Gatestone Institute

Security Threat: China's Interest in US Agriculture
by Judith Bergman  •  August 19, 2022 at 5:00 am
The more US agricultural technology China acquires, especially through theft, in order to become dominant in the agritech field, the worse the US will fare when it comes to selling its own technology, whether to China or third countries.

The specific goal is for China to be able to satisfy 95% of its demand for agricultural machinery with equipment that is manufactured in China. According to the USCC report, those policies, underpinned in part by technological theft, have negatively affected US exports to China of agricultural equipment....

China has been expanding its ownership of US land over the past decade from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

China's largest purchase in the US agriculture sector so far has been Smithfield Foods in 2013, the largest pork producer in the US. China's WH Group -- a state-owned company, which began as a meatpacking business in China -- owns it today. At the time of the sale, Smithfield had 25 U.S. plants, 460 farms, and contracts with 2,100 producers in 12 states and the ownership of Smithfield accounted for more than 146,000 acres of US land.

"While China's main interest in obtaining GM seeds from the United States is in improving its crop yields, the potential weaponization of agricultural IP is possible," the USSC warned. "... Similar to hacking a computer code, Beijing could easily hack the code or DNA of U.S. GM seeds and conduct biowarfare by creating some type of blight that could destroy U.S. crops... a virus or fungus engineered to kill a GM plant could wipe out an entire crop..." — U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Staff Research Report, May 26, 2022.


The more US agricultural technology China acquires, especially through theft, in order to become dominant in the agritech field, the worse the US will fare when it comes to selling its own technology, whether to China or third countries. (Image source: iStock)
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) recently warned that China's interest in the agriculture of the United States poses both a serious economic challenge and a security risk to the United States.

China sits on 7-9% percent of the world's arable land, 294 million acres, but is home to nearly 20% (1.4 billion in 2020) of the global population (nearly 8 billion in 2022). By comparison, the US has more than 375 million acres of arable land and a population of 329.5 million.

China has sought to resolve its dilemma of achieving food security by buying up farmland and agricultural businesses abroad on a huge scale, including in the United States, and by seeking to advance its own agricultural technology, including through theft of US agricultural technology.

"The Chinese government's domestic efforts, however, are not enough to solve China's problems, "the USSC report noted.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18790/us-agriculture-china

Biden Administration and Iran Empowering Rushdie's Attackers
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  August 18, 2022 at 5:00 am
"Whenever they (Islamists) disagree with a woman, they accuse her of treason, threaten her with rape and torture, and bully her family." — Ghada Oueiss, Lebanese journalist, to Lebanese television presenter Dima Sadek's 1.1 million followers on Twitter, after she received death threats for criticizing the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie; Twitter, August 14, 2022.

"Get out of the Middle Ages and learn how to live with other people's opinions." — Antoine Haddad, Lebanese academic, to people threatening Sadek, Twitter, August 14, 2022.

Sadek has good reason to be worried for her life. Most of the threats she received came from supporters of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that effectively controls Lebanon and reports directly to the mullahs in Iran.

On the same day that Sadek was receiving threats of murder and rape, Taliban militiamen in Kabul beat women protesters and fired into the air. The women [were] chanting "Bread, work and freedom...."

It is the mullahs of Iran, whose media has welcomed and praised the stabbing attack on Rushdie, that are inspiring, funding and arming Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Yemeni Houthis and other Islamist terrorist groups around the world.

In July, Iran executed at least 71 prisoners, including four women, according to the Iran Human Rights Monitor. Most of the women executed in Iran are themselves victims of domestic violence and commit murder in self-defense, the group noted.

Without the Biden administration's support for the mullahs, these groups would not be threatening to rape and kill women. Without the Biden Administration's support for the mullahs, these groups would not be launching drone and missile attacks on America's allies.

These are the same mullahs who are now hoping that the Biden administration will reward them with hundreds of billions of dollars as part of a new nuclear deal between Iran and the Western powers.

The mullahs will undoubtedly use the money to continue their campaign of murder and intimidation. They will also use the money to consolidate their occupation of four Arab countries – Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen – and continue their savage persecution not only of their own people, but also of women and journalists such as Dima Sadek and Hasan Shaaban.


It is the mullahs of Iran, whose media has welcomed and praised the stabbing attack on Salman Rushdie, that are inspiring, funding and arming Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Yemeni Houthis and other Islamist terrorist groups around the world. Without the Biden Administration's support for the mullahs, these groups would not be launching drone and missile attacks on America's allies. Pictured: Rushdie in 2018. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's proxies and loyalists are threatening to murder renowned Lebanese media personality Dima Sadek because she dared to criticize the stabbing of Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie in Chautauqua, New York last week.

Since the stabbing attack, Sadek has been subjected to a campaign of incitement and threats of murder and rape through social media posts and text messages sent to her personal phone number.

The threats began immediately after she posted on Twitter a picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first "Supreme Leader" of Iran, and Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander assassinated by the US in Iraq in 2020.

Sadek wrote on top of the picture: "The Satanic Verses." That is the name of the Rushdie's novel, inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, and published in 1988.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18812/biden-iran-rushdie

China Is Winning the Economic Race with the US – The Consequences Will Be Profound
by Judith Bergman  •  August 17, 2022 at 5:00 am

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The [Harvard Belfer Center] report, "The Great Economic Rivalry: China Vs. the US," predicts that at the current rate China will overtake the US economically within a decade.

When it comes to trade, China has now displaced the US. "When this century began, China was knocking on the door of the WTO and the U.S. was the leading trading partner of most major economies. Today, China has overtaken the U.S. to become the largest trading partner for nearly every major nation... by 2018, 130 countries traded more with China than they did with the U.S....." — The Belfer Report.

China's trade policies are not a matter of simply creating more wealth for China, but as with most things that China does, a way to increase China's power and other countries' dependency on it.

Today, the U.S. is the world's largest debtor; China is the largest creditor.

When it comes to manufacturing, China already displaced the US a decade ago.

"China is now the world's largest manufacturer and exporter of scores of essential goods, including 90% of refined rare earth minerals, 80% of solar panels, 50% of computers, and 45% of electric vehicles." — The Belfer Report.

Crucially, China is severely challenging the US when it comes to innovation.... In 2013, the US was the number one top innovating country, according to the Bloomberg Innovation Index, but by 2020, it was not even in the top 10, having fallen to number 11.... China's laser-like focus on frontier technologies has positioned it to dominate races like 5G and AI in the future.

China is determined to see this development to its goal of becoming the dominant power in the world by 2049.

What this new world economic order means for the future is probably difficult to imagine for the many who have grown up with the US as the leading world power and the accompanying celebrated values of freedom, democracy, and capitalism, taken for granted by so many.

China's economic rise and the US response -- or lack of such -- will determine the predominant values of the 21st century -- will it be China's authoritarianism and disregard for freedom, democracy, and human rights or those of the US and the West?

Today, the U.S. is the world's largest debtor; China is the largest creditor. When it comes to manufacturing, China already displaced the US a decade ago. China's trade policies are not a matter of simply creating more wealth for China, but as with most things that China does, a way to increase China's power and other countries' dependency on it. (Image source: iStock)
China has closed the gap with the U.S. "in most economic races, even overtaking it in some," according to a recent report from Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The report, "The Great Economic Rivalry: China Vs. the US," predicts that at the current rate, China will overtake the US economically within a decade.

Measured by purchasing power parity (PPP) -- which compares national economies in terms of how much each nation can buy with its own currency at the prices items sell for in its market -- China has already surpassed the US to become the world's largest economy.

"When measured by PPP, in 2000, China's economy was 36% the size of the United States,'" the report noted.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18792/china-economic-race

A Dangerous Triple Fantasy
by Amir Taheri  •  August 14, 2022 at 4:00 am
Last June Khamenei himself spoke of the "need to open a new front in the West Bank against the Zionist enemy".

