Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

What DOES Congress Know About the Iran Deal?

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Breaking: Appears that the Iran deal now has a green light to continue with a caveat, get rid of some of the centrifuges. Now the question becomes, will Congress get a vote on this?

Chairman Royce of the House Foreign Affairs Committee made a stellar opening remark today opening the testimony and exchange with the witnesses that include Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Acting Under Secretary Adam Szubin. It seems that the items in the talks led by Secretary of State John Kerry and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman along with the rest of the P5+1 are worse than we know and in fact are quite chilling. Imagine what we don’t know.

From Chairman Royce: (video included)

We’ll hear the Administration’s case today. But it’s critical that the Administration hears our bipartisan concerns. Deputy Secretary Blinken, this is your first appearance before this Committee. I congratulate you on your position, and wish you well. After the hearing, I trust you will be in touch with Secretary Kerry, Under Secretary Sherman, and the others at the negotiating table to report the Committee’s views. This is important.
This Committee has been at the forefront of examining the threat of a nuclear Iran. Much of the pressure that brought Tehran to the table was put in place by Congress over the objections of the Executive Branch – whether Republican or Democrat. And we’d have more pressure on Iran today if the Administration hadn’t pressured the Senate to sit on the Royce-Engel sanctions bill this Committee produced and passed in 2013.
Congress is proud of this role. And we want to see the Administration get a lasting and meaningful agreement. But unfortunately, the Administration’s negotiating strategy has been more about managing proliferation than preventing it.
Case in point: Iran’s uranium enrichment program, the key technology needed to developing a nuclear bomb. Reportedly, the Administration would be agreeable to leaving much of Iran’s enrichment capacity in place for a decade. If Congress will be asked to “roll-back” its sanctions on Iran – which will certainly fund its terrorist activities – there must be a substantial “roll-back” of Iran’s nuclear program.
And consider that international inspectors report that Iran has still not revealed its past bomb work – despite its commitment to do so. The IAEA is still concerned about signs of Iran’s military-related activities; including designing a nuclear payload for a missile. Iran hasn’t even begun to address these concerns. Last fall, over 350 Members wrote to the Secretary of State expressing deep concerns about this lack of cooperation. How can we expect Iran to uphold an agreement when they are not meeting their current commitments? Indeed, we were not surprised to see Iran continue to illicitly procure nuclear technology during these negotiations. Or that Tehran was caught testing a more advanced centrifuge that would help produce bomb material quicker. This was certainly a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the interim agreement. Iran’s deception is all the more reason that the Administration should obtain zero-notice, anywhere, anytime inspections on Iran’s declared and undeclared facilities.
There is also the fact that limits placed on Iran’s nuclear program as part of the final agreement now being negotiated will expire. That means, the “final” agreement is just another interim step, with the real final step being Iran treated as “any other” non-nuclear weapon state under the Non- Proliferation Treaty – licensing it to pursue industrial scale enrichment.
With a deep history of deception, covert procurement, and clandestine facilities, Iran is not “any other” country, to be conceded an industrial scale nuclear program. Any meaningful agreement must keep restrictions in place for decades – as over 360 Members of Congress – including every Member of this Committee – are demanding in a letter to the President.
Meanwhile, Iran is intensifying its destructive role in the region. Tehran is propping up Assad in Syria, while its proxy Hezbollah threatens Israel. Iranian-backed Shia militia are killing hopes for a unified, stable Iraq. And last month, an Iranian-backed militia displaced the government in Yemen, a key counterterrorism partner. Many of our allies and partners see Iran pocketing an advantageous nuclear agreement and ramping up its aggression in the region.


This Committee is prepared to evaluate any agreement to determine if it is in the long-term national security interests of the United States and our allies. Indeed, as Secretary Kerry testified not long ago, any agreement will have to “pass muster with Congress.” Yet that commitment has been muddied by the Administration’s insistence in recent weeks that Congress not play a role. That’s not right. Congress built the sanctions structure that brought Iran to the table. And if the President moves to dismantle it, we will have a say.
I now turn to the Ranking Member.

Blinken’s remarks are here. Could the Iranian sanctions be lifted immediately? Seems that is part of the most recent talks.

Iran deal would reportedly ease sanctions immediately, allow nuclear enrichment

International sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy for years would be immediately eased and the Islamic Republic could continue to enrich uranium under the terms of a deal being hammered out in Geneva between Tehran and six world powers, according to a report Thursday.

Citing a draft that would serve as a framework for a 10-year deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, The Associated Press reported that Iran would be allowed to operate 6,000 enrichment centrifuges it claims are for peaceful purposes — while getting immediate relief from international economic sanctions.

U.S. lawmakers skeptical of Iran’s true intentions raised fresh concerns about the deal in a letter Thursday to the White House.

“Iran’s role in fomenting instability in the region — not to mention Iran’s horrendous repression at home — demonstrates the risks of negotiating with a partner we cannot trust,” stated the letter, whose signatories included majorities of both parties.

