Monday, March 07, 2022

03/07 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: Biden Shatters Israel's Delusions; Russia exploiting Iran talks to ease sanctions; AIPAC hosts first Arab head of state

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Biden Shatters Israel's Delusions
For decades, senior Israeli defense officials beat a path to the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council with briefcases full of documents providing conclusive proof that Iran's nuclear program is a military program and that its purpose is to transform the Islamic Republic of Iran into a nuclear-armed state. The officers arrived in Washington convinced that the smoking gun they were providing the Americans would compel Washington to abandon its long-held delusion that there is a "grand bargain" to be had with the fanatical Islamist theocracy whose leaders believe that Iran's rise will herald an era of unmitigated Shiite global domination.

All of the Israeli officers made their best cases to their American counterparts. Most believed the Americans were open to the information they provided, and left Washington convinced that the Americans finally recognized the danger and would act to block Iran from achieving its nefarious goal. On at least one occasion, their efforts were rewarded.

In 2018, after Israel's Mossad spy agency spirited Iran's nuclear archive out of a warehouse in Tehran and brought it to Israel, Israel's spy chiefs flew to Washington to share the findings with the Trump administration. The documents provided incontrovertible proof of Israel's long-standing contentions that Iran's nuclear program was initiated, maintained and expanded throughout the years for the primary purpose of developing nuclear weapons. Then-President Donald Trump responded to Israel's revelations by withdrawing the U.S from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the nuclear deal the Obama administration had concluded with Iran.

The 2015 nuclear deal placed certain restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities for a limited period. But the JCPOA allowed Iran to continue with its nuclear research and development, and placed no restrictions on Iran's missile development and proliferation. In other words, Barack Obama's deal limited what Iran could do with the nuclear capabilities it had acquired by 2015, but it enabled Iran to massively expand its nuclear capabilities for the future.

During the early years of the JCPOA, Iran developed second-generation centrifuges capable of enriching uranium 10 times faster than it was able to enrich in 2015—and to much higher levels of purity. Iran began deploying the new advanced centrifuges as soon as they were ready, even before Trump abandoned the JCPOA and reinstated the nuclear sanctions the Obama administration had suspended in 2015.

After abandoning the JCPOA, Trump and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced their "maximum pressure" campaign of harsh sanctions on the Iranian regime. The campaign intended to block the regime from waging war against its neighbors, either directly or through its proxies, and to deter it from attacking U.S. forces and assets in the region.
Seth Frantzman: Russia exploiting Iran talks to ease sanctions
The Tasnim report said Lavrov wants trade between Iran and Russia to be exempt from sanctions, which means the West would reject the deal. Moscow holds a veto over the deal as well.

Iran doesn’t seem happy. Although it has feigned disinterest in the deal and says it has managed to get around sanctions, it doesn’t want to be used by Russia. The Islamic Republic already has a plan to blackmail the West and now sees Moscow trying to exploit it for its own blackmail.

But Tehran has another agenda. “Iran produces more than two million barrels per day of oil, and if this oil enters the market, its price increase will slow down,” the report said.

Russia benefits from the price increase. Talk of the US banning Russian energy imports would ostensibly drive prices up. Then America would have to ask the Gulf states to compensate for the price increases by increasing supply.

Iran is saying, “Wait a sec, we have lots of oil to sell. Don’t let Russia strong-arm you.”

That is one interpretation. Or Iran and Russia may be playing “good cop, bad cop,” with the latter now playing the bad cop and the former pretending to be good. Either way, “Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, intends to put pressure on the Western economy by raising oil prices further and boosting its production,” Tasnim reported.

Russia has now been exposed not only as an unreliable country in terms of unchecked aggression against Ukraine but also as unreliable in the Iran nuclear talks.
Ben-Dror Yemini: The West's Selective Morality in the Face of the Iranian Threat
The West is rightly concerned about Russia, but how come it closes its eyes in the face of the Iranian threat? Where is the morality here exactly? Turning a blind eye to the situation effectively equates to abandoning the people of the Middle East — Muslims and Jews alike.

This pacified approach leads to a disgraceful deal with Iran that will only serve to expand the Islamic republic’s death industry. We must fight Russian aggression. But why are those going against Russia, and rightly so, are also those waving a white flag when it comes to Iran? There’s no arguing that the U.S. is Israel’s most important ally, Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine is the victim. That is why Israel joined the UN’s condemnation of Moscow. But that wasn't enough to appease Amanpour and her ilk.

However, Israel must continue in its fight against the most murderous actor in the Middle East. This is not just an Israeli interest, it's also an American interest and of every decent human being in the Middle East and the West.

As an ally, the U.S. is supposed to understand this and that freedom of action that allows undercutting Iran's might is a moral imperative that Jerusalem simply cannot give up on, and if it means the Israeli government must walk on eggshells vis-à-vis Moscow, so be it.

And another thing, had a harsher Israeli stance against Russia actually led to a turning point, then it should have employed a different policy. But it is clear that halting Israeli operations against Iran on Syrian soil would only lead to more bloodshed and destruction. Given these circumstances, Israel is taking the moral approach. The only ones having a moral lapse are those seeking to sabotage the war on Iran’s murderous machinations.
  • Monday, March 07, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
  • ,

Elder Comix: The worst thing about Ukraine (according to Israel haters)





Read all about it here!


  • Monday, March 07, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

35% increase in Molotov cocktails, 70% increase in Palestinian pipe bombs in February

The Shin Bet released the statistics of terror attacks in February. While there were no fatal attacks, the quantity of violent attacks increased over January.

The number of Molotov cocktails increased 35%, from 101 to 136. And the number of pipe bombs soared from 17 to 29.  Small arms fire more than doubled, from 6 to 14 incidents.

The media doesn't bother covering these attacks, and luckily none of them were fatal, but firebombs are still firebombs - and they are hurled multiple times daily at Jews. An average of one pipe bomb a day is something to be alarmed over, not complacent about.



The good news is that there were no rockets or mortars fired from Gaza in January.



Read all about it here!

