Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Edgar Davidson: The Fogel family massacre eight years on
Eight years ago today Arab terrorists murdered five members of the Fogel family in their home in Itamar, killing the parents, Ehud and Ruth, and three of their children, Yoav, aged 11, Elad, aged 4, and baby Hadas just 3 months. The killers cut off the baby's head. My blog posting from that day appears below.
Few people know about the massacre and even less know about the depraved terrorists who committed it. The massacre was ignored by the entire main stream media outside Israel, except for a couple of ludicrous reports claiming that it might not have been a terrorist attack, with even nonsense like it could have been a 'disgruntled Thai worker'. But the terrorists Hakim and Amjad Awad (who are cousins) were eventually found and convicted. They told the court they were proud to have committed the attack, which was carefully planned. From the day Hakim Awad was arrested the PA rewarded him with a monthly salary of $3,000 a month, four times the average Palestinian civil servant’s salary. Official PA TV invited his mother and aunt to talk on the PA TV program dedicated to honoring and sending greetings to imprisoned terrorists. They referred to Awad and his accomplices as “heroes” and Hakim Awad himself was called “the hero, the legend.” The PA TV host added: “We, for our part, also convey our greetings to them.”
It is also worth noting the depraved reactions of leftists in Israel to the massacre
Udi Fogel (age 36)
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 11, 2019
Ruth Fogel (age 35)
Yoav (age 11)
Elad (age 4)
Hadas (3 months)#OnThisDay 7 years ago, the #Fogel family was brutally massacred by two Palestinian terrorists in Itamar, #Israel, as they slept in their home.
May their beautiful memories always be blessed! 🕯️ pic.twitter.com/hmVTS90SRT
New Palestinian Authority PM, In 2010 Interview From The MEMRI Archives, Praised Mastermind Of Munich Olympics Terror Attack, Adding That He Believes Palestinian History 'Will Continue To Be Written In Red Ink'
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud 'Abbas recently appointed his longtime advisor Muhammad Ishtayeh to the position of prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. In 2010, MEMRI TV released a clip of Ishtayeh's interview on July 9 of that year with Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV; in that interview, Ishtayeh said of Abu Daoud, the mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, that "the martyr Abu Daoud continues the convoy of martyrs who fell for the sake of Palestine. We all follow this path."Qatar's 'Spiritual Leader' Prompts World Cup Fears Over Calls For New Holocaust
"The Martyr Abu Daoud Continues The Convoy Of Martyrs Who Fell For The Sake Of Palestine – We All Follow This Path"
Muhammad Ishtayeh: "The martyr Abu Daoud continues the convoy of martyrs who fell for the sake of Palestine. We all follow this path. As for the claim that history can be rewritten in a different way – I think it is unjust to say that Palestinian history can be written in a different ink."
"The Ink In Which Palestinian History Has Been Written Is Red, And I Believe That It Will Continue To Be Written In Red Ink"
"The ink in which the Palestinian history has been written is red, and I believe that it will continue to be written in red ink. In addition, the martyr Abu Daoud was officially eulogized by the Fatah movement and the Palestinian establishment." (h/t Elder of Lobby)
The spiritual leader of Qatar’s royal family has called for a Muslim holocaust against Jews, prompting concern about the security of Israelis, Jews, Americans and other “non-believers” during the 2022 World Cup in Doha, Qatar.
Yusuf al Qaradawi, in a Jan. 30, 2009 speech that aired on Qatar’s state-owned Al-Jazeera TV network, said, “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler.”
Qatar’s spiritual leader then went on to praise Hitler saying, “By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place.” Following this, he called for an Islamic holocaust against the Jews. “This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.” (RELATED: Al Jazeera Readers Celebrate Orlando Terror Attack)
Two days earlier, Al Jazeera TV aired another speech, in which the radical cleric volunteered personally to “shoot” the Jews and end his life as a martyr for his main cause, which is the annihilation of the Jewish people.
“To conclude my speech, I’d like to say that the only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair,” Qaradawi said. “I will shoot Allah’s enemies—the Jews—and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Allah’s mercy and blessings upon you.”
