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Why Confronting Iran Should Be a Major Priority for the Trump Administration

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Following Donald Trump’s major victory in the 2024 US presidential elections, the new administration is facing a number of international crises that extend from the Korean Peninsula, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and last but not least, the escalating war in the Middle East ignited by the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023 on Israel. It doesn’t require a political expert to figure out that Iran’s unconditional support to Hamas and Hezbollah are behind the current 14-month regional crisis.

In the past year, Hamas and Hezbollah received a heavy beating by Israeli attacks on their strongholds in Gaza, southern Lebanon and Syria, especially with the elimination of both terrorist groups’ leaders Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. Even with the fall of the longstanding Assad regime in Syria on December 8th, Iran remains the catalyst and purveyor of chaos in the region.

Americans who lost family members during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel filed lawsuits in November against Iran, presenting new evidence that Iran was involved in the terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of 46 American citizens — in addition to the 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers — while other Americans were among the more than 250 taken hostage.

Four Americans remain in Hamas captivity according to former hostage Aviva Siegel. Hamas released a video titled “Time is running out” on Dec. 1, 2024, of 20-year-old Edan Alexander who is still being held hostage in Gaza.

Iran endorsed the terrorist attack, and its Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, lauded the attacks and applauded his Hamas allies.

President-elect Trump vowed on Dec. 2 that there will be “hell to pay” if the hostages in Gaza are not freed before his inauguration.

Iranian Regime’s Threats and Abysmal Human Rights Record

Hardly a week passes without an Iranian leader or commander issuing threats against another country, but these are not empty threats, as some may claim or estimate. Iran has been vehemently working on destabilizing other countries in the Middle East, threatening Israel with annihilation and nearing the completion of a nuclear military program that turn its threats into a nuclear one.

In the span of less than five decades, the Iranian regime created a bizarro world of its own within the country and has been vehemently attempting to export its twisted state model across the Middle East through what it calls “Exporting the Revolution.” The Islamic revolution in Iran of 1979 that toppled the reigning Iranian Shah (emperor) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi shook the foundations of the Middle East, as it initiated a new grim chapter of extremism and terrorism.

Nowadays, Iran is a country producing ballistic missiles that it would launch indiscriminately on enemy militaries and citizens alike, case in point the barrage of over 300 ballistic missiles on Israel last October. At the same time, Iranian citizens are living in an archaic world that belongs to medieval times where adulterers are publicly flogged. Even young women such as Kurdish-Iranian Roya Heshmati are not spared from these punishments simply for appearing on social media without hijab. Barbaric punishments such as public executions using cranes, remain a common scene in Iranian streets and the regime uses them to send warning messages to dissidents.

Women’s rights in the country can only be compared to the same rights women had millennia ago. Iran’s abysmal record of women rights was condemned by every human rights NGO including the United Nations.

Following the September 2022 uprising in Iran, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amina in police custody, the repression of women has increased with new measures like the inhumane Noor Plan.

Though mass protests have subsided over the past two years, the ongoing defiance of women and girls remains a stark reminder that they continue to live in a system that relegates them to second-class status. The regime doesn’t even attempt to cover these abuses; they happen in broad day light and the videos of them have gone viral across the Internet. Nationwide protests for Mahsa’s death resulted in 551 deaths, including 49 women and 68 children, according to a United Nations report.

Roots of Religious Extremism of the Iranian Regime

The Iranian regime represents Shi’a Islam’s most extreme sect which is called the Twelver Shiism. The current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the earthly representative of the last Imam or the Twelfth Imam and hence his word trumps all others in importance. The Twelver Shiism doctrine was adopted following the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, and is used to suppress opposition.

According to the doctrine, an army of believers must be formed which is called the Al Mahdi Army which would be tasked to fight all the other faiths and nations around them to restore justice and equity in the world after it became a place of violence and corruption.

One can only imagine what would happen if the Al Mahdi army was armed by a nuclear arsenal to complete its “holy mission.”

Following the Islamic revolution, the regime believes and endorses the aforementioned set of beliefs as a creed. It is a cult-like doctrine that imposes an inevitable war with everyone who doesn’t believe in it.

The Iranian regime repeatedly stresses that it is the Middle East’s Shia Muslims who are defenders of the faith and protectors from the tyranny of the region’s regimes against them.

