07/06 Links Pt1: Kontorovich: ‘Annexation’ Prevents Palestinians from Ethnically Cleansing Jews; Palestinians vexed by Arab leaders' apathy over Israeli sovereignty bid ~ EoZ

From Ian:

A fundamental principle which is so lacking in the current discourse about sovereignty was highlighted by Israeli poet Naomi Shemer writing in Ma'ariv in December 1975.

"The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people...regardless of conditions or temporary ownership of territory, regardless of the essence of a passing rule or a question such as how many Jews are living in the Land of Israel at any given moment."

That, if you will, is the unwritten constitution of the State of Israel, the one that begins with "Go from your country...to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1) and continues on to "the hope that is 2,000 years old" and the genetic code of "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem."
Even the League of Nations recognized that genome 100 years ago as "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and "the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country" and the Jewish right to "settle in any place in the west of Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."

Security is important but doesn't come before everything else. David Ben-Gurion didn't address the question when he insisted on holding onto far-flung settlements in the Jerusalem hills and in the Negev and the western Galilee.

We might be here today because of might, but even before that, because we have a right to be.

Exclusive: Expert Says ‘Annexation’ Prevents Palestinians from Ethnically Cleansing Jews

Israel’s plan to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank puts an end to the “morally repugnant” notion — endorsed by all U.S. administrations except Trump’s – that Jews need to be ethnically cleansed from the territory, preeminent legal expert Eugene Kontorovich told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.

“The Obama administration took the position that peace with the Palestinians requires Israel to pre-ethnically cleanse the territory,” Kontorovich said.

The Trump administration had the “moral clarity” to recognize that the “removal of the Jewish people [from West Bank settlements] as an Israeli obligation in a peace accord is morally reprehensible,” Kontorovich noted.

President Donald Trump’s so-called Vision for Peace sees Israel annexing 30 percent of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. It also delineates a demilitarized Palestinian state established on most of the West Bank with parts of eastern Jerusalem that are outside the Israeli security fence as its capital.

If Israel goes ahead with the plans, the Palestinian leadership warned that it would unilaterally declare a state based on the pre-1967 lines.

According to Kontorovich, a law professor who serves as the director of the Center for the Middle East and International Law at George Mason University Scalia Law School, all peace proposals – except Trump’s – that have been put forward over the years since Israel liberated the West Bank from Jordanian occupation in the 1967 defensive war have been based on the erroneous idea that Jewish presence there is illegal and needs to be reversed.

Those proposals called on Israel to “maintain the area from which Jordan ethnically cleansed Jews in 1948 as a perpetual judenrein zone,” he said, using Nazi terminology for the exclusion of Jews.

While no Israeli government has ever proposed evacuating Palestinians from the area, he said, “expelling Jews is the minimum demand for any Palestinian negotiations.”

It is incumbent upon Israel to apply Israeli law over the area, as indeed should have been done 53 years ago after the Six Day War, the law professor told Breitbart.

The belief in Israel at the time was that it was only a temporary situation and the Jewish state would imminently come to a peace agreement with the Palestinians, he explained. But the Palestinians rejected all Israeli offers so instead, close to half a million settlers have had to live for decades under Kafkaesque bureaucracy relating to obscure Ottoman laws ruling the area.

Proving beyond doubt the error of those who claim Israeli settlements are illegal. Such claims are invariably based on an anti-Israel political agenda rather than legal facts. https://t.co/sz2TlOFmYL
— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) July 6, 2020

David Singer: Is it “Annexation” or “Restoring Jewish Sovereignty”?

Students at Australia’s largest Jewish Day School – Moriah College – can be excused for being completely confused as to whether Israel’s proposed application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria constitutes “annexation” or “restoring Jewish sovereignty” in the Jewish people’s biblical heartland after 3000 years.

There is a big difference – as College Principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler’s article “The myth of Israeli annexation” informed Moriah students:
“To use the term ‘Annexation’ in relation to Judea and Samaria is misleading. ‘Annexation’, a term applied to the forcible seizing of land or territory and annexing it into one’s own country or bringing it under its rule. It implies Israel is about to ‘seize control’ of areas that don’t already belong to Israel and that it doesn’t currently govern. This is simply untrue. Let’s look at the history.”

