Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 08, 2021

03/08 Links Pt2: BDS groups from US and Europe team up with Iran and Hamas against Israel; B'Tselem fuels Jew-hatred with lies - and these are the donors who fuel B'Tselem

From Ian:

Together, we are changing history: Bahrain's Ambassador Houda Nonoo

Neither our gender, nor the religion we practice, has ever restricted the opportunity of any Bahraini to succeed

In honour of International Women’s Day being observed on Monday (March 8), Khaleej Times sat down with Bahrain’s Ambassador, Her Excellency Houda Nonoo, the first Jewish ambassador to be appointed from an Arab country and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member country's first female ambassador to the United States (US). Ambassador Nonoo had served as Bahrain’s Ambassador to the US from 2008 to 2013 and continues to serve in the country's Foreign Ministry as an envoy.

Excerpts from an exclusive interview:
I’m sure that Jews from around the world have reached out following the signing of Abraham Accords. Have they started to come visit?
It has been six months since the historic announcement from Bahrain and Israel and not a day goes by without Jews from around the world reaching out about upcoming trips or letting us know that they have arrived. Over Hanukkah, we participated in many online menorah lightings with communities in the US and Europe. We have spoken with a plethora of Jewish tour operators who are planning to bring tourists groups in the coming months. There is a euphoria that has spread following these announcements and we are looking forward to welcoming all of the Jewish tourists to Bahrain.

How will Bahrain and the wider region transform following the signing of the Abraham Accords? How does the future look?
While 2020 was historic for Bahrain and Israel, 2021 will be even better as we feel its influence in the business, healthcare, education, travel and tourism sectors. Recently, Israel’s two largest banks, Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, signed several memoranda of understandings (MoUs) with the National Bank of Bahrain. These new partnerships will make banking transactions possible for customers in both countries as new economic opportunities arise.

However, the Abraham Accords were not just signed for economic reasons but also because our leaders – His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – had the bold vision to advance the horizons of stability and prosperity in the Middle East, one built upon warm peace and creating opportunities for the next generation. Together, we are changing history. We are doing this for our children, because by inculcating the lessons of peace and tolerance within them now, they will grow up to be the future political and business leaders of the next generation – and they will not know of the chasm that previous generations faced. As our Bahraini children start to learn about Judaism and Israeli culture in their schools and Israeli children learn more about Islam and Gulf culture in theirs, they will carry these lessons with them as they grow to lead this powerful region. The Abraham Accords are the beginning of a new era for our region, and we are all excited about it.

BDS groups from US and Europe team up with Iran and Hamas against Israel

BDS groups in Europe and North America took part in an event with the Iranian regime, leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups earlier this year.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions organizations in his address at the Tehran event, saying: “We see good results to the work of our diaspora in raising awareness, cutting relations with the occupation and delegitimizing it.”

Two related events were broadcast simultaneously from Gaza and Tehran, on January 18, with the Gaza event called “Year to Confront Normalization” and the Iranian event called “Together Against Normalization.” Both Gazans and Iranians reiterated their opposition to the four Arab states,– the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, – which normalized relations with Israel last year.

One of the organizers of the Gaza event, Sheikh Yusuf Abbas, declared that their campaign “mainly aims to make everyone understand that normalization is treason.”

More than 60 organizations took part in the Gaza event, organized by The Global Campaign to Return to Palestine, a broad network including many BDS groups. Among the participants were Western groups, such as the US Palestinian Community Network, Malcolm X Grassroots effort in the US, Collectif Palestine Vaincra, in France, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sardegna Palestina in Italy, Palestinian Community in Belgium and Luxembourg, and International League of Peoples’ Struggles, based in Australia.

Haniyeh and Ziyad Nakhala, the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, addressed the Tehran event, as did Speaker of the Iranian Islamic Consultive Assembly Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, speakers of the parliaments of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and the deputy speaker of Yemen’s legislature.

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity organization, which is active in Europe and the US, also took part. Israel designated Samidoun a terrorist group this year, as it is a branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist group in the US, Canada, the EU and Australia.