Nuclear Threats to the Middle East

Last month, during nuclear program negotiations with Britain, France, and Germany, Iran vehemently repeated the message it has been peddling for years — that its nuclear program is for peaceful and civilian purposes even as it brazenly produces far more fissionable material than would be required for military purposes. Nevertheless, Iran repeatedly threatens to convert its “peaceful” program into a military one or change its nuclear doctrine if it feels threatened. This redundant message is always in the form of threats to annihilate Israel and the United States.

Western countries and politicians who ignore the atrocities of the Iranian regime and seek rapprochement at any cost, are precisely the ones the regime welcomes, However, these politicians are doing a disservice to their countries, as Iranian regime behavior towards anything Western is characterized by disdain and haughtiness.

“The European Union must stop its “arrogant and irresponsible behavior,” said Iranian deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs Kazem Gharibabadi on November 29th.

He added that “Europe should not project its own internal issues, particularly those surrounding the Ukraine war onto others.”

Earlier in November Iranian authorities threatened to turn their nuclear program into a military one in case of further threats or pressures.

“If an existential threat arises, Iran will modify its nuclear doctrine. We have the capability to build weapons and have no issue in this regard,” said Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Supreme leader Ayattolah Khamenei on November 2nd.

This threat was reiterated on Nov. 28th by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi who was more direct in his threats of militarizing the nuclear program and changing Iran’s nuclear doctrine if his country remains subjected to “pressure.”

Europe imposed further sanctions on Iran last month as a result of its continuous military involvement and support to Russian aggression in Ukraine by supplying a range of its drones and ballistic missiles. These sanctions were added to previous sanctions imposed in response to its abysmal human rights record and its nuclear program.

Continued Financing and Political Support of the Three H’s (Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis)

It is safe to say that without Iranian funding, training and political support none of the three above mentioned perennial global terrorist threats would have ever existed in the first place. Yet, this fact seems to elude most politicians namely Western liberal ones when addressing the issue of Iran.

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 in Lebanon through political and financial support just three years after the Islamic revolution overtook Iran.

The Yemeni Houthi movement is a Shiite terrorist group that was founded in northern Yemen in the 1990s. Funding and support from Iran eventually enabled it to overtake the country in 2014 after a decade of fighting with the Sunni-majority government. The Houthis now represent the most dangerous terrorist group threatening the naval supply line.

Last but not least in terrorist impendence is the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which was formed in 1987 as an offshoot of the global Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas leaders have been and still pledge allegiance to Iran openly.

If Trump’s upcoming second term will be deemed a successful one four years from now, a lot of that success will be measured on how his administration will firmly deal with an Iranian regime that has been a menace to the world and namely America for over four decades. Taking down or neutralizing the Iranian regime may prove to be a gargantuan task for Trump, but if Trump is unable to do it, then it seems unlikely that any other American president or Western leader will be to do it in the foreseeable future.

This is not simply about a regime comprised of lunatics who call America the “Great Satan” or antagonize it with every political decision or speech. As explained above, it goes much further than that — to world security.

Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Senior Fellow Hany Ghoraba is an Egyptian writer, political and counter-terrorism analyst at Al Ahram Weekly and a regular contributor the BBC. He is the author of Egypt’s Arab Spring: The Long and Winding Road to Democracy He is a writer and contributor for over a dozen international outlets, periodicals and networks including Newsmax, OANN, BBC Radio, CSPMEFAmerican SpectatorAmerican ThinkerArab Weekly and Al Arabiya News. A different version of this article was originally published by IPT.

The post Why Confronting Iran Should Be a Major Priority for the Trump Administration first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘The Jewish Spirit’: Holocaust Survivors, Freed Israeli Hostages Gather at Auschwitz for ‘March of the Living’

Holocaust survivors, relatives of Israeli hostages, and survivors of Hamas captivity marched together at Auschwitz for the annual March of the Living on April 24, 2025. Photo: Chen Schimmel

Oswiecim, Poland — Holocaust survivors, relatives of Israeli hostages, and survivors of Hamas captivity marched together at Auschwitz, the infamous former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, for the first time on Thursday, joining Israeli President Isaac Herzog in the annual March of the Living.

The march from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II-Birkenau — the Nazis’ largest death camp where 1 million Jews were murdered during World War II — took place on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day and included 80 Holocaust survivors, many of whom were also death march survivors, to mark 80 years since the liberation of the camps. 

March of the Living president Phyllis Greenberg Heideman addressed the survivors, who were seated next to the gate bearing the notorious inscription, “Work sets you free.”

