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Elder of Ziyon
No commentsIsrael has led the world in rapidly vaccinating much of its population, so naturally the global left has to find fault: hence the drive to condemn Jerusalem for not taking responsibility for vaccinations in Gaza and the West Bank.What drove Obama into Iran's arms?
In a series of tweets, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth accused Israel of racism for this supposed failure; a week later, Palestinian officials decided to join the blame game, announcing that Israel is responsible for vaccinating Palestinians despite past statements to the contrary.
In reality, as UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer notes, the 1995 Oslo II Accord designates responsibility for the health care and vaccinations of its people to the Palestinian Authority.
And while the two countries are supposed to cooperate in terms of handling epidemics, Palestinian Health Ministry officials admitted back in December that they didn’t ask for help in obtaining vaccines from Israel.
Top Palestinian officials routinely go to Israel for major medical care, but PA propaganda discourages it for everyone else, with dark hints that Jewish doctors will offer Arabs only substandard care — if they’re not secretly experimenting on Palestinian patients.
From Obama’s perspective, Iran was the state with which to develop a relationship. The mullahs have the will, aggression and desire to destroy Israel, which they have expressed continuously. However, Iran’s nuclear ambitions posed a PR problem. Therefore, Obama relied on the belief that Iran could not be stopped, and as a result the US and some of its European partners negotiated a deal, which on the surface could be sold to a compliant and ever helpful main stream media, which in turn would sell it to the world’s public. Iran would agree not to develop a nuclear weapon for at least ten years, after which they would be free to do so. This could follow without any international interference. Obama, by then, would have “kicked the can down the road” for a future President to deal with along with the possible fate of Israel.
Whether Iran would comply didn’t really bother anyone, and clauses contained in the agreement limited inspections to civilian sites only whilst excluding military sites -- which is, of course, exactly where nuclear weapons would be developed. This was not only an awful and extremely bad agreement, which appeared to be Obama’s intention, but it has never been ratified by the US Congress. Part of the “deal” was that Obama would transfer huge amounts of cash to the Iranians in the amount of $150 to $170 billion. It remains questionable as to how much of it would find its way into Obama’s pocket. If this was so, a Democrat aligned media would be part of the conspiracy in covering it up.
During the signing and lead up to the JCPOA, I was always struck by the arrogance and cocksureness of Mohammad Javad Zarif so much on display I suspected and speculated that he possibly had Obama and Kerry in his pocket.
This whole scheme essentially threw the USA’s Sunni Arab allies “under the bus” abandoning them with Iran simultaneously threatening them. The great unintended irony, which had not been clearly thought through or even imagined, was that this would encourage the Sunni Arabs to make peace with Israel for their mutual defence as they no longer trusted America. As a result, these states were no longer bound by a ridiculous Palestinian-imposed veto. Their interests and defence obviously took precedence and under a Biden presidency, this situation would be even more relevant, with Obama very likely in the background pulling the Biden strings.
What appealed to Obama and his useless sidekick, John Kerry, was more the potential destruction of Israel, and perhaps to a lesser extent, limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The JCPOA agreement said nothing about the development of missiles, which should have been a logical inclusion. Why something so fundamental was omitted remains a mystery. What should have occurred to them during negotiations was that a nuclear bomb has to be delivered. Iran has an antiquated air force which could not manage such a task. It could of course acquire aircraft from Russia or China. However, the obvious and only alternative was via a ballistic missile. This is precisely what Iran has been developing and testing for years.
Indian terrorist group Jaish-ul-Hind has claimed responsibility for the blast that took place near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Friday, local media reported.New Delhi Blast: 2 Suspects Seen on Security Footage
No one was injured in the explosion, which took place on the 29th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Israel.
According to the India.com news site, the investigation so far has recovered social-media chatter according to which Jaish-ul-Hind operatives boast about carrying out the attack.
The Indian Express reported on a police source as saying that the bomb appeared to have been planted in a flowerpot on the road divider. According to the report, a letter found on the scene, addressed to “Israel Embassy ambassador,” said that the blast was a “trailer,” suggesting that it was a prelude to future attacks against the embassy or other Israeli targets in the country.
The note also refers to “Iranian martyrs” Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander killed in a US drone strike in Iran on Jan. 3, 2020, and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of the Iranian military nuclear program, who was assassinated near Tehran on Nov. 27 in a hit for which Iran has blamed Israel.
The Biden administration is not expected to try to push a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, according to a high-level Israeli government source.After Eleven Days in Office, President Biden Has Yet to Call Israel’s PM Netanyahu
“There probably will not be a top-down peace plan,” the source said recently.
The top echelons of Israel’s government were not surprised by the Biden administration’s talk about separating the Israeli Embassy from the US Consulate that serves the Palestinians and funding UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The steps reverse Trump administration policies, but they were announced on the campaign trail, the source said.
The source cited remarks by US envoy Richard Mills at the UN Security Council last week, in which he emphasized the importance of a two-state solution but did not call for it to come in the short term.
Though Mills emphasized the importance of maintaining the viability of a two-state solution, he did not refer to pre-1967 lines or what the contours of such a solution would be.
“The US will urge Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority to avoid unilateral steps that make the two-state solution more difficult,” Mills said.
Mills spoke out against “incitement to violence [and] providing compensation to individuals in prison for acts of terrorism,” a reference to the Palestinians’ “Martyrs Fund,” the Israeli source said.
Newly installed US President Joe Biden has still to call Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 11 days into Biden’s term of office.Moving Israel to CENTCOM: Another Step Into the Light
While it could represent the US administration’s priorities in attempting to get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the president has found the time to call the leaders of Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, NATO, Russia and Japan, according to the Jerusalem Post.
There has, however, been contact between senior US officials and their Israeli counterparts; National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat was the third person in his position to get a call from his American counterpart Jake Sullivan, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi on the day after his confirmation, reported the Post.
Last week, CENTCOM commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie met with the Israel Defense Forces Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi during a flying, one-day visit. It is thought that Iran featured most prominently on the list of topics discussed.
Israeli officials are particularly keen to engage with the Biden administration — including the president himself — to discuss the future of the Iran nuclear deal. Israel’s political establishment — including Netanyahu’s rivals — are united in their opposition to a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and have sounded the alarm at Biden’s public pronouncements of favoring a return to the agreement that his then-boss, former president Barack Obama, signed.
From an organizational standpoint, the move will streamline U.S. operations within CENTCOM itself—namely, operations affecting Israel will no longer require EUCOM’s approval. In addition, the IDF should now be able to formally assign liaison officers to CENTCOM headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida—and, hopefully in the future, to subordinate headquarters across the Gulf region.Ben Cohen: Joe Biden, Anne Neuberger, and Dual Loyalty
At the same time, EUCOM’s experience and deep relations with the IDF are a hard-earned resource that should be preserved and developed in parallel to CENTCOM’s, maximizing their potential in future crises. Israel’s security crises were rarely concurrent with EUCOM’s, but the opposite dynamic will prevail under CENTCOM—the IDF will often face crises at times when critical CENTCOM assets such as munitions and missile defense are in highest demand. To keep an eye on these seams and address any future ones (e.g., problems in the Red Sea or Mediterranean maritime commons), the parties should continue the three-way ICE dialogue.
Moreover, as the United States shifts its strategic effort eastward, Israel should seek a dialogue with INDOPACOM, America’s highest-priority regional combatant command. Far from being “against China”—which is not Israel’s enemy—such engagement should be viewed as a means of supporting cooperation with Israel’s greatest ally in a region of growing importance to Israel. According to a June 2020 report in the Jerusalem Post, Asia now accounts for over 40 percent of Israel’s defense exports—a significant input in building INDOPACOM partner capabilities.
One way to initiate such dialogue is by expanding the existing ICE format to include INDOPACOM. The resultant “ICE-IP” could then become a useful framework for addressing the nexus of America and Israel’s top threats: China and Iran, respectively. Relations between Beijing and Tehran are rich enough to merit “ICE-IP” attention, and their military-technological cooperation presents similar challenges to U.S. and Israeli forces: continued development and deployment of ballistic, cruise, and antiship missiles; proliferation of rockets and drones; expanding naval warfare capabilities; air defense improvements; and cyber threats. As U.S.-Israel strategic relations adapt to the age of great-power competition, addressing these common threats should be high on each government’s agenda, alongside national innovation and technology cooperation.
Conclusion
Countries frequently rely on their militaries to initiate policy developments in a changing strategic environment, and it is often said that “structure is policy.” Since policy usually finds itself in pursuit of reality, organizational structure sometimes lags even further behind. The IDF and U.S. combatant commands have long worked with each other and the Gulf states to build flexible bridges across formal boundaries, recognizing the need for partnership long before the Abraham Accords. Shifting Israel to CENTCOM recognizes the importance of these new formal partnerships. After the wedding comes marriage, of course, so these declarations are but a first step on the long formal path. If properly developed, however, this transition could further benefit each partner’s security and interests.
The original article about Neuberger, by David Corn of Mother Jones, centered on a foundation that operates in her name and that of her husband, Yehuda. By Jewish philanthropic standards, the foundation is on the smaller side, and it donated a little more than $500,000 to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying organization, between 2012 and 2018. According to Corn, this was enough to set alarm bells ringing over whether a fundamental conflict of interest — “do I choose the United States or Israel?” — would inevitably impact Neuberger’s term at the NSC.Jonathan Tobin: Are All Criticisms of White House Staffers the Same?
