

Following the Security Council meeting on Non-proliferation (Iran), Israel`s ambassador to the UN, Prosor held a press briefing:Amb. Prosor's Press Statement on Iran
Ladies and Gentleman,
Today, you have awarded a great prize to the most dangerous country in the world.
I hate to be the one who spoils the party, but someone has to say that the emperor has no clothes. Today is a very sad day. Not only for the state of Israel, but for the entire world, even if at this moment, the international community refuses to see the tragedy.
It is a sad day because the international community is taking steps to lift the sanctions on Iran without first waiting to see if Iran complies with even a single obligation in the agreement.
It is a sad day because this agreement gives Iran a seat on the commission which will decide whether or not it has violated the agreement. This is like allowing a criminal to sit on the jury which will decide his own fate.
You haven’t changed Iran’s destructive ideology, which goes beyond proliferating deadly weapons and funding terror.
The United Nations Security Council voted 15-0 on Monday to pass Resolution 2231, which endorses the Iran nuclear deal–“the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] signed in Vienna by the five permanent members of the Council, plus Germany, the European Union and Iran.” However, there are already sharp disagreements between Iran and the rest of the world as to what that deal actually means.Mudar Zahran: Will Israel save the world a third time?
Iran’s Foreign Ministry claims, for example, that the deal does not actually cover its ballistic missile program, as advertised. Restrictions on ballistic missiles are to be ended after eight years, according to the JCPOA. However, Iran says, according to the Times of Israel, that the UN Security Council resolution and the deal do not apply to its own missiles because they “have not been conceived to carry nuclear weapons.”
Similarly, there is confusion as to whether the deal prevents Iran from accelerating its nuclear program after the deal expires, or whether that is just an option. Such (voluntary) restrictions would have to be approved under the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the Iranian parliament is supposed to ratify, but there is no deadline for it to do so; it could wait until deal expires, in theory.
Alan Dershowitz, who has worked on UN resolutions on the Middle East, suggests there may not have been a “meeting of the minds” on the Iran deal at all: “Is it a postponement for an uncertain number of years — 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 — of Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon? Or is it an assurance that ‘Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon?'”
As a Jordanian-Palestinian politician, I and many other Arab politicians and decision-makers have come to learn that Israel is vital for our own existence. In fact, Israel has saved us, and the world, from two global disasters.
The first time Israel saved us all was at the beginning of the 1980s, when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was one of the West's strongest Arab allies. He was against the Islamic Republic of Iran and was viewed as a necessary asset for Western governments and as a regional balance against Iran's might. The West was in love with Saddam to the point of allowing him a nuclear program, which he obtained with France's help.
Just as Iran does today, Saddam said his nuclear program was for "peaceful and civilian use." Saddam's nuclear reactor was built with the approval of the United States. Israel, however, did not buy Saddam's claims, and in 1981 sent its pilots on a mission -- which they were unlikely to return from -- to destroy Saddam's nuclear reactor. As reports confirmed, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was enraged by Israel's actions while President Ronald Reagan's first reaction to the news was, "Boys will be boys." Arab and Western governments condemned Israel's strike and some even spoke of action at the U.N. Unsurprisingly, Western media outlets grilled Israel.
Just nine years later, Saddam occupied Kuwait, threatened the entire Gulf region, and openly spoke of controlling "the Arabs' oil wealth," which could have brought the West to its knees. The U.S. and many Western states had to risk blood and money to get Saddam out of Kuwait, but they did not fear a nuclear attack from him or that he might use dirty bombs. Therefore Operation Desert Storm went smoothly. Had Saddam still had his nuclear program, the entire situation and its outcome could have been different. In fact, Saddam might have stayed in power until today were it not for Israel taking the risk of destroying his nuclear program.
In short, Israel saved the world from a power freak who came close to getting nuclear weapons.
Gaza's sole power plant will stop running Monday evening asit is unable to cover taxes imposed by the national unity government, Gaza's energy authority said.But they still have to lie:
The unity government waved the tax in a show of good will in the four months to the end of Ramadan, but the Gazan energy authority said in a statement Monday that since the tax has been reinstated it can no longer afford to keep the plant running.
The energy authority added that it had only been able to cover the cost of maintaining the plant during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and the Eid holiday by borrowing from local companies and taking loans from banks.
The tax imposed on fuel before it is sold to Gaza amounts to a 50 percent price hike on the price of fuel per liter, or 3.5 shekels ($0.91), the statement said.
Although the power plant inside Gaza has a potential output of 120 MW, it has been unable to produce that much due to Israeli restrictions on fuel imports as part of an eight-year blockade.Wrong. There are no Israeli restrictions on fuel. None at all.
