02/24 Links Pt1: Iran rewards 'intifada martyrs'; Hillary: Palestinians Should Emulate Arafat’s ‘Peace of the Brave’ ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Hillary Emails: Palestinians Should Emulate Terrorism Pioneer Arafat’s ‘Peace of the Brave’

Correspondence contained in the latest batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails released by the State Department on Friday and reviewed by Breitbart Jerusalem may provide a window into the Obama administration’s thinking when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The email recommends that the Palestinians return to the “peace of the brave” rhetoric utilized by PLO Leader Yasser Arafat. The staunch militant, who helped pioneer terrorism as a political tactic, was famous for referencing the “peace of the brave” to foreign audiences while supporting the destruction of Israel in Arabic and allowing his various militias to carry out terrorist attacks against the Jewish state.
The September 23, 2012 email was sent to Clinton from her then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, who currently serves as the top foreign policy advisor to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The dispatch provides a summary of a 14-point Israeli-Palestinian peace plan devised by a “Dennis,” presumably a misspelling of Denis McDonough, President Obama’s then-Deputy National Security Advisor. McDonough is currently White House Chief of Staff.

Iran offers financial reward for families of potential Palestinian 'intifada martyrs'

The Islamic Republic of Iran announced on Wednesday its support for the "Jerusalem intifada" that Israel has been witnessing for the past five months, declaring that it would give financial rewards to families of Palestinian terrorists.
Speaking at a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, with the participation of several leaders of Palestinian factions, Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said: "Continuing Iran's support for the oppressed Palestinian people, Iran announces the provision of financial aid to families of Palestinian martyrs who were killed in the "Jerusalem intifada."
According to the ambassador, every family of a martyr will receive $7,000, while a family whose home was demolished by the IDF will receive $30,000. The aid will be conveyed through the Palestinian branch of the Shahid Institution, which was established in Iran in 1992.
Fathali called on the Arab Muslim nation to unite around the central Palestinian issue and said that "the martyrs' blood will release the entire Palestine, from the river to the sea."

Arab League chief calls on Palestinians to engage in civil disobedience against Israel

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby called on Palestinians to "think out of the box" and engage in civil disobedience against Israel in order to put an end the "Israeli occupation," Egyptian media reported on Tuesday.
Speaking at a meeting of the Yasser Arafat Foundation at the headquarters of the Arab League on Tuesday, Elaraby claimed that "Israel is trying to break the will of the Palestinian people" amid the great challenges the Arab world is facing.
In addition, Elaraby said that "we must not forget that the indiscriminate killing of civilians the world is witnessing today started in the Middle East with the terror exerted by the Jewish clandestine organization which blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, indiscriminately killing about 90 people."
Relating to the deadlock in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, Elaraby emphasized the importance of supporting the BDS movement, claiming that it might put an end to Israeli settlement activities. He also said: "We must think out of the box and consider the option of civil disobedience, used by Gandhi to put an end to the British colonialism in India.”
Although sounding these anti-Israeli statements, Elaraby was accused of collaborating with Israel after declaring on Monday that the Russian aerial campaign does not violate international law since it is based on a request from the Syrian government.

Eliav Gelman, 30, father of 2, named as friendly fire victim

An Israeli soldier killed Wednesday by errant IDF gunfire during a Palestinian stabbing attack at the Etzion Junction was identified as Eliav Gelman, 30, an Air Force captain in the Israeli army’s reserve corps. He was on his way home from his base when attacked.
According to an initial investigation of the incident, Gelman was attacked by a Palestinian man, 26-year-old Mamduh Amro, while standing at a bus stop at the junction at approximately 12:15 p.m.
Amro, a teacher from the village of Dura near Hebron, jumped on Gelman and may have succeeded in stabbing him before soldiers nearby opened fire.
“IDF forces at the scene responded and in order to thwart the attack fired toward the assailant. Initial investigation suggests that Captain Gelman was injured as a result of the fire,” an army statement said. Gelman was in uniform when the attack occurred, the army said.

Possible Jerusalem attack thwarted: Two pipe bombs found at Herod's Gate

Security forces prevented a possible attack Wednesday after locating two pipe bombs and ammunition during searches at Herod's Gate, which leads to the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, police reported.
Police said two suspects in their 40s have been arrested.
Sappers were called to the scene and neutralized the explosive devices.
Jerusalem Police deploy dozens of officers in and around the gates to the Old City.
There are currently around 4,000 police patrolling Jerusalem – including around 2,000 Border Policeman – as well as around 600 police from around the country sent in as reinforcements.

