The Baltimore Sun published an evasive opinion piece by a conspiracy theorist in favor of the nuclear weapons deal reached by negotiators for the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany with Iran. It did not publish CAMERA’s rebuttal letter, so here it is:

“Commentary writer Ray McGovern (“No more ‘military option,’” July 21, 2015) omits essential details regarding a prepared U.S. intelligence report on Iran and its purported nuclear program. By failing to note documented problems with the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the program and omitting geopolitical context, the author misleads readers on an important issue.

“McGovern—who routinely expounds conspiracy theories regarding the Iraq War and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (some of which appear at a “9/11 truth” Web site)—claims the 2007 NIE “concluded in November 2007 that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 and had not resumed that work.” Yet, he fails to note an important factor that may have influenced this alleged Iranian decision. By the end of 2003 large U.S. military forces had overthrown regimes in two countries that border Iran—Afghanistan and Iraq—and remained in place.

“Nor does McGovern reveal that even now the U.S. cannot be certain that Iran did in fact stop its program in 2003. That’s because the recent agreement reached between the Islamic Republic and the United States and its partners fails to commit Tehran to fully disclosing the history of its nuclear effort.

“McGovern, a former intelligence official turned fringe activist, also omits problems that can be found within the pages of the NIE itself. One big one: A footnote to the line proclaiming “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” clarifies that the estimate defines “nuclear weapons program” to exclude “Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.” Knowledge gained in such activity can be transferred, at least in part, to weapons development.

“Sun readers deserve more than a superficial gloss like McGovern’s when it comes to Iran’s alleged nuclear program.

Sincerely,
Sean Durns
Media Assistant
CAMERA
Washington, D.C.”

When Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described McGovern as a “liberal activist,” CAMERA noted (“Washington Post-Watch: Post Trips When Bibi Meets Obama,” July 8, 2010) that McGovern is “a former CIA official who helped found VIPS — Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity — [and] he’s long blamed ‘O.I.L.,’ oil, Israel, and logistics, which he defines as the desire for permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, for dragging the United States into war against Saddam Hussein. He signed a petition claiming the U.S. government knew about the 9/11 plot; he blasted Obama for ‘caving into Israel’ in 2009 for not sustaining the pro-Saudi, pro-Chinese, anti-Israeli Chas. Freeman’s nomination to chair the National Intelligence Council; he insists Israel intentionally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty spy ship during the 1967 Six-Day War although U.S. and Israeli investigations determined the assault was accidental. ” The Baltimore Sun could benefit from a little more due diligence when vetting freelance Op-Eds.

(This letter appeared in The Washington Times online July 1, 2015, in print July 2.)

Dear Editor:

The Washington Times editorial “Snark and bias alert: David Cameron moves to unslant the news at the BBC. Can NPR take a hint?” (June 29 print edition) observes “government-supported radio and television has grown fat and comfortable, paying enormous salaries to executives and administrators. The warp in the presentation of the news has grown steadily more evident. If they continue to take government money, PBS and NPR should submit to monitoring by an independent and effective monitoring panel, as [British Prime Minister] David Cameron has prescribed for the BBC.”

We’ve documented NPR’s, and PBS’ recurrent “warp in the presentation” of Arab-Israeli news for many years. Yet an independent monitoring panel already exists. It’s called Congress.

The Telecommunications Act calls for, among other things, “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature” in taxpayer-supported public broadcasting. But Congress has yet to be an effective monitor.

In more than four decades, no NPR radio segment or PBS television show has been found to violate the objectivity and balance statute. Not because there’s never been any bias, but because the relevant congressional committees have yet to hold the networks accountable according to traditional journalism standards including accuracy, context and comprehensiveness. It’s time to start.

Sincerely,
Eric Rozenman
Washington Director
CAMERA—Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America

Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus has opined again on Israel, Iran, and nuclear weapons. And again, his compulsion to play “gotcha” against Israel cripples his analysis.

Pincus’ “Nuclear-free Middle East is worth imagining” (June 16, 2015) flawed premise leads to a flawed conclusion—just like his “Is the U.S. going too far to help Israel?” (May 17, 2012), as CAMERA noted at the time.

