negotiations to turn Thursday’s framework nuclear agreement into a binding deal by June 30 collapse, an Israeli TV report said Sunday night, citing Arab intelligence agencies.Nightmare Scenario: How Would Israel Combat a Nuclear Iran?
The Israeli Channel 10 report said Arab intelligence agencies have warned “France, the UK and the US” that the Revolutionary Guards fear Iran could face a military strike should the talks break down, and that the Guards are ready to close the Strait of Hormuz and take other unspecified measures. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the US was working as recently as January on improving its biggest bunker buster bombs in case they were needed for strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The Sunday Israeli TV report highlighted the major discrepancies that have emerged between the US and Iran since the framework agreement was announced on Thursday, raising the concern that the non-binding understandings reached to date will fall apart and the negotiations collapse.
Political science has analyzed the topic of nuclear proliferation since the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949. After decades of watching the apparent chess game of nuclear brinksmanship between the United States and the Soviet Union, world leaders were met with alarm in the 1970s when both India and Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons.Spengler: Ha’aretz denounces my book “How Civilizations Die” without mentioning my core argument
It is far less acquainted with what even smaller countries would do with those sorts of weapons in a much more tight-knit, yet complex web of regional rivalries. If Iran gets the bomb, the Saudis, Egyptians and Turks might all follow. But what of Israel?
Most experts assume Israel has nuclear weapons under Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity, leading rivals on to the idea Israel might have a nuclear arsenal as an insurance policy. It is telling that since most experts believe Israel has had a weapon for about 50 years, efforts to obtain such a weapon by enemy states have been extremely limited, due to an understanding perhaps that Israel's nuclear weapons are purely defensive. Iraq’s efforts went from fission to fizzle in 1981’s Israeli attack against the Osirak nuclear reactor, and there was the 2007 bombing of an alleged Syrian nuclear research site.
When it comes to Israel’s most immediate concern, Iran, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah would suddenly have a “nuclear umbrella.” That is to say, fighting those groups increases the chance Iran might employ its nuclear weapons against Israel in a war.
Iran has an apocalyptic regime with a great deal to be apocalyptic about. As I have argued in these pages since 2005, no poor country in the entire troubled history of the world has seen its fertility rate plunge from 7 children per female just one generation ago to only 1.6 children per female today. There is no explanation for mass rejection of a nation’s demographic future except for deep cultural pessimism. Islamism, whether of the Sunni variety propounded by Sayyid Qutb or the Shia version of Ayatollah Khomeini, rejects modernity, which it views as corrosive of Muslim society. Iran had the misfortune to be the most modernized Muslim nation (thanks to the Shah’s commitment to universal female literacy), as well as the most backward in ideology under the Islamic Republic. Its unsuccessful engagement with modernity has left a childless country plagued by social pathologies, including some of the world’s highest rates of opium addiction, venereal disease, and prostitution.PreOccupied Territory: Iran Using Your Mom’s Matza Dense Balls To Protect Centrifuges (satire)
As a matter of arithmetic, Iran will have an elderly dependent ratio worse than Europe or the United States one generation from now, with one-tenth the per capital GDP. Demographic problems which barely are soluble in rich countries are a death sentence for a poor country. This is a train wreck that cannot be averted. Even in the unlikely event that Iran were to raise its fertility rate through incentives to families (as it recently proposed to do), it will have negligible impact on the rapid aging of its population and the ensuing collapse of its economy. The chart below uses the constant fertility projections of the United Nations Population Prospects, which readers can generate for themselves here.
Israeli military intelligence officials cited reports today that Iran is attempting to shield its uranium-enrichment centrifuges from attack by surrounding them with one of the heaviest, densest materials known to man, your mother’s matza balls.Congressmen to Obama: Stand with Israel
General Marak Ohf of AMAN, Israel’s military intelligence apparatus, addressed a cabinet meeting this morning with members of the outgoing caretaker government. General Ohf detailed a number of the main points from agents and electronic interceptions, of which the main concern is Iran’s efforts to shield its nuclear weapons program from attack; immunity from military moves is likely to render any effort to deter Iran from atomic weapons development futile. The general described the matza ball deployment and distribution, and outlined several possible scenarios, none of them ideal from Israel’s perspective.
