Elder of Ziyon 09/25 Links Pt2: Judea Pearl: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on ‘Being Jewish’; The inevitable consequences of false history; UN Human Rights Council Ignores Real Abuses to Attack Israel
In 2003, when my wife, Ruth, and I were editing the book I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl (Jewish Light Publishing, 2004), we asked more than 300 prominent Jewish personalities to contribute an essay, a note, or a paragraph on what the words "I am Jewish" meant to them.
Some responded with outright rejection, saying that in a world heading toward globalization, there is no point dwelling on ethnic distinctions. Some apologized for not being able to treat such complex question in less than two or three volumes. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not hesitate for a moment, and sent us a 300-word piece we knew right away will strengthen the spines of Jewish youngsters for generations to come.
We assured her that she would be remembered by that piece, especially by the millions who will forever associate Jewishness with the Biblical command "Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof" (Justice, justice, you shall pursue … — Deuteronomy 16:20).
Now that Ginsburg no longer is with us, it is time for us to fulfill our promise and make her essay available to the general public.
The following is the essay Ginsburg wrote for I Am Jewish, a book inspired by the last words of our son, Danny, before his murder by terrorists in 2002 in Pakistan:
Former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg once said, "My concern for justice, for peace, for enlightenment stems from my heritage." Justice Stephen Breyer and I are fortunate to be linked to that heritage, and to live in the U.S.A. at a time when Jews residing here face few closed doors and do not fear letting the world know who they are.
For example, I say who I am in certain visible signs. The command from Deuteronomy appears in artworks, in Hebrew letters, on three walls and a table in my chambers. "Zedek, Zedek tirdof," "Justice, justice shalt thou pursue," these art works proclaim; they are ever present reminders to me of what judges must do "that they may thrive." There is also a large silver mezuzah mounted on my doorpost. It is a gift from the super bright teenage students at the Shulamith School for Girls in Brooklyn, N.Y. the school one of my dearest law clerks attended in her growing-up years.
A question stated in various ways is indicative of what I would like to convey. What is the difference between a New York City garment district bookkeeper and a Supreme Court Justice? One generation. My life bears witness, the difference between opportunities open to my mother, a bookkeeper, and those open to me.
I am a judge, born, raised and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish history and Jewish tradition. I hope, in all the years I have the good fortune to serve on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and courage to remain steadfast in the service of that demand.
The results of a new survey of knowledge and awareness about the Holocaust in the United States were sobering. It turns out that despite a massive effort put into educating Americans about the mass murder of European Jewry by the German Nazis and their collaborators, a sizable %age of millennials (defined as those aged 18 to 39) know little or nothing about it or actually believe anti-Semitic canards about this atrocity being the fault of the Jews.
Many Jews are understandably expressing dismay about those numbers and calling for greater efforts to be made to increase and improve Holocaust education. But it's likely that many of them are the same people who are dismissing President Donald Trump's concerns about the way the teaching of American history is being distorted or trashed by those peddling false narratives about the country being irredeemably racist.
Trump's concerns, stated in a Constitution Day speech given last week in which he vowed to create a commission to combat this trend, were widely dismissed as either electioneering or racist. Anything a president says while running for re-election can be regarded as political. Yet his attempt to call attention to the importance of the ongoing fight over American history didn't seem to resonate among those who are the first to decry the implications of the lack of historical knowledge about the Holocaust.
The fact that 15% of millennials think that Jews caused the Holocaust, 41% agreed with the claim that people talk about it "too much," and 12% think that it was either a myth or exaggerated is shocking. It's all the more troubling since those polled grew up in an era when Holocaust education has proliferated and is mandatory in many states. Indeed, the study, which was sponsored by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, showed that there was no correlation between living in states where Holocaust education is mandatory and having a firm grasp of the history.
The problem isn't just a function of requiring schools to teach about this crime, but that what is being taught isn't necessarily helping to correct the situation, let alone dealing with a rising tide of anti-Semitism. As scholar Ruth Wisse writes in National Affairs, instead of merely doubling down on curricula that may be hurting as much as they are helping, we need to rethink Holocaust-education programs that were flawed from the start.
This week, while world leaders and heads of state spoke by video at an unprecedented annual United Nations General Assembly meeting, their ambassadors met at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
However, instead of focusing on China's ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims, Iran's merciless execution of wrester Navid Afkari or Russia's poisoning of pro-democracy opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the council will once again focus its attention on the democratic state of Israel with a series of predictable condemnations.
In 2018, when the United States announced its withdrawal from the UNHRC, citing the council's "unconscionable" and "chronic" bias against Israel, Ambassador Nikki Haley noted it had become "a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias."
She was entirely right.
Just last year, the Council elected Nicolás Maduro's Venezuela, one of the world's most repressive and human rights abusing regimes, as a member. This is not a joke. This is inexcusable and unconscionable. It is also on par for the UN's top human rights body, which according to reports, is now set to elect China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia this October.
The Human Rights Council was formed in 2006 to tackle human rights abuses in light of the failures of its discredited predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission.
The commission was widely criticized for its one-sided obsession with Israel and the make-up of its membership, which included some of the most atrocious regimes in the world. At one point in 2003, Libya—then still ruled by Muammar Gaddafi—even chaired the commission.
Hopes were high that the council would herald the dawn of a new era, when the persecuted would finally have a voice and their persecutors would finally be held to account for their crimes.
Instead, the council has continued its unrelenting obsession with the state of Israel, condemning it almost as often as all other countries put together. The council reserves a spot on its agenda to condemn the Jewish state—the sole country-specific item—whereas human rights issues in the entire rest of the world are shoved into one solitary agenda item.
The council of course has never passed a resolution condemning the Palestinian Authority over its repulsive "Pay to Slay" policy of paying terrorists and murderers of Israelis.
New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is reconsidering her participation in an upcoming memorial event for the assassinated late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the freshman Democrat said on Friday.
After being questioned on Twitter by an anti-Israel journalist, Alex Kane, about her planned attendance at the Americans for Peace Now ceremony, which will mark the 25th anniversary of the murder of Rabin by a far-right Jewish zealot angered by his efforts to make peace with the Palestinians, Ocasio-Cortez said, "Hey there – this event and my involvement was presented to my team differently from how it's now being promoted. Thanks for pointing it out. Taking a look into this now."
