29-Dec-18: A quiet weekend

Dutch police action [Image Source]

A handful of terror-centric reports that arrived in our news filter this quiet weekend and that, for the most part, have gotten very little media attention.

Friday night Arab-on-Israel rocket attack

A rocket was fired Friday from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said, the first such incident in over six weeks. The Red Alert alarm warning system was not activated as the projectile landed in an open area, the spokesperson added. No injuries or damage were reported. [Times of Israel]

Five men arrested in Rotterdam on terrorism charges 

Five men have been arrested in Rotterdam on charges of preparing a terrorist attack, broadcaster NOS said on Saturday. Four were arrested early on Saturday morning at homes in the centre and east of the port city and the fifth man was picked up later in the day. The first four are aged 20 to 30 and have a ‘non-western’ background, broadcaster NOS said. One is said to be a Syrian refugee with residency status named as Saleh H. A second man is said to be an Egyptian national... [DutchNews.nl]

Egypt security forces kill 40 suspected terrorists in raids - report 

Egyptian security forces killed 40 alleged terrorists in raids in the Giza and North Sinai regions early Saturday, state media reported, a day after four people were killed when a roadside bomb struck a tourist bus in Giza. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the raids, conducted at dawn Saturday, targeted three suspected hideouts of terrorists who were planning hostile acts during the Christmas holidays, according to the state-run Al-Ahram online newspaper. Ammunition, firearms and improvised explosive devices were recovered in significant numbers... Three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide were killed and at least 11 people were injured in the attack Friday in a central tourist area of Giza, near Cairo, where the pyramids are located... [CNN]

...meanwhile from the Palestinian Authority's media mouthpiece:

"...Spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud said in a statement that the Palestinian people and its leadership stand with Egypt in fighting “this cowardly terrorism aimed at innocent people and the security and stability of the Egyptian people.” He expressed belief that Egypt is capable of fighting terrorism and those who stand behind it, calling on Arab countries to stand together in fighting terrorism and extremism targeting the Arab world in particular and the world in general.

Three charged with planning terror attack in Sweden

Sweden's prosecution authority said on Thursday it had charged three men with planning a terror attack in Sweden, warning the plot could have caused serious damage had it not been prevented... The men, aged between 30 and 46, originally hail from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Their residency status in Sweden could not immediately be verified... The three are suspected of "obtaining and storing large amounts of chemicals and other equipment with the aim of killing and wounding other people," the prosecution authority said in a statement. "If the terrorist crime had been carried out, it could have seriously hurt Sweden." The trio were also charged, along with three other people, with financing terrorism. Prosecutors accuse them of sending money abroad to fund the so-called Islamic State's operations... According to Dagens Nyheter, at least one of the suspects had been in contact with Rakhmat Akilov, a radicalized Uzbek asylum seeker who mowed down pedestrians in Stockholm with a stolen truck in April 2017, killing five people. Akilov was sentenced to life in prison in June 2018... [TheLocal (Sweden)]

05-Nov-17: "Watching the Moon at Night", the documentary film Swedish TV has suppressed, is being screened in Israel

Video grab from "Watching the Moon at Night"

We have written about “Watching the Moon at Night” several times (the links are listed at the foot of this post) in the last two years.

It's a fine, made-for-TV documentary film the leading US Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum described as “an intellectually informative, visually compelling, emotionally moving and highly disturbing exploration of the phenomena of terrorism in our time”. 

The film's co-director, the acclaimed Swedish film-maker Bo Persson, will be the special guest at two Israeli screenings during November. 

Tel Aviv Cinematheque: Wednesday November 8, 2017 - screening at 9:00 pm in Cinema 4 | The Tel Aviv Cinematheque is at Shprinzak 2, Tel Aviv | Purchasing tickets online via the Tel Aviv Cinematheque online booking screen is not the simplest process (and seems not to be working at all right now). Call the box office on 03-606-0800 or email them at [email protected]

Jerusalem Cinematheque: Monday November 13, 2017 - screening at 7:00 pm | The Jerusalem Cinematheque is at Derech Hevron 11, Jerusalem | To purchase tickets online, click here | Tickets can also be bought by phone on 02-565-4333, or dial *9377 | They offer this email address: [email protected]

The film was shown last year in the European Parliament and the Swedish parliament, at many international film festivals and in front of audiences in the United States and Europe. But it won't be shown to Swedish television viewers because of some outrageous politically-motivated manipulation.

Marianne Ahrne, a prominent writer, film director and observer of Sweden´s cultural life, wrote last month ["Television, terror and Swedish funding"] about the deeply disturbing fate of Persson’s film:

“I approved the funding of their film while working as a commissioner at the Swedish Film Institute. Since then, I have followed its destiny, seeing it praised at festivals and by several of the foremost global experts in the fields that it tackles - terrorism and anti-Semitism. But Sveriges Television (SVT), our country’s national public TV broadcaster, has, for some obscure reason and despite the fact it originally signed on to co-produce it, refused to screen it. And continues to refuse.”

It doesn't take much effort (we wrote a while back) for people with a deep respect for the open sharing and discussion of important ideas to share her fury.

“What's at work here is a brazen betrayal of principles. Sveriges Television, Sweden's dominant television network, is thwarting - silencing is a better word - the screening of an important, thoughtful film that happens to have been created by some of the most admirable minds at work in that country. The scandal is hardly a secret but it has gotten scant media attention.”

The film-makers [Image Source]

Filmed in six countries, "Watching the Moon at Night" juxtaposes contemporary terrorism, anti-Semitism and the experiences of their victims with the articulate – and often very moving – views of noted experts in these fields. Its exam­in­at­ion of these powerful themes goes far beyond the stereotypes. 

Persson and his creative partner Joanna Helander co-directed the film which was produced by Kino Koszyk HB with support from Sweden’s Film i Väst and the Swedish Film Institute.

