Trump, Iran, and the Time for Regime Change

Donald Trump tweeted the following concerning the wave of anti-regime protests sweeping Iran:

What started out as a series of economic protests in select cities in Iran has turned into the largest wave of anti-regime protests in Iran since the failed Green Movement. Despite the show of force by the regime protests keep growing threatening to spiral out of control.

Unlike the Green Movement, which many blame Obama for not backing at the same time he backed the Arab Spring, Donald Trump has gone out and warned Iran.  Does this mean he will step in.  Absolutely not, but what is clear is that his vocal support maybe key in helping to further destablize what is seen as a brutal theocratic regime.

With Iran on the move across the Middle East, the regime has pumped billions of dollars into bolstering its proxies while many of its citizens suffer from economic woes.

For this revolution to succeed, it cannot be seen as a Western inspired uprising, but rather homegrown in nature. So far that seems to be the case. While the IRCG and the security forces are brutal, the populace must hang in there for this to have long term consequences for the Ayatollahs and their supporters.  With internal divisions growing in Iran, it is clear that this may take off.

Yet, if the Iranian regime believes this uprising threatens its very existance, war may be the regime’s only way out.

No Huffington Post, Jews Are Not Crusaders

In a recent article on Huffington Post titled: “First Judeo-Christian Crusade for Jerusalem” the author Liaquat Ali Khan paints a Muslim centric picture of history in the Holy Land by claiming that Jews are essentially recent residents of the Land of Israel or what he would like to call “Historic Palestine.”

Khan’s claim is that evangelical Christians have decided to partner with Jews to launch a crusade to take Palestine from its inhabitants.

Khan states the following early in his article:

“Currently, a Judeo-Christian Crusade is underway to consolidate the territorial claims of Israel, a state instituted by the European Jews with the support of the European Christians, in lands that constitute historical Palestine. Since 1948, the European Jews have occupied some parts of Palestine through a colonial gift from Great Britain and some parts through wars and settlements.”

He then adds:

“It is unclear how to date the first Judeo-Christian Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from Muslims. Some might date it from the November 1917 Balfour Declaration when the United Kingdom, then at war with the Ottoman Empire, promised to establish a homeland for Jews in Palestine, an Ottoman territory. Some might date it from May 1948, when Israel was declared an independent state. Some might date it from June 1967, when the Jews defeated the Arab armies and conquered East Jerusalem and other Muslim territories. Some might date it from December 2017 when the United States recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. November 1917 is most certainly the date for the public declaration of the first Judeo-Christian Crusade. June 1967 is a more realistic date for the actual conquest of Jerusalem. December 2017 is significant because this is when the United States abandoned its false neutrality and openly sided with the Jews against the Muslims.”

“Whatever date is the origin of the Judeo-Christian Crusade, this is the first time that Jews and Christians have come together to take Palestine and Jerusalem away from the Muslims.”

“Even though many Christian nations are divided over the final status of Jerusalem, their support of Israel as a replacement state in Palestine has been loud and clear.”

The problem with Khan’s argument like all other Islamic historical revisionists is that it is not the Jews whether they are European or Middle Eastern that are newcomers to the land, but rather the Arabs themselves.

Claiming that evangelical Christians and Jews have been working together to wrest control of the Holy Land from the so-called Palestinians is a twisting of history.  If that was the case, how could it be that the majority population of Jerusalem in the 1860s according to the Ottoman themselves was in fact Jewish?

More so, it was the Balfour declaration itself that gave the region the distinct name the Arabs claim is connected to them.  It was the British that called it “Palestine.” No such name as a political unit existed before that (except in times of Hadrian) and Balfour used that name to refer to the Jews that had been streaming back home to resettle it.  Afterall, Mark Twain himself noted in his famous travel journal titled “Innocents Abroad” that the Holy Land was mostly desolate.

This is not to say that no one existed in what was known by the Ottomans as Southern Syria.  There were a growing population Jews who had been encouraged by the Ottomans to settle in the Land of Israel as well as Bedouin tribes.