Suspect nabbed in stabbing of Jewish woman in Bedouin town

The Israel Police and Shin Bet security agency announced Wednesday that they had caught the suspected perpetrator of a February 6 terror attack in which a Jewish woman was stabbed in the Bedouin town of Rahat.
The victim, Shlomit Gonen, 65, a grandmother from nearby Kibbutz Mishmar Hanegev, was shopping with family members in the town’s open market. She sustained moderate injuries to her neck in the attack and was hospitalized.
The attacker fled, leading police to launch a manhunt including roadblocks and patrols.
In the end, forensic evidence from the crime scene led to the suspect’s arrest on February 10, statements from the police and Shin Bet said.

Israel won’t demolish homes of families who turn in terrorists

In a marked departure from policy to date, Israel has decided that Palestinian terrorists’ families who turn the killers in to security forces will be able to save their homes from demolition, Channel 2 news reported Tuesday.
The government thus adopted the recommendation of new Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit who, in one of his first decisions in the position, said Israel should spare the house of Shadi Ahmad Matua of Hebron, because the gunman’s father had handed him in to the Shin Bet security agency.
Though officials initially balked at the precedent-setting move, they were persuaded to accept Mandelblit’s position, according to Channel 2.
Matua, aged 28 and married with two children, is accused of killing Rabbi Isaac Litman, 40, and his 18-year-old son Netanel in a shooting attack in November. His father and brother turned him in shortly afterwards, fearing their home would be demolished in retribution.

The media is twisting the knife into Israel over the 'lone wolf intifada'

Nearly five months have passed since the “Lone Wolves Intifada” began in Israel, characterised by near-daily stabbings, stonings and car-rammings. Palestinian terrorists have succeeded in killing nearly thirty Israelis and injuring countless others. As Israelis have confronted this violent upsurge, however, parts of the international media have been rubbing salt into the knife wounds. On too many occasions, headlines have appeared to totally ignore the acts of terrorism themselves, leading instead with the deaths of the terrorists neutralised in the course of committing these crimes – while presenting them, acontextually, as innocents rather than attempted murderers.
The false impression given to the reader is that Israel’s security forces are arbitrarily and summarily executing Palestinians – instead of taking necessary action in self-defence to stop terrorist atrocities in real time. This is pernicious and defamatory. It is also poor journalism. In the name of professionalism and basic decency, it must stop.
On the night of 3 October 2015, in Jerusalem’s Old City, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed four Israelis (including a two-year old infant), killing two. He then opened fire at police officers, and was shot dead in response. The BBC then ran the galling headline “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two”, neglecting to indicate that the same Palestinian, and not the disembodied "Jerusalem attack”, had in fact killed two. After subsequent complaints, the headline was finally changed to the more accurate “Jerusalem: Palestinian kills two Israelis in Old City”.

Reuters Relays Palestinian Claims as Fact

A Reuters article about the demolition of the homes of 2 Palestinian terrorists who murdered several innocent civilians -- Israelis, an American and a Palestinian -- adopted the Palestinian position about recent violence.
While the article presented both the Israeli claim that such demolitions serve as a deterrence to would-be terrorists and the Palestinian claim that the demolitions are collective punishment, when it came to explaining the recent wave of Palestinian terrorist stabbings, shootings, slayings and rioting, the article relayed the Palestinian position as fact, not claim. It asserted that:
The recent violence has been stoked by various factors, including a dispute over Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound and the failure of several rounds of peace talks to secure the Palestinians an independent state in Israeli-occupied territory.
This indirect shifting of the blame for violence onto Israel may be what the Palestinian leadership claims, but it is not what the Israeli leadership believes and is certainly not a given fact, as the article suggests. It is not an agreed upon fact that the failure of peace talks is what motivates terrorists to kill innocent cvilians, or that Israelis visiting the "al Aqsa mosque compound" has caused Palestinians to attack Israelis with knives and guns. Indeed, Israelis view the "al Aqsa mosque compound", otherwise known as "The Temple Mount," as the holiest site in Judaism and they cling to their right under the status quo to visit, just like members of any other faith. Israelis do not see this as the issue stoking Palestinian violence, despite efforts by the Palestinian leadership to claim it is.

