| Was iran's attack on Erbil a major miscalculation? Iraqis are angrynoreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 17 Mar 04:43 AM Iran claimed that its missile atta | |  |
Iran claimed that its missile attack on sites in Erbil, Iran on Sunday were aimed at an Israeli "strategic center" that does not seem to exist.
Since then, Iraqi and Kurdish officials have been angry at Iran.
The Iraqi Council of Representatives is holding a session today to discuss the attack. A delegation from the Iraqi parliament visited the bombed sites earlier this week, and Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed said, "The attack was carried out with guided missiles which is of high concern. This is a violation and goes against friendly and neighborly relations. We will open the path for anyone from the international community, Iraq, and the Arab League to investigate the incident and find the truth behind it."
Iraqi President Mustafa al-Kadhimi also visited the bombed sites this week.
The Kurdistan Regional Government refuted the accusations that there are any Israeli bases there and also called for fact-finding missions to prove that the missiles civilian properties and that there are no Israeli bases anywhere in the Kurdistan Region.
Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani and Shia top cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr agreed to form a committee to investigate the Iranian claims as well. Al Sadr demanded an official...Read More |
Photoshop by Judah Rosenthal Vic Rosenthal's weekly column The negotiations between Iran and the West are free to continue after the hiccup caused by a Russian demand for a "right to free and full trade, economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation." Either the Russians got what they wanted, or they decided to accept something less; but in any event, the rush to sign an agreement that lifts sanctions on Iran is on again. I think it's safe to say that everybody – Americans, Iranians, Russians, Europeans, and certainly Israelis – knows that this agreement presents only a minor impediment (if any) to the deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran. In fact, it is a get out of jail free card for the violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is guilty. It is primarily a device to lift virtually all sanctions on Iran – even those that are not related to nuclear weapons – and provide an immediate windfall of tens of billions of dollars to Iran, and only secondarily a limitation on nuclear weapons development. Numerous Israeli officials from Prime Ministers to IDF Chiefs of Staff have sat down with the Americans and explained and documented why the agreement will not prevent or significantly slow Iran's progress toward a weapon, and how the injection of cash into Iran's struggling economy will be used to finance weapons development...Read More |
During the Six Day War, this division of Arabs is making its way across the burning desert sands towards Israel, when the Arab commander, bouncing along in his jeep, spots an aged Israeli on top a distant sand dune. The commander drops his binoculars and shouts orders to a foot soldier to run up ahead and kill the infidel Israeli. The soldier sprints ahead of theadvancing troops, and soon disappears over the sand dune. The general stops the troops and waits to see what happens. Nothing happens. The commander sends a whole platoon of soldiers to investigate. All twelve Arabs disappear over the sand dune, never to be seen again. The now-slightly-anxious commander dispatches 3 tanks to find out just what in the heck is going on, and they disappear over the dune, too. Sweat pours down the commander's forehead as he orders his entiredivision to overrun the solitary Israeli behind the sand dune. But just then, the first soldier reappears on the distant sand dune and cups his hands to his lips. " Go back!" he shouts. " Go back! It's hopeless there's TWO of them!" -------------------------------- Time Magazine called the Six Day War a "blintzkreig." -------------------------------- After the war, Nasser complained that it was an unfair fight. "They have 2 million Jews - and we don't have any!" --------------------------------- It's a few days after the end of the Six Day War between the Arabs and the Israelis, and Golda Meir is giving a press conference. Asked how such...Read More |
From Ian: Gil Troy: Why anti-Zionists lie and exaggerate about Israel Radicals used the horrific George Floyd murder in 2020 to popularize the Deadly Exchange libel blaming IDF training for police brutality – as if American racists need Israeli coaching to hate. Now, Bash Israel Firsters tweeting "War in Ukraine = Continued violent takeover of the West Bank," link two random events, trying to hijack the world's justifiable disgust with Vladimir Putin – to dump on Israel. Writers who make their careers demonizing Israel embrace this libelous idiocy. In The Guardian, Peter Beinart argued that if "remaking borders by force violates a core principle of international law," America must undo "Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war." Straining to compare Israel with Russia, Beinart prefers twistory to history, ignoring the inconvenient facts that Syria repeatedly bombarded Israel from the Golan and never respected Israel's right to exist – I somehow missed Ukraine's bombing and anti-Russian delegitimization campaign. In a harsher screed, "Justifications for Destroying a People," Beinart equated the "arguments Russia's government deploys to dehumanize Ukrainians" with "the ones Israel's government uses to dehumanize Palestinians." Targeting that evil, right-wing maniac Yair Lapid, who dared to suggest, as Gazans tried swarming Israel in 2018, that "the Hamas charter repeatedly...Read More |
The other day I read that some yokel named "Paul O'Brien" thinks Israel shouldn't exist as a Jewish state. Which is interesting, because I've never heard of the guy, so who cares what he thinks? Personally, I think that people who think that Israel shouldn't exist as a Jewish state, shouldn't exist.
