That doesn't stop the paper from being quoted in mainstream media, including Israeli media, as if a made-up story is worth reporting on. As if this newspaper has better connections in the Israeli intelligence community than....Israeli newspapers.
The latest "scoop" that came over the weekend was that Israel supposedly failed to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, in an operation called "Plan B." The supposed operation also was sai to target a bunch of people in Iraq.
In this case, the "scoop" supposedly came from Iranian sources, not Israeli - like a similar story that Al Jarida published over the summer that the Mossad had failed in a very similar assassination attempt against Nasrallah's son.
It still amazes me that the media often reports these stories straight without mentioning that Al Jarida and Kuwaiti media altogether has a track record of lying.
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This week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized Biden's prospective team for living in a "fantasy world." He said, "They led from behind, they appeased. I hope they will choose a different course."
Biden's choice as ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was an assistant Secretary of State under Obama, declared this week that multilateralism and diplomacy were back.
In response, Pompeo snapped that the Trump administration had developed "coalitions that actually deliver real results and reflect the reality on the ground," and that America's best interests were not served by "multilateralism for the sake of hanging out with your buddies at a cool cocktail party."
Opponents of appeasement are often called warmongers. Winston Churchill, who during the 1930s fruitlessly warned that Hitler's aggression needed to be curbed, was dismissed as such until his country realized almost too late that Hitler had Britain in his sights, as well as half of Europe.
The fact that Biden's team consists of so many Obama-era retreads is causing concern among those Americans who understand the harm Obama inflicted upon their nation's foundational principles.
They are no less concerned that Biden would essentially continue Obama's strategy to reduce America's standing in the world and thus weaken both the United States and the West that it leads.
It was a strategy that, under Obama, empowered those bent upon evil. Rational people everywhere, in the developing world no less than the West, should shudder at its prospective return in America.
These policies make sense to Israel and their Gulf partners, Pompeo said.
"It fits with their understanding of the risk to their people," Pompeo said. "So whether it's in the Gulf states or Israel, I think they have come to appreciate that the policies that this administration put in place are the ones that are best for them, for their relationship and partnership with the United States of America."
"I'm confident more will follow," Pompeo said of other Arab nations likely to make peace with Israel.
The peace accords also are a sign of deeper U.S. ties with Israel's traditional enemies, Pompeo said. The UAE, for example, is in line to receive more than $20 billion in U.S. weapons, including 50 F-35 Lighting II aircraft, MQ-9B drones, and advanced munitions systems—a massive military package that only would have been approved for Israel in years past.
While Pompeo was assailed in the media for stepping foot in disputed areas of Israel, peace talks with Arab nations continued. The BBC, for instance, wrote, "Trumplomacy: Mike Pompeo eyes history on Israel swansong trip." The article accused Pompeo of inflaming Palestinian leaders and positioning himself as a contender in the 2024 presidential election.
Asked about these critics, Pompeo described the reports as "longing for a time that is based on fantasy, when in fact, I think the world has moved away from that understanding that the lefties at the BBC hold so dearly."
Pompeo said he is not focusing on what is to come next year, but spending his final months in office ensuring President Donald Trump's "America First" policies continue to challenge the conventional foreign policy establishment.
"We didn't spend any time talking about what the—what might happen in January of next year," Pompeo said. "We spent a lot of time thinking about what we ought to do in November of this year and how we ought to continue—collectively, not just the United States, but continue collectively—to increase security in the region and get an even broader coalition."
The Palestinian Authority (PA) seems to have no shortage of funds to pay terrorists in Israeli jails and the families of suicide bombers. In 2019, the PA distributed approximately $148 million to prisoners, a 3 percent increase from 2018. Meanwhile, the PA lacks funds to combat the coronavirus and has cut salaries to government employees, including teachers (who are paid less than the terrorists), and other civil servants. Palestinians and Americans might, therefore, be surprised to learn that the PA has money to spare to donate to American universities.
A new study that I compiled for the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise found that U.S. institutions received more than $10 billion in foreign gifts from Arab sources from 1981 to October 2020. While it is not surprising the wealthy Gulf countries were responsible for the lion's share, it was startling to see the non-existent "State of Palestine" made nine gifts worth $4.5 million in the last four years. While the amount may sound relatively trivial, the impact can be exponential.
The universities that received gifts from "The State of Palestine" may feel obligated to report the money as the donors wish, but doing so in this case compromises their integrity by legitimizing the Palestinian claim to being a state, one that is not accepted by the United States government. Since no such state exists, the record should say Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, given that the PA relies largely on foreign aid to subsist and is in dire financial straits, questions arise as to where it came up with this money, why it chose to spend it in the United States, and whether the Palestinian public is aware of how its money is being used.
Until 2020, the Department of Education (DoE) did not report how foreign gifts were used by universities and, even now, many are not explained. Of the 259 PA gifts listing a purpose, roughly 177 were for some type of financial aid for Arab students. Only one of the foreign gifts was identified with a political purpose — a $643,000 contribution to Brown in 2020 from "The State of Palestine" to provide support for a professorship in Palestinian Studies within its Center for Middle East Studies.
Israel most likely expected the predictable condemnations from the European Union and from other officials, like Former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, who called the assassination "an act of state-sponsored terrorism." But there is no need to fret. The world is a better place now that the likes of Fakhrizadeh no longer walk the earth and any move that prevents Iran from making any dash toward a nuclear bomb is a welcome one.
Israel, for its part, must take Iran's threats of retribution seriously.
Soleimani was eliminated by the Americans - an opponent too formidable for the Iranians to take on. Fakhrizadeh's assassination was, according to foreign media reports, the work of Israel – an opponent with which Iran finds it much easier to deal.
Retaliation could come in many ways: via Syria or Lebanon, which share borders with Israel; through attempts to target Israeli officials, to attacks on Israeli embassies around the world.
The Iranians cannot afford a knee-jerk reaction. Tehran's primary interest is to see the American sanctions lifted and the near-unraveled nuclear deal stitched back together. It is therefore hard to imagine it would risk an incident that torpedoes this strategic goal, so it will likely target an Israeli asset that, while substantial, won't trigger regional escalation.
This requires Israel to remain vigilant at home and abroad, all while keeping a low profile. Israeli officials' vague statements help nothing. When some things are so obvious, silence speaks louder than words.
Is a targeted assassination a violation of international law?
This comes down to three legal questions related to Geneva Convention IV:- Do "hostilities" exist? (General Provisions, Geneva Convention IV)- Is the individual in question (i.e. an Iranian nuclear scientist) considered a civilian? (Additional Protocol I, §51(3))- Has the perpetrator acted in a manner that minimizes harm to civilians? (Additional Protocol I, §57(2))
With respect to the first question, the answer is yes: hostilities exist. Since at least 2005, Iranian leaders have been calling to "wipe Israel off the map" while simultaneously waging multiple proxy wars with a view to accomplishing that very purpose. In September 2019, for example, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), boasted:
We have managed to obtain the capacity to destroy the impostor Zionist regime.
With respect to the second question, the answer in this case is clearly no: the head Iranian nuclear scientist is not a civilian. Although media commonly refer to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as a "scientist" and "professor," they typically omit his other titles: Brigadier General in the IRGC and the "father" of Iran's nuclear weapons project. In reality, Fakhrizadeh was a military officer speaheading a military nuclear weapons program — often on military bases — for a regime engaged in widespread military hostilities.
In every respect, then, Fakhrizadeh was the exact opposite of a "civilian."
Regarding the third question, it is tempting, but incorrect, to compare a targeted killing to the alternative of taking no action. Clearly, the latter would preclude causing casualties, but countries such as Israel and the United States also have a duty to protect their own civilians.
Thus, for a country that would be existentially threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran, non-action is not a viable option. This is consistent with the Geneva Conventions, which do not speak of nations being required to passively accept having their civilians harmed or destroyed. Therefore, it is more appropriate to compare targeted killings to a far worse option: namely, a broad military confrontation.
When properly analyzed within this framework, the assassination of a brigadier general that resulted in no civilian casualties was, from a moral perspective, clearly the correct, and most prudent course of action, and from a legal perspective, it was the action that minimized civilian casualties.
