04/03 Links Pt1: After 37 years, the body of Sgt. Zachary Baumel has returned to Israel; Palestinian Attacker Shot Dead After Trying to Stab Israeli Man; With Turkish loss of the F-35, Israel keeps its aerial superiority

From Ian:

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After 37 years, the body of Sgt. Zachary Baumel has returned to Israel

Close to 40 years after he was went missing in action following the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, the body of Sgt. Zachary Baumel has been returned to Israel for burial.

Baumel’s body was repatriated to Israel via a third country several days ago aboard an El Al flight following an operation by Israeli intelligence agencies. He was identified by his DNA at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, as well as by the Chief Military Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Eyal Karim, IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis said on Wednesday.Manpower directorate head Maj.-Gen.Moti Almoz personally informed the Baumel family that he had been identified.

The battle of Sultan Yacoub, a skirmish between the IDF and the Syrian army, took place on the sixth day of the First Lebanon War in June 1982 in the Bekaa Valley.

At the end of the battle, the battalion and additional forces had suffered 20 dead and more than 30 wounded. Eight IDF tanks also remained in Syrian hands, two of which had three missing IDF soldiers who had been involved in two separate incidents about three kilometers apart: Sgt. Yehuda Katz, a gunner in one tank crew, and Baumel and Sgt. Zvi Feldman in another tank.

“This was a long-term effort by the intelligence community and the Missing Persons Division during which various operational activities were carried out to locate the missing soldiers, "the military said, adding that the military is “committed to continuing the efforts to locate Sergeant Yehuda Katz, Sergeant Tzvika Feldman and all the missing soldiers and captives, and all fallen IDF soldiers whose burial places are unknown.”

Manelis wouldn’t say where Baumel had been buried for all these years, but in September, Russia claimed that its military worked with Israel on an operation to locate the remains of the fallen IDF soldiers that were in Syrian territory, which had been under the control of Islamic State.

After 37 years, Sgt. 1st Class Zachary Baumel has returned home to Israel. pic.twitter.com/9Mroebhz41

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 3, 2019

Palestinian Attacker Shot Dead After Trying to Stab Israeli Man

A Palestinian tried to stab Israelis with a knife in the West Bank on Wednesday and was shot dead by one of them, the Israeli military and a witness said.

A Palestinian official, however, questioned the Israeli account of the incident at Hawara junction, near Nablus.

The West Bank, among territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen surges of street attacks on Israeli residents and soldiers since US-backed peace talks stalled in 2014. Palestinians claim Israel’s armed response has been excessive.

Yehoshua Sherman, a West Bank resident, told Israel Radio that he was driving slowly through the intersection with his daughter when a Palestinian charged at their car.

“He jumped at me with a knife, trying to open the doors,” Sherman said. “I drew my handgun…wound down the window and shot at him from inside the car.”

A second motorist also fired at the Palestinian, hitting him, Sherman added.

The Israeli military said in a statement: “A terrorist was shot by a civilian and neutralized after he tried to carry out a stabbing attack.”

You forgot to mention he’s a Hamas terrorist, he entered a family’s car (father & children) and started to fire his gun hurting the father, before he was shot dead!

Thank god he was killed!!! https://t.co/Hyq2bruKtU

— Mark Halawa - مارك حلاوه (@HalawaMark) April 3, 2019

World must recognize Israeli control over the Golan Heights now

The Druze in today’s Syria have no future. Like the Yezidis, Christians, Kurds and other persecuted minorities within Syria, the Druze are oppressed because their beliefs are not in accordance with nationalist Baathist ideology. Given this reality, those Golan Druze who have not already done so can become Israeli citizens and enjoy full civil rights in a democratic country, once Israel obtains international recognition of its annexation of the Golan Heights and the Golan Druze population understands that they have northing to fear if theyt do so.