“It’s a strange thing to say, but we welcome you to Auschwitz,” she said. “You are the true heroes. We will treasure your legacy forever.”

Almog Meir Jan and his mother Orit. Almog was rescued by the IDF on June 5 during the Arnon Mission. Photo: Chen Schimmel

Standing outside the crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz I, recently released hostage Eli Sharabi said, “The Holocaust was unlike anything else — we will never forget and never forgive.”

“But our presence here is the triumph of the Jewish spirit. The Jewish people sanctify life, not death. I endured horrors in enemy captivity, but I chose life. That gives me hope to get up each morning and begin rebuilding,” he added. 

Sharabi, whose wife and daughters were murdered during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, was released in February after nearly 500 days in captivity. His emaciated appearance as he was paraded through Gaza on his release led to comparisons with concentration camp survivors. 

Pro-Israel influencer Shiraz Shukran broke down after seeing Sharabi. The two embraced for several minutes. “Seeing him in real life, in this place, just made it all suddenly seem very close. This is no longer something that happened 80 years ago; it’s continuing until this day,” Shukran told The Algemeiner.

Pro-Israel influencer Shiraz Shukran embracing former hostage Eli Sharabi. Photo: Debbie Weiss / The Algemeiner

In remarks to reporters prior to the march, Herzog called the return of the hostages a “universal human imperative.”

“With a broken heart, I remind us all that although after the Holocaust we vowed, ‘Never again,’ today, even as we stand here, the souls of dozens of Jews again ‘yearn within a cage,’ ‘thirsting for water and for freedom,’ as 59 of our brothers and sisters are held by terrorist murderers in Gaza, in a horrific crime against humanity,” Herzog said, referring to the hostages kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion who remain in captivity.

His Polish counterpart, President Andrzej Duda, said the march was “a dramatic call of ‘never again.’ No more hatred, no more discrimination, no more antisemitism.”

He called for “all wars in the Middle East to end,” and for a two-state solution, which he said was the “most rational solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] that gives hope for achieving stable and lasting peace.”

The two leaders signed the visitors’ book and laid a wreath at Auschwitz’s Black Wall, where the Nazis executed prisoners.

At the march’s opening ceremony, the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, lit one of six candles — representing the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis — and addressed rising antisemitism in the world.  

“Jews all over the world fear walking streets with a kippah and it’s unacceptable. College students are being attacked verbally and physically,” he told The Algemeiner. 

He praised US President Donald Trump for “combating this scourge.”

“There’s a new sheriff in town. It’s my hope the rest of the world can look to him to see how to support and defend the Jewish community against these vile attacks,” he said.

Matt Brooks, chief executive officer of the Republican Jewish Coalition, with Malcolm Hoenlein, vice chairman emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Photo: Debbie Weiss / The Algemeiner

In Block 5, where thousands of victims’ eyeglasses are displayed behind glass, Laly Dery told a delegation of Israeli teenagers from the national civil service about her son, Sgt. First Class (res.) Saadia, who fell in battle in Gaza in June.  

“Just like my son, who served the country with every fiber of his being, you have earned the enormous privilege of serving the state of Israel,” Dery said. 

Derai’s words resonated with Sara Bisan, the only member of the national service delegation not wearing an Israeli flag. Instead, Bisan wore the distinctive multi-colored flag of the Druze community to which she belongs.

“I feel her pain, and it hurts,” Bisan said, reflecting on the death of her own friend from the northern Druze village of Kfar Yarka, who was also killed in Gaza.  

“But our people, the Druze and the Jews, share a lot, including a love of Israel. I also feel that serving the state of Israel is a privilege,” she added.

Sara Bisan. Photo: Debbie Weiss / The Algemeiner

Twelve thousand participants marched the 1.7 miles from Auschwitz to Birkenau for the main ceremony, which was cut short this year due to heavy rain.

As thunder echoed overhead, released hostage Agam Berger played the theme from “Schindler’s List” on a 150-year-old violin rescued during the Holocaust. Daniel Weiss, a survivor from Kibbutz Be’eri whose father was murdered on Oct. 7 and whose mother was abducted and later killed in Gaza, performed a musical rendition of the psalm Shir Lamaalot alongside her.

The Lord will guard you from all evil; He will guard your soul,” Weiss sang, his voice quavering.