The list of condemnations presents Fakhrizadeh as a scientist of a sovereign country, not a legitimate target within the military apparatus of a regime that has threatened its neighbors and the region with missiles and possible nuclear weapons. Iran in recent years has mined ships illegally in the Gulf of Oman, fired rockets at Kurdish dissidents in 2018 in Iraq, used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq in 2019, and also sent ballistic missiles to Iraq, air defense, drones and missiles to Syria and to Hezbollah's illegal arms depots in Lebanon and Iran has carried out a campaign of assassinations in Europe since the 1980s, as well as empowering terror groups to attack targets in Bulgaria, Argentina, Thailand and elsewhere.
The question about Fakhrizadeh was whether he was primarily a scientist, like Oppenheimer, or more of a general in the defense ministry overseeing key aspects of the military nuclear program. Oppenheimer was born in 1904 and received his PhD in 1927. Later Oppenheimer led research for the National Defense Research Committee and then for the US Army's Office of Scientific Research and Development, with the aim of building a nuclear bomb. Oppenheimer was known for his left-leaning political views and later in life would struggle for arms control against nuclear proliferation. He came to oppose the thing he had helped create.
There is no evidence that Fakhrizadeh or those around him have the same desire for peace that Oppenheimer had. It's also not clear why some who condemned the killing of Fakhrizadeh did not condemn similar assassinations in 2012 of Iranian scientists. Lastly, it is not clear if US enemies had targeted Oppenheimer, whether that would have been outside the bounds of the conflict, since the scientists were engaged in a military project. The problem for Iran's regime is that one the one hand it wants its scientists to be above reproach regarding Iran's open claims that it will destroy Israel and bring "death to America." The regime wants to demand "death" on one end, and invade and assassinate people in other countries, but also does not want that to happen inside Iran.
Fakhrizadeh does not appear to have been an Oppenheimer type. He was more like a Soleimani, a key military figure at the heart of the military industrial nuclear complex of Iran and Iran's threats against the region. Iran has built increasingly precise missiles, with longer ranges. It has also built more drones. Iran is seeking to present a real threat to its neighbors and the region and continues to warn the US and others of "revenge."
History will record how the European nations who collaborated or were silent in the mass murder of 6 million Jews suddenly leapt to eulogize the man who was trying to do the same. https://t.co/dgPHPrqQkX
Both of them • Were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals • Perpetrated or planned genocide • Had their deaths lamented by UN's @AgnesCallamard, next head of @Amnestypic.twitter.com/QIkFskWeV0
Asked to assess the damage caused by the assassination to the Iranian military nuclear program, Ofek said he was not sure such an estimate is possible. "Since 2015, the Iranians attempted to hide their nuclear-weapons program. It's hard to know to what extent they really continued it. They could have continued through computer calculations, but apparently not through actions on the ground," explained Ofek. "From 2015 onwards, I'm not sure where Fakhrizadeh was. He was apparently in the picture. But it's not clear that he could conduct things that would point to Iran renewing its military nuclear program."
"It seems that he was always apparently saved for when the window of opportunity would arise, such as when the JCPOA's sunset clauses could have expired," he added, referring to temporary restrictions placed by the 2015 agreement on aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.
Despite accusations by Tehran that Israel was behind the assassination, Ofek said that "it can't be ruled out that others were behind it, like the Mujahedin-e-Khalq opposition group. It could be that they did it on their own or in cooperation with foreign elements. In any case, the Iranians always blame Israel."
Looking beyond Iran's vows of revenge, the question of what Iran can actually do in terms of action is now a central consideration for the defense establishment, noted Ofek.
Meanwhile, i24 News reported a statement by an Iranian official who said that the same elements who sabotaged the Natanz uranium enrichment facility with an explosion in July were behind the killing of Fakhrizadeh.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the senior Iranian nuclear scientist who was killed Friday outside Tehran, was so central to the Islamic Republic's secret nuclear weapons program that it will be hard to replace him with somebody of equal stature, the former head of Israel's military intelligence said.
"The is no doubt that he was the core source of authority, knowledge and organization of this program," said Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin.
Iran's nuclear program has two tracks: an overt one producing fissile material Tehran claims is for civilian use (though it can be used for nuclear weapons), and a secret one dedicated to weaponization, explained Yadlin, in a briefing for journalists Sunday organized by the Media Central group.
"There is no damage to the enrichment and fissile material part of the program [with Fakhrizadeh's death]. The damage to the covert weaponization program is huge, but cannot be measured since nobody knows exactly the scope and the depth and what the Iranians are doing covertly."
An unnamed Israeli official told the New York Times on Saturday that the world should thank Israel for the assassination of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons mastermind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, even as Jerusalem hasn't officially claimed responsibility for the operation.
The senior official, who according to the report was involved for years in tracking Fakhrizadeh for Israel, also said the country would continue to take any necessary steps against Tehran's nuclear program.
Brookings Institution researcher Bruce Riedel, a former official at the Central Intelligence Agency with experience in Israel, told the US newspaper that Jerusalem was showing extraordinary levels of ability in striking at key individuals in enemy territory.
"It's unprecedented," Riedel said. "And it shows no sign of being effectively countered by the Iranians."
Riedel also said that Israel had used its close ties with countries neighboring Iran, such as Azerbaijan, for surveillance and recruitment of operatives, noting the Azeri use of Israeli-made drones in its recent conflict with Armenia, which is presumably a facet of that relationship.
The United Kingdom, Turkey and Oman on Sunday joined the chorus of international condemnation over the assassination of a senior Iranian nuclear scientist, as an Israeli minister criticized Europe for its denunciation of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's killing.
Fakhrizadeh, dubbed the father of Iran's nuclear weapons program by the US and Israel, was killed on Friday in an ambush in Absard, a village just east of Tehran, as his vehicle neared a truck that exploded when he approached. Local reports then described a barrage of automatic gunfire as gunmen emerged from a nearby car. A firefight erupted between the assassins and Fakhrizadeh's bodyguards. The attackers killed Fakhrizadeh and at least three of the guards before escaping.
The killing drew criticism from European and Arab states, as well as the United Nations. It has been widely blamed on Israel, which has not taken responsibility.
Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, in an interview with Army Radio, said he did not know who was responsible for the death of Fakhrizadeh. But he censured European states for condemning the killing, saying they were well aware of Iran's nuclear ambitions and violations of agreements with world powers.
"We see them again burying their heads in the sand," he said, referring to the EU, which had called the killing a "criminal act."
Agnès Callamard is the UNHRC expert on summary executions.
Though she was slow to say a word on Iran's assassinations of dissidents across Europe, she leapt within minutes of their deaths to eulogize IRGC's Qassem Soleimani & Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
An opinion piece published by a hardline Iranian newspaper on Sunday suggested Iran should attack the Israeli port city of Haifa if Israel was responsible for the killing of the scientist who allegedly masterminded its military nuclear program.
Though the Kayhan newspaper has long argued for aggressive retaliation for operations targeting Iran, Sunday's opinion piece went further, suggesting any assault be carried out in a way that destroys facilities and "also causes heavy human casualties."
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the scientist said by Israel and the US to head Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program, was assassinated Friday in an ambush near the capital Tehran, Iran's defense ministry said. The ministry confirmed the death of Fakhrizadeh, a professor of physics and an officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, after it was widely reported in Iranian media.
Several top Iranian officials indicated they believed Israel was behind the killing in the hours after the attack, with one adviser to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader vowing revenge. Israel had no comment on the attack, and Israeli TV reports late Friday said the army had not been placed on a heightened alert in its wake.
Kayhan published the piece written by Iranian analyst Sadollah Zarei, who argued that Iran's previous reactions to suspected Israeli airstrikes that killed Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria didn't go far enough to deter Israel.
Well the Iranian regime just traded a random western citizen they detained for years in exchange for 3 convicted terrorists who tried to kill the Israeli ambassador in Thailand in 2012. So I would venture to guess they would get a sweet deal of sanctions relief if they did.
Halbfinger's litany of criticism for anything of benefit to Israel seems endless. It includes Trump's order to kill Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Quds Force and "one of Israel's most feared adversaries." That signified "a joint American-Israeli strategy" for "short-of-war secret strikes against Iran." Halbfinger notes that "the Trump administration has repeatedly stood by Israel in its diplomatic fights." Would he prefer that the Trump administration support Israel's enemies?
Concluding his indictment, Halbfinger notes that "the Trump administration has increasingly equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism," as if there was no obvious and odious connection between them. Their linkage prompted Pompeo to announce that the BDS movement that targets Israel "would be deemed antisemitic." That seems problematic for the Times, although it is the newspaper's bias against Israel and its alliance with the United States that seems to be the problem.