US Senator Graham vows to work toward recognition of Israeli Golan
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said on Monday he would lobby the U.S. administration to recognize the Golan Heights as belonging to Israel.Martin Indyk: Golan does not belong to Israel even with US recognition
The South Carolina Republican said he aimed to change the current U.S.-designation of the Golan, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967, as disputed territory. He spoke during a tour of the plateau, captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
Israel effectively annexed the Golan in 1981, in a move not recognized internationally, when it adopted legislation that applied its laws to the area.
"The Golan is not disputed. It is in the hands of Israel and will always remain in the hands of Israel," Graham said from a cliff overlooking Syria, where Syrian flags could be seen fluttering in the distance on buildings damaged in the country's civil war. "My goal is to try to explain this to the administration," he said.
"I come here as an American. I come here to try to figure out what's best for America. What's best for America is a safe, secure and prosperous Israel," he said.
Graham said, "I will go back the U.S. Senate, working with Senator [Ted] Cruz; I will start an effort to recognize the Golan as part of the State of Israel, now and forever."
He said, "Israel occupied this territory by fighting for its survival. This territory was taken by military force because it was used as a launching point to attack the State of Israel. This territory has a rich Jewish history.
"Strategically, I am standing on one of the most important pieces of ground in the State of Israel."
Martin Indyk, the former United States special Middle East envoy under president Barak Obama, slammed a promise made by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday during a visit to the Golan Heights. Graham vowed to initiate a push for American recognition of Israeli control of the strategic site.Gantz avoids endorsing two-state solution in meeting with EU envoys
“Like it or not, the Golan Heights are Syrian territory,” Indyk said on Twitter. “To recognize Israel’s annexation of territory that is not its own is to play with fire.”
He further said that, at the moment, Israel can’t give up the Golan because it has “legitimate security concerns” - but even if the US would recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan, no other Arab state will follow.
Replying to a user who suggested Arab states already have their tacit approval of Israeli control during the Warsaw summit, Indyk joked he’s willing to wage a ‘Yarden Mount Hermon wine’ that they did not.
The winery is located in the Golan Heights and is known for the quality of its various wines.
Blue and White party chairman Benny Gantz avoided endorsing a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians in a meeting with European envoys, and expressed hardline views toward Iran and the Gaza Strip.
Gantz met with European Union ambassadors in Israel “to hear his vision on EU-IL relations, Israel’s security and regional issues,” the EU’s Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret tweeted.
In his conversation with the EU ambassadors, Gantz did not explicitly endorse a two-state solution, but indicated that both Israelis and Palestinians “are here to stay” and that an arrangement needs to be found, a participant in the meeting told The Times of Israel.
The candidate for prime minister also said that regarding Iran, he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are “on the same page.”
“We won’t allow Iran to become a regional power, we will continue supporting the sidelining of its negative impact and of its efforts to undermine regional stability, and we will prevent it from developing nuclear military capabilities,” Gantz said.
“Israel cannot allow a nuclear Iran. If we can use diplomacy we will do so, but I won’t rule out other options.”
I thought the government of Israel “deported” settlers to the West Bank per the Geneva Conventions? What good will it do convincing the would be deportees? https://t.co/TO4yDEQolD
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) March 11, 2019
And according to your cockamamie definition, there are more Irish “refugees” in the US than there are people in Ireland.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 12, 2019
You are fake counting 2 million Jordanian citizens, as well as countless others with Palestinian ancestry who live in various countries as full citizens. https://t.co/QpG7FRlND7
Trump Administration Requests no Taxpayer Assistance to West Bank, Gaza
The Trump administration requested in its 2020 budget proposal, released on Monday, that the United States continue not to give any taxpayer assistance to the West Bank and Gaza.
In the past few years, the administration has cut off US assistance to the Palestinians through enacting measures such as the Taylor Force Act and the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act.
The United States cut funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, in August.
The administration requested that American assistance to Israel remain at $3.3 billion.
Protest the UN's Unprecedented Assault on Israel on March 18 in Geneva
Israel will come under unprecedented assault at the UN Human Rights Council on March 18th. The Jewish state alone will be targeted over the entire day—in seven biased reports. A new Commission of Inquiry will present its absurd report accusing Israeli soldiers of "crimes against humanity" for defending the Gaza border. The UNHRC will call on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights "to manage the dossiers on alleged perpetrators [IDF soldiers], to be provided to... the International Criminal Court."