03/07 Links Pt1: Natan Sharansky: Israel, Russia and the U.S. Moral Abdication; Matti Friedman: The New Ukrainian Aliyah; Time to deal with delegitimization campaigns targeting Israel, Ukraine

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky (WSJ$): Israel, Russia and the U.S. Moral Abdication
Israel had no choice but to reach a strategic agreement with Russia to fight against Iran and its proxies. In protecting itself from terrorist aggression, Israel must consider Russia’s presence in Syria and secure Mr. Putin’s agreement for airstrikes against targets there. This arrangement, which began under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, renders Israel dependent on Russia’s goodwill even now, during Mr. Putin’s worst aggressions to date.

Making matters worse, an imminent nuclear deal with Iran will give yet more money to the regime without any linkage to its behavior. As a result, Israel will become even more dependent on Russia.

Israel would not have been forced to choose between its principles and survival had it not been for the lack of moral clarity in Europe and the U.S. The same free world that now stands in solidarity against one dictator is on the verge of signing—with that very dictator—an agreement that would give hundreds of billions of dollars to another corrupt, oppressive regime that has vowed to destroy Israel.

It isn’t too late to change this state of affairs. One option is to table the latest Iranian nuclear agreement and instead make clear to Tehran’s theocrats that their aggressions won’t be tolerated, let alone rewarded. If a deal is inevitable, another solution is to tie financial support for Iran to the latter’s verifiable commitment to protect human rights at home and cease its terrorist incitement abroad. This simple solution, which both the Obama and Biden administrations have thus far refused to accept, would not only reflect moral clarity, it would undermine Mr. Putin’s growing power on the world stage.

Russia’s actions in Ukraine are a test for the free world, which is why my government’s reluctance to oppose them forcefully is disappointing. Yet the reality of Israel’s dependence on Russia shows again that if the U.S. wants to lead the free world in confronting tyranny, its actions in confronting tyrants must be clear and consistent.


‘God will not forgive, ‘ Zelensky says as Russian forces kill fleeing civilians
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed Western leaders and vowed no forgiveness for Russian “atrocities,” as its military intensified attacks on Ukraine’s cities and killed a group of civilians fleeing violence.

After Russia said it will attack Ukrainian defense industry facilities, some of which are in cities, Zelensky said early Monday morning, “It’s murder, simply murder, and I didn’t see any world leader react to it today, any Western politician.”

“The audacity of the aggressor is a clear signal for the West that the imposed sanctions aren’t enough,” he said in a video posted to his Facebook account.

He raged at Russian forces over a family of four that was killed by a mortar round while attempting to escape the city of Irpin, near Kyiv. About eight civilians were killed in total by Russian shelling in the town, according to Mayor Oleksander Markyshin.

Video footage showed a shell slamming into a city street, not far from a bridge used by people fleeing the fighting. New York Times journalists witnessed the attack, and said it took place in a residential area, where Ukraine’s military was not active, except for helping civilians flee.


Matti Friedman: The New Ukrainian Aliyah
New people with old stories are sitting on the benches in Nahariya, the beach town in northern Israel where my parents live. One woman sits in a park near the Jewish Agency’s immigrant absorption center, holding her smartphone and crying as another woman’s voice says on the speaker from Ukraine, “There are fatalities in Kharkiv.” A crew from the TV news is there to interview these first arrivals, and for an Israeli watching, it seems like headlines and history at once. Kyiv, Lviv, Moscow, the Jewish Agency. Is it the 1990s, or the 1930s? Another woman, Tatyana, embraces two of her three children, fresh from the airport. Her eldest son stayed behind to fight near Dnipro. “It’s a miracle we made it here,” she says.

Israelis are as glued to the war in Ukraine as the rest of the Western world, so involved in the extraordinary course of events that most of us haven’t yet considered the most immediate way this is going to manifest itself here: in a new wave of aliyah, “ascent,” the word we like to use for immigration. On Sunday three planes landed with 300 people, and it’s only beginning. Some estimates say 10,000 are coming, some say 10 times that; some, like the Interior Minister, say it could be hundreds of thousands and won’t be limited to people from Ukraine.

The old Zionist absorption machinery—ignored by nearly all Israelis nearly all of the time, though it’s more or less the reason the country exists and the reason we’re all here—is creaking back into motion. Israel will try to work its narrative magic, issuing the newcomers a story of strength that obscures their weakness, telling them they’re not homeless but home and that they’re not refugees but olim, “those who ascend,” masters of their own fate. This story is one of the secrets of the country’s success. A version of it is shared by everyone else in this town: the original Germans, the Moroccans and Tunisians, the Romanians, the earlier Russians and Ukrainians, the Ethiopians. The rooms at the absorption center probably still smell of injera. That’s why, although Elena and Tatyana may never have been here before, they somehow don’t seem out of place.

Roman Polonsky, the Jewish Agency’s man in charge of the countries of the former Soviet Union, was born 67 years ago outside Odesa, Ukraine—the target, as I write these lines, of an approaching Russian naval force. When we spoke he was rushing from Israel to Budapest to help get people out of his former country. Growing up in the Soviet Union with a mix of Ukrainians, Russians, Moldovans, and Jews, he said, the idea of a Russia-Ukraine war would have seemed “far less likely than an alien invasion from Mars.” He moved to Israel in 1990, when he was 35, at the beginning of the great aliyah that brought more than a million people here as the Soviet world collapsed. (All the newcomers became known collectively as “Russians,” even through a third were from Ukraine and another third from the smaller Soviet republics; it will be interesting to see if the distinction between Russians and Ukrainians now catches on.)


What kind of an anthropologist would condone looting of Jewish antiquities? A Palestinian one at Columbia.

Nadia Abu El Haj is a professor of anthropology at Columbia University's Barnard College. 

In 2002, she published "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society." The book is meant to be a discussion of how Israel uses and misuses archaeology for its own political purposes.

But she asserts, in her own voice, something so shocking that it should disqualify her in her own field, in a section of her book that discusses Palestinian looting of Jewish artifacts at archaeological sites - something that is rampant.

Looting could well be analyzed as a form of resistance to the Israeli state and an archaeological project, understood by many Palestinians, to stand at the very heart of Zionist historical claims to the land. In James Scott's words, looting is perhaps a "weapon of the weak" [1985].
Here we have an anthropologist who is praising Palestinian looting of Jewish heritage - because it is "resistance." 

