In fact this crime is a result of the Jewish religion which urges racism, extremism and killing Gentiles who are not Jews; rabbis urge them to kill non-Jews, and to loot their money and their wives and engage in usury as in the story of The Merchant of Venice, as well as theft and adultery and murder and lying and breaking covenants These are all taboo among themselves; they God's chosen people, but with the non-Jews are things permissible."I only published excerpts and edited it for clarity, but the entire article was three very long run-on sentences.
..They urge the hatred and aggression against non-Jews, and this is evident in their curriculum for children and young people, especially against the Arabs in Israel, and creating a culture of terrorism and genocide, racism and colonization which instilled in the hearts of children and the Israeli street and Jewish communities in the world, and hatred of Arabs, racism and the sanctification of terrorism in the curriculum.
Zionism exploited the September 11 attacks to demand a change in education curricula in Arab and Islamic countries and change the books of religious education, and delete some of the verses and the hadith which it alleges calls for terrorism and hatred and to the destruction of Israel, and funny that Israel does not see in their curricula and religious beliefs of Judaism their own urge to instill hatred and contempt for Arabs and Muslims, starting from the preliminary Children middle and high schools and Israeli universities, schools, and in Hebrew children's literature, novels, songs, poems, stories, that describe Arabs as lying and malicious and stupid and backward.
Jews reverse the facts, and focus on the description of Arabs as terrorists and say that they are killers and animal-like predators, while the Jews describe their courage and excellence, boldness but instilling in them the ideas of racism and concepts meant to raise the myths and lies and ambitions of Zionism to the status of religious holiness, and the Hebrew literature to install awareness in children and adults that Arab Palestine is their home and their Promised Land, and they are the legacy of their ancestors from time immemorial; they highlight stories in Hebrew literature saying the Arab face is ugly and frightening, and hunchbacked and laughable and stupid and lice-infested.
They distort the image of the Arab and Muslim rights to sow hatred towards them ..the textbooks in Israel play a key role in deepening the culture of conflict with the Arabs and the sanctification of practice of terrorism and genocidal settlements, colonization and destruction towards them.
The textbooks stress the importance of the use of force because the Arabs understand only the language of force, and focus the curriculum on the Book of Joshua, which is full of murder and genocide, which is the source of Zionist terrorism and the first school of terrorist ideas in human history, and the source of contemporary Zionism is faith-based terrorism and racism.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Vic Rosenthal
Take up the White Man's burden, The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought,
The other day I was talking with friends and the discussion turned to the unique situation of Israel as a nation-state that constantly has to justify its existence. Other countries may be engaged in struggles over who will be the dictator, president or ruling party, but I can’t think of another one whose very being is controversial.
For example, last year Iranian ‘Supreme Leader’ Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of the “barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of Israel” and the dispersal of the Jews that had emigrated to Israel from some other place:
All the original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews wherever they are, in Palestine or in refugee camps in other countries or just anywhere else take part in a public and organized referendum. Naturally the Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part in the referendum. …
the ensuing government … will decide whether the non-Palestinian emigrants … can continue living in Palestine or should return to their home countries.
This is illuminating, because it exposes the narrative that underlies most anti-Israel arguments. You know, when you say “Israel is completely legitimate under international law” and they say “who cares, you stole Palestinian land and colonized the indigenous inhabitants.”
That is the line that always ends the discussion. Israel is gay-friendly? Who cares, you are just bringing that up to distract us from your crimes against the Palestinian people. Israel is a democracy? Who cares, it’s built on someone else’s property. Because Israel is said to be a “settler-colonial state,” a European interloper parasitizing an indigenous Middle Eastern people, we have no moral or legal right to be here.
In the 19th century, colonialism was considered legitimate. “Take up the White Man’s burden,” wrote Kipling, and do the natives a favor despite their often violently-expressed ingratitude. But today, there is no greater national sin than exploitation of indigenous peoples.
There is only one small flaw in this argument, so beloved by leftists and academics: the Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel, and the so-called ‘Palestinians’ are the colonists, invaders and occupiers of other people’s land. Like so much of their rhetoric, Arabs calling themselves ‘indigenous’ to our land is a precise inversion of reality, an employment of the big lie technique.
Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.
This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:
· Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them
· Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands
· Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.)
· Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language)
· Residence in certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world
· Other relevant factors.
The Jewish people in Israel are occupying their ancestral lands, and they have a common ancestry with the only ‘original inhabitants’ that still exist as a people. There are no more Philistines, Jebusites, Hivites, etc. (despite the fantasies of the Arabs). There are still Jews, with a religion, culture and language whose connection to the original inhabitants is well-documented.
It is true that the Jewish population of Israel and Judea fluctuated throughout the centuries, as the land was invaded and colonized by Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, British, etc. But the continuity was unbroken while the Jewish people suffered the vicissitudes of an indigenous people oppressed by colonial powers. Some Jews remained in the land and others went into exile throughout the world, but our peoplehood persisted.
The Arabs consider Western support for the establishment of a Jewish state a colonialist usurpation of their indigenous rights. But in fact it was the recognition, by Balfour and others, of the truly indigenous status of the Jewish people that justified the formalization of the Jewish people’s right to the land, from the river to the sea, which was ultimately expressed by the Mandate for Palestine.
The Mandate for the first time concretized our moral right to the land as its historical owners into a legal right under international law. It is ironic that Israel, whose right to exist is seen as controversial, actually has a stronger moral and legal justification for its sovereignty than others – like Jordan, truly created by colonial fiat, or Saudi Arabia, the product of violent conquest.
On the other hand, the so-called ‘Palestinians’ – although they make wild claims to be descended from ‘original’ inhabitants like Canaanites or Philistines – are primarily descendents of people who migrated into the land, a few going back as far as the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Most of them, however, arrived after Muhammad Ali’s expedition from Egypt into Syria around 1830; and the migration accelerated after the Zionists began to improve and develop the land in the 1880s.
Jewish nationalism has existed for thousands of years. But a strictly ‘Palestinian’ consciousness did not develop among the Arabs in the region until they began to confront what they saw as the threat of Jewish sovereignty in the early 20th century; and even then, much of the opposition to a Jewish state was based on a more diffuse Arab nationalism. A distinct Palestinian people didn’t emerge until the mid-1960s with the advent of the PLO. And the central tenet of ‘Palestinian’ culture is its violent hatred for and struggle against Jewish sovereignty.
Yasser Arafat and others have done their best to deny Jewish provenance in the land of Israel, claiming that there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and so forth. But thearchaeological evidence – which continues to be discovered – is overwhelming, despite pseudo-academic attempts to refute it.
Unfortunately, it’s not only our enemies who have adopted the upside-down narrative of indigenous Arabs and colonizing Jews. When our own government rests its argument for our continued presence in Judea and Samaria on security considerations rather than our moral and legal right to the land, it is as if someone has stolen your car and then asks to keep it because he needs a car to drive to work.
When our own government agrees to limit construction in certain parts of the land of Israel or agrees that any ‘settlements’ we keep after a peace agreement must be swapped for other bits of land, the implication is that we do not truly own the land even though we control it. But while we certainly may decide that we want to waive the right to some of our land in the interest of peace – assuming that this is possible – we are not morally obligated to do so.
The Europeans, with a history of being colonial oppressors, smugly insist that we are morally obligated to give away part (or all) of our country. But we are not them. Although some of our ancestors were exiled to Europe and other places, we did not give up our peoplehood in exile. We belong to the land of Israel and it belongs to us.
The Zionists did not arrive as colonists from Europe after 1945 and dispossess the long-rooted Palestinian people, as their narrative tells us. The true story is that Jews were here all along, an oppressed and colonized indigenous people like many others. One of our distinctions, though, is that we succeeded in throwing out the European colonialists and achieving the self-determination that is the highest political goal of an indigenous people.
Now it’s up to us to keep it against those, like Khamenei, who wish to end it.
From Ian:
Half of Jerusalem Arabs want to be Israelis
Half of Jerusalem Arabs want to be Israelis
A slim majority of Palestinians living in Jerusalem would prefer Israeli citizenship to being citizens of a Palestinian state, a poll conducted by a Palestinian research institute indicates.Mordechai Kedar: Islamic State is Heading for Lebanon Next
Just over half, or 52 percent, of respondents told pollsters they would prefer “Israeli citizenship with equal rights,” while 42% prefer to be Palestinian citizens when a Palestinian state is established, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.
The figure is far higher than in polls conducted in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. In Gaza, just 4% said they preferred Israeli citizenship; in the West Bank, just 12%.
The poll was conducted by a research institute headed by Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki located in Beit Sahur.
The figure marks a spike in desire for Israeli citizenship. A similar poll in 2010 found just one-third of East Jerusalem Arabs preferred Israeli citizenship to Palestinian.
This week, it became known that Islamic State's weapons engineers have begun filling katyusha rockets with chlorine gas. This became clear when one of the rockets exploded near its launching pad and the gas it gave off killed the fighters who had launched it. This does not come as a surprise – two weeks ago the first reports surfaced claiming that Islamic State is using mustard gas in rockets and missiles. The gas supplies may have been taken from Syrian army supply depots in Alspira and Aleppo and it is quite possible that Syrian army deserters know how to use them. Only a month ago, an attempt by persons connected to Islamic State to pour barrels of poison into the Kosovo capital Pristina's reservoirs was foiled and its perpetrators captured, preventing the deaths of the 200,000 residents of that city. Can Islamic State wage a chemical war? It seems likely.IDF rejects NYT Friedman’s comparison of Gaza war to Assad’s Syria massacre
In northern Syria, with its Kurdish majority, a new women's unit of Assyrian Christians has been formed and has been provided with intensive military training in preparation for all types of warfare. This unit will be sent to fight Islamic State bearing in mind that Islamic State fighters believe that if they are killed by a woman they will not receive the reward awaiting them in Paradise. As a result, as soon as they know they are surrounded by women's army units, they usually flee. This is why the Kurdish women fighters shout loudly and bloodcurdlingly when they think they are approaching a place that has Islamic State forces. It seems likely that the Assyrian women will do the same, using psychological warfare against Islamic State. For its part, Islamic State continues its own psychological warfare by spreading horrendous videos showing the butchering of its enemies; selling the daughters of infidels as slaves is also intended to demoralize its opponents.
In conclusion: Islamic State is engaging in biological warfare, chemical warfare and psychological warfare, another reason to define it as a terror state and not just a terror organization. Before its fighters get their hands on radioactive materials which they will use unhesitatingly against their enemies, it might be a good idea to remember that every hospital trashcan contains radioactive materials from its x-ray department and putting together a "dirty bomb" using these materials is really easy. May G-d help us all.
Is Israel prepared to play by the same bloody rules as Syria’s regime and “crazily” disregard international rules to maintain its hold in the region?
Veteran New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman last week asserted that this disregard is Israel’s core military strategy. The Israeli security establishment, for its part, says his claim amounts to what US Vice President Joe Biden calls “malarkey,” and does not reflect IDF policy.
In his column, “If I Were an Israeli Looking at the Iran Deal,” Friedman wrote Israel is prepared to play by what he called “Hama rules” (– not Hamas rules, as some read it).
Hama is a city in western Syria, where then-Syrian president Hafez Assad had his forces massacre tens of thousands of civilians in 1982 in order to put down a Muslim Brotherhood uprising. The nearly month-long slaughter remains one of the bloodiest cases in history of an Arab government attacking its own people.
In effect, Friedman was casually and off-handedly alleging that Israel conducts itself in conflict in the same way that Bashar Assad’s father and predecessor carried out a 27-day bloodbath, with the Syrian army deliberately mowing down women and children.
While the term itself comes from Friedman’s book “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” in his new article he offered no history of the event or explanation for the comparison, apparently assuming the reader would understand the context.
Despite the damning nature of the accusation, IDF officials took the comment with an almost bored sense of “heard it before,” before giving a quick, rehearsed dismissal of the claim that Israel deliberately targets civilians.
“It’s dramatic and it’s ludicrous,” an IDF official said of Friedman’s comparison, “but essentially he just misses the mark.”
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Thomas Friedman wrote in a NYT op-ed last week:If I were an Israeli grocer, just following this deal on the radio, I’d hate it for enshrining Iran’s right to enrich uranium, since Iran regularly cheated its way to expanding that capability, even though it had signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. After all, Iran holds “death to Israel” marches and in 2006 sponsored a conference to promote denial of the Holocaust. Moreover, Iran’s proxy, the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah, in 2006, started an unprovoked war with Israel, and when Israel retaliated against Hezbollah military and civilian targets, Hezbollah fired thousands of Iranian-supplied rockets all across Israel. No — no matter the safeguards — I as an Israeli grocer would reject this deal from my gut.An Israeli grocer responds:
"You tell Friedman that this grocer was a military officer, who knows how to fight a war, and that I fought with my head and not my gut. You tell Friedman that as a 'makolet' owner, I know that I will give credit to a customer who pays his bills, but will demand money up front from someone who has a record of cheating. And you tell Friedman that as a kind person, I will give charity to a person who is economically suffering, but if it's obvious that the poor person will spend the money on drugs, I'd prefer to bring him into my grocery and give him some basic foods for free, but I would not just give him money to spend as he wishes on dangerous things. You tell Friedman that I think these negotiators could have used some Israeli grocers at the negotiating table with Iran."Friedman's arrogance, ignorance and condescension, all revealed in one paragraph.
