Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 15, 2018

Amnesty tacitly encourages children to assault armed soldiers - but only if they are Israeli

Israeli authorities must release a 16-year-old Palestinian activist who could face up to 10 years in prison over an altercation with Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank last month, Amnesty International said as she appeared in court today.

Ahed Tamimi will go before Ofer military court in the occupied West Bank accused of aggravated assault and 11 other charges after a video showing her shoving, slapping and kicking two Israeli soldiers in her home village of Nabi Saleh on 15 December went viral on Facebook.

“Nothing that Ahed Tamimi has done can justify the continuing detention of a 16-year-old girl. The Israeli authorities must release her without delay. In capturing an unarmed teenage girl’s assault on two armed soldiers wearing protective gear, the footage of this incident shows that she posed no actual threat and that her punishment is blatantly disproportionate,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

Amnesty is saying that Israeli soldiers should just allow children to attack them.

But it gets worse. Amnesty tacitly supports and praises the assaults:

“Ahed Tamimi’s ensuing arrest and military trial exposes the Israeli authorities’ discriminatory treatment of Palestinian children who dare to stand up to ongoing, often brutal, repression by occupying forces.

“It would be an unconscionable travesty of justice if Ahed Tamini’s act of defiance in the face of relentless oppression earns her a long prison sentence after a trial in a military court that does not ensure basic fair trial standards.”

Amnesty is encouraging children to assault armed soldiers, telling them that the soldiers do not have the right to defend themselves nor to arrest them. And that the human rights community will praise them and turn them into heroes.

Amnesty would never encourage children to attack armed Syrian or Russian soldiers. Because those soldiers would kill the children without a moment's hesitation - and without any fear of condemnation by Amnesty.

But Israel has completely different rules for "human rights" NGOs.

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Take two: Bassem Tamimi on his daughter Ahed in Arabic and English (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

In a post entitled “The Tamimi masterclass on media manipulation,” I documented some two years ago in considerable detail that Bassem and Nariman Tamimi (i.e. the parents of Ahed Tamimi) feel completely free to tell credulous reporters invented stories that depict them and their children as innocent victims of Israeli brutality. The specific incident I investigated also showed that – even when it comes to her own children – Nariman Tamimi’s grim philosophy is “Either victory or martyrdom.”

A recent example shows Bassem Tamimi displaying a similarly cold-hearted fanaticism – but only for Arab audiences. Thanks to an admirer of the Tamimis, we can watch clips with English subtitles (h/t @kweansmom) from an interview that Bassem Tamimi recently gave to the Lebanese media network Al Mayadeen. According to Wikipedia, the network’s “editorial policy emphasizes that Palestine and resistance movements wherever they are found are its point of reference” and “that the Palestinian cause is the channel’s centerpiece;” there have also been claims that “the channel is a propaganda platform for Iran and Hezbollah.”

The Al Mayadeen interviewer is obviously eager to let Ahed’s father Bassem Tamimi tell their audience what an awesome “resistance” icon he has brought up. In the first clip, Ahed’s proud dad explains that after publishing the video of Ahed punching, kicking and slapping two Israeli soldiers, the family anticipated her arrest. Bassem Tamimi doesn’t mention the fact that it was Ahed’s mother who posted the video on her Facebook page – thus apparently trying to ensure her daughter’s arrest – and he doesn’t mention the fact that the video also includes a segment where Ahed, prompted by her loving mom to give a “message to the world,” is calling for stabbings and suicide bombings.

As Bassem Tamimi explains to Al Mayadeen, even though the family anticipated Ahed’s arrest, it would have been wrong “to break (stop) a possible exemplar (of resistance) because “our people need to see a specific moment even if there is a price to pay.”

After outlining his views on futile Israeli attempts to intimidate Palestinians, Bassem Tamimi is asked by his interviewer what sentence he expects for Ahed. He calmly responds that he expects his daughter to be sentenced to a year and a half in prison, and he vows to reject any possible “agreement”: “We will not break her challenge so that she pleads guilty in front of this judge. This will be offered to us for the sake of extortion, [but] we will reject it [and] she will completely reject it.” Bassem Tamimi also claims that Ahed “said to her siblings ‘you are not allowed to have an agreement’” and supposedly, Ahed said the same to him in previous instances when he was arrested.

Emphasizing again that Ahed “rejects making an agreement,” Bassem Tamimi declares: “so we have two choices: completely rejecting the legitimacy of the [Israeli] court, or asking to put the court on trial by way of a global opinion (pressure).”

Of course, this is not really an either-or choice: the strategy Bassem Tamimi outlines obviously involves rejecting any compromise with the Israeli authorities AND mobilizing public opinion against Israel. This has been the Tamimis’ strategy for years, and according to this interview, the Tamimis intend to follow it through also now – even if it means a considerable prison sentence for their teenage daughter. The global publicity activists and sycophantic media outlets provide to the Tamimis makes it very worthwhile for them to have Ahed locked up for a year or two.

A fourth clip from the interview is summarized by the translator as follows: “Ahed’s father tells @AlMayadeenNews of how his little resistor is driving the Zionist establishment insane, discovering there [their] spying devices and leaving them baffled.”

Yet, the clip starts with Bassem Tamimi presenting a dire picture of the hardships and dangers his daughter is facing in Israeli detention – a “child” taken to “a jail cell” and facing endless interrogations; “the main court brings people to yell, threaten with rape & all these things” – but then Bassem Tamimi gloats that Ahed discovered “spying devices.”

He also confesses: “I was extremely happy when she told me ‘a police officer started yelling out of frustration, that’s when I knew I won, and he was defeated.’” Then Bassem Tamimi returns to the story about the “spying devices”, which his daughter supposedly discovered when her mother Nariman and her cousin were brought to her cell. Ahed gestured to them not to talk until she found the “spying device” and started “talking to (toying with) them [i.e. presumably the Israeli ‘spies’], mocking them.” And Bassem Tamimi proudly concludes: “I saw that she was like a stone, all this pressure on a child hasn’t affected her one bit.”