A story in 3-acts.
1) AOC is invited to an event from Americans for Peace Now remembering Rabin, the Israeli PM who was assasinated for trying to make peace.
In his tweet, Kane had highlighted Rabin's role as Israel's defense minister during the First Intifada in the late 1980s, claiming Palestinians remembered him "as someone who reportedly ordered the breaking of Palestinian bones."
Replying to Ocasio-Cortez, former Israeli Labor MK Stav Shaffir tweeted, "When we stand for peace, there will be those who will tell us it's impossible, even threaten us. Rabin stood strong & signed the first agreement with the Palestinians as he believed peace was the only hope. He was assassinated for it. I hope you'll have the moral courage to attend."
US Jewish journalist Yair Rosenberg commented, "If @AOC can't even do an event with *Peace Now* remembering Yitzhak Rabin, the general turned peacemaker killed by a far-right extremist for trying to make peace with the Palestinians, it suggests caring more about Twitter than good real world outcomes. Hope that's not the case."
In a tweet on Thursday announcing the Rabin event, Americans for Peace Now said Ocasio-Cortez would "reflect on fulfilling the courageous Israeli leader's mission for peace and justice today in the US and Israel."
StandWithUs: The Antisemitism of Louis Farrakhan
WATCH: Racism is racism. Hate is hate. When people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan spew antisemitic conspiracy theories and call Jews 'satanic,' it encourages hate to grow and spread at an alarming rate.
We need to stand together if we're going to end the scourge of antisemitism and hate sweeping through the United States, and the world.
Danny Deutsch, who earned a name for himself for marketing and advertising, after being cancelled multiple times on l CNN and MSNBC due to microscopic ratings, still makes appearances on political talking head shows.
One must question why would a man with a history of failed ratings and limited scope of knowledge in regards to politics , still be invited on talking head TV shows? One can assume the management of these low brow disinformation outlets, like what Deutsch brings to the table: hate and division.
In his latest unhinged rant advocating for Democrat Joe Biden, Danny compared Trump to Hitler and went after Jewish Trump supporters.
In an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Deutsch compared Trump's latest campaign rally in Moon Township, Pa. to a "rally from the early '30s" saying there was "not one person of color anywhere."
"But what was going on in the early '30s Germany? Basically you had a destruction of belief in the free press, you had blurring between the executive branch and the Justice Department, you have creating an other, whether it's Muslims, whether it's Mexicans, whether it's congressmen who weren't born in this country, and then you have the destruction of free elections," he said.
He continued: "And we're here and what is the difference between Adolph Hitler and Donald Trump? I'm not saying there is a Holocaust but when you look at the tactics, that is where we are right now."
Deutsch, who is Jewish, went on to attack Jewish Trump supporters, asking "How dare you?"
"With what our people have gone through in history, and you see a man who is a dictator, and once you give a man absolute power he's possible of anything, and if you are a Jew in this country and you are supporting Donald Trump, you are not looking back at our history and you are blind and you are walking like a lemming off a cliff. It is time to wake up!" he said.
Politicians in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar have united in condemnation of a series of antisemitic barbs directed toward an opposition member of parliament who is Jewish.
Marlene Hassan Nahon — the leader of the Together Gibraltar Party — said she had been the target of an "orchestrated campaign" in recent days, following her strong criticism of the government's handling of the impact upon Gibraltar of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.
Nahon said that the comments attacked both her and her late father, former Gibraltar Chief Minister Sir Joshua Hassan, negatively highlighting her links with the State of Israel.
"Of particular concern in the latest barrage of abuse is the age-old antisemitic trope of dual loyalty with Israel that has been lobbed at me for being Jewish," Nahon said.
She said the accusation was "a new and dangerous phenomenon in Gibraltar politics and I urge the chief minister and leader of the opposition to condemn this discourse immediately."
Chief Minister Fabián Picardo readily complied, decrying the campaign against Nahon in a statement on Thursday.
"We must all denounce members of a small minority who disqualify themselves and disappoint all of us by making racist and antisemitic statements about a member of our parliament based on their religion," Picardo said. "Making racist and antisemitic remarks as part of an alleged political debate is just anathema and alien to the Gibraltar I know and love."
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's student government buried a boycott, divestment, and sanctions provision in a resolution opposing violence against blacks.
On Sept. 23, the UIUC student government passed a motion calling on the school to divest from companies such as Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar Inc., and Elbit Systems Ltd. for allegedly partaking in "human rights violations" in "Palestinian lands." The BDS resolution was placed inside a larger resolution that called out anti-black violence on campus and supported efforts for racial justice. The university's Hillel center called the referendum an "antisemitic litmus test" and accused the student government of forcing Jewish students to pick between their Zionism and condemning violence against black people.
"After five failed attempts in as many years to pass BDS, student activists enshrouded calls for divestment within a resolution opposing anti-Black violence," a statement from Illini Hillel reads. "This was an attempt to paint Israel and Jews as the obstacle to racial equity, amidst the holiest time in the Jewish calendar."
According to the Jewish News Syndicate, the resolution called out each company for its alleged role in human-rights atrocities and called for a student representative from Students for Justice in Palestine to work on a task force with the university chancellor. The task force would be "charged with divesting from corporations and index funds that violate human rights and reinvest in socially and environmentally responsible companies and index funds."
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's student government on Wednesday night voted in favor of a pro-BDS resolution calling for divestment from a number of companies over their alleged involvement in human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
Companies mentioned in the resolution — titled "Human Rights Violations in University Investments and Police Forces" — included Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and Elbit Systems.
The issue was complicated by the inclusion of language in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, which placed pro-Israel students in the position of appearing to vote against racial justice, something many saw as a deliberate tactic.
In response, several Jewish students wrote a declaration of principles, which they read into the record before the vote was taken via Zoom.
"We are steadfast in our commitment to stand up for Black life and against antisemitism," they said. "As Jews who have been targets of white supremacist hatred and feel the pain of antisemitism, we stand proudly in support of racial justice."
