Tuesday, September 13, 2022

09/13 Links Pt1: The Palestinians and the World Do Not Need Another Corrupt, Failed Terrorist Arab State; Fatah boasts: Arafat deliberately started the intifada terror campaign

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinians and the World Do Not Need Another Corrupt, Failed Terrorist Arab State
The truth, however, is that neither the Palestinian Authority leadership nor the Palestinian people is ready for statehood. And the responsibility for that fact lies squarely with the ruthless and failed Palestinian leaders.

The Palestinian bid to obtain UN recognition of a Palestinian state comes at a time when the PA appears to be losing control over some parts of the West Bank, where gunmen belonging to several groups have replaced the Palestinian security forces... [and] are responsible not only for terrorist attacks against Israel, but also the growing scenes of anarchy and lawlessness....

Abbas himself has long been praising and glorifying Palestinians who carry out terrorist attacks....

Abbas, who is unable (and unwilling) to rein in a few hundred gunmen in two major Palestinian cities in the West Bank, wants the United Nations, its member states and the rest of the world to believe that he is ready to run a state of his own.

If Abbas cannot send his officers to confiscate an M-16 rifle from an unruly gunman in Jenin or Nablus, how can he be trusted to prevent the future Palestinian state from turning into a launching pad for regional terrorism?

Abbas wants the UN to grant the Palestinians the status of full member state, but cannot provide any guarantees that the aspired-for state would not be turned into a terror entity that is armed and funded by Iran's regime and its proxies.

Abbas wants the UN to recognize "Palestine" as a state when he literally has no control over half of the Palestinians... If Abbas dares to go to the Gaza Strip, Hamas will hang him at the entrance to the area on charges of "collaboration" with Israel.

Abbas is seeking full UN recognition at a time when he continues to block general elections for the PA, arrests and intimidates his political opponents, refuses to share power with other Palestinians and muzzles freedom of expression.

More than they need a state, the Palestinians need good leadership. They need to rid themselves of the corrupt leaders who have deprived them of international aid and led them from one disaster after the other since the early 1970s, when the PLO was expelled from Jordan for undermining the kingdom's sovereignty.

[T]he Palestinians' biggest tragedy by far has been failed leadership and more failed leadership. It radicalizes them toward Islamic fundamentalism and deprives them of elections, freedom of expression and international aid. The UN member states would be doing a great service to the Palestinians if they asked Abbas about the absence of freedom of speech and a functioning parliament under his regime.

They would also be doing the Palestinian people a huge service if they asked Abbas about torture in Palestinian Authority prisons and the continuing crackdown by his security forces on human rights activists and journalists. And they should definitely ask him what measures he has taken to end financial and administrative corruption in the PA.

These issues are more pressing for the Palestinians than another worthless document by the UN recognizing a fictitious Palestinian state that is already marked by the intrusion of other brutal radical Islamist dictatorships.
MEMRI: Semi-Frozen: The Middle East's Intractable Conflicts
The term "frozen conflict" came into vogue in recent decades to describe a variety of border conflicts between Russia and neighboring countries, often over breakaway regions like Abkhazia or the Donbass.[1] There are also historic conflicts like Kashmir or the Arab-Israeli Conflict that go on for decades, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, that seem to also be "frozen," neither conclusive war nor outright peace, but an uneasy, volatile reality in between.

But aside from the old conflict over Palestine, the Middle East seems to have engendered new conflicts in recent decades that are, at least, semi-frozen, lasting for a decade or longer. Often extremely violent and damaging to the future of nations, they also simmer down to situations approaching some type of wary truce, mere political turmoil or low-grade instability only to flare up again. This seems to be the case in places like Libya, Yemen, and Iraq, all three countries where the overthrow of a longtime brutal dictator unleashed forces that have not yet played out years later.

Of course, the region is flush with conflict. In Lebanon and Syria, one side (Hezbollah and Assad) is more or less victorious and dominant, though there is still some opposition on the ground. Morocco and Algeria are increasingly at loggerheads, though not at war. In Sudan, political crisis and societal turmoil could lead to open conflict between rival groupings inside the military regime. Transnational Salafi-Jihadism and Iranian-inspired terrorism still exist in the region and still claim victims.

