“Donald Trump cuts off Iran’s terror arm in Iraq, while Israel braces for Iranian retaliation”

TABLET MAG
U.S. kills Qassem Suleimani
by Tony Badran
January 3, 2020

…Seemingly immune from US retaliation, Soleimani spent the Obama years strutting around Iraq and Syria like a peacock in 70’s style turtleneck sweaters and an array of tailored military style jackets like an IRGC version of Al Pacino in Scarface, while garnering admiring magazine profiles. This nauseating treatment started at the top. Under President Obama, the US was realigning with Iran, which meant providing its regime with billions of dollars, some of it hand-delivered by US officials in the form of large pallets of cash. READ MORE

NATIONAL INTEREST Ilan Berman: The Real Start Of “Maximum Pressure” Against Iran The targeting of Soleimani – which followed on the heels of U.S. military strikes on multiple facilities in Iraq operated by Kataib Hezbollah, a key Iranian regional proxy – has ushered in a qualitatively new phase in the Trump administration’s confrontation with Iran. Chances are, it will be one punctuated by heightened hostilities.

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“In much of the Middle East, and even in Iran, the military commander was feared, and his death has been greeted with elation”

THE ATLANTIC
Qassem Soleimani Haunted the Arab World
by Kim Ghattas
January 3, 2020

…Yet in parts of the Middle East, the reaction was different. Soleimani, a man thought of as invincible and all-powerful in the region, was killed at about 1 a.m. local time, just as he was leaving Baghdad airport. By 4:30 a.m., a group of Iraqis was marching—running, even—through the country’s capital carrying a large Iraqi flag, celebrating his death. In one video, a man’s voice can be heard lauding the killing, saying the deaths of Iraqi protesters had been avenged. READ MORE

FDD LONG WAR JOURNAL Bill Roggio: Qods Force commander Soleimani’s carelessness put him in the U.S. military’s crosshairs In Iraq alone, Soleimani’s backing of Shia militias and death squads made him responsible for the deaths of more than 600 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police. His support of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad has enabled a perpetual war between Israel and Lebanon, and the Palestinians. Tens of thousands have died in those conflicts. In Yemen, Soleimani’s support of the Houthis has ensured the country has remained in a state of civil war. In Syria, Soleimani stood up Shiite militias, some from Iraq and Afghanistan, to battle the Islamic State and prop up the murderous Assad regime.

FRONT PAGE MAG Kenneth R. Timmerman: Bye Bye Suleymani…But the real impact, one can legitimately wager, will be quite different from what you’ve been hearing so far from most of the U.S. and international media. Rather than engendering some massive Iranian “retaliation,” as many talking heads have been warning, I believe this strike will throw the Iranian regime back on its heels, as wannabe successors contemplate their careers vaporizing in a U.S. drone strike and Iran’s civilian leaders fret that they have been exposed as emperors without clothes.

 

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“Netanyahu may have been warned of plan to eliminate Quds Force Commander during talks with Pompeo”

ARUTZ SHEVA
Report: US updated Israel on plans to kill Soleimani
by Elad Benari
January 3, 2020

The United States is believed to have updated Israel before the elimination of Qassem Soleimani, the Commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Channel 13 News reported Friday. The report noted that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke several times during the week with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It is believed that Pompeo updated Netanyahu on the plans to eliminate Soleimani. The Israeli security cabinet is set to convene on Sunday and discuss the regional tensions after the killing of Soleimani. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Iran threatens Tel Aviv, US bases in Middle East after killing of Soleimani A senior Iranian commander on Saturday threatened that some 35 US targets in the Middle East, as well as Tel Aviv, were within the reach of Tehran to avenge the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. “The Strait of Hormuz is a vital point for the West and a large number of American destroyers and warships cross there… vital American targets in the region have been identified by Iran since a long time ago,” said General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in the southern province of Kerman, according to the Reuters news agency.

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Where’s Waldo joins 90,000 Orthodox Jews at MetLife Stadium to celebrate Siyum HaShas

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Where’s Waldo? Celebrating the completion of the Talmud
by Sam Sokol
January 2, 2019

In a sea of black hats and suits, Yonatan Gray stood out like a striped thumb. As some 90,000 Jewish men gathered at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Wednesday to to celebrate the reading of the entire Talmud in an event called Siyum HaShas, images began to flit across social and Jewish media showing a young man adorned in the red and white hat and shirt and blue jeans of Waldo, the eponymous star of the popular “Where’s Waldo” children’s books. The New Year’s Day event celebrated the completion of the reading of the 2,711-page Babylonian Talmud, a process that takes 7 1/2 years. READ MORE

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“For first time since its establishment, Israel is now an energy powerhouse”

JNS
Gas pumping from Israel’s offshore Leviathan field gets underway
December 31, 2019

