05/12 Links Pt1: Israel's First Independence Day; Fatah Celebrates 36th Anniversary Of Deadly Attack In Hebron ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Israelis and their Independence Day barbecue, a symbol of nationhood and affluence

At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, Israel’s 68th Independence Day, Yuval Iluz staked a claim on a square of picnic ground in the Charuvit Forest in the Judean foothills, surrounding his ad-hoc homestead with blue-and-white Israeli flag bunting, laying out woven beach mats for the “relaxation corner,” setting up a large, multi-level gas grill and blowing up a bouncy castle for the kids.
“I took on the responsibility of organizing it myself this year,” said Iluz, who owns an air conditioning company and has the equipment necessary for schlepping and setting up a three-meter-high (10-foot-high) bouncy castle to a national park located 22 kilometers (13 miles) from his home.
Iluz’s parents, three siblings and their families, some 25 people in all, will gather for the barbecue, and though they could easily gather in one of their backyards, or his, with its own pool, they choose to join the rest of the Israeli nation on Thursday, bringing along everything but the proverbial kitchen sink.
“We deliberately go to the national parks,” said Iluz, 45, who lives in Moshav Arugot, where he and his siblings were born and raised. “It has more of the atmosphere of a holiday, of being with the Israeli nation.”

Israel's First Independence Day

What was it like to experience Israel's independence day in 1948? Take from Israelis who were there: The incredible story of rising from the ashes of oppression and exile to the re-birth of the Jewish state.

UN envoys wish Israel all the best at 68

As Israel began celebrating 68 years of independence on Wednesday evening, ambassadors to the United Nations from a host of countries wished the Jewish state a hearty “happy birthday.”
The envoys featured in a video prepared by the Israeli mission to the UN.
“The State of Israel is celebrating 68 years of independence,” said Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon at the start of the short movie. “Today, friends from around the world are wishing Israel ‘Happy Independence Day.'”
Danon’s opening was followed by a series of clips of ambassadors from various countries sending their greetings.
“We wish you the happiest, most prosperous, and above all most peaceful new year, happy 68th,” said US Ambassador Samantha Powers.
British envoy Matthew Rycroft in his message said, “To the State of Israel and all your people, I want to wish you the very best for your 68th year.”
Gillian Bird of Australia said, “To the State of Israel, I want to wish you peace.”

Israel is celebrating 68 years of Independence

Chief Rabbi: Could we sit and study Torah without soldiers?

Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef gave a festive speech in honor of Israeli Independence Day on Thursday at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.
"The incredible ingathering of the exiles, they came from all ends of the earth, everyone came to the land of Israel," said Rabbi Yosef. "The prophet Yehezkel (Ezekiel) already foresaw it back then."
"The prophet prophesied the redemption which thank God is approaching the ingathering of the exiles. It is not in our merit that the Holy One blessed be He did this, not because we are worthy of it, not in our merit. We did not observe his laws, even though we came to the land of Israel."
He emphasized that "if such a great ingathering of the exiles was done like this, it is despite that we desecrated the name of the Holy One blessed be He among the non-Jews - think what would have been if we had truly walked in his ways, what the nation of Israel would have merited."
"Today thank God most of the nation of Israel is here in the land of Israel. There is a possibility here to sit and keep the commandments, there is no one who will tell you what to do, there is a democracy in which one can study Torah and educate their children."

Israel and "Palestine": What International Law Requires

Under relevant international law, a true state must always possess the following specific qualifications: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
While this contingent condition of prior demilitarization of a Palestinian state may at first sound reassuring, it represents little more than a impotent legal expectation.
For one thing, no new state is ever under any obligation to remain "demilitarized," whatever else it may have actually agreed to during its particular pre-state incarnation.
"The legality of the presence of Israel's communities the area (Judea and Samaria) stems from the historic, indigenous, and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments, recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question." — Ambassador Alan Baker, Israeli legal expert.