But it is the cases of Iraq, Libya, and Yemen that are particularly haunting and costly to the future of the region. All three countries had been ruled by long-standing dictatorships that while they may have provided some of the aspects of stability, were still very volatile regimes. Two of them, Saddam's Iraq and Qaddafi's Libya, were actually major "exporters" of instability, promoting terrorism globally, repressing local citizens internally and attacking their neighbors.

Iraq has been at war, albeit sometimes at relatively low levels, since the Americans overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. But even before that was the Kuwait War of 1990-1991 and the Iran War of 1980-1988. On top of that were internal conflicts, the regime's decades-long war against the Kurds, the savage repression of a Shia insurgency in 1991, and then after the American forces left in 2011, an increasingly sectarian Iraq under Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and the war against ISIS beginning in 2014. That war greatly increased something that had already existed, Shia paramilitary groups, which echoes today in the ongoing conflict between the militias and parties closest to Iran against those arrayed with Muqtada Al-Sadr.[2] The open armed clashes in Baghdad and Basra of August 2022 have ebbed thanks to the mediating efforts of Iraq's prime minister and of the Shia clerical authorities in Najaf, but the political crisis continues.[3]

The American overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 essentially dethroned Sunni power in Iraq and handed it over to the long-oppressed Iraqi Shia. Today's clashes in Iraq are less about good versus evil than an internal civil war within different factions of the Iraqi Shia political establishment, all of whom in one way or another, have colonized, subverted, and become parasites on the Iraqi state.[4] A 40-year-old Iraqi citizen alive today knows nothing but war and violent political turmoil inside the borders of his country.
Moscow’s invitation to Hamas could be meant as warning to Israel, analysts say
Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Moscow on Sept. 10 at the head of a senior delegation from the terror group for talks with Russian officials. Analysts speculate that Moscow’s invitation to Hamas, like an earlier one in May, is meant to send a message of dissatisfaction to Israel.

“The Russians typically use meetings with Hamas to signal displeasure with Israel, perhaps in relation to Ukraine,” Hillel Frisch, senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), told JNS.

A noteworthy aspect of the May meeting is that it came a month after Israel Prime Minister Yair Lapid, then foreign minister, accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, specifically in relation to alleged atrocities committed outside Kyiv. Of the current meeting, Frisch said it was unclear what specifically Russia may have found objectionable about Israeli statements or actions.

Anna Geifman, senior researcher at Bar-Ilan University’s department of political science, told JNS that it might be a general warning, a way for Russia to tell Israel that if it takes a “wrong step” it will strengthen relations with the region’s hostile actors. “The message may be: ‘If you become our enemy, we’re going to deal with your enemies,’ ” she said.

For Geifman, the important point is that this isn’t something new. “The Russians have always played the anti-Israel, or anti-Western, card whenever it was convenient for them, from the Soviet days. They’ve always talked to terrorists. It’s not even a question of talking—it’s collaborating,” she said.


Defund the UN’s Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Reducing U.S. funding would have an impact. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), “The United States contributes 22% of the OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights]’s regular budget, far more than any other U.N. member. The U.S. contribution accounts for approximately $29 million of the office’s $134 million regular budget for 2022.” The U.S. also voluntarily earmarked another $26.7 million for the OHCHR last year. Put simply, the U.S. has financial leverage.

Anne Herzberg, a legal advisor at the watchdog group NGO Monitor, agrees with the campaign to “defund and disband” the COI. “The UNHRC is incapable under its current organization to conduct an impartial inquiry of Israel,” she said.

Ostrovsky stated, however, that “there is very little likelihood under current circumstances that the Commission will be significantly revised or cancelled.”

So, what might the U.S. and its allies do? First, demand transparency. Herzberg observed, “The COI is … refusing to publish any lists of who they have met with. Based on my own investigation, I believe they have only met with anti-Zionist Israeli Jews.”

Joshua Kern of 9BR Chambers, a legal expert on international criminal law, and Herzberg “have written at least five times to the COI seeking a meeting to discuss our research and provide a mainstream Israeli viewpoint and perspective.” That meeting has not occurred.