Gas pumping from Israel’s Leviathan offshore natural-gas field got under way on Tuesday after Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry said Noble Energy and its partners had met all necessary conditions, despite ongoing protests from coastal residents and environmental activists warning of pollution emitted by the pumping rigs. The largest energy project in Israel’s history, it is expected that the Leviathan field will yield 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. After extraction, the gas will then make a 120-kilometer journey via pipelines to a processing platform 10 kilometers off the Israeli coast. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Netanyahu Hails ‘Historic Day’ as Israel, Greece and Cyprus Sign EastMed Gas Pipeline Deal Israel, Greece and Cyprus on Thursday signed a deal to build a 1,900-kilometer (1,180-mile) subsea pipeline to carry natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean’s rapidly developing gas fields to Europe. Although Turkey opposes the project, the countries aim to reach a final investment decision by 2022 and have the pipeline completed by 2025 to help Europe diversify its energy resources.

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Netflix series: Alberto Nisman had closed in on the culprit in the Iran-directed AMIA murders, when he himself was murdered

ALGEMEINER
Netflix Releases Documentary Series on Murder of Argentine AMIA Bombing Prosecutor Alberto Nisman
by Staff
January 1, 2019

Five years after the murder Alberto Nisman — the Argentine federal prosecutor who was investigating the worst terror outrage in the history of Latin America — streaming giant
o Netflix unveiled its new documentary series “The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy” in its latest offerings for 2020. Nisman spent more than a decade probing the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in the Argentine capital, and then later exposed the role of former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her colleagues in a cover-up of Iran’s responsibility for the atrocity. READ MORE

NBC NEWS Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz: Argentina’s new leadership carries old baggage of corruption and conspiracy allegations On Dec. 3, former Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner found herself in a Buenos Aires courtroom defending herself against charges that she had diverted $1.2 billion in public funds. The very next week, she was inaugurated as the nation’s vice president, occupying a seat of power that, for now, likely gives her immunity from prosecution.

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German newspaper Bild editor-in-chief: “Trump has freed the world from a monster”

JERUSALEM POST
Soleimani was a monster, wanted atomic cloud over Tel Aviv – German newspaper
by Benjamin Weinthal
January 4, 2020

Julian Reichelt, the editor-in-chief of best-selling German newspaper Bild, on Friday authored a barn-burning commentary praising US President Donald Trump for authorizing a military strike to eliminate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. “President Trump has freed the world of a monster whose aim in life was an atomic cloud over Tel Aviv. Trump has acted in self-defense – the self-defense of the US and all peace-loving people,” wrote Reichelt…Reichelt noted the potential of Iran’s regime to carry out terrorism in Germany and Israel, “in which the kindergartens in Germany could burn up in fireballs at any time because its children are Jewish. In which Israel is under threat of extinction every day.” READ MORE

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“Connecting the dots between high taxes, unsustainable pension costs and slow economic growth is a practice many elected officials in Chicago and Illinois would rather we shut up about”

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
No, we won’t shut up about the Illinois Exodus. Latest downside: Chicago’s top real estate investors are shopping elsewhere
Editorial Board
January 2, 2020

Several recent Chicago Tribune stories on tax hikes and population losses may have caught your eye. Against the backdrop of rising taxes in Chicago for 2020, U.S. Census Bureau numbers released Dec. 30 showed Illinois losing population for a sixth straight year. Then a column published online Thursday described concern from Chicago’s most loyal real estate developers, who are increasingly looking at out-of-state opportunities. “We love Chicago but are super nervous about the headwinds Chicago faces,” David Carlins, CEO of Magellan Development Group, told the Tribune’s Ryan Ori. READ MORE

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Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq lead mob attacks on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad following US strikes

JNS
Iran tries to change narrative in Iraq as US faces key decisions following airstrike escalation
by Yaakov Lappin
December 31, 2019

As events unfold rapidly in Iraq, one emerging trend is already clear: Iran is seeking to exploit events to change the anti-Iranian narrative in Iraq and to punish America at the same time for its airstrikes. On Monday, the U.S. Air Force launched attacks on multiple bases of the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah Shi’ite militia in Iraq and Syria, killing dozens of people. The airstrikes came in retaliation for a rocket attack on Saturday launched by the militia on a U.S. base in northern Iraq, killing an American contractor. READ MORE

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Netanyahu: “I will come to court and quash all the ridiculous libels against me”

JERUSALEM POST
Netanyahu asks Knesset for immunity from prosecution
by Gil Hoffman
January 1, 2020

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Wednesday night that he had written a letter to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, asking him for immunity from prosecution in his three criminal cases. In a speech at Jerusalem’s Orient Hotel, Netanyahu said requesting immunity is not evading justice because it only lasts the term of the Knesset that granted it. He said he was the victim of a court martial and laughed that he has been accused of receiving positive news coverage. READ MORE

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