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Iran Wants Be a Super Power

Iran Wants Be a Super Power: "

Iran Wants Be a Super Power: ‘Iran’s nuclear weapons program is about more than destroying the ‘Zionist Entity.’ Iran wants to be a super power on the scale of the United States. Iraq acts like a super power feeding little satellite countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Nothing makes Iran happier than tweaking at the United States because its President Aym-a-shithead feels that once it develops nuclear weapons Iran will be on par with the evil Satan, the USA.

Iran’s Global Ambition

by Michael Rubin

While the United States has focused its attention on Iranian activities in the greater Middle East, Iran has worked assiduously to expand its influence in Latin America and Africa. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s outreach in both areas has been deliberate and generously funded. He has made significant strides in Latin America, helping to embolden the anti-American bloc of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. In Africa, he is forging strong ties as well. The United States ignores these developments at its peril, and efforts need to be undertaken to reverse Iran’s recent gains.

Both before and after the Islamic Revolution, Iran has aspired to be a regional power. Prior to 1979, Washington supported Tehran’s ambitions-after all, the shah provided a bulwark against both communist and radical Arab nationalism. Following the Islamic Revolution, however, U.S. officials viewed Iranian visions of grandeur warily.

This wariness has grown as the Islamic Republic pursues nuclear technology in contravention to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards agreement and multiple United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions. In addition, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has played an increasingly destabilizing role in Iran’s immediate neighborhood.[1] But while U.S. officials scramble to devise a strategy to contain, deter, and perhaps roll back Iranian influence in the greater Middle East, Ahmadinejad’s government and the IRGC, flush with cash and overconfident with recent success, now aspire to be worldwide players.

Compartmentalized State Department and Defense Department officers focus on Iranian influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf states, and the Palestinian Authority, but a broader perspective that spans country desks suggests that the Islamic Republic now seeks to become a global power. Under Ahmadinejad, Iranian officials have pursued a coordinated diplomatic, economic, and military strategy to expand their influence in Latin America and Africa. They have found success not only in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, but also in Senegal, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. These new alliances will together challenge U.S. interests in these states and in the wider region, especially if Tehran pursues an inkblot strategy to expand its influence to other regional states.

Latin America: Challenging the Monroe Doctrine

There has long been an Iranian presence in Latin America. Some time ago, Hezbollah established itself at the point where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet.[2] Terrorists linked to Iran bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish community center in the same city in 1994. In 2006, Argentine prosecutors issued warrants for former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others on charges of ordering and masterminding the 1994 attack.[3] The Hezbollah presence in the region has remained a source of concern for policymakers to the present.[4]

Only under Ahmadinejad, though, has the Iranian government pursued a sustained effort to reach out to Latin American countries. Using hundreds of millions-if not billions-of dollars in aid and assistance, Ahmadinejad has worked to create an anti-American bloc with Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. While Ahmadinejad’s first priority may be to solidify diplomatic support among third-world countries, his baiting-and the subsequent baiting by his allies-of Washington and his efforts to further destabilize the neighborhood suggest that he now seeks a permanent Iranian presence on the U.S. doorstep.

The cornerstone of Ahmadinejad’s Latin America policy is the formation of an anti-American axis with Venezuela, a goal driven as much by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez as it is by the Iranian leader. During a July 2006 visit to Tehran, Chávez told a Tehran University crowd, ‘We have to save humankind and put an end to the U.S. empire.’[5] The two met again just two months later during the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Havana.[6] When Chávez again visited Tehran-just a year after his first visit-supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei granted him an audience,[7] an honor bestowed only upon political figures the Iranian leadership deems its closest partners. At the time, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki quipped that ‘Hugo Chávez is becoming-or rather has already become-a household name in Iran and perhaps the region, thanks to his frequent trips to the Islamic Republic.’[8] Ahmadinejad and Chávez used the visit to declare an ‘Axis of Unity’ against the United States.[9]

Shuttle diplomacy has gone both ways. Just two months after fêting Chávez in Tehran, Ahmadinejad visited him in Caracas.[10] ‘Together we are surely growing stronger, and in truth no one can defeat us,’ he told the Venezuelan press.[11] Standing beside Chávez during a trip to Tehran just four months later-Chávez’s fourth visit to the Iranian capital in just two years-Ahmadinejad declared, ‘The peoples of Iran and Venezuela will stand shoulder to shoulder with the disadvantaged nations of the world in spite of the opposition of World Imperialism,’ which is Ahmadinejad’s moniker for the United States.[12]

Whereas Iran plies poorer countries with aid on condition that they alter their stances toward the United States, both Iran and Venezuela are oil rich, and so the relationship is more cooperative. Certainly, Tehran appreciates Chávez’s diplomatic interventions. Indeed, had Venezuela been victorious in its efforts to win a UN Security Council seat in 2006, it is doubtful that Washington or its European allies would have achieved the symbolic victory of unanimous Security Council resolutions sanctioning Iran’s nuclear program.[13]

Both leaders use their mutual embrace to overcome international isolation and sanctions. During his July 2007 visit to Tehran, Chávez presented Ahmadinejad with an Airbus A340-200 as a sign of friendship[14] at a time when many Western countries looked askance at exporting modern aircraft to the Islamic Republic for fear that a plane might be cannibalized for spare parts in support of Iran’s aging military fleet. Such cooperation has made moot the efforts of U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to offer such concessions in order to entice greater Iranian compliance toward its international commitments. For example, just months after she agreed that U.S. companies could export spare aircraft parts to Iran,[15] Ahmadinejad announced the commencement of scheduled passenger flights between Tehran and Caracas.[16]

Both leaders have also used their solidarity to support the other against domestic criticism. On opening two Iranian factories in Caracas, Chávez lauded the ‘achievements made after the Islamic Revolution,’ contrasting them sharply with life under the shah[17]-comments that meant little to the Venezuelan audience but helped Ahmadinejad deflect domestic criticism of his management of Iran’s failing economy. Ahmadinejad, for his part, parroted Chávez’s anti-American rhetoric to the Venezuelan audience, supporting the populist president’s contention that Venezuelan ills derive from U.S. plots rather than economic mismanagement.[18] More bizarre have been reports-clearly false-that ‘entire native tribes’ in Venezuela have converted to Shia Islam.[19] Such propaganda, however, plays well to clerical constituencies in Iran that may feel that their president’s adventurism runs contrary to more immediate Iranian regional interests.