The late French writer and philosopher André Glucksmann, the late historian of anti-Semitism, Robert S. Wistrich, and the eminent historian Walter Laqueur, who left his native Breslau for Palestine on the day before Kristallnacht 1938 and is one of the inspirations behind the production, are among the film’s pre-eminent on-screen commentators. Arnold Roth, whose daughter was murdered in the Hamas attack on the Jerusalem Sbarro in 2001, and Dan Alon, one of the surviving Israeli athletes from the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, are important voices in the film.

It also incorporates personal experiences of terror victims from Algeria, Spain, France, Moscow, Israel, New York, Colombia, Munich, Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

Creative camerawork, inspiring music and Polish Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska, who reads her own poetry in the film all add to the “personal and emotional” perspective, as Agnieszka Holland, chair of the European Film Academy, described it. She called it a production that “shows the common ground shared by victims the world over and the similarities between the perpetrators. In the film, there is no simplifying thesis, no ‘political correctness’… The film truly makes you think.”

Following the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem film screenings, Bo Persson will lead a discussion (in English) on the issues raised by the production and its audience.

You can see the film's trailer here. There is additional info and several reviews at the film's official website. For past posts of ours, see

• 07-Sep-17: A deplorable Swedish reaction when terror intersects with antisemitism
• 22-Jul-16: Heavy-handed Swedish efforts to silence an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism
• 21-Jun-16: An important documentary film on terrorism and antisemitism and the Swedish effort to silence it
• 28-Mar-16: Upcoming premiere screenings (NYC, Washington) of an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism
• 13-Jan-15: Terrorism: watching its victims, trying to understand their experiences

07-Sep-17: A deplorable Swedish reaction when terror intersects with antisemitism

Over at Israel National News, they currently feature a powerful op ed penned by Marianne Ahrne, a notable figure in Scandinavia's film and television industry as well as a successful writer.

The angry views this cultured person shares with her audience about where her country, Sweden, is heading are framed by reference to a film she helped bring into existence. (We played a small role in it too.)

In a passionate expose ["Television, terror and Swedish funding", Israel National News, September 6, 2017], Marianne shares views that stem from both personal experience and a sense of betrayal of her country's heritage and values. It's the kind of anguish we hear more and more from European friends.

Here's a lengthy extract:

Funding terrorism is illegal in Sweden. But Sweden’s government is doing just that. 

Of the $100 million contributed annually by Sweden to the Palestinian Authority, an uncontrollable percentage goes towards salaries for convicted terrorists and allowances to the families of suicide bombers. The more people the terrorist kills, the more money the PA pays to him or her. In this way, many terrorists earn far more while locked up in Israeli prison cells than the average Palestinian worker does. 

Some $355 million of the PA´s budget is currently used for this purpose. 

Swedes like to pretend that their foreign aid money is ear-marked for humanitarian purposes only and gladly go on about it. But this is nothing more than words - and they are ”blowing in the wind”. 

If the government of Sweden does not halt its funding to the PA until they stop rewarding their terrorists, then nothing will change. Mahmoud Abbas, the PA’s president, will continue saying ”yes, yes” in English and ”no, no” in Arabic - while continuing to cash in. Our government is of course aware of Abbas’ double-talk and knows where at least part of  the Swedish foreign aid money ends up. So either it accepts that it is sponsoring terrorism or it is in denial about the facts. I don´t know which is worse. 

But I do know “Palestine” has become the darling pet of our government. And Israel its black sheep.

How would Swedes react, I wonder, if a school in Stockholm were to be named after Rakhmat Akilov, the terrorist who drove a lorry into the crowd on Stockholm’s Drottninggatan in April. Not even Margot Wallström, our country’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister, would view that as a clever move.

But the Palestinians are constantly naming schools, arenas, streets and squares after their terrorists, while stubbornly terming them ‘martyrs’. And those who plan terror attacks while preferring not to be blown up themselves can go on to become TV stars. 

Not long ago there was a celebration (yes, a celebration!) of the suicide bombing of Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria where fifteen Israelis, eight of them children, were murdered and 130 injured. In Gaza and Lebanon, crowds went out onto the streets, cheering and handing out candies in honor of the massacre. The PA later honoured the suicide bomber with a military funeral...

The Sbarro suicide bomber was blown to pieces in the explosion. But Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who planned the attack and brought him to the site, is alive and, until recently, had a TV show of her own where she encouraged viewers on to more acts of terrorism.
Tamimi was one of the 1,027 terrorists liberated in exchange for a captive IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2011. Following her release, Palestinian TV broadcast an interview recorded with her while she was still in an Israeli prison. It shows her [YouTube] expressing delight on learning that more children had been murdered in Sbarro than she knew about at the time.

It turns my stomach to think that, indirectly at least, the Swedish government and Swedish funding from ordinary Swedish taxpayers sponsor her and the likes of her.
The reason I have been looking into the case of Tamimi a little more closely is that Arnold Roth, the father of Malki, one of those children murdered in the pizzeria, takes part in a documentary film “Watching the Moon at Night” made by the noted Swedish film-makers Bo Persson and Joanna Helander. I approved the funding of their film while working as a commissioner at the Swedish Film Institute.

Since then, I have followed its destiny, seeing it praised at festivals and by several of the foremost global experts in the fields that it tackles - terrorism and anti-Semitism. But Sveriges Television (SVT), our country’s national public TV broadcaster, has, for some obscure reason and despite the fact it originally signed on to co-produce it, refused to screen it. And continues to refuse.

More than 1,300 people have signed a petition demanding the film be broadcast by SVT. But no... with the passage of time and after having followed all the ups and downs, I have come to believe that SVT’s refusal to show the film is,  sadly, connected to the fact that among the Spanish, British, Irish, Swedish and Algerian victims of terrorism sympathetically interviewed in the film, there are also a couple of Israelis. 

