Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 02, 2018

"The Zionists are hampering the growing Turkish influence in the Balkans"

A typical bizarre conspiracy theory in Jordanzad describes over a century of "Zionist" schemes in the Balkans.

The piece starts off with saying that "the Zionists played a prominent role in the Balkan wars at the beginning of the last century." It goes on to say that "Zionists" provided the Yugoslav Army with biological weapons for use against Kosovo Albanians during the disturbances of the 1980s.

"And the same agents were put by Israel in the water to cause Palestinian infertility and force the disobedience of the women of Kosovo..."

Yeah, it's that kind of article that the Arab press is so good at.

But the part I loved most was the illustration of a heroic Erdogan leading the charge to liberate Jerusalem:

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Christian Century in 1942: "Jews are exaggerating - only half of Polish Jews slated to be exterminated by 1943"

I mentioned I was reading The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel by Caitlin Carenen.

One of the reasons that US media were reluctant to publish stories about Nazi atrocities against Jews was because the Allies has published similar reports during World War I that were discovered to have been fabricated.

But this episode with Rabbi Stephen Wise, as reported by the Christian Century in 1942, is jaw-dropping:

This was also mentioned in a biography of Rabbi Wise:

There were over 3 million Jews in Poland before the war.

The good Christians at the Christian Century didn't think the planned slaughter of 1.5 million Polish Jews was a big deal. That fact was only useful as proof of how Jews lie and exaggerate.

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01/02 Links Pt1: The PA’s daily battle cry for violence; An Iranian Revolution of National Dignity; Shapiro: Trump Reverses the Obama Doctrine on Iran

From Ian:

PMW: "We shall not retreat" – the PA’s daily battle cry for violence

Nearly every day since Dec. 12, excluding the days around Christmas and New Years, the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has published a full-page of pictures of protests including rioters throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at Israelis. The only text on the pages is a giant headline repeated each day: "We shall not retreat." The locations of each event also appears on each picture, nearly are of which are from different Palestinian cities.

One page, from Dec. 18, shows pictures of peaceful demonstrations against US Pres. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from different countries around the world (Libya, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and Montenegro).

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the Palestinian leadership and Fatah have been attempting to incite more violence against Israel ever since US Pres. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The following pictures are further evidence:

Caroline Glick: The Iranian explosion of truth

The $100 billion in sanctions relief Iran received in the wake of the nuclear deal enabled the regime to give hundreds of millions of additional dollars each year to its proxy militias and armies in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

It is self-evident that if the protesters get their way and the ayatollahs are overthrown, that money would stop flowing to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and the Shi’ite militias in Iraq. Instead, that money, and billions more, would be spent developing Iran.

There are many ways that the nations of the world can help the protesters in Iran. The US and Iran’s other targets can expose the financial corruption in the Islamic Republic, including the bank account information of everyone from Supreme Dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei down to local Basij commanders. They can broadcast anti-regime information into Iran through multiple platforms outside the regime’s control. They can bypass the regime and unblock Twitter, Facebook, Telegraph and other social media platforms.

Aside from that, the Trump administration can take immediate steps to constrain even further the regime’s access to the international monetary system and force European and US firms to cancel their multi-billion dollar deals with the regime.

There are many reasons to fear that the protests will fail to achieve their goal of overthrowing the regime. The regime is already sending its forces out to repress the protesters through killing and mass arrests.

But even if the protesters’ prospects of success are small, there is no excuse for not supporting them, as constructively, enthusiastically and unconditionally as possible. There is certainly no excuse for working to preserve Obama’s foreign policy legacy at the expense of a popular uprising that has the potential to avert a world war.

Peter Kohanloo, Sohrab Ahmari: An Iranian Revolution of National Dignity

Iran is convulsing with the largest mass uprising since the 2009 Green Movement. Demonstrations that began last week in the city of Mashhad, home to the shrine of the eighth Shiite imam, have now spread to dozens of cities. And while the slogans initially addressed inflation, joblessness, and graft, they soon morphed into outright opposition to the mullahs. As we write, the authorities have blocked access to popular social-media sites and closed off subway stations in the capital, Tehran, to prevent crowd sizes from growing. At least 12 people have been killed in clashes with security forces.

