Tuesday, April 27, 2021
John Kerry, Enemy of Israel
As the Trump years proved, there are a number of options available as we wait for the Iranian regime to come to its senses or, hopefully, crumble, including maximum economic pressure and sabotage. Last week, Israel reportedly blew up Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility’s electrical substation, located 40 to 50 meters underground, damaging “thousands of centrifuges.” This is likely the second time in the past few months that the Israelis have been able to smuggle explosives into the facility and detonate them remotely. Of course, this incident is only one in a long line of unexplained fires, assassinations, and computer worms that have caused substantial delays and damage to the illegal Iranian nuclear-weapons program. All of these efforts have likely saved lives by delaying the ability of Iran to become another North Korea — or worse, since Iran exports terror all over the world.John Kerry is skirting the line of treason with Iran
During the Obama years, Democrats would offer an ugly false choice: You either support diplomacy with the “moderate” wing of the theocratic state, or you endorse “war”; either fly unmarked euros in tonnage and bail out the Mullahs, or plunge America into another Iraq War. At one point, Obama claimed that the Republican caucus was making “common cause” with Iranian hard-liners.
The opposite was true. In the leaked audio from Zarif, we hear that the military and theocratic forces in the nation “call the shots” and overrule “government decisions and ignoring advice.” According to the Times, Zarif says that the political wing is “severely constricted” and decisions “are dictated by the supreme leader or Revolutionary Guards Corps.” Obama’s contention that the Iran deal was being forged with the “moderate faction” was always a fantasy.
The real moderates in Iran were forsaken by Obama and Biden when they decided that the United States wouldn’t support the 2009 Green Movement, in what Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky called one of the biggest failures of human rights in modern history. Democrats Murphy, Biden, and Kerry are more interested in ensuring Iran becomes a regional counterforce to Israeli power.
Whatever you believe about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Biden’s iteration of the deal, it should not have to be said that high-ranking United States officials shouldn’t be sharing sensitive information about an ally with a terror regime. Yet it also seems quite likely that’s exactly what John Kerry did.
The rather curious defining feature of Democratic Party foreign policy, going back at least four decades, is that our friends must be bullied and our enemies must be appeased. The Democratic worldview holds that America is a source of geopolitical evil whose destructive influences must be tamed and reined in, and that America’s enemies must be emboldened in order to tilt the global playing field away from America’s noxious ambit.
Barack Obama’s administration encapsulated this toxic ideology through its single-minded pursuit of a nuclear accord with the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism during the president’s lame-duck second term. Many of the leading hucksters who comprised Team Obama’s “negotiators” with Tehran — Wendy Sherman, Robert Malley, and Colin Kahl among them — are now reprising their roles during Uncle Joe Biden’s third Obama term.
No individual personified the Obama Bros’ supine tango with the mullahs better than then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry, the “statesman” who has been on the wrong side of every major foreign affairs issue since at least the Swift Boats of Vietnam, betrayed his country in borderline-treasonous fashion as Obama’s chief diplomatic lackey. Not content to sell the farm — and scores of unmarked pallets of U.S. taxpayer cash — to a mullocracy with untold American blood on its hands as a diplomat, Kerry then traitorously colluded as a layman with his pal, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, to undermine the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” Iran containment strategy.
Alas, we now know it is apparently even worse. New leaked audio appears to reveal that Kerry, now Team Biden’s special climate envoy, divulged to Zarif the details of over 200 clandestine Israeli military operations taken against Iranian targets in Syria. One might be loath to take on blind faith the claims of a thug like Zarif, but in this case the shoe fits. This is who John Forbes Kerry is — who he always has been, and always will be.
Seth Frantzman: John Kerry, the latest victim of Zarif’s big mouth - Analysis
The BBC reported in 2015 that Iran was quietly deepening involvement in Syria. Zarif says he didn’t know about Iran’s role. Didn’t he read the BBC? Is he the most uninformed foreign minister in the world?
Or is he up to some game, trying to pretend he didn’t know as a way to get some benefit? What might Zarif receive if he can claim he didn’t know about Iran’s role in Syria? He can make it seem like deals he negotiates are being “violated” by other elements in Iran. He can perhaps prepare himself for a post-ministerial career.
