WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP

 We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com

 

 

 

On Topic Links  

 

10 Questions on Iran Chuck Schumer Needs to Answer: New York Post, July 20, 2015

The Iran Deal’s Collapsing Rationale: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2015

What US Leaders Have Never Understood About Iran: Amir Taheri, New York Post, July 19, 2015

What Israel Can Do Now: Dr. Max Singer, BESA, July 19, 2015

 

 

“There’s a reason this deal took so long to negotiate. Because we refused to accept a bad deal. We held out for a deal that met every one of our bottom lines. And we got it…This deal will make America and the world safer and more secure. Still, you’re going to hear a lot of overheated and often dishonest arguments about it in the weeks ahead.” —U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama has run into a storm of accusations from Republican lawmakers and Israel that he gave away too much to Tehran. The President insisted the agreement was the only alternative to a nuclear arms race and more war in the Middle East. “Does this deal resolve all of the threats Iran poses to its neighbors and the world? No. Does it do more than anyone has done before to make sure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon? Yes. And that was our top priority from the start,” Obama continued. Obama has vowed to veto any effort to block the deal in Congress. (Jerusalem Post, July 18, 2015)

 

“You don’t have inspections within 24 hours—you have 24 days before you can inspect any site that you find suspicious in Iran. 24 days. Can you imagine giving a drug dealer 24 days’ notice before you check the premises? That’s a lot of time to flush a lot of meth down the toilet.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Jewish Press, July 16, 2015)  

 

“One of the reasons this deal is a good one is that it does nothing to prevent the military option . . . which we are preserving and continually improving…But the point of the nuclear deal is to get the result of no Iranian nuclear weapon without carrying out a military strike.” — U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter. Carter began a tour Sunday of Middle Eastern nations whose alliances with the U.S. have been strained by Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Carter is the highest-level U.S. official to visit Israel and Saudi Arabia since six world powers struck the deal. Pentagon officials say Carter’s visit was planned prior to the conclusion of nuclear talks and is not intended as a reassurance tour. But this week’s meetings in Tel Aviv and in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, will focus in part on plans for countering Iran’s support for common adversaries, which include the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Houthi rebels in Yemen. (Washington Post, July 19, 2015)

 

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not give up support of its friends in the region — the oppressed people of Palestine, of Yemen, the Syrian and Iraqi governments, the oppressed people of Bahrain and sincere resistance fighters in Lebanon and Palestine… Our policy will not change with regards to the arrogant US government.” —Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . His remarks were greeted by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” at a ceremony in Tehran marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. (Times of Israel, July 18, 2015)  

 

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran stands as a landmark agreement in deterring the proliferation of nuclear weapons…Without your determination and the admirable work of Secretary of State Kerry and his team, this agreement would never have been reached.” —  letter from over 100 former US ambassadors to President Barack Obama expressing their support for the “landmark agreement” struck between world powers and Iran. Notable signatories of the document included former under secretary of state Nicholas Burns; Daniel Kurtzer, the former envoy to Israel and Egypt; and Thomas Pickering, the former ambassador to Israel, Russia, India, and the United Nations. Read the letter and list of signatories here. (Jerusalem Post, July 18, 2015)

 

“We just stopped a war. And the bomb. Don’t let congress sabotage this historic chance for peace.” —Pro-Iranian lobby group National Iranian American Council (NIAC). NIAC bought a full-page ad in The New York Times last week in support of the agreement. The group’s #Vote4Peace campaign is targeting certain states and districts and lobbying leaders in Washington. The council says that millions of dollars from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a strong supporter of Israel and one of the GOP’s most powerful donors “can’t drown out the voices of tens of millions of Americans who want peace instead of war.” (New York Times, July 19, 2015)

 

“You can’t have a good economic relationship with Germany in the long-term if we don’t discuss such issues too and try to move them along…Questioning this state’s (Israel’s) right to existence is something that we Germans cannot accept.” — German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. Gabriel urged Iran at the start of a three-day visit to improve its relationship with Israel if it wanted to establish closer economic ties with Germany and other Western powers. Gabriel, who is also economy minister, is the first senior figure from a large western government to visit Iran since it struck an agreement with world powers on its nuclear program. (Jerusalem Post, July 19, 2015)

“Based on what we know thus far, I believe that this deal undermines our national security. President Obama has consistently negotiated from a position of weakness, giving concession after concession to a regime that has American blood on its hands, holds Americans hostage, and has consistently violated every agreement it ever signed…For him [Obama], this whole deal, you know what it is? It is an exhibit in his presidential library.” — U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Marco Rubio. (Jewish Press, July 15, 2015)

 