Such is the depth of Swedish hatred and prejudice against Israel.  And let it be noted that this is no longer a rare response from those on Sweden’s left. 

That the left is over-represented on the documentary board at Swedish Television is an open secret. It probably explains why the management at SVT has no problem showing Oliver Stone´s uncritical portrait of Putin but will not countenance the screening of “Watching the Moon at Night” in which critics of the Russian regime speak up. Men and women, please note, like Anna Politkovskaja who put their lives at risk by their civil courage.

Well, Oliver Stone might be a side-track. But everything is connected.

Feeding the Palestinian Authority with large servings of Swedish funding without demanding a total stop to the unconscionable paying of salaries to terrorists while at the same time refusing to acknowledge Israeli victims of terror – these are two sides of the same coin.

There is a name for this. The name is anti-Semitism.

Marianne Ahrne, who published this, is a serious observer of Swedish affairs. A distinguished figure - writer, director, film-maker - in Sweden's cultural life, she was honored in 1980 with the Esselte Prize for Literature and with numerous additional prizes for her film work. And, which is relevant to what has happened, she served as a film commissioner at the Swedish Film Institute.

Marianne Ahrne [Image Source]

It doesn't take much effort for people with a deep respect for the open sharing and discussion of important ideas to share her fury. What's at work here is a brazen betrayal of principles. Sveriges Television, Sweden's dominant television network, is thwarting - silencing is a better word - the screening of an important, thoughtful film that happens to have been created by some of the most admirable minds at work in that country.

The scandal is hardly a secret but it has gotten scant media attention. We exposed it in several earlier posts of our own: "13-Jan-15: Terrorism: watching its victims, trying to understand their experiences"; "28-Mar-16: Upcoming premiere screenings (NYC, Washington) of an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism"; and "22-Jul-16: Heavy-handed Swedish efforts to silence an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism".

Creative camerawork and the poetry of Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska are part of this exquisitely rendered cinematic essay. Filmed in six countries, "Watching the Moon at Night" focuses on the victims' experiences and juxtaposes them against the views of world experts in this field. The late French writer and philosopher André Glucksmann, the late historian of the Holocaust, Robert S. Wistrich, and the eminent historian Walter Laqueur are among its featured expert voices.

Sweden-based Kino Koszyk produced the film, which was directed and written by Joanna Helander and Bo Persson. Among its other voices are those of Dan Alon, Teresa Jiménez-Becerril, Lars Bergander, Juliette and Bronek Bergman, Vladimir Bukovsky, Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, Michael Gallagher, Konstanty Gebert, André Glucksmann, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Zuhdi Jasser, Anthony Julius, Cherifa Kheddar, Sergei Kovalev, Rapahel Mafouta, Arnold Roth, Clara Rojas, Hannah Rosenthal, Esther Saez-Gonzales, Anne Serner, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Robert S. Wistrich, Lidia Yusopova. Wisława Szymborska, the Polish poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996 makes a very moving appearance.

You can see the film's trailer here. There is additional info and several reviews at the film's official website.

08-Apr-17: Swedes struggle to understand Stockholm vehicle-ramming killings

Stockholm aftermath [Image Source]

In Sweden, flags are flying at half-mast today (Saturday) to express shared grief at the killings of four innocent and unsuspecting people yesterday afternoon. Fifteen more were injured.

Around 3:00 pm Friday, a stolen beer-delivery truck driven by a masked man hurtled directly into a crowd of shoppers on Stockholm's busiest shopping street, Drottninggatan, before ploughing into the side of the Åhléns mall. The truck caught fire and the driver fled on foot, eventually trying to get onto a subway and then a bus, evidently bleeding all the way according to this Swedish news report.

All the while, the city was in lock-down; public transport was shut down and the city center was paralyzed by police and security forces activity. Swedish government offices, situated a block from Drottninggatan, approximately 700 meters from where the attack took place, were evacuated [Aftonbladet].

The Swedish authorities are, naturally enough, calling it a terrorist attack.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, a 39-year-old man from Uzbekistan was arrested after a police operation in Märsta, a suburb of Stockholm near Arlanda airport. Swedish public broadcaster SVT said a second man, linked to the first, was arrested later in the northern suburb Hjulsta. Writing about the main suspect, Aftonbladet says:

In his social media accounts the man has expressed positive views of the terror organisation IS, and also ”liked” a picture on Facebook of bloody victims taken seconds after the explosion at the Boston Marathon in April 2013. One of the man’s acquaintances..: ”He has four children and works in construction... He never speaks about politics or religion, the only thing he talks abut is getting more work so that he can send more money to his family”...

A Reuters report from Saturday afternoon says:

"Nothing indicates that we have the wrong person, on the contrary, suspicions have strengthened as the investigation has progressed," Dan Eliasson, head of Sweden's national police, told a news conference on Saturday. The man, detained on Friday night on terrorism charges after the attack in the heart of the capital, appeared to have acted alone but "we still cannot rule out that more people are involved," he said... Police did not name the detainee, but said he was from the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan and that he had seemed peripheral in intelligence reports. "We received intelligence last year, but we did not see any links to extremist circles," Sapo security police chief Anders Thornberg said. Eliasson said there were "clear similarities" to an attack last month in London in which six people died, including the assailant who drove a hired car into pedestrians on a bridge. Vehicles have also been used as weapons in Nice and Berlin in the past year in attacks claimed by Islamic State.

Daily Mail UK, quoting Swedish media reports, says today that police investigating the attack have arrested six more suspects after three were bundled out of a car and police raided a property 12 miles from the attack scene.