The UN Human Rights Council segregates #Israel from every other country in the world:
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 12, 2019
🌍 Today I will speak under its Agenda Item 4, which addresses human rights situations in 193 countries.
🇮🇱 Monday is Item 7—focusing on Israel alone.
Segregation is morally wrong.#EndItem7 pic.twitter.com/4twwF35YQs
🇬🇧 2018: UK promises that unless UNHRC ends Agenda Item 7—which targets Israel alone at every meeting—the UK “shall move next year to vote against all resolutions under Item 7."
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) March 12, 2019
🇬🇧 2019: 5 resolutions coming up next week under Item 7. Will the UK keep its promise?#EndItem7 pic.twitter.com/wLdw0NVKvW
Court defers ruling on expulsion of Human Rights Watch official
An Israeli appellate court deferred a ruling on Monday over the deportation of the director of the local office of Human Rights Watch, accused of promoting boycotts of Israel, which Israel has banned.Brussels Jewish museum killer sentenced to life in prison
The judge said she wanted more time to study the Twitter history of Omar Shakir, who is contesting the revocation of his work permit last year. The New York-based watchdog group has cast the case as a bid to suppress global criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Israel says that Shakir, a U.S. citizen, supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Israel has criminalized BDS and has lobbied Western powers to follow suit.
The case hinges in part on Shakir's pro-BDS tweeting before he became Human Rights Watch's director for Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2016, and whether his statements after the appointment also constitute such support.
Human Rights Watch says it does not support boycotts of Israel. It has defended Shakir's statements since joining the rights group, including a tweet backing Airbnb's delisting of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria.
Right-wing advocacy groups represented in court argued that Israeli law does not distinguish between boycotts of the settlements and boycotts of Israel itself. One advocate, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center, said Israel should consider barring Human Rights Watch entirely.
Shakir's Israeli lawyer, Michael Sfard, said that was what the case boiled down to, as "deporting the appellant means deporting the organization."
The French jihadist who shot dead four people in a terrorist attack at a Jewish museum was on Tuesday sentenced to life in prison by a Brussels court, after prosecutors branded him a “coward” and a “psychopath.”Woman raped abroad by Palestinian in 2003 to be recognized as terror victim
Mehdi Nemmouche was convicted last week of “terrorist murder” for the anti-Semitic gun rampage in the Belgian capital in May 2014, a crime committed following his return from Syria’s battlefields.
He was found to have killed the four victims in less than 90 seconds, shooting them with a handgun and a Kalashnikov rifle with what one paramedic who attended the scene called “surgical” precision.
Before jurors retired to consider the sentence on Monday, the 33-year-old had smirked and told the Brussels criminal court “life goes on.”
The court, which handed down the sentence in the early hours of Tuesday morning, said the 33-year-old had shown no regret for the killings.
“Mr Nemmouche, you are just a coward, you kill people by shooting them from behind, you kill old women by shooting them with an assault rifle, you kill because it gives you pleasure to kill,” prosecutor Yves Moreau had said.
An Israeli woman who was sexually assaulted by a Palestinian man in the Netherlands in 2003 will be recognized as a terror victim, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.Gantz: We’re willing to sit in government with ‘anyone Jewish and Zionist’
Her new status “as a casualty of hostile action, under the Benefits to Victims of Hostile Actions Law” will entitle the woman to receive state-funded support and welfare benefits from the National Insurance Institute’s department for terror victims.
The woman’s request to be recognized as a victim of terror was passed on by National Insurance Agency to the Defense Ministry at the end of 2018.
No further details about the assault or the victim, who was said to be in her thirties at the time of the assault, were provided by the Defense Ministry statement.
“There are reasonable grounds to claim that the attack was nationalistically motivated,” the statement said. “As such, the plaintiff was recognized as a casualty and victim of hostile action.”
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz on Monday said he was open to sitting in a coalition with “anyone Jewish and Zionist,” apparently ruling out non-Jewish minorities as potential partners.Erdogan slams Netanyahu’s ‘blatant racism’ toward Arab Israelis
Speaking to a crowd of some 500 people in the southern city of Beersheba — and facing questions from the public for the first time — Gantz also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign over the mounting corruption allegations against him.