Neuberger wasn’t given a chance to respond to these specific allegations, which were later picked up by Ken Dilanian of NBC News, nor to the broader insinuations about her character and the wealthy, Orthodox Jewish family she hails from that stemmed from such choice lines as, “[H]er father is billionaire investor George Karfunkel, who was in the news last summer for making a curious donation of Kodak stock — worth up to $180 million — to an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn that seemed to barely exist.” In a similar vein, not one of the “experts” quoted, anonymous or otherwise, questioned the basic assumption of the article that having ties with a bipartisan, non-governmental organization that is focused on enhancing ties with a long-established US ally — Israel — makes one a potential national security risk.
While NBC News retired Dilanian’s piece to its archive following a review determining that it fell well short of journalistic standards, Mother Jones continues to stand by David Corn’s piece and all its anonymous dog-whistle quotes (“raised eyebrows in government and beyond” … “If you donate half a million dollars to a lobbying group, it indicates a pretty strong preference …” and so forth). We will wait in vain for the magazine to publish a similar piece in which someone suggests that, should Biden speak on the phone to the head of Britain’s MI5 security agency, a squad of IRA volunteers might be listening in.
Sarcasm aside, the point is that not even a month into the new administration, the American public is being presented with another example of the “dual-loyalty” canard that has continuously stalked prominent American Jews in government, the media, and especially academia. It is a claim that is inseparable from the broader tapestry of wild allegations about pro-Israel (sometimes more crudely rendered as “Zionist” or “Jewish”) forces controlling America’s most powerful institutions.
While no government official — Irish American, Jewish American, Arab American — should ever have their loyalties impugned because of their family origins, history has provided us with several examples of where such bigoted speculation can lead in the Jewish case. In France, Jews discovered through the infamous Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century that high rank, the respect of one’s peers, and social standing offer Jews little protection from the dual-loyalty trope in the last analysis. More than 100 years after that terrible episode, the same underlying malice still lingers.
The questions raised about Bitar focus on the fact that while he was a student at Georgetown University, he was a board member of Students for Justice in Palestine — a group that is notorious for spreading antisemitic libels against Israel and Jews, as well as for promoting divestment and boycotts of the Jewish state. At Georgetown, he organized a conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement at which he ran a session on how to demonize Israel and appeared alongside speakers who praised terrorism against Jewish targets.Palestinian attempts to stab soldier in West Bank, is shot dead
But rather than a youthful folly, other items on his resume show that he took his BDS beliefs with him on his path towards success in government. He interned at the anti-Israel Foundation for Middle East Peace and then worked at the UN Relief and Works Agency, which has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee problem in order to serve as a weapon to use against Israel. At no point in his glittering career is there a record of him disavowing BDS and its goal of destroying Israel or the antisemitic smears it propagates.
Are the charges against Bitar the moral equivalent those against Neuberger? That’s only true if you think defending the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet is morally equivalent to an antisemitic war to destroy it.
There can be no religious test for office or one based on one’s ethnic origin. Palestinian Americans and Jews should be judged on their individual merits, not on their faith or background. But we do have a right to ask why a record of supporting a hate group like SJP is treated as a non-issue by the administration. And we should be outraged that it thinks support for a pro-Israel cause is just as legitimate as backing one that wishes to wipe out the Jewish state.
We have no doubt that Neuberger will serve Biden and the nation just as well as she served Obama and Trump in her efforts to defend the country against cyber threats. But we have every reason to wonder why an administration that assures us that it supports the alliance with Israel is putting one of the most important national security jobs in the hands of someone like Matar, who, in the absence of any disavowal of his past connections and positions, may still wish to see that ally disappear.
A Palestinian man was shot dead while attempting to stab an Israeli soldier with a makeshift spear at the Gush Etzion Junction in the southern West Bank on Sunday morning, the Israel Defense Forces said.
No Israelis were injured in the incident, Gush Etzion regional council head Shlomo Ne’eman said.
In security camera footage from the scene, the assailant could be seen approaching a bus stop that the soldier was guarding. When he was still several feet away, he took out a weapon and apparently alerted the serviceman to his presence. The soldier, who was armed with a rifle, then turned and shot the would-be stabber.
An IDF spokesperson confirmed that the assailant was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
The weapon was recovered from the scene. It was made up of three knives taped to a broken broomstick, the IDF said.
“I stood at my post at the northern bus stop at the Gush Etzion Junction in order to protect the citizens that were there. I saw the suspect walk along the road and then he suddenly ran at me and the civilians at the scene. I saw that he took out a knife and I shot and neutralized the assailant,” said the soldier, who was only identified by his rank and first Hebrew initial of his name, Cpl. “Ayin.”
“We stay at the ready at all times in order to prevent incidents like this,” said Ayin, who serves in the Nachshon Battalion of the IDF’s Kfir Brigade.
CCTV (unverified) of this morning’s incident at Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank. Initial reports are that a Palestinian drew a knife and closed on an Israeli soldier, who shot him. https://t.co/oNj5AIsoLV
— Dan Williams (@DanWilliams) January 31, 2021
An armed assailant with 3 knives connected to a stick attempted to stab our soldiers who were operating at Gush Etzion Junction.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 31, 2021
Our troops fired toward the assailant and neutralized him. No IDF injuries were reported. pic.twitter.com/y6DuVAX8b9
Ariel University announced Sunday that it will award its first honorary doctorate to David, outgoing US ambassador to Israel "in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the diplomatic international relations between the USA and Israel."Coronavirus: Gov’t to meet on extending lockdown, 20% of Israelis got both vaccines
President of Ariel University Prof. Yehuda Danon said, "Ambassador Friedman and the American government's acknowledgment that research and discovery benefit all people, regardless of location, faith or practice will allow researchers from Ariel University and their colleagues in the USA the opportunity to focus on their important scientific work and continue to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries."
Friedman said he was "deeply honored to be the first recipient of an honorary doctorate from Ariel University, a world-class academic institution that serves students of all faiths and nationalities. Ariel brings a future of peaceful coexistence right to the here and now."
The government is meeting on Sunday to discuss the extension of Israel’s lockdown and the closure of the airport. Both sets of measures are set to expire on Sunday at midnight.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to support the extension of the lockdown for a week, as requested by the Health Ministry, while Blue and White leader and Defense Minister Benny is asking to lift the restrictions already on Thursday, according to Israeli media reports. “We need to reduce the morbidity, we already seeing that the lockdown is working. Another week and we can start opening,” Netanyahu said opening the meeting.
“The lockdown has a price. It is an economic price, a social price but also a price in terms of health. We cannot maintain these restrictions for a long time,” Gantz replied. “The effect of the vaccines is already evident, we must assign more staff to the campaign and to consider its effect within a traffic light program.”
Health authorities hope to see a significant reduction in new coronavirus cases and serious patients in the coming days.
Maybe instead of lecturing Israel, @WHO gets its act together and provides its vaccines to Palestinians, as promised.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 31, 2021
Israel already has. Why hasn't WHO? https://t.co/s2H8q5SiOI
One of the fundamental tenets of Palestinian Authority ideology is that the Zionist movement was not an authentic Jewish movement but rather a colonialist movement that took advantage of the Jews. The PA rewrites history claiming the western colonialists lied to the Jews and made up the story of Jewish history in the land of Israel in order to trick the Jews into leaving Europe and coming to Israel. Will the Palestinian Election Decree Produce Actual Elections?
This, the PA says, the West did for two reasons:
1. “To get rid of the Jewish problem in its lands”
Jews were said to be so evil that they brought Antisemitism on themselves in Europe.
2. “To exploit and harness the Zionists for the benefit of the colonialist project … fragmenting the unity of the Arab nation’s peoples” The PA claims that Europe wanted to weaken the Arab world and therefore divided it into numerous small Arab states and planted Israel in the middle.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA at times adds a third reason: The West planted the Jews in Israel to help them steal the natural resources of the Arab world.
This rewriting of history was repeated in an op-ed by a regular columnist for the official PA daily, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul:
“One of the most complicated forms of colonialism is Zionist colonialism, which claims ‘first rights’ on the Palestinian Arab land; is based on negating the existence and identity of the native people, the Palestinian people; and is supported by the colonialist West. The forces that comprise this colonialism were gathered from among the members of the Jewish religion who were deceived; the colonialist West and its pawn – the Zionist movement – led them [to Palestine] to get rid of the Jewish problem in its lands, and to exploit and harness the Zionists for the benefit of the colonialist project whose goal is bigger than occupying historical Palestine: Tearing and fragmenting the unity of the Arab nation’s peoples and dissolving the pan-Arab revival project…
The Zionist colonialism, which has been crouching over the historical Palestinian land for 72 years… is increasingly striving to deepen and widen the ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people and establish its fabricated and false narrative at the expense of the Palestinian people’s identity, history, and heritage.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 26, 2021]
The new decree has generated excitement in a society where at least three-quarters of the people reportedly desire elections, according to the Palestinian poll mentioned above. Yet similar initiatives failed in the past due to factors that remain unchanged today. As the parties move beyond general declarations and start grappling with modalities and conditions, their fundamental disagreements are likely to derail the process once again.PA arrests Hamas supporters ahead of elections
Even if elections do proceed, Hamas and Fatah’s apparent unwillingness to cede meaningful power in their territories would likely deepen the ongoing Palestinian legitimacy crisis rather than resolve it. As the 2006 vote showed, elections held in a politically charged environment without clear terms of reference or strong institutions can do more harm than good.