Reliable sources in Baghdad say that the Quds Force has been "transiting" significant quantities of arms and cash via Iraq to Jordan, to be smuggled to the West Bank. The Jordanian authorities say they are aware of these "hostile activities"'. King Abdullah himself has publicly called on Iran to cease "destabilizing activities".

Supporters of "pre-emptive initiative" speak of a triple alliance in which the Islamic Republic, the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation work together to drive the US and its allies out of Eurasia, eastern Europe and the western Pacific, bringing almost a century of "American hegemony" to an end.

In such a scenario, Taiwan, Ukraine and Israel must not remain as bases for the American "hegemon" and its European and regional allies. All three, each in its own way, also pose threats to China, Russia and Iran's authoritarian systems by offering models for pluralist democracy and liberal capitalism.

It is clear that some dangerous pipe-dreamers in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran have fallen for the phantasmagoric vision of, "three great powers" banding together and with help from "the rest", that is to say, the so-called Third World, as Kayhan says, to destroy an international system created by the "corrupt and decadent".

[P]rudence demands preparing for even the improbable.


Iran's supporters of "pre-emptive initiative" speak of a triple alliance in which the Islamic Republic, the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation work together to drive the US and its allies out of Eurasia, eastern Europe and the western Pacific, bringing almost a century of "American hegemony" to an end. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran's then President Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP via Getty Images)
In his meeting in Tehran with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised what he called "Your Excellency's pre-emptive initiative" in launching "Special Operations " against Ukraine.

He claimed that if Putin had not invaded Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would have started a war against Russia to regain control of the Crimean Peninsula.

Although later removed from the official media in Iran, the remarks started a debate in Tehran's decision-making circles about the Islamic Republic adopting a similar strategy by going on the offensive against its "enemies".

Supporters of that view have been further encouraged by China's military demonstrations against Taiwan. Fars News, controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claims the latest showdown on Taiwan had led to "total humiliation" for the United States.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18800/dangerous-triple-fantasy

'Where Is the Media?': Persecution of Christians, June 2022
by Raymond Ibrahim  •  August 14, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Christians of Nigeria are, in fact, being purged in a genocide, according to several NGOs Every two hours, one Christian there is killed.

"Heavily armed bandits, many of whom are said to be ethnic Fulanis, are waging their own form of Jihad; killing, abducting and terrorizing worship centers and educational institutions owned by churches as well as impoverished communities in the North and Middle Belt regions." — Vanguardngr.com. June 19, 2022, Nigeria.

The Biden administration's response to the jihadist onslaught against Christians in Nigeria...has been to remove Nigeria from the State Department's list of Countries of Particular Concern: nations that engage in, or tolerate, violations of religious freedom.

"The landlocked Sahel state [Burkina Faso], one of the world's poorest countries, is in the grip of a nearly seven-year-old jihadist insurgency. Thousands of people have died and nearly two million have been driven from their homes." — Guardian.ng, June 28, 2022, Burkina Faso.

"Amoti came to our home very early in the morning and needed to know more of Issa [Jesus], whom she had seen in a dream.... she willingly accepted Jesus for the salvation of her soul..... then together we went to church in Nansana." When she arrived home, her father "...ordered his sons to seize and beat her, then took a sharp knife and pierced her eyes," one of her brothers who had tried to defend her later said. "I want to remove these eyes so that you stop seeing churches forever—even if you die, we are not going to bury you," her Muslim father said. — Morning Star News, June 14, 2022, Uganda.

"After Bashir was ousted from 30 years of power in April 2019, the transitional civilian-military government... outlawed the labeling of any religious group "infidels" and thus effectively rescinded apostasy laws that made leaving Islam punishable by death. With the Oct. 25 [2021] coup, Christians in Sudan fear the return of the most repressive and harsh aspects of Islamic law." — Morning Star News, June 20 2022, Sudan.

On June 6, a 15-year-old Christian girl told a court how she was kidnapped and raped by a Muslim accused of abducting and forcibly converting her to Islam and marrying her. — Morning Star News, June 7, 2022, Pakistan.

June 14 report tells the story of Rehmat Masih, a Christian man who, despite there being no evidence, "has been in prison for five months in a new fabricated blasphemy case. He is accused of profaning and desecrating the pages of the Koran, but in reality he allegedly simply refused an offer to change religion.... on January 3, "police arrested Rehmat Masih, accusing him of committing blasphemy and tortured him severely" in an effort to make him admit to desecrating the Koran, an offence punishable by life imprisonment under Section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code. On January 19, 2022, a bail application was filed for the defendant, but the judge rejected it. Rehmat has been in prison since, awaiting his trial. — asanews.it, June 14, 2022, Pakistan.


The Christians of Nigeria are being purged in a genocide, according to several NGOs Every two hours, one Christian there is killed. On Pentecost Sunday, June 5, terrorists stormed the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo State, Nigeria and massacred about 50 Christians who were peacefully worshipping their God. Pictured: State officials walk past wounded victims from St. Francis Catholic Church, on June 5, 2022. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of June 2022:

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: On Pentecost Sunday, June 5, terrorists stormed the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo and massacred about 50 Christians who were peacefully worshipping their God. Videos, according to one report, "showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed." Western media presented the attack as a baffling aberration for Nigeria, arguing, as the AP did, that "It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church." Not once did the AP even mention the words "Muslim," "Islam," or "Islamist," in their determined attempt to ignore the fact that Islamic terrorists have routinely stormed churches and slaughtered many Christians over the years in Nigeria — for instance here, here, and here.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18771/persecution-of-christians-june

A Deal Will Not Stop the Mullahs from Going Nuclear
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  August 13, 2022 at 5:00 am
When the regime's television host asked him about the video showing concrete being poured into the Arak reactor's pipes to block them, Ali Akbar Salehi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran responded: "[N]ot the pipes you see here. We had purchased similar pipes, but I couldn't announce it at that time.... We needed to be smart." — Iran Focus, August 2, 2022.

In addition, during the deal, several reports, later proven to be accurate, warned that Iran was conducting secret nuclear activities.

Now, thanks to the Biden administration's focus on reviving the nuclear deal... the Iranian regime bought time by dragging out the negotiations long enough to reach the nuclear threshold.

Regrettably, it looks as though the Biden administration and Europe -- through their endless concessions and a staggering lack of deterrence -- are still trying to force-feed the world a hostile Iran, armed with nuclear weapons.

One can only assume that the Biden administration is hoping to bribe the mullahs with up to a trillion dollars just not to bomb Israel while he is still president. Meaning that afterwards would be splendid?

Not only are deals such as the Biden or Obama nuclear deal failing to halt the predatory regime of Iran from advancing its nuclear program and possessing nuclear weapons, it actually facilitates Iran's going nuclear by legitimizing its weapons.


Believing that the ruling mullahs of Iran will halt their nuclear advancement with a deal is laughable. The 2015 nuclear deal required that the core of the Arak nuclear reactor would be filled with concrete and disabled. When asked about the video showing concrete being poured into the reactor's pipes to block them, Ali Akbar Salehi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran responded: "[N]ot the pipes you see here. We had purchased similar pipes, but I couldn't announce it at that time.... We needed to be smart." Pictured: Salehi delivers a speech at the Bushehr power plant, on November 10, 2019. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration has spent all its political capital to resurrect the nuclear deal -- presumably to perpetuate the idea that a nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime will stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, believing that the ruling mullahs of Iran will halt their nuclear advancement with a deal is laughable.

The Iranian regime has even boasted about its shrewd policy of deceiving and misleading the international community during the previous nuclear deal. One of terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, for instance, was that the core of the Arak nuclear reactor would be filled with concrete and disabled. Iran, according to the country's Fars news agency, claimed that it had poured in the concrete and destroyed the reactor core. The US State Department, during the Obama-Biden administration, confirmed the move as well.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18799/iran-mullahs-going-nuclear

Belgium's Prisoner Swap Treaty with Iran: "A Deal with the Devil"
by Soeren Kern  •  August 12, 2022 at 5:00 am
A Belgian court has temporarily prohibited the Belgian government from exchanging an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism for a Belgian citizen being held in Iran on dubious charges of espionage.