What is happening in the Islamic Republic?

After nearly four decades of plunderous and fanatical Islamist rule, Iranians are desperate to become a normal nation-state once more, and they refuse to be exploited for an ideological cause that long ago lost its luster. It is a watershed moment in Iran’s history: The illusion of reform within the current theocratic system has finally been shattered. Iranians, you might say, are determined to make Iran great again.

Their movement is attuned to the worldwide spirit of nationalist renewal. From the U.S. to India, and from South Africa to Britain, political leaders and the voters who elect them are reaffirming the enduring value of the nation-state. Iran hasn’t been immured from these developments, as the slogans of the current protests indicate. No longer using the rights-based lexicon of votes and recounts, Iranians are instead demanding national dignity from a regime that for too long has subjugated Iranian-ness to its Shiite, revolutionary mission.

It’s notable, for example, that protestors chant “We Will Die to Get Iran Back,” “Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, My Life Only for Iran,” and “Let Syria Be, Do Something for Me.” Put another way: The people are tired of paying the price for the regime’s efforts to remake the region in its own image and challenge U.S. “hegemony.” Some have even taken to chanting “Reza Shah, Bless Your Soul,” expressing gratitude and nostalgia for the Pahlavi era, which saw the modern, pro-Western nation-state of Iran emerge from the shambles of the Persian Empire.

As the Iranian protests continue, one of the signs of just how serious the protesters are is what they are chanting in public about their government:

“Death to Dictator” “Death to Rouhani” "Death to Khamenei" and “Reza Shah, Bless Your Soul”.
Clearly, the extent of the anger of the protesters goes beyond removing an individual leader -- some want a complete change in government that would return Iran to the way things were before Khomeini and the Islamic revolution.

Here is another anti-government chant opposing Iranian machinations outside of the country:

#BreakingNews
Dec 30 - #Kermanshah, #Iran
People chanting "Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, My life for Iran"#IranProtests #???????_?????? pic.twitter.com/UBRKWnt0Ds
— Heshmat Alavi (@HeshmatAlavi) December 30, 2017

This was tweeted by Heshmat Alavi, a political and human rights activist who has written for Forbes, The Hill, The Daily Caller and Gatestone Institute.

While "Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, My life for Iran" is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Israel, it does illustrate less than enthusiastic support for the Palestinian Arabs in general, and Hamas terror attacks in particular.

But that in itself is not really anything new.

In 2009, Iranian-born conservative author Amir Taheri wrote in his book The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution:

Since [the crushing of the protest in] 1999, Iran has witnessed countless student demonstrations and protests. In hundreds of resolutions passed during mass gatherings, students have challenged virtually every aspect of the Khomeinist ideology and the regime's domestic and foreign policies. One typical resolution passed repeatedly states that the people of Iran do not desire the destruction of Israel and do seek close and friendly relations with the United States. Every year in July, students mark the anniversary of the 1999 events. On October 8, 2007, students in Tehran greeted Ahmadinejad with cries of "Down with the Dictator" and "Forget about Palestine! Think about Us," forcing him to run away briefly with the help of his bodyguards. [emphasis added]

Four years earlier, in 2005, The New York Times reported that Iran's hard line on Israel was not unaminmous:

Beset by practical concerns such as double-digit inflation and unemployment, Iran's youthful population is well aware of the fact that the ideological hubris of their parents' generation - often a half-baked hodgepodge of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, Islamism, and Marxism - has borne the country little fruit apart from a soiled international reputation and political and economic isolation. During the 2003 summer student protests, one popular slogan, delivered in lilting Persian, was "forget about Palestine, think about us!" [emphasis added]

The article was written by Karim Sadjadpour, currently an Iranian-American policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment and Ray Takeyh, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sadjadpour and Takeyh go on to write:

There exists no inherent reason why the Israeli-Palestinian struggle should be an overriding concern to the average Iranian. Iran has no territorial disputes with Israel, no Palestinian refugee problem, a long history of contentious relations with the Arab world, and an even longer history of tolerance vis-a?-vis the Jewish people. To this day, the Jewish community in Iran is the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel.

