YNET: Anti-Semitic items sold on Amazon, eBay Israelis tell Ynet about items on sale on online retail giants of rabbi costume depicting a money-counting, avaricious Jew and Star of David containing word ‘Jude'; items removed from the sites, but seller's account remains active.

Israeli online shoppers recently spotted anti-Semitic products, including a costume of a rabbi counting money, that was being sold on the popular online commerce websites, Amazon and eBay.

  

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Two Israelis told Ynet about several items that contained strong anti-Semitic elements displayed on the online giants' websites in April, including a yellow Star of David and a costume of a rabbi counting money. After the browsers registered their complaints, the two offensive items were removed.

A rabbi costume was presented with the model counting money (Photo: Amazon Germany)

The rabbi's costume which was available in several versions was put up for sale—with the price ranging from five to 13 euros—on Amazon's website in Germany.

Amazon used a model wearing the costume which appeared to predict an avaricious Jew redolent of traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes. The Israeli citizen who reported the item, which was not available in Israel, found it through the Facebook group "Israelis in Berlin". 

On the same day that the item went on the site, one of Amazon's browsers commented on it saying: "Is this some sort of a joke that the rabbi is counting money? Amazon, I demand you remove this anti-Semitic picture. It's such a disgrace. "

Possibly out of concern that his Amazon account would be blocked, or that matters could be taken further, the seller replaced the original photo of the costume with another one. Nevertheless, he continues selling items on Amazon in Germany.

The costume remained up for sale, but the photo was replaced (Photo: Amazon Germany)

For sale on eBay: Yellow Star of David

Several weeks ago another Israeli citizen living in Berlin informed Ynet that a yellow Star of David was being offered for sale on eBay. According to the site, the seller resides in Thailand and goes by the user name virginshop_9.

The seller has been advertising the yellow Star of David, which contains the word "Jude", for several weeks. The star was used in Nazi Germany to mark Jews in the country and in Europe as their persecution intensified. 

According to the seller, the star that came to symbolize Jewish persecution "looks perfect on jeans, jackets, clothes, vests, hats and bags."

A yellow badge was put up for sale on eBay (Photo: eBay)

After contacting the seller, the Israeli was told that she would be given a discount if she purchased a large quantity of the stars.

When Ynet contacted him and asked for his e-mail address or phone number, the seller refused to identify himself and said he is willing to communicate only through the eBay website.

A few days later, the item was removed from the site, but the seller's account remains active and he continues selling a variety of patches bearing other symbols.

eBay told Ynet that the offensive item was removed after it had been brought to the attention of the US eBay team. eBay also noted that while the seller's account had not been disabled, he was warned for violating the website's terms and conditions which are available on the site and which prohibit advertising offensive materials.    

The badge was removed, but the seller continued selling similar items (Photo: eBay)

When asked why the man's account was not shut down after he had been caught selling offensive items, eBay said that in such cases the items are removed from the website, but the seller's account is not automatically closed. Nevertheless, the site assured that such an incident would not recur in the future.

After reviewing eBay's policy regarding selling Nazi-related items, Ynet discovered that such items are still being sold on the website.

According to eBay's policy, the site says it "acknowledges the historic importance of WWII and the fact that many people across the world invest their time in collecting military-related paraphernalia.

"We authorize the sale of some of the historical items, but ban those who include Nazi propaganda, or items that offend the victims," the policy explains.

Among Nazi-related items approved for sale by eBay are stamps, letters and envelopes with Nazi postmarks, money issued by the Nazi government, kits containing Nazi symbols and other religious and historic items that were manufactured prior to 1933, including swastikas.

A phone case sold on Amazon (Photo: Amazon.com)

The items forbidden for sale include prison uniforms and personal belongings of concentration camps inmates, Nazi uniforms, symbols related to Jewish persecution such as the yellow Star of David, photos from the Holocaust showing dead bodies, executions and other violent and degrading scenes, books written by Nazi leaders and swastikas manufactured after 1933. 

A year ago, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem staff found anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying books put up for sale on Amazon. After contacting Amazon about the matter, the site immediately removed the items. Among the offensive content that was removed was the book "Did six million Jews really die?"

From Truman to Trump A series of emails on American presidents and their relationships with Israel; Gerald Ford, 1974-1977 Backing Soviet Jews, and pressuring Israel to give back the Sinai By Ron Kampeas, JTA DC Bureau Chief

Gerald Ford, who succeeded Richard Nixon as president after his resignation in 1974,  was an anomaly: a president for less than a thousand days who was not elected as president nor vice president. In 1973, he had replaced Vice President Spiro Agnew, who resigned in the face of bribery charges.

Yet Ford was president at a pivotal time. The movement to free Soviet Jewry in 1975 scored two critical political and diplomatic victories: the passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which denied most favored nation trading status to countries with restrictive emigration policies, and the signing of the Helsinki Declaration, requiring the Soviet Union to respect human rights, including fundamental freedoms of religion, thought and conscience.

Ford was the right executive at the right time to ensure both advances. An early backer of the movement to free Soviet Jews, he was Republican minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1971 when he spoke at a Madison Square Garden rally for Soviet Jewry.

"His administration’s signing of the Helsinki accords, which established a clear link between international relations and human rights, was the most important step in the struggle to win the Cold War," Natan Sharansky, the former prisoner of Zion, toldJTA when Ford died in 2006.