So this is the version for Arab audiences – you can watch the strikingly different version for English-speaking western audiences here: a sad Bassem Tamimi who worries terribly about his daughter and wants her to be just a normal teenager…

Last but not least, here’s a revealing Al Mayadeen clip about how Ahed Tamimi is presented to her fans in the Arab world – and you don’t have to know Arabic, because the pictures glorifying Ahed speak for themselves, showing clearly that her Arab fans know very well that the Tamimis are not fighting Israeli settlements or the occupation of the West Bank, but Israel’s existence as a Jewish state in any borders.

I was intrigued by one image in particular: it seemed to be cut at the bottom corners, which are also obstructed by the line of text displayed in the Al Mayadeen clip. So I took a screenshot and did a reverse image search – which was worth it: the full image shows Ahed wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh and a shirt adorned with a map that presents Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as one country; two rats wearing caps with a Star of David viciously chew at her flowing hair.

The image was apparently very popular on Facebook and Twitter; interestingly – and depressingly – it was also retweeted by Samya Ayish, who describes herself as a Palestinian “Journalist/ Producer in @CNNArabic.” Perhaps Ayish didn’t notice the antisemitic imagery of the two rats with the Star of David, but she surely didn’t have a problem reading the Arabic text of the tweet which praised Ahed for wearing (or representing) “the amulet of Palestine ... all of Palestine.” So it seems that at least at CNN Arabic, they know what the Tamimis stand for.

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01/15 Links Pt1: Kedar: The speech in which Abbas dug his own grave; PM: World has pampered Palestinians, Trump first to tell them the truth

From Ian:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: The speech in which Abbas dug his own grave

Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has delivered a speech triggered by his rage at the President of the United States Donald Trump, going so far as to hurl the most bitter curse in the Arabic language at the POTUS: "May your house be destroyed."

This imprecation does not merely relate to someone's present home, but to all the members of his family being thrown into the street to lead lives of destitution, humiliation and shame. Only someone familiar with Middle Eastern culture understands the real significance of this curse.

The question that naturally rises is what happened that brought Abbas to the point where he is willing to burn his bridges with the US President and deliver a speech whose import is the severing of relations with the country which serves as chief funder of UNRWA, also pushing the US president towards a negative stand on the "Palestinian Issue."

"Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine," is an idea created after the Six Day War and further developed after the Oslo Accords were signed in September 1993. Arafat turned it into a mantra, while official Israel – Shmon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Alon Liel and their cohorts – did nothing to stop him. They told us that the expression is meant for a Palestinian Arab audience, i.e. for "internal use" only. "Millions of shahids are on the march to Jerusalem!!" Arafat shouted day and night, but they told us to ignore it, that these were empty words, merely a pipe dream.

The world, led by Europe, went along with this Palestinian house of cards, financing it with billions of dollars over the years in the hopes of turning it into a real concrete structure, simply ignoring reality. Europe supported the establishment of a "Palestinian peace-loving state alongside Israel" while forgetting the fact that the PLO ideology calls for destroying the Jewish State and that its logo includes the map of that "Palestine" reaching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

MEMRI: Palestinian Journalist: Judaism Has Been A 'Religion Of Hatred' Toward All Mankind For The Past 3,000 Years That Surpasses Nazism In Its Cruelty

In an article he published on August 4, 2017 in the Omani Al-Watan daily, Palestinian journalist Jawad Al-Bashiti, who resides in Jordan, wrote that Judaism has been a "religion of hatred" toward all mankind for the past 3,000 years, and that the Jews invented a god of their own who, they claim, instructs them to take the gentiles' property and to kill their elderly, women, and infants. Al-Bashiti concluded his article by saying that, if the Jews' "delusions" remain fixed in the minds of the "new Israelis," Nazism will seem like "a drop in the ocean of the Talmudic beastliness." It should be noted that slightly different versions of this article have been published in the past.

The following are excerpts from the article:
"According to every criterion of human development and progress, cultural, ethical and scientific, especially in the 21st century, there is nothing worse than devotion, in theory and in practice, to the Jewish religion – the Torah and the Talmud – and there is nothing worse than when this devotion takes on a Zionist and political [guise]… Judaism – the legends and the fables that it adopted, claimed for itself, created and developed, and the concepts, ideologies, and ideas that it invented – is the religion of hatred toward all mankind. And although in its Zionist permutation it directs the bulk of its hatred toward Palestinians and Arabs, the fact is that [Judaism] represents 3,000 years of hostility and hatred toward [all] gentiles, in other words, toward mankind as a whole...

"The ancient nomadic group [called] the Hebrews or the People of Israel fabricated the Jewish perception so that it would be consistent, in general and in principle, with this group's social and historical reality:... [The Jews] were a nomadic people that knew nothing of the culture of the ancient nations or of [life] in neighboring regions. They lived in a state of war and by means of war. Anxious about their survival, they distanced themselves from the danger of assimilation and absorption into the cultured pagan nations, and [adopted] a culture of war that is in no way similar to any [other] culture because of their beastliness and hostility toward non-Jews, i.e. toward all of mankind. They invented a god for themselves – Yahweh – according to their social and historic ideal. They first 'Judaized' the heavens so that they could Judaize the land, in other words, the land of the others, i.e. Palestine, which they saw in their Talmudic visions as the Promised Land…

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Lebanon has banned Steven Spielberg's newspaper drama The Post just days before the film is set to premiere in Beirut.

A source involved with The Post's international rollout says the movie, which stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, was presented to the Lebanese censorship board, which nixed it, citing a "boycott Israel" list that includes Spielberg due to his Oscar-winning Holocaust film Schindler's List (the 1993 film shot some scenes in Jerusalem).

The matter has been transferred to Lebanon's Minister of Interior and Municipalities, who could overturn the decision.

Unlike Gal Gadot, whose film Wonder Woman was banned in Lebanon in May, Spielberg is not an Israeli citizen, nor has he ever fought with the Israeli Army. Lebanon is officially at war with Israel.

