Carla Bruni with her husband, French President Nikolas Sarkozy

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been branded a ‘prostitute’ by Iran after she publicly attacked the country for threatening to stone a woman to death.

France’s First Lady is part of a campaign to save the life of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two.She is accused of cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him, and is now facing capital punishment for her crimes.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who became President Nicolas Sarkozy¿s third wife two years ago, has signed a petition calling for Sakineh’s release

Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtian is accused of cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him, and is now facing capital punishment for her crimes

Ms Bruni-Sarkozy, who became President Nicolas Sarkozy’s third wife two years ago, has signed a petition calling for Sakineh’s release.

Last week the former supermodel said: ‘I just can’t see what good could come out of this macabre ceremony, whatever the judicial reasons put forward to justify it.’

Addressing Sakineh directly in an open letter, Ms Bruni-Sarkozy wrote: ‘Why shed your blood and deprive your children of their mother? Because you have lived, because you have loved, because you’re a woman, and because you’re an Iranian? Everything within me refuses to accept this.’

But Kayhan (which means ‘Universe’ in English), the Iranian daily newspaper which acts as a mouthpiece for the country’s ultra conservative Islamic regime, has now accused 42-year-old Ms Bruni-Sarkozy of being a hypocrite.
An editorial in the paper points to her chequered love life, which has included numerous relationships with high-profile celebrities.

How Iran's ruling thug-ocracy views women's rights

Entitled ‘French prostitutes join the human rights protest,’ the article singles out Ms Bruni-Sarkozy and Isabelle Adjani, the French actress and friend of the First Lady who is also calling for Sakineh’s release.
Kayhan aims to ‘defend the ideology of the Islamic Revolution’ and is directly under the supervision of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.

Iranian state television also attacked Ms Bruni-Sarkozy for her support for Sakineh, saying she was using it to try and justify her own immorality.

The Elysee Palace had no formal reaction to the slurs in the Iranian media, but an insider said Ms Bruni-Sarkozy was ‘deeply shocked’ by the personal attack.

A protester, dressed with a costume to depict a woman stoned to death in Iran, participates in a demonstration in Paris yesterday over the death sentence against Mrs Mohammadi Ashtiani

Carla Bruni represents the four things that the sexually-repressed old men that run Iran most despise: Female, attractive, opinionated; and not dressed in an ugly black tent.

Keep it up.

[Source: Daily Mail]

Security Guard at Iran's nuclear installation at Bushehr

The estimable former US Envoy to the UN has warned that it will be too late after that, as the risks to innocent Iranians could be too high to contemplate:

Israel has “eight days” to launch a military strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia’s help, next week, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.

At that point, former [UN Envoy] John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians.

“Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they’re in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it,” Bolton told Fox Business Network.

“So if Israel is going to do anything against Bushehr it has to move in the next eight days.”

[Without] an Israeli strike, Bolton said, “Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor.”

But when asked whether he expected Israel to actually launch strikes against Iran within the next eight days, Bolton was skeptical.

“I don’t think so, I’m afraid that they’ve lost this opportunity,” he said.

Former UN Envoy (and a straight-talking Un:dhimmi favourite) John Bolton

The controversial [Why? He merely recognised the irrelevance, impotence and corruption of the UN - Ed] former envoy to the United Nations criticized Russia’s role in the development of the plant, saying “the Russians are, as they often do, playing both sides against the middle.”

“The idea of being able to stick a thumb in America’s eye always figures prominently in Moscow,” he added.

Iran dismissed the possibilities of such an attack from its archfoes.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that “these threats of attacks had become repetitive and lost their meaning.”

“According to international law, installations which have real fuel cannot be attacked because of the humanitarian consequences,” he told reporters at a news conference in Tehran.

Iranian officials say Iran has stepped up defensive measures at the Bushehr plant to protect it from any attacks.

Russia has been building the Bushehr plant since the mid-1990s but the project was marred by delays, and the issue is hugely sensitive amid Tehran’s standoff with the West and Israel over its nuclear ambitions.