Zarif’s comments remind one of the scene in the film Casablanca when Captain Renault is “shocked” to find gambling taking place in a café that he himself gambles in. Zarif is shocked to find out that there are Iranians in Syria and claims that Kerry told him about airstrikes. Which is more reasonable: that the Iranian foreign minister learns of Israeli airstrikes from the former US secretary of state, rather than read media reports, or that he simply wants to convey something about his relationship with Kerry?
KERRY HAS a long history of being close to the Iranian regime. This goes back to Davos in 2007 and likely before. He wanted to radically re-orient US policy in the region to work with Iran. His goal in this was likely to achieve some fame for himself as the person that brought Iran in from the cold.
The US worked hard on the Iran Deal, in part because it was such a sunk cost and the US needed a diplomatic win. Kerry fronted that win. Without the Iran deal, which the US begged for at the time, there would be little to show for the efforts to work with the Islamic Republic.
The US narrative at the time was that there would be “war” if there was no deal. In reality, there was no war, which was revealed when the Trump administration walked away from the deal. Iran also wasn’t blocked from uranium enrichment; it openly enriches uranium in violation of the deal while the other signatories beg Tehran to stop.
Kerry and Zarif cultivated a relationship in which they would help one another, ostensibly confronting “hardliners” back home in both of their societies. It was a symbiotic relationship: They would rise and fall together.
The leaked tape has embarrassed Kerry, which resulted in his denials. It’s not clear how it will impact Zarif. He was already distrusted at home, and now it’s not clear if he can be trusted abroad to further Iran’s aims if he paints himself as ignorant of Iran’s own policies – although this may work in his favor because he can continue to be the cherubic face of Iran’s regime.
Pompeo Pushes Investigation Into Kerry for Leaking Secrets to Iran
The revelation is already generating calls for Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, to resign from the Biden administration and face a congressional investigation for possibly spilling highly classified secrets to one of America’s leading enemies.Pompeo blasts Biden ‘weakness’ towards Iran, warns conditions could threaten Israel, force IDF to launch preemptive strikes
Former Trump administration secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the audio tape proves "what I’ve said for years: That [Zarif] continued to engage with former secretary of state Kerry on policy matters after Kerry’s public service and, according to Zarif, Kerry informed the Iranians of Israeli operations."
"Before we cut a deal with Iran that reduces Americans’ security," Pompeo said, "it would be good to know what the arrangement, if any, may have been between these two leaders."
"John Kerry must resign immediately," Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon. "The investigation should be retrospective."
"These reports are concerning—I’d like the opportunity to ask Secretary Kerry about this in a closed hearing," Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), a member of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence and its Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon.
Rep. Darrel Issa (R., Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed calls for an investigation and promised to hold Kerry accountable for the disclosure of sensitive military information.
"While we can’t simply accept as fact what we hear from Iran’s foreign minister (or read in the New York Times), these reports warrant full and immediate investigation," Issa said. "If John Kerry shared our nation’s intelligence with Iran and endangered Israel in any way, I promise he will be held to account."
As we approach the end of the Biden administration’s first 100 days in office, how are the new president and his team handling the Iran threat, as well as U.S.-Israel relations, and America’s alliances with the moderate Sunni Arab allies?
In an exclusive interview for ALL ISRAEL NEWS, I put these questions to former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Trump-Pence administration.
While his tone was calm and diplomatic, Pompeo offered a blistering assessment of President Joe Biden’s handling of Iran.
What’s more, he suggested the Biden team could inadvertently make a new war in the Middle East more likely.
Pompeo warned that Biden had hired the “same cast of characters” to run his Iran policy as served in the Obama administration, which he said “doesn't bode well for a deal that protects America in the way that needs to be done.”
He noted that just since Biden took office, the Iranians have announced decisions to increase their uranium enrichment from 3.5% purity to 20%, and now to 60% – dangerously close to “military, bomb-grade” levels.
“This is the central folly of the [JCPOA] deal,” Pompeo told me. “It left, in the Iranian hands, the capacity to decide the date and time in which they wanted to enrich uranium at a level that became a military grade, enough-enriched uranium so that they could have a nuclear weapon.”
