Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 04, 2021

Iraqi law prohibits Zionism - formerly punishable by death, now life imprisonment

When a group of Iraqis gathered in a conference in Erbil calling for Iraq to normalize relations with Israel, many Iraqi antisemites noted that such a call is against Iraqi law to justify the warrants for the participants' arrests.

Indeed, Iraq does have such a law.

The Third Edition of the 1969 Iraqi Penal Code, Article 201 states:

Any person who promotes or acclaims Zionist principles including freemasonry or who associates himself with, Zionist organizations or assists them by giving material or moral support or works in any way towards the realization of Zionist objectives is punishable by death.

In 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 7, Section 3(1) suspended the entire 1969 penal code. But on March 14, 2010, the code was reinstated and amended with nearly all death penalty crimes - including this one - reduced to life imprisonment.

Human Rights Watch does not mention this law in its annual report on Iraqi human rights violations.

This article in Khabar Press is more bizarre than the usual Palestinian analyses of Israel.

Bassam Abu Sharif, a former leader of the PFLP and later an advisor to Yasir Arafat, manages to contradict himself within the same paragraph, after he claimed that Naftali Bennett's UN speech was a veiled threat to Israel's - allies.

The veiled threat is not to the enemies of Israel. The clear threat is to the enemies of Israel, as defined by the Israeli leaders. Rather, the veiled threat directed by the Israeli leaders is to Israel’s allies, especially those allies who provide Israel with its water of life and its elixir, i.e. with money, weapons, and the results of advanced research that Israel boasts of being the one who invented it while it was the one who It was either stolen or given to it by American companies that are (in most cases) owned by American Jews who agree to provide Israel with their secrets for free in order to support Israel as a base for the Zionist movement.

If Israel is getting weapons technology for free from brilliant American Jews who supposedly run Lockheed, Raytheon and Boeing, why does Israel have to threaten them to give it to them?

Whatever he meant, he is peddling antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Abu Sharif goes on to say that Israel only uses these completely unnecessary threats when the world is turning against it, to keep alive its territorial ambitions on the West Bank - and the East Bank.

He goes on to describe how close Israel is to collapse, and how it leads the world in money laundering and drug smuggling in Europe. He ends off by giving Israeli Jews some advice:

If I were in the place of any citizen in Israel, I would start packing my bags to go home in New York, Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam.

Abu Sharif has shown a penchant for hallucinations previously. He once said that David Ben Gurion was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and Yemenite Jews were going to assassinate Barack Obama and blame Al Qaeda.

Elder Comix: Holocaust virtue signaling

10/03 Links: UNHRC Stops Video Quoting Antisemitic Posts by UNRWA Teachers; Sarah Silverman denounces 'the Squad' over Iron Dome position

From Ian:

Israel must always voice 'its truth,' even at the UN

During a visit last week to George Mason University, Harris was asked by a student why the US supports Israel, which the student accused of perpetrating "ethnic genocide" of Palestinians and "displacing" them. Harris nodded her head in what was interpreted as agreement with the claims, and in her response praised the student for voicing "her truth."

A thousand firefighters won't be able to extinguish the flame ignited by Harris, nor will the thousand apologies now being made on her behalf, albeit not by Harris herself. To be sure, even if it wasn't intentional, rather out of fear, she legitimized a contemptible blood libel. She also lent credence to the absurd notion that there is more than one truth – in other words, not just the voice of the Americans killed in the September 11 attacks deserve to be heard, but also the truth of the terrorists who committed those atrocities.

Bennett forgot, and the "Harris incident" reminded him that the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a question that pertains to the future of Gaza under the rule of Hamas or even the future of Judea and Samaria. The question is about the roots of the existence of the State of Israel, which was established through war between the Jewish community in this land and the Arab population. Any attempt ever made to distinguish between the distant past (pre-1948) and the present – the question of Judea and Samaria and Gaza (pre-1967) – has failed, and anyone who has ever thought to possess the solution to the current problems has been forced to contend with the Palestinian demand for a "right of return" to the State of Israel.

Israel doesn't need to shy away from discussing the conflict with the Palestinians or its historical roots, and it mustn't squander opportunities to present its positions and "its truth" – which has broad consensus in Israeli society. After all, if we don't capitalize on these opportunities, the Palestinians and their supporters will.