"The conflation of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement with the movement for racial justice distracts from the root cause of systemic racism in America," they added. "The introduction of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions tactics against Israel into the movement for racial justice is a brazen attempt to give Jewish students an impossible choice between renouncing Zionism or selecting a position inconsistent with our support for human rights and the quest for equity."
The resolution was passed by 22-11 margin, with seven abstentions.
.@AMPalestine appointed Mohamad Habehh as National Development Coordinator but he was pretty open about his ideal working conditions: "If you work with the yahood [jews] idc if you're Muslim or atheist you're a kalb [dog] and you deserve the worst in life"https://t.co/crnXkU6e8Xpic.twitter.com/M66CnhpRda
Glad to see you and @JVP have quality researchers on staff. How long did it take you to find information that is readily available on JINSA's website? Our participants are all listed here: https://t.co/tZvbg2yvhz
On September 21st the BBC News website published a report headlined "Bulgaria court convicts two over 2012 Burgas bus attack on Israelis" in which readers found the usual euphemism employed by the corporation to describe persons or organisations that target Israelis, along with amplification of a terrorist organisation's claims.
A Bulgarian court has sentenced two men to life in jail over a bus bombing in 2012 that killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian driver. […]
Prosecutors linked the attack to militant group Hezbollah. It denied involvement.
Hezbollah has been accused of carrying out a string of bombings and plots against Jewish and Israeli targets, and it is designated a terrorist organisation by several Western states and Israel.
The EU put Hezbollah's military wing on its terrorism blacklist after the bombing."
Clearly that reference to "several Western states" does not adequately clarify to BBC audiences that Hizballah is also designated a terrorist organisation by the Arab league, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Bahrain, the UAE, Japan, Argentina, Honduras and Paraguay, among others. The recent designation by Serbia has not yet been reported to BBC News website audiences.
The caption to the image illustrating the report reads "Bulgarian prosecutors said the evidence linked the defendants and the attack to Hezbollah" and readers are later told that:
"Prosecutors accused them of providing the explosive device and logistical support to El-Husseini, and said the evidence linked them to Hezbollah."
🔴 WATCH: The BBC portray Israel's most important archeological site as a settlement.
The people now criticising Abramovich - a proud Jew for investing in Israel (where he is now a citizen) are the very same people who say that anybody who criticizes atheist 'Jew' Soros for funding anti-Israel organizations is 'antisemitic'.
Moreover, David Collier has done a fine expose of the Abramovich 'story'. It really is driven by the usual antisemitic, anti-Israel narrative and lies. Why is the well-funded Board of Deputies not doing this kind of research? Oh of course they are among those who call criticism of Soros "dog-whislte antisemitism":
Facebook takes the war on antisemitism very seriously, Jordana Cutler, Facebook's head of policy for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora, told The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference.
Cutler, who was included in the The Jerusalem Post's list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world, is at the forefront of the social media giant's efforts to control incitement and hate speech online."My job is to be a representative in Israel for Facebook, and to speak at Facebook on behalf of Israel and the Jewish Diaspora," she said.
Does Facebook listen? "Of course they do, and that's one of the most exciting aspects of my job," Cutler said.
In one example, Cutler noted a recent amendment to Facebook's community standards to ban implicit hate speech, meaning that in addition to forbidding a statement that a particular race is inferior, you also can't claim that a race is superior, or runs the world, banks, or the government. This change was the direct result of Cutler's findings in her meetings with Jewish community leaders, she said.
Cutler noted that Facebook's speech detection algorithms are always improving, and said that in the recent quarter, 85% of hate speech was automatically removed before it was reported by a user. That being said, she noted that "people don't realize how much power they have to report content on Facebook."
"Just one user report can bring down a violating post," she added.
Most of the lead actors here, playing Jews, in a story about anti-Semitism, aren't Jewish. I'm fine with that. But it wouldn't be fine for the BBC to cast like this with any other minority. https://t.co/har8qts0CB
A Dutch city named as its resident poet a rapper who in a 2012 song called the Holocaust a "cover up for dumb sheep" and a "joke" compared to slavery.
The office of Jos Wienen, the mayor of Haarlem, a city of about 160,000 residents that is the capital of the Dutch province of North Holland, announced Darryl Danchelo Osenga's title of city poet on Wednesday, sparking passionate protests from Dutch Jews and non-Jews.
Osenga, whose stage name is Insayno, "will give the institution of city poet a new direction," the statement on the honorary nomination read. "His poems overflow with love for language and for the city of Haarlem." The city gives the honor every other year to a different artist.
In a statement, the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, expressed its "shock" at the decision, citing his 2012 song "Black Page," among other objections.
In that track, Insayno says: "Only talking about the war. The Holocaust is just a cover-up for dumb sheep. I see you think, this can't be: Eight million Jews? I'm talking about 18 million slaves. The treatment at the concentration camps is just a little joke in comparison with our slave trade. Gassing people, that's also sad but just for laughs you should learn about torture."
The municipality of Haarlem said in a reaction to the protests that the mayor spoke with Insayno on the subject and that he had apologized and distanced himself from the poem. "He deserves a second chance," the statement said.
CIDI called the song a perpetuation of anti-Semitic stereotypes and "marginalization of the Holocaust."
Police in France have arrested a man for an attempted assault on a Jewish TV presenter at the Paris studio where she works.
The unnamed man was taken into custody on Tuesday after he entered the studio and confronted Valerie Benaim over her trenchant criticism of Freeze Corleone — a French rapper whose hit debut album is steeped in "antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and apologies for Hitler, the Third Reich and [Afghan Taliban commander] Mullah Omar," according to one leading French anti-racist organization.
Appearing on the live talk show "TPMP" on Sept. 17, an angry Benaim denounced Corleone for lyrics such as, "I arrive determined like Adolf in the 1930s," and, "Every day I f_k Israel like I live in Gaza."
"I'm going to try to be very calm, because the words of this boy touch my heart, because I am a Jew, I belong to the Jewish religion," Benaim declared. "He speaks about humanity, but when you attack a black person, a Jew, a Muslim, you attack humanity."
