Tuesday, February 21, 2023

02/21 Links Pt1: Israel, PA said to have been conducting secret talks for months; U.S. Ambassador to Israel: 60% of My Time Is Helping Palestinians

From Ian:

Bassam Tawil: Killing Jews Brings Light into The Hearts of Palestinians
Just last week, the head of [Fatah], Mahmoud Abbas, received a phone call from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who reportedly promised to put pressure on Israel to halt its "unilateral measures." Needless to say, Blinken did not complain to Abbas about Fatah's incitement or the celebration of terror attacks by many Palestinians.

What makes a human being say intentionally crushing an infant beneath the wheels of a car makes the perpetrator a "hero"? What makes them call the car-ramming murder of 8- and 6-year-old brothers a "heroic commando operation"?

This is the result of decades of anti-Israel incitement and brainwashing by Palestinian leaders, which their funders have never told them to stop. As far as most Palestinians are concerned: 1) All Jews are "settlers," and 2) Israel is one big settlement that must be eliminated.

Furthermore, finding humor in a cartoon of a terror attack victim's head on a platter about to be eaten as part of a traditional Palestinian feast is hard to comprehend. Why do we keep hearing Palestinians claim that terror and glorification of the murder of innocent civilians is a "natural response"?

There is nothing "natural" about murdering Jewish children waiting at a bus stop. There is nothing "natural" about murdering unarmed civilians outside a synagogue. There is nothing "natural" about dancing and handing out candy to celebrate terrorism and the murder of Jews, or of anyone.

The EU, the US, and other international funders of the Palestinians continue to finance a government that refuses not only to condemn terror, but that actually grows it like a lucrative slave-farm for terrorists. For some Palestinians, such as the leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that even includes sending women and children to blow themselves up and using babies as human shields. The leaders do not, of course, send out members of their own families for this "achievement."

Sadly, these funders do not even ask the Palestinian leaders, as a condition of their funding, to stop calling for violence and to stop rewarding murder. One has to ask: Why not? If you go to a bank and request a mortgage, the bank will stipulate conditions. That is "natural."

Considering the undisguised vitriol of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in support of terrorism -- with both words and money -- how could Israel seriously be expected to engage in any fruitful peace talks with the Palestinians?
As a New Round of Fighting Seems Poised to Begin, Palestinians Must Ask Themselves What They Have Gained from Violence
Despite the wave of terrorist attacks in the past several weeks, and the various raids the IDF has conducted on the West Bank to apprehend the perpetrators or to prevent further terror, there has not been, in Shany Mor’s view, a “spiraling escalation.” Nonetheless, Mor worries that the situation of relative peace that has held since the quashing of the second intifada is more tenuous than ever. He also warns against pending legislation that would legalize the Jewish village of ?omesh in Samaria, which was built in contravention of Israeli law:

The proposed law . . . essentially tells the armed thugs who violated Israeli law for the past few years, commandeered private property, engaged in violent scuffles with the Israel police and the IDF, and were linked repeatedly to harassment of Palestinian civilians nearby, that this is and was a legitimate way to pursue political interests.

At the same time, writes Mor, one must also look to the other side of the conflict to understand the present tensions:

Any serious discussion of the Palestinian state should ask whether or not life has improved since the Palestinians rejected statehood at the end of the Oslo process in 2000 and opted instead for violent confrontation with Israel. This isn’t a rhetorical question for Israeli public diplomacy, but one the Palestinians should be asking their leadership.

Yet to pose this question would be to acknowledge a kind of agency that exalted victimhood doesn’t allow for. It is now nearly 23 years since Yasir Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s Camp David Summit and instead gambled on a violent terror campaign in the hope of better terms. There was no way of knowing then that this gamble would turn out so badly. At the time, it wasn’t viewed as a particularly controversial decision; what’s striking, however, is how that perception hasn’t changed.
PFLP-linked NGOs Whitewash Terror in COI Submission
On February 2, 2023, three European-funded Palestinian NGOs with clearly documented links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization – Addameer, Al-Haq, and Al-Mezan – published a submission to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)’s permanent “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” (COI).1 The document again accuses Israel of “Policies to Maintain and Entrench its Settler-Colonial Apartheid Regime: Violent Suppression of Demonstrations and Ensuing Wilful Killing and Injuries, Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Smear and Delegitimisation Campaigns against Human Rights Defenders and Organisations.”

