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In this mailing:
by Khaled Abu Toameh
• November 23, 2016 at 5:00 am
- It now appears
that the Obama Administration's failed policies in the Middle East
have increased the Iranians' appetite, such that they are convinced
that they can expand their influence to the Palestinians as well.
- Iran has one
goal only: to eliminate the "Zionist entity" and undermine
moderate and progressive Arabs and Muslims.
- "Relations
between Iran and Hamas are currently undergoing revitalization, and
are moving in the right direction," announced Osama Hamdan, a
senior Hamas official. He went on to explain that "moving in
the right direction" means that Iran would "continue to
support the resistance" against Israel.
- Hamas and Iran
have no meaningful ideological or strategic differences. Both share
a common desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic
empire. Iran expects results: Hamas is to use the financial and
military support to resume attacks on Israel and "liberate all
of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea."
- As far as Iran
is concerned, there is nothing better than having two proxy terror
organizations on Israel's borders -- Hezbollah in the north and
Hamas in the south.
- The biggest
losers, once again, will be President Mahmoud Abbas and his
Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
- Israel's
presence in the West Bank has thus far thwarted Iran's repeated
attempts to establish bases of power there.
Iran used to funnel money to Hamas because the
terrorist group shares Iran's desire to destroy Israel and replace it
with an Islamic empire. Relations between Iran and Hamas foundered a few
years back, when Hamas leaders refused to support the Iranian-backed
Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad. Pictured above: Hamas leader Khaled
Mashaal (left) confers with Iranian "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei,
in 2010. (Image source: Office of the Supreme Leader)
The Iranians and Hamas are exploiting the final days of the Obama
Administration to restore their relations and pave the way for Tehran to
step up its meddling in the internal affairs of the Palestinians in particular
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general.
Emboldened by the nuclear deal framework with the world powers, Iran
has already taken the liberty of interfering in the internal affairs of
other Arabs, particularly the Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenites and
some Gulf countries.
It now appears that the Obama Administration's failed policies in
the Middle East have increased the Iranians' appetite, such that they are
convinced that they can expand their influence to the Palestinians as
well.
by Salim Mansur
• November 23, 2016 at 4:30 am
- It was over the
ruins of these sacred Jewish sites, left behind by the Romans, that
Arab conquerors of Jerusalem in the seventh century built two
mosques, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa, to lay claim on the City
of David for Islam.
- There can be no
dispute about Jewish links with Jerusalem, and Jewish rights to
their sacred sites that long pre-date the arrival of Arabs bearing
Islam to the City of David. This latest effort by the UNESCO,
however to deny the Jewish nature of Jerusalem is much more than a
scandal; it is a Stalinist measure to airbrush history by an
organization which, according to its own charter, is supposed to be
devoted without prejudice to the preservation of historical records.
- There is
precedent for such a resolution to nullify the recent UNESCO
resolution on Jerusalem. In December 1991, the UN General Assembly
voted to repeal the UN resolution passed in 1975 that declared,
"Zionism is a form of racism."
- Muslim denial
of the Jewish links to the City of David and their ancestral rights
over Judea and Samaria, or Palestine, is ironically contrary to the
Word of God in their own sacred scripture.
- Their claim on
Jerusalem, or the holy land, on the basis of Islam is simply not
found in the Quran. On the contrary, the Quran is explicit in
addressing Jews as "children of Israel" and speaking of
them, as in "Remember those blessings of Mine with which I
graced you, and how I favoured you above all other people."
(2:47)
In Rome, any present-day tourist can behold, on the
ancient Arch of Titus, the engraved likeness of the Jewish candelabra (Menorah),
which the Romans brought back from Jerusalem after ransacking the Jewish
Temple. Pictured: Photo of a panel copy from the Arch of Titus, displayed
in the Beth Hatefutsoth museum in Israel. (Image source: Wikimedia
Commons/Sodabottle)
A resolution on "Occupied Palestine" this past October, at
the 200th session of the Executive Board of the UNESCO (United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in Paris, France, was
orchestrated by Arab and Muslim member-states as another attempt to
diminish Jewish links with Jerusalem. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee,
despite Israel's opposition, adopted the resolution by a vote of ten
countries in favour, two opposed, and eight abstentions.
In 1975, UNESCO was already an official supporter of the UN
declaration that "Zionism equals racism." So it should come as
no surprise that in October 2016, a UNESCO resolution pointedly ignored
the Biblical Jewish connection to two of the faith's holiest sites in
Jerusalem: the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, which pre-date Islam by
hundreds of years.
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