07/21 Links Pt1: Russia requests closure of Jewish Agency for Israel; Europeans still playing double game against Israel; Iran’s fabricated ‘fatwa’ excuse ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Clifford D May: From Jerusalem to Jeddah

If Iran's rulers were to accept this deal, they would be provided with hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on whatever nefarious projects they choose.

So why do they resist? Largely because they despise Americans. They refuse even to sit at the same table with American diplomats, insisting that all negotiations be conducted through intermediaries – Russians heading the list.

They've also been demanding additional concessions, such as the removal of their Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from the American terrorist blacklist. To his credit, Biden has not conceded, cognizant of the fact that the IRGC is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.

Given this context, the Emiratis and the Saudis are practicing realpolitik. Their aim is to end up on the winning side. That won't be the United States if the United States is seen as being in retreat and decline, unwilling and perhaps unable to defend its own interests, much less those of allies.

Biden powerfully reinforced this perception when he chaotically and dishonorably abandoned Afghanistan one year ago next month. Of course, it was President Trump who laid the diplomatic groundwork for America's ignominious capitulation to the Taliban.

Trump also did nothing serious in response to Tehran's attacks on Saudi oil facilities in 2019 – a breach of a long-standing if implicit agreement to defend the kingdom in exchange for its collaboration on global energy stability – vital for the international economy that the U.S. leads and from which Americans benefit. (Note: High on Biden's to-do list in Jeddah was convincing the Saudis to agree to pump more oil. Didn't happen.)

Even earlier, President Obama attempted to implement what I've called the Mr. Rogers Doctrine: the naïve notion that the solution to the multiple conflicts of the Middle East was to convince Iran's jihadi masters to "share the neighborhood."

Obama was passive, too, when Tehran and Moscow intervened militarily to prop up the Assad dictatorship at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Syrian lives.

If America is seen as a sclerotic giant, if its credibility continues to shrivel, expect other nations – not only in the Middle East – to distance themselves from Washington while appeasing and even kowtowing to America's enemies.

The ramifications would be enormous. Some people grasp that. Others embrace the view succinctly expressed by that eminent 20th-century philosopher Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"

Russian Government Launches Legal Bid to Close Down Jewish Agency Operations

The Jewish Agency is facing the shuttering of its operations in Russia, following an announcement on Thursday from the Russian Ministry of Justice that it is embarking on legal action to close the organization down.

A spokeswoman for the Basmanny District Court in Moscow told the Interfax news service that the ministry had filed a request to remove the agency from the official state register of legal entities in Russia. The ministry claimed that the agency violated Russian law by allegedly maintaining a database of Russian Jews planning to emigrate to Israel. More than 16,000 Russian Jews have departed for Israel since Moscow launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

The ministry’s lawsuit will be discussed at a hearing on July 28, the court’s spokeswoman, Yekaterina Buravtsova, told Interfax.

A senior Jewish Agency representative meanwhile clarified that the organization would continue working in Russia in the interim. “The Jewish Agency always works in Russia according to the rules and in accordance with the requirements of the authorities,” Yigal Palmor, the head of its international relations department, told the Russian-language Israeli news portal NewsRU. “At the moment we are in dialogue with them in order to continue working as usual.”

A separate statement from the Jewish Agency’s office in Moscow said that it would “continue to operate in accordance with the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation.”

“There have been no requests for immediate termination of activities,” the statement continued.

Some Israeli officials nonetheless expressed anger at the announcement, with Minister of Diaspora Affairs Nachman Shai declaring that “Russian Jews will not be held hostage by the war in Ukraine.”

Europeans still playing double game against Israel

The Europeans are still playing a double game against Israel. Nine European governments last week issued a joint statement on six Palestinian NGOs that Israel designated as terrorist groups in 2021. In their statement, the governments said they have seen "no substantial evidence" to support Israel's allegations and will, therefore, "continue to cooperate with and support" these groups.

According to Israel, these organizations are a network working under the guise of human rights groups but are actually an arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Senior officials in these NGOs were involved in the murder of Rina Shnerb and raising funds for the terrorist organization. The foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden made it clear that from their perspective, there was nothing to prevent them from continuing to fund these NGOs.