Given this, if more countries start recognizing the Golan Heights now and subsequently proclaim that they are doing it because of how Assad committed democide against his own people, it will be a warning sign - for all but also for Israel’s enemies - that any dictator who massacres his own people and ethnically cleanses minorities will lose out politically. It will be a message stressing that no longer will the world sit by silently as tyrants and despots repress peaceful protesters and innocent civilians.

No longer will the world continue to appease and to give into the dictates of tyrants. No longer will we give away lands to bloodthirsty dictators in exchange for the fake illusion of peace. As Soviet Jewish dissident Nathan Sharansky once proclaimed, “The only peace that can be made with a dictator is one based on deterrence.”

The Golan Heights is critical to Israel’s security. Should the Assad region ever once again gain control of the Golan Heights, the results would be devastating for the State of Israel. The Jewish state could find itself in a situation where cities such as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem had rockets raining down on them from the north, as was the situation prior to Israel obtaining the territory in 1967. Holding onto such a plateau would give a strategic advantage to any enemy who seeks to destroy Israel.

Furthermore, should Syria obtain the Israeli part of the Golan Heights under the Assad regime, it would be a horrific blow to Israel’s deterrence for the only way to deter Assad is to show him that his own bloody actions against his people have led not only the US but the world entire to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. Only if the world does this, Assad will think twice before repeating such a bloodbath again.

The Golan Heights and the Depths of Hypocrisy

The accusation that Israel and the U.S. are flagrantly violating diplomatic and legal norms rests on two such restatements of the norm, both of them flawed. The first one takes the armistice lines created in 1949 between Israel and its Arab neighbors as de facto international borders and tries to apply to them the same standards of territorial integrity as an internationally recognized boundary.

The problem is that the armistice agreements explicitly say the opposite—and at the insistence of the Arab side. Article V of the Israeli-Syrian General Armistice Agreement (20 July 1949) begins: “It is emphasized that the following arrangements for the Armistice Demarcation Line between the Israeli and Syrian armed forces and for the Demilitarized Zone are not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements affecting the two Parties to this Agreement.” Similar passages exist in the armistice with Jordan and with Egypt, but not in the armistice with Lebanon, which explicitly recognizes the previous Franco-British boundary as an international border. Syria, like Egypt and Jordan, assumed that in a future war they might conquer more territory and didn’t want to be saddled with a binding line. It was not a gamble that paid off.

The problems don’t end there. Even if the agreements that established the 1949 armistice lines didn’t explicitly declare them to be temporary and nonbinding, they would have ceased to have any legal validity when fighting erupted again, as it did in June 1967. As in the 1948 war, the Arab aim in 1967 was explicitly and openly stated: It ranged from ethnic cleansing to genocide of the Jewish State of Israel. The expectation that the colossal Arab defeat could be followed by a return to the lines from the previous war—it too a colossal Arab defeat—would be like the Germans in 1945 expecting they could restore the borders they had in 1919.

A further problem is that the armistice lines themselves rewarded aggressive conquest, putting Jordan, Egypt, and (importantly for this discussion) Syria in lands that were beyond their own prewar boundaries. Israel’s territorial gains are a violation of a post-1945 principle but Arab territorial gains (which also took place after 1945) are somehow not? And if the armistice lines are sacrosanct, where does this leave the claims of the Palestinians? After all, the armistice leaves Gaza for Egypt and the West Bank for Jordan and nothing for the Palestinians.

Finally, it’s hard to see how armistice lines can attain a status of permanence. They were, after all, the lines at which a previous war stopped. But two more wars were fought on the Israeli-Syrian frontier, and those ended up with clear lines, too. What is the general norm, rather than the conviction that Israel is always in the wrong, that explains why one set of lines is holy and the next set an affront?

UK condemns Trump’s recognition of Golan Heights as Israeli

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has condemned Donald Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory.

Answering questions in the House of Commons on Tuesday morning, Hunt did not shy in criticising the Trump White House for breaking the post-war international consensus for not recognising sovereignty over land seized during war.