(h/t Norman)
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
"Moderate" Rouhani says Zionists murder and rape women and children - but that's not the worst thing
From Iran's Mehr News:
[1] Does this mean that Iran is against raising the Hamas flag at Al Aqsa Mosque?
[2] There is no dispute that the attack was done by a deranged Christian from Australia, but if Rouhani admits that then there isn't much reason left for World Mosque Day.
[3] Isn't it interesting that Iran is worried about a billion Muslims losing their identity. Something is behind this, and it is worth researching.
[4] The construct of "not only X, but Y" means that according to Rouhani, Jews walking around the Temple Mount is a worse crime than raping babies.
What does this say about Rouhani's morality?
Remember - he is a "moderate."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday referred to mosque as the house of the nation which should avoid party orientations.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the international conference on World Mosque Day, President Rouhani described mosques as places to discuss major social, political issues, regional and international developments, problems of the Islamic world and the risks the arrogance imposes on the Muslim world not a place for political parties.[1]
August 21 marks the anniversary of the 1969 al-Aqsa Mosque fire, the origins of which are still being disputed [2] over 40 years after the incident occurred. The day is titled World Mosque Day in remembrance of the event.
Commemorating the occasion, President Rouhani asserted that the bitter memory of the 1969 al-Aqsa Mosque fire would not be forgotten.
Rouhani underlined that al-Aqsa Mosque fire demonstrates the true nature of usurper Zionist regime and calls for awareness and consciousness of Muslims to preserve the Muslim identity.[3]
“The incident indicates that the Zionist regime not only continues to murder and rape innocent women and children, but it also has no respect for a mosque [4], the first Qibla of Muslims and a land that is completely respected by other religions as well,” President Rouhani said.
[1] Does this mean that Iran is against raising the Hamas flag at Al Aqsa Mosque?
[2] There is no dispute that the attack was done by a deranged Christian from Australia, but if Rouhani admits that then there isn't much reason left for World Mosque Day.
[3] Isn't it interesting that Iran is worried about a billion Muslims losing their identity. Something is behind this, and it is worth researching.
[4] The construct of "not only X, but Y" means that according to Rouhani, Jews walking around the Temple Mount is a worse crime than raping babies.
What does this say about Rouhani's morality?
Remember - he is a "moderate."
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
unrwa, UNRWA hate
Israel's Channel 10 has reported on my findings that many UNRWA teachers have been posting antisemitic, pro-terror and even pro-Nazi photos and posters on Facebook.Arutz-7 summarized the Hebrew report:
Teachers working at United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon and Jordan have received no disciplinary action for supporting anti-Semitism and terrorism on social media, the Elder of Zion [sic] blog has revealed in an ongoing investigative report.Chris Gunness - the spokesperson here - is lying, as he always does.
According to the blog's findings, the teachers often published Facebook posts against the Jewish state and in support of terrorist activity. Even a director of one of UNRWA's schools was complicit, praising a terror attack carried out in 1978.
Other questionable uploads include a picture from Oday Al Masri, an UNRWA teacher in Jenin, featuring a swastika.
The organization responded by telling teachers to tone down the hate-fueled posts, concerned more with its reputation than the terrorism and anti-Semitism its employees were promoting.
In response, several teachers removed their affiliation with UNRWA on their Facebook accounts and/or changed their privacy settings. Several pages, as well as an UNRWA teacher's group featuring jihadist videos, were also taken down.
However, no teachers have been dismissed or even reprimanded for their actions.
In light of Elder of Ziyon's recent update to the scandal, a UNRWA spokesman told Channel 10 that if the reports prove credible, the organization would see the guilty parties were punished.
"If there are any charges, and if this is true, then it's a very big issue and we'll take care of it. If there is a suspected breach of neutrality on the part of employees, we will investigate and take significant steps, including dismissal," the spokesman claimed.
We know that UNRWA is aware of my reports about this from last year, and that they pressured teachers to remove their posts or to stop identifying themselves as UNRWA employees. There is no other explanation as to why so many of the posts disappeared right after I would write about them. But now that Israeli media picked up on the story, Gunness is pretending that UNRWA will "investigate and take significant steps, including dismissal."
If there had been any disciplinary action, Gunness would have said so. And if any teacher would have been fired for posting antisemitism on Facvebook, there would have been protests in the UNRWA schools - after all, there was a teacher's strike when UNRWA once tried to suspend a single Hamas member.
So of course UNRWA is aware of this and has ignored it, hoping that no one from the media would contact them.
There is some deja vu here, because in 2013 I also revealed an UNRWA dean of education posting Hitler quotes on his Facebook page. The Washington Free Beacon contacted Chris Gunness who responded very similarly. And he knows very well that most reporters will not follow up to find out if what exactly UNRWA did to fix the problem.
In that case, as now, the Hitler poster was taken down but the dean still has his job.
In other words, this is another example of an UNRWA coverup of how its teachers regularly flout its own written standards. Gunness and his bosses are not interested in solving the problem, they spend their efforts into getting reporters to go away.
I did speak to the reporter about my findings of antisemitism in UNRWA's own websites, but he decided not to include that.
Here is the video of the Hebrew report, including a short audio clip from me:
Arutz-7's video is here:
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
From Ian:
UN to let Iran inspect its own alleged nuclear activity site
UN to let Iran inspect its own alleged nuclear activity site
Iran, in an unusual arrangement, will be allowed to use its own experts to inspect a site it allegedly used to develop nuclear arms under a secret agreement with the UN agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.Why is the Red Cross holding seminars for Hamas?
The revelation is sure to roil American and Israeli critics of the main Iran deal signed by the US, Iran and five world powers in July. Those critics have complained that the deal is built on trust of the Iranians, a claim the US has denied.
The investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the International Atomic Energy Agency is linked to a broader probe of allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear deal.
The Parchin deal is a separate, side agreement worked out between the IAEA and Iran. The United States and the five other world powers that signed the Iran nuclear deal were not party to this agreement but were briefed on it by the IAEA and endorsed it as part of the larger package. (h/t djcelts)
This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a story encapsulating all that is wrong with the Western world’s approach to extremist Islamic fundamentalism.Huckabee: Israel has more of a connection to Shiloh than Americans have to Manhattan
In a report appearing in its first section, the paper revealed a startling bit of news: “Red Cross offers workshops in international law to Hamas.”
That’s right. The global institution, which claims that it works “to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles,” is busying conducting seminars for terrorists in Gaza on how they can be, umm, more humanitarian when attacking Israel.
What’s next? Teaching table manners to the Taliban? The Times article goes on to describe the three-day seminar that the Red Cross conducted for Hamas last month. It included role-playing and case studies, noting that “one exercise involved an armed group firing on an invading tank from the garden of a civilian home near a hospital.” How educational! Mamadou Sow, head of Red Cross operations in Gaza, breezily noted to the Times that earlier this year, when he presented Hamas leadership with a critique of their conduct during last summer’s Gaza war, they “welcomed it” and “indicated that they are a learning organization.”
The article does not indicate whether Sow was able to maintain a straight face while uttering such inanity.
But lest you suspect that Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets at Israel may indicate that it is somewhat indifferent to the value of human life, Red Cross leaders went out of their way to stress that “they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike” to respect international humanitarian law.
Republican presidential candidate made no apologies Wednesday at a Jerusalem press conference for holding a fundraiser a day earlier in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh.
"I would happily go to Shiloh anytime" he said.
"I think it is very important that as Americans we show support for Israelis in their capacity to build their neighborhoods in their own country."
Huckabee, who stressed he did not see Judea and Samaria as occupied, said Israel - - with a 3500 year historic tie to Shiloh -- has more of a connection to lands in Judea and Samaria than Americans have to Manhattan, which goes back only 400 years.
"I feel like it is the right thing to stand with Israel in making sure they have the right to secure their homeland with safe and defendable borders, he said.
"It is interesting to me that our government has put more pressure on the Israeli government to stop building bedrooms in their own neighborhoods, than on Iran to stop building bombs."
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
zionist attack zoo
From JPost:
I once made a comic for their exciting adventures.
Hamas announced on Wednesday that underwater "frogmen" commandos operating just off the coast of the Gaza Strip managed to stop a dolphin that it claims was spying for Israel.Dolphins now join the club of animals that Israel-haters claim are trained in espionage or vandalism.
Officials in the Palestinian Islamist organization say that the dolphin was equipped with a surveillance device.
Hamas said that its naval commandos managed to track the dolphin weeks ago.
- Eagles
- Rock hyraxes
- Wild boars
- Storks
- Super-rhinos
- vultures
- European bee-eaters
- Puffer fish
- Dogs
- Jellyfish
- Sharks
- Cows
- Wolves
- Lions
- Rats
- Sheep
- Squirrels
I once made a comic for their exciting adventures.
I need to come out with new editions.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Plains, Georgia, August 19 - Former US President Jimmy Carter announced last week that he has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and, in a follow-up announcement today, added that he would be traveling to the Gaza Strip to receive medical care so as to ensure that no Jewish doctors are involved in his treatment.
Carter underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his liver, but his doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to other parts of his body, and that a cure was unlikely at this stage. Undaunted, the former chief executive decided to fight the disease anyway, choosing his therapeutic path based on what he knows of medical care around the world. Carter settled on Gaza as the ideal location for the treatment once he determined that the coastal enclave boasts the resources to provide treatment, because Israel allows unlimited medical supplies into the territory, while at the same time guarantees that no Jewish hands will be involved in his care, in keeping with his stance on pressuring Jews through boycotts in order to wrest concessions from Israel.
A Carter spokesman told reporters that the former president would depart late next week for a series of innovative treatments only available in Gaza. "Mr. Carter's good friend is a Norwegian physician who has spent quite a bit of time in Gaza, and assured him that the place is teeming with radioactive fragments from Israel's profligate use of depleted uranium artillery and ground-attack shells," said the spokesman, referring to Dr. Mads Gilbert. "According to the doctor that radiation places Gazans at risk for elevated levels of cancer, but in this case it might be of help in treating the disease," he added.
The spokesman, Goober Nobel, said that the anticipated treatment regimen will include elements of the former resident's late sister Ruth Carter Stapleton's faith-healing practice, but that those heavily Christian elements will have to be discreetly practiced in Islamic Gaza. "In keeping with Dr. Gilbert's example, Mr. Carter will push aside his own Western sensibilities to accommodate his hosts' convictions, if necessary," he explained. That would entail suppressing both overt displays of Christian faith and any sense of honesty or consistency.
Shifa Hospital Chief of Surgery Dr. Nakba ibn Itbach stated, “We will excise this outsider, this invader and foreign usurper of all that is holy. We will bring it to its knees so that it will crawl to all of its brothers and sisters and call them out to the open where we will lay them low with stones. For on that day they will call out to us, ‘Ye men of faith, elevate us through enjoining us in death as holy martyrs to the cause.’” He declined to elaborate on the medical specifics of the procedure to which he referred.
From Ian:
‘Europe Lacks the Willpower to Confront Evil That Iran Represents,’ Says Former British Commander (INTERVIEW)
‘Europe Lacks the Willpower to Confront Evil That Iran Represents,’ Says Former British Commander (INTERVIEW)
Europe is a “very weak continent lacking the willpower to stand up and confront the evil that Iran represents,” declared the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp on Monday.Khaled Abu Toameh: What Are Palestinians Doing With U.S. Money?
Speaking to The Algemeiner, Kemp called the nuclear deal struck by world powers including the U.K., France and Germany, and Iran, “appeasement,” comparing the situation to 1930’s and and 1940’s Europe, where a series of treaties between world powers ultimately led to the outbreak of World War II.
He said there is a “deafening silence” in Europe and a lack of leadership to stand up to Iran — which he predicted would undoubtedly move to acquire nuclear weapons — and noted an overwhelming “fear of hawkishness” throughout Europe, especially among politicians and military leaders, which Kemp said includes individuals “who should know and understand the realities of the Middle East.”
But European military officials “are in a deluded world,” he continued. “Many of them don’t understand Iran.”
Stating that in Europe “we hear virtually no dissent” to the deal, Kemp claimed there has certainly been political pressure on military officials who are opposed to the July 14 agreement announced in Vienna to remain mum: “The last thing [politicians ] want is influential military leaders speaking out against the deal.”
He said he had spoken “to some generals and senior retired officials, and they’d rather just pretend the problem [posed by Iran] does not exist.”
Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah did not tell the visiting U.S. Congressmen that the $4.5 billion the Americans invested in promoting Palestinian democracy went down the drain or ended up in secret Swiss bank accounts. Nor did he tell the Congressman that the Palestinians do not have a functioning parliament or a free media under the PA in the West Bank or under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And, of course, Hamdallah never told the Congressman that for Palestinians, presidential and parliamentary elections remain a remote dream.Spanish festival flipflops on ban, re-invites Matisyahu
The refusal of the international community back then to hold Arafat accountable was the main reason a majority of Palestinians were driven into the open arms of Hamas. Palestinians saw no improvement in their living conditions, mainly as a result of the PA's corruption. That is why they turned to Hamas, which promised them change, reform and an end to financial corruption.
The Americans and Europeans are therefore responsible for Hamas's rise to power.
One does not have to be an expert on Palestinian affairs to see that the billions of dollars have neither created democracy for the Palestinians nor boosted the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The "investment" in Palestinian democracy and peace with Israel has been a complete failure because of the refusal of the U.S. Administration to hold the Palestinian Authority fully accountable.
Unless Western donors demand that the PA use their money to bring democracy to its people and prepare them for peace, the prospects of reviving any peace process will remain zero.