“I wouldn’t trust these people with a spare electron.”- Former US Amassador to the UN John Bolton
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki denied that there is a draft report circulating among the parties holding talks. The U.S. and the five other world powers, who also include Great Britain, France, Russia and China, have been negotiating with Iranian officials under a self-imposed March 31 deadline, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif doing most of the heavy lifting. The deal would be aimed at unshackling Iran from United Nations economic sanctions put in place in 2006 while giving the international community the ability to ensure the hard-line regime is not building a nuclear weapons stockpile.

Any March framework agreement is unlikely to constrain Iran’s missile program, which the U.S. believes could ultimately be designed to deliver nuclear warheads. Diplomats say that as the talks move to deadline, the Iranians continue to insist that missile curbs are not up for discussion. The deal would likely leave in place a ban on other nations transferring missile technology to Iran, however.

Separate U.S. sanctions would be phased out as part of a deal, although U.S. lawmakers have vowed to block such a move and also dispute the White House’s ability to enter into a binding deal with Iran.

U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called for a hearing with top Obama administration officials from the State and Treasury departments to hear testimony on the negotiations.

Following the March 31 deadline, the parties would have until sometime in June to agree on all of the details.

Iran’s nuclear program has been under international scrutiny for a dozen years, since the regime blocked UN inspectors from verifying Iran was abiding by international mandates regarding its alleged nuclear weapons program.

It is not clear how many centrifuges — the machines that enrich uranium for possible weaponization — Iran now operates. Estimates have been as high as 20,000. The U.S. believes reducing the number of centrifuges will forestall by a decade or more Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said simply regulating the number of centrifuges is not enough to restrict supply, because better technology can increase production from each machine. More importantly, Bolton said, there is no reason to trust the Iranian regime, which traces its rise to power to the 1979 attack on the U.S. Embassy and which routinely calls for attacks on Israel and America.

“When they sign the deal, that will be the beginning of new negotiations, because Iran will violate the agreement before the ink is dry and then we’ll be back at the table,” Bolton said. “I wouldn’t trust these people with a spare electron.”

In addition to reducing the number of centrifuges, the deal would commit Iran to accepting rigorous monitoring of its nuclear program. A planned heavy water reactor would be re-engineered to produce much less plutonium than originally envisioned, relieving concerns that it could be an alternative pathway to a bomb.

For Iran, any deal granting sanctions relief would immediately boost the economy, which is especially hurting due to the bottoming out of oil prices.

Frank Gaffney, of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, said the sanctions are the only leverage the West has against Iran, and surrendering it up-front makes what is being reported a bad deal.

“We cannot trust the Iranians to do anything other than to pursue what they have been pursuing for decades, a nuclear weapons program, secretly and in the open,” Gaffney said.

If Iran violates its end of the bargain, reinstating sanctions that resulted from arduous diplomatic wrangling will prove impossible, he said.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell you would get the Chinese and Russians back on board,” Gaffney said. “This is a permanent unraveling of the sanctions.”

Washington believes it can extend the time Tehran would need to produce a nuclear weapon to at least a year for the 10 years it is under the moratorium. Right now, Iran would require only two to three months to amass enough materiel if it covertly seeks to make a nuclear bomb. Among U.S. allies, France is the most adamant about stretching out the duration of the deal. A European official familiar with the French position told the AP it wants a 25-year time-span.

Any agreement faces fierce opposition from the U.S. Congress as well as close American allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, which believe the Obama administration has conceded too much. After the deal expires, Iran could theoretically ramp up enrichment to whatever level or volume it wants.

The United Nations, Obama and Israel

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Out of lack of leadership and a strategy in dealing with the historical divide between the White House and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama took a petulant posture this week and wants to defer to the United Nations when dealing with the Arabs and Palestinians in Israel. Truth be know, the Arabs and Palestinians in Israel can and do live a grand existence in Israel at the cost of Israelis.

Prime Minister Netanyahu declared before the Tuesday election in which he prevailed there will be no two state solution in Israel. Peace talks have taken place for decades to no avail when Israel has made countless concessions to only have thousands rockets fired at them and then in Jerusalem, conflicts are a daily events. Kudos to Netanyahu but why would Obama run to the United Nations? Israel began to receive recognition with the Sykes Picot Agreement. Jews were able to return to the land ratified by the United Nations between 1945-1948.  Today, there is nothing ‘united about the UN and worse it has a history of scandals.

The United Nations has a Security Council, it has an International Court of Justice, it has a division titled International Peace and Security, it has a Counter-terrorism wing, it has a Human Rights Council and most of all it has a nefarious department called UNRWA. That is especially key as it is the United Nations Relief and Work for Palestinian Refugees. Simply put, the Palestinians get their own section of protection at the UN, when in fact the Palestinians are classically at the core on hostilities and unrest in Israel.

