News Digest — 2/7/22
‘Iran Society Set To Explode’ While Biden Unfreezes $29 Billion For Regime
A hacktivist organization has revealed a highly sensitive Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps document that asserts Iranian “society is in a state of explosion” because of the crippling sanctions imposed on the nation due to its illicit nuclear program.
The US government news organization Radio Farda obtained the document from Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice), the whistleblower entity that has also secured confidential documents and video footage about the torture of Iranian prisoners, wrote Farda.
According to Radio Farda’s Golnaz Esfandiari who authored the exclusive article, “the document covers a meeting with IRGC’s intelligence wing and quotes an official named “Mohammadi” saying that Iran’s “society is in a state of explosion.”
Mohammadi added that “social discontent has risen by 300% in the past year.”
Radio Farda said it could not verify the authenticity of the document beyond the sourcing of Ali’s Justice.
The official noted that “several shocks” in recent months have “shaken public trust” in the regime of President Ibrahim Raisi, who is listed as a US-sanctioned person for his role in several mass murders, including the massacre of at least 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988.
Radio Farda reported that “Mohammadi referred to soaring inflation, including hikes in the price of food items, energy and cars. He also noted the sharp decline in stock prices.”
“The leaked document includes notes from a November 2021 task-force meeting chaired by Brig.-Gen. Hossein Nejat, a senior IRGC commander and deputy head of Sarallah, a key IRGC base that oversees security in Tehran,” the station said.
Omni Ceren, the national security adviser for US Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tweeted on Saturday (5th): “The Biden administration is giving Iran a nuclear weapons arsenal,” with a link to a Daily Mail article that declares: “Biden REMOVES some Iranian sanctions imposed by Trump, including unfreezing $29 billion in banks accounts overseas, in bid to return to Obama-era deal that three negotiators have resigned over.”
In addition to officials at the meeting from the IRGC, a US-classified terrorist organization, the IRGC document noted that the meeting of the Working Group On The Prevention Of A Livelihood-Based Security Crisis was attended by the Basij militia, intelligence bodies, and the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office.
The Basij militia is a volunteer force frequently used to crush demonstrations against political and economic corruption of the theocratic state.
The Jerusalem Post reported last month that Iran’s deputy interior minister, Taghi Rostam Vandi, outlined factors during a speech that could shake the foundations of the theocratic state.
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the regime-controlled news group of Iran, reported that Rostam Vandi warned that Iranians are seeking with greater frequency “fundamental changes in the country,” and a secular government and way of life.
Revolts against the clerical state have erupted in Iranian society since the 1979 Islamic revolution, including the widespread Green Movement, protests in 2009 and massive unrest in 2019.
Shin Bet: Hamas Trying To Recruit Descendants Of Family Reunification
Hamas is intentionally, and already has recruited Arab citizens of Israel who have one parent who was born in Gaza or Judea and Samaria for the purpose of terrorist attacks and intelligence gathering, according to an internal Shin Bet document presented to the government.
The data pertains to terrorist activities perpetrated within the Green Line between the Years 2020-21, up until Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. These activities included actual terror attacks or intelligence-gathering operations on behalf of Hamas, sometimes while the IDF was fighting the terror groups in Gaza.
In some of the cases, Hamas tried recruiting these individuals, while they were visiting relatives in Gaza, exploiting their conflicting loyalties and Israel’s “family reunification” policies.
Hamas also asked these individuals to report on locations of rocket strikes inside Israel, according to the Shin Bet.
The Israeli citizens recruited by Hamas resided, among other places, in Rehovot, Lod, and in the many Bedouin communities in the Negev. One of the Shin Bet’s conclusions is that individuals who are second-generation citizens of family reunification are willing to forego the advantages that come with living in Israel compared to life in Gaza. The Shin Bet found that the second-generation citizens often experience conflicting loyalties, torn between being Israeli and their families in Gaza. This complexity also causes some of them to work on behalf of Hamas, more so than Arabs who have two parents with Israeli citizenship.
Some two weeks ago, as a reminder, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar noted that the Israeli Arab descendants of family reunification were disproportionately involved in the riots in the Negev over a month ago.
Israel Sanctions Lebanese Companies Aiding Hezbollah Missile Project
Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Sunday (6th) signed a series of administrative orders to seize the assets of three Lebanese companies that Israel accuses of supplying materials to advance Hezbollah’s efforts to manufacture precision missiles.
“Hezbollah is endangering the citizens of the State of Lebanon. We will continue to offer humanitarian assistance to the citizens while acting resolutely in the face of the Iranian precision missile project operating from the heart of Lebanon,” Gantz said in a statement issued by his office.
According to the statement, it is the second time defense officials have issued such an order in recent months, joining a seizure order signed in October against the Lebanese firm, Shreif Sanitary Co.
This latest order named three companies – Toufali, Moubayed and Barakat – and claim the firms maintain ongoing trade deals with Hezbollah of “machines, oils and ventilation systems” required for the terror group’s “production line and the precision missile project in particular.”