Without getting into the question of what would constitute the "incontrovertible evidence" they seek, European governments should have stopped funding these NGOs far before Israel's declaration in 2021. There was already considerable evidence that these organizations and their employees have ties to the PFLP, and this alone should have given any reasonable government enough reason to pause and examine how their money was being used. For example, PFLP conferences were attended by the directors of these NGOs; their directors hired members of the terrorist organization – some of whom had already served time in Israeli prison – and more.

Following Rina Shnerb's murder, the Dutch government even published an independent report pointing to the ties between one of the organizations it funds and the PFLP. Meanwhile, in addition to their connections to terrorism, these NGOs are at the forefront of a campaign to de-legitimize Israel's existence. They spearhead boycott and defunding campaigns, propagate the apartheid lie, target Israel in the International Criminal Court at The Hague, accuse the IDF of war crimes, and paint the army as a killer and abuser of Palestinian children.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Takes Back Seat on Biden's Mideast Trip

Promises to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have bedeviled many recent U.S. presidents. On his first trip to the Middle East since taking office, President Joe Biden has made clear he is not planning to repeat the same mistake. "When Biden talks about Israel, his focus is not on Israel's relationship to the Palestinians, it's about Iran" and other issues, said Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. "Palestinians are an afterthought in the region."

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict sort of gets left behind in that broader message, not in a sense that it's ignored, but it falls further down the list of priorities," said Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, director of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Program at the U.S. Institute for Peace.

The Palestinian Authority hoped Biden would reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, closed in 2018, that had provided diplomatic and humanitarian services to the Palestinians. More importantly, it symbolized America's recognition of Palestinian claims to eastern Jerusalem. But the plan to reopen the consulate appears to have stalled. The move is opposed by Israel, which views Jerusalem as its capital, and the Biden administration has said it can't reopen the consulate unless Israel signs off on the plan.

"They don't want to wade into those waters. They view it as too much of a headache," said a person familiar with the matter. Senior White House officials "learned their lesson from the Obama administration in terms of losing political capital [on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], and they want to invest their political capital elsewhere."

Caroline Glick: Why politicians lie to voters | Mideast News Hour

In this week's Middle East News Hour, Caroline Glick spoke with MK Amichai Chikli, the one member of Naftali Bennett's Yamina Knesset faction who refused to abandon the party's pledge to its voters not to form a left-wing government.

They discuss:
- The moral and democratic basis for Chikli's decision
- Why do politicians lie to their voters
- Why voters lie to themselves
- The impending war between Israel and Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah

Join Glick and Chikli for a spellbinding discussion that moves from the foundational concepts of Jewish identity and Zionism to the most pressing strategic challenges facing Israel.

Muslim Youtube is mad at Jordan Peterson…

Because he promoted peace between Muslims and Jews ????? pic.twitter.com/16MGMy7Bkv
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) July 20, 2022

How Reversible Is Israel's Normalization with the Arab World?

They said the Abraham Accords were an empty PR stunt by the Trump administration, and that once someone else was in charge in the White House, the old diplomatic orthodoxy would return, whereby any real engagement between Israel and the Arab states would be conditional on the Palestinian issue. During his visit to Israel last week, President Biden made it clear that regional cooperation between Israel and the Arab regimes was at the top of his agenda. The Jerusalem Declaration he signed Thursday called "to expand the circle of peace to include ever more Arab and Muslim states."

There will be those who will continue to think that normalization is reversible and that at some point the Emiratis and Saudis will walk away. But in the last two years, we've had periods of tension around the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount and an all-out war in Gaza, and not a peep has been heard from that direction. So far, it seems they are not conditioning ties with Israel on the situation of the Palestinians, and there's no indication it will change in the foreseeable future.

In the real world, the Israeli-Arab conflict is over and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict no longer warrants the support, sympathy and political capital it may once have enjoyed.

Cameras to Replace Peacekeepers at Strategic Red Sea Strait

The Straits of Tiran have a checkered history: Egypt blockaded them in May 1967, among triggers for its war with Israel the next month. The countries fought another war in the Sinai in 1973.

Any MFO redeployment from the island requires Egyptian, US and Israeli agreement. None of those countries, nor the MFO, has publicly discussed when the contingent will leave nor what might follow.

But an official from one of the countries told Reuters: “The peacekeepers will be replaced by a camera-based system.”

