Thursday, November 25, 2021

From Ian:

The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism
The United Nations reserves November 29, its International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, for robust anti-Israel activity. The day’s events inappropriately put the UN’s thumb on the scale in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, encouraging Palestinian obstinacy by normalizing Palestinian viewpoints.

November 29 marks the anniversary of the 1947 partition plan, which would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state in British Mandatory Palestine.

While the Jewish leadership accepted partition, Arab leaders rejected it, setting in motion more than seven decades of bloodshed. Now, many pro-Palestinian activists have embraced Solidarity Day as a repudiation of Israel’s existence.

In previous years, speakers at Solidarity Day events have falsely charged one of Israel’s founding fathers — David Ben-Gurion — with advocating ethnic cleansing; mendaciously accused Israel of perpetrating apartheid and ethnic cleansing; called for boycotts of Israel; and advocated a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which is a call to ethnically cleanse the land of Jews.

According to the UN, Solidarity Day provides an opportunity to focus on how the Palestinians have yet to “attain their inalienable rights,” including “the right to return” to Israel, as a UN advertisement put it. Yet the Palestinian “right to return” is fictitious, according to many international law experts, since it rests on non-legally binding documents, including a General Assembly resolution. Forcing Israel to accept an influx of potentially hostile individuals would infringe on the Jewish state’s right to security — a recipe for promoting violence and strife.

The UN event’s advertisement also highlights the participation of “Palestinian activist” Mohammed El-Kurd. El-Kurd has previously praised the violence of the Second Intifada, which occurred between 2000 and 2005, for terrorizing Israelis; he has described all Israelis as terrorists; and he also called for ethnically cleansing the land of Jews. Just this month, El-Kurd justified the murder of an Israeli civilian in Jerusalem by posting an old photo of the victim in an army uniform and falsely calling him a settler — which, in any case, is not an open license for murder.

Solidarity Day is also sandwiched between the General Assembly’s 16 annual end-of-year resolutions promoting the Palestinian agenda and castigating Israel. One resolution, titled “Occupied Syrian Golan,” even deplores Israel’s presence in the Golan — without mentioning the Syrian regime’s butchering of over half a million of its own people
Report: US to unilaterally reopen PA Consulate in Jerusalem
A high-ranking Israeli official has told i24news that the United States will be opening a consulate to deal with Palestinian affairs “soon,” Asharq Al-Awsat reports.

According to the report, the Biden administration has already informed Israel of its intentions and plans to move ahead unilaterally if it does not obtain a response from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government, which is no longer seen as under immediate threat of dissolving due to internal strife, now that the budget has passed.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump closed the consulate in 2019 after recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the U.S. embassy to the city, merging its services with the consulate.

The report added that the official Israeli source also stated that the government would soon be announcing a new settlement plan in “East Jerusalem,” an area which includes parts of the city’s northern and eastern neighborhoods that were brought under Israeli control during the Six-Day War. The area referred to is actually in the northern suburb of Atarot near to where an industrial zone already exists.
Tom Gross: “A stronger Israel in a less stable world,” Tom Gross, 24 Nov 2021
Tom Gross argues that despite the various threats and challenges it still faces, Israel has never been in a stronger position: diplomatically, economically, militarily, culturally, and in terms of personal safety for its citizens. Meanwhile, several Arab states are in a state of full or partial disintegration (Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq) -- and the wider world is in many ways less stable than at any time since the end of WW2.

Tom Gross is interviewed by Paul Gross (no relation) of the Jerusalem think tank, the Begin Center. (Nov 24, 2021).


Israel, UAE have a lot more in common than people think - interview
Ahmed Bin Sulayem, executive chairman and CEO of Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre (DMCC), was in Israel recently for a UAE-Israel Business Forum supported by the UAE Embassy in Israel, Start-Up Nation Central, a nonprofit and the Economy Ministry. He is an important voice from the Emirates who has been supportive of the Abraham Accords.