Regrettably the Principal’s look at history did not mention that:
- Judea and Samaria were designated by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 as part of the territory within which the Jewish National Home was to be reconstituted
- the United Nations description of this territory as “Occupied Palestinian Territory” is false and misleading
- Jewish rights to “close settlement” in Judea and Samaria under article 6 of the Mandate are preserved by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

A difficult week for Netanyahu - Analysis

Perhaps Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu underwent more difficult weeks in his 32-year-long political career, and should he be found guilty on at least some of the counts for which he is standing trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, he might undergo much worse. However, last week was undoubtedly not an easy week for our prime minister.

The fact that July 1 went by without even a mild signal of any annexation in Judea and Samaria, was not only an embarrassment for Netanyahu vis-à-vis the settlers and members of the more extreme Right, who danced and pranced at the White House on January 28, when US President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” was launched at a press conference, but signals a possible political defeat for him – a defeat which, if realized, could bury his aspiration to go down into history as he who realized the annexation of all the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria to Israel.

Netanyahu apparently believed – and might still believe – that the deal would enable him to annex about 30% of the West Bank, without offering the Palestinians anything in return. Not surprisingly, today nobody in the world outside Israel – except for the Evangelicals, who have an agenda of their own designed to bring about the return of the Messiah, and the American Ambassador to Jerusalem, who also serves as the settlers’ Ambassador to Washington – appears to support a unilateral annexation at this point of time, and even Trump appears more concerned with other issues, although the Evangelicals might finally prevail, due to Trump’s electoral difficulties.

THE SECOND issue on which Netanyahu suffered a major disappointment last week concerns his request to receive a gift of NIS 10 million from his American millionaire friend Spencer Partridge to pay for his defense team in his trial, which was declined by the Permits Committee in the State Comptroller’s Office, after the attorney general refused to approve the request.

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman, appointed by Netanyahu 13 months ago, with the intention that there should be a personality more partial to himself in the position than Englman’s predecessor had been, was unable to cancel the committee’s harsh verdict. In the past, Engelman was willing to approve a NIS 2m. loan from Partridge on commercial terms. It should be noted that the make-up of the committee was recently changed to facilitate a decision in Netanyahu’s favor.

Palestinians vexed by Arab leaders' apathy over Israeli sovereignty bid

Palestinian frustration and anger with the Arab world for its general indifference to Israel's plan to extend sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley is growing, Palestinian Media Watch reported over the weekend.

Diplomatic sources told Israel Hayom Sunday that high-ranking officials in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and several Persian Gulf states have told their Israeli counterparts that while they must have their ear to the ground with regard to their respective publics' response to the move, their governments do not plan on taking any action against Israel beyond declarative condemnations.

So far, the only Arab leader to oppose Israel's plan outright has been King Abdullah of Jordan, who has explained that while it is in Amman's interest to have permanent Israeli security presence along the western border between the two countries, such a move could spark riots that would threaten the stability of Jordan's government, which is why he has to try to counter the move on the regional and international levels.

This type of caution in the Arab world coincides with the overall change in policy in many Arab countries, which no longer immediately dismiss the notion of normalizing relations with the Jewish state.

Saudi Arabia has long stopped denying it maintains behind-the-scenes diplomatic and intelligence cooperation with Israel, primarily in pursuit of mutual objectives with respect to the two countries' common enemy – Iran; and just last week United Arab Emirates firms signed a historic partnership deal with Israeli companies as part of the fight against the coronavirus

Overall, since the Arab Spring stormed through the Middle East in 2011, toppling longtime rulers and forever changing the geopolitical landscape, many Arab leaders have been busy stabilizing their regimes and focusing on counterterrorism efforts.

This change has marginalized the Palestinian issue with respect to Arab leaders' agendas. These leaders can no longer afford to prioritize the Palestinian interest over their own, something Ramallah has found hard to counter.

MEMRI: International Union Of Muslim Scholars, Backed By Qatar And Turkey, Calls For Jihad And Self-Sacrifice To Foil Israel’s Plan To Annex Parts Of The West Bank

On July 2, 2020, the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), backed by Qatar and Turkey, and other Islamic organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement calling on Muslims to wage jihad and self-sacrifice in order to foil the plan of the Israeli government to annex parts of the West Bank. The statement, issued following a Zoom conference on this topic, includes many quotes from the Quran and the Hadith calling on Muslims to perform jihad for the sake of Allah by sacrificing their lives, giving of their wealth, holding demonstrations or in any other way.