Two officials from another of the countries said cameras already in place at an MFO base in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, 2.5 miles across the Straits of Tiran from the now Saudi-held islands, would be upgraded for the task.

A diplomatic source who has visited Tiran said the MFO had cameras there as well. Should such cameras be kept and operated, it could entail security coordination between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which have no formal ties.

A person in Washington familiar with the matter said the agreement called for cameras to be placed at the contingent’s existing facilities, leaving open the possibility of both Sharm el-Sheikh and Tiran as placement sites.

“It was important to Israel that as part of this process there be no compromising the commitment Israel got from Egypt, back with the peace deal, most importantly regarding freedom of shipping,” said Michael Herzog, Israeli ambassador to the United States.

“This matter has been addressed,” he told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM.

Op-edWhat the Saudis think about when they think about peace with Israel

As of this writing, Israeli planes are not yet routinely overflying Saudi airspace to and from India, China and other destinations. This year, at least, Israeli Muslims were not able to take Israeli charter flights direct from Ben Gurion Airport to Saudi Arabia for the hajj.

But on the eve of US President Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom last weekend, the Saudis announced that their airspace is now open in principle to “all air carriers,” and they are widely reported to have signaled agreement for direct Israel-Saudi flights to the hajj next year.

Israeli, American and Saudi leaders’ public declarations on these air travel advances have been contradictory. Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Biden hailed what they asserted was a tangible “first step” to hoped-for wider Israeli-Saudi normalization; Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, in complete contrast, asserted that the opened airspace had “nothing to do with diplomatic ties with Israel” and was “not in any way a precursor to any further steps” toward normalization.

Clearly, even absolute monarchies have to prepare their citizenries for radical reversals in their regional policies. After decades of institutional antisemitism and hostility to Israel, the Jews and their national homeland are not going to be transformed into allies overnight.

But with all due respect to Prince Faisal’s denials, it is not clear that there are any beneficiaries apart from Israel from the Saudis’ newly liberalized overflight rules. And any day now, it would seem, the pilot of an El Al or Arkia airliner will make radio contact with a Saudi air traffic controller, and routine, formal civilian interaction between the two countries will be underway — indeed, a first, small step on the path to wider potential normalization.

Where things go from there, however, is wide open to question. In a CNN interview coinciding with Biden’s visit to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia, a second Saudi minister, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir, allowed that peace with Israel is “possible” and a “strategic option,” but made plain it was anything but a done deal.

Al-Jubeir directly conditioned peace with Israel on Palestinian statehood, stressing Saudi commitment to “a two-state settlement, with a Palestinian state in the occupied territories with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

But the Saudis had tacitly blessed the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain striking full peace deals with Israel, within the 2020 Abraham Accords framework, despite the absence of Israeli-Palestinian progress and despite the Palestinian Authority’s bitter screams of betrayal.

For Riyadh and other potential new Abraham Accords partners, the key consideration is not the Palestinian conflict but rather the rapaciousness of Tehran’s ayatollahs, and when they weigh deepened ties with Israel, they are assessing how best to defang the Iranian threat.

Saudi Arabian locals greet i24NEWS reporters

Washington Post Slams Biden for Saudi Fist Bump, Ignores Amazon’s Full Embrace

The Washington Post sternly condemned President Joe Biden for his "shameful" greeting of Saudi Arabian royalty, but has remained mum on its owner’s extensive business dealings with the Saudis.

The paper—which is owned by Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos—led the charge following video of Biden fist-bumping the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. The Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, wrote that Biden’s trip "erodes" the "moral authority" of the United States. In his piece—which is topped with an artistic rendering of Biden shaking a blood-covered hand—Ryan criticizes the president for "turning a blind eye" to the Saudi regime's alleged murder of Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. Ryan said Biden was sending the "message that the United States is willing to look the other way when its commercial interests are at stake."

Just four months before Biden’s trip, however, it was Amazon traveling to the oil kingdom for commercial interests. A senior Amazon executive was photographed shaking hands with high-ranking Saudi officials to finalize an economic partnership between the multinational conglomerate and the Islamic theocracy. The Post did not cover Amazon’s Saudi agreement, according to a review of the paper’s archive.