The court's ruling represents a potential blow to a controversial new prisoner exchange treaty, which critics say will embolden the Iranian government to step up its practice of taking foreigners hostage to pressure Western countries into making concessions.

The treaty has angered those who argue that it would grant impunity to Iranian agents such as Assadi and have accused the Belgian government of caving in to "odious blackmail." It has been variously described as: "frightening appeasement," "a green light to terrorists," and "very short-sighted," "dangerous," "outrageous," "a sign of weakness," "a stunning mistake," and "a deal with the devil."

"If the Belgian government proceeds with this treaty, Iran's regime will further turn Europe into a roaming ground for its terrorists, targeting not just Iranian dissidents but others also, as Tehran is essentially being told that it won't pay a price." — Ramesh Sepehrrad, Organization of Iranian American Communities, July 5, 2022.

"With the knowledge that prisoner swaps are an easy option, Tehran will now instruct more 'diplomats' and other operatives to engage in terrorism.... Europe must recognize that, ultimately, the only sustainable path to having a stable relationship with Iran is to support the Iranian people's democratic aspirations." — Cameron Khansarinia and Kaveh Shahrooz, Politico, August 1, 2022.


A Belgian court has temporarily prohibited the Belgian government from exchanging an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism for a Belgian citizen being held in Iran on dubious charges of espionage. Iran is suspected of holding Olivier Vandecasteele hostage to force Belgium to release Assadollah Assadi, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Belgium for masterminding a plot to bomb a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which took place near Paris in 2018. Pictured: Police guard the courthouse during Assadi's trial in Antwerp, on February 4, 2021. (Photo by Dirk Waem/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)
A Belgian court has temporarily prohibited the Belgian government from exchanging an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism for a Belgian citizen being held in Iran on dubious charges of espionage.

The court's ruling represents a potential blow to a controversial new prisoner exchange treaty, which critics say will embolden the Iranian government to step up its practice of taking foreigners hostage to pressure Western countries into making concessions.

On July 20, after months of heated debate, Belgian lawmakers voted 79 to 41 (with 11 abstentions) to approve the "Convention between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Islamic Republic of Iran on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons." The Belgian government said the agreement, the first of its kind in Europe, is the only possible way to free Olivier Vandecasteele, a 41-year-old Belgian aid worker who has been held in solitary confinement at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since his arrest on February 24.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18797/belgium-iran-prisoner-swap

Iran: Systematic Persecution of Baha'is
by Mohshin Habib  •  August 11, 2022 at 4:00 am

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Samin Ehsani had been running educational courses for Afghan children living in Iran, but who did not have access to education in the country. During the trial, her activities were presented as an example of the charges against her.

In Iran, an estimated 300,000 followers of the Baha'i faith are being denied many fundamental rights such as access to education, employment, political office, and practice of their religious rituals. Iran's clerical regime evidently considers the Baha'is to be heretics and as having no religion.

Baha'is consider Baha'ullah as a messenger in succession to Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. For that, no other religion or state suppress them except Iran.


From the early 1980s, Baha'is in Iran have suffered under a wave of state-sponsored persecution. Hundreds of Baha'i leaders and notable figures have been killed and imprisoned by the Iranian authorities. (Image source: iStock)
On June 15, 2022, Samin Ehsani, a follower of the Baha'i faith and an activist for children's rights in Iran was arrested and transferred to the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. Earlier, on July 2, 2011, Ehsani had also been sentenced by Branch 28 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran to five years in prison on charges of "propaganda against the regime, acting against national security, and being a member of the heretical Baha'i faith."

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18780/iran-bahai-persecution

US: The New Real Hoaxes?
by Pete Hoekstra  •  August 8, 2022 at 5:00 am

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The investigative reporting by these two organizations [the New York Times and the Washington Post] was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.

For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer -- for fraud.

The real hoax appears to have been the CCP's ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.

Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.

Also not allowed during the January 6th hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.

One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for "troops needed" for January 6. Kellogg wrote: "I was in the room."

The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution's separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power.

Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system?

Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system? (Photo by Al Drago/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Recently former US President Donald Trump challenged the award of Pulitzer Prizes to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their investigative reporting on alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

The investigative reporting by these two organizations was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.

You have to hand it to them for this so-called "great reporting": the Pulitzer Committee sure did.

We now know, of course, the grand conspiracy pushed by these papers is nothing more than thoroughly debunked disinformation. For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer -- for fraud.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18778/us-real-hoaxes

Gaza: The Usual Suspects Condemn Israel
by Richard Kemp  •  August 7, 2022 at 5:00 am

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Commenting on the killing of Zawahiri, UN Secretary General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was "committed to fighting against terrorism and strengthening international cooperation in countering that threat".

Of course it was a different story when Israel acted against Jabari. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland was "deeply concerned" by "the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza."

Israel has not claimed its operation in Gaza — codenamed Breaking Dawn — is to deter. The government has made it clear that the strikes were to prevent an imminent threat to the Israeli population. It had hard intelligence that PIJ, led by Jabari, was planning attacks across the border from Gaza. Protecting its people from violent external attack is not only permitted under international law, it is the duty of every government. If deterrence of such attacks were possible, Israel would have taken action to deter.

PIJ is an Iranian proxy, directed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Its leader, Ziad Nakhaleh, has been in Tehran for the last few days, meeting with his IRGC paymasters and other government officials including the president, Ebrahim Raisi.

As PIJ and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Just as Israel's casus belli for attacking PIJ targets was lawful, it has taken the utmost care to ensure its continued strikes are also lawful, only attacking targets that are proportionate and necessary to the military objectives and giving warnings where civilian casualties could occur.

We can expect non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch to pile on. Amnesty International, however, might be slightly more circumspect as they are at present gyrating from the widespread international reproach that greeted their just-published report condemning Ukraine's defensive actions in which they again showed the total incomprehension of war and the laws of war that they often demonstrate in their denunciations of Israel.

Slavering for the last two days at the prospect of IDF-inflicted mass casualties, much of the media immediately and without any evidence eagerly pointed the finger at Israel over the tragic killing of seven people, including four children, in Jeblya camp in the Gaza Strip. They will undoubtedly try, but journalists and UN investigators will find it hard to refute the IDF's confirmation that they did not strike the location and have conclusive video and radar evidence that the deaths were caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, launched as so often from within the civilian population. This would certainly fit as approximately a quarter of all terrorist rockets fired so far during this campaign have landed inside Gaza, not in Israel.


As Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Pictured: Local residents and Hamas police officers assess the damage from a missile strike by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that hit the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on August 7, 2022. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)
A week ago US President Joe Biden ordered the elimination of Al Qaida boss Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. A few days later Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid ordered the elimination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander Tayseer al-Jabari in Gaza. These were two of a kind: mass killers whose sole purpose was to inflict pain, death and destruction on ordinary decent people to bring about their vision of Islamic conquest.

Commenting on the killing of Zawahiri, UN Secretary General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was "committed to fighting against terrorism and strengthening international cooperation in countering that threat".

Of course it was a different story when Israel acted against Jabari. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland was "deeply concerned" by "the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza."

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18784/gaza-condemn-israel

Thanks to the EU, Iran Mullahs Will Continue Taking Even More Hostages
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  August 6, 2022 at 5:00 am

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Recently the Belgian government proposed and ratified legislation that appears to pave the way to transfer terrorists who have been convicted abroad back to Iran.

Does Belgium not understand that returning convicted terrorists to Iran will further embolden and empower the mullahs to carry out more terrorist acts on the European soil while they maintain complete impunity? The new concession will also encourage Iran's regime to take even more European citizens as hostages and demand still more concessions from the EU.