The new invitation asks Matisyahu – the stage name of the ex-ultra-Orthodox artist whose real name is Matthew Miller – to perform in his originally planned slot on the festival’s Main Stage.
“We respect the Jewish community and sincerely apologize for what happened,” the festival organizers said in a statement, according to the Spanish news site El Mundo.
“Rototom publicly apologizes for canceling Matisyahu’s concert and announces that he has been invited to perform on Saturday, August 22 at the festival, as originally scheduled,” it says.
The statement blamed the local anti-Israel group BDS PaÃs Valencià , which campaigned to cancel Matisyahu’s invitation, for “pressures, threats and coercion” efforts that threatened to “seriously disrupt the normal functioning of the festival” and “prevented the management of the situation with clarity.”
In a hint that the festival may be facing legal troubles for singling out the Jewish performer, the festival said it “reaffirms its commitment” to each person’s freedom of belief as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Spanish Constitution. (h/t Think of England)
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
A senior Iranian official has stated that Iran has been having problems paying Palestinian Arab terror groups, but now things should be getting much better.
The Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s International Affairs Department, Hussein Shaykh al-Islam, said in an interview that Iran would not welcome Mahmoud Abbas to Iran but would love to host Hamas leadership, saying that while funding was deficient in recent years due to sanctions, Iran "will spare no effort in providing this support in the future."
Al-Islam also said that reports that Mahmoud Abbas was visiting Tehran were a "lie."
He said: "They asked to visit Iran more than once and we did not accept, and recently they demanded again but we did not respond to them in a positive way," adding: "Iran is keen to support the resistance."
He stressed that no one in the world could spoil the friendship between Tehran and the Palestinian resistance, "first and foremost Hamas", praising Iran's relationship with the group as "strategic".
Shaykh al-Islam further denied there was any disagreement with Hamas, and said that they are past their dispute over Syria, and they woul strongly welcome any visit by Hamas leadership.
He also said that there was no tension between Iran and Islamic Jihad, as had been reported.
AL-Islam said that his country has come under pressure during the nuclear talks to link the agreement with political issues, including severing relationships with terror groups and linkages to actions in Syria and Yemen, "but that Tehran refused to do so."
He continued that "we reject any Israeli presence in this world."
The Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s International Affairs Department, Hussein Shaykh al-Islam, said in an interview that Iran would not welcome Mahmoud Abbas to Iran but would love to host Hamas leadership, saying that while funding was deficient in recent years due to sanctions, Iran "will spare no effort in providing this support in the future."
Al-Islam also said that reports that Mahmoud Abbas was visiting Tehran were a "lie."
He said: "They asked to visit Iran more than once and we did not accept, and recently they demanded again but we did not respond to them in a positive way," adding: "Iran is keen to support the resistance."
He stressed that no one in the world could spoil the friendship between Tehran and the Palestinian resistance, "first and foremost Hamas", praising Iran's relationship with the group as "strategic".
Shaykh al-Islam further denied there was any disagreement with Hamas, and said that they are past their dispute over Syria, and they woul strongly welcome any visit by Hamas leadership.
He also said that there was no tension between Iran and Islamic Jihad, as had been reported.
AL-Islam said that his country has come under pressure during the nuclear talks to link the agreement with political issues, including severing relationships with terror groups and linkages to actions in Syria and Yemen, "but that Tehran refused to do so."
He continued that "we reject any Israeli presence in this world."
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Middle East Monitor reports:Communication officers of the regional offices for boycotting Israel are to hold their 89th meeting in the Arab League headquarters on Tuesday, alamatonline.net has reported.The 89th meeting? Three days? for "communication officers of the regional offices for boycotting Israel"?
The Arab League official with responsibility for the occupied Palestinian territories, and the general commissioner of the head boycotting office, said on Monday that the officers meeting in the conference would spend three days discussing ways to activate an Arab boycott of Israel. Mohamed Sbeeh indicated that a number of issues are related to different Arab-owned companies which violate the boycott rules, and ways to impose sanctions on them. A number of US companies with branches in Israel will also be considered for sanctions. He indicated that they would discuss the modification of the general boycott principles in order to reactivate them.
When the Arab boycott started in 1946, of course, they didn't say it was against Israel or Zionists. They said it was against Jews.
This committee has been meeting for decades. The question is whether Saudi Arabia sent a representative - because they had to abandon the boycott in order to join the World Trade Organization in 2005.
The people at the actual Arab League meeting this week didn't really give a damn about Israel or Palestinian Arabs. They spent their time talking about IS terrorists in Libya.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
Amnesty, Fake Civilians 2014, Gaza Platform
An EoZ reader wrote to Amnesty International with a series of questions. An excerpt:
I can see that the information provided in the [Gaza] platform has been collected from Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and yourselves. Could you not at least have pretended to be in any way balanced by providing input from the most left-leaning Israeli groups such as B'tselem when putting this data together? If you really had wished to take an impartial look at these incidents, you could have also included data from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre who have looked through various war crimes allegations in Gaza last year and provided a different version of events to what Al Mezan and the PCHR have claimed. I must also refer you to the Elder of Ziyon blog which has consistently highlighted claims of war crimes on “innocent civilians” (many included in the platform) where it is known that terrorists were present at that location and time. Here are some of these documented cases:Here was some of their response (sent a couple of weeks ago):
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/todays-amnesty-deceptions-and-lies.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/bashing-israel-amnesty-has-app-for-that.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/amnestys-true-colors-revealed-with-fake.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/amnestys-blood-libel-against-idf.html#.VaLdTNJVhBc
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/another-lie-by-amnesty-international.html
In short my questions are:
1) Why has Amnesty decided to spend so much time and resources focusing on the Jewish state, but are unable to pass a resolution focussing on combating antisemitism in the UK?
2) Why is Israel implicated by yourselves as having systematically committed violations without any conclusive evidence?
3) Why is Hamas not mentioned at all in your press release here?: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/launch-of-innovative-digital-tool-gaza/
4) Why have you based the platform only on information from Palestinian groups who cannot be trusted to reflect the full picture of what happened?
I think I already have the answer, but I would be only to happy to have a response from you with your answer.
Looking forward to your response.
Our latest report that you have seen documents Israeli attacks last year that caused huge loss of civilian life and destruction of civilian infrastructure.Amnesty's response did not address the research done by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre which exhaustively documented hundreds of terrorists, many of which Amnesty's Gaza Platform called "civilian." The UNHRC quoted the Meir Amit Center a number of times in their report but apparently it is too unreliable for Amnesty.
A further report is due to be issued tomorrow on intensive attacks on Rafah, in the South of the Gaza strip, from 1-4 August last year, in which 135 Palestinian civilians including 75 children were killed, during a massive bombardment of civilian areas following the capture of an Israeli soldier.
Amnesty's findings are in accordance with those of other human rights organisations, including B'Tselem, and I'm not sure why you would quote B'Tselem as if their findings were different from ours. B'Tselem's findings on Israeli violations are very much in line with our own, eg see here: http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/gaza_201407_operation
We would not deem elderofziyon a credible source.
B'Tselem also noticed militants that Amnesty pretended didn't exist. I documented one, Ahmad Sahmoud, here, Although the Gaza Platform did count him as a militant, Amnesty quoted family members as saying that there were no militants in the area without pointing out that they were lying - and Amnesty knew they were lying.
But there are other examples of B'Tselem being more honest than Amnesty:
- Amnesty says Amjad Zaher Moussa Hamdan was a civilian. B'Tselem reported he was a militant. (GP event 1190)
- Amnesty says that Mohammed Mahmoud al-Maqadma was a civilian. B'Tselem knew he was a militant. (GP event 2264.)
- Amnesty said that Yazid al Batsh was a civilian. B'Tselem reported him as a militant. (GP event 1619.) Six other from that family were also terrorists, as I have shown.
- Amnesty said Wissam 'Abdul Raziq al-Ghannam was a civilian,. B'Tselem knew he was a militant. (GP event 1405.)
- Amnesty says Ashraf Mahmoud Al Astal was a civilian. B'Tselem knows he was a terrorist. (GP event 2584.)
(There were a couple of others that B'Tselem identified that I couldn't find immediately in Amnesty's Gaza Platform.)
So the letter writer was right - Amnesty ignored even B'Tselem's reports that shows some of their "civilians" were terrorists.
All of this information was published by B'Tselem over a year ago. Amnesty's researchers did not deem it important enough to incorporate into their Gaza Platform.
Now, Amnesty's dismissal of my research is interesting. In order for them to say I'm not credible, they must have read my research and pretended that my facts, all with supporting evidence in the form of links to source materials in militant websites or videos, are not true.
This proves that Amnesty is familiar with my articles and cannot argue with them. They cannot find any fault in my facts. So they try to discredit me without giving an iota of proof.
This letter proves that Amnesty is not interested in the truth, and that they will defend their lies even when they know that they are lying..
I've proven that Amnesty is not credible with transparent research that anyone can check. They call me non-credible without a single example..
Now a new clock is ticking. Will Amnesty correct the Gaza Platform for the five people I just documented that B'Tselem identified as terrorists? After all, Amnesty-USA claims that they would correct any errors. Sure it's been a week since I sent some to them, but maybe photos of terrorists with RPGs and uniforms isn't enough proof for Amnesty. But surely B'Tselem's research should be enough to force them to correct their platform, right?
We'll see.
The letter writer followed up pointing out how poor Amnesty's answer was and how my facts were backed up by easily verified facts. He never received a response.
(h/t RS)
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
From Ian:
Matisyahu: Spanish festival ban is ‘appalling, offensive’
Matisyahu: Spanish festival ban is ‘appalling, offensive’
Posting on his Facebook page on Monday, Matisyahu wrote that, “the festival organizers contacted me because they were getting pressure from the BDS movement. They wanted me to write a letter, or make a video, stating my positions on Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pacify the BDS people.”Matisyahu ‘expelled’ even as Spain says it’s making nice to Jews
The singer said he supported “peace and compassion for all people,” since music “speaks for itself” and “has the power to transcend the intellect, ideas, and politics, and it can unite people in the process.”
The festival, he said, “kept insisting that I clarify my personal views; which felt like clear pressure to agree with the BDS political agenda. Honestly it was appalling and offensive, that as the one publicly Jewish-American artist scheduled for the festival they were trying to coerce me into political statements. Were any of the other artists scheduled to perform asked to make political statements in order to perform? No artist deserves to be put in such a situation simply to perform his or her art. Regardless of race, creed, country, cultural background, etc, my goal is to play music for all people. As musicians that is what we seek.”
Also Monday, Jewish groups protested the festival’s cancellation of the performer.
The Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities condemned the decision as cowardly, Reuters said. The organization characterized the festival’s behavior as unjust and discriminatory.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder was outraged by the decision, and urged Spanish authorities “to take appropriate action against those responsible for it.”
The Spanish government passed a headline-grabbing law on June 11 bestowing Spanish citizenship upon descendants of Sephardic Jews. The high-profile effort, lauded as a historic measure “correcting” sins from a 500-year past, is set to be implemented by October and is expected to potentially draw some 90,000 applicants.Marking 100 Years Since the Lynching of Leo Frank
But the law stands in stark contrast to a proliferation of anti-Semitism in the country in which anti-Israel efforts are finding fertile ground, as seen this week in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s successful campaign to cancel an August 22 show by US-born reggae-rapper Matisyahu.
The Rototom Sunsplash festival in eastern Spain, which said it was canceling Matisyahu’s performance after the Valencia chapter of the BDS movement had described him as a “lover of Israel” and asked organizers to request that he “clarify” his political views — is only the latest target of the 10-year-old Israel-delegitimizing BDS movement, a diffuse grassroots campaign whose founders’ self-stated goal is the eventual elimination of the State of Israel.
According to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2015 figures, some 29 percent of Spaniards harbor anti-Semitic sentiments and 59 percent think Spanish Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Spain.
In the early hours of Aug. 17, 1915, a 31-year-old man took his last breath as the table beneath him was kicked out and the short rope hung from an oak branch snapped his neck.
The man hanging from that tree was an American Jew by the name of Leo Frank. Although Frank was the only Jew in the history of America lynched by a mob, his death had a profound and lasting impact on American Jewry.
Earlier, Leo Frank, a superintendent at a pencil factory in Atlanta, had been sentenced to death on questionable evidence for murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan in 1913. She had worked at the factory. His trial was a foregone conclusion; Frank had already been convicted in the court of public opinion.
The Northern Jew was the obvious target of the people’s rage. A hate-infused trial ensued, and Frank was portrayed as the insidious Jewish infiltrator, taking what he pleased.
A conviction quickly came, and Frank was sentenced to death.
As he went from appeal to appeal, the case against him began to fall apart. Even some of his accusers conceded that Frank had not murdered Mary Phagan. After his appeals had been rejected by the Supreme Courts of both Georgia and the U.S., Georgia Governor John M. Slaton investigated the body of evidence and, taking a bold stand, commuted Leo Frank’s sentence to life in prison. Slaton did not believe the accused had been guilty of the crime.
But this did not sit well with a community longing for justice but blinded by bigoted rage. After he arrived at the Milledgeville State Penitentiary, Frank’s throat was slit by a fellow prisoner. He survived this attempt on his life, yet the wound had barely healed when on Aug. 16, 1915, a well-oiled mob of 25 rolled up to the prison gates, removed Frank in less than a half hour without firing a shot, and brought him to Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown.
