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Khamenei Threatens Israel, US with ‘Crushing Response’

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

JNS.orgIran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stepped up his bellicose rhetoric on Saturday, threatening both Israel and the United States.

“The United States of America and the Zionist regime will definitely receive a crushing response for what they do against Iran and the Resistance Front,” the ayatollah tweeted.

An hour earlier, Khamenei had tweeted: “We will definitely do everything necessary to prepare the Iranian nation for confronting the Arrogant Powers, whether militarily, in terms of armament, or politically. Our officials are already working on this.”

Although he did not specify when and how Tehran was intending to act, the threat comes on the backdrop of a New York Times report suggesting that Khamenei recently instructed the country’s Supreme National Security Council to prepare for another assault on Israel.

Such an attack would be Iran’s third on the Jewish state, after ballistic missile assaults in April and October.

The US has warned Tehran that it would not be able to restrain Jerusalem in the event of another attack, Axios reported on Saturday, citing an American and a former Israeli official.

“We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be [as] calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” the US official was quoted as saying.

In retaliation for the latest Iranian ballistic missile attack, on Oct. 26 dozens of Israeli aircraft, including refuelers and spy planes, struck targets across Iran in several waves over the course of a few hours. The targets reportedly included missile and drone manufacturing facilities and launch sites, as well as air-defense batteries, but not Iran’s nuclear program or energy infrastructure.

On Friday, Khamenei adviser Kamal Kharrazi told the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen outlet that the Islamic Republic would respond to Israel’s aerial attack at the appropriate time and manner.

According to the Times, Khamenei made that decision after reviewing a report from senior military commanders on the extent of the damage caused by the Israeli strikes.

Khamenei was said to have told his associates that the scope of Israel’s unprecedented Oct. 26 retaliatory strikes was “too large to ignore.”

The sources said that military commanders were readying a list of dozens of targets inside the Jewish state, but that the attack would likely occur after the US presidential election on Nov. 5 due to concern in Tehran that additional tensions in the region could boost Republican presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump.

US deploys B-52 bombers to Middle East

US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Saturday that B-52 bombers had arrived in the Middle East amid the Iranian threats against Israel and the United States.

“B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility,” CENTCOM tweeted, with an accompanying picture of one of the massive planes on final approach.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of the bomber aircraft along with US Navy warships, the Pentagon announced on Friday.

“In keeping with our commitments to the protection of US citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation through deterrence and diplomacy, the secretary of defense ordered the deployment of additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

The US did not provide specific numbers of planes and ships sent to the region.

“These forces will begin to arrive in coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to depart,” Ryder added.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group of three destroyers are scheduled to depart the Mideast in mid-November for their home port of San Diego.

The Lincoln and two of its destroyers are stationed in the Gulf of Oman, and the third destroyer is with two other warships in the Red Sea.

Eventually, the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and its three warships will move to the Mediterranean Sea, but not before the Lincoln departs. The three destroyers will fill in the gap.

Ryder mentioned in the statement that the force buildup in the Middle East adds to the recent deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Israel and the Amphibious Ready Group Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) posture in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“These movements demonstrate the flexible nature of US global defense posture and US capability to deploy world-wide on short notice to meet evolving national security threats,” Ryder said.

“Secretary Austin continues to make clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people.”

Jerusalem warns Baghdad it may attack Iraqi militias

Jerusalem has warned Baghdad that unless it reins in Iranian-backed militias launching drones and missiles at Israel, it could attack Iraq, according to a report in the Saudi website Elaph.

According to the report, Israel has identified and is monitoring targets belonging to the Iranian-backed militias and also Iraqi state targets and could start attacking them if the militias keep firing at the Jewish state.

Unnamed officials told Elaph that satellites are monitoring the movement of ballistic missiles and related equipment from Iran to Iraq, which could be used in an attack on Israel.

Iraqi sources expressed concern to the outlet that Tehran could be using Iraq to shift the fighting away from its territory.

The AP reported last week that Israel is under daily drone attack from Iraq, which the US and its partners have had to intercept.

According to the report, the UAV launches have been a problem since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, and are not related to any Iranian attack. However, a regional security official said that the drone attacks have increased in recent weeks, with an average of five a day and eight drones launched over a 24-hour period in the past week.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is an umbrella organization composed of several Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhadaa. These groups operate both in Iraq and Syria under IRGC command.

Regime supporters mark 1979 hostage crisis

Supporters of the Iranian regime gathered outside the former US embassy in Tehran on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the 1979 hostage crisis with shouts of “Death to Israel, Death to America!”

The former embassy is currently a museum called the “Den of Spies” and is covered with anti-American murals.

The crowd also set Israeli and American flags on fire in the annual tradition.

IRGC chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, in a speech at the Tehran rally, said that Israel and the US “cannot survive by slaughtering and killing Muslims.

“We always warn them that if they don’t change their behavior, they will go toward collapse and destruction,” Salami said.

Iranians took over the US embassy in Iran on Nov. 4, 1979, and kept 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days. The hostage crisis ended on Jan. 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president of the United States. No hostages were killed. Washington severed ties with Tehran in 1980, halfway through the crisis, and they have been frozen ever since.

The post Khamenei Threatens Israel, US with ‘Crushing Response’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘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.

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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.

“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.

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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.

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