Hunt made British policy clear in response to a question from Conservative grandee Sir Nicholas Soames, who said it was “a matter of the greatest regret that our allies, the United States, are in clear contravention of UN Resolution 497”.

Soames said Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan was illegal because “annexation of territory is prohibited under international law” and asked Hunt to “condemn unreservedly this breach of the rules-based order”.

Hunt said he was “absolutely happy to do that,” adding: “We should never recognise the annexation of territory by force… that has been one of the great achievements since the founding of the United Nations.”

PMW: We believe in peace but admire murderers of Israelis - PA hypocrisy and duplicity exposed

We believe in peace but admire murderers of Israelis - PA hypocrisy and duplicity exposed

PA and Fatah Chairman Abbas to American students:
"We will not choose a path other than negotiations... We believe in peace and believe in security for everyone."

ONE DAY EARLIER:
Fatah Deputy Chairman Al-Aloul to Palestinians about terrorist who murdered 2 Israelis:
"We are extremely proud, this is Omar Abu Laila... [he] represents all young Palestinians."

This is yet another striking example of Palestinian Authority hypocrisy and duplicity, which Palestinian Media Watch has documented for years, and particularly in the book Deception.

Abbas' statements to American students did not only contradict his deputy, it also is diametrically opposed to his many statements honoring terrorists. He recently told Palestinians on PA TV that terrorists in Israeli prisons are "stars in the sky of the Palestinian people... they have priority in everything..." [Official PA TV, July 24, 2018]

This duplicity is a well-rehearsed PA "modus operandi." For example, in 2014, PMW exposed that when Abbas spoke with Israeli students he talked about the shared desire for "peace," but previously - when Abbas spoke to Palestinians - he had praised the murderer of 2 Israeli students as a "heroic brother."

It should be noted that the PA not only glorifies all murderers of Israelis, presenting them as role models, but they continue to pay salaries to terrorists in prison even when they can't pay the salaries of their civil servants. The PA continues to be a terror supporting entity and until international leaders realize that and respond to it, there can never be meaningful steps for peace. Only when world leaders recognize that the PA and Fatah can only be trusted in what they say to their own people, and insist that the PA reject terror and fight terror in a meaningful way among Palestinians, and not merely pretend to do so to Harvard students, can a serious dialogue towards peace begin.

Fatah Deputy Chairman “extremely proud” of murderer of 2


Abbas pretends the PA is against terror when speaking to American students


United Nations condemns Islamophobia and antisemitism

The UN General Assembly adopted, by a consensus on Tuesday, a resolution that condemns Islamophobia and antisemitism – in the wake of the latest attack on two New Zealand mosques, in which 50 people were murdered and 50 others were injured. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon led a diplomatic effort to change the wording of the resolution, which initially included a condemnation to Islamophobia but had no mention of antisemitism.

The ambassador convinced a few states to avoid supporting the resolution if it did not mention antisemitism. Following the discussion at the UN, Danon said that “the memory of history seems to be fading with time, but our diplomatic efforts have shown that we will not allow the international community to remain silent while a wave of antisemitism spreads throughout the world.”

Noa Forman, who represented Israel in the discussion, said: “We strongly condemn this horrifying act of terrorism. It is critical that the General Assembly sends a strong message against a religious base, hatred and hate crimes, but we must do it in such a way that unites us all.” She added: “Unfortunately, like many others, we felt that the negotiation process on this resolution could have been more inclusive and transparent and as a result, we could not co-sponsor the resolution despite the importance we all attach to the need to combat terrorism and other acts of violence based on religion or belief.”

Jonathan Cohen, acting Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, mentioned in his remarks the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the United States: “Many of us in this room represent nations whose people who’ve been victims of terrorist attacks. Americans know all too well the pain of such attacks, most recently with the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Yazidis and Christians victimized by ISIS also know this pain.” He said that “Opposing this terrorism unites countries around the world. While we’ve made progress in our fight against terrorism, we must remain vigilant. Together, we must continue to fight terrorism and all its forms wherever it exists.”