In their submission, in addition to the false accusations regarding Israel, the NGOs whitewash acts of violence by Palestinians, omitting core evidence linking Palestinians to the terror and terrorist organizations that maintain the conflict.

The following analysis provides key information omitted by these NGOs, highlighting their lack of credibility and misleading presentation. If the commissioners were genuinely motivated to independently investigate, as they claim, the COI would conduct a serious and independent investigation into the incidents, and not merely copy and paste reports from its ideological NGO allies.

European-funding
Since 2021, Al-Haq has received funding from the EU, France, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and Sweden.
Since 2021, Al-Mezan has received funding from the EU, the Netherlands, Sweden
Since 2021, Addameer has received funding from Ireland and from various local governments in Spain.

Death of Said Odeh
The NGO submission states that 16 year-old Said Yousef Mohammed Odeh was shot by IDF forces when “Palestinian protesters, who threw stones at the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces], were met with Israeli excessive use of force, including the firing of tear gas canisters, and live ammunition.”

In contrast, according to the IDF, Odeh was shot dead by Israeli forces responding to “a number of suspects [who] hurled firebombs at troops,” near Beita, on May 5, 2021.

The NGO submission makes no mention of firebombs, nor does it indicate Odeh’s apparent access to weapons – as seen in this picture posted on Facebook. The NGOs, obscuring this essential evidence, instead used an innocuous image of Odeh to erase the reality.


Israel, PA said to have been conducting secret talks for months
Senior aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been holding talks with Palestinian Authority officials for months through a secret back channel, Axios reported on Monday.

According to the report, which cited three sources briefed on the issue, the United States helped facilitate the talks, which were initiated by the Palestinians ahead of the swearing-in of the Netanyahu government in December.

P.A. Minister Hussein al-Sheikh reportedly passed a message to Netanyahu’s office through the Biden administration indicating Ramallah’s willingness to work with the new Israeli government. Al-Sheikh, who is also the secretary general of the PLO Executive Committee, passed along a second message of the same effect message after the swearing-in.

Netanyahu agreed to open the back channel, and appointed National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi to lead the secret talks, which have focused on day-to-day issues in Judea and Samaria and de-escalating tensions amid a wave of Palestinian terrorism, according to Axios.

Hanegbi and al-Sheikh spoke several times on the phone and also met in person, according to the report.

The most recent meeting took place in recent days, and focused on hashing out the understandings that led the P.A. to nix a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn Israeli construction beyond the Green Line.
MEMRI: Three Kings And One Joker: The 'Return' Of Arab Diplomacy
Diplomacy is, of course, a tool of statecraft. It is one important way states exert influence and seek to project power on the international stage. All nations do so, constrained only in their ability to carry out effective diplomacy by factors such as their strength, location, connections, ambitions, and leadership.

In the broader Middle East, it has long looked – and it was generally true – that Arab states were in disarray. Torn by war, extremism, major social, political, and economic problems, corruption, and poor leadership, the Arab world looked very much at a disadvantage compared to more assertive non-Arab powers in the region: Israel, Turkey, and Iran. That reality has not fully changed, although both Turkey and Iran are currently undergoing major difficulties associated with the nature of those two regimes.

Everyone in the region does diplomacy but that does not mean that they can do it equally well. The diplomatic skill may be there but a country may be constrained by its dependence on foreign powers (or foreign money), internal strife or political considerations. Some countries in the region are basket cases, making them passive players when it comes to diplomacy. Other states play their role well – one thinks of Oman – but otherwise are small actors on the stage. Countries like Jordan and Egypt, skilled diplomatic players still, are limited by their dependence on others because of economic or security considerations. Iraq – a substantial country like Egypt – could play a more consequential role in the region but it is somewhat limited by internal struggles for power not yet fully resolved.