(James Scott's book, called "Weapons of the Weak," does not talk about looting of archaeological sites, and indeed does not appear to discuss the permanent destruction or loss of any major items. Abu El Haj is twisting his thesis.)

In Palestinian thought, any crime, including murder, is justifiable under the rubric of "resistance," so perhaps this shouldn't be considered too shocking. Yet this is an American-born professor of anthropology at an American university who is openly asserting that destroying Jewish culture is a good thing. (Her father is Palestinian.)

This is today's antisemitism, justified as a "principle."

(As I was researching this, I found an excellent critique of the entire book published here. )

(h/t Alex)




Read all about it here!

  • Monday, March 07, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

For Palestinians, International Women's Day is another excuse to incite against Israel - and ignore gender based violence


Tuesday is International Women's Day. And as usual, Palestinians are using it not to look at their own issues of misogyny and abuse, but as yet another excuse to attack Israel.

Women in Gaza held a demonstration in front of the ICRC headquarters there ahead of the occasion, but their issues with spouse abuse took a significant back seat to the accusations that somehow Israel is treating Palestinian women badly.
The women raised Palestinian flags, pictures of prisoners in the occupation prisons, and placards calling for an end to the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people.

Bisan Abu Jiyab, a feminist activist for Ma'an, said that the eighth of March comes in light of the repeated Israeli violations against female prisoners behind the occupation prisons.

Abu Jiyab called on the international world to stand in front of its stances against the occupation policies practiced against the female prisoners and the daily policy of repression, blatant violation and denial of phone calls and family visits, and in light of the deliberate medical neglect of female prisoners.
Buried later in the article is the grudging admission that, yeah, Palestinian women are beaten by their husbands, and the Palestinian leadership is not adhering to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, but that is only a side issue. Female prisoners are the overarching human rights issue.

Another article about International Women's Day in Ma'an looks at the numbers of interest to Palestinian women. It identifies exactly how many female prisoners there are in Israeli prison.

32.

It also highlights the amazing fact that roughly half of Palestinians are women.

And, by the way, it also mentions that (as of 2019, because how important are these statistics anyway?) that 13.4% of Palestinian women are married before age 18, 57.2% of women were subjected to psychological violence “at least once” in the previous year, 18.5% of women were subjected to physical violence “at least once” in the previous year, and 9.4% of women were subjected to sexual violence “at least once” in that timeframe.

This means that literally hundreds of thousands of Palestinian are being raped or beaten by their husbands - but the 32 female terrorists in Israeli prisons are what Palestinians want to talk about. Which means that this obsession with attacking Israel actually hurts Palestinian women by making issues of actual abuse secondary to their insatiable drive to make everything about Israel.

Which Western feminists are calling attention to this problem? 

The UN adds that 50% of Palestinian women and 63% of Palestinian men agree that a woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together. But that cannot be spoken about because it takes away from the discussion about how awful Israel is. 



Read all about it here!

Columbia BDS professor a little unclear on what "academic freedom" means

An Israeli neuroscientist named Gerry Leisman, who teaches at Haifa University, announced on a listserv:

Hi,
I am the guest editor of a special issue of the Journal Brain Sciences and we are producing a special issue of the journal entitled, "The Brain Goes to School, details for which can be found at the following link:
We are recruiting both reviews and results of experimental studies that relate to human learning, its difficulties, remediation strategies, models, cognitive science, cognitive neuropsychology all essentially attempting to translate 150 years of cognitive neuroscience into classroom applications.......
One of the members of the listserv, Karen Froud, decided that this announcement was way too Zionist, and threatened the tiny brains of those who are offended by anything related to Israel. 


Dear colleagues -
I urge you to consider this request in light of the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions Movement for freedom and justice in Palestine. Like many / most academic institutions in Israel, Haifa University is an apartheid institution. https://bdsmovement.net/tags/haifa-university
I recognize that many of you work within this institution and hope you are also doing your part for academic freedom.
Warm wishes for a peaceful and just world - which after all is where educational neuroscience as a field points us.
Karen Froud, Ph.D.
Program Director, Neuroscience & Education
Columbia University Teachers College

Apparently, Froud is asking her colleagues to boycott this issue of Brain Sciences because it had the audacity of asking an Israeli expert to edit it. And she claims that this is in the name of "academic freedom."

I was curious to see exactly what made Haifa University an "apartheid institution" according to the BDS movement. Here is their evidence: "Haifa University discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel through exclusionary practices."

Really? Because fully 41% of students at Haifa University are Arab - double the percentage of Arab citizens in Israel as a whole! Haifa University is twice as welcoming of Arab students than they are of Jewish students on a per capita basis!

Haifa University is far more liberal and far more progressive than Karen Froud Ph.D. is. 

Leisman wrote an excellent and detailed response to Froud as well, including these points:

It is quite audacious of you to claim that you support academic freedom by requesting others to shut down academic freedom. Before I begin, may I call your attention to the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1949) Article 19, which you obviously have not read, that states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." (So much for your understanding of Human Rights and Academic Freedom).

What you want is not a boycott but rather political pressure on second parties to pressure third parties to affect policy-change by that third party (i.e. the government the State of Israel). That is not even a secondary boycott but rather just simply bullying. So much for academic discourse on your part on an issue that has nothing to do with the project in Neuroeducation. What makes your opinions valid and those of others not? Some website? Do you base your actions on an order on a website? Your actions are inconsistent with the notion of Academic Freedom, but rather with an opinionated individual ramming his/her political agenda down the throats of academics on a mailing list. 

Froud receives a lot of very bad ratings in RateMyProfessors, as she appears to pre-record her lectures and gives students the link on YouTube. She also apparently publicly humiliates students she doesn't like. 

It is not surprising that self-righteous BDS bullies are also bullies in real life.

(h/t Andrew)



Read all about it here!

