In this mailing: - Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian Police State
- Lawrence A. Franklin: The "Iran Deal" Soon to Be Resuscitated
by Khaled Abu Toameh • June 30, 2021 at 5:00 am These [Palestinian] leaders have turned the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank into a police state where political opponents are beaten to death, arrested, tortured and intimidated. The crackdown was almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media in the West -- until the death of Banat. It was ignored because the perpetrators were not Israeli policemen or soldiers. It was ignored because the media could not find a way to blame Israel for the fact that the Palestinian government was harassing, intimidating and torturing Palestinians. The silence of the international community and media towards the human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority has prompted Palestinian journalists to make a direct appeal to the European Union to provide them with protection. The protests... are mainly directed at the Biden administration, whose representatives have recently been courting and searching for ways to cozy up to Abbas and his Fatah cohorts. The message Palestinians are sending to the Biden administration: Stop empowering our brutal, corrupt leaders. Will the Biden administration and the Western world actually legitimize -- and reward with millions of dollars and possibly even a state – political leaders who brutalize, torture and murder their own journalists and citizens? To gain what? A legacy of America championing a regime like that?
 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (pictured) and his Fatah faction have shown that they are basically not all that different from other totalitarian regimes, especially those in the Arab world. These leaders have turned the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank into a police state where political opponents are beaten to death, arrested, tortured and intimidated. (Photo by Alaa Badarneh/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) Earlier this year, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas enacted a decree-law on boosting public freedoms ahead of the Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections, which were supposed to take place on May 22 and July 31. Article I of the law provides for "establishing an atmosphere of public freedoms in all the territories of Palestine, including the freedom to practice political and national action." Article II provides for "banning the detention, arrest, prosecution of, or holding to account, individuals for reasons relating to the freedom of opinion and political affiliation." Since the new law was issued on February 20, however, Abbas, who recently entered the 16th year of his four-year term in office, has called off the elections on the pretext that Israel did not reply to his request to allow the vote to take place in Jerusalem. Continue Reading Article by Lawrence A. Franklin • June 30, 2021 at 4:00 am Raisi's election, "engineered to guarantee his victory," looks suspiciously like a ploy by Iran's Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei to terrify the American negotiators into capitulating to Iran's demands even faster and more recklessly, to avoid negotiating with an opponent more uncompromising than the one with whom they are negotiating at present. The JCPOA is allegedly designed to prevent, or at least postpone, Iran's drive for a nuclear weapons capability along with the means to deliver them. Among the deal's many major drawbacks is that after it expires, Iran can enrich as much uranium to have as many nuclear weapons -- and the means to deliver them -- as it likes. Despite signs that the P5+1 negotiating team will subscribe to a re-constituted JCPOA "understanding," there seems to exist no trust that the Islamic Republic will comply with any agreement. The IAEA's catalogue of doubts regarding Iran's compliance with any nuclear safeguards is lengthy. Based on Iran's pattern of obstructionism, the impending renewal of the JCPOA does not inspire confidence that the Islamic Republic -- even if it verbally agrees, or this time signs a document -- will ever be in compliance. It is also sadly assumed, based on past patterns, that the US, in its eagerness to secure a deal -- any deal -- will back down when faced with any Iranian demand.
 Based on Iran's pattern of obstructionism, the impending renewal of the JCPOA "nuclear deal" does not inspire confidence that the Islamic Republic -- even if it verbally agrees, or this time signs a document -- will ever be in compliance. Pictured: The heavy water production facility at Arak, south of Tehran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) The latest alteration before the Americans trying to revive the "nuclear weapons deal" -- known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- with Iran is the carefully staged election this month of Ebrahim Raisi to its presidency. A clerical hardliner known as "the Butcher," he is responsible for thousands of executions of oppositions leaders, torture and other "ongoing crimes against humanity." Raisi's election, "engineered to guarantee his victory," looks suspiciously like a ploy by Iran's Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei to terrify the American negotiators into capitulating to Iran's demands even faster and more recklessly, to avoid negotiating with an opponent more uncompromising than whomever they are negotiating with at present. Upon his victory, Raisi immediately announced that he will not meet with US President Joe Biden, and that Iran's "ballistic missile program and its support of regional militias" were "nonnegotiable." Continue Reading Article |
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