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Report: Iranian regime has plotted to kill Jews overseas, including philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Iranian regime has launched dozens of plots to kill its perceived enemies abroad, including Jews, among them the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, according to a report in The Washington Post.
The Iranian regime dramatically intensified its targeting of overseas figures after the United States assassinated a top general, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, the report posted Thursday said, citing 15 unnamed officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East as well as documents its reporters have seen.
According to the report, the regime has since 2020 shifted from identifying and tracking targets for possible attack should there be an intensification in tensions between the West and Iran, to launching plots, which one expert said so far number 36. Many of the attacks do not come to fruition, because they are thwarted by authorities in the targeted countries, or because the designated assassins choose not to carry them out.
Last summer, Israeli officials warned Israelis not to travel to Istanbul, saying that Israeli and Turkish authorities had recently thwarted Iranian-backed terrorist attacks.
Among the targets of Iranian assassins, according to the Washington Post report, was Lévy, a philosopher who emphasizes his Jewish outlook and who has been an outspoken critic of repressive regimes in the Middle East, particularly Iran.
Lévy was targeted by the Quds Force, the special operations branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that Soleimani headed, the Post reported. The Quds Force paid an Iranian drug dealer $150,000 to kill Lévy, it said. The report did not say how the plot was thwarted. Lévy declined to comment to the newspaper.
Other targets included Israeli businessmen in Colombia, the Post said. An Iranian spy serving a prison sentence in Dubai met two Colombian brothers who were in the same prison; they were jewel thieves, according to the report. The spy trained the brothers in assassination techniques, it said, but they never followed through once released.
Also noted was the arrest last year in Cyprus of an Azerbaijani Russian citizen who allegedly was supervising a team of Pakistanis tracking Israeli citizens in the country. That plot had recently shifted into a plan to carry out deadly attacks, the report said.
Other groups targeted in the plots, the report said, included Iranian exiles who are prominent in their criticism of the regime, and journalists living abroad who report on Iran. In addition to France, Cyprus and Colombia, plots have been attempted or carried out in the United States, Canada, Britain, Iraq and Turkey, the report said.
Matthew Levitt, a former FBI official who now tracks terrorism at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, told the newspaper that, of 124 plots he has identified since 1979, 36 have taken place since Soleimani’s killing. Soleimani was responsible for attacks on American forces in the area and for liaising with and arming two of Israel’s enemies, the terrorist groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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The post Report: Iranian regime has plotted to kill Jews overseas, including philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
It’s not every day that a kosher dill pickle puppet gets a chance to learn some Yiddish.
Monty Pickle, star of the children’s series The Monty Pickle Show, recently joined Rukhl Schaechter, host of the Forward’s YouTube series Yiddish Word of the Day, for an episode teaching viewers the Yiddish words for various wild animals.
Or as they’re called in Yiddish: vilde khayes.
The Monty Pickle Show, a puppet comedy on YouTube and TikTok, aims to show young viewers what it means to be Jewish in a fun, lively way. The series was created by the Emmy Award-winning producers of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.
So far, he’s met a number of Jewish personalities, including rabbis, musicians and chefs, and explored holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover.
Sitting alongside Rukhl during the lesson, Monty eagerly tries to guess what each word means, providing for some very funny moments.
The post Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’ appeared first on The Forward.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.