It is not without significance that the Times' Jerusalem bureau chiefs who have been most critical of Israel, dating from Thomas L. Friedman's posting in 1984, have been Jews, among them Deborah Sontag, Clyde Haberman, Jodi Rudoren, and now, Halbfinger. They have, unknowingly, followed in the footsteps of Joseph M. Levy, hired by the Times in 1928 as its Palestine correspondent, who became the conduit for anti-Zionist critics to voice their opinions in the Times opinion columns.
The Times cannot acknowledge that the American president who has provided the most support and protection for Israel since Harry Truman recognized the Jewish state moments after its birth, is Donald Trump. Its conversion of blessings into curses is hardly a model of responsible journalism.
Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called on the Trump administration to declassify a report detailing the current number of Palestinian refugees who are receiving aid from the UN Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
"Very important that the Trump administration declassify the report that provides a current estimate of the number of Palestinian refugees who are receiving support. This goes to the heart of speaking hard truths in the name of moving peace forward," she tweeted on Wednesday.
Her tweet linked to a Nov. 23 New York Post op-ed authored by Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Adviser Richard Goldberg and Senior Vice President for Research Jonathan Schanzer. The op-ed noted that Congress required the State Department in 2012 to produce a report on the number of Palestinian refugees receiving aid from UNRWA that were alive in 1948; the report was completed and sent to congressional appropriations committees years later, but remains classified today.
"The public release of these figures could spark an international debate over UNRWA's mandate," wrote Goldberg and Schanzer. "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should also announce official US policy change for purposes of future US funding and planning, Palestinian refugees are narrowly defined as people who were personally displaced from then-Palestine between 1948 and 1949 and aren't currently citizens or permanent residents of the Palestinian Authority or any country."
Omer Yankelevitch from the Blue and White Party expresses support for settlers in the West Bank. Those in DC who presented Blue and White as the vehicle for returning to the failed assumptions of the Obama approach to Israel might want to take note. pic.twitter.com/tfu06ac3zW
The Middle East of 2020 is far different from the one left in 2016 by the Obama administration. The Middle East is still suffering from the same illnesses as before. A lot has changed, and a lot is much of the same.
Unlike former U.S. administrations, the Trump team did not champion the theory from the past that normalization of the relations between Israel and the Arab neighbors is dependent on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the contrary, the Trump team professed that normalization of the relations between Arab states and Israel would put the latter at ease for further concessions to the Palestinians.
The Middle East is more polarized than ever between the pro- and anti-Iran coalitions, between Sunnis and Shiites, between those who favor a rapprochement with Israel and those who fight it, and between the stable (albeit still shaky) regimes and the failed states of Libya and Lebanon.
In Lebanon, Hizbullah's secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah shed tears on the news of Qassem Suleimani being killed, but not even one drop for the hundreds killed and thousands injured by the blast. Today, Lebanon is being emptied by its elite and by those who can afford to pay for the crossing of the Mediterranean to the European shores.
Turkey is projecting itself more than ever through its political stance and readiness to deploy military forces in areas of conflict. A long time absent from the limelight, Turkey has become a central player in the Middle East that cannot be ignored today.
The chaotic situation in the Middle East has been an opportunity for Iran to continue its relentless efforts to consolidate its positions in the area. In the last four years, Iran has become a significant player in the Arab Middle East, using its surrogates of Hizbullah and foreign legions of Shiite militias organized under the shield of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's "Quds" Force to further deepen its political presence in the area.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly flew to Saudi Arabia last Sunday in hopes of closing a normalization deal with Riyadh, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
According to the paper, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, however, refused to commit to what would have been a monumental seachange in Israeli-Arab relations due to Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the US election over Donald Trump on November 3.
Last Sunday, Netanyahu reportedly flew to the Saudi city of Neom, accompanied by the director of the Mossad to hold a tripartite meeting with the Crown Prince and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The Prime Minister's Office has neither confirmed nor denied that such a meeting took place.
According to a Saudi adviser and a senior American official quoted by the newspaper, Netanyahu and Pompeo hoped to secure a promised commitment from the Saudi Prince to normalize relations with the Jewish state.
But the crown prince reportedly opted instead to hold off on forging ahead with an agreement in deference to the incoming Biden administration, preferring to get off on the right foot with the new American president.
Despite signs of strengthening ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh, a new poll released on Friday shows the vast majority of the Saudi public remains generally opposed to establishing links with the Jewish state.
According to the survey conducted for the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy think tank, only 30% of Saudis answered "somewhat" or "strongly" agree that "people who want to have business or sports contacts with Israelis should be allowed to do so."
However, the figure is on the rise and has tripled compared to the last survey carried out last June.
Conversely, 64% of those polled answered "somewhat against" or "totally against" the proposition, while the remaining 6% declared "not knowing" or refused to answer the question.
Moreover, the poll also showed 40% of those questioned answered "strongly agree" or "somewhat agree" to the question, "Are the Abraham Accords signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain positive?"
Here's an item you never would have read in the United Arab Emirates' Khaleej Times until quite recently: "First Hebrew institute to open in UAE in January."
Josh Samet, director of the forthcoming Educational Hebrew Institute, told the Khaleej Times that the Abraham Accords signed by Israel and the UAE "have fueled curiosity for knowledge and education centered around the Hebrew language."
Indeed, as ISRAEL21c reported recently, businesspeople and government officials from the UAE and Bahrain are signing up to learn conversational Hebrew online with Israel-based language schools.
But now, Emirati authorities have confirmed that EHI, the first Hebrew language and Israeli culture institute in the UAE, will open in January.
In-person classes taught by Israelis in Dubai and Abu Dhabi will acquaint local businesspeople with Israeli-style communication and cuisine in "a fun and interactive way."
Bahraini Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism Zayed R. Alzayani plans to visit Israel next week, the Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday.
Alzayani will be accompanied by a 40-person trade delegation, the first-ever from his country to Israel, meant to encourage Israeli investments in Bahrain.
The minister is expected to meet with Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Economy Minister Amir Peretz.
Bahraini business leaders are expected to be part of the delegation and meet with their Israeli counterparts.
Earlier this month, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani led the first-ever official delegation from his country to Israel, following the announcement of diplomatic relations between Manama and Jerusalem in September.
Dr. Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa, Chairman of the Bahraini Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence, said on Sunday that all mosques should be open for prayer for all Muslims.
Khalifa, who prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem last Friday without revealing his identity for fear of being attacked by Palestinians, told The Jerusalem Post: "It is unacceptable to prevent anyone from any religion from praying. This is a new form of terror."
Khalifa emphasized that "no one owes the mosques," adding that all Muslims should have free access to their holy sites.
In August, the Palestinian Authority mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, issued a fatwa (Islamic ruling) banning Muslims from praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque within the framework of normalization agreements between Israel and the Arab countries.
Last month, Palestinians claimed that they "expelled" a delegation from the United Arab Emirates whose members came to pray at the mosque.
Rwanda told Israel that the relocation of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was under consideration, the spokesperson for Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel (Derech Eretz) told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.
Hendel met Friday with the President Paul Kagame in Rwanda's capital of Kigali.
"The minister made a request on behalf of Israel's government to relocate the embassy," Hendel's office said.
"The president responded that the topic is on the agenda," Hendel's spokesperson said.
Kagame added that an embassy relocation "presents a challenge from them and that it would take time to find the appropriate moment."
To date, only the United States and Guatemala have embassies in Jerusalem. The remaining 87 countries with embassies in Israel are located in the Tel Aviv and Herzliya area.
hi martin!
just rt-ing this to remind you that a 29 year old yeshiva of far rockaway alum managed to accomplish more in a year than you have in a career. have a nice day! https://t.co/kXDx8Idt7M
Norway will extradite a man to France who is suspected of taking part in an attack that killed six people in a Jewish restaurant in Paris 38 years ago, the government said on Friday.
At least 20 others were wounded in the bombing and shooting assault on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the Marais quarter in August 1982.
In 2015, arrest warrants were issued against three former members of the Abu Nidal Organization, a splinter group of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), a source told Reuters at the time.
The suspects were identified long after the attacks because of statements from other former members of the Abu Nidal group under a French judicial process that maintained their anonymity, the source said.
One of the men, named as Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, lives in Norway, where he moved in the 1990s. Norwegian authorities rejected an original 2015 extradition request for him on grounds that, in most cases, it would not extradite its own citizens.
State-run Syrian news agency (SANA) reported Tuesday night that the Israeli military launched airstrikes against southern Syria shortly before midnight.
