Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Iranian Jews in US involved in money laundering scheme from Turkey?

JPost reports:

Turkish police detained 280 suspects in a money-laundering investigation into the transfer of about 2.5 billion lira ($419 million) worth of foreign currency to bank accounts abroad, state media said on Tuesday.

The vast majority of recipients of the funds were Iranian citizens resident in the United States, according to a statement from Istanbul's chief prosecutor cited by Turkish media.

Police teams launched raids across 40 provinces and had arrest warrants for a total 417 people, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported. CNN Turk broadcast video of masked special operations police in combat gear and armed with automatic rifles entering an apartment block during one raid.

Police, the prosecutor and other judicial authorities declined to comment on the investigation.

The probe was aimed at those who "targeted the economic and financial security of the Turkish Republic," the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office said, according to CNN Turk.

The issue of foreign money transfers has become politically sensitive in Turkey, which is in the throes of a currency crisis. The lira has fallen about 40 percent against the dollar this year, prompting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to warn Turks against sending money abroad if it is not for investment.

"We will not forgive those who resort to smuggling money abroad if it is not to grow, develop and spread their business, trade and investments," Erdogan said in a speech to business leaders in April.

"The operation is not about forex transfers abroad by local residents. The operation is about terror financing and forex transferred to terror group members based abroad," Erdogan adviser Cemil Ertem wrote on Twitter.

The suspects were accused of money laundering, "forming a gang with the aim of committing crime," and "breaking a law aimed at preventing the financing of terrorism," the prosecutor's statement said. The operation was launched by financial crimes police.

Hurriyet newspaper said on its website that among those facing arrest were individuals with links to Kurdish, leftist and Islamist militant groups and some were also being investigated for drug smuggling.

One banking source said transactions of the kind targeted in the investigation are carried out by third persons who send money to accounts abroad in exchange for commission.

"The money they send is not their own. They try not to be noticed by always making transfers in small amounts and make profits from this," he said.

"People who are subject to limitations on transferring money abroad use such a method, getting others to make the transaction in exchange for commission," the source said.

"But because the money is again forwarded to unrelated third persons, it violates anti-money laundering regulations."

The prosecutor's statement said the suspects were accused of receiving commission for sending the money to 28,088 accounts abroad. The transfers were made from various bank branches and ATMs starting from Jan. 1, 2017 with sums of 5,000 lira and more, the statement said.

The crackdown comes months after a US court sentenced an executive from Turkey's state-owned Halkbank to 32 months in jail in an Iran sanctions-busting case. The bank has denied any wrongdoing and Turkey has said that case is politically motivated.

Turkish and Iranian media are saying that the US bank accounts in this scheme belong to Iranian Jews, many of them physicians and professors.

Some of those arrested are associated with Kurdish and Islamist terror groups, including the PKK and Hizbullah, according to Iranian media.

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10/02 Links: Col. Kemp: In the name of peace, it is time to accept Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights; Israeli public overwhelmingly in favor of Trump's policies; Charles Aznavour Dies at 94

From Ian:

Col. Kemp: In the name of peace, it is time to accept Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights

This is really the crux of the issue: Western action now could make a concrete contribution to preventing conflict in the future.

Syria is now and will remain for the foreseeable future under the domination of Iran. Through both actions and words, we know the Iranian ayatollahs are intent on aggression against the Jewish State. They are establishing a land corridor from Iranian territory through Iraq and Syria to Israel’s border and plan to link their forces in that area with Hezbollah’s strong offensive forces, including 100,000 rockets, in southern Lebanon. They have positioned their own forces and their proxies where they can threaten Israel and are intent on building these up and maintaining them in position for the long-term.

The Syrian government, as the civil war dies down and when it reconstitutes its forces with Russian assistance, will itself threaten Israel at Iran’s behest; and Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy militias will also continue to do so. If these — or any other — malignant entities gain possession of the Golan Heights the threats of cross-border indirect fire could well escalate, leading to the deaths of Israeli civilians and forcing Israel into an overwhelming response that would cause significant bloodshed. This would potentially draw southern Lebanon into a conflict that could easily explode into a regional war.