If U.S. President Joe Biden insists that the U.S. remain on the UNHRC, then the administration should work with Volker Türk, the newly announced UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. Orde Kittrie, a senior fellow at FDD, says Türk could “reorient” the UNHRC. Beyond public statements, he could appoint only those with “a proven record of independence and impartiality” and “refer for an audit—by either the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services or by the U.N. Board of Auditors—the blatant bias of the COI commissioners and of the special rapporteur, both prior to their appointment and in their subsequent performance.”

Ostrovsky, who doubts participation by the U.S. or any nation can reform the UNHRC, said, “Congress should urgently pass the COI Elimination Act and ensure that no U.S. funding goes towards this sham of a commission. The commission members should also be denied visa entry into the United States, where they propose to lobby Congress for support, to advance their racist objectives.”

As with so many follies at the United Nations, the American response matters. Congress should start by cutting funding to the COI.


Daniel Gordis: An Israeli soldier probably killed Shireen Abu Akleh — what should happen to him now?
Among my friends, colleagues and neighbors, one thing was very clear while another was not. What was obvious to all of us, and remains obvious to me, was that no Israeli soldier intended to kill her. What was less obvious was the question of who killed her. Especially as analysis of who was positioned where began to emerge, it seemed quite possible that a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier had tragically ended her life. Why Israel took so long to acknowledge that, I do not know. There may have been good reasons, there may not have been.

Of course, Israel’s finally admitting that one of its soldiers may well have mistakenly shot her did nothing to calm the international winds. The Palestinians, on message as always, insisted that the killing was intentional. The Americans, always happy to hold Israel accountable to standards that they never apply to their own soldiers, suggested that Israel re-evaluate its rules of engagement.

(You may recall that when the United States, after months of denial, finally admitted that the killing of ten people, including seven children, by an American drone in Kabul had been a mistake, no one was surprised that that was what had unfolded. But no one suggested that the US alter its rules of engagement.)

Israel will, I’m sure, draw conclusions and perhaps even make operational changes—but not due to American pressure.

Prime Minister Lapid rightly rejected outright the American pressure for Israel to review its rules of engagement. Said PM Yair Lapid, as would any self-respecting leader—"Nobody will tell Israel how to protect itself.”

Reexamining the rules of engagement is not the only international demand that Israel is rejecting outright. It is also rejecting calls for prosecution of the soldier who fired the shot. The government has rejected that demand outright, to the relief of Israelis across the political spectrum.

(Is anyone calling for prosecution of those American soldiers who operated the drone? Of course not. This is about the Jewish state, as it always is.)

Why do Israelis not want the soldier prosecuted (assuming he can be identified, which is not at all unlikely)? Because Israelis think it’s okay for soldiers to shoot journalists? Because Israelis are unwilling to hold their military accountable for terrible errors? Anyone familiar with even the rudiments of Israeli history can recall numerous instances in which the people demanded that the army be held accountable. At times, rage over the army’s behavior has even toppled governments.

What, then, could it be? Why the resistance to prosecution here? Why the zero interest in even knowing the name of the soldier?


Ben-Dror Yemini: U.S. is Israel's closest friend, but even friends need a reality check sometimes
On May 11, Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist working for Al Jazeera, was killed by an errant bullet during a shoot-out between Palestinian terrorists and the IDF. Last week—after much sensational media coverage and disproportionate pressure from the U.S.—the Israeli government announced that a thorough investigation had concluded that the bullet was likely fired by an IDF soldier. The Biden administration then demanded that Jerusalem review its military rules of engagement so that such incidents are not repeated—a demand Prime Minister Lapid rejected out of hand. The Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini comments:

A few years ago, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said that when he wants to learn how to protect innocent lives, he learns from Israel, who does it best. . . . Dempsey’s statement is backed by all respectable research that has examined the data on uninvolved civilians who were wounded or killed during armed conflicts. . . . Even Israel’s harshest critics would have to admit that fewer innocent lives are lost during operations conducted by the IDF than in those carried out by the U.S. military.

The same goes for the Abu Akleh case. Israel conducted an extensive investigation, and even if our bullet did kill the Al Jazeera reporter, it was done in error, not with intention. The investigation was conducted and published because the IDF is scrutinized more than any other army in the world.