“The Persians are always great negotiators…they are laughing at us back in Iran.” —U.S. Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Trump noted that Iran is holding four Americans on charges of espionage, adding: “Why couldn’t they make that part of the deal? It would have happened quickly — easily if you had the right messenger. And that should have actually happened earlier. That should have happened at the beginning of the negotiations….I’ll be honest with you. I want to save the country. Our country’s going to hell. We have a problem. I want to make America great again.” (Jewish Press, July 15, 2015)

 

“We have to remember that this is a political deal, this is not – for me – a non-proliferation deal, but it has non-proliferation consequences. What happens now is that we make a deal with a country that is in non-compliance with its safeguard undertakings. That will have a great impact on future proliferation cases, and it will also have an impact on the region and for a long time.” — Former IAEA nuclear inspector Olli Heinonen. (DW, July 17, 2015)

 

“I believe that in the present time there is a widow of opportunity for Israel in order to try and pursue a new order in the Middle East… Iran is considered to be the adversary of … Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Emirates…In other words, the more moderate Sunni Islam. And we are a member in this same camp. We have here a unique opportunity to try and create a coalition of moderate Arab countries headed by Saudi Arabia and Israel, both in order to address the Iranian potential nuclear capability in the future and also in order to create a new order in the Middle East.” — Shabtai Shavit, Mossad director from 1989 to 1996. (Jerusalem Post, July 19, 2015) 

 

“Some of the points inserted in the draft are clearly in contradiction to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s major red lines and violate them, particularly regarding arms capabilities, and we’ll never accept it,” — Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari. General Jafari’s remarks, reported in an interview with Iran’s Tasnim news agency, appeared to be primarily concerned with the restrictions in the Security Council resolution on Iran’s missile capabilities. They are not part of the nuclear accord. Stressing that he spoke as a military man, he said that what troubled him the most was what he saw as the resolution’s violation of “the very critical red line, namely maintaining and upgrading Iran’s defense capabilities.” (New York Times, July 20, 2015)

 

“Obama has always radiated the smug air that he was right and any other positions were illogical. But it is gratifying when aimed at the obnoxious Republicans and more obnoxious Bibi. Republicans were never going to go for the Iran deal. Their apocalyptic statements were written well in advance and they just had to hit “Send” followed by a fund-raising appeal to Jewish donors. Obama is gambling that he won’t hurt his party and that in 10 years Iran will be a better member of the international community. But he can’t do worse as an oracle of the Middle East than the conservative warmongers who ravaged the region.” — Maureen Dowd (New York Times, July 18, 2015)

 

“We have to build an iron wall to protect Israel. There are clear risks to Israel’s security in this deal.” — Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, leader of Israel’s left-leaning Labor Party. Herzog, who lost a race for the prime ministership in March to the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, invoked an expression popularized by Netanyahu’s ideological guide, the founding father of right-wing Zionist revisionism, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, to describe what he sees as Israel’s next, necessary step. (The Atlantic, July 16, 2015)

 

“The extremist worldview, both violent and nonviolent, is what we have to defeat.” — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain. Speaking in Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, which has a substantial Muslim minority population, Cameron called on his country’s Muslims to work with the government to “condemn conspiracy theories,” reject violence and speak more forcefully “to challenge and defeat” the extremist misinterpretation of Islam, which he called “a religion of peace.” (New York Times, July 20, 2015)

 

Contents

 

“STOP IRAN” PROTEST IN TIMES SQUARE (New York) — On July 22, 2015 in New York City’s Times Square, the “stop Iran rally,” the largest, grassroots bipartisan American protest against the deal granting Iran a fast track to a nuclear bomb, will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thousands of Americans from all faith traditions, political interests and communities, including Christians, Muslims, Jews, registered Democrats and Republicans, LGBT, Iranian-Americans, and others will demand that Congress vote down the Iran deal. (Investigative Project on Terrorism, July 19, 2015) 

 

UN SECURITY COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY APPROVES IRAN DEAL (New York) — The UN Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Iran nuclear deal and paving the way to lifting longstanding sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The 15-0 approval of the Iran nuclear deal approves one of the largest hurdles for the landmark pact, which will now go before the US Congress where it may face an uphill battle for confirmation. The UN vote came shortly after the European Union approved the nuclear deal. Netanyahu slammed the Security Council vote as “hypocrisy,” stressing that Tehran “systematically violates UN resolutions and calls for the destruction of Israel — a member of the UN.” (Times of Israel, July 20, 2015)

 