UNHRC Stops Video Quoting Antisemitic Posts by UNRWA Teachers

President of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Nazhat Shameem Khan on Friday cut off a video presentation by UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer quoting antisemitic social media posts by UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) teachers.

After stopping the video, Khan said that “insulting and inflammatory remarks” were made that amount to “personal attacks” against individuals. She then went on to say that the “statement is out of order” before giving the floor to the UK-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), which has been accused of having ties with Hamas.

UN Watch is an NGO based in Geneva that monitors the intergovernmental organization for anti-Israel bias.

Neuer was highlighting a recent UN Watch report that, according to the organization’s website, “exposed more than 100 teachers, school principals and other employees that praise Hitler, propagate hatred against Jews and support terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians on social media.”

In response to the allegations in the report, UNRWA announced that it was investigating 10 of its staffers to determine if any of them violated “social media policies that prohibit personnel from engaging in non-neutral behaviors online,” according to a press release from UNRWA.

The PRC has been accused by the Israeli and German governments of being associated with Hamas, a militant movement based in the Gaza Strip designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and European Union.

No joke: The U.N. Human Rights Council just cut me off for testifying about UNRWA teachers who glorify Hitler. Chair says I made "derogatory, insulting & inflammatory remarks"—by quoting their own Facebook posts. "This amounts to personal attacks. This statement is out of order." pic.twitter.com/qPXohSdOfW
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 3, 2021

2. That the highest human rights body of the United Nations has just sent a dangerous message to the world when, without any basis, you summarily and arbitrarily blocked me from presenting a report about systemic antisemitism incited daily by the teachers of UNRWA, a UN agency.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 3, 2021

Today @UN_HRC is holding its Agenda Item 7 debate on Israel

It's the only item dedicated to a single country. It is an insult that the debate is on Shabbat so that many Jews cannot join

This is not human rights @mbachelet
It's #antisemitism
Pre-recorded video - @AnneHerzberg14 pic.twitter.com/edBmCOlXiZ
— NGO Monitor (@NGOmonitor) October 1, 2021

Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted:

I found video of one protest in Bahrain against the visit by Yair Lapid and the opening of the Israeli embassy in Bahrain. It came from Iran's PressTV, which had incentive to make the protest look as large as possible.

The video makes it look like no more than fifty people attended the protest march. Not only that, it looks like the protest went on for some time, and they were not shut down, no arrests, no police presence at all - and that would have been gleefully reported if it had happened.

If there was governmental repression against anti-normalization protesters in Bahrain, I can't find any of that in 2021.

Maybe because those protests were so pathetically mall to begin with.

Arab financial support for UNRWA has gone down over 80% since 2018

As it does every year, UNRWA is saying that it is in danger of closing down unless it raises more money.

This is even though the Biden administration has restored some $150 million that had been slashed by the Trump administration.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philip Lazzarini said that UNRWA needs emergency funds of $120 million to keep the agency afloat.

One of the reasons he mentions, though, is most interesting.

While he noted that funding for UNRWA has gone down from nations such as Great Britain, he stressed that Arab support for UNRWA decreased from $200 million in 2018 to only about $89 million in 2019 and $37 million in 2020.

That is an 81.5% decrease in funds from the Arab world in three years!

Most of the Arab funds seem to have been emergency funding, though. In UNRWA's published budgets, Arab nations have always been a relatively tiny part of their funding. In 2012, only $6 million of UNRWA's $520M budget came from Arab countries:

If the 2020 donations from Arab countries were only $37 million, that means that the Arab nations reneged on their pledges - UNRWA's expected budget for 2020 included $132 million from the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait:

Arab nations have often reneged on pledges to Palestinian causes, but reneging on pledges to a UN agency is notable.

It shows that Arab support for Palestinians has plummeted in recent years.

Iran names war games on Azerbaijan border after Mohammed massacre of Jews

From RadioFreeEurope:

Tensions have increased recently between Tehran and Baku over three issues: a joint military drill that Azerbaijani troops conducted alongside their Turkish and Pakistani counterparts some 500 kilometers from the Iranian border; Azerbaijani restrictions on Iranian truck drivers' access to Armenia and the detention of two drivers; and Azerbaijani ties to Iran’s archenemy Israel.