You are challenged to do your own research of the scandals at the United Nations, yet what may be easier….watch the documentary UNme.

Further: In 2004, former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold published a book called Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. The book criticized what it called the organization’s moral relativism in the face of (and occasional support of)[1] genocide and terrorism that occurred between the moral clarity of its founding period and the present day. While the UN during its founding period was limited to those nations that declared war on at least one of the Axis powers of World War II, and thus were capable of taking a stand against evil, the modern United Nations has, according to Gold, become diluted to the point where only 75 of the 184 member states during the time of the book’s publication “were free democracies, according to Freedom House.”He further claimed that this had the effect of tipping the scales of the UN so that the organization as a whole was more amenable to the requirements of dictatorships.
Charles de Gaulle of France criticized the UN, famously calling it le machin (“the thingamabob”), and was not convinced that a global security alliance would help in maintaining world peace, preferring that the UN direct defense treaties between countries.

So, it is even reasonable that Barack Obama should turn over the secure destiny of Israel to the United Nations? Should corrupt global United Nations representatives be the ‘go-to’ people when it comes to Israel’s future or that of say Rwanda, Sudan or Haiti?

From Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay

The White House hoped a new Israeli prime minister would resume peace talks with the Palestinians. With Netanyahu holding on, the administration is weighing a turn to the U.N. to help force a deal.

After years of blocking U.N. efforts to pressure Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a lasting two-state solution, the United States is edging closer toward supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for the resumption of political talks to conclude a final peace settlement, according to Western diplomats.

The move follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive re-election Tuesday after the incumbent publicly abandoned his commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state — the basis of more than 20 years of U.S. diplomatic efforts — and promised to continue the construction of settlements on occupied territory. The development also reflects deepening pessimism over the prospect of U.S.-brokered negotiations delivering peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Shortly before this week’s election, the United States informed its diplomatic partners that it would hold off any moves in the U.N. Security Council designed to put Israel on the spot at the United Nations in the event that Netanyahu’s challenger, Isaac Herzog, won the election. But U.S. officials signaled a willingness to consider a U.N. resolution in the event that Netanyahu was re-elected and formed a coalition government opposed to peace talks. The United States has not yet circulated a draft, but diplomats say Washington has set some red lines and is unwilling to agree to set a fixed deadline for political talks to conclude.

“The more the new government veers to the right the more likely you will see something in New York,” said a Western diplomat.

Netanyahu’s government will likely be made up of right-wing and Orthodox parties adamantly opposed to making concessions to Palestinians. According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, the Israeli leader has already consulted with party leaders he plans to add to his coalition, including Naftali Bennett of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, Avigdor Lieberman of the far-right nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, and leaders of the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties.

On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not rule out the possibility of the United States supporting a U.N. resolution on Israel-Palestine.

“We’re currently evaluating our approach. We’re not going to prejudge what we would do if there was a U.N. action,” she told reporters.

For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have resisted a role for the U.N. Security Council in dealing with the Middle East crisis. They have argued consistently that an enduring peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties. Israeli leaders have also strongly opposed giving the world body a greater role in bringing about a deal.

However, the prospect of direct negotiations appeared to evaporate with Netanyahu’s pre-election declaration that he would never allow the creation of a Palestinian state. The comment completely reversed the Israeli leader’s previous support for an independent Palestine as part of a permanent peace deal between the two sides.

The deliberations over the future of the U.S. diplomatic efforts are playing out just weeks before the Palestinians are scheduled to join the International Criminal Court, a move that is certain to heighten diplomatic tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. On Wednesday, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s top diplomat in the United States told Foreign Policy the Palestinians would move forward with plans to use the ICC to try to hold Israel accountable for alleged war crimes during last summer’s war in Gaza. (Israel says it worked hard to avoid civilian casualties, of which there were many, and blames Hamas militants for taking shelter in populated areas.)

“The fact that we have a government in Israel publicly opposing a two-state solution just reinforces our position that this conflict must be handled by the international community,” Maen Rashid Areikat said.

Ilan Goldenberg, a former member of the Obama administration’s Mideast peace team, told FP that Washington might be inclined to support a Security Council resolution backing a two-state solution as an alternative to the Palestinian effort to hold Israel accountable at the ICC.

“If it was done, it could protect Israel from a worse outcome,” he said.

Under this scenario, the United States would seek guarantees from the international community to hold off on ICC activity in exchange for a Security Council resolution outlining international standards for a final peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“The Israelis will probably resist and say this is a bad idea, but they could also be convinced that this is better than the alternative,” said Goldenberg.

The window for this type of U.N. initiative is small. U.S. officials are unlikely to act during the contentious Iran negotiations, which are set to end in late June, Goldenberg said. But the administration will not want to wait until the 2016 presidential race kicks into high gear, as any Democratic nominee would likely advise the White House against upsetting the party’s influential pro-Israel supporters.

