Thursday, June 28, 2018
Australian Unions channelled millions of dollars to an organisation that employed a terrorist leader
AUSTRALIAN taxpayer funds are being funnelled to a Palestinian aid organisation that has employed and supported a leader of a terrorist group in Gaza.Caroline Glick: Trump Must Respond to Putin’s Double-Cross in Syria
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has given at least $21 million in the past decade to a Sydney-based charity set up by the unions, Union Aid Abroad (APHEDA).
This charity then channelled millions of dollars to the MA’AN Development Centre — a Palestinian organisation that employed a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The revelations have prompted Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to announce an audit of the union funding, understood to have been decided by her department.
PFLP has been on the official terror lists of the United States, European Union and Canada as a result of its hijacking of planes, assassinations and suicide bombings, while Australia has the group on its “Consolidated” list of organisations subject to financial sanctions as a result of security threats.
One of the MA’AN Development Centre’s 36 staff working in Gaza was Ahmed Abdullah Al Adine, 30, who held the job of Project Co-ordinator and Field Monitor since 2012.
Al Adine was also a leader of the PFLP in Gaza until he was killed in border protests last month. The terror group now hails him as a “martyr” and gave him a grand funeral last month, attended by at least a dozen PFLP terrorists.
President Donald Trump will soon meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. When he does, he must respond to a challenge Putin threw down in Syria, on the heels of Trump’s diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea.PMW: "With our skulls we are paving the path to certain victory," PA TV host quoted arch-terrorist Abu Jihad
How Trump and his administration respond to that challenge will affect not only the future of U.S.-Russian relations, but also Trump’s ability to operate credibly on the international stage. And, more acutely, it will impact the prospect for a major war in the Middle East.
Last July, despite nearly desperate Israeli opposition, Trump and Putin concluded a ceasefire accord regarding southern Syria. Jordan was also a party to the deal.
On Saturday, in a highly destabilizing and contemptuous move, Putin threw the deal into the garbage can.
The deal, the “Memorandum of Principle for De-escalation in Southern Syria” had three main components.
First, it defined the area of southern Syria below Quneitra and Suwayda as an “exclusion zone” for fighters of “non-Syrian origin,” including Iranian forces and their proxies, and fighters linked to al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.
Second, the deal called for maintaining existing governance and security arrangements in opposition-held areas in southwestern Syria. In other words, it barred the Syrian regime from seeking to retake the border area with Jordan and Israel.
Finally, it called for unimpeded access for humanitarian aid workers and the creation of conditions to allow the 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan to begin to return home.
When Palestinians marked the anniversary earlier this year of the death of arch-terrorist Abu Jihad who was responsible for the murder of at least 125 Israelis, a PA TV host quoted the terrorist, encouraging death for "Palestine":
Official PA TV host: "Thirty years since the death as a Martyr of Khalil Al-Wazir Abu Jihad, the First Bullet and the First Stone. On this day we remember what Prince of Martyrs [Abu Jihad] said: 'Our heads will remain in the sky and our feet are planted in the homeland. With our skulls we are paving the path to certain victory and return. The compass will never err and the path will continue to guide towards Palestine.'" [Official PA TV, Good Morning, April 20, 2018]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that PA and Fatah leaders have turned terrorist Abu Jihad into a role model for Palestinians. Fatah, for example, recently named a futsal championship after him.
PMW has also exposed that the PA encourages Martyrdom-death, for example a song on PA radio stated that "Palestine is etched on the heart of the fetus, a proud Martyr in his mother's womb," and Abbas' Fatah broadcast this song, asking Allah to grant Palestinians "Martyrdom" in Jerusalem:
The Palestinian Refugee Scam
Another Nakba Day, the annual commemoration of the catastrophic displacement of Palestinians from their homes in the 1948 war launched by Arab states to annihilate Israel, has passed. Like so much of the Palestinian narrative, it relies upon Jewish and Zionist history to rally support for the Palestinian “right of return” — to the Land of Israel.Is Donald Trump’s Approach to Israeli–Palestinian Peacemaking Just What’s Needed?
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ludicrously claimed that “we have been in this land since before Abraham” — indeed, “since the beginning of civilization” — and that his Palestinian forefathers “built Jerusalem before Abraham was even here.” How ironic that Abbas, while defending these absurdities and plagiarizing the biblical narrative, should also claim: “History cannot change and cannot be falsified.”