On October 1, Tehran added to those tensions by launching its own military drills near its northwestern border, days after the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) deployed military equipment to the region.

The move was met with expressions of concern from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who earlier this week said he was surprised by the planned drill.

"Every country can carry out any military drill on its own territory. It’s their sovereign right. But why now, and why on our border?” Aliyev said. He noted that it was the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago that Iran had planned such a show of force so close to its border.

Iran and Azerbaijan have enjoyed good relations in the past, but Tehran has increasingly expressed concern about alleged Israeli influence there.

Speaking on September 24, Ameli was quoted by the semiofficial Fars news agency as saying the drills sent a message to Israel.

“Israel has come to Azerbaijan to plot against Iran," Ameli said, without offering details.

Iran named the exercises "Conquerors of Khaybar" - after Mohammed's battle where he defeated the Jews of Khaybar, made an agreement where they would pay half their crops to him, and despite the agreement the Jews were expelled altogether some 14 years later.

Given that Iranian officials have explicitly tied the location of the exercises with Azerbaijan's ties to Israel, naming the exercises "Conquerors of Khaybar" prove beyond any doubt that Iran's hate of Israel is based on hatred of Jews.

Would-be jihadist in France who tried to purchase Kalashnikov had researched Paris synagogues

In early September, a French citizen was indicted for attempting to buy a Kalashnikov assault rifle from a US source over the dark web.

The citizen, known only as "S.", was also found to have a large quantity of jihadist literature in his house.

The case has recently taken a more sinister turn, however.

According to RTL, examination of the suspect's phone reveals that he carried out research on synagogues in in Paris, as well as research on joining jihadist groups in Syria.

His arrest was a collaboration between French customs and the United States where his package was intercepted and replaced (according to some reports) with a non-functional weapon, allowing authorities to arrest him after he took delivery.

It seems likely that the arrest foiled a major attack against French Jews.

10/02 Links: Far-left Democrats push anti-Israel 'peace' bill; AOC's tears, Schumer's silence, Kamala's ignorance; NYTs Warps History of Iraqi Jewry

From Ian:

Far-left Democrats push anti-Israel 'peace' bill

Let’s break down the bill into its individual pieces.

First, the two-state solution has been dead from the moment Israel was founded. The 1947 United Nations partition plan would have created a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the plan, while the Arabs rejected it. This led to Israel’s founding following war in 1948. Since then, Israel has made numerous offers of statehood to the Palestinians. They have been rejected, and terrorism has, in most cases, followed. Put simply, the Palestinians have repeatedly demonstrated their refusal to co-exist with the Jewish state. A state, we should remember, that was founded only in the aftermath of 6 million Jews being killed in the Nazi-led Holocaust.

Second, there is no Israeli "occupation of the Palestinian territories." The West Bank has never belonged to the Palestinians. It used to belong to Jordan. Israel seized that land, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 six day war. Jordan eventually ceded the land to Israel. The bill would condition U.S. assistance to Israel on the Jewish state not "[undermining] the prospects of a negotiated two-state solution."

This would be dangerous, especially as Israel faces numerous threats, the biggest from Iran.

The bill would also mark products made in the "Palestinian territories" as either "West Bank/Gaza," "West Bank/Gaza Strip," or "West Bank and Gaza." This is labeling designed to be loved by supporters of the movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel.

Finally, the bill would end the designation of the Palestine Liberation Organization as a terrorist group. At least, that is, once the Palestinians are found to be in compliance with the Taylor Force Act (which prohibits U.S. taxpayer funds from going to the Palestinian Authority as long as it rewards terrorists and their families). The bill would allow, once that condition is met, for the PLO office in Washington to reopen.

But the bill forgets that the PLO has shown little interest in peace. President Donald Trump was right to shutter the PLO office in 2018. The Biden administration resumed funding for Palestinians earlier this year. So what’s to stop the secretary of state from certifying that the Palestinians are in compliance with the Taylor Force Act when they’re actually not?

Recall that the administration revoked the terrorist designation of the Houthis in Yemen even though they are a terrorist group backed by Iran.

Ultimately, any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be worked out between the two sides without the U.S. dictating what it thinks is best. One thing is for certain. To quote the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."

