RUTHFULLY YOURS

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday marked the first anniversary of his country’s landmark nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers with a warning that Tehran could quickly restore its nuclear capacity if the terms of accord are breached.

Under the landmark deal reached in Vienna, Iran agreed to pull back its nuclear program from the verge of weapons-making capacity in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions that had crippled its economy. The pact went into effect in January.

On Wednesday, Mr. Rouhani, a strong proponent of the accord, said Iran would continue to adhere to the terms of the deal but expressed wariness over whether the other signatories would do so.

“We always keep our word,” the Iranian leader said on state television. “But if they want to breach their commitment, our nuclear capabilities are such that we can reach the level we want in a short period of time.”

Tehran has complained that the accord hasn’t produced as much economic relief to Iran as expected. The country is still subject to unilateral American sanctions and the country has struggled to attract big foreign investments, partly because it is having trouble gaining access to the international banking system.

Iranian officials have accused the U.S. of deliberately discouraging business dealings with Iran, an allegation the Obama administration has denied.

The plan by Boeing Co. to sell 80 passenger aircraft to Iran’s national carrier has faced opposition from U.S. Congress, with some lawmakers seeking to block the $17.6-billion deal.

In a bid to help restore Iran to the global economic system, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in recent months has said businesses should not use U.S. sanctions on Iran as an excuse for avoiding business with Tehran. He reiterated his support for the nuclear accord on Wednesday.

“The nuclear deal is in the interest of all countries and parties. It is good for peace and stability, for the region, for the world,” said Mr. Kerry, noting the accord had allowed Iran to resume oil exports and deterred possible military intervention in the country. CONTINUE AT SITE

Community hails its ‘friend and champion’ at Number 10
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis led tributes to the new Prime Minister, heralding her ‘values of tolerance and understanding’

Prime Minister Theresa May’s arrival at Downing Street has been welcomed by Jewish leaders and politicians as David Cameron was told he would “always be welcome in our community”.

The long-time home secretary entered Number 10 after her predecessor was applauded during his final prime minister’s questions and bid farewell with his family before tendering his resignation to the Queen.

In her previous role, May was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and anti-Semitism – famously holding a sign proclaiming ‘je suis juif’ days after the attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris and announcing a renewed funding for communal security as recently as March this year.

Her commitment to the community was underlined by her attendance at a long-scheduled dinner at the chief rabbi’s north London residence on Tuesday night, just 20 hours before becoming Britain’s second female premier.

Saying he was delighted to have the opportunity to give “my blessings”, Ephraim Mirvis said: “She has proved herself to be a friend and champion of our community and of other faith communities who share her values of tolerance and understanding.

“Theresa May becomes Prime Minister at a time of great political, social and economic uncertainty. Few people are more talented or better qualified to tackle these immense challenges. I recall the speed and the sensitivity with which she reached out to the Jewish community following the terror attacks on Jewish targets in Europe last year. As she made clear then – “Without its Jews, Britain would not be Britain”.

The new British leader also this week showed her support for Holocaust education when she backed the HET’s #shapethefuture campaign. As MP for Maidenhead, she enjoyed a close relationship with constituent and Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton and his family – hailing the release of a Royal Mail stamp in his honour following a Jewish News campaign.

Welcoming her accession to the top job, Sir Mick Davis, Chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “She has consistently worked to support and understand the issues that affect British Jews, and we look forward to building on those foundations to create a strong and enduring relationship.”

As the global nuclear deal with Iran marks its one-year anniversary this week, Tehran is maintaining its fierce anti-Americanism, receiving $100 billion-plus in sanctions relief with which it can better confront the United States in its region and beyond, and apparently trying to cheat its way to nuclear weaponry.

Notwithstanding President Barack Obama’s boast in announcing the deal last July 14 that it “makes our country, and the world, safer and more secure,” evidence continues to mount that it’s doing just the opposite.

With the deal coming together in the spring of 2015, Obama expressed hope that it would empower moderate Iranian forces who would convince the regime to invest the billions in sanctions relief in its economy rather than its “war machine.” But Tehran offers no signs of moderation, and if anything is doubling down on the anti-Americanism that has fueled the regime since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

In recent days, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blamed “recent bombings in Muslim countries” on the “security services of America, the Zionist regime and England” and said Tehran will “never cooperate” with Washington on Syria and other regional problems. And with tens of thousands of Iranians chanting “death to America” at Quds Day rallies on July 1, President Hassan Rouhani declared that “the global arrogance” (a euphemism for America and its allies) “wants to create discord among Muslims.”