Ironically, in 2005 this article was claiming that based on the troubled relationship between Iran and the Arab world, it was Iran -- not the Saudis -- that should have been drawn into an alliance with Israel.
They summarized the position that Iran need not be so supportive of the Palestinian Arabs in the words of one reformist leader that:

"We shouldn't be chanting 'death to Israel'; we should be saying 'long live Palestine.' We needn't be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves."

Clearly, things have not worked out that way so far -- this despite the fact that 2 years earlier, in 2003, an article in The New Republic and republished in The Jewish World Review was saying the same thing and was asking Is Iran rethinking its position on Israel? It suggested that

though the West still thinks of Iran as a cauldron of anti-Israel passion, a new generation of pro-democracy Iranians increasingly speaks out against the government's seeming obsession with the Palestinians.

From the way the article describes it, even "conservatives" in the Iranian government were apparently seeing the light. You would expect a very different situation from the one currently going on during the past few days.

The article examines why things were potentially so promising:

several senior conservatives have quietly joined the chorus, hinting that Iran's support for terrorist groups opposed to Israel is negotiable. According to one senior conservative official, "Iran's policy in the Middle East and the peace process is not beyond the realm of possibilities that can be discussed, given a dialogue with the United States." Translation from Islamic Republic-speak: We can talk turkey on Israel/Palestine. Sadeq Zibakalam, a Tehran University professor with close ties to conservative officials, underscored this view earlier this year, when he told the U.S.-funded Radio Farda Persian service that Iran understands Washington's concerns about Tehran's support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. President Mohammed Khatami, a reformer who has long argued that Iran should not interfere in any agreements made between Israel and the Palestinians, is unlikely to quibble with the conservatives.

So what happened?

While Mohammed Khatami, the reformer, was president in 2003, by 2005 a new president was elected: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and the rest is history.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Credit: Farzad Khorasani Source: Wikimedia Commons

While he did not single-handedly stem the supposedly growing tide of reform, Ahmadinejad did represent the interests of the hard-liners.

For now, it is impossible to say whether the current protests will be put down and crushed as were the student protests in 1999 and the election protests in 2009. Even if successful, they are not about to change Iran overnight into a friend of Israel reminiscent of the reign of the Shah of Iran. Instead, it has been suggested that the current unrest will keep the government occupied and reduce the possibility of conflict between the two countries, especially along the Syrian border, at least for a while.

But beyond that, the idea that Iranian animosity towards Israel is not hardwired, may perhaps hold promise for some point in the forseeable future.

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Fatah: Israelis are the terrorists, our suicide bombers are the heroes

I wasn't the only one to notice how Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah was glorifying female terrorists and suicide bombers in celebration of the 53rd anniversary of their first terror attack.

Israel's PMO Arabic media spokesperson Ofir Gendelman wrote this on Facebook:

Fatah responded by claiming that Israel is the one that glorifies terror attacks like Deir Yassin, and these women are simply martyrs fighting the occupation:

Funny, I never saw any Fatah-style posters glorifying terrorists in any official Israeli site.

So now the children, old men and other civilians murdered by these heroes are "gangs of murderers" that must be "fought.".

Good to know that Fatah is so public with its moral inversion. Not that any Western media will notice, though.

Fatah also published a lengthy poem glorifying their heroes. Auto-translate does poorly on poetry but the poem does mention "apes and monkeys drinking whiskey" so it certainly has its share of Jew-hatred.

Progressive.