“Don’t expect anything to move until the summer,” said Goldenberg.

European and Arab governments, including France and the Palestinians, will likely want to move more quickly at the United Nations.

The Palestinians had been pressing the U.N. Security Council for months last year to adopt a resolution demanding that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian lands within three years. But the United States vetoed the Palestinian initiative. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power called it “unbalanced” because it failed to take into consideration Israel’s security concerns.

But France, which is seeking a broader diplomatic role in the Middle East, had also been pushing for a separate resolution, which calls for the resumption of political talks between Israelis and Palestinians in order to conclude a comprehensive peace settlement. In December, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Paris and other European governments that the United States would block the resolution if it were put to a vote before the Israeli election.

But one European diplomat said that there was “a broad understanding” at the time “that this was something that could be revisited post-election.” So far, U.S. talks with European allies have taken place in Washington and other capitals. There have been no substantive talks in New York among Security Council members.

France, however, recently renewed its appeal to the United States to consider taking up the issue before the council, according to diplomats familiar with the matter.

The United States, according to the diplomats, gave no firm commitment. But the administration indicated that it was willing to consider action in the council once a coalition government is put into place.

“I think they probably just want to see how it pans out,” said one U.N.-based diplomat. “But certainly the message we got back in December was that they might be able to show more flexibility after the election.”

Security Council diplomats say there remain significant differences between the U.S. approach and that of France. “There are discrepancies between the U.S. and European positions but I think they will bridge them soon,” said an Arab diplomat. “The key elements are the same: a framework for a peaceful solution that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state … plus guarantees for Israel’s long-term security.” The United States is unlikely to hit Israel or the Palestinians with punitive measures if they fail to comply.

During a recent meeting of U.S. and European officials in Washington, a senior State Department official said the United States was considering a draft resolution at the Security Council but that no decision had been made.

Of course, two other options lie before the Obama administration with regard to the Israel-Palestine issue: continuing to reflexively back Israel at the United Nations, and simply enduring the widespread criticism of the international community, or raising the pressure on Jerusalem by abstaining from a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

In 2011, the United States vetoed a resolution demanding that Israel’s settlement activity cease immediately — even though it was in line with U.S. policy. The measure was sponsored by nearly two-thirds of the U.N.’s membership and received a 14-1 vote on the Security Council.

“If there was a settlement resolution, would the U.S. abstain? I could see that as a possibility,” said Goldenberg.

In the wake of Israel’s election, U.N. and Israeli officials exchanged sharp words after U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq called on the new Israeli government to halt “illegal settlement-building in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

In response to the statement, Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., snapped back: “If the U.N. is so concerned about the future of the Palestinian people, it should be asking … why Hamas uses the Palestinian people as human shields.”

Netanyahu Prevailed Against EU/USA Anti-Semitism

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First there was Jeremy Bird, a top Obama campaign operative working at the behest of the White House. Bird operated V15/OneVoice in Israel using State Department grant money to work the voting ground game in Israel against Benjamin Netanyahu. But it gets worse. There is more.

Group Working to Influence Israeli Elections Still Receiving State Department Funding

Abraham Fund Initiatives received $98,000 grant from State

A group that is working to influence the Israeli elections is currently receiving funding from the U.S. Department of State, according to public records and statements from the organization.

The Abraham Fund Initiatives, which is leading an effort to increase Arab voter turnout for the elections on Tuesday, received a $98,000 grant from the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative in September, the group said on Tuesday. The grant is funded through December 2015.

The State Department’s funding process came under scrutiny in January, after the Free Beacon reported that the nonprofit group OneVoice—which is involved in a similar initiative to increase voter turnout among left-leaning voters—had received grants from the agency. The OneVoice grant ended at the end of November, before the Israeli elections were announced, according to the State Department.

However, a bipartisan Senate committee is currently investigating whether any of the government funding received by OneVoice was later used for election-related activities.

Aaron Klein, an Israeli journalist, first reported on the Abraham Fund’s Arab get-out-the-vote initiative last week, and noted that the group had received State Department funding in the past. That prior grant for $999,000 expired in 2013.

Arab-Israeli voters traditionally oppose right-leaning parties, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud. The Arab-Israeli community is expected to play a large role in Tuesday’s election, after its four main representative parties merged in January.

Last month, the Free Beacon reported on a private memo drafted in December by the nonprofit Ameinu, which outlined a plan for a coalition of groups to help increase Arab voter turnout in Israel.

Ameinu said in the memo that it was consulting with President Obama’s 2012 reelection team on the initiative. Obama’s former campaign aides, including the strategist Jeremy Bird, have been assisting an anti-Netanyahu voter drive led by V15 and OneVoice, Haaretz first reported.

The Ameinu proposal is strikingly similar to the Abraham Initiative’s “Broad-Based Action Plan to Increase the Participation of Arab Citizens in upcoming Elections for Knesset,” which it recently published on its website.