"At 23:50 on the night of 11/24, the Zionist enemy launched an airstrike from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan towards southern Damascus, and the losses were limited to material only," SANA reported.
The attack came one week after Israel retaliated against Syrian and Iranian forces after IEDs were discovered on the Alpha Line at the Golan-Syria border. Israel blamed Iran's Quds Force's Unit 840 for perpetrating the thwarted IED offensive.
One of the airstrikes produced a large explosion followed by a secondary explosion indicating the presence of combustible material stored at the targeted location.
Additionally, satellite imagery taken after the airstrikes reveal extensive damage at two warehouses located south of Damascus near Jabal al-Mana.
As previously detailed in FDD's Long War Journal, Israel has been carrying out an extended military campaign against Iranian entrenchment in Syria and its effort to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon with precision guided munitions.
Iran's precision guided munitions project aims to upgrade Hezbollah's missile accuracy by transferring Iranian-made components to Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to strike targets accurately.
Jordan's King Abdullah on Sunday called for intensifying international efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the two-state solution.
King Abdullah, who was speaking during a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Aqaba, a Jordanian port city on the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba, said that Jordan "stands with all its energies and capabilities alongside the Palestinian brothers in achieving their just and legitimate rights and establishing their independent, sovereign and viable state on the June 4, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital," according to the Jordanian news agency Petra.
It said that Abdullah and Abbas discussed developments related to the Palestinian issue as part of continuous coordination and consultation between the two sides.
The meeting was attended by Jordan's Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Director of the Jordanian Intelligence Directorate, General Ahmad Husni.
Supreme Shari'ah Judge and Abbas' advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: "We have already bid farewell to our beloved ones, our leaders, and our Martyrs, including [former PLO leader and PA President] Martyr Yasser Arafat, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (i.e., founder of Hamas terror organization), Martyr Abu Jihad (i.e., terrorist, responsible for murder of 125), Martyr Abu Iyad (i.e., head of Black September terror organization), and other great Martyrs."
Mahmoud Al-Habbash also serves as Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice. In August 2019 PA Chairman Abbas dismissed all his advisors by Presidential decree. It is unclear what their status is today.
The following are additional details of the terrorists glorified by Abbas' advisor:Yasser Arafat – Founder of Fatah and former chairman of the PLO and PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.
Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) - was a founder of Fatah and deputy to Yasser Arafat. He headed the PLO terror organization's military wing and also planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks in the 1960's - 1980's. These attacks, in which a total of 125 Israelis were murdered, included the most lethal in Israeli history - the hijacking of a bus and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.
Hamas has banned Palestinian dairy companies in the West Bank from selling their products in the Gaza Strip.
The unprecedented decision drew strong condemnation from the Palestinian Authority and many Palestinians, who said Hamas continues to allow various Israeli products to enter the coastal enclave.
The move was a "despicable crime," PA officials in Ramallah said, adding that it would deepen the split between the West Bank and Gaza.
Trade and Crossings director-general Rami Abu Rish announced the ban in a letter to Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing director Ahmed Musalam. The Kerem Shalom crossing is on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Products from Al-Juneidi Company for Dairy Products and Food Products and Al-Jebrini Dairy & Food Industry Co. were banned, said the letter, dated November 22. The two companies are based in the West Bank.
The ban aims to "support and strengthen local products," the letter said.
Saudi Arabia formally suspended imports of meat, eggs and other products from Turkey earlier this month, the Turkish exporters' union said, after a months-long informal boycott of Turkish goods over political tensions between the two regional rivals.
Turkish exporters have reported increasing obstacles to trade in Saudi Arabia, as businessmen in the Gulf Arab state have led calls for bans on Turkish imports and as ties between the two countries deteriorated.
Already strained by competing ambitions for regional influence, those relations plunged into crisis two years ago when Saudi agents killed prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Ankara says it has been told by Riyadh that there is no formal boycott, but the exporters' union said it had been informed by Turkey's trade ministry that imports of some Turkish goods had been suspended earlier this month.
"Imports from our country of red meat and products, white meat and products, water products, eggs and honey and their products, as well as milk and… alternatives to breast milk, have been suspended as of November 15," the union told its members in an email obtained by Reuters.
"#OsmanKavala's 'crime' in Erdogan's eyes goes much deeper than serving a global Jewish conspiracy. As a wealthy benefactor, Kavala has devoted his time & resources to documenting, preserving & publicizing Turkey's non-Muslim heritage." My @Newsweek piece:https://t.co/4qeENKFPC4
Then came Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This situation has led us to some of the most absurd scenarios. Some have turned to other members of Congress to try and get her to give us the time of day. Others have simply given up.
After so many years of progress, the Jewish community finds itself excluded from American life once again. It is hard not to think about the country clubs, hospitals, universities and other institutions that excluded Jews early in the 20th century. Most often, like with AOC, Jews bit our tongues, built our own clubs and hospitals, and continued to fight for equality.
Sure, occasionally Ocasio-Cortez will tokenize Jews here and there, and meet groups of Jews like IfNotNow that do not recognize Israel's right to exist, or show up at a Hanukkah party with those who will "as Jews" support boycott-divestment-sanctions.
Yet when it comes to showing common courtesy to her fellow Jewish New Yorkers, Ocasio-Cortez will take the approach of white supremacists in the early 1900s. We are not welcome in her country club, not even a show of solidarity in a soup kitchen for the poor, or a school for children with special needs. Ocasio-Cortez's contempt for events related to the Jewish community has reached the level, that when in January, tens of thousands marched on the Brooklyn Bridge protesting rising levels of anti-Semitism, it was not clear if she would attend.
When she did, it became a uniquely newsworthy item. Clearly, Ocasio-Cortez's treatment of the Jewish community is not all related to Israel, and this open secret is becoming less and less of a secret.
Ocasio-Cortez's hostility and tokenizing of the Jews resurfaced again recently as she agreed to — and then canceled — her appearance at Americans for Peace Now memorial of late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. To be clear, this is an organization as far left as you can go without calling for the full dismantling of the state of Israel.
It is an organization that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, while uprooting a half-million Israelis that live in the West Bank.
Former @ampalestine-NJ chapter president Sayel Kayed spread this awful piece of anti-Semitic conspiracy: "Yes. Most of the people right now in occupied Palestine, they call it Israel, are not originally Bani Israel [Israelites], they're mostly European… "https://t.co/y9vobBsaVMpic.twitter.com/wrzgtAqfW9
A Channel 4 News report ("Mike Pompeo becomes first top US diplomat to visit settlement in Israeli-occupied West Bank", Nov. 19) by Washington correspondent Siobhan Kennedy included the following claims:
As we pointed out in tweets to the journalist and Channel 4 News' chief editor, this includes two wildly inaccurate claims. First, though settlements built in the West Bank after the Six Day War are viewed as illegal by most countries, nobody has alleged that Israel's initial capture of these territories during their defensive war in 1967 was itself "illegal".
Further, it's of course erroneous to claim that Israel seized the land from "the Palestinians", as Jordan was in control of the territory at the time.
Since we didn't receive a reply from Channel 4 News, we filed a complaint today with Ofcom – the UK's communications regulator for TV broadcasts – under the 'Due impartiality and due accuracy' clause of the broadcasting code.
That highlighted section was added to the report some three hours after its initial publication but once again BBC audiences are not given a proper explanation as to why those "disputes" have resulted in a chronic shortage of medical supplies. Neither are they informed that the restrictions imposed by Israel on the entry of goods and materials to the Gaza Strip are confined to dual-use items – i.e. those which can be used for the purpose of terrorism – and do not include medicines.
The report continues with the 'Israel says' formula, whitewashing the thousands of terror attacks which have been launched against Israeli civilians from the territory.
"Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade in 2007 when the Palestinian militant group violently reinforced its control over the territory a year after winning elections. The two countries say the blockade is for self-defence."
Those who bothered to read right down to the bottom of the report would find a reference to a story that conflicts with the narrative of the 'blockade' as the prime cause of low standards of healthcare in the Gaza Strip, to which the BBC has not given any stand-alone coverage.
"In another development, Israel has pledged to provide up to four million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine for the West Bank and Gaza Strip when it becomes available, a senior official from the Palestinian Authority told Israel Hayom newspaper.
The official said that in every agreement signed by Israel with vaccine companies, a percentage of the vaccines would be set aside for the Palestinian territories."