The Post columnist says his reading of Ari Shavit’s book My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel—a key chapter of which CAMERA exposed for falsely portraying the 1948 battle for Lydda (Lod) as a “massacre at the heart of Zionism”—sparked the thought that if Israel would just agree to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a nuclear-free Middle East eventually would emerge.

Pincus says that according to Shavit “the Iranians have been doing what Israel did…if Iran succeeds, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Algeria could be next.” The veteran correspondent muses:

“That thought made me realize how different this all would be if Israel, rather than opposing a P5+1 [Germany and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council] agreement calling for new economic sanctions against Iran and threatening a military attack on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, would put its energy into developing a rational NPT option.”

By this logic, nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is Israel’s fault. By its extension, other Middle Eastern countries are not independent actors with their own motivations; they only react to actions of Israel and the West. In this line of thinking, Iran—despite its own calls to “wipe Israel off the map”—wants a nuclear weapon only because Israel has had one before the treaty existed.

To Pincus, the solution is simple: Israel should quit calling for Iran—a signatory to the NPT—to abide its promises and instead propose a “rational” NPT option. How this would elicit a different response from the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, a regime that repeatedly refuses to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) he doesn’t say.

A clouded crystal ball

Perhaps this is because nuclear proliferation in Middle Eastern countries isn’t the primary focus of the article—Israel’s defense policy is.

The Post’s long-time reporter and columnist asserts the Jewish state has no need for nuclear self-defense because “the threat to Israel that generated its bomb—overwhelming Arab armies—no longer exists. The Israel Defense Forces have far more conventional capability than the nation’s neighbors put together, including Iran.”

By this logic, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and their terrorist ilk pose little or no threat to Israel—even as they gobble up territory (including some near the Israeli-controlled portion of the Golan Heights), mount operations to kill Israelis, and in the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip—receive support from Iran. Similarly, had not Israeli bombers conducted “nuclear arms control” against Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, conventional or terrorist armies might be protected today by radioactive umbrellas.

But in Pincus’ crystal ball photograph, as opposed to the Middle East’s unspooling video of upheaval, today’s tactical threats will never change into strategic dangers, Arab armies will never serve aggressive pan-Islamic regimes and Israel with its inescapable population inferiority will remain militarily superior to any combination of threats without a presumed nuclear arsenal.

Pretzel logic and crucial omissions leave the author comfortable with his mind-numbing claim “the best way to remove the Iran nuclear threat is to create a Middle East nuclear-free zone.” After all, he says, as if it mattered, it “has been on the U.N. agenda since the 1960s…promoted initially by Egypt and Iran [emphasis added].”

Not only CAMERA recognized Pincus’ faulty reasoning. Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Executive Director Abraham Foxman noted in a June 21, 2015 letter to the editor that Pincus’ attempt to compare Israel to South Africa—which cancelled its nuclear program—was “faulty” since “South Africa faced no enemies committed to its destruction. Israel faces an Iran that openly calls for the end of the Jewish state.”

Pincus concludes by “sadly” noting demands by theocrats in Tehran for Israel to sign the treaty—which the Iranian regime regularly violates—are not likely to be heeded.

In James Thurber’s 1939 short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”—enlarged if not improved as a 2013 Ben Stiller film—the main character daydreams his fantasies into apparent reality. Many children play with imaginary friends; Pincus periodically writes about an imaginary Middle East.—Sean Durns

When it comes to Israel, veteran USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham apparently cannot help himself—if he sees an opportunity to disparage the Jewish state, or imagines he does, he takes it.

In “Israel Seems to Irritate USA Today Columnist, Repeatedly” (March 5, 2015) CAMERA spotlighted Wickham’s compulsion—unsupported by evidence—to force the disagreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama over Iran’s nuclear program through the irrelevant prism of American race relations.

Five years earlier, Wickham seized on an erroneous post by an anti-Israel blogger (“Anatomy of a False Allegation: The Petraeus Controversy,” April 26, 2010, CAMERA) to insinuate that Israel might be ungrateful for U.S. support.

Now, criticizing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for opposing the Obama administration’s delisting Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, Wickham manages a whopper of a gratuitous anti-Israel dig. According to the columnist, “it is doublespeak for Rubio to say Cuba’s designation should be maintained when, in 2010, he argued against the U.S. allowing the U.N. to discredit Israel. At the time, the U.N. was conducting an investigation of Israel’s deadly effort to stop Turkish ships from breaking its embargo of the Gaza Strip.”