The UN Security Council hit Tehran with a fourth set of sanctions on June 9 over its nuclear programme, and the United States and European Union followed up with tougher punitive measures targeting Iran’s banking and energy sectors.

The Bushehr project was first launched by the late shah in the 1970s using contractors from German firm Siemens. But it was shelved when he was deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It was revived after the death of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, as Iran’s new supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his first president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, backed the project.

In 1995, Iran won the support of Russia which agreed to finish building the plant and fuel it.

The mainstream media have underplayed it, the liberals, lefties and Useful Idiots have parroted the Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs’ ‘peaceful purposes’ line; duplicitous Russia has provided the technology (for a fat profit of course), and world leaders have been wringing their hands in denial for years, applying sanctions that have clearly had precisely zero effect.

We can’t help but wonder whether the whining left and our supposed ‘leaders’ will still be preoccupied with delegitimising the Israelis, calling them ‘war criminals’ and singing ‘Kumbaya’ for the poor Gazans when deadly Iranian nukes are whistling overhead.

[Source: France 24]

Sharing the love: Iranian weapons ranged by Hezbollah against the Israeli population

Great example of reverse lawfare – Muslims seem endlessly to be suing the kuffar for something or other – this dramatic turning of the tables by long-suffering Israelis is certainly something we’d like to see more of:

A group of 91 victims of Hizbullah-fired Katyusha missiles in the Second Lebanon War have filed a $1.2 billion lawsuit in a U.S. federal court, charging that the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network’s war coverage aided the terrorist group.

The plaintiffs are family members who were wounded or are relatives of victims of the rockets that rained down on northern Israel for 34 days in the summer of 2006. The Kaplan vs. Al Jazeera suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

Attorney for the plaintiffs, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, stated, “Al-Jazeera made itself a crucial component of the Hizbullah missile offensive. The intent was to assist the terrorists in targeting and killing civilians. Without the assistance of Al-Jazeera’s on-the-ground spotters, Hizbullah would have been unable to accurately aim its missiles into Israeli cities. Al-Jazeera, which has offices in New York, aided and abetted Hizbullah terrorism and is responsible for the injuries suffered by the victims of these attacks.”

The team of lawyers who filed the suit for the victims charged that “Al-Jazeera intentionally reported live coverage of the locations of the missile strikes inside of Israel in violation of military censorship regulations, in order to enable Hizbullah to aim the missiles more accurately.

“Al-Jazeera camera crews in Israel during the war were repeatedly detained by the Israeli police for broadcasting real-time information regarding the location of missile strikes, which Hizbullah utilized to more accurately aim their missiles at civilian population centers.”

Israel has reprimanded Al Jazeera several times for its pro-Hamas coverage and for a short time prohibited government officials from speaking with reporters of the huge satellite network.

Al Jazeera previously has been the target of a U.S. complaint that its coverage is anti-American and that it describes Arab suicide bombers as “martyrs.”

The spokesman in 2006 for the U.S. Defense Department, Lt. Col Dodd Vician, stated, “Anyone, even an American living in the Middle East watching a network like Al Jazeera day after day after day, would begin to believe that America was bad just based on the biased, one-sided coverage.”

It is refreshing to say the least to see the victims of Islamic aggression turning the tables on their tormentors in this way. Muslims mine a rich vein of laws and conventions designed to protect minoritites from discrimination, in order to to pursue the slightest ‘offence’; so why should the tables not be turned by those who suffer real harm at the hands of the Islamists?

Seems perfectly equitable to us.

[Source: INN]

Clue for the UN: A pictorial summary of what's really going on in Lebanon

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Friday that an increase in tensions between Lebanon and Israel could lead to a new conflict with potentially devastating consequences.

In a report to the UN Security Council, Ban accused both countries of violating the 2006 cease-fire resolution that ended the 34-day Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah.

The UN chief said Hezbollah continues to maintain “a substantial military capacity” in violation of UN resolutions and an arms embargo, and he again called for Hizbullah and other militias to be disarmed “through a Lebanese-led political process.”

