News Digest — 9/28/21
Unidentified Aircraft Hit Iranian Militias In Eastern Syria
Unidentified aircraft hit a base run by Iranian-backed militias in Syria’s eastern province of Deir al Zor near the Iraqi border where Tehran has in the last year expanded its military presence, residents and military sources said on Monday (27th).
They said the strikes were south of the town of Mayadeen along the Euphrates River which has become a major base for several Shiite militias.
Iran-backed militia fighters patrolling the streets were put on heightened alert and ambulances were seen rushing to the desert outskirts of the city after several explosions were heard, two residents said.
“Panicky militias were calling on pedestrians and cars to clear the city center and main streets around it,” said one resident in a text message to Reuters.
The militias now control the mainly Sunni tribal town, part of a growing presence across Deir al Zor province, residents and military sources say.
The air attacks were not immediately reported on Syrian state media, which has previously denied that thousands of Iranian-backed militia fighters are deployed across large parts of the country.
Israel, alarmed by Iran’s growing regional influence and military presence in Syria, says it has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria to slow down Iranian entrenchment.
Over the past year, strikes by unmanned Israeli aircraft have concentrated on the border town of Albu Kamal, southeast of Mayadeen, that lies on a strategic supply route for Iranian-backed militias who regularly send reinforcements from Iraq into Syria.
The Iranian-backed militias are also in control of large stretches of the frontier on the Iraqi side.
Western intelligence sources say Israel has expanded airstrikes on suspected arms transfers and deployments by Iranian-backed militias and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies which support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Bennett To UN: Time To Focus On Iran, Not Israel
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday (27th) for the first time, urging the world to take action against the growing Iranian threat.
The Israeli prime minister started his speech by saying that Israel will no longer be defined by its neighbors or its conflicts.
“For way too long, Israel was defined by wars with our neighbors. But this is not what Israel is about. This is not what the people of Israel are about,” Bennett said.
“Israelis don’t wake up in the morning thinking about conflicts. Israelis want to lead a good life, take care of our families and build a better world for our children.”
Bennett went on to describe the challenges Israel faces, being located “in the toughest neighborhood on earth.”
“Israel is, quite literally, surrounded by Hezbollah, Shia militias, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas on our borders. These terror groups seek to dominate the Middle East and spread radical Islam across the world,” he said.
Specifically, Bennett focused on the global threat imposed by Iran and its nuclear program.
“For the past three decades Iran has spread its carnage and destruction around the Middle East, country after country: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Gaza.”
“Every place Iran touches fails. If you think Iranian terror is confined to Israel, you’re wrong,” he said.
And now more than ever, it is time to take concrete action, Bennett argued.
“Iran is much weaker, much more vulnerable than it seems. Its economy is sinking…Its corrupt government fails to bring water to large parts of the country,” Bennett said.
“If we’re serious about stopping them, if we use our resourcefulness, we can prevail, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” he added.
Finally, Bennett said that supporting Israel in its fight against terrorism is a moral choice, taking a harsh stance against anti-Israel bias.
“Attacking Israel doesn’t make you morally superior. Fighting the only democracy in the Middle East doesn’t make you ‘woke,’” he said.
“Adopting cliches about Israel without bothering to learn the basic facts, well, that’s just plain lazy,” he continued. “Every member state in this building has a choice. It’s not a political choice, but a moral one. It’s a choice between darkness and light.”
Despite the many challenges Israel faces, it remains a “beacon of democracy,” Bennett stated, adding that “our best days are ahead of us.”
The Iranian Nuclear Threat Is Not Years Away – It Is Now! – Amb. Dore Gold
→ There are three elements involved in having an operational nuclear weapons program.
→ First, Iran needs a delivery system to carry its nuclear weapons to a target. Iran has the Shahab-3 missile with a range of 1,300 kilometers – the distance required to strike Israel from bases located on Iranian territory. Iran has created a system of underground missile bases, where it could launch its missiles from silos.