Israel’s possession of the Heights on the other hand is never likely to translate into offensive action against anyone. Israel has only ever fought on the defensive and its government sees neither Syria nor Iran as targets for aggression.

Iran, Syria and other entities proclaim Israel’s occupation of the Golan as an excuse for conflict. Iran and its clients in the region including Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, count on a weak Western response to their aggression, with appeasement and judgments of moral equivalence serving repeatedly to encourage their violence. The other side of the coin is that unequivocal rejection by the West of this excuse would reduce the prospects of conflict.

We understand President Trump is now considering some form of recognition of Israel’s legitimate and necessary possession of the Golan. We strongly support this proposal and encourage all other Western nations that are genuinely interested in the cause of peace to do the same.

Colin Rubenstein: Trump right not to pander to Palestinian leaders

There have been important considerations missing from much discussion of the Trump administration’s recent moves regarding Israel and the Palestinians. For example, there is little comment about whether the behaviour of the Palestinian leadership in any way warrants Trump’s seemingly harder line, whether the moribund peace process needs to be shaken up and, if so, whether Trump’s moves may actually be productive.
Protesters fly Palestinian flags and chant anti Israel slogans.

Protesters fly Palestinian flags and chant anti Israel slogans.
Photo: AP

Palestinians and their supporters worry that Trump’s so-called “ultimate deal” may give the Palestinians less than they have previously been offered. However, offers providing the Palestinian leadership what they claim to want have failed to lead to peace, or even further negotiation, so clearly a new approach is warranted.

We know that Israeli offers of Palestinian statehood are not what has been lacking. Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, working with Bill Clinton in 2000, and early 2001, offered the Palestinians statehood in Gaza and the vast majority of the West Bank. Instead of leading to peace, the terrorist second Intifada broke out.

In 2008, PM Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, almost all of the West Bank, with land from inside Israel making up the balance, a land bridge between the West Bank and Gaza, a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, Palestinian control over Muslim holy sites and a limited return of Palestinian refugees, with a financial settlement for the rest. This was all that the PA had claimed to want, yet, as he admitted in 2015, Abbas rejected the offer “out of hand”.

More recently, since Benjamin Netanyahu became PM in 2008, Abbas has refused to genuinely negotiate despite Israeli confidence-building measures such as freezing building in settlements and releasing Palestinian prisoners who had killed Israelis. US envoy Martin Indyk has said that in 2014, Netanyahu was “sweating bullets” to make peace. Yet Abbas just walked away from those talks. Since then, Abbas has refused to negotiate at all.

Now, the PA has announced it is going to reject Trump’s deal, despite not even knowing what it entails.

Concealed Carry AP Covers Up Arafat’s Gun at the UN

In an article last week about dramatic moments at the United Nations (“Laughter at Trump among a long line of shocking UN moments“), the Associated Press covers up the most dramatic element of Yasser Arafat’s 1974 United Nations address: that he brought a gun to the international body and even delivered the address while openly sporting the holster.

In his Sept. 26 article, Tamer Fakahany obscures that Yasir Arafat actually brought his gun to the United Nations and wore the holster during his address, instead presenting the unprecedented nature of his appearance there as relating only to the statement: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

The entire relevant passage in Fakahany’s piece states:
ARAFAT’S OLIVE BRANCH AND GUN
Yasser Arafat was the embodiment of the Palestinian quest for independence – a road littered with displacement and death. In 1974, he was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood. He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

While the piece explicitly notes that Arafat wore a keffiyeh, it leaves out the much more significant and historic fact that he wore a gun holster. (According to an earlier AP report, he was forced to deposit the gun before mounting the rostrum.)

Chag Sameach! (Again!)

I wish all my Jewish readers a happy Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah!

I will not be blogging from Sunday night to Tuesday night.

You can see two of my previous articles on Simchat Torah flags here and here.