According to TPMP producers, Benaim received an "avalanche" of hateful messages on social media in response to her comments — including several posts written by the man arrested by police at the show's studios on Tuesday.
The rural upstate New York hamlet of Swastika is keeping its name, despite a complaint that it symbolizes the hate and intolerance of the Nazi regime.
The unincorporated crossroads in the Adirondack Mountain town of Black Brook, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of the US-Canada border, has been known as Swastika for more than a century.
But town council members considered a name change after a visitor from New York City said it was offensive, and disrespectful to the memory of the World War II veterans buried in graves in the nearby countryside. Michael Alcamo said he was bicycling through the area this summer when he came upon Swastika.
"I was stunned that the people who live there wouldn't have a meeting and pick a different name sometime after 1945, if not prior," Alcamo said Thursday.
Council members met September 14 and unanimously nixed a name change.
"We regret that individuals, from out of the area, that lack the knowledge of the history of our community become offended when they see the name," Black Brook supervisor Jon Douglass wrote in an email Thursday. "To the members of our community, that the board represents, it is the name that their ancestors chose."
Police in Moscow arrested a man on Thursday for vandalizing the offices of a Russian Jewish organization in an antisemitic attack.
According to eyewitness reports, the man — who had been drinking heavily — arrived at the headquarters of the SHAMIR center, a Jewish educational institute in eastern Moscow that serves a community of 20,000 Jews.
The man shouted antisemitic epithets as he attempted to break through the door of the building. When he failed to do so, he reportely broke the SHAMIR nameplate on the mailbox and then toppled a large decorative menorah. He also did minor damage to the rabbi's car before being arrested.
Jewish community members locked their doors and alerted law enforcement who detained the vandal at the local police station.
Rabbi Berel Tsisin — director of SHAMIR — said in a statement that it was rare for the community to experience antisemitic hate crimes.
An Israeli designer was named Thursday as one of four winners of an international women's climate tech challenge for her development of an outdoor fabric for urban shading that is embedded with organic solar cells to provide lighting at night.
The challenge, now in its second year, was organized by Women4Climate, a group of mayors, entrepreneurs, innovators, students, scientists and activists that aims to enhance women's participation and leadership in building a sustainable future.
Anai Green's "Lumiweave" is designed for off-the-grid soft linear light and shade. It can be used in a range of applications, from umbrellas to large canopies.
Green will pilot her material in her home city, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, one of this year's four hosts of C40 Cities. C40 brings together more than 90 world cities taking action against climate change. The other three innovators to win will trial their products in Lisbon, Stockholm or Los Angeles.
The four will split a $50,000 cash prize, sponsored by the VELUX Group.
Reacting to the win, Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai said, "One of the most pressing issues of concern regarding climate change in Tel Aviv-Yafo is the rising temperature, a great challenge that we will be contending with in the coming years. Lumiweave's solar shading structures can bring a unique solution to this problem. We are excited to work with Anai Green to test the solution where it is most needed."
American singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz discussed how his Russian Jewish father made sure his upbringing was deeply rooted in Jewish tradition in a new interview with The New York Times.
The Grammy-winning artist, who recently released a memoir titled "Let Love Rule," described his father, the late TV news producer Sy Kravitz, as "a self-assured Jewish man" whose parents refused to attend his wedding to Caribbean-American actress Roxie Roker, Lenny's mother. Sty's family came around only after Lenny was born and named after Sy's deceased brother, Pfc. Leonard M. Kravitz, the singer previously said.
"I am deeply two-sided," the "American Woman" singer, 56, wrote in his new memoir. "Black and white. Jewish and Christian. Manhattanite and Brooklynite."
When asked whether his father had an interest in educating him about Judaism, the singer told The New York Times, "No, he wasn't that kind of a communicator with me. And he wasn't religious. As with many Jews in my family at the time, it was all about tradition and keeping that alive, especially after what people in the family had gone through in World War II. But I still got exposed to it, from going to temple and spending the High Holidays with my family at their houses."
Lenny's father threw him out of the house when he was 16 and he had no stable home for a few years. The two made peace before Sy died in 2005, "but I can't say that I understood everything, or accepted it," the singer noted.
"In writing this book, I got to understand him as a man, instead of looking at him as my father who screwed up in different arenas," he added. "I ended up liking and loving him even more."
A collection of 130,000 postcards depicting current-day Israel and Judea and Samaria since the 19th century has been gifted to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the institute said Thursday.
David Pearlman, an 82-year-old retired accountant, began collecting English comic cards as a boy before turning his attention to postcards.
"When I began to see some different cards around the world, I could see that there was a big subject... so I gradually moved over to looking only for cards that featured Palestine," he told Agence France-Presse from his London home.
The collection's first picture postcard dates to 1892. In the years prior to the invention of the telephone, postcards were first and foremost a means of communication, before becoming a way to promote businesses or ideas.
"Most countries were allowing postcards to be sent through the post, half the price of a letter," Pearlman said.
"In the 1890s, as the hotel trade began to grow in Palestine, a number of organizations were beginning to produce cards that portrayed or featured their hotel or business establishment."
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
There is so much in this article from TheJC that typifies the new antisemitism. Read the whole thing. Some excerpts:
An academic from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has labelled Israel a "Western virus".
Dr Haim Bresheeth, Professorial Research Associate at SOAS's Centre of Global Media and Communication, also claimed the Holocaust was the "clincher argument" in Israel's "presumed right over Palestine".
During a debate held earlier this month on the "normalisation" of Israel, Dr Marwa Osma, a Lebanese commentator who has appeared on Iranian-backed Press TV, also called for support for "armed resistance" coupled with "international pressure" against what she said was "Zionist aggression."
The two-hour long discussion was organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) and included a contribution from the controversial charity's chair Massoud Shadjareh.
Yes, the "Islamic Human Rights Commission" hosted someone who advocates killing Jews in Israel. ("Armed resistance" is a nice way of saying "terror attacks.")
Anyway, Mr. Shadjareh has an interesting take:
He said there was "huge concern the way that there has been a policy of the Zionists to normalise themselves in all different arenas" – focusing particularly on inter-faith initiatives between the Jewish and Muslim community.
