Monday, April 6, 2026

Katz confirms IDF eliminated IRGC intelligence chief - JNS Staff

 

​ by JNS Staff

Brig. Gen. Majid Khademi died in an overnight strike in Tehran.

 

Two Israeli Air Force F-15 "Baz" fighter jets during operational activity. Credit: Israel Defense Forces.
Two Israeli Air Force F-15 “Baz” fighter jets during operational activity. Credit: Israel Defense Forces.

The Israel Defense Forces killed Brig.-Gen. Majid Khademi, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence chief and one of the IRGC’s most senior operatives, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed on Monday.

“The terrorist regime in Iran continues to launch missiles at the Israeli home front, killing and harming Israeli civilians,” Katz said during a situational assessment with senior military officials. “I was updated by the chief of staff that, overnight in Tehran, the IDF eliminated Majid Khadami, head of the IRGC intelligence organization—one of those directly responsible for these war crimes and one of the three most senior officials in the organization.

“The Revolutionary Guards fire at civilians, and we eliminate the terrorist leaders,” the minister said.

Over the weekend, the Israeli Air Force killed a senior IRGC commander responsible for managing the “commercial operations” of the terrorist organization’s oil revenues and bypassing international sanctions, the military said on Sunday.

Mohammad Reza Ashrafi Kahi, who was killed by an airstrike in Tehran on Friday, “managed the commercial operations of the Oil Headquarters, estimated at billions of dollars annually, and advanced the development of the IRGC’s military capabilities, as well as those of the Iranian terror regime’s proxies across the Middle East, foremost among them the Houthi terrorist regime, and the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations,” the IDF stated.

Oil revenues “fund the IRGC’s ballistic missile and UAV arrays, which are used to launch attacks toward the territory of the State of Israel and Gulf states, and to target oil infrastructure across the region,” according to the IDF.

The army noted that Ashrafi’s death followed the March 31 airstrike that killed Jamshid Eshaqi, who led a covert oil funding network supporting Iran’s regular military and the IRGC, “and constitutes an additional significant blow to the economic foundations of Iran’s security apparatus.

“The IDF will continue to operate against commanders and leaders of the Iranian terror regime wherever necessary,” the statement concluded.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News on Sunday that if the Iranian regime doesn’t strike a deal by Tuesday, he would consider “blowing everything up and taking over the oil.”

“You’re going to see bridges and power plants dropping all over their country,” the president said in a conversation with Fox foreign correspondent Trey Yingst. Trump added that those who are negotiating on the behalf of the regime have been granted amnesty from elimination so they can continue the talks on Monday.

Yingst spoke with Trump shortly after the president had warned Tehran in a Truth Social post that “time is running out” to make a deal.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” wrote Trump.

Trump later on Sunday apparently named the specific time by which the Iranians must open the Strait of Hormuz, extending his previous deadline to Tuesday night.

His 10-day ultimatum was set to expire Monday, but the cryptic post on Truth Social read, “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” 


JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/israeli-airstrike-killed-irgc-oil-revenue-chief

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NATO, Iran, and the Interests of Nations - Stephen Soukup

 

​ by Stephen Soukup

As Europe drifts and critics wail, the war with Iran exposes a harder truth: alliances endure only so long as interests align—not because of shared values or sentiment.

 

 

The longer the war with Iran drags on, the clearer it becomes that America’s allies have little interest in doing things that allies traditionally do. Some European leaders have merely said they will not participate in the war, that they have no interest in fighting Donald Trump’s battles. Others have taken concrete steps to hinder American efforts—notably, by denying American troops access to bases in their countries or denying them permission to fly over their airspace. Others still—namely, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez—appear to have determined that their nation’s welfare no longer aligns with that of the United States, which is a legitimate position but hardly one that would define an “ally.”

The clearer it becomes that America’s longstanding erstwhile allies are unhappy with current arrangements, the more agitated President Trump’s domestic opponents—on the Left and the Right—grow. They are certain that Trump’s Middle East conflict is the straw that will break the back of the camel that is the post-World War II global order. He is an abomination, they insist, a simplistic fool who knows nothing about the history and grandeur of NATO, the importance of the trans-Atlantic partnership, or the bonds that tie “the West” together and make its preservation the central purpose of American foreign policy. He will destroy everything and leave the world and the nation worse off because of it.

The more agitated President Trump’s domestic opponents grow, the more obvious it is that most of those who purport to be “experts” on foreign affairs have forgotten the first rule of realist foreign policy: nations have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies, only eternal and perpetual interests.