“From my point of view, as executive chairman and Chief Executive Officer of a Government of Dubai authority on trade and enterprise, I regularly see the impact that the Accords have had on regional trade,” he said. “However, it is so much more than just trade. I believe the best is yet to come.”

Answering a series of questions about the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords, which took place last September, he provided key insights into the progress made over the last year.

“Looking back over the past year, a great deal has been accomplished that many people would not have thought possible,” he said. “This being said, from the point of view of many Emirati and Israeli nationals, our success to date is no surprise at all.”

In terms of high profile agreements, one notable story has been the Israel-UAE pipeline deal, “which I believe was the first major deal signed in the wake of the Accords [and] was a significant step, as was the establishment of direct flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai,” Bin Sulayem said.

“Closer to my area of business, the opening of reciprocal offices in the Dubai Diamond Exchange and Ramat Gan finally created a formal and direct link for diamonds, one of our mutually important commodities.”

These are not PR stunts, he points out, but the result of an underlying effort by our respective leaders to highlight our common ground in culture, trade, business and community, he noted.
Saudis tried to stop UAE-Israel-Jordan solar energy deal
The Saudi government pressured the United Arab Emirates to back off a major solar energy deal with Israel and Jordan, two senior Israeli officials with direct knowledge and another source briefed on the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: The agreement signed on Monday and helped across the finish line by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is the biggest renewable energy project in the region. It will see the UAE build a massive solar farm in Jordan to supply electricity to Israel, and Israel in turn will build a desalination plant to provide water to Jordan.
- The Saudis were caught by surprise when Axios broke the news of the forthcoming deal last Wednesday, the Israeli officials say.
- All three sources say Saudi officials were upset because they felt the deal undermined Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's plans to lead the region on climate through his "Green Middle East" vision.
- Between the lines: The UAE and Israel were able to negotiate the deal due to the Abraham Accords, but the Saudis don't have diplomatic relations with Israel and were therefore were left out.

Behind the scenes: Senior Saudi officials called their Emirati counterparts to protest and push them to back off the deal. They even proposed an alternative Saudi-UAE-Jordan deal that would sideline Israel, a source briefed on the conversations tells me.
- The Emiratis notified Kerry and their Israeli and Jordanian counterparts of the Saudi pressure and asked for cosmetic changes to the language of the agreement to appease the Saudis. The other parties didn’t object.
- The signing of the agreement was delayed for several hours on Monday due to the Saudi intervention, the Israeli officials say. It was finally signed on Monday afternoon, with Kerry in attendance.


Australia Designates Hezbollah as Terror Organization

Hamas accuses Australia of 'surrendering to Zionists' by banning Hezbollah
A day after Australia designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Hamas condemned the move, saying it viewed "the decision as a surrender to the will of Zionism and a response to the pressure of the enemy entity."

On Wednesday, Australia joined 16 other countries that have outlawed Hezbollah in the last two years. The designation covers the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group as a whole, expanding the ban placed on its military wing in 2003.

According to Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews, any affiliation with Hezbollah or providing funding for it will be illegal and punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

The terror group, which all but controls Lebanon, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Austria, Argentina, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Kosovo, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Serbia, Switzerland, Venezuela, and others.

The Israeli Embassy in Canberra welcomed the decision, saying, "There is no division between the political and the military wings of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and this acknowledgment is essential to combating the enduring threat of terrorism."
EU’s Highest Court Upholds Hamas’ Place on Terrorism List, Overturning Earlier Ruling
The European Union’s highest court has maintained the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas on the bloc’s list of proscribed terrorist groups, reversing an earlier ruling by a lower court that had annulled the listing for procedural reasons.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Tuesday brings to an end a three-year legal wrangle over the means by which Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, was added to the list.

A 2018 decision by the European Council, the body which brings together the leaders of the EU’s 27 nations, added Hamas to the list. However, Europe-based lawyers representing Hamas appealed the decision, arguing that the EU’s own procedures had not been followed. Specifically, signatures from the president of the council and its secretary-general were missing on several annexes to the application to list Hamas as a terror group, including statements offered as evidence.