Rather than focusing on elections, the United States should engage the PA and its regional allies on stabilizing the West Bank political scene while ensuring that Gaza’s humanitarian situation does not deteriorate further. Clarifying Palestinian succession is a priority given Abbas’s advanced age and the instability his sudden departure may trigger. Moreover, poor governance and nearly universal perceptions of corruption have dramatically undermined the PA’s domestic legitimacy. Washington should therefore look into leveraging aid—alone and in coordination with international donors—in a manner that fosters PA institutional reform. Finally, U.S. officials should encourage Israel and the PA to advance concrete measures on the ground that help maintain stability, rehabilitate the idea of cooperation, and begin rebuilding trust between the two sides.
Despite the talk about holding new general elections, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are continuing to crack down on each other’s supporters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Seth Frantzman: Airstrikes in Syria pinpoint Iranian influence
The clampdown comes as representatives of several Palestinian factions, including the ruling Fatah faction and Hamas, are expected to meet in the Egyptian capital of Cairo soon to discuss ways of ensuring the success of the elections.
On January 15, PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the parliamentary election would be held on May 22. The presidential election, he said in a “presidential decree,” would be held on July 31. In late August, Palestinians will also vote for the PLO’s legislative body, the Palestinian National Council.
Abbas’s announcement was made despite that his Fatah faction and Hamas had failed to reach agreement to solve their dispute, which reached its peak with the 2007 Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has expressed readiness to participate in the elections. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, the second-largest terror group in the Gaza Strip, has indicated that it may boycott the elections, as it has done in the past.
No date has been set for the start of the discussions in Cairo.
Airstrikes have targeted an area of “pro-Iranian militia” influence in the vicinity of Al-Bukamal on the Euphrates River in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate of eastern Syria near the border with Iraq, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Saturday.Seth Frantzman: Taliban visit Iran, hope to sideline US
This area has often been targeted in the past by airstrikes. Syrian regime media has blamed Israel for these strikes in the past.
This follows other mysterious explosions on January 13 and 22, the report said. There were airstrikes near Al-Zamaliyah, southeast of Masyaf in Syria, according to reports on January 22. Syrian air-defense systems, firing wildly, apparently even shot a projectile that crashed in Jordan and one that fell on a civilian home.
The strikes took place at 4 a.m. and were carried out from aircraft over Tripoli in Lebanon, according to Syrian Arab News Agency, a regime-controlled news agency. The targets were near Hama.
The January 13 airstrikes hit Iranian militias in Syria near the Iraqi border. Those were considered the fourth similar airstrikes in several weeks. Reports suggested at the time that US intelligence aided the strikes and that pro-Iranian militias might relocate to Iraq due to the beating they were receiving.
Once again it appears that pro-Iranian militias, such as the Fatimiyoun, which are recruited from Afghan Shi’ites, were impacted.
These groups are part of Iranian networks from the Iraqi border to Deir ez-Zur along the Euphrates.
The Taliban rode high during US president Donald Trump’s administration because they knew he wanted to leave Afghanistan. They hoped for a trip to Camp David and acted like the rulers of Afghanistan when they attended peace talks in Doha, Qatar.UN experts find 'growing' evidence Iran sending weapons to Houthi rebels in war-torn Yemen
Now the Taliban face President Joe Biden’s administration, which may be tougher on them. To deal with this new reality, they are growing closer to Iran.
Iran recently hosted a high-level Taliban delegation for talks about the “peace process.” The group has been meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said the two sides would discuss “relations between Tehran and Kabul, issues related to Afghan refugees in Iran and the prevailing political and security situation of Afghanistan and the region.”
Support for the Taliban’s growing role in Afghanistan, after 20 years of US war there, has come from Iran, Russia and Qatar. It will likely come from Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and other countries that form part of an authoritarian, or Islamist, group that seeks to remove pro-Western governments.
United Nations experts are warning of a "growing body of evidence" that Iran is sending weapons to Houthi rebels in war-torn Yemen, in a report that warns of a deteriorating situation in the country with "devastating consequence" for the civilian population.Saudi-Led Coalition Destroys Explosive-Laden Drone Fired by Yemen’s Houthis, State TV Says
The report by a U.N. panel of experts to the Security Council, a copy of which was obtained by Fox News, says "there is a growing body of evidence that shows that individuals or entities within the Islamic Republic of Iran are engaged in sending weapons and weapons components to the Houthis" in violation of U.N. resolutions.
The evidence includes anti-tank guided missiles, sniper rifles and RPB launchers all with markings consistent with those made in Iran.
The Trump administration had warned of moves by Iran to destabilize the Middle East by arms sales, and attempted to reimpose a broader arms embargo, as well as other sanctions that were expiring as part of the 2015 Iran deal -- but faced pushback from allies and others at the U.N. that scuppered the effort.
The Biden administration has taken a different approach from the Trump administration on both Iran -- where it has indicated it wishes to return to the Iran deal and re-engage with Tehran -- and also on the conflict in Yemen between the Saudi-backed government and the Houthi rebels, who control the north of the country.
Trump-era Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had imposed sanctions on the Houthis in the final days of the administration, designating them a "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO). That move was part of the administration’s efforts to isolate Iran and also support the Saudis.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Saturday it had destroyed in Yemeni airspace a drone armed with explosives that was launched by the Iran-aligned Houthi group towards the kingdom, Saudi state TV reported.Iran’s regime executes champion boxer after torture, third in 4 months
Iran continued its execution spree of elite athletes with the killing of champion boxer and prominent sports coach Ali Mutairi last Thursday.CAA publishes live resource detailing antisemitism at universities and adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism
The UN condemned the execution of Mutairi in Sheiban Prison, located in Khuzestan Province. Mutairi, 30, endured severe torture, which led to his false confession that he had killed two Basij militia members in 2018, activists and family members said.
“We strongly condemn the series of executions, at least 28, since mid-December, including people from minority groups,” a UN spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post on Friday. “We urge the authorities to halt the imminent execution of Javid Dehghan; to review his and other death-penalty cases in line with human-rights law. We continue to engage with the authorities in Iran on the issues of executions and the death penalty.”
Rob Koehler, director-general of Global Athlete, an international advocacy group for Olympic athletes, said: “The International Olympic Committee must act now. Their silence has left them complicit. Their lack of action clearly indicates they favor stakeholders over athlete rights.”
“The tragic recent execution of boxer Ali Mutairi is the third athlete in just four months that has been murdered by the Iranian government,” he said. “The IOC must immediately suspend the Iran National Olympic Committee. They can no longer neglect their duty of care; athletes’ lives are at stake.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has published a new resource showing antisemitic incidents at universities and whether each institution has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism, with detailed information for each campus.CAA recruiting General Counsel to launch new antisemitism prosecution service as Jewish community’s confidence in justice system hits new low
The resource for the first time makes public years of monitoring by Campaign Against Antisemitism through our volunteers and hundreds of requests we have filed under freedom of information laws.
We have long campaigned for the widespread adoption of the Definition, which was adopted by the Government in 2016 following efforts by Campaign Against Antisemitism, Lord Pickles and others. Since then, we have asked universities to adopt it too, and apply it in any disciplinary proceedings. As antisemitism rises on campuses around the country, successive Secretaries of State for Education have demanded that universities waste no more time in adopting the Definition.
This public resource shows the state of play following the expiry of the Education Secretary’s ultimatum to universities to adopt the Definition, naming those that have heeded the call to protect Jewish students and shaming those that have not.
So far, 76 institutions of higher education have adopted the Definition, based on their replies to our requests under freedom of information laws, with 101 yet to do so. This information is kept updated by our researchers in real time.
Those that have adopted the Definition include the universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College, Leeds, Liverpool, LSE, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Nottingham, Oxford and UCL.
SOAS — the School of Oriental and African Studies — whose long history of controversy in its relations with the Jewish community, earning its nickname as the School of Antisemitism, has declined to adopt the Definition, as can be seen from the details we have put together on its dedicated web page.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is recruiting an in-house General Counsel to bolster our capacity to pursue private prosecutions and other legal strategies, as our Antisemitism Barometer research showed that the Jewish community’s confidence in the justice system has hit a new low.CNN’s Zakaria Misstates Israel’s COVID Vaccination Obligation to Palestinians
More than half (52%) of British Jews think that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not do enough to protect them, and 44% say that they do not think that antisemitic hate crime against them would be prosecuted even if there was enough evidence, with the same percentage now saying that they hide signs of their Judaism when in public.
This perception of the criminal justice system is hardly surprising given that, according to our analysis of Home Office statistics, Jews are almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group, with an average of over three hate crimes directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales. This is not even the full story, as hate crimes against Jews are also still widely believed to be under-reported, and also do not reflect the extent of antisemitic material and abuse on social media.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is particularly concerned about antisemitism on campus and online going unpunished.