Since Bezos’s 2013 purchase of the Post, experts have speculated that his substantial Amazon holdings may influence the paper’s coverage. A 2018 piece in HuffPost featured anonymous statements from several Washington Post employees who said they felt uncomfortable criticizing Amazon given Bezos’s ownership of the paper.

"I tend to do less critical thinking about Amazon than I do, say, about Facebook or Google or Walmart, and the reason is fairly obvious: because I am thankful for the opportunity I have, which wouldn’t exist without Jess [sic] Bezos," one employee said. "Conflicts of interest are there no matter how well we do our jobs," another said.

Bezos has a $116 billion stake in Amazon, which has taken major steps to expand its footprint in Saudi Arabia in recent years. During the March 19, 2022, meeting between Amazon officials and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment, the company stressed its "commitment to the Kingdom."

Donna Edwards loses Maryland primary following $6M pro-Israel spending bonanza

Edwards’s voting record on Israel during her previous Congressional terms from 2008-2017 was worrisome enough for AIPAC to justify its record spending levels (though a spokesperson for the group told Haaretz the amount of money mostly reflected the cost of purchasing ads in the expensive D.C. market). Edwards repeatedly voted “present” on legislation and congressional resolutions involving Israel that passed easily, including one that backed Israel’s right to defend itself from Gaza rocket attacks in 2009, and a law that increased security cooperation between the United States and Israel in 2012.

She has also participated in trips to Israel and the West Bank led by J Street, a more liberal pro-Israel group.

Edwards was backed by J Street and was also defended by leading Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Adam Schiff. J Street spent around $720,000 in Ivey attack ads, mostly going after him for accepting AIPAC’s money. Edwards also criticized Ivey on the campaign trail for courting support from “his dark-money super PAC.”

AIPAC congratulated Ivey on his victory in a statement Wednesday. “Pro-Israel activists mobilized in this race because there was a clear and unambiguous choice between a candidate who will strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance and one who would weaken it,” the group said. AIPAC also obliquely referenced its spending in the race, saying, “Our involvement in the democratic process will continue throughout this election cycle.”

It was a repeat of previous “proxy wars” that Israel lobbying groups have fought in the same district. Ivey previously explored running against Edwards in 2009. Even then, when Edwards had little in the way of an Israel voting record, AIPAC was eyeing a way to back a more staunchly pro-Israel challenger.

J Street says Edwards' anti-Israel positions reflect "mainstream Democratic views"?!

We don't think so.

Neither do the overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress.

And neither do Democratic voters who again demonstrated being pro-Israel is both good policy & good politics. https://t.co/mQJDoVjnP4
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) July 21, 2022

IDF uses attack drones, army announces after years of censorship

After years of banning journalists from reporting that Israel uses armed drones to strike targets, the IDF’s Military Censor has finally allowed publishing what many already knew.

“It was found that there was no impediment in publishing the IDF’s use of strike UAVs as part of its operational activities,” the censor said in a message on Wednesday evening.

The international press has reported the Israel Air Force’s use of attack drones for at least the past 20 years, and it has been extensively documented in US diplomatic cables as well as at international air shows. The IDF, however, never publicly disclosed the use of such platforms, and Israeli journalists who attempted to publish anything were blocked by the censor.

In 1991, Israel decided to operate according to the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a multinational and informal political understanding among 35 countries aimed at limiting the proliferation of missiles and missile technology.

Armed drones would fall into that category, and Israel does not want questions about what it does. When asked about the use of armed drones or the sale of armed drones, the answer was always the same from Israeli officials: a shrug, a smile – and no comment.

If Israel admitted to having armed drones, then exporting them would fall under the restrictions imposed by the MTCR. Ambiguity provides flexibility, and the ability for Israel to maneuver between its own alleged use of armed drones and sales to other countries.

Seth Frantzman: Why Israel waited until now to reveal armed drones - analysis

Why are Israeli drones controversial?
All of this points to a double standard regarding Israel. It was considered “controversial” that the Jewish state might use armed drones, when basically every other country in the Middle East was using them. Why was it controversial for Israel to sell armed drones – or drones that could be armed later by the customer – but Turkey, a member of NATO, could openly brag about its targeted drone strikes? Why was it controversial for Jerusalem to use drones in Gaza, but when Ankara carried out targeted assassinations in Iraq and Syria, the UN and human rights groups were silent?