Increased trade has augmented the diplomatic embrace. As Chávez moved to nationalize Western oil facilities in Venezuela,[20] the Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA announced a $4 billion joint Iran-Venezuela oil production project in east-central Venezuela.[21] In April 2007, Mottaki bragged that bilateral trade between Venezuela and the Islamic Republic would soon total $18 billion,[22] which, even if an exaggeration, is nevertheless a sign of Iranian strategy to pursue soft power influence. Several recent visitors to Caracas have commented on the number of Iranians in the city’s hotels.

Cuba, of course, has been part of the Iranian-Venezuelan embrace, although Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s illness and the communist island nation’s poverty may have dampened its utility as a primary player. Besides hosting the Non-Aligned Movement meeting in 2006, however, Havana has joined Tehran and Caracas in efforts to form a joint shipping line[23]-an asset that, given the disorganization of U.S. and European sanctions enforcement, might help each country bypass certain sanctions. Not every shipping company, for example, may be as compliant with Tehran’s sensitivities as one operated by Cubans and Venezuelans. There have already been reports-refuted by the Venezuelan ambassador in Tehran-that Venezuela has enabled Iranian scientists to conduct some nuclear work in the South American state, out of the view of international inspectors.[24]

Both Tehran and Caracas have used their petrodollar windfall to encourage states in Latin America and Africa to embark upon confrontational policies toward the United States.[25] Perhaps the primary beneficiaries in Latin America have been Nicaragua and Bolivia. Just days after Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega’s inauguration, Ahmadinejad reveled in the former socialist revolutionary’s return to power. ‘The two nations share identical ideals’ and a common enemy in the United States, Ahmadinejad said.[26] Ortega endorsed ’strong bonds’ between the ‘two nations and [their] revolutions.’[27] Iran’s embassy in Managua is now the largest diplomatic mission in the city.[28] Ortega returned Ahmadinejad’s visit within months of taking office, traveling to Tehran on a jet lent by Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.[29] In Tehran, Ahmadinejad spoke of growing Iranian-Nicaraguan ties as the cornerstones of ‘an order based on justice, peace and brotherhood.’[30] In a subsequent session with Ortega, Khamenei spoke of their mutual antipathy toward the United States.[31]

Venezuela might be able to stand on its own, but Nicaragua cannot. The Islamic Republic’s embrace of Nicaragua came with strings attached. Storm-ravaged and unfriendly to investors, Nicaragua gained a needed cash infusion. In the months after Ortega’s visit to the Islamic Republic, the two countries signed a number of trade accords,[32] and Tehran agreed to finance a $350 million Nicaraguan port.[33] After the announcement of these deals, Ortega called the United States ‘a terrorist nation’[34] and later endorsed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.[35] Alluding to this program, Ahmadinejad even offered to transfer ‘up-to-date experiences and knowledge to Nicaragua.’[36] One seasoned Nicaraguan ambassador, slightly embarrassed by Ortega’s pro-Iranian rhetoric, told an interlocutor that not only Tehran but also Caracas had made aid to Nicaragua contingent upon Managua’s frequent statements of support for Tehran. Regardless of whether Nicaragua is motivated by Venezuelan cash or ideological antipathy toward the United States, an isolated Tehran gains an ally with ‘identical and common political views.’[37]

Bolivia, too, has become an important Iranian ally. Under the leadership of Juan Evo Morales, La Paz has welcomed alliance with Tehran. As with Nicaragua, Bolivia gets aid-upwards of $1.1 billion in ‘industrial cooperation’[38]-and Iran gets a diplomatic ally. On September 4, 2007, amid international efforts to augment sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca Céspedes endorsed ‘Iran’s nuclear rights’ and called for international support for the Islamic Republic’s position.[39] Tehran rewarded Bolivia with the opening of an embassy in La Paz,[40] certainly a sign that Tehran no longer saw the landlocked South American country as peripheral to its interests.

There is nothing wrong with countries engaging with other countries. Tehran could argue that they have as much interest in strong relations with Latin America as Washington has with the Persian Gulf emirates or newly independent Central Asian or Caucasian republics. But it would be dangerous to dismiss Iranian outreach as altruistic and irrelevant to U.S. national security concerns.

The Islamic Republic’s state broadcasting authority has in recent months established partnerships with its Bolivian and Nicaraguan counterparts, not only to help these countries expand their own messaging, but also to have a platform for Iranian-sponsored broadcasts ‘for all of Latin America.’[41] The idea that Ahmadinejad might see Latin America as a beachhead from which to conduct an aggressive strategy against the United States and its allies gained further credence when, earlier this month, Colombian forces raided a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) encampment and seized a computer whose files referenced FARC plans to purchase fifty kilograms of uranium,[42] raising concern among some U.S. officials that the purchase may have been facilitated with Iranian money and offices.