Gold: Israel opposes French plan even if it includes ‘Jewish state’ recognition

While Jerusalem remains adamantly opposed to the new French diplomatic initiative, enshrining Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people would be an important step, Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold has told The Jerusalem Post.
“There are many problems with the French initiative, one of them is the lack of recognition of a Jewish State,” Gold said. “But even if that was changed, it wouldn’t alter many fundamental problems with the French initiative.”
Gold voiced anger at France's vote last month at the UNESCO Executive Board meeting in favor of a resolution on Jerusalem that expunged any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.
“When French diplomats vote for a resolution at UNESCO that rejects the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem, it should not come as a surprise that Israel rejects the French initiative and the political horizon it aspires to ultimately expose,” he said.

US cool on French Mideast peace push, may not attend

The United States appears reluctant to support a French plan to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with a major conference this month.
The State Department was unable to say on Wednesday whether Secretary of State John Kerry will attend a planned May 30 meeting in Paris.
And outside experts say Washington is unlikely to want to allow France to take the lead on an issue that it traditionally sees as its own.
“We remain concerned about the continued violence on the ground and we welcome all ideas on moving this forward,” US spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.
“On this specific conference, on the May 30 event, no decision’s been made on participation.”

Eugene Kontorovich: Testifying in Congress on presidential overreach in foreign affairs

I will be testifying tomorrow before the House Judiciary Committee, during a hearing of the Task Force on Executive Overreach examining “Executive Overreach in Foreign Affairs.” The hearing will be streamed live and archived on the Judiciary Committee’s website.
My written testimony — and that of fellow witnesses Steve Groves and Stephen Vladeck — is available here.
My testimony will focus on two issues that I have written about in this space: the Obama administration’s noncompliance with the procedures necessary to lift Iran sanctions under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015; and its failure to defund a U.N. agency that accepted the Palestinian Authority as a member. These raise issues about the executive undermining Congress’s foreign commerce and and spending powers, respectively.
As I explain in my testimony, the executive has very broad inherent power in foreign affairs, and Congress has augmented this further with broad delegations. It is not easy or common for the executive to overstep its constitutional bounds in this area — it takes a special effort. But these two recent issues suggest that the White House is prone to mistake broad authority to absolute authority (a trap Vladeck comes close to in his rather feisty testimony).

Michael Totten: Washington’s Idiotic Echo Chamber

Rhodes hates the foreign policy establishment. He calls it, for whatever reason, the Blob. Its members are all, according to him, a bunch of “morons.” “According to Rhodes,” Samuels writes, “the Blob includes Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and other Iraq-war promoters from both parties who now whine incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East.”
Aggressive intervention in Iraq failed to make the Middle East a better place. No question about it. So did light intervention in Libya. So did non-intervention in Syria. Nothing seems to work over there. Whether you’re hawkish or dovish, interventionist or isolationist, the last decade of history should be embarrassing.
Foreign policy is excruciatingly hard. It requires us to choose the least horrible option, and the least horrible option is never obvious, especially not in an unpredictable and often nonsensical place like the Middle East. Ghastly things happen no matter what we do, even if we do everything right. That wouldn’t change if we launched every member of the Blob into orbit.
We are all anti-establishment now (except those of us who are not). Even President Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor is anti-establishment now, even though, as Eli Lake put it in Bloomberg, Obama's foreign policy guru is the 'Blob' he hates.
Hatred of the establishment, whether it’s genuine or affected, is a reaction against the inadequacies and failures of the past and present, and it’s perfectly understandable. Sometimes it’s tempting to think a plumber from Poughkeepsie or a real estate agent from Des Moines might handle world affairs better than George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but replacing the old Blob with a fresh one produces the same result as a revolt against knowledge and experience.

ANALYSIS: Jonathan Pollard’s Strict Parole Conditions Make No Sense

It will be difficult for the U.S. government to justify the draconian, nonsensical parole conditions under which Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard is currently living in New York City. The conditions force Pollard to violate Shabbat and impede his ability to be gainfully employed, while doing nothing to advance national security, the supposed goal of the unusual measures.
Last month, the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York granted Pollard’s lawyers a request to reopen his appeal against the illogical – and I think spiteful – parole conditions.
Before we get to them, let’s put things in perspective regarding Pollard. Obama administration policies in 2014 alone resulted in the release of more than 3,700 “Threat Level 1” criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and drug dealers. The criminals were released on to the streets of the U.S. instead of being deported as they should have been. Criminal illegal aliens released by the Obama administration between 2009 and 2011 went on to be charged with 19 murders, three attempted murders, and 142 sex crimes, a House Judiciary Committee report has documented.
While Pollard is restricted to parole conditions that do not achieve their aims, as I will show, Obama has released without any U.S. supervision numerous dangerous Islamic terrorists from the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, including the infamous Taliban Five, jihadists deemed “high” risk who were recommended for continued detention and yet were freed in exchange for United States Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