"It has been a crime to kill prisoners for centuries. The difference is that if it amounts to a particular crime of genocide, there is an international convention that binds countries to take action and punish that genocide... There is no doubt that there is a case for prosecuting [Iranian President Ebrahim] Raisi and others. There has been a crime committed that engages international responsibility. Something must be done about it as has been done against the perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre." — Geoffrey Robertson, human rights barrister and first president of the UN's Special Court for Sierra Leone, YouTube, August 27, 2021.

"The Iranian authorities are using Ahmadreza Djalali's life as a pawn in a cruel political game, escalating their threats to execute him in retaliation for their demands going unmet. The authorities are attempting to pervert the course of justice in Sweden and Belgium, and should be investigated for the crime of hostage taking." — Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, May 19, 2022.

Even though the current Iranian government is a party to the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, Tehran has long taken foreign hostages as pawns to extract economic concessions and achieve geopolitical and financial gains. The Obama administration, for instance, shipped $400 million in an unmarked plane to Iran for the release of four Iranian-American prisoners.

Appeasing terrorists, as we all know, only incentivizes them. It only breeds more terrorism and hostage-taking; it is an endless, deliciously profitable jobs and extortion program. The EU's policy, which ensures that Iran's ruling mullahs enjoy impunity, is a blow to the victims of the Iranian regime's terrorism and will simply endanger the security and safety of European citizens.


Iran's regime appears as if it is attempting to secure the release from Swedish prison of Hamid Nouri, who was found guilty by a Stockholm court of crimes against humanity, including being a key figure in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran, in which at least 30,000 dissidents were executed. Pictured: People protest against the crimes of Iran's regime outside the Stockholm District Court, during the trial against Hamid Noury, on November 23, 2021. (Photo by Duygu Gertiren/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iranian regime has lately been taking more European hostages -- the direct result of the EU's appeasement policies to the ruling mullahs of Iran.

The Iranian authorities announced on July 30 that they had arrested another Swedish citizen. The Tehran regime normally detains European citizens on vague security-related charges such as having "suspicious behavior and contacts". Iran's hardline state-controlled newspaper, Kayhan, has also urged the government to take more European hostages.

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The Growing Threat from North Korea
by Judith Bergman  •  August 5, 2022 at 5:00 am
China's urging "flexibility" on North Korea appears to coincide with the Chinese Communist Party's ambitions in the region.

"According to unclassified intelligence reports to Congress, there are five key Chinese banks and a specially created holding company that funds the North Korean missile and nuclear technology programs." — Peter Huessy, Real Clear Defense, August 10, 2017.

China's main strategic concern when it comes to the Korean peninsula is apparently to end the US presence there and keep it out of US hands so that China can finally establish itself as the hegemon in the region.

North Korean escalation in the form of increased missile tests and resumption of ICBM and nuclear tests to pressure the US to make concessions -- in the shape of troop withdrawals from South Korea -- would play directly into the hands of China, enabling it to replace the US and establish itself as the primary power in the region.

"They are looking to take actions, which we believe are fundamentally destabilizing, as a way to increase pressure." — US official in Washington to journalists, France24.com, January 31, 2022.

China, however, seems to have no interest in cooperating with the US on North Korea. Attempts to secure "Beijing's cooperation" to build necessary economic leverage over North Korea are therefore exercises in futility.

China clearly cannot be relied on voluntarily to use its leverage over North Korea to persuade Kim Jong-un to give up his missile and nuclear program. To resolve the impasse, it is necessary to employ means that will leave China no choice other than to cooperate on North Korea.

A highly efficient way of doing that, Gordon Chang has suggested, would be to cut off the large Chinese banks and businesses that support the North Korean missile and nuclear technology from the global financial system by designating them a "primary money laundering concern" under Section 311 of the Patriot Act.

"In short, American policymakers know how to get China to begin acting responsibly." — Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, May 10, 2021.

The question now is -- will the Biden administration muster the political will to designate those large Chinese banks under Section 311 of the Patriot Act?


North Korean escalation in the form of increased missile tests and resumption of ICBM and nuclear tests to pressure the US to make concessions -- in the shape of troop withdrawals from South Korea -- would play directly into the hands of China, enabling it to replace the US and establish itself as the primary power in the region. Pictured: A launch of the Hwasong-12 ballistic missile from an undisclosed location near Pyongyang, North Korea, on August 29, 2017 (Photo by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency/STR/AFP via Getty Images)
North Korea, despite a UN Security Council ban on its ballistic missile tests, continued to develop its nuclear and missile programs in 2021, according to a new UN report. In January 2022 alone, North Korea launched a record 11 missiles, including two hypersonic missiles and the first firing since 2017 of a Hwasong-12 mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile which is within reach of US territory with its estimated range of 4,500 kilometers. In 2017, North Korea tested the Hwasong-15, which has an estimated range of 8,500-13,000 kilometers.

Both US and South Korean officials expressed concern that the Hwasong-12 test indicated that North Korea would resume testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and nuclear weapons.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18682/north-korea-threat

EU: Last-Ditch Effort to Salvage Iran Nuclear Deal
by Soeren Kern  •  August 4, 2022 at 5:00 am

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The European Union has presented Iran with a new draft text that aims to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The document, which has not been made public, presumably offers additional concessions to coax Tehran into rejoining the agreement.

In May 2022, for instance, Iran reached a new dangerous and destabilizing threshold: its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% reached 42 kilograms, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In June, Iran removed 27 surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities. The move came after the IAEA censured Iran for not answering questions about uranium traces found at three undeclared sites.

The EU's continued appeasement of Iran also comes amid a violent crackdown against civil society in the country. Human rights groups have blasted the EU for its unwillingness to hold the Iranian government to account.

The EU appears to be sacrificing human rights on the altar of financial gain.

"If we simply cling to the idea that continued negotiations will somehow lead to resolution, we'll be sleepwalking as we did with Russia, allowing a hostile power to take advantage of diplomacy while pursuing increasingly aggressive actions against us and our allies.... " — Nicola Beer and Peter Neumann, "Iran: Time for a Plan B," Politico, July 21, 2022.


The EU's continued appeasement of Iran comes amid a violent crackdown against civil society in the country. Human rights groups have blasted the EU for its unwillingness to hold the Iranian government to account. Pictured: Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (R) meets with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Tehran on June 25, 2022. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The European Union has presented Iran with a new draft text that aims to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The document, which has not been made public, presumably offers additional concessions to coax Tehran into rejoining the agreement.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, in a July 26 essay published by the Financial Times, wrote that time was running out to revive the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA):

"After 15 months of intense, constructive negotiations in Vienna and countless interactions with the JCPOA participants and the US, I have concluded that the space for additional significant compromises has been exhausted. I have now put on the table a text that addresses, in precise detail, the sanctions lifting as well as the nuclear steps needed to restore the JCPOA.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18770/eu-iran-nuclear-deal

Palestinians Commit Suicide as Their Leaders Live in Hotels and Villas
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  August 3, 2022 at 5:00 am
Many residents of the Gaza Strip undoubtedly regret the day they voted for Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election.

The last protest, which took place in 2017 under the slogan "We Want to Live!", was brutally crushed by Hamas's security forces and armed militias.

"In all countries of the world, you pay taxes for the services that the state provides you, except for us. In return, there are no hospitals, no education, no electricity, no water, no public utilities, not even rodent control." — Khalil Talmas, Gaza Strip resident, Facebook, July 27, 2022.

"'We Want to Live!'... is a cry of pain from the depths of a crushed and exhausted Palestinian people. It is a cry against taxes, extortion, repression and corruption." — Anas Al-Jazzar, Twitter, July 28, 2022.

Other Palestinians said that the current protest was directed not only against Hamas, but also against the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank....

These Palestinians pointed out the corrupt leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and their family members are leading comfortable lives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in five-star hotels and big villas in Qatar and Turkey, while most people were living in poverty and unemployment and misery.

