RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17371/biden-iran-temptation

[S]ensing that the American side is keen on producing the fudge, the Iranian side is raising the stakes.

On Monday “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei said that “liberating Palestine” is the “number one goal of the Islamic ummah”, making it clear that even if the “nuclear deal” is revived, the clash of two visions on the future of the Middle East will not come to a close.

The Iranian side is also trying to have over 1,000 sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic for issues not related to the “nuclear deal” lifted without offering any concessions in return.

Rouhani’s spokesman dropped another bombshell: whatever deal is made by officials representing the formal government of Iran in Vienna would have to be approved by “higher-up” in Tehran. In other words Khamenei would have a veto that he could exercise anytime he deems propitious.

Once the sham election is over [Khamenei] could revert to the “retreat-then-cheat” tactic that he describes as “heroic flexibility”. The tactic has been used in numerous cases besides the hare-brained scheme concocted by former President Barack Obama, including a variety of deals Tehran made with the European Union, China and Russia.

Today, none of those factors [of 40 years ago] are in play. The Cold War has ended, Iran has been knocked out of the oil market and Arabs are moving towards normalization with Israel for reasons of their own.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif estimates that the zombie regime in Tehran needs a minimum of $60 billion a year to stay erect and do the mischief it needs to do to survive.

The Vienna talks may end up providing the extra cash Tehran needs to stay in the game. The question Biden needs to ask is this: would such an outcome serve the interests of the US, not to mention that of the Iranian people, who are now thirsty for a change of direction?

Judging by what Iranian and US diplomats involved in the current talks to revive the moribund “nuclear deal” say, the widow of opportunity opened by Joe Biden’s victory in last year’s presidential election is likely to shut within the next few weeks.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/iran_election_or_referendum.html

Iranian society is enduring hardships on many fronts under the reign of the mullahs.

The spectrum is quite broad, including domestic, regional, and international matters, economic challenges for its citizens, and ethnic and religious inequalities. In all of these areas, the regime’s report card reflects an atmosphere of disappointment and frustration.

In this respect (according to the Iranian calendar year), the Year 1400 presidential election (to be held June 18) is being held during the most unprecedented public despair. There is even a boycott of public participation in the election compared with other elections in the last forty years of the Islamic Republic.

In an interview with Le Monde, Faezeh Rafsanjani, Hashemi Rafsanjani’s daughter, and a dissident, called for a boycott of this election.

The unprecedented antagonism between the ordinary people and the government has intensified. 

This presidential election should be evaluated from different angles. The accumulation of public discontent, people’s total distrust regarding the regime’s economic plans, the destruction of the middle classes and lower strata of society, as well as the weakness and crisis of the legitimacy for the Supreme Leader, leads the society closer to a revolt. It is now a while that the slogan “My vote, NO Islamic Republic but YES to the Democratic Republic” has been shared widely on different social media platforms. In a way, this presidential election could be considered a referendum for the regime in Tehran.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/05/pro-terror-mob-attacks-pro-israel-activists-canada-daniel-greenfield/

As bad as things are in the United States, they’ve been worse in Canada for a while as the 2002 riot in Concordia showed. This footage of assaults on pro-Israel activists isn’t quite as bad, but it’s up there.

Material posted by Toronto Jewish Advocacy shows repeated assaults by thugs with keffiyahs over their heads. There’s also a report of a sexual assault.

Bnai Brith Canada has a statement.

“We condemn in the strongest terms these brazen acts of assault, intimidation, and hate targeting members of Toronto’s Jewish community and supporters of Israel. There is absolutely no justification for political violence in the streets of Toronto, whatever one’s cause may be. To put it bluntly: Those who hate Israel so much that it inspires them to pelt eggs and assault their fellow Canadians aren’t just a threat to Jews. They threaten the very fabric of Canadian society.

The media headline is, “Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gather at Nathan Philips Square to denounce violence.”