But there is one nagging question:

[O]ver the past three years, at least five films either directed or produced by Spielberg were accepted and approved by the censorship board and it is only now that it is invoking Spielberg's inclusion on the "boycott Israel" list. Both The BFG and Bridge of Spies — which mark Spielberg's two most recent helming efforts before The Post — were released in Lebanon.

Why would the Lebanese censors be more sensitive over a newspaper drama?

The most plausible reason is because, to the censors, newspaper=media=Jewish.

The obvious thing to do is to find an Israeli or Zionist or Jewish connection with every film being made and publicize them.

I'm sure the Lebanese people will be happy when they can only watch Arab films.

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(Part 1 here)

During his speech yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas gave a long review of what he considers history, and he introduced it by saying that it came from Abdelwahab Elmessiri's "Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism," an eight-volume work praised by antisemites for its seeming scholarship. (I've looked at Elmessiri before.)

Abbas introduced this section of his speech with a quote from Elmessiri, "The functional nature of Israel means that it was created by the colonialism for a specific purpose. It is thus a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism".

In going through his bizarre history of Zionism, Abbas claims that Theodor Herzl said upon visiting Palestine, "We have to erase the Palestinians from Palestine to make Palestine as a land without people for a people without a land", and this was the basis of the slogan " a land without a people for a people without a land."

This is complete fiction.

Abbas praised the Mufti of Jerusalem in this speech, who colluded with Hitler to help in any way he could to exterminate the Jews. Does anything more need to be said?

(It is reported that Abbas also said that Europeans asked Holland to move Jews to Palestine, and other bizarre ideas. Those parts were not in the official transcript.)

He says that according to UNRWA, there were 950,000 refugees from the 1948 war, not the lower numbers cited by "Zionists." This is also a lie. UNRWA in 1950 said that there were 950,000 who claimed to be refugees, but it admitted that many of them were not refugees or were from families lying to get more rations. The report says that UNRWA accepts that the actual number is about 751,000. And that number is suspect, too. (Efraim Karsh estimates less than 500,000.)

Abbas claims that the UN admitted Israel as a state on condition of its acceptance of UNGA resolutions 194 and 181. This isn't true, as a glance at UN documents at the time shows.

Abbas goes on to say that David Ben Gurion didn't want Jews from Arab countries to immigrate because he hated them and they were just like Arabs. This is sort of insane.

Then in the next sentence Abbas says that Ben Gurion worked with Arab leaders to force the Jews out of Arab countries by taking away their citizenship so they would come to Israel. All of the official Arab antisemitism in the wake of 1948 is now considered to have been started by Israel, according to Abbas.

Abbas repeated what he has said many times over the years: He bragged that the Palestinians have made no concessions since 1988, when they declared independence on the "territories" (without dropping their claim for all of Israel.) He insisted yet again that they are nnever going to compromise further.

Intransigence is his pride, while the world still considers him a moderate.

Abbas went on to say that he is against terrorism, saying that he has signed 83 conventions or assertions against terrorism. Of course, he has never once admitted that Palestinian suicide bombings, bus bombings and rocket fire towards civilians is terrorism to begin with.

Abbas claimed that there are no Palestinians in ISIS. Well, that's another lie.

Abbas said that Palestinians have a "culture of peace." A glance at his own Fatah Facebook page, not to mention the webpages of organizations that he invited to this conference like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, celebrate terror. (He castigated Hamas and Islamic Jihad for not attending.)

After the ludicrous claim that Palestinians have a culture of peace, Abbas strongly defended paying the salaries of terrorists and their families:

There is important is the issue of the salaries of the martyrs and the families of martyrs and prisoners, we refuse to cut these salaries categorically, we will not allow one to touch the salaries of the families of the martyrs and the wounded and prisoners, they are our children and we will continue to pay the money to them.

This is Mahmoud Abbas - a liar and terror supporter who the nations of the world regard as a moderate and a peacemaker. His own words damn him. But no one wants to admit that the most moderate Palestinian leader is as untrustworthy as any other.

Here's video of excerpts. It is truly insane.

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Yesterday, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas gave a long and bizarre speech castigating the United States and Israel and acting as if the Palestinians are in a position to dictate the parameters of peace.

Sometimes Abbas goes off script and says things that are even more bizarre, but the official transcript is nutty enough to show how little the Palestinians care about facts. (His curse to Trump, "May your house be demolished," was not mentioned in the transcript, for example.)

Jerusalem is the bride of our Arabness, Jerusalem is the crown of the crown, Jerusalem is the flower of the cities, Jerusalem and the Aqsa is what the Prophet said is one of the cities of pilgrimage after Mecca and Madinah.

Nowhere in the Quran does Mohammed mention Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was removed from the table with a Twitter tweet from Mr. Trump.

Trump made a speech about Jerusalem that in no way removed it from negotiations. ( I wish it would have.) For those who bothered to read it. In this case, Abbas isn't alone - most US critics of Trump didn't read his speech either.

We are sitting here and we will not commit the mistakes of the past in 1948.....

The mistake of 1948 was not accepting compromise that would have resulted in a Palestinian state - which is the exact same mistake that Abbas is making nowadays.

This country is our country, and this is our country from the days of Canaanites, Incidentally we are the descendants of the Canaanites, and the Bible says that from the days of the Canaanites to this day they did not leave this country, and here we are before our master Abraham, we will not leave this country ...

Note that Abbas is not referring to the territories, but to all of British Mandate Palestine.

And, no, the Palestinians are not descendants of the Canaanites. (Some Lebanese are, though.) Most Palestinian Arabs are quite proudly Arab, as they say in their own founding documents, and Arabs come from Arabia. Most Palestinian families trace their lineage back to Arabia.

We will not accept [Trump's] project, and we told him the deal of the century is a slap in the face, but we will slap back.

Will the people who have interpreted Israeli settlement activities over the years as a slap in the face of America criticize Abbas for literally saying he will slap America in the face? Amusingly, Saeb Erekat has repeatedly used the phrase "slap in the face" when talking to American leaders about Israeli actions - one wonders if he suddenly approves of face slapping America.