"So the [Hamas] leaders' families, their children, grandchildren do not believe in their own [political and military] project, and although they can live in Gaza in the utmost luxury, they choose to leave it for the hotels and villas of Doha and Istanbul. They left the hungry people of Gaza to live in poverty, deprivation and hunger." — Mohammed Nashwan, Gaza Strip resident, alarab.co.uk, July 21, 2022.

[T]hese voices offer a glimmer of hope that the Palestinians are finally beginning to realize that their corrupt and incompetent leaders -- whether in the Palestinian Authority or Hamas -- are continuing to lead them from one disaster to another, while depriving them of the international aid that is rightly theirs and denying them a decent life.


Since the Islamist Hamas group seized control of the Gaza Strip 15 years ago, residents have been reminded on a daily basis of the failure of the Iranian-backed group to provide them with decent living conditions. Pictured: A man shops for second-hand clothes at a market in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 29, 2022. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)
It has been 15 years since the Islamist Hamas group seized control of the Gaza Strip, home to some two million Palestinians. Since then, the residents of the Gaza Strip have been reminded on a daily basis of the failure of the Iranian-backed group to provide them with decent living conditions.
Instead, the repressive governance of the Hamas leaders only brings the Palestinians in Gaza more misery.
The situation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has become so bad that an increasing number of young people have been committing suicide by self-immolation, throwing themselves from rooftops, swallowing large amounts of medicine and hanging.
Many residents of the Gaza Strip undoubtedly regret the day they voted for Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18763/gaza-suicide-hamas

'Here I Am; Send Me': Teens Stand Against Jew Haters
by Richard Kemp  •  August 2, 2022 at 5:00 am

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As every commander knows, you do not train a soldier to fight when he is in the middle of a battle, you do it before he gets anywhere near the combat zone.

Victimhood culture, too often the corrosive first resort of those who face injustice or feel wronged, is not in Club Z's creed. Students are taught that an individual's character is defined not by what obstacles are thrown in their path but by how they have overcome those obstacles and turned them to advantage.

Club Z teens are not aggrieved victims but active and proud defenders. They know that weakness incites while strength deters, that keeping quiet about antisemitism, meeting the bullies half way or compromising with calumnies does not protect them, does not make the problem go away and does not diminish the diatribe against them.

Courage cannot be taught but it can be fortified, and that is fundamentally what Club Z does. It is what empowers these teens to say, as the finest soldiers say when there's a perilous task to be done: "Here I am; send me".


Club Z teens are not aggrieved victims but active and proud defenders. They know that weakness incites while strength deters, that keeping quiet about antisemitism, meeting the bullies half way or compromising with calumnies does not protect them, does not make the problem go away and does not diminish the diatribe against them. (Image source: iStock)
The Hebrew expression "hineni" means "here I am", most famously used by the great Biblical defender of Israel, Isaiah, who responded to a heavenly call to duty with the words: "Here I am; send me". Hineni encapsulates the spirit of Club Z (for Zionism), a network of Jewish American teens that are standing up for their people and their Zionist identity against the scourge of antisemitism that is on the rise across the US, with the latest FBI figures showing Jews — 2.4% of the population — were the target of nearly 60% of religious hate crimes in 2020.

Jew hate is at its most virulent on campus. A complaint filed last week against City University of New York includes a recorded 150+ incidents of antisemitism on their premises since 2015, more than 60 directly targeting Jewish students with the intent to harm them.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18768/here-i-am

Lebanon's Leaders 'Out of Touch with Reality'
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  August 1, 2022 at 5:00 am

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The Lebanese authorities are accusing Bishop al-Hajj of treason for bringing money to the poor and the sick, at a time when Iran is delivering -- through Hezbollah -- money and weapons to be used in the next war against Israel.

The money and the weapons that the Iranians are sending to Lebanon are designed to strengthen the mullahs' control over the country. Iran, incidentally, is already occupying three other Arab countries: Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

"In our days, a bishop is being arrested and interrogated as if he was a foreign agent, while Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is received with full honor." — Joseph Abu Fadel, Lebanese political analyst, Twitter, July 19, 2022.

[T]he Lebanese people are being forced to seek aid from their families and relatives in Israel "because of the failure of the Lebanese states at all levels." — Alain Dargham, reporter for MTV Lebanon News, Twitter, July 21, 2022.

The Christians who fled to Israel did so out of fear for their lives and the lives of their families. They ran away from the terrorism and intimidation of Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

If the Christian families living in Israel are able to send money and medicine to their relatives in Lebanon, it shows that those who moved to Israel are doing much better than the Christians they left behind in Lebanon.

Bishop al-Hajj is not a traitor. He is a hero to his community and the rest of the Lebanese people.

Iran and Hezbollah are afraid that such aid would open the eyes of the Lebanese people and make them realize that Israel is not their enemy. God forbid, they may even see that life in Israel is not so bad after all -- and that their Israeli neighbors are prepared to help them.

The leaders of Lebanon, who have to report to their masters in Tehran, are evidently seeking to keep their people living in misery and poverty. The leaders are worried that if the people lead good and comfortable lives, they will stop thinking about violence and jihad (holy war) against Israel because they would have a lot to lose. The leaders also want their people to continue living in misery and poverty so that they can shift the blame for it to Israel.


Lebanese authorities are accusing Maronite Christian Archbishop Musa al-Hajj of treason for bringing money to the poor and the sick, at a time when Iran is delivering -- through Hezbollah -- money and weapons to be used in the next war against Israel. Pictured: Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai (center), addresses supporters in Diman, Lebanon, as a crowd of Christians rallied on July 24, 2022, to condemn the detention of al-Hajj by Lebanese authorities. (Photo by Fathi Al-Masri/AFP via Getty Images)
For the past few years, the failed state of Lebanon has been experiencing one of its worst economic, political and social crises in recent history due to years of political strife and economic downfall. Yet instead of focusing their efforts on finding ways to end the crisis, the Lebanese authorities and leaders are spending their time intimidating those who seek to alleviate the suffering of the Lebanese people.

That is what happened recently with a senior Christian figure from Lebanon who tried to help the Lebanese people by providing them with money and medicine.

Last week, the cleric, Maronite Archbishop Musa al-Hajj, was detained and interrogated for several hours by the Lebanese security forces on suspicion of attempting to deliver cash and medicine to families in Lebanon. In any other country, al-Hajj would have been praised and rewarded for his charitable work and good deeds.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18766/lebanon-leaders-reality

The EU's Shameful Total Appeasement of Iran's Mullahs
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  July 30, 2022 at 5:00 am
In 2015, the European powers -- France, Germany and the United Kingdom -- changed their Iran policy from imposing pressure to adopting diplomacy. The diplomatic route included lifting oil and gas sanctions on Iran as well as removing some Iranian individuals and entities from the list of countries to be sanctioned.
According to the preface of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action: "The JCPOA will produce the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran's nuclear programme, including steps on access in areas of trade, technology, finance, and energy."

The EU immediately allowed transfers of funds between Iranian and EU persons and entities, banking relationships between Iran's banks and the EU financial institutions, financial support for trade with the Islamic Republic, financial assistance and concessional loans to the Iranian government, the import of Iranian oil, petroleum products, gas and petrochemical products, investment in the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors, as well as export of gold, precious metals and diamonds, among others.

The EU continued with this policy even though the Iranian regime was found to violate the JCPOA.

Just as Europe disregarded warnings that relying on gas from Russia would leave them open to Russian blackmail, they are again ignoring warnings that a nuclear Iran will leave them open to Iranian blackmail.

Iran will not even have to use any nuclear weapons to persuade the leaders of Europe to do whatever it likes; the threat alone should do the trick. The mullahs might even sell or give a few to their terrorist militias. The tea leaves are not that hard to imagine; one only need look at Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.


