WarSclerotic

by Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

JULY 18, 2019 6:52 AM

Iran said on Thursday it had seized a foreign tanker smuggling fuel in the Gulf, and the US military commander in the region said the United States would work “aggressively” to ensure free passage of vessels through the vital waterway.

The United States blames Iran for a series of attacks on shipping in the world’s most important oil artery since mid-May, accusations Tehran rejects but which have raised fears the long-time foes could stumble into war.

It was unclear if the impounded ship was the same vessel Iran towed to safety on Sunday after sending a distress signal. Iranian state television had earlier said it was the same ship but the Revolutionary Guards statement did not confirm that.

The Guards said impounded the ship was smuggling one million liters of fuel in the area of Larak Island in the Gulf and had 12 foreign crew.

Although Iran has yet to name the vessel, shipping industry sources said they believe it to be the MT Riah. Refinitiv data showed that the last signal received from the vessel was on Sunday when it was in the Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian island of Qeshm, heading toward Oman from Larak Island.

The tanker’s registered manager is Prime Tankers in the UAE. That company told Reuters it had sold the tanker to another UAE-based company, Mouj al-Bahar.

An employee at Mouj al-Bahar said that the firm did not own it but had been managing the vessel up to two months ago, and that it was now under the management of a company called KRB Petrochem. Reuters could not reach KRB Petrochem for comment.

Shipping lanes

The Revolutionary Guards said in Thursday’s statement they had seized no other ship in the Gulf, as Western countries expressed concerns over alleged Iranian actions in the region.

Since mid-May, attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz have unsettled crucial shipping lanes that link Middle Eastern oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.

Iran denies involvement but has threatened to respond robustly to US sanctions that have followed President Donald Trump’s abandonment of a 2015 treaty in which Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The Islamic Republic says it will continue to reduce compliance with the accord until it is allowed to resume normal oil sales, and has demanded European parties to the nuclear deal rein in the United States.

Washington, however, says it wants to increase pressure on Iran to renegotiate the accord, discuss its missile program and modify its behavior in the Gulf, where the United States is allied to several Arab states opposed to Iran.

US Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie said the United States was talking to several countries about ensuring freedom of navigation in the Gulf. He was speaking in Riyadh at a news conference with General Prince Fahd bin Turki, commander of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.

The United States has beefed up its military presence and is asking allies to help protect the strategic waters off Iran and Yemen. The US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, says Gulf Arab states have stepped up patrols.

Britain meanwhile urged Iran to ease tensions in the Gulf on Thursday and said it was seeking information about the latest incident.

“But it is vital that we send a very clear message to Iran that we want them to step back from this situation, that we want them to de-escalate, but we have always and we will continue to protect shipping and the free flow of goods in that area,” Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt told a defense conference.

Iran accused Britain of piracy earlier this month after British Royal Marines seized an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar on suspicion it was shipping oil to Iran‘s ally Syria in breach of EU sanctions on that country.

“The Palestinians from Israel are “untermensch” or treated as second class citizens,” Gerry Downing said.

BY ZACHARY KEYSER  JULY 16, 2019 12:50 

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/UK-MP-Quite-openly-we-are-for-the-destruction-of-the-State-of-Israel-595822

British socialist and activist Gerry Downing, who belongs to the Socialist Fight Organization, appeared on an episode of Kalima Horra, a show broadcasted on the pro-Hezbollah Maydeen TV program, hosted by former British Member of Parliament George Galloway explaining that his organization supports the destruction of the State of Israel, according to a Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) report.

“We are for a single state, quite openly, we are for the destruction of the State of Israel,” Downing said in the interview.Downing believes that the State of Israel is unreformable, mainly considering the latest law passed by the Israeli Knesset, the Nation State-Law which we alleges describes Israel as a “State for Jews only.”

“The Palestinians from Israel are “untermensch” or treated as second class citizens,” Downing said.

Downing believes that the actions being carried out by the Israeli government categorize as a racist and genocidal endeavor that can not be reformed no matter the circumstances presented in the years to come.

