Free Republic

Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said in a heated speech today in Parliament that he “coordinated” everything with the now dead commander of the Quds Force. Javad Zarif said that he had weekly sessions with Qasem Soleimani and coordinated with him. “In regional talks, whatever we did, we coordinated with each other,” he said today. He told lawmakers who were calling him out for “lying” that those who knew Soleimani and other known regional terrorists knew that he worked very closely with Soleimani. “Those who know Soleimani the Martyr and Seyed Hassan Nasrollah, and the Iraqi, Lebanese, and Palestine Resistance,...

Ho-hum, another day in Tehran, another incident of careless explosive-tank handling. Or so the Iranians want everyone to think, for now. Officials claim that “careless handling” of oxygen tanks triggered an explosion south of Tehran that killed two people in Baghershahr late yesterday. “Human error,” the Iranian regime called it: Two men have been killed in yet another Iran explosion, as officials blamed ‘human error’ for the blast.The explosion rocked the Sepahan Boresh factory in the city of Baqershahr, south of Tehran, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to state media.It was caused by ‘workers being negligent...

[Tehran] is in a difficult position because it labeled the explosion an accident, but it is now facing a deluge of foreign media reports seeking to conclude that the explosion was perpetrated by a state or group. This is what Iran's regime is reading: Major media from The New York Times to The Washington Post and local media such as Kuwait's Al-Jarida have all sought to assert that Israel was involved in the mysterious July 2 explosion at a warehouse in the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility... [t]hat could set back the program for months or a year. Iran, however, is...

Israel request to buy 990 million gallons of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel from United States The Government of Israel has requested to buy approximately 990 million gallons of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said on Monday in an official notification to Congress. According to a recent service notification, the State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Israel of approximately 990 million gallons of Petroleum-based products for an estimated cost of $3 billion. ”The proposed sale of the JP-8 aviation fuel will enable Israel to...

Report: In Devastating Blow, Israel Sets Back Iran's Nuke Program Two YearsThe last couple of weeks have seen a string of apparent sabotage incidents in Iran. Questions about them abound. Possible answers are intriguing to say the least. Probably the most significant attack came early Thursday morning at Natanz, when, as the New York Times reported:...A Middle Eastern intelligence official…said the blast was caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility. The explosion, he said, destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility where new centrifuges…are balanced before they are put into operation…. ... ... Instead, Iran appears...

Hollywood celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Chastain, and Jameela Jamil have promoted a clip of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that was posted by comedian Chelsea Handler, who praised the anti-Semitic figure’s comments about black Americans. Chelsea Handler posted a clip of Farrakhan’s undated appearance on The Phil Donahue Show to her Instagram account, where she described it as a “powerful” video, according to screenshots of her since-deleted post. Her post was shared and liked by a slew of celebrities who helped the video rack up more than 1.8 million views.

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson was accused of anti-Semitism on Monday for promoting quotes attributed to Adolph Hitler on his social media. Jackson highlighted three paragraphs from a book that attributed the quotes to Hitler. He posted the picture of the highlighted passages to his Instagram. The passage reads: “Hitler said, ‘because the white Jews knows [sic] that the Negros are the real Children of Israel and to keep Americas secret the Jews will black mail America. ‘The will extort America, their pan to world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were. ‘The white citizens of...

An Instagram story post featuring a fake quote from Adolf Hitler resulted in Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson insisting he has no hatred toward the Jewish community, then posting the same Hitler quote again. The 33-year-old receiver drew a backlash on Monday for his initial post, which featured the fake quote in which Hitler supposedly said he would start World War III to stop white Jews in America from oppressing the Black community. Snopes has identified the quote as a fabrication originating in June 2017 and claimed to be from a book that, in reality, made no argument that...

At pro-Palestinian Black Lives Matter rallies in New York and Washington, chants were heard calling for “Death to Israel,” “Death to America” and “From Gaza to Minnesota, globalize the Intifada!” Several hundred protesters attended the July 1 demonstration in Brooklyn dubbed as a “Day of Rage” event, set to coincide with the earliest date Israel could begin its plans to apply Israeli law over parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Speakers issued inflammatory rallying cries that ran the gamut from anti-Semitic and anti-American to just plain absurd. One pro-North Korea activist called for the end of the...

Iran is stewing over the potential loss of its most advanced centrifuge production plant after some kind of explosion and fire severely damaged it. Naturally, the Iranians are being pretty closemouthed about the incident. They haven’t said much about the fire and explosion at what was suspected to be a nuclear research facility in the mountains outside of Tehran, either. But it’s hard to hide what happened at Natanz — the nuclear facility with the highest-profile in the country. And Iran is hinting that the destruction of its advanced centrifuge plant might have been caused by some kind of variation...

