June 19, 2013
"Nuclear weapons have no role in Iran's national security doctrine; therefore Iran has nothing to conceal." — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

The following are excerpts from interviews with Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani, all within the last three weeks, in Asharq Al-Awsat and a few live television debates with the other candidates in Iran's recent election:

Iran's nuclear program and talks between Iran and the P5+1:

Thursday, June 20, 2013
The world has become familiar with the Green Line, and the Red Line, supposedly a game-changing demarcation. Now it is likely to become acquainted with the Blue Line, the line devised by the United Nations on June 7, 2000 that demarcates the Israeli-Lebanese border.

June 19, 2013
"In the Islamic world, democratization has led to an increasing role for theocratic politics." — Fareed Zakaria

The Turkish Minister for EU Affairs, Egemen Bağış, has declared that Prime Minister Erdoğan is a gift sent by God to Turkey and to humanity. But what do half the Turkish electorate do – as well as the rest of humanity – when the gift is unwanted?

There is no doubt that the Almighty has bestowed upon the world a special gift.

19/6/2013
Middle East Quarterly
Hezbollah first became known to the Lebanese public in 1985 with its now-famous open letter, whose introductory statement read: "We are the sons of the umma (Muslim community)—of the party of God (Hezbollah), the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran. … We obey the orders of one leader… that of our tutor and faqih [i.e., Ayatollah Khomeini]."[1]

The Washington Times
June 19, 2013
Rebellion has shaken Turkey since May 31: Is it comparable to the Arab upheavals that overthrew four rulers since 2011, to Iran's Green Movement of 2009 that led to an apparent reformer being elected president last week, or perhaps to Occupy Wall Street, which had negligible consequences?

The government of Istanbul told mothers to "bring their children home" but instead they joined the protests in Taksim Square.

06/19/2013 14:38
Author, "unabashedly infected with anti-Semitism," criticized over book for "hostile views" towards Israel.
Author, poet and activist Alice Walker
Author, poet and activist Alice Walker Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker “has taken her extreme and hostile views to a shocking new level” in her latest book on intertwined personal, spiritual, and political destinies, according a review of the book by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

June 19, 2013
The proposal of the United States for a Palestinian state and a joint Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli policing mechanism in the Jordan Valley seems like a pipe dream. That sort of suggestion, disconnected from reality, clearly indicates a dangerous lack of awareness concerning the increasing militant Islamic aggression toward Israel and the West.

18 Jun 2013 07:14 AM PDT
There is a long history of Western powers believing that they could manipulate or work with radical Arabic-speaking states or movements to redo the regional order. All have ended badly.

--During the 1880s and 1890s, Germany became convinced that it could turn the forces of jihad against British, French, and Russian rivals. The kaiser presented himself as the Muslim world’s friend and German propaganda even hinted that their ruler had converted to Islam.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The Peres Presidential Conference offers gobbledygook: a foggy, fuzzy brand of "imagination, vision and a considerable amount of defiance," instead of fortifying participants with intellectual value that will help them defend Israel.

"Facing Tomorrow," the fifth Israeli Presidential Conference under the auspices of President Shimon Peres, running this week in Jerusalem, is a wondrous event. It's so nice.

American Thinker
June 18, 2013
The European Parliament (EP) in Strasbourg passed two resolutions Thursday, each detailing a set of recommendations to protect the rights of journalists to speak and print freely. 21

Friday, June 14, 2013
Introduction:
A case can be made that the Syrian rebels must not be defeated because it would be an Iranian victory. But what is disturbing is that even if one could argue that the rebels must be helped it is a policy being conducted dishonestly. People do not know that the weapons given by the United States will almost all end up in the hands of pro-Muslim Brotherhood units.

June 18, 2013
Khamene'i has again proven what a great master strategist he is. He has succeeded in pacifying the West and his own people, thus buying the time his scientists need to complete his nuclear project.

The Iranians are the best strategists in the Middle East, better than those in the West, and the reason the Iranians constantly succeed in out-maneuvering the West.

June 17, 2013
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has defied senior members of US Congress by announcing his refusal to dismiss a senior PA official who glorified a murderer.

FollowingPalestinian Media Watch's report last month that Abbas' advisor and Head of the PA's NGO Authority, Sultan Abu Al-Einein, glorified the murderer of an Israeli just three days after the killing, five members of the US Congress sent a letter to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas demanding that the PA official be removed from office:

Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The bad news is that Rouhani has little influence on the three major power centers in Iran. Rouhani, who knows for whom he works (and it is not the Iranian people), will try to use his negotiating skills to effect changes in American behavior toward Iran.

June 18, 2013
Saladin even ordered each cleric in his army personally to behead at least one knight. We should expect no less gruesome a fate than the Knight warriors of Christendom, the townspeople of Otranto or British Sergeant Lee Rigby.

"So when you meet in Jihad in Allah's cause those who disbelieve, smite their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them…"

— Surat 47, al-Qital (The Killing), Ayat 4

17 June 2013
British pop duo reject "apartheid Israel" label amidst calls to boycott Tel Aviv gig
The Commentator
British electro-pop duo The Pet Shop Boys has hit back at critics who insisted that the pair should cancel their planned performance in Tel Aviv, Israel next Sunday.