After being badly beaten, he was hanged from a tree at 7 a.m.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
unrwa
Out of UNRWA's $100 million deficit that threatens to delay the school year, $28 million comes from Jordan.
That covers the costs for 120,000 students in 175 schools taught by 5,500 teachers throughout Jordan for four months.
This means that the annual budget for educating Jordan's students of Palestinian origin is $70 million.
Nearly every one of these students is already a Jordanian citizen.
Jordan says that it cannot afford to educate these students, relying instead on UNRWA, even though this means that the kingdom has two separate school systems with two separate bureaucracies, two separate transportation systems, two separate administrations.
So why not just redirect the money earmarked for UNRWA to Jordanian schools directly?
Western nations should be happy to get rid of Jordanian apartheid where Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens. They can and should be mainstreamed into Jordanian society, something that should have happened decades ago.
By no definition can they be considered "refugees." So why continue to treat them that way?
A five or seven year program to fund Jordan's existing education (and medical) system to accommodate Palestinians, and phase out the current apartheid system for two million so-called "refugees," is something that everyone who cares about equal rights should support.
And Canada could be in the forefront to kickstart such a program.
In 2007, Canada gave $32 million to UNRWA. As it soon realized that UNRWA is not aligned with Canadian values, the nation dropped its support to zero, redirecting some of it to various specific PA projects.
UNRWA is at a crossroads. It cannot continue to fund fund its ever-growing "refugee" population without a plan to reduce the number of people on its rolls, as it was originally intended to do. There is no rational reason for Jordanian citizens who happen to have Palestinian ancestry to be considered "refugees." The only reason UNRWA exists in Jordan is as a crutch to help Jordan's budget (besides the political reason of inflating the number of "refugees" to pressure Israel forever.)
It is past time to force UNRWA to change its working definition of "refugee" to be more aligned with that of the UNHCR and to phase out aid to the fake "refugees' who are citizens of Jordan. This budget crisis gives the world a chance to do exactly that, by using limited aid funds smartly and at the same time to eliminate two million "refugees."
The same can be done in the West Bank and Gaza, two other places that Palestinians cannot possibly be called "refugees" by any sane definition. Since most countries recognize "Palestine" as a state, pay the PA to take responsibility for their own people - with a deadline.
The money saved can hep the stateless Arabs of Palestinian origin wasting away in Lebanon and Syria, where UNRWA aid is most urgently needed until a more permanent solution is found.
Enlightened nations like Canada and Australia and the US would also be happy to replace the current UNRWA dinosaur with a real plan to reduce its budget while directing funds at those who need them most.
Now is the chance to accomplish something useful before UNRWA implodes and its current welfare recipients are left with nothing but anger.
That covers the costs for 120,000 students in 175 schools taught by 5,500 teachers throughout Jordan for four months.
This means that the annual budget for educating Jordan's students of Palestinian origin is $70 million.
Nearly every one of these students is already a Jordanian citizen.
Jordan says that it cannot afford to educate these students, relying instead on UNRWA, even though this means that the kingdom has two separate school systems with two separate bureaucracies, two separate transportation systems, two separate administrations.
So why not just redirect the money earmarked for UNRWA to Jordanian schools directly?
Western nations should be happy to get rid of Jordanian apartheid where Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens. They can and should be mainstreamed into Jordanian society, something that should have happened decades ago.
By no definition can they be considered "refugees." So why continue to treat them that way?
A five or seven year program to fund Jordan's existing education (and medical) system to accommodate Palestinians, and phase out the current apartheid system for two million so-called "refugees," is something that everyone who cares about equal rights should support.
And Canada could be in the forefront to kickstart such a program.
In 2007, Canada gave $32 million to UNRWA. As it soon realized that UNRWA is not aligned with Canadian values, the nation dropped its support to zero, redirecting some of it to various specific PA projects.
UNRWA is at a crossroads. It cannot continue to fund fund its ever-growing "refugee" population without a plan to reduce the number of people on its rolls, as it was originally intended to do. There is no rational reason for Jordanian citizens who happen to have Palestinian ancestry to be considered "refugees." The only reason UNRWA exists in Jordan is as a crutch to help Jordan's budget (besides the political reason of inflating the number of "refugees" to pressure Israel forever.)
It is past time to force UNRWA to change its working definition of "refugee" to be more aligned with that of the UNHCR and to phase out aid to the fake "refugees' who are citizens of Jordan. This budget crisis gives the world a chance to do exactly that, by using limited aid funds smartly and at the same time to eliminate two million "refugees."
The same can be done in the West Bank and Gaza, two other places that Palestinians cannot possibly be called "refugees" by any sane definition. Since most countries recognize "Palestine" as a state, pay the PA to take responsibility for their own people - with a deadline.
The money saved can hep the stateless Arabs of Palestinian origin wasting away in Lebanon and Syria, where UNRWA aid is most urgently needed until a more permanent solution is found.
Enlightened nations like Canada and Australia and the US would also be happy to replace the current UNRWA dinosaur with a real plan to reduce its budget while directing funds at those who need them most.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Elder of Ziyon

On Friday the almost 611,000 individuals
entitled to vote for the next leader of Britain’s Labour Party received their
initial ballot papers. A preferential
system of voting applies, so that if none of the four candidates obtains 50 per
cent of the votes cast, the lowest-ranking candidate is eliminated, and his or
her second preference votes are redistributed among the remaining
candidates. Should no winner then
emerge, the candidate with the least number of votes will drop out, and their
votes redistributed amongst the two survivors.
Votes can be cast either online or via the mail, and must be in by 10
September. The suffrage extends not only
to the almost 300,000 full party members and the almost 190,000 affiliates of the
trade unions, but to the 121, 295 persons who, under a recent change to the
voting regulations, registered to vote by paying £3 each to party coffers. Many of these johnnies-come-lately appear to
be people, many of them young, who have been attracted to the contest owing to
the presence among the four candidates of the veteran MP for Islington East, the
deceptively softly-spoken left-wing firebrand Jeremy Corbyn, who is widely
expected to win. The result will be
announced on 12 September.
First elected to Parliament in 1983, 66-year-old
Corbyn, who had been a fulltime official for the National Union of Public
Employees, now part of Unison, and is a far leftist, belonging to the
parliamentary Socialist Campaign Group. A
perennial backbencher, he’s a serial rebel on virtually every issue, and is committed
to abolishing Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system. He’s Chairman of the Stop the War Coalition and a
patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). His election to the Labour Party leadership
is, not surprisingly, something that most of the Anglo-Jewish community fears,
since he is widely known as a vociferous critic of Israel and even suspected of
being, by some observers, a closet antisemite.
Readers of Richard Millett’s blog will
recall some of Corbyn’s past shenanigans, including this classic (http://ukmediawatch.org/2010/07/30/richard-millet-and-jonathan-hoffman-banned-from-parliament/). More recently, Corbyn’s anti-Israel stance
has extended to such canards as claiming that there are settler-only roads (see
http://ukmediawatch.org/2015/07/22/jeremy-corbyn-perpetuates-the-myth-of-settler-only-roads-in-the-west-bank/)
thus fuelling the “apartheid” trope.
Following recent claims and revelations (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3191393/Jeremy-Corbyn-defended-controversial-vicar-banned-social-media-promoting-clearly-anti-Semitic-material.html
and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3191679/Jeremy-Corbyn-caught-video-calling-Muslim-hate-preacher-honoured-citizen-inviting-tea-terrace-House-Commons.html
), the Jewish Chronicle has declared
that “although there is no direct evidence that he has an issue himself with
Jews, there is overwhelming evidence of his association with, support for – and
even in one case, alleged funding of – Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some
outright antisemites” and that, in consequence, if the man now deemed the most
likely to lead the Labour Party “is not to be regarded from the day of his
election as an enemy of Britain’s Jewish community” it is incumbent upon him to
answer several key questions which the newspaper had put to him (but received
no response). These questions involve allegations
that he donated to notorious (Jewish-born!) Holocaust Denier Paul Eisen’s
overtly antisemitic group Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR), which even the PSC
eschews; that he has regularly attended DYR’s
conferences; that he is due to speak at a conference next week alongside
infamous antisemitic cartoonist Latuff (Corbyn has since cancelled that
appearance); that earlier this year he contacted the Anglican authorities to
defend Rev Stephen Sizer – whom the Bishop of Guildford banned from social
media over his despicable Facebook post linking Israel to 9/11 – to suggest
that Sizer was “under attack” because he
“dared to speak out against Zionism”; that Corbyn associates with Hamas
and Hezbollah and terms them his “friends”; that he has neglected to condemn
the antisemitic placards and banners that characterise the annual Al-Quds Day
Rally sponsored by the Stop the War Coalition under his chairmanship; and that
he described as an “honoured citizen” Palestinian hate preacher and blood
libeller Sheikh Raed Salah (http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/142144/the-key-questions-jeremy-corbyn-must-answer).
(See also https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/corbyn-slams-israel-at-jw3-admits-he-met-hamas/
)
But Corbyn continues to have droves of devoted
admirers, seemingly nonplussed by such controversy. Recent encomiums to him in The Guardian’s correspondence columns
have come from a posse of co-signing academics, many of whom are leftist economists,
some from – and I assume this is mere coincidence – that hotbed of campus
anti-Israel activity in Britain, London’s School of African and Oriental
Studies. A couple of the signatories, Emeritus
Professor Susan Himmelweit and Professor Roger Seifert, are associated with
Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP), an organisation not so benign as its
name suggests, as is (unless he has a namesake) Walter Wolfgang, vice-chair of
Labour CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) whose letter endorsing Corbyn’s
leadership ambitions was in the same issue of the paper. (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/14/the-labour-party-stands-at-a-crossroads).
Susan Himmelweit, incidentally, is a
trustee of the Lipman-Miliband Trust, self-described as “a progressive charity
whose mission was to help support the practice and dissemination of socialist
education and research.” Last month the Lipman-Miliband Trust, along
with the PSC, War on Want, and Campaign Against the Arms Trade, published a
report, Arming Apartheid: UK complicity
in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, which calls on the “UK
government to implement an immediate two-way arms embargo to end all arms sales
to and purchases from Israel”. As NGO
Monitor relates (http://www.ngomonitor.org/article/arms_embargo_report_funded_by_lipman_milibrand_trust – more links at site), ‘In addition to funding the report, the Trust
has funded a 2013 War on Want “awareness campaign” to “Stop Arming Israel,” a
2012 project of +972 Magazine (Advancement of Citizen Journalism), a 2011
“Exhibit of destruction policies” organized by the Israeli Committee Against
House Demolitions (ICAHD), a 2010 ICAHD conference in the UK, and the Russell
Tribunal in 2010.’
Comments below the line on the online press reports and others that shine a
spotlight on Jeremy Corbyn’s alleged associations with antisemitic figures
include those that are antisemitic or Jew-baiting themselves. Such, alas, is the nature of much of the Left
today. This left-wing moral bankruptcy
is highlighted by the (non-Jewish) Labour MP John Mann, a blunt honest
Yorkshireman who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism. The latest Sunday Express quotes him as saying “I have very serious concerns
about Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters. I’ve
received some vicious anti-Semitic abuse and I’m expecting the Labour Party to
take action against this… I’ve received more than 40 emails and a few Tweets
since Jeremy Corbyn became significant in the Labour leadership campaign. I
know they’re from Corbyn supporters because they all express this openly… I
have been described as a servant of the Israeli Prime Minister, a Nazi Zionist,
a Zionist scumbag… I know people may argue he [Corbyn] can’t be held
responsible for what his supporters do but it is Corbyn’s failure to distance
himself from anti-Semites that’s creating the space for these vile
attacks. He has to ask himself why are
these vitriolic racists joining the Labour Party to support him.” (http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/598661/Corbyn-trolls-abusing-me-Jewish )
Indeed, almost as soon as that press report
was posted did antisemitic comments start to pour in. This, for instance: “The Daily [sic] Express
continues its trolling against Corbyn - now it's bringing the jews out to
publically [sic] announce Corbyn as anti-semitic… I want to know why we have so
many jews in parliament - they are very, very over represented for the number
we have living in the UK and something does need to be done about that I think.”
Little wonder that a Jewish Labour MP, Ivan
Lewis, who’s Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has announced (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/i-cant-all-conscience-vote-jeremy-corbyn-i-will-be-using-all-my-preferences-stop
): “I can't in all conscience, vote for Jeremy Corbyn – I will be using all my preferences
to stop him … I will not be voting for Jeremy Corbyn because on too many issues
he advocates solutions which belong to the past and will not equip the country
or the Labour Party with the vision and policies which can rise to the
challenges of the future. I fear his leadership would prevent us rebuilding the
mainstream majority support of working and middle class voters, which is
essential if we are ever to win an election. Some of his stated political views
are a cause for serious concern. At the very least he has shown very poor
judgment in expressing support for and failing to speak out against people who
have engaged not in legitimate criticism of Israeli governments but in
anti-Semitic rhetoric. It saddens me to
have to say to some on the left of British politics that anti-racism means zero
tolerance of anti-Semitism, no ifs, and no buts…”
As the Jewish
Chronicle observed in posing those “key questions” to him, “It is difficult
not to see a pattern in Mr Corbyn’s associations, and his refusal at any point
to answer the fears of the Jewish community raised by these associations. In a nation where, thank heavens, racism and
extremism are now regarded as beyond the pale, it is little short of
astonishing that a man who chooses to associate with racists and extremists is
about to become leader of one of our two main parties and could conceivably
become Prime Minister.”