Ban said Israel continues to violate the cease-fire by conducting daily overflights of Lebanon and refuses to withdraw from the disputed northern border village of Ghajar.

The secretary-general said that both sides have violated the UN-drawn Blue Line separating them.

Ban said Israeli accusations in April that neighboring Syria had provided Scud missiles to Hezbollah — an allegation later raised by US officials — “greatly increased tensions” between Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Lebanese and Syrian authorities categorically denied any missile transfers.

Hezbollah’s secretary-general would neither confirm nor deny that the militia had acquired such weapons and stated that the militia was prepared to respond to attacks from Israel, Ban said.

“Rhetoric escalated rapidly, creating a perception in the public that a resumption of conflict was imminent,” the secretary-general said.

For the moment, he said, tensions appear to have subsided, due mainly to messages from Syrian and Israeli officials that “a confrontation was not desired,” as well as diplomatic actions by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, several Arab and European governments, the US and the UN.

Nonetheless, Ban said, the increase in tensions “raised the specter of a miscalculation by either party leading to a resumption of hostilities, with potentially devastating consequences for Lebanon and the region.”

The summer 2006 war, which left some 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead, ended in a stalemate.

The secretary-general expressed concern at several attacks aimed at UNIFIL forces. UN diplomats said at least one troop contributing country has asked the Lebanese government to deploy more troops to the south.

Ban said both sides have a responsibility to address all outstanding issues “in order to reach a permanent cease-fire and a long-term solution” as called for in the 2006 resolution.

Even Mr. Ban knows that the UN is riddled with the malign twin evils of Islamism and anti-Israel bias.

Furthermore, his notion that somehow Lebanon can disarm Hizballlah ‘politically’ when Hezbollah effectively runs Lebanon, is ridicuous – and only serves to underline UN impotence even further.

[Source: YNet News]

Don't frown Fabio, it wasn't you. Nor, apparently, was it your band of overpaid Sunday League flops - it was the will of Allah!

Iran says its enemies deserved to crash out of World Cup, Foreign Minister Mottaki tells reporters, ‘Countries which played key role in imposing new sanctions against Iran—like England, America and France — got what they deserved in soccer tournament’

The elimination of England, France and the United States in the early stages of the World Cup was a just reward for their ill-treatment of Iran, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Iran did not qualify for the tournament in South Africa but fans have been glued to their televisions nonetheless in a country where soccer is the number one sport.

While the United States—often referred to by Iran’s leaders as “the great Satan”—was never a favorite at the tournament, the elimination of England and France before the quarter-finals was a crushing blow to their fans back home.

England and the US both lost in second round matches while Italy and world champions Italy fell in the opening group stage.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said they had all got what they deserved after they backed a new round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program which the West fears may be aimed at making a bomb, something Tehran denies.

“Whatever we witness today in the international political arena has been identically manifested in the 19th tournament of the World Cup,” Mottaki was quoted as saying by Iran’s official news agency IRNA.

“Those countries which played a key role in imposing new sanctions against Iran—like England, America and France — were all eliminated in the preliminary phases,” he said.

Brazil, which voted against the sanctions, is one of the favorites to win having impressively reached the last eight with a crushing 3-0 victory over Chile on Monday.

Iran played at the last World Cup finals in Germany four years ago but finished bottom of their qualifying group.

In 1998, they famously beat the United States 2-1 although neither side went through to the next round.

IRNA tried to interpret Mottaki’s remarks. “The foreign minister did not say it directly, but he apparently meant that the countries which supported the anti-Iranian resolution will withdraw from the diplomatic arena in the near future,” the news agency said.

IRNA Director Ali Akbar Javanfekr said Brazil, one of the favorites to win the World Cup, is expected to “play a more central role in international affairs, particularly regarding the opposition to Security Council sanctions.”

Cluebat for FM Motakki: If you prevented your degenerate, sadistic security forces from imprisoning, beating, prison-raping and killing your country’s young men; maybe you’d have a decent football team.