[Zionism is] a colonial project has nothing to do with Judaism, but the Jews used [Judaism] as a tool.... They were under the slogan of the Promised Land and the land of love and they came here. The issue did not start a hundred years ago. It started much earlier in 1653 when Cromwell ruled Britain.

The idea of Jews returning to Zion is as old as the Jewish disapora. Do I need to quote prayers that were composed before Mohammed was born? Do I really need to mention the rabbis who moved back to Eretz Yisrael over the past 2000 years?

Zionism did not start with Cromwell.

This post will be continued - the number of lies is pretty astounding.

Yet the world never seems to be upset at a supposed world leader who lies so easily.

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Mahmoud Abbas taught me something about Oliver Cromwell, Proto-Zionist

Mahmoud Abbas made a very strange, bizarre, ahistoric speech to the Palestinian Central Council meeting on Sunday.

The New York Times summarizes part of his speech:

Testing his audience’s attention, Mr. Abbas also gave a lengthy history lecture reaching back to the 17th century, saying that Oliver Cromwell had first proposed shipping European Jews to the Holy Land, before tracing the beginning of Zionism to what he called the 19th-century journalist and activist Theodor Herzl’s efforts to “wipe out Palestinians from Palestine.”
“This is a colonial enterprise that has nothing to do with Jewishness,” Mr. Abbas said. “The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the promised land — call it whatever you want. Everything has been made up.”

I plan to fisk some of his more outrageous claims, but the Cromwell thing seems not too far off!

The source seems to be from The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891-1948 by Paul C. Merkley (1998), which says:

So while Cromwell seems to have been open to the idea of God bringing the Jews home (and everyone of course knew where the Jewish home was,) he didn't seem to be advocating helping the Jews move there.

But, the book goes on the say, John Locke hinted that Jews would go back to their homeland and Isaac Newton said that it could be foreign nations like England that would help them along!

Thanks, Abbas!

Tomorrow we'll look at your less-accurate claims.

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Gulf365 has an article about the "Jewish lobby" in America.

It says things like:

"Five million American Jews have managed to control nearly 300 million Americans. "

[Under this Jewish influence,]Washington has pursued policies that have killed and wounded hundreds of thousands around the world.

"Wealthy Jews, who are twice as rich as all Arab countries, played a big role in buying the loyalty of some countries in favor of the Israeli entity, and their role was not limited to influencing America."

"Jews realized before the start of their project in Palestine that controlling the media will give them plenty of opportunity for brainwashing human minds. ...They have taken into account a number of rules necessary to control the minds of people , which is what was clearly demonstrated by the control of the media institutions in America and Europe, where there is no media, radio, or print media that do not have Jews in leadership positions, from Fox News, ABC News, CNN, New York Times (affiliated to the Arthur Salzberger Jewish family) and the Washington Post."

"Jewish expansion in the American media also exists even in the possession of the most famous publishing houses in America. The Jews have Simon and Schuster, Time Warner, Random House."

"The American politician, however powerful, will always be at the mercy of those means capable of ending his dream. "

But don't call them antisemitic. They hate that.

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01/14 Links: Thwarting Hamas terror, one tunnel at a time; For 38 Terrifying Minutes, Hawaii Experienced Israeli Life under Rocket Threat; Ron Prosor: The problem is UNRWA

From Ian:

Thwarting Hamas terror, one tunnel at a time

This morning, the IDF completed the destruction of a Hamas terror tunnel that infiltrated Israeli territory.

This operation, led by the Southern Command, was carried out in the area of crossing to the Israeli side. The tunnel crossed the border under the Kerem Shalom Crossing, ran adjacent to the gas pipeline, and crossed into Egypt.

This is a severe breach of Israel's sovereignty, a serious threat to Israeli civilians, and a threat to the humanitarian efforts that Israel allows for the people in the Gaza Strip.

The Kerem Shalom Crossing was closed in order to maintain the safety of all those in the area of the crossing. Hamas is responsible for the consequences of the closing and chooses time after time to jeopardize the welfare of the citizens of the Gaza Strip.

The tunnel was located using the latest technological, intelligence, and operational capabilities. Since its discovery, the tunnel was monitored up until its destruction.
IDF Destroys the 3rd Hamas Terror Tunnel in 2 Months

“The extraordinary cooperation among the branches of combat engineering, intelligence, and the technological lab for tunnel detection in the Gaza Division is what creates these technological breakthroughs and significant achievements in underground detection,” said Commander of the Southern Brigade in the Gaza Division, Col. Kobi Heler.

This is the third tunnel that was destroyed in Israel in the past two months and serves as further evidence of the advanced operational, intelligence, and technological capabilities that the IDF has developed. Locating these tunnels is part of wide-scale defense efforts led by the IDF and the Southern Command.
Breaking News from the Kerem Shalom Crossing

“We are not seeking to escalate the situation, we are defending our sovereignty and our civilians against the multiple threat by Hamas. We will continue to operate in that manner. We will continue to defend our sovereignty against threats from above and below the ground. We also remain prepared for a wide variety of military scienerios against Hamas, but we do not seek to escalate the situation,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, Head of the International Media Branch.

The IDF will continue its efforts above and below ground to thwart any attempts to harm Israeli civilians and will continue to act in order to maintain the relative quiet in the region achieved after Operation Protective Edge.

After Latest Anti-Terror Tunnel Operation, Israeli Military Hails ‘New and Groundbreaking Technology’ Used Against Subterranean Threat

The Israeli military has destroyed three cross-border Hamas terror tunnels in recent months using “new and groundbreaking technology,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus — the head of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit’s international media branch — said in a video published on social media on Sunday.

“We are happy to be able to have those capabilities,” Conricus said.

In another video posted online by the IDF following its latest anti-tunnel operation, this one in the Kerem Shalom area, Col. Kobi Heler — the commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade — said, “Hamas is accountable for all terror activities emanating from the Gaza Strip and is responsible to stop any acts above and below the ground that breach Israeli sovereignty.”