AOC's tears, Schumer's silence, Kamala's ignorance

The question that requires analysis and exploration is why nine duly elected members of the House of Representatives saw it as a good thing to leave millions of civilians defenseless to a terrorist onslaught. As Congressman Fleischmann said the other day, these are just plain anti-Semites. There is really no other way to explain it.

The other day, Vice President Kamala Harris visited a university classroom in Virginia. The question posed to the vice president by a student was about funding for Israel, a country that commits “ethnic genocide,” which is actually the furthest thing from reality.

Vice President Harris stood there as the student spoke about how Israel kills people based on who they are, and instead of disagreeing and correcting the student she just nodded her head in agreement.

Ms. Harris is not a here-today-gone-tomorrow fringe member of Congress. She’s the vice president of the United States and should not be nodding her head in agreement when a woke college student uses “ethnic cleaning” and “Israel” in the same sentence. Harris told the student, “Your truth must be heard.” Does that mean that VP Harris believes Israel is perpetrating ethnic genocide?

I’m reluctant to use the best word to describe her actions, but here it is: stupid.

Even AOC knew better.

UKLFI Charitable Trust: The Accusation of Israel as an Apartheid State

Recording of a UKLFI Charitable Trust Webinar: The Accusation of Israel as an Apartheid State With Professor Orde Kittrie, Chair: Natasha Hausdorff

A new UN Commission of Inquiry of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is poised to accuse Israel of apartheid. Professor Kittrie discusses this Inquiry and its mandate, and the potential relationship with prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The mandate’s reference to apartheid was apparently inspired by a lengthy report, accusing Israel of committing the crime of apartheid, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW). However this report is based on a definition of “apartheid” which is not found in the ICC’s Statute or the International Convention on Apartheid.

Professor Kittrie discusses the different definitions of apartheid, reasons why the apartheid charge is wrong even under HRW’s definition, and options for responding.

10/01 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The false accusation of "Israel apartheid"; FDR's secret plea to Hitler; New Carter Bio Repeats Carter’s Old anti-Israel Lies;

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The false accusation of "Israel apartheid"

In a speech to the United Nations last week, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas not only stated that “Israel is an occupying power, practising apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” but also made no fewer than five further references to Israeli “apartheid”.

Two years ago, a report by Dan Diker and Adam Shay for the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs revealed that the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was not, as was widely believed, a network of local grassroots human-rights groups advocating BDS to establish a peaceful Palestinian state next to Israel.

It was instead run by the PA in Ramallah to direct, mobilise and co-ordinate global political warfare campaigns with the goal of isolating, delegitimising and ultimately dismantling the State of Israel. The current “Israel apartheid” chorus is almost certainly the product of the latest such campaign.

The “apartheid” libel is a potent weapon because it is unlike claims that Israel is practising genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians that are demonstrably fatuous (the number of Palestinian Arabs has at least tripled since Israel’s creation).

By contrast, the “Israel apartheid” smear triggers emotions of deep anger and disgust among the shallow and ignorant, whose knowledge of Israel is entirely drawn from malicious propaganda that misrepresents the defensive measures of the Jewish state as racist aggression but which they believe as unchallengeable truth.

South African apartheid was a system as unique as it was evil. The “Israel apartheid” libel is an evil that once again singles out the Jews for a unique level of persecution.

FDR's secret plea to Hitler

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a secret plea to Adolf Hitler in the summer of 1936, according to newly-uncovered documents.

It wasn’t a plea to curtail Germany’s military buildup.

It wasn’t a plea to Hitler to stop intervening on behalf of the fascists in the Spanish civil war.

And it certainly wasn’t a protest against the brutal Nazi persecution of German Jews.

No, the issue that was so urgent to FDR that he sent a secret communication to Hitler was his request that the Führer meet with three American oil industry executives—two of them Roosevelt’s personal friends—who were on their way to Germany.

The documents about Roosevelt’s request came to light when they were recently put up for sale by a Maryland auction house. They begin with a “very urgent” message to Berlin from the German ambassador in Washington, Hans Luther, on August 21, 1936.