Africa: Iran’s Next Frontier

With successive U.S. administrations and European governments effectively ignoring Africa, Tehran sees its fifty-two countries as diplomatic easy picking. On January 29, 2008, Mottaki declared that this year would mark a ‘milestone in Iran-Africa ties.’[43] Three days later, while attending the Africa Union summit in Addis Ababa, Mottaki announced that Iran would soon host a summit of African foreign ministers in Tehran.[44]

The traditional pattern in which Iranian actions fail to live up to diplomatic rhetoric also appears to be changing in Africa, with Tehran developing strong partnerships with a number of states. The Islamic Republic has forged particularly strong ties with Senegal, once a Cold War ally of the United States but now quietly turning into West Africa’s Venezuela. President Abdoulaye Wade has traveled twice to Tehran to meet with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, first in 2006 and again in 2008.[45] During his most recent visit, he provided a backdrop for Khamenei to declare that developing unity between Islamic countries like Senegal and Iran can weaken ‘the great powers’ like the United States.[46] It would be a mistake to dismiss this as a rhetorical flourish: on January 27, 2008, a week after Senegalese foreign minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio announced that he, too, would visit Tehran, Minister of Armed Forces Becaye Diop met with his Iranian counterpart to discuss expanding bilateral defense ties between the two states.[47]

Senior Iranian officials have returned the visits. On July 22, 2007, judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi and government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham-among the closest confidantes of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, respectively-departed for Dakar, where they met Wade and Senegalese prime minister Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré. Shahroudi declared, ‘We believe it is our duty to expand ties with Islamic countries and use the capabilities and potentials [sic] of Muslim states to help the growth and spread of Islam.’[48] On March 12, 2008, Ahmadinejad left for a visit to the West African state.[49]

While the Iranian leadership might be most interested in expanding a Muslim bloc-especially one that might supplant the influence of Sunni Arab states-the Senegalese leadership seems most interested in immediate economic benefits. ‘Energy, Oil Prospecting, Industry: Senegal Benefits from Iranian Solutions,’ a headline in the official government newspaper declared after Wade’s first visit to Tehran.[50] After the reciprocal Iranian visit, Wade announced that Iran would build an oil refinery, a chemical plant, and an $80 million car assembly plant in the West African nation.[51] Within weeks, Samuel Sarr, Senegal’s energy minister, visited Tehran and returned with a pledge that Iran would supply Senegal with oil for a year and purchase a 34 percent stake in Senegal’s oil refinery.[52] Such aid probably came with strings attached. On November 25, 2007, during the third meeting of the Iran-Senegal joint economic commission, Wade endorsed Iran’s nuclear program.[53]

Senegal is not alone among those countries Tehran is cultivating. While Iranian officials trumpet Islam during meetings with Muslim officials, the Islamic Republic is willing to embrace any African state-Muslim or not-that finds itself estranged from the West in general and the United States in particular. Here, Sudan and Zimbabwe especially have been beneficiaries. Both European governments and Washington have sought to isolate Sudan for what many international human rights groups deem genocide in Darfur. As the international community sought to tighten diplomatic sanctions on Khartoum, Ahmadinejad moved to embrace Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.[54] Ahmadinejad was forthright: Iranian-Sudanese ties should be built around the understanding that both governments would defend each other in international settings.[55] Just this month, Iran’s defense minister visited Khartoum and called the African state ‘the cornerstone’ of the Islamic Republic’s Africa policies.[56]

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s longtime president, has been as poisonous for his country as Bashir has been for Sudan. Mugabe’s government demonizes racial and ethnic minorities, and his economic policies have forced the breadbasket of southern Africa to face famine.[57] But as the international community has isolated Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, Tehran has reached out to fill the gap. Iranian politicians may speak of their commitment to social justice, but their crass indifference to social issues and public health and well-being are on display as they work to transform Africa’s most brutal dictatorship into a pillar of Iranian influence in Africa. Mottaki initiated outreach to Zimbabwe on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2006.[58] The two countries pledged uniformity of policy.[59] At a Tehran press conference in November of that year, Mugabe said, ‘Iran and Zimbabwe think alike and have been described [as belonging to] the ‘Axis of Evil.’ . . . Those countries that think alike should come together.’[60] In subsequent days, the two countries signed deals to boost energy cooperation, restart Zimbabwe’s defunct oil refinery, and underwrite agricultural policies that have left the southern African nation on the brink of famine.[61] The Iranian ambassador in Harare pledged to help Mugabe repel sanctions.[62]

South Africa has become another Iranian regional ally. Grateful for the Islamic Republic’s opposition to apartheid, the two countries formally reestablished relations in 1994. While subsequent bilateral rhetoric was always warm, in recent years, Tehran has used oil and trade to develop its ties with Pretoria. The Iranian strategy is deliberate. ‘South Africa is a key member of the Non-Aligned Movement, a bloc of developing countries that has resisted the efforts to force Tehran to halt uranium enrichment,’ explained a commentary in Iran’s official English-language newspaper.[63]

Having failed to get Venezuela onto the UN Security Council, the Iranian government has been anxious to exploit South Africa’s rotating membership and its presence on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) board of governors.[64] In February 2007, for example, Ali Larijani, then the nuclear negotiator for Iran, traveled to South Africa to meet with President Thabo Mbeki.[65] The strategy has paid dividends. Despite the February 2008 IAEA report that found that the Islamic Republic continued to enrich uranium in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards agreement and two UN Security Council resolutions,[66] the South African government has used its rotating membership on the UN Security Council to advocate against any further sanctions.[67]

Iranian officials have been just as energetic in cultivating smaller African states. In September 2007, interim Iranian oil minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari pledged cooperation to exploit Uganda’s newfound oil field,[68] and two months later, the Export Development Bank of Iran pledged $1 million to underwrite microfinance in Uganda.[69] In November, Mottaki also announced an initiative to expand relations with Malawi[70] after that country’s president endorsed Iran’s right to pursue nuclear technology.[71] The same month, Mottaki welcomed the Côte d’Ivoire foreign minister to Tehran[72]-again, after the West African nation’s ambassador threw his country’s support behind Iran in the dispute with the UN Security Council over Iran’s nuclear program.[73] Indeed, while the Iranian government spreads millions of dollars around Africa, its aid appears conditional upon support. In recent weeks, the Iranian government has used declarations by the leaders of Lesotho, Mauritania, Mali, and Namibia to bolster support for its nuclear program.[74]

Conclusion

Iran will remain at the forefront of U.S. concern well into the next administration. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, a joint product of the sixteen organizations comprising the U.S. intelligence community, undercut both a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear defiance and the ability of the Bush administration to constrain Iran’s program through unilateral action.[75] The January 6, 2008, confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz between U.S. warships and IRGC speedboats only underscored the tension.