Israeli UN Envoy Hails General Assembly’s Condemnation of Antisemitism Following Diplomatic Battle

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday hailed the passage of a General Assembly resolution on hate crimes that was amended to include a specific condemnation of antisemitism as “an Israeli achievement at the UN and a crushing loss to the forces of hatred.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, pointed out in a statement that the original version of the resolution — drafted by Turkey in response to the March 15 shooting massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand — had omitted any mention of antisemitism. Following sustained pressure from Danon and other ambassadors at the UN, Turkey agreed to amend the resolution.

“The memory of history seems to be fading with time, but our diplomatic efforts have shown that we will not allow the international community to remain silent while a wave of antisemitism spreads throughout the world,” Danon said in a statement.

Danon reflected that it was “very unfortunate that we had to fight to include antisemitism in the draft resolution.”

He added that “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination in their land and being anti-Israel is no different from antisemitism.”

Jewish groups can’t get enough of Nikki Haley, 'Nikki for President!'

Nikki Haley was honored by various Jewish groups for her defense of the Israeli state on Tuesday.

The Sanhedrin, a Jewish group devoted to building a third Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, praised Haley by minting a coin in her honor, along with two other religious groups according the Associated Press.

“She supported and she told the truth … that all the United Nations, all its agenda, is to destroy,” Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the group, said Wednesday. “She acted in a manner that represented biblical tenets,” he added.

Similarly, the group made a coin in honor of US President Donald Trump after he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the embassy.

“You look at the anti-Israel bias, and the strength and courage that the president showed in moving the embassy – and showing the world we will move our embassy where we want,” Haley said after she resigned as the US ambassador to the United Nations, listing her accomplishments.

Haley's coin depicts her in front of the UN with a Jewish Menorah on top. It is being sold for USD $65 for silver and USD $90 for gold, plus shipping, according to its website.

'We can improve Brazil-Israel ties for betterment of both our peoples'

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told i24NEWS on Tuesday that improving relations between Brazil and Israel is in the interest of both countries, as he wraps up a three-day trip to the Jewish state.

Bolsonaro's visit will conclude on Tuesday with his participation in a joint Israeli-Brazilian business forum alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

On Monday, Bolsonaro made a trailblazing visit to the Western Wall accompanied by Netanyahu making him the first foreign head of state to visit the site with an Israeli premier.

The visit carried with it a significant message, signaling Brazil's tacit recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the east Jerusalem holy site despite Bosonaro's walk-back of a pledge to recognize the city as Israel's capital.

Bolsonaro told i24NEWS on Tuesday that his visit to Israel carried special significance for him as a Christian, and said that relations between the two countries could continue to be improved for the betterment of both.

"I really feel the atmosphere of cooperation between our countries is happening now and we can improve it for the betterment of our both our people," Bolsonaro said, after touring an Israeli innovation exhibit and attending a forum of Israeli and Brazilian business people.

Bolsonaro added that he expects "bigger interaction" between Israel and Brazil following his visit.

"Everything we will do will be for that," he told i24NEWS.

Brazilian President Bolsonaro's visit to Israel deepens ties between the two countries


Land Theft by the Palestinian Authority in Area C of the West Bank

The Roots of Evil: The Palestinian Authority’s Systematic Annexation of Tens of Thousands of Acres in Judea and Samaria

Regavim’s latest report exposes the Palestinian Authority’s systematic but silent plan, powered by massive European Union financial support: Strategically-positioned agricultural land-seizure projects covering tens of thousands of dunams of land in areas under full Israeli jurisdiction are creating irreversible facts on the ground. Large-scale planting, creation of irrigation systems, and an enormous network of illegal roads are carving up the open spaces in Judea and Samaria and drawing the borders of a de facto Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland – in flagrant violation of the law.