A 2019 decision by a lower court of the EU concurred with that assertion.

On Tuesday, judges at the ECJ ruled that the original decision of the European Council was in the spirit of the law, even if the usual administrative procedures had not been followed.

Even without the signature on the evidence, the 11-judge panel wrote, “the authenticity of those statements of reasons has not been validly challenged.” While recognizing that the provisions of a signature is an important part of authentication, the court held that it was not needed for the entire package.

The decision means EU measures against Hamas are compatible with EU law. Implemented following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the EU’s list currently includes 14 individuals and 21 groups.
Stephen Daisley: UK Hamas Ban Doesn't Go Far Enough
The decision to add Hamas to the UK Home Office list of terrorist organizations corrects a 20-year-old error. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was "immensely grateful" to the government for "end[ing] the dangerous loophole" which allowed Hamas to "spread its extremist poison here and raise funds and support in the UK." The flare-up between Israel and Gaza earlier this year occasioned disturbing scenes of Hamas-sympathizing and anti-Israel incitement on Britain's streets and this is likely to make it easier for police to crack down on similar conduct in the future.

The last time Palestinians were given the chance to vote on the matter, they chose Hamas. Denying the nature of Palestinian extremism heavily informs British attitudes to the conflict. While Hamas is a gang of thugs, there is the rote insistence in Britain that the Palestinian Authority is a legitimate authority.

This is an outfit that incites against Israelis and pays stipends to the families of those who are imprisoned, killed or injured carrying out attacks on Israel. Yet Labour and Tory governments alike scold Israel to make peace with the PA, even as every Israeli offer of peace and statehood is rebuffed and proposed peace talks are rejected out of hand.
BBC Radio 4 promotes a red herring on UK designation of Hamas
Neither Stourton nor his interviewee bothered to clarify that Hamas is not interested in a “negotiated peace settlement” with Israel because it does not accept its existence and its aim is to wipe that country off the map. The relevant issue of the long-standing and ongoing rift between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority was also not discussed and the question of why no “peace settlement” was achieved during the twenty years that the UK only designated part of the Hamas terrorist organisation was not raised.
Stourton: “What does it tell you about the way Whitehall works, because the concerns you’ve just outlined are ones – foreign policy concerns – err…err…the area the foreign office deals with but this clearly was taken by the Home Office, this decision.”

Ricketts: “Well I assume it was a decision that was coordinated across Whitehall. It’s been announced by the Home Secretary in Washington. One can see the political advantage for her of that. The Americans will welcome it. It draws an interesting line in British politics which no doubt we will hear about in the House of Commons next week. But I’m not hearing about the foreign policy implications in the way this is being described, maybe because in the short term it will not make all that much difference to what has been happening. But I think it does have these longer-term implications and you’re right; it is being presented mainly as a domestic policy issue, yes.”


That framing was repromoted in the same day’s ‘Six O’Clock News’ programme on the same domestic radio station. In an item (from 16:50 here) which also featured James Landale, listeners were told at 18:32 that:
Landale: “The change will have most impact in the UK but there may also be diplomatic consequences. Lord Ricketts, the former national security advisor, said outlawing Hamas might delay a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians in the future.”

Recording Ricketts: “Hamas are the people who control Gaza, who fire the rockets at Israel. And so it won’t be any good just negotiating with the other wing of the Palestinians – Fatah, based in the West Bank – because Hamas will need to be part of any settlement.”


As we see, the framing of this story promoted by the BBC to its domestic audiences advances the concept of negotiations with terrorists as necessary while claiming that the Home Secretary’s proposal will have “diplomatic consequences” in relation to a theoretical “peace settlement” of the kind that the relevant terrorist organisation has repeatedly rejected in the past.

The question, of course, is why did the BBC choose to promote that red herring to its funding public in the UK?


Reconciliation underway? Israeli envoy to return to Poland
The Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday it would return its chargé d'affaires to Poland following contact with the country and "signals" from Warsaw of seeking reconciliation.