‘This is our 1948’: Kurds kindle a close relationship with Jews and Israel

In a 2013 article in the Rudaw online news site, Kurdish-Israeli singer Hadassa Yeshurun was interviewed and the media highlighted her commitment to “protecting Kurdish culture” in the Jewish state.
“They want to keep the language and culture alive in Israel.”
In a February article, Judit Neurink wrote about Jews visiting Iraqi Kurdistan and the “3,000 years of Jewish life in Kurdistan.”
This mutual interest between Israel and Kurdistan is unique in the region.
In many countries, such as Morocco or Egypt, even depicting Jewish history in the country is seen as controversial.
There is mass Holocaust denial and refusal to accept the existence of Jews as a mosaic in the region in many countries.
In contrast, in Erbil you can buy books in Kurdish about Golda Meir and about the history of Kurdish Jews.
There are other areas of kinship between Jews and Kurds. Daniel Libeskind, designer of the Berlin Jewish Museum, is the architect behind a new Kurdistan Museum in Erbil. Envisioned as a 14,000-square-meter edifice with sharp angles, the project will have four distinct parts related to the fact that Kurds are divided between four countries.
In the Kurdish regions of Iraq, much of the talk today is about a referendum and eventual independence. The war with Islamic State is grinding on and Kurds have successfully pushed back the extremists and gained key allies, not only among Western powers, but also in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, countries usually hostile to Kurdish interests.
Israel, which has had a close clandestine relationship with Kurdish groups that dates to the 1960s, has generally been supportive of Kurdish rights. In January, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked expressed support for Kurdish independence.
In a 2014 speech to the Institute for National Security Studies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Kurdistan was “worthy of statehood.” All of these developments in the last years point to an enduring bond between two Middle Eastern peoples that is growing and can be cultivated.

Yale Linguist discovers that ‘Naqba’ means ‘Sorry-We-Didn’t-Push-You-into-the-Sea’ (satire)

Renowned linguist of Semitic languages Carlton Howe made a fascinating discovery earlier today. Using a combination of texts, recorded speech, and other media, Dr. Howe managed to decipher that the meaning of the Arabic term “Naqba” was actually “Sorry We Didn’t Push You into the Sea“. Dr. Howe explained his findings to the Daily Freier.
“Languages contain nuance and hidden meaning.” explained Dr. Howe as we sipped tea in his study. “Which makes the role of a scholar so truly exciting. So previous scholars stated that ‘Naqba’ means ‘disaster’. But that is simply not the case. By comparing historical texts in Arabic to contemporary speeches and poems, I was able to determine the true meaning of this term. I don’t think I am being a Gasconading Academic when I tell you that this is a true “Rosetta Stone” moment. And by ‘Rosetta Stone’ I don’t mean those goofy language videos that you check out of the library.”
News of Dr. Howe’s findings spread quickly throughout academia, with some of his department rivals challenging his findings by stating that ‘Al Naqba” actually means “Please don’t hold us responsible for our actions“, or “I demand a Do-Over” or even possibly “Next time we will get it right“.

Fatah Celebrates 36th Anniversary Of Deadly Attack On Hebron Settlers

Fatah’s Facebook page has marked the 36th anniversary of a shooting attack in Hebron that led to the death of six Jewish settlers.
The movement’s official account hails the attack that was “carried out by four heroes in the West Bank, the Fatah strike forces in the Occupied Territories.”
The post says that “13 Zionists were killed and dozens wounded” in a surprise attack against “settler bullies” on Friday, May 2, 1980.
It featured a picture (see below) that showed wounded Israelis lying on the ground being treated.
In a different post, Fatah referred to the attack saying “Fatah strikes everywhere, and when it does it shakes the foundations of the miserable state. If you’ve never heard of Hebron’s Dabuya attack, you’re unfamiliar with the Palestinian revolution. Dozens of Zionists were killed in it.” In the attack, six Jews were killed and not dozens.
In 2013, an Israeli expose revealed that Tayseer Abu Sneineh, one of the perpetrators of the attack, was appointed to the Cave of the Patriarch board of directors.