Paul O'Brien is apparently some sort of an icon for the hard, Jew-hating left as head of Amnesty International USA—even if no one else has ever heard of him. (I certainly haven't.) He's probably getting much more attention than he should at the moment, especially from Jews, regarding his response when told of a survey in which most American Jews said they identify as pro-Israel: "I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there's a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home." O'Brien's "gut" didn't tell him these things at all. Paul O'Brien, however, thinks that if he tells Jews that his gut tells him something, they will listen and believe him. Which is funny, because Paul O'Brien is a nonentity, a flash in the pan, a dumb little twit. Paul O'Brien knows that Israel is not about having a safe space and it's not about having something Jews can "call" home. It's about a very particular piece of real estate and we don't "call" it home. It actually...Read More |
By Forest Rain Over the years I have learned to smell propaganda. Being an Israeli means being under constant attack – both overt and covert. We are threatened with physical violence, terrorism, and war. We are also threatened by more sophisticated and elegant methods such as lawfare (using the court system as a weapon of war) and media manipulation, propaganda designed to wage war in the court of public opinion. News is supposed to report facts. Opinion and feelings are in the eyes of the beholder and have their place. Propaganda is different in that it deliberately presents partial facts, rumors, half-truths, or lies as if they were news, as if they were facts, to win the war of public opinion. Propaganda designed to delegitimize Israel and even destroy her from within is a billion-dollar business. The BDS movement to organizations like "Breaking the Silence" and the New Israel Fund are just a few examples. Foreign organizations and governments have and are meddling in Israeli internal affairs in countless ways (If you don't know about this please read Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbaum and take a look at the Terrorists in Suits report). Now, the eyes of the world are turned to Ukraine, and yet, in this war that has nothing to do with Israel or Jews, somehow Israel, Jews, and the Holocaust, are in the limelight...Read More |
From Ian: Eli Lake: The World Has Changed and We Must Change Along With It Zelensky's bravery in the face of overwhelming odds has proved a reminder that great peril can produce great leaders. America is in desperate need of such leadership today. Our country has been mired in self-doubt. We have forgotten who we are. The nationalist right and the socialist left don't agree on much, but they both regard America's recent wars as moral abominations and the country's economic realities as marks of an irredeemable corruption. Who are we to judge or intervene, when we have tortured prisoners and droned wedding parties? Who are we to promote equality when we have income inequality? It's time for both parties to soundly reject this myopic politics. American global leadership is the only way that weaker democracies can survive. It is the only chance for long-term peace. And for all the ugly chapters in American history, our enemies have done and are doing and will do worse. We remain a beacon of hope for all people who struggle for freedom, whether we know it or not. Rejecting the recent myopia and division requires some faith in the American people as well. The campaign against "disinformation"—much of it based in the idea that stupid Americans were wildly susceptible to Russian manipulation—has resulted in pointless censorship. We should not make that mistake again. Consider...Read More |
Antisemitism hasn't changed in its fundamental form for thousands of years. Here is the base text of all antisemitism, from Esther 3: Some time afterward, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite; he advanced him and seated him higher than any of his fellow officials. All the king's courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king's order concerning him; but Mordecai would not kneel or bow low. Then the king's courtiers who were in the palace gate said to Mordecai, "Why do you disobey the king's order?"
When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai's resolve would prevail; for he had explained to them that he was a Jew.
When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel or bow low to him, Haman was filled with rage. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone; having been told who Mordecai's people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordecai's people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus. In the first month, that is, the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, pur—which means "the lot"—was cast before Haman concerning every day and every month, [until it fell on] the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar. Haman then said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not...Read More |
The Jerusalem Post writes about a talk US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides gave to Americans for Peace Now, where he agreed wholeheartedly with that left-wing group's agenda of being against Jews living across the Green Line. "We can't do stupid things that impede us for a two-state solution. We can't have the Israelis doing settlement growth in east Jerusalem or the West Bank," Nides told the left-wing Americans for Peace Now during a virtual event on Tuesday. "I'm a bit of a nag on this, including the idea of settlement growth, which infuriates me, when they do things, just infuriates the situation, both in east Jerusalem and the West Bank," he continued. The US ambassador explained that he has to pick and choose his battles. He had however, he said, fought to prevent the advancement of a 3,500 apartment unit project in an area of the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement known as E1. The Right has spoken of the project's importance in expanding Ma'aleh Adumim and ensuring the preservation of a Jewish corridor around Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority and the international community have argued that it would make a future Palestinian state unviable. Construction of E1 would be a "disaster," Nides said. "I went full board on E1…It is a very important area which if [built] could cut off any possibility of a capital for the Palestinians," he added. The idea that any Palestinian state must have its capital in Jerusalem is...Read More |
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