PART OF the story is an accident of history. Israel was a pioneer in drones. In the 1970s, when Israel was still recovering from its losses in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it became clear that risking Israeli pilots against Syrian or Egyptian air defenses was not a prospect that the military wanted to confront again. How could Israel monitor where mobile Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) batteries might be deployed?

An answer came in the form of using remote piloted vehicles (RPVs), which were later known as drones or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAVs). Initially, these vehicles were simple and had been used by the US in the past. But these machines lacked many of the technologies Israel needed. Some of them were just flying target drones, used to be sacrificed in drills. Israel, and especially Israel Aerospace Industries, pioneered the use of drones. But they were used for surveillance, to bring back real-time intelligence on Syrian air defenses in places like Lebanon. By the 1980s, Israel had made peace with Egypt and the air defense threat was changing.

The US, impressed with Israel’s early drone abilities, acquired the technology. An Israeli inventor who had moved to the States was behind the drone that eventually became the US Predator. By the late 1990s, Washington was considering how to arm the Predator and whether it could be used against Al Qaeda.

An article at the Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone notes that Israel also pioneered what are called “loitering munitions” or kamikaze drones. “Early loitering munitions like the Israel Aerospace Industries Harpy, which was unveiled in the early 1990s, were intended to be used against radar installations or mobile missile launchers,” it said.

“Today, many loitering munitions are marketed for infantry use because they offer ground forces greater precision than, for example, a mortar. Unlike other types of drones of equivalent size and weight, a loitering munition is not meant to be recovered after the mission is over. Once armed and airborne, loitering munitions—which are also known as ‘suicide drones’—are meant to detonate on impact.”

Security forces nab terrorist involved in 2006 murder of Israeli soldier

Cleared for publication: Israeli security forces on a counterterrorism operation near the West Bank city of Nablus arrested a terrorist involved in the 2006 murder of an Israeli soldier.

The Israel Security Agency said in a statement that as part of the ongoing efforts to undermine terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank, IDF, Israel Police, and Shin Bet security service arrested several suspects including 42-year-old Tanzim member Alam al-Ra'I, who was detained in May in connection to a shooting near Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.

In the course of his interrogation, investigators ascertained that he was recruited by Gaza resident Muhammed Madi to carry out terrorist attacks in the West Bank, including two shooting incidents that took place in Nablus and Joseph's Tomb in April. Tanzim member Alam al-Ra'I and Staff Sgt. Osher Damari (ISA, IDF Archives)

According to the ISA, al-Ra'I implicated himself in terrorist activity going back over 15 years, including the July 17, 2006, terrorist attack against Israeli soldiers on a mission in Nablus.

The incident saw Palestinian terrorists detonate an explosive device next to a contingent of infantry soldiers on a counterterrorism operation in the city. Staff Sgt. Osher Damari, 20, from Netanya, was killed and six other soldiers were wounded in the attack.

Since that incident, al-Ra'I has taken part in dozens of other attacks against Israeli troops, including shootings and planting roadside bombs and other remote-controlled explosive devices.

"The Israel Security Agency, together with the security forces, will continue to thwart terrorist activity against Israelis, and to strive to solve past terrorist attacks and prosecute the perpetrators to the full extent of the law," the Shin Bet said.

Damari's mother, Avigail, told reporters Thursday that the arrest "won't bring Osher back. It won't set life back to what it was before, but now that I know who did it, he will be made to pay. I'll make sure he rots in prison for the rest of his life.

"This is a difficult day for us," she continued. "It sent us back 16 years. From this day forward we're going to fight this murderer. He will rot in prison for what he did to Osher and his friends, who are still dealing with that [day], as are we."

The Israel Guys: The UN Demanded That Israel RELEASE a Terrorist

A terrorist attempted to stab passengers on a public bus in Jerusalem and was finally neutralized by a heroic photographer. After a bullet was fired from Gaza into an industrial zone, the IDF responded by striking a Hamas military post. The US State Department reveals their hypocrisy in a new statement, and the United Nations, believe it or not, is demanding that Israel release a terrorist.

Why Did BBC Ignore 99 Percent of Attacks on Israelis?