→ Second, is the weaponization of uranium into an actual explosive device. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in May 2011 on Iranian military research that included “the removal of the high conventional explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab-3 missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload.”
→ Third, to build a nuclear warhead, the uranium has to be in the form of metal. In August 2021, the IAEA verified that Iran was producing uranium metal.
→ Israel must build an international coalition against Iran’s determination to deploy nuclear forces and threaten the security of Israel, the Middle East, and the entire world. It must motivate potential members of that coalition to understand the urgency of the situation and why the time to act together has arrived.
The writer is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
(jcpa.org)
Some 3,000 Californians Call To Veto ‘Anti-Semitic’ Ethnic Studies Bill
Some 3,000 Californians signed a petition on Monday (27th) calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto a bill adding ethnic studies to high school curriculums.
The bill, titled AB 101, cleared both houses of the California State Legislature earlier in September. AB 101 is set to become a requirement for graduation in California.
The liberal California Legislative Jewish Caucus had criticized the original model of the curriculum, introduced in 2019, saying it carried an “anti-Jewish bias.”
The revised AB 101 was then drafted by the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Institute (LESMC) which claims Israel partakes in “settler colonialism” and “apartheid.” The site also encourages teachers and students to “fight against Zionist backlash.”
“The liberated curriculum includes overtly anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist lessons and explicitly promotes student engagement in actions to harm Israel, especially BDS,” the petitioners wrote.
“The Jewish community is simply not capable of challenging such an anti-Semitic curriculum in all of the hundreds of school districts where it will likely be considered.”
“It is a moral outrage to expect Jewish parents to fight against anti-Semitism being taught to their children in a state-mandated course,” they added.
The petition opposing the bill was organized by AMCHA Initiative, an NPO dedicated to combating anti-Semitism at colleges and universities in the US.
Following the California State Legislature’s vote to advance AB 101, the bill now sits at Governor Newsom’s desk, who has until October 10 to either approve or veto the bill.
‘Cosmic Airburst’ Destroyed Sodom, New Archaeological Evidence Suggests
A “cosmic airburst,’ obliterated a Middle-Bronze-Age city northeast of the Dead Sea approximately 3,600 years ago, an event which may have been recorded as the biblical account of the destruction of Sodom, according to research published last week in the Journal Scientific Reports.
The report was written by a group of 21 co-authors including archaeologists, geologists, geochemists, mineralogists, cosmic-impact specialists and more.
Examining evidence from 15 years of archaeological excavations at the site of the destroyed city, known as Tall el-Hammam, the authors concluded that the “only plausible formation mechanism” that can account for the city’s unique destruction is the tremendous detonation of an incoming space rock.
The site’s 1.5-meter-thick carbon-and-ash-rich destruction layer contains materials such as shocked quartz, melted pottery, mud bricks, diamond-like carbon, soot, melted plaster, carbonized pieces of wood beams, charred grain, and fragments of human bones.
“The data also suggests an airburst occurred a few kilometers SW of Tall el-Hammam causing, in rapid succession, a high-temperature thermal pulse from the fireball that melted exposed materials, including roofing clay and pottery. This was followed by a high-temperature, hypervelocity blast wave that demolished and pulverized mud brick walls across the city, leveling it and causing extensive human mortality.” the authors said.
According to the report, 15 other cities and over 100 smaller villages were simultaneously abandoned and remained largely uninhabited for some 300-600 years.
The event also distributed salt across the region, severely limiting agricultural activity.
“The description in Genesis of the destruction of an urban center in the Dead Sea area is consistent with eyewitness accounts of a cosmic burst, e.g., 1) stones fell from the sky; 2) fire came down from the sky; 3) thick smoke rose from the fires; 4) a major city was devastated; 5) city inhabitants were killed; and 6) area crops were destroyed,” said the authors.
The report places the destruction of Tall el-Hammam in approximately the year 1650 BCE.
According to chapter 19 of the biblical book of Genesis, “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and the entire plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and the vegetation of the ground.”
