04/26 Links Pt1: UNRWA celebrates bus bombing; The World Dodged a Bullet in Syria

From Ian:

Muslim worshipers attack Jews trying to pray on Temple Mount

Video footage from Arab television emerged on Tuesday showing Muslim worshipers on the Temple Mount attack a small group of Jews who ascended to the holy site and attempted to pray.
Israeli authorities on Tuesday evicted eight Jewish visitors from the Temple Mount complex in response to what security forces said was inappropriate behavior at the holy site.
Police said 527 visitors, of them 400 tourists, ascended to the holy site during Tuesday morning visits.
After the last group of Jewish visitors left the compound, a gathering of Muslim worshipers began yelling slogans at the Jews.
Police and Border Police officers in the area escorted the group of Jews away from the scene and acted to subdue the disturbances.
As Israeli Jews celebrate Passover, the security services are on high alert as part of an effort to head off any attempts by religious Jews to make overt gestures on Temple Mount that might be construed as worship.

Temple Mount: 2 Waqf officials arrested for attacking Jews

Among a number of individuals arrested during clashes between Jews and Muslims on the Temple Mount earlier Tuesday were two members of the Jordanian Waqf, the Islamic trust which administers the site.
The two Islamic "guards" were arrested for assaulting Jewish visitors.
Israel Police also arrested nine Jews during the day, claiming they had violated the rules; presumably, this includes the ban on Jews praying or showing religious worship of any kind on the Temple Mount.
In total, 825 visitors ascended the Temple Mount Tuesday, including 557 tourists and 268 Israelis.
"The Jerusalem District Police, Border Police officers and police reinforcements in Jerusalem will continue providing extra security reinforcements throughout the city, and especially at flashpoints, in order to maintain order, public safety and welfare, as well as to regulate traffic," the Jerusalem police responded.

PMO to Jordan on Temple Mount: Jerusalem is acting responsibly, and Amman knows that

One day after 13 Jews were removed from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount for illegally praying at the contested holy site, the Jordanian government on Monday warned Israel of “serious consequences” if the area’s delicate status quo is breached.
Sunday morning’s impasse was further exacerbated when a group of Muslims was also removed from the compound by police for chanting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) at the nearly 1,000 Jewish and Christian visitors who ascended it for the holiday.
In a sharply worded statement issued Monday, Jordanian Media Affairs Minister Muhammad al-Momani accused “Israeli settlers and police” of flagrantly violating international laws and conventions by “storming al-Aksa Mosque,” which he said could lead to “serious consequences.”
The ongoing and wholly unsubstantiated allegations that the Israeli government surreptitiously intends to seize al-Aksa – Islam’s third holiest site – has led to the recent wave of deadly terrorism which has largely fueled what many are deeming a third intifada.

The World Dodged a Bullet in Syria - Thanks to Israel

I well remember the day in spring 2007 when I got an urgent call from Vice President Cheney. The head of Israel's Mossad, the late Meir Dagan, had just been in to brief Cheney and President Bush. He revealed compelling evidence that in the Syrian desert east of Damascus, near the town of Al-Kibar, North Korea was covertly building a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor. It was more or less a replica of the North's own reactor at Yongbyon.
Making matters worse, Al-Kibar was perilously close to completion. Options for getting rid of it would narrow considerably once operations began and the reactor went "hot." For its part, the U.S. intelligence community had totally missed Al-Kibar.
The fact is that the U.S. dodged a bullet in Syria - and, it's worth stressing, all courtesy of the Israelis. Not only did they discover Al-Kibar in the nick of time. They also carried out the attack that was almost certainly the only means of ensuring the reactor never went hot.
Just imagine the nightmare that the world would have faced if, on top of everything else in Syria, we were also dealing with the nightmare of the Islamic State getting its hands on a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor.