Absent a diplomatic solution or the prospect of a viable military option, many in Washington embrace containment and deterrence as plan B. For example, General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command until March 2007, said, ‘I believe we have the power to deter Iran, should it become nuclear. . . . There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran.’[76] Containing Iran, however, is easier said than done.

Throughout his administration’s second term, Bush has struggled to convince regional allies that his commitments to them are solid. As a result, regional U.S. allies like Egypt, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, and Turkey now seek separate accommodation with Iran.

But even as dozens of diplomats, intelligence analysts, and military officers focus on how to counter Iranian strategy in the region and enhance U.S. public diplomacy, the Iranian challenge has grown far broader. The United States has a compartmentalized strategy; Iran has a global strategy that Washington has been unable to counter: for every three trips Ahmadinejad takes to Latin America, Bush takes one.

The chances for long-term Iranian success may be doubtful-Latin American and African countries may welcome Iranian aid and take advantage of Tehran’s soft power with the same enthusiasm with which they sometimes divert U.S. Agency for International Development and World Bank assistance, but any ideological solidarity will be far more limited to each country’s immediate leadership. Still, Ahmadinejad’s outreach to Latin America and Africa can do damage. The Islamic Republic is not an altruistic power. Its aid is conditional, and sometimes these conditions run counter to U.S. interests. At the very least, Tehran’s newfound allies in Latin America and Africa provide needed diplomatic solace and enable Iranian authorities to launder dual use goods and, in theory, outsource suspect weapons research. More worrisome, the Islamic Republic might use its new havens to destabilize neighboring states-indeed, Tehran may be cooperating with Caracas to undermine Álvaro Uribe’s administration in Colombia-or as launching pads for terrorism against U.S. interests. The Pentagon may have strengthened its facilities in the Persian Gulf, but Iran and its proxies may find U.S. interests in places like Cancun and the Caribbean more vulnerable. Just as in 1972 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine outsourced a terrorist attack on Israel’s main airport to the Japanese Red Army, IRGC planners may find their African and Latin American allies compliant in their desire to lash out at U.S. interests, especially if cooperation comes with further financial reward. The 1994 Buenos Aires bombing already demonstrates Tehran’s willingness to attack soft targets half a world away.

If the Bush administration and its successor continue to ignore Iran’s growing global ambitions and do not implement a strategy to reverse Ahmadinejad’s recent gains, Washington may find that Iran, not the United States, holds the upper hand in a high-stakes game of deterrence.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI, and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Rubin thanks AEI colleagues Ali Alfoneh, Megan Davy, Mauro De Lorenzo, and Mark Falcoff for their help and advice. AEI editorial assistant Christy Hall Robinson worked with Mr. Rubin to edit and produce this Middle Eastern Outlook.