There were 189 terror incidents against Israelis in June - more than six per day. These included 117 attacks with petrol bombs, 42 with pipe bombs, 16 arson attacks, 11 shootings and two stabbings. There was also a rocket attack directed at the city of Ashkelon.

The BBC failed to report almost any of these, though it was very quick to record injuries or fatalities which result from Israel's counter-measures.

BBC News reported just 1% of the terror attacks against Israelis, but it reported 89% of the resulting actions by Israel.

Few aspects of the BBC's editorial stance better illustrate its role in fanning the flames of anti-Israel feeling - and thus, indirectly, fanning the flames of anti-Semitism.

This cavernous imbalance in reporting damages Israel and harms Jews, because of the blowback on Jewish communities.

That Israelis experienced more than six terror incidents per day in June is the kind of context that is vital to enable BBC viewers to make a fair judgement on Israeli actions.

Its omission massively manipulates reality in favor of Israel's enemies. That is immoral.

Dear Amnesty

Just a reminder that this prisoner was involved in a murderous terror attack that left a 13-year-old Israeli child with critical injuries.

I am telling everyone because I know that you won't. You are not interested in telling the truth.https://t.co/2LG3oy2hpu
— David Collier (@mishtal) July 21, 2022

Palestinians attack IDF vehicles in Al-Bireh, near Ramallah. https://t.co/GRFWL9cDYP
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) July 21, 2022

'Cruel, Inhuman': UN Concludes First-Ever Investigation Into Palestine's Record Of 'Widespread Torture'

The United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) concluded an inquiry into allegations of abuse by the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the first time Wednesday.

The committee, a division of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), met Tuesday and Wednesday to question a PA delegation regarding reports of forced disappearances, prisoner abuse and legal subversion, according to the official meeting summary. While the CAT is required to review all 174 signatories of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment every four years, it has never investigated the PA since the PA adopted the convention in 2014, Jewish News Service (JNS) reported.

“Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees held in Palestinian custody in the West Bank and Gaza,” UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer told JNS.

The UN Watch report on Palestine also accused President Mahmoud Abbas of avoiding accountability for activity that violates the CAT.

“Rather, the PA under President Abbas has been using these treaty reviews to evade its own compliance obligations and instead shift responsibility and blame for non-compliance to Israel, as the ‘occupying power,'” the report stated.

Why No One Cares When Palestinians Kill Palestinians

"There needs to be a civilian trial following international standards, not just a smokescreen to protect those higher up. It is essential that the individuals who gave orders to arrest Nizar Banat for no lawful reason, and who oversaw the assault, are also held to account. The Palestinian Authority must immediately transfer this case to the civilian justice system, to ensure that proceedings are independent of those involved in the crime. The judicial process resembles a farce." — Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, amnesty.org, June 24, 2022.

The failure to hold the Palestinian Authority to account over the murder of Nizar Banat while incessantly bashing Israel over the death of Shireen Abu Akleh is yet another example of the double-standards and deep racism of the Biden administration and the rest of the international community and the media, who continue to single out Israel as part of a campaign to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews.

PMW: PA’s selective reporting omits facts to libel Israeli leaders as supporting random killing of innocent Palestinians

The PA deliberately omits details from its reporting on Palestinian terror attacks and other offences to present Palestinians as innocent and Israelis as randomly murdering them. The following are three examples of this selective reporting, which serves the PA to incite hatred against Israelis and inspire to more terror.

Two days ago, a Palestinian terrorist was shot while he was attacking an Israeli civilian with a screwdriver. The shooter was an Israeli photojournalist who happened to pass by the scene.

But the official PA daily’s headline said nothing about a Palestinian terrorist stabber. Rather it portrayed him as an innocent victim:
“An Israeli photojournalist shoots a young Palestinian in occupied Jerusalem!”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 20, 2022]

Aside from the fact that the terrorist was not “young” given he was 44 years old, the entire report in the official PA daily questioned whether there was even an attack to begin with, alleging that the Ynet journalist “shot a young Palestinian in occupied Jerusalem, on the claim that he attempted to carry out a stabbing operation.”