This near-exact paraphrasing of the proposition dates to an 1848 speech by Lord Palmerston to the House of Commons. It is, however, a notion that dates to antiquity, having been elucidated as far back as the fifth century BC in Thucydides’s Melian Dialogue. More recently, Charles de Gaulle used it as the justification to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated command structure in 1966—yet somehow, amazingly, NATO and the West managed to survive.

There are several profound ironies in the fact that the nation’s best and brightest are unhappy with President Trump for starting a war that they believe will destroy NATO and end the global order.

The first of these can be seen in Europe’s reaction to the current war. The French and Spanish leaders, in particular, seem to have decided that their nation’s interests are not the same as the United States’. What this suggests is that the urge to blow up NATO is hardly Trump’s alone. If Europe is willing to pursue its own interests, even when they conflict with America’s, then the trans-Atlantic “friendship” has already been damaged and has clearly evolved into something other than an alliance.

The second of these stems from Trump’s critics’ belief that NATO is a “values-based” organization in the first place, that it binds the world’s “greatest democracies” together in an effort to ensure the maintenance of an order based on their common ideals. In truth, NATO has always been a realist organization, based almost entirely on the understanding that nations have interests they must protect, irrespective of naïve dreams of shared values and common hopes. NATO, it should be recalled, was not created immediately in the aftermath of World War II but rather four years and countless world-changing events later.

When the war ended, the American side—led by the largely delusional Franklin Roosevelt—approached the pending peace with fantasies about global governance and camaraderie with Stalin and the Soviets. As I have noted before in these pages, the political scientist and historian of the Cold War, Amos Perlmutter, wrote that Roosevelt’s “vision for a postwar world was neo-Wilsonian, totally at odds with reality. He would help create a new international order, presided over in an equal partnership by the two emerging superpowers, the United States and the USSR, and buttressed by the newly created world organization, the United Nations.” More damningly, perhaps, George Kennan, a high-ranking diplomat in the Roosevelt administration who served in the American embassy in the Soviet Union, put it this way in his Memoirs:

The truth is—there is no avoiding it—that Franklin Roosevelt, for all his charm and skill as a political leader, was, when it came to foreign policy, a very superficial man, ignorant, dilettantish, with a severely limited intellectual horizon. . . . Roosevelt knew nothing about Russia and very little about Europe. This in itself would not have been so bad. What was worse was that he did not seek or value the advice of those who did know something about these places and could have told him something about them.

And speaking of Kennan, he is best remembered by history as the man who created the language and the policy paradigm that would set the foundation for the hardheaded, realist Truman Doctrine. And that doctrine, in turn, would recognize the importance of a strong and reliable trans-Atlantic partnership, leading to the establishment of NATO in 1949. On February 22, 1946, Kennan—then the chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy in Moscow—sent what would come to be called “the Long Telegram,” an eight-thousand-word missive in which he laid out the “process of decision-taking in the Soviet Union” and warned that it was “wrong and useless to attempt to appeal to subjective feelings on the part of Soviet statesmen or negotiators.” The bottom line, Kennan argued, was that “there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence” with Soviet Russia, that the United States would be unwise even to attempt to achieve such an end, and that it would be far better served to “contain” Soviet aggression at a series of checkpoints.

Kennan’s telegram alarmed the rest of the Truman administration, many of whom were as naïve about the Soviets as the late FDR. Kennan was recalled from Moscow and, shortly thereafter, was put in charge of creating the State Department’s Policy Planning Office, which was intended to establish a program for dealing with the mounting economic and social problems in Europe.

Kennan’s telegram and his advocacy of “containment” morphed into Dean Acheson’s “domino theory,” which became the Truman Doctrine, described by Kennan in his famous “X” article in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Officially titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” the essay argued that the antagonism demonstrated by Soviet leadership toward the Western democracies at that time could not be mitigated by diplomacy because it was inherent in the internal system of power in the USSR. It argued that the United States government should establish a program to provide economic and technical aid to the non-Communist nations of Europe, not because of “shared values,” but for purely transactional reasons: the United States would provide the money, the arms, and the manpower to deter the Soviets, while Europe would serve as the frontlines in the battle against the Communist menace. While most Americans (of a certain age) think of “containment” and “the domino theory” as aspects of American foreign policy in Asia (Korea and Vietnam), in truth, they were developed to apply in Europe, to save the western half of the continent from the fate of their neighbors to the east.