By recruiting a General Counsel, Campaign Against Antisemitism will be able to leverage its existing network of pro-bono lawyers, many of whom are amongst the most renowned lawyers in the country, to bring many more lawsuits.
Over the past six years, our litigation has broken new ground and established critical precedents in the fight against antisemitism.
Zakaria said, “There is a disagreement wrapped up in that success story over whether Israel also has a duty to vaccinate the 4.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It has not done so. The Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, citing different bits of international paperwork, point to the other as responsible.”New York Times Flunks Transparency Test on Alleged Iranian Agent Kaveh Afrasiabi
While critics may argue that Israel has a moral obligation to at least help COVID-19 vaccinate the Palestinians, the claim or implication that Israel has a legal responsibility is false.
Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein has pointed out that the government’s obligation first and foremost is to its citizens, but that it would be in Israel’s best interests to make sure that Palestinians got the vaccine. On BBC’s Andrew Marr Show (Jan. 24, 2021), responding to Marr’s assertion that Israel has a “legal obligation to make sure the Palestinian people under occupation have a swift and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines,” Edelstein stated, “As far as this is concerned, I think it is the Israeli obligation to first and foremost to its citizens. They pay taxes for that, don’t they? Having said that — it is in our interest, not our legal obligation, but it is in our interests to make sure the Palestinians get the vaccine so that they will not have COVID-19 spreading.”
Whatever Zakaria means by “international paperwork,” the applicable international law is the Oslo Accords agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The Accords puts health care, including vaccinations, in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The U.S. authorities arrested and charged Afrasiabi, a legal resident of Massachusetts, for his violations of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), allegedly having received $265,000 since 2007 plus health benefits since 2011 in exchange for his undeclared lobbying on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Antisemitism goes unchallenged on BBC Somali Service radio
“Anyone working to advance the agenda of a foreign government within the United States is required by law to register as an agent of that country,” the Justice Department press release quoted FBI Assistant Director in Charge William F. Sweeney. “Mr. Afrasiabi never disclosed to a congressman, journalists or others who hold roles of influence in our country that he was being paid by the Iranian government to paint an untruthfully positive picture of the nation. Our laws are designed to create transparency in foreign relations, and they are not arbitrary or malleable. As today’s action demonstrates, we will fully enforce them to protect our national security.”
Given that Times editors were likely unaware that Afrasiabi allegedly illegally concealed his paid work on behalf of Iran when they published his columns, important questions arise: to what degree does a media outlet have a commitment to second guess and verify the credentials that an opinion contributor supplies? What safeguards does The Times have in place to ensure that contributors are truthfully identifying their relevant affiliations?
Moreover, it is deeply troubling that nearly two weeks after the Justice Department released the explosive news about Afrasiabi, The New York Times has yet to address the issue. It has not published an article or made a statement about the fact that a former contributing writer has been arrested for being an illegal agent of Iran. Nor has it appended any note to Afrasiabi’s op-eds informing readers that the Justice Department has charged him with being an undeclared paid Iranian lobbyist, and that the earlier representation of him as a detached observer are apparently incorrect.
U.S.-Iranian relations are at this moment at a critical juncture. President Joe Biden’s freshly installed Iran team, headed by the controversial Robert Malley, is tasked with deciding if and how to return to the Iran deal which the Trump administration had abandoned, and Tehran just rejected new negotiations after French President Emmanuel Macron announced that time is very limited to reenter talks is highly limited before Tehran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons.
Last week a member of the public alerted us to an edition of a programme called “Dooda Jimcaha” which was aired on the BBC Somali Service radio on December 18th 2020.
Among the contributors to that programme was the Somali MP Mohamed Omer Dalha who stated (48:00 to 48:20 here) that there is a conspiracy against Somalia by foreign countries that are interfering in the “Islamic world” propelled by “Jews running these affairs both in the West and the East”. His remarks went unchallenged by the BBC presenter.
A translation of that segment (which has been confirmed for CAMERA UK by Dr. Moshe Terdiman, Founder and director of Research on Islam and Muslims in Africa and co-founder and director of the Institute for Environmental Security and Well-being Studies) can be found here.
Clearly such antisemitic statements should have no place in BBC content, including on foreign language stations and this case once again raises questions concerning the BBC World Service’s ability to oversee the foreign language content put out in its name and ensure that it meets BBC editorial guidelines.
Most shops in Hebron in 2019 were open. Just not along a few roads in the city center, which were shut down by the IDF after repeated terror attacks. Hebron is a bustling town with one of largest malls in the Middle East.
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 31, 2021
This description in the @Guardian is a blatant lie. pic.twitter.com/pZtMtoqfe4
Young entrepreneurs from a number of Arab countries, including Syria, Iraq, Libya, Gaza and Saudi Arabia, among others, take part every week in Starting-Up Together, an Israeli program for developing start-ups and social initiatives. Participants from Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Gaza and the Palestinian Authority promote hi-tech ventures and receive guidance and tools on how to actualize their dreams in Zoom meetings with leading figures from the Israeli innovation industry.Team Israel revs up ahead of world cycling season
The projects promoted in the program include a project to promote acceptance and change in the attitude toward LGBTQ+ youth and adults in Arab countries, a project to connect children from different ethnic communities through joint activities and the establishment of a regional nature museum, among other initiatives.
Guidance is provided by both Palestinians and Israelis. Some 40% of the participants are women. The program guides participants through all the stages of creating a new venture, including market research, construction of a plan and business model, development and connection to a variety of potential partners and investors in Israel and around the world.
The program is a collaboration between the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, the Ebay Israel Development Center and the center for Smart Cities at Bar-Ilan University. The program is funded by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation (Israel).
When Israeli Guy Niv took his bar mitzvah trip with his father to watch the Tour de France, he never imagined that he would be back 13 years later as a rider. Niv, who is now with Team Israel Start-Up Nation (ISN), is the first Israeli to complete the most well-known cycling race in the world. He recently joined the team in Girona, Spain, for a training camp and returned soon after to Israel just before Ben-Gurion International Airport shut down for a week due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.Israel-Dubai trade reaches $272M since normalization
Niv, who started riding as a hobby at age 10, hopes to inspire young children's interest in biking. Despite some uncertainty about the upcoming racing season due to COVID-19, he notes, "I am really excited for the new season and to see new faces, including big names, and to work with and learn from them. My motivation is very high."
As for his participation in general, "it was a dream come true," he says, keeping it all in perspective. "At the end of the day, it is a bike ride. It doesn't change who you are and what you give to the world."
Team Israel Start-Up Nation will compete at the World Tour level – the highest level of professional cycling – for just the second season. The team recently signed four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome, who is currently completing rehabilitation from a serious bike injury in California. Froome, 35 a Kenyan-born British cyclist, made clear in a recent virtual press conference that he is very committed to the team and to Israel.
As he reports, "This is very much a long-term commitment for me. I have committed to the end of my career. I'm in to give everything I can to help the team in every way possible, as well as improve myself and get back to the top."
Froome will now be teammates with fellow star-rider Dan Martin, who finished fourth overall in the 2020 Vuelta a Espana (one of cycling's three Grand Tours, alongside the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia). Martin notes that he is pleased to be riding with Froome, saying "I am happy to see how the team has been strengthened; it gives me confidence. I know how much I can learn from Chris and the others. We can become a stronger team together. It's a team effort."
The trade between Dubai and Israel has reached 1 billion dirham, or $272 million, over the last five months, the Dubai media office said on Saturday.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed in August to normalize diplomatic relations, giving an immediate boost to a slew of business deals and agreements.
The amount includes around 325 million dirham ($88.5 million) of imports and 607 million dirham ($165.3 million) of exports, the statement said.
Exports to Israel were almost twice as high in terms of volume as the imports, standing at roughly 60% and 30% of the total, respectively.
Transit flow of goods accounted for another one-tenth of the total trade volume.
Dubai's exports were dominated by lubricants, perfumes, engine spare parts, smartphones and diamonds – the key imports, along with mechanical and medical tech, flat screens, electronics, and agricultural goods.
The report cited Sultan bin Sulayem, head of DP World Group and chief of Dubai's Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, as saying that the trade with Israel was projected to grow to 15 billion dirhams – just over $4 billion – in the coming years.
.@DubaiCustoms : #Dubai’s trade with Israel in the last 5 months (Sep 2020-Jan 2021) reached a value of AED1 billion & a volume of 6.217k tonnes.https://t.co/hYBp0axRDd pic.twitter.com/2AdAZ2uTV9
— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) January 30, 2021
Israel education organization StandWithUs, Israeli company Watergen, and Native American non-profit Bright Path Strong (BPS) announced an exciting partnership at the StandWithUs International Conference, on January 30, 2020. Together, they will work to bring clean drinking water to Native American communities. For StandWithUs, this is part of a new initiative called Connect for Progress, which is dedicated to connecting communities worldwide to unique Israeli solutions.
The partnership will begin with StandWithUs adding its support to an ongoing crowdfunding campaign launched by Bright Path Strong, Watergen, and a Native American-owned company called 4D Products & Services. The campaign aims to bring Watergen's innovative Israeli technology, which creates high quality drinking water from air, to four Native American communities. Watergen and 4D are matching donations up to $400,000, and StandWithUs will use multiple platforms to help reach this goal. Bright Path Strong and 4D will also join an ongoing StandWithUs and Watergen project to be announced in the near future.