Saturday evening the police stopped a car on the island of Kungsholmen, a central part of Stockholm, and detained three persons in connection to the attack. Police had to smash the window on the driver’s side of the car and at least two of the persons in the car were wrestled to the ground by police wearing plainclothes. [Aftonbladet, April 8, 2017]

The loss of life in the attack could easily have been much greater. Bomb disposal experts are reported to have found an improvised explosive device packed into a suitcase inside the hijacked beer truck. In Daily Mail's words:

The discovery of the bomb points to a planned terror attack rather than an opportunistic attack. It is not known why the IED failed to detonate. 

According to Associated Press:

The prime minister urged citizens to "get through this" and strolled through the streets of the capital to chat with residents... [But] many in Sweden were shocked by the attack, questioning whether Swedish society — considered democratic and egalitarian — had failed in some way.

BBC points out that

Sweden is believed to have the highest number of Islamic State group fighters per capita in Europe. About 140 of the 300 who went to Syria and Iraq have since returned, leaving the authorities to grapple with how best to reintegrate them into society.

Developing.

15-Feb-17: Things Iran is good at

Genuflecting: The caption to this revealing Iranian news photo is: "Minister
of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi 
and the Swedish Minister of European Union Affairs and Trade Ann Linde
seen in this Feb 11 photo meeting in Tehran" [Image Source]

[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("W czym Iran jest dobry") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]

There are some striking photos in the news today and yesterday, showing Swedish political leaders - among them, self-avowed feminists - bowing their heads to men, the females donning hijabs and head scarves and generally conveying a sense of deep deference to the Islamist regime ruling Iran with an iron fist - a posture rarely seen in international affairs or among people espousing the views that the Swedes claim to hold dear.

Sweden's prime minister Stefan Löfven led the visiting delegation, and has come under angry criticism from opposition politicians and female rights among others.

“This is disastrous for what is being called a feminist foreign policy,” says Jan Bjorklund of the Liberal Party. According to him, the Swedish government should have demanded not to make the hijab compulsory for the female members of the delegation. And if Iran did not agree to that, then the trade agreements should have been signed in Sweden or a third country. The Swedish government calls itself the “first feminist government”, but Linde has defended her decision to wear the hijab in Iran, saying that the only other option would be to send an all-male delegation. Swedish companies have been lining up to gain access to Iran’s lucrative market after the lifting of international sanctions... ["Sweden defends officials wearing headscarves in Iran", Tehran Times, February 14, 2017]

The Swedish delegation to Iran has had a significant impact outside
Iran. The caption reads: "Sweden's "first feminist government" has been
called hypocritical for wearing the hijab in Tehran"
[Image Source: Screen grab from a Sydney Morning Herald video]

But Löfven would have been heartened by the local reception his team got. They were

greeted with praise from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who hailed the positive relationship between the two countries during a meeting with the Swedish premier in Tehran. "America and many European powers have played a role in causing traumatic events in Syria and Iraq, and the people of the region are aware of this interference and are rightly skeptical," Khamenei was quoted as saying by Iranian television... [Löfven] also met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani... who hailed the "moderation" in Sweden's foreign policy, ["Iran hails relations with Sweden during prime minister's visit to Tehran", DW (German State Radio), February 11, 2017]

The Swedes must have had the case of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali on their minds while in Tehran. He's an academic physician born in Iran who has taught at universities in Belgium, Italy and Sweden. His field is disaster medicine and he traveled to Iran in April 2016 to take part in a professional conference. With no warning and without any warrant, Iranian Ministry of Intelligence officials arrested him there and charged him with “collaboration with enemy states”. The New York Times reported earlier this week [click] that he is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison and faces the death penalty. 

An image from last Saturday in Tehran that has already gone massively
viral: Swedish "feminist" government officials' walk of shame

Djalali's wife and two children live in Stockholm so the case has a higher profile there than in the countries where most of this blog's readers live. His wife is surely wondering what, if anything, those Swedish feminists did that was helpful to his cause during their well-publicized visit with the Mullahs. We were unable to find any reference to it in the media reports of the "feminist: visit to Iran, but we may have missed it.

For the past year, there's been a serious rush of vendor delegations from Europe, Asia and North America visiting, and showing extreme deference to, the Iranian regime along with an impressive flow of cross-border business deals with the Iranians [click here for a Google search results listing]. No doubt that this is a happy time for the people in charge of Iran.

But beyond the embarrassed faces and unmistakable humiliation of the visitors on show, there are significantly more disturbing next-moves emanating from the Iranian regime as flagged, for instance, yesterday by the Washington Times:

Iran’s hard-line Islamic regime has escalated its overseas terrorist operations, establishing a network of over a dozen internal training camps for foreign fighters, the regime’s largest resistance group said at a press conference on Tuesday in Washington. The National Council of Resistance of Iran issued its intelligence report specifying the camps’ locations and the countries represented... The council’s largest member is the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK). It boasts an extensive spy network inside the mullah-run government, including the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its special forces wing, the Quds force, and has a track record of exposing clandestine parts of the Iranian national security apparatus.
The Quds force played a significant role in the Iraq War by training Iraqi Shiites on how to make bombs that killed scores of American troops. The Quds force is now directing thousands of Iraqi Shiite militia members in Iraq, some of whom have gone to Syria to fight for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The U.S. calls Iran the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. However, neither the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps nor the Quds force is on the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations. The Treasury Department in 2007 designated the Quds force as a material supporter of terrorism, but National Council of Resistance of Iran officials say the U.S. government should go much further.
“The Iranian resistance has emphasized on countless occasions that the source and the epicenter of terrorism, fundamentalism and regional meddling is the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the council’s Washington office. [“Iran growing network to train foreign terrorists, dissident group says”, Rowan Scarborough in Washington Times, February 14, 2017]

The Washington Times report goes on:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved a directorate inside the Quds force “in order to expand its training of foreign mercenaries as part of the regime’s strategy to step up its meddling abroad, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan and elsewhere.” “The camps have been divided based on the nationality of the trainees and the type of training,” the council said. “Both terrorist training and also military training for militias are provided, enabling them to better infiltrate and advance the regime’s regional objectives.”