The ambassador reported that President Roosevelt had requested, through his senior aide Stephen Early, that Hitler grant an audience to Kenneth R. Kingsbury, president of Standard Oil of California; James A. Moffett, former head of FDR’s Federal Housing Administration and now vice president of Standard Oil of New Jersey; and Torkild Rieber, chairman of Texaco.

“In view of Roosevelt’s personal interest,” Ambassador Luther wrote, “I very strongly recommend that his request should be granted.” In a second message a few days later, Luther reported that Early had again emphasized “the great importance Roosevelt attaches to Moffett being introduced to the Führer.”

Ultimately, FDR’s request ran aground because of a scheduling conflict—the oil executives were going to be in Germany during one of the busiest periods in Hitler’s schedule, the preparations for the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. But that didn’t stop the three oil executives from engaging in significant commerce with the Third Reich.

Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold testified to a Senate committee in 1942 that at Hitler’s request, Standard Oil had obstructed the development of synthetic rubber in the United States, and instead provided the rubber technology to the Nazis. The revelations were so damning that then-senator Harry Truman accused the oil company of “treason.”

New Carter Bio Repeats Carter’s Old anti-Israel Lies

In fact, Bird gets this exactly wrong because he ignores or is unaware of the key evidence regarding Begin, Carter and settlements.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Accords, the Carter Center on Sept.17, 2003 held a symposium in Washington, DC. Participants included Mr. Carter, Samuel Lewis, who had been the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, William Quandt, who had been a staffer on the National Security Council, and Aharon Barak, who had been Israel’s Attorney General. Ambassador Lewis brought up the question of the settlement freeze, and Barak stated that he was in the relevant meeting, had been the only one taking notes, and that his notes showed that Begin had agreed only to a three month freeze. Off camera Carter is heard to state, “I don’t dispute that.” William Quandt then added that while he had not been in the meeting, Cyrus Vance, who had been, told him immediately afterwards that Begin had agreed to a three month freeze, but they hoped to get it lengthened the next day. Neither Carter, nor Barak, nor Quandt indicated that Begin had ever agreed to extend the freeze. Here’s the sequence from the symposium:

So, confronted with the evidence in 2003 Jimmy Carter admitted that Begin had agreed to only a three month settlement freeze – “I don’t dispute that” – but numerous times before and after, and now for Kai Bird’s book, Carter revives his false charge that Begin violated a promise to impose an open-ended settlement freeze.

Why would Carter keep lying about this? While there can be no question about Carter’s anti-Israel animus, his hostility towards Begin borders on the pathological. As Bird recounts, this included telling a senior aide that he had “coldness in my heart towards” the Israeli leader (p 326), telling his wife Roslyn that Begin was a “psycho,” (p 343) and accusing Begin of “trying to welsh on the deal.” (p 355).

Just a little Jew-hatred at Judaism's holiest spot

Here's a tweet showing a group of Palestinians at the Temple Mount today chanting, among other things, "Khaybar, Khaybar oh Jews, the Army of Mohammed will return." Meaning, to kill the Jews.

"كونوا يدًا واحدة يا عائلات بيت المقدس لنصرة الأقصى" .. عائلة الطويل أدت صلاة الفجر بالمسجد الأقصى وهذه كانت رسالتها للعائلات المقدسية pic.twitter.com/ZwUSAj5JCb
— AlQastal القسطل (@AlQastalps) October 1, 2021

This is the sort of everyday antisemitism that simply gets no coverage in the media.

(h/t Khaled Abu Toameh)

10/01 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: What is the '2-state solution' about?; NGO Monitor: UN Recycled Palestinian Water Report; Kamala, and a cavalcade of dunces

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: What is the '2-state solution' about?

A few hours before the House voted on the supplemental Iron Dome funding, Rep. Andy Levin, a progressive Jewish lawmaker from Michigan who voted in favor of the supplemental Iron Dome funding, submitted his own bill that related to the Palestinians and Israel. And Levin's bill is far more dangerous to Israel and to US-Israel relations than his fellow progressive lawmakers' nay vote on the Iron Dome.

The main purpose of Levin's bill, which is co-sponsored by 24 other members, (seven of whom are also Jewish), is to support the Palestinian terror against Israel, while adopting a laundry list of anti-Israel policies along the way.