The post ‘The Jewish Spirit’: Holocaust Survivors, Freed Israeli Hostages Gather at Auschwitz for ‘March of the Living’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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French Far-Left Party Calls for Ban on Israeli Pop Star Eyal Golan’s Paris Concert

Eyal Golan. Photo: Screenshot

France’s leading far-left party has called for the cancellation of Israeli pop star Eyal Golan’s upcoming concert in Paris, describing him as “a true mouthpiece for supporters of genocide” in Gaza.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the La France Insoumise party (LFI — “France Unbowed”), led by leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, urged the National Assembly — the lower house of the French Parliament — to ban Golan’s upcoming concert, claiming that he “should not come to sing the praises of genocide in Paris.”

“We call for a broad mobilization to prevent this event from taking place,” LFI lawmakers wrote in the statement, referring to Golan’s concert scheduled for May 20. “We ask the prefect to ban it immediately.”

“No one should come to Paris to sing hymns to the genocide of the Palestinian people,” the statement continued.

According to the party, the 54-year-old singer called for “the extermination of the Palestinian people” in a social media post the day after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which he wrote, “Leave no soul alive.”

LFI also said that Golan “repeated the statement a week later, before receiving support from far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir,” who serves as Israel’s national security minister.

In their statement, LFI lawmakers claimed that Golan’s concert, expected to gather more than 4,500 people, “constitutes a real voice for genocide supporters.”

“France cannot tolerate such an unnecessary insult to the thousands of Gaza victims and their loved ones,” the statement read.

In response to these accusations, Liam Productions, the event organizer, denounced the push to cancel Golan’s concert as antisemitic and expressed their eagerness to meet the Jewish community in France, promising a “unifying and special evening.”

“On Holocaust Remembrance Day, as we remember the consequences of staying silent in the face of hate, far-left parties in France seek to boycott an Israeli artist simply because he is Israeli,” the statement read.

“This is not freedom of expression — it is antisemitism disguised as morality. The people of Israel will not be silent, will not apologize, and will not stop singing.”

Mélenchon and his party have a long history of pushing anti-Israel policies and, according to Jewish leaders, of making antisemitic comments — such as suggesting that Jews killed Jesus, echoing a false claim that was used to justify antisemitic violence and discrimination throughout the Middle Ages in Europe.

The French diplomat has been criticized by French Jews as a threat to their community, as well as to those who support Israel.

Mélenchon has previously described the French Jewish community as “an arrogant minority that lectures to the rest.” He has also urged the French government to recognize a “Palestinian state.”

In the wake of the Hamas onslaught on Israel, Mélenchon and his party issued a statement calling the attacks “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces” in response to the ongoing Israeli “occupation.”

Last year, Mélenchon openly expressed support for Hezbollah on social media, as the Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon continued to clash with Israel.

“Mass killing in Lebanon by Netanyahu’s invading army,” Melenchon wrote in a post on X, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The toll is getting worse by the hour. Full support for the national resistance of the Lebanese.”

France has experienced a disturbing surge in antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7 atrocities, with 1,570 anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded last year.

The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews.

“LFI has given antisemitism a political endorsement,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told the French publication Le Point last year. “We observe this toxic porosity between criticism of Israel and the ostracization of French Jews. The Palestinian cause becomes a license to hate.”

In late May and early June, antisemitic acts rose by more than 140 percent in France, far surpassing the weekly average of slightly more than 30 incidents.

The report also found that 65.2 percent of antisemitic acts last year targeted individuals, with more than 10 percent of these offenses involving physical violence.

The post French Far-Left Party Calls for Ban on Israeli Pop Star Eyal Golan’s Paris Concert first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Signs Seismic Executive Order on Foreign Funding in Higher Education

US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon shakes hands with Annette Albright next to US President Donald Trump during an event to sign executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 23, 2025. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect.

US President Donald Trump has signed a seismic executive order to strengthen federal law which colleges and universities have long circumvented to avoid reporting donations they receive from illiberal foreign governments and individuals.

“Protecting American educational, cultural, and national security interests requires transparency regarding foreign funds flowing to American higher education and research institutions,” Trump said in the order, which was signed in the Oval Office in the presence of the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on Wednesday. “It is the policy of my administration to end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions, protect the marketplace of ideas from propaganda sponsored by foreign governments, and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.”