The Nakba is at the core of the Palestinian nationalist narrative, which began under the British Mandate following World War I. This narrative holds that during the Nakba hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes in what became the State of Israel by cruel conquering Zionists. Embedded in that tragic chronicle, embraced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to justify its own continued existence and lavish funding, is blatant deception reinforced by seven decades of international acquiescence to a brazen scam.
There is, to begin with, the question of numbers: how many Palestinian refugees were there in 1948-49? According to the meticulous research of Efraim Karsh, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, between 536,000-566,800 Palestinians fled their homes during the Arab war to exterminate Israel. Yet UNRWA, which exists for the sole purpose of assisting Palestinian refugees, now provides financial support to five million of them.
During his recent diplomatic tour of the Middle East, Jared Kushner didn’t specify any details of the Trump administration’s purported peace plan. But he did give a remarkable interview to the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds in which he told Palestinians, “Don’t allow your grandfathers’ conflict to determine your children’s future.” Zev Chafets comments:JPost Editorial: Abbas, go
In other words, [Kushner is saying that] the war against the Jewish state is over. You lost. Now, get over it. Kushner dismissed the traditional Palestinian core issues (the return of refugees, a fully sovereign state including east Jerusalem, and the end of Jewish settlement in the West Bank) as “talking points” in an endless quarrel. . . .
[His statement] assumes that a new generation of Palestinians will put material self-interest before anti-Zionist dogma, and accept a peace with Israel that offers Muslim control of the holy places in Jerusalem, limited communal autonomy in the West Bank, and prosperity through massive public- and private-sector investment. . . . Kushner thinks that young, upwardly mobile Palestinians will take a chance and leap. But it won’t be easy. For them, it would not be like challenging a distant dictatorship, à la the Egyptian Arab Spring. It would be more personal, a rejection of elders, relatives in the Diaspora, and a widely believed national narrative. . . .
[Moreover] the kind of prosperity Kushner is talking about . . . depends on the Trump administration’s ability to provide major economic benefits, and fast. . . . After the 1993 Oslo Accords, there was [also] grandiose talk about international investments in the Palestinian economy. The second intifada, which began in 2000, put a damper on this. So has the endemic corruption of the Palestinian ruling class and its bureaucracy. And Israeli entrepreneurs were mostly unwelcome; West Bankers didn’t want to be accused of collaboration. This could change, but Trump’s “peace through prosperity” approach would have to produce results.
The aging leadership in the PA has fought against change for decades, and many of those who still make decisions and give statements, such as Saeb Erekat, haven’t moved from their chairs since the 1990s. They have systematically undermined and denied a new generation of Palestinians from rising to the top. When the leadership convened the Palestinian National Council in Ramallah in April – after 22 years – there were few young faces or women among the ossifying speech-makers. Abbas spoke for two hours, reiterating the same “talking points” that Kushner mentioned.MEMRI: Fatah Spokesman On Trump-Kim Summit: North Korea, Iran Have Proven That The Language Of Force Pays Off; Arabs Should Learn From This
For years, the Palestinian leadership benefited from convincing Western leaders that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the key to peace in the whole region. However, leading regional states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have come to realize there are more pressing issues in the region in their own countries such as poverty, the Iranian threat and extremism. The Trump administration has tried to get these key states on board for a peace plan.
The PA hopes that by bypassing the US it can wait until the Trump administration leaves office and get a better deal from the next administration or from the Europeans. It hopes to continue to receive foreign largesse, including aid for its security forces, which are trained and supported by the US. It thinks the US has no other option and no one else to talk to.
Many Palestinians today are concerned about their economic situation. The younger generation has grown up in the wake of the Oslo Accords and has not seen their lives improve. People have been denied a say as elections are continuously postponed. Increasingly, they are more frustrated with the PA’s leadership than with Israel.
It is time for the PA to find new leadership who can talk about peace and give the next generation a real chance.