At a meeting in New Delhi on Sunday with Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “But even where I am here in India, I think of you, IDF soldiers, and of the splendid work that you did yesterday in eliminating another tunnel. We are systematically eliminating the tunnel infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; they should not try us.”

For 38 Terrifying Minutes, Hawaii Experienced Israeli Life under Rocket Threat

For thirty-eight terrifying minutes on Saturday, Hawaii residents unfortunately experienced a sampling of life in Israel during recent wars here when Hawaiians received a mistaken emergency alert notification warning of a “ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii.”

Gov. David Ige said the false alarm was a human error caused when the wrong button was pushed during a shift change at the state emergency management agency. The warning was issued amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, and some in Hawaii may have feared an incoming nuclear attack. The mistake was reportedly corrected 38 minutes later by a second message confirming the false alarm.

The error is unacceptable and warrants the “full investigation” promised by the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

While Israelis have not contended with nuclear missile attacks, the entire country lives under rocket threat and has experienced sustained rocket attacks punctuated by alerts that leave only seconds to find shelter.

The scenes that unfolded in Hawaii, with people reportedly left “crying and screaming,” could have taken place in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa or Sderot. At this point, however, most Israelis, especially those living along the Gaza wire, have become so accustomed to rocket alerts that there seems to be a lot less panic.

The rocket risk here underscores the strategic threat posed to the Jewish state by territorial withdrawals, and the projectile threat must be taken into consideration when foreign diplomats call for Israel to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

In the Rabbis for Human Rights article on this past week's weekly Torah portion, Rabbi Dr. Iris Yaniv has a problem with how God deals with the Egyptians while not punishing the Jews.

It's discriminatory, you see.

I would like to focus on another theological problem that arises from the text, and this is the discrimination between the children of Israel and the Egyptians, as is noted clearly in the description of three of the plagues in our Torah reading:

The plague of the mixture of wild animals (Erov) – Chapter 8, verses 18-19:

“And I will separate on that day the land of Goshen, upon which My people stand, that there will be no mixture of noxious creatures there, in order that you know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And I will make a redemption between My people and your people; this sign will come about tomorrow.”

The plague of the diseased livestock, Chapter 9, verses 4-7:

4. And the LORD shall make a division between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt; and there shall nothing die of all that belongeth to the children of Israel.
5. And the LORD appointed a set time, saying: ‘Tomorrow the LORD shall do this thing in the land.
6. And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died; but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.
7. And Pharaoh sent, and, behold, there was not so much as one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was stubborn, and he did not let the people go.

The plague of hail, Exodus, in the same chapter 9, verses 25-26:

25. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field.
26. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.

The traditional commentators explain the word discrimination (haflaya) but sense no theological difficulty arising from the discrimination itself.

However, attorney Yotam Tolov, executive director of “Bezchut” organization, concerned with the rights of people with special needs, and an author, writes the following regarding discrimination:

“Firstly, it creates distinctions and separates between two (people), secondly discrimination according to most understandings of it knows to ‘cover its tracks’ and to find ‘natural’ explanations for the distinctions while disguising or hiding the advantage to the discriminating party. Thirdly, discrimination is likely to arouse wonder regarding ‘why did this land suffer but that land did not suffer?’ When discrimination becomes no longer invisible and arouses questions (literally ‘wonder’) then the process of inner collapse begins.”

I, too, like Yotam Tolov, perceive a great problem in this discrimination. Discrimination leads to injustice. I would have preferred that no plagues were visited on the Egyptians at all, who suffer because G-d, for G-d’s own reasons, hardened Pharaoh’s heart. If we add to this the discrimination inherent in the plagues – the sense of inequality and injustice is even more extreme.

I hardly need to add that the Egyptians were guilty of crimes against the Israelites, and not only Pharaoh. (Pharaoh said it himself, Exodus 9:27, "I and my people are wicked," when he wanted Moses to stop the hail. See also Ex. 1:13-14 where the Egyptians are the ones who enslave and oppress Israel, not just Pharaoh.)

It also hardly needs mentioning that the entire point of the plagues was to show that God controls the universe. If the plagues had hit the Israelites as well, Pharaoh would assume they were some bizarre natural phenomenon and would have never let them go.

To these "human rights" so-called rabbis, God doesn't know what He is doing when he punishes the wicked and spares the innocent. To them, in the interests of fair play, He really should have punished the slaves, too.

Can there be a better example of how Judaism is subverted to the political correctness of the higher "morality" of Israel's critics?

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A week ago, the main prayer hall at the Cave of the Patriarchs was flooded after several hours of rainfall.

Video taken on Saturday night January 6 shows several inches of water in the holy spot.

Prayers that Saturday evening were moved to smaller rooms inside the building.

This is not the first time this has happened.

The prayer hall is in a courtyard that is used because the prayer halls in the building are too small to accommodate the worshipers. But it is only protected by a tarp, because no permission was given by the Muslim Waqf to build a more permanent roof and walls.

According to the State of Israel, the Muslim Waqf is responsible for the maintenance of the building itself.

The Waqf denies that there is any problem, and it is claiming that the Jews are the ones damaging the site. it says that any roof added to the courtyard would be a violation of the status quo and any repairs that would fix the situation would themselves be the causes of harm to the site.

With amazing nerve, the Waqf called on the international community and all legal, cultural and archaeological institutions to work to stop these violations by Jews for doing "actions harmful to this historic religious site."

The Jewish residents of the area have prepared a plan for a glass roof and walls that would preserve the character of the courtyard and allow worshipers to pray.

This is what the Muslim leaders will never allow.

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Palestinian Arab hero advocates real peace with Israel online - so the Palestinian Authority detains and beats him (updates)

A West Bank Palestinian who was an advocate of real peace and acceptance of Israel has been beaten by the Palestinian Authority for his online advocacy and telling the truth.

Muhammad Ibrahim Hussein is a former schoolteacher and later businessman in the West Bank. He has a Quora account where he shows that he is all for peace, and truth, in the conflict.