The Abraham Fund plan includes targeted polling, grassroots organizing, engagement with political leaders and celebrities, and other election-related activities.

The Abraham Fund’s current State Department grant, which began on Sept. 30, 2014, is for its youth civics and career training program. According to the Abraham Fund’s election action plan, 20 of the participants in its “young political leaders” program have been working on its get-out-the-vote operation.

Amnon Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, the Abraham Fund’s co-executive director in Israel, said the current State Department grant is not being used for the election efforts. He said the funding “is directed for vocational training and preparation for integration into the workforce among Israeli Arab citizens at the age of 18 to 22.”

Be’eri-Sulitzeanu said the group has not discussed its voter initiative with the State Department or officials at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.He said the group previously received two grants from the U.S. government for teaching Arabic language and teaching multiculturalism to Israeli police, both of which expired several years ago.

The Free Beacon reported last month that Givat Haviva, another progressive group working to increase Arab-Israeli voter participation, met with top officials at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv in late January. The State Department also expedited visas for a delegation of Arab-Israeli mayors organized by Givat Haviva, which traveled to the U.S. last month to learn political organizing techniques.

Givat Haviva was scheduled to meet with officials at the State Department during the trip, but the meeting was canceled at the last minute, according to one of the delegation’s organizers.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Then there is Europe…same condition and likely quite coordinated.

In a new report presented to members of the European Parliament, NGO Monitor details the damaging impact of highly secretive European Union funding for radical political advocacy Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

According to the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, EU funds are going to organizations involved in anti-Israel boycotts and violent demonstrations, which undermine the EU’s efforts to secure peace in the Middle East.

The report, Lack of Due Diligence and Transparency in European Union Funding for Radical NGOs, shows how EU-funded NGOs lead the campaigns to demonize Israel through the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) – actions that entirely contradict the EU’s proclaimed objectives of supporting peace and democratic development.

“The EU’s grantees are centrally involved in the 2001 Durban NGO Forum’s strategy of political warfare and demonization of Israel. The Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP) and its allies are driving Europe’s double standards that single-out Israel through product labeling,” stated Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor.  “The EU refusal to release any significant documents that shed light on funding decisions reflects a clear violation of transparency principles, and allows for highly irresponsible EC actions.”

“The study emphasizes the fundamental damage caused by extreme secrecy and the lack of due diligence in the European Commission’s decision-making for funding radical NGOs,” continued Steinberg. “The facts clearly demonstrate that either the officials involved were unaware of the groups chosen to receive taxpayer funds, or that they chose to promote NGOs that fuel the conflict and promote confrontation, under the facade of ‘non-violence.'”

The EU report follows an NGO Monitor report presented in Washington in May on U.S. Government funding for several Middle East political NGOs. On the basis of this publication, members of Congress and U.S. Government officials took action to insure transparency prevent the misallocation of such grants for counterproductive NGOs. *** Yet in the Middle East itself and in Israel, there is Joint List. Joint List had tremendous influence on voting.

Hamas advocated for the Joint Arab list on a Twitter feed Tuesday claiming ties to the organization’s armed wing, the Izaddin al-Qassam, urging voters to exercise their democratic rights.

In a series of tweets, the Brigades urged all Palestinians to vote for Aymen Odeh, head of The Joint List, in hopes that the party will garner 20 mandates and bring about an “end to the occupation” and a “majority representation” of Arabs in the Knesset.

“Liberation is close,” Al-Qassam tweeted with the 10 p.m. election deadline looming, calling on its supporters and followers in the “occupied land” to flock to voting booths.

Odeh said Monday he would not rule out recommending Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog to form the next government, saying such a decision would only come after serious talks.

“We will for sure sit and listen to Herzog” and make known our position on promoting equality and improving all of Israeli society, he told The Jerusalem Post. “But we cannot join the coalition.” *** In closing there is one last item as it refers to Joint List, not to be missed.

The head of the Joint List campaign team compared Israeli actions in the War of Independence to those of the brutal Islamist militia Islamic State, generating furious denunciations from right-wing parties.

And the refusal of a senior Zionist Union candidate to sit on a debate panel with the ultra-nationalist Knesset candidate Baruch Marzel further stoked the ire of the right wing.

In response to a question from the audience during an election panel discussion on security and diplomatic issues at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan on Tuesday, the head of the Joint (Arab) List campaign team Raja Zaetrah said that Hamas was not a terrorist group and drew his parallel between Israel and Islamic State.

“Where did ISIS learn these crimes? Look at what the Zionist movement did in 1948, the rape, the looting, the murder, the massacre, that was carried out in these areas in this region.”

Zaetrah’s comments aroused fury among right-wing parties, and denunciation across the political spectrum.

Benefits for Illegals Make Americans Second-Class

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Don’t look now, it is better to be either an illegal alien or a green card holder in America than it is to be a real plain American. Sad but true. Get comfy while you read the text below that it puts many real conditions in perspective. Simply put, Americans are being punked and cheated.