If confirmed, the use of your mother’s dumplings poses a formidable challenge to any nations seeking to destroy the facilities by air, as the substance has been known to withstand considerable force. A properly constructed armored facility that incorporates her matza balls will be all but indestructible, according to Ken Eidlach, a consultant with the military journal Jane’s.
A group of congressmen are rallying behind Israel as reports indicate that the White House may embrace a France-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution that would “meddle” in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.Blocking the French initiative
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.) and Rep. David McKinley (R., W. Va.) are circulating a resolution in Congress condemning any attempt by the Obama administration to reverse longstanding U.S. policy backing direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Security Council resolution that is expected to be considered this month endorses Palestinian positions on the terms of a final settlement, including dividing Jerusalem and the removal of all Israeli security forces from the West Bank.
“Whereas it has been the longstanding policy of the United States under both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses that a United Nations mandate to force a final status agreement to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is not appropriate … It is the sense of the United States House of Representatives that any resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must come from direct bilateral negotiations without preconditions and without interference from the United Nations,” the resolution says.
Many articles have appeared of late suggesting that France is looking to renew its initiative, which this time is rumored to include a specific reference to the 1967 "borders" and to Jerusalem as a capital of both states. Not included in the proposal are the cancellation of the Palestinians' claimed right of return and the recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.Finger-pointing and reality
The French apparently believe that after the U.S. administration's talk of "reassessing" the best way to achieve a two-state solution, there is a chance that Washington will allow their proposal to pass this time, even if the U.S. does not directly support it. Still, it seems that Paris has not made a final decision on the move due, among other reasons, to being unsure of the American stance on the matter.
Israel is also unsure, and that is why the majority of its diplomatic and political activities in the near future should focus on ensuring the continued opposition of the United States to France's troubling initiative -- and it is possible that the Iranian issue will help Israel achieve that goal.
Still, France's balance sheet is not entirely in the negative. It must be noted that when it comes to the Iranian nuclear issue, France takes a much more responsible and determined position than the United States. However, it seems that the French believe there is no contradiction between supporting a Palestinian statehood resolution at the U.N. and exercising caution when it comes to Iran -- yet both affect Israel's security and its future.
In an interview to the Nazareth-based Kul al-Arab newspaper last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas explained that if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict weren't solved, the terrorism and extremism seen these days throughout the Middle East would make its way into Israel.IDF Blog: The 5 Major Threats Facing Israel this Passover
In saying this, Abbas was trying to create the illusion that the freeze in the peace process is Israel's fault and not the result of his own recalcitrance, as well as a twisted picture in which the growing global jihad and fundamentalism are directly related to the Israeli-Arab conflict. But despite Abbas' manipulative remarks, reality has demonstrated the exact opposite. His disingenuous call for negotiations -- after he was the one who pulled out of the last round of peace talks and the one before that -- and his pseudo-moderation run right smack up the wall of reality.
The Palestinian Media Watch institute exposed that just a week ago, the official television channel of the PA chose to broadcast a clip in which a school pupil calls to kill Jews ("We will fight the Jews, kill them and overcome them.") This, of course, isn't the only incitement. Last year, the Palestinian Authority Education Ministry organized a sports event in honor of the Egyptian poet Hisham al-Gakh after the latter read a poem that included the words, "My enemy, Zion, Satan with a tail." The head of the Palestinian Sports Authority joined in by sponsoring a table tennis tournament in honor of terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in which 37 Israelis were killed.
Passover is a special time of the year in Israel. As we celebrate and remember how we freed ourselves from slavery and escaped persecution to return to the land of Israel, we also look towards the future and the challenges that we will face down the road. These are the security threats facing Israel and its citizens as they celebrate Passover with their families.Hundreds March in Solidarity with Terror Victims' Families
Hundreds marched between Karnei Shomron and Kedumim on Sunday, in an event in solidarity with terror victims' families dubbed the "Emunah [faith] March."Muslims Seethe as Jews Tour Temple Mount on Chol Hamoed Pesach
The march, which spans about a 10-kilometer (6.2 mile) distance between the two towns, was held in memory of Rafi and Helena Halevy, who were founders of Kedumim killed in a suicide bombing; Shaked Lasker of Kedumim who was murdered at age 16; and Reut Feldman from Herzliya, who was doing National Service work in Kedumim nine years ago when she was killed at the town's entrance. The march was also in memory of Ido Zoldan, who was murdered 8 years ago near Kfar Fundak.
