The Crashing Iranian Economy and the Mullahs’ Last Stand

There are reports now that Iranian officials are in a panic as they race to save the nuclear deal and stave off a return of crushing sanctions on their fragile economy. Although European officials have claimed they will stay in the nuclear deal despite President Trump decertifying the it and reapplying crushing sanctions last week, there is little they can do.  Iranian government representatives and their European counterparts have been huddling with ex State Department officials last week, but with little success with a way forward as Congress has been cool to the idea of discussing any relaxing of sanctions.

The Washington Free Beacon reported the following:

European diplomats are said to be blaming the Obama administration for drumming up business with Iran and telling these allies that they could engage in economic transactions without penalty. The reaction from lawmakers has been unsympathetic, source said, explaining that congressional opponents of the deal long warned these European countries the deal would be subject to harsh scrutiny after President Barack Obama left office.

A State Department official familiar with the progress of new negotiations surrounding the deal said the Trump administration is set on fundamentally changing Iran’s behavior, including its buildup on ballistic missiles and support for terrorism, before it agree to any Iranian demands.

One veteran U.S. adviser close to the White House told the Washington Free Beacon that Iran’s reaction indicates its desperation to remain in the Obama-era agreement and continue receiving cash windfalls.

“As President Trump has always said, the Iran deal was great for the mullahs and terrible for the American people,” the source said, speaking only on background. “Obama gave Iran more than they could ever have imagined, and now Trump is taking it away. The Iranians are rushing to grab and save whatever they can. Europe will have to choose a side.”

Despite public calls for doing business with Iran, there is little the EU can do as corporations are pulling out of doing business with the rogue state due to fear from banking sanctions.  Russia has no interest in saving the deal either despite public comradery, since Putin finally has an Iran that is becoming pacified before it grows out of control.




All of this pressure on the regime in Tehran makes it far more likely that a military confrontation is in the offing. This is not a bad thing.  A war was expected eventually between the Ayatollahs in Iran and Israel and the Sunni block. If the JCPOA had been kept, Iran would have waited and been far too powerful to stop.  Now they are in a weak position and except for Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, Iran cannot sustain a warfront for too long unless they have other actors enter on their behalf.

With North Korea threatening to pull out of the Trump-Un meet up and China becoming a serious threat, the Mullahs may be banking on making a last stand. Yet they will have to do this before their economy crashes and their citizens revolt.

THOUSANDS OF GAZA HAMAS THUGS ATTACK ISRAEL FOR $100 A DAY

They attack for $100 a day. And Israeli soldiers fight them for $13 a day.

Hamas supporters in Gaza held the world’s first peaceful protest with hand grenades, pipe bombs, cleavers and guns. Ten explosive devices were peacefully detonated. There were outbursts of peaceful gunfire and over a dozen kites carrying firebombs were sent into Israel where they started 23 peaceful fires. And Israeli soldiers peacefully defended their country leaving multiple Hamas attackers at peace.

“We will tear down the border,” Hamas Prime Minister Yahya Sinwar had peacefully vowed. “And we will tear out their hearts from their bodies.”

But the only hearts his terror thugs tore out were already bleeding with sympathy for Islamic terrorists.

The Hamas mob chanted, “Allahu Akbar” and the genocidal racist threat of, “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud,” a reference to the primal Islamic massacre of the Jews. While IDF soldiers held back the invaders, the jets of the IAF targeted the snake’s head striking Hamas compounds and outposts. By 5.30 PM, the Hamas organizers changed course and began urging the thugs away from further fence attacks.

Hamas had offered $100 to every rioter. During previous violent assaults back in April, the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group had been offering $200 to anyone shot by Israelis, $500 for severe injuries and $3,000 to the dead.

$100 a day may not seem like a lot, but the Israeli teen soldiers they’re trying to kill, earn $13 a day.

The Hamas supporting thugs are depicted as helpless, starving victims who can barely lift the firebombs they’re throwing at Israelis, but they make ten times as much as the Israeli soldiers they are there to kill.