“There is something like sixty laws that discriminate against [Palestinians], including a law that forbids them to marry the wrong kind of people. In the apartheid regime in Africa, it was called miscegenation, you can’t marry the wrong person or that’s against the law.

“A single state of Palestine from the river to the sea with equal rights for all ethnic minorities. I think that’s the only way to go,” Downing concluded.

Deadly Islamic Attack on Popular Hotel in Somalia, Americans Among the Dead, 26 People Slaughtered, 56 Hurt, Ilhan Omar SILENT

Deadly Islamic Attack on Popular Hotel in Somalia, Americans Among the Dead, 26 People Slaughtered, 56 Hurt, Ilhan Omar SILENT

Jihad terrorists allowed to work at airports in UK

Jihad terrorists allowed to work at airports in UK

Dutch Jewish leader assaulted, stabbed and tortured in his home

Dutch Jewish leader assaulted, stabbed and tortured in his home

Report: ‘Everything required to enrich uranium to weapons grade could be quickly reconstituted’

Full report :

http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/conversion-of-fordow-another-unfulfilled-hope-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal

Adam Kredo – JULY 11, 2019 4:45 PM

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/secret-iranian-nuclear-weapons-facility-still-up-and-running/

Iran never ended critical nuclear weapons work at a controversial underground military bunker that remains operational to this day and able to “enrich uranium to weapons grade” levels. That is according to a new watchdog report that has reignited calls for the Trump administration to close loopholes that have permitted the Islamic Republic to continue its most contested nuclear research.

The new report, issued by the Institute for Science and International Security, confirms suspicions long held by the international community that Iran never dismantled its Fordow research site, as it was required to do under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. The findings have further fueled concerns about Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons, particularly in light of the country’s recent threats to enrich uranium, the key component in a bomb, to levels approaching 20 percent purity.

The latest evidence of Iran’s continued weapons research has reignited a battle between congressional Iran hawks and the Trump administration, which continues to provide Tehran with a series of sanctions waivers permitting it to continue work at Fordow. Hardliners in Congress have called for an immediate end to these waivers in light of Iran’s efforts to blow past restrictions on the amount of highly enriched uranium it stockpiles inside the country.

“The Fordow uranium enrichment facility has never been repurposed, as promised in the JCPOA,” the acronym used to refer to the nuclear deal, according to the latest watchdog report. “Everything required to enrich uranium to weapons grade could be quickly reconstituted in the underground portion of the facility.”

“Fordow is potentially part of Iran’s current threats to progressively go to higher enrichment levels and increase its stocks of enriched uranium, and if conducted there, Fordow’s underground tunnel complex is fortified to withstand aerial bombardment,” the report states. “Fordow now includes semi-indigenous nuclear equipment production and potentially illicit procurement at the newly expanded support area, the former which was not likely intended by the JCPOA, and the latter which is prohibited.”

Secret documents seized from Iran by Israel corroborate evidence that Tehran sought, from at least 2002, to produce weapon-grade uranium to create one to two nuclear weapons per year.

“There is no doubt it could be reconstituted to fulfill that purpose,” the report concluded.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said the latest report on Iran’s work at Fordow should compel the Trump administration to stop issuing waivers, which have permitted continued nuclear work at the site.

“Today’s report once again demonstrates that the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal created enormous danger for Americans and our allies,” Cruz said in a statement. “Fordow is a military bunker the Ayatollahs dug out of the side of a mountain so they could build nuclear bombs.”

“Under the nuclear deal, it was supposed to be converted but it never was. Instead, Iran used the time and the billions they received from the deal to expand the facility, possibly in violation of restrictions in the deal itself,” Cruz said. “The Trump administration should immediately cancel the civil-nuclear waivers it has been issuing, which allow Iran to continue building up Fordow and other nuclear sites.”

A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon the administration will not stand by as Iran marches closer to the nuclear redline.

“The Iranian regime uses its nuclear program to extort the international community and threaten regional security,” the official said, speaking only on background. “Nuclear brinksmanship will not strengthen Iran’s position, but instead lead to further isolation and pressure.”