The third profound irony in the “experts’” constant laments that Trump’s unilateral “war of choice” might destroy NATO is that the modern presidential propensity to wage war without congressional approval is derived almost solely from the negotiations around the establishment of NATO. The Europeans were concerned that the clause in the U.S. Constitution that vested Congress with the right to declare war would cause a delay in American help if Russia invaded Western Europe. In response, the Truman team advanced the “covert operations initiative,” codified in National Security Council Directive 10/2. The directive formally authorized the Central Intelligence Agency—established less than a year earlier—to coordinate intelligence gathering across agencies and to conduct covert activities “against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups. . . .” Although seemingly benign and even necessary, 10/2 provided the justification for many of the CIA’s early adventures, as well as Truman’s deployment of American troops to Korea on June 30, 1950.

The late, great historian/journalist David Halberstam described the “police action” in Korea as “the last thing anyone, civilian or military, wanted to do.” Nevertheless, Truman determined that it was in the nation’s interests and that going to Congress for approval was unnecessary and would just “slow down the process.” National Security Council Directive 10/2 was formulated and written in response to Europe’s concerns regarding NATO, but it was first used by Truman to fight Communists in Asia. The rest, as they say, is history.

In other words, the idealist trans-Atlanticists who spend their days carping at Trump might be better served by assessing and addressing their misunderstanding of history—especially the history of NATO. It was and always has been an organization based almost entirely on foreign policy realism and the perceived shared interests of the American and European peoples. If those interests have changed—as Europe’s kvetching suggests—then so be it. NATO can still be an important tool for American foreign policy, but to do so, it must adapt to the post-Cold War realities, and the Americans and their erstwhile allies must find new interests that hold them together. 


Stephen Soukup is the Director of The Political Forum Institute and the author of The Dictatorship of Woke Capital (Encounter, 2021, 2023)

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/04/06/nato-iran-and-the-interests-of-nations/

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U.S., NATO alliance on the line as Trump set to meet with Rutte - Sarah Roderick-Fitch

 

​ by Sarah Roderick-Fitch

NATO’s relationship with U.S. is being scrutinized by a growing number of Republicans, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

 

(The Center Square) -

Tensions are running high between President Donald Trump and NATO leaders, as grumblings grow over the U.S. withdrawing from the alliance.

NATO’s relationship with the U.S. is being scrutinized by a growing number of Republicans, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is questioning whether the U.S. still needs NATO.

Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, is reportedly scheduled to meet with Trump next week in Washington as the president puts more pressure on allied nations to do more to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as Operation Epic Fury steams on.

The president has indicated in recent weeks that he is considering withdrawing from NATO. During a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office on March 17, The Center Square asked Trump whether he was rethinking America’s relationship with NATO and possibly withdrawing.

The president responded by expressing disappointment in NATO’s lack of support since the U.S. strikes on Iran began just over a month ago.

“Well, I’m disappointed in NATO that we spend trillions of dollars on NATO. Think of it, trillions over the years … It’s one of the reasons we have deficits and we help other countries when they don’t help us,” Trump told The Center Square. “I mean, it’s certainly something that we should think about.”

Some NATO countries, including France, Spain and Italy, have come under scrutiny for prohibiting American forces from using bases in those countries to carry out strikes against the Iranian regime.

Rubio expressed his disappointment on Fox News this week, echoing Trump’s desire to reexamine America’s involvement in NATO.

“We’re not asking them to conduct air strikes. When we need them to allow us to use their bases, their answer is No. Then why are we in NATO? You have to ask that question,” the secretary of state questioned. “So I think there’s no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to reexamine that relationship.”

The notion of withdrawing from NATO is sparking debate on Capitol Hill, with many Democrats and some Republicans voicing support for the nearly 80-year-old treaty.

Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee responded by arguing the president doesn’t have the authority to withdraw the U.S. from NATO.

Despite their claims, the president told The Center Square he doesn’t need congressional approval.

“I don’t need Congress for that decision … I can make that decision myself,” the president claimed.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is often a vocal Republican critic of the president’s, voiced support for withdrawing from the treaty, backing up Trump’s claims.

“Trump is right to reconsider NATO. Under Article II, the president has full constitutional authority to withdraw from any treaty without Senate approval. The 2023 Kaine-Rubio provision can’t override the Constitution. It’s his call to make,” Paul posted on X. “The Constitution says nothing about how to exit treaties, so that remains with the president. The Founders designed it this way deliberately: hard to get in, easy to get out when an alliance no longer serves America’s interests.”

“Trump is forcing the conversation Washington refuses to have: do our alliances benefit America, or just trap us indefinitely? Alliances should serve our interests, not the other way around,” Paul argues.

