Iran – Page 4

Vancouver joins rallies

The Feb. 18 silent march in honor of Alberto Nisman began on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Approximately 75 members of the local Argentine community and their friends and supporters gathered at the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Feb. 18 in memory of Argentina’s federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

photo - Jewish community member Gabriel Patrich (left) was one of the Vancouver march organizers — Jewish community member Gabriel Patrich (left) was one of the Vancouver march organizers. *(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)*

A silent march, there were no speeches, but participants carried signs. They would like the government of Argentina to conduct a full investigation of the suspicious death of the 51-year-old Jewish lawyer who was found dead on Jan. 18 at his home in Buenos Aires. Nisman was investigating alleged Iranian involvement in the terror attack on the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) Jewish community centre in 1994, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds of others. He was found dead the day before he was to appear before a congressional hearing to air his contention that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, among others, arranged a deal with Iran to cover up its involvement in the bombing in exchange for economic benefits.

Jewish community member Gabriel Patrich, one of the organizers of the march in Vancouver, was satisfied with the local support. “The main rally in Argentina drew [up to] half a million people, and there were big events in Miami, Australia, Spain, France and Israel. We are proud to take our part and demand a full investigation of Nisman’s murder and the truth he was about to bring to light.”

In addition to the call for justice, Patrich told the Independent, “we were also there … to honor a courageous man, who knew that his life was in danger – he said that his investigations might cost him his life.”

Reports are that some 400,000 people attended the Buenos Aires march alone. On her website, Kirchner criticized that event as being politically motivated and, “not at all an act of homage to the tragically deceased, with the obvious exception of their immediate families.” She said its one merit was that it showed “that in Argentina, your country, you can disagree, you can insult the government and the president, and can move freely. It was not always so, so do not speak of dictatorship.”

For those interested in more about the AMIA bombing, Argentine author Gustavo Perednik has written a “lightly veiled” fictional account based on documents provided him by Nisman. It has been translated into English – To Kill Without a Trace: A Prequel to 9/11, the 1994 Terrorist Bombing in Buenos Aires and the Iranian Connection (Mantua Books Ltd.) – and Perednik will be in Vancouver for the book’s launch at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library on March 23, at 7 p.m. Also speaking will be Dr. Elena T. Feder, who wrote the introduction to the English translation. Anticipating a full house, the library requires an RSVP to 604-257-5111, ext. 248, or [email protected] by March 19.

Shahar Ben Halevi is a writer and filmmaker living in Vancouver.

Clues to the end game

On Jan. 28, Israeli soldiers in the northern Mount Dov region are pictured after an Israel Defence Forces patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah terrorist operatives. The Hezbollah attack killed two Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. (photo by Basal Awidat/Flash90)

Who was behind the Jan. 28 attack on northern Israel that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others? The easy answer is the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for the attack. But the wider view suggests Hezbollah’s state sponsor: Iran.

Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel’s International Institute for Counterterrorism, said that Hezbollah’s actions represent “an attempt to change the strategic rules of the game.” According to Karmon, Iran and Hezbollah have been working for months to take advantage of instability in Syria in order to create a forward military position against

Israel in Syria’s Quneitra region, close to the triple Syria-Lebanon-Israel border.

“This is actually an Iranian project,” Karmon told this reporter. “They have around 1,500 people on the ground in Syria, most of whom are counseling or training Syrian militias, and they have Hezbollah providing military support.”

On Jan. 28, Hezbollah fired five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy approximately 2.5 miles inside Israel’s border with Lebanon. A day earlier, less sophisticated mortars were fired from southern Syria into Israeli territory, with no damage reported.

In response to the Jan. 28 attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever is behind today’s attack will pay the full price.” Netanyahu – like Karmon – stressed that the attack points back to Iran, adding, “with the assistance of Hezbollah, Iran has been for some time trying to open another front against Israel on the Golan Heights. We are acting with force and determination against these attempts.”

“Because of the weakness of the Syrian regime, the Iranians are now permitted to have a foothold directly on Israel’s border, which until now they didn’t have,” Karmon explained.

Israel is widely believed to be responsible for a Jan. 18 airstrike against that foothold in southern Syria, which killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranians, including notorious Hezbollah commander Jihad Mughniyeh and Iranian general Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.

Karmon believes the airstrike “was a message sent by Israel” to forewarn Iran and Hezbollah not to continue their military efforts in Syrian territory.

The retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah following the deadly airstrike were widely expected. That the more sophisticated Kornet anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon and not Syria provides a strong indication that the Syrian position is not as well-stocked with weaponry as southern Lebanon – a zone that was supposed to remain completely demilitarized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which arranged for the cessation of hostilities following the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

“Resolution 1701 calls for complete disarmament in southern Lebanon and, yet, Hezbollah, instead of disarming, they have amassed some 80,000-90,000 missiles,” Karmon said.

“Now, they want to achieve the same equation in southern Syria. If Israel does not stop them, and there are two to three years with relative quiet, with only occasional penetrations of our border and sometimes mortar fire and so on, a kind of ‘war of attrition,’ then all of a sudden we will find ourselves staring at 5,000-10,000 missiles,” he said.