One speaker at the Gaza event was Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, who is noted for his antisemitic remarks, such as Jews are “hook-nosed” and “control the world by proxy.” Other participants included Aleida Guevara March, Che Guevara’s daughter, Tuhsar Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson, and Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson.

David Singer: B'Tselem fuels Jew-hatred with lies - and these are the donors who fuel B'Tselem

Israeli-based Arab human rights organisation – B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - is becoming more and more politically involved in the unresolved 100-years conflict between Jews and Arabs over sovereignty in the territory formerly called Palestine.

The beneficiary of substantial international financial largesse – B’Tselem has a belligerent political anti-Jewish stance.

In a recent Position Paper headlined: “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid” – B’Tselem claims:

"More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule … the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians… There is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle."

But there is no single rule – no Jewish supremacy - no apartheid.

B’Tselem’s claim is patently false - as the Oslo Accords clearly attest: Area A of the 'West Bank' is totally ruled by the Palestine Liberation Organisation – which also exercises full administrative and shared security control over Area B of the 'West Bank' – these areas totalling 40% of the 'West Bank' and housing 95% of the West Bank' Palestinian Arab population.

Gaza is totally ruled by Hamas.

In February, UNRWA announced a "unified food basket program" where it would give all families the same food benefits and take away free food for families with a steady income.

For several years UNRWA classified some families as "abject poor" and gave them more food.

This angered Palestinians, as they get upset any time UNRWA announces any changes in its benefits.

So they did the normal thing they always do: they shut down UNRWA centers, ensuring that no one gets any food at all!

Camp popular committees are being joined with terror groups like the DFLP to protest and shut down UNRWA centers, and the actions are expected to escalate in coming days and weeks.

So everyone can suffer equally!

UNRWA, for its part, says that it simply cannot afford to keep things as they are. It is suffering a $200 million deficit in 2021.

03/08 Links Pt1: India blames Iran’s Quds Force for blast outside Israeli embassy; Attack on Israeli Vessel Was Iranian Retaliation for Secret Operation

From Ian:

India blames Iran’s Quds Force for blast outside Israeli embassy

India has concluded that Iran was behind a blast outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi in January, with the device planted by a local Shiite cell, an Indian news organization reported Monday.

The Hindustan Times said investigators concluded the attack was carried out by the Quds Force branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tasked with carrying out overseas operations, and that the device was detonated by remote control.

According to the report, there was an attempt to mislead investigators into blaming the Islamic State terror organization for the bomb, but counter-terrorism agencies were clear that it was an Iranian attack.

“That the bomb was not of high intensity, with no human targets in mind was perhaps because the Iranians did not want to run afoul of a friendly nation like India. But the message was clear and the threat is real,” an unnamed expert told the outlet.

A letter found close to the scene of the blast was a death threat to the ambassador that warned he was being constantly being watched and vowed to avenge the deaths of “martyrs” Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander who was killed in a January 2020 United States drone strike; Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top Iraqi militia commander who was killed along with Soleimani; and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the architect of Iran’s nuclear program, killed in a November 2020 attack Tehran has blamed on Israel.

The handwritten note, in English, but riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, was addressed to Israel’s ambassador, Ron Malka, and referred to him as a “terrorist of the terrorist nation.”

Attack on Israeli Vessel Was Iranian Retaliation for Secret Operation, Says Official

The attack on an Israeli-owned vessel in the Gulf of Oman on Feb. 25 was an Iranian retaliation for a secret Israeli operation, a senior security source told the Hebrew-language news site Walla.

The anonymous official denied previous claims that the attack was a response to the assassinations of Iran’s top terrorist commander Qassem Soleimani and its leading nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Soleimani was assassinated in a US drone strike in January 2020, and Fakhrizadeh was killed near Tehran in November 2020 in what has been widely viewed as a likely Mossad operation.

The source said that while Iran has been attempting to attack Israeli interests over the past year, they have largely been frustrated by Israel.

He did not give any details on what the secret Israeli operation may have been, but Israel is believed to be working constantly at frustrating the Iranian nuclear program by covert means.