Pompeo warned that even though the Trump policy of “maximum pressure” against the regime in Tehran had caused Iran’s foreign currency reserves to plunge from $123 billion to just $4 billion, the mullahs “are not acting desperate because I'm convinced they believe this administration will give them exactly what it is that they want” – massive economic sanctions relief without truly giving up their enriched uranium, nuclear infrastructure, or support for terrorism and subversion.
He noted that several years ago former U.S. Secretary John Kerry even told the Iranians, “Just be patient. This [Trump administration] will only last four years and we'll get right back to where we were.”
San Remo Resolution Day, April 25, should be an Israeli holiday
April 25 should be an Israeli holiday.US eases Israel travel advisory rating to 'Level 3'
That date needs to be celebrated as San Remo Day. For on that date, in 1920, the leaders of the free world gathered in this Italian resort town to declare the establishment of a national home in Palestine.
It needs to be noted that there was never an Arab Palestinian entity.
Palestine had been a barren dusty district of a defeated Ottoman Empire that covered a huge sprawling land mass from Turkey through today's Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan down to the Red Sea, and Israel.
The Arabs received, or grabbed, huge swathes of land mass. Eventually, on April 25, the Jews, the indigenous people of the ancient land of Israel for three millenia, were granted, by the world powers, the right to establish their homeland.
The decision taken in San Remo was sanctioned further by the League of Nations who "recognised the historic connection of the Jewish connection with Palestine" and the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."
But what of the poor Arabs? Did not they also have claims to Palestine? Indeed they did, and they received Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as their share of the territory.
Indeed they did, and they received Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as their share of the territory.
But, as history shows, it is never enough for those who cannot swallow their hatred of a race that deserves, and warrants, the right to live in peace in a land that was theirs.
When independent Arab states, such as Iraq and Egypt, joined the League of Nations they were legally bound to recognize Jewish people's sovereign right to the land of Israel.
They didn't, and went to war with the Jewish State in 1948, thereby violating their international obligations as a member of the League of Nations and later, of the United Nations, because all resolutions and treaties of the League of Nations are enshrined in Article 80 of the founding document of the United Nations, and cannot be overturned.
The US State Department on Monday lowered its travel advisory rating for Israel to "Level 3: Reconsider Travel" - just days after it had raised it.Buying land in Judea and Samaria is the historic mission of the KKL-JNF
Last week, the State Department added 119 countries to the 34 countries listed at its highest "Level 4: Do Not Travel" rating, out of about 209 destinations listed.
The countries added included the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Israel, Mexico and Germany, and cited a "very high level of COVID-19." The advisories are recommendations to American citizens and are not binding.
The State Department said last week the move to list more countries at Level 4 did not imply a reassessment of current health situations, but rather "an adjustment in the State Department's Travel Advisory system to rely more on (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's) existing epidemiological assessments."
Asked to explain the decision to change Israel's level, a State Department official said its advisories "take into account the latest data and public health and safety analysis on COVID-19 related risks."
So what qualms do the aforementioned self-styled progressive Jews have with the KKL-JNF buying land in Judea and Samaria?Residents of Israel’s South Express Outrage, Impatience at Ongoing Rocket Fire From Hamas
Presumably, it’s not a rejection of the Jewish people’s indigenous right to redeem ancestral lands and sacred sites. For it would hardly be progressive to champion the Jewish people’s right to return and rebuild the ruins of Safed, only to demonize the return and rebuilding of Beit El.
Could it be that the same progressive Jews who are rightfully moved by the Sioux nation’s fight to defend its ancestral lands in Standing Rock, North and South Dakota, don’t believe their Jewish brethren have the right to purchase and build homes in the Judean Hills?
Perhaps it is the case that these Jews take issue with Duvdevani because they care for the rights of Palestinian Arabs. This would be a noble concern, but if so, it is one that is being wrongly politicized to attack an organization attempting to stay true to its righteous and historic mandate.