In a June 11, 2018 article in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, 'Atef Abu Saif, who resides in Gaza and who since February 2018 has served as Fatah spokesman, stated that the most important lesson from the June 12, 2018 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea ruler Kim Jong-un, and from history in general, is that the world understands only the language of force, and that there is no room for the weak. He praised Iran and North Korea as countries that have succeeded in maintaining their honor in their relations with the U.S. and the international community and that never stopped working towards their goals, while surviving international condemnation, sanctions, and boycotts and forcing the world to hear their point of view. Abu Saif expressed his reservations about North Korea's tyranny vis-à-vis individual and collective freedoms and politics, and noted that Iran, too, is no model of freedom or democracy. However, he added, any Arab who is honest with himself longs for a dictator like Kim Jong-un who, unlike Arab tyrants, is pushing his country forward and can stand up to Washington's arrogance. It is regrettable, he added, that the Arabs have failed to learn the lessons of history and to follow the example of Iran and North Korea.
The following are translated excerpts from Abu Saif's article:
"The only lesson that can be learned from U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with North Korean President Kim Jong-un is that the world recognizes only the language of force, and that, just as relations among states are based on interests, they are also based on the balance of [the states'] power and influence, and on preserving these. Obviously, this is not a new insight in the relations of states and peoples, but this is practically a university student's first lesson in an introductory class on international relations. It is not that the world is addicted to power, or that violence is the basis for relations between countries – but that human history is in fact the history of wars of the human race and of humans fighting each other for survival...
"It is again apparent that force... is the height of realism, and [this] continues to be the most important school of thought in politics and international relations – even after new theories of understanding these areas emerged in the second half of the 20th century. This realism has remained the essence of truly understanding politics, and it has neither faded nor disappeared like theories usually do as sciences develop.
Former Jordanian MP Laith Shubeilat Criticizes King Abdullah over "Deal of the Century": The Country Is Being Sold Out, We Cannot Remain Silent pic.twitter.com/uOmywZ8dtC— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 28, 2018
U.N. Secretary-General Produces Another U.N. Report Condemning Israel and Minimizing Palestinian Terror
A newly released report issued by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accuses Israel of damaging Palestinian social and economic conditions, while minimizing Israeli security concerns and whitewashing Palestinian responsibility for their own conditions. The report, released in late June 2018, was drafted by the infamous Lebanon-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), a UN commission which last year was forced to withdraw a report accusing Israel of apartheid and whose former head resigned in wake of the scandal. However, the Secretary-General had no problem putting his name on the new report, which maintains ESCWA's anti-Israel bias.NGO Monitor: UN Secretary-General Report on Children and Armed Conflict: Clear Departure from NGO Propaganda Against Israel
The report includes a litany of complaints and allegations against Israel:
- The report claims that Palestinians who were killed during stabbing and car ramming terror attacks against Israel were "civilians": "6. Between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018, 80 Palestinian civilians, including 3 women and 17 children, were killed by the Israeli army, the security apparatus or settlers... A number of the casualties had been involved or allegedly involved in attacks against Israelis. During the same period, 16 Israelis were killed and 119 were injured."
- The report accuses Israel of "collective punishment": "18. During the reporting period, Israeli authorities carried out nine punitive demolitions of family homes of Palestinians suspected of having carried out attacks, a measure that may amount to collective punishment"
- The report criticizes Israel for acting to prevent the transfer of weapons into Hamas-controlled Gaza: "43. Citing security concerns, the Israeli army has also enforced 'access-restricted areas' along the border fence with Israel and at sea, significantly undermining the right of Palestinian fishermen and farmers to a livelihood"
- The report contains an entire section criticizing Israel for its activities on the "Occupied Syrian Golan" (the place to which Syrians flee for Israeli medical care) - while Assad forces and Islamic State terrorists massacre Syrian civilians in "unoccupied" Syria
On June 27, 2018, the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) published his 2017 report on Children and Armed Conflict. Intensive lobbying by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), led by Human Rights Watch (HRW), to include the IDF on the list of “grave violators” of child’s rights (included as an Annex) failed. In addition, for a UN publication, the report presents a relatively balanced portrayal of events in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.U.S. pulls funding for U.N. counterterrorism office headed by Russian
For years, NGOs such as Watchlist, HRW (which is also part of the Watchlist coalition), Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Amnesty International, Addameer, B’Tselem, HaMoked, and Military Court Watch have engaged in misinformation campaigns alleging “systematic” violations committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian minors – in an attempt to trigger the IDF’s listing in the Annex. Groups currently listed in the Annex include ISIS, the Taliban, and Boko Haram, which are subjected to UN Security Council measures such as sanctions.