Condemning attempts to "normalise" Israel, Mr Shadareh said "the institution of interfaith was used as one of the tools for this and you know, you could ask yourself, you could look into it, why is it that all the Jewish organisations who are involved in interfaith are actually Zionists while we know there is a huge number of anti-Zionists, non-Zionists in the Jewish community and none of them are represented. "
Meanwhile Mick Napier, the former leader of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, claimed Israel was the world's number one pariah state – and the mass media, including the BBC, were involved in a cover-up of its crimes.
Dr Bresheeth, an associate member of the SOAS Centre for Palestinian Studies, suggested Zionism was "riding on the latent Islamophobia inherent in Christian society since the Crusades".
He argued: "This form of Islamophobia has never disappeared from the West and explains the great centrality of Zionism to Western regimes".
"Israeli presumed rights over Palestine are seen as, within Zionism, as exclusive and religious-based with the Holocaust deals at the clincher argument. This is very useful because no one seems to be able to say anything about this combination of, you know, Judeo-Christian and Holocaust arguments."
Arguing that Zionism was the creation of Western Christians at the end of the nineteenth century, who used it to exert control over the Middle East, Dr Bresheeth said: "The West had conceived of Zionism as the bulwark of Western capitalism against Islam and the Arab world and used it to open the Middle East for western interests, and this is continuing.
"In this way Israel became the Western virus in the region during the Cold War, developing its political outlook as a Western/US outpost in the near east - an agenda gradually adopted by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, apartheid South Africa, and most importantly the EU."
Israel has a purpose even for these jokers. It is a means for them to publicly spout their hate for Jews while pretending that they are merely rabidly anti-Zionist.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Erekat's most notorious and successful effort to spread blood libels against Israel occurred in the wake of the bloody battle in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002. Jenin had been the terrorism capital of Judea and Samaria. In March 2002, numerous suicide bombers were deployed to Israeli population centers from the city.
In the course of the battle, IDF reservists fought terrorists everywhere. All the buildings in the area had been booby-trapped. Twenty-three IDF soldiers were killed. Some 53 Palestinians, most of whom were armed terrorists were also killed.
But just as Erekat portrayed his would-be killer cousin as a martyr so he misrepresented the battle in Jenin. In the wake of the battle he appeared on CNN three times and accused Israel of massacring more than 500 innocent Palestinian men, women and children. He likened the battle to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Israelis to Nazis and the Palestinian terrorists to Jewish Holocaust victims.
A few months after President Donald Trump entered office, Erekat received a lung transplant in the US America's lifesaving hospitality didn't provoke any gratitude, or even politeness from Erekat, however. Since recuperating, Erekat has repeatedly condemned and insulted Trump and his senior advisors Jared Kushner, Ambassador David Friedman, former chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt and former Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. He wrote an oped in the New York Times insisting that the US has no right to mediate negotiations between Israel and the PLO.
Despite his long and bloody record of lies, and incitement and facilitation of terrorism, Erekat has never been called to account for his actions, much less paid a price for them. Now, perhaps, when it is clear to all that the PLO is irrelevant to peace, the time has finally arrived when he and his PLO colleagues will be treated like the malign terrorists and liars that they are and have always been.
Sher is right. There is no reason to grant Erekat a US visa so he can come to Harvard and share his blood libels and his incitement of terrorism with American students.
And there is no reason to stop with him. America and Israel should both end the joke of PLO moderation. There is no reason for Israel to continue collecting taxes for the PA or transferring the revenues to the PA, which exists to eliminate the Jewish state. There is no reason for the Israeli government to shield the PA from law suits from terror victims. All the taxes that Israel has collected for the PA rightly belong to the 15,000 Israeli families that have been shattered by its terrorist aggression.
The PLO era officially began at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993. It officially ended at the White House on Sept. 15, 2020. It is time for Israel, the US and the rest of the world to recognize this truth and act accordingly.
Caroline Glick on witnessing the historic Abraham Accords from the White House lawn.
Speaking with Caroline Glick about witnessing the historic Abraham Accords from the White House lawn and the Attorney General's efforts to undermine government decisions and so ensure continued spread of coronavirus in Israel.
A mainstream California university that hosted an unrepentant Palestinian terrorist caught the attention of one Congressman who says San Francisco State University crossed a red line.
Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, sent a letter this week to Education Secretary Betsy Devos and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calling on them to investigate the University "for potential breaches of material support [for terrorism] laws."
Lamborn noted that on Wednesday SFSU held an online panel featuring Leila Khaled, who is a proud member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terror group. She also brags about her role in two airplane hijackings. The PFLP has a long history of terrorist attacks and as a known terror organizations there are severe sanctions on the group and anyone with ties to it.
"The U.S. State Department has designated [the PFLP] as a terrorist group," Lamborn wrote, adding that Khaled "is an unrepentant terrorist who continues to boast about her terrorist acts."
"This is deeply troubling and requires immediate action, up to and including cutting all federal funding and investigating other potential violations of the law," Lamborn wrote.
The watchdog group StopAntiSemitism.org praised Lamborn for taking a stand.
"We applaud Congressman Lamborn's chutzpah for spotlighting San Francisco State University's outrageous decision to host a convicted terrorist under the guise of 'free speech,'" StopAntisemitism Director Liora Rez said.
I listened to the public comments on the curriculum in August. The Jews calling to protest were high school students, college students, members of the local Jewish community, senior citizens, etc. All of these people are dehumanized by this professor.https://t.co/4x2SHENB7B
It's a law. US persons are prohibited from providing material support for terrorists, services to designated individuals, etc. Penalties include jail time & millions in fines. And it remains a law even when foreign policy writers feel it shouldn't be, because that's how laws work https://t.co/hkAtusFGDo
The international community must reject the US peace plan and instead hold an international conference at the start of 2021 to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict base on the pre-1967 lines, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly Friday.
"I call on the secretary-general of the United Nations to undertake, in cooperation with the Quartet and the Security Council, preparations to convene an international conference with full authority and with the participation of all concerned parties, early next year, to engage in a genuine peace process," Abbas told the opening session of the 75th UNGA.