Israel exhibits the highest of standards during its operations, yet is still criticized by the U.S. for harming innocent lives. . . . Even if a small-scale crisis [in U.S.-Israel relations] were to emerge, the prime minister was correct in telling our dearest friend: “You’ve crossed the line.”
Utah Governor Says Upholding Israel’s Security Should be a Primary US Goal
One of the primary goals of US foreign policy should be ensuring the security of the State of Israel, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told JNS in an interview during his first-ever visit to the Jewish state.

Cox, who won his state’s 2020 gubernatorial vote and was inaugurated on Jan. 4, 2021, becoming the 18th person to hold the position, was unable to visit Israel until now due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He told JNS that he had taken a hard look at those parts of the world that could “be most important for us to improve economic relations and other issues, and Israel became a very clear and natural choice … because we share so much in common and I just felt that this is where we needed to be.”

Cox began his political career in 2004 when he was elected as a city councilor of Fairview, Utah. He was voted in as the city’s mayor the following year and in 2008 was chosen to become Sanpete County commissioner.

He was elected to the Utah House of Representatives in 2012, before becoming the state’s lieutenant governor some 12 months later.

Israeli Consul General to the Pacific Southwest Hillel Newman, who was instrumental in arranging Cox’s visit to Israel, told JNS that the governor was leading a 66-strong delegation focused on enhancing bilateral trade, humanitarian cooperation, advances in the life sciences and communication with American governors.

During his four-day trip, Cox met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum, and held talks with other high-ranking officials, including from the Foreign Ministry.
Amb. Dore Gold: Israel’s Ongoing Role in the Struggle over Mediterranean Natural Gas
When the present Israeli government came into power, one of the tangible changes of policy in comparison with that which was followed by the previous Netanyahu government was in the area of energy policy. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Energy Minster, Yuval Steinitz, stressed the vital importance for Israel of extracting natural gas from the new finds in the Eastern Mediterranean as a top priority.

In contrast, Energy Minister Karine Elharrar declared in December 2021 that Israel would no longer award licenses for exploring for natural gas within Israel’s economic zone for the upcoming year. Instead, she stressed that 2022 would be “the year of Renewable Energies” and that “natural gas can wait.” In the year ahead, her Energy Ministry would set aside the policy recommendations of the previous government’s report on natural gas policy for Israel, which included a specific recommendation for further gas exploration.

Israel now appears to be in the midst of another major policy shift in its gas export policy for 2022. True, Elharrar recently stressed in an interview that “the energy future of the world is green, not gas.” But the war in Europe over Ukraine in 2022 altered gas markets yet again. The land battles in Ukraine have forced the Europeans to come up with a new strategy to keep the same quantities of gas flowing, albeit from new sources, given the fact that nearly 40 percent of Europe’s gas supply came from Russia, which was seeking to retaliate against European governments that supported Ukraine in the newest European war.

In July 2022, 26 out of 27 EU member states agreed to limit natural gas consumption. They also sought to diversify their gas supplies and that meant, above all, cutting back Russian imports, which they decided would be reduced by two-thirds by the end of 2022.

By June 2022, senior European officials began visiting the states of the Eastern Mediterranean with greater frequency in order to formalize their access to the best alternative they had to Russian gas. For example, the EU signed an MOU with both Israel and Egypt that would increase natural gas exports to Europe. The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, was in Cairo on June 17 to announce a new gas forum for export of natural gas to Europe.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Man Wrong On Every Major Global Issue Still Considered Expert(satire)
A frequent guest on news and current events programs who provides analysis and predictions regarding developments in the international and domestic US arenas continues to appear on those programs despite repeated instances of astoundingly delusional analysis, viewers report.

Matthew Malley, who has yet to make a substantial true forecast of world events, still features on the Tucker Carlson Show on the Fox Network, with scattered engagements on other channels, even though none of the twenty-eight explanations or prognostications he has offered on those platforms has occurred in reality.