But over the past few years we have seen a resurgence in Arab diplomacy by a few countries in the region that have stood out in terms of their independence, impact, and single-minded will to exert influence and advance their interests. All four are important. In my view, three of these states are generally exerting this diplomacy with a view toward a more stable and ultimately better region while a fourth plays a spoiler role enabling some of the region's most retrograde and destructive tendencies. I have dubbed these four states, after the playing cards, three "Kings" – Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia – and one "Joker" – Qatar – the troublemaker. These states, all of them authoritarian hereditary monarchies, have undertaken policies and initiatives for their own reasons and agendas and while I may disagree with some of these policies, sometimes strongly, I can see the logic of what they are trying to do as seen through their own eyes.

All four states are in a general sense "independent," in that they are motivated almost entirely by purely internal self-interest and have been able to maneuver successfully even when confronted with pressure from outside powers, including the United States and the European Union.

Morocco under King Muhammad VI has been able to make major breakthroughs in consolidating its hold over the Western Sahara region, getting Western recognition for it, and has leveraged a combination of factors, including being a "gatekeeper" for the EU, to gain the advantage over its neighbor Spain and bitter rival Algeria. The fact that Morocco was also caught up in the "Qatargate" scandal trying to influence Eurocrats only underscores its ambitions. This is a country that is playing its diplomatic cards very well despite lacking the oil riches of the other three states.
Eli Lake: The Iraq War, 20 Years Later
Did the war “free Iraqis”? If you compare their lives with those of Belgians or Americans today, then Iraqis are not free. But that is primarily because of the presence of sectarian militias and the reality of staggering corruption. Indeed, these are the two main reasons Freedom House ranks Iraq as “unfree,” despite its contested successive elections. But are Iraqis freer in 2023 than they were under Saddam Hussein’s tyranny? Without question, they are. Saddam created a Stalinist nightmare in Iraq, empowering the secret police to disappear citizens. Neighbors spied on neighbors. Bureaucrats lived in constant fear. When Saddam’s son Uday was placed in charge of Iraq’s Olympic committee, he would often torture at a private prison in the committee’s offices the athletes who were bested in international competition.

Finally, is the world safer now that Saddam no longer is in charge of Iraq? If you asked that question in 2006, before Bush chose General David Petraeus to oversee a new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, the answer would have been no. In 2006, al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-supported death squads were engaged in a competitive ethnic cleansing that risked spilling over into a regional war. But by the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency, al-Qaeda’s insurgency was largely defeated and Iraq was on a better trajectory. After 2011, when Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq, its Shia prime minister, Nouri al-Malaki, persecuted the Anbari tribes that sided with America against al-Qaeda. This created another opening for al-Qaeda’s successor, the Islamic State. After the Islamic State took over Mosul and was threatening Baghdad in 2014, there would have been merit in denying that the world had been made safer by the Iraq war. But the Islamic State’s caliphate was defeated as well.

In 2023, Iraq still has much work to do. And yet its current condition represents a historic achievement that has not been recognized. Iraq has continued to have successive elections, its economy has grown, and Iraqis have managed to save their country twice from fanatic terror armies seeking to rebuild a lost caliphate. To evaluate the war that rid Iraq of a sadistic crime family, one must imagine what Iraq would have resembled had Saddam or his sons remained in power. In that light, the plagues of corruption, ethnic militias, and Iranian influence look like a bargain.
Israel raps US for critical UN Security Council statement
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said the Security Council’s priorities are backward. He held up a picture of brothers Asher and Yaakov Paley, two children killed this month by a Palestinian terrorist in a car-ramming attack.

The Palestinians’ most important international commitment was their obligation to combat terror, according to Erdan. “Yet today, the Palestinian Authority not only refuses to take real action to prevent terrorism, it actively, for many years now, stokes the flames of violence,” he told the Security Council.

Erdan quoted a Palestinian state television program in which a young Palestinian girl recites a poem about receiving a machine gun and rifle from her father to achieve victory over Israel and America.

“By glorifying terrorists and paying them money, the P.A. is breeding a culture of hatred and evil, which makes reconciliation impossible,” said the ambassador. He emphasized that evidence was irrefutable that “the Palestinian culture of hate and terror is real. How can this council justify ignoring it and never addressing it?”

Erdan chided the council for the “concern” and “dismay” it expresses of Israeli actions, but not of persistent, systemic Palestinian terrorism.

“Building permits in our homeland spark international uproar, while dead Jewish children illicit nothing. This is an utter disgrace,” said Erdan.