The former IDF chief of staff discussed the prospects of future coalition partnerships as Netanyahu faced accusations of racism for suggesting that Arab Israelis have no place in Israel’s government.
Gantz said that Blue and White wanted “as many people as possible to join us in government,” after the April 9 election.
“We are looking at lots of potential partners,” he said, specifically mentioning the right-wing Likud and center-left Labor parties.
“We have no limitations on working with anyone,” Gantz said, before adding, “anyone who is Jewish and Zionist, who isn’t an extremist, and who will work for the good of Israel.”
Turkey on Tuesday denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “blatant racism” after he called Israel the nation-state of “the Jewish people” only, not of all its citizens.Temple Mount shuttered after firebomb thrown at police post
Turkey and Israel’s relations have long been tense, with Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who regards himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, a vocal critic of Israeli policies.
“I strongly condemn this blatant racism and discrimination,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on his official Twitter account both in Turkish and English.
“1.6 million Arabs/Muslims live in Israel. Will the Western governments react or keep silent under pressure again?” he asked.
Israel and Turkey in 2016 formally ended a six-year diplomatic rift that ensued when 10 Turkish activists were killed in a violent confrontation with Israeli commandos aboard a ship, the Mavi Marmara, that aimed to break the naval blockade on Gaza. Israel says it maintains the blockade to prevent the import of weapons by the Hamas terror group, which rules the Strip and is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Police sealed off the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem on Tuesday after a firebomb was thrown at officers, leading to several arrests and low-level clashes.Attempted stabbing terror attack near Hebron, terrorist killed
The incident came amid already high tensions at the site and threatened to set the region alight as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned of “serious repercussions.”
One officer was treated for mild smoke inhalation after the firebomb attack on a police post situated on the edge of the sensitive holy site, according to police.
The Molotov cocktail set fire to a motorized cart used by police on the Temple Mount.
Police quickly deployed across the hilltop compound, scuffling with worshipers in the area as they searched for the assailants. In one video, police were seen wrestling a woman to the ground.
Ten suspects were arrested and an investigation into the incident was ongoing, police said.
An attempted stabbing terror attack occurred near Hebron on Monday as the terrorist was shot by IDF forces, according to IDF Spokesperson's Unit.Islamic Jihad, Not Hamas, May Be the Greatest Danger in Gaza
According to the report, the terrorist attempted to stab soldiers stationed at an IDF post in Kiryat Arba. The force shot and killed the terrorist as he entered a building close by.
No Israelis were injured in the attempted attack.
As Hamas continues its efforts at extortion, rejecting Israeli-Egyptian offers while demanding more money, electricity, and fuel in exchange for less, Alex Fishman points to an even more dangerous threat gaining influence in the Gaza Strip: the rival terrorist group Islam Jihad. Hamas receives crucial funding and support from Iran, but it has other backers and enjoys relative autonomy; Islamic Jihad, by contrast, is almost entirely dependent on Tehran, and seems to follow its orders:Israeli Mothers on the Gaza Border
Islamic Jihad was responsible for most of the rocket, anti-tank-missile, and sniper attacks carried out in recent months against Israel. Its leaders, who are hiding in the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut under the leadership of its deputy secretary-general Ziad al-Nahla, have decided to renew military activity from the Gaza Strip. The organization’s representatives in Gaza also stopped coordinating their military activities with Hamas, [which they once did by participating in] a joint war room set up by all the terrorist organizations in the Strip.
And so Hamas today finds itself facing off against an intransigent organization that acts in contravention to its agenda. Islamic Jihad is making sure to carry out its military provocations on the days when Hamas is conducting some sort of dialogue with Israel or with Egypt regarding arrangements in the Strip—and when it attacks, Israel retaliates with attacks on Hamas installations. . . .
[W]hen Israel does not deal with the Islamic Jihad threat, it encourages increased anarchy in Gaza, which will ultimately lead to a ground invasion by the IDF. Hamas, for its part, is waging an ineffective battle against the renegade organization. Several days ago, for example, Hamas’s internal security apparatus arrested Hashem Salem, an Islamic Jihad member who converted from Sunni to Shiite Islam and established a pro-Iranian organization in the Gaza Strip. That’s how it starts: today it’s a small charity, funded by Iran, which supports widows and orphans, but if we do not pay attention, tomorrow that charity will be yet another Iranian military organization in Gaza.