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The Islamic Waqf, who run the Al Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim buildings on the Temple Mount, issued a mournful press release:

The head of the Islamic Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Department, Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, said that the infiltration by the Jewish extremists of Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2017 recorded the highest number of violators. The total number of extremists who stormed the mosque is about 25,630, in a clear desecration of the sanctity of the mosque.

Sheikh al-Khatib confirmed that the numbers are increasing under the rulings issued by the Jewish rabbis who incite the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque and with Israeli government support for these intruders.

Over 25,000 - an improvement!

But just to keep things in proportion, there are more Muslims at the holy site every Friday.

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What happens to ordinary people who slap security personnel in the face (videos)

Since Ahed Tamimi is being treated as a hero for slapping an Israeli security officer in the face, here is what happens to people around the world when they do the same thing.

Last November, a University of Miami woman was being taken away from the stadium and she slapped a security guard. He knocked her out.

This Italian woman gets slapped right back - and starts to cry:

This guy slaps a cop- and regrets it pretty quickly:

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01/01 Links Pt2: Even the Beatles preceded the Palestinians; Hezbollah and Hamas top ‘Richest Terror Groups’ list; Chanting "Jews, remember Khaybar" in Italy

From Ian:

Even the Beatles preceded the Palestinians

Since then…since 1964…the “Palestinians” have been the world’s number one concern, even though they have been nothing but a headache and exist in no history books. Nothing to be found about them before June 2, 1964. That’s when the Arab League certified them as the PLO.

That’s when they became a “people” -- a people still in search of an ancestry. So far, no luck.

Abbas keeps trying. He names himself and his “people” heirs to every ancient civilization on record.

But there is not even a single page about them; not in the Hebrew Bible, or the Christian Bible. The Koran never heard of them, and neither did Josephus.

Consider the Beatles. They made their splash February 7, 1964. That’s four months BEFORE the “Palestinians” got noticed...
If the 1960s are your idea of “ancient times,” okay; consider the Beatles. They made their splash February 7, 1964.

That’s four months BEFORE the “Palestinians” got noticed and they, The Beatles, never asked for favors besides “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

It’s the song that launched them on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” (Originally known as “Toast of the Town.”) Anybody remember Ed Sullivan? Of course not.

Yes, Millennials, we did have TV back then, though to change channels Americans had to get up off the couch. Imagine such a thing!

Since math is not my strength, I will trust you to check my figures, to which I say that the “Palestinian people” have been around for 54 years.

For that, they want their own country deep in the heart of Israel, where the Jews go back 3,800 years – and a share of Jerusalem, Israel’s capital for 3,000 years.

Hezbollah and Hamas rank at top of Forbes’ ‘Richest Terror Groups’ list

Eight of the ‘Top Ten’ terror groups in terms of income are Muslim, with Hezbollah and Hamas ranked #1 and #3 respectively.

One of the more far-reaching consequences of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is on display in Forbes Israel’s latest ranking of the richest terrorist groups in the world, as in 2017 Iran-backed Hezbollah leaped to the top of list with a whopping $1.1 billion in revenue.

That is not to say that all their income stems from Iran. Terrorist organizations in general also fund their purchase of arms, training and salary payments to their members from such criminal activities as drug smuggling, money laundering, kickbacks, kidnappings, ‘protection’, etc., just as organized crime does.

But the nuclear deal, it should be recalled, allowed for the release of billions of dollars into Iran’s state coffers from the lifting of internationally imposed sanctions, and the unfreezing of its assets abroad. This, in turn, allowed the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism to open the spigots to its proxies, and the results can clearly be seen by comparing this year’s “Top Ten” list with the previous one, made in 2014. Lebanese group Hezbollah, which has been fighting in Syria for years for Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad, was then ranked fourth, with $500 million – only half of what it has today.

Hamas has $700 million
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas, meanwhile, is now in third place, having actually dropped a rung from 2014. (The Taliban now occupy second place, with a revenue of $800 million). Forbes lists them as currently receiving about $700 million a year, vs. a billion dollars three years ago. They have two well-known state sponsors, Qatar and, again, Iran. But in the decade since it took over Gaza, Hamas also became expert in extracting money from its own citizens.