The KKL-JNF has explicitly stated that it can only purchase privately owned land in Area C of Judea and Samaria, land that can only be built upon per the Israeli government’s decision to do so. So if any legitimate concerns regarding the usurpation of Palestinian Arab-owned land and/or the undermining of political process are directly addressed by the KKL-JNF’s express and clear policy, what excuse do these progressive Jews have to condemn Duvdevani’s decision?
We need to wake up. The liberation of the Hebrew heartland in 1967, which was swiftly followed by the return of Jews and the repopulation of villages formerly ethnically cleansed of Jews (even recently by the Jordanian army), is not the reason for Palestinian Arab suffering. That is a complicated issue, with much of the blame lying at the feet of the so-called two-state solution paradigm and the corruption of the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian Authority, both of which have left the Palestinian Arab masses without a legitimate government to support them.
But none of those issues will be remedied by denying the Jewish people the right to purchase land in the indisputable heart of its indigenous homeland and highest concentration of sacred sites. Indigenous rights are human rights.
We can and must support the continued purchase and development of Judean land as the realization of a 2,000-year struggle for Jewish self-determination and freedom, while all the while demanding an end to the perpetual abuse suffered by Palestinian Arabs at the hands of the PA and those within the Israeli government who misguidedly justify its existence.
Duvdevani made the right decision, consistent with the true values of liberalism, Zionism and the KKL-JNF mandate, which was to serve as a bridge, rather than a barrier, to achieving the Zionist dream. Let’s keep it that way.
Residents of Israel’s south expressed outrage and impatience on Monday after several days of ongoing rocket fire from terrorists in the Gaza Strip had them scrambling for shelter both day and night.Israel ready to make greater sea territory demands in Lebanon border talks
Moran Hila Madmoni — a resident of Sderot, a favorite target of rocket attacks — told Israeli news site Walla, “While the Knesset plays with chairs, here it’s Russian roulette with our lives, our spirit and our body. Instead of defending us, they’re dealing with themselves.”
“We need to respond forcefully” against Hamas, she said.
Another Sderot resident, Batya Katar, said the same. “It was a very difficult night in the city,” she said. “It was a relatively quiet year because of corona, but it’s going back again.”
“The IDF’s response has to be strong and real,” she added, “and not like it’s been up to now. Where is our security? It doesn’t matter what the political situation is, we want a hard blow to Hamas and quiet for us.”
Albert Gabbai described the situation in Sderot as “all night we were running between the bedroom and the shelter. There’s a very difficult feeling among the residents. It can’t go on like this. We have to act with power. People are suffering here.”
Or Bar Ilan, a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, told Israel’s i24 News, “You can see I’m still wearing my pajamas because we weren’t able to sleep at night for the past three nights.”
“It’s very tense for us, it’s very frustrating,” she said, “because it’s happening for the past twenty years, these ongoing terror attacks on our communities here.”
Israel prepared to respond to increased demands from Lebanon by claiming more than double the area of the Mediterranean Sea that is currently in dispute, according to a map obtained by The Jerusalem Post on Monday.The Palestinian Arabs will lose Jerusalem too
The map shows what the Energy Ministry has called “Line 310,” or the red line, which extends significantly further north than Israel’s starting negotiating position, the blue line on the map.
Israel and Lebanon began US-mediated negotiations on their maritime border in October, which were the first talks between the countries in 30 years. The countries hope that settling the border would encourage further gas exploration in the area.
Israel already pumps significant amounts of gas from the Mediterranean, but Lebanon has yet to do so.
The Lebanese delegation would not speak directly to the Israelis in the talks at Naqoura, a UN base on the Israel-Lebanon border, and faced significant pressure from Hezbollah to abandon the negotiations.
After four rounds of talks, negotiations stopped in November. Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz accused Lebanon of changing its position seven times, presenting “positions that add up to a provocation.”
The blue and green lines on the map represent the countries’ official positions, as submitted to the UN. The disputed area starts from the countries’ border on the Mediterranean Sea and is 5 km. to 6 km. wide on average. The area originally under dispute would be about 2% of Israel’s economic waters.
Palestinian factions have come out with a public call to escalate the latest Jerusalem ‘intifada’. Over the past week Jewish Jerusalemites have been attacked on the light rail, on the streets, and in the Old City for no other reason than their being Jews going about their daily business.