Israeli mothers on the Gaza border have 15 seconds to save their children's lives from Hamas' rockets. What do their lives look like? They wonder which child to unbuckle first in the car under rocket-fire. Which baby bed to run to first. Counting their kids in the bomb shelter, making sure all got to safety. This is their unbearable routine that the UN Human Rights Council reports keep ignoring. They also have a message to the mothers on the other side of the fence. "I am really thinking about the same mother, in Gaza, that her child is also scared at night. We probably have a lot more in common than it looks like. We are trying to raise a generation that won't hate, but you can't love someone who is hurting you."
Palestinian dies two weeks after being shot in Gaza clashes – Hamas ministry
A Palestinian shot by Israeli forces in clashes on the Gaza border nearly two weeks ago has succumbed to his wounds, the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday.Qatari envoy brings $5.5 million in cash to Gaza, for the needy
Mousa Mohammed Mousa, 23, was injured on March 1 in violent protests along the border, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement.
Speaking to AFP, he claimed Mousa had been shot in the back east of al-Bureij in central Gaza.
Since last March, the Gaza border has seen large-scale weekly clashes on Fridays, smaller protests along the northern Gaza border on Tuesdays, as well as periodic flareups between the Israeli military and Palestinian terror organizations. Protesters have been gathering along the frontier in often-violent protests calling for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to be allowed to return to former homes now inside Israel.
Israel accuses the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas — who openly seek Israel’s destruction — of orchestrating the protests.
Qatar’s ambassador to the Gaza Strip was set Monday to hand out $5.5 million in cash to needy families in the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave as the Gulf emirate continues its aid program for residents.Qatari envoy signs contracts for new projects in Gaza valued at $1.7m
Envoy Mohammed al-Emadi arrived in Gaza the night before after bringing the money, in dollar bills, through Israeli territory.
Some 55,000 families were to receive $100 each. The money was to be distributed at post offices holding Qatari-controlled lists of those eligible for the aid, the Ynet news site reported.
It will be the second major Qatari payout to Gaza families following a similar mission six weeks ago, when Emadi handed out $100 to 94,000 families. The average wage in Gaza, where unemployment is over 50 percent, is around $360 a month, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
None of the Qatari money will go toward paying the salaries of Hamas-appointed civil servants, as it had in the past, the Ynet report said.
Qatar’s Gaza Strip Reconstruction Committee announced on Monday that its chairman, Mohammed al-Emadi, has signed contracts for three new projects in the coastal enclave valued at $1.7 million.
Emadi, who serves as Qatar’s de facto ambassador to Gaza, was in Jerusalem and the Strip on Sunday and Monday, meeting international diplomats and leaders in the Hamas terror group.
The Qatari body said in a statement that the three projects were the construction of a fuel storage facility, a mosque in a central Gaza village and a part of its future headquarters in the territory.
In the past eight years, Qatar has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza for infrastructure, health, electricity and other projects.
Orange is the new black, but these seem to be the usual terrible lies https://t.co/zy5Fqp5kyF
— Ozraeli Dave (((דיויד לנג))) (@Israellycool) March 11, 2019
MEMRI: Ongoing Protests In Jordan Threaten To Destabilize The Regime
3. Former Regime Officials And Military PersonnelIranian lawyer who defended women gets 7 years
Also taking part in the public protests are retired regime officials and military personnel, many of them tribe members, who were formerly part of the establishment. A group of politicians and retired military officers calling themselves the National Follow-up Committee issued a statement harshly criticizing the King. The committee, which includes former MP and labor minister Amjad Hazza' Al-Majali and the former general supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, Salem Al-Falahat, accused the King and court of abusing their powers, stressed that Jordan isn't anyone's "private estate," and called to take measures to limit the King's powers.[32] On February 13, 2019, the committee issued another statement blaming the King and his associates for the dire situation in Jordan and demanding that he take a series of measures to save the country, including relinquishing some of his powers. The statement said: "A message to King 'Abdallah II, with the knowledge and permission of the Jordanian people: In the past few years, demands and appeals for reform and change have repeatedly been made to you by various forces, circles and groups among the Jordanian people, but none of them have been heeded. In fact, they were met with profound indifference and deliberate disregard. You have continued to sponsor a political and economic policy based on corruption and tyranny, which is destructive for the interests of the people and threatens the security and stability of the homeland. This has exacerbated the harm [suffered by] Jordanians, and impoverished them, bringing the country to the edge of the abyss..."