1. See Frederick W. Kagan, Danielle Pletka, and Kimberly Kagan, Iranian Influence in the Levant, Iraq, and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: AEI, 2008), available at www.aei.org/publication27526/.
2. See, for example, Todd Lewan, ‘Hunt for Islamic Terrorists Leads to Border Region,’ Associated Press, September 19, 1994.
3. ‘Iran Charged over Argentina Bomb,’ BBC News, October 25, 2006, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6085768.stm (accessed March 10, 2008).
4. See, for example, Matthew Levitt, ‘Hezbollah Finances: Funding the Party of God,’ in Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Jeanne Giraldo and Harold Trinkunas, 134-51 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
5. ‘Chávez Decorated in Iran; Initials Cooperation Pacts,’ ElUniversal.com (Caracas), July 31, 2006.
6. Anita Snow, ‘U.S. Foes Meet at Nonaligned Summit,’ Associated Press, September 15, 2006.
7. ‘Iranian Supreme Leader Receives Venezuelan President,’ Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) (Tehran), July 1, 2007.
8. Kayhan International (Tehran), July 2, 2007.
9. Parisa Hafezi, ‘Iran, Venezuela in ‘Axis of Unity’ against U.S.,’ Reuters, July 2, 2007.
10. ‘Ahmadinejad Due in Bolivia, Venezuela,’ IRNA, September 26, 2007.
11. ‘Ahmadinejad Cements Ties with Chávez,’ chinadaily. com.cn, September 29, 2007.
12. ‘Rais-e jomhour dar mosahebeh-ye matbou’ati-ye moshtarek ba Chavez: Dowlat-e Mellat-e Iran va Venezuela ala-raghm-e meil-e estrtekbar-e jahani, dar kenar-e mellat-ha-ye mahroum khahad istad,’ Iranian Student News Agency (Tehran), November 19, 2007.
13. See, for example, United Nations (UN) Security Council, Resolution 1737 (2006), December 23, 2006, available at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement
UN Security Council, Resolution 1747 (2007), March 24, 2007, available at http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/5891176.html (accessed March 13, 2008).
14. ‘Tahvil-e havapayma-ye jadid airbus az keshvar Venezuela beh havapaymale-e jomhuri eslame iran,’ Fars News Agency (Tehran), July 1, 2007.
15. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, ‘Approval of License Request for Civilian Aircraft Spare Parts to Iran Air,’ U.S. Department of State, October 10, 2006, available at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/73811.htm (accessed March 12, 2008).
16. ‘Iran, Venezuela to Start Direct Flights,’ Fars News Agency, February 10, 2007; and ‘First Tehran-Caracas Plane Lands in Damascus,’ IRNA, March 2, 2007.
17. ‘Chávez Hails IRI Achievements,’ Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (Tehran), June 24, 2007.
18. Rafael Noboa, ‘Chávez, Ahmadinejad Solidify Iran-Venezuela Ties,’ Agence France-Presse, September 18, 2006.
19. ‘Gerayesh-e dast-e jam’i-ye be eslam dar barkhi qaba’el Amrika-ye latin,’ Raja News (Tehran), November 4, 2007; and ‘Hemayat-e gostardeh Chavez va Castro az moballeghan-e eslami dar Amrika-ye Latin,’ Rasa News (Tehran), December 7, 2007.
20. Juan Forero and Steve Inskeep, ‘Chávez Nationalizes Venezuelan Oil Fields,’ Morning Edition, National Public Radio, May 1, 2007.
21. ‘Iran, Venezuela to Invest $4 bln in Joint Oil Project,’ Fars News Agency, July 12, 2007.
22. ‘FM: Iran, Venezuela to Increase Financial Ties up to USD 18bn,’ IRNA, April 20, 2007.
23. ‘Iran, Latin Countries Launch Joint Shipping Line,’ Fars News Agency, November 5, 2007.
24. ‘Safir-e Venezuela dar Tehran: Az ehtemal hamkari-ye hastehi-ye Iran va Venezuela bi khabaram,’ Aftab-e Yazd (Yazd), November 15, 2007.
25. Natalie Obiko Pearson, ‘Iran and Venezuela Plan Anti-U.S. Fund,’ USA Today, January 14, 2007.
26. ‘Ortega Symbol of Nicaragua’s Justice-Seeking,’ Fars News Agency, January 15, 2007.
27. Ibid.
28. Andres Oppenheimer, ‘Beware Iran in Latin America,’ Miami Herald, September 30, 2007.
29. ‘Nicaraguan President to Visit Iran,’ Fars News Agency, June 4, 2007.
30. ‘Iran, Nicaragua Stress Solidarity,’ Fars News Agency, June 10, 2007.
31. ‘Iran Slams U.S. as It Hails Nicaragua’s Ortega,’ Fars News Agency, June 11, 2007.
32. ‘Nicaragua Signs Accords with Iran,’ Fars News Agency, August 5, 2007.
33. ‘Iran Deepens Ties with Nicaragua,’ Fars News Agency, August 6, 2007; and ‘Iran, Nicaragua Strike Trade Deal,’ Fars News Agency, August 12, 2007.
34. ‘Nicaragua Building Ties with Iran,’ Fars News Agency, August 15, 2007.
35. ‘Iran, Nicaragua Eye Energy Cooperation,’ Fars News Agency, February 10, 2008.
36. ‘Iran, Nicaragua Underline Cooperation among Free Nations,’ Fars News Agency, June 10, 2007.
37. ‘Iran Defends Nicaragua’s Progress, Independence,’ Fars News Agency, June 11, 2007.
38. ‘Bolivia: Iran to Invest in 25 Industrial Projects,’ Fars News Agency, October 9, 2007; and Andres Oppenheimer, ‘Beware Iran in Latin America.’
39. ‘Bolivia Calls on World to Support Iran’s N. Rights,’ Fars News Agency, September 4, 2007.
40. ‘Ijad safarkhaneh-ye Iran dar La Paz,’ Tabnak (Tehran), January 1, 2008.
41. ‘Iran and Nicaragua to Expand Media Cooperation,’ Tehran Times (Iran), December 18, 2007; and ‘Iran to Open TV Station in Bolivia,’ Associated Press, February 19, 2008.
42. U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, ‘Ros-Lehtinen Continues to Raise Concerns over Iran-Venezuela Ties,’ news release, March 4, 2008.
43. ‘FM: 2008 a Milestone in Iran-Africa Ties,’ Fars News Agency, January 30, 2008.
44. ‘Tehran to Host Iran-Africa Summit,’ Press TV (Tehran), February 1, 2008.
45. ‘Communiqué conjoint de la visite officielle de Son Excellence Me Abdoulaye Wade, président de la République du Sénégal en République Islamique d’Iran,’ Le Soleil (Dakar), June 29, 2006.
46. ‘Maqam mo’azzam-e rahabari zaban-e Amrika va Abargodrat-ha ra zaban-e tahdid va er’ab danestand,’ IRNA, February 28, 2008.
47. ‘Senegalese DM Meets Iranian Counterpart,’ Fars News Agency, January 28, 2008.
48. ‘Senegal Stresses Expansion of Ties with Iran,’ Fars News Agency, July 29, 2007.
49. ‘President Leaves for Senegal,’ Fars News Agency, March 12, 2008.
50. ‘Énergie, Prospection Pétrolière, Industrie: Le Sénégal bénéficie des solutions iraniennes,’ Le Soleil, June 28, 2006.
51. ‘Iran to Build Oil Refinery, Chemical Plant in Senegal,’ Fars News Agency, August 4, 2007.
52. ‘Iran to Supply Crude Oil to Senegal,’ Fars News Agency, August 28, 2007.
53. ‘Senegalese President: Nuclear Technology Is Iran’s Legitimate Right,’ IRNA, November 25, 2007.
54. ‘Ahmadinejad to Leave for Sudan,’ Fars News Agency, February 27, 2007.
55. ‘Ahmadinejad: Iran, Sudan Defend Each Other at Int’l Bodies,’ Fars News Agency, March 2, 2007.
56. ‘Sudan, noqteh-ye ateka-ye rivabat-e Iran va Africa ast,’ Aftab-e Yazd, March 7, 2008.
57. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ‘Zimbabwe,’ in Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-2006, March 6, 2007, available at www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78765.htm (accessed March 12, 2008).
58. ‘Iran, Zimbabwe Voice Enthusiasm for Deepening Ties,’ Fars News Agency, September 22, 2006.
59. ‘FM Stresses Iran, Zimbabwe Joint Stances,’ Fars News Agency, November 19, 2006.
60. ‘Iran, Zimbabwe Vow to Resist U.S. Dominance,’ Fars News Agency, November 21, 2006.
61. ‘Zimbabwean Agriculture Equipped with Iranian Technology,’ Fars News Agency, November 23, 2006; ‘Iran to Launch Zimbabwe’s Oil Refinery,’ Fars News Agency, November 25, 2006; and ‘Zim Strikes Oil Deal,’ Reuters, December 17, 2007.
62. ‘Iran to Help Zimbabwe Beat off Sanctions,’ Fars News Agency, February 12, 2008.
63. ‘Pretoria’s Pro-Iran Stance Can Boost Progress in Global South,’ Tehran Times, February 7, 2008.
64. ‘SA Commends Iran’s Stance on Nuclear Program,’ IRNA, September 14, 2007.
65. ‘Iranian Atomic Negotiator to Hold Talks with South Africa’s Mbeki,’ International Herald Tribune, February 25, 2007.
66. International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,’ report by the director general, February 22, 2008, available at www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2008/gov2008-4.pdf (accessed March 13, 2008).
67. ‘Security Council Edges towards Adoption of Iran Sanctions,’ Citizen (Johannesburg), February 29, 2008; and ‘UN Iran Resolution Disregarded IAEA-S. Africa,’ Reuters, March 6, 2008.
68. ‘Iran, Uganda to Expand Energy Ties,’ Press TV, September 4, 2007.
69. ‘Uganda: Front Page Microfinance to Get Iran Funding,’ Fars News Agency, December 25, 2007.
70. ‘Mottaki amadagi Iran ra baraye tawsa’eh-ye rivabat-i hameh-ye janibeh ba Malawi ‘alam kard,’ Mehr News Agency (Tehran), November 9, 2007.
71. ‘Malawi Stresses Iran’s Right to Own Hi-Tech,’ Fars News Agency, November 9, 2007.
72. ‘Ivory Coast FM to Arrive in Tehran Tonight,’ Fars News Agency, November 25, 2007.
73. ‘Ivory Coast Blasts West for Opposing N. Iran,’ Fars News Agency, April 24, 2007; and ‘Ivory Coast: UNSC Resolutions Not Always Acceptable,’ Fars News Agency, May 8, 2007.
74. ‘African Leaders Support Iran’s N. Program,’ Fars News Agency, February 2, 2008.
75. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Intelligence Council, ‘Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,’ National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007, available at www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf (accessed March 10, 2008).
76. Robert Burns, ‘Abizaid: World Could Abide Nuclear Iran,’ Associated Press, September 17, 2007. (accessed March 13, 2008); and