According to Forbes’ 2014 report, Hamas makes most of its money from a sophisticated tax system aimed at, among other things, pocketing large portions of the international aid that flows into Gaza. It also runs hundreds of businesses, controls several banks, and has levies on all consumer goods entering the Gaza Strip. All in all, the report says, about 15% of Gaza’s economy ends up in this organization’s pocket.

Riyadh chess champion criticizes Saudi visa discrimination against Israeli players

Winner of the world speed chess championship in Riyadh, grandmaster Magnus Carlsen from Norway, said in an interview with the Norwegian NRK broadcasting network that if the Saudi visa issue is not regulated until next year, Saudi Arabia should not host the next tournament. “I really hope they solve the issue of visas for all countries,” said Carlsen.

The four-day chess championship ended December 30 amid controversy surrounding Riyadh’s refusal to provide visas for Israeli players. Seven Israeli chess players reportedly requested visas for the event. Head of the English Chess Federation Dominic Lawson said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia should be stripped of the right to host chess championships. "This contract for the World Rapid Chess Championship was signed on the understanding that the Saudis would ensure that Israeli masters would be able to play,” Lawson said.

Criticism surrounding the tournament also concerned the Kingdom’s treatment of its women. This year will reportedly be the first-year female chess players were not forced to wear an Islamic abaya garment to the games; instead, they were apparently permitted to wear a long blouse. Ukrainian chess champion Anna Muzychuk told reporters she decided to turn down a chance to participate in the event due to Saudi human right violations and its treatment of women. (h/t Zvi)

Remember the ISM of Rachel Corrie fame? No one wants to give them any money anymore.

I received a fundraising email from the International Solidarity Movement, and they apparently are in pretty bad shape.

Their heyday was when they fooled Rachel Corrie into thinking that she would stop a bulldozer that couldn't see her.

Now they say that the need $29,000 to cover their budget for 2018, for office expenses and to bring some Palestinian propagandists to college campuses.. Last year in total they only raised $10,000.

An addendum to today's email, possibly not meant for the entire group, says:

The US donations have been very weak so far, although it's a bit early to count the responses by check, of which we have so far received none. Not sure about responses to the Swedish site.

The top headline on their website brags that they are "surviving."

The ISM is a bellwether for extremist anti-Israel organizations like Free Gaza and others. Chances are, they are all hurting.

They need dead activists to galvanize their base. Those evil Israelis aren't even giving that to them.

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#FreeAhedTamimi so she can become the next Leila Khaled (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

There is a refreshingly honest Twitter account devoted to promoting the otherwise appallingly deceptive campaign to #FreeAhedTamimi. Among the recently posted tweets is one declaring: “Israel is dreading that Ahed is the next Leila Khaled, they will try to break her in anyway or shape. But what they forgot is to see the fierce and fearless & determine look through her blue eyes. #FreeAhedTamimi #FreeGeorgesAbdallah.”

It isn’t all that important if this Twitter account is really an “official” account sanctioned by the Tamimi family, because the images attached to the tweet are clearly real – and truly worth a thousand words.

So let’s recall who Leila Khaled and Georges Abdallah are.

Leila Khaled, with whom Ahed posed for a photo, is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP is notorious for having “pioneered such terror tactics as airline hijackings” and perpetrated “hundreds of terrorist attacks.” As Wikipedia puts it without a trace of irony, Leila Khaled “is credited as the first woman to hijack an airplane.”

If Ahed Tamimi wants to be “the next Leila Khaled,” we can only wonder and worry what pioneering acts of terror she will once be “credited” with.