Proud Palestinian father of three boys and three daughters.
Proud Palestinian husband of my heavenly wife Alia.
Proud Palestinian shopkeeper.
Former school teacher who was fired for advocating peaceful coexistence and normalisation with our neighbour Israel.

He has answered many questions on Quora, and the ones I've seen are well written and accurate, consistently advocating for peace and coexistence.

Many of his answers to questions he submitted to Quora have resulted in his being harassed online.

A few weeks ago, he answered the question "Was Jesus a Palestinian?" this way:

No! Jesus was NOT a Palestinian.

From Palestine? Palestine (Syria Palestina) was the name given to Israel by the Romans at least one century after the death of Jesus and over 400 years before the birth of Islam. Muslims first came to the Land of Israel when their armies left the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E. to try and conquer the world.

While our Palestinian leaders and UNWRA like to falsely claim Jesus was a Palestinian, they merely say this sort of nonsense in order to score political points in the international media and in order to help ignorant people sympathise with our Palestinian cause and to loosen these people’s purse strings so they donate as much Christmas “aid” money as possible.

...Jesus a Palestinian? I am sure you haven’t heard that one before. He was actually Jewish and if he tried to get into Palestinian Authority controlled Bethlehem today, his chances of survival would be minimal, because my fellow Palestinian brethren very much tend to stone to death, kill and maim Jews who get lost in the West Bank.

As a result of this answer, Hussein was arrested and beaten by the Palestinian Authority. His wife Alia writes on his behalf on his Quora profile page:

To our dear Followers and Supporters all over the world and especially in Israel,

Muhammad can’t use his hands at the moment and therefore I am writing this update on my husband’s behalf.

On January 4th 2018 Quora banned my husband for seven days for writing the following perfectly truthful answer to the question “Was Jesus Christ a Palestinian?”.

This ban was allegedly requested by our fellow Palestinians working for the Palestinian Authority who have been intimidating us since my husband started writing about the truth here on Quora.

That same night Muhammad was then detained by our Palestinian Authority security forces and tortured so badly he had to have shoulder surgery and treatment for severe burns to his hands…

I am sure you will agree with me that nobody should have to suffer such inhumane treatment at the hands of their own people / government.

After several long and loving discussion I have convinced my husband to stop writing here on Quora, because his safety and life are of course more important to me and our family than his determined advocacy for peaceful coexistence and normalisation with our neighbour Israel.

The past few months gave us renewed hope and optimism that at least on the Israeli side there is a real will for peaceful coexistence and normalisation between our two people. Please keep up your good work and answers, which we will continue to enjoy reading, despite no longer actively participating here on Quora.

It is with this in mind that my husband and I wish to thank from the bottom of our hearts all of our followers, supporters, and readers for their kind words of support over the past few months. We really appreciate you very much and wish all of you future good fortune, peace, and happiness.

With kind regards,

Muhammad (a.k.a. MIH) & Alia

This was not the first time that the Palestinian Authority detained and threatened Hussein for his online posts.

Here is a man whose only crime is wanting peace and not being willing to say exactly what Mahmoud Abbas wants him to say. You are invited to read his scores of posts answering people's questions about life as a Palestinian.

Any true liberal - or anyone, really - who believes in human rights should be outraged at this attempt at intimidation and censorship of a true advocate of peace.

This episode should be widely publicized*. The only way that the Palestinian Authority can reform is by being publicly pressured to act in accordance with humanitarian law. Those who sweep this under the rug because they don't want to embarrass the "most moderate Palestinian leader" do not understand that their silence is what causes human rights violations like this one.

Mr. Hussein is a hero, and should be treated as one.

(h/t Josh K)

*UPDATE: I am told that even many pro-Israel members of Quora are dubious about Hussein's authenticity. I have not gone through all of his posts, but the ones I have seen are pretty identical with Zionist talking points. So this requires more research.

UPDATE 2: I was given some more information about his posts, including how his way of describing things is inconsistent with how a Palestinian would talk, and how he has not once said a single negative thing about Israel, which seems unlikely for even the most pro-peace Arab. I am now very much doubting this story.

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01/13 Links: Is it time for a hostile takeover of UNRWA?; The Palestinian Terror Party: Celebrating Murder; Caitlyn Jenner to be awarded 'Champion of Israel and LGBTQ Rights'

From Ian:

Is it time for a hostile takeover of UNRWA?

Israel’s position, that UNRWA should be dismantled and Palestinian refugees should be treated through the UNHCR along with the rest of the world’s refugees, is very good as a longer-term goal, but cannot be expected to materialize in the short term.

Pipes suggests the US continue its funding, but at the same time demand that recipients of US aid who are not among the 20,000 living refugees of 1948 – formally forgo their refugee status. That too is a good idea, but it won’t affect UNRWA’s daily damage to the future of peace.

A more practical path would be a hostile takeover.

Rather than cut its contribution, the US could actually expand it, then fire the agency’s executives, replace them, and review all UNRWA policies and activities.

UNRWA’s new executives would then shed its existing textbooks and replace them with entirely new ones, and tell its teachers that to retain their jobs they must declare in writing that they recognize Israel’s right to exist, that they believe in peace with it, and that the Jews are a nation as respectable as any other.

Under new management, UNRWA’s schools would teach the next generation of Palestinians that the Jews are not the “sons of apes and pigs” that their preachers portray, but the descendants of Moses, who banned murder, idolatry and theft; Isaiah, who envisioned world peace; Amos, who scolded the rich who abuse the poor; and the Sages, who made it law to teach every boy and girl to read and write, and to establish in every community a school – a school of the sort that UNRWA has yet to produce; a school that will teach tolerance, debate and enlightenment; a house of learning, whose graduates will enter adulthood knowing that never since antiquity has there been even one day in which there was no Jewish community in this land, and that th

The Palestinian Terror Party: Celebrating Murder

What do the Palestinians think about the murder of a young rabbi and father of six? They "welcome" it with open arms.