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Orgy of anti-semitic cartoons in Arab media lately

Orgy of anti-semitic cartoons in Arab media lately: "

In every generation they will rise up against us. Lets hope these Jihadis hang on the nooses they set up for us.

Orgy of anti-semitic cartoons in Arab media lately: ‘The ADL has compiled a list of blatant anti-semitic cartoons from the Arab world in the wake of Reuters’ mistranslating Matan Vilnai as threatening a ‘holocaust.’

While the ‘Zionism=Nazi’ imagery is nothing new in the Arab press, they have turned it way up recently, as the ADL report shows.

Of course, Palestinian Arabs don’t have to look far for their own, very real, historic connections to Nazis. Nazis wooed Islamists to get them on their side, Nazis armed Arab terrorists in Palestine before World War II, Nazis tried, semi-successfully, to work with them during WWII, the biggest Palestinian Arab leader helped in the genocide of Jews, Arabs drafted Nazis to help fight Jews after WWII, today’s Palestinian ‘moderates’ consciously imitate Nazi symbolism, and even today neo-Nazis explicitly support Islamic terror against Israel.

My First Rule of Arab Projection is alive and well.

(h/t Suzanne)

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Rachel Corrie—->The American Muhammad al-Dura

Rachel Corrie—->The American Muhammad al-Dura: "

Rachel Corrie—->The American Muhammad al-Dura: ‘Rachel Corrie has been set up to be a martyr to the Palestinian cause by the International Solidarity Movement, yet the circumstances surrounding her death are almost as suspect as those of Muhammad al-Dura. The only difference is that we know that Corrie is dead. We also know that she jumped out of a hole and placed herself in front of an IDF bulldozer five years ago outside of the drivers sight lines and that when she left the accident site she was very much alive. What happened afterwards has been covered up by the Palestinian Authority and the International Solidarity Movement.

The Myth of Rachel Corrie

By Judy Lash Balint
FrontPageMagazine.com | 3/20/2008

Jerusalem: The news that a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist, Shadi Sukiya, was captured by an elite anti-terror unit of the Israel Defense Forces while hiding out in the Jenin offices of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) did not make a ripple in the flood of coverage from the Iraqi front in late March 2003.

Just eleven days earlier, on March 16, the ISM did make world headlines when Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old ISM member, was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah and died of her injuries.

Maybe the fact that a ‘peace organization’ was found to be defending terrorists twice in a two-week period will factor into the inquiry called by several Washington state congressional representatives into the circumstances of Rachel Corrie’s death.

With the fifth anniversary of Corrie’s death having just passed us, only one thing remains certain about the events of March 16: Corrie died in Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, under very questionable circumstances.

The questions remain: Is Israel responsible for Corrie’s death, or do the doctors at the Arab hospital where she was taken still alive after the accident bear any responsibility? What about the ISM that organizes protests in a closed military zone and encourages its members to play cat and mouse among the tanks and bulldozers? Or the Arabs who invite the ‘internationals’ to risk their lives in a war zone? How she died, exactly where she passed her last moments and who should take the blame for Rachel Corrie’s death are questions that demand answers.

The inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony raise doubts about the simplistic conclusions drawn ever since the event.

By all accounts, Rachel Corrie was one of a group of protesters attempting to disrupt the work of two IDF bulldozers leveling ground to detonate explosives in an area rife with terrorist activity. The bulldozers moved to a different area to avoid the protesters, and Corrie became separated from the group. Some of the agitators stood with a banner, while Corrie picked up a bullhorn and yelled slogans at the driver encased in the small cabin of the dozer. This went on for several hours on the afternoon of March 16. It’s the kind of activity favored by the young pro-Palestinian types who make up the ISM.