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09/30 Links: Wake up Europe; Democrats open the door to Congress for Hamas; Madrid is encouraging violence against Israel; Virulently anti-Semitic Malaysian PM welcomed in UK

From Ian:

Jpost Editorial: Wake up Europe

Appeasement might be a tough word and one that Netanyahu uses reluctantly, but he is right. Europe has turned a blind eye to what is happening in Iran and Lebanon for far too long. Sadly, it is unlikely that anything will really change due to Netanyahu’s speech, no matter how good it might have been.

Over a period of decades, Europe has shown that it prefers short-term quiet over confronting challenges and threats that present it and the rest of the world with long-lasting problems. The continent operates like a tactician as opposed to a strategist.

This is evident in the European Union’s continued support of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action the P5+1 reached with Iran in an effort to stop the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. While the EU might be right that the deal is working today, it will eventually expire and place Iran on the brink of nuclear weapons. And while it is true that Lebanon is today quiet, that will also change the moment Hezbollah decides to unleash a missile onslaught on the State of Israel.

Europe though doesn’t seem to care. While it knows all of this, it prefers not to take steps that could lead to an escalation, diplomatically or militarily. It sits quietly, enjoying the temporary quiet, no matter how much of an illusion it might be.

The problem is that Iran’s nuclear program is still a problem for the world. The same with Hezbollah. Neither are sitting quietly. Hezbollah has amassed an unprecedented missile arsenal that puts many countries to shame and Iran is simply playing the waiting game and will likely one day breakout toward a bomb when it assesses that the price it will pay will be the lowest.

Netanyahu explained that Israel does not need a wake-up call like Europe.

“Despite the best of hope, and there were many hopes around the nuclear deal, this deal did not push war further away. It brought war ever closer to our borders,” he said.

We hope that Netanyahu’s speech will serve as the wake-up Europe desperately needs. The time to act against Iran is now. A first step would be for the International Atomic Energy Agency to immediately visit the atomic warehouse and for Europe to take real steps that will bring change. Appeasement will fail.

The ground is burning

Israel developed a partial solution to the rocket problem and, with the help of the Iron Dome system, it has been able to mitigate the threats. Yet we've also been attacked with longer-range rockets and deeper underground tunnels. In a practical sense, the situation hasn't fundamentally changed over the past decade. The Gaza-area communities continue to suffer from Hamas belligerence and the south remains exceedingly unstable. On the diplomatic level, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi certainly helps narrow the scope of Hamas' initiatives, particularly by controlling the Philadelphi Route along their shared border and the Rafah crossing area, where Hamas' smuggling capabilities have dwindled. Again, though, taking a broader view, this hasn't dramatically changed the situation in the south.

Thus, since March, the IDF has used varying degrees of force to counter Hamas' ploys – whether these include protests, roadside bombs, and occasionally a 24-48 hour escalation consisting of rocket fire at Israeli civilians. Hamas has tried forcing Israel into another tahdiya although it appears this effort isn't bearing fruit. We can, therefore, expect another escalation in the near future and we will again have to ask: What's going to change?

The answer isn't surprising: Nothing will change unless this time Israel undertakes a massive operation to finally alter the situation on a fundamental level. Hamas needs to understand that the next confrontation will be its last. It will not provide hope. And Israel, for its part, needs to be ready to finish the job it left undone 10 years ago. The IDF is certainly ready and capable of this mission; the question is whether the will exists.

A compressive, far-reaching operation would unfold in several stages. The first will aim at isolating high-threat areas and cutting off escape routes for Hamas terrorists. The second will require a massive ground operation in these areas, including in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, and destroying the terror nests there. These two steps will require several weeks to complete and they won't be simple. Afterward will come the stabilizing phase, aimed at fully clearing the area of terrorists and their infrastructure and installing systems of governance and intelligence-gathering on the ground. This phase in its entirety should require no more than one year, but it will undoubtedly change the situation fundamentally. Ultimately, Israel will give itself a different array of capabilities to cope with any development, and it will be the one dictating the rules of the game, which is totally opposite the current situation of being captive to Hamas' whims.