UNRWA celebrates bus bombing, Israel does nothing

At a facility in Judea of UNRWA, the UN body tasked with caring for "Palestinian refugees," a festive ceremony was held on Monday honoring Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour, the 19-year-old Hamas terrorist who exactly a week ago bombed a bus in southeastern Jerusalem.
Journalist David Bedein, director of the Jerusalem-based Israel Resource News Agency as well as the Center for Near East Policy Research, told Arutz Sheva about the UN event to honor the terrorist who conducted the first bus bombing of the current terror wave, in which he died while wounding 15 victims.
The investigative journalist revealed that Israeli media consciously has been ignoring UNRWA's ties to terrorism, and the Israeli government is culpable as well.
Bedein said he sent a film crew to capture "the festivities for the 'martyr' who fell victim, while encouraging the 'right of return'," in reference to how UNRWA works to keep "Palestinian refugees" from integrating in other countries as opposed to UN policy on all other refugees. UNRWA instead demands all five million descendants of Arabs who left Israel in the 1948 War of Independence be 'returned.'
The event honoring Abu Srour took place "in a facility called Aida (near Bethlehem), a facility that at its gate has a huge monument of a lock and key symbolizing the hope of Palestinian return to the villages of 1948," Bedein told Arutz Sheva.

PMW: “Plant a knife in the heart of your enemy”- Fatah student movement election campaign

Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement is promoting its student movement Shabiba’s election campaign at Birzeit University by posting the above poster on its official Facebook page.
The poster shows a knife dripping with blood, shaped as the PA’s map of “Palestine” that includes the PA areas as well as all of Israel. The entire map is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, implying Palestinian political sovereignty over Israel.
Text on the poster says:
“Plant it [the knife] in the heart of your enemy”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 26, 2016]

What Hate Education Breeds

It is not an exaggeration to say that what her society has done to Dima al-Wawi is nothing short of child abuse. For generations, Palestinian leaders have sought to sacrifice their children on the altar of hatred for Israel. They did so in the first intifada and then again in the second. Now, again they encourage children to seek out death in the so-called stabbing intifada. Their only purpose is to create more casualties, not so much the Jews they seek to victimize, but to pile up more Palestinian bodies that can be exhibited to the international community as alleged proof of Israel’s hard-hearted occupation. Even those who might wish for a more non-violent way to engage the Israelis are helpless to stop kids like al-Wawi from acting in this manner because every aspect of Palestinian culture — religious and secular education, television and even popular music — aims at creating an environment in which actions such as hers are praiseworthy rather than aberrant. Nothing, not even preserving the lives of their own children, seems to be a deterrent to the cult of murder and suicide that dominates Palestinian life.
For all of the debate what policies the Jewish state should pursue in order to facilitate peace, it must be understood that the circumstances that transform a 12-year-old schoolgirl into a would-be murderer transcend those arguments. No matter what you think about settlements or where you believe the border between a Jewish state and a Palestinian one ought to be, Dima al-Wawi’s story illustrates the fact that so long as her crime is the sort of thing that makes a kid a hometown heroine, peace is impossible.
Al-Wawi sought to attack the only Jew she could reach. Others have attacked people in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv. Their goal is the same: kill Jews or those that they think are Jews because they have no right to be anywhere in the country and not just in West Bank settlements. The same Palestinian mindset that produced her also created the young Hamas suicide bomber that set off an explosive on a Jerusalem bus earlier this month. Like Dima al-Wawi’s family, his affluent and well-educated parents praised him and considered his actions justifiable because of the identity of his victims.
No matter what Israel does or how much land it gives up — as it did in Gaza in 2005 when settlements were disbanded and every soldier and settler withdrawn — there will not be peace so long as the Palestinians educate their children to hate and think slaughtering Jews is their national sport. The sight of a 12-year-old girl being given a parade on her return home after attempting to commit murder tells us everything that we need to know about how sick Palestinian society has become. Peace won’t be possible until Palestinians find a way to cure themselves of this illness.

Gaza Children’s Festival Shows Toddlers Being Trained to Murder Jews [video]

The Prime Minister’s Office Arab media spokesperson Ofir Gendelman tweeted an extremely sobering message late Monday on social media, the third day of Passover.
“ISIS-like brainwashing in a kids’ festival in Gaza: toddlers act out stabbing & shooting attacks against Israelis,” Gendelman tweeted.
“When Palestinians send their kids to act in this school play no wonder their kids committ (sic) attacks when they’re older” Gendelman tweeted. More to the point, who hires the teachers who write and direct these plays? Where do they get their material, and are they researching it online in Da’esh websites?
Similar plays and festivals have been broadcast on children’s television programs in Gaza as well as in the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria for decades.