Tehran’s latest anti-American vitriol coincides with revelations about Iranian nuclear-related activities that conflict with the nuclear deal as well as with related United Nations Security Council resolutions.

For starters, Iran has mounted a “clandestine” effort to acquire illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies “at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level,” including at least nine attempts to acquire technology that could be used for nuclear weapons, according to Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. Iran, the agency predicted, “will continue its intensive procurement activities in Germany using clandestine methods to achieve its objectives.”

In a related matter, the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C. nonproliferation think tank, reported that Iran recently tried to buy “tons of controlled carbon fiber,” which is used to build advanced centrifuges that can enrich uranium to atomic weapons-grade levels, from another nation. Since Iran already has enough carbon fiber to replace its existing advanced centrifuges, the Institute’s David Albright and Andrea Stricker wrote, it may be preparing to bypass the nuclear deal and build far more advanced centrifuges than the deal allows.

Meanwhile, Iran’s tests of its increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles, on which it could later mount nuclear warheads, remain a central concern of global leaders. Reuters reported last week that in a confidential report to the Security Council, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that Iran’s missile tests “are not consistent with the constructive spirit” of the nuclear deal. That’s something of an understatement; in its resolution that approved the nuclear deal, the Security Council “called upon” Iran not to work on ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads for up to eight years.

In respect of the Palestinian problem, the European political elites have only the means to destabilize the status quo without installing an alternative. But Israel’s leaders can take heart. Any declarations made at French President François Hollande’s conference will be unenforceable, because the EU on its own lacks the means and because its energies must now focus on stopping its own disintegration.

The underlying reasons for Brexit and for EU disintegration in general have still not been widely understood. Brexit was not merely a vote of no confidence in the EU but also in the UK establishment. Similar gaps between establishment and electorate now exist in several other major European states. In some cases, however, governments are united with their electorates in detesting the EU dictatorship in Brussels.

The June 23 vote by the United Kingdom electorate to leave the European Union should be seen in the context of two other recent European events. Three days earlier, on June 20, the EU’s Foreign Ministers Council decided to solve the Palestinian problem by Christmas with its endorsement of French President François Hollande’s “peace initiative.” Three days after the vote, on June 26, the second election in Spain within a few months failed once again to produce a viable majority for any government. Worse still, the steadily rising popularity of nationalist parties in France, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands suggests that political paralysis in other EU countries is on the way.

In short, the ambitions of the ruling political cliques of Europe to solve the problems of the world are being undermined by their own neglected electorates, which are increasingly furious at the failure of those cliques to solve the problems of Europe itself. Four years ago, we wrote about Europe’s Imminent Revolution. Two years ago, about the attempt and failure of those cliques to turn the EU into a make-believe copy of the United States. Today, that revolution is creeping ahead month by month.

Before threatening Israel’s security and local supremacy, the EU foreign ministers could have recalled the results of their previous nonchalant meddling in the area. We were all rightly horrified by the threat of Muammar Gaddafi to hunt down his enemies “street by street, house by house,” as he began by shooting hundreds in his capital, in February 2011. Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, rallied European leaders — first and foremost the UK’s David Cameron — to do something about it. President Obama turned up to give a speech, something that he is good at. More importantly, Obama supplied warplanes from the NATO base in Naples. The idea was to enable victory for the Libyan rebel forces by paralyzing Gaddafi’s own air force and bombing his land forces.

Victory was achieved. But the rebels were united only in their hatred of Gaddafi. So Libya has descended into a chaos that could have been prevented only by a massive long-term presence of European land forces, which Europe — after repeated cuts in army strength — does not have. Now it is the local franchise of the Islamic State, among others, that is hunting down enemies house by house.

Europe was incapable of achieving anything in Libya without the United States, and incapable of replacing a detestable regime with a superior alternative. The lesson could have been learned from Iraq. Here, a massive American military presence accompanied a constitutional revolution and the beginnings of parliamentary rule. But the whole costly achievement collapsed when Obama decided to remove even the residual military presence needed to perpetuate it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Africa signaled Israel’s renewed emphasis on its relationship with the continent. Beyond the mutual economic benefits, this renaissance in Israel-Africa relations is an opportunity, among other things, to bolster support for Israel on the international stage, particularly at the United Nations.

In the early years after independence in 1948, Israel enjoyed a unique relationship with many African nations. Recently freed from British rule and newly independent after thousands of years of exile and occupation of our homeland, Israel served as a role model for many African states caught in their own struggles with colonialism.

