RSS
Here’s What You Didn’t Read About the Jewish Man Executed By Iran
Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani. Photo: screenshot.
Regarding the execution of Jewish Iranian citizen Arvin Ghahremani, the Associated Press wholeheartedly embraces the dubious narrative of the Islamic regime’s judiciary. While selling its wares on the mantra of “Advancing the power of facts,” the leading news service conceals the harrowing basic facts from readers — that the young man’s family insisted that he was defending himself from his attacker, and that the Iran Human Rights advocacy group slammed the legal case’s “significant flaws.”
The AP’s Nov. 4 coverage ignored the case’s glaring problems, and hewed closely to the line espoused from a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, starting with a headline that frames Ghahremani’s act as motivated by nothing more than money, as opposed to self-preservation: “Iran executes a Jewish citizen convicted of murder following a dispute over money.”
With no byline and a dateline of Tehran, the AP’s article begins:
Iran on Monday executed a Jewish citizen convicted of murdering another man in 2022 following a personal dispute, reports said. It was a rare case of an execution of member of a religious minority in the predominately Muslim nation.
Mizanonline.ir, a website affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, said 23-year-old Arvin Ghahremani was put to death after the country’s Supreme Court affirmed the capital punishment handed down in the case earlier last year. …
According to the report, Ghahramani attacked the victim outside a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed the man several times following a dispute over money he had loaned the victim.
“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR [Iran Human Rights] director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”
“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalised anti-Semitism in the Islamic republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.
IHR said that Ghahremani was accused of killing a man during a street fight in Kermanshah two years ago. But it said that, according to his family, he had been attacked with a knife and defended himself using the attacker’s weapon.
Unlike AFP, the Associated Press story contained no mention of the claim of self-defense, nothing about IHR’s statement about “significant flaws” in the case, not a word about Amiry-Moghaddam’s charge that “institutionalized antisemitism … undoubtedly played a crucial role” in the ruling, and no hint of the backdrop of Iran’s attacks on Israel and its ongoing threats to wipe the Jewish State off the face of the earth.
Furthermore, AFP included additional essential information, raising further questions about the Iranian judiciary’s version of events which the AP shared without challenge:
The defendant’s lawyers requested a retrial three times, but each request was rejected, it added.
Mizan said that Ghahremani was 21 at the time of the fight. However IHR said he was 18 then, with other reports saying he was 20 or 21 by the time of his execution.
Moreover, the AP’s selective reporting omitted a clear indication that antisemitism played a key role in Ghahremani’s execution. Thus, the AP story noted the “the convicted man’s lawyers and relatives had failed to convince the victim’s family to abstain from qisas — an act under Islamic penal code that calls for similar punishment, or an ‘eye for an eye’ — and effectively pardon his killer.”
But, according to the Iran Human Rights NGO, Shokri’s family had initially agreed to pardon Ghahremani — that is, until they learned that Ghahremani was Jewish. Thus, IHR reported:
An informed source told IHRNGO: “Arvin’s religion was initially cited as Shia Muslim in the case and the victim’s family agreed to accept diya but changed their mind and insisted on his execution when they discovered that he was Jewish.”
Finally, on Nov. 6, Voice of America (VOA) revealed additional red flags indicating that there’s more to the story than the laundered Mizan-Iranian judiciary-AP version lets on (“New details emerge in Iran’s first execution of Jewish minority member in 30 years“):
VOA has learned that Arvin Ghahremani, the first Jewish person executed by the Islamic Republic in 30 years, was put to death in the western city of Kermanshah on Monday without prior notice to his family. …
A U.S.-based source with contacts in Iran sent VOA the text of a letter that Ghahremani’s Iranian lawyer, Peyman Saketkhou, wrote on Tuesday and stated that Ghahremani had been executed without notice to family members or defense lawyers. …
The source requested anonymity to safeguard communications with Iran-based lawyers, whose work on cases dealing with sensitive issues has exposed them to harassment and arrest by Iranian authorities.
“The execution of Ghahremani without notice to the family shows the cruelty of the regime,” George Haroonian, an Iranian American rights activist, said in a statement to VOA.
According to VOA:
Another Iran-based rights group, Human Rights Activists in Iran, reacted to Ghahremani’s execution by noting that under Iranian law, when a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, qisas does not give the non-Muslim’s family the right to seek the offender’s execution. It said that in such cases, only blood money or lesser punishments typically are imposed.
Finally, VOA included a reaction from the US government:
The Biden administration issued its first reaction to Ghahremani’s execution on Wednesday.
“We are dismayed by reports that the regime in Iran executed Arvin Ghahramani. The circumstances of the case and the prosecution raise troubling questions about due process,” U.S. special envoy Deborah Liptstadt said in a post on the X platform.
