In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The Home Demolitions No One Talks About
- Peter Huessy: Iran: US Chance for a Knockout Punch
by Khaled Abu Toameh • May 27, 2020 at 5:00 am
While international human rights groups and the European Union have also been condemning Israel, they are ignoring home demolitions carried out by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In February, Hamas notified 50 families... that their homes would be destroyed on the pretext that they were built without a license. The families were instructed to evacuate their homes within two weeks.... Last year, Hamas demolished another house in Khan Yunis belonging to Bassam Duhan, also on the pretext that it was built without a license. Duhan, a father of eight, set up a tent in front of the demolished house. He complained that relatives of senior Hamas officials had also built homes in the same area, but no one destroyed their homes.
Last year, a youth group in the Gaza Strip called on the Arab League and other Arab and Islamic parties to launch an investigation into Hamas's crimes against Palestinians. Needless to say, the group has never received a reply from the Arab League or any other organization in the Arab and Islamic countries. The appeal came after Hamas militiamen used excessive force to prevent Palestinians from protesting economic hardship and Hamas corruption.
In the absence of an international response, Hamas continues to demolish homes in the Gaza Strip -- and other crimes against its own people -- with impunity, leaving hundreds of families without shelter.
On May 15, Hamas bulldozers demolished a partially constructed house belonging to the Sha'ath family in the city of Khan Yunis. Hamas claimed it was being built without a proper permit. According to eyewitnesses, dozens of Hamas militiamen armed with batons and electric stun-batons beat women and children and hurled abuse at other members of the Sha'ath family during the demolition. Pictured: Khan Yunis. (Image source: Dans/Wikimedia Commons)
Hamas, the Iranian-backed terrorist movement controlling the Gaza Strip, is often one of the first Palestinian groups to condemn Israel for demolishing homes of terrorists or Palestinian-owned houses built illegally in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
While international human rights groups and the European Union have also been condemning Israel, they are ignoring home demolitions carried out by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In the past 10 years, Hamas has demolished not only houses, but also a mosque -- a move that has received almost no attention from the international media and human rights organizations or the EU.
On May 11, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denounced as a "war crime" the demolition by the Israeli military of the house belonging to Qassam Barghouti in the village of Kubar, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
by Peter Huessy • May 27, 2020 at 4:00 am
There are five actions the Trump administration must take: (1) extending the UN arms embargo on Iran; (2) snapping back economic sanctions on Iran (they were originally loosened as part of the JCPOA); (3) shutting down the smuggling and trafficking networks of Hezbollah in the Americas; (4) stopping the Chinese-Iranian oil and gas pipeline developments through Pakistan; and (5) interdicting if possible Iranian tankers filled with gasoline and headed for Venezuela.
The embargo on Iran selling or importing high-technology military equipment, especially ballistic missile technology, must also be one of the administration's highest priorities. Particularly worrisome is that Russia and China want to sell equipment to Iran that, when combined with Iran's indigenous missile capability, would greatly accelerate Tehran's ICBM development program.
The US administration has let it be known that it could still sanction any entity selling Iran advanced weapons, especially ballistic missile technology.
Iranian tankers laden with gasoline are now traveling to Venezuela. The US Navy could easily capture those tankers still at sea. There is ample precedent. Both the US and Great Britain have legally seized Iranian ships bringing missiles to terrorists in Yemen. With a similar action, the US could both deny funds for Iran's terrorist and nuclear activities and energy desperately needed by the oppressive Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Iranian tankers laden with gasoline are now traveling to Venezuela. The US Navy could easily capture those tankers still at sea. There is ample precedent. Both the US and Great Britain have legally seized Iranian ships bringing missiles to terrorists in Yemen. Pictured: The oil tanker Fortune, the first of five Iranian-flagged tankers bringing Iranian gasoline to Venezuela, docked at the El Palito refinery in Carabobo, on May 25, 2020. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
In 2015, the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and China signed an agreement that was named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA. The agreement (which Iran serially violates) ostensibly curtailed Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons -- for a short time -- in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran.
Nothing in the deal called for Iran to: (1) stop development and deployment of ballistic missiles; (2) end the presence of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) terrorist militias in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan; (3) stop its smuggling and trafficking activities in the western hemisphere, or (4) curtail a growing oil-and-gas-related economic and cooperative military partnership with China.
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