Among other whoppers, Malley has warned of an eruption of violence throughout the Arab world if then-President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the embassy there; saw “the end” for Trump at least six times over the course of the latter’s presidency; thought Britain would vote against Brexit; predicted a swift Russian victory in the current Russia-Ukraine war, back in February; called Palestinian grievances the main issue standing in the way of Israeli-Arab conciliation; urged Europe to deepen its dependence on Russian fossil fuels; talked up the effectiveness of plain cloth masks against the spread of COVID-19; predicted a drop in violent crime; called the US southern border issue “resolved”; doubted the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v Wade; called a Taliban takeover upon US withdrawal from Afghanistan unlikely; still believes COVID-19 came from a wet-market bat; and lauds COVID school-closure policies that disproportionately harmed the education and development of minority and marginalized children.
Druze Students Outperform on Israeli Matriculation Exams, Ministry Data Shows
Israeli students from Druze schools are among the most likely to successfully complete their high school matriculation exams, according to data released by the Education Ministry on Tuesday.

Data for the 2020-2021 school year found that the Druze towns of Buq’ata in the Golan Heights and Peki’in in the Upper Galilee had the highest rate — 100% — of students eligible to receive their high school matriculation certificates, known as teudat bagrut. The document, which is a prerequisite for students seeking higher education, is awarded to those who pass the Ministry of Education’s matriculation exams.

Other towns on the list — which generally have relatively small class sizes — are the Druze town of Beit Jann on Mount Meron (99%), the Arab town of Kaukab Abu al-Hija in the Lower Galilee (99%), and the Druze town of Hurfeish in the Upper Galilee (98%).

Also high performing were the settlements of Elkana and Ariel in the West Bank, with a 99% and 96% eligibility rate respectively, local media reported.


PMW: Fatah boasts: Arafat deliberately started the intifada terror campaign - testimony by Arafat’s advisor who was there
This week, Fatah posted an old interview with Mamdouh Nawfal who served as Yasser Arafat's Advisor on Internal Affairs in 2000. Nawfal described in detail Arafat’s decision to take advantage of then Israeli Parliament Member Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 to start a terror campaign that would last a “long” time. The terror orchestrated by Arafat and the PA lasted 4.5 years, during which time Palestinian terrorists, including many members of Arafat’s PA security forces funded by the West, murdered 1,100 Israelis.

Palestinian Media Watch reported at the time, and has added extensive documentation since, that the “second Intifada” was a terror campaign initiated and directed by Arafat, contrary to claims of the Western governments and some Israeli leaders who were misled into believing that Arafat was merely unable to stop it.

In the interview originally broadcast on Al-Jazeera on Feb. 3, 2009, and posted by Fatah on Facebook on Sept. 6, 2022, Arafat’s advisor Nawfal described that already on the day of Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, Arafat “dispatch[ed] many people under the name Guardians of Al-Aqsa” to initiate violence.

The very next day he gave the orders that the Palestinian terror was to be “everywhere”:
“The orders and instructions to the Security Forces and the Tanzim (i.e., Fatah terror faction) were to take action after the Friday prayers. The activity was not limited to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The instructions to the Fatah organizations were to take action in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and everywhere.”

[Facebook page of the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Sept. 6, 2022]

Arafat’s plan was that the terror campaign would be “long,” and that Fatah and not Hamas would lead it: “The path is still long, and we will see who will lead.’”


The Al Aqsa is in Danger Libel
For over 100 years, Palestinian leaders have spewed lies about the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, claiming that it is "in danger" because of a Jewish/Israeli conspiracy to destroy it.


Murderers of civilians are “moral,” “battle continues… blood for blood,” says Fatah official
Fatah Jenin Secretary Ata Abu Rmeileh: “Our fighters Ra’ad Zaidan [Hazem] (i.e., terrorist, murdered 3), Diya Hamarsheh (i.e., terrorist, murdered 5), As’ad Al-Rifai, and Subhi Khamaiseh [Abu Shuqeir] (i.e., terrorists, murdered 3), who struck the enemy in its home, in the heart of the Zionist colonies in occupied Palestine - 1948 (i.e., Israel) – they refused to kill women, children, and elderly. That is the morality of the fighters and resistance members from among our Palestinian people today… There are Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fighters (i.e., Fatah’s military wing) with us today, and we say to the entire world and to the occupation: The battle is open and it will not be stopped. The battle will continue... The occupation only understands the language of force. There are no negotiations and no peace. Today the language is the language of resistance. There needs to be blood for blood. The occupation is aiming all kinds of weapons at our Palestinian people, American and Western weapons, and it is the Palestinian people’s right to use all the tools of resistance, rifle against rifle. We are completely certain that we will triumph for this pure blood.”
[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, July 24, 2022]

Ra'ad Hazem - 28-year-old Palestinian terrorist who shot and murdered 3 Israeli civilians - 27-year-olds Tomer Morad and Eytam Magini and 35-year-old Barak Lufan - and wounded 14 others when he opened fire on a crowded bar on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv on April 7, 2022. Hazem escaped the scene of the attack and was found hiding near a mosque in Jaffa by Israeli security forces several hours later. He opened fire on them and was killed in the ensuing shootout.


