Daily Headlines

Israel To Cut Off Contacts With UN Human Rights Council

The foreign ministry decided Monday to cut off all contacts with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a senior diplomatic official said.

The move comes following the decision by the council last Thursday to send a fact-finding mission to the West Bank to probe the impact of the settlements on Palestinian human rights.

From now on, the officials said, Israel's ambassador to the UN organizations in Geneva will not appear before the council, answer any phone calls from the council, or cooperate with them in any way.

Officials: Israel Ready For "Global March To Jerusalem"

Israel is prepared to handle this week’s “Global March to Jerusalem,” officials said on Sunday, as organizers plan a multi-pronged rush on the country’s borders to mark the 36th anniversary of Land Day on Friday.

Organizers of the event – known as “GMJ” – say they are planning peaceful marches on the Israeli border in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, at checkpoints in the West Bank and at entrances to the Gaza Strip.

Organizers said processions would also be organized in Arab and Muslim capitals worldwide, and in front of Israeli embassies in a number of unspecified countries.

Another official said all necessary precautions were being taken, and that Jordan and Egypt had an interest in keeping their borders quiet.

The situation in Lebanon is less clear. One Israeli official said marchers would likely proceed as far as Beaufort – a Crusader castle several kilometers north of the border – while another warned that Iranian involvement in Lebanon’s south means no scenario could be ruled out.

Earlier this week, the Israel-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that Iran is the primary force behind the initiative, both directly and through proxies such as Hezbollah. In February, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described the Global March as an expression of Iran’s policy to strengthen “resistance operations” against Israel.

Does "Global March To Jerusalem" Have Iran's Backing?

The GMJ intends to assemble activists in all the countries surrounding Israel. They will then begin simultaneously to march in the direction of the border. This will take place to coincide with annual protest marches by Arab citizens of Israel.

One of the organizers expressed the aims of the march in the following terms: “Imagine a situation where we have more than a million people streaming in from four borders and Israel fails to stop the human tide. Once we have broken this mental barrier, then it’s all over. Next time we will have 5 million who will be marching in and it will only grow from there. This is exactly the nightmare situation for Israel.”

The hopes that the organizers are investing in the march are thus not modest. They think they are about to initiate a process that will lead to the end of Israel: the GMJ, the activist’s email continues, “will undermine the Israeli state like no other strategy and then it will all begin to unravel and the Zionist edifice, which is unraveling as we speak, will soon fall. It’s a matter of time now, as we well know.”

This initiative is the product of an international alliance that has emerged in recent years between mainly Sunni Islamists and Western leftist supporters of the destruction of Israel.

What sets the GMJ apart somewhat from previous initiatives of this kind, however, is the notable representation of Iranian and Iran-regime associated groups among its backers. This suggests Iranian government backing for the march. The Iranian-linked groups form a third pillar, alongside the Sunni, Muslim-Brotherhood linked groups and the less important Western leftist anti-Zionists.

The Society for Defense of the Palestinian Nation, the Quds News Agency, and the International Union of Unified Ummah are among the long list of Iran-linked groups that are among the organizers of this campaign.

How seriously should Israel be taking the threat represented by the Global March to Jerusalem? Firstly, the campaign to delegitimize Israel is a genuinely global project, bringing together Islamists and far leftists from across the world. As the experience of the first flotilla shows, complacency and failure to properly prepare for its activities can end badly.

Ahmadinejad: U.S. Can No Longer Dictate World Policy

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the United States could no longer dictate policy to the rest of the world and that relations between NATO and Pakistan would become more unstable.

"NATO and the United States should change their policy because the time when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed," Ahmadinejad said in a speech during a conference on Afghanistan's economy in the capital of neighboring Tajikistan.

Also see:

A World Without Cash Or One Currency

Obamacare Versus The U.S. Constitution

One need hardly be a constitutional scholar to understand that a federal government that can require you to purchase something you do not want or do not need can require you to do anything it wants. A government that powerful is a government to be feared.

Obamacare At The Court: A guide To The Proceedings

Report: Israeli Teams Monitor Iran's Nuclear Program On The Ground