Once again we see that BBC reporting on Covid-19 in the Gaza Strip promotes repeated context-deficient references to Israeli counter-terrorism measures while completely avoiding the topic of the responsibility of Hamas for the chronic shortages in the healthcare system it has run for the past thirteen years and insufficient preparation for a pandemic which affected the territory it controls later than in many other locations.
"And I bet you a Rothschild I get a bang for my dollar The synagogue of Satan want me to hang by my collar" -Jay Electronica 2020 Grammy Nominee
Antisemitism has become so normalized that we are now nominating those spewing it for a Grammy. pic.twitter.com/nKJxcoUgnU
There is no doubt that antisemitism saw a sharp uptick in all its forms during 2020. From physical violence to antisemitic slurs and vandalism, this virus is alive and well. Whatever starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. We must stand together in the fight against antisemitism.
Michael Horowitz's biggest claim to fame was his work as a top prosecutor in the famed Israeli war crimes trial against John Demjanjuk, the one-time Ohio autoworker who spent years trying to prove he wasn't the monstrous "Ivan the Terrible" camp guard at Treblinka. But to me, Michael was a lot more than that. A deeply funny man, a mensch, a scholar, a person whose very existence was all about Tikkun Olam – repairing the world.
We buried Michael this week in Goa, India – where he and his wife Roley settled a few years back after many decades in Jerusalem. He drowned in the pool of his gated community while swimming his daily laps. It's not clear how it happened. Maybe a blackout, maybe a heart attack. In recent years he had been battling multiple sclerosis. He was 69.
Michael's prosecution team secured a conviction and death sentence against Demjanjuk in 1988.
The verdict was overturned five years later by the Israeli Supreme Court after new evidence emerged casting doubt on whether Demjanjuk was the actual Ivan The Terrible. Demjanjuk's decades-long legal saga eventually ended in a conviction in Germany for having served as a guard at Sobibor and other concentration camps. He died in Germany in 2012 at age 91.
Michael was recruited for the case partly because of his status as a polyglot. Born in New York and raised in Holland, he spoke Hebrew, English, German, Dutch, Italian and French, and was a student of Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. He spent many months in Europe interviewing witnesses for the case, and alleged Nazis as well. The Holocaust loomed large in Michael's life. He was the only child of Marion Bienes, a Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivor who went on to become an opera singer and noted animal rights activist in Holland. She chained herself to the White House fence in one notable act of zeal.
I spoke to Michael about his work on the Demjanjuk case. His basic point was that while the aging former Trawniki man might not have been the Ivan the Terrible, he was undoubtedly an Ivan the Terrible. I led The Associated Press bureau in Jerusalem from 2004 to 2010, and during that time Michael was an important source for our reporters on the Holocaust.
The Office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he will honor the fighters responsible for keeping the road to Jerusalem open and ensuring supplies reached Jerusalem during the 1948 War of Independence.
The ceremony took place at Sha'ar HaGay at the Memorial for the Pioneers of the Road to Jerusalem.
At the ceremony, Netanyahu addressed the recent normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, along with the commitment from Sudan. The normalization agreements have included regular flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai, cooperation in science and technology and economic ties.
Netanyahu also noted International Day for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, suggesting that more work needs to be done to increase and help them integrate better into society.
The prime minister further announced grants for discharged soldiers, and particularly individual soldiers, since they are not entitled to unemployment benefits.
#OTD 29 November 1947, the @UN General Assembly paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.
The Plan to partition the British Mandate into a Jewish State & an Arab State was adopted by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. #Res181pic.twitter.com/m1OzahqxUG
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.
Here are a couple of cartoons and graphics I posted on Twitter last week.
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.
Under former President Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which at best would delay its ability to build nuclear weapons by only a few years, billions of dollars poured into Tehran while the regime steadily increased its power across the region and continued to ramp up its terrorist activities.
Only when Trump took America out of the deal and reimposed sanctions did the regime start to totter and hopes began to grow that it might implode without the need for war.
Under successive American presidents, whether or not they were well-disposed towards Israel, Palestinian appeasement took the form of an endless peace process.
In order to keep the Palestinians in this process, the United States, United Kingdom and European Union refused to bring up anything that would cause them to walk out.
This meant ignoring their incitement to violence, their incendiary anti-Semitism and their declared aim of using a Palestinian state as means of destroying Israel in stages. The result of this surrender to blackmail was not peace, but endless Palestinian attacks against Israel through terrorism, murder and war.
When Trump ended this lethal appeasement strategy and instead moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as a defiant statement of the Jews' right to the land, the foreign-policy establishment confidently asserted that this would cause the region to go up in flames.
Not only did this not happen, with no one other than the Palestinians and their acolytes turning a hair, but the Gulf states started to normalize relations with Israel. This ended the Palestinian veto on peace and advanced the prospect of an end to the Arab war against Israel more than at any time since the 1920s.
But now these gains may be put into reverse. Biden's nominee for Secretary of State is Antony Blinken, the Jewish stepson of a U.N. lawyer and the ultimate foreign-policy establishment insider.
Blinken served as President Bill Clinton's chief foreign-policy speechwriter, a national security adviser to Biden and deputy to Secretary of State John Kerry. He is said to be a centrist who won't make aid to Israel conditional on its policy choices, will keep the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and will support Israel at the United Nations.
But the label "centrist" means he is a liberal universalist, and thus committed to policies that ultimately rest upon the appeasement of evil people.
First, there is a general sense among all Democrats that anything and everything Trump has touched is corrupted and diseased and must be discarded.
The Abraham Accords are in part an outgrowth of the Trump administration's clear tilt toward Israel from the moment it took office and the move of the American embassy to Jerusalem. That may alone may render the accords suspect in Obamian eyes.
At the same time, Biden now presides over a Democratic Party whose antipathy toward Israel is growing, as represented by the left-wing activists in the House who have made their loathing of the Jewish state a key element of their Squad's cheerleading. Ironically, the Squad is committed to a Palestinian cause that its Arab sponsors have now largely abandoned.
The Arab signatories have grown tired of, and uninterested in, the Palestinian cause, and they seem eager to move on and deal with the world as it is. As they change course, the Democratic Party writ large may be eager to take up the cudgels of Palestinian nationalism more openly than ever before.
Perhaps even more painful for the Biden team, the ultimate success of the accords would be a history-making achievement for two leaders detested by the administration in which they served — Netanyahu, the subject of some of the ugliest score-settling jabs in Obama's new memoir, and MBS, who has more than earned the opprobrium of all civilized people due to his apparent role in the literal dismemberment of his critic Jamal Khashoggi.
A Middle East in which Israel and Arab states find they can live together, trade together and move into the 21st century in a normal way is an international blessing. The Biden team doesn't have to do anything but reap the fruits of this new reality. It's the easiest thing in the world. Let's see if they screw it up.
Other factors explain the novelty of 242 as well, especially the impulse to "learn lessons" from previous rounds of postwar diplomacy and the inevitable over-learning that such an impulse generates. None of the four factors discussed above — multiple fronts, multiple players on one front, short duration, and inauspicious timing in the global order — is unique in its own right, but the combination of all four is. And the Six-Day War was not merely a unique war but a war in a unique conflict.
The wording of the resolution ignores the existence of a Palestinian national movement with real claims on the land, even while acknowledging their genuine historical grievance at the result of a previous war. And it ignores entirely that the very existence of Israel is at the center of the conflict of which the recent war was just one episode.
The standard model might work where the dispute is about land or resources or even holy sites and refugees. But when one side regards accepting the very existence of the other as an insufferable concession, any diplomatic process that makes overly ambitious demands (full peace instead of a truce) with no clear benchmarks (territorial compromises to be negotiated by all parties) among competing belligerents with vastly different interests is doomed to fail. When it leaves no room for any party or combination of parties to alter a status quo in any meaningful way by the adoption of half-measures, it has the inevitable result of cementing a reality of semi-permanent occupation.
The semi-permanent occupation has been reasonably tolerable for the Arab states that lost the war, allowing them to pursue their own means for disengaging from a conflict they had no hope of winning. But it has been a catastrophe for the Israelis and Palestinians themselves, who still find their very national existence questioned and threatened in a way nations in other conflicts, even bitter conflicts, do not.
That reality was deliberately obfuscated to sell the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Iran deal supporters wanted the world to believe that Iran had left its nuclear ambitions in the past. To clear the way for the deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was pressured to close the book on Iran's past activities and remove issues related to Iran's undeclared nuclear work from the agency's agenda. Outstanding questions were left unresolved. Iran was required to respond to questions posed by the IAEA — but under the terms of the nuclear deal, those responses could remain incomplete, untruthful and unverifiable for sanctions relief to follow.