The band, which has been together since the early 1980s and performed such hits as 'West End Girls' and 'Go West', responded to calls by boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigners with a swift rebuttal that asserted that Israel was no apartheid state.

16 Jun 2013 01:11 PM PDT
Here is what I wrote in October 2010. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad al-Badi, had just given a sermon calling for the overthrow of Egypt’s government, which happened four months later, and a jihad against the United States, a country he considered weak, foolish, and retreating from the Middle East. I declared that this was:

18/6/2013
Middle East Quarterly
"Saudi Woman Beheaded for Witchcraft" read media headlines around the world on December 13, 2011. News reports described how a 60-year-old woman was executed after being convicted of practicing witchcraft on the basis of such evidence as books on witchcraft, veils, and glass bottles full of an "unknown liquid used for sorcery."[1]

June 18, 2013
In April 2006, Rouhani was caught on tape, boasting that while talks [on Iran's nuclear program] were taking place, Iran was able to complete installing equipment for the conversion of yellowcake -- a key stage in the nuclear fuel process -- but at the same tine convince the Europeans that nothing was afoot.

June 17, 2013
The bad news is that Rouhani has little influence on the three major power centers in Iran. Rouhani, who knows for whom he works (and it is not the Iranian people), will try to use his negotiating skills to effect changes in American behavior toward Iran.

Jun 14 2013
In an update to my recent blog on the deteriorating situation facing UN peacekeepers in Syria and Egypt, the latest development is the fallout of the short-lived seizure of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force's (UNDOF) Quneitra border crossing by Syrian rebels on June 6.

Recent events only re-emphasise the precariousness of all Mideast peacekeeping.

June 17, 2013
The British charity, Human Appeal International, seems more than happy to use democratic means, such as the courts, to silence its critics.

Britain's leading Jewish newspaper, The Jewish Chronicle, issued an apology recently to Human Appeal International, a British charity with a number of worldwide affiliated branches, all particularly active in the Palestinian territories.

Monday, June 17, 2013
Syria spirals out of control. Iran marches toward nuclear Islamageddon. So, naturally, Secretary of State John Kerry schedules yet another trip to "solve" the region's relatively stable, if not ideal, Israel-Palestinian dispute.

Like so many in foreign policy circles, Kerry and the Obama administration know -- absolutely know -- the key to peace in Israel's neighborhood: Israel's withdrawal, with perhaps minor adjustments, from all West Bank territory conquered in 1967.

16 Jun 2013 06:34 AM PDT
Hasan Rowhani, the only reformist candidate allowed in Iran’s presidential election, has won a landslide victory. There won’t even need to be a second, run-off round since he won over 50 percent of the vote.

If this was a regime maneuver to portray Iran as suddenly moderate, it seems to be working. Around the globe, mass media outlets are claiming that Iran has been transformed and now is the time for the West to show patience or make concessions.'

June 14, 2013
Four years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a blog, "Rooting for Ahmadinejad," which explained why I wanted the worst of the candidates on Iran's election day in 2009 to win the election.

Presidential candidates in Iran, Saeed Jalili (left) and Hassan Rouhani.

whoever is elected president, whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, will have limited impact on the issue that most concerns the outside world – Iran's drive to build nuclear weapons, which Khamene'i will presumably continue apace, as he has in prior decades.

14 Jun 2013 07:21 AM PDT
Introduction:
A case can be made that the Syrian rebels must not be defeated because it would be an Iranian victory. But what is disturbing is that even if one could argue that the rebels must be helped it is a policy being conducted dishonestly. People do not know that the weapons given by the United States will almost all end up in the hands of pro-Muslim Brotherhood units.

June 14, 2013
Raw footage of the event establishes that the Al-Durah affair is a prime example of Palestinian organizations' manipulating the media with falsified footage and incorrect testimony.

In 2000, a French television station, France 2, broadcast footage of a gunfight between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. Caught in the middle, a father shields his young son, Mohammed, as bullets rake the air around them. Seconds later, the edited footage shows Mohammed Al-Durah draped lifelessly over his father's knees.

Friday, June 14, 2013
Among scholars of the Middle East, the term "sushi" is used as a shorthand for the expression, "Sunni-Shi'a". Anyone interested in the history of Islam knows that the seeds of the Sunni-Shi'a conflict were planted the moment that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, closed his eyes forever in the year 632 CE, without leaving a mechanism for choosing a successor to lead the nation.

June 13 2013
Last month, Ottawa once again took the international lead in raising an issue important to Israel and Middle East peace. The Harper government initiated hearings on the matter of Jewish refugees from Arab countries in the Canadian parliament.

June 14, 2013
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the deliberate blinding of our homeland security defense capabilities, perpetrated by the Muslim Brotherhood in close cooperation with the witting, willing assistance of our own national security agency leadership , is propelling the U.S. towards catastrophe.