When I asked [Amnesty researcher Deborah Hyams] specifically about why Amnesty was calling for Israel to lift restrictions on fuel when there are in fact no restrictions, she said that there are restrictions on some types of fuel. In fact, she told me, it was because Israel refused to provide industrial fuel for Gaza's power plant that Hamas was forced to smuggle regular diesel from Egypt. She did admit that price was a factor.
I explained to her my understanding that Hamas actually retooled the power plant to handle regular diesel smuggled from Egypt because they didn't want to pay Israel and they felt that with the Muslim Brotherhood in power they would have an unlimited supply of subsidized, cheap fuel from Egypt.
Hyams insisted that Israel has restrictions, today, on industrial diesel to Gaza. That is not my understanding and I told her that I've read COGAT reports since at 2009 where they said that they can pump heavy duty diesel for the power plant and Hamas has refused.
Immediately afterwards I called up Guy Inbar from the IDF COGAT unit and asked him if there were any restrictions on any specific type of fuel to Gaza - industrial, petroleum, cooking gas, anything. His answer was an unequivocal "no." The reason Gaza has no fuel is the PA/Hamas disagreements, not because of Israel.
UN Watch revealed today that the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a Hamas-linked group vying to win UN status today, celebrated the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, cheered Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and threatened “punishment” for PLO President and Hamas rival Mahmoud Abbas.PMW: PA honors murderers of civilians
Tweets from the official account of Tarek Hamoud, executive director of the London-based PRC, include:
1. PRC Cheers Hamas Kidnapping of Israeli Teens
Above: On July 14, 2014, two days after the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, PRC posted this symbol of three fingers to cheer the abduction of the boys who were later discovered to have been murdered.
A group that celebrates kidnappings violates the peace and human rights principles of the UN Charter and should not be granted NGO status.
[UPDATE: PRC chief Tarek Hamoud has just deleted this tweet today after this blog post was published.]
Palestinian Authority heroes:Isis or al-Qa’eda? The Arab states have chosen the devil they know
The synagogue murderers
(Two terrorists who murdered 4 worshippers in a synagogue and a policeman, 2014)
Rabbi Yehuda Glick's shooter
(Terrorist who tried to assassinate the rabbi, 2014)
Terrorist who participated in kidnapping and killing
(1993)
The Savoy Hotel terrorists
(Eight terrorists who took hostages and killed 7, 1975)
The Palestinian Authority continues to present murderers as heroes to the Palestinian public. One of the two killers who murdered four worshippers in a synagogue with butcher's knives and guns and later a policeman last November in West Jerusalem, was honored as a "Martyr" in recent reports in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and WAFA, the official PA news agency. The attack was referred to as "the synagogue operation":
"Large and reinforced occupation army forces invaded Jabel Mukaber today [July 1, 2015] after 3 a.m., and evacuated the home of Martyr (Shahid) Uday Abu Jamal (one of those who carried out the synagogue operation in November last year) [parenthesis in source] where the Martyr's father, mother, three brothers and sister reside." [WAFA (the official PA news agency), July 1, 2015]
Official PA TV also presented this killer in a sympathetic light, stating that his children were "served pain to drink" by Israel since their father, the killer, was "assassinated." PA TV did not mention that the "assassination" occurred as Abu Jamal was murdering innocent people praying in a synagogue:
Things are now moving fast. A relationship is evolving and formal talks between the Arab states and al-Qa’eda may soon take place without the West at the table. It’s a strategic decision: the Arabs regard an extremist victory in Syria as inevitable so they have decided to go with al-Qa’eda as the lesser of the two evils — especially if that evil is willing to resist Iran. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, since he came to the throne in January, has pursued a far more aggressive policy toward Iran and Syria. For the US and Europe it will be extremely difficult in terms of domestic politics and national security to strike a relationship with al-Qa’eda, but ultimately that may be the only choice, especially if the West’s Arab allies are going ahead.
Just a few years ago, the ‘war on terror’ was defined as extinguishing al-Qa’eda. Now, for many of our Arab allies, it means shoring up al-Qa’eda and praying that they’re not as bad as had once been believed. One thing in all this murky double-dealing is clear: the US and Britain are paying a bitter price for refusing to remove Assad when they genuinely had the chance four years ago. Acting has its risks, but failing to act has its consequences too — as we will all now find out.