Alongside the uptick in street violence in Jerusalem, Hamas, the sister terror organization, fired from the Gaza Strip no less than 40 missiles and rockets on Jewish communities located in the Gaza envelope surrounding the Gaza Strip. Hamas has urged terror groups to remain ready to fire additional rocket salvos into Israel: "We call on the masses everywhere to organize activities of support for this uprising," to “escalate the uprising in Jerusalem” and to form a “unified leadership for popular resistance” against Israel.
To their detriment, the Palestinian Arabs and their leaders seem to have a short memory and never learn from past experience. At the conclusion of Israel’s War of Independence, instigated by a coordinated and massive four front attack on Israel, the Palestinian Arabs lost the Negev and the Galilee regions. The 1967 Six Day War, also instigated by a coordinated Arab declaration of war, ended with the Palestinian Arabs losing all of Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights (Ramat HaGolan), and East Jerusalem. The 1st and 2nd Intifada instigated by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority after the Oslo Agreement concluded with Israel retaking a measure of control of most of the land it had given over to Palestinian Arab sovereignty.
During the past week, Jerusalem has been at the center of a renewed Palestinian Arab terror campaign against Jews; stone throwing, violent demonstrations, attacking Jews on the street and light rail, and putting all of these events on social media so as to convey visceral hatred of Israel. Learning nothing from their own historical experience, and repeating the same destructive expression of hatred and rejection of anything Jewish, the Palestinian Arabs will eventually lose all Arab rights in Jerusalem just as they lost control of lands they held in the past.
Despite the horrors of radical Islam, it is Israel exclusively that lives under a microscope with the events in Jerusalem scrutinized by the nations of the world. The Biden administration came out with a public call for “both sides” to show restraint. Russia invades and occupies Crimea, Nigeria enslaves, China oppresses, Pakistan rapes, Iraq slaughters, North Korea starves, Iran nuclearizes, Syria massacres, Afghanistan tortures, ISIS beheads, and yet Israel remains the sole state put under the magnifying glass by the morally bankrupt and hypocritical nations of the world.
What the nations of the not so “enlightened “ world fail to note is that the Palestinian Authority and its sister Hamas terror organization are actively supporting the street violence in Jerusalem, for the same reason thousands of missiles have rained down on Israeli cities over the years - even though it created more destruction for Palestinian Arabs in Gaza. Their goal is keep the Palestinian Arabs focused on “resistance” - a synonym for endless war that won’t be solved by Israeli territorial concessions or greater sensitivity for the Muslims' desire to deny Jewish rights in Jerusalem. What we do simply does not matter to them and it will never sink in that they are facing the Jewish nation and the Jewish people, We are here to stay.
The head of UNRWA is not being honest. UNRWA school teachers don't promote "neutrality." They glorify terrorism & incite antisemitism.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 27, 2021
Like UNRWA Jordan, which posted this photo of a student wielding a knife and reciting the poem “The Martyr.”
More: https://t.co/JcjQmxwzbB https://t.co/mMNoCtiWCX pic.twitter.com/MQaGgG44Iq
EU to push Israel on Jerusalem voting as Abbas set to delay election – report
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has told the European Union, Egypt and Jordan of his decision to postpone the upcoming elections, but the EU has asked for a delay to a formal announcement on the matter so that it can pressure Israel to allow voting in East Jerusalem, a Lebanese newspaper reported Tuesday.PreOccupiedTerritory: Fatah Threat To Cancel Elections It Will Lose Not Having Desired Effect Of Projecting Strength (satire)
As justification for the postponement, Abbas is set to cite Israel’s silence on whether East Jerusalem Palestinians can participate.
The report in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, widely considered a mouthpiece for the terror group Hezbollah, came amid mounting indications that the elections will be delayed.
Palestinians are currently scheduled to head to their first national vote in 15 years on May 22. The last Palestinian national elections were held in 2006, when Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah movement in a landslide.
At a Monday meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, Abbas reiterated that he would not permit the elections to take place without the residents of East Jerusalem being permitted to vote.