'Madrid is encouraging violence against Israel'

Israel protested to the mayor of Madrid about the festive visit she organized for terrorist Ahed Tamimi, who was convicted of incitement against security forces and attacking IDF soldiers, for which she served eight months in prison.

Tamimi was accompanied by her family at the invitation of the city leaders and the Real Madrid soccer club at the stadium of the Spanish team, Bernabeu.

Real Madrid did not make do with a special tour played by former soccer star Emilio Butragueno, but also prepared a jersey with her name printed on it.

Daniel Kutner, the Israeli ambassador to Spain, sent a letter of protest to Mayor Manuela Carmena. "The move by the Madrid municipality encourages violence against Israeli civilians and undermines any attempt to create a genuine dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians," Kutner wrote.

Kutner added, "Ahed Tamimi is not an innocent fighter for peace, but an instigator of violence and terror. Any institution that welcomes her indirectly promotes violence and aggression instead of promoting dialogue and understanding."

It's always funny when Jordan says there should be a Palestinian state

King Abdullah of Jordan told the UN:

I am compelled to talk about this today because of the critical role of collective action in ending the serious crises in my region, and especially the key crisis—the long denial of a Palestinian state.

Every UN resolution since the beginning of this crisis—every resolution, whether from the General Assembly or the Security Council—recognises the equal rights of the Palestinian people to a future of peace, dignity, and hope. This is the heart of the two-state settlement, the only path to a comprehensive, lasting peace.

Only a two-state solution based on international law and relevant UN resolutions can meet the needs of both sides: an end to conflict, a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a secure Israel, fully part of its own region, recognised by Arab and Muslim states around the world.

But when Jordan controlled the West Bank, it was against any sort of Palestinian Arab state on the territory it claimed. Even the Palestinian Arabs didn't talk at all about creating a state in the territories - only in Israel.

And when Palestinians tried to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state in 1970, they were brutally attacked and their leaders forced out. Thousands were killed in the fighting.

It is always amusing to see how Jordan now is talking about how the UN wanted a Palestinian Arab state in 1947 and not a single Arab nation, including Transjordan at the time, supported the idea.

The desire for a Palestinian state is directly proportional to how much it will negatively affect Israel. Otherwise, no Arab is interested in such a state at all.

And they never were.

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Fatah celebrates anniversary of beginning of Second Intifada

The Second Intifada was a multiyear terror spree that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians.

It killed the Oslo peace process.

It convinced countless leftist Israelis that there is no actual partner for peace on the Palestinian side.

And Fatah, the party headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is celebrating the beginning of the terror spree that began 19 years ago.

They even mention that their own National Security forces, who were armed by the world to maintain peace, participated in the attacks on Israel.

Yet when Abbas speaks about "peace" to the UN, no one has the guts to ask him about why his own party celebrates terror and violence, every single day, in their own media.

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09/29 Links: Netanyahu was to reveal ‘third site’ in speech on Iran; Danon slams Abbas' 'imaginary initiatives'; Real Madrid's guest of honor is teen terrorist

From Ian:

Why this Christian Tory peer leads the fight in the UK against Holocaust denial

The British Labour party has become “a hotbed of bigotry and racism,” the country’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues said in a recent interview with The Times of Israel.

Eric Pickles, who was appointed to the House of Lords this summer, also accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn of encouraging “something rather base and horrid to come to the surface” in the party.

In the wide-ranging interview, Pickles, who served as a Cabinet minister under the Conservative party’s former prime minister David Cameron, hints that the UK may soon proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety and says he opposes Britain’s attempts to help salvage the Iran nuclear deal.

Pickles also says it was “utterly wrong” for Conservative members of the European parliament to oppose censuring the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán in a September 12 vote. Orbán’s government has been accused of deploying “vivid anti-Semitism” in its campaign against the Jewish philanthropist George Soros.