In a Jewish Chronicle article published last month detailing the operation that killed Fakhrizadeh, one intelligence source said, “We will kill the bomb.”

Israel, Cyprus and Greece agree to link power grids via subsea cable

Cyprus, Greece and Israel on Monday signed an initial agreement to build the world's longest and deepest underwater power cable that will traverse the Mediterranean seabed at a cost of about $900 million and link their electricity grids.

The project, called the Euro-Asia interconnector, will provide a back-up power source in times of emergency, said Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who was in Nicosia to sign a memorandum of understanding with his counterparts.

Cypriot Energy Minister Natasa Pilides said it marked "a decisive step towards ending the island's energy isolation, and consequently, our dependence on heavy fuels."

The cable will have a capacity of 1,000-2,000 megawatts (MW) and is expected to be completed by 2024, according to Israel's energy ministry. With a length of about 1,500 km and a maximum depth of 2,700 metres, it will be the longest and deepest subsea electricity cable to have ever been constructed, it said.

Steinitz said the cable "will allow us to receive electricity backing from the power grids of the European continent in times of emergency and more importantly will also support our ability to significantly increase reliance on solar power generation." The Israeli ministry said that the European Union has recognised the cable as a "Project of Common Interest" and was willing to partly fund it.

From the Jewish Journal:

The UCLA student government passed a resolution on March 3 alleging that the Israeli government is committing “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians.

The resolution called for the University of California system to divest from “the war industry” and for “the university to sever itself from companies that engage or aid in the oppression of any people.”

But what Jewish groups and students have taken issue with is that the resolution states that divestment is a legitimate tool to fight against injustice, citing “South African apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing in Palestine by the Israeli government.” The resolution also promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution passed by the UCLA student government in 2014.

“We had no idea this resolution was coming up, and were not alerted by anyone ahead of time,” Aaron Ahdoot, president of Bruins for Israel Public Affairs Committee at UCLA, told the Journal. “The language of the resolution was not released ahead of the council meeting, making it impossible for any of the students to speak out on it.”

Rabbi Aaron Lerner, Executive Director of Hillel at UCLA, wrote in an email to community members that the resolution “follows the familiar pattern of seeking to delegitimize Israel within broader language. The resolution was deliberately hidden from Jewish students, preventing them from engaging in the debate.”

Indeed, while the resolution was sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine and a host of other groups, as far as I can tell they didn't mention the upcoming resolution in social media beforehand - and celebrated it afterwards.

It was deliberately hidden to stop any pro-Israel students from having the opportunity to object, which shows how little the BDS groups actually think of their resolutions' actual merits.

The "apartheid" language is hidden in the preamble:

WHEREAS, the strategy and tool of divestment has been used on numerous occasions to fight for justice, including such examples as the Darfur genocide in Sudan, South African apartheid, the private prison industry, fossil fuels, the Thirty-Meter Telescope, and against ethnic cleansing in Palestine by the Israeli government;

And the preamble also pushes BDS:

WHEREAS, in 2014, the Undergraduate Student Association Council passed A Resolution to Divest from Companies that Violate Palestinian Human Rights proposed by UCLA Students for Justice in Palestine;

There is an irony in that the actual resolution would, if applied fairly, mean that the UCLA Student Government itself should boycott BDS:

LET IT FINALLY BE RESOLVED, that the Undergraduate Student Association Council, representing the interests of students, calls upon the university to sever itself from companies that engage or aid in the oppression of any people based on religion, nationality, gender, race or orientation, or violence against them, by divesting from companies that participate and profit from human rights violations.

BDS calls for Israeli speakers on campus to be boycotted and for Israeli universities to be shunned, which means that BDS itself discriminates against nationality. If discrimination on that basis is unacceptable, then the UCLA Student Government should ban any group that pushes BDS on campus.

The good news is that after Jewish groups pointed out the underhandedness of sneaking Israel-hating language into an anti-war resolution, the student government apologized:

On March 5, the UCLA student government sent an apology to Hillel at UCLA over the resolution being “inadvertently hidden from the Jewish community and the public at large” and that the student government will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“Going forward we hope to work with student leaders in Hillel and in all spaces on campus to ensure that USAC [UCLA Students Association Council] is a safe space for debate and dialogue on important issues on our agendas,” they wrote.