Sunday, March 06, 2022

  • Sunday, March 06, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

High speed Internet cables will connect Israel and Saudi Arabia


Under the clear waters of the Red Sea, a high-speed data cable is being laid that will connect—for the first time—Israel to Saudi Arabia. The new link, which is part of two longer submarine cables running all the way from France to India, promises not only to improve the speed and lower the cost at which information can whizz between Europe and Asia. It is also knitting together a new regional alliance between Israel and countries in the Gulf that once regarded it as an enemy.
The article is behind a paywall, but Arab media are writing about it. 

The article says that the cable "would break the Egyptian monopoly of Internet traffic in the region.”
 
The new data pipeline  is being built by Google and Telecom Italia and should be finished in 2024.

This route consists of two separate cables, one ending in the Jordanian port of Aqaba, the other starting in Eilat. 
 
One Israeli official said, “For over seven decades all the Middle East’s trade routes and communications networks bypassed Israel. For the first time since Israel’s establishment, we’re becoming part of a regional infrastructure.”
 



Read all about it here!

03/06 Links: With the world in crisis, Israel steps up; Israelis be warned: Ukraine shows how Biden treats friends; PLO renounces all agreements with Israel

From Ian:

With the world in crisis, Israel steps up
What Maccabi Tel Aviv did in 1977 after defeating CSKA Moscow and leading Israel to the FIBA European Champions Cup, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett did Saturday with his dramatic meeting in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin: put Israel on the map.

"We are on the map! And we are staying on the map – not only in sports, but in everything," Israel-American basketball star Tal Brody, in heavily accented Hebrew, said in an emotional interview after the victory over CSKA Moscow, a remark that has become iconic.

By flying to Moscow on Saturday Bennett put Israel on the map in terms of international diplomacy. That he made the trip on Shabbat, unheard of for Israeli politicians, even more so for one who is Shabbat-observant, underlined the life-and-death urgency of the trip.

Just weeks after Amnesty International called Israel an apartheid state in an effort to isolate the Jewish state and turn it into a pariah, Bennett shows up in Moscow in what on the surface seems an attempt at mediating the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

Rather than being a pariah, Israel - it is turning out - is a necessary mediator in one of the most severe crises the world has seen in decades.

Bennett's trip was reportedly coordinated with Washington, Berlin and Paris, who all encouraged it. And it was also done with the knowledge of the Ukrainians, whose President Volodymyr Zelensky has been critical of Bennett and the Israeli government for not having taken a more forceful position against the Russians

But it seems that Jerusalem’s measured approach - balancing a real concern for Israel's interests in maintaining good relations with Russia because of Moscow’s control of Syria’s skies with humanitarian concerns for Ukrainians caught in the fighting - has paid dividends.

It is Bennett that Putin agreed to see in Moscow, not France's Emmanuel Macron, not Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, nor the prime ministers of other countries that traditionally play the role of mediator: Norway and Switzerland.

Rather Israel, little Israel.
Bennett: Israel has ‘moral duty’ to mediate between Moscow, Kyiv even if chances low
hours after returning from a surprise whirlwind trip to Moscow and Berlin, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel had a moral obligation to work to broker peace talks between Russia and Ukraine — even if the likelihood for progress was slim.

“I returned from Moscow and Berlin a few hours ago,” Bennett said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. “I went there to assist the dialogue between all of the sides, of course with the blessing and encouragement of all players.”

Bennett said that he could not “go into greater detail” on the talks he held with Russian President Vladimir Putin or his phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday morning that Bennett had spoken once again with Zelensky, the third phone call between the two leaders in less than 24 hours. Neither side has released details of any of the conversations.

“We will continue to assist as needed,” Bennett said at the cabinet meeting. “Even if the chance is not great — as soon as there is even a small opening, and we have access to all sides and the capability — I see this as our moral obligation to make every effort.”

“As long as the candle is burning, we must make an effort and perhaps it will yet be possible to act,” the prime minister added.


Bennett’s Mission to Moscow Could Help Ukraine. But Can He Stop a New Iran Deal?
One of the odder sidebars to the invasion of Ukraine was a recent report that Putin was threatening to withdraw his support for the new Iran deal unless the Americans backed down on their efforts to sanction Russia as punishment for its aggression. As a member of the P5+1 group of powers that concluded the original pact, Moscow is deeply involved in the effort to revive it in Vienna.

Indeed, according to some sources, Russia played a key role in getting the Iranians — Russian allies and partners in another brutal war waged by Putin to slaughter Syrians opposed to the regime of President Bashar Assad — to go along with this fiasco that will greatly benefit it.

This means that while Biden and the West have been inveighing against Putin for his crimes in Ukraine, they are simultaneously counting on him to assist them in producing an agreement with Iran that they will falsely claim to be a diplomatic triumph. The administration has defended its willingness to continue working with the Russians in Vienna as unrelated to their efforts to isolate Moscow. But Biden’s willingness to reward Iran while punishing Russia is not so much hypocritical as it is amoral.

So while Bennett was undoubtedly sincere in offering his good offices to help arrange for peace talks to end the fighting in Ukraine, his priority ought to be somehow persuading Putin to help stop Biden’s appeasement of Iran. The same applies to his subsequent trip to Germany, which is also involved with both the sanctions on Russia and the attempt to use Putin to end the sanctions on Iran.

It’s far from clear that Bennett will be able to either assist diplomacy in Ukraine or stop the new Iran deal. But as much as the Jewish world is, like just about everyone else, completely riveted by the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine, it should not be treating Iran as a secondary issue.

That’s a difficult sell at a moment when Ukraine’s fight for independence has captured the hearts of supporters of democracy and those who sympathize with underdogs seeking to resist much stronger predators, such as Putin’s Russia. Jewish communities are mobilizing to provide aid for the refugees created by the war and calling for America and the West to do whatever they can to aid Zelensky — a new Jewish hero who has won praise for his Churchillian performance since the war began — to save Ukraine.

But to ignore, rationalize or excuse Biden’s efforts to enrich and empower Iran while granting it a clear path to a nuclear weapon with which it could potentially make good on its repeated threats to eliminate the one Jewish state on the planet just because Ukraine is the current priority is indefensible.