U.S. officials do not recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium “at any level,” the official said, hinting at possible revocation of the sanctions waivers that have allowed work to continue at Fordow.

“The world’s top sponsor of terrorism can never be allowed to enrich uranium at any level,” the official said. “We will continue to impose maximum pressure on the regime until it abandons its destabilizing behavior, including proliferation-sensitive work.”

“Iran should realize that negotiating leverage will no longer be measured in kilograms of uranium or dollars per barrel, but rather in its willingness to end its destabilizing activities, including by abandoning a path to nuclear weapons,” the official said.

One veteran Republican congressional official who works on Iran issues told the Free Beacon that GOP hawks on Capitol Hill are starting to openly question the Trump administration’s commitment to upholding tough sanctions on Tehran.

“This is becoming clownish. The President already said that new sanctions are coming. Every day there’s a new story about how Iran is violating the deal,” the source said, speaking only on background. “People up here are starting to ask who inside the administration is holding up the response.”

Meanwhile, international nuclear inspectors on Thursday confirmed that Iran has been illicitly housing radioactive materials. This is the same facility that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed last year as a key source for Iran’s nuclear buildup.

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated since the downing of an American drone, Iranian leaders have vowed to continue openly breaching nuclear enrichment restrictions.

“Enhancing nuclear enrichment levels to 20 percent could well be the next move by Iran in case Europe failed to provide Tehran with the promised merits under the nuclear deal,” a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization confirmedto the country’s state-controlled media.

“The level of Iran’s [uranium] enrichment has exceeded 3.67 percent and at present the purity level of the produced materials is nearly 4.5 percent,” the official was quoted as saying.

Iran is pressuring European nations to create backdoor financial vehicles meant to skirt the toughest U.S. sanctions, a demand U.S. officials have described as nuclear extortion.

UPDATE 5:40 P.M.: This has been updated with comment from a State Department spokesman received after publication.

JOEL B. POLLAK9 Jul 2019

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/07/09/elizabeth-warren-i-will-end-israeli-occupation/

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told anti-Israel activists on Monday that she would end Israel’s “occupation.”

Warren, who is rapidly moving up through the ranks of Democratic Party presidential contenders, has taken increasingly anti-Israel stances in the past several years.

She boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in 2015, and accused Netanyahu of corruption and “embracing right-wing extremism” earlier this year.

An activist from the radical left-wing group IfNotNow named Becca Lubow approached Warren in New Hampshire on Monday after a town hall and asked Warren if she would commit to pushing “the Israeli government to end Occupation.”

Warren answered, “Yes. Yes. So I’m there.”

BREAKING: Our members in New Hampshire just asked @ewarren if she would commit to pressuring the Israel to stop their 52 year military Occupation over the Palestinian people.

She said YES.10.1K6:57 PM – Jul 8, 20192,916 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy

In a statement, IfNotNow described, and applauded, what it described as Warren’s increasingly “progressive” stance on Israel:

IfNotNow@IfNotNowOrg · Jul 8, 2019Replying to @IfNotNowOrg @ewarren

Thank you @ewarren for your commitment to work to end the daily nightmare Palestinians face living under Occupation. Our community needs a leader who refuses to uphold the current status quo and will work to end the Occupation. We look forward to seeing your next detailed plan.

IfNotNow@IfNotNowOrg

Here’s our press release detailing how @be_ccahh got a commitment from @ewarren to pressure Israel to end the Occupation and the significance of @ewarren breaking with the @AIPAC status quo of simply paying lip service to a two state solution.4247:22 PM – Jul 8, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy

112 people are talking about this

The word “occupation” was not defined. Some anti-Israel activists consider the very existence of Israel to be an “occupation.”

IfNotNow is a fringe group that began in the midst of Israel’s war against the Palestinian terror group Hamas in 2014 — a war for which Hamas was almost universally blamed, and in which Hamas fired rockets at civilian population centers.