The statement describes the annexation as a crime against the entire Muslim nation, stressing that

acting to liberate Palestine and defend it is a religious duty incumbent upon every Muslim. It commends the “heroic” resistance of the Palestinian terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, adding that supporting them, materially and morally, is a form of jihad for the sake of Allah.

The statement also harshly condemns the Arab regimes that “rush to normalize relations with the Zionist entity” and to criminalize the resistance organizations, hinting at Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and urges the Muslims to take to the streets to protest against the Zionist crime of annexation.

The statement concludes by declaring that the annexation plan will not come to pass “as long as the jihad-fighters keep their finger on the trigger,” and as long as “there is a people [in Palestine] who seeks death so as to be given life.”

Rivlin to posthumously honor man who drowned while saving a family

President Reuven Rivlin will honor Michael Ben-Zikri, who died while rescuing a 40-year-old woman and her three children on Friday, with a posthumous civilian award which will henceforth be given to Israelis who, through their actions, inspire society.

Rivlin will offer the award to the Ben-Zikri family as soon as they rise from their mourning (shiva). Rivlin also invited the family Ben-Zikri saved, a Bedouin family from Hura, to the event.

Ben-Zikri was 45-years-old when he went swimming in a man-made lake near Zikim with his own family. He noticed the woman and her children drowning and rescued them all. Sadly, he was so exhausted from his efforts he drowned.

The cause of the incident were sinkholes which were formed at the bottom of the lake.

Ben-Zikri will be the first to be given this award.

Former Arab MK Taleb el-Sana attended the Sunday funeral and vowed that Ben-Zikri’s memory will be honored by naming a main street after him in Lakiya.

He told the grieving family that “the entire Arab community, from the north to the south, each house, shares your pain.”

IDF strikes Hamas targets following Gaza rocket fire

Israeli aircraft struck Hamas positions in Gaza after three rockets were fired from the Hamas-run enclave towards southern Israel on Sunday night a week after the last round of rocket fire.

IAF jets and helicopters struck an underground facility belonging to Hamas in the northern part of coastal enclave, the IDF said.

“The IDF views any kind of terror activity aimed at Israel with great severity and will continue operating as necessary against attempts to harm Israeli civilians,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said, adding that Hamas will “bear the consequences” for all attacks against Israel.

Two of the rockets, which caused thousands of Israelis in southern Israeli communities to run to bomb shelters twice in less than an hour, landed in open fields and caused no damage. The third was intercepted by the Iron Dome.

The rocket fire comes as tensions are high with the blockaded coastal enclave as Hamas and other Gazan terror groups have vowed to oppose Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank.

Netanyahu: ‘Very Strong’ COVID-19 Resurgence is an ‘Emergency Situation’

Israel is in the midst of a renewed, “very strong” resurgence of COVID-19 that will see “an increase and a doubling of the number of severe cases,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting.

“The World Health Organization has marked the Middle East as a focus of the global spread. This is not passing over Israel. It is here,” said Netanyahu, who added that the new outbreak posed a challenge for the state of Israel and its health system.

Four Israelis died of COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the country’s death toll since the start of the pandemic to 330, according to the Israeli Health Ministry.

According to ministry data, there were 804 new cases recorded over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of active cases in the country to 11,189, of which 86 are considered serious. There have been a total of 29,366 confirmed cases since the beginning of the outbreak, including 103 since midnight on Saturday.

Based on discussions with the health minister on Sunday morning and with other officials on Saturday night, said Netanyahu, “We must take additional steps beyond what the [coronavirus] Cabinet and the [Security and Diplomacy] Cabinet decided at the end of last week.”

If urgent action was not taken many Israelis would die, said the prime minister.

Coronavirus restrictions reinstated: What are the new rules?