SAN FRANCISCO — The growing effort to get more African Americans and Hispanics to join tech companies or start their own is hitting the road, pushing beyond Silicon Valley into the rest of the nation.

Google is backing a new pilot program from CODE2040 in three cities. Starting this year in Chicago, Austin and Durham, N.C., the San Francisco non-profit will give minority entrepreneurs in each city a one-year stipend and free office space.

CODE2040 is a non-profit founded in 2012 that focuses on getting more African Americans and Hispanics into the tech workforce. It has graduated nearly 50 fellows, many of whom have gone to work for companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Uber. The group’s name refers to the year the population of minorities in the U.S. is expected to overtake whites.

While building their start-ups, the three CODE2040 entrepreneurs in residence will build bridges to technology for minorities in those communities.

“There is no question that Silicon Valley is the epicenter of the tech world, and as such there’s huge opportunity for impact on inclusion in tech,” says Laura Weidman Powers, co-founder and CEO of CODE2040, who came to Austin to announce the launch of the new program at a SXSW panel Monday morning.

“However, working on diversity issues in Silicon Valley means going against the status quo,” she says. “(It means) trying to change the ratio of employees at large companies, trying to bring inclusive techniques to established hiring practices and trying to infiltrate relatively closed, powerful networks.”

That work, says Powers, is crucial in Silicon Valley because it houses the headquarters of some of the world’s most powerful tech companies, which can set an example for the rest of the tech world.

But spreading to smaller tech hubs also presents an opportunity, she says.

“Here, rather than trying to change what is, we are trying to shape what might be. In smaller tech ecosystems around the country, often the cultures and norms around talent and inclusion are not yet set. We have the opportunity to help these places bake inclusion into their DNA from the ground up,” Powers says. “It’s an opportunity to create whole ecosystems where we never see the divides we see in Silicon Valley.”

Silicon Valley has never been diverse, but until last year, no one had any idea just how dominated by white and Asian men the tech industry here is.

In May 2014, Google disclosed that 30% of its workers are female and in the U.S. 2% of its workers are African American and 3% are Hispanic.

By the end of the summer, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and other major tech companies had followed with their own statistics, all of which showed the same lack of diversity.

“Releasing our numbers last year was a really important first step, and we were really happy to see other companies do that as well,” says John Lyman, head of partnerships for Google for Entrepreneurs. “This is an issue that Google really cares about. We really believe that better products are created by a workforce as diverse as the people who use them.”

That said, “a lot of the conversation is happening in Silicon Valley, which is great. But we also want to get it out to different parts of the country,” Lyman says.

So Google is putting money and resources behind the new CODE2040 Residency. CODE2040 received $775,000 in grants from Google in February to work on bringing more African Americans and Hispanics into tech.

Beyond getting the free office space in tech hubs in Chicago, Austin and Durham for one year and $40,000 in seed funding for their start-ups, the three entrepreneurs also get a trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., as well as face time with investors, mentoring from entrepreneurs through Google For Entrepreneurs and CODE2040’s network and support from CODE2040 on building their diversity programs.

There will be one entrepreneur each at Capital Factory in Austin, 1871 in Chicago and American Underground in Durham, N.C.

Riana Lynn, 29, is founder of FoodTrace, a year-old tech start-up making new software tools to connect consumers, restaurants and distributors with local farmers.

Lynn graduated with a degree in biology and African American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she taught herself to code.

From spending summers planting vegetables with her grandmother to working in first lady Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden as a White House intern, Lynn says technology has given her a way to combine her interests in science and public health and the ability to fulfill her ambition of changing what people eat. The CODE2040 Residency will give her more of an opportunity to help others tap the power of technology, she says.

“It’s the perfect opportunity to take my company to the next level and continue some of the activities I am doing now,” Lynn says.

Joel Rojo, a 25-year-old Harvard-educated software developer in Austin hails from a small town in southern Texas five minutes from the border.

The son of Mexican immigrants, he goes back there to talk with young people about the opportunities that a college education and a career in technology can provide.

Rojo started an online real estate firm when he was 18, worked at Google’s Creative Lab and built products at job search engine Indeed. Now the avid music fan is co-founder of TicketKarma, a marketplace “for good people” to find or sell reasonably priced tickets to concerts.

“Knowledge is power,” Rojo says. “Mentors in my life showed me what I could do with my life. If I didn’t have that, who knows where I would be?”

Talib Graves-Manns, 34, is a third-generation entrepreneur. He says “Blue Blood Hustle” runs in his DNA. Passionate about education and diversity, he’s co-founder of RainbowMe, which is building an online television network for kids of color.

Adam Klein, chief strategist for American Underground, says Graves-Manns will boost the Durham tech hub’s ambitions to become the nation’s most diverse tech hub by 2016.