Any peace deal with Israel, should be "based on international law, UN resolutions and the relevant terms of reference, leading to an end the occupation and the achievement by the Palestinian people of their freedom and independence within their State, with east Jerusalem as its capital, on the 1967 borders, and resolving all final status issues, notably the question of the refugees, based on resolution 194," Abbas said.
He attacked the US led process, under which Israel is making peace with Arab nations prior to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's a move that is contrary to the Arab Peace Initiative, which forbade Arab normalization with Israel until a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the pre-1967 lines, was achieved.
Palestinians have warned that the US peace initiative under which, both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recognized Israel, has normalized the Israeli "occupation."
#Abbas at #UNGA#UN75, now talking about supposed 'historic injustice since 1917' - which by the way when Palestinians did not even exist.
No joke—50 UN Human Rights Council reps PRAISED China for locking up 1 million Muslims: 🇵🇸 State of Palestine 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia 🇰🇵 North Korea 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe 🇻🇪 Venezuela 🇨🇩 DR Congo 🇵🇰 Pakistan 🇧🇮 Burundi 🇩🇿 Algeria 🇷🇺 Russia 🇪🇬 Egypt 🇸🇾 Syria 🇮🇷 Iran 🇮🇶 Iraqhttps://t.co/bptWftHyuX
The Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority (DAFZA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce (FICC), Dubai Media Office said on Friday.
The agreement aims to support Israeli companies in establishing business in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE and Israel agreed in August to normalize ties between the two countries.
With Israel and the United Arab Emirates being the two most advanced economies in the region, their partnership is set to have a ripple effect and benefit the entire region, said Yousuf Al Mulla, board member at the Emirates Angels Investors Association and co-founder and managing partner of E11 Capital, a global venture capital firm based in both the UAE and San Francisco.
The Emirates Angels Investors Association recently signed a partnership deal with Israel-based Tel Aviv Capital, which for the last six years has operated as an investment bank and co-manages a VC fund (Brilliance Ventures) that strategically invests in Israeli high-tech companies in their growth stages. Discussions between Tel Aviv Capital and the association started even before US President Donald Trump announced that the UAE and Israel had agreed to establish full diplomatic terms.
"A few months ago, before the peace agreement was signed, we began exploring the possibility of cooperation between investors from the UAE and Israeli high-tech companies," Ron Sade, managing partner of Tel Aviv Capital, told CTech. "We had the honor to meet the Emirates Angels Association and to establish an amazing collaboration bringing Israeli technologies to the biggest and most reputable investors in the world.
"My personal dream is to eventually see young leaders and entrepreneurs from this region co-founding companies together," added Sade. "For this blessed peace process to thrive and to remain sustainable and powerful, there is nothing compared to successful business with mutual interests."
The Al-Nasr SC soccer team based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates will sign Israeli national team midfielder Dia Saba in the coming days in a move that will make him the first Israeli to play on a team in an Arabian Gulf state.
Saba is to sign a three-year contract for $3 million per season after previously playing for the Chinese Super League club Guangzhou R&F, Ynet reported.
The development comes soon after the UAE and Israel signed a normalization agreement that has opened the way for a flurry of cooperation in various fields.
Saba joined the Chinese team in January 2019 after playing with Hapoel Be'er Sheva FC for a reported 5 million euros (nearly $6 million), according to the report.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates share threats to their national online networks, the Israeli cyber-security chief said on Thursday in a rare public discussion of potential cooperation with his counterpart following the normalization of relations.
The establishment of formal Israel-UAE ties over the last month — spurred in part by common worries about Iran — unleashed a flurry of bilateral deals, including on cyber technologies, Israeli exports of which were valued at $6.5 billion in 2019.
"We are threatened by the same threats … because of the nature of the region, because of the nature of our new, 'outed' relations and because of who we are — strong economically and technologically," Igal Unna, head of Israel's National Cyber Directorate, told UAE counterpart Mohamed al-Kuwaiti in an online conference.
"We see already things in fast progress and I am very optimistic that we have a lot in common and a lot to share."
Kuwaiti described the UAE as potentially at risk of online sabotage including ransomware attacks as it develops its digital sphere. He promoted the idea of international cooperation — including in joint exercises — in cyber defense.
Israel and Lebanon reached an agreement to hold negotiations on their maritime border, after a years-long impasse, a spokesman for Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz confirmed on Friday.
Talks are expected to begin in mid-October, after the Sukkot holiday, in Naquora, a city in southern Lebanon near Rosh Hanikra, where headquarters for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are located.
A senior American representative, likely Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Schenker, will be present, along with a UN rapporteur.
Schenker, who visited Israel last week, has been involved in getting Jerusalem and Beirut to the table, with Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz representing Israel, as the dispute has been over who has the rights to drill for natural gas. On the Lebanese side, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and officials in President Michel Aoun's office were involved.
Schenker updated Steinitz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi with an updated agreement to launch a new round of talks last week. Rather than have both the US and the UN mediate, as Lebanon originally sought, the current agreement is for the US to mediate and the UN observe.
A Norwegian court on Friday approved an extradition request from France for a suspect linked to a terror attack in a Jewish neighborhood in Paris in 1982 that killed six people.
Friday's ruling, which can be appealed, concerns only whether the legal grounds are met for an extradition. Once the judicial process is completed, the decision of whether or not to extradite Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed will ultimately be up to Norway's justice ministry, or government.
Six people were killed when a group of men threw a grenade into the Jo Goldenberg restaurant and opened fire, setting off decades of legal wrangling and frustration for families of the victims.
The attack was blamed on the Abu Nidal Organization, a splinter group of the militant Palestinian Fatah group.
France has spent years pursuing Abu Zayed — one of four suspects with international arrest warrants against them — believing him to be one of the shooters.
Abu Zayed has lived in Norway since 1991 and has Norwegian citizenship, and the country has had a policy of not extraditing its nationals.
But a recently implemented deal between Norway, Iceland and the EU has ironed out the difficulties and paved the way for extradition.
Four people were stabbed Friday near the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in what is now being investigated as a terrorist attack, local media reported.