Declarations by members of the party controlling the Palestinian Authority that unless their rivals or Israel make substantive changes to longstanding policies and practices, a long-delayed parliamentary contest that will likely see the ruling party fall from power will not take place as planned, have not elicited the anticipated changes that those declarations aimed to achieve, in particular the casting of that party as a confident source of leadership, party sources reported today.TikTok intifada is ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ - analysis
Fatah, the now-dominant faction governing the autonomous Palestinian Authority in inland areas Israel vacated under a 1993 agreement, faces electoral defeat, according to recent polling, in parliamentary elections that have not taken place since 2007. Their chief rivals, the Islamist movement Hamas that staged a coup in the Gaza Strip that year and has since governed that coastal territory separately, stand to overtake Fatah in those elections, and for reasons not entirely clear to Fatah spokesmen, threats to call off the elections have not cast Fatah in the public imagination as demonstrating the swagger expected of leaders secure in their role who will attract popular support.
“It’s weird – this isn’t what we expected to happen,” admitted Nabil Sha’ath, a longtime ally of President Mahmoud Abbas, who also serves as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “We thought that the collective equivalent of threatening to resign unless we get what we want – a popular tactic among Palestinian government officials – would make us look like concerned public servants leveraging the government’s public image to extract changes from the higher-ups. In fact it’s had the opposite effect, namely it’s made us look like a bunch of cowards afraid to face the wrath of an electorate that hasn’t had a change to express its dissatisfaction with a corrupt, incompetent, short-sighted, thuggish, hypocritical, lying, repressive leadership in a decade and a half. An easy mistake to make.”
TikTok videos helped spark several nights of clashes and chaos among Arab and Jewish youth in Jerusalem – and the worst may be yet to come.PMW: The real source of the violence in Jerusalem
Many have blamed the popular short-video sharing platform for playing a role in the recent security escalation, which ultimately led to the firing of dozens of rockets into Israel.
“Everyone is calling it the TikTok intifada,” according to Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. “We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.”
Last weekend, far-right activists took to the streets to protest a series of videos that depicted Arab youth harassing and assaulting ultra-Orthodox Jews. The rockets, some analysts believe, were shot partially in a show of solidarity for Palestinians entangled in the clashes that ensued.
But Shwartz Altshuler told The Jerusalem Post not to believe that because the videos showed Arab youth attacking Jews that the Jews were not incited to violence, too. Rather, the Jewish youth are less on TikTok and more on closed social networks like WhatsApp and Telegram.
“WhatsApp is not open,” she said. “Only people who are friends with each other can see what is being shared. So, it is much harder to know what is happening there.” The connection between violence and social networks is not new.
Violence has once again flared up in Jerusalem. The outburst of violence was not spontaneous. It was not a response to any Israeli action. Rather it came on the heels of intensive and focused Palestinian Authority incitement to violence and terror.
The Muslim month of Ramadan started on the evening of April 12.
In the days before Ramadan, from April 2 through April 10, official PA TV broadcast a terror-promoting song and accompanying visuals of violence at least 20 times. Focusing on influencing the youth, PA TV also broadcast the song during the 4:00-5:00 p.m. time slot for children's programming.
Introducing the song, the PA TV narrator opens:
“Because songs are a basic part of our culture and they express our national identity… and because these songs are present in our consciousness and still fascinate us with values and meanings… It’s here: ‘The Tune of the Homeland.’”
Lyrics:
“I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts...”
The narrator interjects:
“We will defend Palestine with our bodies. Our bullets will make sounds of joy to herald signs of victory in order to cut off the invading occupiers, who came from across the sea and settled in our lands…
The song continues:
“My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.”
[Official PA TV, The Tune of the Homeland, April 2 (twice) 3 (twice), 4 (twice), 5 (three times), 6 (twice), 7 (twice), 8 (four times), 9 (twice), 10, 2021]
Shortly after the start of Ramadan, in line with the PA’s terror promotion, Arab youths started indiscriminately attacking Jews and uploading videos of their actions to the social media platform TikTok. In addition, Arab rioters fought Israeli police at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City.