"Access to clean drinking water has been a challenge for Native Communities for decades," said Chris Taylor, Co-Director of BRIGHT PATH STRONG. "This has amplified the effects of the ongoing pandemic in our communities, leaving them amongst the most hard hit and vulnerable. Thanks to Watergen, StandWithUs and 4D Products and Services we are not only spotlighting these issues but creating real and practical solutions that will sustain our communities into the future."
11:05 AMElder of ZiyonNo commentsQatar has announced that it will provide $30 million a month to Gaza for all of 2021, a total of $360 million in aid.
While the aid is generally earmarked for needy families and fuel for Gaza's power plant, part of it is also for paying Gaza employee salaries - meaning that it helps prop up Hamas.
Israel has been allowing this aid for years, walking a tightrope between helping Hamas and staving off a Gaza economic collapse.
Now that the Gulf states are resuming relations with Qatar, there are more tightropes being navigated.
For its part, Qatar sees itself as a potential broker for peace between Hamas and Fatah and wants to assert its influence that way. Its cooperation with Israel on aid to Gaza also positions it in a unique way to show its importance in the region.
Israel's allowance of Qatari aid to Gaza has not been without strings attached, either. Last summer Israel blocked Qatari aid as long as Gaza groups were launching firebombs via balloons from Gaza. Note that those balloon launches seem to have halted.
There are a lot of moving parts going on, between the Abraham Accords, the thawing of relations between Qatar and its neighbors, the new Biden administration and its desire to return to the JCPOA. The Palestinian issue still grabs headlines but it is not clear at all that anyone really cares about Palestinians besides in how they can profit from anti-Israel rhetoric - which is not nearly as effective as it was a year ago.
9:05 AMElder of ZiyonNo comments
6:05 AMElder of ZiyonNo comments
9:05 PMElder of ZiyonNo commentsOn International Holocaust Remembrance Day, everyone around the world — individuals, leaders, communities — gather to reinforce their commitment to honor the memory of the victims of the darkest hour of human history.
But while the world bows its head to commemorate the Holocaust, it often remembers its victims as a unified collective. The very day we commemorate the victims, Jan. 27, marks the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the ultimate symbol of the Nazi terror. But not all Holocaust victims were sent to concentration camps. Far from it. The time has come to tell the all-encompassing story of the Holocaust.
Behind the monstrous number of “six million victims” stand six million individual life stories. To commemorate the Holocaust means remembering each and every one of those individually. We are committed to telling as many stories as possible, but unfortunately, too many of them remain unknown.
How many life stories will never be known after the massacre in Ukraine’s Babi Yar ravine? Within two days, the Nazis brutally murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women and children. By the end of the war, they murdered 100,000 people, including Ukrainians and gypsies.
The Babi Yar massacre destroyed the Jewish community in Kyiv. The Jews of Riga, Minsk and Vilnius encountered the same tragic fate — murdered in ravines. Some 1.5 million Jews lost their lives that way.
The central chapter of the Nazi’s “final solution” is still largely unknown. As I know from bitter experience, the Soviet regime after World War II did everything possible to erase Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust from collective memory.
Much has been written about what needs to be done during the remaining days of the year to properly commemorate and educate the world about the horrors of the Holocaust, and what “never again” really means. A recent Pew Research poll proves that Americans’ Holocaust education is sorely lacking. For example, only 45 percent of Americans interviewed even knew that 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Even fewer knew that Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany by a democratic political process.Caroline Glick: Democrats, American Jews and Politically Correct Bigotry
Surely, what is far less known is how many Jews fought valiantly against the Nazis. But fight they did. Jews fought back alongside resistance groups around Europe, organized uprisings in the ghettos, created partisan units and even fought back in the concentration camps, attempting to bomb a crematorium in Auschwitz. To properly commemorate the Holocaust, these stories must be told as well.
To that end, I commemorate and honor the story of the following Jews who courageously fought back during World War II and the Holocaust. Their stories represent the thousands who fought to the end.
- Mordechai Anielewitz. The leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In April 1943, he led 750 Jewish fighters armed with a handful of pistols, 17 rifles and Molotov cocktails—all smuggled into the ghetto—in a clash with more than 2,000 heavily armed and well-trained German troops. They held off the Germans for 27 days.
- Boris Lekach. This one is personal. My wife’s maternal grandfather. Lekach fought for the Russians against the Nazis. He enlisted at age 16 with doctored papers just so he could fight. He was also well-known to many in the Jewish community in Russia for helping Jews escape during and after the war.
- The Bielski Brothers. Made famous in a number of books and in the 2008 movie “Defiance,” the Bielski brothers—Tuvia, Asael and Zus—fled their city in Belarus after their parents and two other siblings were murdered. The brothers found shelter in the forest, where they created one of the largest and most effective partisan groups during the war, focusing on guerrilla attacks against the Nazis and their collaborators, as well as on preserving Jewish life even in their hideout. In a little more than two years, the Bielski group grew to about 1,200 people.
- Tosia Altman. A young woman who used fake papers to smuggle weapons and information in and out of Poland’s ghettos. She was an active member of the social Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, active in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising alongside Anielewitz and the other brave fighters.
- Eta Wrobel. A young woman in her 20s who helped form an all-Jewish partisan unit in the Polish woods. Her unit attacked German troops as they traveled through the area and is credited for saving hundreds of Jews.
- Rudolph Masaryk. On Aug. 2, 1943, at the Treblinka extermination camp, Masaryk and other Jewish prisoners stole 20 grenades, 20 rifles and a few handguns. Together, they attacked the SS guards, while another doused a large part of the camp with gasoline and lit it on fire. Approximately 300 prisoners escaped and 40 Nazi guards were killed during the Treblinka uprising.
In recent weeks, outspoken anti-Israel campaigners and BDS supporters like Representative Ilhan Omar, former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill and New York Times columnist Peter Beinart have been pushing for the new administration to reject the IHRA definition and legitimize BDS. They have attacked Jewish Democratic groups like the Democratic Majority for Israel, as well as the vast majority of all American Jewish groups, led by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations—all of which are urging the Biden administration to maintain the previous administration's policies.
These efforts are being driven both by overtly anti-Israel, nominally Jewish groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, and by ostensibly "pro-Israel" progressive Jewish groups, including Peace Now, J Street, T'ruah and the New Israel Fund. The AMCHA Initiative report found that since 2019, 44 percent of efforts to discredit the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism were carried out by these and other like-minded Jewish-run groups.
All of these groups are calling for the Biden administration to disavow the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and its examples of contemporary anti-Semitism as a legal tool for combating anti-Semitism. IfNotNow is running a social media campaign, as well, to lobby the Biden administration to appoint an official special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism who will simply ignore leftist anti-Semitism. As the group put it in a recent Twitter post, "It is important for us to demand that [President Biden] appoint someone to the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism who'll be committed to fighting neo-Nazis and white nationalists, not Palestinians and students."
It is a peculiar thing to see ostensibly Jewish groups dedicating their efforts to removing legal protections against anti-Jewish discrimination from their fellow Jews. It is a mark of the corruption of the American Jewish far Left that this is what they wish to fight for today. But even more disconcerting is the anti-Semitic disposition of large swaths of the Democratic Party. Democratic activist circles are now dominated by anti-Semitic voices from the Left who denounce Israel and its supporters. The effort by progressive Jewish groups to deny civil rights protection to pro-Israel Jews is indicative of the prevailing winds in the Democratic Party. Progressive Jews believe that to remain relevant in their party, they must fill the role of Jewish fig leaves for their party's anti-Semitic activist base.
This then brings us to the object of their lobbying efforts—President Joe Biden. Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. To mark the occasion, Biden released a strong statement decrying anti-Semitism. Arguably more significant, however, is the fact that Trump's executive order on anti-Semitism has been scrubbed from the Biden White House's website.
An adviser to Martin Luther King wrote a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom criticizing the state's Ethnic Studies Curriculum.‘Truth Will Prevail:’ Calls for Justice From Family Continue as US Says Ready to Take Custody of Daniel Pearl Killer
Clarence Jones, who served as an adviser and speechwriter for King, addressed the October 14, 2020, letter to Newsom and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond; the president of the state's Board of Education, Linda-Darling Hammond; and members of the Instructional Quality Commission.
"I write this letter to you with great dismay, and great concern for the perversion of history that is being perpetrated by the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). If this model curriculum is approved, it will inflict great harm on millions of students in our state," Jones wrote.
"It is a fact that the Black Freedom Movement of the 1950s and 1960s under Dr. King's leadership transformed our country, overthrowing a century of Jim Crow segregation and white supremacist terror throughout the former Confederate States," Jones continued. "This fact, which I had thought was well known to all educated persons, has been removed from the ESMC. This is morally unacceptable and renders the entire curriculum suspect."
Jones' letter comes amid disagreements over the state's ethnic studies curriculum, with several of the drafts being criticized and rejected.
According to the Independent Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, the first draft released in 2019 was seen by many as promoting divisive politics, faced criticism from the Los Angles Times and Washington Post and was eventually rejected.