Referring to praise from Israeli PM Yair Lapid and Israel Police for the photojournalist’s “extraordinary civilian heroism,” the official PA paper further concluded that all Israeli journalists are “intelligence agents or ‘sleeper’ soldiers”:
“The Israeli journalist is nothing but an intelligence agent or ‘sleeper’ soldier who is quickly activated when something appears before him that goes against the will of every member of the occupation’s security [services] or army.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 20, 2022]

In another incident, a Palestinian car thief killed an Israeli police officer, Master Sergeant Barak Meshulam – a 29-year-old father of two - when he rammed into him at a police roadblock while trying to escape.

Rajoub: Murderer of 10 “deserves blessings,” he was “a milestone in proactive national action”

PMW: Proof imprisoned terrorists have exclusive control over their PA salary, not their families - Daughter gets terrorist dad’s salary

At times the PA has tried to excuse or hide the terror salaries it pays to imprisoned terrorists, arguing that the money is for the needy families who have lost their main and sometimes only breadwinner. But Palestinian Media Watch has documented that only the terrorists have control over the money, not the relatives, and that only if the terrorist decides to transfer the money to the family, the family will have access to it.

A recent interview with the daughter of a terrorist prisoner again supports this conclusion. The daughter explained that her imprisoned father began transferring his “monthly salary” from the PA to her as soon as he heard she was getting married:
Aya, daughter of prisoner Fawaz Ba’arah: “Ever since I set the date of my wedding, [dad] has been putting in his monthly salary [from the PA] in order to pay for my "wedding present with it".

[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, June 30, 2022]

In 2013, PMW published a rare interview with the wife of a prisoner who chose not to transfer his salary to her but gave it to other relatives. Then PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake openly admitted that “the current procedure in the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs is that the prisoner determines who has the power of attorney… he gives the power of attorney to whomever he wants from [among his] first-degree relatives to receive his monetary allowances" (see transcript below):

Father of 24-year-old terrorist “Martyr” calls on “all our armed young people”: “Take revenge”

Released terrorist vows to “defend our homeland… our honor… even if it costs us our lives”

Children in Hamas TV Kids’ Show: The Criminal Jews Are Plotting to Replace the Al-Aqsa Mosque with Their False Temple, But We Will Defend Jerusalem to Our Last Drop of Blood; Jihad Is the Pinnacle of Islam #Hamas #Palestinians pic.twitter.com/HlMXX06Dt5
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) July 21, 2022

Hamas held a military parade celebrating the eighth anniversary of the capture of IDF soldier Oron Shaul. Shaul has been presumed dead by the IDF since the conclusion of the 2014 #Gaza war. pic.twitter.com/JxY9cd810q
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) July 20, 2022

Building on Biden's Commitments to Block Iran's Nuclear Weapons

Iran will roll back its nuclear program only if convinced that it is futile to seek a nuclear bomb because the U.S. military will ultimately prevent Tehran from succeeding. Iran's nuclear program is reportedly now so advanced that it needs less than a month to produce sufficient highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

The relationship between an explicit U.S. military option and successfully halting Iran's nuclear program diplomatically was elaborated in a December 2021 joint statement by seven experts including former Obama defense secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta and former Obama CIA director David Petraeus. They declared that "[w]ithout convincing Iran it will suffer severe consequences if it stays on its current path, there is little reason to hope for the success of diplomacy....We believe it is vital to restore Iran's fear that its current nuclear path will trigger the use of force against it by the United States."

The statement called on the Biden administration to undertake military exercises, pre-positioning, and other "steps that lead Iran to believe that persisting in its current behavior and rejecting a reasonable diplomatic resolution will put to risk its entire nuclear infrastructure." Congress must quickly urge Biden to demonstrate a more explicit U.S. military threat that Iran rejecting a reasonable diplomatic resolution will result in the destruction of Tehran's current nuclear infrastructure, rather than in Tehran gaining a nuclear weapon.

British-Palestinian Journalist @abdelbariatwan : In Light of the Energy Crisis, the “Resistance” Will Be Calling the Shots When It Comes to Europe’s Prosperity, Energy Security; Biden Has Lost His Mental Faculties, He Cannot Lead the World Against Russia @JoeBiden @POTUS pic.twitter.com/4RAhf3vsZU
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) July 21, 2022

Ruthie Blum: Iran’s fabricated ‘fatwa’ excuse

WHETHER KHARRAZI’S remarks slipped out without preapproval by Khamenei is anyone’s guess. But they warrant being taken more seriously than the ridiculous assertion that Iran is enriching uranium solely for civilian energy purposes.