What skills can aspiring jihadists acquire under the Iranian auspices?

The training is divided into two types of courses; a crash-course of 45 days for troops that will be used to fight in paramilitary forces like the IRGC’s Basij force or a full training course which lasts from between 9 and 12 months... The full training course has many different sections: Heavy weaponry; Missile Launches; Marine Training; Theoretical Training (how to spend terror rhetoric); Survival Training; Commando Training; Paratrooper Training; Security Training... The report makes clear that the IRGC is in control of these terror training camps, in an attempt to export terrorism, destabilise other countries and take control in those countries. ["IRAN’S  IRGC’S TERROR TRAINING CAMPS REVEALED", Iran News Update,., February 15, 2017]

Here's something else the Iranians know to do well: fomenting yet more mischief in Gaza. It stems from the choice of a seasoned murdering terrorist to become the new head of Hamas in Gaza [we analyzed this here: "13-Feb-17: Another Shalit Deal milestone: Four terms of life imprisonment but this murdering jihadist now heads Hamas in Gaza"]

The implication of the selection means that Iran has retaken the reins in Gaza after a long hiatus during which Egypt, on one hand, and Turkey and Qatar, on the other, tried to fill the vacuum. Iran chose to take back the reins in Gaza because of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.  Iran fears that in the upcoming talks in Washington, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will discuss an aggressive option vis-à-vis Iran. It is doubtful if any “elections” were held in Gaza to choose Sinwar. The result is due to pressure by Hamas’ military wing on the political wing, and the announcement’s timing is Iran’s way of conveying a message before the Trump-Netanyahu talks. If that’s the case, don’t expect that Sinwar’s “election” foretells a new escalation from Gaza against Israel. Just the opposite, Iran will restrain Hamas in order to keep the Gaza front available for Iran’s own needs, and Iran’s alone. ["Iran Grabs the Reins in Gaza", Pinhas Inbari, JCPA, February 14, 2017]

Velayati on Aljazeera this past week [Image Source]

In the interests of fairness, we will point out that Iran does have its fans, and the Iranians don't necessarily see themselves as being the bad guys or in any great trouble. You can get a sense of that deep Persian self-appreciation from published pieces like "World owes Iran debt of gratitude for sacrifices in fight against terror" [PressTV, February 13, 2017] and "Lavrov: Exclusion of Iran from anti-terror coalition is a mistake" [Tehran Times, February 12, 2017].

Also this: Iran doesn't see any reason to discontinue its rapid development of long-range offensive missiles [reviewed here two weeks ago]. As Ali Akbar Velayati (a former Iranian foreign minister and today Supreme Leader Khamenei's Advisor on International Affairs) said three days ago in an Al-Jazeera television interview [translated into English by MEMRI here]:

"If America imagines that threats and sanctions will lead Iran to stop its missile program, this is a misconception, a mere fantasy... America is not strong enough to bring us to our knees... Mr. Trump is fickle and changes his policies every other day... Running a country like America is not an easy thing. All of Trump's predecessors faced similar problems. The most important things is that he has failed, especially with us in Iran. Mr. Trump does not possess special qualifications that would enable him to claim that he wants to take over the world. His policies are immature and have led him to a confrontation with the whole world"

This sounds like bluster - something the Iranians are also good at - but it's more serious than customary bluster given the threats that have emanated from Iranian leaders at various points since the JCPOA, the infamous unsigned "agreement" that has brought such unearned benefits to Iran, came into effect. For instance, this comment which we quoted in an earlier post ["28-Jun-16: Is Iran now threatening more nuclear plotting?"]

Discussing what president Obama has called snapback and "real consequences"] "Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the country will be able to “immediately” reverse its commitments under a final nuclear deal with world powers if it finds out that the other side has breached commitments under the [JCPOA]... Whenever Iran feels the other side has not honored its commitments, the “reversibility” of Tehran’s nuclear program will happen immediately, he said." [Tasnim News Agency, Iran, July 28, 2015]

We think they're good at that sort of thing too.

21-Sep-16: At the entrance to Alfei Menashe, another story involving a knife

View of Alfei Menashe a decade ago [Image Source]

Another bright, sunny, gorgeous morning in Israel. Another woman - we're guessing she's young but there are no published details yet - who assaulted Israeli security personnel with a knife. Guns were, of course, present and the young woman is now injured and (we're not sure since the facts are scant and fresh) getting the active help of Israeli first-responders and perhaps a hospital emergency room team.

The knifing attack happened at the entrance to the red-tiled-roof suburban community of Alfei Menashe on the eastern edge of the central Israel urban area radiating outwards from Tel Aviv. About seven thousand Israelis call the pleasant town home.

Based on past experience, it's unlikely there will be agreement between the Israeli media reports, which tend to the factual and the dry, and the Palestinian Arab media reports, which tends to highlight what they view as heroism, courage, selflessness. Either way, we can be certain even at this early stage that -

• She will not be the last knife attacker who launches a hopeless assault on Israelis. Perhaps not even the last one today.
• If she lives, she may spend years inside an Israeli prison cell. Whatever education she managed to acquire until this point in her life, along with friendships and skills, will be mostly wasted.
• If she dies, she will appear on posters for a few days and be acclaimed as a Palestinian Arab hero and martyr.
• Either way, her parents - if she has a husband, then perhaps he too - will be paid by the Mahmoud Abbas regime (which denies that it does this but it certainly does this) a monthly payment that will soon far exceed what senior employees in the essentially-bankrupt Palestinian Authority government are paid. We call this the Palestinian Arab Rewards for Terror scheme and we, along with more serious writers, have described its operation in detail and the way it gets funded. Short version: It's funded by the foreign aid grants made by the European Union, the United States, Sweden and numerous other Western governments to the PA while the politicians of those governments keep one eye completely closed and the other half-open so they can keep saying, as they have preposterously for years, "We know nothing about that."
• Eventually, whether she lives or dies, a sports-field or a beauty pageant may get named in her honor by the PA, reinforcing the message that she - meaning the knife she wielded and the hatred she expressed for Israelis in flinging herself into something close to suicide - represents exactly what Palestinian Arab society wants its loyal citizens to do. And especially its children.

