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KRISTALLNACHT ANNIVERSARY 2014: KHAMENEI’S THREAT OF “ANNIHILATION OF ISRAEL” IS OMINOUS CALL FOR ANTISEMITIC VIOLENCE & A SECOND KRISTALLNACHT

We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 

 

Contents:

 

As We Go To Press: AMIDST RISING TEMPO OF VIOLENCE, YOUNG WOMAN KILLED IN WEST BANK STABBING ATTACK (Jerusalem) —A woman was killed and two people were injured in a stabbing attack at the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut Monday afternoon, in the second terrorist attack of its kind in a day…The victim, 26-year-old Dalia Lemkus from Tekoa, was stabbed in her neck, and declared dead at the site. The stabber was shot by a guard on duty at the site, police said. Initial reports indicated he was killed, but later reports dispelled that claim. A 26-year-old man suffered light-moderate injuries, and a man in his 50s was lightly hurt in the incident. Their names were not released. The terrorist was identified as Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun from Hebron. Hashalmoun, affiliated with Islamic Jihad, spent four and a half years in Israeli custody for throwing Molotov cocktails, and was released five years ago. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to convene an emergency security meeting Monday night following the day’s attacks…The attack came hours after a soldier was stabbed in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian man in what officials said was a terror attack. The soldier was in critical condition Monday afternoon. (Times of Israel, Nov. 10, 2014)

 

Ditching Israel, Embracing Iran: Lee Smith, Weekly Standard, Nov. 9, 2014 — Last week, the Obama White House finally clarified its Middle East policy. It’s détente with Iran and a cold war with Israel.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls for Annihilation of Israel on Eve of Nuclear Talks: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, JCPA, Nov. 9, 2014 — On the eve of the opening of the nuclear talks in Oman on November 9, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei repeated his call to annihilate Israel and suggested a nine – point plan on how to confront Israel and urged Muslims to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Report: Iran Nuclear Program More Advanced than Previously Believed: Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, Nov. 7, 2014— Iran’s illicit nuclear program could be more advanced than previously believed, according to new information released Friday by an Iranian dissident group

Mitt Romney Hits President Obama on Iran Letter: Lucy McCalmont, Politico, Nov. 7, 2014— Mitt Romney slammed President Barack Obama on Friday for reaching out to Iran in the fight against Islamic State militants, calling the president’s recent letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “astonishing” and “an enormous error.”

Kristallnacht’s Lessons for Today: Abraham H. Foxman, JTA, Nov. 7, 2014 — Each year on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we recall the opening salvo of the violent assault on Jews that foreshadowed the Holocaust and ask ourselves what should have been done at that moment.

 

On Topic Links

 

Kristallnacht 2014 in Berlin: Petra Marquardt-Bigman, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 11, 2014

Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State: Jay Solomon & Carol E. Lee, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 7, 2014

The Midterms Change the Iran Equation: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Nov. 5, 2014

North Korea’s Lessons for Iran Diplomacy: Michael Rubin, Commentary, Nov. 3, 2014

                                                                            

                             

DITCHING ISRAEL, EMBRACING IRAN                                                              

Lee Smith                                                                                                                     

Weekly Standard, Nov. 9, 2014

         

Last week, the Obama White House finally clarified its Middle East policy. It’s détente with Iran and a cold war with Israel. To the administration, Israel isn’t worth the trouble its prime minister causes. As one anonymous Obama official put it to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, what good is Benjamin Netanyahu if he won’t make peace with the Palestinians? Bibi doesn’t have the nerve of Begin, Rabin, or Sharon, said the unnamed source. The current leader of this longstanding U.S. ally, he added, is “a chickens—t.” It’s hardly surprising that the Obama White House is crudely badmouthing Netanyahu; it has tried to undercut him from the beginning. But this isn’t just about the administration’s petulance and pettiness. There seems to be a strategic purpose to heckling Israel’s prime minister. With a possible deal over Iran’s nuclear weapons program in sight, the White House wants to weaken Netanyahu’s ability to challenge an Iran agreement.

 

Another unnamed Obama official told Goldberg that Netanyahu is all bluster when it comes to the Islamic Republic. The Israeli leader calls the clerical regime’s nuclear weapons program an existential threat, but he’s done nothing about it. And now, said the official, “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.” In other words, the White House is openly boasting that it bought the Iranians enough time to get across the finish line. Obama has insisted for five years that his policy is to prevent a nuclear Iran from emerging. In reality, his policy all along was to deter Israel from striking Iranian nuclear facilities. The way Obama sees it, an Iranian bomb may not be desirable, but it’s clearly preferable to an Israeli attack. Not only would an Israeli strike unleash a wave of Iranian terror throughout the region—and perhaps across Europe and the United States as well—it would also alienate what the White House sees as a potential partner.