Now let’s turn to Georges Abdallah, for whom Ahed campaigned alongside her father Bassem Tamimi: Abdallah is “a Lebanese militant” who “was arrested in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for the 1982 murder of Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Ray, who was an assistant US military attaché and murder of Israeli diplomat Yaakov Bar-Simantov outside his home in Paris on 3 April 1982, as well as involvement in the attempted assassination of former American consul in Strasbourg Robert O. Homme.”

As explained in a subsequent tweet, the photos showing Ahed and her father Bassem Tamimi campaigning alongside a terrorist for another terrorist are “from the conference on the role of women in the Palestinian popular struggle Sep 2017 and international days of resistance to Free Georges Ibrahim Abdallah Oct 2017.”

So let this sink in: just some three months before much of the mainstream media dutifully promoted fact-free propaganda about the wonderful Tamimis and their noble “non-violent” struggle, daddy Bassem and his famous daughter were all too happy to show that their idea of “non-violence” includes murder and airplane hijackings.

What’s beyond satire is that the “conference” promoting terrorism was hosted by two far-left Spanish members of the European Parliament. According to a report in the European Jewish Press, pioneering airplane hijacker Leila Khaled used the prestigious platform at the European Parliament “to praise extremist violence and demonize Jews. She glorified terrorism and trivialized the Holocaust. ‘Don’t you see a similarity between Nazi actions and Zionist actions in Gaza? … While the Nazis were tried in Nuremberg, no one has ever tried the Zionists,’ she said.”

The outcry resulting from this travesty eventually prompted the European parliament to endorse a proposal “to systematically deny access to all persons, groups, or entities involved in terrorist acts.”

Better late than never, I guess – though it remains amazing to see that terrorists like Leila Khaled and outspoken terror supporters like the Tamimis can apparently travel freely to Europe.

Now let’s look at one other gem from the #FreeAhedTamimi Twitter account: this tweet manages to summarize the Tamimis’ agenda in just one word when it describes a photo of Hebrew graffiti praising Ahed as a “hero” as having been taken in “occupied Tel Aviv.”

So next time the Tamimis tell credulous reporters that they’re fighting “the occupation,” know that they’re surely mightily amused and pleased that everyone prefers to ignore that as far as they are concerned, Tel Aviv is just one more occupied Zionist settlement.

And if everything goes well for the Tamimis, Ahed – “the next Leila Khaled” – will once be credited for her pioneering terror strategies to liberate occupied Tel Aviv.

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01/01 Links Pt1: Murderers of 179 Israelis honored by Fatah; The Regime Chants "Death to America", Iranians Chant "Death to Mullahs"

From Ian:

PMW: Murderers of 179 Israelis honored by Fatah including 4 female suicide bombers

The official Facebook page of Abbas' Fatah Movement celebrated Fatah's 53rd anniversary by glorifying eight terrorist murderers from its ranks, four of them female suicide bombers. Fatah posted photos of the killers with the same text and logo on Dec. 30, 2017:

"The Palestinian National Liberation Movement - Fatah
Mobilization and Organization Commission - Communications Office
The 53rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution"

The following are the photos of the terrorist murderers posted on Fatah's official Facebook page, with PMW explanatory notes:

Khalil Al-Wazir - Abu Jihad - former head of the PLO's military wing, was responsible for the murder of at least 125 Israelis, according to the PA's news agency Wafa.
Text:
"Heroic Martyr (Shahid)
Fatah Movement Central Committee member,
Khalil Al-Wazir 'Abu Jihad'"

The number "53" represents the 53rd anniversary of the "Launch" of Fatah. In the upper right corner is the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as "Palestine".

JPost Editorial: Support the Iranian people

There was a time not so long ago when Israel and Iran were allies. And if one day the Iranian political leadership will go, there is no reason why Israel and Iran cannot once again collaborate.

A free, democratic, and independent Iran would give full expression – not only to the richness of Persian culture, one of the oldest on the planet – but could also tap into the extraordinary talents and energies of this remarkable people. Imagine the synergies of combining Israeli and Iranian abilities.