Our consolation, however, is surely that so
far left a figure as Corbyn is will probably prove so divisive to the Labour
Party, and such a gift to the Conservatives, that, by the time the next General
Election rolls around (it could be as late as May 2020) the Labour Party may
well have ditched him as leader, realising that he is, as many cool counsels
are predicting now, that as far as the wider British electorate is concerned he
is in fact unelectable.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
This is happening right now.
Menendez Delivers Remarks on Iran Nuclear Deal at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations
South Orange, N.J. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered the following remarks today at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations. He was introduced by Courtney Smith, Senior Associate Dean and Associate Professor.
Remarks Prepared for Delivery:
“For twenty three years as a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, I have had the privilege of dealing with major foreign policy and national security issues. Many of those have been of a momentous nature. This is one of those moments.
“I come to the issue of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with Iran, as someone who has followed Iran's nuclear ambition for the better part of two decades. I decide on whether to support or oppose an issue on the basis of whether, it is in my judgment, in the national interest and security of our country to do so.
“In this case a secondary, but important, question is what it means for our great ally -- the State of Israel -- and our other partners in the Gulf.
“Unlike President Obama's characterization of those who have raised serious questions about the agreement, or who have opposed it, I did not vote for the war in Iraq, I opposed it, unlike the Vice President and the Secretary of State, who both supported it. My vote against the Iraq war was unpopular at the time, but it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
“I also don't come to this question as someone, unlike many of my Republican colleagues, who reflexively oppose everything the President proposes. In fact, I have supported President Obama, according to Congressional Quarterly, 98 percent of the time in 2013 and 2014. On key policies ranging from voting in the Finance Committee and on the Senate Floor for the Affordable Care Act, to Wall Street Reform, to supporting the President's Supreme Court Nominees and defending the Administration’s actions on the Benghazi tragedy, his Pivot to Asia, shepherding the authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to stop President Assad's use of chemical weapons, during the time I was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to so much more, I have been a reliable supporter of President Obama.
“But my support is not – and has not been driven by party loyalty, but rather by principled agreement, not political expediency. When I have disagreed it is also based on principled disagreement.
“The issue before the Congress in September is whether to vote to approve or disapprove the agreement struck by the President and our P5+1 partners with Iran. This is one of the most serious national security, nuclear nonproliferation, arms control issues of our time. It is not an issue of supporting or opposing the President. This issue is much greater and graver than that.
“For me, I have come to my decision after countless hours in hearings, classified briefings, and hours-and-hours of serious discussion and thorough analysis. I start my analysis with the question: Why does Iran -- which has the world's fourth largest proven oil reserves, with 157 billion barrels of crude oil and the world's second largest proven natural gas reserves with 1,193 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- need nuclear power for domestic energy?
“We know that despite the fact that Iran claims their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, they have violated the international will, as expressed by various U.N. Security Council Resolutions, and by deceit, deception and delay advanced their program to the point of being a threshold nuclear state. It is because of these facts, and the fact that the world believes that Iran was weaponizing its nuclear program at the Parchin Military Base -- as well as developing a covert uranium enrichment facility in Fordow, built deep inside of a mountain, raising serious doubts about the peaceful nature of their civilian program, and their sponsorship of state terrorism -- that the world united against Iran's nuclear program.
“In that context, let’s remind ourselves of the stated purpose of our negotiations with Iran: Simply put, it was to dismantle all -- or significant parts -- of Iran's illicit nuclear infrastructure to ensure that it would not have nuclear weapons capability at any time. Not shrink its infrastructure. Not limit it. But fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.
“We said we would accommodate Iran's practical national needs, but not leave the region -- and the world -- facing the threat of a nuclear armed Iran at a time of its choosing. In essence, we thought the agreement would be roll-back-for-roll-back: you roll-back your infrastructure and we'll roll-back our sanctions.
“At the end of the day, what we appear to have is a roll-back of sanctions and Iran only limiting its capability, but not dismantling it or rolling it back. What do we get? We get an alarm bell should they decide to violate their commitments, and a system for inspections to verify their compliance. That, in my view, is a far cry from ‘dismantling.’
“I recall in the early days of the Administration's overtures to Iran, asking Secretary of State, John Kerry, at a meeting of Senators, about dismantling Arak, Iran's plutonium reactor. His response was swift and certain. He said: ‘They will either dismantle it or we will destroy it.’
“I remember that our understanding was that the Fordow facility was to be closed – that it was not necessary for a peaceful civilian nuclear program to have an underground enrichment facility. That the Iranians would have to come absolutely clean about their weaponization activities at Parchin and agree to promise anytime anywhere inspections.
“We now know all of that fell by the wayside. But what we cannot dismiss is that we have now abandoned our long-held policy of preventing nuclear proliferation and are now embarked – not on preventing nuclear proliferation – but on managing or containing it -- which leaves us with a far less desirable, less secure, and less certain world order. So, I am deeply concerned that this is a significant shift in our nonproliferation policy, and about what it will mean in terms of a potential arms race in an already dangerous region.
“While I have many specific concerns about this agreement, my overarching concern is that it requires no dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and only mothballs that infrastructure for 10 years. Not even one centrifuge will be destroyed under this agreement. Fordow will be repurposed, and Arak redesigned.
“The fact is -- everyone needs to understand what this agreement does and does not do so that they can determine whether providing Iran permanent relief in exchange for short-term promises is a fair trade.
“This deal does not require Iran to destroy or fully decommission a single uranium enrichment centrifuge. In fact, over half of Iran’s currently operating centrifuges will continue to spin at its Natanz facility. The remainder, including more than 5,000 operating centrifuges and nearly 10,000 not yet functioning, will merely be disconnected and transferred to another hall at Natanz, where they could be quickly reinstalled to enrich uranium.
“And yet we, along with our allies, have agreed to lift the sanctions and allow billions of dollars to flow back into Iran’s economy. We lift sanctions, but -- even during the first 10 years of the agreement -- Iran will be allowed to continue R&D activity on a range of centrifuges – allowing them to improve their effectiveness over the course of the agreement.
“Clearly, the question is: What do we get from this agreement in terms of what we originally sought? We lift sanctions, and -- at year eight -- Iran can actually start manufacturing and testing advanced IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges that enrich up to 15 times the speed of its current models. At year 15, Iran can start enriching uranium beyond 3.67 percent – the level at which we become concerned about fissile material for a bomb. At year 15, Iran will have NO limits on its uranium stockpile.
“This deal grants Iran permanent sanctions relief in exchange for only temporary – temporary -- limitations on its nuclear program – not a rolling-back, not dismantlement, but temporary limitations. At year ten, the UN Security Council Resolution will disappear along with the dispute resolution mechanism needed to snapback UN sanctions and the 24-day mandatory access provision for suspicious sites in Iran.
“The deal enshrines for Iran, and in fact commits the international community to assisting Iran in developing an industrial-scale nuclear power program, complete with industrial scale enrichment. While I understand that this program will be subject to Iran's obligations under theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, I think it fails to appreciate Iran's history of deception in its nuclear program and its violations of the NPT.
“It will, in the long run, make it much harder to demonstrate that Iran's program is not in fact being used for peaceful purposes because Iran will have legitimate reasons to have advanced centrifuges and a robust enrichment program. We will then have to demonstrate that its intention is dual-use and not justified by its industrial nuclear power program.
“What we get in return for removing sanctions is an inspection and verification regime of Iran's somewhat-diminished, but still existent nuclear program, for which we will have to depend on Iranian compliance and performance for years to come.
“A significant part of that performance is dictated by an Additional Protocol of the IAEA agreement that ensures access to suspect sites in a country. But Iran has agreed only to provisionally apply the Additional Protocol if Congress has abolished all sanctions. This could mean that if Iran has been sanctioned for violations of the agreement, Iran won’t even have to seek ratification of the Additional Protocol until those sanctions have been lifted – regardless of Iran’s full compliance.
“This is hardly an ironclad commitment on which to base our right to inspect suspicious facilities. Of course if the Iranians violate the agreement and try to make a dash for a nuclear bomb, our solace will be that we will have a year's notice instead of the present 3 months. So in reality we have purchased a very expensive alarm system. Maybe we’ll have an additional nine months, but with much greater consequences in the enemy we might face at that time.
“But what happens in the interim? Within about a year of Iran meeting its initial obligations, Iran will receive sanctions relief to the tune of $100-150 billion in the release of frozen assets, as well as renewed oil sales of another million barrels a day, as well as relief from sectoral sanctions in the petrochemical, shipping, shipbuilding, port sectors, gold and other precious metals, and software and automotive sectors.
“Iran will also benefit from the removal of designated entities including major banks, shipping companies, oil and gas firms from the U.S. Treasury list of sanctioned entities.
‘Of the nearly 650 entities that have been designated by the U.S. Treasury for their role in Iran's nuclear and missile programs or for being controlled by the Government of Iran, more than 67 percent will be de-listed within 6-12 months,’ according to testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
“For Iran, all this relief comes likely within a year, even though its obligations stretch out for a decade or more.
“Considering the fact that it was President Rouhani, who after conducting his fiscal audit after his election, likely convinced the Ayatollah that Iran’s regime could not sustain itself under the sanctions, and knew that only a negotiated agreement would get Iran the relief it critically needed to sustain the regime and the revolution, the negotiating leverage was, and still is, greatly on our side. However, the JCPOA in paragraph 26 of the Sanctions heading of the agreement, says:
‘The U.S. Administration, acting consistently with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from re-introducing or reimposing sanctions specified in Annex II, that it has ceased applying under this JCPOA.’
“I repeat, we will have to refrain from reintroducing or reimposing the Iran Sanctions Act I authored – which expires next year -- that brought Iran to the table in the first place. In two hearings, I asked Treasury Secretary Lew and Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman whether we in Congress have the right to reauthorize sanctions to have something to snapback to, and neither would answer the question, saying only that it was ‘too early’ to discuss reauthorization.
“But, I did get my answer from the Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations who, in a letter dated July 25, 2015, said:
‘It is clearly spelled out in the JCPOA that both the European Union and the United States will refrain from reintroducing or reimposing the sanctions and restrictive measures lifted under the JCPOA. It is understood the reintroduction or reimposition, including through extension of the sanctions and restrictive measures will constitute significant nonperformance which would relieve Iran from its commitments in part or in whole.’
“If anything is a ‘fantasy’ about this agreement it is the belief that snapback, without congressionally-mandated sanctions, with EU sanctions gone, and companies from around the world doing permissible business in Iran, will have any real effect.
“The Administration cannot argue sanction policy both ways. Either they were effective in getting Iran to the negotiating table or they were not. Sanctions are either a deterrent to break-out, or a violation of the agreement, or they are not.
“In retrospect, my one regret throughout this process is that I did not proceed with the Menendez-Kirk prospective sanctions legislation that would have provided additional leverage during the negotiations and would have also provided additional leverage in any possible post-agreement nullification by them or by us.
“Frankly, in my view, the overall sanctions relief being provided, given the Iranian’s understanding of restrictions on the reauthorization of sanctions, along with the lifting of the arms and missile embargo well before Iranian compliance over years is established, leaves us in a weak position, and – to me – is unacceptable.
“As the largest State Sponsor of Terrorism, Iran – who has exported its revolution to Assad in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and directed and supported attacks against American troops in Iraq -- will be flush with money, not only to invest in their domestic economy, but to further pursue their destabilizing, hegemonic goals in the region. If Iran can afford to destabilize the region with an economy staggering under sanctions and rocked by falling oil prices, what will Iran and the Quds Force do when they have a cash infusion of more than 20 percent of their GDP -- the equivalent of an infusion of $3.4 trillion into our economy?
“If there is a fear of war in the region, it is fueled by Iran and its proxies and exacerbated by an agreement that allows Iran to possess an industrial-sized nuclear program, and enough money in sanctions relief to continue to fund its hegemonic intentions throughout the region. Imagine how a country like the United Arab Emirates – sitting just miles away from Iran across the straits of Hormuz feels after they sign a civilian nuclear agreement with the U.S., considered to be the gold standard, to not enrich or reprocess uranium? What do our friends think when we give our enemies a pass while holding them to the gold standard? Who should they trust?
“Which brings me to another major concern with the JCPOA, namely the issue of Iran coming clean about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program. For well over a decade, the world has been concerned about the secret weaponization efforts Iran conducted at the military base called Parchin.The goal that we have long sought, along with the international community, is to know what Iran accomplished at Parchin -- not necessarily to get Iran to declare culpability -- but to determine how far along they were in their nuclear weaponization program so that we know what signatures to look for in the future.
“David Albright, a physicist and former nuclear weapons inspector, and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, has said, ‘Addressing the IAEA's concerns about the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programs is fundamental to any long term agreement… an agreement that sidesteps the military issues would risk being unverifiable.’ The reason he says that ‘an agreement that sidesteps the military issues would be unverifiable,’ is because it makes a difference if you are 90 percent down the road in your weaponization efforts or only ten percent advanced. How far advanced Iran’s weaponizing abilities are has a significant impact on what Iran’s breakout time to an actual deliverable weapon will be.
“In a report to the U.N. Security Council, by a panel of experts, established pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, the experts state The Islamic Republic of Iran possesses two variants of ballistic missiles that, according to experts, are believed to be potentially capable of delivering nuclear weapons. One, the Ghada missile, is a variant of liquid-fuel Shahab-3, with a range of approximately 1,600km. The other is the solid-fuel Sejil missile, with a range of about 2,000km. To put that in perspective, the Ghada missile has a 650 mile range which puts Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, India, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen in their sites.