But that is fairly meaningless since the resolution has already passed.

On #InternationalwomensDay, hypocritical "pro-Palestinian" groups don't give a damn about Palestinian women's rights

Today is International Women's Day. As usual, "pro-Palestinian" groups are using it as a means for anti-Israel propaganda.

Yet not one is calling for more women's rights under Palestinian rule.

As we've mentioned before, the Palestinian Authority cynically uses women's rights as a weapon against Israel but really doesn't care about rights for its own women.

It joined the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) along with over a dozen other international agreements in 2014 without reservation. Yet it never actually put any of CEDAW's provisions into law.

Not only that, the PA itself has rejected the convention as violating Islamic law.

Not one "liberal" anti-Israel group said a word.

The editor of a major Palestinian newspaper admitted that there was no intent for the Palestinian government to actually take these international agreements seriously. The only reason that it joined these conventions was to pretend to be a "state" so the International Criminal Court can bring a case against Israel: "The government cannot implement CEDAW in its entirety in light of the existence of a societal system, and that the signing of the agreement is political and was not intended to undermine the Sharia, and had it not been for the signing of CEDAW and many other agreements, the International Criminal Court would not have accepted us."

The actual laws under the Palestinian Authority and under the Gaza government undermine women's rights. Here are only some examples from a 2018 UN report that, as far as I can tell, was completely ignored by these hypocritical "pro-Palestinian" groups who pretend to care about Palestinian rights.

It gets even worse.

A 2018 survey showed that:

35% of Palestinian men say that men who kill their female relatives for "honor" reasons should not go to jail.

47% of Palestinian men say that female relatives who "act or dress" in ways that they disapprove deserve to be punished.

17% of Palestinian men admitted to have engaged in physical violence against their female partners, 21% of women say they have been hit by their husbands.

80% of Palestinian men say "A man should have the final word about decisions in the home."

34% of them say "There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten."

63% of men say "A woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together."

Again, these "pro-Palestinian" NGOs and media outlets who happily use women's rights as a club to beat Israel don't have a word to say about Palestinian misogyny that affect Palestinian women every day.

When these groups claim that Israel is the main oppressor of Palestinian women, they are actively hurting Palestinian women by not allowing a real conversation about their rights to even take place.

Jordanian member of parliament Saleh al-Armouti is upset that a book by Albert Einstein is freely available in Jordan - because it is Zionist.

He composed a parliamentary question to the Minister of Culture asking why it promotes a book that promotes and supports Zionist ideology, settlement activity and the "occupation of Palestine."

The book he is referring to is "The World As I see It," a pamphlet by famed scientist Albert Einstein, written in 1934.

Al Armouti was concerned that the book includes sections exhorting the Jews of Germany to support building up Palesine. He is also upset at these phrases in the wook:

"Palestine is not primarily a place of refuge for the Jews of Eastern Europe, but the embodiment of the re-awakening corporate spirit of the whole Jewish nation."

"The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence--these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it."

"Palestine will be a centre of culture for all Jews, a refuge for the most grievously oppressed, a field of action for the best among us, a unifying ideal, and a means of attaining inward health for the Jews of the whole world.."

The book was apparently distributed by the Ministry of Culture as part of its annual Family Library Project which publishes a variety of texts.

Al Armouti asked the Ministry why it is marketing a Zionist book, who was responsible for this decision, who paid for the publishing costs. He also says that the contents of the book would provide toxicity for generations of Jordanians.

He further claimed that Einstein's words are "a violation of the Jordanian position and the Jordanian principles, of international law and international legitimacy, and breaches global peace and security according to the United Nations Charter."

Einstein in the book wants to see peace between Jews and Arabs:

It is for us to solve the problem of living side by side with our brother the Arab in an open, generous, and worthy manner

We need to pay great attention to our relations with the Arabs. By cultivating these carefully we shall be able in future to prevent things from becoming so dangerously strained that people can take advantage of them to provoke acts of hostility. This goal is perfectly within our reach, because our work of construction has been, and must continue to be, carried out in such a manner as to serve the real interests of the Arab population also.