Fatah supporters encourage death as “Martyrs” for Jerusalem
Palestinian demonstrators on Temple Mount swear to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque- during Jerusalem riots
Fatah encourages terror in Jerusalem: “Millions of Martyrs are marching to Jerusalem”
Gaza escalation shows Hamas improved rocket precision
The latest escalation in southern Israel over the weekend has demonstrated that Hamas continues to improve the precision of its rockets.MEMRI: Jordanian Senate President Faisal Al-Fayez: Trump, Kushner Are Behind Alleged Coup Attempt; Conspirators Wanted To Make King Abdullah Pay The Price For Rejecting Deal Of The Century
Nine out of 40 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip on Friday and Saturday were supposed to explode in urban centers. Seven were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system and two exploded within Gaza border communities, causing property damage.
With a 22% success rate and taking into account that Iron Dome is 85–90% effective, dozens of rockets may hit urban centers in the country's south should the conflict escalate and Gaza terror groups fire hundreds of rockets per day.
In previous rounds of escalation over the past two years, Hamas tried to bypass Iron Dome through massive salvos, overwhelming the defense system.
These attempts were partially successful and even led to the death of an Israeli in Ashdod but since then, the defense establishment has also upgraded the system's capabilities to deal with concentrated volleys in a variety of ranges. This past weekend ended with relative success for Hamas, even if it did not claim any Israeli casualties.
However, each such attack on Israel allows it to better map Hamas' capabilities and hamstring it to prevent the next conflict or catch the terror group unprepared.
Hamas' drone unit, naval commando, intelligence gathering and tunnel networks have suffered considerable damage from the IDF over the past two years — but Hamas has not given up.
Faisal Al-Fayez, President of the Jordanian Senate and former Prime Minister of Jordan said that King Abdullah and Jordan were forced to pay the price of their rejection of the Deal of the Century by former U.S. President Trump, his advisor Jared Kushner, and others, who were involved in the recent attempted coup in the country. He made these remarks in an interview that aired on Russia Today TV Arabic on April 18, 2021. Al-Fayez said that Jordan had rejected former U.S. President Trump’s deal because it did not serve the interests of the Palestinians. He added that it is in Israel’s best interest to weaken Jordan. However, Al-Fayez said that he cannot blame anyone before the trial begins.Melanie Phillips: Being played for suckers by Tehran
"King [Abdullah II] Has Paid The Price For... His Position About The Palestinian Cause, His Opposition To The Deal Of The Century, And His Refusal To Give In To The American Policy Towards The Middle East"
Faisal Al-Fayez: "Unfortunately, his Majesty King [Abdullah II] has paid the price for his pan-Arab stances. His position about the Palestinian cause, his opposition to the Deal of the Century, and his refusal to give in to the American policy towards the Middle East when former President Trump was in office... I believe that all this has even led to an economic siege on Jordan.
"I believe that all the facts will be revealed in the trial [of the alleged 'coup' ring]. We should wait and see. All the interrogations will be made public, and then... Foreign parties [who were involved in the 'coup']... It is said that [Jared] Kushner was involved in this matter, as well as from other countries... I believe that everything will be revealed in court.
King Abdullah II "Said No To An Alternative Homeland [For The Palestinians In Jordan]... This Is What Led Trump And Kushner To Conspire Against Jordan"
"When Trump introduced the Deal of the Century, through Kushner... What did they give the Palestinians? 15% of historical Palestine, while planning to resolve the Palestinian problem at the expense of Jordan. But His Majesty was honest about it. He said it loud and clear: No to an alternative homeland [for the Palestinians in Jordan], No to resettlement [of Palestinians in Jordan], and Jerusalem, along with the Hashemite custodianship of it, is where we draw the line. This is what led Trump and Kushner to conspire against Jordan.
An Israeli delegation has been in Washington DC today trying to persuade the Biden administration of the catastrophic folly of its intention to rejoin the shocking 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This deal would facilitate an Iranian nuclear weapon with at best a delay of a few years, and by lifting sanctions would open the west’s financial spigots to funnel billions of dollars into the world’s most dangerous terrorist state.Jonathan Tobin: Israel has no choice but to act on its own to stop Iran
Asked last Friday whether the Israeli delegation would change the Biden administration’s position, the White House spokesman Jen Psaki said :
No
before waffling about
ongoing indirect discussions about a diplomatic path forward
and keeping the Israelis abreast
as a key partner of these discussion — or of our intentions …
Thus three days before the Israelis turned up, the Biden administration said in effect that their visit was a total waste of time. There was simply no argument whatever that would persuade it to change course. The Israelis would be told what America intends to do about Iran, and they would just have to suck it up.