The march was approved and coordinated with the IDF and security forces.
At the end of the march, at a closing ceremony, Rabbi Tzvi Farbstein addressed the public, imploring them to continue on with faith despite attempts to murder those who hate us and hurt us, and that our response should be as the Passover Haggadah says, "through your blood shall you live."
Videos taken by Shlomo Walfish show dozens of Arabs of all ages harassing Jews who toured the Temple Mount Sunday morning, on the first day of Chol Hamoed Pesach.Israel Attacked Iranian Weapons in Libya, says Gulf State Newspaper
A message sent later in the day from Students for the Temple Mount said that police were no longer allowing Jews to make the complete tour of the Mount, and that “any Jew who ascends to the Temple Mount is immediately taken out through the Shalshelet Gate, which is adjacent to the entry gate.”
The Temple Mount organizations said Sunday that hundreds of Jews who hoped to make the pilgrimage to the Temple Mount of Pesach are now forced to return home disappointed because of the police's “loss of control in the face of Muslim threats.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said that he will not allow the issue of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount to cause a religious war in the Middle East. Critics like ex-MK Moshe Feiglin claim that it is precisely the lack of sovereignty on the Mount that causes instability and wars.
The Israeli Air Force bombed several weapon storage depots in Libya, according to the Oman-based Al Watan newspaper.Israel can fend off a cyberattack
Israel has not confirmed or denied the report.
The bombing mission destroyed the weapons that Al Watan said were flown through Egyptian air space to Libya.
Israel has been credited with bombing several sites in Libya and other north African countries the past several years in an effort to stop the flow of Iranian weapons to Hamas.
The terrorism the State of Israel grapples with isn't only physical, it's moving into the cyber realm. Israel faces threats of this kind from Hezbollah and Hamas daily. Their cyberattacks are growing more sophisticated, forcing Israel to improve its abilities to provide an appropriate solution.Israel Unveils New Unmanned ‘Sea Knight’ to Combat Gaza Marine Smugglers
Of course, Israel isn't the only country facing threats like these. The U.S. and other Western nations are under constant threat by various Islamist groups, including, of course, the Islamic State group which is trying to attack them to avenge the attacks against it by coalition forces.
This is the third year an attack on Israeli websites has been organized. The attackers are mainly hackers from our region. The first cyberattack, two years ago, was a large one. The second was much smaller. We don't know about the third one yet, but we are seeing preparations for a wide-scale operation.
The hacker groups don't have very advanced tools, but the Iranian involvement, which was also a factor in the previous cyberattacks, could make this attack more severe. A study conducted a year ago indicated that terrorist groups that are not government-backed have difficulty executing serious attacks, and that only countries with extensive intelligence can orchestrate significant attacks.
Israel has introduced a new sea vessel, the “Sea Knight,” an unmanned seaborne craft that it intends to use to prevent dangerous weapon smuggling into Gaza by sea.IDF intercepts high-tech equipment en route to Gaza
Eight months after Operation Protective Edge, Palestinian terror groups are escalating attempts to smuggle weapons into the Strip by sea. In response, Israel’s navy has stepped up its patrols of the coastal enclave, and introduced the Sea Knight to combat the problem.
Lt. Col. Liav, the commander of the southern detachment of Dabur patrol boats said of the Sea Knight that it is, “a vessel which can shoot, issue warnings, squirt water, conduct the most advanced types of surveillance, and all the while sailing without a human operator.”
The Sea Knight is controlled by an operator on the beach, or on another vessel, and has even been used to search for divers trying to infiltrate Israel.