I have a feeling that MP Armouti does not share those sentiments.

Cartoon of the Day: The benefits of tenure

03/07 Links: David Collier: BDS network exposed as front for Islamic terror groups; PA: ‘If ICC Indicts Israel, We Can Take US Firms to Court’; Three Gazan fishermen killed in suspected Hamas rocket misfire

From Ian:

David Collier: Exclusive – BDS network exposed as front for Islamic terror groups

BDS is an arm of the terror groups
Given all the evidence, it is clear that the terrorists and their supporters that dominate the GCRP and its events are not hangers-on but rather the driving ideology behind the entire project and its goals.

Take a look at this image:

It is the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (a supporter of the terrorist network) sharing an article from Samidoun (another supporter of the terrorist network) reporting an event in which Ahed Tamimi (a supporter of the terrorist network) was given the floor. The tragedy is that this event took place in the European Parliament in Brussels. It is Iranian Islamist influence spreading anti-Jewish hate throughout Europe and centres of influence in the west.

The GCRP now spew out an endless stream of propaganda via their outlets and their material is shared relentlessly in online anti-Israel groups:
And on campus:

The openly stated goal of this terrorist support network is to use participants in its events as tools to spread the word across the globe. The images above shows both how it works – and more scarily, how well it all succeeds. This is from the closing statement at the launch event:

The evidence is all here. Using solidarity movements as proxies and hiding behind human rights keywords, radical Islamic ideology spreads into our high streets and onto our university campuses. They turn up with catchy slogans such as ‘Apartheid week’ or ‘BDS’ – but the driving force behind all this is a radical Islamic genocidal force that seeks to destroy the Jewish presence in the region – simply because it is Jewish. This has nothing to do with human rights. It is a key element in a radical Islamic holy war.

Khaled Abu Toameh: PLO slams US for ignoring Palestinian misery and pro-Israel, anti-ICC bias

Palestinians have accused the Biden Administration of ignoring their suffering for its bias in opposing the International Criminal Court's war crimes probe into Israeli action in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.

The US “totally ignored the legitimate rights of the Palestinians to have a viable state, while the Israeli occupation state continues to annex vast areas of the Palestinian territory in an attempt to undermine the so-called two-state solution," said Tayseer Khaled, member of the PLO Executive Committee on Saturday.

Khaled referred specifically to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech on foreign policy last week, in which he said Palestinian suffering has been completely ignored.

“Blinken did not even mention a word with regard to the suffering the Palestinian people face under occupation, nor anything about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its impact on security and stability in the region,” he said.

“This confirms that the new US administration pays no attention to reviewing the destructive policy of the Trump administration," Khaled said. Blinken did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his major policy speech last week. Similarly, the Biden administration's Interim National Security Strategic Guidance published last week laid out a Middle East strategy that spoke of Israel, but not of the Palestinians. A senior Palestinian official in Ramallah also expressed disappointment with the Biden administration for opposing last week's decision by ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to open a war crimes investigation into the actions of Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority: ‘If ICC Indicts Israel, We Can Take US Firms to Court’

In an interview that aired on Palestine T.V. on March 1, Shtayyeh said, “Before we turned to the ICC, there had been tremendous and unparalleled pressure.”

“I was in New York when a delegation from the State Department came. They left Washington, D.C., at six o’clock in the morning so that they could meet [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas in New York. The reason was that our membership in the ICC is not only against Israel,” he said.

“If Israel is indicted, all the parties involved in the Israeli actions against the Palestinians will also be indicted. This means that we can also take the American companies and organizations that support Israel to court. Hence, the deputy secretary of state said to President Abu Mazen [Abbas]: ‘If you become members in the ICC, it will be like obtaining nuclear weapons.”

Neither Israel nor the United States is a signatory to the Rome Statute from which the ICC derives its authority.

The Palestinian premier also said that the P.A.’s appeal to the ICC had “shattered” Israel’s claimed “monopoly on pain.”