Local law enforcement reportedly arrested one suspect after a brief manhunt following the person's escape from the initial incident, according to The New York Times. One of the four people stabbed reportedly has "serious" injuries. The Charlie Hebdo magazine was attacked by radical Islamic terrorists in 2015 after it chose to publish satirical images of the prophet Muhammad, a blasphemous act in Islam.
Footage reportedly from the site shows heavily armed officers crowded around the victims.
"Very large police force deployed in the 11th district. Knife attack not far from the premises of Charlie Hebdo. To be continued," French reporter Sami Sfaxi wrote on Twitter.
The reported attack comes less than a month after Charlie Hebdo republished the Muhammad cartoons ahead of the start of trials for suspects in the 2015 attack.
Authorities have not announced whether the incidents are related.
The country headed into a tighter closure at 2 p.m. on Friday just before the Health Ministry released a new set of numbers showing that more than 8,000 people were diagnosed with coronavirus the day before.
Of the 66,640 people screened for coronavirus, some 8,178 were positive - 12.2%. Some 708 people are in serious condition, including 178 on ventilators.
The death toll rose to 1,412.
Among the newly diagnosed: Some 400 Jerusalem yeshiva students who had attended Rosh Hashanah prayers together. The students - married and single - were transferred to coronavirus hotels.
"This state of emergency requires us to make difficult but necessary decisions," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement shortly before the start of Shabbat. "It is not easy, neither in Israel nor in European countries, where the disease is also gaining tremendous momentum. But I serve you as the Prime Minister of Israel for the difficult days and for the difficult decisions.
Here are the full Israeli government lockdown guidelines in English for anyone looking. pic.twitter.com/zD32UnpRjR
The Czech Defense Ministry will start talks with the Israeli government to buy a short and medium range air defense system made by Israeli state-owned supplier Rafael, the ministry said on Friday.
The government has been raising defense spending to modernize its armed forces, but has admitted it would fall short of its pledge, as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024.
The ministry said it expected a government-to-government contract to be signed in early 2021 and supplies from 2023 and had picked Rafael's SPYDER Short Range Air Defense/Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (SHORAD/MRSAM) from nine systems offered by seven producers.
It plans to spend 10 billion crowns ($430 million) on four batteries, each including its own radar, command and control unit.
The SPYDER will replace an over 40-year-old Soviet-made 2K12 KUB air defense system.
The Israeli Navy & @Israel_MOD have been testing the waters...
with our brand new Israeli-made sea-to-sea missile system. Watch exclusive testing footage: pic.twitter.com/aM4j8tjGX6
Hamas military prosecutors on Thursday charged three Palestinian activists in the Gaza Strip with "weakening revolutionary spirit" — a charge that could lead to years in prison — for holding a video conference with Israelis.
Rami Aman, a 38-year-old peace activist and Gaza resident, was detained in early April after holding a public "Skype With Your Enemy" video call in which Israelis participated. He has said his organization seeks to empower young Palestinians and that many in Gaza share his view that speaking to Israelis should not be forbidden.
"If I were to go into the streets and tell people 'let's talk with an Israeli,' thousands of people would be here," Aman said during the videoconference, which was conducted in English.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which is providing legal representation to the defendants, Aman was arrested shortly after the call, along with seven colleagues who also allegedly took part. Five of them were subsequently released.
The activists are members of the Gaza Youth Committee, an organization that sponsors peace-building initiatives. Before Aman's arrest, the group become a member of the Alliance for Middle East Peace, a coalition of Israeli and Arab nonprofit organizations.
Authorities in Gaza, which is controlled by the Hamas terror group, view "normalizing" with Israelis as a criminal offense. While Hamas does permit merchants and those seeking humanitarian assistance inside Israel to communicate with Israeli authorities, it has cracked down on those who have sought to establish person-to-person ties with Israelis.
Terrible: Hamas charges Rami Aman & 2 other Palestinian peace activists with "weakening revolutionary spirit" for their role in holding a video call with Israelis in April. They could face years in prison & hard labor.@mbachelet@kenroth: Speak out now.https://t.co/lne25jMHl3
As a UK-based academic who was born in Dubai to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother, Heba Nabil Iskandarani had plenty of potential national identities.
What she lacked, however, was a passport.
A 26-year-old lecturer in architecture at Birmingham City University, Iskandarani has been stateless for most of her life, possessing only a Lebanese travel document that defines her as a Palestinian refugee.
But after discovering that her Palestinian father had Jewish roots going back to Spain, Iskandarani was able to claim Spanish citizenship thanks to a 2015 law that promised to naturalize anyone whose Jewish ancestors fled the Spanish Inquisition.
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Iskandarani attributed her quest for citizenship as rooted in both an emotional search for an identity and as a practical remedy to the bureaucratic complications that resulted from her lack of national citizenship.
While the Palestinian Authority positively refuses to accept an estimated 2.5 billion shekels (€610,111,437) in taxes that Israel is ready to transfer to it, the EU is again pandering to the PA tantrums and stepping in to pay the salaries of the health and education workers.
An EU press statement on Sept. 2, 2020 declared that the "The European Union has today provided a contribution of €9 million to the July salaries of health and education workers and the pensions of more than 37,500 Palestinian civil servants in the West Bank." [Website of the Office of the European Union Representative (West Bank and Gaza Strip, UNRWA)]
On May 18, 2020, PA Chairman Abbas announced that the PA and the PLO no longer see themselves obligated by the accords the latter signed with Israel. Shortly thereafter, the PA began refusing the tax revenues that Israel collects and transfers every month to the PA as part of the agreements.
Statistics obtained exclusively by Palestinian Media Watch from Israel's Ministry of Finance for the period of May through August 2020 inclusive, show that the PA is refusing to accept funds estimated to be 2.5 billion shekels (€610,111,437). The statistics show 1,902,839,671 shekels have already accrued from import duties and excise duties. An additional sum, for VAT returns, is unclear since the PA is refusing to cooperate with Israel and submit the necessary documentation. In the first four months of 2020, the VAT returns income was, on average, 170,000,000 shekels per month. Even if the income dropped as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is still estimated to be in the region of 150,000,000 per month equaling 600,000,000 shekels for the four month period. The figures were obtained by PMW in response to a request pursuant to Israel's Freedom of Information Act.