Israel alleges that Hezbollah, which already possesses many thousands of rockets believed to be aimed at Israeli population centers, has been endeavoring, with the help of its patron Iran, to manufacture more precision missiles in Lebanon.
Gantz’s announcement came just days after he said that Israel had offered to assist the Lebanese Army several times in recent months.
“Lebanon has unfortunately become an island of instability, and the citizens of Lebanon are not our enemies,” Gantz said at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies. “Therefore, I offered four times this year to assist Lebanon, including last week in an application sent to the UNIFIL commander.”
Gantz did not say what response he received to the offers, but it is seen as highly unlikely that Lebanon would ever agree to cooperation with Israel, particularly with the IDF.
But shortly after his speech, a number of security officials began leaking their disapproval to various news outlets, saying it was not good for Gantz to be making such gestures while Israel is trying to combat Hezbollah.
Israel and Lebanon are enemy states with no direct relations, and any communication occurs through third parties, including through the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the peacekeeping mission that patrols the border.
Holocaust Survivor, 91, Critically Injured In Rocket Attack In May, Dies After Long Bout With Injuries
Nine months after Israel and Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip waged a brutal 11-day-conflict, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor who was critically wounded when her Ashkelon home took a direct hit from a rocket passed away in the hospital overnight Sunday (6th).
Naomi Pearlman, who was widowed by her husband in 2004, was living with her caregiver Sounya Santosh – a 32-year-old Indian national.
On May 11, 2021 – the second day of hostilities, the two were sitting at home when Gaza terrorist groups fired a volley of rockets at the southern city. Pearlman and Santosh did not make it into the bomb shelter when the rocket crashed into their home.
Santosh was killed on the spot. She had been working in Israel for eight years and is survived by her nine-year-old son who lives in India.
Pearlman was critically wounded in the attack and both her legs were amputated.
“Since the attack nine months ago, mother has known many ups and downs,” her son Shuki told Ynet after she passed away. “She fought for her life and faced grave injuries. She lost both legs. As her condition worsened, she underwent many treatments. Unfortunately, we watched as her situation deteriorated, but she fought for her life and even managed to communicate a little.”
Pearlman was born in Poland. She fled the country with her parents during World War II. They wandered the European continent for years in search of asylum. They ultimately returned to Poland after the end of the war just to learn that nothing was left of the family’s property.
They immigrated to Israel in 1950 and settled in Ashkelon. Naomi Pearlman is survived by her two children, eight grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.
She was laid to rest in Ashkelon Sunday afternoon (6th).
The war, which began on May 10, 2021, ended 11 days later, on May 21, with a unilateral ceasefire: Hamas and Islamic Jihad stopped firing rockets and mortar shells, and Israel stopped launching airstrikes. Thirteen civilians were killed in Israel, and over 250 Palestinians were killed, over half of them combatants.
‘All Jews Will Be Expelled From Palestine’: Mansour Abbas’ Islamic Movement
A leading cleric in Israel’s Islamic Movement, which is closely linked to coalition kingmaker Mansour Abbas’ Islamist Ra’an party, has written about a future religious war in which all Jews will be expelled from the country, according to a new report.
Independent security think tank the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs analyzed recent texts and articles written by Sheikh Ra’an Badir, director of the Islamic Movement’s Institute for Rulings on Sharia Law and Islamic Studies.
A recent article credited to Badir referred to riots in Arab and mixed Arab-Jewish municipalities in Israel during the May 2021 Israel-Gaza clash as being “100 percent…a religious war” and a precursor to an epic battle which will see all Jews forced out of Israel.
“If the larger religious war will be caused by Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it will be worse than anyone can imagine and it will end with the eviction of all Jews from Palestine, from all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” Badir wrote.
The violence which lasted some 11 days and saw Jewish businesses vandalized, synagogues torched, and Jews killed at the hands of Israeli Arabs, “is just one percent of what is to come in the larger religious war,” he wrote.
But, Badir noted, Muslims would also suffer heavy casualties during the conflict.
“The number of Muslim martyrs will be greater than the number of Muslims who were killed in the past 1,500 years, since we are talking about Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Muslims will protect the holy Quran and their faith with their lives,” he predicted.
The Islamic Movement serves as the spiritual authority guiding the Ra’am party’s political decisions.
Abbas, Ra’am’s chairman, sought the permission of Islamic Movement leaders before agreeing to sign a historic June 2021 coalition agreement with Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.
Former Ra’am party chief Abdulmalik Dehamshe told i24News in July 2021 that Israel’s two million Muslim citizens should use force to prevent Jews from praying on the Temple Mount, calling upon the sector to “protect Al Aqsa with our bodies and our blood.”
Past reports have linked Ra’am to Gaza-based terror group Hamas. Razi Issa, a senior party member who is believed to have led much of the negotiations which led to Ra’am joining the coalition, visited the Gaza Strip in 2019 and attended a banquet with members of Hamas.