Why is it never the terrorist's fault?

A disturbingly clear pattern has emerged in the wake of the increase in terrorism around the world, especially in the West. Whenever there is a terrorist attack, the parents, friends and families of the perpetrators are always in "deep shock." They cannot fathom from where their terrorist offspring, who had always been so "normal and good," got their inspiration. The parents have absolutely "no idea" what could possibly have prompted the attacks.
It is conspicuous -- and pathetic -- how uniform these parents of Muslim radicals are in their frantic denial of knowledge and responsibility for raising monsters that go out and commit such atrocities. But the politically correct mainstream international press never probes deeper and lets the parents off the hook easily. After all, the international mainstream media pushes and encourages the very victimhood narratives that the parents' denials and feigned "shock" feed into in order to escape further scrutiny. It is astounding that no one in the media seriously questions these uniform denials.
Among all these stories of feigned shock and surprise, that of the parents of the Hamas terrorist who bombed the Jerusalem bus recently (wounding 20 people and killing himself) takes the prize. Not only do the parents insist they had "no idea" their son had been involved with the Hamas, they feel no remorse for his actions and astoundingly blame Israel and the Jews for his actions: "You Jews have to understand something: Abed al-Hamid did not come from a poor family; he came from an affluent one. He had his own car. A family with property and money ... a cultured household -- with manners, respect, education -- which opposes violence. You Israelis have to ask yourselves what causes a boy like ours to want to do such a thing. And I am telling you: Israel is responsible. Israel caused this generation to act this way. This generation has no future. No work. You pressure them and hurt them and create a hopeless situation for them. You are turning the young generation into what it is. The next generation, the young children, will be even more dangerous."

Shin Bet foils terrorist attack in Jerusalem

Three Palestinians believed to be planning a terrorist attack in Jerusalem were arrested early Tuesday, the Shin Bet security agency revealed.
The suspects, ages 15, 16, and 23, are all residents of Nablus. There were arrested by a joint military, police and Shin Bet taskforce in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.
The arrests followed intelligence suggesting the three had boasted they were planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Jerusalem over the Passover holiday period, Channel 10 News reported.
Security forces set up road blocks around Jerusalem ahead of the raid on the trio's hideout in Jabel Mukaber. The Shin Bet said the raid was "routine" and the three did not try to resist arrest.

‘If Israel Had Done That’

If you ever wonder whether or not the international community applies an unfair double standard to Israel, all you need do is play a little game that I call “If Israel had done that.”
It’s easy. Just glance at what’s in the news, on any given day, concerning what Palestinian leaders are doing. And then ask yourself: What would the reaction be if Israel had done that?
Take Wednesday, April 20, for example.
Palestinian groups and leaders from all factions publicly praised or justified the recent bus bombing in Jerusalem. Note that it was an attack on a civilian bus, not a military vehicle. And it took place within the 1967 borders — not in some settlement in “occupied territory.” Yet so-called moderates and so-called extremists joined hands in defending the attempted slaughter.
As expected, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other, smaller factions all praised the bombing. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhi issued a press release which began, “Hamas praises the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) operation,” and Musa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader who was at one time in US custody, declared on his Facebook page that the bombing was “a most beautiful gift to our hero prisoners.” Palestinian Islamic Jihad said it “praises” the attack and considers it an illustration of “the importance of resistance as an option.”

Hebron rally kicks off celebrations for Six-Day War jubilee

Some 17,000 people attended a rally in Hebron on Monday that kicked off celebrations marking the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War. The war led to Israel gaining control over Hebron and the rest of Judea and Samaria, as well as east Jerusalem. A number of Knesset members and cabinet ministers attended Monday's event.
A variety of other cultural activities and tours are taking place in Hebron this week, as many Israelis are on vacation for Passover. Areas that are normally off limits to Jews because of security reasons have been opened. Because of the large number of people in Hebron this week, new prayer arrangements were announced at the Cave of the Patriarchs. Only Jews were allowed to access the site on Monday and Tuesday to reduce friction with Muslim worshippers. The IDF has bolstered its presence in the area, as did the Israel Police.
Meanwhile, five Israelis who had illegally entered the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Jericho on Monday were handed over to Israeli officials by PA security officials. The five apparently tried to hold prayer services at the ancient Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue in the city.