American Underground houses 225 companies, 23% of which are led by women and 36% are led by women or minorities.

“I feel optimistic we are going to see a major shift,” Klein says. “There is a huge business opportunity being missed. How many ideas are not coming to market because of biases that are preventing people from being full and active participants in the innovation economy?”

*** Now it is time to address those visas….

You’ve heard it from Big Government lobbyists. You’ve heard it from Big Business lackeys in both political parties. And you’ve heard it from journalists, pundits, and think-tankers ad nauseam: The H-1B foreign-guest-worker program, they claim, requires American employers to first show that they searched for and tried to recruit American workers before tapping an ever-growing government-rigged pipeline of cheap foreign workers. The foot soldiers of the open-borders brigade are lying, deluded, ignorant, or bought off. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee brought top independent academics and informed whistle-blowers to Washington to expose the truth. Senator Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) hosted Howard University associate professor of public policy Ron Hira, Rutgers University professor Hal Salzman, Infosys whistleblower Jay Palmer, and computer-programmer-turned-lawyer John Miano, who brought much-needed reality checks on the systemic betrayal of American workers to the Beltway table. Miano’s testimony was particularly important because he explained how the little-known “OPT” (Optional Practical Training) process for foreign students is being used to circumvent H-1B and supply large corporations with cheap foreign labor. President Obama has expanded this regulatory program by unfettered administrative fiat. As Miano noted: OPT has no labor protections of any kind. Aliens on OPT do not even have to be paid at all. While DHS requires aliens to work in an area related to their major area of study, DHS has no ability to ensure that this happens. Under OPT, over 125,000 foreign workers a year are simply turned loose in America with no supervision or restrictions. Also on hand at the hearing: a few Big Tech shills toeing the Zuckerberg/Gates/Chamber of Commerce line that there’s a catastrophic American tech-worker shortage, even as thousands upon thousands of American workers are being laid off in favor of underpaid, easily exploited H-1Bs. (Just use H-1B-promoter Google’s search engine and type in “Southern California Edison” and “layoffs.”) Grassley put it plainly: Most people believe that employers are supposed to recruit Americans before they petition for an H-1B worker. Yet, under the law, most employers are not required to prove to the Department of Labor that they tried to find an American to fill the job first. He added: And, if there is an equally or even better qualified U.S. worker available, the company does not have to offer him or her the job. Over the years, the program has become a government-assisted way for employers to bring in cheaper foreign labor, and now it appears these foreign workers take over — rather than complement — the U.S. workforce. Hira affirmed: “It’s absolutely not true” that employers seeking H-1Bs must put American workers first, either by “law or regulations.” How did this myth gain such traction? Many commentators and journalists confuse the labor-certification process required for companies applying to obtain green cards (lawful permanent residency status) for H-1B workers with the Labor Condition Application (LCA) process for H-1Bs. Labor certification in the green-card process “exists to protect U.S. workers and the U.S. labor market by ensuring that foreign workers seeking immigrant visa classifications are not displacing equally qualified U.S. workers.” Only in extremely narrow and exceptional circumstances do these nominal protections exist in the H-1B LCA process. (Companies must be classified as “H-1B dependent” for the requirements to apply. Big Tech giants like Facebook have been lobbying mightily to avoid the classification.) And even those narrow exceptions are easily and often circumvented by H-1B foreign-worker traffickers. Conservative journalist W. James Antle gets to the heart of the matter: If the government has discretion in how it exercises its legitimate authority over who comes and who goes, a prerequisite for national sovereignty, then shouldn’t it exercise such discretion in a way that minimizes the impoverishment of Americans? For a very brief window, thanks to a bill from Grassley and, yes, Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), a small group of H-1B-employing banks and other financial institutions that accepted federal bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) did have to demonstrate that they had taken “good-faith steps to recruit U.S. workers” and offer them wages “at least as high” as those offered to H-1B workers. In addition, the targeted employers had to show that they “must not have laid off, and will not lay off, any U.S. worker in a job essentially equivalent to the H-1B position in the area of intended employment of the H-1B worker” within a narrow time frame. But this American-worker-first provision, vociferously opposed by Big Business and Big Government, expired in 2011. The refusal of the vast majority of politicians and the White House to embrace these protections for all U.S. workers tells you everything you need to know about H-1B’s big, fat lies.

Iran, a Terror State But Latin America Also?

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Iran has a long history of killing Americans and has several proxy armies including Hezbollah, Qods and the Madhi Army. No one seems to ask deeper questions but personally I have been quite concerned over the Iranian influence in Central and South America, our own hemisphere. For years I have been watching this closely. Why?

Bombshell report alleges Argentina, Iran, and Venezuela were once all bound together by sex, drugs, and nuclear secrets

Three former Venezuelan government officials who defected from Hugo Chavez’s regime spoke to the Brazilian magazine Veja about an alleged alliance between Argentina, Venezuela, and Iran, which included a deal in which Argentina would get Interpol to remove from its database the names of Iranians suspected of bombing a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994.