Hard to pack more non-sequiturs, irrelevancies and innuendo into two sentences. Does Wickham mean to imply:

That Israel was, like Cuba, a sponsor of terrorism?

That the United States should have allowed the United Nations to “discredit” Israel? For what, maintaining an embargo the United Nations itself later would confirm was legitimate? (See “U.N. Palmer Report Affirms Legality of Israeli Naval Blockade of Gaza,” Sept. 2, 2011, CAMERA ).

That because enforcing the legitimate embargo turned deadly only when an Israeli boarding party was attacked, Israel nevertheless was at fault?

That it wasn’t worth mentioning the connection between the Turkish charity that helped organize the attempted blockade running and Hamas, the rulers of the Gaza Strip?

The United States wrongly lists Hamas—which uses Gaza as a base for anti-Israel attacks, hence the embargo—as a terrorist organization?

Wickham not only occupies space on USA Today’s Op-Ed page. He’s also dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communications. But credentials don’t immunize against pretzel logic. Wickham’s implied equivalence between a Cuba that supported terrorism and an Israel attempting to protect itself from terrorists has little to do with informed commentary. At best it’s sloppy journalism, at worst, an example of obsessive bias.

Writing in The Washington Post (“Current Iran framework will make war more likely,” April 9, 2015 online, “A risky deal with Iran,” April 10 in print), Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon refuted accusations his country would like to see the United States attack Iran on its behalf.

“The claim that the only alternative to the framework is war is false,” Ya’alon insisted. “It … stifles honest and open debate by suggesting that if you don’t agree, you must be a warmonger. It also feeds and reflects the calumny that Israel in particular is agitating for war.”

The Israeli defense minister pointed out that Iran’s Supreme Leader (a term that a few writers have said echoes Adolf Hitler’s self-designation as der fuehrer, the leader), Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his nuclear negotiators already were disagreeing with the White House over the framework’s terms.

As Ya’alon and others observed, this was hardly surprising given the nature of the regime and history of hiding its illegal nuclear program. Disagreement over the framework’s requirements almost as soon as they had been announced further highlighted the risk inherent in trusting Iran’s revolutionary Islamic Republic to keep its word.

Not only did Israel not want to drag the United States into a war, as some critics have alleged, the reverse is true. His country has a vested interest in avoiding war with the Iranian regime, Ya’alon wrote. Alluding to Iranian leaders’ oft-stated insistence Israel must be annihilated and Tehran’s supply of tens of thousands of rockets to its Hezbollah surrogate in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Ya’alon said Israel would “pay the highest price if force is used by anyone.”

Ya’alon, a retired three-star general (Israel’s highest military rank) and former chief of staff, wrote that he has seen war personally and been “forced to bury some of my closest friends.” For such reasons, he opposed a deal he said makes war more likely.

Israelis know, Ya’alon stressed, that “the United States is Israel’s greatest friend and strategic ally.” Rather than war with Iran, Israel seeks a better deal that actually achieves what negotiators set out to: rolling back Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, he said.

A better deal, according to Ya’alon, would link “lifting of restrictions on its nuclear program to an end of Iran’s aggression in the region, its terrorism across the globe and its threats to annihilate Israel.” He noted Iran’s aggressive arming, financing, and training of terrorist and proxy groups in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, throughout the Middle East and beyond. Not taking an expansionist Iran under its messianic theocracy at its word on nuclear negotiations but maintaining and increasing preexisting pressure, according to Ya’alon, would be the best bet to prevent conflict.

Indirect support for Ya’alon’s position preceded his Post Op-Ed. Surveying threats on the horizon, General David Petraeus, former director of the CIA and U.S. commander in Iraq during the “surge” of American troops there, stated in a recent interview “…when it comes to Iraq, I frankly worry less about Islamic State than I do about the Iranian-backed Shia militias.” Petraeus also expressed his mistrust of Iranian claims regarding the purportedly peaceful purposes of its nuclear program. Petraeus said that underlying such skepticism “isn’t just a U.S. or Israeli judgment,” but one shared by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
—Sean Durns

In George Orwell’s enduringly instructive dystopian novel, 1984, the Ministry of Truth—“war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength”—functioned as the department of lies. The fictional ministry has an actual branch in the U.S. capital. It goes by the name of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Washington, D.C. delegation.