A comprehensive, in-depth report recently released by Regavim exposes a secretive program undertaken by the Palestinian Authority, with massive financial support provided by the European Union, European governments, and other foreign interests. Dubbed “The Roots Project,” this systematic program of land theft targets areas placed under full Israeli jurisdiction by the Oslo Accords and international law. Through seemingly-innocuous agricultural projects, the PA continues to take advantage of a legal loophole in order to effectively annex territory throughout Judea and Samaria.

Since 2009, the Palestinian Authority has been making methodical progress toward the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state by means of large-scale land theft. Regavim’s newly-released report provides details of this hostile takeover of territory, and reveals the primary tactic employed since 2013: Agricultural land-seizure. As opposed to illegal construction, agricultural use is a quick and convenient method of annexing very large tracts of land, under the guise of innocuous “humanitarian aid.”

Under the system of law in force in Judea and Samaria, agricultural use of land affords rights akin to outright ownership – effectively enabling poached land to be transferred quickly and irrevocably to private Arab hands. This explains the intensive “agricultural” activity orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority in areas surrounding Jewish communities, adjacent to the security fence, and near other strategic assets: The seizure of land in these particular locations interrupts the contiguity of Jewish settlement and annexes a crucial band of territory to Palestinian Authority control.

Click to view: Roots of Evil – Full Report

Dutch Firm Wins Bid to Examine Building Artificial Airport Island Off Israeli Coast

Dutch engineering and project management consulting firm Royal Haskoning DHV has won a tender from the Israeli Ministry of Transportation to examine the planning and economic viability of building an artificial island off the coast of Israel to house an airport, a Transportation Ministry spokesman told Calcalist Tuesday.

Royal Haskoning DHV is working on the project with Israel-based infrastructure planning company Aviv AMCG, a subsidiary of Matrix IT. The two companies started the assessment approximately two weeks ago, Margalit Mosse Friedberg, Aviv AMCG’s director of the project’s local task force, said in a Tuesday interview with Calcalist.

In 2002, the Israeli government approved a plan to construct two artificial islands off the country’s shores, specifying one for an international airport and one for housing.

During a cabinet meeting in January 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resurfaced the idea to construct artificial islands in Israel’s territorial waters as a solution for Israel’s finite territory. In a cabinet meeting in July, Netanyahu instructed a team of ministers to advance the plan in order to replace Tel Aviv’s domestic Sde Dov airport.

Israel Electric to Forgo $1.3 Billion of Egyptian Debt

IEC has agreed to receive only $500 million out of the $1.8 billion awarded in arbitration from Egyptian gas companies.

Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) has confirmed yesterday's report in "Globes" that its board of directors has agreed to forgo most of the money that was awarded to it in Swiss arbitration proceedings from Egyptian gas companies EGPC and EGAS.

IEC notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) today that it is in "very advanced negotiations for a settlement" to receive $500 million from the Egyptian gas companies. $60 million will be paid on the signing of the agreement and the remainder over 8.5 years with guarantees from an Egyptian bank.

In fact in 2015 the Swiss arbitrators awarded IEC $1.8 billion from EGPC and EGAS for non-supply of gas from 2011 onwards after the pipeline in the Sinai was repeatedly sabotaged.

However, Government Companies Authority manager Yaakov Kvint has written to IEC chairman Yiftah Ron Tal demanding that the company reconsider the matter when taking into account that the consumer will have to foot the bill for the money not collected by IEC from the Egyptians.

IDF to demolish home of Ariel attacker next week

The IDF on Wednesday morning informed the family of a Palestinian who killed an IDF soldiers and Israeli civilian in a terror attack outside the settlement of Ariel that their home will be confiscated and demolished in less than a week.

The Head of the Central Command Maj.-Gen. Nadav Padan signed an order to confiscate and demolish the apartment where Omar Abu Lila lived.

The demolition order will take effect on April 8, 2019.

