Monday, January 08, 2018
NGO Monitor: UNICEF and its NGO Working Group: The Campaign to Blacklist the IDF
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYUNICEF acting to add IDF to list of 'grave violators of children's rights'
UNICEF spearheads a campaign to have Israel included on a UN blacklist of “grave” vio-lators of children’s rights.The list appears as an annex to the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC). This political agenda is a primary facet of UNICEF’s activities relating to Israel, completely inconsistent with its mandate of “child protection” and from its guidelines for neutrality and impartiality.
Click to Read Full Report in PDF Version
- UNICEF-oPt’s partners (“working group”) for this campaign are radical advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These anti-Israel NGOs play an integral role in carrying out UNICEF’s campaign and receive substantial funding from UNICEF to do so.
- The UN blacklist consists almost entirely of terror groups and militias from failed states. In essence, by pushing for the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) inclusion on the list, UNICEF and its NGO partners are claiming that Israel’s army is equivalent to ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda.
- Several of the Palestinian groups – including Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), which plays a leading role in this campaign – have reported links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – listed as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel. UNICEF-oPt states, “UNICEF has a clear policy that is does not fund support (sic) organizations which are listed as terrorist organizations by the United Nations” – a list that excludes Hamas, the PFLP, and Islamic Jihad.
- Several UNICEF-oPt NGO partners recommended inclusion of the IDF on the UN blacklist, but absurdly claimed they lacked sufficient evidence to recommend inclusion of the PFLP or Hamas.
- A key component of the UN’s Children and Armed Conflict campaign is to end the exploi-tation and use of children as combatants and child soldiers. Although Palestinian armed groups routinely use children in this way, there is little evidence that UNICEF-oPt funding is devoted towards exposing or ending this practice. In fact, a UNICEF Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) bulletin admits that “In Gaza, the Working Group was not in a position to document cases of child recruitment and use of children in armed conflict owing to a number of factors, including security and protection risks related to collecting comprehensive and detailed information” (emphasis added). This admission of an inability to carry out the core mission of its UN mandate in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza calls into question the necessity and utility of continued funding for the agency in the region.
- Other UNICEF-oPt partners are NGOs that seek to marginalize Israel through BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) initiatives. One such contributor is the World Council of Churches’ EAPPI program, which is heavily involved in church-based BDS and whose non-professional volunteers purport to collect data for a UNICEF database.
- UNICEF-oPt’s NGO partners publish misleading and false reports on the treatment of Palestinian minors involved in attacks and arrested by the IDF, rife with distortions and in-accuracies and devoid of necessary context. These same erroneous and unverified claims are then laundered through a UNICEF database to a variety of UN publications, lending them legitimacy and prominence.
The NGO Monitor report further shows how UNICEF opted to ignore violations of children's rights by Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip, when it admitted "the working group was not in a position to document cases of child recruitment and use of children in armed conflict owing to a number of factors, including security and protection risks related to collecting comprehensive and detailed information."UNICEF Being Fed False Info By Anti-Israel Hate Groups To Target IDF
The anti-Israel organizations behind the UNICEF working group have in recent years published false and misleading reports on the IDF's arrest and purported abuse of Palestinian minors involved in attacks which were later entered into a UNICEF database, lending them legitimacy.
A number of these organizations, including the Defense for Children International- Palestine, have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been recognized as a terrorist organization by Israel, Canada, the EU and the U.S.
In response to a query from NGO Monitor, UNICEF Palestine did not deny that the organization had ties to terrorist groups.
"UNICEF has a clear policy that it does not fund … organizations which are listed as terrorist organizations by the United Nations."
Among those organizations excluded from the world body's terrorist list are Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Other organizations involved in efforts to include the IDF in the U.N. blacklist actively promote the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
NGO Monitor states, “UNICEF’s role in this process includes giving legitimacy to false and distorted claims made by the NGOs, which are fed through a UNICEF database to a variety of U.N. publications.” NGO Monitor notes that three groups passing information to the working group are linked to The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Those groups allegedly include Addameer, which NGO Monitor states is an affiliate of the PFLP; the Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P), which had a board member who helped launch grenade attacks against Israeli civilians in 1968, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whose founder was imprisoned by Israel for membership in the PFLP.
Rep. Ron DeSantis, (R-FL), stated that Israel is a “staunch defender of human rights,” and warned the U.N. there might be financial consequences if the IDF was blacklisted. He added, “For the United Nations to even consider such action following their condemnation of President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is further proof of the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias. ... The United States should take any punitive action against Israel into consideration when determining who is deserving of foreign assistance.”