We now know Iran lied to the IAEA and to the participants of the Iran nuclear deal. Today, the IAEA is again investigating Iran's concealment of undeclared nuclear material, activities and sites. The investigation reportedly stems from an inspection of a warehouse in Iran where commercial satellite imagery suggested Iran was engaged in sanitization work after Netanyahu had exposed the location in a speech to the UN General Assembly.
This month, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters that Iran's responses to the agency were deemed "not technically credible" — which is IAEA speak for "liar, liar, pants on fire."
Taken together, SPND's existence, Iran's curation of a secret nuclear weapons archive and its concealment of undeclared nuclear material present a simple truth. We do not face an Iran deal crisis created by President Donald Trump, as members of the incoming U.S. administration have alleged. Instead, we face a more fundamental Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty crisis created by Iran.
President-elect Joe Biden can no longer pretend that the Iran deal prevented the Islamic Republic's nuclear advancement. It did not.
Nor can Biden's incoming Secretary of State or National Security Adviser — both of whom were instrumental players in putting the deal together — pretend that Iran can return to compliance with that flawed deal without addressing all outstanding questions about the archive, SPND and its undeclared activities.
Team Biden should issue a clear message to Tehran: come clean or say goodbye to future talks.
Fakhrizadeh maintained a low profile until 2018 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed information about him that had been obtained during a massive seizure of highly classified Iranian nuclear documents. "But in recent years, Fakhrizadeh's reticence toward publicity appeared to have slipped," The Washington Post reported. "He appeared on official Iranian websites at events with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ultimately, that may have been his downfall."
"Iran had lied about the purpose of its nuclear research, he charged, and he identified Mr. Fakhrizadeh as the leader of the Amad program," the Times reports. During that press conference, Netanyahu said, "remember that name" when he spoke of Fakhrizadeh.
During the secretive raid in Iran, Israeli operatives seized half a ton of materials inside Iran's vaults, including "55,000 pages of documents and another 55,000 files on 183 CDs," according to The Jerusalem Post.
Fakhrizadeh's death sent a chilling message to other Iranian nuclear scientists: The country's top nuclear scientist, who was reportedly one of its most guarded scientists, was easily eliminated within its own borders. Fakhrizadeh's killing comes just a couple of weeks after Israeli operatives terminated Al Qaeda's second-highest leader in Tehran, the capital of Iran, at the request of the United States.
"The Qaeda figure, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri and was accused of being one of the masterminds of the deadly 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa," the Times added. "He was killed along with his daughter, Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden's son Hamza bin Laden."
For more than 20 years, Fakhrizadeh was believed to be the "driving force" behind Iran's clandestine nuclear weapons program. His work continued after Iran disbanded, at least publicly, their nuclear weapons program in 2003.
In a 2017 interview with The Daily Wire, nuclear weapons expert Dr. Peter Vincent Pry explained where Iran was in terms of developing a nuclear weapon in 2003:
My 2012 profile of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen #Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in Tehran Friday. He constantly shifted offices to camouflage his atomic research, and used front organizations and companies to obtain sensitive technologies. https://t.co/QwtIZ96MCM
He was shot down on a road in broad daylight. This was not a clandestine hit, but a brutal clear killing – the destruction of a major and well-known Iranian figure. He was not as well known as Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, not a glad-hander who sucks up to Western politicians and is known for nice suits and "moderation," but a man well-known in intelligence circles, among the kinds of people who follow Iran closely. They say he was not a "household name."
But in the households where people know about Iran's nuclear efforts, ostensibly on hold since the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, he was known. Iran has been increasing its advanced centrifuges in the last years and enriching uranium. One key nuclear site, Natanz, was impacted by sabotage in July.
What we know is that this man was a high up in the IRGC, Iran's key military and ideological unit. "Even as a scientist he reportedly retained a senior rank in the IRGC as a brigadier general," notes The Guardian.
He was spotlighted in 2011 by an Iranian nuclear watchdog. He was named again in 2018 by Israel. He was at the pinnacle of the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program. His death is considered to have a major impact on Iran. This is more than the killings of other scientists, such as one killed by an assassin on a motorbike in 2010 or by a car bomb in 2012.
Iran's regime is also embarrassed. It comes the same month that al-Qaeda's second-in-command was gunned down in Tehran. Tehran can't keep safe al-Qaeda terrorists it harbors or its own head scientists and generals. No one is safe in Iran's Iran.
Sept 21: US blacklisted 5 scientists "involved in Iran's nuclear weapons devt program."
Nov 11: UN nuclear watchdog assessed Iran's explanations for nuke work "not technically credible."
Today: journos, pundits, & Obama alums say Iran for sure disbanded nuke prog in 2003.
The killing of Fakhrizadeh on Friday sent shock waves through those who watch Iran. He was an academic and was accused by Israel of work on the secret Amad program to develop nuclear weapons, and had been targeted in the past. He had a security detail. He was named by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2018 speech.
Iranians tweeted about the killing with surprise, even as they highlighted the abilities of those who allegedly killed him. Beside the tweets blaming Mossad and Israel, there were others debating how it came about. One user suggested that the hit was linked to a meeting several days ago between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Others have comments on this "message" to Iran that was sent about a week ago during the high-level meeting.
Another user on Twitter wrote "The assassination of Fakhrizadeh, the most prominent figure and most important commander of the IRGC [nuclear program] is the biggest intelligence failure of the IRGC in 39 years. The intelligence abilities of the Islamic Republic is an illusion." The user suggested that Iran is only good at arresting dissidents, not protecting its own high level officials.
Pro-Iran IRGC members tweeted that the assassination showed the failure of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif's policies of dealing with the West. One user wrote "two months ago you said if something would happen to any of our nuclear scientists, then we will retaliate. It's time to do so, not to say slogans." In a sense this means that Iran warned after the Natanz sabotage they would retaliate. However Iran has not retaliated against anyone, yet.
International law expert @FDD@ordefk who can teach some former government officials a lesson or two about the legality of targeting Suleimani, the father of Iran's terrorist activities, and Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran's nuke weapons program. https://t.co/Bht2i4Kula
IRAN IS concerned about a harsh response to the US because it doesn't want to anger the incoming Biden administration. However, others in Iran's regime want to see a tough response to the US and also more threats to Israel. They say the US has lost and that Iran can pivot to China. Iran has vowed retaliation for the death of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC Quds force killed by the US in January.
In this sense, Iran watched as Israel and the Gulf states have made peace, and is watching Washington closely. The death of its key scientist on the road to Absard, not far from the Khojir missile site, is a huge embarrassment for Iran. Some on social media compare it to the death of Soleimani. Iran retaliated for the death of Soleimani with ballistic missile strikes on US forces at al-Asad base in Iraq.
Iran also downed a civilian airliner by mistake, revealing the regime's technological programs. Iran has advanced 3rd Khordad missile defenses and recently put these missiles and other drones on a new ship it acquired. It also downed a US drone.
All this looks like complex timing for Iran. Iran must consider what to do next as some elements in the regime will demand retaliation, angry that they didn't get to retaliate in January. In Iraq, Iran has been ordering its proxies to attack US forces.
However it has been cautious after the US threatened to close its embassy in September. Iran must weigh a response, as it also wonders about angering the new US administration. Iran recently released an Australian academic and wants to appear more palatable to western countries.
Western states are fearful of Iran, but one Iranian diplomat is on trial in Belgium over an alleged bombing plot. Iran considers all this as it is busy cleaning the blood off the street near Absard.
Israel has raised alertness in its embassies around the world in the wake of the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist, Tehran's finger-pointing at Israel and the Islamic Republic's vow to avenge his death, according to television reports Saturday.
Jewish communities across the globe are also taking precautions, according to Channel 12 news.
The Foreign Ministry has refused to comment on security arrangements.
Multiple top Iranian officials have blamed Israel for the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the alleged mastermind of Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program, and vowed to avenge his death. The New York Times also reported that Israel was behind the attack, citing three unnamed intelligence officials.
Fakhrizadeh died in a bombing and shooting attack outside Tehran Friday.
Iran and Hezbollah have been accused of targeting Israelis and Jews around the world on multiple occasions, and Israeli and Jewish sites are seen as prime targets for reprisals following alleged Israeli attacks.
Tehran also has forces at its disposal all around Israel, including troops and proxies in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad — and to a lesser extent Hamas — in the Gaza Strip.