Attempting to refute the irrefutable, delegation head Maen Rashid Areikat took to The Washington Post letters to the editor section (“Palestinians seek peace and justice,” March 26, 2015) to falsify facts in columnist Charles Krauthammer’s indictment of Palestinian rejectionism (“No peace in our time,” March 20).

Krauthammer noted that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected U.S.-Israeli offers of a West Bank and Gaza Strip state in exchange for peace in 2000 and 2001 and Mahmoud Abbas did so in 2008. Areikat claimed “there were no written offers,” as if spoken proposals would not have been worth pursuing.

In fact, what came to be known as “the Clinton parameters” regarding the deals Arafat spurned at Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001 are well known. Likewise, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conveyed the outlines of a “two-state solution,” a map included, to Abbas in 2008—to which the latter replied, in effect, “I’ll get back to you” but as Olmert wrote in a Post Op-Ed six years ago never did (“Stop Focusing on the Settlements to Achieve Peace in the Middle East,” July 17, 2009).

Areikat asserted that the Palestinian side “explicitly accepted” a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem on just “22 percent of historical Palestine” but Israel refused. The land originally intended for the post-World War I League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate also included what is now Jordan and the Golan Heights, or more than 77 percent. Israel compromises roughly 17 percent of that territory, the West Bank and Gaza the remaining, unallocated nearly six percent. Palestinian leadership explicitly refused to agree to Israeli proposals of a West Bank and Gaza state, with its capital in eastern Jerusalem, if agreement required it to end the conflict with Israel, recognize it as a Jewish state and drop the so-called “right of return” for Palestinian Arab refugees and much-multiplied descendants.

Areikat claims that Palestinian leadership acts “responsibly” to assure rule of law in the areas it controls. That would be a surprise to democrats and other endangered species in the Gaza Strip, ruled by the terrorist Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement). It also would sound somewhat inaccurate to West Bank Arabs controlled by Abbas and Areikat’s PA, which beats and jails critics.

The PLO’s chief Washington representative objects to Krauthammer’s observation that his boss, Abbas, is in the 11th year of a four-year term. According to Areikat, Abbas “called for elections three weeks before” Krauthammer’s column appeared. That confirms Abbas has lacked a mandate for seven years. Calling for elections is easy, holding them—especially when one suspects, as Abbas might well, that he would lose to a challenger from Hamas or within his own Fatah movement—dangerous.

Areikat invokes Israel’s “occupation” and “war-mongering” by Israel and its supporters—Krauthammer presumably among them—to explain the absence of Israeli-Palestinian peace. This when A) Israel’s been out of the Gaza Strip since 2005, B) Hamas has used the Strip repeatedly as a base for terrorist bombardments of the Jewish state, C) the PA, in administering area “A” and co-administering area “B” of the West Bank with Israel has jurisdiction over more than 90 percent of the Arab population and D) what remains of Israel’s post-1967 Six-Day War occupation of the disputed territories is not a violation of international law but in fact obligatory under it until peace is negotiated according to U.N. Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.

Areikat, of course, can act as his own Ministry of Propaganda to gull the gullible in promotion of “the Palestinian narrative.” That’s more or less his job description as head of the PLO’s Washington delegation, as CAMERA has shown previously (for example, “Wall Street Journal Lets Palestinian Spokesman Deep-Six the Facts,” June 13, 2012). The real question is why did The Post, which has been known to fact-check letters critical of Palestinian words and deeds, feel compelled to accommodate him?

Is Iranian President Hassan Rouhani a moderate, or a “moderate”? In The Washington Post, he can be either, and within 24 hours. It depends on whether one is reading the news or opinion pages.

In the Feb. 9, 2015 print edition, under the headline “Kerry rules out extending Iran nuclear talks without an outline of deal soon; ‘Fundamental decisions’ have to be made in coming weeks, he says,” Post diplomatic correspondent Carol Morello wrote:

“The nuclear talks, which began a decade ago with Iran and were revived after Hassan Rouhani, a moderate [emphasis added], was elected president in 2013, have been the subject of much concern.”