Thanks to the EU's complete appeasement policy towards the Iranian regime, it is now capable of building a nuclear bomb. In 2015 France, Germany and the UK changed their Iran policy from imposing pressure to adopting diplomacy. The diplomatic route included lifting oil and gas sanctions on Iran. Pictured (L-R): Then French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, then German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini and then Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Austria on July 14, 2015. (Photo by Joe Klamar/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Thanks to the EU's complete appeasement policy towards the Islamist mullahs, the Iranian regime is now capable of building a nuclear bomb.

Kamal Kharrazi, a senior official and adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a rare statement, revealed to Al-Jazeera TV:

"In a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60 percent and we can easily produce 90 percent enriched uranium.... Iran has [now] the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb."

The current capability of the mullahs to manufacture a nuclear bomb is most likely a culmination of the EU's appeasement policy towards the Islamic Republic, particularly since 2015.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18755/eu-appeasement-iran

Iran's Deepening Military Expansion Into Europe
by Con Coughlin  •  July 29, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Iranian regime's decision to give its backing to Russia's military offensive against Ukraine... represents an alarming expansion in Iran's military ambitions beyond the Middle East.

Arguably Khamenei's most revealing comment during the visit was his call for Iran and Russia to increase what he termed "reciprocal cooperation" between the two countries to counter the threat of Western sanctions.

The concern now, say Western security officials, is that the commercial ties between the two countries will lead to closer military cooperation.

Iran's very public displays of support for Russia certainly undermine the long-standing assumption of American and European policymakers that the Iranian threat, allowing Iran unlimited nuclear weapons, relates only to the Middle East -- and specifically against Israel.

US President Joe Biden's confused position on the Iran issue has been further exposed by the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency, who told this month's Aspen Security Forum that, in his view, Iran had shown little interest in negotiating a new nuclear deal.

The truth of the matter is that Mr Biden's policy on Iran has become completely untenable, and the sooner he and his officials recognise their courtship of Tehran is doomed to end in failure, the better it will be for all concerned.

The Iranian regime's decision to give its backing to Russia's military offensive against Ukraine represents an alarming expansion in Iran's military ambitions beyond the Middle East. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi hold a meeting in Tehran on July 19, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's deepening involvement in supporting the Russian war effort against Ukraine should serve as a wake up call to Western leaders that Iran's military threat is no longer solely confined to the Middle East.

Ever since the ayatollahs seized control of the country more than 40 years ago, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime's standard bearers, have mostly confined their military activities to the Middle East region, whether it is waging war against neighbouring countries like Iraq or threatening Israel through its proxies in Lebanon and Syria.

The only occasions when the IRGC has ventured beyond the Middle East has been to carry out terrorist operations, such as the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina that killed 85 people and wounded more than 300, or the recent wave of terrorist attacks it has carried out in Europe.
Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18762/iran-military-expansion-europe

China and the US: Whose Side Is the Administration On?
by Lawrence A. Franklin  •  July 28, 2022 at 5:00 am

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One hopes that [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi's Taiwan visit is also intended to reassure free Asia that America will militarily defend Pacific democracies, despite the failure of the US either to deter Russia from invading Ukraine or adequately to defend it after it was invaded.

Above all, the US, must not submit to the Chinese Communist Party's threats. Pelosi should proceed to Taiwan with as large a bipartisan Congressional delegation as possible. If she bows to demands to stay away, China will be incentivized to attack Taiwan effectively the next day. Backing down at this point would only establish a pattern that all Beijing has to do to intimidate America is bark.

After America's humiliating defeat in Afghanistan and the "far too little, too late " response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, any cancellation of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan would be seen the world over as yet another spineless US surrender.

The only question is if this administration finally has the political will to stop appearing weak, scared and permitting China to dictate US policy. The administration's record so far: it has sold oil from America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, meant for hurricane damage and other emergencies, not only to China, but to the offshoot of a firm there in which President Biden's son, Hunter, had "invested heavily"; it has cancelled the China Initiative, thereby allowing China to continue stealing intellectual property with impunity; it has ignored China's purchase of massive amounts of American farmland and land near US military bases; it appears about to lift tariffs for China that will permit China to dictate US trade policy but only negligibly curb inflation; it is permitting China to collect genetic data from Americans citizens for potential biological warfare against the US.


One hopes that Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming visit to Taiwan is also intended to reassure free Asia that America will militarily defend Pacific democracies, despite the failure of the US either to deter Russia from invading Ukraine or adequately to defend it after it was invaded. Pictured: Pelosi meets with Japan's then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on May 8, 2015. (Photo by Koji Sasahara/AFP via Getty Images)
China this weekend, according to reports, privately delivered a message to US national security officials reinforcing an earlier Chinese Foreign Ministry statement: if US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi goes ahead with her planned August visit to Taiwan, it would be met with a "resolute and strong measures."

China's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian stated on July 19 that the visit "would seriously undermine Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity."

While China's threats contain unusually emphatic language, the visit comes as no surprise to China. Pelosi had scheduled a visit last April, which allegedly was postponed over COVID concerns. Her plan to go to Taiwan indicates that at least some in the US would like incrementally to depart from the "One China Policy," which claims Taiwan as part of China.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18761/china-taiwan-us

Turkey: Torture Has Reached "Unprecedented Levels"
by Uzay Bulut  •  July 27, 2022 at 5:00 am

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"We saw his body while washing it. There was a scar on his neck as if he had been hanged with a clothesline. Both of his eyes had burst. Blood was coming from his eyes. His nose was completely broken and filled with cotton. There was such a large swelling and bruise on his chest it looked as if a tree had been stuck there. His upper lip was almost as big as a palm. His right foot was stitched." — Hikmet Yılmaz, elder brother of Ferhan Yılmaz, evidently tortured to death in Silivri prison on April 10, 2022.

"There are thousands of cases like this. I spoke to his brother a while ago.... There is ill-treatment and torture in all prisons, systematically everywhere." — Sezgin Tanrıkulu, deputy of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), bianet.com. July 14, 2022.

"[W]e learned that the transferred prisoners told their families, 'We are at risk here too. Do not make any more statements to the press.'" — Monitoring Delegation of Prisons in the Marmara Region, press conference, tihv.org.tr, April 15, 2022.

"Both of his hands have cuts and stitches.... His whole body is bruised.... He can't see any more. They tortured him so much he has lost his eyesight. They hit him so much in the head that his head shakes all the time. His eyes start moving as if he had a stroke.... He has seven stitches on one arm and six on the other...They put him in a cell where there was feces of other prisoners. They told him to eat the feces. They beat my son and hanged him twice. And then removed him from the rope. He also hanged himself once... He said they made him do it... They put a razor blade there and told him to cut himself. They waited there so he had to cut himself." — Beyaz Çelik, mother of prisoner Halil Kasal, who was tortured at Silivri Prison.

"I emphasize that there is no torture or ill-treatment in Turkish prisons... Almost all of the allegations against prisons are exaggeration, distortion and fiction... Such allegations were made by terrorist organizations, circles that support terrorist organizations or those who support them politically." — Turkey's Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ, t24.com.tr, April 20, 2022.

"Prisoners are under torture. There are massive violations of rights. Prisoners die, they are killed, but [authorities] say that they committed suicide." — Fatma Kurtulan, MP of the HDP party and member of the Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission, Yeni Yasam Gazetesi, April 20, 2022.

"[S]ometimes the prison guards show counter-reflexes by complaining about the prisoners that they abuse, and the prisoners get arbitrarily and illegally punished for the abuses from which they have suffered.... These incidents are due to sentences arbitrarily and unlawfully implemented in Turkey, and the widespread impunity policy for state authorities who are perpetrators of crimes." — Mehdi Ozdemir, attorney, board member of Diyarbakir Bar Association, to Gatestone, April 23, 2022.