Israel arrests pro-Hamas Palestinian astrophysics professor

Israeli security forces have arrested renowned Palestinian astrophysicist Imad Barghouthi, whose arrest two years ago caused an outcry in the international scientific community, an official at al-Quds University told The Times of Israel Tuesday.
Barghouthi, a professor at Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University, once worked on NASA-funded projects in the United States. He was arrested Sunday night by Israeli security forces at a West Bank checkpoint near the village of Nabi Saleh, west of Ramallah.
The professor’s family received a phone call from the Israeli military informing them of his arrest, was not told what he was charged with or where he was taken, the Palestinian news site Qudsnet reported.
Neither the IDF nor Israel Police would comment on the matter, and it remains unclear which branch of the Israeli security forces was responsible for his arrest.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Insulting Religious Minorities

The Samaritan incident reveals as well how the Palestinian Authority (PA) treats religious minorities in the Palestinian territories. The tiny community of Samaritans in the West Bank now faces a tough choice: continue living with the Palestinian Authority and accept its intimidation, or relocate to a safer locale.
In yet another blow to Palestinian Christians, the PA recently rejected demands to consider Easter an official holiday.
The PA has had a long-standing policy of combating "normalization" with Israelis, and this is but one unpleasant example. Yet this campaign is directed not only against Jewish settlers, but also against Jews who live inside Israel proper.
Showing their true colors, the activists do not hesitate to attack even Jews who are supportive of the Palestinians. Thugs assaulted people indiscriminately, including film crews, European activists and even Palestinian participants.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Christians slam PA for refusal to recognize Easter

Palestinian Christians in the West Bank have reacted angrily to what they say is the Palestinian Authority government’s refusal to recognize Easter as an official holiday.
The Christians said that the government’s decision was an insult to their religion and reminded them of the policies of governments in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Malaysia.
In a letter to PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Dr. Ghassan al-Toubassi, a Christian physician from Ramallah, said that he and thousands of Palestinian Christians were “pained” by the government’s decision to ignore Easter as an official national holiday.
Noting that Islam does not recognize the resurrection of Jesus, he drew parallels between the PA government and Arab and Islamic countries.
“We would have understood this explanation had the debate been taking place in the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Malaysia, which are purely Islamic countries that follow the sharia laws,” al-Toubassi wrote. “But it’s a great sin when a government that purports to represent all Palestinians takes such a decision.”

Abu Ghosh, Arab town known for warm ties to Zionism, to get Yasser Arafat center

The Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh, known for a history of friendly relations with Jews and Zionism, is to initiate construction on Wednesday of a cultural center in honor of a Palestinian figure revered among Arabs but deeply unpopular among many Jews, Yasser Arafat.
Located 10 kilometers west of Jerusalem and with a population of around 7,000 people, Abu Ghosh is well known for its beautiful churches, classical music festivals, hummus restaurants, brand-new megalith mosque, and its uniquely friendly relations with the majority Jewish population in its surroundings.
On Wednesday, a large ceremony is scheduled to take place in the town to celebrate the laying of a foundation stone for a cultural center in honor of Arafat, the late PLO chief and Nobel peace prize laureate.
Arafat, who died in 2004, remains a venerated figure among Palestinians, but is seen by many in Israel as an unreformed terrorist who doomed the 2000 Camp David attempt at peacemaking, orchestrated the suicide bombing onslaught of the Second Intifada that followed, and disseminated a still-prevailing narrative among Palestinians that denies Jews’ history and legitimacy in the Holy Land. (h/t Elder of Lobby )

Palestinian asylum-seeker 'behind £7million people smuggling ring' fights being extradited from Britain to Greece 'because their prisons are inhumane'

A Palestinian asylum-seeker allegedly behind a people smuggling gang accused of trafficking 100 Syrian refugees a day into Europe will argue he cannot be extradited because being held in a Greek prison would breach his human rights, a court heard today.
Palestinian Jamal Owda, 26, was one of 23 people held in raids across Europe in December over an operation authorities claim could have made up to £7 million since 2013 by preying on desperate civilians fleeing the civil war.
He was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant by National Crime Agency officers at an asylum shelter in Liverpool.
Westminster Magistrates' Court in London today heard he is applying for asylum in the UK.
Greece is seeking his extradition to stand trial over the alleged smuggling operation it says was based in the country and if found guilty he could face up to 20 years in prison.
But his lawyer said today that prison conditions in the country may breach Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which covers the right to life.