A special bond soon formed between the Jewish state and the young African nations. Israeli experts shared their knowledge with their African counterparts on everything from modern banking to drip irrigation. For Israel, the possibility of breaking out of the diplomatic isolation imposed by our immediate neighbors in the Middle East served as an additional strategic advantage.

Whatever progress was made in cultivating these relationships was thwarted following the 1967 Six Day War, and then almost completely wiped out after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Fueled by Arab propaganda, many former African allies became convinced of the lie that Israel was now playing the role of colonizer by “occupying” Arab lands.

More than 40 years after its relationship with Africa soured, Israel is now turning back the tide. As Prime Minister Netanyahu recently stated, “Israel is coming back to Africa, and Africa is coming back to Israel.” The Israeli government has announced a multimillion-dollar plan to strengthen its economic ties with Africa. On his recent visit, the heads of 70 Israeli companies joined the prime minister to help strengthen African relationships.

In areas such as international development, investment and know-how, Israel is the perfect partner for Africa. Both have been forced to find creative solutions to the kinds of problems large, wealthy, powerful states have never encountered.

In water policy, for example, Israel is not only the world leader in recycling and reusing water for agriculture, we have now successfully mastered the desalination process so that all our water needs are fully met despite our arid climate. In energy innovation, our cutting-edge technologies in solar, wind and other clean- and renewable-energy sources is a major focus of many budding economic ties. CONTINUE AT SITE

The U.S. military has released photos of Iranian boats that approached two Navy warships Monday as they transited through the Strait of Hormuz with a special passenger aboard: Gen. Joe Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees all U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The images, which aren’t typically released by the military, were captured by U.S. Navy personnel aboard the amphibious ship USS New Orleans and the destroyer USS Stout on Monday during a series of “interactions” between those two ships and smaller patrol boats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

The images show two small patrol boats akin to a civilian speed boat, and a larger boat known as a Houdong fast attack craft. Each are typical of the kind of craft the IRGC uses in the region, sometimes to harass American and other ships transiting through the strait.

Iranian officials in a report in state media confirmed that speedboats operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy “escorted” the U.S. warships through the strait, defending the incident as longstanding practice. The news account, on the website of the semiofficial FARS news agency, also warned that the small but heavily armed boats could destroy the American vessels.

“Monitoring foreign vessels in regions where the IRGC Navy conducts its missions is not a new thing and it is always done on a routine basis and round the clock,” Gen. Alireza Tangsiri, the lieutenant commander of the IRGC navy, said in the report. He emphasized that the IRGC Navy is assigned to monitor foreign vessels, especially those operated by “the enemies of the Islamic Revolution and the Great Satan, the U.S.”

Muslim perpetrators rationalize their violence by convincing themselves that they live in a racist society that rejects them and their religion. And the government legitimizes them when it asks the Parliament to vote for a law that favors diversity on public television channels.

Islamist terrorist Larossi Aballa, 26, stabbed to death police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife, police administrator Jessica Schneider, in front of their son, at their home in the Paris suburb of Magnanville. The murderer then live-streamed a video on Facebook, in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS).

After the Islamist, anti-gay attack in Orlando, left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melenchon wrote in his blog that he felt anxious about a possible “wave of hatred against Muslims”. For many Islamists in France, the Muslim is always the victim, even when he is the killer.

Islamization is gaining ground in the Muslim community of France. For a long time, this trend remained restricted to the cultural sphere and created strong controversies between Islamists and secular intellectuals (such as the ban on face-covering veils in schools and public places). But the debate stopped being a debate. Sometimes Islamic intolerance takes on the appearance of a civil war. The violence, which was mostly concentrated in the suburbs prior to the January 2015 terrorist attack on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, is spreading now to the heart of French cities. Murders, assaults, death threats and “slut-shaming” happens almost every day here and there.

Muslim perpetrators rationalize their violence by convincing themselves that they live in a racist society that rejects them and their religion. And the government legitimizes them when it asks the Parliament to vote for a law that favors diversity on public television channels. What is interesting is that judiciary system seems in disarray and does not know how to treat these types of conflicts: two jihadists back from Syria are condemned to a suspended sentence of six months in prison and a Muslim who slapped a female waiter because she served alcohol during the Ramadan was sentenced to eight months in prison.

The absence of political guidelines spreads fear and aids the rise of the right-wing political party, the Front National.

June 1. Karim Benzema, a French soccer star of Algerian descent, declared, in the Spanish sports newspaper Marca, that French national team’s coach, Didier Deschamps “bowed to the pressure of a racist part of France” by not including him in the team. Benzema was not included in the national soccer team for the UEFA Euro 2016 championship because he is apparently involved in a sex-tape extortion scandal targeting his colleague, Mathieu Valbuena.