To be sure, the senator has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s military involvement in Iran.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., released a joint statement vowing to protect America’s alliance with NATO, even if the president decides to withdraw.

“NATO is the most successful military alliance in history. It has underpinned the security of the United States for more than 70 years,” the senators stated.

“The only time NATO has gone to war has been in response to an attack on America. NATO troops fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq alongside American forces. The United States must not take this sacrifice – nor our allies’ commitment to make it again – lightly… The Senate will continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides America, Europe and the world.” 


Sarah Roderick-Fitch

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/us-nato-alliance-line-trump-set-meet-rutte

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Study warns AI chatbots amplify foreign propaganda by generating reports based on more propaganda - Nicholas Ballasy

 

​ by Nicholas Ballasy

According to the report, state-aligned propaganda appeared in 57 percent of responses when answering questions about global conflicts. “America cannot build its technological future on a compromised foundation,” the report says.

 

A new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is raising concerns that popular artificial intelligence (AI) tools may be steering users toward foreign propaganda, potentially creating what researchers describe as a growing national security risk.

A study, released in March by the FDD's Center for Cyber and Technology Innovation, found that major AI platforms frequently cite state-aligned media sources when answering questions about global conflicts. According to the report, "state-aligned propaganda appeared in 57 percent of responses."

Making propaganda look authoritative by manipulating citations

The research examined responses from three leading AI systems, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, by posing roughly 180 questions about conflicts involving Israel and Hamas, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan. Each query required the systems to cite sources.

“By treating propaganda as reliable and driving traffic to its purveyors, large language models (LLMs) make propaganda appear authoritative,” the report said.

Researchers found that certain state-backed outlets appeared repeatedly in AI-generated citations, including Qatar-based Al Jazeera, Russia-linked Pravda, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, and China’s state-run China Daily. In some cases, those sources were cited even when questions were framed in ways that might be unfavorable to those governments.

“AI training relies on outlets with high publication volume, global reach, and accessibility — precisely the attributes of the most influential state-aligned propaganda outlets,” the report explained.

Users may be exposed to more polarizing content

The findings in the report also suggest that the issue goes beyond the answers AI systems generate and extends to the sources they recommend. While chatbot responses may appear balanced, the linked citations can expose users to more extreme or biased narratives.

Users who click through links to verify claims will be "exposed to more polarizing content than what the AI initially presented,” the report warned.

Citations can become “a pipeline to biased or even extremist views rather than a verification mechanism,” the report said. In addition, the study found that AI systems struggle to distinguish between independent journalism and state-aligned media. When asked to evaluate the credibility of their sources, the systems “could not consistently identify state-aligned media,” according to the report.

The report also highlighted the dominance of Wikipedia in AI citations, appearing in 80% of responses. Wikipedia has long been the subject of criticism over potential organized bias and susceptibility to coordinated editing campaigns. Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson addressed the issue more than a decade ago in a TedxTalk where she outlined how Wikipedia "editors" refused to make corrections, and, depending on the ideological narrative at issue, will delete corrections of which the editors disapprove.    

“As reliance on AI tools deepens, the citation of propaganda is metastasizing into a national security threat,” the FDD report stated.

To mitigate the risks, the authors of the report recommend that AI developers reduce the prominence of state-controlled media in responses and increase transparency around the process of how sources are selected. They also urged policymakers to incorporate citation integrity into AI safety standards, particularly as the U.S. government expands its own use of AI technologies.

“America cannot build its technological future on a compromised foundation,” the report concluded. 


Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/report-warns-ai-chatbots-are-amplifying-foreign-propaganda-through-citations

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Marco Rubio tweets that Rep. Ilhan Omar ushered Somali fraudster 'refugees' into the U.S. for 'a nice fee' - Monica Showalter

 

​ by Monica Showalter

What was that 'nice fee'?

 

 Autism article image

Could Marco Rubio be the one to take down the woke and seemingly untouchable Rep. Ilhan Omar?

He seems to think that $40 million fortune of hers came from something different than wine sales from her winery.

 

Which is shockingly direct. Usually, they don't state things so directly.

But if it's true that Omar ran a pay-to-play refugee operation, it would surely be illegal. And who would be in a position to know this better than Rubio who runs the Department of State and all its adjacents?