On Monday, the government approved a set of new regulations to help limit the spread of the coronavirus across Israel. This is the first set of new directives that reduce freedom of movement and gathering since May, when Israel began relaxing restrictions and re-opening its economy.
> Event halls, clubs and bars - closed
> Restaurants - up to 20 patrons inside, up to 30 outside
> Gyms and public pools - closed
> Cultural performances - closed
> Hotels and tourist sides - clubs and bars are closed, hotel restaurants can seat up to 20 patrons inside
> Synagogues - up to 19 people
> Other gathering: up to 20 people, two meters apart with masks
> Organized sporting events - without fans (no change)
> Summer camps and youth activities - Only preschool through fourth grade to run; government authorizes Education Minister to make decisions on educational activities for fifth graders and up in consultation with the Higher Education minister
> Buses - up to 20 people per bus; the government agrees to allow the Transportation minister to decide on another number in collaboration with the Health minister and National Security Council
> Government office employees - 30% required to work from home

Corona chief: Public health services failed; gov’t made foolish decisions

Israel’s public health services operate poorly and many of the coronavirus decisions made by the government were not based on “rational considerations” – and now, “the government has lost control of the pandemic,” Prof. Eli Waxman, former chairman of the National Security Council's expert advisors committee concerning the coronavirus outbreak, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Waxman said that the country’s public health services “function poorly” and that the “decisions they have taken are the major reason for us being without the capability to cut off the chains of infection today.

“Their resistance is a major cause for this situation,” he continued. “But it was supported by the former director-general of the Health Minister. They had a manager that should have taken action but failed.”

Waxman, who has the ear of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, newly appointed Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and National Security Council head Meir Ben-Shabbat, is once again counseling the team on how to handle the corona crisis, as the numbers continue to surge with seemingly no strategic plan in place.

A month ago, Israel was lauded for its ability to contain the spread of coronavirus and its low death rate per capita. However, despite a staged exit strategy – which Waxman helped define – the government made impulsive decisions to open too fast.

As of Monday afternoon, the number of serious patients had already reached 90 – up more than 30 people from the week before, and sure to increase by press time. Waxman said that around 2% of the roughly 1,000 people being diagnosed with the novel virus daily will exhibit severe symptoms, putting Israel’s health system at risk of becoming overwhelmed.

Israel successfully launches Ofek 16 spy satellite into space

Israel launched the new Ofek 16 spy satellite into orbit from a launchpad at Palmachim airbase in central Israel early Monday morning, the Defense Ministry announced.

“The Space Administration in the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), of the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMoD), and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), have successfully launched the "Ofek 16" reconnaissance satellite into space, today at 4:00 AM,” the ministry said in a statement.

The "Ofek 16" is an electro-optical reconnaissance satellite with advanced capabilities and was the first launch of an Israeli satellite since Spacecom’s Amos-17 took off from Florida in 2017.

Israel successfully launches Ofek 16 spy satellite into space. (Defense Ministry) Israel successfully launches Ofek 16 spy satellite into space. (Defense Ministry)

Israel’s satellite program, which has been active since 1988, “significantly enhances the intelligence capabilities of the State of Israel, due to the groundbreaking technology and capabilities developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and additional partner industries,” the ministry said.

Israel just flipped the space bird to Iran - Analysis

The Ofek 16 joins a fleet of other spy satellites launched independently by the Jewish State since 1988, a technological feat on its own. A few hours after it was launched, it was already sending data back to earth and is expected to send its first pictures back next week.

While it is unclear the exact number of satellites Israel has launched into what used to be the “final frontier,” Harari hinted that they give the Jewish State almost constant coverage of enemy territory.

“You can assume that once you have more than one satellite in parallel in the sky, you achieve better visit times over the targets of interest.”

Despite Iran being a formidable enemy, Israel has shown that it is capable of penetrating into sensitive locations deep behind enemy lines, and a number of explosions over the last week, including one which led to a large fire at Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear site, has Tehran on edge.

Iran has admitted that the fire caused “considerable” damage to the centrifuge assembly facility, damaging or destroying key components needed to enrich uranium. While at first the fire was thought to have been caused by a cyberattack, Iran later blamed it on an explosive device having been brought into the center.

Though Israel has stayed relatively mum on the issue, as it usually does regarding possible operational activity away from its border, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said that Israel “takes actions that are better left unsaid” to prevent Iran from having nuclear abilities.

Now, the launch of the latest spy satellite was obviously not planned to take place shortly after a wave of mysterious explosions in Iran. But in life, coincidence is a funny thing. Especially in the world of military reconnaissance.

Israel flags security risk as US allows HD satellite images of Israel

An Israeli official flagged a possible security risk on Monday following a US move to allow American providers to sell clearer satellite images of Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Under a 1997 US regulation known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, satellite images of Israel and the Palestinian territories used in services like Google Earth could show items no smaller than 2 meters (6.56 ft) across.