Perhaps if you also reflected on the fact that you are there to serve your people – not to humiliate, torture and kill them whenever they show any sign of expressing free will – then that team might just win some supporters, too. Insha’allah.

[Source: YNet News via IRNA]

You  really couldn’t have made this one up. Apparently the Iranian Vice Police have ordered the breasts to be removed from store front dummies, during the latest crackdown on female dress ’standards’.

In reality of course, it’s just another example of the extraordinarily bizarre doctrine of Islam, which has, despite some of its supporters’ best efforts to have you believe otherwise (and those of the slick advertising agencies it employs); a dark misogyny combined with extreme sexual jealousy, where its heart should be.

It would be completely hilarious, if it weren’t so disturbing and sinister. From Iranian.com via Creeping Sharia.

Iranians prepare to load aid bound for Gaza

Another Muslim thugocracy prepares for a little Israel-baiting:

TEHRAN — The Iranian Red Crescent has decided to send two aid ships to Gaza this week in the latest bid to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory by Iran’s regional arch foe Israel.
Red Crescent director for international affairs Abdolrauf Adibzadeh told the state IRNA news agency late on Sunday that the decision to send the ships was taken after a meeting with the foreign ministry.

“One ship will carry donations made by the people and the other will carry relief workers. The ships will be sent to Gaza by end of this week,” Adibzadeh said.

He said the Red Crescent has called for Iranian volunteers to act as relief workers and accompany the vessels.
“Volunteers who want to go to Gaza and help the oppressed people of occupied Palestine can refer to the Red Crescent website and register,” Adibzadeh said.

He said the initial plan was to send the ships through an intermediary country, but “based on a decision by the society, they will be sent directly.” He added that the aid would consist of foodstuffs and medicines.

The Iranian Red Crescent had previously sent an aid ship carrying food and medicines to Gaza in December 2008 but it was prevented from reaching the territory by the Israeli navy.
The decision to send the two ships comes hot on the heels of a report that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards had expressed readiness to escort aid flotillas to Gaza.

“If the respected leader of the revolution (supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) gives an order in this regard, the Revolutionary Guards’ naval forces will take a practical step using their capability and equipment to escort flotillas to Gaza,” Khamenei’s aide in the Guards’ naval wing, Ali Shirazi, told the Mehr news agency on Sunday.
It was unclear, however, how the Guards would escort the flotillas as their naval wing is largely made up of speed boats and light vessels.

Blaming the United States, Britain and France for the deadly raid, Khamenei called for the prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
In a message issued on Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader called on the international community to end the Israeli blockade.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad too lashed out at Israel, demanding that it face “political sanctions” for the raid.
The animosity between Iran and its regional arch foe has only worsened under Ahmadinejad, with top Guards commanders repeatedly boasting that the elite force has missiles capable of reaching any target in Israel.
In turn, Israel, which has the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, has refused to rule out a resort to military action against Iran to prevent it acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
Iran denies any such ambition.

Let’s take a look at some of Iran’s contributions to human development and rights, the kind of exemplary behaviour that gives it the moral authority with which to take Israel to task regarding her treatment of the ‘Palestinians’. Israel will clearly see that she has plenty to learn from the Islamic Republic, especially in terms of:

Crime and punishment

Community policing...

Offender pastoral care, resettlement and welfare..

...and women's rights.

Yet another human rights pariah presumes to lecture Israel on Gaza. The facade of lies is already peeling away like old paint from the Muslim world’s attempts to take the moral ground in Palestine; and now people are beginning to realise what is really going on.

They would do well to remember what happened the last time they tried such a stunt.

[Source: AFP]

More indulgence of the world’s worst dictatorships at the irrelevant United Nations. And on your taxpayer $£¥€, etc. Yet you’d think from the mainstream media’s coverage of this latest waste of paper from the UN that something truly significant had just happened:

Signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have agreed to work towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

The members, meeting at the UN in New York, called for a conference in 2012 attended by Middle Eastern states – including Iran – to establish the zone.

The unanimously agreed document also said that Israel should sign the NPT. US President Barack Obama backed the deal but said he was “strongly opposed” to Israel being singled out. The US says the reference could jeopardise efforts to persuade the Israelis to attend the 2012 talks.

The decision was crucial to the success of a month-long conference on strengthening the NPT, says the BBC’s United Nations correspondent Barbara Plett in New York.

The treaty is seen as the cornerstone of global disarmament efforts, she adds.

The 28-page final declaration was agreed following intense talks on the last day of a month-long conference.

The document calls for the United Nations secretary general to organise a meeting of Middle East states in 2012 to agree to the creation of a “zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction”.

“All eyes the world over are watching us,” said conference president Libran Cabactulan, of the Philippines, as the final text was approved.

Egypt’s Maged Abedelaziz, speaking for the Non-Aligned Movement of 118 developing nations, welcomed the decision, saying it was “an important step forward towards the realisation of the goals and objectives of the treaty”.

Sticking points
Diplomats discussing the proposals had continued talks late into the night on Thursday before resuming on Friday.

One of the sticking points involved Israel, a non-member of the NPT, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons although it has never admitted to possessing them.

Arab states and Israel’s allies had to work hard to find agreement over wording for the proposed nuclear-weapons-free zone.

Correspondents say Arab nations want to put pressure on Israel to relinquish its undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Iran also made a late demand that the five recognised nuclear-armed nations agree to a timetable for negotiating a treaty to abolish their arsenals.

In the final document adopted, no specific timetable is set out but the five states commit to “accelerate concrete progress” towards reducing their nuclear arsenals and to report back on that in 2014.

Iran has faced repeated questions over its own nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making weapons. Tehran insists it is solely designed to meet its energy needs.

Iran, a member of the NPT, says it will stick to its obligations under the treaty.

The NPT has encountered difficulty in coming up with the best method for monitoring suspect nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea.

India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – which are known or suspected to have nuclear weapons – are not signatories to the treaty. They are not covered by any NPT agreement.

The NPT conference meets every five years. The last review conference, in 2005, failed to adopt a consensus declaration.

The last line of the report says it all. Failed.

[Source: BBC Online | Cartoon: Cox & Forkum]

NOTE: Since AFP have pulled their video from Un:dhimmi, we have decided to replace it with video content from Press TV – the media mouthpiece of the Iranian government, instead. The content is similar – but you will need to take account of the blatant bias.

If AFP had not intended to share their video content publicly, why did they post it on a public video sharing site? In doing so, they have undermined not only their own credibility, but the very purpose of YouTube. Shame on them.

The students clapped and cheered as a Hezbollah fighter perched on a rocket launcher paraded past. Later, they snapped photographs with guerrilla fighters, getting a firsthand account of the group’s tactics against Israel on the battlefield.

Excursions like the one more than 400 Lebanese university students took Saturday to a Hezbollah stronghold in south Lebanon are part of the militant group’s push to promote itself through “jihadi tourism” to mark the 10th anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The efforts also include a sprawling new war museum touting Hezbollah’s history.

It’s a way for the militant group to showcase its military prowess at a time when Israel and the US say the Iranian-backed group is acquiring more sophisticated weaponry. “We are bringing students to the area previously occupied by Israel, to show them how the resistance, with its meagre capabilities, was able to defeat the strongest army in the world,” said Jihad Hammoud, one of the organisers of the student tours.

Hezbollah guerrillas waged a war of attrition against Israeli forces occupying a strip of Lebanese territory along the Israeli border until May 2000, when, faced with rising casualties, Israel withdrew it troops, ending a 22-year military presence there.

The Israeli withdrawal crowned Hezbollah as a heroic organisation viewed by many Lebanese and Arabs as a liberator that won back territory without negotiations or concessions. The group further burnished its reputation after its guerrilla fighters battled the Israelis to a draw during the monthlong 2006 war.

Hezbollah has not fired any rockets on Israel since then, but is widely believed to have replenished its weapons stockpile and says it can now strike deeper into Israel.

It has also consolidated its power in the domestic political arena, joining the Western-backed coalition in a national unity government that ensures it has veto power within the cabinet.

A UN deal to end the 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite militants required Hezbollah to disarm, but Lebanon’s
politicians have been unable to agree on a national defence strategy that would integrate the group’s weapons into the regular armed forces.

Just your typical student trip: Lebanese university students gather around an anti-aircraft gun for a lecture by a Hizballah terrorist

At the site, the students were led through the rough, rocky terrain to a spot that Hezbollah officials said was where Hadi Nasrallah, the son of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, was killed while conducting a guerrilla raid on Israeli positions in 1997.

“This is the spot where he was martyred,” explained a Hezbollah tour guide, pointing to a blue prayer mat on a mound of earth hidden amid trees. The students mingled and snapped photographs with Hezbollah fighters, who asked that no pictures of their faces be taken.

The students cheered as an anti-aircraft gunner and a katyusha rocket launcher used to fight Israel were paraded past, while speakers belted out excerpts of Nasrallah speeches.
Hezbollah has recently been trying to reinvent itself as a more conventional political movement in Lebanon, and projects such as the museum and student tours suggest the group is attempting to reach out to more factions
within a Lebanese society split over Hezbollah’s divisive role in the country.

“This is an excellent, very well organised trip,” said 19-year-old Rana Mhaydleh, a student of math and science at the university. “I think it’s very important to get a first hand look at Hezbollah because there are a lot of prejudices out there.”

The weekly student tours are part of Hezbollah activities marking the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal. The anniversary comes amid US and Israeli concerns that Hezbollah has acquired increasingly advanced weapons from backers Syria and Iran.

Hezbollah has neither confirmed nor denied the Israeli claims, but Nasrallah has said his group now has rockets that can strike deeper than ever inside Israel, including Tel Aviv.
The tensions have fuelled concerns of another war in the Middle East. Hezbollah has expressed confidence that it would win a future war and says any new conflict with Israel will change the face of the region.

After Sunday’s visit to Sojod, the students were taken to a newly inaugurated Hezbollah war museum in the nearby village of Mlita, replete with war booty captured from Israeli soldiers and their Lebanese militia allies and a memorial for the group’s dead.

“We hope this tourist jihadi centre will be a first step toward preserving the history of our heroic resistance,” Nasrallah told supporters via video link at Friday’s inauguration of the Mlita museum.
In a nod to Hezbollah’s rivals, Nasrallah cited Israeli Holocaust museums to stress the importance of preserving history.

“Everywhere you go there is a Holocaust museum, regardless of (the Holocaust’s) authenticity, accuracy or magnitude,” he said.

The sprawling Mlita complex – 60,000 square meters – includes a gallery, caves and a 250-meter-long downhill terrain that features life size replicas of Hezbollah guerrillas simulating fighting with Israel on the battlefield and in underground tunnels.

It is not the first time the group has exhibited war booty at a museum, but the one inaugurated Friday is permanent and by far the largest. Israel has condemned such museums, saying they promote hatred. Several Lebanese officials, including representatives of the president and prime minister, attended Friday’s inauguration. Noam Chomsky, a prominent

American academic and outspoken Jewish critic of Israel, was also there.
Hezbollah and Israel fought an inconclusive monthlong war in 2006 that killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon and about 160 in Israel.

While some believe a new war is inevitable, others say the new balance of power makes it unlikely.
“The cost of an attack … has become so high that warfare no longer makes the same kind of sense it did in decades past,” wrote political analyst Rami Khouri in the Daily Star Saturday.

Regular readers will know that we have been recording the slide of Lebanon into a Shia-led Islamist proxy of Iran for some time.

Lebanon will almost certainly become a Sharia state, in which the substantial non-Muslim population will be cowed into Dhimmitude; and which will substantially escalate the existential threat to the Jewish state.

[Source: Associated Press]