So what if Rabbi Raziel Shevach was said to have maintained good relations with his Palestinian neighbors?

The Palestinians are still happy that he was gunned down last week as he was driving his car in the northern West Bank. They are happy because the victim was a Jew. They are happy because the victim held a religious position: Rabbi. They are happy because the victim was a "settler."

The fact that Rabbi Shevach was the father of six children does not faze the Palestinians one bit.

For them, what is important is that another Jew has been murdered. This meant, for the Palestinians, that his presence in the West Bank also carried religious weight. A rabbi living in the West Bank is emblematic of Jews' historic and religious attachment to the land. For all those reasons, the Palestinians are happy about the murder. Notably, the rabbi's political affiliation is irrelevant. He could be from the most extreme left-wing or right-wing party in Israel – this still would not make any difference. Rabbi Shevach was not murdered because of his political views.

The Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have thus far refused to condemn the murder. Abbas has been quick to condemn terror attacks around the world, from Russia to France, Germany, Turkey and Egypt. When it comes to the murder of Jews by Palestinian terrorists, however, Abbas and his aides are quick to go into hiding.

Eyewitness to 1980 Paris Synagogue Bombing Protests Release of Suspect by French Court

An eyewitness to the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris — in which four people died and dozens more were wounded — expressed outrage on Friday at the release of the terrorist allegedly behind the attack.

Shimon Samuels — international relations director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) — told French Justice Nicole Belloubet in a letter that the release of the suspect, Hassan Diab, by a Paris tribunal was “a body-blow for survivors and victims families.”

Samuels recalled his presence on October 3, 1980, on the corner of rue Lauriston, 150 meters away from the explosion. He had just wished a “Happy Succoth” (Tabernacles) to Aliza Shagrir — wife of the Israeli filmmaker, Midna Shagrir — as she turned into rue Copernic, where she met her death as one of the four street victims of the bombing that also wounded 41 inside the destroyed building.

The following morning, then-Prime Minister Raymond Barre notoriously stated that “a bomb set for Jews killed four innocent Frenchmen.”

“The bomb killed a Portuguese postman, a Chinese restaurant waiter, Aliza, and ‘an innocent Frenchman,’ wounding 41 worshippers inside the synagogue,” corrected Samuels.

In 2010, Samuels was present at Diab’s extradition hearings in Ottawa, Canada. Based on forensic evidence, Diab was finally extradited to France in 2014.

01/12 Links Pt2: The U.N. Agency That Keeps Palestinians from Prospering; Thirteen Years into the Abbas Presidency, Corruption and Autocracy Dominate the West Bank

From Ian:

Thirteen Years into the Abbas Presidency, Corruption and Autocracy Dominate the West Bank

On this day in 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority (PA). In his inaugural address, Abbas hailed the “peaceful transfer of authority” and pledged to “start the process of reform…so as to establish the foundations of the Palestinian state to which we aspire.” After a decade of Yasser Arafat’s iron-handed PA rule – with his later years characterized by an armed Palestinian uprising – Abbas seemed a breath of fresh air. Now, however, as he enters the fourteenth year of his four-year presidential term, it is clear that Abbas has reneged on many of his pledges and exacerbated the crisis of corruption and autocracy within the Palestinian Authority.

When Abbas was named the first-ever prime minister of the PA in 2003, it was because Arafat was under intense external pressure to dilute power and broaden the Palestinian political scene. A critic of Arafat, Abbas surrounded himself with like-minded reformists, such as the Western-educated economist Salam Fayyad. It was this contrasting approach to Arafat that endeared him to the Palestinian political elite, and to the West.

After Arafat died in November 2004 and Abbas ascended to the presidency in January 2005, Abbas elevated Fayyad’s institution-building platform to a top national priority. Yet, Abbas also brought with him his own distinct style of nepotism. When Fayyad’s reform agenda ran too close to home – particularly when he challenged Abbas’ bid for statehood the United Nations – he was unceremoniously forced out.

Admittedly, Abbas’ one earnest experiment in political reform was a failure. He pledged to hold legislative elections in his inaugural address in 2005, yet those elections saw Palestinians vote for his rivals in Hamas. Those elections fueled a civil war in 2007 in which Abbas lost the Gaza Strip, a seismic shock that has dictated his presidency since.

David Collier: BDS black-lists, naive Jews and rabid Nazis. It has been quite a week

Sometimes I find the landscape a little overwhelming. What I do notice when discussing antisemitism within the community, is that each person stands in his own political corner, and focuses on the antisemites that swarm amidst his own personal ‘political enemy’. Activism against antisemitism is often ‘contained’ by political bias. This means that against Nazis on the far-right, there is a clear consensus, but when it comes to discussing the importance or level of Jew hate within other elements of the spectrum, that consensus breaks down.

It is a dangerous situation. The current problem is not an issue with the rise of the far right. Nor is it an issue with the rise of the far left. It is a combination of factors. These also include social media bubbles, colonial guilt, the import of antisemitism within immigrant communities, and an anti-Muslim backlash. It is only when all the factors are mixed, do we begin to visualise the ‘antisemitic union’ that threatens us. If we are not looking at the ‘bigger picture’, then most of the solutions we find, or strategies we devise, will fail us.

History shows us that the truly dangerous times are not one dimensional. It isn’t about one man who takes control and leads his people into an antisemitic fury. To treat antisemitism as if it is just about keeping the next ‘Hitler’ at bay and then trying to identify that ‘Hitler’ is a grave error. Firstly, the next Hitler is unlikely to look anything like the last. More importantly, if all the pieces are aligned, the resulting antisemitic tsunami brings the leader with it.

These are just a few events from this week:

The U.N. Agency That Keeps Palestinians from Prospering

Frustrated by Palestinian intransigence, the Trump administration has reportedly frozen $125 million of the American contribution to the internationally funded welfare agency for Palestinian "refugees," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Mr. Trump had expressed his irritation with the agency, known by the acronym UNRWA, in a characteristic tweet, noting that the U.S. provides "HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year" and gets "no appreciation or respect" from Palestinians. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., echoed the sentiment, saying the U.S. would use funding as leverage "until the Palestinians are agreeing to come back to the negotiation table."

