NZ Friends of Israel Association Inc
Fighting racial intolerance in New Zealand and beyond
At the funeral of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, one of the few non-family members to deliver a eulogy was the Hamas chairman Ismail Haniyeh—a reminder that the elite Quds Force, which Suleimani commanded for over two decades, invested much in coordinating terrorist attacks against Israel. And not only against Israel, writes Yehudit Barsky, but against Jews wherever they might be found
BERLIN, Germany – Grasping the dais for support, 95-year-old Holocaust survivor Josef Konigsberg broke into tears. He is the only living person in Germany able to recount firsthand the bravery of Helmut Kleinicke, who was posthumously awarded the designation of Righteous Among the Nations at the Israeli Embassy in Berlin on January 14.
“This is one of the most beautiful days of my life,” Konigsberg said, locking eyes with Kleinicke’s daughter, Juta Scheffzek, who was seated not far from him. “Thank you, thank you.”
Chanting “Death to America” and trampling upon and burning U.S. flags have been part of state-sponsored, anti-American acts in Iran for the past 40 years.
Yet people’s opposition to that mantra and disrespecting the flag of the United States and others has increased in the Islamic republic in recent years — with some daring to publicly question the rationale behind such acts.
Amid the fury in Iran in recent days over the establishment’s mishandling of the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), killing 176 people, students at two universities were seen walking around U.S. flags painted on the ground by officials in public acts of defiance against the clerical establishment and the state propaganda that portrays the United States and Israel as Tehran’s biggest enemies.
Videos of the incident at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University — which has been blacklisted by the United States for its nuclear-research activities — showed a majority of students moving to avoid treading upon painted American and Israeli flags.
US President Donald Trump is not a strategy man. He has made clear he doesn’t like to think too far down the road; he likes to govern by instinct.
In short, he is a tactical leader, a Twitter president. Tactical leaders tend to make mistakes, largely because they cannot see the long-term implications of their decisions.
On Iran, however, President Donald Trump has not made a mistake.
His tactical game has worked, at least for the moment. He has called Iran’s bluff, taken out one of its most valuable leaders and, so far, made the correct calculation that Tehran will not risk a wider war with the United States.
The Pentagon is confirming that Iran has launched “more than a dozen ballistic missiles” at two targets hosting against US military and coalition forces in Iraq.
‘More than a dozen’ ballistic missiles were fired from Iran at two US bases in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. Source: Associated Press
Defense Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman says “It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran.”
He says the attacks “targeted at least two Iraqi military bases” at Ain Assad and Irbil.
Hoffman says the US is “working on initial battle damage assessments.”
Iranian state TV says the attack was in revenge for the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose funeral Tuesday prompted angry calls to avenge his death.
Tens of thousands of people, some covered in Israeli flags and others singing Hebrew songs, poured into Lower Manhattan on Sunday in a show of solidarity for New York’s Jewish community in the wake of a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in the region in the last month.
The most recent attack occurred inside a Hasidic rabbi’s home in a New York City suburb, when a man wielding a machete stabbed at least five people who had gathered for Hanukkah celebrations.
The violence has shaken the Jewish community in the New York area and underscored the startling rise of these types of hate crimes across the country: Anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York, Los Angeles
“We’re not afraid to stand together, to be able to stand against violence and promote nonviolence,” said Leslie Meyers, 44, who attended Sunday’s rally, which was organized by the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, along with dozens of other advocacy and Jewish community groups.
Speaking to the crowd on Sunday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that New York will increase funding for security at religious institutions and will also increase the presence of the state police force and hate crimes task force in vulnerable communities. Mr. Cuomo said he also plans to propose a new state law labeling hate crimes as domestic terrorism.
A U.S. strike on a vehicle near Baghdad airport early Friday morning killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most influential military commander. Soleimani was the leader of the Iranian Quds Force, which had ties to American and Israeli enemies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and was directly responsible for some of the actions against Israel in Hezbollah’s war against the Jewish state in 2006.
Washington has been gripped by talk about what comes next — a real war between the U.S. and Iran? Iranian strikes on Israel? a string reaction of chaos across the Middle East? — but little actual insight as to what may ensue.
Still, there are already signs that one possible outcome is being taken seriously: attacks on domestic targets, including Jewish ones, like the gathering this weekend of what could be thousands of Jews to protest anti-Semitism in New York City. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that he had spoken with top police officials about “immediate steps” the NYPD will take to protect key city locations from “any attempt by Iran or its terrorist allies to retaliate against America.”
Here’s what you need to know about the assassination, and what it means for American Jews and Israel.
As US President Donald Trump has been ramping up sanctions and threats against Iran over the past eight months, Tehran has been operating on the assumption that he would not dare risk an outright war, especially with an election approaching.
The drone strike that ended the life of General Qasem Soleimani, the strategy’s architect and chief enforcer, blew up that calculation, creating a stunning new dilemma for Iran’s leaders as they look for ways to retaliate – without the benefit of their master strategist.
That Iran will retaliate is not in question, analysts say. Not to do so would be a sign of weakness that could jeopardise the enormous influence Iran has gained in the region over the past four decades.
The targeted killing of Soleimani eroded the deterrent that Iran believed it had established with a campaign of attacks against shipping in the Persian Gulf and rocket strikes on bases in Iraq, said Kamel Wazne, a Beirut-based political analyst. From Iran’s point of view it is now imperative to restore that, he said.
“Britain would not be Britain without its Jewish community. And we will stand with you and celebrate with you,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his address.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivered a Hanukkah message amid the rise in anti-Semitism, just weeks after his party won an election against the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has been accused of anti-Semitism.
“I know that recent years have not been easy ones for British Jews,” said Johnson in a video almost two minutes long. “In the media, on the streets and particularly online, anti-Semites have, in alarming numbers, been emboldened to crawl out from under their rocks and begin, once again, to spread their brand of noxious hatred far and wide.”
“Today, as Britain’s Jews seek to drive back the darkness of resurgent anti-Semitism, you have every decent person in this country fighting by your side,” he added. “Because Britain would not be Britain without its Jewish community. And we will stand with you and celebrate with you—at Hanukkah, and all year round.”
A table provided by Israel’s Interior Ministry shows that thousands of Jews secretly left countries hostile to Israel
Nearly 2,500 Jews have secretly left countries hostile to Israel in recent years, almost all of them with Muslim majorities, information released this week by the Interior Ministry shows.
These include states like Morocco and Tunisia – but also Cuba. Turkey is the only one that has diplomatic relations with Israel, though these have deteriorated dramatically in recent years.
The figures were included in a table prepared by the Interior Ministry’s Population Registry. It broke down the number of immigrants arriving in Israel since 2012 eligible to make aliyah: those who are recognized as Jewish by the state and those who are not. The figures were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Hiddush, an organization that advocates for religious freedom in Israel.