Erdan asked why the Security Council fails to discuss well-known illegal Palestinian construction in Israeli-controlled Area C of Judea and Samaria.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the council that “the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians is unconscionable. And the United States supports Israel’s right to self-defense.”

Thomas-Greenfield made what she called an unequivocal statement. “We strongly oppose Israel’s announcement that it will advance thousands of settlement units,” she said. “And we strongly oppose Israel’s announcement that it will begin a process to retroactively legalize nine outposts in the West Bank that were previously illegal under Israeli law.”

Remaining in line with a change in U.S. policy formulated under the Trump administration, Thomas-Greenfield did not deem Israeli settlements illegal. She said the measures “exacerbate tensions” and “harm trust between the parties.”
Israeli Ambassador Erdan shows photos of murdered Israeli kids at UNSC
Amid heightening tensions between Washington and Jerusalem on Monday as the United Nations Security Council issued an uncommon consensus statement of "dismay" and "concern" over Israeli settlement activity, Israel's ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan criticized the members of the Council. The ambassador also told the stories of the 11 Israelis murdered in the recent terror attacks, including two young brothers, aged six and eight, who were murdered in a car-ramming attack in Jerusalem.

Midway through his heated remarks to the Council, Erdan held up a photo of brothers Yaakov Yisrael, six, and Asher Menahem Paley, eight, who were killed by a terrorist earlier this month. The ambassador went on to dedicate a moment of silence to their memory and the memory of the nine other victims of terror.

"These two beautiful children were murdered just for being Jews," Erdan said. "Today’s meeting should have been convened to condemn the price paid by innocent Israelis for the Palestinian Authority’s incitement and hate. I will not let the victims be forgotten. I will now rise for a minute of silence in their memory and the memory of all the other victims of Palestinian terror. I pray for their memory and I pray that you think of them in the future when discussing the true obstacles to peace in our region."

The UNSC's joint statement, a two-page document issued in New York, condemned a series of recent Israeli settlement expansion announcements. It came after the US managed to convince members to withdraw a more forceful resolution on the matter and is considered a rare move from the UN.


Israel slams UN Security Council amid opposition at home

U.S. Ambassador to Israel: 60% of My Time Is Helping Palestinians
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said he spends the majority of his time helping Palestinians, an unusual remark from a diplomat purporting to serve as the U.S. envoy to Israel.

He also made several comments relating to Israel’s domestic policies, including telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “pump the brakes” on the government’s proposal to reform the judiciary and calling on Israel’s new Arab allies to condemn the Jewish state over its recent decision to legalize nine Jewish so-called outposts in the West Bank.

“I spend 60% of my time trying to help the Palestinian people,” Nides told podcast host David Axelrod, a former senior advisor to Barack Obama.

He drew a moral equivalency between Palestinian terrorism and the IDF’s counter-terror operations, and made no differentiation between the accidental death of a Palestinian civilian during an anti-terror raid with dozens of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, and the intentional murder of Jewish Israelis in any one of the five terror attacks to take place in Jerusalem in the past three weeks.

“Every action creates a reaction,” Nides said during the interview on the Axe Files podcast, which is affiliated with CNN.

“The IDF soldiers come in [to a Palestinian-controlled area] and they’re under attack, they kill an innocent Palestinian. Terrible. The Palestinians react to that, and they create another act. It’s just how these things unravel. It’s tragic.”

He said that expanding Jewish communities in the West Bank is a “vexing” issue for the U.S. and called on Abraham Accords countries to take a stand.

“It has been [a vexing issue] for the Arab countries as well who tend not to speak up as much as they should vis-à-vis some of the actions that are going on in the West Bank,” Nides said.
JPost Editorial: Netanyahu must respect opposition to avoid Israeli civil war
Every year, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations meets in Jerusalem to receive briefings on all spheres of government as well as military and economic matters pertaining to Israel and the United States.

The participants are particularly informed, aware and involved in the various issues that Israel faces and undoubtedly they take their responsibility as influencers in the US very seriously.

Addressing this august group in Jerusalem on Sunday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to inject a little levity into the deadly serious situation Israel currently finds itself in by saying, “In case you haven’t noticed, Israel is in the midst of a little thing on judicial reform.”