There wasn’t enough action for Corrie. According to fellow Evergreen State College student, Joseph Smith, 21, who was at the site, Corrie dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers. She fully expected that the driver would stop just in front of her. ‘We were horribly surprised,’ Smith told me by phone from Rafah the day after the incident. ‘They had been careful not to hurt us. They’d always stopped before,’ he said.

As the dozer plowed forward heaping up a pile of dirt and sand, Corrie scrambled up the pile to sit on the top. Smith says she lost her footing as the bulldozer made the earth move beneath her feet. She got pulled down, he says. ‘The driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath the mid-section of the dozer, she wasn’t run over by the tread.’

Capt. Jacob Dellal of the IDF spokespersons office confirms what Smith says about the driver: he lost sight of Rachel. Inside the cab, some six feet off the ground, visibility is very restricted. The protesters should have known that and kept within the driver’s line of sight to avoid getting hurt, Dellal asserts.

The strange thing about this part of the story is the discrepancy over the photos given to the press and posted on several pro-Arab websites.

As Smith describes to me his version of events, I ask about the series of photos printed in an Arab newspaper I picked up the morning after the incident, in Jerusalem’s Old City. ‘They aren’t of the actual incident,’ he states firmly. ‘We’d been there for three hours already, we were tired, we already had a lot of pictures.’

Yet these are the pictures used on the ISM website to document the before and after of Rachel’s interaction with the bulldozer. The same pictures are featured as a photo-essay on the site of Electronic Intifada, where they’re even attributed to Joseph Smith.

There are several shots of the back of a woman with a blond ponytail facing a bulldozer. She’s standing in an open field, wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, holding a megaphone.

Even Michael Shaik, the ISM media coordinator at the time, wouldn’t confirm that these are pictures of Corrie taken the day she died. ‘I’m fairly sure they’re of the incident,’ he tells me by phone from his Bethlehem office. In the same conversation, Shaik asks me not to contact Joe, Greg or Tom, the Rafah ISM eyewitnesses again directly: ‘They’re still in trauma.’

The pictures should have raised all kinds of questions to photo editors, but all the major newspapers and wire services chose to run the photos regardless. If there are pictures of Rachel before and after, why didn’t the same photographer consider it important to document the act of the bulldozer running her down?

Where is the mound of earth Rachel clambered up and was buried in? The woman shown lying bleeding from her nose and mouth is lying on a flat piece of ground.

So, Corrie was either knocked down by the dozer, or fell in front of it. ISMers assume that she was intentionally run over, but there’s no proof that was the driver’s intent.

The real issue is, was Rachel alive when she was taken by Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital? In other words, where did she die? Were adequate efforts made to save her in the hospital?

Again, there are conflicting stories. Joseph Smith tells me in a telephone interview the day after the tragedy, ‘She died in the hospital or on the way to the hospital.’ CNN also reported that Rachel died there. (Israeli bulldozer runs over 23-year-old woman. CNN, Monday, March 17, 2003)

In his account posted on www.arabia.com, ISMer Tom Dale has a slightly different story. On March 17 he writes: ‘I ran for an ambulance, she was gasping and her face was covered in blood from a gash cutting her face from lip to cheek. She was showing signs of brain hemorrhaging. She died in the ambulance a few minutes later of massive internal injuries.’

But Dr. Ali Mussa, director of Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital where Corrie was taken, seems confused. On the day of the event, Dr. Mussa tells AP Gaza reporter Ibrahim Barzak that Rachel died in the hospital. (American Killed in Gaza. AP. March 16, 2003)

One week later, in a telephone interview, Dr. Mussa states definitively to me that Rachel died at the scene, ‘in the soil,’ as he puts it. The main cause of death was suffocation, Mussa asserts. There were no signs of life, no heartbeat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital, he says. Mussa states that Rachel’s ribs were fractured, a fact determined by X-rays.

Doesn’t quite jive with the photo essay on the pages of the Electronic Intifada website for March 16, 2003. (Photo story: Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist by Nigel Parry and Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 16 March 2003.)

A caption under one photo of doctors leaning over a female patient reads: Rachel arrived in the Emergency Room at 5:05 p.m and doctors scrambled to save her. By 5:20 p.m, she was gone. Ha’aretz newspaper reported that Dr. Ali Mussa, a doctor at Al Najar, stated that the cause of death was skull and chest fractures. Dr. Mussa told me he was one of the treating physicians, yet he alone maintains that Rachel was dead before she was put into the ambulance.

To further complicate matters, on that same website, a report from the Palestine Monitor is cited. Here, the writer says that Rachel fractured her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to hospital, where she later died, says this report.

Just who is Dr. Ali Mussa? Clearly a man in favor with the Palestine Authority hierarchy. Dr. Mussa’s views are aired on the official website of the PA’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation: (January 27, 2003)

There, Dr. Mussa accuses Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ‘terrorist government’ of deliberately killing Palestinian children in Rafah.

A few days after the incident, ISM Media Coordinator Shaik tells me by phone from Rafah that three ISMers, Tom, Alice and Greg were in the ambulance with Rachel. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, says Michael.

But Greg Schnabel, 28, who is quoted in numerous wire service and newspaper stories, never says he witnessed the death of his comrade in the ambulance. In his account published a few days later on the ISM website, he carefully states that she died twenty minutes after arriving at the hospital.

What happened to Rachel’s body after her death? Depends whom you ask. Dr. Mussa says it was kept for 24 hours at the hospital before a Red Crescent ambulance transported it to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, via the border where an Israeli ambulance took over. l Shaik says ‘we lost track of it (her body) after she died.’ Three ISMers tried to escort the body, but only one was permitted on the ambulance on the Israeli side. According to his account, the ambulance drove straight to the Israeli Forensic Institute at Abu Kabir, where an autopsy was performed. The Israelis are trying to say she died from a blow to the head by a rock, Shaik recounts.