Security forces on Monday busted an attempt to smuggle advanced electronics equipment, including infra-red cameras, from Israel into the Gaza Strip.PMW: Widespread violence against Palestinian women in Gaza
A joint operation by border authorities, the Shin Bet security agency, and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, intercepted the shipment, which was allegedly en route to terror groups in the Strip.
Among the confiscated devices were security cameras, including some with night-vision capabilities, and remote controls for the cameras, as well as radio equipment. The contraband was discovered in an Israeli truck as it entered the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza.
The Defense Ministry noted that it was the second time in a week that such a smuggling attempt had been foiled. Since the beginning of the year there have been over 100 incidents in which smugglers were intercepted as they tried to send banned equipment or materials to Gaza and its Hamas government, which is designated as terrorist by Israel and many Western countries.
Violence against Palestinian women is widespread because of Palestinian laws and Palestinian culture that give men “the right of ownership” over their wives, according to the head of the Women’s Legal Counseling Center, Zainab Al-Ghneimi. Palestinian principles determine that the man “is the one who commands and prohibits,” she says, commenting on statistics of cases of violence reported to the Center of Women’s Affairs in Gaza.Palestinian Hamas leader reportedly beheaded by ISIS
The belief that the man “has bought the woman and paid for her, and therefore she has become his property and must obey his orders,” is, “unfortunately, the culture of the entire society,” said Al-Ghneimi.
Significantly, the statistics from Gaza show that a high percentage of women themselves felt that domestic violence is justified on certain occasions:
“41% of the women agreed that violence was justified if the woman leaves home without notifying her husband, while 74% agreed that violence was justified if she neglected her children.” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 29, 2015]
WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
The war between Sunni ISIS and Shiite Iran is taking a toll on Hamas, allied with the mullahs. ISIS has taken control of 90% of a Palestinian “camp” (really just a district of Damascus) that once housed half a million people, but which, in the wake of the civil war in Syria, now houses 18,000 people. And once in control, ISIS turned its savagery against a sworn enemy of Israel. Erika Solomon of the Financial Times reports on the background:Tibi: Shame on Arab world for ignoring massacre of Palestinians at Syria refugee camp
Militants from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) have seized nearly all of a Damascus district just outside the city centre, activists said, amid reports of atrocities in the besieged neighbourhood.
Activists on Saturday said the jihadi group may succeed in cementing a foothold in the Syrian capital, a move that would increase pressure on President Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power as he tries to fight a four-year revolt against his rule. (snip)
“Reports of kidnappings, beheadings and mass killings are coming out from Al-Yarmouk,” said Saeb Erekat, an member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, based in the West Bank. “The priority must be to save the Palestinian refugees in the camp by creating a safe passage for them out of the death trap that Al-Yarmouk has become.” (h/t Bob Knot)
The Islamic State's violent takeover of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria is a mark of Cain on the foreheads of the international community and the Arab world specifically, MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint List) said Monday.EoZ January 2013: Abbas sentenced hundreds of Syrian Palestinians to death in 2013
"What's happening in the Yarmouk camp is a crime against humanity," Tibi said. "Over a thousand Palestinians were killed."
The Yarmouk camp, on the outskirts of Damascus, was once home to over 100,000 residents, but now has only 18,000 according to the UN Relief and Works Agency. It was under siege by the Syrian government for over two years, and was a battleground before that, devastated by street fighting, air attacks and shelling.
The Palestinian president said he has rejected a conditional Israeli offer to let Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria resettle in the West Bank and Gaza, charging it would compromise their claims to return to lost homes in Israel.
Abbas said he asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon last month to seek Israeli permission to bring Palestinians caught in Syria's civil war to the Palestinian territories. The request came after fighting between Syrian troops and rebel fighters in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. About half of the camp's 150,000 residents have fled, according to a U.N. aid agency.
Abbas told a group of Egyptian journalists in Cairo late Wednesday that Ban contacted Israel on his behalf.
Abbas said Ban was told Israel "agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn't have the right of return (to Israel)."
"So we rejected that and said it's better they die in Syria than give up their right of return," Abbas told the group. Some of his comments were published Thursday by the Palestinian news website Sama. (h/t Alexi)