Hamas can write all those checks to its aspiring killers because the cash is coming from Iran.

Last year, Senwar, whom Israel had released in exchange for captured Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, had boasted that Iran was once again “the largest backer financially and militarily”.

That comes out to an estimated $100 million a year.

With as many as 50,000 Hamas supporters in Gaza participating in the day’s attacks at $100 a head, over 1,000 allegedly injured at least $200 each, and another 52 allegedly killed at $3,000 each (there is no reason to treat Hamas casualty figures coming out of Gaza as anything other than propaganda), the whole thing cost Hamas and Iran $5.3 million. The unmarked cargo plane filled with foreign currency that Obama dispatched to Iran carried $400 million. That was part of a known $1.7 billion cash payment.

But the total Obama terror payments to Tehran may go as high as $33.6 billion.

Despite media misreporting, the Hamas mass fence attacks began back on March 30 and even though their Great March of Return was supposed to end in mid-May, the show proved to be unexpectedly popular in Tehran, Brussels and Berkeley, and the attacks will continue through at least June.

Even a single one of Obama’s cash smuggling runs to Iran is enough to fund attacks just like these for two and a half months. And the $100,000 that an Iranian group offered to anyone who blows up the embassy? That illegal cash run can pay for bounties on every American diplomatic facility in the world.

Lefties bemoaning Israel’s moral authority can look up and follow the money trail from Iran’s IRGC (the terror mothership whom Obama resisted sanctioning), to the unmarked cargo planes from Obama, and to their own greasy little fingers that pushed the button or marked the ballot for him. The Israeli teens in IDF khaki with rules of engagement for using force longer than some graduate thesis papers are dealing with a problem from hell created by Democrat voters who wanted to feel inspired by Obama.

The cost of that inspiration today ran to dozens dead. If the Israeli teens shooting in self-defense lack moral authority, where is the moral authority of the Obama voters whose votes financed the attack?

Those Israeli teens in green earn $408 a month if they’re in a combat unit. Before a raise a few years ago, they weren’t even earning $300. Support units earn $327 and rear units $225. Not only is that far lower than the average civilian salary, but if often hardly covers living expenses. Dodging the draft isn’t hard these days. The average red-shirted hipster does it easily, putting in a few years at a fake startup before heading to Berlin to protest Zionism. And those who serve know if that they make a single mistake, if they shoot an attacker who turns out not to be armed, Israeli leftists will see them jailed.

Hamas supporters charge at them for $100 a day. And IDF soldiers hold the line for $400 a month.




So why for $400 a month, do Israeli soldiers face down mobs of tens of thousands of Hamas supporters baying for their blood? The average IDF soldier who reports for duty comes from one of the Judean communities (slurred as settlements) under attack by Hamas or from development towns in the north under attack by Hezbollah. He is often a religious settler who sees the hand of G-d in the high hills or a descendant of Mizrahi immigrants whose recent ancestors were oppressed under Muslim rule.

When your family lives under fire, holding the line on the Hamas mob isn’t an abstract idea of duty.

The Hamas invaders were there to kill Israelis. The Israeli soldiers were there to protect Israelis. The attackers were invading someone else’s land while the defenders were protecting their own country.

That’s why Hamas has to pay its rioting thugs ten times as much as Israeli soldiers earn to attack them.

While the $100 a day thugs threw rocks and firebombs, the professional terrorists hung back waiting for a breach in the fence. Some were caught planting bombs. And killed. They are among the 10 known Hamas terrorists killed in the Gaza fighting and bemoaned by the media as victims of a Jewish massacre.

The $400 a month Israeli teenager with a rifle is there as the front line in case the fence is breached. Hamas wants to take more hostages to free more terrorists. If it can’t do that, it will kill them. And if the attackers make it past the soldiers, they will hit Israeli towns and villages hoping to kill anyone they find.

While the fence holds up, the Hamas terrorists and their supporters sent flaming kites in the hopes of setting Israeli farms and fields on fire. One such attack had already destroyed 400 acres of wheat.