Furthermore, Kanani’s poor excuse for a retraction doesn’t come close to an actual denial. The only truth he uttered was that there was “no change” in Iran’s nuclear stance. The bit about the Islamic ban on nuclear weapons, on the other hand, was a rehashed myth.

This is par for Iranian diplomatic double-speak, a language that the mullah-led regime’s representatives use with total fluency when addressing the West. Professing to adhere to an anti-nuke fatwa while boasting about successful ballistic-missile tests and high-level centrifuge activity is a prime example.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi performed this very type of rhetorical trick last year.

“The Supreme Leader has explicitly said in his fatwa that nuclear weapons are against sharia law and the Islamic Republic sees them as religiously forbidden and does not pursue them,” he told Iranian state TV in February 2021. “But a cornered cat may behave differently from when the cat is free. And if they [Western states] push Iran in that direction, then it’s no longer Iran’s fault.”

He made it sound like a pretty flexible fatwa, as though violating it isn’t so problematic. Herein lies the rub, however. The fatwa in question, which Iran yammered about for years until supposedly publishing its text in 2010, is a hoax.

The propaganda about it was used by Iranian figures as a tool to prove to the administration of then-US president and JCPOA architect Barack Obama that Tehran’s intentions were honorable. It was thus music to Washington’s ears, and nobody at the White House or State Department bothered to find out whether or not it was true.

Israeli Expert: Iran Has Already Crossed the Nuclear Threshold

Iran can produce a nuclear weapon at will, former Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi announced on Sunday. IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, responded: "It will take some time [to produce a weapon], but technologically speaking, they are very, very close. They've managed to enrich uranium to 60%, which is extremely close to 90% [weapons-grade]. And they have advanced centrifuges that can do that in a very short period of time."

Together with its enrichment efforts, Iran is likely working on other "necessary technologies." Kuperwasser noted that Tehran has made advances with uranium metal - a key component of a nuclear weapon - tested detonators and plans to potentially deliver a nuclear warhead using one of its existing missiles, the "Shahab 3." "And those are only the things we know of," he said.

While Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, Kuperwasser said the Islamic Republic has already crossed the nuclear threshold. "This was always the difference between us [Israel] and the Americans. The U.S. said Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We were saying that Iran should not even have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon, because once you get the ability, you might try to actually build one."

Kuperwasser stressed that both Europe and the U.S. want to avoid a confrontation with Iran. "They believe that in a couple of years, maybe the regime will disappear. Of course, it's all wishful thinking....At a certain point, somebody has to tell the Iranians, 'enough is enough, you have to stop here'."

Washington's refusal to take meaningful steps against Tehran is being interpreted by the Iranians as constituting "a green light to go even further," he said. "The time to do something about it is now."

US warns Iran risks becoming dependent on Russia after hosting Putin

The United States on Wednesday warned Iran that it risked dependency on an isolated Russia after it welcomed President Vladimir Putin, although the CIA chief acknowledged the two nations have uneasy ties.

Putin on Tuesday visited Tehran for a three-way summit with his counterparts from Iran and Turkey that was nominally about conflict-ridden Syria.

On the sidelines of the summit, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for “long-term cooperation” with Russia, even though Tehran earlier tried to show its neutrality by abstaining from a key UN vote on condemning Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Iran has now cast its lot with a small number of countries who wore that veil of neutrality only to end up supporting President Putin in his war against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

The United States recently released intelligence purporting to show Russian delegations visiting Iran to assess combat drones as it looks to bolster its arsenal against Western arms in Ukraine.

But Price signaled that Iran’s return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal — backed by President Joe Biden after his predecessor Donald Trump trashed it — would start a new “economic relationship with other countries around the world.”

Mr. Supreme Leader, sir, please enrich yourself in cooperation with America so you can undermine it more effectively! https://t.co/FYtKtowTRq
— Mike (@Doranimated) July 21, 2022

When Iran is praising your antisemitic policies against your *own* Jewish community, you’re doing something wrong. https://t.co/BEX9wx1r07
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) July 21, 2022

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