As the Conservative party begins its annual conference in Birmingham this weekend, Pickles launches a scathing attack on Corbyn.

Referring to the allegations of anti-Semitism which have dogged Labour under Corbyn’s leadership, Pickles asks: “How can anybody live with themselves with this great damage that they have inflicted on good community relations in this country?”

NGO Monitor: Statement on “Shrinking Space” Report

NGO Monitor is the only independent research organization in the world that critically examines the reports and activities of politicized NGOs, with a focus on the context of international development aid. Given the importance of civil society participation in conflict-ridden areas, transparency, accountability, and critical analysis are essential, and we take this work seriously.

We are aware of the concerted effort to discredit and silence all critical analysis. This pseudo-report funded by a German far-left political foundation is the latest example. Serious research, however, does not rely on fringe ideologues with obvious conflicts of interest, desperately seeking to protect their access to European state and EU budgets. NGO Monitor’s success in exposing the millions in taxpayer funds given annually, without transparency, to false human rights and development NGOs, some of which are linked to terror organizations and/or use antisemitic motifs, speaks for itself. Indeed, this smear campaign highlights the importance and credibility of our work.

We plan to vigorously enforce our rights against the many false and defamatory claims made in the report and by those who have disseminated the claims.

Real Madrid's guest of honor is teen terrorist

Real Madrid, a Spanish soccer club, on Friday hosted teen terrorist Ahed Tamimi.

Tamimi served an eight-month prison sentence for attacking IDF soldiers, and has since said that her goal is to "eliminate Israel."

Tamimi met with Emilio Butragueño, a former Real Madrid player.

She also received a soccer shirt sporting her name and the number 9.

Real Madrid welcomed Palestinian teenage activist Ahed Tamimi to the Santiago Bernabeu yesterday after spending eight months in prison for slapping an Israeli soldier in December 2017," the team tweeted Saturday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon tweeted, "The prestigious soccer club of Real Madrid embraces a terrorist inciting to hatred and violence. Shameful."

"Ahed Tamimi is promoting violence against Israeli citizens. @realmadrid-receiving a terrorist that incites hatred and violence is something that has nothing to do with universal football values."

09/28 Links Pt2: IAEA was told Iran site had ‘forbidden nuclear material,’ yet didn’t act; Haley: Palestinians should complain to Abbas, not Israel; The Logic of the West’s New Anti-Semitism Crisis

From Ian:

Israel: IAEA was told Iran site had ‘forbidden nuclear material,’ yet didn’t act

Israel told the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency about the existence and contents of the previously unknown Iranian nuclear site whose presence was publicly revealed at the UN Thursday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the atomic watchdog failed to act on the information, a senior Israeli official said.

According to the unnamed official, quoted Friday by Israel’s Channel 10 news, the “secret atomic warehouse” revealed by Netanyahu contained nuclear materials that Iran is not allowed to hold without declaring them to the IAEA. Yet the IAEA knew nothing about the site, the official said, and still failed to act when Israel informed both the IAEA and the US administration about it.

The official added that Israel knows exactly what was being stored at the facility after it was uncovered by the Mossad spy agency a few months ago, from which time the Israeli secret service kept the location under surveillance.

When the IAEA failed to act, the Israeli government apparently agonized over what to do with the information, and decided after discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office that Netanyahu would reveal it in his annual speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday in an attempt to goad the IAEA into taking action.

“There was no choice but to reveal this information, because the goal is to prompt the IAEA to take action,” the senior official said. “We wanted to wake up the world and pressure the IAEA to act against the suspected facilities in Iran.”

Channel 10 reported that the senior official revealed that the nuclear facility is under the supervision of a secret Iranian defense ministry department headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, named by Netanyahu in his April presentation of the seized nuclear archive as the Iranian physicist who heads the country’s nuclear program.

“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” urged Netanyahu in April, showcasing the material that he said proved conclusively that Iran has lied when it says it has not sought nuclear weapons and that the 2015 nuclear deal was built upon “Iranian deception.”

