Bad Translations

I found a nice 2006 article from Slate describing Iranian threats to destroy Israel and a prominent, oft-quoted scholar who ignores this. This article is definitely worth sharing:

http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/

The Saudi Arabia-J Street Connection

The Saudi Arabia-J Street Connection from The Cutting Edge. A truly well-researched, informative read:

http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11863&pageid=44&pagename=Slices

Happy New Year! (Whoops)

Only in Iran could this happen. The Iranian Soccer Federation sends out New Year greetings to all of the soccer federations around the world except Israel. This year, they accidentally sent one to Israel....and one of the Iranian officials resigned due to the error. It is so sad that even a simple greeting is so controversial in Iran.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/03/iran.soccer.israel/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Incidentally, the Israeli soccer officials did wish Iran a good New Year after receiving the accidental letter. And no one had to resign.

Arab Opinions on Iran

Iran has clearly been an enemy to it's neighboring countries, even if Israel is taken out of the discussion. Iran has funded terrorists in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen. The Yemeni terrorists have waged war against the Saudi Arabians. Iran has even been kicked out of Morocco for violating religious laws. Now, even a survey of Arabs show that Arabs consider Iran an even greater danger than Israel. The following article gives more details on the survey:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135120

Dallas Star-Telegram

The Dallas Star-Telegram accepted a letter to the editor that I wrote regarding the Fort Hood shootings. My letter was published on 11/11/09. Here is a copy of my letter:

In regard to the Saturday editorial, "Fort Hood shows there is no 'Army of One,’ " there was one particular statement that seemed quite of out place. The editorial said, "But Hasan’s personal faith might have had nothing to do with his actions."

This is hard to believe when witnesses reported that he shouted "Allahu akbar," an Arabic phrase meaning "God is great," while he allegedly went on his shooting rampage. Though there may be many factors that played a role in Hasan’s brutal behavior, such as his desire to avoid overseas deployment, the fact that he used an Islamic religious phrase while allegedly killing his fellow soldiers shows that his personal faith certainly played a role in his actions. The only question is the magnitude of the role that Hasan’s faith had in his alleged murderous rampage relative to other factors that may have motivated

Thank you to the Dallas Star-Telegram for accepting my letter!

How Much For That University?

Would you be surprised to find out that American universities, including an Ivy Leage College, have taken money from an Iranian government front organization? Would you be shocked to find out that these same universities have hired anti-Israel, pro-Iranian professors? Would you be annoyed to find out that an Ivy League college took a large sum of money from the front organization to allow the President of Iran to speak at their college? If any of this is of interest to you, then you must read this investigative article from the New York Post:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/columbia_rutgers_on_spy_group_gift_JOTKcEIJ5qgzRWPVeBxxNN

Christian Science Monitor

I have had a few letters to the editor accepted this year at the Christian Science Monitor. Here are copies of the accepted letters:

From 4/1/09
Hamas is not interested in peace In regard to the March 30 Opinion piece, "What it means to talk with Hamas": In this commentary, author Ben White misses a number of critical points about Hamas.First, he ignores the fact that Hamas has repeatedly, publicly, and emphatically stated that it has no interest in a permanent peace with Israel. Second, although he acknowledges that the Hamas charter is anti-Semitic, he fails to recognize that Hamas regularly uses both their media and the mosques to espouse anti-Semitism. Hamas is not, as Mr. White calls it, "a social and political movement," but rather a violent religious terrorist group that has never expressed any true interest in peace.

From 11/5/09
Regarding Geneive Abdo's opinion essay, "Israel expects negotiations with Iran to fail;" I was left baffled by her claim that "Tehran believes it needs nuclear power to protect itself from a hostile neighborhood."

In reality, it is not Iran that needs to fear its neighborhood but its neighborhood that needs to fear Iran.

For instance, Iran funds the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and has promised to destroy Israel. Iran also funds many of the terrorists in Iraq that are killing Iraqis and disrupting the future of Iraq. In contrast, the last time anyone attacked Iran was in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

Iran enjoys portraying itself as a victim of hostile forces, such as when it levied false claims of tampering against the US and Britain during the recent tainted Iranian election. The reality is that Iran's attempts at regional hegemony show that Iran is the true hostile neighbor of the Middle East.

Thank you to the Christian Science Monitor for accepting my letters!

Francop

Iran has been caught, yet again, shipping weapons to Palestinian terrorists. Many readers of my blog will remember the Karine A affair, when the Israeli navy captured weapons from Iran being illegally shipped to the Palestinian Authority. For those who are not familiar with the Karine A affair, click the link below for more details:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/paship.html

This time, Iran was caught sending weapons to Hezbollah on a ship named Francop. As with the Karine A affair, the Francop's manifest stated that the ship was carrying civilian goods. However, rather than civilian goods, the Francop was caught with weapons such as rockets, missiles and grenades.

Iranian support of Hezbollah is more than just a risk for Israel. Hezbollah has been a violent and destabilizing force in Lebanon. Hezbollah operatives have been charged by Egyptian authorities for planning attacks against Egyptian tourist sites. Hezbollah has also been operating terrorist training camps in Venezuela (just one of the many troubling connections between the religious dictatorship of Iran and the Socialist dictatorship of Venezuela). Iran's support of Hezbollah, though weapons, training and money, show how little Iran is interested in world peace.

Theater of the Absurd

This past Sunday an Iranian terrorist group named Jundallah set off a bomb which killed 42 Iranians. Included in the death toll were several senior members of the Iranianian Revolutionary Guards.

This is certainly not the first time that Jundallah, an Sunni Muslim group which claims that the government discriminates against Sunni Muslims, attacked the Shi'a Muslim Iranian government. What was utterly bizarre was the Iranian government response to the attack. One of the first reactions of the Iranian government was to blame the U.S., Great Britain and Pakistan for the attack, without a single shred of evidence to point to any one these countries as having contributed to the attack. Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari also claimed that Israel was behind the attack, again without any evidence.

It is amazing how Iranian problems are never the fault of the Iranian government. When prices of tomatos went up in Iran, Israel and America were blamed. When the Iranian people were upset at the fraudulent elections in their country, Israel, America and Great Britain were blamed. Now, add Pakistan to the blame for this attack. Never could there be any blame to be found in Iran, at least according to the Iranian government.

On a side note, the President of Iran stated that the terrorists behind the attack were hiding in Pakistan and demanded that Pakistan extradite them to Iran. It is kind of ironic, as Argentina is still waiting for Iran to extradite Iranians accused of terrorism to Argentina So, terrorists can be extradited TO Iran, but not FROM Iran. Perhaps one more key difference has been identified in the psyche of Iran.