1) At The Free Press, Eli Lake explains why (contrary to the claims of the Guardian, the BBC and others) ‘Iran’s New ‘Reformist’ President Is Anything But’.
“If you saw the headlines in the Western press about Iran’s election over the weekend, you might have thought it had yielded a miracle: the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is a “reformer.”
Spoiler alert. He is not. But it’s worth examining why so many media outlets, including The New York Times and NPR, have leapt at the chance to declare Pezeshkian a liberal.”
2) At the Jerusalem Post, Jonathan Spyer has been ‘Tracking Iran’s weapons route into the West Bank’.
“Iran seeks as a strategic objective to surround Israel with a crescent of active fronts maintained by Iran and supported by Islamist client militias. As part of this, the regime is seeking to find a way to add an eastern component to this crescent – through Jordan to the West Bank. […]
The Iranians are not without significant achievements in this area. Most importantly, Tehran has succeeded in establishing and maintaining an arms route in which military materiel, brought from Iran into Lebanon, is then transported across the Syrian-Lebanese border, via Jordan, into the West Bank.”
3) Relatedly, at the Times of Israel, Amir Bar Shalom discusses ‘The IED threat’.
“Data regarding the IED industry in the West Bank paints a worrying picture. Since the beginning of 2024, the IDF has disarmed more than 50 production laboratories. More than 1,000 IEDs were thrown at troops. And about 150 buried IEDs were found and neutralized beneath civilian infrastructure (buildings and roads).”
4) The Reichman University ICT reports on ‘The Escalation on the Northern Front’.
“Since October 7, 2023, Hezbollah has engaged in a war of attrition against Israel on the northern front, aiming to divert Israeli forces from Gaza. Despite both sides’ stated reluctance for full-scale war, recent escalations have heightened tensions. This report delves into the ongoing conflict, analyzing Hezbollah’s strategic objectives, operational constraints, and the broader geopolitical implications.”
5) The FDD reports on ‘Iran Supporting and Funding Pro-Hamas Protests in the U.S.’.
“Following several months of often violent pro-Hamas protests across the United States, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, stated on July 9 that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been encouraging and funding some of these demonstrations. […] Without providing specific details, Haines said that her agency has “observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.””
6) NGO Monitor reports that ‘Euromed Feminist Initiative’s board members celebrate October 7 Hamas Massacre’.
“Individuals who serve on EFI’s board and a number of EFI member organizations have published statements justifying and celebrating the October 7th attack, calling to annihilate Israel, denying Hamas atrocities, and promoting antisemitic imagery. Additionally, in multiple statements, EFI itself has labeled Israeli operations “tantamount to the destruction of the population of Gaza” and joined the propaganda campaign falsely claiming that “today Gaza [sic] population is facing a large-scale massacre and genocide.”
7) At the Fathom Journal, Izabella Tabarovsky recommends ‘The Three Best Books on Soviet Anti-Zionism’.
“7 October brought on an explosion of vicious, conspiratorial propaganda about Israel and Zionism. From accusing Israel of perpetrating a genocide, to equating Zionism with Nazism, to whitewashing Hamas’ atrocities (it’s just decolonisation, silly!), to denying empathy to the tortured, murdered and kidnapped Jews: manipulations, fabrications and incitement that have flooded global media over the past nine months have been shocking. But have they been unprecedented? From the technical standpoint, the answer is yes: never before has it been so cheap and easy to pump out lies and antizionist conspiracy theory to so many people simultaneously. In terms of content, however, the current campaign is hardly innovative, borrowing wholesale from the global antizionist propaganda campaigns the USSR ran in the wake of the Six-Day war.”
