If the U.S. reduces its military presence, Gulf states believe, it is best to find a careful route between the superpowers – some of which, like China, have been instrumental in mediating between Riyadh and Tehran

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ

File photo of Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, left, holding hands with his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, right, and Chinese counterpart Qin Gang in Beijing in April.

Viewers from the region who watched the appearance of U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy did not get much satisfaction. Sullivan, who devoted his remarks to the Biden administration’s policy in the region, first mentioned Iran at about minute 22 of the address. His tone was not especially threatening. When asked about the conciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a development that is worrying Netanyahu a great deal, Sullivan offered a relatively positive response. The administration, he said, discerns in this a positive potential for regional restraint.

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By Eileen F. Toplansky, AM THINKER

In the mid-1970s I and others worldwide were active in a letter writing campaign to Soviet Jewish refuseniks. Anatoly Sharansky is probably the most well-known of these dissidents.  While most of the letters were heavily censored, some did get through and it gave hope to those prisoners of conscience that the world was hearing them despite the malevolence of the communists.

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by Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE  •  May 13, 2023

• “It is unacceptable that a U.S. government program, which makes the United States and its allies safer, provides funds to remediate the victims of terrorism, and generates income for the United States in a cost-effective manner has been allowed to languish. United States sanctions should be enforced to the fullest extent of the law. As Iranian oil sales continue to rise, and the IRGC continues to target U.S. citizens and servicemembers, including inside the U.S., it is imperative that we use all available government assets to limit the activities of the Iranian regime.” — Senator Joe Manchin and 11 other Senators, in a letter to President Joe Biden, April 27, 2023.

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MANY IMPORTANT ISSUES ARE DISCUSSED THIS VIDEO.

by Marilyn Stern Middle East Forum Webinar
May 1, 2023

https://www.meforum.org/64410/izabella-tabarovsky-the-sinister-legacy-of-soviet

Izabella Tabarovsky, a senior advisor at the Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center and research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), spoke to a May 1^st Middle East Forum Webinar (video) about the connection between early antisemitic tropes propagated in the Soviet Union and contemporary anti-Zionist discourse in the U.S. and the West. The following is a summary of her comments:

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by: C.G. Jones, HUMAN EVENTS

In Wednesday’s episode of Human Events Daily, host Jack Posobiec spoke about the differences between the US he grew up in, and Poland, where his family is originally from. The podcast host suggested that the America many people grew up in is virtually unrecognizable now, noting that much of this has to do with the rise of crime and lack of attention to the infrastructure that is integral to the function of the country.

Posobiec has been on a two-week visit to Europe, and one of his recent adventures has been to a Polish village that his family lived in before immigrating to the US. He noted that while there are big cities and many people in Poland, there is no violent crime. And he suggests that the reason for this is that Poland takes crime seriously, something that the US is not doing.

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BY MARK SLEBODA, REAL POLITICK

Since the West-backed Maidan Putsch seized power in Ukraine in 2014, they have embarked on a massive de-Russification and pro-Banderization campaign, tearing down statues and monuments, replacing plaques, and renaming towns and streets – getting rid of anything  dedicated to Russians and Soviets, and frequently erecting honours and memorials to WW2 era West Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, who are glorified for fighting those Russians and Communists, despite their bloody massacres of Ukrainian Jews, Poles, Hungarians, Russians, and Leftists in their place.

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2 million ineligible registrations being removed from voter rolls across the nation in the last two years

By Tom Fitton, JUDICIAL WATCH

Here’s the latest in our many successes for cleaner elections.

Judicial Watch settled an important federal election integrity lawsuit against Pennsylvania and five of its counties.

Pennsylvania admitted in court filings that it removed 178,258 ineligible registrations thanks to Judicial Watch pressure. The new settlement specifically commits Pennsylvania and five of its counties to extensive public reporting of statistics regarding their ongoing voter roll clean-up efforts for the next five years, along with a payment to us of $15,000 for legal costs and fees.
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On May 10, two days ago, Patrick Byrne was being interviewed by Emerald Robinson (start at 9min) about election fraud and in the last minute of that interview he made the following disclosure:

“I know something about the Biden corruption – all of this has been sent to the Congress.  I was sent to the Iranian govt about a year and a half ago on other matters, and in the context of that I became aware and was informed that Hunter Biden was reaching out to Iranian back-channel with this proposal: You Iranians have $8 billion frozen in a South Korean bank, and my father will sign to unfreeze it and return it in exchange for $800 million funneled into an account for us, and if you do this, it will lubricate the other discussions which have recently been started between us.  

