From Ian:
Iran's Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention?
Iran's Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention?
The Quds Force, headed by a mastermind named Qassem Suleimani (who answers directly to Khamenei), uses banks and front companies to pay for and manufacture weapons, before attempting to transit them to proxies.Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas Cannot Make Concessions on Any Core Issue
According to UN Security Council Resolution 1747, Iran is banned from trading in, or sending weapons across, international borders. Yet, as the latest arms shipment intercepted by Israel demonstrates, Iran systematically violates this resolution.
When the regime feels the need brutally to suppress internal dissent, it can call the Basij (a volunteer paramilitary force that receives orders from the IRCG) and its two million volunteers to the streets of Iranian cities.
But Ayatollah Khamenei is now trying a new way of keeping the streets free of protesters by allowing Rouhani to pursue talks with the West. This, Khamenei evidently hopes, will put a lid on growing disquiet over the country's economic troubles, many of them caused by international sanctions.
At the same time, he is permitting the IRGC and Quds Force to continue their global terrorism exportation program -- an effort combatted around the clock by Israel's intelligence agencies. The intercepted weapons ship is just one of many arms transfer attempts being blocked by Israel.
Today it is clear that the Palestinian Authority is preparing to hold Israel responsible for the failure of the peace talks because of its refusal to comply with all of the Palestinians' demands.Our Desire To Destroy Israel As A Jewish State Is Not A Core Issue (satire)
The peace talks are scheduled to end in late April in accordance with Kerry's nine-month deadline. But the Palestinian Authority leadership has no plans to wait until then to declare the failure of the peace process.
Palestinian officials in Ramallah say that the talks with Israel have already failed, but Obama and Kerry continue to live in denial. There are no direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Rather, each side is conducting separate negotiations with Obama and Kerry.
The latest statements from Palestinian Authority officials show that the issue of Israel's Jewishness is only a secondary issue compared with the sensitive issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders and settlements.
Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is not going to bring the two sides closer to reaching agreement on any of these core issues. This is what Obama needs to take into consideration when he meets with Abbas. He also needs to take into consideration what many Palestinians are saying – that Abbas is not authorized to make concessions on any of these issues.
Then there’s the question of refugees. What’s wrong with insisting it’s about justice for the deprived, instead of a flood of millions of Palestinians into the area that will quickly overwhelm the Jewish population? We shall ignore for the moment the fact that the refugees themselves have by and large accepted the fact that they have no hope of returning, at least not en masse, to the homes they left behind. And the fact that the State of Palestine that we’re building right now will explicitly deny citizenship to those refugees and their descendants, for the specific purpose of foisting them on Israel. It’s pretty jarring to shift the focus onto the effect of that scenario, i.e. the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state. We have to focus on the other core issues.
Such as borders. Which, I need not remind you, will exclude Jews from the confines of the nascent Palestine. But it’s not about the Jews. It’s about denying the Jews a foothold in this land.
And Jerusalem: what happens if we concede any Jewish control of, or even presence in, our holy city? You know, the one so holy that the Koran never even mentions it. As long as the city is under Muslim control, we do not plan to make an issue of its being under Jewish rule.
Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is not a core issue. At least as long as we can fool Europe, Obama, and the Israeli Left into believing that.






















