Bullying works - against cowardly Westerners ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Bullying works - against cowardly Westerners

Antisemitic mural in Tehran

A top Iranian official warned on Wednesday that Iran could withdraw from a key nuclear nonproliferation treaty if Europe followed through on its threats to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

The remarks, from Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, came during a rare on-the-record briefing with reporters in New York, where he was attending meetings at the United Nations.

Britain, France and Germany announced this month that they would enforce tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if the country did not make concrete progress on a deal to limit its nuclear program. The mechanism for applying the sanctions is called a “snapback,” and it refers to a term in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that allows parties to the deal to impose sanctions on Iran before the deal expires at the end of October this year if it has violated its terms.

Mr. Gharibabadi, who is part of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, warned that enacting snapback sanctions would provoke Iran to retaliate, including potentially by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, one of the last remaining international safeguards on its nuclear program.

The entire point of snapback was to ensure that Iran adhered to the JCPOA. Once it didn't, then snapback should have happened years ago.

But the Europeans didn't invoke the threat until only two months before the JCPOA expires anyway!

Even so, Iran is threatening to withdraw from the NPT altogether if the three counties invoke snapback. Which is the best reason why it should have been invoked already. iran's threats to withdraw from the NPT is itself evidence that it has every intent to build nuclear weapons.

The article goes on:

Iranian officials have made similar threats in the past, saying the country would withdraw from the treaty if Israel or the United States attacked its nuclear sites. But even after the United States and Israel did just that during the recent war, Iran did not follow through on that threat.
Mr. Gharibabadi said Iran had shown restraint so far, but he added, “I’m quite confident that if the snapback is triggered, Iran will not show more restraint in this regard.”

This is how bullies work: threaten chaos and pain, and when they are called on it, they suddenly forget their threats. But Britain, France and Germany never learned that lesson, and consistently knuckle under to threats by Islamists and Arabs.

And not even powerful ones.

How many times over the years have we seen Mahmoud Abbas threaten that if he doesn't get his way, there would be a worldwide conflagration of Muslim terror?

How many times have we seen in recent years how universities chose to avoid conflict with crazed antisemitic protesters who were violating their policies rather than to strictly enforce the policies?

How many times have we seen BDSers threaten to boycott companies or disrupt local politics and get in response offers to "negotiate" with them and issue statements to placate them, instead of telling them to go to hell?

The only reason we still see bullying by the anti-Israel crowd is because it has a track record of working - of frightening liberal Westerners who would rather avoid conflict than stand up for their own alleged principles. And then, over time, they adopt the position of the antisemites because they don't want to think of themselves as the unprincipled cowards they are.

Bullying works. And the only way to stop it is to call the bullies' bluffs.