Haley tells PM that Palestinians should complain to Abbas, not Israel

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Friday the Palestinian people should complain to their own leader and not to Israel, and urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

“We believe that the Palestinians are going to have come to the table. President Abbas is not helping the Palestinian people at all. He hasn’t acknowledged Hamas,” Haley said at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Haley said she had no plans to meet with Abbas while he is in New York, where he addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

“The Palestinians, if they want to blame anyone, it shouldn’t be Israel,” the ambassador said. “They should be looking at President Abbas and saying, what are you doing for us?”

Speaking to the press before their bilateral meeting, Netanyahu thanked Haley for her staunch support of Israel at various UN agencies.

“With you, it’s better,” he said, after Haley asked him how things are going, referring to her strong pro-Israel stance at the world body, which has long been anti-Israel.

Wiesenthal Center: Don't allow terror-linked group to visit

The Wiesenthal Center has called on governments in the Americas scheduled to host a 10-member delegation from an Islamic political organization to cancel the programs and deny entry to its members, citing their terrorist ties.

Abdur Razzaq, deputy secretary-general of the the Jamaat-e-Islami, is scheduled to lead the Salafist group starting Oct. 9 in Washington, D.C., to meet with political leaders.

The Wiesenthal Center pointed out that Jamaat-e-Islami is linked to the Taliban, al-Qaida and ISIS.

In Washington, the delegation will meet with Democratic Congress members and think tanks close to Hillary Clinton and former US President Barack Obama.

On Thursday, the director of international relations for the Wiesenthal Center, Shimon Samuels, and the group’s Latin America representative based in Buenos Aires, Ariel Gelblung, requested the intervention of the Organization of American States and its secretary-general, Luis Almagro, to alert authorities from the host nations to the group’s violent background and terror ties.

The Wiesenthal Center called on the governments to deny the delegation’s entry at their borders.

Palestinians in Qalqilya forced to hold pictures to show support for Abbas

If you think Trump is an egomaniac, then what would you call a leader who forces his people to hold pictures of him at a staged rally?

In Qalqilya, hundreds of Palestinians watched Abbas' UN speech at an outdoor event with Fatah flags. The front row of people, many of them dignitaries, were obviously requested to hold photographs of Mahmoud Abbas just to make it look like Abbas has widespread support.

There is nothing spontaneous about this. On the contrary, some of them seem very reluctant.

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09/28 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Europe's appeasement of Iran; Ron Prosor: Forcing Iran's allies to face the truth; Palestinian in Germany caught planning chemical terror attack in Israel

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Europe's appeasement of Iran

Remarks this week about Iran by US National Security Adviser John Bolton contained some of the most ferocious language ever used by an American administration about a foreign state.

Bolton told the Iranian regime: “If you cross us, our allies or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay. Let my message today be clear: ‘We are watching, and we will come after you.’”

Earlier this year the US pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran, re-instituting potentially crippling sanctions against the regime. At the UN, President Trump delivered a similar message. America, he said, would not allow “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism” to possess “the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.”

Bolton went further and threatened “terrible consequences” for those doing business with Iran. But Britain and Europe are intending to do exactly that.

Earlier in the week, the EU and the three European co-signers of the Iran deal – Britain, France and Germany – said they would set up a new payment system to allow oil companies and businesses to continue trading without relying on the US-led global market. Commentators agree this sanctions-busting ruse is unlikely to work.

Big companies are already pulling out of Iran because the US says they can trade with Iran or America but they can’t do both. The European maneuver is likely merely to antagonize the US. As its Secretary of State Mike Pompeo angrily said, the Europeans were now “solidifying Iran’s ranking as number-one state sponsor of terror” with “one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional peace and security”.

