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Iran’s Nuclear Archive Shows it Originally Planned to Build Five Nuclear Weapons by mid-2003
David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker
Institute for Science and International Security • November 20, 2018
According to the Nuclear Archive that Israel seized in Tehran earlier this year, by the end of 2003 Iran had put in place the infrastructure for a comprehensive nuclear weapons program. Iran intended to build five nuclear warheads by 2003, each with an explosive yield of 10 kilotons and able to be delivered by ballistic missile.
 
Iran was preparing to conduct an underground test of a nuclear weapon, if necessary. The end goal was to have tested, deliverable nuclear weapons, and Iran made more progress toward that goal than was known before the seizure of the archives. Read More.
Treasury Designates Illicit Russia-Iran Oil Network Supporting the Assad Regime, Hizballah, and Hamas
US Treasury Department • November 20, 2018
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating nine targets in an international network through which the Iranian regime, working with Russian companies, provides millions of barrels of oil to the Syrian government.  The Assad regime, in turn, facilitates the movement of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars (USD) to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) for onward transfer to HAMAS and Hizballah.  U.S. sanctions prohibit material support to the Government of Syria, including shipments of oil to Syrian government-controlled ports, as well as material support to designated terrorist groups. Read More.
EU open to Iran sanctions after foiled France, Denmark plots: diplomats
Robin Emmott
Reuters • November 20, 2018
European Union foreign ministers showed cautious support on Monday for possible new economic sanctions on Iran in a shift of policy after accusations of Iranian attack plots in France and Denmark, diplomats said.

Denmark and France briefed their EU counterparts at a meeting in Brussels on the alleged plots and ministers agreed to consider targeted sanctions on Iranians in response, although no details or names were discussed, five diplomats told Reuters. Read more.
Growing Up in a Community near Gaza, Trauma Remains with You for Your Entire Life 
Sivan Rahav Meir
Times of Israel blog • November 20, 2018
The youth of the Gaza envelope – the area surrounding Israel’s border with Gaza – feel abandoned and unseen. They have lived with 18 years of rockets and 8 months of kite and balloon arson and have little faith that the situation will improve. They recently marched for five days from their homes to the Knesset, where they gathered in protest wielding signs begging to be allowed to grow up in peace. Last week, after a week in which more than 400 rockets and mortars where launched at their home and the communities of the Negev, they gathered outside the offices of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv to protest the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which they believe will allow terror to continue. Read more.
Palestinian Children's TV - a World of Hate
Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch • November 19, 2018
The world of hate that the PA creates for its children includes messages of violence against Israel, teaching that Israel has no right to exist and all of Israel is Palestinian, and that Israel's eventual replacement by "Palestine" is inevitable.
 
Official PA TV on Nov. 1 had a Palestinian girl declaring: "A Zionist stole the land of Palestine....Rebel, rebel...and shoot with your fire, like volcanoes so Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] will return to us, O Muslims." The PA TV host responds: "Bravo!...Soon, Allah willing, we will return to our land." Read more.
'Who let this happen?': students rediscover antisemitism on Auschwitz field trip
Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian • November 21, 2018
For some, it was the railway tracks. For others, the piles of shoes or suitcases marked with their owners’ names: Hecht, Metzner, Klara and Sara Fochtmann. A rusted tin of face cream reminded one visitor of his grandmother; the book of names, recording the barest details of millions murdered in the Holocaust, made another weep. Read more.
Holocaust denial is changing – the fight against it must change too
Joe Mulhall
The Guardian • November 22, 2018
[D]enial of the Holocaust has never been a monopoly of the far right. History has taught us that antisemitism arises in many forms, and this is no less true for Holocaust denial. That’s why Hope Not Hate’s new book also explores denial to be found in left-wing circles, in eastern Europe and from Muslims both in Muslim-majority countries and in the west as well.
 
Beyond considering contemporary political, religious and geographical dimensions to Holocaust denial, one of the key findings of the book is the worrying generational shift and the changing nature of far-right Holocaust denial engendered by the explosion of the internet. Read more.
Israel, Jews, and Gays Could Harm 'National Foundations', Egypt Says 
Zvi Barel
Haaretz • November 20, 2018
“Dear Dr. ____, esteemed university president, I am pleased to send my best wishes to your excellency and to inform you that I have received a letter from the deputy national defense chief regarding the desire of the European Union’s Erasmus [student exchange] program to work with Egyptian universities on the selection of student candidates. They are to travel to Europe in the context of their course work outside of Egypt. We have come to know that several of the courses [in Europe] have aimed at instilling values and concepts (homosexuality, acceptance of the other, particularly Jews and Israelis, etc.) meant to break up society and the family and do harm to national foundations. I hereby ask with all due respect that you not cooperate with these courses without obtaining security approval in this regard.”
 
The letter, which was labeled “confidential, important and highly urgent,” was sent to the university president, whose name and whose university I was asked not to disclose, from the office of Egyptian Education Minister Mahmoud Abu al-Nasr.
 