With a confident tweet like that, it seems likely that he knows something. What's more, he's been after her for at least six weeks;

None of this can be good news for Omar. Thus far, she seems to be saying nothing and maybe laying low,

Image: Screenshot from X video


Monica Showalter

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/04/marco_rubio_tweets_that_rep_ilhan_omar_ushered_somali_fraudster_refugees_into_the_u_s_for_a_nice_fee.html

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Trump’s passivity on the Strait of Hormuz shows his genius - Andrea Widburg

 

​ by Andrea Widburg

We can do—our military has planned for it—yet Trump hasn’t acted. One man thinks he knows why, and it shows Trump as a strategic genius unlike any other.

 

Autism article image 

One of the things that’s been obvious, given the U.S. and Israeli militaries’ extraordinary skill and equipment, is that, if they wish to, they can secure the Strait of Hormuz...yet they haven’t. Leftists claim that’s because it never occurred to Trump that the Iranians would try to use the Strait as leverage. That’s patently ridiculous, unless you accept their core premise that Trump has a low two-digit IQ. So, what gives?

One man, James E. Thorne, a Ph.D. in economics and the Chief Market Strategist at Wellington Altus, a Canadian wealth management organization, thinks he has the answer. His tweet, regrettably, has pompous academic language with a smattering of leftist vocabulary (I hate academese, and the Hegelian language that Marxism adopted), but, when I plowed through it, my reaction was the same one Charlie Brown had when Lucy had an insight:

Yup! That’s it. Trump isn’t stupid. He’s scary smart, and he’s exposing exactly how things lie in the real world, not in the world as Europeans, Brits, and other leftists wish it would be.

Here’s the tweet, which I’ve followed with my simplistic rendering of Thorne’s astute, but jargony analysis: 


So, what I think he’s saying:

Everyone has known for 50 years that the Strait of Hormuz is the pivot in a conflict with Iran. However, Trump isn’t rushing to deal with it because he’s using it to force the West to face reality.

Under the old theory, the world assumed the US would guarantee that oil would continue flowing through the Strait. Accordingly, the world organized its infrastructure around that assumption. No one questioned it, accepting that it was as fixed as the sun rising in the East.

Trump, however, is proving that assumption to be false. He wants the EU and the UK to understand what the world is like when they can neither rely on the US nor kick it around when it comes to their energy supplies.

And indeed, Trump has been forthright: You need the oil, so you take care of the problem.

If Trump rapidly ends Iran’s hold on the Strait, we go right back to the assumption of the last 50 years: America spends blood and treasure to keep the oil flowing for ungrateful nations that contribute nothing to America’s well-being, and that revel in their green posturing. (I’ll just add that, considering how the UK and the EU have insisted that their goal is getting to “net zero,” you’d think they would be grateful for Trump’s assistance in closing the Strait.)

By putting this kind of maximum pressure on the EU and the UK, Trump is forcing a new reality on them. Here’s how Thorne sums it up:

The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure, or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard.

As I said, “That’s it.” Trump may speak like someone who flies by the seat of his pants, but his current actions show someone playing 5-D chess while everyone else is still focused on Candy Land.

Within a year, he’s shrunk the federal government to its smallest since 1966, revitalized our military, closed our border, tamed inflation, increased job growth, rid our country of millions of illegal aliens, tamed Venezuela, reduced Cuba to nothing, gotten the Panama Canal out from under Chinese control (which, with the end of Venezuela’s dictatorship and Cuba’s seemingly imminent collapse, removes China as a player in this region), and is close to ending Iran’s 47 year reign of terror, a reign carried out through funding terrorism and controlling the world’s oil spigot. Men with two-digit IQs don’t do all that.

I don’t believe Trump should go on Mount Rushmore. I believe Trump deserves his face on a mountain dedicated entirely to him.


Andrea Widburg

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/04/trump_s_passivity_on_the_strait_of_hormuz_shows_his_genius.html

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IRGC defies Trump: Strait of Hormuz will never be the same - Elad Benari

 

​ by Elad Benari

IRGC rejects President Trump’s ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, declaring it “will never return to its previous state" for the US and Israel.

 

Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz
Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz                                                                             iStock

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sunday rejected US President Donald Trump’s ultimatum for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday.

“The Strait of Hormuz will never return to its previous state, especially for the US and Israel," the IRGC Navy Commander declared, as quoted in a social media account representing the IRGC Navy Command.

“The IRGC Navy is completing the operational preparations of the ⁧plan issued⁩ by Iranian officials for a new order in the Persian Gulf," the Commander declared.

Trump had earlier published a post on Truth Social, stating Iran has until Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time to agree to a deal.