CAMERA Notes Palestinian Incitement in Washington Times

(An abbreviated version of this letter to the editor was published in The Washington Times on Feb. 22, 2016)
“Asma' Jawabreh's interesting report “Palestinians admit to working with Israel to foil attacks,” (Feb. 16) unfortunately omits Palestinian Authority (PA) incitement and rejectionism and downplays anti-Jewish violence.
The article repeats Hamas claims that terrorist attacks against Israelis are a “bloody struggle for independence.” In fact, what Hamas really wants—according to its own charter—is the destruction of the Jewish state and the genocide of its Jewish inhabitants. Lack of a Palestinian state is not why Hamas targets and murders Israelis, as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh admitted in a Jan. 19, 2016 speech: “This intifada is not the result of despair. This intifada is a jihad, a holy war fought by the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupation. Only a holy war will drive the occupier out of Palestine.”
Hamas has made clear that the so-called “occupation” and “Palestine” is in fact all of modern-day Israel.
The report notes comments by PA Intelligence head Majir Faraj that are critical of the ongoing “stabbing intifada.” But it fails to mention that other PA officials—including Mr. Faraj's boss—have incited the very violence Faraj claims he condemns—and done so in ways not dissimilar from Hamas.

Shocker: Leftists help Arabs steal Jewish land

Leftists from the NGO Ta'ayush, which operates in close cooperation with Rabbis for Human Rights, regularly prod and instruct Arabs on how to steal Jewish land, a new exposé revealed Wednesday.
The video, available only in Hebrew at the moment, is the latest in a series of exposés by nationalist group Ad Kan, which infiltrated leftist groups over a three-year period and which – since mid-January – has been releasing videos based on hidden camera footage it obtained during that time.
It shows a sophisticated method for preventing the state from reclaiming land that was allocated, in the past, to some of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria for cultivation purposes only. The land does not belong to these Arabs, and reverts to full state ownership if they fail to cultivate the land for several years. Ta'ayush seeks to transfer these plots to full Arab ownership.
Prof. Amiel Vardi, Head of the Classical Studies Department in Hebrew University and one of the heads of Ta'ayush, explained on hidden camera how the system works.
At first, he says, Ta'ayush's activists find the plots of land that they wish to "work" on. They then consult the legal department of Rabbis for Human Rights, which tells them what legal documents they need to obtain in order to claim the land.

Thinking the unthinkable: What if the Palestinian Arabs don’t want a state of their own?

The West Bank, which is still ruled by the PA, has not experienced a similar fate to that of Gaza due primarily to the presence of the Israeli security services.
Otherwise, the leadership of the PA might have been brutally killed, as their Fatah brothers were in Gaza.
It might be argued that an independent Palestinian state could have been established in the West Bank and Gaza had the Palestinian Arabs been willing to reach a fair and balanced compromise with Israel. The late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the late Jordanian king Hussein have shown clearly and unequivocally that once the Israelis are convinced of their enemies’ sincere wish to live in peace, public opinion suddenly supports compromises hitherto deemed to be unacceptable.
So, maybe the obstacle to an agreement is in essence the refusal of the Palestinian Arabs to have a state of their own, and not only to live side by side with a Jewish state? Contrary to what we were led to believe, the Palestinian Arabs perhaps prefer to remain under the international spotlight, as stars in the diplomatic arena, portraying themselves as permanent victims of Israeli oppression and enjoying unprecedented backing world-wide. They do not wish to leap into the unknown. They are not willing to assume sovereign responsibility, with all the difficulties that it entails.
Maybe, after all, the Palestinian Arabs prefer to be a central cause in international diplomacy rather than run the risk of becoming a marginal state?

Comment: Slashed US funding for missile defense systems threatens Israel's security

While responsible fiscal management is definitely a serious and legitimate concern in the United States a serious debate is needed on investment in missile defense. What was once dismissed as fantasy has become reality. The men and women behind these programs have done what was once thought to be impossible: they can now consistently hit a bullet with another bullet.
Next month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington for the annual AIPAC Policy Conference. Reports say it is possible he will meet with President Barack Obama during that trip. If so, high on the agenda would be negotiating future US military aid to Israel. Reports published in this newspaper and others say Netanyahu is hoping for a commitment of $40 billion over 10 years. That’s about $10b. more than over the previous decade.
Hopefully some of that money will offset the drop in the 2017 US military budget that would have gone to missile defense. And hopefully US budget planners in the Obama administration and at the Pentagon will find more money for missile defense to protect the US and its allies as well.
Investment and the advancement of anti-missile technology make both civilians and soldiers safer and saves the Israeli and American governments money now and in the long run. Missile defense gives our leaders more time to make the best decisions and gives them more choices in dealing with Iran, North Korea and anyone else who rises up to challenge freedom and democracy.
Israel, with American help, has proven the investment in missile defense pays off.
It should be clear to the United States and all Americans that in an increasingly dangerous world with missile proliferation rampant it is more important than ever to give our leaders more options to protect our cities and our allies.