The executive order noted that during Trump’s first term in office, the Education Department launched investigations of 19 higher education institutions suspected of concealing foreign donations and any undue influence the immense sums may have gained the country from which they originated — inquiries that led to the disclosure of $6.5 billion worth of unreported gifts. The Biden administration, he said, “undid” that work, “hindering public access to information on foreign gifts and contracts.”

The remainder of the order enumerates enforcement duties delegated to McMahon, which include reversing Biden-era policies which countenanced lax observance of the law — Section 117 of the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 — updating the public on the department’s findings, and impounding federal funds appropriated to institutions that continue to shroud their foreign donations behind a veil of secrecy and corporate spin.

“Unfortunately, in the last four years, the Biden administration undermined the structures the president built to do this critical work, allowing nations like China and Qatar to funnel billions of dollars to US universities with little to no oversight,” McMahon said in a statement. “This financial infiltration enabled foreign governments to steal taxpayer-funded intellectual property and reshape how our elite campuses teach about Israel and the Middle East.”

Foreign money in higher education is an issue to which scholars and nonprofit groups have called attention for years, arguing that it is an instrument of hostile powers that aim to distort US foreign policy by exposing students to propaganda or other ideas which undermine faith in liberal values such as free markets, limited government, and freedom of the press. Some of it is used to rehabilitate the reputations of authoritarian governments, a tactic which, experts argue, effectively converts the openness of American society into a force of its own self-subversion.

For example, according to the 2017 National Association of Scholars (NAS) report “Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for years planted “Confucius Institutes” at universities across the US, teaching students that Taiwan is Chinese territory while censoring darker moments in the regime’s history, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre that killed thousands of Chinese citizens. The institutes, the report added, came with substantial financial benefits, such as extra funds for the University at Buffalo’s Asian studies department and “opera costumes and materials in the lobby of Binghamton University.”

At other times, the Confucius Institutes were allegedly used as bases from which to conduct espionage and theft of American research and intellectual property.

NAS president Peter Wood told The Algemeiner on Thursday that Trump’s executive order is the right move, but that higher education will “resist” complying with it.

“What is at stake here is not just compliance with a good accounting principle. What is really at stake is the contempt with which many college and university presidents regard America’s national interest,” Wood said. “Allowing our universities to become beholden to the Chinese Community Party endangers Americans. The National Association of Scholars has helped to track the theft of intellectual property, the duplicity of American researchers, and the diversion research programs all under the influence of Chinese funding. China is far from the only source of such subversive funding, but it is by far the largest source.”

He added, “President Trump’s forceful executive order will go a long way towards curing this problem. We can be under no illusion, however, that America’s colleges and universities will cheerfully comply. They have a long record of ignoring lawful requirements for such disclosure and they are now more eager than ever to demonstrate their defiance of America’s laws. In light of other executive orders against [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and other forms of academic malfeasance, dozens of prominent research universities are openly declaring that they intend to resist.”

NAS has recorded copious data on foreign funding of higher education, notably in the Foreign Donor Database it created in 2024 that led to the uncovering of vast sums the Qatari government had pumped into American universities — Cornell University received over $322 million, for example, from the Qatar National Research Fund between 2015 and 2018 — to promote pro-Hamas propaganda.

Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), told The Algemeiner that Qatar has “given billions to universities, including to share their Middle East studies program which then in turn develop and disseminate K-12 curriculums which are dramatically anti-Israel, antisemitic, and pro-Islamist.”

The donation of billions of unreported dollars to US institutions of higher education is strongly correlated with an erosion of liberal democratic norms and increased antisemitism on college campuses, according to a 2023 report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) titled, “The Corruption of the American Mind.”

From 2015-2020, the report noted, schools that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors had, on average, 300 percent more antisemitic incidents than schools that did not accept such donations. The largest donor it named is Qatar, which former US President Joe Biden described in 2022 as a “major non-NATO ally.” From 2014-2019, Qatar gave American universities a striking $2.7 billion in undocumented funds.

Additionally, students attending universities that received foreign funding witnessed antisemitism “significantly more often” than those attending schools that did not.

“A lack of transparency in funding reporting occurred in tandem with antidemocratic norms and antisemitism across American institutions of higher education,” the report said. “A massive influx of foreign, concealed donations to American institutions of higher learning, much of it from authoritarian regimes with notable support from Middle Eastern sources, reflects or supports heightened levels of intolerance towards Jews, open inquiry, and free expression.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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