In an earlier post, Trump intensified threats against Iran, warning that civilian infrastructure could be targeted beginning Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He further warned: "Open the ***** Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Trump also told Axios that the United States is engaged in "deep negotiations" with Iran and expressed confidence that a deal could be reached before the Tuesday deadline.

"There is a good chance," Trump sai, while warning that failure to reach an agreement would result in significant military action. He added that if no deal is achieved, he is prepared to "blow up everything over there."

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Iranian parliament and former commander of the air force, rejected Trump's ultimatum and threatened to further escalate the situation in the region.

“Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands," Ghalibaf wrote in a post on social media.

"Make no mistake: You won’t gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game," he added. 


Elad Benari

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/425086

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Time to List Islamist Organizations on Applications for U.S. Citizenship - Dexter Van Zile

 

​ by Dexter Van Zile

Islamist Organizations Have Destroyed Lives Just Like Communists and Nazis

 

Following historical precedent, U.S. citizenship application forms should require immigrants to disclose any affiliation with or support for a clearly defined list of prohibited Islamist organizations, just as applicants are currently asked about ties to Communist movements. Immigrants connected to specific Islamist groups that promote violence, anti-constitutional activity, or the erosion of liberal democratic norms should be barred from entry or stripped of citizenship under these standards.
Following historical precedent, U.S. citizenship application forms should require immigrants to disclose any affiliation with or support for a clearly defined list of prohibited Islamist organizations, just as applicants are currently asked about ties to Communist movements. Immigrants connected to specific Islamist groups that promote violence, anti-constitutional activity, or the erosion of liberal democratic norms should be barred from entry or stripped of citizenship under these standards.

It’s time to make a list of Islamist organizations that will get you banned from becoming a citizen or resident of the United States of America.

There is precedent. It was (and still is) illegal for Nazis and Communists to become U.S. citizens. Foreigners who hid their totalitarian affiliations when becoming citizens were subject to denaturalization and deportation.

It didn’t happen very often, but it did happen. It happened to Jakiw Palij, a guard at the Trawniki concentration camp in Poland during World War II. When a U.S. judge discovered his Nazi affiliation, he stripped Palij of his citizenship and ordered him to leave the country in 2018. The same thing happened to Friedrich Karl Berger, another Nazi guard, in 2021.

Anyone who has ever filed for U.S. citizenship knows the drill. Applicants must inform officials from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services if they have ever been a member of the Communist Party or other totalitarian political movement.

It’s all laid out in USCIS Form N-400, which requires applicants to disclose any past affiliation with extremist or anti-government activity or groups. The form further probes whether the applicant has endorsed or been involved in efforts to overthrow the U.S. government by force or other unconstitutional means, or supported actions such as the killing or assault of government officials. It concludes by asking about participation in or support for acts of property destruction or sabotage.

In practice, a “Yes” on the N-400 doesn’t always mean automatic denial—USCIS has discretion, and applicants can provide evidence of renunciation or lack of meaningful involvement. Nevertheless, it raises a high bar and can lead to denial if the affiliation is recent or substantive.

The precedent is pretty clear. If past or recent ties to Communism (an ideology that historically sought to replace liberal democracy with one-party rule) can bar citizenship to an applicant, then active affiliation with groups that endorse jihadist ideology, Islamic supremacy, or the destruction of Israel (and by extension, Western liberal values) should face similar restrictions.

Clearly, there are a number of people in the United States who would never have made it into the country if the rules against supporting anti-democratic totalitarian movements were applied effectively. Banning—and expelling—clerics from the Middle East and elsewhere who support the Islamic Republic of Iran would be a good start. Religious leaders who host events that commemorate the deaths of Islamist leaders such as Qassem Soleimani and Ayatollah Khamenei are not engaging in religious practices but in political activism on behalf of a regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds—if not thousands—of U.S. service members.

Imams who come into the U.S. on temporary religious visas have no right to promote anti-Americanism under the cover of religion. Interestingly enough, the application for religious workers who hope to live in the United States temporarily makes no inquiry into the political activities or allegiances of foreigners intent on serving as religious leaders in the U.S.

That needs to change.

And while we’re at it, the last thing we need is students coming from overseas to promote advocate for groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-e-Islami, or any other jihadist organization that has made life so miserable for people in the Middle East and South Asia. We have enough crazies of our own who were born in the United States; we don’t need to import any more.

It’s time for government officials to come up with a list of groups that will get you banned if you try to come into the United States either as a citizen or resident, temporary or permanent. The names of these organizations need to be included on the application forms just to make sure that everyone knows where the line is drawn. The goal isn’t just to keep people out and send evildoers back home—without demonizing all Muslims—but to stigmatize Islamist organizations in the minds of loyal Americans. The ban on citizenship for Nazis and Communists encouraged and gave license to loyal Americans to view adherents of these movements with the contempt they deserved.