The curb, Israel had argued, would help prevent enemies using public-domain information to spy on its sensitive sites.

But the US Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs Office said on June 25 it would allow enhanced resolutions of 0.4 meter. In a statement to Reuters, the agency said "a number of foreign sources" are already producing and disseminating sub-2 m. imagery of Israel.

Amnon Harari, head of space programs at Israel's Defense Ministry, said he believed the move was designed to ease international competition for US commercial satellites, adding: "I don't think they (Americans) asked us" in advance.

"We are in a process of studying what exactly is written there, what exactly the intentions are, what we can respond to, ultimately," Harari told Israel's public radio station Kan.

"We would always prefer to be photographed at the lowest resolution possible. It's always preferable to be seen blurred, rather than precisely."

Palestinian Authority Schools Edit Out Christians and Jews from Textbooks

76% of Palestinian Christians gave the Palestinian Authority failing marks for how schools teach the history of Christians, according to a recent survey commissioned by The Philos Project.

Christians are a dwindling minority, accounting for a mere 1% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza.

"The history that we learn [in school] starts with the Islamic conquest of the land. Anything before will focus on the pre-Israelite era," said Khalil Sayegh, a Christian from Gaza and Philos Advocacy Fellow. "This leads to Palestinian Christians looking like foreigners."

"Crusader," "infidel," and "foreigner" are all epithets Sayegh experienced in grade school.

In the survey, 43% of Palestinian Christians said that they feel most Muslims do not want them in the land. 2/3 say they have little trust in the PA government; trust in the judiciary peaks at 16%, and confidence in the police stands at 22%

PMW: PA banks refuse to accept salaries for terrorists

Ignoring a directive from the PA to all banks in the PA areas that they must accept money for payment of salaries to the accounts of terrorists and families of killed terrorists, at least four banks have refused to follow the PA’s dictates. This was exposed by PA Director of the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, Qadri Abu Bakr yesterday. All the banks are refusing to allow these groups to use their ATM cards.

This comes two and a half months after Palestinian Media Watch, sent letters warning the banks operating in the PA-controlled areas of potential criminal and civil liability if they continued aiding and abetting the PA to pay rewards to terrorists.

Five weeks Palestinian civil servants waited for the PA to pay them their May salaries.

While the PA usually pays its employees in the first half of every month, until July 3, the PA had not paid any salaries to its employees for the month of May. The delay in the payment was ostensibly a result of the renewed refusal to receive the tax monies Israel collects and transfers to the PA, but was also potentially connected to the PA’s difficulties to pay the terrorist prisoners.

May 2020 could have been the first month in over a decade in which the PA did not pay salaries to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners. This was not the result of a change in PA policy, but rather, as PMW has shown, demonstrates that for the PA, the terrorist prisoners are equally entitled to their salaries as the rest of the PA’s law abiding, non-terrorist, employees.

On July 3, the PA paid all of its employees, including the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners, their salary for the month of May.

While the PA was determined to pay the salaries of the terrorist prisoners, it would appear that the banks operating in the PA-controlled areas were less than fully co-operative.

Fatah leader pays respect to released Hamas prisoner

Jibril Rajoub, a senior official with the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah faction, visited on Monday a prominent Hamas activist who was released from Israeli prison last week.

The visit is seen by Palestinians as part of his effort to achieve reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Last week, Rajoub held a joint teleconference press interview with the deputy head of Hamas’s “political bureau,” Saleh Arouri, who is based in Lebanon.

During the press conference, Rajoub and Arouri announced their intention to work together to thwart Israel’s plan to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank and US President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” vision for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rajoub, who is secretary-general of the Fatah Central Committee, led a delegation of Fatah officials who traveled to Jenin to congratulate Amjad Qabaha, 50, a senior member of Izzadin al-Qassam, Hamas’s “military wing,” who was released last week after spending 18 years in Israeli prison for his role in terrorist activities during the Second Intifada.

Qabaha is a resident of the Palestinian village of Barta’a, located in the Jenin area. His brother, Wasfi Qabaha, is a former PA prisoners’ affairs minister and a prominent Hamas figure in the West Bank.

How Palestinians Terrorize Their Own People

"We see corruption everywhere. Is the Palestinian Authority headed towards self-destruction? Or is it just destroying the [Palestinian] people so that its own sons and relatives can rise to power?" — Nadia Harhash, journalist, who awoke on June 1, 2020 to find her car being torched, raialyoum.com.