Levin's bill includes an amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 that defines the PLO as a terrorist organization and bars the US from permitting the PLO to open offices in the US or from receiving assistance from the US so long as the PLO and its member organizations remain engaged in terrorism. Levin's bill would amend the law to provide the administration with the authority to permit the opening of a PLO office in Washington and to transfer funds to the PLO/Palestinian Authority even while the PLO and its member groups remain engaged in terrorism. Levin's bill enables the administration to sidestep the law simply by proclaiming that opening a PLO office in Washington and funding the PLO/PA is necessary to advance "diplomacy."

Whereas the 2018 Taylor Force Act bars the US from funding the PA so long as it pays salaries to terrorists and their families, Levin's bill would enable the administration to transfer funds directly to the PA even if it continues to pay salaries to terrorists and their families. Levin's bill empowers the secretary of state to authorize such funding simply by proclaiming that the PA is "reforming" its payment apparatus. As Palestinian Media Watch reported this week, the PA already believes that US funding will be restored despite the fact that nearly 10% of the PA budget goes towards paying salaries to terrorists and their families. A senior PA official said that reinstating US funding "is merely a problem of semantics." Levin's bill provides the semantic trick to restore funding.

Alongside its direct support for Palestinian terrorism, Levin's bill also includes multiple provisions whose purpose is to undermine and weaken Israel while subverting the US-Israel alliance. The Levin bill bars Israel from using weapons it receives from the US to defend itself in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and unified Jerusalem. It also discriminates against Israel in a manner that legitimizes the anti-Semitic Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state. The Levin bill bars Israel from marking goods from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, "Made in Israel," instead, Israel is required to mark all such goods as made in the "West Bank/Gaza." Israel's scientific, agricultural and other cooperative agreements with the US will only apply to areas that Israel controlled in 1949. Israeli institutions and citizens beyond those areas will be boycotted.

Levin's bill requires the administration to cancel former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 2019 determination that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are not illegal and delineate all Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as illegal. Israeli neighborhoods built in Jerusalem since 1967 are also deemed illegal, as are Israeli actions to enforce building laws on illegal Palestinian construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Arguably, the most significant aspect of Levin's pro-Palestinian terror bill is the name he gave it. Levin named his would-be federal law, "The Two-State Solution Act."

Israeli Foreign Minister Visits Bahrain, US Navy Base in Signal to Iran

Bahrain hosted the Israeli foreign minister on Thursday for the highest-level visit since the countries established ties last year and which included a tour of a US naval headquarters to signal common cause against Iran.

Landing in Manama on a plane daubed with an olive branch painting, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

“His Majesty’s leadership and inspiration have led to true cooperation and our meeting outlined the path forward for our relationship,” Lapid said on Twitter.

Bahrain and Gulf neighbour United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel last year in a US-brokered deal known as the Abraham Accords that built on common commercial interests and worries about Iran. Sudan and Morocco followed suit.

“Our opportunities are shared. Our threats are also shared, and they aren’t far from here,” Lapid said in remarks to reporters, apparently alluding to Gulf power Iran.

Touring the Bahrain headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which has faced off Iranian vessels amid tensions over Tehran’s regional aims, Lapid said: “Our three countries work together because we have similar interests in the region.”

“When we speak about peace, we need to remember that peace must be protected from those who would harm it,” he added, according to his office.

Iran: Lapid’s visit leaves stain on Bahrain’s rulers that won’t be erased

Iran said Friday that the visit by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to Bahrain this week left a stain on the reputation of the Gulf state’s rulers that “will not be erased.”

Lapid on Thursday officially opened Israel’s embassy in Manama and met with top-ranking officials, a year after the two countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations and in the first public visit by an Israeli minister since the agreement.

“We condemn any scheme that bolsters Israel’s destructive presence in the region,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement reported by the official IRNA news agency and cited by the Reuters news agency.

“It is unfortunate that Bahrain’s rulers ignore the Zionist regime’s daily crimes against the oppressed but resilient people of Palestine,” Khatibzadeh said.

“This stain will not be erased from the reputation of Bahrain’s rulers. The people of the region will continue to oppose the process of normalization of ties with the Zionist regime,” he said.

Iran's Mehr news agency quoted Major General Gholam Ali Rashid as saying, "We have changed the situation, including the lack of defense agreements with governments and other countries in the past forty years, by joining countries and some governments and building regional powers and religious and popular forces."