“The Sejil missile has a 1,250 mile rage which includes Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Nepal, Romania, Serbia, Somalia, and Sudan.
“With so much at stake, the IAEA -- after waiting over ten years to inspect Parchin, speak to Iranian nuclear scientists, and review additional materials and documents -- are now told they will not have direct access to Parchin. The list of scientists the P5+1 wanted the IAEA to interview were rejected outright by Iran, and they are now given three months to do all of their review and analysis before they must deliver a report in December of this year. How the inspections and soil and other samples are to be collected are outlined in two secret agreements that the U.S. Congress is not privy to. The answer as to why we cannot see those documents, is because they have a confidentiality agreement between the IAEA and Iran, which they say ‘is customary,’ but this issue is anything but customary.
“If Iran can violate its obligations for more than a decade, it can't then be allowed to avail themselves of the same provisions and protections they violated in the first place. We have to ask: Why would our negotiators decide to negotiate access to other IAEA documents, but not these documents? Maybe the reason, as some members of Congress and public reports have raised, is because it will be the Iranians and not the IAEA performing the tests and providing the samples to be analyzed, which would be the equivalent of having an athlete accused of using performance enhancing drugs submit an unsupervised urine sample to the appropriate authority. Chain of custody doesn't matter when the evidence given to you is prepared by the perpetrator.
“So in five months, we seek to resolve a major issue that has taken the better part of a decade to have access to, and with a highly questionable inspection regime as a solution. And, according to an AP story of August 14th – and I quote:
‘They say the agency will be able to report in December. But that assessment is unlikely to be unequivocal because chances are slim that Iran will present all the evidence the agency wants, or give it the total freedom of movement it needs to follow-up the allegations. Still, the report is expected to be approved by the IAEA's board, which includes the United States and other powerful nations that negotiated the July 14 agreement. They do not want to upend their July 14 deal, and will see the December report as closing the books on the issue.’
“It would seem to me that what we are doing is sweeping this critical issue under the rug.
“Secretary Kerry has said that, ‘We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in,’ yet, for years we have insisted on getting access to Parchin and acquiring the knowledge we need to know.
“General Hayden, the former CIA Director, said, ‘I'd like to see the DNI or any intelligence office repeat that for me. They won't. What he is saying is that we don't care how far they've gotten with weaponization. We're betting the farm on our ability to limit the production of fissile material.’ Now, if they want to make that bet, they can, but the Administration should level with us and not insist revelations of PMD are unimportant. Instead General Hayden says, ‘he's pretending we have perfect knowledge about something that was an incredibly tough intelligence target while I was director and I see nothing that has made it any easier.’
“For me, the administration's willingness to forgo a critical element of Iran's weaponization -- past and present -- is inexplicable. Our willingness to accept this process on Parchin is only exacerbated by the inability to obtain anytime, anywhere inspections, which the Administration always held out as one of those essential elements we would insist on and could rely on in any deal. Instead, we have a dispute resolution mechanism that shifts the burden of proof to the U.S. and its partners, to provide sensitive intelligence, possibly revealing our sources and the methods by which we collected the information and allow the Iranians to delay access for nearly a month, a delay that would allow them to remove evidence of a violation, particularly when it comes to centrifuge research-and-development, and weaponization efforts that can be easily hidden and would leave little or no signatures.
“The Administration suggests that -- other than Iraq -- no country was subjected to anytime, anywhere inspections. But Iran's defiance of the world's position, as recognized in a series of U.N. Security Council Resolutions, does not make it ‘any other country.’ It is their violations of the NPT and the Security Council Resolutions that created the necessity for a unique regime and for anytime, anywhere inspections.
“Mark Dubowitz, the widely-respected sanctions expert from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has said:
‘For Secretary Kerry to claim we have absolute knowledge of Iran's weaponization activities is to assume a level of U.S. intelligence capability that defies historical experience. That's why he, President Obama, Undersecretary Sherman and IAEA chief Amano all have made PMD resolution such an essential condition of any nuclear deal.’
“He goes on to say:
‘The U.S. track record in detecting and stopping countries from going nuclear should make Kerry more modest in his claims and assumptions. The U.S. missed the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Washington underestimated Saddam's program in 1990. Then it overestimated his program in 2003 and went to war to stop a nonexistent WMD program.’
“It is precisely because of this track record that permitting Iran to have the size and scope of an industrialized nuclear program, permitted under the JCPOA is one of the great flaws of the agreement.
“If what President Obama's statement, in his NPR interview of April 7th, 2015, that ‘a more relevant fear would be that in year 13, 14, 15 they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero’ – is true, then it seems to me that -- in essence -- this deal does nothing more than kick today's problem down the road for ten-15 years, and, at the same time, undermines the arguments and evidence we'll need, because of the dual-use nature of their program, to convince the Security Council and the international community to take action.
“President Obama continues to erroneously say that this agreement permanently stops Iran from having a nuclear bomb. Let’s be clear, what the agreement does is to recommit Iran not to pursue a nuclear bomb, a promise they have already violated in the past. It recommits them to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement they have already violated in the past. It commits them to a new Security Council Resolution outlining their obligations, but they have violated those in the past as well.
“So the suggestion of permanence, in this case, is only possible for so long as Iran complies and performs according to the agreement because the bottom line is that this agreement leaves Iran with the core element of a robust nuclear infrastructure.
“The fact is -- success is not a question of Iran's conforming and performing according to the agreement. If that was all that was needed – if Iran had abided by its commitments all along -- we wouldn't be faced with this challenge now. The test of success must be -- if Iran violates the agreement and attempts to break-out -- how well we will be positioned to deal with Iran -- at that point. Trying to reassemble the sanctions regime, including the time to give countries and companies notice of sanctionable activity, which had been permissible up to then, would take-up most of the breakout time, assuming we could even get compliance after significant national and private investments had taken place. That indeed would be a ‘fantasy.’
“So the suggestion of ‘permanency’ in stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon depends on ‘performance.’ Based on the long history of Iran's broken promises, defiance and violations, that is hopeful. Significant dismantlement, however, would establish ‘performance,’ and therefore the threat of the capability to develop a nuclear weapon would truly be permanent, and any attempt to rebuild that infrastructure would give the world far more time than one year.
“The President and Secretary Kerry have repeatedly said that the choice is between this agreement or war. I reject that proposition, as have most witnesses, including past and present Administration members involved in the Iran nuclear issue, who have testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who support the deal but reject the binary choice between the agreement or war.
“If the P5+1 had not achieved an agreement, would we be at war with Iran? I don't believe that.
“For all those who have said they have not heard -- from anyone who opposes the Agreement – a better solution, they’re wrong. I believe there is a pathway to a better deal.
“Advocates of the deal argue that a good deal that would have dismantled critical elements of Iran's nuclear infrastructure isn’t attainable – that the Iranians were tough negotiators -- and that despite our massive economic leverage and the weight of the international community we couldn’t buy more than 10 years of inspection and verification in exchange for permanent sanctions relief, and for revoking Iran’s pariah status. I don’t believe that.
“It is difficult to believe that the world's greatest powers, the U.S., Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union, sitting on one side of the table, and Iran sitting alone on the other side, staggering from sanctions and rocked by plummeting oil prices, could not have achieved some level of critical dismantlement.
“I believe we should have insisted on meeting the requirements we know are necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon today and in ten years, or we should have been prepared to walk away.
“I believe we could still get a better deal and here’s how: We can disapprove this agreement, without rejecting the entire agreement.
“We should direct the Administration to re-negotiate by authorizing the continuation of negotiations and the Joint Plan of Action – including Iran’s $700 million-a-month lifeline, which to date have accrued to Iran's benefit to the tune of $10 billion, and pausing further reductions of purchases of Iranian oil and other sanctions pursuant to the original JPOA. I’m even willing to consider authorizing a sweetener – a one-time release of a predetermined amount of funds – as a good faith down payment on the negotiations.
“We can provide specific parameters for the Administration to guide their continued negotiations and ensure that a new agreement does not run afoul of Congress. A continuation of talks would allow the re-consideration of just a few, but a critical few issues, including:
“First, the immediate ratification by Iran of the Additional Protocol to ensure that we have a permanent international arrangement with Iran for access to suspect sites.
“Second, a ban on centrifuge R&D for the duration of the agreement to ensure that Iran won’t have the capacity to quickly breakout, just as the U.N. Security Council Resolution and sanctions snapback is off the table.
“Third, close the Fordow enrichment facility. The sole purpose of Fordow was to harden Iran’s nuclear program to a military attack. We need to close the facility and foreclose Iran’s future ability to use this facility. If Iran has nothing to hide they shouldn’t need to put it under a mountain.
“Fourth, the full resolution of the ‘possible military dimensions’ of Iran’s program. We need an arrangement that isn’t set up to whitewash this issue. Iran and the IAEA must resolve the issue before permanent sanctions relief, and failure of Iran to cooperate with a comprehensive review should result in automatic sanctions snapback.
“Fifth, extend the duration of the agreement. One of the single most concerning elements of the deal is its 10-15 year sunset of restrictions on Iran’s program, with off ramps starting after year eight. We were promised an agreement of significant duration and we got less than half of what we are looking for. Iran should have to comply for as long as they deceived the world's position, so at least 20 years.
“And sixth, we need agreement now about what penalties will be collectively imposed by the P5+1 for Iranian violations, both small and midsized, as well as a clear statement as to the so-called grandfather clause in paragraph 37 of the JCPOA, to ensure that the U.S. position about not shielding contracts entered into legally upon re-imposition of sanctions is shared by our allies.
“At the same time we should: Extend the authorization of the Iran Sanctions Act which expires in 2016 to ensure that we have an effective snapback option; Consider licensing the strategic export of American oil to allied countries struggling with supply because Iranian oil remains off the market; Immediately implement the security measures offered to our partners in the Gulf Summit at Camp David, while preserving Israel's qualitative military edge.
“The President should unequivocally affirm and Congress should formally endorse a Declaration of U.S. Policy that we will use all means necessary to prevent Iran from producing enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, as well as building or buying one, both during and after any agreement. We should authorize now the means for Israel to address the Iranian threat on their own in the event that Iran accelerates its program and to counter Iranian perceptions that our own threat to use force is not credible. And we should make it absolutely clear that we want a deal, but we want the right deal -- and that a deal that does nothing more than delay the inevitable isn’t a deal we will make.
“We must send a message to Iran that neither their regional behavior nor nuclear ambitions are permissible. If we push back regionally, they will be less likely to test the limits of our tolerance towards any violation of a nuclear agreement.
“The agreement that has been reached failed to achieve the one thing it set out to achieve – it failed to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state at a time of its choosing. In fact, it authorizes and supports the very road map Iran will need to arrive at its target.
“I know that the Administration will say that our P5+1 partners will not follow us, that the sanctions regime will collapse and that they will allow Iran to proceed, as if they weren't worried about Iran crossing the nuclear- weapons capability threshold. I heard similar arguments from Secretary Kerry, when he was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Assistant Secretary of Treasury David Cohen and others, when I was leading the charge to impose new sanctions on Iran.
“That didn't happen then and I don't believe it will happen now. Despite what some of our P5+1 Ambassadors have said in trying to rally support for the agreement, and echoing the Administration's admonition, that it is a take it or leave it proposition, our P5+1 partners will still be worried about Iran's nuclear weapon desires and the capability to achieve it. They, and the businesses from their countries, and elsewhere, will truly care more about their ability to do business in a U.S. economy of $17 trillion than an Iranian economy of $415 billion. The importance of that economic relationship is palpable as we negotiate TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement.
“At this juncture it is important to note that, over history, Congress has rejected outright or demanded changes to more than 200 treaties and international agreements, including 80 that were multilateral.
“Whether or not the supporters of the agreement admit it, this deal is based on ‘hope’-- hope that when the nuclear sunset clause expires Iran will have succumbed to the benefits of commerce and global integration. Hope that the hardliners will have lost their power and the revolution will end its hegemonic goals. And hope that the regime will allow the Iranian people to decide their fate.
“Hope is part of human nature, but unfortunately it is not a national security strategy.
“The Iranian regime, led by the Ayatollah, wants above all to preserve the regime and its Revolution, unlike the Green Revolution of 2009. So it stretches incredulity to believe they signed on to a deal that would in any way weaken the regime or threaten the goals of the Revolution.
“I understand that this deal represents a trade-off, a hope that things may be different in Iran in ten-15 years. Maybe Iran will desist from its nuclear ambitions. Maybe they'll stop exporting and supporting terrorism. Maybe they'll stop holding innocent Americans hostage. Maybe they'll stop burning American flags. And maybe their leadership will stop chanting, “Death to America" in the streets of Tehran. Or maybe they won't.
“I know that, in many respects, it would be far easier to support this deal, as it would have been to vote for the war in Iraq at the time. But I didn't choose the easier path then, and I’m not going to now. I know that the editorial pages that support the agreement would be far kinder, if I voted yes, but they largely also supported the agreement that brought us a nuclear North Korea.
“At moments like this, I am reminded of the passage in John F. Kennedy's book, ‘Profile in Courage,’ where he wrote:
"’The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people - faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but will also elect men (and I would parenthetically add woman) who will exercise their conscientious judgment - faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor, and ultimately recognize right.’
He said:
“‘In whatever arena in life one may meet the challenges of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.’
“I have looked into my own soul and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course, but if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it.