PA Minister of Justice approves certificates for terrorist prisoners who took course on human rights
Official PA TV newsreader: “The Center for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights – the Hurryyat Association organized a class graduation ceremony for prisoners in Ramon Prison, after they completed a course on international law and human rights... The parents received the certificates of the prisoners... [who] completed 100 hours of training over six months.”

Director of the Hurryyat Association Hilmi Al-A’araj: “The course lasted six months… 36 prisoners completed it... The [PA] Minister of Justice approved the certificates and the [PA] Ministry of Justice signed them. [Official PA TV News, Aug. 24, 2022]




IDF intel chief: If not for Hezbollah, Lebanon would have joined the Abraham Accords
If it weren’t for Hezbollah, Lebanon would have been part of the Abraham Accords, said the head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva on Tuesday morning.

“I am convinced that Lebanon would have been part of the Abraham Accords if not for Hezbollah,” he said at Reichman University’s Counter-Terrorism Conference in Herzilya.

“Hezbollah is an organization that wears three hats: the protector of the Shia community, an Iranian proxy financed and backed by Tehran, and the protector of Lebanon but who took the Lebanese people hostage," he said

Israel normalized ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan with the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020. Since then, ties between the countries have increased with bilateral defense agreements signed, over 150 meetings between security officials, dozens of joint exercises and over $3 billion USD in defense industry cooperation. On Monday the Chief of Staff of Morroco’s military landed in Israel and was received at the Kirya Military Headquarters with an Honor Guard.

According to Haliva, Lebanon is like every other country where Iran has an influence-Iraq, Yemen, and Syria.

“They are at the bottom in every parameter of failed countries,” he said, adding, "The people of Lebanon get up in the morning, try to turn on the electricity and it doesn’t turn on. The value of the currency is also in a terrible state, life there is very difficult.”

Meanwhile, “Israel is a country with assets like water, technology and food in addition to military power. Arab countries are aware of this, and that's what led to the Abraham Accords.”
Hezbollah: 40 years of unprecedented state-sponsored terrorism
Tensions between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel are higher than usual these days, due to threats being made by the Iranian-backed terror organization to launch attacks on Israel’s Karish offshore gas rig in the Mediterranean Sea. According to Hezbollah’s latest “equation,” the threats will be realized if Israel activates the rig before coming to an agreement with Lebanon on maritime borders, in United States-mediated negotiations.

For the past three months, Hezbollah and its Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, have released an unending stream of threats, as well as ideological and religious justifications for violence, including passages from the Koran about God assisting “Muslims that fight injustice,” according to reports produced by the Alma defense research center in northern Israel.

These tensions are just the latest chapter in Hezbollah’s 40-year history, which began when Shi’ite Lebanese operatives founded it in 1982 with Iranian backing, following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon that same year.

“There is no equivalent for such massive support over so many years for any other terror organization by a state in modern history,” said professor Boaz Ganor, founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya.

In assessing Hezbollah’s achievements and failures, Ganor told JNS that while Hezbollah has steadily grown stronger over the past four decades and has many achievements to its name, “one must remember that it did not do this by itself, but rather, due to it being an Iranian proxy.”
MEMRI: The Iran Nuclear Negotiations: Five Shams And One Truth
For many years, the West has been trying to prevent – and later slow down – Iran's efforts to become a nuclear power. Everybody knows that Iran wants nuclear weapons;[1] thus, the very idea of negotiations is farcical. Within the big farce that is the JCPOA, there are four specific shams that fully expose it for what it is.

Sham 1: The Text Of The JCPOA Allows For Nuclear Weapons Development
The JCPOA was presented as an agreement that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet in reality, the text of the agreement explicitly allows Iran – subject to certain conditions – to acquire the technical know-how and peripheral capabilities needed to develop a nuclear bomb.