Tal Ben-Ari Yaalon was recalled by the ministry in August for "an indefinite period of time" following a controversial ruling by the Polish government that would prevent Holocaust survivors and their descendants from reclaiming property stolen during World War II.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid accused Poland of being "an anti-democratic, non-liberal country that does not honor the greatest tragedy in human history" and called the ruling "immoral and antisemitic."

In response, Poland announced its Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski, who was on vacation at the time, would not be returning to Jerusalem.

According to ministry officials, among the "signals" Jerusalem received from Warsaw was Polish President Andrzej Duda's strong condemnation of antisemitic demonstrations in the country and the government's plans to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Palestinian hybrid warfare is a strategic threat to Israel's security
Over the past decade the free world has come to recognize the danger inherent in the hybrid warfare threat. In 2014 the NATO Summit summary document recognized political deception and disinformation as components of Hybrid Warfare employed by Russia in its occupation of Crimea and by Hezbollah in Lebanon and ISIS, in Iraq and Syria. The PLO has also been using this strategy effectively for decades; Arafat and his Soviet backers led the 1975 UN campaign that resulted in the adoption of the infamous UN Zionism is Racism resolution with Arafat and the Palestinian leadership intensified the crusade prosecuting a political warfare campaign branding Israel as an apartheid regime at the UN sanctioned World Conference Against Racism in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has sustained this political warfare against Israel using demonizing and delegitimizing rhetoric libeling Israel as an “apartheid” entity in his Durban IV speech in September 2021. In fact, the apartheid libel has today become the internationally accepted lingua franca regarding the only Jewish State: at the UN, by some members of the U.S. House of Representatives, in some European Parliaments, in the international media, and across Western academia. These statements of intentional, calculated disinformation are acts of war no less than those fought in 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982 and the Palestinian and Iranian-backed Hybrid Warfare against Israel that continue today.

This Palestinian strategically driven ideological war requires an immediate response for the sake of Israel’s national security. It is essential that Israel dedicate the necessary resources to establishing a national security council effort to counter Palestinian hybrid warfare. There is precedent in the West. Great Britain and the United States established political warfare offices as part of their wartime efforts in defeating the Nazis and the Soviet Union, respectively.

It is now time that Israel garners the resources and mobilize the collective political will to overcome the decades-long PLO, PA and Hamas’ led Hybrid War to dismantle Israel as a Jewish-Democratic state.
Gaza War in May 2021 Showed Increase in Hamas Capabilities
During a detailed fact-finding trip to Israel this summer, the authors found real advances in Hamas' military capabilities, with implications for U.S. operations.

Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza fired 4,500 rockets at Israel in just 11 days - roughly the same amount as in the 50-day 2014 conflict. Hamas sought to overwhelm Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defenses with large volleys intended to overpower a single battery.

While Hamas possessed as many rockets as in 2014, these boasted larger payloads and longer ranges - up to 70-100 miles.

Hamas was developing new electronic warfare capabilities to degrade the effectiveness of the Iron Dome. The conflict also saw the first use of suicide drones by Hamas, sending them against an offshore natural gas platform and other targets.

Hamas also attempted to launch an explosive underwater drone for the first time. Hamas excavated an elaborate, 200-mile network of tunnels to command and move combat forces, launch rockets, and shield military assets from Israeli airstrikes.

This conflict is a harbinger of growing threats to the U.S. from adversaries that fight unconventionally with advanced weaponry. Hamas' new capabilities reveal the need for concerted U.S.-Israel cooperation on research and development - as well as joint tactics, techniques, and procedures - to effectively defeat threats posed by technologies that are proliferating into the hands of unconventional adversaries.
Israel 'committed to return captives' held by Hamas, Bennett tells al-Sayed family
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett promised that he was personally committed to the return of the Gaza captives when he met with the family of one of the hostages, Hisham al-Sayed.

Both al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu are civilians who have been held by Hamas since they crossed into the Gaza Strip in 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Hamas is also believed to be holding the bodies of two Israeli soldiers presumed to have been killed in the 2014 Gaza war, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.