Communists and Nazis destroyed millions of lives in the 20th century. Islamists are doing the same in the 21st century. It’s time to ban them and kick them out. 


Dexter Van Zile, the Middle East Forum’s Violin Family Research Fellow, serves as managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism. Prior to his current position, Van Zile worked at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis for 16 years, where he played a major role in countering misinformation broadcast into Christian churches by Palestinian Christians and refuting antisemitic propaganda broadcast by white nationalists and their allies in the U.S. His articles have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the Boston Globe, Jewish Political Studies Review, the Algemeiner and the Jewish News Syndicate. He has authored numerous academic studies and book chapters about Christian anti-Zionism.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-opinion-interview/time-to-list-islamist-organizations-on-applications-for-u-s-citizenship

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Israel Warns of an Iranian-Backed Jihadist Group Targeting Jews - Jules Gomes

 

​ by Jules Gomes

Expert: False Flag Scenario Ludicrous

 

Golders Green, a historic center of London’s Jewish community, became the site of a targeted arson attack on emergency medical vehicles—part of what appears to be a broader wave Iran-linked operations aimed at intimidating Jewish populations across Europe.

Golders Green, a historic center of London’s Jewish community, became the site of a targeted arson attack on emergency medical vehicles—part of what appears to be a broader wave Iran-linked operations aimed at intimidating Jewish populations across Europe.(Shutterstock)

 

Israeli officials have named a new Iran-linked terrorist organization for a “coordinated sequence” of attacks on Jewish institutions across Europe in one week, including an antisemitic arson attack on a Jewish ambulance service in London.

The suspects’ alleged links to Iran underscore failures to understand the domestic threats that the Islamic Republic poses to British Jews and the wider British public.

Campaign Against Antisemitism Spokesperson

On March 24, Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism published a special report in English identifying Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islam (HAYI)—The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right—as the terror group behind recent attacks on Jews in Europe. The Israeli report noted that analysts view the attacks and HAYI’s claims as intended to achieve psychological impact, intimidate Jewish communities, and disseminate propaganda.

HAYI claimed responsibility for explosions and arson attacks targeting Jewish institutions in Belgium, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Greece between March 9 and 14, and the March 23 arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in the Jewish area of Golders Green in London, the report said. Two days after the Golders Green attack, the Metropolitan Police announced that they arrested two men—aged 45 and 47—described as “British nationals” on “suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.”

“The arson attack on Hatzolah ambulances in London is the latest link in the terror chain by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin, an Iranian-backed proxy,” Amichai Chikli, Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, posted on X.

The report based its allegations that HAYI is linked to Iran on videos documenting the attacks, which were circulated on Telegram channels linked to Iran-aligned Shiite militant networks, including Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The group’s logo, depicting a raised arm holding a rifle pointed to the right with a globe behind, resembles the symbols used by Iranian-aligned militant groups such as Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah, and the IRGC.

HAYI’s Name Based on Verse from Qur’an

The movement’s name stems from Qur’anic terminology describing the righteous who receive their record in their right hand on Judgment Day. Sura 56:38 from the Qur’an refers to the “people of the right” and contrasts them with the “people of the left” (Sura 56:41), who will be “miserable.”

Experts believe the name was chosen for its inclusive theology, referring to righteous believers (in the Sunni interpretation) or to the followers of Imam Ali (in the Shiite interpretation). As per the report, the “dual interpretation allows the group to present a universal Islamic narrative while simultaneously signaling ideological alignment with Shiite militant networks.”

The Attacks

The previously unknown terror [group] appeared when it claimed responsibility for an explosion at a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, on March 9. Four days later, HAYI said it had set a synagogue on fire in Rotterdam. Police arrested four teenagers (17-19) on suspicion of setting off the bomb. Belgian authorities said they were analyzing a potentially jihadist video claiming responsibility.

On March 14, an explosive device was placed against a wall and detonated at the Cheider school in the Buitenveldert district of Amsterdam, the only school specifically for Orthodox Jews in the Netherlands. Surveillance footage caught a person placing an object—believed to be an explosive device—against the school wall before fleeing, likely on a motor scooter.

On March 23, the day on which Jewish ambulances were torched in London, Dutch police foiled a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Heemstede after finding explosives outside the building.