Sweden increases financial support for Palestinians

Sweden has increased its annual contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) to $40.6 million, UNWRA announced in a statement released on Tuesday.
Sweden has provided more than $693 million dollars since 1993 and is considered one of the top donor states to the UN organization.
“The decision to increase our core funding to UNRWA shows the great importance that Sweden attaches to the Agency and its work for Palestine refugees,” said Sweden's Consul-General Ann-Sofie Nilsson.
"In times of financial and political uncertainty for Palestine refugees, Sweden’s constant support is critical," read the UNWRA statement.

France condemns IDF demolition of illegal Beduin school it funded

The French Foreign Ministry condemned the Civil Administration’s demolition of a newly constructed illegal modular school it had funded in an encampment of Jahalin Beduin in Area C of the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem.
The school, which was funded by French humanitarian aid, had been placed in the encampment over the weekend and was immediately demolished before it could be used by pupils on Sunday morning.
The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said that it had demolished four caravans that were placed illegally and without permits on Friday and were taken down Saturday night. The encampment, which is also unauthorized, is located in an unbuilt area of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement known as E1.
Israel wants to relocate the encampment to the nearby village of Abu Dis, also in Area C.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Consequences Are For Jews (satire)

By Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President
When I signed a slew of international treaties last year, making a big show of Palestinian legitimacy on the international stage, I had one more thing in mind: using those treaties as cudgels with which to strike Israel. It is by now a trope that Palestinian violations of international agreements and norms are met with shrugs and apologetics, whereas every violation by Israel invites a chorus of global condemnation. That’s because consequences aren’t for us Arabs and Muslims. Consequences are for Jews.
This familiar dynamic renders he Palestinian national movement effectively immune from international opprobrium, and we exploit it shamelessly. When was the last time the UN Security or Human Rights Councils called for an investigation into Palestinian terrorism? Yet Israel’s policies toward us are a permanent agenda item. We can literally do no wrong, no matter how wrong the things we do. Consequences are for Jews.
I hope you haven’t been holding your breath waiting for human rights activists and liberal academics to call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Palestinians for the awful way we treat our own people. Not Israelis – our own people! Suppression of political dissent, control of the press, torture of prisoners, imprisonment without trial – these are things my government does all the time, but no one seems to care. I mean, it does appear in some human rights organizations’ annual reports, but not in a way that anyone important notices. They’re far more interested in lesser Israeli crimes. You know why.
It does seem that all those people agitating for penalties against Israel care more about hurting the Jews than about helping Palestinians, since Palestinian workers will be the first to suffer in a struggling Israeli economy. But I suppose they have the same attitude toward hoi Palestinian polloi as I and my cronies do: they are pawns. Of course abusing and exploiting pawns has consequences. But guess who always ends up facing those consequences? Right again!

TIME: The Next War Between Israel and Hamas May Be Fought Underground

Tunnels are not a new threat. The Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by a militant who entered Israel using a tunnel in 2006. He was held for five years and freed only when Israel released 1,027 prisoners. At the height of the last war, the underground threat became real when 10 Hamas militants emerged from a tunnel in a wheat field on the periphery of Nir Am. They were disguised in Israeli army uniforms. Four Israeli soldiers were killed, and all 10 of the militants, in an exchange of fire.
That atmosphere of vulnerability intensified this year after a Jan. 29 funeral of seven diggers who were killed when winter rains allegedly caused five tunnels to collapse. “East of Gaza City, heroes are digging through rock and building tunnels, and to the west they are experimenting with rockets every day,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said at the funeral. While Hamas blamed their deaths on the heavy rain, when the Palestinian news agency Maan asked the Israeli army’s Coordination of the Government Activities in the Territories unit chief, General Yoav Mordecai, if Israel had a hand in the collapse of tunnels, he replied, “God knows.”
Hamas started digging tunnels immediately after the war ended in 2014 and says it has constructed more than 50 in that time. While Israel acknowledges that there are tunnels, it says these numbers are inflated. For Hamas, the purpose of these tunnels is simple: either to kidnap Israeli civilians in order to use them as leverage for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, or to attack Israelis and kill them.