IN ISRAEL, US DEFENSE CHIEF VOWS TO HELP FIGHT AGAINST HEZBOLLAH (Jerusalem) —  On a hilltop lookout near Israel’s border with Lebanon, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter offered personal assurances Monday that the US will help Israel counter Iranian support for the terror group Hezbollah. Carter emphasized US concern about a range of threats that face Israel. These include tens of thousands of short-, medium- and longer-range Hezbollah rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon that could hit Israeli villages and cities. Israeli leaders have complained that the deal does nothing to address Iran’s support for hostile anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Times of Israel, July 20, 2015)

 

IRAN’S LAWMAKERS DELAY VOTE ON NUCLEAR ACCORD (Tehran) — The Iranian Parliament will wait at least 80 days before voting on a nuclear agreement reached last week with world powers, as legislators decided Tuesday to form a committee to study the accord. The legislators have effectively opted to withhold their judgment until they know the position of the US Congress. That way, analysts said, they can position the Americans to receive the blame if Congress repudiates the agreement, which Iran and six global powers including the United States completed in Vienna on July 14 after arduous negotiations. (New York Times, July 22, 2015)

 

SANCTIONS TO LIFT ON IRANIANS SUSPECTED OF WEAPONS WORK (Tehran) — The Obama administration and European Union agreed as part of the accord last week to lift sanctions over eight years on a network of Iranian scientists, military officers and companies long suspected by the U.S. and United Nations as central players in a covert nuclear weapons program. Among those to be removed from the U.S., U.N. and EU sanctions lists by 2023 is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi. U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies suspect he oversaw a secret Iranian program to develop the technologies for a nuclear weapon, at least until 2003. He’s been called by American officials the “Robert Oppenheimer” of Iran’s nuclear efforts, a reference to the American scientist who oversaw development of atomic weapons during World War II. (Nasdaq, July 21, 2015)

TEHRAN GETTING MISSILES (Tehran) — Iran is buying five Russian S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems, which can shoot down aircraft and intercept ballistic missiles. The deal was first inked in 2007 but then delayed by Russia after pressure by the West and Israel when UN sanctions were imposed in 2010. It’s unknown exactly which model of S-300 Iran will get (the original 2007 deal was for missile systems developed two decades ago), but the S-300 is one of the most complex defense systems available. “It is proof that the economic momentum in Iran that will come after the lifting of the sanctions will be exploited for arming and not for the welfare of the Iranian people,” Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said. (New York Post, July 19, 2015)

 

AIRSTRIKE KILLS AL-QAEDA LEADER IN SYRIA (Baghdad) —The leader of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria with a history of attacks against U.S. targets was killed in a U.S. airstrike on July 8, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Muhsin al-Fadhli, who led the Khorasan Group in Syria, was killed when the vehicle he was riding in northwest Syria near the Turkish border, was destroyed. Al-Fadhli had deep roots with al-Qaeda, having been one of the few operatives who had received advance notice of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Al-Fadhli was killed by a missile fired by a drone, according to a Defense Department official who spoke about the strike on condition of anonymity. (USA Today, July 21, 2015)

 

AT LEAST 130 ARE DEAD IN IRAQ AFTER A MASSIVE BOMB ATTACK (Baghdad) — The death toll from a bombing at a crowded marketplace in eastern Iraq climbed to as many as 130 on Saturday, marking I.S.’s worst single bombing attack on a civilian target in the country. A spokesman for the Diyala provincial council said that in addition to those killed, twenty more people were missing after a suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into a market in Khan Bani Saad on Friday night. I.S., and al-Qaeda before them, has carried out scores of bombings against civilians as they seek to destabilize the country and expand their territory. However, Friday night’s blast was the biggest in Iraq since the group announced its self-declared state a year ago. (Washington Post, July 18, 2015)

 

SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS DOZENS IN TURKEY NEAR BORDER WITH SYRIA (Istanbul) —  A suspected female I.S. suicide bomber has set off an explosion near a cultural centre hosting youth activists in a Turkish town near the border with Syria, leaving 31 dead and scores injured. The blast ripped through the centre in Suruc, just a few miles from the Syrian flashpoint of Kobane – which was itself later hit in a co-ordinated suicide car bombing. Most of the dead were university students with the Federation of Socialist Youths, who had been planning a mission to help rebuild Kobane, which was retaken by Kurds from I.S. earlier this year. (Telegraph, July 20, 2015)

 

I.S. REPORTEDLY DEPLOYS POISON GAS AGAINST KURDS IN SYRIA, IRAQ (Jerusalem) —  The Islamic State used poison gas in attacks against Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria in late June. Two UK-based organizations investigating the attack said they had confirmed I.S.’s use of chemical weapons against Kurdish forces and civilian targets in Syria and Iraq, where they said chemical agents were also used in an attack on an Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga position in June. The type of chemical used had not been definitively determined. None of the fighters exposed to the gas had died because they were quickly taken to hospital. (Ynet, July 18, 2015)