In the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq, located in the Lower Galilee, a set of mosaics that allegedly depict Alexander the Great meeting with a Jewish priest have been unearthed during an excavation of the remains of a synagogue that dates back to the 5th century. If the mosaic has been identified correctly, the discovery will apparently be the first ever depiction of a non-Biblical scene to be found inside a synagogue, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.Tablet doesn't mention the actual Talmudic story of Alexander and the High Priest (and neither does the Daily Mail that reported this last week). Here it is:
The team of archaeologists come from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and are led by Arts and Sciences Professor Jodi Magness, and co-directed by the Israel Antiquities Authority. According to a statement on the UNC-Chapel Hill website, Magness’s team has been digging at the ancient synagogue each summer since 2012. In 2013 and 2014, the team across a mosaic in the synagogue’s that
depicts three horizontal registers (strips) containing human and animal figures, including elephants. The top register, which is the largest, shows a meeting between two men, who perhaps are intended to represent Alexander the Great and a Jewish high priest. It was the first time a non-biblical story had been found decorating any ancient synagogue.
[Shimon HaTzaddik, or Simeon the Just] was the “Kohen Gadol,” the High Priest of the Jewish People, during the reign of Alexander the Great, the world-conquering Greek Emperor. Yoma 69a presents a dramatic account of a confrontation between Shimon and Alexander. Alexander stood at the Gates of Jerusalem, with evil intentions regarding it, that caused the city’s inhabitants to tremble with fear. Shimon donned the “Bigdei Lavan,” the White Garments that he wore on Yom Kippur when he entered the Holy of Holies, and went out to meet Alexander.
When the great Emperor saw Shimon HaTzaddik, he dismounted and prostrated himself on the ground before Shimon. When his generals, very puzzled, asked him why he was bowing to the Jew, he replied that every night before a victory, he would see in a dream a figure that looked exactly like the Jewish High Priest, who would advise him on tactics to use the following day. And that advice had never failed him.
Shimon HaTzaddik took Alexander the Great on a tour of the Temple. Alexander, very impressed, requested that a marble image of himself be placed in the Temple. Shimon demurred, saying that it was forbidden for the Jews to have images, and certainly not in the Temple. He suggested an alternative way of memorializing the occasion of the Emperor’s visit to the Holy City of the Jews. That would be that all male babies born that year would receive the name “Alexander.” The Emperor liked the idea, and that is how the name “Alexander” became part of the set of names conferred upon Jewish male babies.
Gangs of Jewish settlers resumed storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday through the Mughrabi Gate along with special occupation police units.
The raids come the day after Al-Aqsa had been closed to settlers for a period of 13 days: the last ten days of Ramadan and the three days of Eid al-Fitr because of the intense and the large presence of worshipers of pure open minds.
According to our correspondent the raids were done with small groups carrying out provocative tours in the holy mosque, amid shouts of protest from worshipers.
The UN Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Iran nuclear deal and paving the way to lifting longstanding sanctions on the Islamic Republic.Iranian Revolutionary Guards: UN resolution endorsing nuclear deal crosses Iran's red lines
The 15-0 approval of the Iran nuclear deal clears one of the largest hurdles for the landmark pact, which will now go before the US Congress where it may face an uphill battle for confirmation.
The UN vote came shortly after the European Union approved the nuclear deal, okaying the pact between the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Iran that lifts punishing economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for temporary curbs on nuclear activity.
Ambassadors from the so-called P5+1 touted the deal in a Security Council debate following the vote.
US Ambassador Samantha Power said the nuclear deal doesn’t change the United States’ “profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region.”
She urged Iran to release three “unjustly imprisoned” Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.
A UN Security Council resolution endorsing Iran's nuclear deal that passed on Monday is unacceptable, the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammed Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.Watch: Obama Eerily Echoes Clinton's Failed North Korea Deal Sound byte comparison shows
"Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic republic's red lines, especially in Iran's military capabilities. We will never accept it," he was quoted as saying shortly before the resolution was passed in New York.
Not only has it been revealed that some of the very same American negotiators that sealed then-US President Bill Clinton's failed nuclear deal with North Korea in 1994 worked on President Barack Obama's similar deal with Iran signed last Tuesday - now it appears Obama even got the same speech writers.
The Washington Free Beacon on Monday released a compilation of public statements made by both presidents defending their respective deals, with an uncanny similarity noticeable between the two that would seem to bode ill for the Iran deal, given that Clinton's failed deal led North Korea to conduct its first nuclear test in 2006.
Clinton tried to get the Communist rogue state of North Korea to give up its nuclear program by giving it oil, nuclear technology and sanctions relief. Pyongyang took the benefits and ran all the way to a nuclear bomb, with Chinese experts warning it will have 40 nuclear weapons by next year.
As a result of the Clinton deal, North Korea was able to export nuclear technology to Syria and Iran as well.