Former Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer: Evangelical Christians ‘Backbone’ of Israel’s Support in U.S. https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2021/05/12/former-israeli-ambassador-ron-dermer-evangelical-christians-backbone-israels-support-us/

Israel rejects Biden administration’s calls for ceasefire https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/4915181/
Report: Israel rules out ceasefire after Hamas seeks international mediation https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/05/12/report-israel-rules-out-ceasefire-after-hamas-seeks-international-mediation/

The Dark Face of Palestinian Terror https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/dark-face-palestinian-terror-joseph-klein/
Congressional ‘Jihad Squad’ Slammed for Supporting Jerusalem Terror https://thejewishvoice.com/2021/05/congressional-jihad-squad-slammed-for-supporting-jerusalem-terror/
Nikki Haley Torches Ilhan Omar’s Take on Israel https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/05/11/nikki-haley-tortures-ilhan-omar-n2589284?
Rashida Tlaib Exposes Her Own Shocking Ignorance with ‘Temple Mount’ Tweet https://unitedwithisrael.org/rashida-tlaib-exposes-her-own-shocking-ignorance-with-temple-mount-tweet/?
WATCH: Victim Bloodied by Violent Palestinian Rioters in New York https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-victim-bloodied-by-violent-palestinian-rioters-in-new-york/?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17334/china-genocide-olympics

The letter’s signatories remind the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee of their charter commitments and international obligations pertaining to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment for Genocide.

“At least one million of these victims are incarcerated in scores of concentration camps, some replete with crematoria, where they are being brainwashed, raped, forcibly aborted and sterilized, tortured, organ-harvested and forced to perform slave labor. Is that acceptable to the U.S. Olympic Committee? Would your organization want to be associated with, let alone be seen as condoning, such barbaric behavior?” — From the letter “Stop the 2022 Genocide Games” signed by at least 115 human rights and faith organizations.

“[T]he PRC has given no indication that it will abandon the genocidal oppression of Uyghurs and others, let alone dismantle the massive infrastructure used for this purpose. Rather, the CCP will no doubt exploit the ‘Genocide Games’ as proof that the world is indifferent to, if not actually implicitly endorsing, its crimes against humanity.” — From the letter “Stop the 2022 Genocide Games.”

“Then there is the matter of the Chinese Communist Party’s involuntary extraction of vital organs. Eminent international human rights experts have found that forced organ harvesting is taking place in the PRC on an industrial scale. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of China’s own people, ethnic and religious minorities and prisoners of conscience have been murdered to profit the CCP. Is the U.S. Olympic Committee willing to associate with the perpetrators of these crimes?” — From the letter “Stop the 2022 Genocide Games.”

More than three million deaths worldwide have been caused by Communist China for failing to disclose, and even outright lying about, the human-to-human transmissibility of the Wuhan virus. Virtually every country has been victimized by what can only be regarded as Communist China’s mass murder. So why should nearly 200 countries reward China with the economic bonanza and implicit legitimacy that hosting the 2022 winter Olympics would confer?

All the countries crushed both by deaths caused by Communist China’s conscious export of its virus and the economic devastation that followed need to make sure that instead of being enriched and celebrated, Communist China should be held to account — at the very least by being invoiced for the damage it caused and removed from hosting the Olympic games.

Human rights and faith groups — such as the Committee on the Present Danger: China’s Captive Nations Coalition, Women’s Rights without Frontiers, and Save the Persecuted Christians — have requested in an open letter to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) that the 2022 Winter Olympics be moved out of China because of its genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang and severe oppression of its other citizens. The letter’s 108 signatories remind the USOPC and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of their charter commitments and international obligations pertaining to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment for Genocide. The letter entitled “Stop the 2022 Genocide Games” said, in part:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/iran-building-precision-guided-missiles-hezbollah-hugh-fitzgerald/

Iran claims that its citizens are in Syria mainly to help with rebuilding the country’s infrastructure. Israel has good reason to think — and act — otherwise. Asked to comment on reports that Iran was building highly lethal weapons– precision-guided missiles — for Hezbollah, Iran feigned indignation. “Israel Intensifying Air War in Syria Against Iranian Encroachment,” Algemeiner, April 22, 2021:

Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Iran has said it has military advisers in Syria to help Assad’s forces, and will continue a policy “resisting” US and Israeli power in the wider Middle East.