 

MAN CHARGED OVER U.S. MILITARY ATTACK PLAN (London) — British authorities have charged a 24-year-old man over an alleged plan to attack U.S. military personnel in the U.K., the latest in a growing number of plots uncovered in Europe targeting members of the military and police. The alleged plot, which the U.S. Air Force said prompted authorities to cancel planned Independence Day celebrations earlier this month at one of the nation’s main overseas fighter bases, comes as British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking to step up the government’s efforts to combat the spread of extremist ideology, calling it “the struggle of our generation.” (Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2015)

 

TABLOID PUBLISHES IMAGES OF FUTURE QUEEN GIVING NAZI SALUTE (London) — Buckingham Palace expressed its disappointment Saturday with a tabloid newspaper for publishing images of a young Queen Elizabeth II performing a Nazi salute with her family in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power. The palace took the unusual step of commenting on the report in The Sun newspaper, which shows the queen — then about 7 years old — at the family home in Balmoral, with her uncle Edward, mother and sister. The grainy footage also shows Elizabeth’s mother making the salute as the family laughs. The images, posted on the newspaper’s website under the headline “Their Royal Heilnesses,” shows the young girls prancing on the grass. (New York Times, July 18, 2015)

 

GOEBBELS’ HEIR TO RECEIVE ROYALTIES FROM NAZI CHIEF’S BIOGRAPHY (Munich) — A heir of Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels will receive royalties from his biography, a court in Munich decreed. The 72-years-old Cordula Schacht, the daughter of Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler’s economy chief, who inherited Goebbels’ estate, owns the copyright to Goebbels’ diaries, which have been quoted extensively in the biography “Goebbels“, by Peter Longerich. The estate of Hitler’s propaganda chief is taking legal action against Random House Germany and its imprint Siedler who published a biography of Goebbels that quotes extensively from his diaries, which are copyrighted until the end of this year. Initially, Random House agreed to pay a fee to use the quotes in the book, but later decided it was wrong to pay the estate of a Nazi war criminal. (I24, July 10, 2015)

 

LITHUANIA’S JEWS REQUEST HALT TO WWII MASS GRAVE EXCAVATION (Vilnius) — The excavation of a mass grave of Holocaust victims in Lithuania was halted following an appeal by the Jewish community and the country’s chief rabbi. A municipal official in Siauliai announced that the work would be halted “until the appropriate respect is guaranteed for the human remains of the people murdered and buried in the mass grave.” Rabbi Chaim Burshtein had issued a statement calling for a halt to the removal of the bones in the mass grave discovered earlier in the week during road construction work in Siauliai, a city in northern Lithuania.  Before World War II, Siauliai was home to some 6,600 Jews. Many escaped to the Soviet Union, but the Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators murdered hundreds of those who stayed in 1941 and in later mass killings. (JTA, July 17, 2015)

 

HOTOVELY SAYS FOREIGN DIGNITARIES MUST VISIT WESTERN WALL (Jerusalem) —  Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has changed protocol for foreign dignities who now will be asked to visit the Western Wall (Kotel) as well as Yad VaShem and Mt Herzl Cemetery. When Hotovely took office, she met with Foreign Ministry officials and gave them a short sermon on Torah – “Dvar Torah” in Hebrew – and instructed them to made the Jewish People’s Biblical right to Israel as part of  the “Hasbara” public relations program. She explained: “In my eyes, the fact that the Kotel will become part of official visits of foreign dignitaries in Israel is a meaningful statement that strengthens the position of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” (Jewish Press, July 16, 2015)

On Topic Links 

 

10 Questions on Iran Chuck Schumer Needs to Answer: New York Post, July 20, 2015 —1. Did you have any input into the Iran nuclear deal? If you did, how much of the deal reflects your advice?

The Iran Deal’s Collapsing Rationale: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2015 —The Iran deal is supposed to prevent a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East. So what better way to get that ball of hopefulness rolling than by arming our regional allies to the teeth?

What US Leaders Have Never Understood About Iran: Amir Taheri, New York Post, July 19, 2015 —“American rulers have always dreamed of forcing us to change our behavior, and failed,” Iran’s “Supreme Guide,” Ali Khamenei, said Saturday. “Five US administrations took that dream to their graves. The present one shall have the same fate.”

What Israel Can Do Now: Dr. Max Singer, BESA, July 19, 2015—For years, the Obama administration has assured Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel does not have to attack Iranian nuclear weapon production facilities because the US would make sure that Iran would not get nuclear weapons. It turns out that Israel and the US meant different things by the words “Iran would not get nuclear weapons (NW).”