But in the next day’s editorial, “The message of Iran’s actions; The country’s foreign minister hopes a jailed Post reporter is ‘cleared,’ but his words aren’t enough” the newspaper said:

“Some analysts of Iran have speculated that the persecution of Mr. [Jacob] Rezaian [Post Tehran bureau chief] is an attempt by ‘hard-liners’ and their allies in the judiciary to undermine the ‘moderate’ [single quotation marks in original, italics added] government of President Hassan Rouhani and the nuclear negotiations being conducted by Mr. [Mohammad] Zarif [Iran’s foreign minister].”

Looking at the case of its imprisoned reporter in the framework of Western negotiations with Iran about its presumptive nuclear weapons program, the newspaper wasn’t certain “whether there is a power struggle in Tehran or not …”

However, one can be pretty sure Rouhani is no moderate in Western political terms. CAMERA pointed out soon after his election (“Hassan Rouhani—The Extremists’ ‘Moderate’,” June 21, 2013) that Rouhani has a career-long record as a loyal and sometimes deceptive, brutal servant of the Islamic Revolutionary Republic’s messianic founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor as supreme leader—Iran’s ultimate decision-maker—Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That record includes apparently presiding over authorization of deadly terrorist attacks on Americans and Argentine Jews.

Rouhani, like the similarly misidentified “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, appears to be a pragmatist instead. That is, in each case, someone willing to use limited, “moderated” tactics in pursuit of broad, extremist strategies. (See, for example, CAMERA’s “Those Intransigent ‘Moderates’ of Fatah,” May 6, 2014, in particular the last five paragraphs.)

In spite of Rouhani’s record and The Post editorial page’s doubts, Rouhani the unsubstantiated moderate reappeared in the paper’s news coverage on February 19. A one-paragraph news brief, “Iran schedules 2016 parliamentary elections,” said, “the vote will be a key test for moderate [emphasis added] President Hassan Rouhani, who is looking for his allies to win the majority.”

The possibility that two factions of Islamic revolutionaries, one that speaks softly and the other that shouts, struggle for power under the gaze of Iran’s top revolutionary, Ayatollah Khamenei, seems too subtle for the news pages.

The Washington Post criticized Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for the tactics editorial (“Dangerous grandstanding”, Sept. 30, 2014) displayed in his United Nations address.

“…Mr. Abbas delivered a bridge-burning speech to the U.N. General Assembly … mendaciously accusing Israel of ‘a new war of genocide’ and declaring that a return to negotiations was ‘impossible.’ ”

Impossible is what Abbas seemed to be making of any potential peace agreement with Israel. His accusations and distortions echoed the rhetoric sometimes employed by his predecessor, Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. Arafat, of course, rejected two-state proposals made by U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack in 2000 and 2001, resorting instead to the terrorism of the second intifada. Of Abbas, The Post editorial noted:

“…he has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents [George W. Bush and Barack Obama]. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state …”

The Post lamented Abbas’ rejection of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations as the path to a two-state peace agreement and his intention to have Israel investigated for alleged war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Other commentary in addition to The Washington Post’s took note of Abbas’ bridge-burning. Dror Eydar in Israel Hayom, quoted Abbas, noting that “toward the end of his speech, this so-called moderate partner asserted that what had caused terrorism in our region was — get ready — international leniency toward Israel. He then discussed the Islamic State group [also known as the Islamic State in the Levant or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria], saying: ‘Confronting the terrorism that plagues our region by groups such as ISIL and others that have no basis whatsoever in the tolerant Islamic religion or with humanity and are committing brutal and heinous atrocities requires much more than military confrontation. … It requires, in this context and as a priority, bringing an end to the Israeli occupation of our country, which constitutes in its practices and perpetuation, an abhorrent form of state terrorism and a breeding ground for incitement, tension, and hatred’ ” (“Abbas incites and we’re to blame?”, Sept. 29, 2014)

Eydar concluded Abbas “juxtaposed the Islamic State with a much more loathsome entity — the State of Israel, which, according to the moderate partner, is a ‘terrorist state’ and a ‘breeding ground for incitement, tension, and hatred,’ and is actually more dangerous than the beheading Islamists. This sentiment is present throughout the entire speech.”