Thoughtful Time Magazine Story Offers Insight on Looming Gaza Tunnel Campaign

So much of the news coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is tainted by bias and subjectivity. That is why it is notable when a major media outlet publishes an article on the topic that is informative and free from bias. Such was the case on Feb. 22, 2016 in Time Magazine. In "The Next War Between Israel and Hamas May Be Fought Underground," correspondent Kate Shuttleworth (with help from Mohammad al-Zaharna) provides readers with the facts and refreshing insight from interviews in Gaza about the looming danger.
Shuttleworth describes Hamas's expansive tunnel digging into Israel near the Gaza border in preparation for its next war with Israel. She manages to find unusually candid subjects to explore the diverging opinions among Gazans.
One of them, Mkhaimer Abusada, is a professor of political science at al-Azhar University in Gaza. Abusada "estimates that two-thirds of the Gazan population do not support another war with Israel," but admits there are many who do. According to Abusada,
“The Palestinian community in Gaza is divided — those affiliated with Hamas are very comfortable with the strategy of digging tunnels and developing missiles. Hamas creates an illusion that Israel will be defeated and that people will be able to pray in al-Aqsa mosque — people buy this fantasy.”
Abusada also asserts that building materials intended to help rebuild homes destroyed in the last round of fighting are diverted by Hamas to help in the construction of the tunnels.

Exposed: Police erase traffic tickets for Palestinians, tourists

The state comptroller, retired judge Yosef Shapira, has released a special audit on the establishment of an electronic camera system and the enforcement of traffic laws.
The report exposes a systematic failure that prevented the camera network from operating properly, despite the substantial resources invested in it. More seriously, Shapira revealed fundamental and ethical flaws in the way police treat tickets and indictments given to senior police officers.
It should first be mentioned that, already in 2005, the government approved the placement of 300 digital traffic cameras, known as Project A3. The camera system began functioning in March 2012. Its first goals were to increase road safety, reduce the number of fatalities, and improve the traffic culture by increasing the deterrence. Sadly, over the past few years there has been a significant increase in the number of traffic accidents.

Palestinian corruption chief claws back $70 million, more to recoup

The head of the Palestinian anti-corruption body says he has clawed back $70 million in five years but his investigators have failed to uncover evidence to justify allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars in government funds have gone missing.
Rafiq al-Natsheh, chairman of the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission, said "tens of millions of dollars" needed to be tracked down and that one of the biggest challenges facing his team was getting funds back that had disappeared abroad.
After years of talk of vast sums going astray - the attorney general of the Palestinian Authority announced in February 2006 that he was investigating 50 cases of embezzlement from the authority's budget totaling $700 million - President Mahmoud Abbas is under pressure from donors to show he is taking action.
The European Union and the United States, both of which provide direct budget support to the Palestinians, want to see tighter controls, with the Europeans going as far as to send investigators to track where some of their funds have gone.

Khaled Abu Toameh: ‘The town of Kabatiya will always be a fish bone stuck in Israel’s throat’

In February 1988, several weeks into the first intifada, hundreds of Palestinians dragged Mohamed Ayyad out of his home in the town of Kabatiya, bludgeoned him to death with rocks and knives, and hung his body atop an electricity pole.
Hours later, IDF soldiers raided the town, removed the body and arrested dozens of Palestinians on suspicion of participating in the lynching.
Since then Kabatiya, at the southern entrance to Jenin and home to some 35,000 Palestinians, has caused many sleepless nights for Israeli security personnel.
Earlier this month, the IDF returned to Kabatiya – this time following the stabbing and shooting attack carried out by three Palestinians outside Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, in which Border Police officer Hadar Cohen, 19, was killed.
Ayyad was the first “collaborator” killed in that intifada, murdered on suspicion of working for the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) since 1968. His lynching, which shocked Palestinians and Israelis alike, triggered a wave of killings that claimed the lives of nearly 1,300 “collaborators” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hamas police forces arrest public employee for criticizing Gazan government corruption

Hamas police forces arrested on Tuesday a Gazan public employee who criticized the movement, claiming that the Hamas-led government in Gaza is corrupt.
The employee, Rami Riyan, who works at Gaza's Interior Ministry, wrote a post on his Facebook page on February 11, criticizing the government in Gaza. In the post, Riyan attacked the Ministry of the Treasury for its decision to buy 36 cars for the directors general of the government amid the growing financial distress of Gaza's public employees who receive a very low salary.
The post read: "While public employees lack a loaf of bread to feed their children, the Ministry of the Treasury buys 36 cars for the directors general in the government to replace their old cars. How is it possible that you attribute greater importance to the conditions of directors general than to the empty stomach of an employee's child? How can we hear you expressing solidarity with us while we see these satanic actions?"