On March 17th Abu Lila fatally stabbed 19-year-old St.-Sgt. Gal Keidan at the Ariel junction and then stole his gun, shooting him at close range before opening fire at vehicles passing through the junction, fatally hitting 47-year-old father of 11 Rabbi Ahiad Ettinger.

Abu Lila then stole a car and drove to the nearby Gitai junction, where again opened fire striking soldier St.-Sgt. Alexander Dvorsky, who remains in hospital.

He then fled on foot into the nearby village of Burqin and was killed in a shootout with authorities two days later in the Palestinian village of Abwein, north of Ramallah.

Khaled Abu Toameh: PA launches investigation into death of detainee

The Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday that it has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a Palestinian who was detained in a Palestinian prison in Beitunia, near Ramallah.

The 31-year-old detainee, Mahmoud al-Hamalawi, died in prison on March 18. The man’s family said he moved from the Gaza Strip to Ramallah two years ago.

His family and human rights groups claim that al-Hamalawi died as a result of beating. They say that he was arrested by the PA Preventive Security Service four days before his death.

The PA prosecutor-general’s office said that the man’s body has been referred to the Palestinian Forensic Institute for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

The office said that the investigation was still in its early stages, adding that the results of the investigation will be announced once it is completed.

Hamas, other groups said to order halt to arson balloon launches

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups in the Gaza Strip have instructed their members to stop launching flaming and explosive-laden balloons into Israel and to halt nighttime protests in the border region between the Jewish state and the coastal enclave, according to a Palestinian report Wednesday.

The report in the Al-Quds daily, citing “well-placed” sources, said smaller Palestinian factions in the enclave would also halt launching balloons into Israel, amid intensive efforts to reach a truce with Israel.

Palestinians in Gaza have launched thousands of balloons and kites carrying incendiary devices or explosives at Israel since April 2018, burning thousands of dunams of farmlands in the southern part of the Jewish state.

Gazans recently restarted the launches, after a several-month hiatus in the fall and winter, and began holding night protests as tensions on the Gaza border have ticked up.

According to the report, the Gazan groups told their members to stop employing “rough tools” along the border, using a phrase that refers to incendiary and explosive-laden balloons and nighttime protests.

Venezuelan foreign minister visits Beirut, set to meet Hezbollah leader

Venezuela’s foreign minister Jorge Arreaza arrived in Beirut Wednesday for a series of meetings with Lebanese officials.

Arreaza met with Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun and his counterpart Gebran Bassil.

The envoy of embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is expected to also meet with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Lebanese prime minister Sa’ad Hariri before traveling onward to Syri, according to Beirut-based Naharnet.

Maduro’s government has warm relations with Syria and its allies in Lebanon, though Beirut also enjoys ties and military aid from Washington.

The US, Israel and much of the West have backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has pushed for Maduro’s ouster.

Russia, a major backer of Syria, and China, which has invested heavily in Venezuela’s oil industry, both back Maduro.

Last weekend, a Russian aircraft carrying military officials and equipment arrived in Caracas and is believed to have flown via Syria, according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking site.

With Turkish loss of the F-35, Israel keeps its aerial superiority

The Pentagon’s decision to stop the delivery of equipment related to the F-35 stealth fighter jet to Turkey due to Ankara's decision to purchase the Russian-made S-400 air defense system will allow Israel to keep it’s aerial superiority in the Middle East.

Washington’s move follows repeated warnings both from the United States and NATO allies to Ankara that buying the Russian system alongside the Lockheed Martin-produced jets would threaten the security of the F-35s by learning how to spot and track it.

Israel, which also has fragile relations with Turkey, currently has 14 F-35 Adir jets and is expected to receive a total of 50 planes to make two full squadrons by 2024.

According to foreign reports, Israel has already quietly tested ways to defeat the advanced Russian air defense system, participating in several joint drills with the Greek Air Force over the island of Crete where one system is stationed. The drills have reportedly allowed Israeli warplanes to gather data on how the advanced system may be blinded or fooled.