The sister of Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl told a Pakistani newspaper Friday that the “truth will prevail” in the case of his killer Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, as the United States said it was “ready to take custody” of the perpetrator after he was ordered released by Pakistan’s high court.Mossad said involved in probe of blast near Israeli embassy in New Delhi
“While we remain grateful for the Pakistani government’s opposition to these acquittals on appeal, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, the Department of Justice reiterates that the United States stands ready to take custody of Sheikh to stand trial here on the pending charges against him,” said Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson in a statement Thursday. “He must not be permitted to evade justice for his charged role in Daniel Pearl’s abduction and murder.”
On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi about how to “ensure accountability” for Sheikh and “reinforcing” American concerns about the ruling, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
Condemnations of the decision to acquit Sheikh and three others convicted in the brutal 2002 killing continued from the victims family, with sister Tamara Pearl telling Arab News Pakistan that no ruling could erase the facts of the case.
“We all know that Omar Saeed Sheikh was the mastermind of Danny’s kidnapping,” she told the newspaper on Friday. “His lies lured Danny into an interview in Karachi on January 23, 2002 and a month later Danny was dead. Three months later his body was found in an unmarked grave. This is the truth, no matter what any court says.”
“The defendants in this court case and the justices who acquitted them know that this is the truth, but the lies continue,” she added. “Neither verdict would have brought Danny back but lies are corrosive. We trust that somehow truth will prevail.”
Her words echoed Thursday comments on Twitter from Judea Pearl, the victim’s father, which followed an earlier official statement from the family.
“When a killer is behind bars, responsibility is absorbed by one deranged individual. When a killer is freed, society as a whole assumes responsibility for the crime,” he wrote.
Israeli spy agency Mossad has become involved in investigating the bomb blast in New Delhi, Kan News reported Saturday, without citing sources.Terror group claims responsibility for attack on Israeli embassy in India
The report said the agency was checking the possibility of nationals from other countries.
India Today TV reported that police were questioning Iranian nationals in connection with the explosion.
Israeli missions have been on alert around the world in the wake of the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in November of last year. Tehran has blamed Israel and promised revenge.
Israel’s Ambassador to India Ron Malka said Saturday that the embassy in New Delhi had been on high alert because of “threats” it had been preparing for, even before the small bomb went off outside the mission.
Malka told AFP he was not surprised by Friday’s attack, which caused no injuries but blew the windows out of three cars.
The road outside the embassy remained sealed off Saturday as forensic experts sought clues as to who was responsible for what Israeli officials in Jerusalem have said they are treating as likely terrorism.
Indian police have so far only described it as “a mischievous attempt to create a sensation.”
“This could have ended differently in other circumstances, so we were fortunate,” Malka said in a telephone interview.
“We are always prepared. Especially these last days, we raised the level of alert due to some threats,” he added. “We are not surprised.”
A terror organization called Jaish-ul-Hind, believed to be affiliated with Iran, has taken responsibility for Friday’s attack the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, according to Indian media.The EastMed Pipeline is a win-win for Israel, Cyprus and Greece
An explosion occurred near the embassy, Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday. There were no casualties in the incident, and no damage was caused to the embassy building, the Foreign Ministry said.
The explosion damaged the window panes of three nearby parked cars, a Delhi police spokesman said in a statement. The site of the blast was quickly cordoned off by police.
Indian police said the explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) and the impact from the blast is said to have been felt within a 20-25 meter radius, Indian media reported.
In recent years, the Eastern Mediterranean has stood out as a distinct sub-region, receiving wide attention in the regional and international arena – politically, strategically and economically.
The discovery of natural gas in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Israel, Cyprus and Egypt, and the clear potential for the discovery of additional gas fields in the economic waters of other countries such as Lebanon, were a major catalyst for the development of new regional architecture on the one hand, and of rising tension between part of the countries involved on the other.
The bilateral relationship between Israel and Cyprus, which has become very close in the last decade, has in many ways been a cornerstone of the regional alliances that have been woven in recent years.
The Regional Gas Forum, established two years ago in Cairo and which consists of seven members, is a fascinating illustration of the common interests formed in the region. These are Egypt, Israel, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Cyprus and the Palestinian Authority. Israel is rightly entitled to observe these developments with great satisfaction.
In recent months, most of the members have ratified the forum’s constitution, as did Israel last week. Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz stressed, after approval by the government, that the gas discoveries encourage “historic cooperation” with Arab countries and Europe that will continue to expand. This forum is also supported by the US and the EU. France has requested to join as a member, and recently the UAE has joined as an observer.
Turkey is interpreting the regional organization as intended to constrict its steps and exclude it from the energy potential in the region. Therefore, Turkey is pursuing an assertive foreign policy whose purpose is to convey a clear message that it cannot be ignored. In the past months, tensions in the region have even increased, especially between Turkey and Greece. Following intensive mediation, the two countries initiated an “exploratory discussion” on the 25th in order to defuse the tension, though there are no high expectations for an immediate breakthrough.
Thank you @stevenshalowitz for having me on your @JNFUSA #IsraelCast podcast. Was great to chat about Abraham Accords, the great work @sharakango is doing advancing peace between #Gulf & #Israel, and even the love of coffee & food shared by 🇮🇱 & 🇦🇪.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 30, 2021
🎙️ https://t.co/8ZnRgr3BN3 pic.twitter.com/HRkBv5WFHD
Israeli officials have cleared United Arab Emirates port operator DP World to move forward in the privatization of Israel’s largest seaport but kept Turkey’s Yildirim Holding AS under further scrutiny.
DP World received security clearance to move forward in the bidding process for the port in the northern city of Haifa, according to two people familiar with the matter. Local representatives for Yildirim lodged a complaint about unfair treatment in the process, according to a letter it sent to Israeli officials that was seen by Bloomberg.
The Government Companies Authority, which is running the privatization, said Israel is making necessary regulatory checks as part of confirming investors’ participation in the Port of Haifa privatization and that it expects the sale to be completed in a few months. Representatives for Yildirim and DP World declined to comment.
DP World’s progress is an important indicator for Israel’s new normalization agreement with the UAE, which the countries announced last summer. It marks a key nod of approval from Israel when it comes to Emirati involvement in strategic assets. Israel hopes to sell the facility for as much as 2 billion shekels ($612 million).
“We look at Israel as a very important logistical place,” DP World’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview. “We have approval like everyone else. We are still bidding.” DP World, based in the UAE emirate of Dubai, is complying with local partnership requirements, he said.
But while Israel draws closer to some Gulf Arab nations, relations with former close ally Turkey have been sour for years over Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians. Turkey, which recalled its ambassador to Israel two years ago, is currently seeking to repair its ties but said barriers remain to improving relations.
This how peace looks like #AbrahamAccords pic.twitter.com/JRUl0y0UQQ
— Thani ثاني بن عبدالله 🇦🇪 ת׳אני אל שיראווי (@Thani75) January 30, 2021
Saffron Tech, an Israeli wholly owned subsidiary of Seedo Corp. (OTCQB: SEDO), announced its technology for automated, year-round saffron growing, is challenging the global Iranian monopoly on saffron supply of 90-95% of world demand, which has been in place for the past 1,000 years!Jonathan Spyer: Turkey seeks to cement Iran alliance
The reason Iran was the dominant player in supplying 90-95% of world demand for Saffron lies in the fact it has natural conditions fit for the growing and production of saffron in traditional, labor intensive methods.
Saffron Tech, from Seedo Corp., is developing a technology that hopes to provide turnkey automated growing solutions for high-quality, high-yield saffron all year round. The company is in advanced stages of developing and testing its automated vertical farm for saffron growing, based on the company’s knowledge in plant biology and providing optimal conditions for each stage of the plant’s development to reach optimal product quality.
Saffron Tech solutions are a perfect fit for "Grow Next to Consumer" and is sustainable and fit for COVID-19 restrictions on transport. It is environmentally friendly, using economic levels of water, space, fertilizer, and energy. We believe that our controlled indoor growing technology could produce ten times more yield compared to the same land area using traditional methods. The sealed environment eliminates the need for harmful pesticides and herbicides, producing a clean and safe product. The solution is easily scalable and pre-designed to quickly grow operations.
In a sign of its increasing desire to work closely with Tehran against US interests in the Middle East, Turkey hosted Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Ankara on Friday.Seth Frantzman: Israel should stay wary of Turkey's gifts
The meeting illustrated that Turkey’s recent push for Azerbaijan to fight Armenians in the Caucasus will likely end with Ankara, Moscow and Tehran cooperating in that region to carve it up into spheres of influence, like in Syria and Libya.
Fueled by the Trump administration’s having worked closely with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara has pivoted in the last several years to engage with Russia and Iran.
This appears counterintuitive, because Washington wanted to work with Turkey and even gave it a greater role in Syria. But Ankara’s goal was to use the blank check it had from the Trump administration to move away from NATO into the orbit of Moscow and Tehran, in order to partition areas of the Middle East and remove the US and the EU.
Turkey has a well-oiled pro-government media machine and lobby that works to tell one story to Iran hawks in Washington and another to regional media. For instance, Turkey has been pushing a media narrative that it wants reconciliation with Israel and could sideline Hamas, which has a red carpet in Ankara. In reality, however, Turkey and Iran both back Hamas, and Zarif’s visit to Ankara was symbolic of the Turkey-Iran alliance.
