Ronen Lubarsky, soldier struck by marble slab in West Bank, dies of wounds
A soldier from an elite army unit died Saturday after being critically injured Thursday when a marble slab was dropped on his head during an operation to arrest suspected terrorists in the West Bank.Sarsour, Adelson, and Ha’aretz: Unraveling the Lies
The Israel Defense Forces named the soldier as Ronen Lubarsky, 20, from the central city of Rehovot.
The army posthumously promoted him to the rank of staff sergeant.
He was to be buried at 2 a.m. overnight Saturday-Sunday at the Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.
“On Shabbat we lost Duvdevan soldier Sergeant Ronen Lubarsky, who was critically wounded during an operation to arrest wanted suspects,” said Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman. “Duvdevan, one our elite units, every night carries out many arrests in an endless war…”
“I wish to send my condolences to the family in the family of the entire nation of Israel and am closely monitoring the efforts to arrest the terrorist,” added Liberman. “We will bring justice for Ronen.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also expressed his condolences to Lubarsky’s familly.
“Our security forces will get to the terrorist and the State of Israel will bring him to justice,” he said.
Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Uri Blau claims in “Spying on Linda Sarsour: Israeli Firm Compiled BDS Dossier for Adelson-funded U.S. Group Battling Her Campus Appearances,” to have outed a Sheldon Adelson-funded Israeli “spying” operation against the American Islamist Linda Sarsour.Iranian FM caught chanting 'death to US, UK, Israel'
But Blau and Ha'aretz got the story entirely wrong: The Middle East Forum (MEF), an American think-tank, compiled the Sarsour dossier.
The real story: MEF has publicly and openly tracked Linda Sarsour’s career since 2010, when she was still an obscure figure. MEF’s president and founder, Daniel Pipes, has maintained a running account since then of her foibles and extremism. Using this and other information (see here, here, here, and here for examples), MEF created the Sarsour dossier in December 2017.
There is nothing shocking or wrong about this. MEF is a research organization and has produced similar documents studying other American Islamists. For instance, see our CAIR study here, our Islamic Relief study here, and our recent report on Islamists lobbying Congress here. We’ve disseminated our research all over the world, working with moderate Muslim allies.
Further, MEF has never received funding from Sheldon Adelson; nor is MEF part of any coalition mentioned in the article; and no foreign government has been involved with financing or providing information for our research on Sarsour.
With Blau’s article established to be fake news, the Middle East Forum calls on Ha’aretz to issue a public correction and apology.
Rather than waste his own and his readers’ time investigating the research on Sarsour, Blau would do better joining us in researching Sarsour’s career, for she has a long history of vicious antagonism and radical sentiments.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, considered a moderate by many, was caught on tape Thursday joining a crowd in a chant calling for the destruction of Iran's enemies—among them the US, UK and Israel.
The chant broke out after a speech delivered by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held in Tehran.
The crowd is then heard chanting "Death to America", "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel," all while Zarif is seen smiling and mouthing the words shouted by the participants.
Among the participants in the event were Iran's Atomic Energy Commission, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Iran's Chief of Staff General Mohammed Hussein Bakri.
Zarif left last week for a trip to Asia and Europe as part of efforts to maintain the nuclear agreement after the US withdrew from it.
In the days before President Trump's decision to withdraw from the deal, Zarif attacked the United States and Israel, threatening I ran is ready to resume its nuclear activities "at a much greater speed" should the US decides to pull out of the 2015 international agreement aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
On Wednesday, Khamenei set out seven conditions for Tehran to stay in its nuclear deal with world powers, including steps by European banks to safeguard trade with Tehran.