Article 82 in Section T of the JCPOA's Annex 1 reads:
"82.2. Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using multi-point explosive detonation systems suitable for a nuclear explosive device [is prohibited], unless approved by the Joint Commission for non-nuclear purposes and subject to monitoring.

"82.3. Designing, developing, fabricating, acquiring, or using explosive diagnostic systems (streak cameras, framing cameras and flash x-ray cameras) suitable for the development of a nuclear explosive device [is prohibited], unless approved by the Joint Commission for non-nuclear purposes and subject to monitoring."

Importantly, the IAEA was intentionally excluded from these clauses. Even when the IAEA asked to monitor Iran in 2017 pursuant to Section T, its director-general Yukiya Amano accepted the argument that the IAEA has no authority to enforce Section T, and that this is a "problem for the Joint Commission." However, the Joint Commission lacks any ability to monitor Iran's nuclear activities.[2]

The JCPOA required Iran's 8.5-ton inventory[3] of enriched uranium to be transferred to Russia to be kept in its custody,[4] but in reality the uranium disappeared, evading IAEA oversight, as attested at a House of Representatives hearing by the Obama State Department's Iran coordinator Stephen Mull.[5]
Gantz sounds alarm at UN, says Iran 'tripled Fordow enrichment capacity'
Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned on Monday at the UN that Iran's enrichment capacity has reached worrying proportions.

Gantz spoke with ambassadors representing the UN Security Council members as well envoys from Arab states who are part of the Abraham Accords with Israel, telling them Iran increased the number of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium and made headway in its overall production know-how in underground facilities.

According to Gantz, who presented the findings of the Israeli intelligence, what was of particular concern was the degree to which Iran can enrich uranium at the research center in Fordow, which is hidden under mountains and where Iran was not allowed to conduct any high-level enrichment. "At the Fordow facility, Iran has tripled its enrichment capacity," he warned, adding that overall, the number of underground centrifuges in Iran has doubled over the past year and that it has the ability to break out toward a bomb – enrich enough uranium to 90% purity – rather quickly.

At the beginning of his remarks, the defense minister said that "the biggest destabilizing factor in the Middle East is Iran." He went on to say, "Iran can lead to terrorism and an arms race. I believe that this can be prevented and the time for action is now. Iran threatens the world economy, and energy resources, affects food prices and trade, on freedom of navigation and stability in the Middle East. It is doing all of this now, if it has a nuclear umbrella this will worsen. Israeli intelligence indicates that Iran has made significant progress in its nuclear program."

Gantz stated that the international community must not accept a nuclear deal that would let Iran off the hook, amid reports of drafts being circulated in an attempt to overcome the various differences between the two sides.
Blinken: Iran nuclear deal ‘unlikely in the near term’
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that a nuclear agreement with Iran was “unlikely” in the near term.

Speaking in Mexico City, Blinken said that Iran’s response to a draft agreement put forward by the European Union “is clearly a step backwards.”

He added, “You’ve heard the European Union and in particular you’ve heard the so-called E3—Germany, France and the UK—pronounce themselves on the latest developments. I can’t give you a timeline except to say, again, that Iran seems either unwilling or unable to do what is necessary to reach an agreement and they continue to try to introduce extraneous issues to the negotiation that make an agreement less likely.”

Blinken reiterated that “certainly what we’ve seen in the last week is a step backward, away from the likelihood of any kind of near-term agreement.”

Blinken’s comments echo those made on September 5 by the E.U. High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. He stated that a new agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is “in danger” after the U.S. and Iranian positions diverged, the Financial Times reported last week.

Borrell, who has been chairing the mediated negotiations between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic, said, “The positions are not closer,” adding, ”If the process does not converge, then the whole process is in danger.


Iran arrests several over killing of general it blamed on Israel
Iran said Tuesday that several people had been arrested over the assassination of a top general that Tehran has blamed on Israel.

Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was shot dead outside his Tehran home in May by two assailants on a motorcycle.

“Several people have been arrested in the case of the assassination of martyr Khodai,” judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi told a news conference, Reuters reported, citing state media.