The Jews living in Israel at the time of Mark Twain, were not confined to just a few blocks in Jerusalem.  There were ancient communities in Hebron, Safed, and Tiberius.  These communities existed well before the Islamic conquests of Saladin and before.  Proof of this can easily be mustered by visiting ancient synagogues that were still in use through the 19th and 20th centuries Locations include Hebron, Susya, Safed, Jericho, Samoa, Tiberius, and Jerusalem.

There were also Arab serfs that lived in the land as well.  Some villages like today’s Abu Gosh or rab villages near Haifa were not Arabs at all but Muslim Chechnyans and Bosnians dating only back to the 18th century.

Most interestingly, the Arabs we see today in Israel did not stream into Israel until the early 1900s.  By the time Britain took over, the British government openly encouraged Arab immigration while holding back Jewish returnees by instituting quotas. Moreover, the British worked hand in hand with Arabs to push out Jews that had been living in Jerusalem and Hebron for centuries.

Khan also attempted to focus on the Jews being of “European” descent as if this disqualifies them as “real Jews.”  This line of attack is not special to Khan, but has bubbled up across academia and is being used by various anti-Israel movements.

Of course, this is absurd as it should be noted that the location of Israel places it squarely on the border of three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa.  This is ultimately the reason how there can be so many colors that share similar DNA within the Jewish nation.  It was the Romans and their predecessors the Greeks as well as the Persians that allowed for Jewish migration throughout their empires.

In fact, those Palestinians who can trace their ancestry back centuries and are not recent immigrants may not be who they claim to be at all.

Professors Ostrer and Skorecki wrote in a review of their findings that they co-authored in the journal Human Genetics in October 2012 the following conclusion:

“The closest genetic neighbors to most Jewish groups were the Palestinians, Israeli Bedouins, and Druze in addition to the Southern Europeans, including Cypriots.”

The research paper goes on to clarify that it is in fact European Jews that have a stronger connection to “Palestinians” than even their Middle Eastern counterparts.

Doesn’t this throw Khan’s assertion that Jews are newcomers to Israel or as he calls it Palestine out the window?

If Jews or let’s say it more accurately, European Jews were never here, how can the Palestinans have such a  close genetic connection?

If one looks at history in a neutral manner, it is not the Jews who are the “crusaders” but rather Muslims themselves. These Muslims came in the 7th and 8th centuries after a series of Roman expulsions of the Jews that ended in the 4th century CE. and forcibly converted the remaining Jewish inhabitants with a decree issued in the name of the Fatimid Khaliph El-Khakem in 1012. This caused the region’s Christians to flee and the Jews who became the majority to convert.

Khan’s ignorance of history is either willful or like many Muslims fabricated to fill their need to turn all history into Muslim history.  Afterall to most Muslims, Abraham, David, and Jesus were Muslims. Khan is not interested in history, but rather creating an alternate history, based not on facts but rather on fiction. Hkan appears to be driven by what he perceives as a loss of a piece of Dar Islam.

Huffington Post has a right to publish any article it wants.  However, if it wants to be taken seriously it should consider refraining from publishing articles that act as catalysts for undermining documented historical norms.

WAR DRUMS: Syrian Regime Takes Manbij, Encircles Rebels in Beit Jinn, Approaching Golan

While the Netanyahu government continues to revel in Trump’s Jerusalem declaration the euphoria should be kept in check. With each day that passes, the Syrian Regime draws closer to its goal in breaking the buffer zone that lies between its forces and the Israeli Golan.  Arab news is reporting that the Syrian regime aided by Iran and Hezbollah has captured Manbij Farms.

The fall of Manbij Farms essentially cuts off the strategic Beit Jinn enclave from supporting rebel forces.  This makes the 4km distance between the regime and Israel a far easier move as rebel forces continue to disintegrate.