None of this is meant to minimize the tragedy of a life used up and thrown away by the suited men who set the tone for the Palestinian Authority and the poor wretches whose lives they destroy daily. Despite the headline above, this morning's news is not about a knife. It's about people.

Nor is it meant to minimize the horror faced by thousands of Israelis who are deployed throughout the country to secure our bus stops, schools for the blind, pizzerias, supermarkets and public and private spaces from the lemmings and their heads filled by fantasies of glory, revenge, destruction and paradise. Thank heavens we have competent, fast-thinking, courageous security people who understand what they and we are facing.

Nor are we trying to make the case that things are especially awful here. This is a wonderful country and this is a delightful time of year.

And for readers in the United States, a reminder that while it's certainly distressing to see one terror attack after another and the massive disruptions they bring, we realize things are worrying for you too over there. Your headlines this morning are filled with reports of a man arrested for placing a New York City bomb that went off and another that did not four blocks away along with pipe bombs in Seaside Heights, NJ; plus another that exploded at a train station in Elizabeth NJ. And there's the Somali-American who stabbed nine people in St. Cloud, Minnesota on Saturday until stopped by an off-duty police officer who shot him dead.

These issues are not local. They are thoroughly global, and that's before we start noting here what's happening in Europe and Australia and across the Middle East.

Fifteen-plus years after 9/11 this is our emerging reality, an ongoing war, and we need to figure out how all of us - especially the political figures and the people who report on the news, those of us who worry about children and grandchildren, those of us who value human life and hate hatred, those of us sickened by families who allow and even encourage children to fall victim to the death-cult madness of the preachers and the presidents - are going to deal with it.

UPDATE Wednesday September 21, 2016 at 9:00 am: Not a bad guess. The "young woman" turns out, according to the Jerusalem Post, to be a fourteen year old Palestinian Arab girl, a child:

An initial investigation shows a 14-year-old Palestinian girl arrive to the Eliyahu checkpoint by foot carrying a bag. Checkpoint security ordered her to stop and fired warning shots in the air. The girl continued and was shot in the leg by security guards in order to stop her when she put her hand into her shirt. The girl was lightly wounded and treated at the scene and no Israeli injuries were initially reported. The checkpoint has been reopened to traffic. [Jerusalem Post, today]

And at 10:00 this morning from Times of Israel:

"Security guards at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who did not heed their calls to halt on Wednesday morning, in what appears to have been a suicide attempt, the Defense Ministry said. The incident was initially misreported as an attempted stabbing attack. However, upon searching her possessions, a sapper “did not find anything,” the ministry said in a statement. “The girl approached the vehicle crossing by foot, holding a bag,” arousing the suspicion of the security guards, the statement said. They “ordered her to stop and even fired warning shots into the air,” the ministry said, but when the teenager continued approaching despite the calls to halt, the guards “shot her in the legs in order to stop her.” During an initial investigation of the incident, the teenager said, “I came to die,” according to the ministry. The girl was lightly injured and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

 She's alive though it appears that's not the outcome this child wished for.

UPDATE Wednesday September 21, 2015 at 4:00 pm: Here's the Wall Street Journal's version - under the stark headline "Palestinian Shot, Wounded at Israeli Checkpoint" - of the extraordinary narrative about this morning's shooting of a child at an IDF security checkpoint:

Israeli security forces shot and wounded a Palestinian teenager on Wednesday after she refused to stop at a checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel, Israel’s Defense Ministry said. The ministry said the 13-year-old Palestinian wasn’t carrying a weapon and didn’t appear intent on attacking Israeli security forces as she neared the Eliyahu checkpoint. After she failed to heed orders to stop and several warning shots were fired, she was hit in the leg by a single bullet, it said. “I came here to die,” the ministry quoted the young woman as saying after she was shot and hospitalized.

What kind of processes, internal and external, could bring a child of that age to do that?

UPDATE Wednesday September 21, 2015 at 4:20 pm: Ma'an News Agency has two versions of what happened. In English [here], it's close to what we wrote above. In Arabic [here] the part about the child admitting she came to the security point "to die" is absent. The Arabic version gives the child's name as Aoasa Ramadan Musa, age 12, from Qalqilya.

22-Jul-16: Heavy-handed Swedish efforts to silence an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism

In "Watching the Moon at Night", Clara Rojas, freed from FARC 
captivity in Colombia, describes her years of suffering at the hands 
of the terrorists

A really fine piece of documentary cinema made by acclaimed Swedish filmmakers Bo Persson and Joanna Helander was recently screened in the European Parliament. 

Prior to that it had been shown in the Swedish parliament, at a prestigious list of international film festivals and in front of selected private audiences in the United States and Europe.

Called "Watching the Moon at Night", the 90-minute-long documentary addresses in a lyrical and insightful way the intertwined issues of terrorism and antisemitism. (There's a trailer here.)

We don't do this often but 

we are asking readers (for the second time) to please sign an important and meaningful petition that relates to what is being done to the film and its authore. You can read more and sign on the GoPetitions site. We blogged about it in previous posts: "13-Jan-15: Terrorism: watching its victims, trying to understand their experiences" and "28-Mar-16: Upcoming premiere screenings (NYC, Washington) of an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism".

We know from the directors that the project was inspired by some of the world's most eminent authorities in those two fields. They included Walter Laqueur, and the late André Glucksmann and the late Robert S. Wistrich. 