A San Francisco-based Arabic community group could be excluded from helping to create Arabic-language curriculum it championed to the school district earlier this year because of alleged discriminatory comments the organization and its leader made about Jews.J-Weekly amplified AROC's hate:
Last May, the Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution for the San Francisco Unified School District to explore implementing Arabic- and Vietnamese-language pathways programs for kindergarten through 12th-grade students, beginning in the 2017-18 school year.
The resolution also called for the district to work with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, among other community groups, to develop “culturally appropriate professional development opportunities” for teachers at certain schools. Incorporating community input is standard practice for the SFUSD when creating new curriculum.
But language used by AROC to allegedly “push a radical Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist agenda in San Francisco,” according to a June 17 letter from the Jewish Community Relations Council to school district leaders, has prompted local Jewish community leaders to urge the SFUSD to eliminate the group from the resolution.
“We fully support implementing language pathways in Vietnamese and Arabic. [The opposition] is of this group that has been named in the resolution [and] made these really ugly and divisive statements,” said Jeremy Russell, a spokesman for the Jewish council.
District officials have not confirmed whether the Arab group will remain listed as a resource in the resolution, and the Board of Education in the coming weeks intends to collectively respond to community concerns regarding the resolution.
“We are reviewing that,” Board President Emily Murase said of continuing to work with AROC. “A lot of information came to us after the resolution was passed. We’re in the process of evaluating partners. We want to do it in a very deliberate, thoughtful way.”
In the letter from the Jewish council to Superintendent Richard Carranza and Murase, examples of such discriminatory comments include a Tweet by @AROCBayArea on Dec. 15 saying: “Help us kick Zionism out of the Bay Area. Donate today.”
Other comments highlighted in the letter were purportedly made by Lara Kiswani, the group’s executive director, at a Nov. 12 forum on how organized labor can help Palestine: “Bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world, and everyone in society”; “As long as you continue to be on that side, I’m going to continue to hate you.”
“Any group that espouses hatred really should not be a partner for the school district,” Russell said.
The Arabic group considers the Jewish council’s attempt to remove the group from the resolution to be little more than an intimidation tactic.
“We see this recent development consistent with the way that JCRC operates on a regular basis where they ignore the impact their actions have on children,” Kiswani wrote in an email to the San Francisco Examiner. “They are literally willing to take educational opportunities away from children in order to feed their need to defend the state of Israel.”
The organization also helped lead a Block the Boat campaign in 2014, which twice sought to prevent the Oakland offloading of a cargo ship partially owned by an Israeli company, succeeding the second time. Referring to that campaign, the AROC website proclaimed that “business with the racist, exclusionary, Zionist state of Israel, which works alongside local and federal law enforcement to repress our communities, will not go unchallenged.”
Last December, AROC tweeted the message “Help us kick Zionism out of the Bay Area.”
Who is JCRC? They are a well-financed group that furthers the interests of the apartheid state of Israel. Their objective is to challenge Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions work in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wherever they see an organization successfully supporting the Palestinian struggle for liberation, they attack.This screed by AROC proves the JCRC is correct and that AROC is a most unsuitable partner for the San Francisco Board of Education.
Now, they are attacking both AROC and the opportunity for children in San Francisco to learn Arabic language and culture.
JCRC is attempting to convince the San Francisco Board of Education to revote on a resolution that the board passed unanimously on May 26, listing AROC and the Vietnamese Youth Development Center as community partners who championed the campaign to implement Arabic and Vietnamese language pathways in SFUSD. This initiative, born of an inspiring community effort, would expand the opportunity of Arabs and Vietnamese to have their languages and cultures better represented in the schools they attend.
What does JCRC really want? They want to discredit AROC because of our impactful work in support of Palestinian rights, and they want control of the Arabic pathway process so they can ensure there are no cultural elements to the curriculum that could “threaten” their conservative agenda.
Don’t let JCRC undermine Arab culture in our city to advance their harmful agenda.
We the undersigned watch with horror yet another ruthless and criminal Israeli assault on the defenceless [Sic] people of the Gaza Strip. The assassination of the Hamas’ military commander, Ahmad al-Jabari, by Israel was intended to disrupt any chance for a permanent cease fire between the two sides and caused the current cycle of violence. For the last five years al-Jabari had been responsible for limiting rocket attacks on Israel..
Palestine Shrinking Expanding Israel | new interactive visualisation https://t.co/A3y8S1gSqD
— Francesco Sebregondi (@FSBRG) May 15, 2015
Prompt & transparent investigation needed into killing of #Jenin man. IDF says he was throwing bomb, but initial reports often wrong in past
— Jacob Burns (@JacobTBurns) June 10, 2015
Buy EoZ's books!
PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!