What makes this situation even worse is that the international community, including the UN, has enabled the Turkish government to carry out its policy of destruction of human rights with no consequences, but many rewards.
Turkey's policy of dealing with political prisoners -- particularly its Kurdish citizens -- has for decades been tyrannizing them through murder, arrests and torture. Pictured: The Silivri Prison and Courthouse complex in Silivri, near Istanbul on February 18, 2020. (Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)
"Torture," read a joint statement by Turkey's Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) "is still Turkey's most important problem... Torture and other forms of ill-treatment in the streets and open areas, as well as in unofficial places of detention, have reached unprecedented levels in Turkey."

According to the data shared by the two human rights organizations on June 26, the UN's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture:

"984 people in 2021 and 380 people in the first 5 months of 2022 sought help from TIHV on the grounds that they were subjected to torture and ill-treatment.

"According to the findings of the İHD Documentation Office, 531 people were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in official places of detention last year.

Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18715/turkey-torture

Arabs: 'US President Decided to Tamper with [Middle East] Security for No Reason...'
by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  July 26, 2022 at 5:00 am
Arabs point out that one of Biden's biggest mistakes was that he took America's Arab allies for granted while embarking on a policy of appeasement towards Iran's mullahs.

"The behavior of the Obama and Biden administrations regarding Iran and Afghanistan served as a wake-up call for the countries of the region." — Ali Hamadeh, Lebanese Journalist, Annahar, July 20, 2022.

"Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya were stable countries until the US president decided to tamper with their security for no reason other than his fascination with the discourse of the left and the extremist [Muslim] Brotherhood...." — Saudi political analyst Mohammed Al-Saed, Okaz, July 18, 2022.

"I remember a little over a year ago how Biden described his relations with Riyadh when he said that they were partners and not allies, then removed the [Iranian-backed] Houthis from their designation as terrorists and then returned to the Iranian nuclear agreement." — Mohammed Al-Saed, Okaz, July 18, 2022.

The Arabs are telling Biden that they do not appreciate or respect weak leaders and remain concerned about his appeasement policy toward the mullahs and their proxies in the Middle East.


Many Arabs believe that US President Joe Biden's recent visit to the Middle East was a failure, and point out that one of his biggest mistakes was that he took America's Arab allies for granted while embarking on a policy of appeasement towards Iran's mullahs. Pictured from left to right: Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa, US President Joe Biden and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Jeddah Security and Development Summit in Saudi Arabia on July 16, 2022. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Many Arabs believe that US President Joe Biden's recent visit to the Middle East was a failure, mainly because the Arab countries still do not have confidence in his administration's policies. The Arabs point out that one of Biden's biggest mistakes was that he took America's Arab allies for granted while embarking on a policy of appeasement towards Iran's mullahs.

The Arabs are saying that Biden failed to promote normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, convince the Saudis to increase oil production, and establish a security alliance to confront the threats from Iran and its proxies. He also failed to achieve a breakthrough in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, they note.
Continue Reading Article https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18753/arabs-us-tamper-middle-east

Confucius Institutes 2.0: Chinese Government Money Speaks Loudly
by Peter Schweizer  •  July 25, 2022 at 5:00 am

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A new, detailed, and thorough report by the National Association of Scholars confirms that not a single one of these [Confucius] "institutes" disappeared; they were just re-branded under a "sister university" arrangement with universities in China, given a different name, or moved to a different sponsor school. And the money continues to flow.

Jamie P. Horsley, senior fellow of the Tsai Center and its former executive director, defends the purpose of Confucius Institutes on American campuses. He argues that they are needed to teach students Mandarin, a language increasingly necessary for business success. She has also written articles minimizing the effects of China's social credit system and supporting its Belt And Road Initiative.

This is exactly what many Americans fear about placing Chinese government funded institutes, whatever they are called, on American campuses. It is what led the US State Department to classify them as diplomatic missions.
Communist China's money does not need to speak loudly to co-opt foreign institutions. Sometimes a whisper will do. The US State Department has warned college and university governing boards that Confucius Institutes "exert malign influence on U.S. campuses and disseminate [Chinese Communist Party] propaganda." Pictured: The Confucius Institute building on the campus of Troy University, in Troy, Alabama, on March 16, 2018. (Image source: Kreeder13/Wikimedia Commons)
In the book Red Handed, we meet a remarkable young man named Nathan Law, the Chinese-born, Hong Kong-raised leader of a pro-democracy effort called the "Umbrella Movement," which protested Beijing's crackdowns on freedom in Hong Kong. His efforts were brutally crushed by the Chinese government and Nathan Law went to prison for eight months. TIME Magazine named him one of "the 100 Most Influential People of 2020."

Once freed from Chinese prison, he decided to attend graduate school at Yale University, an institution whose history of educating Chinese students goes back to 1850, when the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university took his degree from there.

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Why Putin Must Be Defeated
by Guy Millière  •  July 24, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Ukrainian military urgently needs long-range air defenses and longer-range artillery. It does not have them.

[Zelensky] said he wanted the war over before Russia could rebuild its forces, and that each additional day of war meant more death and destruction. Above all, he said, not only Ukraine is at stake, but the security and values ​​of the West.

"History teaches that prolonged conflicts bleed both sides, but dictatorships have an advantage over democracies. They are not accountable to their societies and can pay the price of blood, even with opposition from their citizens.... Does the transatlantic free world still want to occupy a position of leadership? Do we still believe in the universality of values ​​such as freedom and the right of national self-determination?" — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Politico, June 27, 2022.

The almost total destruction of entire cities... has no precedent in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Neither do the horrific war crimes committed in Bucha and other towns on the outskirts of Kyiv and Kharkiv. Nearly two million Ukrainians have been deported and sent to Russia, with some in detention camps in Siberia.... The invasion of Ukraine without a declaration of war is itself a war crime.

The Baltic states, Finland, Sweden and Poland have every reason to feel threatened: if Putin is not defeated, he will not stop at Ukraine.

Russia, in 1994, signed the Budapest Memorandum, committing itself to respect the borders of Ukraine. Twenty years later, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and created secessionist militia in the Donbass. In 2022, Putin showed that the Budapest Memorandum had absolutely no meaning for him.

Putin is leading a campaign of annihilating Ukraine's infrastructure and industrial base. He appears to want Ukraine to become a ruined, non-viable country, virtually impossible to rebuild because the costs would be too high. The more time passes, the higher the costs.

To achieve his ends, Putin is apparently perfectly willing to hold hundreds of millions of innocent people hostage, and even sentence them to death by starvation. Meanwhile, his propaganda services cynically claim to the countries concerned that the risk of famine results from the Western sanctions against Russia.

Failing to give Ukraine every means to win... or letting a stalemate set in -- or even worse -- rewarding Russian aggression by ceding Ukraine's Donbass and declaring that Russia had "won", would effectively be announcing to China and all the enemies of the Western world that the power of the West and its ability to command respect belong in the past. Such an outcome would also be telling them that the rules of international law established after the Second World War, and the values ​​that the Western world claims to embody, are now rules and values ​​that the West is incapable of defending.

A war only ends when there is a winner and a loser. In the present situation, Putin is the ruthless aggressor who tramples all the rules and values of the West. He must be defeated. If he is not, the consequences will not be limited to Ukraine. They will be devastating.

The Russian military is not invincible. On the contrary, it has shown itself to be extremely deficient and vulnerable. It is the army of a weak state: Russia's GDP is lower than that of Italy. The Russian army can be crushed and the murderous destruction inflicted on Ukraine can end. What is missing is the clear and concrete will from the West. The United States must lead.

In Madrid, Biden said, "We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes to, in fact, make sure that they are not defeated". He did not say what he should have said, had he wanted to show some strength: Ukraine must win. If it receives the required armaments, Ukraine will win.

Only an American president has the political and military means to show strength in a credible way. It is tragic that the United States has a weak president just when the future of the world is threatened by so many predatory regimes -- all doubtless aware of the small but irresistible window they have at this time.