In recent weeks, the Biden team has expressed anger and irritation at Israel’s recent attacks on Iranian targets aimed at disabling the regime’s capacity to ramp up its murderous activities even further. The Bidenites have made clear that Israel should do nothing to imperil the negotiations aimed at restarting the JCPOA.
Since Iran repeatedly declares its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, is planning to use nuclear weapons to achieve that infernal aim and to that end has more than 200,000 missiles trained upon Israel from southern Lebanon under the control of its proxy army, Hezbollah, the Biden administration is in effect expressing irritation and anger that Israel has the effrontery to imperil an American policy that would help Iran make good its threat to wipe Israel off the map.
With friends like these, eh?
The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and the government's national security adviser is in Washington this week on an important mission that has failed even before it began.Iran Aims to Expand WMD Program, German Intel Agency Concludes
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki made it clear last week that the Israelis are wasting their time. When asked if Israeli pleas about the danger to the region if the United States rejoins the 2015 nuclear deal would have any impact on President Joe Biden's plans, Psaki answered "no." She went on to say that the Israelis are free to keep "challenging" the administration's goal of returning to a weak pact that gives Tehran a legal path to a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade, but the best they could hope for is to be "kept abreast" of America's plans.
That contemptuous attitude was of particular significance because the day before the Israeli security officials arrived, news broke about how former Secretary of State John Kerry had shared intelligence with Iran about Israeli covert operations seeking to stop their nuclear program. According to an audiotape of comments made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif that were obtained by The New York Times, he said, "It was former U.S. Foreign Secretary [sic] John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria."
There is a lot to unwrap in that one sentence and not just because the Times buried this revelation at the bottom of its story.
Iran sought to produce and source weapons of mass destruction as recently as 2020, efforts that are likely ongoing, according to a new intelligence report issued by a German government security agency.
Iran is working to expand its "conventional arsenal of weapons through the production or constant modernization of weapons of mass destruction," according to a German-language report issued last week by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a state security agency equivalent to the FBI. The report, which covers the year 2020 and was independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon, provides the firmest evidence to date that Iran is misleading the world about the nature of its nuclear program.
As the Biden administration works to reenter the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran and unwind tough economic sanctions on the country, Tehran continues to claim that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature. The Islamic Republic, however, recently began enriching uranium, the key fuel in a nuclear weapon, to levels reaching 60 percent purity, which is only used for an atomic bomb. The country also continues to build and test ballistic missiles, which are primarily used to carry a nuclear payload over great distances.
The findings contained in the German intel report directly refute claims by Iran's leaders that the country has no interest in building a nuclear bomb. It is unclear how the report could influence discussions with Iran, which include the United States and Germany. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the report and Iran's proliferation activities. Germany's government under Chancellor Angela Merkel has been one of the leading proponents of the nuclear accord and reopening business ties with Iran.
"In order to obtain the necessary know-how and corresponding components," Iran sought to establish business contacts with German companies operating in the high-tech field, according to the report's section on proliferation. Iran is likely skirting U.S. and international sanctions to source these materials.
Although the Biden administration has expressed a willingness to unwind sanctions as part of a revamped nuclear deal, most of them remain in place. Iran has a history of secretly working around U.S. sanctions in order to obtain the technology needed to fuel its nuclear research program. Tehran has run similar operations to bypass sanctions on its oil trade, a primary source of revenue for the hardline regime.
The German report additionally found that Iran is waging sophisticated espionage activities in the country. Germany is one of several European countries where Iranian spies are known to operate.
On April 2, the IRGC Navy repeatedly crossed the bows of US vessels at an unnecessarily close range, requiring US ships to make defensive maneuvers to avoid collision. Full Story: https://t.co/wqFluyXTf2pic.twitter.com/9Vjrs3Aowh
— Mike (@Doranimated) April 27, 2021