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas blasts Fatah official over threats to forcibly end its rule in Gaza

Hamas officials on Tuesday condemned senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub’s threats to use force to end Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, calling them “a direct threat to the Qatari efforts to end the division [between Fatah and Hamas].”
Rajoub, in an interview with the Egyptian news agency Asharq Alawsat, was quoted as saying there would be no more meetings between Fatah and Hamas officials in Qatar.
Representatives of the two sides met recently in Qatar in yet another bid to end their dispute and reach an agreement to form a Palestinian unity government.
Rajoub ruled out the possibility that the talks would lead to a “reconciliation” agreement between the two parties.
“Unfortunately, we hear statements from Hamas that prove that it has not changed its policies and continues to speak in the same old language,” Rajoub said.

The Moral Cost of Appeasing Iran

The leaders of both France and Italy set aside their values to appease the president of Iran.
In France, protesters demanded that President François Hollande challenge the Iranian president about his country's human rights abuses. France's leadership, however, raised no questions of that sort. Instead, Mr. Rouhani was welcomed as a superstar.
According to a 659-page report by Human Rights Watch, Iran's human rights violations under Mr. Rouhani's governance have been increasing. Social media users, artists and journalists face harsh sentences on dubious security charges.
In November, the Iranian Supreme Court upheld a criminal court ruling sentencing Soheil Arabi to death for Facebook posts "insulting the Prophet" and "corruption on earth."

Elliott Abrams: Salman Rushdie and Nuclear Weapons

This is the Iran we actually face, behind the smiling face of Foreign Minister Zarif as he poses with a smiling John Kerry.
Zarif doesn’t run Iran; the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards do. Iran is a country whose actual leadership thinks it fine and dandy to raise money publicly to murder the author of a book they don’t like. This is the Iran with which the P5+1 concluded a nuclear deal based in part on faith, rather than on the full disclosure of past nuclear weapons activities and the full openness to inspections that the Obama administration initially promised. But the regime’s own “faith” leads it to use government-run stations to raise money for murder.
It’s worth recalling the nature of this regime as it heads for “elections” in which the vast majority of possible candidates were ruled out and virtually every true reformer was forbidden to run. That should not be surprising, from the guys who are still trying to kill Salman Rushdie. And it is a reminder why this repressive and aggressive regime must at all costs be kept from developing nuclear weapons.

American Arrested by Iran is Denied Meeting with Lawyer

Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman who was arrested in October by the intelligence arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has been denied access to his lawyer, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, Namazi’s lawyer, told Reuters that he has not received permission from the head of Iran’s judiciary to meet with his client. This permission is necessary in cases involving crimes related to national security. Tabatabaei said that Namazi has not been informed of the charges against him.
The New York Times reported in November that Iranian authorities had grown increasingly anti-American and have cracked down harder on human rights in the wake of the nuclear deal last summer.

Iranian Army Chief Warns Parliamentary Candidates Against Maintaining US, UK Ties

Iran’s top brass warned candidates running in the current parliamentary elections to distance themselves from the United States and Britain, Tehran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Tuesday.
Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said the candidates who maintained their American and British ties would be marginalized.
Firouzabadi also accused US and UK media outlets of meddling in Iran’s elections — to be held on February 26 — by favoring certain candidates over others. He said such actions were “like an invasion,” and called on the Foreign Ministry to deal with them accordingly.

Hillary Emails - Top Deputy Boasts: We ‘Shaped’ New York Times Coverage of Iran Engagement

The latest batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails released by the State Department on Friday – reviewed in full by Breitbart Jerusalem – contains one dispatch from a former top Clinton deputy boasting of helping to “shape” a lengthy New York Times article explaining the Obama administration’s decision to engage Iran.
The July 24, 2009 email was from Philip J. Crowley, then Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. It was sent to numerous Obama administration officials and forwarded to Clinton by her senior aide, Cheryl Mills.
Crowley’s dispatch concerned a piece released six days later by columnist Roger Cohen in the New York Times Magazine. Titled “The Making of an Iran Policy,” the article sought to describe the genesis of the Obama administration’s thought process on engaging Tehran.
Cohen was highly friendly toward the new rapprochement policy, calling the prospect of future normalization with Iran a “heady idea” that would “create a far less dangerous world.”
In his email, Crowley seemed to predict what would be inside Cohen’s forthcoming Times piece while discussing the work done to “shape” the article.

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