Swiss panel finds no evidence of secret 1970s deal with PLO

A Swiss investigation has found no evidence that a former government minister struck a secret deal offering diplomatic assistance to the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970 in exchange for the PLO halting attacks on Swiss targets.
The allegations emerged this year in a book, "Swiss Terror Years," which also raised questions whether a pact with the PLO had interfered with an investigation into a bomb attack on a Swissair jet in 1970 that killed 47 people.
Carlos the Jackal, the Marxist guerrilla who became a symbol of Cold War anti-imperialism, told a newspaper in March that he moved freely through Switzerland in the 1970s under a "non-aggression pact" between the government and PLO. He is serving life sentences in France for a series of attacks.
In a statement on Wednesday, the government said a task force set up to review the allegations found no indication of a secret pact between former cabinet member Pierre Graber, or any other Swiss representative, and PLO official Farouk Kaddoumi.

6 Palestinian teens arrested after rioting near Jerusalem

Six Palestinian teenagers were arrested near Beitunia, north of Jerusalem, on Thursday morning after lighting a fire near the security barrier.
The six, ages 14-17, also hurled rocks at Border Police who came to detain them. There were no reports of injuries.
Rock-throwing was also reported in the capital and on the West Bank road to the Etzion Bloc, where unidentified assailants pelted passing Israeli vehicles with stones, causing no injuries or damage, according to Israel Radio.
In Jerusalem, a 16-year-old Arab teenager threw stones at a car on Uzi Narkis street, which runs through the neighborhoods of Pisgat Ze’ev and Beit Hanina. The assailant was arrested for the attack, which caused damage to the vehicle, according to the Walla news website.
The incidents came as thousands of Israelis headed to national parks and beaches to mark Independence Day.

Palestinian Child Exploitation – 10-year old “Journalist” Janna Jihad

Used as a media prop by Tamimi clan since age 5, now promoted as child “journalist” by al-Jazeera and Vice
You may recall the name Janna Jihad.
Janna is a member of the Tamimi clan from Nabi Saleh. Among the more infamous Tamimi members is Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who organized the Sbarro Pizza restaurant suicide bombing in 2001, and then broke out with a huge smile when she learned that more children actually were killed than she thought.
The Tamimi clan also has a sophisticated media operation.
Under the guidance of Bassem Tamimi and his wife, Tamimi and other village children are used as media props to confront Israeli soldiers for the cameras, including throwing rocks, hoping to create a viral image or video.
Often they succeed in that mission. The genius of the Tamimi clan media operation is that it doesn’t matter what the Israelis do. If the Israelis react, it’s a viral video moment showing how abusive the Israelis are. If they don’t react, it’s also a viral video showing how afraid the Israelis are. And children are the key ingredient essential to this Tamimi methodology.

In new Gaza clip, kids urge ‘martyrdom, blowing up enemies’

New footage to emerge out of a children’s festival in the Gaza Strip shows play-acting Palestinian kids urging each other to “die as martyrs” and “blow up their enemies,” and includes mock presentations of them capturing Israeli soldiers and running through what appears to be a tunnel.
A video of the events, part of the eighth annual “Childhood Festival” by the Islamic Association in Khan Younis in April, was uploaded to the internet this week, and was made available by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
During one segment, a young girl calls on her “child” to “join the battle! Die as a martyr, and blow up the enemies.”
Others show young boys clasping toy assault rifles as they strike poses in formation and run through what appears to be a tunnel.
Children are also shown “capturing” an Israeli soldier and throwing rocks at Israeli policemen. The setting appears to be Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, with boys dressed as ultra-Orthodox Jews seen praying the background.

IS-inspired Gaza Salafists claim to have 3,000 fighters

Jihadists inspired by the Islamic State group’s ideology are seeking to benefit from the desperation of young Palestinians to strengthen their foothold in the Gaza Strip.
But the Salafists in the enclave tread a fine line to avoid conflict with Hamas, the Islamist movement which has ruled the strip for a decade but does not share IS’s worldview.
Leaders of the Salafists, who are adherents of a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam, claim to have 3,000 fighters in Gaza.
While the figure is impossible to verify, experts see an increasing use of IS-style rhetoric to attract support.