Meanwhile, while CAMERA contacted the AP about the gross failings of wire service’s Nov. 4 article the very same day it was published, the news agency has neither improved its initial story nor published a follow up with the developments noted by Voice of America.
“Advancing the power of facts” is the AP’s promise to readers, and concealing the troubling questions about due process in the horrific execution of Arvin Ghahremani is the reality.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
The post Here’s What You Didn’t Read About the Jewish Man Executed By Iran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘Who Is the Biggest Bastard?’ Belgian Politician Equates Israel With Hamas After Refusing Jewish New Year Greeting
Matthias Diependaele, Minister‑President of Flanders, has faced backlash after declining to send a Rosh Hashanah message to Belgium’s Jewish community. Photo: Screenshot
A senior Belgian politician who recently refused to send a Jewish New Year message has once again sparked outrage for equating Israel with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Matthias Diependaele, Minister‑President of Flanders — the Dutch-speaking region in northern Belgium — was speaking before the Flemish Parliament on Tuesday when he argued the world’s lone Jewish state and only democracy in the Middle East was no better morally than an international designated terrorist group.
“How do you explain who is the biggest bastard?” he asked. “On the one hand, you have an innovative, modern country that should be based on Western standards, but uses disproportionate force and commits human rights violations without any compassion. On the other hand, you see a terrorist organization that doesn’t hesitate to hide behind a human shield. Who is the bigger bastard? The one who shoots at children? Or the one who uses them as a human shield? I don’t know. I choose the innocent victims, and I want to think about how best to help them.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the ongoing war with their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating widespread sexual violence. In response, Israel has waged a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths during its war effort to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli miitary.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Diependaele belongs to the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the same center-right party led by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. His parliamentary remarks prompted immediate backlash.
“The Flemish Alliance has completely surrendered to leftist pressure and no longer has a moral compass. He compares a free society and democratic state, existentially threatened, to a gang of murderous Muslim terrorists,” said Sam van Rooy, a lawmaker from the right-wing Vlaams Belang party, according to multiple reports. “This is why I continue responding to the anti-Israeli debate, constantly fed by leftist parties and traditional parties — it causes masks to fall. Israel is a litmus test. Now we know that, unfortunately, Flanders is controlled by a prime minister who cannot distinguish between good and evil.”
Diependaele has even received criticism from other members of Belgium’s five-party federal government coalition.
Sammy Mahdi, head of the Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V), described the remarks in an Instagram post as “shameful” and indicative of “a lack of common sense.”
CD&V and Vooruit, another political party in the coalition, said on Wednesday that Diependaele was not speaking on behalf of the government, according to Belgian media.
Diependaele’s comments came after he declined a request last week by the Belgian Jewish newspaper The Centrale to provide a Rosh Hashanah message. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, will take place in late September this year.
“After internal deliberation, we regret to inform you that, given the current situation and sensitivities concerning the tensions in the Middle East, we cannot follow up on your request,” the statement from Diependaele’s office read.
“Anything that bears even the slightest connection to this conflict is being closely monitored and examined under a magnifying glass. For that reason, we do not deem it opportune to go into this any further,” it continued.
According to the Jewish newspaper, requesting a Rosh Hashanah greeting from Belgium’s leaders for the country’s Jewish citizens has been a long-standing tradition.
“This year, even that became radioactive,” The Centrale wrote.
Shortly after the newspaper published Diependaele’s response, which drew widespread outrage from Belgium’s Jewish community, the politician rejected claims of antisemitism and attempted to defend his earlier statement.
“My refusal is purely based on the principle that, for more than 15 years in my role as a representative of the people, I have not supported religious activities,” Diependaele wrote in a new letter sent to The Centrale.
“I have also never accepted invitations for the Eid. I have also never taken part in a Te Deum for Catholics,” the Flemsih leader continued. “By this I am in no way passing judgment on any religion or on the people who practice it. It is, however, my conviction that no religion — including my own — has any role to play in the exercise of my mandate.”
However, the paper rejected Diependaele’s new letter, arguing that his shift from “too sensitive right now” to a “timeless principle” was an attempt to mask his initial fear of public backlash.
The World Jewish Congress denounced Diependaele’s actions as a clear act of antisemitism.
“Holding Jews in the Diaspora collectively accountable for the actions of Israel – is antisemitic. To be a political leader, and to refuse to acknowledge the traditions and culture of your country’s Jewish community – because of Israel – is antisemitic,” the organization said in a statement. “What transpired is quite clear: A political leader declined to acknowledge their Jewish citizens because of Israel and the perceived public backlash about engaging with Jews.”
While members of the Belgian government have been pushing for a tougher stance against Israel amid the Gaza war, the country has been less critical of the Israeli military campaign in recent months than other European countries.