Alberto Nisman, an Argentine prosecutor, had been investigating the deadly bombing before he was found dead in his apartment in January with a gunshot wound to the head. He was about to testify to Argentina’s legislature that the administration of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had helped cover up Iran’s hand in the bombing.

Nisman alleged that the Fernandez regime engaged in the cover-up to secure an oil-for-grain deal with Iran (Argentina is energy poor), but Veja’s sources take it a step further. They say the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez helped broker a deal between Argentina and Iran that secured cash for Argentina (including funds for Fernandez’s 2007 presidential run) and nuclear intelligence for Iran on top of derailing the AMIA probe.

“Not only is [the Veja report] credible, but it underscores the allegations prosecutor Nisman put forth about Iran’s longstanding desire to have Argentina restart nuclear cooperation with Iran,” Toby Dershowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Business Insider.

Nisman believed the bombing of the Jewish center, called AMIA, may have been about more than Iran’s attitude toward Israel and the Jewish people. He believed it was a punishment directed at Argentina. Back in the 1980s, Iranian nuclear scientists receieved training at Argentine nuclear plants.

Iranian nuclear scientist Ali Akbar Salehi was mentioned in Nisman’s report as being among the back-channel negotiators who reportedly wanted to clear the names of Iranians from an Interpol database. He spent six months learning about nuclear technology in the 1980s. In 1987, Argentine scientists went to Iran to help upgrade a Tehran research reactor.

“The DOJ and other USG agencies should be concerned about who killed a prosecutor with whom it had an important relationship and whether it was aimed at silencing him and his work implicating Iran,” Dershowitz said. “Nisman’s work was akin to a canary in a coal mine, and his suspicious death is a matter I hope the next attorney general and others will pursue impartially even if it comes at an inconvenient time as the P5+1 negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran.”

kerry zarifREUTERS/Rick Wilking US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif before a meeting in Geneva in January.

To Dershowitz, Nisman’s report was about more than just AMIA. It was about how Iran operates in Latin America — how it recruits, how it uses resources, how it activates sleeper cells.

According to a member of the military who said he was in the room during negotiations between Venezuela and Iran, here’s how a conversation between Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then Iran’s president, on January 13, 2007, went down (via Veja):

Ahmadinejad — It’s a matter of life or death. I need you to help me broker a deal with Argentina to help my country’s nuclear program. We need Argentina to share its nuclear technology. Without their collaboration it would be impossible to advance our nuclear program.

Chávez — Very quickly, I will do that Comrade.

Ahmadinejad — Don’t worry about what it costs. Iran will have all the money necessary to convince Argentines … I need you to convince Argentina to continue to insisting that Interpol take Iranian officials off their list.

Chávez — I will personally take charge of this.

hugo chavez mahmoud ahmadinejadReutersMahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, then Iran’s president, with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez at Miraflores Palace in Caracas in 2012.

The kind of nuclear technology Iran was looking for, specifically, was a heavy-water nuclear reactor. It’s expensive, complicated, and old-fashioned technology, but it allows plutonium to be obtained from natural uranium. That means the uranium doesn’t have to be enriched, which makes the whole operation more discreet.

To sweeten the deal for Argentina, Venezuela allegedly bought $1.8 billion worth of Argentine bonds 2007 and $6 billion worth in 2008. Remember that Argentina has been a pariah of international markets since it defaulted in 2002. The Kirchners (Cristina and her husband, late-president Nestor) each thanked Venezuela for these purchases publicly.

Also in January 2007, Ahmadinejad and Chavez allegedly hatched the plan for “aeroterror,” as Chavistas came to call it. It was a flight from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran that was made twice a month. It flew from Caracas carrying cocaine to be distributed to Hezbollah in Damascus and sold. The plane then went to Tehran carrying Venezuelan passports and other documents that helped Iranian terrorists travel around the world undetected.

tehran iran skylineTehran, Iran.

Where this story makes a turn for the bizarre is that the woman who was allegedly handling the Argentine side of negotiations was former defense minister Nilda Garre, who is now Argentina’s ambassador to the Organization of American States.

Veja’s sources say she had a sexual relationship with Chavez.

“It was something along the lines of ’50 Shades of Grey,'” the former Venezuelan official said, adding that when the two were together, all of Miraflores (Venezuela’s presidential palace) could hear it.

“I cannot say that the Argentine government gave nuclear secrets, but I know it received much by legal means (debt securities) and illegal (bags of money) in exchange for some valuable asset to the Iranians.”

Another former Chavista said: “In Argentina, the holder of secrets is the former ambassador Garre.”

On Wednesday the House Foreign Affairs Committee is having a meeting — this should probably come up.

Cristina fernandez nilda garreReutersKirchner with defense minister Nilda Garre, right, during a meeting with Chavez at the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires in 2009.