But there are fears that the radar on the S-400 systems bought by Turkey, which has entered into a sort of alliance with Russia and has been in close cooperation with Iran, could learn the weak spots in the jet and make it less able to evade Russian weapons in the future.

David Albright: Iran Was Building an Underground Nuclear Test Site

Israeli-seized nuclear archive documentation indicates that Iran had begun the process of establishing an underground nuclear test site and developing the necessary methods to estimate nuclear explosive yield in the early 2000s, an effort known as “Project Midan.”

The project had identified five potential test site locations and was developing approaches, including seismic and other methods, to measure the explosive yield of an underground nuclear test.

Using openly available, corroborating geospatial information, we have identified the likely location (in an area southeast of Semnan) where underground non-nuclear explosives tests were conducted in 2003 as part of developing seismic methods of measuring the yield of an underground nuclear explosive.

It is essential that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) promptly address all of the information available in the archives, noting that much of this information contradicts Iran’s earlier statements provided during the IAEA’s investigations of the Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.

Development of nuclear weapon testing capabilities are not compatible with Iran’s undertakings under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and do not support the claim that the nuclear program has always been, and continues to be, entirely peaceful.

It is important for Iran to extend an invitation to the United Nations Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to assist the IAEA in its investigation, or to ask the Preparatory Commission of the CTBTO to assess separately the status of Iran’s nuclear test plans.

Europe’s Eagerness to Appease Iran Has Led It to Turn a Blind Eye to Terror in Its Backyard

In the past two years, European intelligence services have on many occasions—often with the assistance of the Mossad—foiled attempts at espionage, assassinations, and terror attacks by Iranian agents. But the timid responses of European officialdom, and the unwillingness to confront Tehran over these activities, argues Yossi Mansharof, are part and parcel of the desire to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal:

The result of the European Union’s attachment to the nuclear deal is appeasement of Iran. As part of this appeasement, the EU confines itself to statements against Iran’s missile program and expansionism in the region. The EU has also made its peace with the political and security settlement prevailing in Lebanon, which gives Hizballah effective control of the country. . . .

The EU also responded weakly to the arrest in Iran of dual European-Iranian citizens on various pretexts, including espionage. . . .The weakness of the EU’s policy on Iran was also demonstrated by its feeble response to the arrest of 7,000 Iranian demonstrators in 2018, 26 of whom were executed. . .

The EU’s fidelity to the nuclear deal and its appeasement of the Iranian regime’s aggression both inside and outside Iran have encouraged the Islamic Republic to escalate its terrorism on the European continent. The Iranian terrorist campaign in Europe, which has been mostly unsuccessful up until now, has encompassed many countries. . . . [For example], the German authorities discovered a cell of ten Iranian spies in December 2017 conducting surveillance of Israeli and Jewish targets. These targets included the Israeli embassy in Berlin and kindergartens and other centers of the local Jewish community. In November 2017, a German court convicted Mustufa Haider Syed-Naqfi, a Pakistani citizen living in Germany, of spying for Iran. [Syed-Naqfi] had been tailing Reinhold Robbe, the head of the German-Israeli Association. . . .

#Iranian Supreme Leader Ali #Khamenei Announces The Goals Of 'The Second Phase Of The Islamic Revolution' For The Next 40 Years: Young Iranians Must Create 'A New Islamic Civilization,' Prepare 'For The Rise Of The Sun Of The Mahdi'https://t.co/WIufE8FM73 pic.twitter.com/aEBuKoSDta

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) April 3, 2019

Iraqi Officials: Restoration of Citizenship Does Not Extend to Iraqi Jews Living in Israel


Qatari Sociologist Abad Al-Aziz Al-Khazraj Al-Ansari Demonstrates Correct Wife-Beating in Islam


Australian Sheikh: Everyone Would Be Safe Under Shar'ia Because People Would Fear Allah's Punishment

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