Bennett could win a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war in Ukraine, while sabotaging diplomacy with Iran will only earn him opprobrium from the international press. But being as admired as Zelensky is now shouldn’t concern him. Stymying Biden’s feckless appeasement of Iran must be his sole priority.


Behind the scenes of Bennett's secret trip to Moscow
Planning of Naftali Bennett's secret trip to Russia on Saturday actually began on Wednesday, when the prime minister spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone.

Bennett advised the U.S. of his intentions and received President Joe Biden's "blessing". The prime minister also called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky right after his meeting with Putin to brief him on the discussions. Bennett also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Before leaving for Moscow on Saturday, Bennett called Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, to advise them on the planned meetings.

After the three-hour meeting in the Kremlin, Bennett flew to Berlin to meet with the German chancellor. According to the Prime Minister's Office, Bennett and Olaf Scholz, spoke for 90 minutes and shared a meal. "The leaders discussed several matters including the Russian-Ukraine conflict," said the official statement following the meeting.

Ynet analyst Ron Ben Yishai said on Sunday that Zelensky's office doubted the mediation efforts would be successful. After the president spoke with Bennett, his press secretary said he would be willing to meet Putin if the Russian president was amenable.

"We cannot evaluate the outcome of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's mediation until we receive a clear indication from either Bennett or Putin that such a meeting could take place," Sergey Nikiforov said, adding that no new development was reported on Bennett's call with Zelensky.

The need for a ceasefire is said to have been the primary topic of discussion in the meeting in Moscow. Putin reiterated Russia's demand that Israel refrain from providing any weapons to Ukraine.

But Israel's concern for the safety of Ukraine's Jewish communities and of Israelis stranded in the war, was also addressed.
  • Sunday, March 06, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

Hezbollah continues to screw Lebanon, this time by refusing to draw a maritime border with Israel to allow gas exploration

Naharnet reported on Thursday:
The lead U.S. mediator in the Lebanon-Israel sea border talks, Amos Hochstein, has sent a written proposal to President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Miqati, several Lebanese newspapers reported on Thursday.

Hochstein’s letter was delivered to Aoun, Berri and Miqati by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, diplomatic sources told An-Nahar newspaper.
And as always, Hezbollah seems to be casting a veto that would allow cash-strapped Lebanon to access the natural-gas-rich regions of the Mediterranean:
Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah have distanced themselves from a panel formed by President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Miqati with the aim of studying the written proposal that has been sent to Lebanon by U.S. sea border demarcation envoy Amos Hochstein, media reports said on Saturday.

High-level sources meanwhile told al-Akhbar that Public Works Minister Ali Hamiyeh told Hizbullah that the premier wants him to be part of the committee and that the party rejected his participation.

“We will not take part in any meeting or negotiations related to the demarcation file, especially if the committee will meet with U.S. delegations,” Hizbulah told the minister according to the daily.

Does anyone on the planet think that Hezbollah cares about the welfare of Lebanon?

Meanwhile, some good news:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated two “key Hizbullah financiers” operating in Guinea, a statement said.

“This action is aimed at disrupting Hizbullah’s business network in West Africa, which relies on bribery and influence to circumvent the rule of law. In addition to other sources of funding, Hizbullah generates revenue from commercial activities across the world to sponsor acts of terrorism,” the U.S. statement added.


 



Read all about it here!

A survey of academic papers that claim that Israeli settlers/IDF release wild boars to attack Palestinians



As my readers know, I like to expose the stupid things published about Israel in academic papers.

One recent publication was by Saad Amira, of the University of Basel, Switzerland, whose abstract for "The slow violence of Israeli settler-colonialism and the political ecology of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank" in "Settler Colonial Studies" includes, 
Here I focus on three aspects of the slow violence of settler colonialism and its relationship to political ecology: the unleashing of wild boars into Palestinian villages and the decimation of seasonal agriculture, the dumping of sewage waste of Israeli settlements onto Palestinian villages, and the curtailment of indigenous centered modes of production and mobility. 
When he proposed this research, he also added something about "reinforcing notions of Patriarchal development" but inexplicably that line of research did not make it into his final paper, perhaps because it would have softened his anti-Israel lies.  

But the proposal included the "wild boars" theme.

Now think about this for a second. If someone proposes a doctoral thesis based on the truth of wild and false rumors about Israel, and it gets approved by their supervisor, what are the chances that this "academic researcher" will be objective when they write the paper itself? Indeed, the proposal and the abstract are very similar. The conclusions were drawn before the research.

Which is how 99% of "social science" works.

It turns out that this isn't the only academic fraud who mindlessly repeats the most insane antisemitic conspiracy theories, that religious Jewish settlers or the IDF are raising non-kosher and untamable wild boars to release them in Palestinian Arab farms.

In "No Sustainable Development in the Lack of Environmental Justice" by HE Salem in Environmental Justice (2019), we are told flatly:
Israel releases wild boars, pigs, stray dogs, and large rats in the OPT. According to reports issued by Israeli and Palestinian institutions, the Israeli authorities release wild boars, pigs, dogs, and large rats in the OPT, especially the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority’s President—Mahmoud Abbas—accused Israel of releasing wild boars to destroy agricultural fields in the West Bank to cause damage to produce and intimidate Palestinian farmers. Palestinians blame Israeli settlers for deliberately releasing boars in the occupied West Bank to deliberately attack villagers, as a way to keep them off their land."
Middle East Monitor (2012) quotes the head of the  Palestinian Centre for Environmental Development at Al-Quds Open University, Jamal Sabra, describing "the Israeli practice of releasing wild pigs in the vicinity of settlements – a practice which impacts on wild plants. "

In "Palestine and (Human) Nature" (2016) by Naomi Foyle (University of Chichester), she describes Israel as "a nationalist settler movement led by wealthy Europeans and bankrolled by America [that] has dispossessed the indigenous Arab population and laid waste to their remaining natural resources. " Naturally, she parrots the "wild boar" claim with little skepticism:

Currently, in a development even Orwell couldn’t have made up, the Zionist assault on Palestinian farming allegedly extends to pig warfare. Growing up, Murad never saw a wild boar, which formerly existed only in the north of Palestine. Now there are thousands of them, a genuine plague of huge ferocious beasts that hold night orgies in farmers’ fields and groves, devouring crops and trampling the fragile roots of the olive trees. ...Villagers report seeing IDF helicopters landing to release pairs of the animals...
In DA Jaber's "Settler colonialism and ecocide: case study of AlKhader, Palestine" - also in Settler Colonial Studies - we are told, "Qasim, an environmental activist, discussed the actions of settlers that cause the deterioration of agricultural lands. For example, the releasing of rabbits and gazelles, which are not native to the agricultural lands of Al-Khader, onto farmlands, ruining the crops, in particular grapevines and Armenian cucumber plants." The footnote says, ". For more on settlers releasing animals on Palestinian agriculture destroying crops and, at times, harming Palestinians, see Jared Eglan, Beasts of War: The Militarization of Animals (Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, 2015), 99; Ma’an News Agency ‘10-year-old Palestinian Girl Attacked by Wild Boar Near Jenin’, May 2017."

Waziyatawin writes in "Malice Enough in their Hearts and Courage Enough in Ours: Reflections on US Indigenous and Palestinian Experiences under Occupation," Settler Colonial Studies (2012) that "people of Awarta described the theft of their sheep and goat herds, the confiscation, theft or destruction of their olive trees and the introduction of destructive wild boars" by settlers.

I only saw skepticism in a 2019 book, "Companions in Conflict: Animals in Occupied Palestine," by Penny Johnson, who realized immediately that the "settlers spread wild boar" story was insane:


If only most academics has any intellectual honesty as Johnson does. 

I wonder if any academic press would allow this research into the bias of academic research to be published. 




Read all about it here!

  • Sunday, March 06, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

Jordanian/Palestinian columnist, former member of Parliament, openly rooting for Russia to win. Because Ukraine is "Zionist."

Hamada al-Farana is a columnist who is a former minister of Jordanian parliament and has been a member of the Palestinian National Council since 1984.

He wrote in Jordanian site Ad Dustour,  copied elsewhere, that a Russian victory in Ukraine will be a defeat for Israel and the United States.

We sympathize with the people of Ukraine for two reasons: first, because its president, Vladimir Zelensky, is a Jew-Zionist who has implicated his people in a battle serving the interests of the United States and against the interests of his neighbor Russia, and secondly, because the people of Ukraine will pay the price for these destructive adventures.

Russia's victory is a defeat for the colony [Israel], and Russia's defeat is a victory for the American-Israeli camp.
It is beginning to appear that the at least some Arabs wanted to wait to see who is more likely to win before openly choosing sides. 
 



Read all about it here!

Saturday, March 05, 2022

03/05 Links: Jewish Ukraine Fights Nazi Russia; Bennett concludes meeting with Putin, speaks with Zelensky; The Future of the Democrats and the Mainstreaming of Antisemitism

From Ian:

Jewish Ukraine Fights Nazi Russia
The Russian bombardment of the Kyiv television tower, which is located near the Babyn Yar memorial, was reported to have hit a part of the ravine inadvertently. The television tower stands right above the killing fields, overlooking the location of the memorial. There was no attack on the memorial complex itself, but the symbolism was hard to ignore. Zelensky called on world Jewry to “wake up to the threats posed by Russia’s invasion,” adding that “Nazism is always born in silence.” A translation of his speech into Hebrew was soon uploaded to the presidential Facebook page. The statement had as much to do with geopolitics as it did with his personal identity—Ukrainians have become frustrated over the past week with what they see as Israeli diplomatic equivocation, regardless of the evident needs of Israeli security, which must take into account the Russian military presence in Syria.

Zelensky had never seemed to me, including the one time that I discussed the issue with him over dinner, to be particularly comfortable with deploying or inhabiting his Jewish background in public. Despite the fact that Ukrainians enjoy pointing out his national success as an indication of a lack of antisemitism in the country—and the fact that his Jewishness was not a liability during the 2019 presidential campaign—it felt to me like his uncertainty about his identity would prove an awkward and evident tension. But now here he is, effortlessly deploying it for the greater good of the state. Zelensky is doubling down on his Jewish heritage, at the same time that he represents a sort of postmodern version of Pinocchio, stepping out of the television set and into the real world, where he has become a real boy.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Zelensky received a staggering 73% of the vote in the second round of the election in 2019. At the time, many outside analysts and observers viewed that tally as a manifestation of the capacity of television to create an illusory reality—in this case, a modern populist communicator naming an actual political party, Servant of the People, after the name of his television show. But reality has proved more personal, more contingent, than that analysis. The heroism that Zelensky has demonstrated in the past few weeks is a refraction of the resilience, cohesion in times of crisis, and other traits of the ordinary Ukrainian. Back in the comparatively peaceful days of 2019, three-quarters of the Ukrainian population took a look at Zelensky, and through some sort of heuristic that I cannot understand, let alone describe, saw a manifestation of their best qualities. And they were right. What is democracy, if not that?

Over dinner the night before his election victory, I impertinently joked to Zelensky that he would have to improve his English if he was to become a real Davos man. The joke was very much on me—and on all of us.

Glory to Ukraine! And glory to Zelensky, the bravest Jew on earth!


Bennett concludes meeting with Putin, speaks with Zelensky
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett flew to Berlin immediately after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for three hours on Saturday, in an apparent attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

Bennett was set to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The two leaders met in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Earlier, Bennett and Putin discussed the war in Ukraine, including the situation of Israelis and Jewish communities as a result of the conflict, a diplomatic source said.

Bennett informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in advance of the meeting with Putin, and called him before departing Moscow.

The prime minister has twice spoken with Putin and Zelensky previously, since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Zelensky has asked Bennett to try to mediate between the sides, an offer that Putin rebuffed last year, but did not reject last week when Bennett brought it up again.

Bennett coordinated his trip to Moscow in advance with the US, France and Germany – all parties to the Iran talks. Bennett spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and may visit Paris after Berlin, KAN reported. Turkey was also updated, as Bennett’s flight route was over its territory.