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Behind western hostility to Israel and indifference towards Iran lies a baleful explanation

By MELANIE PHILLIPS    12.5.23

We know it’s coming. We can write the script in advance. Yet it never fails to sicken and to shock.

This week, Israel was once again forced to take military action to defend itself against increasingly deadly attacks. As ever, western media presented this as if Israel wakes up in the morning and decides to bomb Gaza through some insatiable lust for violence.

Once again, such media outlets omitted or downplayed the crucial context for this military action. Once again, questions asked by some interviewers were framed through a maliciously distorted prism.

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by Jonathan Schanzer, Commentary    May 10, 2023

Rockets from Gaza flew toward Tel Aviv on May 10, only a few weeks after Israel celebrated its 75th anniversary. Against all odds, the country has survived despite multiple wars with its neighbors, a dearth of natural resources, and countless other challenges. But the rockets are a reminder that there are no permanent victories in the Middle East. Only permanent battles. There is a real possibility that Israel will be facing a serious war with enemies coming at it from various sides for the first time in nearly half a century—one coordinated out of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but fought along Israel’s borders by Tehran’s terror proxies. Indeed, just a day before the rocket barrage, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly spoke of “an attempt by Iran to start a multi-front campaign against us.”

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T. Belman.  China and Russia are replacing the US in the M.E.

Can Russia emulate China’s Middle East diplomatic success with a Turkiye-Syria rapprochement?

Russia hails Syria’s return to Arab League as Arab world ‘independent global policy’

Having viewed both powers warily for years, the Islamic Republic sees its best prospects for survival as the junior partner in an anti-Western alliance

By David S. Cloud, WSJ  5.5.23

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who has been seeking an alliance with Russia and China since last year , hosts Vladimir Putin in Tehran, July 19, 2022. PHOTO: SPUTNIK/SERGEI SAVOSTYANOV/REUTERS

On New Year’s Eve in 1977, President Jimmy Carter rose in the glittering banquet hall of Tehran’s Niavaran Palace to toast the deep bonds between the U.S. and Iran. As Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi looked on, Mr. Carter showered accolades on the monarch, praising Iran’s modernizing society, attention to human rights and military power.

“Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world,” he told his host before they raised their glasses in friendship.

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TFI GLOBAL

The Middle East is undergoing a paradigm shift, and the West is facing poetic justice. This video explores how Saudi Arabia and Iran’s peace deal, along with their restored relations and kindling ties with Syria, are leaving the USA reeling.

Rejected By Salafists And Hardliners, Praised, Endorsed By Liberals

MEMRI

In an interview aired on the official Saudi channel Saudia TV on April 7, 2023, Saudi cleric Saleh Al-Moghamsy, former imam and preacher of the prestigious Quba Mosque near Medina, expressed his wish to establish a new Islamic school of jurisprudence and argued that there is a dire need for such a school, saying that reexamination of the work of ancient scholars is inevitable. Al-Moghamsy further stressed that “a new school of Islamic jurisprudence must be established whether by a group of people or by one person and I pray to Allah to be that person.”

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By Ted Belman (Originally published in Aug ’05)

President Moshe Katsav in a recent interview underscored that, more then any time in the past, the upcoming election will be a referendum on Israel’s borders and so it will.

All parties are prepared to withdraw to varying degrees and on different preconditions. In effect, Labour and Kadima accept the two-state solution as envisioned by the Roadmap and Likud is paying lip service to it because its preconditions are unlikely to be fulfilled.
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by: Fern Sidman, JEWISH VOICE

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) canceled a Palestinian “Nakba Day” event headlined by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) at the U.S. Capitol and replaced it with an event marking 75 years of Israel-U.S. ties, World Israel News reported on Tuesday.

The original event, which was slated to be held at a 400-person auditorium at the Capitol Building, would commemorate the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — which condemns the founding of the Jewish state in May of 1948.

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Cancelling due to Ben Gvir’s presence is just the newest hypocrisy. Europe celebrates with dictators, but boycotts democratic Israel.

By Giulio Meotti, INN

“The ambassadors of the European Union member states present in Qatar are pleased to invite you to a special event to celebrate Europe Day in Qatar”. And again: “Every year, on May 9, we celebrate the Schuman declaration. The EU ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Patrick Simonnet, has organized a lunch to celebrate Europe Day in Riyadh”. Same invitation in Türkiye.

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