He then went on to play the victim by telling the gathering that he was under a “gag order” to discuss any details of the reform and the dangerous storm it’s stirred up.

Netanyahu was referring to the decision earlier this month by Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara prohibiting his involvement in the proposals, because of a conflict of interest posed by his ongoing corruption trial, in which he has denied wrongdoing.

Citing the “grotesqueness” of the situation, Netanyahu conveniently neglected to include that pertinent fact.

Although we can only assume that he intended his “little thing” remark to lighten a grave situation, this simplistic way of explaining such a complex situation and the selective use of the facts, indicates that he thinks of the American Jewish establishment as a vassal of Israel that will blindly follow the Israeli government.
UN human rights chief calls on Israel to temporarily halt judicial reform
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has expressed concern that the proposed judicial reform currently being discussed by the Israeli government would pose "serious risks to the effectiveness of the judiciary to defend the rule of law, human rights and judicial independence."

The two judicial reform bills that passed a first vote in Knesset late Monday night both deal with amending preexisting laws, including altering the Courts Law, which sets regulations for the courts.

One of the bill's key components will add restrictions on the judicial review of Basic Laws. Judicial review refers to when a court strikes down legislation that it determines is in contradiction with a law that has legal supremacy.

Israel lacks a formal written constitution, but it follows quasi-constitutional Basic Laws. The High Court of Justice normally does not interfere with the Basic Laws, but it hears petitions challenging an untoward process in which a Basic Law amendment or bill was legislated and other abuses of the Knesset’s constitutive authority.

The bill would restrict the High Court from accepting petitions, let alone reviewing articles pertaining to Basic Laws. It would not be able to address the validity of a Basic Law, directly or indirectly.

Referring to these points, as well as to the way in which the bill will change the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee, Turk said that "breaking from decades of settled practice, such a law would drastically undermine the ability of the judiciary to vindicate individual rights and to uphold the rule of law as an effective institutional check on executive and legislative power.

“Experience in Israel, and around the world, has shown the enduring value of a judiciary that can independently hold the other branches of Government to the fundamental legal standards of a society set out in its basic laws," he added.
First Arab-Africa-Israel Security Conference to be Held in Jerusalem
Representatives of 14 African and Arab countries will convene in Jerusalem next month for the first ever Arab-Africa-Israel conference on Middle East security.

The event comes during a diplomatic tug of war in Africa between supporters and opponents of Israel, which saw a public row when a senior Israeli diplomat was ejected from the African Union’s annual summit in Ethiopia last weekend.

Next month’s three-day conference, titled “Trusted Regional Partnerships at a Time of Shifting Alliances,” which is being organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will include participants from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel.

The conference will focus on security, stability and cooperation, with roundtable discussions on the landmark 2020 Abraham Accords, anti-radicalism and counterinsurgency, as well as food and water security. It will also include two days of visits to cutting-edge Israeli tech companies.

It will include participants from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Somaliland, South Sudan and South Africa.

“The first ever Arab-Africa Israel policy summit in Jerusalem is particularly important at a moment in the Middle East and Africa when Iran and its Hezbollah terror proxy are subverting states across the region and Africa as well,” said Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in a statement Monday.

“Israel is being sought after by its Arab and African neighbors near and far to collaborate on key issues such as food and water security at a time of regional instability,” he added.


‘An Insult to Those Fighting Antisemitism:’ French MP’s ‘Free Palestine’ Tweet Condemned
Jewish and anti-racist groups in France have roundly condemned a far left member of parliament who posted a photograph of herself meeting with Palestinian solidarity activists above a tweet concerned with antisemitism.

The MP — Ersilia Soudais, who sits with the far left NUPES coalition in the French National Assembly — was appointed by her party on Feb. 14 as a vice-president of the parliament’s study group on antisemitism. The announcement sparked concern among Jewish groups given NUPES anti-Zionist stance, which has included tabling a parliamentary resolution in July last year denouncing Israel for its alleged “apartheid regime.”

On Friday, Soudais sparked widespread ire with a tweet announcing her meeting with three Palestinian solidarity activists that claimed the group had discussed “the fight against antisemitism and solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

The tweet ended with the hash tag “Free Palestine.”