“It is for these reasons that I will vote to disapprove the agreement and, if called upon, would vote to override a veto.
“Thank you. May God Bless these United States of America.”
Menendez Delivers Remarks on Iran Nuclear Deal at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations
South Orange, N.J. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered the following remarks today at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations. He was introduced by Courtney Smith, Senior Associate Dean and Associate Professor.
Remarks Prepared for Delivery:
“For twenty three years as a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, I have had the privilege of dealing with major foreign policy and national security issues. Many of those have been of a momentous nature. This is one of those moments.
“I come to the issue of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with Iran, as someone who has followed Iran's nuclear ambition for the better part of two decades. I decide on whether to support or oppose an issue on the basis of whether, it is in my judgment, in the national interest and security of our country to do so.
“In this case a secondary, but important, question is what it means for our great ally -- the State of Israel -- and our other partners in the Gulf.
“Unlike President Obama's characterization of those who have raised serious questions about the agreement, or who have opposed it, I did not vote for the war in Iraq, I opposed it, unlike the Vice President and the Secretary of State, who both supported it. My vote against the Iraq war was unpopular at the time, but it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
“I also don't come to this question as someone, unlike many of my Republican colleagues, who reflexively oppose everything the President proposes. In fact, I have supported President Obama, according to Congressional Quarterly, 98 percent of the time in 2013 and 2014. On key policies ranging from voting in the Finance Committee and on the Senate Floor for the Affordable Care Act, to Wall Street Reform, to supporting the President's Supreme Court Nominees and defending the Administration’s actions on the Benghazi tragedy, his Pivot to Asia, shepherding the authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to stop President Assad's use of chemical weapons, during the time I was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to so much more, I have been a reliable supporter of President Obama.
“But my support is not – and has not been driven by party loyalty, but rather by principled agreement, not political expediency. When I have disagreed it is also based on principled disagreement.
“The issue before the Congress in September is whether to vote to approve or disapprove the agreement struck by the President and our P5+1 partners with Iran. This is one of the most serious national security, nuclear nonproliferation, arms control issues of our time. It is not an issue of supporting or opposing the President. This issue is much greater and graver than that.
“For me, I have come to my decision after countless hours in hearings, classified briefings, and hours-and-hours of serious discussion and thorough analysis. I start my analysis with the question: Why does Iran -- which has the world's fourth largest proven oil reserves, with 157 billion barrels of crude oil and the world's second largest proven natural gas reserves with 1,193 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- need nuclear power for domestic energy?
“We know that despite the fact that Iran claims their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, they have violated the international will, as expressed by various U.N. Security Council Resolutions, and by deceit, deception and delay advanced their program to the point of being a threshold nuclear state. It is because of these facts, and the fact that the world believes that Iran was weaponizing its nuclear program at the Parchin Military Base -- as well as developing a covert uranium enrichment facility in Fordow, built deep inside of a mountain, raising serious doubts about the peaceful nature of their civilian program, and their sponsorship of state terrorism -- that the world united against Iran's nuclear program.
“In that context, let’s remind ourselves of the stated purpose of our negotiations with Iran: Simply put, it was to dismantle all -- or significant parts -- of Iran's illicit nuclear infrastructure to ensure that it would not have nuclear weapons capability at any time. Not shrink its infrastructure. Not limit it. But fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.
“We said we would accommodate Iran's practical national needs, but not leave the region -- and the world -- facing the threat of a nuclear armed Iran at a time of its choosing. In essence, we thought the agreement would be roll-back-for-roll-back: you roll-back your infrastructure and we'll roll-back our sanctions.
“At the end of the day, what we appear to have is a roll-back of sanctions and Iran only limiting its capability, but not dismantling it or rolling it back. What do we get? We get an alarm bell should they decide to violate their commitments, and a system for inspections to verify their compliance. That, in my view, is a far cry from ‘dismantling.’
“I recall in the early days of the Administration's overtures to Iran, asking Secretary of State, John Kerry, at a meeting of Senators, about dismantling Arak, Iran's plutonium reactor. His response was swift and certain. He said: ‘They will either dismantle it or we will destroy it.’
“I remember that our understanding was that the Fordow facility was to be closed – that it was not necessary for a peaceful civilian nuclear program to have an underground enrichment facility. That the Iranians would have to come absolutely clean about their weaponization activities at Parchin and agree to promise anytime anywhere inspections.
“We now know all of that fell by the wayside. But what we cannot dismiss is that we have now abandoned our long-held policy of preventing nuclear proliferation and are now embarked – not on preventing nuclear proliferation – but on managing or containing it -- which leaves us with a far less desirable, less secure, and less certain world order. So, I am deeply concerned that this is a significant shift in our nonproliferation policy, and about what it will mean in terms of a potential arms race in an already dangerous region.
“While I have many specific concerns about this agreement, my overarching concern is that it requires no dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and only mothballs that infrastructure for 10 years. Not even one centrifuge will be destroyed under this agreement. Fordow will be repurposed, and Arak redesigned.
“The fact is -- everyone needs to understand what this agreement does and does not do so that they can determine whether providing Iran permanent relief in exchange for short-term promises is a fair trade.
“This deal does not require Iran to destroy or fully decommission a single uranium enrichment centrifuge. In fact, over half of Iran’s currently operating centrifuges will continue to spin at its Natanz facility. The remainder, including more than 5,000 operating centrifuges and nearly 10,000 not yet functioning, will merely be disconnected and transferred to another hall at Natanz, where they could be quickly reinstalled to enrich uranium.
“And yet we, along with our allies, have agreed to lift the sanctions and allow billions of dollars to flow back into Iran’s economy. We lift sanctions, but -- even during the first 10 years of the agreement -- Iran will be allowed to continue R&D activity on a range of centrifuges – allowing them to improve their effectiveness over the course of the agreement.
“Clearly, the question is: What do we get from this agreement in terms of what we originally sought? We lift sanctions, and -- at year eight -- Iran can actually start manufacturing and testing advanced IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges that enrich up to 15 times the speed of its current models. At year 15, Iran can start enriching uranium beyond 3.67 percent – the level at which we become concerned about fissile material for a bomb. At year 15, Iran will have NO limits on its uranium stockpile.
“This deal grants Iran permanent sanctions relief in exchange for only temporary – temporary -- limitations on its nuclear program – not a rolling-back, not dismantlement, but temporary limitations. At year ten, the UN Security Council Resolution will disappear along with the dispute resolution mechanism needed to snapback UN sanctions and the 24-day mandatory access provision for suspicious sites in Iran.
“The deal enshrines for Iran, and in fact commits the international community to assisting Iran in developing an industrial-scale nuclear power program, complete with industrial scale enrichment. While I understand that this program will be subject to Iran's obligations under theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, I think it fails to appreciate Iran's history of deception in its nuclear program and its violations of the NPT.
“It will, in the long run, make it much harder to demonstrate that Iran's program is not in fact being used for peaceful purposes because Iran will have legitimate reasons to have advanced centrifuges and a robust enrichment program. We will then have to demonstrate that its intention is dual-use and not justified by its industrial nuclear power program.
“What we get in return for removing sanctions is an inspection and verification regime of Iran's somewhat-diminished, but still existent nuclear program, for which we will have to depend on Iranian compliance and performance for years to come.
“A significant part of that performance is dictated by an Additional Protocol of the IAEA agreement that ensures access to suspect sites in a country. But Iran has agreed only to provisionally apply the Additional Protocol if Congress has abolished all sanctions. This could mean that if Iran has been sanctioned for violations of the agreement, Iran won’t even have to seek ratification of the Additional Protocol until those sanctions have been lifted – regardless of Iran’s full compliance.
“This is hardly an ironclad commitment on which to base our right to inspect suspicious facilities. Of course if the Iranians violate the agreement and try to make a dash for a nuclear bomb, our solace will be that we will have a year's notice instead of the present 3 months. So in reality we have purchased a very expensive alarm system. Maybe we’ll have an additional nine months, but with much greater consequences in the enemy we might face at that time.
“But what happens in the interim? Within about a year of Iran meeting its initial obligations, Iran will receive sanctions relief to the tune of $100-150 billion in the release of frozen assets, as well as renewed oil sales of another million barrels a day, as well as relief from sectoral sanctions in the petrochemical, shipping, shipbuilding, port sectors, gold and other precious metals, and software and automotive sectors.
“Iran will also benefit from the removal of designated entities including major banks, shipping companies, oil and gas firms from the U.S. Treasury list of sanctioned entities.
‘Of the nearly 650 entities that have been designated by the U.S. Treasury for their role in Iran's nuclear and missile programs or for being controlled by the Government of Iran, more than 67 percent will be de-listed within 6-12 months,’ according to testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
“For Iran, all this relief comes likely within a year, even though its obligations stretch out for a decade or more.
“Considering the fact that it was President Rouhani, who after conducting his fiscal audit after his election, likely convinced the Ayatollah that Iran’s regime could not sustain itself under the sanctions, and knew that only a negotiated agreement would get Iran the relief it critically needed to sustain the regime and the revolution, the negotiating leverage was, and still is, greatly on our side. However, the JCPOA in paragraph 26 of the Sanctions heading of the agreement, says:
‘The U.S. Administration, acting consistently with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from re-introducing or reimposing sanctions specified in Annex II, that it has ceased applying under this JCPOA.’
“I repeat, we will have to refrain from reintroducing or reimposing the Iran Sanctions Act I authored – which expires next year -- that brought Iran to the table in the first place. In two hearings, I asked Treasury Secretary Lew and Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman whether we in Congress have the right to reauthorize sanctions to have something to snapback to, and neither would answer the question, saying only that it was ‘too early’ to discuss reauthorization.
“But, I did get my answer from the Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations who, in a letter dated July 25, 2015, said:
‘It is clearly spelled out in the JCPOA that both the European Union and the United States will refrain from reintroducing or reimposing the sanctions and restrictive measures lifted under the JCPOA. It is understood the reintroduction or reimposition, including through extension of the sanctions and restrictive measures will constitute significant nonperformance which would relieve Iran from its commitments in part or in whole.’
“If anything is a ‘fantasy’ about this agreement it is the belief that snapback, without congressionally-mandated sanctions, with EU sanctions gone, and companies from around the world doing permissible business in Iran, will have any real effect.
“The Administration cannot argue sanction policy both ways. Either they were effective in getting Iran to the negotiating table or they were not. Sanctions are either a deterrent to break-out, or a violation of the agreement, or they are not.
“In retrospect, my one regret throughout this process is that I did not proceed with the Menendez-Kirk prospective sanctions legislation that would have provided additional leverage during the negotiations and would have also provided additional leverage in any possible post-agreement nullification by them or by us.
“Frankly, in my view, the overall sanctions relief being provided, given the Iranian’s understanding of restrictions on the reauthorization of sanctions, along with the lifting of the arms and missile embargo well before Iranian compliance over years is established, leaves us in a weak position, and – to me – is unacceptable.
“As the largest State Sponsor of Terrorism, Iran – who has exported its revolution to Assad in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and directed and supported attacks against American troops in Iraq -- will be flush with money, not only to invest in their domestic economy, but to further pursue their destabilizing, hegemonic goals in the region. If Iran can afford to destabilize the region with an economy staggering under sanctions and rocked by falling oil prices, what will Iran and the Quds Force do when they have a cash infusion of more than 20 percent of their GDP -- the equivalent of an infusion of $3.4 trillion into our economy?
“If there is a fear of war in the region, it is fueled by Iran and its proxies and exacerbated by an agreement that allows Iran to possess an industrial-sized nuclear program, and enough money in sanctions relief to continue to fund its hegemonic intentions throughout the region. Imagine how a country like the United Arab Emirates – sitting just miles away from Iran across the straits of Hormuz feels after they sign a civilian nuclear agreement with the U.S., considered to be the gold standard, to not enrich or reprocess uranium? What do our friends think when we give our enemies a pass while holding them to the gold standard? Who should they trust?
“Which brings me to another major concern with the JCPOA, namely the issue of Iran coming clean about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program. For well over a decade, the world has been concerned about the secret weaponization efforts Iran conducted at the military base called Parchin.The goal that we have long sought, along with the international community, is to know what Iran accomplished at Parchin -- not necessarily to get Iran to declare culpability -- but to determine how far along they were in their nuclear weaponization program so that we know what signatures to look for in the future.
“David Albright, a physicist and former nuclear weapons inspector, and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, has said, ‘Addressing the IAEA's concerns about the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programs is fundamental to any long term agreement… an agreement that sidesteps the military issues would risk being unverifiable.’ The reason he says that ‘an agreement that sidesteps the military issues would be unverifiable,’ is because it makes a difference if you are 90 percent down the road in your weaponization efforts or only ten percent advanced. How far advanced Iran’s weaponizing abilities are has a significant impact on what Iran’s breakout time to an actual deliverable weapon will be.
“In a report to the U.N. Security Council, by a panel of experts, established pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, the experts state The Islamic Republic of Iran possesses two variants of ballistic missiles that, according to experts, are believed to be potentially capable of delivering nuclear weapons. One, the Ghada missile, is a variant of liquid-fuel Shahab-3, with a range of approximately 1,600km. The other is the solid-fuel Sejil missile, with a range of about 2,000km. To put that in perspective, the Ghada missile has a 650 mile range which puts Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, India, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen in their sites.
“The Sejil missile has a 1,250 mile rage which includes Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Nepal, Romania, Serbia, Somalia, and Sudan.