But he doesn't actually mean "countries." He means terror groups.

Al Rashid said, "Hajj Qassem Soleimani said in a meeting with the commanders of the armed forces, three months before his martyrdom, 'I have now organized 6 armies outside Iranian territory.'"

Major General Rashid continued, "Six divisions of the popular and ideological armies live outside Iran's borders, and any enemy wants to fight the regime must pass through these six armies."

What are these armies?

Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, "an army in Syria," an Iraqi army called the Popular Mobilization (a collection of militias including terror groups,) and Ansar Allah (the Houthi terrorists) in Yemen.

Iran isn't just aligned with terror groups. It isn't just funding them. It considers terror groups to be an integral part of its army.

Meaning, Iran is a terrorist state in every sense.

But, hey, let's give them a path to their own nuclear weapons.

On Thursday, the Commodore Hotel in Gaza hosted a Hamas-sponsored conference called "The Promise of the Hereafter - Palestine after Liberation," a science-fiction fantasy of what things would look like when Hamas defeats Israel.

The final communique of the conference described things like how the new Palestine would inherit Israel's borders with Egypt and Jordan and maritime agreements with Greece, for example.

But what would happen to the Jews?

According to the final statement, here is what would happen to Israel's Jews.

Members of the IDF must be fought and presumably killed.

Jewish "fugitives" can be prosecuted for their crimes.

"Pacifists" who surrender to Hamas and accept their rule "can be accommodated or allowed to leave" - this is an issue that deserves closer consideration, according to the statement. So even Jews who want to be second class dhimmis under Muslim rule would not automatically become citizens.

But Hamas doesn't want to ethnically cleanse all the Jews immediately. After all, the Jews are smart and know how to run a nation!

[We must] keep the Jews, scholars and experts in the fields of medicine, engineering, technology, civil and military industry, for a while and not let them leave with the knowledge, science and experience they acquired while they reside on our land and eat our good, and we pay the price for all of that from our humiliation, poverty, disease, deprivation, killing and imprisonment.

It is funny that even Hamas admits that Palestinians cannot run a state without learning what they need to learn from the Jews.

Also, it is a priority to take over Israeli intelligence information to hunt down Jews and friends of Jews around the world:

From the first moments of the collapse of "Israel", the security services of the transitional government must seize the data of the occupation agents in Palestine, the region and the world, and the names of Jewish and non-Jewish recruits locally and internationally, which is considered a great information treasure that must not be lost; With this treasure, we can purify Palestine and the Arab and Islamic world from the hypocritical scum who have wreaked havoc on the land. It provides important information for the pursuit of fugitives from criminals who have hurt our people.

Note that there is nothing here about allowing Jews to remain as equal citizens of "Palestine."

All the Peter Beinarts of the world insist that Palestinians only want equal rights with Jews, but when you read their own words in Arabic, it is quite clear that this was never part of any Palestinian desire.

Iranian media: Those Zionists in Bahrain are up to something - terrorists told us so!

Iran's PressTV wrote an article about the negative reactions towards Yair Lapid's visit to open the Israeli embassy in Manama.

They didn't quote prominent Bahrainis. No, their article is a litany of condemnations by...terror groups!

The "resistance groups" include Hamas:

Palestinian resistance group Hamas denounced Bahrain’s reception of the Israeli foreign minister as an extension of the sin of signing normalization deals with the Israeli regime and a “national crime” against the interests of Arabs and Muslims.

Yemen’s Ansarullah:

Hizam al-Assad, a member of the political bureau of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, said the “dissonant voices” striving for normalization with the Israeli regime are “abnormal” and should not be trusted.

The Ansarullah official added that the Zionist regime is seeking to foment ethnic conflicts in Arab countries in order to reach its goal.

Islamic Jihad:

According to a senior leader in the Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based resistance group, Lapid’s trip to Bahrain is part of a conspiracy to change the identity of the region.

In a statement on Thursday, Khader Habib also denounced the opening of an Israeli embassy in Bahrain, describing it as an “intelligence and security outpost” of the enemy in Manama under the name of an embassy.

Those who oppose normalization for Israel are Iranian media, members of terror groups, the far Left and "human rights groups."