This approach is unprecedented. The U.S. is UNRWA 's largest single donor, contributing more than $360 million of the agency's annual $1.25 billion budget. Historically, U.S. support to UNRWA has been untouchable despite the agency's role keeping Palestinians in social stasis, providing health, education and welfare services while undermining resettlement efforts and fomenting rejectionism—thereby perpetuating the Palestinians' "refugee" status for decades.

The Trump administration is not the only factor militating for change. The titanic crisis created by the Syrian civil war, which has produced millions of actual refugees (along with half a million civilian deaths), puts the Palestinian issue in a new and dramatically diminished light. UNRWA 's own mismanagement—such as reports that the agency has dramatically overcounted the Palestinians it serves in Lebanon—also makes the status quo more difficult to sustain.

The U.S. supported UNRWA for decades largely because it did not wish the Palestinian issue to threaten other policy imperatives. During the Cold War, that meant containing communism and maintaining the flow of oil from Arab states. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy has revolved around containing the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to prevent regional conflagration and preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, especially Iran.

01/12 Links Pt1: Paradigm-changing murder; The faded Palestinian issue; The Fiction that Destabilizes the Middle East

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Paradigm-changing murder

The argument against the Trump administration’s approach, which has been used by Palestinians for years, is that if the PA is not kept afloat the alternative will be much worse. The occasional drive-by shooting, like the one that ended the life of Shevach, is the price to pay for this arrangement.

This is too high a price. The time has come to challenge this paradigm. It might seem as though the PA is the only thing preventing complete anarchy in the West Bank and that UNRWA is the only safety net preventing a full-flung humanitarian disaster in Gaza. But it is impossible to know whether Palestinian society is capable of positive change unless it is given a fair chance. Precipitating a budget crisis designed to end the PA’s support for terrorism is risk worth taking. And the same goes for phasing out UNRWA.

There are only so many bypass roads, security fences and security cameras that Israel can install to defend the lives of Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. And while the IDF and the Shin Bet will undoubtedly redouble efforts to confiscate the massive amounts of illegal arms in places like Nablus so that no terrorist has the ability to shoot 22 bullets at a man like Shevach, Israel’s ability is limited as long as the PA offers incentives to prospective terrorists and Hamas actively provides material and training.

Ultimately, the only way to end terrorism is by replacing or radically changing the Palestinian political leadership. For this to happen, the PA and Hamas must know they risk losing power if they continue with their charade.

The loss of men like Shevach is a too dear price to pay for maintaining the status quo.

British-Israeli victim triggers UK probe into funds for Palestinian terrorism

Kay Wilson, who barely survived a Palestinian terrorist attack, prompted MP Stephen Twigg, chairman of International Development Committee in the UK Parliament, to conduct talks with fellow lawmakers about the misuse of British funds to support Palestinian terrorism.

The Jerusalem Post obtained a copy of Wilson’s letter on Thursday and conducted an interview with the British Israeli on the parliamentary action and the chances of the UK replicating the American Taylor Force Act, which would bars US funds for the Palestinian Authority that are used for terrorism.

“I have not heard back from Mr. Twigg, and was therefore surprised to read in the Daily Express that he had received my letter, yet had not acknowledged this personally to me,” said Wilson.

The Daily Express wrote on Wednesday that “a powerful commons committee is to consider launching an inquiry into the way the Palestinian Authority is giving British taxpayers’ money to terrorists in prison.”

Wilson told Twigg in her letter that “My co-signatories and I are writing to you about the glorification of violence, the incitement of violence and misuse of British Aid funds by the Palestinian Authority. We also draw to your attention evidence that strongly suggests that DFID [Department for International Development] civil servants and minsters have misled Parliament. In 2010 I was hiking in the Judean Hills with my friend Kristine Luken, when two Palestinian terrorists attacked us. We were held for 30 minutes at knife-point, then gagged and bound before being butchered with machetes. Kristine was murdered. I watched my friend being killed before my eyes.”

She added, “I only survived because I played dead. I was stabbed 13 times and had over 30 bones broken by the sheer force of the blows. Each time my attackers plunged their machetes into me I could hear my bones crunch, and my flesh ripping from the serrated blade. They left, only to return moments later and roll me over. I watched my attacker plunge the knife into my chest, just missing my heart. I attach pictures of my injuries. The two men who attacked us were jailed. They were part of a terrorist cell aligned to the Fatah group, the group that runs the Palestinian Authority.”

Caroline Glick: Curing Trump’s quarterly Iran headache

Israeli experts who were close to the Obama administration are calling for Trump to keep the deal alive. A paper published on Thursday by the left-leaning Institute for National Security Studies called for Trump to keep the deal alive, but enforce it fully.
Co-authored by Obama’s ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and former security brass who oppose the Netanyahu government, the paper claimed that the US should insist that Iran open its military nuclear sites to UN inspectors.

The problem with the recommendation is that there is no chance it will be implemented. Iran refuses to open its military sites to inspectors, and the Europeans side with them against the US.

Trump is right that he’s damned if he maintains Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and damned if he kills the deal. But his supporters are right on this issue and the Washington establishment, Europe and the media are wrong.

If Trump walks away, he will empower the Iranians calling for a new regime. He will weaken the regime’s ability to maintain its global war against the US and its allies. He will force the Europeans to abandon their love affair with the corruption kings in Tehran by making them choose between the US market and the Iranian market.

And he will accomplish all of these things while freeing himself from the quarterly requirement to either lie and pretend Iran is behaving itself and be pilloried by his supporters, or tell the truth about its behavior and be pilloried by the people who always attack him.

Most important, by walking away from a deal built on lies, distortion and corruption, Trump can quickly pivot to a policy based on truth. Unlike the nuclear deal, such a policy would have a chance of ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its oppression of its long-suffering people once and for all.