In late April, for example, De Wever rejected a journalist’s claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and argued it is premature to recognize a “Palestinian state.”
Weeks earlier, Belgium announced it would not enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, should he visit Brussels.
RSS
Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Says ‘We Are Fighting the Jews, Not Zionism’
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi attends the annual festival of Greek Communist Youth in Athens, Greece, Sept. 22, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Costas Baltas
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi said on a podcast earlier this month that she is fighting Jews, not Zionism, and that she wishes for World War III.
“I was raised [to believe] that Judaism means occupation, and today, tomorrow, and a million years from now, I will continue to say that Judaism [should] be presented to the children of Palestine – children of my age and younger – as occupation, and that we are fighting the Jews, not Zionism,” Tamimi, now 24, said on “The Enlightenment Podcast” on YouTube on Aug. 8.
Tamimi’s comments were flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which reported on and translated her remarks.
Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi: We Are Fighting the Jews, Not Just Zionism; Westerners Patronize Us with Their Aid, They should Shut Up When We Talk; They Will Give Us Aid, Whether They Like It Or Not, and We Will Not Thank Them; I Wish for a Nuclear WWIII, So the Whole World… pic.twitter.com/NNn5Jf7TD6
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 15, 2025
“The whole world needs to shut up, when a Palestinian is talking,” she said. “We are superior to the entire world, because we are the only ones in the world fighting injustice, at the expense of our lives, and the expense of our humanity.”
Tamimi continued, “Every night when I go to sleep, I put my head on the pillow, and I pray to God to protect the humanity left inside me, because I don’t want to become a killer. In this West of yours, if a mother screams at her child, he grows up to become a serial killer.”
“I have reached a point where I wish for a World War III. Whoever dies, dies, and whoever lives, lives. The important thing is that we will be over with this. I have reached this point,” she said. “Let the whole world be destroyed, I don’t care. Let them drop nuclear bombs, and destroy the whole world, so it won’t be just the Palestinians.”
These recent comments are the most recent in a long string of radical remarks by Tamimi. In November 2023, she wrote, in an Instagram post, “Come on settlers, we are waiting for you in all the West Bank cities from Hebron to Jenin – we will slaughter you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke.”
Speaking about Israelis who live in the West Bank, she said, “We will drink your blood and eat your skull. Come on, we are waiting for you.”
Tamimi became famous internationally in 2017 when a video of her, then just 16 years old, slapping, kicking, and yelling at Israeli soldiers went viral as a symbol of both Palestinian resistance to Israel, and the asymmetric nature of the conflict. The soldiers did not retaliate but did later arrest her.
Tamimi was convicted on four counts of assaulting an IDF officer and soldier, incitement, and interference with IDF forces in March 2018, and was sentenced to eight months in prison and eight months of probation.
She was released a few months later, in July 2018. Since then, Tamimi has been hailed as a Palestinian human rights activist, received a book deal from Penguin Random House, and consistently received sympathetic coverage from Western news outlets.
RSS
Trump Administration Reaffirms Opposition to Turkey Rejoining F-35 Program
A Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft is seen at the ILA Air Show in Berlin, Germany, April 25, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
The Trump administration has reaffirmed its opposition to Turkey’s rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing Ankara’s possession of Russian S-400 missile defense systems.
In a letter sent on Wednesday to US Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), a senior State Department official reiterated that Washington remains committed to enforcing the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which penalizes countries with financial ties to Russia’s defense sector.
“The Trump administration is fully committed to protecting US defense and intelligence assets and complying with US law, including CAATSA,” the letter read
The message, signed by Paul Guaglianone of the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, stated that Washington’s position “has not changed” and that Turkey’s continued possession of the Russian-supplied S-400 remains incompatible with US law and defense requirements. The official stressed that the Trump administration was fully committed to protecting American defense and intelligence assets while maintaining its obligations under the National Defense Authorization Act.
Despite the strained relationship, the letter emphasized that Turkey remains a longstanding NATO ally. US officials framed the relationship as critical to the security interests of both countries and signaled a willingness to maintain dialogue with Ankara.
In 2017, despite several US warnings, Ankara purchased the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, leading to Turkey’s expulsion from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.
“The United States seeks to cooperate with Turkey on common priorities and to engage in dialogue to resolve disagreements,” Guaglianone wrote, while maintaining that Washington has “expressed our disapproval of Ankara’s acquisition of the S-400 and clearly conveyed steps that would need to be taken” in the sanctions review process.
The letter came after a bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law. Members of Congress warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington had begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.
Under Section 1245 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon is prohibited from transferring F-35 jets or related technology to Turkey unless Ankara no longer possesses the Russian-made S-400 system and provides assurances it will not acquire such equipment in the future. Because Turkey continues to retain the S-400, US officials are legally barred from approving its participation in the F-35 program.