Ron Prosor: Forcing Iran's allies to face the truth

The United Nations is an organization where ‎democratic influences and the truth get sidelined ‎far too often, but addressing the General Assembly ‎on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood ‎before world leaders and spoke the truth. Not "his ‎truth" – just the plain, clear truth about Iran and ‎the Palestinian issue.‎

The evidence Netanyahu presented for the existence ‎of secret nuclear facilities in Iran and Hezbollah ‎missile bases in the heart of Beirut is the best ‎answer to Europe's appeasement policy vis-à-vis ‎Iran. This not only exposed Iran's true, nefarious ‎designs for the region but also exposed the ‎weakness of many European leaders and the ‎incompetence of the International Atomic Energy ‎Agency.‎

Despite being privy to detailed, verified and ‎accurate information on Iranian violations of the ‎‎2015 nuclear deal, the IAEA and EU have done nothing ‎to stop it. In their naivety and shortsightedness, ‎they are willing to gamble away the future of the ‎Middle East and the rest of the world, acting as if ‎Iran will one day relinquish its nuclear aspirations ‎willingly.‎

European leaders may opt to see no evil, hear no ‎evil and speak no evil, but Netanyahu reminded them ‎that Israel sees and hears everything and that it is ‎not wary of speaking or taking action wherever ‎necessary.‎

Now it is up to the Israeli government and the Trump ‎administration to demand that, confronted with ‎clear-cut ‎intelligence findings, Germany, Britain ‎and France explain why they insist on supporting the ‎Iran deal. ‎

US envoy urges world to join America in ‘being direct, frank with Palestinians’

US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt on Thursday defended the US administration’s drastic recent funding cuts to the Palestinians, arguing that billions given to this cause over decades have failed to significantly advance the cause of peace.

Rather, he said in a speech to a conference of international donors, it was time to “realistically evaluate what works and what does not,” and to embark on “a new, sustainable path.” While he declined to provide any details of the peace proposal he and other White House officials have been working on for months, he asked members of the international community to study it carefully and be open to new ideas.

“It is time to look at the situation realistically. We could continue the same pattern for years to come, but that would be folly,” Greenblatt told participants of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee’s annual meeting at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“Clearly, none of our financial assistance is getting Israelis and Palestinians closer to a solution.”

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials also attended the conference.

U.S. Will No Longer Subsidize PA Anti-Normalization Campaign Against Israel

Speaking to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee of international donors to the Palestinians on Thursday in New York, U.S. Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt said efforts to improve life for Palestinians in the West Bank "are constrained by Palestinian Authority leaders who refuse opportunities to build the economy due to an anti-normalization prejudice towards doing business with Israelis. Such policies only harm the Palestinian people, leave them further and further behind, and cost donor countries more and more money."

"The Trump administration has closely watched the PA leadership thwart economic improvement for Palestinians in the West Bank and directly challenged them to change their destructive policies or lose American support....Clearly, none of our financial assistance is getting Israelis and Palestinians closer to a solution."

"We must all ask ourselves why we should keep struggling to raise money when everyone can plainly see the Hamas regime and the PA are squandering the opportunities our money provides for a better future for Palestinians....The United States will not use the hard-earned tax dollars of its citizens to subsidize anti-normalization."

"We care about all Palestinians - those in the West Bank, those in Gaza, and those languishing in refugee camps who have been used as pawns in a political game, and who should have started new lives years ago. We will not continue to invest in temporary solutions that only prolong the cycle of suffering and violence."

Blood libel in Qatari cartoon

From al-Raya (Qatar):

The Jew is drinking Palestinian blood.

I'm sure that Human Rights Watch's Ken Roth, who pretends to care so much about antisemitism, will comment any minute now.

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The New York Times, pretending to be even-handed as ever, writes:

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders gave diametrically different appraisals of their protracted conflict on Thursday, with speeches at the United Nations General Assembly that suggested the dispute is more intractable than ever.

But it doesn't point out the biggest difference between the two speeches: Netanyahu's was truthful and Abbas' was full of his usual lies.

So, a brief fisking of Abbas' speech (as written, not as delivered,), that the media refuse to do because it would make him look bad:

I have come to ask for the freedom, independence and justice of my oppressed people, who have been under the yoke of the Israeli occupation for 51 years.