Bibi, Obama: Grow up

Iran’s propaganda machine Press TV on Monday reported that U.S. President Barack Obama had “unfriended” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Facebook.

Predictably, it turned out the report was a hoax. Iran’s humorless propagandists reported as fact a joke from an Israeli satire site. And yet, despite the big journalistic oops (as if they care), the Iranian voice box made a legitimate point. The two men, ostensibly leading figures in world diplomacy, have in recent weeks been behaving like sulky teenagers.

Netanyahu unwisely accepted an invitation from the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, to address Congress, specifically to pressure the Americans to increase sanctions on Iran. The fact that this visit would take place at the height of the Israeli election campaign has been criticized by some, with others noting that former president Bill Clinton hosted Shimon Peres during an election cycle. The fact that the invitation came from the speaker of the house, rather than from the president, whose responsibilities include being the country’s foremost voice on foreign affairs – and its head of state and commander in chief – is a significant protocol breech, but a deliberate one.

We are becoming almost inured to successive hyperbolic assertions that bilateral relations between the United States and Israel are at their lowest ebb. But this time, it seems true, although a result of such foolishness that it seems almost comical, as well as tragic. These two men, whose seeming dislike for each other they are not even mature enough to hide or deny, are submerging the best interests of the relationship, shootings spitballs at each another across the divide.

Critics of Obama’s motivations allege that he does not pass the “kishkes” question; that his commitment to Israel’s security, such as it may be, is based a political imperatives or strategic demands, rather than a personal commitment to the idea of the Jewish state. To many others, these criticisms don’t hold water.

But what of Netanyahu? What on earth is he thinking, deliberately provoking his country’s most important international ally by inserting himself squarely into a constitutional tight spot, pitting the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government against each other? Especially when Israel’s own intelligence service, the Mossad, has made clear that it is in Israel’s interest to allow negotiations with Iran to proceed, rather than to undermine them with additional immediate sanctions.

We are driven to ask, does Netanyahu know something we don’t? Does he know something the Mossad does not? Or is he driven merely by the hawkish demands of his domestic political constituency?

And why does he think that picking a fight – a very public, nasty and juvenile fight – with the president who was reelected with the support of 70 percent of American Jewish voters, would be a wise strategic or ideological move?

Greater minds can dissect the realpolitik motivations of these two strong figures. Wise figures in the think tanks of Washington and Tel Aviv are dissecting the nuance and nonsense the two leaders have displayed recently.

From where we sit, however, their behavior simply looks like they are putting their immature dislike for each other as individuals ahead of the interests of their countries. And, there is Speaker Boehner, ready to take political advantage.

Barrels of ink are being spilled this week on this topic, with the best minds of our generation advising both these men how to proceed. Our advice is simple, but it should be said: Just grow up.

Misdirecting attention

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a letter to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei requesting Iran’s support in the battle against ISIS. At a time when Israel’s relationship with the American administration is strained, the letter (which was apparently sent back in October and whose existence was recently reported by the Wall Street Journal) has sparked a great deal of reaction.

Stopping the Islamic State is and should be a global priority, but the softening of attitudes toward Iran’s regime is a concern. While there appears to be some progress in talks on Iran’s nuclear program – negotiations that are rapidly approaching a Nov. 24 deadline for an agreement – the hatred directed at Israel is as vibrant as ever. Just days ago, Khamenei tweeted an infographic titled “9 Key Questions About Elimination of Israel.”

The graphic design is better than the English grammar, but the message is unmistakable. No less than ever – and regardless of what we may read suggesting schisms in the highest reaches of the regime – the top leader is as committed as he ever was to the annihilation of Israel.

While insisting that, “of course, the elimination of Israel does not mean the massacre of Jewish people in the region,” the emphatic message is, put mildly, unwelcoming. Still, the world seems convinced that it’s a bluff. To see events at the United Nations, one would think it was Israel that was threatening to obliterate another member-state. Commentators dismiss destructive rhetoric like Khamenei’s as propaganda for domestic consumption, but most Jews, and anyone with a sense of history, take seriously threats like this at any time, but particularly in the week that we commemorate both the 76th anniversary of Kristallnacht and Remembrance Day.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insists any Iran overture is unrelated to the broader issues of the Middle East, as if the interconnected web of intrigues, hatreds and alliances could be unraveled from one another. And then, as if there are not enough issues in the world with which to be concerned, European states are lining up to recognize the “state of Palestine.” These legally meaningless but symbolic votes by Britain and Sweden, with more legislatures intending to follow suit, are meant to force negotiations toward a two-state solution, with an underlying assumption that Israel is to blame for the lack of progress. All the incitement to violence by Palestinian leaders and the recent upsurge in vehicular murders and stabbings of Israelis are blamed on the Israelis themselves, who must somehow deserve what they get.

Often, commentators, including Kerry recently, state that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the lynchpin to resolving the broader conflict in the region. By obsessing about Israel, the UN, European powers and others are wasting their energies on a sideshow while the feature presentations get short shrift.