In response, the French Union of Jewish Students (UEJF) called on Soudais to “STOP!”

“Antisemitism is too serious a subject to be permanently exploited in this way,” the UEJF stated. “A [vice-president of the] study group on the subject at the National Assembly is a means of action against the aggressions suffered by the Jews, not a label that justifies passing on one’s anti-Zionist obsession!”

The International League Against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA) charged Soudais with having “imported the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the heart of French institutions.” The group accused her of “legitimizing anti-Zionist radicalism.”

Other tweets similarly condemned Soudais, with one describing her invocation of the “Free Palestine” slogan as an “insult to all those who fight against antisemitism.”
The Israel Guys: Why Does Bernie Sanders Think Israel's Government is RACIST?
Bernie Sanders says that he is very concerned about Israel’s democracy. He even went so far as to say that Israel’s government is RACIST.

The US Ambassador, Thomas Nides said that Israel needs to “pump the brakes” on its judicial reforms, as if the US was in a position to start dictating what laws their allies can make in their own government.

Hamas calls on Israeli Arabs to commit terror attacks to “end the occupation”, or in other words “to end the existence of Israel”.


Two major earthquakes hit southern Turkey

Israeli teams play key role in Turkey-Syria quake response
Pia Steckelbach and Commanding Officer of the 979th Battalion, Lt. Col. Yoav Ofan, speak about Israeli efforts to save lives in Turkey after devastating earthquakes.


Jordanian Officials Desecrate Tefillin of Rabbi of Dubai
Jordan: A set of tefillin were desecrated at Amman’s International Airport for “security concerns.”

Jordanian security officials in Queen Alia International Airport in the capital of Amman, desecrated and cut off the leather straps of the tefillin carried by Rabbi Moshe Khaliva, the Rabbi of the Sephardic community in Dubai, who flew Monday night from Israel to the UAE.

According to the Jordanians, the leather straps can be used “to hang a person during flight” and that is why they were removed.

[Editor’s note: Jews travelling through Jordan repeatedly report antisemitic incidents at the hands of Jordanian officials.]


MEMRI: Palestinian Terrorist Leila Khaled: Late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri Transferred PFLP Weapons To Europe; The KGB Provided Us With Equipment, Weapons
On February 12 and 13, 2023, the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published a two-part interview by the daily's chief editor, Ghassan Charbel, with Leila Khaled, a former terrorist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a current member of the Palestinian National Council. Khaled was involved in the hijacking of a TWA flight to Tel-Aviv in 1969 and in the attempted hijacking of an El-Al flight to New York in 1970.

In the interview she describes her activity in the PFLP's External Operations section along with notorious fellow terrorists Wadie Haddad, who was the section head, and Carlos the Jackal. She describes how she unwittingly helped save Haddad from death because, when his apartment when it was targeted by Israeli shells in 1970, she was briefing him about an operation in the living room, thus keeping him out of the bedroom that was hit. She also presents details about the planning and execution of the plane hijackings in which she took part.

Khaled also tells that Rafik Al-Hariri, Lebanon's prime minister who was assassinated in 2005, was active in the PFLP as a young man and was involved in transferring the organization's weapons to Europe in 1970 and 1971. Another figure active in the PFLP at the time, according to the interview, was Jalal Talabani, who decades later would become president of Iraq. The interviewer Charbel claims that, as a young man Talabani carried our reconnaissance missions in Europe on behalf of the PFLP, including as part of a plot to assassinate Israeli politician Shimon Peres.

In addition, Leila Khaled describes Wadie Haddad's extensive connections with the Soviet KGB. She states that, when the External Operations was developing advanced bombs and needed special components that could not be obtained in Lebanon, Haddad contacted the Soviets and visited Moscow, where he met with KGB officials, including with the leader of the KGB at the time, Yuri Andropov. Hadded explained to his hosts that his mission was to liberate all of Palestine, and presented them with a list of weapons and equipment he needed, which the Soviets later supplied in full.
Father of dead terrorist encourages “all the young people to adopt” terror, “the most correct path”

“The Palestinian woman doesn’t give birth to a child [but] to a resistance fighter” - journalist

Dead terrorist “Martyr” is “a new bridegroom” - chant at funeral



FM Cohen calls on US to present a ‘credible military threat’ to Iran
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Tuesday called on Washington to take steps to convince Tehran that the United States is not bluffing when it comes to the possibility of the use of force.