“With so much at stake, the IAEA -- after waiting over ten years to inspect Parchin, speak to Iranian nuclear scientists, and review additional materials and documents -- are now told they will not have direct access to Parchin. The list of scientists the P5+1 wanted the IAEA to interview were rejected outright by Iran, and they are now given three months to do all of their review and analysis before they must deliver a report in December of this year. How the inspections and soil and other samples are to be collected are outlined in two secret agreements that the U.S. Congress is not privy to. The answer as to why we cannot see those documents, is because they have a confidentiality agreement between the IAEA and Iran, which they say ‘is customary,’ but this issue is anything but customary.
“If Iran can violate its obligations for more than a decade, it can't then be allowed to avail themselves of the same provisions and protections they violated in the first place. We have to ask: Why would our negotiators decide to negotiate access to other IAEA documents, but not these documents? Maybe the reason, as some members of Congress and public reports have raised, is because it will be the Iranians and not the IAEA performing the tests and providing the samples to be analyzed, which would be the equivalent of having an athlete accused of using performance enhancing drugs submit an unsupervised urine sample to the appropriate authority. Chain of custody doesn't matter when the evidence given to you is prepared by the perpetrator.
“So in five months, we seek to resolve a major issue that has taken the better part of a decade to have access to, and with a highly questionable inspection regime as a solution. And, according to an AP story of August 14th – and I quote:
‘They say the agency will be able to report in December. But that assessment is unlikely to be unequivocal because chances are slim that Iran will present all the evidence the agency wants, or give it the total freedom of movement it needs to follow-up the allegations. Still, the report is expected to be approved by the IAEA's board, which includes the United States and other powerful nations that negotiated the July 14 agreement. They do not want to upend their July 14 deal, and will see the December report as closing the books on the issue.’
“It would seem to me that what we are doing is sweeping this critical issue under the rug.
“Secretary Kerry has said that, ‘We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in,’ yet, for years we have insisted on getting access to Parchin and acquiring the knowledge we need to know.
“General Hayden, the former CIA Director, said, ‘I'd like to see the DNI or any intelligence office repeat that for me. They won't. What he is saying is that we don't care how far they've gotten with weaponization. We're betting the farm on our ability to limit the production of fissile material.’ Now, if they want to make that bet, they can, but the Administration should level with us and not insist revelations of PMD are unimportant. Instead General Hayden says, ‘he's pretending we have perfect knowledge about something that was an incredibly tough intelligence target while I was director and I see nothing that has made it any easier.’
“For me, the administration's willingness to forgo a critical element of Iran's weaponization -- past and present -- is inexplicable. Our willingness to accept this process on Parchin is only exacerbated by the inability to obtain anytime, anywhere inspections, which the Administration always held out as one of those essential elements we would insist on and could rely on in any deal. Instead, we have a dispute resolution mechanism that shifts the burden of proof to the U.S. and its partners, to provide sensitive intelligence, possibly revealing our sources and the methods by which we collected the information and allow the Iranians to delay access for nearly a month, a delay that would allow them to remove evidence of a violation, particularly when it comes to centrifuge research-and-development, and weaponization efforts that can be easily hidden and would leave little or no signatures.
“The Administration suggests that -- other than Iraq -- no country was subjected to anytime, anywhere inspections. But Iran's defiance of the world's position, as recognized in a series of U.N. Security Council Resolutions, does not make it ‘any other country.’ It is their violations of the NPT and the Security Council Resolutions that created the necessity for a unique regime and for anytime, anywhere inspections.
“Mark Dubowitz, the widely-respected sanctions expert from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has said:
‘For Secretary Kerry to claim we have absolute knowledge of Iran's weaponization activities is to assume a level of U.S. intelligence capability that defies historical experience. That's why he, President Obama, Undersecretary Sherman and IAEA chief Amano all have made PMD resolution such an essential condition of any nuclear deal.’
“He goes on to say:
‘The U.S. track record in detecting and stopping countries from going nuclear should make Kerry more modest in his claims and assumptions. The U.S. missed the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Washington underestimated Saddam's program in 1990. Then it overestimated his program in 2003 and went to war to stop a nonexistent WMD program.’
“It is precisely because of this track record that permitting Iran to have the size and scope of an industrialized nuclear program, permitted under the JCPOA is one of the great flaws of the agreement.
“If what President Obama's statement, in his NPR interview of April 7th, 2015, that ‘a more relevant fear would be that in year 13, 14, 15 they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero’ – is true, then it seems to me that -- in essence -- this deal does nothing more than kick today's problem down the road for ten-15 years, and, at the same time, undermines the arguments and evidence we'll need, because of the dual-use nature of their program, to convince the Security Council and the international community to take action.
“President Obama continues to erroneously say that this agreement permanently stops Iran from having a nuclear bomb. Let’s be clear, what the agreement does is to recommit Iran not to pursue a nuclear bomb, a promise they have already violated in the past. It recommits them to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement they have already violated in the past. It commits them to a new Security Council Resolution outlining their obligations, but they have violated those in the past as well.
“So the suggestion of permanence, in this case, is only possible for so long as Iran complies and performs according to the agreement because the bottom line is that this agreement leaves Iran with the core element of a robust nuclear infrastructure.
“The fact is -- success is not a question of Iran's conforming and performing according to the agreement. If that was all that was needed – if Iran had abided by its commitments all along -- we wouldn't be faced with this challenge now. The test of success must be -- if Iran violates the agreement and attempts to break-out -- how well we will be positioned to deal with Iran -- at that point. Trying to reassemble the sanctions regime, including the time to give countries and companies notice of sanctionable activity, which had been permissible up to then, would take-up most of the breakout time, assuming we could even get compliance after significant national and private investments had taken place. That indeed would be a ‘fantasy.’
“So the suggestion of ‘permanency’ in stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon depends on ‘performance.’ Based on the long history of Iran's broken promises, defiance and violations, that is hopeful. Significant dismantlement, however, would establish ‘performance,’ and therefore the threat of the capability to develop a nuclear weapon would truly be permanent, and any attempt to rebuild that infrastructure would give the world far more time than one year.
“The President and Secretary Kerry have repeatedly said that the choice is between this agreement or war. I reject that proposition, as have most witnesses, including past and present Administration members involved in the Iran nuclear issue, who have testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who support the deal but reject the binary choice between the agreement or war.
“If the P5+1 had not achieved an agreement, would we be at war with Iran? I don't believe that.
“For all those who have said they have not heard -- from anyone who opposes the Agreement – a better solution, they’re wrong. I believe there is a pathway to a better deal.
“Advocates of the deal argue that a good deal that would have dismantled critical elements of Iran's nuclear infrastructure isn’t attainable – that the Iranians were tough negotiators -- and that despite our massive economic leverage and the weight of the international community we couldn’t buy more than 10 years of inspection and verification in exchange for permanent sanctions relief, and for revoking Iran’s pariah status. I don’t believe that.
“It is difficult to believe that the world's greatest powers, the U.S., Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union, sitting on one side of the table, and Iran sitting alone on the other side, staggering from sanctions and rocked by plummeting oil prices, could not have achieved some level of critical dismantlement.
“I believe we should have insisted on meeting the requirements we know are necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon today and in ten years, or we should have been prepared to walk away.
“I believe we could still get a better deal and here’s how: We can disapprove this agreement, without rejecting the entire agreement.
“We should direct the Administration to re-negotiate by authorizing the continuation of negotiations and the Joint Plan of Action – including Iran’s $700 million-a-month lifeline, which to date have accrued to Iran's benefit to the tune of $10 billion, and pausing further reductions of purchases of Iranian oil and other sanctions pursuant to the original JPOA. I’m even willing to consider authorizing a sweetener – a one-time release of a predetermined amount of funds – as a good faith down payment on the negotiations.
“We can provide specific parameters for the Administration to guide their continued negotiations and ensure that a new agreement does not run afoul of Congress. A continuation of talks would allow the re-consideration of just a few, but a critical few issues, including:
“First, the immediate ratification by Iran of the Additional Protocol to ensure that we have a permanent international arrangement with Iran for access to suspect sites.
“Second, a ban on centrifuge R&D for the duration of the agreement to ensure that Iran won’t have the capacity to quickly breakout, just as the U.N. Security Council Resolution and sanctions snapback is off the table.
“Third, close the Fordow enrichment facility. The sole purpose of Fordow was to harden Iran’s nuclear program to a military attack. We need to close the facility and foreclose Iran’s future ability to use this facility. If Iran has nothing to hide they shouldn’t need to put it under a mountain.
“Fourth, the full resolution of the ‘possible military dimensions’ of Iran’s program. We need an arrangement that isn’t set up to whitewash this issue. Iran and the IAEA must resolve the issue before permanent sanctions relief, and failure of Iran to cooperate with a comprehensive review should result in automatic sanctions snapback.
“Fifth, extend the duration of the agreement. One of the single most concerning elements of the deal is its 10-15 year sunset of restrictions on Iran’s program, with off ramps starting after year eight. We were promised an agreement of significant duration and we got less than half of what we are looking for. Iran should have to comply for as long as they deceived the world's position, so at least 20 years.
“And sixth, we need agreement now about what penalties will be collectively imposed by the P5+1 for Iranian violations, both small and midsized, as well as a clear statement as to the so-called grandfather clause in paragraph 37 of the JCPOA, to ensure that the U.S. position about not shielding contracts entered into legally upon re-imposition of sanctions is shared by our allies.
“At the same time we should: Extend the authorization of the Iran Sanctions Act which expires in 2016 to ensure that we have an effective snapback option; Consider licensing the strategic export of American oil to allied countries struggling with supply because Iranian oil remains off the market; Immediately implement the security measures offered to our partners in the Gulf Summit at Camp David, while preserving Israel's qualitative military edge.
“The President should unequivocally affirm and Congress should formally endorse a Declaration of U.S. Policy that we will use all means necessary to prevent Iran from producing enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, as well as building or buying one, both during and after any agreement. We should authorize now the means for Israel to address the Iranian threat on their own in the event that Iran accelerates its program and to counter Iranian perceptions that our own threat to use force is not credible. And we should make it absolutely clear that we want a deal, but we want the right deal -- and that a deal that does nothing more than delay the inevitable isn’t a deal we will make.
“We must send a message to Iran that neither their regional behavior nor nuclear ambitions are permissible. If we push back regionally, they will be less likely to test the limits of our tolerance towards any violation of a nuclear agreement.
“The agreement that has been reached failed to achieve the one thing it set out to achieve – it failed to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state at a time of its choosing. In fact, it authorizes and supports the very road map Iran will need to arrive at its target.
“I know that the Administration will say that our P5+1 partners will not follow us, that the sanctions regime will collapse and that they will allow Iran to proceed, as if they weren't worried about Iran crossing the nuclear- weapons capability threshold. I heard similar arguments from Secretary Kerry, when he was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Assistant Secretary of Treasury David Cohen and others, when I was leading the charge to impose new sanctions on Iran.
“That didn't happen then and I don't believe it will happen now. Despite what some of our P5+1 Ambassadors have said in trying to rally support for the agreement, and echoing the Administration's admonition, that it is a take it or leave it proposition, our P5+1 partners will still be worried about Iran's nuclear weapon desires and the capability to achieve it. They, and the businesses from their countries, and elsewhere, will truly care more about their ability to do business in a U.S. economy of $17 trillion than an Iranian economy of $415 billion. The importance of that economic relationship is palpable as we negotiate TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement.
“At this juncture it is important to note that, over history, Congress has rejected outright or demanded changes to more than 200 treaties and international agreements, including 80 that were multilateral.
“Whether or not the supporters of the agreement admit it, this deal is based on ‘hope’-- hope that when the nuclear sunset clause expires Iran will have succumbed to the benefits of commerce and global integration. Hope that the hardliners will have lost their power and the revolution will end its hegemonic goals. And hope that the regime will allow the Iranian people to decide their fate.
“Hope is part of human nature, but unfortunately it is not a national security strategy.
“The Iranian regime, led by the Ayatollah, wants above all to preserve the regime and its Revolution, unlike the Green Revolution of 2009. So it stretches incredulity to believe they signed on to a deal that would in any way weaken the regime or threaten the goals of the Revolution.
“I understand that this deal represents a trade-off, a hope that things may be different in Iran in ten-15 years. Maybe Iran will desist from its nuclear ambitions. Maybe they'll stop exporting and supporting terrorism. Maybe they'll stop holding innocent Americans hostage. Maybe they'll stop burning American flags. And maybe their leadership will stop chanting, “Death to America" in the streets of Tehran. Or maybe they won't.
“I know that, in many respects, it would be far easier to support this deal, as it would have been to vote for the war in Iraq at the time. But I didn't choose the easier path then, and I’m not going to now. I know that the editorial pages that support the agreement would be far kinder, if I voted yes, but they largely also supported the agreement that brought us a nuclear North Korea.
“At moments like this, I am reminded of the passage in John F. Kennedy's book, ‘Profile in Courage,’ where he wrote:
"’The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people - faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but will also elect men (and I would parenthetically add woman) who will exercise their conscientious judgment - faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor, and ultimately recognize right.’
He said:
“‘In whatever arena in life one may meet the challenges of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.’
“I have looked into my own soul and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course, but if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it.
“It is for these reasons that I will vote to disapprove the agreement and, if called upon, would vote to override a veto.
“Thank you. May God Bless these United States of America.”
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Elder of Ziyon