2 suspected jihadis killed, 16 arrested near Tunis

Two suspected jihadists were killed on Wednesday during a security operation near the Tunisian capital, the country’s Interior Ministry said.
Sixteen others, some of them armed, were arrested during the operation in Ariana province just outside Tunis, it said in a statement.
A resident of the Sanhaji district told AFP that a two-hour gun battle erupted with the suspects after the national guard launched the raid at around 8 a.m. (0700 GMT).
“They were not from the neighborhood. We didn’t know them. They rented the house recently,” she said.
Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a “serve” travel advisory for Tunisia on Monday, warning of a “high” likelihood of attacks by jihadist groups, especially against Jewish targets.

New Islamic State app teaches kids ABCs of jihad

The Islamic State has repeatedly shown it is not above the indoctrination of children into jihadist ideology. Now, it seems, there’s an app for that.
The terror group has released new software for Android devices to teach children the Arabic alphabet and basic vocabulary, according to The Long War Journal, a website that follows the war on terror.
The app uses various games and songs to encourage the children to learn.
However, in keeping with its general theme, the organization has peppered its lessons with jihadist terminology.
Thus, alongside “mom,” “dad,” “cat,” and “dog,” children whose parents download the app will learn such essentials as “rocket,” “bullet,” “gun” and “sword.”
Meanwhile, the songs in the app perpetuate extremist themes and values.

Islamic State’s ‘General Shawarma’ killed in strike

An Islamic State commander who gained online notoriety when anti-IS activists noted his likeness, in his camouflage uniform, to a shawarma kebab, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike.
The Pentagon confirmed the death Monday of Abu Wahib alongside three other jihadist fighters near the town of Rutba, in the Anbar desert, according to the Daily Mail.
Abu Wahib, the 28-year-old commander of the Sunni Al-Anbar Lions militia, was photographed last year standing next to a black IS truck in Iraq’s Anbar province, wearing brown camouflage and a black beret.
A member of the anti-Islamic State group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently posted a picture of the bearded Wahib next to a photo of shawarma being roasted on a spit with the caption #same.

Frank Gaffney: Obama Goes to Hiroshima to Condemn Nuclear Weapons, But No President Has Done More to Encourage Proliferation

Center for Security Policy founder Frank Gaffney joined SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News Daily Wednesday morning to discuss the irony of President Obama’s trip to Hiroshima to “bray about the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons,” while Obama’s policies have done nothing but encourage their proliferation.
Gaffney and Bannon opened by discussing the strategic situation in the Pacific, where Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter just completed a tour.
“It didn’t really go that well, did it?” Bannon asked.
“Well, I guess it went about as well as you could expect, when he’s forced to acknowledge, effectively, that there’s no ‘pivot to Asia’ forthcoming, despite a lot of talk about it earlier in the Administration,” Gaffney replied.
He noted that the reduced U.S. Navy lacks the resources for a strategic pivot into the Pacific. “There aren’t the ships that enable us to project power into that region, and such ships as we have are increasingly threatened by the growing presence of the Chinese.”
Gaffney described U.S. allies in Asia as “increasingly frantic.”

Rouhani Praises Iran’s Terror Reach

Put aside Iraq and Afghanistan, where Soleimani coordinated the smuggling in of explosively-formed projectiles used to kill several hundred Americans. And put aside Syria, where Iranian intervention has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths and an order of magnitude greater number of refugees. Instead, consider “Palestine,” where Soleimani’s partners are not the Palestinian Authority or those seeking to live side-by-side with Israel, but rather Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — both of which dedicate themselves to the elimination of Israel and any Jewish presence in the region, in effect, seeking genocide.
To endorse such life’s work suggests not only is Rouhani complicit in endorsing if not enabling terrorism, but also that pumping billions of dollars into the Iranian economy is having the opposite effect than that which President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry promised. Then again, that’s no longer a surprise as Obama’s point man—and likely Kerry’s as well—likely never cared about changing the game in the Middle East, so long as they could get credit for shuffling the cards.