Instead of heeding the call of the Palestinian Coalition for Accountability and Integrity and many Palestinians to end nepotism and ensure accountability and transparency, the PA has chosen to remain silent.

Thanks to the criminal negligence of the international community and the so-called human rights organizations, however, the Palestinian Authority leadership can simply continue to pursue its policy of deadly intimidation against Palestinian journalists. These groups are much too busy drafting condemnations of Israel to have time left over to expose the true Palestinian menace: the Palestinian Authority.

Iran: Fire at Natanz nuclear facility caused significant damage

Iran on Sunday confirmed that a damaged building at the underground Natanz nuclear site was a new centrifuge assembly center, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Iranian officials had previously sought to downplay the fire, which erupted early on Thursday, calling it only an "incident" that affected an "industrial shed." However, a released photo and video of the site broadcasted by Iranian state television showed a two-story brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed.

Iran's top security body said on Friday that the cause of the fire that broke out on Thursday had been determined but would be announced later. Some Iranian officials have said it may have been cyber sabotage and one warned that Tehran would retaliate against any country carrying out such attacks.

On Thursday, an article by Iran's state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States, although it stopped short of accusing either directly.

An online video and messages purportedly claiming responsibility for the fire were released Friday. However, the multiple, divergent claims by a self-described group called the "Cheetahs of the Homeland," as well as the fact that Iran experts have never heard of the group before, raised questions about whether Natanz again had faced sabotage by a foreign nation.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Sunday that Israel was not "necessarily" behind every mysterious incident in Iran.

Asked whether Israel had anything to do with the "mysterious explosions," Gantz told Army Radio: "Not every incident that transpires in Iran necessarily has something to do with us."

"All those systems are complex, they have very high safety constraints and I'm not sure they always know how to maintain them," Gantz said.
Three Iranian officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity on Friday said they believed the fire was the result of a cyberattack but did not cite any evidence.

Iran Says It Has Built Underground Missile Cities Along Gulf Coastline

Tehran has built underground “missile cities” along the Gulf coastline, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy chief said on Sunday, warning of a “nightmare for Iran’s enemies.”

“Iran has established underground onshore and offshore missile cities all along the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that would be a nightmare for Iran’s enemies,” Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri told the Sobh-e Sadeq weekly.

Twitter employs people to investigate complaints about Americans’ tweets.

But @twitter allows Iran’s Supreme Leader to spew hate everyday. @jack pic.twitter.com/E18n1C4uhd
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) July 5, 2020

PreOccupiedTerritory: Mossad Hints At Responsibility For Gas Buildup In Ayatollah’s Gut (satire)

Offhand comments by senior Israeli intelligence officials today appeared to allude to an element of Israel’s alleged ongoing operations inside the Islamic republic of Iran to degrade that foe’s weapons capability across the board and compromise important strategic facilities and resources, among them dangerous accumulations, leaks and explosions related to various forms of gas such as chlorine, methane, and the hydrogen sulfide within the Supreme Leader’s intestines.

An unnamed Mossad official was overheard Monday morning making oblique reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s gastrointestinal metabolic processes, including, if sources heard correctly, an anticipated “resounding address in the Fartsi language.” Analysts believe the phrase refer to the latest in a recent series of calamities to befall the regime in Tehran, such as a strategic missile storage facility that self-destructed, mysterious explosions at a centrifuge facility, chlorine gas leaks, and others. The incidents occurred against continuing weakness of Iran’s economy amid crippling American-led sanctions to deter atomic weapons development and curtail Iran’s malign influence throughout the Middle East.

A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on the overheard remarks. “We have nothing to add to anyone’s speculation,” said the representative. “Rumors about our supposed activity in Iran waft everywhere all the time. If half of them were true, well, maybe they are. Maybe all of them are true. Whenever you get wind of something, consider the source, but also, maybe it’s true.”

Do you wear a mask when you push gays off buildings? https://t.co/ACmCRxLGR8
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) July 5, 2020

Here is the Mufti attending the dedication of Mussolini's new sports forum during his trip to lobby El Duce in favor of Arab Palestinian nationalism. pic.twitter.com/kGdvDus5TP
— AZ עם ישראל חי (@americanzionism) July 6, 2020

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