Bennett assured the al-Sayed family that his door is always open to them.

Since taking office in May, Bennett has met with each of the other three families, to provide them with efforts to secure the return of their captives.

In the aftermath of the 11-day war, Israel has pushed to ensure that the release of the two hostages and the return of the two soldiers’ bodies would be part of any indirect agreement with Hamas for either a ceasefire or a prolonged period of calm.

Egypt has attempted for the last half-year to broker an indirect agreement between Israel and Hamas. it’s a move that has led to persistent speculation in the media with regard to a prisoner swap.

Hamas claimed Israel turned down an offer for a prisoner swap at the beginning of November.

Israel has persistently raised the issue of hostages in its conversations with the international community.
Settlers protest rise in stoning attacks in northern West Bank
Dozens of residents of Israeli settlements in the Binyamin region of the northern West Bank demonstrated Thursday in protest of what they say is an uptick in stone throwing attacks by Palestinians.

Protesters gathered near the Palestinian village of Luban e-Sharkiya, the Ynet news site reported.

Settlers claimed that recently there has been an increase in stoning incidents, and warned that lives are at stake.

Noya Ivgi, 24, a student at Ariel University in the northern West Bank, described to Ynet how her car was stoned last week.

Ivgi was driving alone at 10 p.m. between the settlements of Rimonim and Ofra when the driver of a car passing from the other direction flashed his headlights at her as a warning.

A little farther down the road she saw the highway littered with rocks. Moments later a stone smashed through her windscreen, nearly hitting her.

“I drove as fast as I could without being able to see,” she said. “Had someone been next to me in the car he would probably be dead. The rock missed me by centimeters; it was really a miracle I didn’t die.”

As she was driving Ivgi alerted police and then stopped at a gas station. Though she expected security forces to show up promptly, it took 15 minutes before a patrol car arrived, she said.
Hanukkah menorah removed from roof of mosque after Palestinians protest
A large electric menorah installed on the roof of a mosque at a historical site near Jerusalem has been repositioned after the local Palestinian population protested the installation.

Israel Nature and Parks Authorities officials set up the menorah Wednesday on the roof of a mosque at Nebi Samuel, a site cherished by Jews as the tomb of the Biblical prophet Samuel. In the 18th century, a mosque was built at the site over the remains of a Crusader church.

Currently, a small synagogue exists in the underground tomb area beneath the mosque, which is inside an Israeli national park, just over the Green Line in the West Bank, northeast of the capital.

Palestinian residents of the adjacent Nabi Samwil village reportedly protested against the display after images of the menorah were shared on social media.

In a Thursday report, Nabi Samwil municipal leader Amir Obeid told the Ynet news site it was “unthinkable” for such a clearly Jewish symbol to be installed on the roof of a mosque.

“It clearly does not make sense and it provokes a lot of anger among us,” he said of the local residents.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad call for firing Jenin governor who criticized 'resistance'
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) demanded that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fire the Palestinian governor of Jenin.

The demand came in response to statements attributed to the governor, Akram Rajoub, concerning the widespread presence of gunmen and illegal weapons in Jenin and its surroundings.

The call on Thursday came amid increasing scenes of anarchy and lawlessness in the city and nearby villages and towns, in addition to the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of gunmen belonging to various armed groups and gangs.

Earlier on Thursday, gunmen again opened fire at the headquarters of the PA security forces in Jenin. No one was hurt. The headquarters have been the target of several shooting attacks in the past few months.

Abbas has ordered a security crackdown on the armed groups and individuals, some of whom are affiliated with his own Fatah faction.

Last week, Abbas reportedly dismissed the commanders of the PA security forces in Jenin after thousands of Palestinians participated in the funeral of Wasfi Kabaha, a senior Hamas official who died of corona complications.
Palestinian support for two-state solution losing ground, poll finds
There has been a decrease in the number of Palestinians who support the two-state solution after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's decision last April to call off the Palestinian general elections, according to a new Palestinian public opinion poll.