June 2. Patrick Kanner, Minister of Urban Affairs, Youth and Sport, said in Le Parisien that Karim Benzema plays an “unfair and dangerous” game when he implies that “ethnic reasons” might have played a role in the decision not to include him in the French soccer team.

June 2. It was reported that the Saudi preacher, Mohammed Ramzan Al-Hajiri, was banned from entering France until 2050. The daily, La Voix du Nord, reported that on May 15, the salafist Abou Bakr Essedik mosque of Roubaix had arranged for him to preach by phone. In April 2014, the same Saudi preacher had declared in public: “Losing your faith makes you no better than an animal” and “to kill a Muslim is a less serious crime than to make him an infidel.”

Iran’s anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism have reached unprecedented levels. The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recently pointed out that the Islamic Republic has tens of thousands of missiles prepared outside of Iran to strike Israel.

Iran’s state-owned news agency, Tasnim, quoted General Hossein Salami as saying that “Hezbollah has 100,000 missiles that are ready to hit Israel to liberate the occupied Palestinian territories if the Zionist regime repeats its past mistakes.” He added that “today, the grounds for the annihilation and collapse of the Zionist regime are (present) more than ever.” In addition, Gen. Salami warned Israeli leaders that if they make the “wrong move,” Israel would come under attack.

A senior adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite unit Quds Force, Ahmad Karimpour, stated a few weeks ago that Iran could destroy Israel in eight minutes if the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the order. According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, he said that “If the Supreme Leader’s orders [are] to be executed, with the abilities and the equipment at our disposal, we will raze the Zionist regime in less than eight minutes.”

In addition, Iran’s final decision-maker and autocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a plan after the nuclear agreement, explaining how to destroy Israel. Furthermore, he blatantly predicted that Israel would not be around in 25 years. He stated, “En Sha’a Allah [God willing], there will be no such thing as a Zionist regime in 25 years. Until then, struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists.”

Khamenei relies heavily on Hezbollah and IRGC to pursue his government’s anti-Israel and anti-US policies. Thanks to sanctions relief and billions of dollars the Obama administration is sending to Iran’s Central Bank from the American taxpayers, Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC are amply funded. Iranian leaders are increasingly relying on and boasting about utilizing Hezbollah to wipe out Israel.

Friend she may be, however, she parrots the international support for the “two sate (did)solution of Israel, which will not stop until it is categorically derided and trashed as a policy relic by the state of Israel. rsk
The parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel issued a statement saying that “Israel can rest assured that a UK led by Theresa May will be there in its moments of need.”

Jerusalem is confident that the strong relationship with Britain it enjoyed under Prime Minister David Cameron will continue when Home Secretary Theresa May takes over the job by Wednesday.

May, according to former ambassador to London Daniel Taub, “has been a long-standing friend of Israel and the Jewish community.”

He said that as home secretary, May was very supportive of “our efforts to deepen British- Israel ties in the area of homeland security, and also very receptive to the concerns of the Jewish community regarding anti-Semitism and violent extremism.” Her ministry was responsible for Britain’s MI5 intelligence service, and as such was both aware and appreciative of the close intelligence and security cooperation between the two countries.

Jerusalem had no formal comment Monday on the political developments in Britain, waiting until she formally takes over as prime minister before issuing a congratulatory statement.

One official said that when it comes to Israel, May “comes with her heart in the right place.”

If, indeed, that is the case, then she will follow a long line of British prime ministers, going back to Margaret Thatcher and including John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Cameron, who were considered good friends in Jerusalem.

German citizens have been shielded from the awful truth about the way life in Germany has been altered by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of young Muslim “refugees.” It is no longer safe for German women and girls to go about the streets dressed and behaving as they have in the past. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the shocking news that the mass sexual attack in Koln that received publicity a few days after it occurred was far from an isolated event.

Standard.net reports:

LONDON – At first, there was complete silence from officials. As rumors spread on social media, police had nothing to say about allegations of mass sexual assaults and other crimes carried out on New Year’s Eve in the German city of Cologne.

It was only days later that officials reported that hundreds of women were victims of assault in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities.

But numbers that are now emerging are likely to shock a country still coming to terms with what happened in Cologne more than half a year ago. According to a leaked police document, published by Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR, the previous estimates have to be dramatically revised – upward.

Authorities now think that on New Year’s Eve, more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted in various German cities, including more than 600 in Cologne and about 400 in Hamburg.

More than 2,000 men were allegedly involved, and 120 suspects – about half of them foreign nationals who had only recently arrived in Germany – have been identified.