Jose Maria Aznar and Stephen Harper: The World Must Unite to Stop Iran - WSJ
Google Link: The World Must Unite to Stop Iran
The Israeli military was forced last month to engage an Iranian drone launched into Israeli airspace from Syria. There will be more such incidents if Tehran is permitted to continue projecting force throughout the Middle East. North America and Europe must join Israel in stopping Iran.Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Why do the Arabs hate the Palestinians so?
Iran is a revolutionary theocratic state committed to spreading religious extremism throughout the Islamic world. It projects political and military power from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and Red Seas. To support its ambition, Iran has illegally pursued nuclear weapons and fought wars using terrorist proxies.
Iran's leaders have threatened Israel time and again with total destruction, and now, Iranian power has arrived at Israel's border.
The first objective must be to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The Friends of Israel Initiative, of which we are members, has always maintained that, rather than preventing Iran's nuclear ambitions, the 2015 nuclear agreement gave the regime a road map to achieving them.
Predictions that the agreement would de-escalate tensions and improve cooperation have proved wrong. Since signing the agreement, Iran's aggression and hostility have increased.
But fixing the agreement and stopping Iran from going nuclear would not eliminate the threat. The U.S. and its allies must also roll back Iran's aggression and influence throughout the Middle East. If left unchecked, Iran's aggression will ultimately threaten Europe and North America as well.
Mr. Aznar is a former prime minister of Spain. Mr. Harper is a former prime minister of Canada.
Today, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are supported by Iran, the country abhorred by many Arabs who remember that airplane hijacking and the ensuing blackmail were invented by the Palestinian Arabs who hijacked an El Al plane to Algiers in 1968, fifty years ago, beginning a period of travail still being endured by the entire world.PMW: Fatah: Murder of 10 was “one of the most famous operations”
Despite the 1989 Taaf agreement that ended the civil war in Lebanon and was supposed to lead to the de-weaponization and dissolution of all the Lebanese militias, Syria allowed Hezbollah to keep its arms and to develop its military power unrestrainedly. The repeated excuse was that the weapons were meant to "liberate Palestine" and would not be aimed at the Lebanese. To anyone with a modicum of brains, it was clear that the Palestine story was a fig leaf covering the sad truth that the weapons were going to be aimed at Hezbollah's Syrian and Lebanese enemies. "Palestine" was simply an excuse for the Shiite takeover of Lebanon.
Worst of all is the Palestinian demand that Arab countries refrain from any relations with Israel until the Palestinian problem is solved to the satisfaction of the PLO and Hamas leaders. However, a good portion of the Arab world cannot find any commonalities that could unite the PLO and Hamas. They have given up on achieving an internal Palestinian reconciliation, watching the endless squabbles ruin any chances of progress regarding Israel. To sum up the situation, the Arab world – that part of it which sees Israel as the only hope in dealing with Iran – is not happy at the expectation that it must mortgage its future and its very existence to the internal fighting between the PLO and Hamas.
And let us not forget that Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel, have moved outside the circle of war for the "liberation of Palestine" and have forsaken their Palestinian Arab "brothers," leaving them to deal with the problem on their own.
Much of the Arab and Muslim world is convinced that the "Palestinians" do not want a state of their own. After all, if that state is established, the world will cease to donate those enormous sums, there will be no more "refugees" and the Palestinian Arabs will have to work like everyone else. How can they do that when they are all addicted to receiving handouts without any strings attacked?
One can say with assurance, that 70 years after the creation of the "Palestinian problem," the Arab world has realized that there is no solution that will satisfy those who have turned "refugee-ism" into a profession, so that the "Palestinian problem" has become an emotional and financial scam that only serves to enrich the corrupt leaders of Ramallah and Gaza.
In a video posted on Facebook, Abbas' Fatah party takes pride in the murder of 10 Israelis. The video glorifies a terror attack carried out by terrorist Thaer Hammad in 2002, who shot and murdered 3 Israeli civilians and 7 soldiers one by one with a sniper rifle from a hilltop in Wadi Al-Haramiya between Ramallah and Nablus.
The video presents the attack as a successful mission and the terrorist murderer as a heroic agent:
In a video posted on Facebook, Abbas' Fatah party takes pride in the murder of 10 Israelis. The video presents the attack as a successful mission and the terrorist murderer as a heroic agent.— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) March 5, 2018
Read more here: https://t.co/jF9ztpl2sS pic.twitter.com/Iv6ISJE1ZE
"Date: Monday, March 3, 2002
Location: Wadi Al-Haramiya
The one who carried it out:
Thaer Kayed Hammad, from Silwad near Ramallah, born in 1980
Target: The Israeli army checkpoint in Wadi Al-Haramiya
Weapon used: A World War II M-1 rifle
At 04:30, Thaer set out in the direction of the checkpoint.
At 06:00, he fired the first bullet.
There were 6 soldiers at the checkpoint, and he killed them.
He hit them one after the other.
Thaer killed another 5 at the checkpoint, so the number rose to 11 (sic., he murdered 10 - 3 civilians and 7 soldiers).
After reaping the soldiers and settlers, his rifle blew up.
He fired just 24-26 bullets, and quietly left the place.
The operation lasted 20 minutes.
Thaer was arrested 20 months after he carried out the operation.
Thaer is serving 11 life sentences.
The Wadi Al-Haramiya operation
is one of the most famous operations carried out by the Palestinian resistance in the second Intifada.
Fatah TV production Montage: Ali Fa'our"
[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, Feb. 10, 2018]
Hammad is serving 11 life sentences for these murders.