EXCLUSIVE – Islamic Scholar Claims Jews ‘Fabricated’ Ties to Temple Mount

Ignoring the historical record and mainstream archeological evidence, an Islamic scholar tied to Hamas and speaking during a Breitbart Jerusalem exclusive interview, completely denied Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, considered the holiest site in Judaism.
“The issue of Solomon’s Temple, or what the Jews call the Temple Mount, is nothing but a bundle of historically unfounded claims,” declared Khaled Elkhaldi, a professor at Gaza’s Islamic University.
“It’s a dream, a legend that the Jews made up to claim exclusive ownership of the land, which religion and history refute time after time,” added Elkhaldi, who serves on Hamas’s Shura Council (Majlis al-Shura), the terrorist group’s main consultative body.
“The historical and religious truth is that the Jews conquered Palestine as part of their religious perspective and so-called prophecy in the Torah around which the theory of the ‘Promised Land’ was built,” Elkhaldi claimed.
“The fabricated temple was invented to serve this narrative,” he stated, without a trace of irony.
Elkhaldi claimed, wrongly, that mainstream Jewish opinion is divided on the historic whereabouts of the Temple.

Senior Egyptian archaeologist: Israeli claim that Pharaoh was Egyptian is a lie

In an unprecedented declaration that challenges the story told in the Passover Haggadah, a senior Egyptian archaeologist said that ancient king Pharaoh was not Egyptian, as claimed in the ancient Jewish text.
In an interview with the Egyptian daily newspaper al-Youm al-Sabih, the director-general of Luxor's Antiquities, Mustafa Waziri, surprisingly argued that king Pharaoh belonged to the foreign Hyksos dynasty that invaded Egypt in the 15th century BCE and ruled northern Egypt.
"King Pharaoh who ruled Egypt during the epoch of our prophet Moses was not one of the kings who reigned in ancient Egypt as we tend to believe. He belonged to the Beduin Jabarin dynasty, which is called Hyksos," Waziri said.
"This foreign dynasty ruled only in a part of Egypt. One of its last kings was a dictator named Pharaoh, to whom Moses was sent by Allah to demand that he allow the sons of Israel to leave Egypt," Waziri explained.

Puppet is charged with defying 'the values and ethics of Egypt' after posing with a copy of Fifty Shades Of Grey in satirical TV show

A puppet has been charged with defying 'the values and ethics of Egypt' after making sexual innuendo jokes on her television show.
Abla Fahita has won over millions of fans with her political satire and liberal comedy, and her weekly 'talk show' is watched by 15 per cent of the Egyptian population.
The show, Abla Fahita: Live from the Duplex regularly mocks the Egypt's politicians and addresses subjects such as sex and alcohol.
The character Abla Fahita, meaning 'Aunt Fahita', is a self-indulgent widow who takes sexy selfies in lingerie and reads Fifty Shades of Grey.
However, according to lawyer Samir Sabry, the puppet has taken the joke too far, and the suit will be heard in a court in June.

ISIS-loyal Filipino jihadists behead Canadian hostage

Abu Sayyaf, a Filipino Islamist jihadi group that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS), beheaded a hostage from Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed on Monday.
John Ridsdel, an ex-journalist turned mining executive, was named as the victim of the Filipino terrorists. Despite having pledged allegiance to ISIS, Abu Sayyaf has not been shown to be receiving support from the group.
"I am outraged by the news that a Canadian citizen held hostage has been killed. This was an act of cold-blooded murder," said Trudeau.
According to police in Jolo Island in Sulu province, a jungled province in the southern Philippines where Abu Sayyaf is believed to be holding several captives, two men on a motorcycle left Ridsdel's severed head in a plastic bag on a street in Jolo town, before fleeing the scene.
Abu Sayyaf had threatened to behead one of three captives abducted last September from a marina on the southern Samal Island, if by Monday it was not paid a ransom equivalent to around $6.4 million for each of the three hostages - two Canadians and a Norwegian.