Groups already on the blacklist include ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Interestingly, one of the violations listed by the U.N. is “recruitment or use of children as soldiers.” One wonders why the U.N. has not seen fit to list the Palestinians and Hamas, who have used children as human shields and suicide bombers.
PMW: PA TV uses music to incite murder
Using music to incite murder, on PA TV: "No force... can remove the weapon from my hand, from my wounds, my weapon has emerged"
PA TV host concurs:
"We will come out at you from where you won't expect it. We will come out at you from underground, from above ground, from every burrow, from every angle because we have a right"
Two senior Fatah officials also posted song encouraging terror: "I'm coming with my rifle and my faith. I'm coming towards you, my enemy. Our war is a war of the streets"
Fatah poster shows young Palestinian with rocket launcher: "From my wounds, my weapon has emerged"
Since US Pres. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the Palestinian Authority has been promoting terror in many ways - including through music and song. During a special broadcast immediately after Trump's recognition, official Palestinian Authority TV started playing songs calling for violence.
Trump is right to cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
Ending UNRWA doesn’t mean ending humanitarian support for Palestinians. If the definition of a Palestinian refugee changes, the small number of remaining refugees could be served by the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Palestinians in need could be served by the Palestinian Authority.LISTEN - Breitbart's Aaron Klein: Trump Already Won By Threatening to Cut Funding to Palestinians
To help bring that about, Trump should clarify that the U.S. Government’s definition of a Palestinian refugee includes only those who are actually refugees. This change would help depoliticize the provision of aid. Importantly, this would be a step toward taking a major point of contention — the rights of Palestinians to return to Israel — off the table, just as the administration did with Jerusalem.
Ultimately, the path to peace is one that forces the Palestinian people to realize that continued rejection of Israel is a dead end. They must understand that the only way to build a better future for their children is to abandon the conflict that has been central to their identity for most of the last century.
Defunding UNRWA gives Palestinian leadership a stark choice: get serious about forging lasting peace with a Jewish state in Israel, or refuse to play ball and be forced to act like a responsible government that cares for its own people.
President Trump came into office making big promises about solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and reforming the United Nations. His announcement on Jerusalem dealt a serious blow to the Palestinian rejectionism that has prolonged this conflict for generations. Finding a way to end UNRWA’s support for the structures behind the unwillingness of Palestinians to make peace would be another important step. Freezing payments is a step in the right direction.
President Donald Trump’s threats to cut funding to the Palestinians puts the Palestinian Authority on notice that they will face consequences for their intransigence, support for terrorism and anti-Israel incitement, explained Breitbart Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.Abbas to ask EU to recognize 'Palestine'
Klein argued that even if the Trump administration eventually continues to provide some funding to the PA, the threat to halt aid is already a winning policy since it communicates to the PA that they will face consequences for their bad behavior.
Klein was speaking in a radio interview broadcast on Breitbart News’ “Whatever It Takes” hosted by former All-Star pitcher Curt Schilling.
Here is a partial transcript of Klein’s remarks:
If we continue every year to give $600 million to the Palestinian Authority … why would they stop supporting terror if they keep getting their money? Why would we continue to perpetuate a deal with the Iranians when openly they support terror around the world and openly they are trying to destabilize the world at the expense of American national security. Why would they stop if we don’t do anything about sanctions or if we further this deal?
So Donald Trump, even if he does eventually give money to the Palestinian Authority, I think they have been put on notice right now – they have to be – that we are at least looking at this. Also by Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem after decades of the United States not doing that – and by the way, many presidents, when they ran, promised that they would and then they delayed – this also puts the Palestinian Authority on notice. If you continue to bolt peace negotiations than you are actually going to lose ground. You’re going to lose momentum. And also just think about it. How are they a peace partner if they need to be blackmailed into making peace? That makes absolutely no sense. If they wanted it (a state) they would have it.
Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are continuing their efforts to gain recognition of the European Union (EU) of the state of “Palestine” with eastern Jerusalem as its capital, the Xinhua news agency reported Sunday.British FM Johnson to Palestinian Counterpart: Jerusalem Should Be Shared Capital of Two States
Well informed sources in the PA said, according to the report, that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet with the EU's foreign ministers on January 22 in Brussels. At that meeting, he is expected to ask them to recognize a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 territories with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.
The sources told Xinhua that such recognition by the EU would revive the internationally-backed two-state solution and help the Palestinian bid to get a full UN membership.
The PA has been mulling unilateral steps in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
A PA official recently said France would be willing to recognize “Palestine”, if other European countries join it in doing so. However, at a meeting last month with Abbas, French President Emmanuel Macron ruled out recognizing “Palestine” as a state unilaterally.
Jerusalem should ultimately be the shared capital of Israeli and Palestinian states, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told his Palestinian Authority counterpart Riyad al-Malki on Monday, a statement from Britain’s Foreign Office said.Elliott Abrams: The Princes and the Mullahs Why Iranians are in the streets—and Saudis aren't.
“I reiterated the UK’s commitment to supporting the Palestinian people and the two-state solution, the urgent need for renewed peace negotiations, and the UK’s clear and longstanding position on the status of Jerusalem,” Johnson said.
“It should be determined in a negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and Jerusalem should ultimately be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states.”
The past week has seen widespread anti-government demonstrations in Iran, and the regime of the ayatollahs has responded with violent repression—including deadly force. Meanwhile there have been no demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, which is just as far from democracy. Why not?Report: Saudi Arabia working with Israel against Iran
The reasons—and the differences between the two cases—are significant. First, it is no accident that Iran’s regime is led by a man, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is now 78, who replaced a man (Ayatollah Khomeini) who was 86 when he died. That used to be the Saudi model as well, as one brother replaced another on the throne and each was older than the previous. But power is now moving to a new generation in Saudi Arabia. The new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is 32, and many of his own key advisers are from his generation. It’s obvious to Saudis that he wants significant social and economic progress and has begun to promote it. To Saudis, this means that their government is in new hands and is suddenly an engine of change—not its enemy, as in Iran.
Moreover, though Saudi kings claim a special role as “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” the Saudi regime is civil not religious in nature. A bargain between the clergy and the al-Saud family has lasted for generations, but they remain separate. When, for example, the religious police became widely unpopular, the royal family reined them in and removed most of their powers. While the clergy remain extremely conservative and presumably oppose the recent decisions to allow women to drive, open soccer stadiums to mixed crowds, and permit the opening of movie theaters, power does not lie in their hands. The government made these decisions and can enforce them.
This does not mean that Saudi Arabia is more advanced socially than Iran, which is not the case. But it does mean that Saudis appear to believe their government is pushing the nation forward and defying the clergy—while across the Gulf, Iranians know all power is ultimately in the hands of the clergy, who do and will resist change. The system of velayat-e faqih or “rule of the jurisprudent” that Ayatollah Khomeini established in Iran after 1979 is a theocracy. Power lies in the hands of the clerics, not the government, and the ayatollah who is supreme leader always holds far more power than elected politicians (more on those “elections” in a moment). The supreme leader—and not Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who is more of a chief administrative officer—leads the Revolutionary Guards and the military as well as the clergy and has the final word on every major decision.
Nevertheless, it is true that political rights are severely restricted in both Iran and Saudi Arabia. All those reforms in Saudi Arabia are exclusively social and economic, and there is no sign of the slightest political opening. Indeed the restrictions are in many ways greater in Saudi Arabia: There are no elections and no parliamentary forms at all, while in Iran the president and a parliament are elected. So again, why are the demonstrations in Iran rather than in Saudi Arabia?
The Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung on Monday morning reported that Israel and Saudi Arabia are working together to fight Iran's expanding presence in the Middle East.By 2040, Muslims predicted to outnumber Jews in the US
According to the report, the two countries are cooperating significantly in the areas of military issues and security on strategic issues, despite the fact that they have no open diplomatic ties.
Another report said that the shared interest in preventing Iran from establishing itself throughout the Middle East with a land corridor to the Mediterranean Sea has caused the Saudis to debate purchasing Israeli-made military equipment and defense systems.
Basler Zeitung also claimed that Riyadh requested Israel examine the possibility of acquiring, including through a third party, anti-tank defense systems and the Iron Dome anti-missile system.
Recently, there were several reports of Israeli and Saudi officials meeting, though neither side disclosed the topics discusses. The Swiss report claims that in October, intelligence officials from both countries met in order to tighten cooperation, and discussed holding an additional meeting with intelligence leaders of both countries.
Muslims will replace Jews as the United States’s second-largest religious group by 2040, according to projections by the Pew Research Center.Security cabinet holds 'extremely significant' meetings about northern border
While there is no official count of either religious group since the US Census doesn’t ask Americans about their religion, private surveys of the American population allow researchers to estimate the numbers of Americans who identify with each group.
Muslims currently make up some 3.45 million people living in the US, or about 1.1 percent of the total population, while a major Pew study last year suggested some 6.7 million Americans, or 2.1% of the population, identify as Jews.
But that gap is unlikely to last, the group said in a statement Wednesday, explaining that “our projections suggest that the US Muslim population will grow much faster than the country’s Jewish population.”
The Muslim share in the overall US population has grown quickly, from 0.4% of all Americans in 2007 to 0.9% in 2014, according to a previous 2014 study by Pew. Jews’ share grew too, but more slowly, from 1.7% to 1.9% in the same period.
Israel’s security cabinet has convened several times in recent days, holding “extremely significant” meetings to discuss developments on the northern border and Iran’s presence in Syria.PM leading ‘multifaceted’ effort against Iranian presence in Syria – minister
According to a report by Channel 10, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held telephone conversations with world leaders and warned them of the danger posed by Iran establishing itself in Lebanon and Syria through it’s proxies Hezbollah and other Shi'ite militias.
The report stated that the discussions also focused on the "day-after" the Syrian civil war ends with President Bashar Assad as victor and his military regaining control over the country.
“Due to limitations imposed by the military censor, I can’t give the full information,” tweeted Channel 10’s diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid. “But after more than a decade of covering the security cabinet, I can judge that the discussions over the last few days about the northern front were extremely significant.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly voiced concerns over the growing Iranian presence on its borders and the smuggling of sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah from Tehran to Lebanon via Syria, stressing that both are red-lines for the Jewish State.
Ravid referred to comments made by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in October, warning that the next conflict in the north will not be confined to one front but will involve conflicts with both Syria and Lebanon.
Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz on Monday said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading a “multifaceted” effort to combat Iran’s increasing military presence in Syria.Israel's Shin Bet arrests 2 Beduin women on suspicion of planning ISIS attacks
“The Middle East is raging around us, and what concerns us the most are Iranian efforts to establish military bases in Syria,” Steinitz told Army Radio after being asked about reports that the high-level security cabinet has been holding a series of “extremely significant” meetings on the threats from the northern border.
“The prime minister is leading a multifaceted campaign to stop this entrenchment,” Steinitz said, declining to comment specifically on the content of the meetings.
In a separate interview Monday morning, Steinitz noted that while “it’s no secret” that Israel is concerned by Iranian military presence in Syria, he said Netanyahu’s government is “carrying out diplomatic, intelligence and security operations” to prevent the war-torn country from “becoming an Iranian military base.”
“It’s a process that will take a few years, but we are determined to prevent it,” he told the Ynet news site.
Israel's Security Agency, the Shin Bet, revealed on Monday that it arrested two female citizens accused of collaborating with ISIS in order to carry out a deadly terror attack inside Israel.Terror victims: Deduct terrorists' salaries from PA tax funds
According to a statement released by the agency, the two 19-year-old Israeli citizens, who live in the Beduin village of Lakia, are accused of planning a terror attack against Israeli Jews, including one during New Year’s celebration.
The investigation revealed that Rahma and Tasnin al-Assad pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and published articles praising the Islamic State group as well as content inciting terror attacks against Jews and Israelis. The two are suspected of being in contact with ISIS handlers abroad and made plans to leave the country and join the Sunni terror group.
An indictment was filed against them on Monday by the Southern District Attorney's Office in the Beersheba District Court. They were charged with several counts, including contact with a foreign agent, planning a deadly terror attack, providing information to the enemy, attempted murder, and for joining an illegal organization.
According to the charge sheet Tasnin made contact with an ISIS operative going under the name "Sheikh Kassem," through the messaging app Telegram, and expressed willingness to aid in a terror attack.
Kassem, reportedly instructed her to carry out surveillance of several possible targets in the southern city of Beersheba, including Ben Gurion University and the central bus station. After staking out both the locations, the two determined that security at the university was too strict to allow them to bring in a bomb in a suitcase and that there were too many Muslims who might get hurt in an explosion at the bus station.
Rahma al-Assad is also charged with trying to recruit an east Jerusalem man who planned on marrying Tasnin in order to carry out a terror attack during New Year’s Eve celebrations.
The families of terror victims on Sunday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deduct the salaries that the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists and their families from PA tax funds collected by Israel.Goldin family blasts resumption of power to Gaza
Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, a mechanism was set up by which Israel collects taxes – value added tax and customs fees – on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, to the tune of about $100 million a month, and transfers the money to the PA.
The Palestinian Authority uses a considerable portion of these funds to finance the stipends it pays to terrorists and their families.
In 2016, for example, these payments amounted to 1.15 billion shekels ($334 million), or 7% of the PA's total budget for salaries and about 20% of the foreign aid it received.
On Sunday, some 200 bereaved families sent a letter to Netanyahu, urging him to push through legislation that would deduct hundreds of millions of shekels from the tax funds transferred to the Palestinians, essentially biting into the payments made to terrorists and their families.
The so-called "terrorist wages bill," sponsored by Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, passed its preliminary Knesset reading in June 2017 and was up for its first reading in November, but the vote was postponed at the request of the Defense Ministry and the National Security Council, which sought to further explore its implications.
Stern said at the time that the bill was "critical for Israel's national security and the war on terror."
Israel on Sunday said it will restore full electricity supply to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip following a request by the Palestinian Authority, which pledged to resume payments.Abuse of Power. Gaza ambulance driver puts patients at risk
Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas withdrew his guarantee to pay Israel for power in April, leaving Gaza's 2 million residents with only three to four hours of electricity per day as supplies were cut by about half.
Israel supplies only 30% of Gaza's power needs, or some 125 megawatts, for which the PA has been paying 40 million shekels ($12 million) a month. In April, Abbas said the PA was only prepared to pay some NIS 20 million to NIS 25 million ($5.8 million to $7.3 million) a month for electricity to Gaza, marking a sharp decrease in the Strip's power supply.
Abbas' move, which affected schools, factories, hospitals and households, was part of an effort to pressure Hamas into loosening its hold on the enclave, a decade after the Islamist movement seized the territory from forces loyal to him
In a brief statement, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had ordered the power supply to resume "no later than tomorrow [Monday]," restoring an additional 50 megawatts of power to the coastal enclave.
Israel Electric Corp. reportedly began restoring power levels to Gaza on Monday morning, coordinating the move with the Defense Ministry.
Why Israel uses checkpoints.Hamas: Stopping UNRWA aid destroys 'right of return'
In 2016, over 30,000 people from the Gaza received medical treatment in Israel. Over 7,000 tons of medical supplies were transferred to hospitals and clinics in the Gaza Strip. Emergency ambulances were on-call 24 hours, 7 days a week at the Erez Crossing. Israel takes its humanitarian obligations to the people of Gaza very seriously. Even when rockets targeting Israeli civilians are launched from Gaza, the humanitarian aid continues to flow to Gaza.
Leave it to Hamas to take advantage of Israel's largese.
According to COGAT ( Israel's Coordination of Government activiities in the territories):
Marwan Abu Rida, an ambulance driver for the Red Crescent, has been using his position to exploit patients seeking medical treatment in Israel for terrorist organizations.
Abu Rida had illegally transferred equipment and funds from the Gaza Strip to various terror groups in Judea and Samaria multiple times over the past year. This was done while risking the lives of patients he was transferring from the Gaza Strip.
Beside the fact that his actions are criminal, they go directly against the Red Crescent’s commitment to neutrality and cynically exploits patients who seek to enter Israel for life-saving treatments.
Israel has demanded that Marwan abu Rida be removed from his position in the Red Crescent immediately.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior member of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, warned Sunday that the American decision to freeze funding for UNRWA, the UN’s agency for “Palestinian refugees”, seeks to put an end to the issue of the so-called “right of return”.Jordan foiled Islamic State plot to ‘sow chaos’ in kingdom, state media says
Writing on Twitter, Abu Zuhri said that the move was part of a dangerous American plan and was a continuation of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
His comments follow a meeting which took place in the White House on Friday in which the cutting of aid to the Palestinian Authority and to UNRWA was discussed.
The meeting followed President Donald Trump's tweets last week in which he expressed doubt over the usefulness of American aid to the Palestinians, given their refusal to resume peace talks with Israel.
On Friday it was reported that the U.S. administration had frozen a $125 million grant to UNRWA, which was supposed to be delivered on January 1.
The United States is the largest single donor to UNRWA, providing approximately a fourth of the organization's budget.
Jordan’s security forces have foiled an Islamic State plot to carry out a series of coordinated and large-scale attacks aimed at sowing chaos in the Hashemite kingdom, Jordan’s official news outlet Petra reported Monday.Iran warns world to prepare for US nuke deal withdrawal
The kingdom’s security forces arrested 17 men suspected of being Islamic State members who were planning a number of “coordinated attacks with the aim of shaking the country’s security, and sowing chaos and fear in its citizens,” the report said. The arrests took place in November 2017.
The security forces confiscated weapons and “materials” intended to be used in the attacks, the reported added.
Interrogations of the alleged Islamic State members revealed, according to the report, that they had carried out reconnaissance of possible targets for attacks, including security, commercial, media and religious centers.
The cell planned to fund its attacks by carrying out bank robberies in the towns of Russeifa and Zarqa and also through stealing and selling cars, the report said.
The cell planned to manufacture explosives using materials available on the open market.
Iran warned the world on Monday to prepare for the possible withdrawal of the United States from the landmark nuclear deal agreed in 2015.Iran’s Zarif warns foreign powers against ‘misusing’ unrest
“The international community must be prepared for the US possibly pulling out of the JCPOA,” said deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, using the technical name for the nuclear deal.
Iran signed the accord in 2015 with six world powers, agreeing to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of many international sanctions.
US President Donald Trump openly despises the deal — a central foreign policy achievement of his predecessor Barack Obama — but has so far continued to waive the nuclear-related sanctions at regular intervals as required to stay in compliance.
The next deadline for Trump to waive sanctions falls on Friday.
“It’s been more than a year that the US president has sought to destroy the JCPOA with all his efforts,” said Araghchi, speaking at the Tehran Security Conference.
“We in Iran are prepared for any scenario. The international community and our region will be the biggest loser, since a successful experience in the international arena will be lost,” he added.
“Our region will not become a safer region without the JCPOA.”
Iran’s foreign minister on Monday warned neighboring countries over fomenting insecurity in Iran in a reference to anti-government protests that have roiled the country over the past two weeks.IRGC: We Will Extend the Range of Our Missiles to Wherever We Feel Threatened
The remarks by Mohammad Javad Zarif at a security conference in Tehran echoed the Iranian authorities’ stance, which alleges that foreign powers — including regional rival Saudi Arabia — stirred up unrest linked to the protests.
“Some countries tried to misuse the recent incidents,” Zarif said without blaming any specific country, and added that “no country can create a secure environment for itself at the expense of creating insecurity among its neighbors.”
“Such efforts” will only backfire, the official IRNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying.
Debate on Shiite TV Channel: The Jews Are Responsible for the Two World Wars, the Holocaust Was a Response to Their Actions pic.twitter.com/IEdDMHUxwV— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 7, 2018
PreOccupiedTerritory: We Ancient Egyptians Could Have Warned You About Trying To Drive Jews Into The Sea By Pharaoh (satire)
Not that I expect the Arabs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries CE to take my advice, but I’d have counseled against attacking the nascent Zionist state. My cavalrymen and I could have told you when happens when you attempt to push the people of Israel into the sea.
Now, it’s true that the two conflicts were different in many ways, but several similarities should have alerted the Syrians, Jordanians, and the heirs to my once-great civilization, the Egyptians, not o get too ambitious in attacking Israel.
For one thing, in both modern and ancient cases, the problem arose when the minority in the area, the people of Israel, started trying to assert some kind of independence, when for so long it had been acceptable to treat them as second-class inhabitants, at best, and outright slaves if it came to that. You start undermining the assumption that the people of Israel are supposed to be oppressed, under the boot of others, and well, that’s a bitter pill to swallow if you’re the majority culture who has enjoyed privilege all that time. You start to feel entitled to having those slaves around to do your bidding and remain unable to resist. Well, when push came to shove and they insisted on not being downtrodden anymore, insisted on taking control of their own futures, we responded with violence, we ancient Egyptians and twentieth-century Arabs. And we miscalculated, so we lost, disastrously.
For another, you won’t see any soul-searching going on among either majority culture. You will notice that my scribes and historians went light on the negative aspects of my rule, preferring instead to dwell on my success only, as befitting a god worthy of tribute and submission. This might seem familiar to modern-day Arabs, whose culture discourages, to put it mildly, any thought of accepting blame for failures, and therefore any honest appraisal of what went wrong in order to prevent a recurrence.