“If the United States does not establish a credible military threat immediately, either Israel will attack, or Iran will have a nuclear weapon, which we will not allow under any circumstance,” the foreign minister said

Cohen delivered his remarks at an event in Jerusalem hosted by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

The Iranian threat is two-fold, both as an aspiring nuclear power and as “the largest funder of global terrorism,” he said.

“Iran is Israel’s biggest challenge. They are constantly striving for a nuclear weapon…and they continuously endeavor to establish military threats against Israel, especially on our northern border, in the form of terror groups such as Hezbollah,” said Cohen.

The Iranian nuclear threat is a very time-sensitive issue, he continued. “Iran is close to 90% enrichment [of uranium]; therefore steps must be taken immediately,” he said.

The minister explained that the current government in Israel is willing to “use any means at its disposal to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”
Iran should be made to pay the price
In the Gulf of Oman on February 10, the Islamic Republic’s forces attacked an oil tanker belonging to a London-based shipping company whose chairman is an Israeli businessman. The tanker was only moderately damaged, but Eliezer Marom explains why neither Jerusalem nor the West can afford to ignore the incident:

The strike was apparently a response to an attack on an Iranian military site in Isfahan in January which the Iranians attributed to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. The Iranians announced at the time that they would respond to the strike.

Dispatching a drone . . . to attack such a target does not require a great deal of sophistication or complex operational capability. Indeed, Tehran’s inability to hit more significant Israeli targets is indicative of weakness. Having said that, the attack was still a severe act of terrorism, undermining global freedom of navigation in a maritime channel through which a large percentage of global oil is transported, representing a real threat to the global supply of energy.

A United Arab Emirates vessel also reported that it been hit, possibly also by a drone, with the U.S. Fifth Fleet and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan accusing Tehran of responsibility.
Iran sentences to death German citizen whose family says he was abducted in Dubai
An Iranian court on Tuesday sentenced to death on terror charges an Iranian-German national who supporters say was abducted in the Gulf and forcibly returned to Iran for a show trial.

The Tehran Revolutionary Court convicted Jamshid Sharmahd in connection with the deadly bombing of a mosque in 2008, the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency reported.

Iranian authorities announced in August 2020 that Sharmahd, 67, who is also a German national and a US resident, was arrested in what they described as a “complex operation” without specifying how, where or when he was seized.

His family says that he was abducted by the Iranian security services while in transit in Dubai and then brought under duress to Iran.

“They kidnapped Jamshid Sharmahd and now they’ve sentenced him to death after a sham trial,” said the head of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam.

“Basically the Islamic republic is threatening to kill a hostage,” he added.

German opposition MP and foreign affairs committee member Norbert Roettgen tweeted that “he was kidnapped by the regime in Iran and now sentenced to death also to put pressure on Germany.”
Iranian foundation offers land to Salman Rushdie's attacker - state media
An Iranian foundation has praised the man who attacked novelist Salman Rushdie last year, leaving him severely injured, and said it will reward him with 1,000 square meters of agricultural land, state TV reported on Tuesday through its Telegram channel.

Rushdie, 75, lost an eye and the use of one hand following the assault by a 24-year-old Shi'ite Muslim American from New Jersey on the stage of a literary event held near Lake Erie in western New York in August.

"We sincerely thank the brave action of the young American who made Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie's eyes and disabling one of his hands," said Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini's Fatwas.

"Rushdie is now no more than living dead and to honor this brave action, about 1,000 square meters of agricultural land will be donated to the person or any of his legal representatives," Zarei added.

Former Iranian ayatollah issued fatwa on Rushdie
The attack came 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran's supreme leader, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a few months after The Satanic Verses was published. Some Muslims saw passages in the novel about the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, has lived with a bounty on his head and spent nine years in hiding under British police protection.

While Iran's pro-reform government of President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa in the late 1990s, the multimillion-dollar bounty hanging over Rushdie's head kept growing and the fatwa was never lifted.

Khomeini's successor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa against Rushdie was "irrevocable."




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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