“The necessary legal orders have been issued for them and the case is under investigation,” Setayeshi said.

Days after the killing, the New York Times cited an unnamed intelligence official as saying Israel told US officials it was behind the Khodaei assassination, which it carried out to warn Tehran against the continued operation of a covert unit the target helped lead.

According to the Times report, Israeli officials claimed Khodaei was deputy head of the so-called Unit 840, a shadowy division within the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force that carries out kidnappings and assassinations of figures outside of Iran, including against Israelis. Khodaei was specifically in charge of Unit 840’s Middle East operations, but he had been involved in attempted terror attacks against Israelis, Europeans and American civilians and government officials in Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia, the UAE and Cyprus in the last two years alone.

His killing was meant to warn Iran that the group should stop its activities, the intelligence official quoted by the Times said.
Unidentified saboteurs set fire to Iran oil well, causing damage
Unidentified assailants set fire to an oil well in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan on Tuesday, an oil company official said, adding that it had been brought under control.

“One of the wells in the Shadegan field was set on fire by unidentified people this morning,” the head of the state-owned Marun Oil and Gas Production Company, Ghobad Nasseri, told state television.

“The fire was immediately brought under control,” Nasseri said, adding that the damage was still being assessed.

The Shadegan field has a capacity of 110,000 barrels of crude per day, the television said.

Khuzestan province, on the border with Iraq, contains most of Iran’s onshore oil reserves.

Earlier this month, Iran reported an accidental explosion at the oil refinery in the province’s third largest city Abadan, which caused damage but no casualties.

Industrial accidents are common in Iran, with some blaming US sanctions, which severely limit its ability to import spare parts for maintenance.
Did the world just witness the first evidence of Iran-Russia drone war on Ukraine?
Ukraine claiming it shot down an Iranian Shahed-136 drone, if true, would be the first evidence that Iranian drones are being used by Russia. Here's why it's a big deal.

Russia had sent delegations to Iran to examine the drones earlier this year and the first shipment allegedly arrived in Russia in August. That Russia would be able to put them into action so quickly may be surprising.

On the other hand, Russia is losing ground to a Ukrainian offensive and Moscow prefers to sacrifice either non-Russians or equipment in its fight against Ukraine while trying to avoid the conscription of large numbers of men in Moscow for the war.

Why is this important now?
Back in July, US reports circulated that Russia was looking into Iranian drones. By August 6, Russia had already deployed the drones to the frontline. By September 7, the US had sanctioned Iranian firms involved in the manufacture and shipping of drones to Russia.

So which drones are we talking about? According to reports, the drones are the Shahed 171 and also the Shahed 129 and 191. The 191 is a large Delta-wing-shaped drone, and the Shahed 129 looks like a Predator drone, similar to a small plane.

Reports also circulated that the Moahjer-6 was one of the drones Russia was looking at. The US has said that the Russians were training with the drones in early August. Were the Iranian drones operational? Will they survive the harsh environment and will Russia produce them locally?


Iranian Army Holds Joint Exercise With 150 UAVs, Including Reconnaissance, Suicide, Missile Drones
On August 24, 2022, IRINN (Iran) aired a report about the first-ever multibranch UAV exercise held by the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. The exercise involved 150 drones from four of the Army’s branches, and the report showed footage from the Army’s UAV Base 313, which houses over 100 drones. It also described the operations of the Kaman-12 and Kaman-22 reconnaissance drones, of monitoring stations located in the Anark area, and of the Omid suicide drone, which it compared to the Israeli-made Harop drone used by Azerbaijan. General Hamid Vahedi, the Commander of the Army’s Air Force, said that the drones are equipped with missiles and bombs produced by Iran’s Ministry of Defense.

The following day, Channel 1 (Iran) also aired a report about the exercise. This report showcased the following drones: the Ababil-4; the Arash; the long-range Bavar-5 drone, which has classified capabilities; and the vertical-take-off Homa drone. The drones were being launched from the deck of the Lavan battleship in the northern Indian Ocean. In addition, the report showed the Chamroush and Zhubin drones being launched from a Fateh-class submarine, and it showed Karrar bomber drones being prepared for launch. Moreover, it showcased Omid drones and the Mohajer drones, which carry Almas and Ghaem missiles.




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