There has been no word so far of the Israeli military raising its alertness level along the country's borders.
Iran vowed revenge on Saturday for the assassination a day earlier of its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, raising the threat of a new confrontation between the Islamic Republic and the West with just over seven weeks left of US President Donald Trump's term in office.
"Once again, the evil hands of global arrogance were stained with the blood of the mercenary usurper Zionist regime," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. "Iran will surely respond to the martyrdom of our scientist at the proper time."
Head of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program, Fakhrizadeh was shot and killed in Damavand, east of Tehran on Friday afternoon. Pictures from the scene showed two vehicles, one damaged in an explosion and another riddled with bullets in what appeared like a professional hit.
Fakhrizadeh was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officer and headed Iran's nuclear weapons project. He was a professor of physics at the Imam Hussein University in Tehran and was former head of Iran's Physics Research Center (PHRC). He was the only Iranian scientist named in the IAEA's 2015 "final assessment" of open questions about Iran's nuclear program. It said he oversaw activities "in support of a possible military dimension to (Iran's) nuclear program."
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pledged to continue the work of Fakhrizadeh, whom Western and Israeli governments have dubbed the Iranian version of Robert Oppenheimer, one of the heads of the Manhattan Project.
A military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accused Israel of trying to provoke "a full-blown" war by killing Fakhrizadeh. "In the last days of the political life of their... ally (US President Donald Trump), the Zionists (Israel) seek to intensify pressure on Iran and create a full-blown war," commander Hossein Dehghan tweeted.
A number of Palestinian terror groups, holding Israel and the US responsible, have condemned the assassination of Iranian military scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh outside Tehran on Friday.
The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, did not comment on the killing. Relations between Ramallah and Tehran have been strained due to Iran's continuous support for Hamas and other Palestinian extremist groups.
Hamas said that the assassination "coincided with ongoing American and Zionist threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran with the aim of depriving it of possessing advanced scientific tools so that it would remain [only] in the hands of the Zionist occupation."
The killing of Fakhrizadeh, Hamas warned, would lead to "chaos and instability that mainly serve the interests of the Zionist entity." Hamas offered "sincere condolences" to the Iranian people and leadership on the "martyrdom of this nuclear scientist."
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) condemned the "despicable terrorist attack," dubbing it "a cowardly assassination that bears the fingerprints" of Israel and the US.
"This cowardly terrorist act targets the elements of scientific advancement in the Islamic world in general and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular," PIJ said in a statement. "This is a desperate attempt to punish Iran for standing by the just causes of the weak people in the world, including the Palestinian issue."
The European Union (EU) condemned the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in an official statement posted on the EU's foreign affairs website Saturday, calling for calm and restraint following Iranian statements that retaliation against the perpetrators, allegedly Israel, is coming.
"The High Representative expresses his condolences to the family members of the individuals who were killed, while wishing a prompt recovery to any other individuals who may have been injured," the statement read. "In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever for all parties to remain calm and exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalation which cannot be in anyone's interest."
Germany also urged all sides on Saturday to show restraint after the killing of the Iranian nuclear scientist and to avoid escalating tensions that could derail any talks on Iran's nuclear program.
"A few weeks before the new US administration takes office, it is important to preserve the scope for talks with Iran so that the dispute over Iran's nuclear program can be resolved through negotiations," a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "We therefore urge all parties to refrain from any steps that could lead to a further escalation of the situation," he said in an emailed statement.
Democrats lashed out on Friday in response to the news that the scientist who was at the center of Iran's clandestine nuclear ambitions had been killed in an attack.
"Iran's top nuclear scientist, who American and Israeli intelligence have long charged was behind secret programs to design an atomic warhead, was shot and killed in an ambush on Friday as he was traveling in a vehicle in northern Iran," The New York Times reported. "The scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, believed to be 59, has been considered the driving force behind Iran's nuclear weapons program for two decades, and continued to work after the main part of the effort was quietly disbanded in the early 2000s."
The attack comes after President Donald Trump was reportedly dissuaded from attacking a nuclear facility in Iran a couple of weeks ago after he spoke with top U.S. officials about the idea. The attack also comes just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in Saudi Arabia for talks.
News that Fakhrizadeh had been killed rankled Democrats, who called the action a "criminal act."
"This was a criminal act & highly reckless. It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict," former Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan said. "Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits."
It's bizarre to see a former head of the CIA consistently side with Iranian zealots who chant "Death to America."
During the Obama admin, 4 Iranian nuclear scientists were killed and one was nearly killed
While the Obama admin (of which Brennan was a part of) denied US involvement & condemned violence, language like this was never used@JohnBrennan should weigh in on those killings as well pic.twitter.com/vI3fx8qjSj
Hezbollah media is amplifying the tweet by former Obama CIA Director @JohnBrennan about waves of revenge and regional conflicts, re the killing of the nuclear weapons chief of Iran's IRGC terrorist organization. https://t.co/oybpzekA8M
Speaking out against violations of international law isn't partisan issue, it's also not being on the side of Iran. It's about balance and not plunging the world into more chaotic state than we are already in.
If the primary purpose of the killing of Mr. Fakhrizadeh was to make it harder to restart the Iran nuclear agreement, then this assassination does not make America, Israel or the world safer.
This is an outrageous action aimed at undermining diplomacy between an incoming US administration and Iran. It's time for this ceaseless escalation to stop. https://t.co/ix6LpeVpcQ
The word "just" is doing interesting work in this tweet by an MSNBC journalist. Even assuming the goading assessment is tenable, as if Iran wasn't already waging war & terrorism, the killing takes away someone regime could have told to build nuke arsenal. How'd that get left out? https://t.co/RyQiZSRJLk
I was going to throw together a parody Washington Post headline about today's shootout in Iran. Something like "Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, Austere Nuclear Scientists at Helm of Iran's Program, Dies At 59." But the Washington Post is in real life beyond parody ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/fkKiv2XQWu
STENOGRAPHER FOR IRAN: NBC reporter Saturday morning repeats Iranian State TV on killing of Iran's top nuclear scientist, right down to calling Soleimani Iran's "top military commander," not a terrorist who killed lots of Americans. Complicates Biden wanting to "re-engage Iran." pic.twitter.com/kP9OQ7CPOo
"I lived most of my life in this home," Dan Meridor tells me, as we sit drinking coffee in his Rehavia kitchen. "My grandfather – my mother's father – bought it when he came here from Vienna in 1935."
The apartment is one of several that the Meridor family own in the building on a quiet street in this leafy and pleasant Jerusalem neighborhood. Meridor's mother Raanana, a 98-year-old retired professor of classics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, lives in another.
There is nothing to indicate, as you walk past this unpretentious house, that it has served as the base for one of the more remarkable careers on record in Israeli public life. A particular detail that seemed to me to characterize something of the nature of this unusual man and his family is the intercom at the entrance. One might expect, at the very least, a finely painted or engraved card detailing something of the status of the inhabitants. A former deputy prime minister, after all, who served as finance minister and justice minister is resident here. There is none of that. Instead, on a scrap of paper taped next to the intercom, is written in biro in scrawled Hebrew script: Dan and Liora Meridor in the way that students who rent accommodation in Rehavia tend to record their presence.
Status, display, the trappings of power or influence are not of interest to Dan Meridor and his family.
This modesty, however, should not be permitted to deceive. For four decades, Dan Meridor, now 73, has dwelled at or close to the inner sanctum of Israeli policymaking at the highest and most sensitive levels. His career encompasses membership in two tangentially overlapping but distinctive elites: the first is the leadership group of the Herut movement and Revisionist Zionism – from which the current ruling Likud Party emerged, and specifically the 'Fighting Family' – those who took part in the underground war against Britain in the 1940s and their descendants.
The second is a more inchoate and less tangible gathering – consisting of those officials and former officials, politicians and former politicians, generals and former generals, who collectively form what might be called Israel's national security and policy establishment. People who, having worked at the very highest levels of policy, never really retire – but remain through formal and informal channels close to the heart of affairs in Israel.
This ultimate insider status notwithstanding, Meridor is today deeply concerned about the direction of public life in Israel. Indeed, he cautions, that the country is currently embarked on a course that, unless diverted, could mean the historic defeat of the Zionist project in modernity.