Speaking about the autopsy, one of Rachel’s ISM trainers, Iowa native LeAnne Clausen, a fieldworker for the Christian Peacemaker Team based in Beit Sahour, tells me: ‘The general sentiment within ISM is that the Israelis are trying to suggest perhaps Rachel was on drugs.’

In reality, IDF spokesperson Dellal says that initial Israeli investigation results indicate that the cause of death was most likely a blow to the head and chest by a blunt object, possibly a chunk of cement dug up by the bulldozer.

In keeping with ISM sympathies, Rachel received a shaheed (martyr) procession in Rafah, the day after her death. But here again, there’s confusion between reality and photo op. Some accounts noted that her coffin draped in an American flag was paraded through the streets. Yet a picture on the site of her college town’s peace movement, the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, shows Arab women holding a coffin covered by a Palestinian flag with the caption: Palestinian funeral for Rachel.

Confusion and obfuscation seem to be a trademark of the ISM. In May 2002, a number of ISMers raced past Israeli soldiers into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where dozens of Palestinian terrorists had holed up to evade capture by the IDF outside. After an agreement was reached, the ISM members refused to leave the church, holding up the solution. Then they charged that they were mistreated by clergy, who claimed the ISMers desecrated the church by smoking and drinking alcohol.

Another revealing ISM action took place shortly before the Bethlehem incident, when a number of protesters managed to make their way past IDF barricades into Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound to protect the terrorist leader.

Strange, given the fact that most ISMers are avowed anarchists decrying any kind of governmental authority. Corrie’s Swedish boyfriend and fellow ISMer told a reporter for Seattle’s The Stranger newspaper, (April 4, 2003) that Corrie could be described as an anarchist.

Still, the politics of the Ismers are predictable. Another Evergreen student who arrived in Israel around the same time as Corrie says he has ‘been at war with the multinational corporations for some time now.’ His ‘baptism of fire’ took place at the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, he proclaims.

Joe Smith, recounts his motivation to join forces with the ISM . ‘Because I felt it was one of the best ways for me to use my privilege as a white middle class American male to directly serve impoverished people of color who are under-privileged due to the Israeli and other Western governments, especially mine.

I have dedicated my life to serving such people (ed. Arabs), as I believe my over-privilege is a direct result of their under-privilege. I have benefited from their suffering, and this must stop.’

ISM activity in Rafah has more to do with being used to defend terrorists than preventing suffering of the masses. IDF efforts in Rafah were concentrated on preventing the flow of arms and explosives over the border from Egypt into the terrorist’s dens that riddled the area. Less than a week after Rachel died defending terrorists, Israeli tanks moved into Rafah , surrounded several houses, and arrested two Hamas members. IDF spokesperson, Dellal calls Rafah, ‘the most dangerous area in the West Bank and Gaza,’ and decries the provocative protests of ISM. ‘There’s nothing wrong with civil disobedience, but these people crossed the line of what was safe for everyone,’ Dellal says.

So, while the memorial services laud and remember Rachel Corrie as a peace activist murdered by Israeli occupation forces, the truth lies elsewhere.

An Israeli bulldozer injured Corrie as she tried to prevent it doing its job of protecting Israeli civilians, but she was alive when she was taken to An Najar Hospital, according to at least three eyewitnesses. Only Dr. Mussa, a man intent on accusing Israel of child killing, claims otherwise. None of Rachel’s comrades have stated they were with her in the hospital when she died. No one has commented on the extent of efforts to preserve Corrie’s life at An Najar.

And all the while, the ISM continues to encourage misguided young people from around the world,like Rachel Corrie, to spend time in the Middle East providing cover for terrorists.

Lee Kaplan gave an Excellent Blow by Blow description of the Video evidence surrounding the Rachel Corrie Scam on Atlas Shrugs a few weeks ago. You can find it here St. Pancake’s Suicide

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Just in Time For the Holidays, Jews “Cook Palestinian Children in Ovens” Says Palestinian TV

Just in Time For the Holidays, Jews “Cook Palestinian Children in Ovens” Says Palestinian TV: "

Just in Time For the Holidays, Jews ‘Cook Palestinian Children in Ovens’ Says Palestinian TV: ’

By Debbie Schlussel

Just in time for Good Friday/Easter Sunday and the Jewish holiday of Purim (which both fall tomorrow; Purim starts tonight at sundown), America’s chosen ‘peace’ partner for Israel, Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinan Authority, broadcasts that Jews cook Palestinians in ovens and that there was no Holocaust, but that the Nazis. The broadcast was aimed at children.

Carl in Jerusalem has all the details, the video, and this very disturbing picture of a Palestinian model ‘crematorium’ with ‘burning’ Palestinian dolls designed to show children that Jews cremated Palestinians.

A few responses:

1) Um, FYI, humans are not kosher, so we wouldn’t cook ‘em, much less eat ‘em.

Palestinians Tell Their Children That Jews Will Cremate Them (Dolls), Via Carl in Jerusalem

2) I remember someone cooking someone. But it was the other way around. Anyone forgot the special Muslim SS unit which helped Hitler cook the Jews in the ovens of Auschwitz, Treblinka, et al? Or how ’bout Yasser Arafat’s ancestor, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, who met with Hitler-begging him to hasten the Final Solution and to bring it to the Middle East?

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, Hangs w/ Hitler

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Proudly Inspects Muslim SS Unit

This all reminds me of a few Purims ago, in 2002, when a Saudi government newspaper published a ‘report’ that Jews used Palestinian kids’ blood in the pastry we eat on Purim-a triangular/three-cornered cookie, with fruit filling.

The blood libel of the anti-Semites never dies. It just reincarnates with more lives than a million cats.

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