Police arrested two minors hours after a car was torched in Antwerp on March 24 near a kosher restaurant. Belgian authorities, who are treating the attack as antisemitic, confirmed that a video on social media, which appeared to be authentic, purportedly showed the arson attack.

HAYI Statement Singles Out “Zionists”

In a statement following the Antwerp attack, HAYI said that it was targeting the city distinguished by its “strategic location” and “significant economic role, particularly in the diamond trade,” because of its “large Zionist community,” which gave it the title of the “Jerusalem of the North.”

“Operations will continue to escalate and intensify until the liberation of our occupied lands in beloved Palestine and revenge for the blood of the Palestinians, Lebanese, and all Muslims,” the terror group’s statement, published on the website of Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, warned.

Belgium has deployed soldiers in its ⁠largest cities to beef up security at Jewish institutions, including synagogues and schools.

Minister Chikli told The Times of Israel that the recent attacks are not isolated but “part of a disturbing pattern of action” as “terrorist networks affiliated with the Iranian axis are trying to expand their arena of operation into the cities and Jewish communities of Europe.”

Golders Green a ‘False Flag’ Attack?

Bharat Pankhania.

Bharat Pankhania.

(Bath & Northeast Somerset Council)

Numerous commentators in the U.K. have suggested that the Golders Green attack was a “false flag” operation. Bharat Pankhania, a councilor representing the Combe Down ward in the city of Bath, located three-hour drive from Golders Green, apologized after suggesting the March 23 attack was “insurance fraud and an ‘Israeli false flag operation.’” Lowkey, a U.K. rapper, suggested in post on X (amplified by British Iranian pundit Aaron Bastani) that a message posted by HAYI after the attack “had Zionist connotations.”

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a Milstein Writing Fellow for the Middle East Forum who has written about HAYI, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) that he is astounded at efforts to promote the “false flag” narrative in reference to the Golders Green attack.

“A clear indication that the attacks claimed by HAYI are unlikely to be ‘false flag’ operations is that HAYI’s attack claims and statements are consistently circulated first on pro-Iranian and pro-'resistance’ social media channels,” he told FWI. “To suppose a ‘false flag’ would mean the Israelis were somehow duping these channels into publishing this content. In fact, a much more likely scenario is the Iranians or allied clients paying amateurs or criminals to conduct attacks and then generating the attack claims and propaganda on this basis.”

While officials in the U.K. have released no information regarding the ideological or religious background of the suspects arrested in the aftermath of the Golders Green attack, the attack itself has generated great concern over the threat of jihadist attacks against “soft” targets in the West.

“This horrific act truly plumbs new depths. Burning Jewish community ambulances—which cater to Jews and non-Jews alike—is a truly repulsive act of antisemitic hatred in a Britain where Jews now have to keep everything from schools to synagogues under constant guard,” a spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told FWI.

“The suspects’ alleged links to Iran underscore failures to understand the domestic threats that the Islamic Republic poses to British Jews and the wider British public. The Government has been warned repeatedly but failed to act, and the police and regulators, tolerating everything from hate marches to hate preachers, have in effect created a welcoming environment for Iranian networks in our country,” the spokesperson noted.


Jules Gomes is a biblical scholar and journalist based in Rome.

Source: https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-news/israel-warns-of-an-iranian-backed-jihadist-group-targeting-jews

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Message from airman in Iran mountains was originally feared to be a trap: report - Kevin Killough

 

​ by Kevin Killough

Before ejecting from the aircraft, the airman had said a religious message. It was suspected to be something a Muslim would say, which raised suspicions.

 

The U.S. military initially thought a message it received from the airman stranded in Iran was from the Iranians who were setting a trap for American rescurers.

In an interview with Axios, President Donald Trump said that there were "thousands of these savages" who "were hunting" the airman. He was hiding out in the Iran mountains with nothing but a pistol

Trump said that a reward was offered for the capture of the airman, and so even the civilian population was looking for him. 

The U.S. military, Trump said, was receiving signals from the officer's location. After a radio message was received, officials thought that the airman was being held captive and the Iranians were sending the signal to lure Americans into an ambush. 

Before ejecting from the aircraft, the airman had said a religious message, later confirmed to be "God is good." Fearing it was something a Muslim would say, suspicions were raised. People who knew the airman confirmed he is religious, and he was determined to be alive and not in captivity. 

He was rescued in daylight under heavy fire, Trump said, according to the Axios report.  


Kevin Killough

Source: https://justthenews.com/world/middle-east/message-airman-iran-mountains-was-originally-feared-be-trap-report

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