The Iran front is one issue that brings Israel and Saudi Arabia closer together. It is also a threat that concerns the UAE and Bahrain. However, Iran is not the only issue. Turkey's support for Qatar and its links to Hamas, as well as Ankara's role in the Libya conflict, have set off alarm bells from Jerusalem to Abu Dhabi to Cairo. The same week Netanyahu went to Saudi Arabia, a joint training took place in Egypt with Bahrain, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE. Dubbed "Sword of the Arabs," the joint training's intent was to help participating countries coordinate more closely. Importantly, there was no U.S.-backed umbrella behind this the way annual joint training exercises such as Eager Lion or Iron Union in the UAE have a large American presence. The message was clear: The UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan will act alone to defend themselves.
The reason these countries are working more closely is because the U.S. has signaled it is drawing down forces from places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps wrapping up the war on terror that 700 U.S. forces have waged in Somalia, as well. That means that U.S. allies must do more on their own. Toward this end, Greece and the UAE have also done joint training with F-16s, and both the UAE and Greece have worked more closely with Israel. Israel, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus and Jordan all signed on this year to an East Mediterranean Gas Forum. Israel and India are strategic partners, and India's external affairs announced one of his first major foreign visits in months would be to Bahrain and the UAE. He discussed growing cooperation with these two states, which are the same states that signed the Abraham Accords.
Together, this arc of transnational partnerships from Greece to India is part of an alliance that includes economic ties and geostrategic discussions about common interests and security, as well as the need for stabilization in the face of terror and extremist threats. Israel is a hub for these relationships, along with the UAE. It looks to also be a corridor that will grow amid the pandemic, as countries realize they need closer regional ties in this uncertain world.
Israel's foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi is optimistic about Saudi Arabia signing the Abraham Accords next, after the UAE and Bahrain.
"Saudi Arabia is a major player in the region. It is a very important country in the region and we are the first to recognise it, and I think it will be significant if they join," Ashkenazi, Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, told Khaleej Times in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
"I am very optimistic about it because they are already very supportive, they support the UAE decision, they support the Bahraini decision."
On September 15 this year, the UAE and Bahrain signed the US-brokered peace deal, normalising relations with Israel.
Ashkenazi said Saudi Arabia has tangibly contributed to the success of the deed as they allowed Israeli airlines to fly over the Saudi sky. "It is evident that they are moving in the right direction."
"They need their time. We understand and we are not pushing."
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly pulled back from a normalization deal with Israel due to US President-elect Joe Biden's election win this month and the prince's desire to build ties with the incoming administration.
Bin Salman, son of the 84-year-old King Salman and the kingdom's de facto ruler, is reluctant "to take the step now, when he could use a deal later to help cement relations with the new American leader," the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Friday.
Bin Salman held a meeting on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who flew to the Saudi Red Sea city of Neom for the secret rendezvous alongside US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, where the trio discussed developments in Iran and possible normalization.
A Saudi government adviser had earlier in the week confirmed the meeting and the trip to the WSJ, saying that the meeting, which had lasted several hours, focused on Iran and the establishment of diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem, but did not yield substantial agreements.
Citing Saudi advisers and US officials, the WSJ reported Friday that a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia under the brokerage of the new president, Bin Salman hopes, "could put relations between the Biden administration and Riyadh on surer footing."
.@SecPompeo: Everybody who joined the Abraham Accords will see the benefits for their own people. I am highly confident that many, many more nations will choose to do the right thing and recognize Israel as the rightful homeland of the Jewish people. pic.twitter.com/E05KcNI6jW
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled on Sunday to hold his first trip abroad since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic by visiting Jordan and Egypt.
In Amman, the 85-year-old Abbas is expected to hold talks with King Abdullah before heading to Cairo, where he is scheduled to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi on Monday.
PA presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said that Abbas was expected to brief Abdullah and Sisi on the latest developments in the Palestinian arena "in the context of ongoing coordination and consultation" the Palestinian leadership and the Jordanians and Egyptians.
Palestinian sources said that Abbas's visit comes in the framework of preparations for engaging with a new US administration under President Joe Biden.
On Friday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said that the Palestinians were holding indirect contacts with the Biden team. He said that the Palestinians were ready to renew contacts with the Washington after Biden enters office.
The Palestinians have been boycotting the US administration since President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017.
Four teenage students have been charged in France over the killing of Samuel Paty, including three for allegedly pointing out the teacher to his murderer, a judical source said Thursday.
Three other pupils were charged with complicity earlier this month over the beheading last month of Paty, who had shown his students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as part of a lesson on free speech.
Paty's murder sparked a torrent of outrage that prompted President Emmanuel Macron to crack down on Islamist extremism and violence in a country reeling from a wave of jihadist attacks since 2015 that have killed more than 250 people.
Three of the four students charged Thursday were suspected of identifying Paty to his killer, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, who then tracked him down and beheaded him in a street near his school.
Anzorov, who was killed by police at the scene of the beheading, paid the students a few hundred euros for their help.
The three, who are between 13 and 14 years old, are being charged with "complicity in a terrorist murder," the source said.
The fourth is the daughter of Brahim Chnina, who launched a virulent online campaign against Paty denouncing the teacher's use of the cartoons published by satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Chnina himself -- as well as Islamist militant Abdelhakim Sefrioui, who ran the campaign together with him -- have already been charged with complicity.
Union members at King's College London have called on the university to revoke its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, claiming that its stipulation that anti-Zionism is antisemitism constitutes revisionist history.
The IHRA definition of antisemitism lists a number of contemporary examples of antisemitism, among them: "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."
However, members of the University and College Union (UCU) have tabled a motion which argues that some of the examples within the IHRA definition "require us to deny or suppress matters of historical record and contemporary reality," which they claimed was a breach of the Equality Act, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
The motion calls upon the management of Kings College London to "reaffirm KCL's commitment to academic freedom, including freedom of speech, critical of capitalism, critical of white privilege, and critical of Zionism and Israel."
It also makes clear the members' intention to file the motion at the union's national level, in addition to the King's College branch. The university was one of the first in the UK to adopt the IHRC definition, in 2018.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn condemned Friday an antisemitic attack on a rabbi in the Austrian capital of Vienna, as reported by the Catholic News Agency.
In a statement on his Twitter in German, the cardinal said "I am dismayed by yesterday's attack on a rabbi in the middle of Vienna. I assure our fellow Jewish citizens of my complete solidarity. [Antisemitism] must have no place among us. It endangers the peaceful coexistence of us all."
A woman in her 50s confronted a rabbi on Thursday with a knife on the previous afternoon, kicking him in the leg and taking his kippah before running away.
Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was also quick to condemn the antisemitic attack, saying on Twitter a few days earlier that "We must fight [antisemitism] with all determination. Jewish life in Austria must be possible in safety. For a Europe without Jews is no longer Europe."
The first ever First Temple-era gold granule bead was discovered during wet sifting of earth from the Temple Mount by a nine-year-old boy, the Temple Mount Sifting Project (TMSP) announced earlier this week.
While sifting through the dirt with his family in August, Jerusalem resident Binyamin Milt uncovered a perfectly preserved small, flower-shaped cylinder, created by four layers of tiny gold balls, unaware that the artifact he was holding was likely forged around 3,000 years ago.
The bead was so well preserved in fact, that when the boy brought the bead to the supervising archaeologist, he initially wrote it off as likely being an unidentified modern object, not even writing down the boy's contact information before hurrying back to continue sifting. It was only while sorting through the summer's artifacts in Dr. Gabriel Barkay's back yard that he realized the bead was strikingly similar to several similar items he had found when he excavated burial systems from the First Temple period in Katef Hinom.
While those beads were made of silver, they were identical to the gold bead in both shape and manufacturing method (called granulation). Similar beads have been found in several other sites across Israel, dated to various periods, with the overwhelming majority dating to the Iron Age (twelfth century BCE-sixth century BCE).
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The last three paragraphs of a Reuters article on the assassination of Iranian nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh:
The NCRI said in the report that Fakhrizadeh was born in 1958 in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom, was a deputy defence minister and a Revolutionary Guards brigadier-general, held a nuclear engineering doctorate and taught at Iran's University of Imam Hussein.
A high-ranking Iranian source described Fakhrizadeh to Reuters in 2014 as "an asset and an expert" dedicated to Iran's technological progress and enjoying the full support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The source added that Fakhrizadeh had three passports and travelled a lot, including in Asia, to obtain "the latest information" from abroad, but would not elaborate. Western security sources say Iran was long adept in obtaining nuclear materials and know-how from the international black market.
Even though most articles stress his nuclear scientist credentials, there is very little talk about how he was both a nuclear science expert and a key member of Iran's defense department.
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