A sympathetic New York Times piece from last week described the “flaming-kite squadrons” prepping hundreds of fire kites, but unfortunately, “The wind was blowing the other way.”

“The wind is still against us,” Ismail al-Qrinawi whined.  “We are waiting for it to pick up so we can fly tens of kites and burn their crops.” Instead, “the direction of the wind not only thwarted the kites, but also blew copious amounts of Israeli tear gas toward the protesters.”

Pharaoh and his legions had the same bad experience with the wind. G-d must be an Islamophobe.

Hamas organized the invasion. It urged its human shields to head to the fence telling them that the Israelis had run away. That was the same way Egypt’s Nasser had tricked Jordan’s King Hussein during the Six Day War. Instead of defeating the Israelis and salvaging Gaza, Nasser’s scheme led to the liberation of Jerusalem, along with Judea and Samaria by the indigenous Jewish people. And it also had disastrous consequences for this latest attempted invasion by Egyptian-Jordanian settlers into Israel.

While the Hamas supporters were destroying their own crossing point infrastructure, as they had previously trashed their own gas lines, the United States was inaugurating the opening of an embassy in Jerusalem. Despite media misinformation, the riots predated the embassy and will postdate it.

The media used contrasting photos of the embassy opening and the Pallywood fake photos of protesters crying for the cameras and pretending to limp on crutches to smear Israel and America. And as usual they missed the real story. While Israelis and Americans were building something, Muslim terrorists were destroying everything they could get their hands on. While Rabbis and Pastors blessed, Imams cursed.

Hamas Sheikh Iyad Abu Funun had sworn on the Koran that, “We will not leave a single Jew on our Islamic land.” It did not matter, “whether left-Wing, right-wing, secular, religious, or extremist.”

That is what this is about.

The dedication of the embassy is a leap of faith. Faith in building rather than destruction. Faith in life instead of death. Faith in the G-d who watches over Jerusalem, not the Allah for whom Gaza burns.

Originally Published in FrontPageMag.

Israel’s Interrogation of Captured Gazan Infiltrators Reveal Hamas’ Strategy

While celebrations in Jerusalem continue over Jerusalem Day and the new American embassy in Jerusalem, riots on the Gaza border backed by Hamas with an attempt to cause mass Israeli casualties through firebombs, rocks, grenades, and infiltrations continue.  The IDF has defended the border fantastically but has had to use deadly force mutiple times.  So far there have been 37 militants killed today trying to harm Israelis near the border.

Although many news outlets in the Western Media have claimed these are mere protests, captured infiltrators reveal their true intentions.

The IDF and ISA has now released information they have gathered from some of the detainess captured trying to infiltrate.

Yahiya Eijle, 19, a resident of Gaza City and Hamas member, was arrested on 29 April 2018 while making his way into Israel to steal a security camera and cut the Gaza Strip fence. Officials learned the following from Yahiya:

1. Hamas is instructing its activists to cut the fence and steal security cameras in order to sabotage and topple the fence and disrupt IDF activity ahead of “Nakba Day.”

2. Hamas in the Gaza Strip wants the activity to be seen in the international media as a popular uprising, and not as violent action led by its militants.

3. Hamas militants, who are embedded among the residents of the Gaza Strip, are taking an active part in the violent protest activities along the fence every Friday in part by wielding firebombs, knives and large wire-cutters.

4. Hamas members supply Gaza Strip residents with tires and assist them in setting them on fire in order to create thick smoke to agitate residents and persuade them to infiltrate into Israeli territory, throw firebombs and prepare kite-borne firebombs to be handed over to violent militants.

5. It has also been learned that Hamas terrorists themselves are prohibited from approaching the fence lest they be killed or captured by the IDF. However, ifs the fence is breached, then they are to enter Israeli territory armed – under cover of the mob – and carry out attacks.

Salim Abu Daher, 21, a resident of the Gaza Strip, was arrested on 28 April 2018 upon infiltrating into Israel in order to burn fields and groves. Officials learned the following from Salim:

1. Hamas is financing the violent action in the framework of which kite-borne firebombs are sent toward Israeli territory.