UNICEF also plays a role in this campaign. Its regional branch, known as “UNICEF-oPt,” partners with a number of the organizations mentioned above, as well as with other additional groups that promote anti-Israel demonization and/or have ties to terror groups.1 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 inaccuracies 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.
NGO Monitor analysis notes the following points where the UNSG’s report echoes NGO/UNICEF distortions:
The United States cut a planned $2 million pledge for the United Nations Counterterrorism Office on Wednesday and downgraded its presence at a conference on the issue, the latest move by the Trump administration to wield its funding to push for reform of the world body.To deport Human Rights Watch official? Court wrestles with Boycott debate
The funding cut was made over a decision by the U.N. counterterrorism chief, a former Russian diplomat with more than 30 years service, to close part of an inaugural conference to non-governmental interest groups, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
When asked if the decision had anything to do with counterterrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov being Russian, the U.S. official said “it matters” and that Voronkov had come under “tremendous pressure by his home country” on the conference.
Voronkov’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has been accused by Western countries of cracking down on interest groups known as “civil society” and discouraging independent institutions.
The U.S. official said the United States and other countries had pushed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Voronkov, who was appointed a year ago, to include the groups in the whole conference because they have valuable contributions to make.
“Our entreaties seem to have fallen on deaf ears and instead the views of countries like Syria, Venezuela, Iran and Russia seem to have more weight on this matter than do the countries that do the most on counterterrorism,” the U.S. official said.
The Jerusalem District Court heard on Wednesday an intense legal battle pitting Human Rights Watch against the government and a group of anti-BDS NGOs over whether the state can be deport HRW’s representative for Israel and the Palestinian areas.Gaza teen shot during attempted border breach said to die of wounds
During the hearing, HRW lawyer Michael Sfard said that the deportation was obfuscating the fact that the government was not really after “the ‘little Satan,’” HRW official Omar Shakir, “but the ‘big Satan,’ Human Rights Watch.”
Pushing back, NGO Monitor said that HRW and Shakir themselves were playing coy with their support for boycotting Israel by repackaging that message and that they should just come out and admit their true views.
The case is the first legal challenge to Israel’s use of a new law to expel a foreign national on allegations of supporting boycotts of Israel.
Filed by Sfard on behalf of Shakir, the suit seeks to block his deportation. HRW contends that the government went beyond the law by ordering the deportation of someone already in the country with valid status.
The ministry’s implementation criteria allow authorities to target people whose support for boycotts is “continuous” and “active.”
However, HRW contends in its suit that the ministry has acknowledged having “no information” about calls for boycotts by HRW or Shakir while serving as its representative. In its decision to deport Shakir, HRW said, the Interior Ministry cited only statements made by Shakir before he joined HRW.
A Palestinian teenager the army said was shot while trying to breach the Gaza security fence died of his wounds on Thursday afternoon, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.IDF opens fire to stop two apparent infiltration attempts along Gaza fence
Before dawn on Thursday, Abdel Fattah Abu Azoum, 17, and another Palestinian man attempted to break through the security fence east of Rafah in southern Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
“During the night, IDF troops spotted two terrorists crawling toward the security fence in an attempt to infiltrate into Israeli territory from the southern Gaza Strip,” the army said in a statement.
In response, the tank fired toward them and “prevented the infiltration attempt,” the army said.
According to the Gaza health ministry, Azoum sustained a serious head wound. He was taken to a nearby hospital and was pronounced dead several hours later.
He was taken to the nearby Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon for treatment. In the emergency room, doctors found two heavy metal objects in the his pants pocket that they believed might be explosives, prompting them to clear the area and call the police.Palestinian indicted for attempted murder of teen girl in Afula
A police sapper investigated the suspicious objects and found that they were not explosives and the medical workers were allowed back in, a police spokesperson said.
According to the army, the objects were empty, used tear gas canisters that he’d hidden by holding them near his wound.
The suspect had been checked for explosives by the soldiers before he was brought to the hospital. The military planned to investigate how he was examined in order to prevent similar incidents in the future.