Iran threatens US with ICJ over payment to families of terror victims

Iran threatened Monday to take legal action in the International Court of Justice against the United States if $2 billion of its frozen funds are “diverted” to compensate the families of victims of attacks.
On Thursday, Tehran said the US Supreme Court’s decision to deduct $2 billion from its frozen assets to compensate American victims of “terror” attacks amounted to theft.
“We hold the US administration responsible for preservation of Iranian funds and if they are plundered, we will lodge a complaint with the ICJ for reparation,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.
He was speaking at a joint news conference with visiting Macedonian counterpart Nicolas Poposki.
The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Iran must hand over nearly $2 billion in frozen assets to survivors and relatives of those killed in attacks blamed on the Islamic republic.

Kerry Fails to Reassure Congressional Critics of Plan to Give Iran Access to Dollars

Secretary of State John Kerry failed to address growing bipartisan concerns that the Obama administration will grant Iran access to dollars as part of last year’s nuclear deal, the Associated Press reported Friday.
“The United States is not standing in the way and will not stand in the way of business that is permitted with Iran since the (nuclear deal) took effect,” said Kerry during a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The Iranians have threatened to walk away from the nuclear deal if the U.S. does not allow them access to the dollar.

U.S. Says European Banks Should Feel Free To Deal With Iran

The United States insisted Friday that foreign banks should feel free to do business with Iran after Tehran’s compliance with a nuclear deal with world powers.
Secretary of State John Kerry downplayed fears that Asian or European banks could fall afoul of Washington’s continuing sanctions against Iran’s non-nuclear activities.
And, as Kerry met with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for the second time in a week, Washington itself agreed to buy 32 tons of Iranian heavy water.
These parallel moves in support of non-US trade with Iran will enrage President Barack Obama’s domestic critics, who argue he has already ceded too much ground to Tehran.
“I want to emphasize we’ve lifted our nuclear-related sanctions as we committed to do,” Kerry told reporters, sitting alongside Zarif in a New York hotel.
“And there are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran,” he said.

Iran may have secretly tested ballistic missile tech with ‘space launch’

Iran test-fired an advanced rocket system in the Dasht-e Kavir desert last week, according to Russian and American officials, in what some considered a cover for intercontinental ballistic missile research.
The Simorgh, as the rocket is known, is ostensibly designed to launch satellites into orbit. However, the technology involved is “practically identical” to intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, and could be used to launch a nuclear device at targets thousands of miles away, according to Amir Toumaj, a research analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.
The rocket launch was initially detected by two separate Russian radar stations at 9:33 a.m. GMT on April 19, Russian media reported, and it was later confirmed by US sources who first disclosed the test fire to the Washington Free Beacon.
Under the Iran nuclear deal, which was signed last year, ballistic missile tests are not outright forbidden, but they are “not consistent” with a United Nations Security Council resolution from July 2015, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said.

Israel Spokesman Ridicules Tehran on Social Media, Tweets ‘Let’s Play a Game: Iran or ISIS?’

David Keyes took to Twitter to ridicule an assertion by the Islamic Republic’s head of state, reported by Iraqi-Kurdish media outlet Rudaw.
“President [Hassan] Rouhani just claimed Iran is stopping ISIS from taking over Iraq and Syria,” Keyes wrote. “Huge relief! Let’s play a game: Iran or ISIS?”
Keyes, former executive director of the organization Advancing Human Rights and co-founder of CyberDissidents.org, then provided Twitter followers a thread consisting of eight, tongue-in-cheek “multiple-choice” questions and their answers:

Blows up civilians around the world: Iran or ISIS?
A) Iran B) ISIS C) Both;
Murders gay people: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) Both, didn’t you know?;
Calls to destroy Israel: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) Still both;
Imposes theocratic dictatorship: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) You guessed it, both;
Seeks global militant Islamic rule: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) Still both;
Persecutes minorities: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) All of the above;
Tortures and executes political opponents: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) A and B;
Jails journalists: Iran or ISIS? A) Iran B) ISIS C) Yes, still both.

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