In the news

Group: We're entering very dark period for Jews in Europe

This represents yet another story which touches on the persecution story:

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) said Thursday that certain Jewish communities in Europe are in grave danger after a recent wave of anti-Semitism, some of it officially sanctioned.

Recently, the organization said, a respected and government-funded Catholic school, the College of the Sacred Heart, in Antwerp, hosted a ‘Palestine Day’, which was replete with anti-Semitic references and activities for youngsters. One stall at the event was titled “Throw the soldiers into the sea” where children were invited to throw replicas of Jewish and Israeli soldiers into two large tanks, EJC said.

Last weekend, an event organized for Jewish children in Malmo was reportedly attacked by a gang of thugs who shouted “Heil Hitler” and “Jewish pigs”. The gang even entered the area hosting the children’s event and damaged property. This event occurred only a few weeks after Malmo mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, was reelected in the Swedish city.

Earlier in this year after a surge of anti-Semitism hit the Malmo Jewish community, Reepalu considered this an understandable consequence of the Israel-Palestine conflict and claimed “we accept neither Zionism nor anti-Semitism,” equating Jewish national self-determination with hate and racism.

The EJC is calling on European governments and the European Union to launch a campaign against intolerance and anti-Semitism, so to remind European citizens that the new Europe was established after the Second World War on the concept of “Never Again.”

Pajamas Media reports on the failed peace talks:

Middle East Peace Talks Degenerate into farce

At the moment, the Middle East peace process appears to have descended into a bizarre impasse, more akin to farce than tragedy. Both sides are announcing demands and possible concessions, none of which seem to last longer than a single news cycle.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses a renewal of the settlement freeze, then says it might be renewed in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians hint that they may be willing to recognize Israel as such, and soon after declare that it will never happen. Then they publicly declare that only a return to the ’67 borders will satisfy them, something that, given the facts on the ground, is impossible, as they are well aware.

The short-term consequences of the current malaise, however, are not particularly sanguine for Israel. Thus far, Obama has demanded next to nothing of the Palestinians, and he seems unlikely to do so in the future. As such, his next step will likely be to further pressure Israel for concessions of some kind. Netanyahu, however, has conceded all that he can without toppling his own government, and since pressure from Obama serves only to strengthen the prime minister’s support among the Israeli public, he has no motivation of any kind to acquiesce to it.

This next article describes Iran's "internal war" and gives some additional information on the recent explosions in and around Iran's weapons facilities:

How Long Can the Iranian Regime Last?

I’ve received many questions about the recent explosion at a Revolutionary Guards base near Khorramabad (near the Iraqi border) that reportedly killed nearly twenty Guardsmen and, according to some accounts, destroyed several new Shehab missiles. The regime described it as an accident, but even the Washington Post’s Thomas Erdbrink, who often shows a touching tendency to accept the official version of events, had his doubts: “It was unclear whether the incident…was an accident or the result of terrorism or sabotage.” He was right to wonder; there have been three such events at the Imam Ali Base in the last several months, and while there are lots of accidents in Iran, it is most unlikely that repeated explosions are all accidental.


The base is a training center for high-level Iranian officers and experienced foreign fighters. According to a reliable Iranian source, the foreigners were being trained in the use of roadside bombs, the so-called IEDs that account for most American and other NATO casualties in Afghanistan. Those were apparently ignited, along with jet fuel, and killed 19 Iranian officers and badly burnt another 14, most of whom are in critical condition. No figures are available for the foreigners, although some of them were certainly killed or wounded.

The base was attacked by two men on motorcycles, who first killed two security guards and then launched rockets over the walls into the base. There were indeed four missiles at the site, but they were short-range missile with a range of 200-250 kilometers, not the latest generation of intermediate-range Shehabs.

The latest deaths bring the number of RG casualties in the last 26 days to 102, which gives you a sense of the intensity of the internal war against the Iranian regime. Earlier in the month, armed gunmen attacked police in Kurdestan, killing five and wounding four others.

After describing specific measures that the Iranian government is taking against their middle-class, such as various forms of food and gas rationing, and rebellion by Iranian workers and merchants, the article continues:

These measures – some of which have been announced, while others will emerge in coming weeks – will further enrage most Iranians, who are already alienated from the regime. The ranks of the enragés include many senior clerics, and in recent weeks the regime has assaulted their mosques, beaten and arrested their followers and even family members, and shut down their websites and Facebook pages. The regime’s critics are not going quietly.

The Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastgheib, for example, who is a member of the Assembly of Experts that chooses the supreme leader, has recently challenged Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s legitimacy, saying that “the only duties of someone selected by the Assembly of Experts are ‘…to coordinate the efforts of the three branches of government and to prevent the violation of citizens’ rights by the three branches.’ This bold claim means that the supreme leader’s powers are much more limited than is currently the case. Dastgheib asserts, ‘This person…has no right to interfere in the affairs of the people.’”

Thus the vice of oppression tightens more forcefully on all levels of Iranian society, as the regime uses the only method that can keep Khamenei and Ahmadinejad in power: the iron fist, combined with foreign adventure (about which more in my next blog).

Can it last? The regime would surely fall in short order if its opponents received a modicum of real support from the West, but no such support seems to be forthcoming from the feckless men and women who mistakenly fancy themselves to be real leaders, and who one day will have earned a shameful page in the history of this period.

And so the agony of Iran continues, until the inevitable explosion of righteous wrath finally destroys this evil regime.

This is interesting. Governments who are under this kind of internal pressure often take extreme measures in order to maintain their power. And such governments can be very dangerous. One must wonder if war in the region could be used as a diversion, or as a means to rally the country to support the current regime. A little food for thought anyway.

Earthquakes:

Just something to keep an eye on:

Series of Quakes in Mexico's Gulf