John Kerry Urges European Companies to Do Business With Iran

Wall Street Journal – Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that European businesses should not use US sanctions on Iran as an excuse for avoiding business with Tehran.
Mr. Kerry’s comments, just ahead of meetings with European banking leaders here Thursday, were part of the Obama administration’s moves recently to help integrate Iran into the global economic system after decades of punitive sanctions.

Female Iranian Politician Barred From Parliament for Appearing with Hair Uncovered

An Iranian state committee ruled Wednesday that a female member of parliament who was elected in February cannot be sworn in because she allegedly appeared with her hair uncovered when traveling abroad.
The Dispute Settlement Committee of Branches, an official judicial body, determined that Minoo Khaleghi could not serve as a member of parliament, basing its ruling on photos of Khaleghi that had circulated on social media showing her traveling through Europe and China without a headscarf. Iranian law states that women must wear a headscarf in public at all times, even when abroad.
Khaleghi claimed that the pictures of her with an uncovered head were fake. “I am a Muslim woman, adhering to the principles of Islam,” she wrote in a statement to an official state newspaper. The people who published the pictures of her, she charged, were driven by “political greed.”
Iran’s interior ministry arrested an activist for posting the pictures of Khaleghi on social media a day before she was suspended.

Iranians to miss hajj after no deal made with Saudi Arabia

Iran has failed to reach agreement with Saudi Arabia on arrangements for its pilgrims to join the annual hajj in September following the severing of ties, its culture minister said on Thursday.
An Iranian delegation held four days of talks in Saudi Arabia last month aimed at thrashing out a deal but with Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran closed since January and Iranian flights to the kingdom halted they hit deadlock.
“The arrangements have not been put together and it’s now too late,” Ali Jannati told the official IRNA news agency. “The sabotage is coming from the Saudis.
“Their attitude was cold and inappropriate. They did not accept our proposals concerning the issuing of visas or the transport and security of the pilgrims.”
“Saudi officials say our pilgrims must travel to another country to make their visa applications.”

Iran revs up for its latest Holocaust cartoon contest

This weekend, Iran will stage its third cartoon exhibition about the Holocaust. The images on display, pooled from submissions that came in from various parts of the world, mock a history of genocide and Jewish suffering. The event has garnered global notoriety and is a persistent mark against an Iranian regime that has tried over the past year to show that it’s ready to emerge from international isolation.
Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attempted to distance the administration of President Hassan Rouhani from the contest. In an interview with the New Yorker, Zarif said the event was sponsored by private nongovernmental organizations and not his government. He then pointed to a history of supposed Western double standards.
“Why does the United States have the Ku Klux Klan? Is the government of the United States responsible for the fact that there are racially hateful organizations in the United States?” Zarif asked. “Don’t consider Iran a monolith. The Iranian government does not support, nor does it organize, any cartoon festival of the nature that you’re talking about.”
But the organizations involved, the Owj Media & Cultural Institute and the Sarsheshmeh Cultural Center, are institutions with direct ties to organs of the Iranian government, including the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran’s Press TV Fails to Fix False Report Claiming Saudi King Gave $80 Million to Netanyahu’s Election Campaign

Despite being debunked by Breitbart Jerusalem and others, Iran’s state-affiliated Press TV has not corrected a false report claiming that Saudi King Salman financed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election campaign in 2015 to the tune of $80 million.
The report, titled, “Leaked: Saudi King financed Netanyahu’s 2015 election bid,” cites fabricated quotes purportedly from Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog alleging that the Saudi financing was documented in the “Panama Papers.”
Contacted by Breitbart Jerusalem on Monday night, Herzog’s office denied the report, saying the quotes were entirely fabricated.
The false report has since been parroted by several obscure English language Middle East sites whose incorrect articles have been getting some social media traction, including Siasit Daily and Shehernama.com. The websites Boing Boing and the Center for Research on Globalization each have removed their versions of the story.
Still, the fake report spread like wildfire on social media. Craig Silverman reported Wednesday at BuzzFeed Canada “As of today the original fake story has generated over 25,000 Facebook interactions. There have only been a few efforts to debunk the hoax.”

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