State prosecutors on Thursday indicted a 20-year-old Palestinian man for the attempted murder of an Israeli teenager in Afula, saying the June 11 stabbing attack was an act of terrorism.How the U.S. pressured Poland into softening its law on Holocaust speech
Eighteen-year-old Shuva Malka, from the northern city of Migdal Ha’emek, was on her way to a matriculation examination in civics when she was stabbed shortly before noon at a bus stop. She managed to reach a local coffee shop, where she collapsed and was rushed to a hospital in critical condition. She has since recovered.
The suspect, Nour al-Din Shinawi, was captured after a brief search and police chase.
Officials said Shinawi, from the West Bank city of Jenin, had entered Israel in March as part of a tour and then remained in the country illegally. He worked in construction in the northern town of Nazareth Illit and nearby communities, and at a certain point decided to carry out a stabbing attack against a religious Jew or soldier, for the purpose of which he obtained two knives, prosecutors said.
In March, the Onet news site said it had obtained documents showing that Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda would not be received by President Donald Trump or any other member of the US administration if the law was not revised. Onet said it did not publish the documents to protect the source.American-Israeli teen hacker behind JCC bomb threats found guilty
Staff from the US Embassy in Warsaw also threatened to suspend funding for joint military projects between the United States and Poland, according to the Onet report.
Polish and US officials denied the claims. But Trump and Duda did not meet once during the Polish leader’s five-day visit to the United States last month, while Trump did meet with the president of Uzbekistan at the White House.
Pundits in Poland also noted American pressure. Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, a former Polish ambassador to Russia, blamed “brutal, political blackmail by the United States” for the decision to amend the law, she told the Tok FM broadcaster on Wednesday.
In an op-ed for the Opinie news site, columnist Maciej Deja wrote that the amendment came “when it turned out that, despite the Polish position, the United States also stood on the Jewish side.”
An American-Israeli teenager from Ashkelon, responsible for making 2,000 bomb threats, spreading fear among Jewish institutions, airports and police stations in the United States and other countries, has been found guilty of extortion by threat, sending fraudulent messages and more.As Turkish influence grows in East Jerusalem, Arabs said to urge Israel to act
The 19-year-old dual citizen, coined the “JCC hoax bomber,” was convicted by the Tel Aviv District Court for crimes committed when he was an adult, with no action yet taken regarding threats made while still a minor.
He was convicted of extortion by threat, sending fraudulent messages, conspiring to commit cries, penetration of computer material, money laundering, attacking a policeman, unlawfully carrying a weapon and other offenses.
The teenager's name remains under gag order because he was a minor when many of the crimes were committed from 2014 until his arrest in March 2017.
Targets of threats included Jewish community centers, schools, airports, shopping malls, hospitals, police stations, the Israel Embassy in the United States, an American senator and a range of public buildings in the US and other countries including Australia and New Zealand.
Turkey is trying to extend its sphere of influence to East Jerusalem, according to a report Thursday, causing alarm in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, which have urged Israel to act.
Amman, Riyadh and Ramallah are concerned that the move is an attempt by newly reelected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to claim he is the custodian of the Muslim sites in the city, weakening their own interests and harming Israel’s, the Haaretz daily reported.
Officials from Israel’s security forces told Haaretz that they were aware of the situation and following it closely.
Turkish Islamic associations have lately been sponsoring activities and trips for thousands of people in East Jerusalem, the paper reported, and had a strong presence in protests around the Temple Mount.
Diplomats told Haaretz that Jordan began expressing its concern to Jerusalem over a year ago and accused the government of “being asleep at the wheel.” The Jordanians claimed that after Israel signed a reconciliation deal with Turkey in 2016 it was afraid of confrontation with Erdogan.
Jordanian Journalist Yousef Alawnah: Israeli Prisons Are Like Institutes of Education; I Am Ashamed by the Comparison to the Arab World pic.twitter.com/R8101qQmnE— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 28, 2018
The Palestinian Authority’s suppression of protests and free speech
In mid-June, the Palestinian Police Forces attacked hundreds of Palestinians, including intellectuals, academics and civil society figures who demonstrated at Al-Manara Square in the middle of Ramallah. They were protesting against Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas’s inhumane policy of punishing Gaza by forcing collective economic sanctions on it.RIVAL PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIPS DIVIDED OVER GAZA-CYPRUS PORT PROPOSAL
The protest and discussion about the PA’s Gaza policy was a scene that we rarely see due to its abuse of freedom of speech; these attacks went virtually unseen due to the same policy.