In addition, Putin and Bennett discussed the Iran talks, with the latter emphasizing that Israel opposes a return to the 2015 nuclear deal, which is the aim of the negotiations in Vienna.
David Horovitz: AnalysisWith trip to Kremlin, Bennett flies Israel into the eye of the Russia-Ukraine storm
That Bennett, Israel’s first Orthodox prime minister, flew to Moscow on the Shabbat underlined his conviction that his mission has the potential to save lives — and thus to take precedence, in accordance with Jewish religious law, over Sabbath observance. The open question is whether he can indeed somehow contribute to a restraining of Russia’s military activity, and an earlier and less bloody conclusion to the war.

If Bennett’s mission leads nowhere, and worse, if he incurs the further displeasure of the free world’s most popular head of state, the prime minister may come to conclude he should have stayed home this Shabbat. Already, his insistence on attempting the almost impossible — trying to maintain not neutral but warm relations with both sides in a war — is threatening to exasperate the US and has the potential to deeply harm Israel’s standing in the free world.

If he somehow brokers life-saving progress, by contrast, he will have performed a remarkable service.

Putin has repeatedly insisted he intends to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine, while also demanding it not join NATO. Ten days into his invasion, he has ratcheted up his rhetoric in the past few hours — warning that any countries tempted to establish a no-fly zone would be considered enemy combatants, comparing the mounting sanctions to a declaration of war, and telling Ukraine’s leaders they “risk the future of Ukrainian statehood” if they continue to resist him.

In short, Vladimir Putin is not sounding like a man with an eye on compromise. Will Israel’s prime minister — delivering messages from the West while trying to bring his own added value — be able to change that?
With the world in crisis, Israel steps up - analysis
Think about that for a minute and use it as a measuring stick to gauge how things have changed regarding Israel and the Mideast: The US turned to Israel to lobby the UAE to vote with it in the UN.

Israel now is a serious world player. With that, however, comes serious responsibility.

A mediator’s role is not always a glamorous one. Not every mediator ends up with a Nobel Peace Prize. Playing this role runs the risk of antagonizing one side of the conflict or the other -- or both -- something that could end up coming back to haunt Israel.

At the same time, however, it affords a degree of international prestige that could be leveraged for the country’s benefit down the line.

For instance, if Israel can serve a useful role here, it may be in a stronger position to make certain requests of those countries who turned to it for help in this crisis -- the US, Germany and France -- regarding the Iranian nuclear agreement that may, or may not, be concluded this week.

In the Russian-Ukrainian war, however, it seems as if more than Israel wanted this role of mediator, it was pushed into it.

It was pushed into it by the West, which because of its sanctions and its rhetoric has lost its ability to serve as an honest broker with Putin; and it was pushed into it by public opinion, both domestic and international, baffled that Israel -- with its unique history -- has not taken a more assertive role in the crisis.

Jerusalem, it seems, would have liked to sit on the fence in this crisis as many other countries in the region who share Israel's fear of Iran and dependency on Russian regional goodwill have done -- such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and others.

Circumstances, however, made that impossible. So on Saturday morning Bennett stepped into the breach and flew to Moscow at a moment that for Israel is pregnant with great risks as well as historic possibilities.
  • Saturday, March 05, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

When Arabs complain about potential Ukrainian Jewish immigrants to Israel, they don't mention Palestinians



When Western bigots castigate Israel for its Law of Return that accepts Jews as immigrants, it is usually accompanied with  something like "but Israel bans Palestinians who lived there for hundreds of generations to return to their homes."

But in Arabic, the media that is upset at the potential of thousands of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants don't mention the Palestinian issue. They simply don't want Jews to live in the Middle East, period.

Hawra Kobeissi's essay which was published today in multiple news sites only says that Israel tries to take advantage of world crises to encourage Jews to immigrate for demographic reasons. One of her examples is the huge effort Israel expended in spiriting out only a few dozen Yemeni Jews over the past ten years, which pretty much disproves the demography theory - that is hardly a great return on investment if Israel was only interested in increasing its population.

Palestine Today has a survey of Arab analysts on the issue of Ukrainian Jewish immigration, and while most of them are very much against it, none of them say that Israel should allow Palestinians to become citizens the way the "progressive" media does. If they mention Palestinians at all, it is about the percentage of Arabs and Jews in the area of British Mandate Palestine.

Two different groups of people, supposedly on the same side, who object to Jewish immigration to Israel for completely different reasons. When you see something like that, you can be fairly certain that the real reason behind their objections have nothing to do with either of what they are saying out loud. They just don't like Jews living in Israel. 

They don't care about Palestinians - they care about hating Jews. 




Read all about it here!

Friday, March 04, 2022

03/04 Links Pt2: Russians Announce US-Iran Deal as Tanks Roll Across Europe; EU Lawmakers Slam Palestinian Curriculum for Inciting Students to ‘Hate Jews, Emulate Terrorists’

From Ian:

FDD: Iran Approaches the Nuclear Threshold
The flawed premise of the JCPOA and of the Biden administration’s Iran policy is that Iran can both keep its uranium enrichment program — which the JCPOA allows to expand again starting in 2024 and to grow substantially from 2027 to 2031 — and be kept away from the nuclear weapons threshold.32 Instead of pursuing a defective and temporary accord, the United States should seek to restore the international consensus — embodied in successive UN Security Council resolutions from 2006 to 2010 — that the world cannot trust the Islamic Republic with an enrichment program.33 The regime’s relentless stonewalling of IAEA investigations demonstrates its bad faith. Furthermore, an energy-rich country like Iran has no economic need for an enrichment program. The purpose of Iran’s enrichment program has always been to build nuclear weapons.34

If and when the United States and the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany) recognize the need for a fundamental rethinking of their Iran policy, they should relaunch the kind of comprehensive economic, financial, and political pressure campaign that forced Iran back to the negotiating table during Barack Obama’s tenure. This time, however, the campaign should persist until Tehran accepts the dismantling of its enrichment program and related measures to permanently cut off all pathways to a nuclear weapon. The Iranian economy has begun a tentative recovery thanks to Biden’s relaxation of sanctions, but it remains vulnerable after a deep multi-year recession.35 The United States and the E3 should invite Russia and China to support their efforts, but only if they accept the premise of a permanent end to the Iranian nuclear threat and do not act as spoilers.