The only way there is even an outside chance of this happening, however, is if the US under Trump’s leadership, along with other nations, make it clear to Iran that they will not tolerate continued repression of the Iranian people.

As part of restoring the deterrence lost during the Obama era, the US should meet every case of repression with clear consequences, whether in the form of renewed sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the curtailing of imports, or the suspension of business ties.

You might not be able to tell by reading leading newspapers or watching the major TV news outlets, but we could be witnessing unprecedented signs of change in Iran. World leaders should, through both words and deeds, take advantage of this propitious time.

The Regime Chants "Death to America", Iranians Chant "Death to Mullahs"

Now, people are demanding not just limited reforms but regime change. After almost four decades of living under a theocracy -- with Islamist mullahs controlling them, rampant corruption, and the regime's persistent dissemination of propaganda -- the people have reached the boiling point. The government has been doing all it can to stoke the flames of hatred, but has been trying to deflect it to "Death to America" and "Death to Israel".

Protesters, risking their lives, have been chanting, "Death to Khamenei" -- a serious crime according to the clergy, and punishable, according to the Sharia law of the regime, with death.

People are also chanting, "Death to Rouhani", "Shame on you Khamenei, step down from power", "Death to the Dictator" and "Death to the Islamic Republic". Protesters are tearing down the banners of Iran's Supreme leaders, Khomeini and Khamenei.

Chants being heard all over the nation are, "Forget about Palestine, forget about Gaza, think about us", "Death to Hezbollah", "The people live like beggars / [Khamenei] lives like a God," and "Leave Syria alone, think about us instead".

The outcry leaves no question about the needs of the people, and the real voice of Iran. Demonstrators are making a clear distinction between the Iranian people's desired policies and those being carried out by the regime. All political and economic indications are that protests in Iran will continue to grow.

The Trump administration in the United States is taking the right side by supporting the Iranian people; they are the principal victims of the Iranian regime and its Islamist agenda.

From Haaretz:

Washington gave Israel a green light to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported on Monday.

Al-Jarida, considered an Israeli mouthpiece, quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that "there is an American-Israeli agreement" that Soleimani is a "threat to the two countries' interests in the region."

The agreement between Israel and the United States, according to the report, comes three years after Washington thwarted an Israeli attempt to kill the general.

The report says Israel was "on the verge" of assassinating Soleimani three years ago, near Damascus, but the United States warned the Iranian leadership of the plan, revealing that Israel was closely tracking the Iranian general.

The incident, the report said, "sparked a sharp disagreement between the Israeli and American security and intelligence apparatuses regarding the issue."

I've looked at al-Jarida over the years, and not one of its spectacular scoops that have been picked up by mainstream media has been verified.

In 2012, a foiled assassination plot against Ehud Barak in Singapore.
In 2015, it reported that the US threatened to shoot down Israeli planes en route to bomb Iran.
It reported Gilad Shalit about to be released in 2009, two years before it happened.
It claimed Israel was about to bomb Iran in 2009.
It reported other Israeli assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas figures back in 2008.
It claimed to have had the first interview with Egyptian president Sisi- ahead of any Egyptian media! (The interview was fiction and Egypt denied any such interview.)

Who considers Al Jarida to be an Israeli mouthpiece? Why would any Israeli want to leak information to an obscure Kuwaiti paper instead of one in Tel Aviv or the US? Why are Kuwaiti reporters, of all people, supposedly so well connected?

This is lazy, unethical journalism by Haaretz (and others have done the same with Al Jarida.)

Reporting on a story by another paper with no credibility isn't reporting. It is spreading lies.

UPDATE: I forgot that this "Israeli mouthpiece" reported in 2016 that "Jews are the biggest terrorists in history."

Maybe that's why Haaretz finds them credible.

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Here's a new one.

A company of ultra-extremist settlers, on Sunday, conducted silent Talmudic rituals in the closed section of Bab al-Rahma, located between the door of the tribes and the Marwani Mosque, inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

What is the difference between silent rituals and doing nothing?