“Israel was basically purporting that the Jews in the world were the only ones who were tormented by the Nazis and so on,” he said.

“Our appeal to the ICC demonstrates and proves that the Palestinian people suffer, their prisoners have been tortured and killed, Palestinians have been martyred and displaced … So we shattered the monopoly on pain that Israel purported to have,” he added.

Palestinian PM Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh: As ICC Members, We Can Take American Companies and Organizations to Court #ICC #Palestinians #Israel pic.twitter.com/d1UkccgG8q
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 7, 2021

Magen David Adom vaccinating Palestinians at Tulkarm Thursday

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has admitted that it has no idea when it will be getting COVID-19 vaccines that they say have been promised from the major drug manufacturers.

At the end of January, the ministry claimed that it would begin receiving mass quantities of the Pfizer, Sputnik-V and AstraZeneca vaccines "within days." It never happened.

In early February, the health ministry said that 2 million doses of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine would arrive starting February 14. It never happened.

The minister of health said in late February that two million doses from AstraZeneca would be arriving starting at the end of February and the beginning of March.

None of that happened.

Now, a ministry of health spokesperson has admitted that they don't know when any vaccines will arrive. He said that the shipments from the COVAX mechanism are due to begin arriving after March 20th, but no date is given for the arrival of the vaccines supposedly procured from Pfizer, Moderna and Russia. Interestingly, he didn't mention the AstraZeneca vaccines that were said to have been purchased as well.

Nowhere in this interview did the spokesperson say a word about Israel. He didn't claim that the PA ever asked for vaccines from Israel, nor did he say that Israel was stopping any vaccines from coming. The times that the Palestinians have asked Israel for help with vaccines, Israel complied (although sometimes delayed.)

The lack of asking Israel for help is despite the fact that new, faster spreading mutations of COVID-19 have been devastating Palestinian hospitals which are at capacity.

That fact the Palestinians have avoided asking Israel for help has simply not been mentioned in the hundreds of media reports criticizing Israel for not providing vaccines to Palestinians. Israel cannot provide vaccines without cooperation of the Palestinian health authorities. They aren't going to leave boxes of vaccines at checkpoints.

Israel's ability to help is much more limited than is being reported, though. Today, Israel does not have enough vaccines to inoculate all Palestinians. It has some 300,000 Moderna vaccines today with 700,000 more supposed to come in April.

Israel was supposed to start a program to vaccinate over 120,000 Palestinian workers today but that has been delayed for administrative reasons after a pilot program that gave some 700 doses last Thursday. Two doses for each worker would deplete the majority of Israel's existing Moderna supply, and it is still waiting for much more from Moderna as well as AstraZeneca.

An Iraqi politician claims that Iranian pressure nixed any participation by Jews in the Pope's interfaith ceremony in Ur on Saturday.

Mithal Al-Alusi, the leader of the Iraqi Ummah Party, says that Iraqi Jews should have attended the Pope's ceremony, and that a list of potential Jewish attendees were given to Iraqi leaders, but Iranian pressure took those Jews off the list of invitees.

"An Iraqi Jewish rabbi should have been present alongside His Holiness the Pope, along with other members of the rest of the religions as a representation of the historical value of Ur and Iraq," he said.

Alusi said that Jews did attend the Al-Rafidain Dialogue conference in Iraq in 2019.

“If the matter was left to respected Iraqi politicians, they would have performed better, representing the multiplicity of Iraq at the level of the plurality of religions and human rights," Alusi stated. "But it suffers from extortion, threats and terrorism carried out by the Iranian side through militias and through political pressure through the Iraqi parliament. "

"Iraq will not reform as long as there are official and unofficial Iranian threats and terrorism," he said.

Alusi is a Sunni Muslim and supports Iraqi alliances with the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Israel.

Hezbollah threatens Israeli research center that exposed its rocket facilities

Alma Research and Education Center researches security issues in the Middle East, specializing in Hezbollah.

Recently it issued a report that revealed where four suspected missile sites (command and control, production, storage and launch sites) were found in Beirut, as a follow-up of a previous report that identified dozens more also in Beirut, near civilian homes and infrastructure.