As Breitbart News noted earlier this year (original links):

IfNotNow seeks to disrupt the connections that many American Jewish organizations have with Israel. It blames American Jewish support for Israel for the persistence of the Israeli occupation of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), though most Palestinians in that territory live under the administration of the Palestinian Authority.

In addition to staging sit-ins and protests, members of IfNotNow attempt to infiltrate Jewish summer camps and tours of Israel, where they launch demonstrations or expose the mainstream Jewish community to anti-Israel propaganda.

In one episode in 2018, members of IfNotNow were arrested while reciting the Kaddish — the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead — near the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, memorializing Palestinians killed in “protests” at the Gaza border. (The vast majority of Palestinians killed were members of Hamas, and they were trying to infiltrate Israel to carry out attacks, not stage a non-violent protest against Israeli policies.)

Recently, IfNotNow supported Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after she repeatedly used antisemitic rhetoric.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Photo: file

vladtepesblog

More than you time worth , a must !
https://d.tube/#!/v/vladtepesblog/QmUufDE15ZUegQ5dqFdr1c2Sqkf9BV6iqSwGAn9wftcSzX

Be patient , the video need a couple of seconds to load , but it is your time worth

By David Israel – 28 Sivan 5779 – July 1, 2019

IfNotNow New Hampshire Fellow Ema Glazer sent me an excitable email Sunday night, reminiscent of the reflections of many a young, self-searching, Jewish scholar in early 1800s Poland, except it had nothing Jewish in it and it mainly celebrated the noble struggle to make the Jewish State go away.

“I have to show you this photo from yesterday,” Ema wrote (see image above, she’s to Bernie’s right with only a guy with a huge beard between them).

“It’s from a Pride event in Massachusetts, where a group of IfNotNow members asked Bernie Sanders to take a picture with us and our sign that read ‘Anti-Occupation Jews.’ My heart was racing. And then, Bernie said ‘yes’! You can see the huge smile on my face as we rushed into the picture.”

Bernie said Yes! It’s definitely a moment Ema will some day describe to her grandchildren, Chris, Mohammed and Shaqila. What a summer this is shaping up to be. Too bad Philip Roth is no longer a living legend, because this has the makings of a new “Goodbye, Columbus.”

“Growing up in rural Vermont, I often felt isolated as one of the only Jewish people in town,” the Arizona born Ema Glazer shared with me in her email. “That all changed when I found IfNotNow and felt for the first time surrounded by a community dedicated to building a movement for freedom and dignity.”

That beacon of Jewish light, IfNotNow, dedicated to preaching to unsuspecting Birthright youths why the settlers are the same as Nazis, but less organized.

“This summer, I am living with five other young American Jews in New Hampshire, spending the coming months publicly confronting presidential candidates, asking them to take a stand against the Occupation and tell us what they are going to do to put an end to it,” the irrepressible Ema Glazer wrote me. “It just so happened that we started with my home state’s senator, Bernie.”

It was like meeting with the holy Sfas Emes, but around a tish full of shrimps.

“Yesterday, I learned that Bernie and I aren’t just two Jewish Vermonters, we are two Jewish Vermonters against the Occupation. When he took that photo with us, only one word could describe my feelings — kvelling.”

Our Ema has kept the Jewish flame, the pintele Yid – she knows from kvelling.

“This is why IfNotNow was started four years ago: so American Jews could come together and proudly stand up for our Jewish values by opposing the immorality of the Israeli Occupation,” Ema stressed. These are their Jewish values: get together somewhere in a rainy New England park to attack half a million Jews who live six thousand miles away. They will teach those settlers a Jewish lesson they’ll never forget: don’t expect American Jews to be on your side. They’re with Bernie.

“We want to show our politicians that young Jews across America reject the Trump-Bibi alliance,” she wrote, because a friendship between two democratically-elected leaders is garbage compared with a repressive Palestinian tyranny that last received the voters’ support in January 2005.