 

The negotiations with Iran were only the most obvious part of the administration’s policy of pressuring Israel. The White House knew the Israelis would have difficulty striking Iranian nuclear facilities so long as there was a chance of a deal. Jerusalem couldn’t risk making itself the enemy of peace and an international pariah. All Netanyahu could do was warn against the bad deal Obama was intent on making. The White House used plenty of other tools to pressure Jerusalem. For instance, leaks. Virtually every time Israel struck an Iranian arms depot in Syria or a convoy destined for Hezbollah, an administration official leaked it to the press. The White House understood that publicizing these strikes would embarrass Bashar al-Assad or Hassan Nasrallah and thereby push them to retaliate against Israel. That was the point of the leaks: to keep Israel tentative and afraid of taking matters into its own hands. Another instrument of pressure was military and security cooperation between Israel and the White House—the strongest and closest the two countries have ever enjoyed, say Obama advocates. It allowed administration officials to keep even closer watch on what the Israelis were up to, while trying to make Jerusalem ever more dependent on the administration for its own security.

 

Don’t worry, Obama told Israel: I’ve got your back. I don’t bluff. The Iranians won’t get a bomb. And besides, the real problem in the region, the White House said time and again, is Israeli settlements. It’s the lack of progress between Jerusalem and Ramallah that destabilizes the region. As John Kerry said recently, the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process is what gave rise to the Islamic State. From the White House’s perspective, then, Israel is the source of regional instability. Iran, on the other hand, is a force for stability. It is a rational actor, Obama has explained, pursuing its own interests. The White House, moreover, shares some of those interests—like rolling back the Islamic State.  The fact that Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani now calls the shots in four Arab capitals—Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Sanaa—makes him the Middle East’s indispensable man. Compared with the one-stop shopping Obama can do in Tehran to solve his Middle East problems, what can Israel offer? The Obama administration’s Middle East policy, finally clarified last week, is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Islamic Republic. The question is whether the White House has also misunderstood the character of a man, the prime minister of Israel, whose courage they mock.

                                                                       

 

Contents               

                                                                       

                                                   

IRAN’S SUPREME LEADER CALLS FOR

ANNIHILATION OF ISRAEL ON EVE OF NUCLEAR TALKS                      

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall                                                                                        

JCPA, Nov. 9, 2014

 

On the eve of the opening of the nuclear talks in Oman on November 9, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei repeated his call to annihilate Israel and suggested a nine – point plan on how to confront Israel and urged Muslims to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank. Khamenei also re-twitted Iran’s 11 red lines in the nuclear talks. “We believe that the #WestBank should be armed just like #Gaza. It requires a hand of power. Those who care for the destiny of #Palestine, if there is anything that they can do, it’s this one; people there should be armed. The only thing that can reduce the pains and sorrows of the Palestinians is that they possess a hand of power and manifest their power; otherwise with obedient, submissive and compromising manner, nothing will be done to the benefit of the Palestinians and the barbarism of this violent, wicked and wolflike entity will not be reduced at all…”

 

The Supreme Leader’s remarks came on the heels of the media storm surrounding the revelation of U.S. President Barak Obama’s letter (the fourth since 2009) to Iran’s Supreme Leader. According to published reports, the letter tied the nuclear agreement to the battle against ISIS and the future of US-Iran relations.  The letter coincided with the publication of yet another report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on November 7 that states, “Iran has not provided any explanation that enables the agency (IAEA) to clarify the outstanding practical measures, nor has it proposed any new practical measures in the next step of the Framework for Cooperation.”  According to Reuters, “The IAEA was referring to two steps that Iran had agreed to carry out by late August, by providing information concerning allegations of explosives tests and other activity that could be used to develop nuclear bombs.”

 

The Supreme Leader’s statements demonstrate Iran’s growing self-confidence, fed by the recent developments in the region (Shi’ite opposition taking control of Yemen, Assad’s survival, greater hold over Iraq, escalation of the situation in Jerusalem) and the mixed messages from Washington and the West tying the conclusion of a nuclear agreement to the general normalization of relations with Iran and to joint efforts to combat the Islamic State. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, former EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are participating in the Nuclear Summit in Oman, which is supposed to be a last ditch effort to resolve the disputed issues before the last round of negotiations convenes in Vienna on November 18, just as the extension granted to reach an overall agreement expires on November 24.

 

Iran is continuing down the same deferral path, even in the period the West perceives as the “money time” on the nuclear questions, and during what appears to be an American effort to normalize relations with Iran given the fight against the “common enemy” of ISIS.  Iran continues to be uncompromising in its position on Israel and the Palestinians, meaning: no political arrangement, believing the solution is to involve all Arabs in the struggle until Israel is annihilated….                   

[To Read the Full Article, With Footnotes & Khamenei’s “9 Key Questions About Elimination of Israel, Click the Following Link—Ed.]      