Danger to Israel, Blow to Netanyahu

While it is often assumed to observers that the Assad regime would take its time before moving against Israel, the Iranians have been the real drivers in Assad’s decisions.  Given that the Shiite alliance, backed by Russia is continuing to win, there is no reason to assume they will stop at the Golan border.  Afterall Prime Minister Netanyahu promised that he would prevent Iran from establishing a direct land corridor between Tehran and Israel.  The 4km stretch between Beit Jinn and the Golan makes the land bridge the Iranians have been pining for a done deal.

Israel has little maneuverability when facing the coming onslaught, which by all estimates is fast approaching.

WAR DRUMS: Syria-Hezbollah-Iran Moves Within 4km of Israel’s Golan

Arab sources and media are reporting that the combined strength of the Syrian Regime army and Iranian backed Hezbollah succeeded in cornering the Syrian rebels in the Beit Jinn enclave, located 4km from Israel’s Golan.  The rebels, seeing no help from Israel have now offered to surrender peacefully.

Once the regime and Hezbollah fully capture the enclave, they will have unfettered access to the Hermon, essentially surrounding the key area from both Lebanon and Syria.

Israel’s government has little time to decided how and when to stop the forward momentum of the Syrian-Hezbollah-Iranian forces before they are able to dig into fortefied positions along Israel’s Northeastern border.




While Israelis are disracted by news reports connected to the imminent police recommendation to charge Prime Minister Netanyahu with corruption, the danger on the country’s Northern border is growing.  Without a bold move soon, Iran and its Syrian and Hezbollah allies will achieve what Netanyahu pledged would never happen.  The Ayatollahs would be ready to pounce on Israel at a time of their choosing, that is unless Israel hits them first.

Turkey Wants Jerusalem…Again

While the Palestinians seem to relish at being useful tools for the Islamic world’s obssession with Israel, the rage the President of Turkey has expressed “on behalf of the Palestinians” seems a bit self absorbed.  Was it not the Ottomon Turks who ruled Jerusalem for centuries before they lost to the British in World War One? What happened to their Palestnian brethren during that time, because as they say the Palestinians were in the Land of Israel for millenia.

The truth is and Turkey’s leaders know it to be true, is that the Ottoman Turks ran Jerusalem into the ground.  More than that, the majority population in Jerusalem at the time of Turkish rule was in fact Jewish.

Turkey cares as much as any other Islamic nation for the so called Palestinians, which is not much. What Erdogan wants is to dial the clock back to the days before the British ruled the Land of Israel and thus named the province Palestine, which was Western name for a province called something else completely different by the Ottoman Turks.

Erdogan completely believes and lives for the goal of returning Turkey to the zenith of the Ottoman Empire, including Jerusalem.  The problem is, everyone else see through it except for Erdogan, who is never content just being President of Turkey. Erdogan wants to be seen as a sort of neo-Sultan of the reformed Ottoman Empire recast as a modern day Islamic hero reconquering Israel from the “filthy Zionists.”

“Because it [Jerusalem] is under occupation we can’t just go there and open an embassy,” Erdogan was reported to have said today. “But, (God willing) those days are near and… we will officially open our embassy there,” he said, without giving any precise timetable.

Of course the chances of any of this actually happening is close to none, but Erdogan’s rant has a whole other purpose.  In the currently forming between Turkey, Iran, Russia, Syria, and Iran, it is Turkey that plays the part of the outsider who has at the last moment decided to switch teams.  For this Erdogan must curry favor with the Arab street and position himself as the leader of the Islamic world.




Although the Turkish embassy will not move to “East Jerusalem” anytime soon, Erdogan’s rant can have far reaching consequences in the region.  It certainly gives the Shiites a cause to rally around pushes those Sunni allies of the US into a tight spot. The more this back and forth drags on Erdogan can find himself igniting the flames of another intifada.

With enemies surrounding Israel and Turkey, Jordan, and others promoting a violent insurrection from within, the need to push back against the growing Shiite-Russo axis becomes all the more necessary.

Turkey’s role in the growing Shiite-Russo axis is not clear, but what is obvious is that Erdogan believes he is its rightful leader.