The Palestinian Security Forces broke up the demonstrations by beating up the demonstrators, pulling them onto the streets and arresting them in an inhumane manner, in scenes that sadden the heart and show the real face and duty of these security forces – to protect Abbas and his regime, no matter what and how.
The Palestinian leadership act as if the harm done to those Palestinians who participated in the protests could be easily remedied by some bombastic proclamations or even apologies by Abbas or any of the heads of his many security forces. But we must consider carefully what happened in Ramallah this time, examining the values and basic positions of the PA to determine exactly to what extent the PA implements these fundamentals in practice.
Furthermore, it is important to investigate to what extent the PA is committed to the international norms that relate to human and civil rights. It is incredible that the PA has signed more than 55 treaties although there have been no reported inquiries or investigations of PA compliance. And yet, Abbas and his diplomats constantly and proudly speak in public about their success in joining those treaties on the behalf of the State of Palestine!
The rival Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza Strip reacted in contradictory fashion to a reported Israeli offer geared towards alleviating the humanitarian plight in the Hamas-ruled enclave.PreOccupiedTerritory: Report: Israel Uprooted Settlements Just To Destroy Gaza Economy (satire)
According to an Israeli television report, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has advanced a proposal to build a port in Cyprus that would serve as a hub for the transfer of goods to blockaded Gaza.
The plan is contingent on Gaza's Islamist rulers returning to Israel the bodies of two soldiers killed during the 2014 war, in addition to three living Israelis being held captive by Hamas.
The proposed agreement is believed to have been discussed in meetings between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who just finished a regional tour focused on improving the situation in Gaza.
"I can't confirm or deny the deal," Abdl Al-lateef Qanou, a Hamas spokesperson, told The Media Line. "We were informed about it from the media, but I need an official offer from the [Israeli] government to reveal my official position. If that happens, we have to first study and then reply."
Academics looking for the hottest possible take on Israel’s on-the-ground moves to reduce its direct control over Palestinian lives have hit upon the real reason for the Disengagement of summer 2005: that the evacuation of thousands of Israelis from communities in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria and the destruction of the homes there aimed not to eliminate a constant source of friction with the Arab population of the territory and thereby enhance security, but to cripple the local economy by removing major sources of employment that had been based in those communities.Report: 'Trump will demand Iran exits all of Syria'
Faculty and students at Tel Aviv University held a conference today at which they released their findings, following years of research into the leadup to the Disengagement and its outcome. The conference, as detailed in materials distributed there, aimed to arrive at the least charitable interpretation of the move by Israel, since the prevailing understanding of it even in academic circles relied on what the organizers consider an insufficient level of opposition to Jewish sovereignty, humanity, and self-defense.
“For the last thirteen years the best our colleagues have been able to come up with is two parallel ideas: one, that the Disengagement demonstrated the rightness of Palestinian armed struggle to effect change, to the exclusion of a negotiated resolution,” explained Professor of Political Science Hugh Briss. “While that certainly resonates, we believe it fails to take into account the need to pursue an active exploration of how and why what Israel did was automatically wrong – that lens must form the basis of every analysis.”
“The second idea holds that the Disengagement aimed to short-circuit any movement toward an independent Palestinian state,” he continued. “That’s pretty vanilla as far as we’re concerned – we’ve heard it all before. Neither of those approaches comes close to the kind of visceral evil that we must impute to Israel. Fortunately, we have arrived at an explanation that meets that criterion.”
The new American policy in Syria is to push for Iran to exit from the entire country, reported London-based newspaper 'Al - Hayat'.
According to the report, the Americans will make place this demand during an up-and-coming meeting between U.S President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin currently set for July 15. The report further suggests that the American premise is that Russia would not be interested in paying a heavy cost to keep Iranian presence in Syria.
Once Iran will withdrew from Syria however the United States will be willing to discuss a variety of options. Including a continuation of the Assad regime with him in helm and even returning Syrian territories taken by the opposition factions back into his control. This also means the US had green-lighted Israeli attacks on all forms of Iranian presence in Syria in any form Israel chooses.