Nothing says “resisting” Israeli power like shipping 150,000 missiles to Hezbollah for future launches against Israel, even though at the time those missiles were shipped Israel had not attacked a single Iranian target, inside or outside Iran.

Over the past year, Israeli warplanes, missiles and drones have hit a far wider range of targets — from suspected Iranian guided missile research and production sites to arms storage depots — than in the previous five years, said three Israeli officials and a senior Western official based in the region.

In the latest strike on Thursday, Israel hit al Dumair on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus which it has repeatedly hit in the past and where suspected Iranian-backed militias have a strong presence.

Jane’s defense news analysts said that over a three-year span Israel had used 4,239 weapons against 955 targets with 70% of Israeli pilots involved in the campaign, with the new F-35I Adir fighter jets leading dozens of missions.

It’s a fantastic record. In the last decade of bombing sites in Syria, the Israelis have lost exactly one plane, an F-16, which crashed inside Israel, as did the pilot, who has since recovered from his wounds. In the last three years alone, Israel has hit almost a thousand targets, and many of them have been hit repeatedly, as 4,239 weapons were used. Israel keeps upping both the number of targets, and the number of hits, whether by bombs, missiles, or drones.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/appropriating-apartheid-to-bash-israel-11620663819?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

“So why the lie? Because Human Rights Watch seeks to delegitimize Israel, to portray it falsely as a state founded on the cardinal sin of racism, thereby denying it the moral right to exist.”

Johannesburg, South Africa

Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of apartheid. Yet in making the accusation in an April 27 report, the group brazenly acknowledges that it has “detached the term apartheid from its original South African context.”

This is immoral. “Apartheid” has a sacred historical meaning, sanctified by the blood and suffering of millions of South Africans who were oppressed and discriminated against on the basis of race. In appropriating the word, Human Rights Watch presents a grotesquely distorted picture of both South African history and the current reality in Israel.

Apartheid was a state-enforced national system of racial discrimination that manifested in a slew of oppressive laws aimed at obliterating the human rights of an entire race—among them the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act, and the Separate Amenities Act. Black South Africans were denied the vote and equality before the law until 1994.

In contrast, within the borders of the state of Israel, all citizens—Jews, Arabs or otherwise—have the right to vote and complete equality before the law. They participate side by side in elections, and Israeli Arabs hold high-ranking positions throughout the Israeli government, including the Knesset and the Supreme Court. After the recent election, an Arab-led party holds the balance of power in the Knesset, and it was an Arab judge that convicted former Israeli president Moshe Katzav.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistans-terror-future-11620679849?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan undermines American security interests, but the humanitarian disaster may be more immediate. The attack on a school in Kabul over the weekend is a likely preview.

Even in Afghanistan, Saturday’s bombings stood out as particularly depraved. It began when a suicide bomber detonated a car at the gates of a mixed-gender school. As surviving students fled, two more bombs exploded nearby. This left more than 80 dead and nearly twice as many wounded.

The bombings were timed to ensure that schoolgirls, who attend classes on a different schedule than boys, were the primary victims. And it’s no accident that the attack took place in a predominantly Shiite Hazara part of Kabul. Religious minorities and women were among those who suffered the most under Taliban rule in the 1990s. They won’t fare any better if the group retakes control of the country.

Expect even more violence as U.S. and allied forces complete their withdrawal sometime this summer: Attacks on girls for going to school and on religious minorities simply for existing, and terrorist violence to scare anyone who thinks of resisting.