Silent rituals make headlines in the Arab media! (I saw at least 6 stories about this.)

The more interesting part is that these "rituals" supposedly happened at Bab al-Rahma, which is a building that Israel closed off this year because it was a Hamas stronghold. If Jews are really allowed to visit the building while Muslims cannot, this might be a bigger story....

I believe this building abuts one of the southern gates of the Temple Mount.

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Haaretz reports:

A fantastically preserved seal impression made by the biblical Governor of Jerusalem during the First Temple era has been found by archaeologists where it fell 2,700 years ago.

Many dozens of seal impressions and seals themselves have been found in ancient Jerusalem, including in this area by the Temple Mount. Also, several seal impressions of the Jerusalem governor ("sar ha'ir"), who was the highest-ranking officer in the city, have been making the rounds in the black market, Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah told Haaretz.

But this lump of baked clay, all of 1.3 by 1.5 centimeters in size and just over two millimeters thick, is unique in being of unquestionable provenance.

"Ours is special because this was the first time the seal of the Governor of the City of Jerusalem itself was found in the right place," Weksler-Bdolah says.

The upper part of the governor's seal impression shows two standing figures facing each other, though their potential identities are obscure, as their heads are depicted as dots, with no special features. The two are garbed in a striped, knee-length garment, say Ornan and Sass.

The lower part has bears the inscription in ancient Hebrew script "sari'r" which the archaeologists are confident is ancient Hebrew for "sar ha'ir" or "governor of the city." Typical of the time, there is no space between the words.

The Governor of Jerusalem is mentioned twice in Hebrew Scripture, once in 2 Kings 23:7.

The Palestinian Arab Ma'an News Agency, which is touted as independent and objective, reports the story this way in Arabic:

Continuing the attempts of the Israeli occupation to write an imaginary history of its control over the city of Jerusalem, it continues to talk about the artificial history of the temple and what it calls "its ancient history" in the city.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman for the Arab media, Ophir Gendelman, published photographs of relics that the Israeli Antiquities Authority allegedly found in excavations near the Al-Buraq Wall. The occupation claims that they confirm their "ancient history" in the city, and that the seals and artifacts date back to the period of the "First Temple" 2,700 years ago and to one of the "rulers of Jerusalem" mentioned in the Torah.

The article proves again that Palestinian media isn't objective. It is propaganda.

The idea that Jews controlled Jerusalem, which Muslims freely admitted until recently, is now forbidden to be said. Because politics and hate of Israel is more important than facts or history.

Whether Ma'an writes this way out of fear of repercussions if they reported the story accurately, or whether it simply regards itself as a propaganda arm for Palestinian anti-Israel narrative, is not important. What is important is that the world needs to understand that even "objective" Palestinian media is anything but, that lying comes easily to them, and that they will not report anything that violates Palestinian political correctness. History and facts be damned.

If you want to laugh, read how Ma'an describes itself:

Ma'an News Agency takes the utmost neutrality in its news editorial policy, aimed at facilitating access to information and promoting freedom of opinion and pluralism in Palestine.

UPDATE: To give an idea of how much the official rules of propaganda must be adhered to - Palestinian Christians know that Jerusalem was a Jewish city and that the Temple was there, it is in their scriptures. Yet not once have I ever seen a Palestinian Christian denounce official Palestinian Temple-denial.

Regular Palestinians know what they are allowed to say to the media and to Westerners.

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Palestine Today reports about a new poll of Palestinian Arabs where it is claimed that 81.8% of them want to cancel the Oslo Accords.

They probably aren't thinking this through.

The Palestinian Authority only exists because of Oslo. The autonomy they have in Areas A and B only exist because of Oslo.

Without Oslo, they all go back to being under Israeli control. There is no "State of Palestine."

And there are no legal claims to any territory.

Mahmoud Abbas reverts to the head of Fatah and the PLO, but no longer would have any territory, any police, any international aid for his budget.

This doesn't sound like it would be so bad.

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