Even without Russian and Chinese support, the United States and the E3 can restore prior UN sanctions by invoking the snapback clause of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Doing so would also restore all prior UN resolutions against Iran, which codify the principle of zero enrichment. Restoring multilateral sanctions would present Russia and China with a fait accompli regarding sanctions enforcement and provide a basis for further action by the United States and E3 to penalize non-compliance.

Congress can play an important role in encouraging the Biden administration to support a renewed pressure campaign. From 2009 through 2012, a bipartisan coalition in Congress played an indispensable role in creating the statutory framework for the pressure campaign that forced Iran back to the negotiating table. If there is renewed bipartisanship, Congress can prove similarly effective once again.

The most potent tool currently at the disposal of Congress is the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, or INARA, which gives Congress statutory review authority over any deal. Specifically, INARA requires the president to submit to Congress within five days any agreement with Iran and “all related materials and annexes.” There is then a 90-day review period during which the House and Senate hold hearings on the agreement and then debate it.36 Finally, INARA ensures a vote on whether to lift sanctions. Since the president can veto a resolution prohibiting him from lifting sanctions, a two-thirds majority in both chambers can block a deal. Thus, bipartisanship is essential. Even so, significant opposition sends a clear message to Tehran that a deal may last only as long as Biden remains in the White House.37 If the administration prefers an enduring agreement, it should stop relying on a partisan minority and submit a stronger accord to the Senate for ratification as a formal treaty. Ratification by the Senate would necessitate a bipartisan consensus on the merits of an accord and render it far less susceptible to cancellation by the next president.

Finally, the United States should continue — on its own and together with Israel — to increase the credible threat of military action should Iran move closer to the nuclear threshold or sprint to nuclear weapons. Specifically, Washington and Jerusalem should continue U.S.-Israeli military exercises practicing the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities.38 The United States and Israel should also consider actions short of military strikes, such as cyber-attacks and sabotage of nuclear or nuclear-related sites, to delay the Islamic Republic’s progress and remind the regime that its malign activity will not come without cost.

Still, it would be far better to avoid the risk war of war by discarding the JCPOA framework and implementing a comprehensive pressure campaign that confronts Tehran with the prospect of bankruptcy and isolation unless it dismantles its enrichment program. The Biden administration should take all related measures necessary to ensure that the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism can never reach the nuclear weapons threshold.
Andrew McCarthy: Biden Colludes with Russia on a New, More Disastrous Iran Deal
Others who would benefit from sanctions relief include Iranian officials complicit in Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel in addition to several civilians. Also benefiting would be Iranians complicit in Hezbollah’s 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds.

This is just breathtaking. Among the JCPOA’s many atrocious features was that, besides merely delaying rather than halting the Tehran regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, it turned a blind eye to the terrorism that Iran has for decades directed at the U.S. and our allies, especially Israel. That was unconscionable, but at least it left terrorism-related sanctions in effect. If Noronha is right, those designations and sanctions will now be lifted, even though (a) they are unrelated to Iran’s nuclear work, and (b) some of them were in response to activity in which Iran engaged after the JCPOA took effect.

In return, Iran would reap about $90 billion in immediate sanctions relief, and $50 billion to $55 billion in additional revenue from higher oil and petrochemical exports. There would be no restrictions on how Iran spends this windfall — no limits on its terror promotion, wars through jihadist proxies, ballistic-missile development, and hostage-taking. In fact, on the subject of hostage-taking, the Biden administration would reportedly cause the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in South Korea, in exchange for the release of four Americans, and perhaps some Brits, currently imprisoned in Iran. That is, the deal would resemble the ransom Obama paid for hostages in order to get Iran’s agreement to the JCPOA; the mullahs would be reminded that hostage-taking pays.

So . . . even as Russia was encircling Ukraine with an invasion force of 150,000, even as Russia continued occupying Crimea and other territories annexed from Ukraine and Georgia, the Biden administration was eagerly confederating with Putin’s envoy in order to revive an arrangement with Russia’s client, Iran (the “Death to America” guys) — an arrangement that is a disaster for American national security. If you were wondering why Vladimir Putin, as he continues pulverizing Ukrainian civilians, does not seem too fazed about the U.S. reaction, that’s why.
Richard Goldberg: Biden’s Coming Iran Deal Will Be Even Worse than Obama’s
Moscow loves the old deal, especially the sunsets. Russia stands to make a lot of money off arms sales if Biden rescinds Trump’s executive order. That’s on top of the money Putin will already make building nuclear-power plants in Iran.

The new deal is even better for Putin — the timing of its announcement likely by his design. He will tout it as Russia’s contribution to international peace and security — a contribution requested by Washington.

Now is the time for Congress to act. The White House knows this agreement would never win ratification by the U.S. Senate if submitted as a treaty. Biden may even try to avoid submitting it for congressional review before lifting sanctions, defying a 2015 statute that requires him to do so.

Congress should defend the integrity of U.S. terrorism sanctions by mandating new sanctions on any institution in Iran — including the Central Bank of Iran — that continues to finance the activities of the Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations. Congress should condemn as wholly illegitimate the removal of terrorism sanctions without a cessation of illicit conduct. Biden is setting a dangerous precedent for U.S. counterterrorism policy.

New legislation should set a deadline for Iran to fully account for its undeclared nuclear work or face the full reimposition of U.S. sanctions. Removing sanctions for a supposed nuclear deal that knowingly allows Iran to hide its clandestine nuclear activities defies common sense.

Steps will also be needed to deny Russia the benefits of the deal. Sanctions targeting Russian economic, nuclear, and military relations with Iran should be reinstated or strengthened. The same might be considered for China, which has announced a 25-year economic-cooperation program with Tehran.

Finally, the question of military deterrence will take center stage. The coming deal makes it more likely that the United States or Israel will soon have to choose between military action or a nuclear-armed Iran. Congress should consider what tools Israel may need to defend itself in the wake of a strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Unfortunately, a chaotic and dangerous world is about to get a bit more chaotic and dangerous. At least until Congress or a new administration can change course.
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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