You could have had freedom if you had accepted any of a number of peace plans.

I return to you today. This colonial occupation continues to undermine our efforts to build the institutions of our future State.

Funny - Jews managed to build the institutions of their future state under British rule, with British soldiers right outside the door. Israeli soldiers aren't in Ramallah.

We note, ladies and gentlemen, that Israeli settlers and even the Israeli army every day trample the sanctity of our holy sites, especially the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Resurrection.

I am not aware of any Jews hanging around any churches - since they are not built on Jewish holy spots. To say that no Jew can visit a Jewish holy spot that pre-dates the Muslim claim to it by a thousand years, and to claim that such a visit is "trampling its sanctity," is nothing short of antisemitism.

In July, Israel issued a racist law that went beyond all the red lines, which it called the "National Law of the Jewish People", negating the relationship of the Palestinian people to its historic homeland and ignoring its right to self-determination in its state, its historical narrative and the UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue.

It didn't. Perhaps it should have.

This law also discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel when it grants the right to self-determination in the State of Israel exclusively to Jews. Discrimination against these Arab citizens, who represent 20% of the population of Israel, as well as against non-Jews who have immigrated to Israel.

But Abbas does not believe Jews have the right to self-determination anywhere on the planet, since he denies there are a Jewish people to begin with. And his own constitution says Palestine is an Arab and Muslim state. But, who is asking for consistency from a liar?

We have dealt with the various initiatives of the international community to achieve peace between us and the Israelis, including the Arab peace initiative adopted in Security Council resolution 1515.

UNSC 1515 does not mention the Arab Peace Initiative. It mentions the Roadmap, which mentioned and welcomed the Arab Peace Initiative but did not endorse it as the basis of a peace plan.

I challenge the idea that we were once asked to sit at the negotiating table and refused.

That's a joke, right?

Peace in our region can not be achieved without the embodiment of the independence of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with all its holy sites.

Abbas is explicitly saying that every Jewish holy site is really Muslim and the Jew-hating Arabs should be responsible for them, to allow Jews or ban Jews as they wish. He is saying that without that there will be war and terror. This is a threat.

Yet he is called a peacemaker.

We will reject and reject the use of violence and force. We will reject all kinds of weapons and we will not accept the use of weapons anywhere else.

But when his people kill Jews with guns or bombs or rockets or knives, the murderers are heroes who get paid and who get buildings named after them. Wink, wink.

There is no people on this planet that does not enjoy the rights of self-determination. No? We are 13 million Palestinians in the world, why not give the right to self-determination? This is not against anyone, to build our independent state and to live side by side with the State of Israel.

But he does not say that he wants 13 million Palestinians to live in "Palestine." He wants them to move to Israel to destroy the Jewish state. Here is a video from the official PA news agency just this month:

As always, Palestinian leaders don't want to build a state for their people. They want to destroy Israel by any means available, and if the military option isn't there, they will choose political or terror or "return" or subverting international law.

There are agreements between us and Israel, from the Oslo Agreement to the Paris Agreement, all of which were overturned by Israel, and we call on Israel to reverse its breach of these agreements, or we will never abide by these agreements.

Oslo is what created the PA. Abbas is still president of the PA. Exactly how has this been abrogated?

Oslo also included the pledge by the PLO to abandon terror. Yet the PLO was behind the terror spree of the second Intifada, eight years later. Who abrogated the agreement?

Greetings to our noble martyrs and brave families, and to say to all the Palestinians: First, Israel considers these criminals, why? Why are there thousands of people who attack people and regard them as heroes? Why was Rabin's killer considered a hero and our prisoners are considered criminals? Greetings to our heroic martyrs and our heroic families, and I say to all that we are on a date soon with the dawn of freedom and independence and the darkness of the occupation to the end, God willing.

Abbas' praise of terrorists ended his speech - and the UN applauded.

That's really all you need to know.

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