                                                                       

Contents                                                        

                              

             

                            

REPORT: IRAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM MORE

ADVANCED THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED                                   

Adam Kredo                  

Washington Free Beacon, Nov. 7, 2014

 

Iran’s illicit nuclear program could be more advanced than previously believed, according to new information released Friday by an Iranian dissident group that raises new questions about what Tehran has been hiding from nuclear inspectors. Iran is said to have built and still be in possession of two explosive chambers that have allowed the regime to conduct advanced testing of nuclear weapons, according to new information published by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian opposition group that has exposed Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities in the past.

 

While the existence of one explosive chamber has been known for some time, the NCRI claims a second device could be hidden at Iran’s Parchin military complex, or at another site somewhere in Iran. The claims raise new questions about the status and extent of Iran’s nuclear progress as negotiations between Tehran and the West approach their Nov. 24 deadline. New information about the purported explosive chambers—as well as Iran’s elaborate network of front companies and organizations meant to obfuscate this nuclear work—was released on the same day that the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog accused Iran of failing to address key questions about it’s nuclear program. “Today’s information uncovers a simple truth: The clerical regime is ceaselessly and secretly forging ahead with the military dimensions of its nuclear program and has no intention whatsoever of abandoning that program,” Soona Samsami, the NCRI’s U.S. representative, told reporters at a press briefing.

 

The two explosive chambers are said to have been built in the early 2000s by Iran’s AzarAb Industries, which is affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the NCRI, which said it obtained this information from Iranian regime sources between 2012 and October 2014. Construction of these chambers, which could have helped Iran make key advances on the nuclear front, was undertaken as part “of a highly classified special project” known to only the highest-level Iranian officials, according to the NCRI. “The chambers were to be used for special tests, particularly for high explosive impact as part of the nuclear weapons program of Iran,” the NCRI claimed. The organization says that it has shared this new information with the U.S. government as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). One of the two chambers is said to have been installed at the Parchin complex, the site of a recent explosion that killed two. It is unclear where the second purported chamber currently resides, the NCRI said.

 

“This is the question that the IAEA” should immediately take up and pursue, said NCRI’s Alireza Jafarzadeh, who conducted a presentation for reporters about the new information. “We don’t know where the other chamber is,” Jafarzadeh said. “It could be at another site where they’re doing similar activities. It could even be in Parchin and we’re not aware of it. We know for sure that there were two such chambers built.” “There’s no benign use behind the second chamber,” he said. “The question is where is it and what are they doing with it now?” “The concern anyone would have and the IAEA should have is, ‘What happened to that second chamber?’” he said. “This is something the IAEA should immediately ask Iran to clarify.” In addition to the claims of a second explosive chamber, the NCRI published the names of several organizations and individuals that it says are responsible for obfuscating Iran’s ongoing nuclear work through an elaborate network of front companies…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]

 

                                                                       

 

Contents                                                   

                                   

                      

MITT ROMNEY HITS PRESIDENT OBAMA ON IRAN LETTER                      

Lucy McCalmont                                                                                                

Politico, Nov. 7, 2014

 

Mitt Romney slammed President Barack Obama on Friday for reaching out to Iran in the fight against Islamic State militants, calling the president’s recent letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “astonishing” and “an enormous error.” “I was frankly stunned that the president of the United States would write a letter of that nature and in effect, legitimize a nation and a leadership which is violating international norms and is threatening the world,” the 2012 Republican presidential candidate told the audience of the Israeli American Council’s inaugural national conference at the Washington Hilton. “To suggest that we might somehow work together is something which is so far beyond the pale, I was speechless as I heard about it,” Romney said. “I simply can’t understand it.”

 

Romney’s comments follow news that Obama wrote a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader as the deadline for a nuclear deal at the end of month draws closer, the Associate Press reported Thursday. However, while reports said the letter emphasized a shared interest in defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the administration would not confirm the letter and denied efforts of military cooperation with Iran. “The United States will not cooperate militarily with Iran in that effort,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “We won’t share intelligence with them.” Romney said the United States should treat Iran as it did South Africa, in which the country was considered a “pariah” and their leaders shunned from international bodies.

 

The former Massachusetts governor was warmly welcomed by the audience of more than 700 and received a standing ovation before and after his remarks. He called Obama’s correspondence with the Iranian leader “an enormous error” and said that Iran’s leadership, for its support and armament of the Assad regime in Syria, “is in part responsible, to a degree, for the elevation of ISIS, for the creation of ISIS.” “This is the fourth time the president has reached out an open hand to Iran,” Romney said. “It continues to diminish himself and America, these acts of his that unfortunately lead bad people to assume that American can be pushed around and I find it very unfortunate.” Romney’s criticism echoes that of others on the right including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, who called the letter “really concerning” and said it does not help America’s relationships with its allies in the region.