"We must aid Ukraine, for to do so in part is our first duty to America and to Americans.... By supporting Ukraine, we prevent larger European conflict. A war that would almost certainly involve America's military because we have a deep commitment to the NATO treaty and Article Five therein." — Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"Putin will not stop, unless he is stopped... if the West is aware of what is at stake and sees this war as its own, then this price is not too high. After all, Ukrainians are paying a much higher price. Ukrainians have no choice, since they are defending their country. But the West has no choice either—it is about its future as a community, driven by values ​​and the ability to project these values ​​globally." — Iryna Solonenko, Senior Fellow at the Zentrum Liberale Moderne (LibMod), Berlin, Internationale Politik Quarterly, April 13, 2022.

The almost total destruction of entire cities in Ukraine has no precedent in Europe since the end of the Second World War. The Ukrainian military urgently needs long-range air defenses and longer-range artillery. It does not have them. Pictured: A Ukrainian soldier passes by a destroyed building in the Ukrainian town of Siversk, Donetsk region on July 22, 2022. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)
May 9, Moscow. The annual military Victory Day Parade was held in Red Square, but with fewer soldiers and military vehicles than in other years. The parade had been cut by 35%. Russian President Vladimir Putin's short, sober speech tried to justify the war of aggression he had launched against Ukraine on February 24.

Putin seemed on the verge of defeat. A month earlier, in an apparent debacle, the Russian Army had hastily left the Kyiv area. Countless Russian soldiers had been wounded and killed; the loss of military equipment was unimaginable. A report from the UK Ministry of Defence on May 15 said that Russia had lost a third of its combat forces and much of its heavy equipment.

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Putin's Imaginary World Order
by Amir Taheri  •  July 24, 2022 at 4:00 am

Putin is now inviting Iran, Turkey and Egypt to join what he sees as an expanded Eurasian economic bloc led by Russia. To achieve that, he is ready to expose some of the contradictions in his perverted world view.

Putin says he wants to invest $400 billion in reviving Iran's moribund oil industry. But at the same time he is trying to steal as much of Iran's market share in oil as possible by offering discounts on the "brown" oil market, especially to China.

Putin says his new world order would allow "each nation to choose its way of life". Needless to say, his "each nation" doesn't include Georgia and Ukraine that he has already invaded, and Moldova that he plans to invade next, not to mention Syria where Russia blocks all avenues for a nation to choose its way of life.

He chooses to forget two points. First, there is no guarantee that a new anti-West bloc under Russian leadership would enjoy popular support in targeted nations such as India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Egypt. Secondly, in economic, military, scientific, cultural and sheer social appeal terms, Russia and its only reliable ally Belarus lack the seductive power needed to claim world leadership.

The post-Cold War polycentric system didn't do badly for Russia by helping it emerge from the sham egalitarian poverty of the Soviet era and build a new market-based economy capable of offering higher living standards.

In search of imaginary glory, Putin has put Russia's achievements of the past three decades at risk. Now that he knows he won't have that glory, he is trying to cling to another fantasy: a new world order made in the Kremlin.


Russian President Vladimir Putin is now inviting Iran, Turkey and Egypt to join what he sees as an expanded Eurasian economic bloc led by Russia. To achieve that, he is ready to expose some of the contradictions in his perverted world view. Pictured: Putin poses with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran, Iran on July 19, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
What a difference six months of a seemingly unwinnable war makes to a leader's self-esteem. As the Russian war against Ukraine grinds on, Vladimir Putin, the self-styled conqueror, seems to be descending from his high horse like the statue of Peter the Great in Pushkin's famous poem, to mingle with the lowly multitude.

The first epiphany of this neo-Putin was observed last month in Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia. The new image was confirmed last week with a visit to Tehran. The first new feature was that Putin was prepared to go through proper official visits rather than his usual blitzkrieg style of coming and getting out in a few hours.

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Biden's Trip: A Total Disappointment to Allies
by Majid Rafizadeh  •  July 23, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Islamic Republic of Iran did not murder just one American journalist... in 1983, Iran murdered 241 American servicemen in the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
To top it off, then in 2018, Iran was ordered by a US federal court to pay billions of dollars in compensation to relatives of victims in the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 people on US soil.

Iran is still holding six Americans hostage... In addition, Iran recently called for the assassination of leading US officials, a story the Biden administration reportedly tried to "keep under wraps," lest it disturb their efforts to enable Iran to acquire nuclear capability along with more than a trillion dollars to revive what has been called, in a scathing analysis by Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official and US Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer, "the new worst deal in history."

"Words will not stop them, Mr. President. Diplomacy will not stop them. The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force." — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, speaking alongside US President Joe Biden at a joint news conference, July 14, 2022.

Iran also now has "over 3,000 [ballistic] missiles of various types," many capable of carrying nuclear warheads — US Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, Jerusalem Post, March 15, 2022.

The Iranian regime has also switched off UN cameras to monitor its nuclear program and announced that it will not allow the IAEA to see images from the devices.

In addition, the Iranian regime is refusing to answer the IAEA's questions about uranium particles found at three clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran.

The Biden administration not only wants this warmed-over nuclear deal, but also appears eager to throw more billions at a regime that used the last billions to solidify its takeover of four countries: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

The ruling mullahs of Iran are freely being allowed to violate US sanctions and UN Security Council Resolutions. Shipments of weapons to the Houthis in Yemen are in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2140.

Any revival of a nuclear deal will only enrich what the US State Department has called the "top state sponsor of terrorism": Iran. Since its founding in 1979, the regime has openly called for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Or are these results what the Biden administration possibly wants?

The Islamic Republic of Iran did not murder just one American journalist... in 1983, Iran murdered 241 American servicemen in the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. Pictured: An aerial view of the destroyed US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. (Image source: U.S. National Archives/Gun. SGT. Lucas)
Many Americans as well as allies of the United States were hoping that US President Joe Biden and his administration, on his recent trip to the Middle East, would announce a firmer policy towards the regime of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran did not murder just one American journalist: it celebrated its birth in 1979 by kidnapping more than 50 Americans from the staff of the US Embassy in Tehran and holding them hostage for 444 days. Then, in 1983, Iran murdered 241 American servicemen in the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

To top it off, then in 2018, Iran was ordered by a US federal court to pay billions of dollars in compensation to relatives of victims in the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 people on US soil.

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Why No One Cares When Palestinians Kill Palestinians
by Bassam Tawil  •  July 21, 2022 at 5:00 am
"There needs to be a civilian trial following international standards, not just a smokescreen to protect those higher up. It is essential that the individuals who gave orders to arrest Nizar Banat for no lawful reason, and who oversaw the assault, are also held to account. The Palestinian Authority must immediately transfer this case to the civilian justice system, to ensure that proceedings are independent of those involved in the crime. The judicial process resembles a farce." — Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, amnesty.org, June 24, 2022.

The failure to hold the Palestinian Authority to account over the murder of Nizar Banat while incessantly bashing Israel over the death of Shireen Abu Akleh is yet another example of the double-standards and deep racism of the Biden administration and the rest of the international community and the media, who continue to single out Israel as part of a campaign to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews.


The failure to hold the Palestinian Authority (PA) to account over the murder of Nizar Banat while incessantly bashing Israel over the death of Shireen Abu Akleh is yet another example of the double-standards and deep racism of the Biden administration, the international community and the media, who continue to single out Israel as part of a campaign to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews. Pictured: Plain-clothed PA security officers beat a man in Ramallah on June 26, 2021, during a demonstration to protest the death of Banat while in the custody of PA security forces. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Case 1: Nizar Banat was a prominent Palestinian human rights activist from the Hebron area in the West Bank. In June 2020, Banat was beaten to death by Palestinian security officers who came to arrest him because of his frequent criticism of corruption in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Case 2: Shireen Abu Akleh was a Christian Palestinian-American reporter working for the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera TV network. In May 2022, Abu Akleh was killed while she was covering armed clashes between the Israeli army and gunmen from the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization in the West Bank city of Jenin.

Although more than a year has passed since the brutal murder of Banat, important mainstream media outlets in the West have not conducted any investigation into his case.

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