While support for the two-state solution has dropped, the number of Palestinians who support a bi-national state solution has increased, according to the poll, conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre (JMCC).

The percentage of those who believe the two-state solution is the best solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict dropped from 39% last April to 29%, while the percentage of those who support the bi-national one-state solution rose from 21% last April to 26% in October, the poll showed.

In the West Bank, support for the one-state solution (30%) polled even higher than the two-state solution (23%), while in the Gaza Strip the two-state solution (37%) remains the preferred option over a one-state solution (19%).

The largest percentage of respondents still believes peaceful negotiations are the best method for "ending the occupation"; 33% of those polled supported this method while 33% said they supported armed resistance and 20% said they supported "popular resistance as the best way to end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state."
PMW: Terror orgs use shooting and stabbing attacks to try and trigger more terror
Following terrorist Fadi Abu Shkhaydam’s terror attack on Sunday in which he shot and murdered Israeli civilian Eliyahu Kay and wounded 4 others with a submachine gun in the Old City of Jerusalem, the terror organization PFLP praised the attack as “heroic” and “ideal,” while glorifying the murderer as a “knight”:
“The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) praised the heroic operation… in occupied Jerusalem, in which one of the occupation soldiers was killed (sic., a civilian was murdered) and 3 (sic., 4) others were wounded.

PFLP… added that our people’s knights proved today that resistance is the ideal option for uprooting the occupation from our land and removing its settlement enterprise from all our national land.”

[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, Nov. 21, 2021]


The PFLP also urged Palestinians to “escalate the resistance” and copy the murderous attack, and “learn from the example of the self-sacrificing fighter who shot the settlers”:
“PFLP noted that the increase in heroic operations (i.e., terror attacks) in occupied Jerusalem is proof that the Palestinian people and its young people are most determined to resist the occupation and expel it… PFLP called on the masses of our people and all the living forces to escalate the resistance at all the centers of confrontation with the occupation, and to learn from the example of the self-sacrificing fighter who shot the settlers who are robbing our land.”

[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, Nov. 21, 2021]


The “increase” refers to several recent attacks, among them an attack carried out by 16-year-old Omar Ibrahim Abu Asab, who stabbed and wounded two Israeli border police officers near the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem on Nov. 17, 2021.The officers shot and killed him during his attack. The PFLP also responded positively to this “operation,” calling it “heroic” and part of “our people’s revolution [that] is continuing, heating up, and becoming more qualitative day by day”:
“The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) praised the heroic operation (i.e., stabbing attack, 2 wounded) … It emphasized that this is the [appropriate] response, and this this is the way to get rid of the occupation and its settlers and fight the occupation’s crimes and its plans against our people and its holy sites… The PFLP emphasized that this operation again proves that our people’s revolution is continuing, heating up, and becoming more qualitative day by day. It also said that all the attempts to thwart it or conspire against it will fail.”
[Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, Nov. 17, 2021]
Terrorist prisoners are “lions… We must support them” - terrorist murderer before his attack

Terrorist murderer urged Palestinians to “tell the oppressor: ‘Get away from us!’”

Grow up and kill the Jews who killed your mother, PA official tells son of dead terrorist stabber

Rifle glorified in song on PA TV: “The rifle is the cause”

Song to Jihad fighters and “those holding the rifle”

“Pull the trigger… We replaced bracelets with weapons” – PA TV song calls for terror

Refugees are a “political cause and not humanitarian”



PreOccupiedTerritory: Death Of Last Nazi War Criminal Deprives Palestinians Of Chance To Honor Him (satire)
Representatives from the office of President Mahmoud Abbas voiced their regret today, following the passing of the last known participant in the organized slaughter of millions of Jews during the Second World War, that they never had an opportunity to present him with recognition and appreciation for his efforts during that dark time.

Gunther Kleist, 102, died Saturday of renal failure in Stuttgart, his demise coming just weeks after German authorities unsealed an indictment against him for his role in an Einsatzgruppe, a “special squad” whose euphemistic title referred to its operations in Eastern Europe during WWII to kill more than a million Jews by firing squad, often with the collaboration of local non-Jews. Palestinian leaders lamented that they will no longer get a chance to honor him for his important contribution, but vowed to do their utmost to carry on his work.