"The current administration aims to strangle Iran", an unnamed Western diplomat was quoted in the report.
The unnamed diplomat claimed the US seeks to strengthen the position of Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura who is currently the U.N and Arab league envoy to Syria and promote the upcoming talks in Geneva that might produce a path towards ending the Syrian civil war that has been raging since 2011.
Iraqi Hizbullah Brigades Spokesman Jaafar Al-Husseini: We Have a Presence in Syria in Coordination with the Syrian Army and Have Engaged in Battle There pic.twitter.com/Hjp0lPZkX2— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 28, 2018
Haley: Iran Still Sending Weapons to Terrorists Across Middle East and Violating UN Security Council Resolutions
The UN secretary-general’s latest report on the implementation of the sanctions against Iran mandated by Security Council Resolution 2231 features “troubling, but not surprising, evidence that Iran has and continues to violate UN Security Council resolutions by shipping weapons across the Middle East, blatantly defying travel bans, and providing support to terrorist organizations destabilizing the region,” American UN envoy Nikki Haley said on Wednesday.How Tehran Lobbyists Mislead Opinion in the West
“This report lays out the strongest evidence to date that the Iranian regime continues to send weapons across the Middle East and blatantly violate Security Council resolutions,” Ambassador Haley added. “From the Houthis to Hezbollah, to Hamas and Assad, the Iranian regime has made a habit of devoting considerable resources, away from its domestic needs, to supporting terrorism and destabilizing the region.”
“The United States will not allow Iran’s violations and destructive actions to go unchecked and we urge members of the Security Council to do the same,” Haley declared. “The evidence in this latest report shows us all too clearly the consequences of inaction in the face of Iranian defiance.”
Successive American presidents have worked hard to persuade the Khomeinist regime in Tehran to modify aspects of its foreign policy, so far with no success. Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei, has said: "American rulers have always dreamed of forcing us to change our behavior, and failed. Five U.S. administrations took that dream to their graves. The present one shall have the same fate."Iran reopens uranium plant after 9 years to step up enrichment
As a nation-state, Iran has no problems with anybody. As a vehicle for the Khomeinist ideology it has problems with everybody, starting with the Iranian people. The Khomeinist regime makes no secret of its intense hatred for Iranian culture. To admire this regime because of Iranian culture is like admiring Hitler for Goethe and Beethoven and praising Stalin for Pushkin and Tchaikovsky.
This regime has executed tens of thousands of Iranians, driven almost 6 million into exile, and deprived the nation of its basic freedoms. It has also killed more Americans, often through
Iran on Wednesday reopened a nuclear enrichment plant that has been inactive since 2009, as Tehran geared up to bolster its enrichment activities should the 2015 nuclear deal collapse.BBC News report on Iran protests does not tell all
The United States announced in May that it was withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions that would hit international businesses working in the Islamic Republic.
Iran has been holding talks with European Union leaders and other officials seeking ways to keep the deal alive, as well as economic guarantees.
Iran has warned it is ready to resume uranium enrichment to 20% “within days” if the deal falls apart. That is still within civilian-use limits, but the level is far above the 3.67% enrichment permitted under the 2015 agreement.
According to the Reuters news agency, the enrichment facility reopened on Wednesday, part of the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, has laid dormant for nine years due to a shortage of “yellowcake,” or uranium oxide.
On June 25th a report titled “Iran economic protests shut Tehran’s Grand Bazaar” was published on the BBC News website’s Middle East page.
“Traders at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar have taken part in a big protest against rising prices and the plummeting value of Iran’s currency, the rial.
Shops were shut and thousands of people took to the streets of the capital.
Riot police later fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators as they marched towards parliament.”
The article went on to explain that:
“Fears about the impact of the US sanctions that will start to be reinstated in August and possibly trigger the collapse of the nuclear deal has led to the rial falling to a record low against the dollar on the unofficial foreign exchange market.”
However, one aspect of those demonstrations in Tehran and additional locations did not receive any BBC coverage. MEMRI reports that:
“Footage posted on social media on June 25 showed protesters in various locations in Tehran marching and shouting slogans like “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon! I will give my life to Iran!” and “Death to the dictator.” In one demonstration, the protesters shouted “Our enemy is here! It is a lie that America is our enemy!””