The EU press release added that since 2008, the EU has donated several billions of euros to both the PA and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Over the last several weeks, two militants from al-Qaasam Brigades and one from Saraya al-Quds have died from an 'incurable disease' according to the groups. Due to the current #COVID19 outbreak in #Gaza, I suspect their deaths maybe more than what the groups are claiming. pic.twitter.com/fJPrgdrdaw
The government of Lebanon seeks an international bailout to save its financial system, which will require an estimated $93 billion rescue.1 The amount needed is astronomical. But even if a rescue were feasible, other systemic challenges remain. Lebanon's financial system is rife with illicit finance. It is a conduit for money laundering schemes that fund Hezbollah and its nefarious activities, generating billions of dollars per year for the terrorist group.
Hezbollah's illicit financial activities draw upon formal and informal channels. Identifying those channels is not a simple matter. U.S. intelligence agencies investigating Hezbollah's criminal network do not even have a full picture of its revenue streams. Still, certain basics are known:
Hezbollah generates significant proceeds in cash from criminal activities. The terrorist group relies on complex trade-based money laundering schemes spanning from South America to Africa to the United States. But for Hezbollah to repatriate this money, the funds must transit the formal Lebanese and international financial systems.
The purpose of this research memo is to highlight, drawing from open sources, how the Lebanese and international financial systems have become conduits for Hezbollah's illicit financial activities. This memo identifies cases that illustrate how Lebanon's Hezbollah laundromat works, with the Lebanese banking sector and political elite at its center.
So this week's grand battle over the Iran arms embargo and the US snapback sanctions will now reframe the entire nuclear standoff between the Islamic Republic and the US – right? Wrong.
True, the fight over the arms embargo and the US snapback sanctions are big-ticket issues.
Anyone who blows off the US unilateral arms embargo as meaningless does not comprehend the unique economic power that America still wields. American sanctions have unquestionably reduced terrorist activities by Hezbollah and Shi'ite militias in Syria by partially closing the spigot of Iran's terrorist funding.
US Special Representative for Iran Elliott Abrams has echoed numerous times in the past week that many EU and other global companies will follow US sanctions because of their own bottom line. He said this is true even if their governments did not help the US arms embargo campaign at the UN.
But neither the old nor the new sanctions are what saved the world from a nuclear Iran in 2020. The award for that achievement goes to a combination of the coronavirus, a series of summer explosions and the upcoming US elections.
IN MARCH, Israeli intelligence sources told The Jerusalem Post that due to the coronavirus crisis, Iran could not maintain the same pace of uranium enrichment and other related nuclear weapons program activities.
Sources said that Iran was among the hardest hit by the corona crisis, and that there was no part of the country or the leadership, including Iran's nuclear experts, that was not compromised by the crisis.
Israel's intelligence community has argued that the crisis was far worse than even official reports, which themselves painted a horrific picture of death and infection.
According to Nathan Sales, the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Hezbollah has been steadily building up its weapons stockpiles in Europe with the aim of preparing for any future acts of terrorism that may be ordered by Tehran.
Describing Hezbollah's arms build-up in Europe as posing a "clear and present danger to the US" and its allies, Mr Sales said that US intelligence reports showed that Hezbollah had weapons based in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, while "significant" ammonium nitrate caches had either been discovered or destroyed in France, Greece and Italy.
Further evidence of Hezbollah's expanding terrorist presence in Europe has emerged in Ireland, where ten members of an Irish dissident group known as the New IRA (NIRA) were arrested on terrorism charges last month, following claims they met with Hezbollah officials at Iran's embassy in Dublin.
At a time when tensions are increasing between Iran and the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme, the expansion of Hezbollah's terror operation in Europe should certainly be a major cause for concern. Iran, after all, has a long history of resorting to terrorism to put pressure on its adversaries, and Europe is an obvious target for future Iranian terror attacks.
The 84-year-old King Salman of Saudi Arabia blasted Iran for its production of "chaos, extremism, and sectarianism" on Wednesday in his first speech to the United Nations since taking the throne in 2015.
"[Saudi Arabia]'s hands were extended to Iran in peace with a positive and open attitude over the past decades, but to no avail," Salman told his fellow U.N. members.
"Time and again, the entire world witnessed how the Iranian regime exploited these efforts in order to intensify its expansionist activities, create its terrorist networks, and use terrorism, and in the process squandering the resources and wealth of the Iranian people for the purpose of its expansionist projects which produced nothing but chaos, extremism, and sectarianism."
Salman cited Iran's efforts to destabilize Yemen, Lebanon, and its launching of over 700 drone and missile strikes through proxies on Saudi Arabia to date. In Yemen and Lebanon, Iran uses proxy forces such as Houthi militias and the terrorist group Hezbollah to inflict violence. Salman blamed Hezbollah for the massive explosion in Beirut in August that killed nearly 200 people.
The Saudi king also briefly touched on coalition efforts to root out ISIS and al Qaeda groupings in Yemen as a part of the larger efforts Riyadh has made in combating extremism in the region.
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on an Iranian judge who sentenced a wrestler to death over his role in protests — an execution that triggered international outrage.
Navid Afkari, 27, who had won national competitions, was hanged earlier this month after being convicted of murder during demonstrations two years ago in the southern city of Shiraz. The execution was preceded by worldwide appeals for clemency, including from President Donald Trump.
The United States said it was taking action against Judge Seyyed Mahmoud Sadati, voicing alarm over allegations that Afkari was tortured in custody to force a confession.
"His killing was an unconscionable act," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "Navid's death must not be in vain."
"The United States calls upon all nations to promote accountability for this regime by imposing sanctions like the ones announced today," he added.
The State Department also imposed sanctions on Judge Mohammad Soltani over sentences handed to members of the Baha'i faith, which faces wide restrictions in Iran.
"The actions taken today by the United States expose Iran's Revolutionary courts and their judges for what they really are: tools designed to enforce the Iranian regime's brutal ideology and suppress dissent," Pompeo said.
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