“We regret we have been prevented, for numerous reasons, from giving Mr. Kleist proper recognition,” stated Nabil Aburdeineh, a confidante of President Abbas. “We had our most recent opportunity when German media brought his case to public attention several years ago, but his failing health made any proper ceremony impracticable.”

“We promise, however, not to let this milestone pass without recommitting to the values for which Mr. Kleist and millions of other Germansm, Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Croats, Hungarians, and many others picked up a gun, knife, club, axe, saw, or whatever implement they had on hand, to further once the Third Reich gave them a path forward. Our struggle was his struggle. Gunther was but one of many, but the passing of the last person to actively participate in the Final Solution to the Jewish Question challenges the rest of us to take up our own implements and recommit to those values.”
Qatar Regime's Controversial Charity Funded al-Qaeda-linked Turkish Outfit in the Amount of $23 Million
A Turkish charity outfit, flagged by the UN Security Council for links to al-Qaeda, received millions of dollars from a Qatari charity, also accused of sponsoring terrorism, according to leaked data obtained by Nordic Monitor.

The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsani Yardım Vakfı, or IHH), a charity that works with Turkish intelligence agency MIT, received 85.2 million Qatari riyals ($23.4 million at today's exchange rate) between 2012 and 2018.

The funding, provided in 81 tranches over four years by the Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable Association, also known as Eid Charity, started a year after a civil conflict broke out in Syria, where the Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has funded and armed rebels including violent jihadist groups to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime. The funding, the bulk of which was aimed at financing the IHH's operations in Turkey and Syria, helped bankroll the organization's global operations in Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa as well as in Latin America.

The leaked data was obtained by the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank, and shared with Nordic Monitor. Eid Charity funded not only the IHH but also many other Islamist organizations around the world, some with links to terrorist groups.

Screenshot from the data leak that shows Eid Charity's funding of the Turkish IHH charity, along with many others around the world.

In the Turkish case, with the help of Qatari cash, the IHH focused on countries like Myanmar, Philippines, Cameroon, Bangladesh and Nepal in Southeast Asia, while Muslim groups in Colombia, Haiti, Ecuador and Peru were also wooed by the IHH and listed as recipients of funding in Latin America. At one point, the IHH also sent funds to Europe, ostensibly to help displaced Syrian refugees there. In Africa, IHH operations in Egypt and the Central African Republic (CAR) were funded by Qatar as well.
Frustrated with CIA, Trump administration turned to Pentagon for shadow war with Iran
In the final month of his presidency, Donald Trump signed off on key parts of an extensive secret Pentagon campaign to conduct sabotage, propaganda and other psychological and information operations in Iran, according to former senior officials who served in his administration.

The campaign, which was to be led by the military’s Special Operations forces, was designed to undermine the Iranian people’s faith in their government as well as shake the regime’s sense of competence and stability, according to those former officials.

The plan, which eventually grew to a 200-page package of options, involved “things that would cause the Iranians to doubt their control over the country, or doubt their ability to fight a war,” said a former senior defense official.

Then-President Donald Trump speaks to the press during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Sept. 16, 2020.

While being briefed on elements of the campaign, Trump acknowledged that it would have to be carried out by the incoming Biden administration, according to the former official.

It is unclear whether the Biden administration has continued to pursue the Trump-approved operations. But with the White House set to resume indirect nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna later this month, U.S. officials may have to decide whether the Trump-approved Pentagon campaign could jeopardize negotiations — or help compel Iran to an agreement.

It’s representative of a dilemma that was also faced by President Biden’s predecessors: how hard to prosecute the shadow war against Iran while also seeking to negotiate with Tehran.
Iran is using negotiations to advance its military nuclear program
Iran continues to use negotiations as a smoke screen for advancing its military nuclear program.

It's time to act now & stop Iran before it produces a nuclear weapon.













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