What distinguishes it from similar-seeming undertakings is the sensitive and enlightening role it gives to the voices of the victims. They (and we are in it) speak, in apolitical terms, of awful personal experiences of terror in a variety of places including Algeria, Spain, France, Moscow, Israel, New York, Colombia, Munich, Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

This film began as a co-production of the producers Kino Koszyk HB; Film i Väst, a regional Swedish film fund; and Sveriges Television; along with important support from the Swedish Film Institute.

Subsequently, Sveriges Television officials shockingly refused to allow it to be screened on TV in its home country.

Several reports in the mainstream Swedish and Danish media in the wake of that decision refer to political correctness and to a concern about a backlash (for showing a television documentary!) from certain corners. How hard to guess which? Not very.

Prominent Swedish commentators have called for this unconscionable decision to be reversed. In these fraught and dangerous times, terrorism and antisemitism threaten the institutions of democracy everywhere. Attempting to hide this reality and distorting the public debate is the worst way to confront these threats when we should instead stand up for human rights and European values.

From "Watching the Moon at Night"

We are joining the call by distinguished Scandinavians and a growing circle of concerned Europeans to require the management of Sveriges Television to reverse its gagging of this important film, and to immediately schedule it for the widest possible television exposure in Sweden.

The silencing of this fine film (full disclosure: as mentioned above, we play a small role in it, testifying to our experience) is an outrageous abuse of bureaucratic power, an act of thuggery dictated by unspoken and shameful motivations.

There's a petition calling for the film to be shown in Sweden and drawing attention to the politically-aligned decision to silence the voice of the film's makers. If you did not already respond to our earlier request, please now go to the GoPetitions site and sign.

And please help us get the word out. (We are working on a longer piece. Hopefully we will get it out soon.)

21-Jun-16: An important documentary film on terrorism and antisemitism and the Swedish effort to silence it

In "Watching the Moon at Night", Clara Rojas, freed from FARC captivity,
describes her years of suffering at the hands of the terrorists

A really fine piece of documentary cinema made by acclaimed Swedish filmmakers Bo Persson and Joanna Helander is about to be screened in the European Parliament.

Prior to that it had been shown in the Swedish parliament, at a prestigious list of international film festivals and before selected private audiences in the United States and Europe.

Called "Watching the Moon at Night", the 90-minute-long documentary addresses in a lyrical and insightful way the intertwined issues of terrorism and antisemitism. (There's a trailer here.)

We don't do this often but we are asking readers (for the second time) to please sign an important and meaningful petition that relates to what is being done to the film and its authore. You can read more and sign on the GoPetitions site.

We blogged about it in previous posts: "13-Jan-15: Terrorism: watching its victims, trying to understand their experiences" and "28-Mar-16: Upcoming premiere screenings (NYC, Washington) of an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism".

We know from the directors that the project was inspired by some of the world's most eminent authorities in those two fields. They included Walter Laqueur, and the late André Glucksmann and the late Robert S. Wistrich. What distinguishes it from similar-seeming undertakings is the sensitive and enlightening role it gives to the voices of the victims. They (and we are in it) speak, in apolitical terms, of awful personal experiences of terror in a variety of places including Algeria, Spain, France, Moscow, Israel, New York, Colombia, Munich, Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

This film began as a co-production of the producers Kino Koszyk HB; Film i Väst, a regional Swedish film fund; and Sveriges Television with important support from the Swedish Film Institute.

Subsequently, Sveriges Television officials shockingly refused to allow it to be screened on TV in its home country. Several reports in the mainstream Swedish and Danish media in the wake of that decision refer to political correctness and to a concern about a backlash (for showing a television documenary!) from certain corners.

Prominent Swedish commentators have called for this awful decision to be reversed. In these fraught and dangerous times, terrorism and antisemitism threaten the institutions of democracy everywhere. Attempting to hide this reality and distorting the public debate is the worst way to confront these threats when we should instead stand up for human rights and European values.

From "Watching the Moon at Night"

We are joining the call by distinguished Scandinavians and a growing circle of concerned Europeans to require the management of Sveriges Television to reverse its gagging of this important film, and to immediately schedule it for the widest possible television exposure in Sweden.

The silencing of this fine film (full disclosure: as mentioned above, we play a small role in it, testifying to our experience) is an outrageous abuse of bureaucratic power, an act of thuggery dictated by unspoken and shameful motivations.

There's a petition calling for the film to be shown in Sweden and drawing attention to the politically-aligned decision to silence the voice of the film's makers. Please now go to the GoPetitions site and sign.

And please help us get the word out. (We are working on a longer piece. Hopefully we will get it out soon.)

04-May-16: Begging for spare Arab change at UNRWA

Everyone and his personal struggle: Addressing transport
issues in the UAE [Image Source: Reuters]

In the Middle East, there are two fundamental, but different, realities that influence strongly the shape of the Arab/Israel conflict. One is the passion with which Arab states, especially the richest among them, pledge undying support for the "resistance" "struggle" of the Palestinian Arabs. The other is the financial resources they put behind that "support".

UN Palestinian agency turns to Gulf countries to avoid funding crisis | Established in 1950, UNRWA helps some five million Palestinians living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories (File photo: AP) | AFP | United Nations (United States) Tuesday, 3 May 2016 | The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency on Tuesday urged Gulf countries to donate millions to help UNRWA avoid a funding crisis. Last year, the agency was hit by a major funding crisis that threatened to affect the opening of schools. An appeal by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to donors helped resolve the crisis, but the agency still has a funding gap of some $80 million. “We’d be very appreciative to have countries that have come forward last summer to help, and in particular three Gulf states –- Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait -– renew their generosity this year,” said Pierre Krahenbul, UNRWA’s commissioner-general. “If we could have that, we’d be able to avoid another crisis this summer,” he said.