 
Like Israel, in Egypt too, international institutions’ cultural and educational programs have been met with suspicion and even hostility. The concern has been over the programs’ interference in “the country’s internal affairs” not only when it comes to foreign, economic and legal policies but also harm to “national foundations” and the structure of society, as the education minister’s letter would have it.
 
In Israel, the education and culture ministers as well as the strategic affairs minister are responsible for the subject, whereas in Egypt, it’s the intelligence service that sets the rules. Maybe in Israel, the subject will soon be dealt with by the Shin Bet.
 
The interesting and outrageous aspect of the letter relates to the definition of “the other” against which the Egyptian society has to defend itself. Protecting against the influence of gays, Jews and Israelis on the fabric of Egyptian society is essential to preserving the purity and unity of society. Any attempt to teach that these “others” should be accepted harms the country’s security and therefore any curriculum devoted to such a purpose undermines the nation’s foundations.
 
It’s all right to cooperate with Israel on defense and economic issues and join forces with Israel to fight terrorism and buy natural gas from the Israelis, but Egypt needs to ensure that it is not polluted by the cultural influences that Israel or the Jews in general might export to the country.
 
In Israel, one can actually understand the Egyptians’ fears. After all, Israel has banned Palestinian poets from the school curriculum. A novel about a romantic relationship between an Arab man and Jewish woman was struck from the general high school reading list in Israeli schools. And films depicting the cruelty of the occupation are perceived as a threat to national values in the country. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a country like Egypt is adopting a similar policy when it comes to Israelis and Jews.
 
But we can all relax. Israel, the Jews and gays are not the only “others” whose influence the public needs to be protected from. Egypt is full of “others” who exist in its midst and damage its purported unitary character. In addition to these three, there are also Egyptian women who wear a niqab, the Muslim head-covering that leaves only the woman’s eyes visible.
 
Last month, a female member of the Egyptian parliament, Ghada Ajami, sponsored a bill that would bar women from wearing the niqab in public places, including hospitals, schools, and government and non-government offices. In support of her bill, Ajami said a society that is “living in difficult security conditions and is fighting terrorism” has the right “to bar the wearing of the niqab in public places because it conceals the identity of the person wearing it.” Ajami later retracted the proposed legislation but the debate that it sparked on social media didn’t abate. Security arguments are no longer accepted as self-evident, particularly when the Egyptian regime is waging all-out war against religious organizations whoever and wherever they may be.
 
But one person who has come to the defense of women, both religious and non-religious, to wear what they wish is Nawara Negm, who in a lengthy, well-honed and sharp article on the Mada Masr website actually took aim at the country’s intellectual elites, “all of whom express themselves as if they were citizens of the European Union and as if Egypt were completely subject to the international treaty on human rights.” The intellectuals who have expressed support for the ban on the niqab have argued that women could be carrying explosives on their bodies en route to committing terrorist attacks, but Negm says sarcastically that they forget that the major terrorist attacks in Egypt have been committed by men “without any concern that they would have to wear a niqab to hide under.”
 
Another elite, those who object to the bill on the grounds of women’s rights and the right of the woman to wear what she wants, also came in for a rebuke from Negm: “Since when was the Egyptian woman free to choose what she wears, her way of life, how she expresses herself and her tone of speech? On a daily basis, the Egyptian woman looks in the mirror when choosing clothing that will protect her from harassment on the street, rather than clothes reflecting her taste and personality. She chooses to speak in a particular tone so people don’t say that she is insolent and crude. She walks on the street like a male soldier so as not to attract attention and get looks. ... She has to choose between the holy task of finding a husband and the need to deflect men’s glances. She chooses work that won’t cause the public to talk about her. She has to come and go at times when she won’t be harassed and she even sometimes chooses her life partner out of a desire not to remain single.”
 
The female “other” is dangerous to society so “don’t speak about women’s freedom and dignity in a country like Egypt,” writes Negm, whose father is one of Egypt’s greatest popular poets, Ahmed Fouad Negm, who sat in jail for years for his critical poetry and whose mother is the prominent author Safinaz Kazem. No Egyptian intellectual, however, has agreed to speak on behalf of Jews and gays. They are “others” who are too dangerous.
Palestine needs unified government to counter Trump, says official
Mina Aldroubi
The National • November 21, 2018
Mohammed Dahlan, former leader of the Fatah Party in Gaza, is calling on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to form a united government to counter Washington’s proposed peace plan.
 
“I’m inviting Abu Mazen (Mr Abbas) to come to Gaza immediately to form a national unity government that includes all factions,” Mr Dahlan said during a rally in Gaza marking the 14th anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Read more.
Implications of the Khashoggi Murder for the House of Saud
Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah
Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs • November 19, 2018
The Saudis have spent incredible and tireless efforts on disassociating Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud (nicknamed MBS) from journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder on October 2, 2018. But claims by some media – directed by Turkey, Qatar, and The Washington Post (for whom Khashoggi was a contributor) – suggest otherwise. The Washington Post cited unnamed U.S. sources who claimed the murder was carried out under the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and perpetrated by his closest assistants and advisers, after which MBS was reportedly briefed by the task team of the results of their grim task. Read more.
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