 

                                                           

 

Contents                           

                                                                    

                                                            

KRISTALLNACHT’S LESSONS FOR TODAY                                             

Abraham H. Foxman                                                                                                  

JTA, Nov. 7, 2014 

 

Each year on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we recall the opening salvo of the violent assault on Jews that foreshadowed the Holocaust and ask ourselves what should have been done at that moment. In thinking about Kristallnacht, we should also consider the outpouring of violence against Jewish communities in Europe this summer and draw the right lessons for today. It is rightly said that the Holocaust began not with gas chambers but with words. The significance of Kristallnacht in the history of the Holocaust is the passage from anti-Jewish legislation and anti-Semitic rhetoric to violence against Jews. And therein lies the lesson for today. To be clear, in today’s democratic Europe, there is no risk of a new Holocaust. Invoking such a possibility obscures rather than illuminates the serious situation of European Jewry. Comparisons to Kristallnacht, however, are apt.

 

This summer in France, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, we saw anti-Semitic rhetoric followed by assaults on Jews and attacks on synagogues, Jewish-owned shops and other Jewish institutions. The differences with Kristallnacht are stark and significant, but the similarities cannot be ignored. Not on this anniversary — not at a time of great insecurity among Jewish communities in Europe. Two synagogues in Paris were attacked during anti-Israel demonstrations this summer. In one case, 200 Jews were trapped inside while a mob armed with bats tried to invade the synagogue. Roger Cukierman, the head of the French Jewish community, made the connection explicit: “We’ve never seen anything like that. It resembled Kristallnacht in 1938 in Germany.” And in Germany, where people chanted “Jews to the gas” at anti-Israel rallies and where Molotov cocktails were thrown at synagogues, Dieter Graumann, the president of the Central Council of Jews of Germany said, “These are the worst times since the Nazi era.” The British Jewish community’s security agency, CST, said that July had the highest number of reported anti-Semitic incidents in any one month since it began keeping records three decades ago. The highly esteemed former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, hardly an alarmist, wrote at Yom Kippur that the Jewish community suffers “a degree of apprehension I have not known in my lifetime. Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe within living memory of the Holocaust.”

 

European Jews were terrorized by Kristallnacht, and among elements of society on the continent today they are being terrorized again by anti-Semitic hatred especially, but not only, linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The terror is not from one night but from an accumulation of incidents over the past years. During the Israeli military’s Operation Protective Edge this summer, and during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, ADL reported on anti-Semitic incidents and rhetoric around the world related to the Israel-Hamas wars. We saw incitement to violence, demonization of Jews and Israel, blood libels and other anti-Semitic vitriol. Too often these words led to assaults and vandalism. Those attacks have caused vast numbers of European Jews to no longer feel free to live openly as Jews. The European Union’s human rights agency surveyed eight major Jewish communities in Europe in 2012 and found widespread insecurity. One in five Jews had been the victim of an anti-Semitic insult, harassment or assault, and one in three worried about being physically attacked over the next 12 months. Two out of five Jews always or frequently avoided wearing a kippah or Star of David in public.

 

Anti-Semitism never left the continent, but its recent transformation from rhetoric to violence, including murders at a Jewish school in Toulouse and the Jewish museum in Brussels, has caused a sea change in the confidence of Jewish communities across Europe. Most European political leaders have condemned the anti-Semitic incidents in their countries, but the indifference among the public is shocking and dismaying. If the hatred espoused and acted out by the anti-Semites and the apathy of European citizens overtake the efforts of the well-intentioned political leaders, European Jewish communities will have a dim future: communal self-segregation, individual withdrawal from Jewish communal life or emigration. “Never again” stands. There will not be another Holocaust. But Kristallnacht is another story. Let us learn its lessons, not to avoid another Holocaust but to avoid a different disaster — the slow terrorization of Europe’s Jews into permanent fear, faced with the awful choice of abandoning their identity or fleeing.

 

Contents                                               

 

On Topic

 

Kristallnacht 2014 in Berlin: Petra Marquardt-Bigman, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 11, 2014—This weekend, Berlin is mainly in the news because the city marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State: Jay Solomon & Carol E. Lee, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 7, 2014 —President Barack Obama secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence.

The Midterms Change the Iran Equation: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Nov. 5, 2014— News reports tell us: “The Obama administration has agreed to allow Iran to operate 6,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium, up from a proposed ceiling of 4,000 reported two weeks ago, as part of negotiations for a nuclear deal, according to a website approved by the Iranian government.

North Korea’s Lessons for Iran Diplomacy: Michael Rubin, Commentary, Nov. 3, 2014—It has now been more than 20 years since the Clinton administration signed its supposed breakthrough nuclear agreement with North Korea.

 

 

               

 

 

 

                      

                

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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