MOST NOTABLY, an article in The Times of London this week claimed that evidence has emerged that Erdogan is now “reassessing” Turkey’s relations with Hamas. The article, citing reports in “Turkish media,” asserted that Turkey has ceased to give citizenship or long-term visas to Hamas members, and “in at least one case” has deported a Hamas member.Jamaal Bowman removes tweet criticizing Israel’s vaccine policy
So how is Israel likely to react? First, while improved relations with Ankara would certainly be welcome, these are not currently an urgent necessity for Jerusalem.
Israel has forged ahead over the last half-decade in developing relations with Ankara’s rivals – in the UAE, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus. In these relationships may be discerned the outline of a strategic alliance in a Middle East from which the US has partially withdrawn. What might Turkey offer by way of a substitute for the advance of these relations, given that trade relations in any case remain brisk between Ankara and Jerusalem, and Ankara’s ability to pose a threat via its relations with Hamas is very limited?
Only the very optimistic could believe in real strategic cooperation between Erdogan’s Turkey and Israel. Far more likely, the Turkish president would be happy to gain from the increased legitimacy afforded him by an improved atmosphere with the Jewish state during the difficult period of Biden’s accession. The improved atmosphere could then be ditched at a later date, when the tactical reasons for it no longer pertain. By taking Erdogan’s bait, however, Israel will damage its emergent connections with the four other countries mentioned above, for no lasting gain.
The reason why such an outcome is likely if Israel moves to normalize relations with Turkey is because Turkey is very clearly embarked on its own project in the emergent post-American Middle East, and it doesn’t include friendship with Israel.
This project involves a close alliance with Qatar, development of Islamist proxy forces alongside conventional ones, and the projection of Turkish power via these means in Libya, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia and Azerbaijan (so far). The Sunni Islamist component of this is as integral as is the Turkish nationalist one. Opposition to Israel and “Zionism” is hard-wired into it. For as long as Erdogan remains president, Turkish regional strategy will proceed along these tracks, perhaps pausing occasionally for tactical advantage. Israel should make its decisions regarding Turkey on the basis of this reality.
Freshman Democrat Jamaal Bowman removed a tweet that criticized Israel’s vaccine policy.
The removal, first noted Thursday by Jewish Insider, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure that Palestinians receive coronavirus vaccinations and added that “this cruelty is another reminder of why the occupation must end.”
Israel, which is operating one of the most impressive coronavirus vaccine distributions in the world, has said it is not under obligation under international law or prior agreements to supply Palestinians with a vaccine. Moreover, Israeli officials have noted, Palestinian Authority leaders have said they prefer to receive the vaccine from elsewhere.
A number of progressive Democrats have criticized Israel for not distributing the vaccine to Palestinians under P.A. control.
Israel committed on Friday to give the Palestinian Authority thousands of COVID-19 vaccines. Reports vary about the exact amount, with some claiming 5,000 doses will be passed on, while others claim as many as 20,000 doses.
The delivery is meant to be shipped out next week.
A strong and unequivocal statement of condemnation from @RJC, against @RepMTG @mtgreenee.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 29, 2021
I just wish @USJewishDems & @jstreetdotorg had the same integrity and decency to speak out when Dems commit abhorrent acts of Antisemitism ... https://t.co/jEJGseNhFM
According to Health Ministry data released Friday, of the 78,266 people who tested for the virus, Thursday, 7,083 people were found to be carrying the coronavirus, for an infection rate of 9.3%.Why did Russia invite Abbas rivals to Moscow?
As of Friday morning there were 73,543 active cases in Israel, with 1,199 patients listed in serious condition. Of those in serious condition, 328 were on ventilators. Since the outset of the pandemic, 4,696 Israelis have died of COVID-19.
A report by the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate finds it is too early to say whether Israel is experiencing a downturn in morbidity. The reproduction rate has remained below 1, indicating what should be a decrease in morbidity, yet the trend has stopped in recent days.
The rate of infection continues to be high, and hospitals remain overwhelmed. The report further notes that over a quarter of those who died from COVID-19 passed away in January 2021, with 669 people dying of the virus between Jan. 17-28 alone. According to the directorate, the widespread distribution of the UK variant was likely responsible for morbidity rates remaining stable. Adherence to coronavirus guidelines of social distancing and mask wearing remain a priority, and special attention should be given to children, the report's authors said. Until the degree of risk posed by the various variants is known, drastic preventative measures must be taken to prevent their spread, including ramping up the vaccination campaign and ensuring a cautious exit from the lockdown. The introduction of additional variants must also be prevented by keeping Ben-Gurion Airport closed, according to the report. With 5.4 million doses administered, the report noted Israel continues to lead the world in the number of vaccines administered per capita. Yet the authors found fault with the campaign to inoculate individuals aged between 60 and 69, which has come to a standstill as 20% of the age group has not been vaccinated.
A meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and supporters of deposed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan in Moscow last week has raised eyebrows in Ramallah, where some Palestinian officials said they were surprised by the encounter.MEMRI: Senior Saudi Journalist: Biden's Response To Iran's Provocations Will Determine Outcomes In Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon And Palestine
According to websites affiliated with Dahlan, the high-ranking delegation invited to Moscow was headed by Samir al-Mashharawi, one of the founders of Dahlan’s Fatah Democratic Reform group.
Mashharawi, a senior Fatah official from the Gaza Strip, was accompanied by three other Dahlan loyalists: Ja’far Hudaib, Majed Abu Shamala and Mahmoud Issa al-Linou, secretary-general of Fatah in Lebanon.
Sources close to Dahlan, who is based in the United Arab Emirates, said the delegation visited Moscow at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The sources said that the talks focused on “restoring Palestinian national unity in light of the preparations for the Palestinian general elections.”
In a January 27, 2021 article titled "Iran Continues to Test Biden’s Limits," senior Saudi journalist 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rahsed notes that Iran welcomed the Biden administration with a series of provocations - namely the December 20, 2020 rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and with the January 23, 2021 Houthi attack on Riyadh - so as to test the patience of the U.S. and its allies and their willingness to retaliate. Biden's response to such provocations is extremely crucial, he says, as is his overall policy on Iran and especially on its nuclear dossier. This is because the U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran will ultimately determine the outcome of the crises in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine - all of which have become bargaining chips that Iran can use by threatening to escalate tensions through its proxies. Al-Rashed warns that inaction by Biden, or a lifting of the sanctions on Iran, will only embolden the Iranian regime, and leave Biden without any way to push for the amendment of the nuclear deal, as he promised.MEMRI: Syrian TV Show Discusses Biden’s Upcoming Presidency: We Have Learned We Can Say No to the U.S., The U.S. Is Weak, Defeating It Is Possible, Simple, Easy
The article was published in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.[1] The following is an English translation of it provided by the English-language Al-Arabiya website.[2]
"With much on his plate, President Joe Biden’s first months in office will be dedicated to handling several critical matters. In addition to matters related to Cuba, Venezuela, NATO, Europe, Turkey, Russia, Taiwan, and, commercially, China and the China Sea, Biden intends to address re-entering the Paris Climate Agreement, reviving the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), returning to the World Health Organization, and confronting the threat of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, which resulted in more than 400,000 deaths.
"He is also expected to heal a nation sundered by unemployment and mend socio-political rifts resulting from the prolonged electoral disputes.
"Furthermore, the Biden administration is taking quick actions towards diffusing the ticking time bomb represented by the Iranian threat and renegotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the “Iran nuclear deal.”
"The outcome of these negotiations will play a key role in determining how the situation is going to unfold in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine as all these countries have turned into bargaining chips for Iran to use by threatening to escalate tensions through its proxies of local armed groups and militias.
"The question we should be asking ourselves is, will President Biden take the same firm stance as his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, against the Iranian regime? It is clear that Tehran began challenging President Biden only two weeks into his presidency with its attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad and on Saudi Arabia as a way to test the waters.
Lebanese political analyst Hassan Shuqair and Syrian TV host Yara Saleh spoke about America's role as a world power and Biden's upcoming presidency in a show aired on Al-Ikhbariya TV (Syria) on January 20, 2021. Hassan Shuqair said that during President Trump's administration the resistance axis, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Venezuela learned that they can say "no" to the U.S. He said that they should confront Biden, by creating a counter-strategy that would enable them to force the U.S. to "return to its senses" after "Trump led it to madness." Yara Saleh said: "We have learned that it is easy to say "no" to the U.S." She concluded the show by saying that the U.S. is now weaker than it has ever been. She said that defeating the U.S. and the "conspiracies of the imperialist countries against our people in this region and against our Arab people is possible, simple, and easy."Iran rejects talks after Macron says ‘very short time’ to stop it getting nukes
"All The Fury Of Trump And His Administration Was Because Syria Said 'No,' Despite All The Sanctions... Iran Also Said 'No'"
Hassan Shuqair: "We have learned [from Trump's presidency] that American [dominance] is not inevitable, and that we can say 'no!' All the fury of Trump and his administration was because Syria said 'no,' despite all the sanctions. Despite the Caesar Act and all that, Syria said 'no.'