2. Hamas members in civilian clothing circulate among violent activists and supply gasoline for the kite-borne firebombs which are designed to ignite and burn Israeli fields.

Other detainees revealed the following:

1. Hamas encourages children and young people to cross the fence.

2. Hamas militants in civilian clothes encourage children to try and cross the fence in order to steal IDF equipment.

This resulted in an event on May 4th in which a 13-year-old youth was wounded while taking part in an attempt to infiltrate into Israeli territory in order to steal a security camera at Karni Crossing, east of Gaza City.

Below is the video of today’s protests from the border of Gaza Strip:

HAS THE WAR BEGUN OR ENDED: Iran Attacks and Israel Destroys Dozens of Military Targets in Response

There is a calm jubilation this morning in the IDF/IAF staff over what they are calling a successful response to the 20 Iranian missiles fired by the Al Quds force into Israeli positions on the Golan Heights.

 

This morning the IDF and Defense Minister Liberman relayed the same message of success in the overnight defensive retaliation.

“The Iranians tried to attack the sovereign territory of Israel,” Liberman said. “Not one Iranian rocket landed in the State of Israel. Nobody was hurt. Nothing was damaged. And we’re to be thankful for that. We damaged nearly all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria.”

The IDF was quoted as saying that the “Overnight raids set back Iranian military in Syria by ‘many months’.”

 

 

An illustrative map showing the general locations of Israeli strikes in Syria in response to a presumed Iranian attack on the Golan Heights on May 10, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

Is this the End or Beginning of the Iran-Israel War?

The statements by the IDF and the Defense Minister appear to indicate that the IAF gave the Iranians a severe blow to their presence in Syria. While this appears to be true, there are some indications that the early success of Israel’s attacks against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria may be just a precursor to a larger struggle. Iran is no Iraq or Jordan.  They were fully aware that the IDF was prepared to go all out to stop them.  Most likely many of their positions were arrayed to learn and understand the capabilities of the IAF.

One also has to keep in mind that these attacks are without Hezbollah’s involvement.  The vaunted IRGC is considered formidable, but it has only just begun its control over Syria’s southwestern territory, while Hezbollah is prepared and ready for war with Israel.

Given President Trump’s warnings to Iran not to restart their program, it is fair to assume, the skirmishes we have been witnessing are just the beginning of a protracted conflict.

ISRAEL STRIKES SYRIA: Residents in Israel’s North Are Told to Prepare for Retaliation

A few moments ago, Israeli planes struck multiple Iranian targets south of Damascus.  These strikes occurred soon after Israeli officials warned Israeli citizens in the north of the country to open their bomb shelters as the government was expecting Iranian retaliation to Trump pulling out of the Iran deal. Reports are indicating the IAF destroyed an advanced Iranian communications base.  Considering Israel is bracing for an Iranian attack, this appeared to be a premtive strike.

There have been reports that Israel has begin to call up a select number of reserves as well as placing a heavy amount of anti-missile batteries on the Golan.

Prime Minister Netanyahu had this to say on President Trump pulling the USA out of the Iran deal:

“Israel fully supports President Trump’s bold decision today to reject the disastrous nuclear deal with the terrorist regime in Tehran. Israel has opposed the nuclear deal from the start because we said that rather than blocking Iran’s path to a bomb, the deal actually paved Iran’s path to an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs, and this within a few years’ time. The removal of sanctions under the deal has already produced disastrous results. The deal didn’t push war further away, it actually brought it closer. The deal didn’t reduce Iran’s aggression, it dramatically increased it, and we see this across the entire Middle East. Since the deal, we’ve seen Iran’s aggression grow every day- in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Gaza, and most of all, in Syria, where Iran is trying to establish military bases from which to attack Israel.”

With Iran now in control of Lebanon and free reign in Syria, Israel has no choice but to take the initiative.  By striking at the Syrian capital, Israel sends a clear message: “We’re ready to fight.” Of course Iran may now choose to respond, placing much of Israel in danger.