Too often news and commentary of Abbas and his Fatah movement describe them as “relative moderates” compared to Hamas. This may be accurate as far as it goes, but as the propaganda and incitement of Abbas’ General Assembly speech indicate, it doesn’t go far enough. Kudos to The Washington Post and Israel Hayom for pointing that out to readers. by Ziv Kaufman.

A Miami Herald editorial July 28 explained to its readers why Israel rejected U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s ceasefire proposal:

“When Hamas decided to initiate rocket attacks on Israel, it invited the furious reprisal that began earlier this month. Three times since 2006, Israel has responded to aerial assaults on its citizens with fierce counter-attacks, and each time the fighting has come to an inconclusive end that allows its enemies to replenish their arsenals and start planning for the next round.

“For that reason, Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously rejected a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire on Friday, though Israel agreed to a 12-hour pause for Saturday. The images from the funerals of Israeli troops are heart-rending. The scenes of horror and destruction in Gaza, gut-wrenching. No one could wish for the people of Gaza to endure prolonged misery.

“But it was Hamas that wished for the fighting. First, by attacking Israel, and then by rejecting an Egyptian ceasefire proposal because it wanted its own narrow demands addressed first. That included lifting border restrictions and the release of dozens of former prisoners Israel rearrested in a crackdown on the West Bank after the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers” (“Israel’s Challenge”, Miami Herald, July 28, 2014).

The editorial directly blames Hamas for the bloodshed. Unlike other publications that sought a contradictory “even-handed” approach—balancing a democratic country and a terrorist organization with genocidal goals—The Herald weighed defense against aggression. (CAMERA has noted how a New York Times article, for example, made it seem “Hamas and Israel are equally bad—but Israel is worse.”

Instead of narrowly focusing on casualties in the Gaza Strip, The Herald’s editorial sketched the conflict, touching on its history and explaining Hamas’ tactics. Rather than get lost in mistaken interpretations of militarily proportional use of force, the newspaper’s editors tell readers the truth about Hamas and note that for any peace-loving sovereign nation, in this case Israel, “the right of self-defense is not negotiable.” — by Ziv Kaufman

In the Oct. 17, 2013 print edition of The Washington Post, syndicated columnist Anne Applebaum (“A New Iran? Hardly.”) highlights the fundamental issue when it comes to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programs.

“We [the United States] oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions for one reason: because we object to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a quasi-totalitarian state that since 1979 has been led by brutal, volatile men with no respect for the rule of law.” Exactly. And in their brutality and volatility, these quasi-totalitarian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel.

Applebaum provides one of the few relatively detailed analyses in mainstream media that calls for more caution than optimism following October 16 talks between the United States, Britain, Russia, France, China, and Germany (the “P5+1” countries) and Iran.

The columnist notes that President Hassan Rouhani does not “represent a new radical strand of Iranian thinking about nuclear power. After all”, she writes, “he was Iran’s nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005…. Nor does Rouhani’s new cabinet mark a profound break from those who have run the Islamic Republic since its inception. As his justice minister, Rouhani has appointed Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a former high official in the Ministry of Information during the bloody and violent 1980s.”

Moreover, among Pourmohammadi’s greatest “achievements,” says Applebaum, were “the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988…. the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and the assassination of dissidents in Iran and around the world.” And during the week of September 23, “when Rouhani was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, more than 30 Iranians were reportedly executed without due process of law”.

Applebaum’s timely commentary comes when words and rhetoric, not actions, are welcomed by some reporters and pundits as indications of change from the aggressive style of Rouhani’s immediate predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “[A]s long as the Iranian judicial system is subverted by a politicized version of sharia [Islamic law], there will always be a limit to what can be achieved through any conversations with Tehran,” Applebaum stresses.

She implies that Iran will say anything to lift international sanctions that have been crippling its economy. But will it agree to limit what appears to be a large, secret nuclear weapons program? Applebaum summarizes: “Talking is fine. But the negotiators in Geneva should leave any optimism at the door”. — by Lee Golan Fischgrund, CAMERA Washington research intern.