The National Follow-up Committee demanded that the King take a series of measures to save the country, including: reorganizing the Royal Court and dissolving all its subordinate institutions, among them the Offices of the Queen and the Crown Prince, and forming a legal committee to draft a new democratic constitution, without "all the flaws that cement the one-man autocracy" in Jordan. It also demanded to stop the King's trips abroad at the expense of the public by subjecting them to government approval, and to stop the unsupervised spending of public funds by the royal family and its associates. The statement ends with a direct appeal to the King: "You and those around you are directly responsible for the alarming fate that will befall this country unless you take the necessary rescue measures before it is too late."[33]
4. The Muslim Brotherhood Jumps On The Protest Band Wagon
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is another opposition force that frequently criticizes the government's policies in many areas, including the economy and relations with Israel. It seems that the MB is exploiting the current protest wave to score political points and attack the government. On February 20, on the eve of the arrival in Amman of the protesters marching from Aqaba, the political branch of the MB in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, issued a statement expressing solidarity with the marchers' demands and stating that the rising unemployment, especially among young people, is a result of the authorities' economic policy and requires changing the political and economic systems.[34] On February 21, 2019, Ibrahim Abu Al-Sayyed, a member of the MB faction in parliament, and Murad Al-'Adaileh, secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front, came to the Amman suburbs to receive the marchers arriving from Aqaba. They expressed support for their demands and reiterated their accusations against the government's "failed" economic policy.[35] On March 2, Al-'Adaileh and other officials from his party visited the marchers' sit-in in front of the Royal Court offices in Amman, and called upon the government to perform its duties of providing jobs for young people and ensuring the Jordanians a dignified life.[36] In addition, according to some reports MB representatives occasionally attend the weekly demonstrations.[37] As stated, the former general supervisor of the MB in Jordan, Salem Al-Falahat, is a member of the National Follow-Up Committee that issued the statements against the King.
A semi-official Iranian news agency said Monday a prominent human rights lawyer was sentenced to seven years in prison after she defended protesters against the Islamic Republic’s mandatory headscarves for women.
Monday’s report by ISNA says Judge Mohammad Moghiseh handed 55-year-old Nasrin Sotoudeh a five year sentence for plotting against the state and two more years for insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It’s unclear when the sentencing took place.
Last week the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended women protesting against the Islamic Republic’s mandatory headscarf, was been convicted and faces years in prison.
The headscarf, or hijab, is mandatory for all women in Iran.
Sotoudeh was convicted in absentia by a Revolutionary Court. She is currently held at Tehran’s Evin prison. She previously served three years in prison for her work and was released in 2013.
Iranian Official Hossein Sheikholeslam: Palestine, Jerusalem Will Soon Be Liberated; Iranian Companies Will Play Leading Role in Syria's Reconstruction pic.twitter.com/7ShgUKdgC0
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 12, 2019
Al-Qaida commander warns Arab states over ties with Israel
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula senior commander Khaled Batarfi has accused Arab states of rushing to normalize relations with Israel, according to a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
In a video published on the Telegram channel of the terrorist group's media arm, Monday, Batarfi called on Muslims to confront their governments militarily and intellectually.
Batarfi accused the governments of Arab and Persian Gulf state government of acting to please Jews and Christians, saying they have "diligently tried to promote the so-called 'deal of the century.'"
He said Egypt's transfer of Tiran and Sanafir Islands to Saudi Arabia and the kingdom's multibillion-dollar Neom City project had been planned "to boost the deal and finalize the sale of Palestine to the Jews and the displacement of the Muslims to the Sinai [Peninsula]."
Batarfi condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Oman and U.S. President Donald Trump's praise of Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as Trump's acknowledgment of the important role Ryadh plays in the region.
Batarfi asserted that the leaders of the Christians of the Jews "have become lawyers defending Al-Saud" because they are the ones who benefit the most from the Saudi royal famil