Image Source

To give this a frame of reference, the Gross Domestic Product in 2014 (US dollars), the latest numbers we could find, for the three Arab countries to which UNRWA is turning its beseeching eyes:

• United Arab Emirates $399.5 Billion
• Kuwait $172.6 Billion
• Saudi Arabia $746.3 Billion

To help readers put this pathetic charade into perspective, and understand the decades of deep Arab cynicism about their beloved Palestinian brothers, see "19-Jun-13: We actually do understand why Arab states put almost no money in the Palestinian Arab "refugee" fund pot. We just don't get why the US does."

Based on some numbers we published here four years ago, pretty much the same question should be asked of the European Union, Australia, Sweden, UK, Norway and a list of other Western countries.

10-Apr-16: In Europe, jihadists hiding in plain sight

Krayem: His family are "stunned"
[Image Source: A 2015 Swedish blog]

This past Friday afternoon in a corner of Brussels, the Belgian capital, police arrested five people, two of them considered "Europe’s most wanted fugitives" as well as

hardened operatives of ISIS, which has claimed responsibility for both the Brussels attacks on March 22, which killed 32 people, and the Paris attacks on November 13, which killed 130. [TIME Magazine, April 8, 2016]

The two are Mohamed Abrini, 31, and Osama Krayem, 23.

Krayem's background sounds ominously familiar. Raised in Rosengard, a section of the Swedish city of Malmo ["28-Sep-12: Malmo's beleaguered Jews have more to worry about this morning"] whose Jews we described four years ago as living in a state of siege - and which appears to have continued going downhill since then. Associated Press reports this morning that that "Krayem comes from a Palestinian family" and that, despite the violence and bigotry that has put Malmo on the map in the past few years, his family "was stunned by his turn toward extremism" while acknowledging that "many other guys" from the area had become "foreign fighters".

Krayem's victimhood is embellished in that AP report via a quote from a Rosengard social activist who operates a program to help local immigrants integrate into Swedish society: the accused mass-murderer, he says, is

well-known to the local police for multiple criminal activities like thefts [and] was the perfect target for radicalization — no job, no future, no money. [AP, April 9, 2016]

Krayen's recent trajectory closely resembles what is known about several other of the jihadists who carried out the Friday 13th massacre in Paris last November. He joined the ISIS forces in the ongoing Arab-on-Arab Syrian bloodbath. Then, for reasons not yet explained, in September 2015 he managed to sneak back into Europe amid

the mammoth influx of migrants last year, landing on the Greek island of Leros... Carrying a false Syrian passport in the name of Naim El-Hamed, he made his way to a refugee center in Germany, where Salah Abdeslam collected him on Oct. 3 and brought him back to Brussels. [Source]

We have some comments about Abrini that we will post later.

Right now, the most urgent issue these arrests raise is - what conditions made it possible for the surviving members of the Paris jihad attack group to melt into the background in Sweden, France and Belgium and avoid arrest until now, aided, as TIME's commentator put it, by a network of collaborators who hid them during a period of more than four months. They were, after all, the targets of Europe’s biggest manhunt in memory.

28-Mar-16: Upcoming premiere screenings (NYC, Washington) of an important documentary on terrorism and antisemitism

Inspired by the historian Walter Laqueur, "Watching the Moon at Night", a 90 minute creative documentary with a personal tone, looks at contemporary terrorism and antisemitism, their causes and consequences, around the globe.

Creative camerawork and the poetry of Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska are part of this exquisitely rendered cinematic essay. Filmed in six countries, "Watching the Moon at Night" focuses on the victims' experiences and juxtaposes them against the views of world experts in this field. The late French writer and philosopher André Glucksmann, the late historian of the Holocaust, Robert S. Wistrich, and the eminent historian Walter Laqueur are among the film's featured experts.

A production of  Sweden-based Kino Koszyk, and directed and written by Joanna Helander and Bo Persson, the film features the participation of Walter Laqueur, Dan Alon, Teresa Jiménez-Becerril, Lars Bergander, Juliette and Bronek Bergman, Vladimir Bukovsky, Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, Michael Gallagher, Konstanty Gebert, André Glucksmann, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Zuhdi Jasser, Anthony Julius, Cherifa Kheddar, Sergei Kovalev, Rapahel Mafouta, Arnold Roth, Clara Rojas, Hannah Rosenthal, Esther Saez-Gonzales, Anne Serner, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Robert S. Wistrich, Lidia Yusopova, and with the kind participation of Wisława Szymborska and Eighth Day Theatre

View the trailer here. Additional info and reviews at the official film website.

Premiere screening: New York City

• Date: Monday, March 28, 2016 (tonight)
• Time: 6:30 pm
• Where: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011
• Hosts: YIVO Institute, and Yeshiva University Museum, American Sephardi Federation and Center for Jewish History
• Post-screening: Discussion moderated by Jonathan Brent, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. With participation of filmmakers Bo Persson and Joanna Helander together with journalist/educator/author and friend of Daniel Pearl, Asra Nomani.
• Tickets: $10 general; $7 members, seniors, students. To purchase tickets, click here
• For more info, click here

Premiere screening: Washington DC

• Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2016
• Time: 2:30 pm
• Where: The Newseum Documentary Theater, 555 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001
• Hosts: The National Endowment for Democracy in cooperation with The Newseum Institute and the Rabin Chair Forum of George Washington University
• Tickets: Entry is free and open to the public but you must RSVP first [click here to register]
• Post-screening: The film screening will be a followed by a panel discussion with Bo Persson (Film Maker); Jeffrey Herbst (Newseum President); Walter Reich (Yitzhak Rabin Professor of International Affairs, Ethics, and Human Behavior, GWU Elliott School of International Affairs); Bruce Hoffman (Professor and Director at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies)