Elder of Ziyon 11/27 Links Pt2: Natan Sharansky and the Meaning of Freedom; Caroline Glick: Justice (and anti-Semitism) you shall pursue; Israel Marks 12th Anniversary of Mumbai Terror Attacks
Natan Sharansky has been a computer scientist, a chess player, a refusenik, a dissident, a political prisoner, a party leader, a government minister, a nonprofit executive, and a bestselling author. He never expected to be a school counselor.
But the coronavirus dashes expectations. In early March, when the virus began to appear in Jewish communities outside New York City, Sharansky found himself online, in an unaccustomed position. He began to share with students and parents whose schools were closed how he had coped during years in confinement.
"At first, it seemed absurd, even obscene," Sharansky writes in his latest book, Never Alone, coauthored with the historian Gil Troy. "How could my experience of playing chess in my head in my punishment cell compare to being cooped up in gadget-filled homes wired to the internet—with computer chess—especially because this isolation is imposed to protect people, not break them?"
What Sharansky realized is that the costs of lockdowns do not depend on the reasons behind them. The sudden and seemingly arbitrary interruption of individual plans, movements, and relationships causes psychological harm. Sharansky recorded a brief YouTube video for the Jewish Agency—you can watch it here—offering his five tips for quarantine. Recognize the importance of your choices and behavior, Sharansky advised. Understand that some things are beyond your control. Keep laughing. Enjoy your hobbies. Consider yourself part of a larger cause.
"Surprisingly," Sharansky writes, "this short clip went viral, reaching so many people all over the world within a few days that it made me wonder why even bother writing this book." His reaction was another example of his droll and often self-deprecating wit. The video, however helpful it may be, does not match the power and wisdom of Never Alone. Part autobiography, part meditation on Jewish community, the book ties together the themes of Sharansky's earlier work, from his prison memoir, Fear No Evil (1988), to his defense of cultural particularity, Defending Identity (2008). It is a moving story of emancipation and connection, of freedom and meaning.
Sharansky was born in 1948 in the Ukrainian city of Stalino. His given name was Anatoly. His parents were educated professionals who downplayed their Jewish identity. They did not want to risk political and social reprisal. "The only real Jewish experience I had was facing anti-Semitism," he writes. The precocious youth spent his early years playing chess. He learned to navigate a Soviet system that maintained its rule through fear. He became captive to doublethink. He repeated official lies and myths not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the safe thing to do.
This Sunday- Nov. 29th - is the anniversary of UN GA Resolution 181, unsuccessfully calling for a complex, continuous partition of Mandatory Palestine. My new @KoheletForum webminar explains what 181 achieved, and why it was seen as so important https://t.co/x9yNcL5NSQ
Over the past week or so we have been witnessing the emergence of a new sort of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. The new form of Jew-hatred is a combination of anti-Zionism and identity politics. It is convoluted and hard to follow. But contradictions and all, it has arrived. And Jewish Americans, sensing the partisan disposition, are adapting themselves accordingly.
The first place to look for the new Jew-hatred is in Joe Biden's appointments. Most of the attention this week has been focused on Biden's senior appointments. Biden appointed Tony Blinken, who is Jewish, to serve as his secretary of state. As John Kerry's deputy, Blinken played a major role in crafting the nuclear deal with Iran which, while billed as a non-proliferation agreement, gave the world's greatest state sponsor of terrorism an open path to a nuclear arsenal. Like his former boss, Blinken is faithful to the view that the Palestinians are the strategic nerve center of the Middle East. Without their agreement, it is impossible – or if possible, wrong – for Arab states to make peace with Israel.
Blinken is considered an establishment figure rather than an ideologue. But since he is a Jew, party ideologues view him as suspect. For instance, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib responded to the news of his appointment with an anti-Semitic tweet. Responding to socialist Senator Bernie Sanders' praise for Blinken's appointment, Tlaib averred, "So long as he doesn't suppress my First Amendment right to speak out against Netanyahu's racist and inhumane policies."
Two other appointments announced this week certainly were more to Tlaib's liking.
Biden appointed Reema Dodin, a Palestinian American to serve as the deputy director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. As the pro-Israel website Elder of Zion reported, in 2002, as a student at the University of California Berkeley, Dodin was the head of the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Muslim Students Association. In that capacity, she gave a speech at a church in Lodi, California where she justified suicide bombers. In her words at the time, "The suicide bombers were the last resort of a desperate people."
After her remarks were reported by Fox News, the Biden campaign issued a defensive response. Notably, the campaign made no effort to either deny or distance itself from Dodin's justification for the mass murder of Israelis by Palestinian terrorists. Instead, the campaign response read, "Reema is the first to tell you she has grown from her youth in her approach to pushing for change."
In other words, Dodin continues to justify the mass murder of Jews. But now that she's a grown-up, she presents it differently.
A lot of you are going to point out this analogy is disgraceful, but let's not ignore how bold it is coming from a bureau chief for the New York Times, which in 2015 published a yellow-highlighted Jew Tracker of lawmakers who opposed the Obama-Biden Iran deal. https://t.co/3hFG09Cg9J
A British-Australian academic who was freed from Iranian jail on Thursday was detained in 2018 on espionage charges after authorities there found her partner was an Israeli citizen, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Friday.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a specialist in Middle East politics at the University of Melbourne, was released from prison in exchange for three Iranians who had been detained abroad, Iran's state broadcaster IRIB reported.
Australia and Iran took more than six months to come to an agreement for a prisoner-swap deal for Moore-Gilbert, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the Sydney Morning Herald said, citing unidentified sources.
The prisoner exchange deal – which Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday repeatedly declined to comment on – also involved high-level negotiations with the Thailand government, the report said.
Thai authorities disclosed three Iranians who were arrested in 2012 had been deported and sent to Iran. The New York Times reported the three Iranians had been held in Thailand over a bomb plot.
Australia and Moore-Gilbert have rejected Iran's allegations that she was working as a spy for Israel.
Israel's former ambassador to Thailand fumed over the release of three Iranians arrested over a 2012 bomb plot in Bangkok targeting Israeli diplomats, in what was widely seen to be an exchange after Iran freed an Australian-British lecturer imprisoned for alleged spying.
Thailand's corrections department said Thursday that two of the men — Masoud Sedaghatzadeh and Saeid Moradi — were transferred as prisoners while the third, Mohammad Khazaei, was granted a royal pardon in August.
Thai officials have not explicitly linked the transfer with the release of Middle East scholar Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who returned to Australia after two years in detention in Iran on espionage charges.
But Iranian state TV said Wednesday that Moore-Gilbert was swapped for three Iranians.
"I don't know anything about this deal beyond what was published. Of course it saddens me to see the pictures as [the Iranians] celebrate instead of rotting in prison, if they haven't already been executed," Itzhak Shoham, the ex-ambassador, told Channel 12 news.
Shoham said "my only consolation" is that former Quds Force chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose Quds Force was accused of orchestrating the plot, was killed this January in a US drone strike.
The Iranian media says she was exchanged for an Iranian "economic activist" and two Iranian citizens, who had been detained "abroad on trumped-up charges". The report does not name the men.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given a carefully worded statement in response to questions about a prisoner swap. "If other people have been released in other places, they are the decisions of the sovereign governments. There are no people who have been held in Australia who have been released."
That may be true as far as Australia is concerned. But a report by The New York Times, quoting Iranian social media channels associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), identifies the three Iranians as Saeed Moradi, Mohammad Khazaei and Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh. The three had been detained in Thailand since 2012 on charges of planning to plant bombs in Bangkok and assassinate Israeli diplomats there. One of those men had reportedly lost his legs when a bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely.
In a similar context, the release last year of two Australians being held in Iran, Jolie King and Mark Firkin, coincided with an Iranian research student at the University of Queensland, Reza Dehbashi Kivi, being permitted by Australian officials to return to his home country. Dehbashi Kivi had allegedly been seeking to export radar equipment for detecting stealth planes in contravention of US sanctions. The ABC reported at the time the US was seeking his extradition.
The Australian government is depicting Moore-Gilbert's release as a win for quiet diplomacy in assisting Australians arrested abroad. There is no doubt a calm and measured approach is the most effective way of resolving knotty consular cases – even when the charges levelled against our citizens seem highly doubtful, as was the case with Moore-Gilbert.
Mainstream Australian media reports like the one in Melbourne's The Age right now answer the ABC headline's question. But in doing so, they significantly mischaracterize who the three Iranians imprisoned by Thailand, and now released, were and are. It reports that the three Iranian convicted terrorists, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, Saeid Moradi and Mohammad Khazaei"were all detained in Thailand on charges of having planned to bomb the capital, Bangkok, in 2012 that authorities said was intended to target Israeli diplomats... News of the exchange was first broken by Iran's Young Journalist Club, a news website affiliated to state television in Iran, which trumpeted the release of the three men who faced "baseless charges" and were "exchanged for a dual national spy named Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who worked for the Zionist regime".
This is horse manure.
The Iranians weren't detained. They were tried, convicted on terrorism charges and imprisoned by Thailand. See Reuters, August 22, 2013. Prior to their convictions, we wrote about the thwarted terror attack here: "16-Feb-12: Bangkok: So what actually happened there on Tuesday?"
"Detained" is what the Arabic-language media mischievously say about fugitive Sbarro bomber Ahlam Tamimi constantly ["16-Nov-20: Justice, the Tamimi extradition and what Jordan tells Arabic media but not the world"]. It conceals the reality that she confessed and was tired and convicted of terrorism and helps sentenced to sixteen terms of life imprisonment. Their systematic concealing of incontrovertible reality lets them get away with murder.
It's now plausible, at least to us, that this week's multi-party deal is the reason why Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian-British academic who lectures in Islamic studies at University of Melbourne, was taken prisoner and held hostage by Iran in the first place.
It's a "prisoner swap" in the sense that Iran released a hostage they had taken in exchange for 3 Iranian terrorists who tried to mass murder Israeli diplomats in Thailand.
The former leader of Britain's main opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, is to begin legal action against the party after it refused to readmit him to its parliamentary ranks amid a row on anti-Semitism, the Guardian reported on Thursday.
The newspaper said Corbyn's allies claimed a deal was made with party leader Keir Starmer and say they have proof of meetings on the matter.
Starmer, who was elected leader in April, refused to allow Corbyn to come back to the parliamentary party after vowing to root out anti-Semitism in Labour that opponents alleged went unchecked and flourished under Corbyn, and saw Jewish members and lawmakers leave in droves.
The newspaper said it was believed Corbyn's legal team would attempt to present evidence of what they claim was a deal between Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and his deputy, Simon Fletcher, with Unite's general secretary, Len McCluskey, and the former shadow cabinet minister Jon Trickett representing Corbyn.
The Guardian said it saw evidence of communications between members of Starmer's office and representatives of Corbyn which suggested there were private meetings, but the newspaper gave no details on what may have been discussed.
Corbyn's team is also expected to claim that Starmer, McSweeney and Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner, met McCluskey and Trickett in parliament the day after Corbyn's suspension in the wake of a report on anti-Semitism in the party. Labour sources do not deny that meeting took place, and Starmer is understood to have made clear he didn't want any involvement in decisions around the convening of the disciplinary panel to discuss Corbyn's case, the Guardian reported.
Under Corbyn's leadership, according to the report, Labour politicians compared Israelis to Nazis, suggested that Israel cease to exist, accused Jewish bankers of running the world, and described Jews as a "fifth column"; just to name a few examples. Jewish MP Luciana Berger – who quit the party in 2019 due to antisemitic abuse – required police protection at the 2018 Labour Party conference. When complaints were raised regarding antisemitism, Corbyn and his office quashed them – unlawfully – on multiple occasions.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of Corbyn's relationship with antisemitism, yet the Sydney Students' Representative Council (SRC) somehow conjured up the drivel that "there is no evidence that he has ever done or said anything indicating prejudice against Jewish people".
The SRC's defence of Corbyn, and suggestion that Jews reporting antisemitism within the Labour Party are propagating a "cynical lie intended to intimidate and silence the left" and its "criticism of Israel", is antisemitic gaslighting at its worst. 2019 polling of British Jewry revealed 87 per cent view Corbyn as antisemitic, while 47 per cent would "seriously consider" emigrating had Corbyn won the 2019 election. Yet the council that purportedly represents the students at the University of Sydney – including a large Jewish cohort – had the gall to accuse Jews of defaming Corbyn for political gain.
One cannot imagine the SRC passing a motion accusing African-Americans of running a political smear campaign against American police. Nor could one fathom a motion stating Indigenous Australians who accuse Pauline Hanson of racism are spreading propaganda for political purposes. These would rightfully be called out as disgraceful displays of bigotry. So why is it acceptable to level such accusations against Jews?
The sentiment behind this motion is nothing new. It rests on the myth believed by many on the left that they're categorically incapable of being bigoted. The motion reflected this, claiming accusations against Corbyn represent "an attack upon the anti-racist and anti-imperialist left".
Oh gee look - the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a spinoff of the BDS movement, is calling for the Jewish state to be dismantled.
But yeah, BDS et al isn't antisemitic at all.
They just want to get rid of 9.2 million Jews; where have we seen that before? pic.twitter.com/AloaR5iI31
Tech giant Amazon said on Thursday it was investigating after its smart speaker was found to give anti-Semitic responses to questions about the Holocaust and conspiracy theories.
The issue came to light after a British lawmaker initially raised the matter in a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel, saying he was "deeply alarmed" by the tech program's responses to certain questions.
Andrew Percy, who also serves as vice-chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary group, said that when prompted the Alexa technology "responds to various questions about Jewish people, the Holocaust and the State of Israel by quoting anti-Semitic conspiracy websites and using selective quotes from other sources which are misleading without further information."
Percy wrote that when asked if "the elders of Zion control the world," Alexa responded by quoting a website that said: "The swindlers of Zion have revealed their scheme to subjugate the nations and gain control of the world."
In a separate letter, from the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, MPs said that the "full article describes the claim as 'viciously anti-Semitic,' but Alexa omits this crucial point."
The group raised the concerns in a letter to the Amazon chief in the UK, John Boumphrey.
Following US Secretary of State Pompeo's declaration that the BDS campaign is antisemitic in nature, the BBC published an article on November 19th which was previously discussed here. The following day an Arabic version of that article – headlined "What is the worldwide BDS movement which calls for a boycott against Israel?" – appeared on the BBC Arabic website.. The Arabic translation has made alterations to the English original as follows:
1) The last paragraph has been removed from the Arabic version of the article:"Last year, Germany's parliament said the actions of the BDS, such as the placing of 'don't buy' stickers on Israeli products, were reminiscent of the 'terrifying' Nazi campaign against Jewish people under Adolf Hitler."
As noted in our post discussing the English language version, the Bundestag did not just make the quoted comparison regarding a specific BDS practice; it also passed a resolution which labelled the entire BDS campaign as antisemitic. Nevertheless, BBC Arabic editors chose to keep that whole paragraph from view.
This is not the first time that BBC Arabic has misleadingly omitted information informing audiences of the acceptance of American and Israeli positions in Europe and elsewhere. Just last month it failed to mention that Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist who facilitated the Sbarro bombing of August 2001, is categorised as such not only by the United States and Israel but also by the United Kingdom, the European Union and many others – as a member of Hamas's 'Izz ad-Din al-Qassam battalions.
The exact same happened a year ago, when BBC Arabic published a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) backgrounder which selectively pointed out that "the United States views the movement as a terrorist 'organisation'", without clarifying that the same is true for the United Kingdom and the EU (and also Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada).
2) BBC Arabic added to its version of the article the following Anadolu agency photograph of plane hijacker Leila Khaled, together with the caption "Palestinian persona Leila Khaled attends a conference of solidarity with the Palestinian people in South Africa".
On Aug. 25, we contacted editors at The National (0f Scotland) over a claim in a piece by their foreign editor David Pratt ("In Gaza there is no new normal … just the same old hell haunted by death", Aug. 21) that "Neither chemotherapy nor radiology treatments are available due to Israeli restrictions on medication entering the strip".
Despite providing sources to refute their allegation, as well as an email by COGAT flatly denying the charge, and sending several follow up emails, we didn't receive a reply, which prompted us to take our complaint to IPSO – an independent regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK.
After a series of communications over nearly three months between CAMERA UK, IPSO and the newspaper, which included their editor citing a source which – upon examination – linked to a report (from 2009) that clearly didn't back up their allegation, they finally agreed to retract the claim, and published the following editor's note:
A woman screaming "Slaughter the Jews" attacked a rabbi in broad daylight on a Vienna street on Thursday afternoon as passersby reportedly looked the other way.
The attack occurred at 4pm in the Austrian capital's Third District. The woman, said to be about 50 years old, approached the rabbi at a tram stop shouting "Slaughter the Jews" and brandishing a knife. She then ripped the rabbi's hat and kippah from his head and kicked him before fleeing the scene.
According to Austrian media reports, the rabbi — who was not seriously harmed — told police officers that despite the presence of several witnesses, no-one came to his aid. Police are currently trying to apprehend the woman.
Austrian politicians were quick to condemn the attack.
"We must fight antisemitism with all our determination and do everything to make Jewish life here in Austria safe," Chancellor Sebastian Kurz stated following the outrage.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said he had ordered extra security around synagogues following the attack and pledged to find the rabbi's assailant.
"All measures will be taken to quickly clear up this obviously antisemitic attack," he said. "There is no tolerance for antisemitism – regardless of whether it is politically or religiously motivated."
A fraternity at a Canadian university was in the spotlight on Friday for running a private online chatroom reportedly "seething with hateful comments" against Blacks, Jews and the LGBT+ community.
Delta Chi members at the University of Windsor, in Ontario, made slews of racist, anti-Black, homophobic and antisemitic barbs in the private chatroom, according to screen captures shared with PinkNews by anti-racist activists on the campus who exposed the chatroom's existence.
An email written by one of the activists said that members of Delta Chi referred to Black Lives Matter protesters as "criminals" and "idiots" and talked about "how they hate Black people and that Black people were better as slaves."
The email continued: "They describe how they wish they could own Black people as slaves, and they dream about the day there are less immigrants in Windsor and even shooting Indians."
Members also spoke of recreating tortures enacted by the Klu Klux Klan and routinely used racial slurs, the source added, before claiming that they "talk about burning Jewish people".
A notorious French Holocaust denier was jailed for four months by a court in Paris on Wednesday.
51-year-old Vincent Reynouard was convicted for posting a Holocaust denial video on YouTube in May 2017 — a grave offense in France, where the denial of Nazi atrocities has been a crime since 1990.
Reynouard is well-known in Holocaust denial circles in Europe, with a far-right pedigree stretching back to his teenage years. His first conviction came in 1991, after he distributed leaflets that denied the existence of the gas chambers among high school students.
Reynouard also has ties to Catholic fundamentalist groups that deny the Holocaust, including the Society of St. Pius X, which regards Jews as "enemies of the Church."
More recently, he was sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of 20,000 euros in 2008; one year in prison in 2015; and two months in prison in 2016 — all for Holocaust denial offenses.
Reynouard's latest conviction follows a 17-month-jail term for his fellow Holocaust denier, Hervé Lalin.
Johannes Hübner, who was the foreign affairs spokesman for the Austrian Freedom Party (AFP) until 2017, has just been appointed to the Bundesrat, the equivalent to the Austrian Senate, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) reported on Wednesday.
In 2017, Hübner had initiated a run for the Austrian parliament.
He stopped when he was recorded at a far-right event making antisemitic comments.
During the event, Hübner referred to the creator of the Austrian constitution as a 'Kohn,' a word which had been used by Nazis during the 1930s to discredit a constitutional scholar of Jewish descent.
Likewise, Hübner also claimed that Austrian Federal Chancellor Christian Kern, who was awarded the Friedrich-Torberg awardee of the Jewish Community Vienna, has contacts with the 'Freemasons,' a common antisemitic conspiracy theory.
At the same event, Hübner asserted that the Austrian newspaper always mentions the AFP in the context of National Socialism, citing a 'so-called Holocaust survivor.'
A Jewish man in the Australian city of Melbourne was reported to be in shock on Friday night after he was showered with antisemitic abuse by a couple he encountered in the street.
The incident occurred in the Murrumbeena neighborhood. According to the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) — an Australian Jewish advocacy group that monitors antisemitic incidents — the man was wearing headphones when he noticed the couple trying to get his attention. When he removed his headphones, the couple began yelling "Heil Hitler" and made Nazi salutes.
As he walked away, the victim — who was not wearing a kippah — was subjected to repeated chants of "Heil Hitler."
The ADC expressed concern that a specific pattern of attacks was becoming apparent, noting that earlier this week, an Orthodox Jewish woman shopping at a supermarket was told by a white man to "f–k off, Jew."
"We are going down a path whereby anyone who may be perceived as being Jewish will not feel safe walking our streets for fear of being targeted and singled out for abuse," ADC chair Dvir Abramovich said in a statement. "We cannot allow an open season on Jews to become the new normal, and this terrifying and despicable attack, which could have turned violent, occurred amid a dangerous tide of escalating anti-Semitism in Melbourne and a disturbing rash of similar incidents. Enough is enough."
A Marin man went viral after confronting an individual seen putting Nazi stickers around downtown Fairfax.
Noah Mohan said he was walking his dog Tuesday when he noticed a man with stickers. When Mohan went for a closer look, he saw the stickers had swastikas with the phrase "We Are Everywhere." He took out his cell phone and began recording the man, telling him to stop vandalizing the town and demanding the masked man show his face. When the man declined, Mohan responded, "If you stand by that ideology, stand by that s—."
As the man continued to post up Nazi insignia, Mohan followed and ripped down each sticker. "Not in my city," he can be heard saying in a nine-minute video of the incident. In the video, the man defends his stickers by saying "they're my ideology" and, when a bystander asks him if he's ever seen the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz, the man responds, "I don't believe it is real."
"Personally, I will not let that s— slide in my town and I hope you guys feel the same way," Mohan posted on Instagram. "Racism is alive and growing in Marin county and we need to call it out and condemn it at all costs if we want this to be a safe and peaceful place for people of all skin color, religion, etc."
Mohan and a bystander stayed on the scene until they were able to flag down a police officer. The man, who is only being identified by Fairfax police as a 19-year-old from Livermore, was detained and later released. Police told the Marin Independent-Journal the case was being referred to the district's attorney's office for possible charges.
Elbit Systems has been awarded a contrat to supply E-LynX Software Defined Radio solution for the combat battalion level of the Spanish Army, the company announced Thursday.
The solution to be supplied comprises hundreds of handheld E-LynX SDR systems for dismounted soldiers and vehicular systems that will be installed onboard a range of combat platforms.
The E-LynX SDR solution that Elbit Systems will provide to the Spanish Army is similar to the solutions that have recently been selected by several other countries, including Switzerland, Sweden and Israel, as the radio solutions for their respective army-wide mobile network modernization programs.
Haim Delmar, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Elbit Systems C4I and Cyber, commented: "We are proud of this prestigious selection … Spain is an important market for Elbit Systems, and we will continue to invest and expand our local capabilities and technologies in Spain."
A flydubai aircraft landed in Dubai from Tel Aviv on Thursday, with some 200 Israelis on board, for the return leg of the first commercial flight to Israel by the United Arab Emirates' state-owned airline.
"Welcome to Dubai," an immigration officer said as the passengers from Israel filed off the plane and into the glitzy Gulf city, some of them waving and giving the peace sign.
An Israeli passenger on the flight said it was a dream come true to enter the United Arab Emirates on an Israeli passport.
"We did it — good evening Dubai! We hope we enjoy it here, visiting for the first time with an Israeli passport," Liran Shamir and Ren Nagar told Channel 12 news, with one of them — the network didn't say who — saying they had brought a second foreign passport because they did not believe they would be allowed to enter on their Israeli papers. "There is an excellent attitude here, it's fun to come. A dream come true."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday welcomed the first commercial Flydubai flight to Israel at Ben Gurion Airport.
I remember when I tweeted about the benefits of signing #AbrahamAccords between #UAEIsrael 🇦🇪🇮🇱 👇 Today we are ready to produce water from the air, creating a renewable source of pure water for human and agricultural consumption here #InAbuDhabi 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/93SH8GejSZ
The first scheduled commercial flight operated by flydubai from Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) lands at @DXB. pic.twitter.com/6bcAuVtyCB
A new law proposed to the Israeli Knesset would create an official memorial day for the victims of the Inquisition.
Created by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages to root out heresy, the Inquisition brutally persecuted Spanish Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity but continued to practice Judaism in secret, becoming known in Hebrew as Anusim (forced ones).
The law was proposed by Member of Knesset Michal Cotler-Wunsh and would create a Day to Commemorate the Victims of the Inquisition, which would be held on November 1, the date the Spanish Inquisition was formally established in 1478. Co-signatories to the bill include Knesset members from most of Israel's major parties, including the governing Likud party.
The day will be marked with educational activities that will teach the history of the Spanish crypto-Jews, as well as the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal. Knesset discussions of the issue will also be held.
In addition, the Minister of Diaspora Affairs will host an official state ceremony to mark the occasion.
Cotler-Wunsh said of the proposed law, "This bill will create a day of memory and reminder in the Knesset for us to recognize this tragic event in our collective history and learn from it, in order to ensure 'never again' in a world of 'again and again.'"
"It also provides us with an opportunity to connect with the descendants of those affected by the Spanish Inquisition, in Israel and in the diaspora, based on our shared history and values," she added.
Israel Marks 12th Anniversary of Mumbai Terror Attacks
Meir Halimi, a 100-year-old man originating from the French city of Nice, made aliyah on Wednesday and died the day after, according to French Jewish Agency director Arie Abitbol who spoke to Qualita, an organization for French immigrants.
After months of administrative struggle, Abitbol explained, the Jewish Agency French office finally allowed Halimi to make aliyah, accompanied on the plane by his son.
Living in a lonely retirement home, the only dream Meir had was to make aliyah and to spend his last years in Israel. Unfortunately, Meir could only spent his last day as an Israeli citizen.
Less than 24 hours after his arrival, Meir Halimi passed away.
Aliyah has been a serious issue since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
From the moment coronavirus ravaged the planet, more than 2,000 people have made aliyah, according to Nefesh B' Nefesh, a nonprofit organization that facilitates Jewish immigration to Israel and serves as a liaison between American Jews, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli government.
Yael Katsman, a Nefesh B'Nefesh spokesperson, told The Jerusalem Post the pandemic has made people pause and reevaluate their lives.
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.
Business Insider wrote an article about Israel's assassination of an Al Qaeda official in Tehran. Originally it said:
EoZ contributor Tomer Ilan noticed the highlighted statement - it is incorrect.
He wrote to BI informing them that Al Qaeda did attack Israelis with a 2008attack on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania and 2002 Mombasaattacks against Israeli targets. (Since then he also found a third attack, the 2009 murder of Yafim Weinstein.)
Tomer wonders if the initial claim that AQ never attacked Israel came from some common Arab memes, like these:
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.
Head of Iran's nuclear program Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 59, was assassinated in Damavand, east of Tehran, local Iranian news reported on Friday.
Iran later confirmed the reports. "The nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated today by terrorists," the Iranian Defense Ministry wrote in a statement, while not blaming any specific entity for the incident.
However, Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif later stated on Twitter that "serious indication" pointed to Israeli involvement and urged the international community to condemn the attack.
Pictures from the scene show two vehicles, one blown up and one shot at from the front. Several local reports in Iran indicated that a suicide bomber was involved in the attack, but that has not yet been confirmed.
The Prime Minister's Office and the Pentagon have yet to comment on the reports.
A military adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei accused Israel for trying to provoke "a full-blown" war by killing Fakhrizadeh.
"Remember that name" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in 2018 of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who many referred to as the "father" of Iran's nuclear weapons project.
But over the course of two years, no one remembered that name. Save for a few, including those who assassinated him on a busy street in Damavand, east of the capital of Tehran, on Friday.
Netanyahu made the comment when he divulged that Israel had obtained 100,000 files from Iran's secret nuclear archives. He said that Fakhrizadeh, a brigadier general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and a professor of physics at the Guard's Imam Hussein University, played a central role in the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Though he had been sidelined for several years, Fakhirzadeh returned to drive Iran's nuclear program, Project Amad, specifically to develop nuclear warheads for the multitudes of ballistic missiles the Islamic republic already possesses.
While Iran was forced to shelve Project Amad in 2003, it continued with its nuclear ambitions and Western intelligence sources even revealed that in 2013 Fakhrizadeh had attended a North Korean nuclear weapons test.
Regardless of how it plays out, this would seem to be a fitting time to look back at what the Trump administration has accomplished in the Middle East over the past four years. Simply put, it is nothing short of extraordinary.
Put aside for a moment whatever your feelings might be about Trump personally and place those emotions on hold. For anyone who values the US-Israel relationship, supports the Jewish state and cherishes it, there is no denying that the Trump team has done more than any previous administration ever did to bolster Israel and its future.
The list of achievements is lengthy, ranging from the symbolic to the substantive, and Jews everywhere owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Trump for his historic revamping of the region.
To begin with, the Middle East is a far safer place than it was just four years ago when Barack Obama resided in the White House.
Indeed, Obama bequeathed to Trump a region awash with rising Islamic fundamentalist extremism as the Islamic State controlled a large swath of territory in Syria and Iraq equivalent in size to Great Britain.
Just as promised, Trump succeeded in demolishing the would-be caliphate, quashing the evil regime that was responsible for beheading Americans, slaughtering Yazidis and committing unprecedented atrocities.
Then, on October 26, 2019, the president dispatched US special forces into Syria's Idlib province, where they tracked down the Islamic State's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in the raid. The group hasn't been the same since.
Similarly, when Obama turned over the keys to Trump, Iran was enjoying the windfall of the spurious nuclear deal it had reached with Washington. But Trump had the courage to pull out of the agreement and impose extensive and painful sanctions on the ayatollahs, which have left the tyrants of Tehran reeling.
And on January 3 of this year, Trump ordered an air strike on a convoy of vehicles at Baghdad International Airport which killed Qasem Soleimani, the mastermind of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and one of the most dangerous men in the Middle East.
Soleimani's hands were drenched in blood and he bore responsibility for a wide array of terrorist activities ranging from the targeting of US troops in Iraq with roadside bombs to supplying Hezbollah with weapons and training. G-d only knows what other horrors he might have been planning.
Ultimately, Biden will have to take into account that relations with Israel are crucial to protecting American interests in the region and that the pragmatic Arabs are close allies of the United States, while the regimes in countries led by radical elements, such as Turkey and Iran, are involved in activities that undermine stability and blatantly violate the human rights of their citizens, much more than the pragmatic Arab camp.
It is precisely the new rules of the game that create potential leverage to make significant changes in Palestinian and Iranian policy during the next US president's term. The distress in which the Iranians, their proxies, and the Palestinians find themselves, and their high expectations that Biden will extract them from these pressures, create a convenient basis for the new president to demand flexibility from the Palestinians and the Iranians to further his foreign policy goals.
On the other hand, attempts to reinstate the old rules of the game unconditionally, and to reject everything achieved by the Trump administration, as expressed in some of the initial statements by Biden's people, may dissolve the potential to bring about desired changes. Such a position could result in encouraging the Iranians to become more stubborn in their demands to reject any changes in the JCPOA.
Israel must do all it can to strengthen ties with the United States under the new administration, preserve as much as possible the new rules created in recent years, sharpen the positive potential inherent in these changes, and emphasize the importance of support for the pragmatic Arab camp, even though it has its problems. The more Israel cooperates with members of this camp and expands the circle of countries that openly promote normalization of relations with it, the stronger Israel and the pragmatists will become as they seek to bring the new US administration to support the positive changes in the Middle East and to realize their potential. At the same time, Israel will strive to maintain its fundamental positions and freedom of action toward Iran and the Palestinians.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh appeared on November 17 at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). What might have been an opportunity to hear new thinking from the Palestinian side turned out to be a disappointing display of much of the same old rhetoric that led the Palestinian leadership to its current quagmire.
While the CFR prefers to be courteous with foreign guests, it let Shtayyeh's appearance go to waste, by feeding him mostly softball questions. The unfortunate result of this is that the audience walks away learning very little.
When asked by the CFR moderator, Richard Engel of NBC News, about the situation of the Palestinians today, Shtayyeh chose to begin with an attack on Arab states for their relations with Israel. True, maybe he would prefer that Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates declare the end of their conflicts with Israel only after all Palestinian political demands are met, however, Shtayyeh refused to recognize that Arab states have a right to defend their vital interests.
Since 1948, they had suspended these rights for the sake of the Palestinian cause. What Shtayyeh ultimately wants is for the Palestinians to continue to hold their past veto power over the Arab world. Essentially, he wants the Arabs to be Iranians, who supply Palestinian organizations like Hamas with weapons and money while taking the most extreme positions against peace. What the Arabs have begun to say this year is that this option is no longer on the table.
None of the questioners at the CFR asked what the Palestinian leadership thinks about Iran, even though it is this subject that preoccupies the Arab world and threatens it directly. A question to Shtayyeh on this subject would have been fitting. Does he have an opinion on this?
Saudi Arabia's King Salman was reportedly kept out of the loop about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's secretive trip to the kingdom this week for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Quoting a Saudi source and a foreign diplomat in Riyadh, Reuters reported Friday that normalization with Israel appeared off the table as long as the Saudi monarch is alive — an analysis also made Thursday by a senior Israeli source cited by Israeli TV.
King Salman, 84, is reported to oppose normalization without the establishment of a Palestinian state, while his son, the kingdom's de facto ruler, is considered more open to warming ties.
The diplomat cited by Reuters also suggested that the prospect of normalization was greater under the incoming Biden administration, with the US president-elect having threatened to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" over its human rights violations.
"Normalization… is a carrot to get [Biden's] focus away from other issues, especially human rights," the diplomat said.
No progress toward normalized ties with Saudi Arabia will be made so long as King Salman remains in power, according to an unnamed "senior Israeli source" who is familiar with the interactions between the two countries, Channel 12 news reported Thursday.
The source told the outlet that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had a "very warm meeting" in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, in what was the first publicly reported meeting between the two.
However, "Israel understands that there will not be a breakthrough with the Saudis in the near future" because King Salman "takes a diametrically opposite stance" on the matter of normalization with Israel to that of his son, the report said.
Therefore, the source said, it was understood that "progress will only be possible after King Salman has gone."
Despite that, "cooperation against the joint enemy Iran" will increase, as will bilateral trade between the two nations.
The source also said that flights from Israel's national carrier El Al will not overfly Saudi Arabia in the near future. In September, the kingdom approved the use of its airspace for Israeli flights to and from the UAE, a decision announced the day after Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, met with Prince Mohammed in Riyadh.
The Zionist Organization of America has urged Saudi Arabia to include Israel on its official maps.
In a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir in the kingdom earlier this year, ZOA President Mort Klein noted Israel was excluded from all of Saudi Arabia's official maps.
"We're all delighted and heartened to hear about your desire to improve relations among the Saudis and the Israelis. Your words of wishing to educate young Saudis about the appropriateness and mutual benefits of enhanced relations with Israel were especially encouraging. However, in this room, directly behind you, is a very large map of the world, which shows every country on earth, yet wrongly does not show Israel. Instead, the large map shows 'Palestine' covering all of Israel," Klein remarked to Al-Jubeir.
"How can Saudi Arabia educate Saudi youth and other Saudis of the mutual benefits of promoting relations with Israel, and to end antagonism towards Israel, if Israel is not even shown on the Saudi maps?" he asked.
Al-Jubeir, who spoke of improving ties with Israel, reportedly told Klein that the country would work on the issue.
Jordan said it opposes any effort to change the status quo at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to Saudi Arabia this week.
In a statement Wednesday, the Jordanian foreign ministry said it rejects "attempts to alter the historical and legal status quo" at the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif or Al-Aqsa Mosque.
"The kingdom will continue its efforts to protect and care for the mosque, and preserve the rights of all Muslims to it in compliance with the Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem's Muslim and Christian holy sites," spokesman Daifallah al-Fayez said, according to the Guardian.
The comments came after Netanyahu held talks Sunday with Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi Red Sea city of Neom, along with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, reportedly including discussions on Iran and normalization.
The warming ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh are raising concerns in Amman that Israel could seek to shift custodianship over the Temple Mount from the Jordanians to the Saudis. Jordan's Hashemite monarchy has been custodian of the site since 1924.
The Waqf, a Jordanian-appointed council, oversees Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. It claims exclusive authority over the Temple Mount compound and says it is not subject to Israeli jurisdiction. Tensions often escalate at the site.
Sadiq al-Mahdi, Sudan's last democratically elected prime minister and leader of the country's largest political party, died of COVID-19 Thursday in a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, his party said. He was 84.
Al-Mahdi was taken to Abu Dhabi for treatment in early November. His body was expected to arrive in Sudan for burial Friday morning, the National Ummah Party tweeted. It had announced al-Mahdi tested positive for the coronavirus on Oct. 29.
Al-Mahdi was overthrown in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup that brought longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir to power. Al-Mahdi's party allied with Sudan's pro-democracy uprising that led the military to overthrow al-Bashir in April 2019.
Sudan has since been ruled by a transitional military-civilian government. Elections could possibly be held in late 2022.
Al-Mahdi was one of the staunchest opponents of Sudan's recent normalization of ties with Israel, which he dismissed as "an apartheid state" over its treatment of the Palestinians. He also accused US President Donald Trump of being racist against Muslims and Black people.
The Czech Republic has acknowledged that both sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict have a legitimate attachment to the place. This position is politically based in the acts of the Czech Parliament and the government's concept of the Czech Republic's foreign policy, as well as in the common position of the EU Council. In January 2016, the EU ministers of foreign affairs approved the designation "Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif." Within the UN they, however, fail to push this well-based bilingual name through.
Of course, the EU is an aggregate of 27 member states and, as such, it is not always easy to find a common ground. In practice, it means that not all of our EU partners agree with our views, just as we do not always see things their way. The development has led to the situation where the EU holds a declared common position – designation of the place as Temple mount/Haram al-Sharif – but at the same time is unable or even unwilling to stand up for it. This in turn leads to the fact that every new round of UN negotiations on the Palestinian declarations brings more discord to the EU common stand declared in 2016, and the gap between the Czech position and that of the EU is getting wider. True, to many – particularly in Central Europe – that may seem as mere wordplay, but for the Israelis and Palestinians that is virtually a basic question of their history and national identity.
I do not believe that we can reach peace and stability in the region without Israel and the Palestinians returning to the negotiation table. I also believe that UN Palestinian resolutions do not bring us any closer to this goal. According to them, Israel is the sole perpetrator of all Palestinian problems. That in result goes against long-standing Czech Republic's foreign policy, which seeks balanced position throughout the whole region. We are sure that at the end of the day only such approach can prove truly effective and bring us concrete results.
The same can be applied to the EU. Only if it stands tall for its own values and its own balanced position – as is among others expressed in its internal designation of the "most controversial" place in Jerusalem – it will really exert the influence it fully deserves given its strength. We do believe that the EU does not want forever to be – as the saying goes – only a payer and not a player.
At the same time, we recognize the need of compromise in formulating the resolutions in question. Yet if it is to be really effective, it should not be reached at any cost and for too many concessions. This is the position from which we approach the ongoing EU deliberations on the UN General Assembly Palestinian resolutions. We want to be active and open minded. In the end, however, our vote will fully depend on the quality of the final text.
UN Watch: Hillel Neuer Testifies in Knesset on U.N.'s Anti-Israel Obsession
"Our mission at UN Watch is to monitor the United Nations by the principles of its Charter, which guarantees equal treatment to all nations large and small. Nowhere is that promise violated more frequently and more egregiously than by the UN's one-sided, disproportionate and selective resolutions that single out Israel for discriminatory treatment. As we meet here in the Knesset, the world parliament, the UN General Assembly, is busy targeting Israel this month with 17 one-sided resolutions. By contrast, there will be a total of 7 resolutions on the rest of the world combined. That's right: one on Iran, one on Syria, one on North Korea, and 17 on Israel. Meanwhile, millions of human rights victims around the globe—in places like China, Iraq, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Algeria, Zimbabwe, and in more than 170 other countries—go completely ignored. Some people in this country think the UN doesn't matter. Oom-shmoom. But the UN assault on Israel poisons the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions worldwide. It grants the imprimatur of international legitimacy that fuels the boycott movement. It sends a signal to Hamas that the world is with them. We need to demand that democracies like the UK, France and Germany respect the UN's founding principles by ending their support for the UN's obsessive scapegoating of the world's only Jewish state, and to instead work on protecting human rights for the victims who need it most."
Israel and the UK are allies.
Disgracefully, the UK votes for more than 70% of the anti-Israel resolutions at the UN General Assembly.
Israel & Pakistan were partitioned at the same time.
Spot the difference…
🇮🇱 In 1946, 20% of the population weren't Jewish 🇮🇱 Today, 20% aren't Jewish 🇵🇰 In 1941, 21% of the population weren't Muslim 🇵🇰 Today, 2% aren't Muslim#PakistanReject_Israel
A new bill seeks to prevent individuals who have expressed support for terrorism or an armed struggle against Israel from vying for elected municipal roles.
The legislative proposal, sponsored by Likud MK Tali Ploskov also seeks to prevent individuals who have expressed support for acts carried out citing racist, nationalist, ethnic, and sectarian motives.
Ploskov explained that her initiative seeks to apply Article 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset, which excludes terror sympathizers for serving as lawmakers, to the law regulating elections in localities nationwide.
Im Tirtzu, a right-wing NGO, lobbied for the bill following a series of statements and acts by councilmen and municipal employees in various cities.
These incidents included a public reception held in the northern city of Shfaram celebrating the release of convicted terrorist Anis Saffouri, who was sentenced in 2009 to 14 years in prison for conspiring to murder Israeli Air Force pilots, soldiers, and scientists.
In another incident, Nazareth City Councilman Ihab Dahan lauded terrorists on social media; Haifa Councilman Raja Za'atara – a member of the city's defense committee – professed his support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and compared Zionism with the Salafist ideology of the Islamic State, and over in the Jerusalem Municipality, an employ if the city's community administration praised terrorists on social media.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the Mediterranean Dialogues Forum on Thursday night that the PA had indirectly informed US President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration of its willingness to return to negotiations with Israel on the basis of international law resolutions.
"Right now, we are sending clear messages, not only to the Israelis and to the Biden administration, but also to the Europeans and many others, that the Palestinians are ready to reengage completely, with Israel, in renewing negotiations with no preconditions, as long as such renewal is based on already recognized terms of reference — meaning UN resolutions, the Arab Peace Initiative, and international law," al-Maliki said.
It was not clear how the message had been conveyed, as al-Maliki later clarified the PA is only in indirect communication with the Biden transition team.
"We indirectly have had contacts with his team, and we are hopeful that we will be able to reengage again with the new administration in Washington on January 20," al-Maliki said.
Fatah deputy chief Mahmoud al-Aloul, a close confidante of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, told Voice of Palestine Radio on Monday that the PA had reached "a number of understandings" with the incoming administration's transition team. Al-Aloul declined to comment further in his interview, saying that he did not want to rush matters.
Friday Sermon by Israeli Islamist Leader Sheikh Kamal Al-Khatib: Jewish Merchants Suffocated Europe by Means of Usury, Cheating; As a Result, Europeans Massacred and Banished the Jews, Including during WWII pic.twitter.com/3mBzIHjT42
One of Lebanon's most notable recording artists said in an interview that she supports peace with "any country" and said the Jewish state was Lebanon's enemy only because of the political "whims" of Lebanese officials.
Elissar Zakaria Khoury, known popularly by her stage name Elissa, told MTV Lebanon earlier this month she was surprised by the recent border demarcation talks between Jerusalem and Beirut.
"For 20 years, they have been talking to us about 'the Zionist enemy' and about how they want to pray in Jerusalem and so on and so forth, and all of a sudden, they are sitting at the negotiating table," she said according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute watchdog group.
"What is happening in Lebanon is not normal. Let me tell you, I am not against the demarcation of borders. I support peace with any country, regardless of the identity of that state," Elissa said. "We want to live. We want to enjoy what life we have left. We want a good future for our children."
Turkey on Friday rejected a call by the European Parliament for sanctions against Ankara over President Tayyip Erdogan's recent visit to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in north Cyprus, calling the demand "disconnected from the realities."
On Thursday, the European Union's parliament agreed a non-binding resolution in support of EU member Cyprus urging EU leaders to "take action and impose tough sanctions" against Turkey, a move likely to bolster support for France's push for sanctions on Ankara at an EU summit next month.
Turkey is at odds with EU members Greece and Cyprus over hydrocarbon exploration in disputed east Mediterranean waters.
Erdogan incensed Cyprus, whose territory covers the southern half of the partitioned Mediterranean island, on Nov. 15 by visiting Varosha, a resort on the island that has been fenced-off and abandoned in no-man's land since 1974.
Ankara supported the partial reopening of Varosha last month in a move criticized by the United States, Greece and Greek Cypriots.
For all of his zigzagging on some policy issues, Trump has actually been remarkably consistent on avoiding any major military conflict and trying to reduce US military commitments overseas.
His approach has been to threaten and scare, but not actually use military force.
The January assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani was an exception, but this was after Iran killed US forces and helped stage a violent protest on the US Embassy in Iraq.
Even in that case, Trump tried to cover up that dozens of US soldiers were injured in Iran's counterattack on US bases in Iraq because he wanted to declare victory and move on.
Other than that instance, Trump has consistently avoided using force, including in 2019 when a multi-million dollar US drone was shot down by Iran and when Tehran laid waste to major Saudi oil fields.
If anything, the firing of Esper to take dramatic action was likely about Trump's major drawdown of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In other words, he wanted to radically reduce US military commitments overseas, not leave office with a new major regional war on his hands. After all of that, the bluffs may be beneficial.
If Iran and Gaza stand down now and come into negotiations with the Biden administration a bit more admonished, that would mostly be a plus. It would not be the first time the psychological threat of war was used to make war less likely.
The Trump administration is clearly committed to continuing its policies against Iran, and maybe even doing more than that, as long as it is in office.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post last week, Pompeo said all options are still on the table to counter Iran, and that maximum pressure will go on as long as he is office.
"We're continuing to work and stand behind the policies we have laid down for four years, and we will continue to do that for as long as the country demands it," he said.
The New York Times reported that the day after the IAEA report, US President Donald Trump inquired about the option of attacking Iran's nuclear program before he leaves office. His most senior advisers, including Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, reportedly talked Trump out of the strike, saying it could escalate into a bigger conflict.
Then, last weekend, American B-52 bombers flew a "short-notice, long-range mission into the Middle East to deter aggression and reassure US partners and allies," US Central Command said.
The heavy bomber planes were spotted on civilian air travel tracking sites heading toward Israel, until they disappeared from the maps, apparently after turning off their transponders. This was a clear signal to Iran: American planes with the capability of blowing up their nuclear sites are in the neighborhood.
Despite this show of force, Israel and other countries targeted by Iran cannot take any chances as Trump leaves office.
That's one reason we're seeing a flurry of activity in recent weeks. In addition to the Netanyahu-MBS meeting, the prime minister aims to visit the UAE and Bahrain at the end of December. Admittedly, these trips abroad will likely give Netanyahu political points as Israel lurches toward a fourth election in less than two years. But their significance on the diplomatic-security front are not to be underestimated.
Israel and the UAE and Saudi Arabia are telling the incoming Biden administration that they will not take a JCPOA redux sitting down. Loud opposition from Israel was to be expected, but Gulf states are standing with Israel.
And, in fact, they have not been quiet, either. Shortly after the IAEA released its latest report on Iranian violations, King Salman of Saudi Arabia called on the world to take "a decisive stance against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles program."
Expect more of these statements and shows of unity – official or through leaks, like the Netanyahu-MBS meeting – in the coming weeks and months.
The Iranian regime's chief propagandist seems pretty excited about a potential Biden administration. https://t.co/lCTfnB9ofK
An Iranian diplomat and three other Iranians went on trial in Belgium on Friday accused of planning to bomb a meeting of an exiled opposition group in France in 2018, the first time an EU country has put an Iranian official on trial for terrorism.
Belgian prosecutors charged Vienna-based diplomat Assadolah Assadi and the three others with plotting an attack on a rally of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The rally's keynote address was given by US President Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Assadi, who was arrested while on holiday in Germany and handed over to Belgium, is refusing to appear in court and did not attend the first day of the trial in Antwerp; he has not commented on the charges.
"My client asked me to represent him today, he let me know he has the fullest respect for these judges but as he considers that he should benefit from immunity, they are not allowed to judge him," his lawyer Dimitri de Beco told Reuters.
Assadi was the third counsellor at Iran's embassy in Vienna. French officials have said he was in charge of intelligence in southern Europe and was acting on orders from Tehran.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly dismissed the charges, calling the attack allegations a "false flag" stunt by the NCRI, which it considers a terrorist group.
The trial is expected to continue next week, with a possible verdict later this month or in early January, lawyers said.
Turkish Journalist Hamza Tekin: Murder of French Teacher Paty Was Carried Out by Macron Militia in Order to Justify Escalation of Attacks against Islam and Muslims pic.twitter.com/w5rU2vq70T
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