"Iran also said 'no.' [Trump] failed to improve things with Iran. Iran has not been brought to the negotiating table on its knees. Venezuela also said 'no,' as did Lebanon of the resistance."
Yaran Saleh: "Maybe we have learned that it is easy to say 'no' to the U.S. and say it loud and clear."
"U.S. [Dominance] Is Not Inevitable[;] The U.S. Is Not The Only Superpower In The World... [It Is] Now Weaker Than It Has Ever Been"
Shuqair: "I would like to finish by saying that American [dominance] is not inevitable. This is what I have been talking about. I said that we can confront Biden with his new soft war or his new strategy, which is meant to serve the interests of the U.S. or Israeli entity by implementing a counter-strategy that will enable us to force the U.S. to return to its senses after Trump led it to madness."
Iran on Saturday warned France to avoid “hasty and ill-considered positions,” after French President Emmanuel Macron was reported to say any new nuclear negotiations with Tehran would be “very strict,” and that only a very short time remains to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.Iran Regime's Agents and Illegal Activities in the US
Macron told Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya TV in an interview that any talks should include the Saudis, a major regional foe of Iran. The French leader reportedly said it was important not to repeat the “mistake” of leaving other countries in the region out of the 2015 nuclear accord.
Macron’s comments were not aired but rather reported by Al Arabiya in Arabic.
“Negotiations with Iran will be very strict and it will be necessary to include our partners in the region in the nuclear agreement, including Saudi Arabia,” he was quoted saying.
He warned that “the time remaining to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is very short.”
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said in response that “The nuclear accord is a multilateral international agreement ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which is non-negotiable and parties to it are clear and unchangeable.”
He cautioned Macron to “exercise restraint and refrain from hasty and ill-considered positions.”
What is alarming is that Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, who has been in the US for almost 35 years, was working for the Iranian regime and getting paid [by Iran] for nearly 13 years without being detected.Russian university fires lecturer who denied Holocaust
Afrasiabi presented himself as an independent political scientist, academic and expert. He allegedly wrote articles, including instance for The New York Times, a book, and gave TV interviews while getting guidance and payments from the Iranian regime. When Iranian officials reportedly asked him to revise an article already submitted, he followed up on their instructions.
A year ago, three Republican Senators, Ted Cruz (TX), Tom Cotton (AK) and Mike Braun (IN), called on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). "NIAC's innocuous public branding masks troubling behavior," the senators wrote. The congressmen noted that this entity was a lobby group acting as a "foreign agent of the Islamic Republic...."
For safeguarding America's national interests, it is urgent that the US follow up on the recommendation of these Senators, at least to investigate who might be operating for the Iranian regime and what they might be up to.
A prestigious university in Moscow said it would fire a professor who denied the Holocaust on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.CTV and CBC Criticize Israel For Not Vaccinating Palestinians
Vladimir Matveyev, a lecturer on international relations, told teachers from the St. Petersburg region on Thursday that “no gas chambers were found to kill people in concentration camps,” “the gas was used by the Germans for disinfection” and “six million dead Jews are a fiction.”
In a statement that same day, the state-owned university, known as RANEPA, said it “cannot accept” the lies told by Matveyev.
Matveyev was not representing the university on the video call in which he made the remarks, RANEPA said, and was participating outside his professional duties.
RANEPA stands for Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day occurs on the date that Red Army troops liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp that the Nazis built in occupied Poland.
Menachem-Mendel Pevzner, a rabbi from St. Petersburg, said his office is pressing charges against Matveyev for hate speech and Holocaust denial, which are illegal in Russia, the news site Jewish.ru reported.
Of course, it’s in Israel’s interest that the Palestinians be vaccinated considering how inter-connected both populaces are and how Palestinians work in Israel proper, but like all countries in this world, Israel is prioritizing vaccinated its citizens first.After three months BBC Arabic corrects Sae’b Erekat reports
Makler quotes the King of Jordan who spoke at the World Economic Forum who called on Israel to do more to help vacinate Palestinians, but no response from an Israeli source was provided.
Not asked by the CBC, but what is Jordan doing to help vaccinate Palestinians? Jordan, who formerly occupied the west bank from 1948-67, bears responsibility. Also keep in mind that approximately 2 million Palestinians live in Jordan. Or for that matter, what is Lebanon doing to help vaccinate Palestinians? The answer, next to nothing. These Palestinians have for decades languished in refugee camps. No one is rebuking Lebanon or Jordan for not taking care of Palestinians who live in their respective countries.
It seems that when Israel can’t be blamed, no one seems too interested in Palestinian welfare.
Last October CAMERA UK documented the amendment of a BBC News English language report which originally promoted inaccurate information put out by the PLO on Twitter. The PLO’s statement claimed that its then chief negotiator, the late Sae’b Erekat, had been taken to hospital in Tel Aviv – rather than to a hospital in Jerusalem as was actually the case. As noted at the time, the PLO-NAD subsequently put out another Tweet clarifying the matter.52 years ago, 9 Jews were hanged in Baghdad. Today, their descendants risk losing everything they left behind
However, it took the BBC Arabic website over three months to make the same amendment. Only after several communications from CAMERA Arabic did it correct the two reports – dating from October 18th and November 10th – in which the hospital’s location was inaccurately reported.
Notably, the second report replaced “Tel Aviv” with “Jerusalem” in its direct quote of the PLO’s original statement, thereby ‘correcting’ the inaccuracy in the one place it would have been legitimate to leave it standing. CAMERA Arabic takes the view that in this case it would have been best practice to report both the PLO’s inaccurate statement concerning the location of the hospital and its subsequent correction.
On Jan. 27, 1969, nine Jews were hanged in Tahrir Square in the center of Baghdad as half a million people looked on.Australian Cops Investigating Neo-Nazis Who Burned White Cross in National Park During Holiday Weekend
It was the climax of a campaign of persecution that followed the establishment of Israel, which in turn hastened an exodus of what had been a strong and flourishing community. Of the 160,000 Jews who had lived in what is today Iraq since the destruction of the First Temple, only a handful of Jews remain.
When the Jews fled, they were not allowed to take anything more than three sets of clothing and 50 dinars — a pittance. Their communal and personal property was confiscated by the Iraqi regime.
For decades, the survivors and descendants of that community thought all records of their lives in that ancient land were lost.
For the Basri family, leaving Iraq meant leaving behind not only our own personal belongings but a vast collection of material belonging to the Frank Iny School, the last Jewish school to operate in Iraq. Frank Iny was my grandfather, and his school was an island of security for Jews as the fires of anti-Semitism raged around them. School records, photos and more were lost, we thought forever.
However, by a series of miraculous events, in 2003, the communal and personal property that had been stolen by the Baath regime was discovered in a flooded basement of the headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s secret police by US troops. The United States undertook to salvage and restore the collection. Presently, the collection is in the custody of the U.S. National Archives, where they were restored and displayed at various locations.
But now, this priceless collection is once more in danger of being lost forever.
The Iraqi Jewish Archives chronicles the 2,700-year history of the Jews of Iraq — a history that ended when the Iraqi Jewish community was forced to flee. The collection contains tens of thousands of items, including a 400-year-old Hebrew Bible, a 200-year-old Talmud, Torah scrolls, Torah cases and other sacred books including manuscripts by the Ben Ish Hai, the late 19th-century Baghdadi scholar, as well personal and communal records.
Locals and tourists alike were terrified when a group of neo-Nazi hikers rampaged through a national park in southern Australia last weekend, chanting racist and antisemitic slogans and burning a white cross at one point.Jewish man gives EUR 2m. to French village for hiding family during WWII
A report in The Melbourne Age on Thursday revealed that local police and intelligence officers from the Police Counter-Terrorism Command in the state of Victoria were collecting information about the group, which hiked through the Grampians National Park at the weekend as the country celebrated Australia Day.
The group’s members also visited the tourist town of Halls Gap in the heart of the Grampians where they engaged in antisemitic and other racist behavior. At least half-a-dozen tourists and residents said they had reported the men to police.
Six uniformed officers from the nearby town of Stawell spoke to the group, including its leader, ex-Australian army soldier turned neo-Nazi Tom Sewell.
Sewell later posted online pictures of the police officers’ name badges as well as images of the neo-Nazi group posing in front of a Ku Klux Klan-stye burning cross and displaying Nazi salutes at various locations in the Grampians.
Dvir Abramovich — chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, an Australian Jewish civil rights organization — said the group’s weekend activity should prompt state and federal governments and agencies to push for extreme right-wing groups to be proscribed as terrorist entities.
“We do not need to wait for a Christchurch [terror attack] in Melbourne to act,” Abramovich said. “Who would have thought in 2021 Australia, in a week in which we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the modern face of Hitler would reveal itself in our state without consequence?”
Eric Schwam of Austria, who died aged 90 on December 25, bequeathed a large part of his fortune to the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon whose residents hid much of his family during WWII, according to an AFP report.
The village, located on a remote mountain plateau in south-east France, is a Protestant community that was known for hiding others and giving shelters to those in need.
Schwam and his extended family arrived to the village in 1943, remaining there throughout the war until 1950.
Schwam later studied pharmacology and married a Catholic woman. He asked that the money provided be used for educational purposes and youth initiatives.
Some 2,500 Jews were taken in by the French village and protected during the course of the war, whose residents were later honored as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in Israel.
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