“And we want to push Democratic primary candidates to break from the AIPAC-created stalemate in Washington and do what’s necessary to ensure freedom and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians,” wrote my email buddy Ema, who knows what Israelis and Palestinians want.

“This is no small task, but I have immense hope in my generation of American Jews,” Ema Glazer concluded. Then she asked me for money, anything, really, even five dollars is good.

I kvelled.

Special Report: Trump meets North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in the DMZ

David Friedman tells NY Times the Trump peace plan is aimed at improving Palestinians’ quality of life, not offer a permanent solution

By AFP and TOI STAFF Today, 3:27 pm 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-envoy-says-israel-has-right-to-annex-parts-of-west-bank/

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman speaks during the annual AIPAC conference in Washington on March 26, 2019. (Jim Watson/AFP)

The US ambassador to Israel said he believes the Jewish state has the right to annex at least “some” of the West Bank, in comments likely to deepen Palestinian opposition to a long-awaited US peace plan.

In an interview published by the New York Times on Saturday, Ambassador David Friedman said that some degree of annexation of the West Bank would be legitimate.

“Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank,” he said.

The US is set to lay out an economic component of its long-awaited Mideast peace plan on June 25 and 26 in Bahrain, where Gulf Arab states are expected to make pledges to boost the troubled Palestinian economy.

Palestinians walk towards the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem to attend the first Friday prayers in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Friday, May 10, 2019.(AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

But it is not clear when the political aspects of the plan — which are expected to avoid calling for the creation of a Palestinian state — will be unveiled.

Abandoning the call for a Palestinian state would end years of US support for the so-called two-state solution, which envisages an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The Palestinians have already dismissed the Trump peace plan and said they will not attend the Bahrain summit, rejecting it as heavily biased in favor of Israel.

Friedman’s comments on Israeli annexation are likely to be viewed by Palestinians as the last nail in the coffin of a peace process that is already on life support.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat has said any Israeli annexation policy would be tantamount to “US complicity with Israeli colonial plans.”

‘Failed state helps nobody’

The public comments made by administration officials so far suggest the US plan will lean heavily on substantial financial support for the Palestinian economy, much of it funded by the Gulf Arab states, in return for concessions on territory and statehood.

“The absolute last thing the world needs is a failed Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan,” Friedman said in the Times interview.

“Maybe they won’t take it, maybe it doesn’t meet their minimums.

“We’re relying upon the fact that the right plan, for the right time, will get the right reaction over time.”

Friedman, a staunch supporter of the Israeli settlements, told the Times that the Trump plan was aimed at improving the quality of life for Palestinians but would fall well short of a “permanent resolution to the conflict.”

He said he did not believe the plan would trigger Palestinian violence.

US President Donald Trump, left, turns to give a pen to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, at the White House in Washington, March 25, 2019 after signing the official proclamation formally recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.. From left, Jared Kushner, US special envoy Jason Greenblatt, US Ambassador David Friedman, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (AP/Susan Walsh)

But he said the United States would coordinate closely with Arab ally Jordan, which could face unrest among its large Palestinian population over a plan perceived as overly favorable to Israel.

Publication of the plan looks set to be further delayed after the Knesset called a snap general election for September, the second this year.

The plan is regarded as too sensitive to release during the campaign.

During campaigning for the first general election in April, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to annex West Bank Jewish settlements, a move long supported by nearly all lawmakers in his alliance of right-wing and religious parties.

Earlier, in February, Netanyahu told lawmakers he had been discussing with Washington a plan that would effectively annex settlements.

In a rare public show of disunity between the close allies, the White House then flatly denied any such discussion.

In this May 18, 2018 file photo, White House adviser Jared Kushner speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have been dampening expectations about the peace plan rollout. Senior White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner in an interview broadcast Sunday expressed doubts about the Palestinians’ ability to govern themselves without Israeli involvement. “The hope is that over time, they can become capable of governing,” he told the Axios news site.

On Monday, the Washington Post published leaked remarks made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who told US Jewish leaders in a closed-door conversation that the plan might not “gain traction.”