For US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned that President Trump’s reelection could imperil Israel. Speaking with Israel’s Channel 13 in an interview which is set to be aired Thursday night, Bolton said he fears that if President Trump is reelected this November, it could create a ‘risk’ for Israel. Specifically, Bolton claimed that Trump is “eager” to open negotiations with Iran and could offer sanctions relief, something which would pose a “a danger”. .....

My, but Iran must have a lot of defective “industrial gas tanks” lying around. A week after Iranian officials tried to explain away a massive explosion at Parchin as a civilian-area accident, a large fire at Natanz might prove more difficult to dismiss. Natanz, like Parchin, is a site where the US alleges that Iran has performed work on their nuclear-weapons program, and experts believe that uranium-enriching centrifuge work might have been the target this time: Iran says there has been an “incident” at one of its nuclear facilities.Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi did not...

Israel was responsible for two blasts at Iranian facilities — one related to uranium enrichment, the other for missile production — over the past week, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Friday. The Al-Jareeda daily cited an unnamed senior source as saying that an Israeli cyberattack caused a fire and explosion at the largely underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. According to the source, this was expected to set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by approximately two months. The newspaper also reported that last Friday Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets bombed a site located in the...

Kuwait's Al-Jarida newspaper on Friday reported that Israel was responsible for a Thursday "accident" at an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. It is believed that the Natanz facility is used to enrich uranium. According to the Al-Jarida report, the explosion was caused by an "Israeli cyber attack" which targeted the computers which control the pressure gauges inside gas containers. Tehran has allegedly lost 80% of the uranium hexafluoride gas it needs in order to enrich uranium. The report also claimed that Israel is responsible for the Parchin blast which occurred last week. On Thursday, Iran's state news agency IRNA published...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has criticized Israel’s plans to apply sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, more commonly known as the West Bank. “Israel’s planned annexation of up to 30 [percent] of the West Bank as early as today would violate international laws prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force and changing the status of occupied territories,” said Carter in a statement on Wednesday. “The planned move would violate the Oslo and Camp David Accords, and jeopardize Israel’s peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt.” …

Black Lives Matter protests joined anti-Israel demonstrators in a nationwide “Day of Rage” on Wednesday that included calls for Israel’s destruction and claims that Israel murders children, an allusion to medieval antisemitic blood libels. The Jewish News Service reported that antisemitic and anti-Israel groups organized the “Day of Rage” on July 1, the first day that Israel’s government said it could extend its law to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”). The march, led by Harvard University rising senior Christian Tabash, attracted about 200 people who carried signs with messages either supporting the Palestinian Liberation Organization or...

The Vatican issued a statement Wednesday warning Israel that “unilateral actions” in the West Bank and Jordan Valley would seriously compromise peace efforts in the area. In its statement, the Holy See press office revealed the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, met with the Ambassadors of the United States of America and of the State of Israel on Tuesday. […] The Vatican’s “concern” relates to plans to extend Israeli law over parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley in an effort to safeguard Jewish settlements in the West Bank and shore up Israel’s western border by annexing...

The BBC has told its presenters and guests not to wear Black Lives Matter badges as the campaign was accused of “hijacking” George Floyd’s death for political reasons. Bosses at the corporation have decided not to allow “visual symbols of support” for Black Lives Matter to be worn on screen, senior sources told The Telegraph. It comes as a number of high-profile organisations were forced to backtrack on their support for the Black Lives Matter movement as its UK arm publicly criticised Israel and called on the British government to “defund the police”.

Leaders of civil rights organizations spoke out Tuesday night after a reporter from a Portland TV station tweeted anti-Palestinian sentiments from a professional account while covering a protest. Jenny Young, a reporter with KOIN, was at a rally at Peninsula Park in North Portland, and tweeted about a speaker who praised the BDS movement. BDS, which stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, is a Palestinian-led movement, which upholds the principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. Young described the speaker, who was not identified, as “openly anti-Zionist”, and the BDS movement as “an anti-Semitic...

Four House Democrats have written to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on the United States to cut assistance to Israel should it proceed to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, JTA reported on Monday. The letter was initiated by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Betty McCollum of Minnesota. The letter to Pompeo is circulating among Democrats in a bid to add signatures. “Should the Israeli government move forward with the planned annexation with this administration’s acquiescence, we will work to ensure non-recognition as well as pursue conditions on...