Ford inherited Henry Kissinger as secretary of state, and went along when Kissinger grew frustrated with what he perceived as Israeli intransigence in talks with Egypt. Kissinger wanted Yitzhak Rabin, who had become Israel's prime minister, to pull back from a portion of the Sinai peninsula captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. In March 1975, Kissinger said that the Ford administration was "reassessing" U.S. Middle East policy, including assistance to Israel.

Ford said he was "profoundly disappointed" in Israel's reluctance to cooperate. He put a hold on critical arms sales for six months, but could not face down congressional pressure to relent. The pro-Israel lobby garnered 76 signatures on a Senate letter to Ford "to be responsive to Israel's urgent military and economic needs."

From Truman to Trump A series of emails on American presidents and their relationships with Israel; Richard Nixon, 1969-1974 The anti-Semite who saved Israel By Ron Kampeas, JTA DC Bureau Chief

Richard Nixon liked Israelis — a lot. He was close to Golda Meir, the prime minister; Moshe Dayan, the defense minister; and Yitzhak Rabin, the ambassador to the United States. Rabin would break diplomatic protocol and campaign for Nixon in 1972. Nixon saw his resolute, paranoid Cold Warrior reflected in Israelis. Like him, they were hard-edged realists who were forced to play for the highest stake of all, their existence.

Nixon stands out among presidents for taking the boldest risk for Israel: a much-needed arms airlift during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. An astonishing 567 missions by American aircraft (not to mention deliveries by sea and El Al flights) kept Israel fighting. Nixon ignored the counsel of his closest adviser, Henry Kissinger, who wanted to allow the war to play out for a while longer to give Egyptian President Anwar Sadat the political cover he needed to make peace in its aftermath. The stakes were too high for Israel to play with timing, Nixon told Kissinger.

Nixon had little to gain and much to lose. He was in his second term and, in any case, the Republican was never going to win over the largely liberal Jewish vote. The airlift helped spur an Arab oil embargo, driving gasoline prices sky high. Preoccupied by Watergate and mired in Vietnam, and against the advice of his Jewish adviser, Nixon risked a new war with the Soviets to save Israel.

Nixon "made it possible for Israel to win, at some risk to his own reputation and at great risk to the American economy," historian Stephen Ambrose said.

Israel's leadership knew it.

"President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing," Meir said, toasting Nixon during his 1974 visit. "All I can say, Mr. President, as friends and as an Israeli citizen to a great American president, thank you."

The man who saved Israel, however, seemed unhealthily obsessed with Jews — as the White House tapes released subsequent to Nixon's removal from office revealed. He shared with underlings a host of complaints: "The Jews are all over the government." "Most Jews are disloyal." "You can't trust the bastards. They turn on you." "The Jews are born spies."

He wasn't just blowing steam. Jews were prevalent on Nixon's infamous "enemies list," drawn up, according to a 1971 memo by White House counsel John Dean, to assess "how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." The same year, Nixon asked Fred Malek, the White House personnel chief, to count and name the Jews employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nixon was convinced Jews in the bureau were skewing jobs numbers to make him look bad.

Yet in June 1974, mired in the darkness of Watergate, just weeks before he would be the first president to resign, Nixon became the first president to visit Israel on the job. Speaking on the Ben Gurion Airport tarmac, he sounded relieved, like he had come home.

"We have been through, over these years, some difficult times," he said. "During the period that I have served as president of the United States, we have been through some difficult times together, and I can only say that the friendship that we have for this nation, the respect and the admiration we have for the people of this nation, their courage, their tenacity, their firmness in the face of very great odds, is one that makes us proud to stand with Israel, as we have in the past in times of trouble, and now to work with Israel in a better time, a time that we trust will be a time of peace."

Hamas isn’t hiding the truth, BUT the media is

When it seems like the media is working for Hamas, it’s time for things to change. The media needs a TOTAL reality check when it comes to Gaza. A terrorist organization is running the city, but somehow most of the media thinks they want peace? Check the news, and all you hear about are “peaceful” protesters. How absurd! 

Egyptian magazine uses antisemitic caricature to incite against Israel 70 anniversary event

The article is about a 70th anniversary celebration that the Israel embassy is throwing, using a classic antisemitic caricature of a Jew to get Egyptians angry that such an event could take place in Egypt.

YNet reports that Egyptian officials tried to get the event canceled, ostensibly for "security reasons" but in fact because of their insane hatred of anything Israeli. When Israel pushed back and insisted that the event would go on, the officials apparently leaked the invitation to Rose al-Youssef with the intent of inciting Egyptians to be angry.

The article included a photo of the Israeli ambassador David Govrin, in a thinly veiled attempt to tell Egyptians to attack him if they see him.

It also included a copy of the invitation so that Egyptian bigots can go and try to stop or spoil the event, which is scheduled for Tuesday evening.

'U.S. Embassy' Road Signs Go Up in Jerusalem Ahead of Next Week's Opening The signs, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, were installed by workmen close to the south Jerusalem location of the embassy when it is officially relocated on May 14 from Tel Aviv

‘Wounded’ Gazan Rises from the Dead

Hamas Caught Placing Children on the Front Line [Video]

From Truman to Trump A series of emails on American presidents and their relationships with Israel; Lyndon Johnson, 1963-1969 No better friend By Ron Kampeas, JTA DC Bureau Chief

After John F. Kennedy was killed and Lyndon Johnson became the 36th president, LBJ told an Israeli diplomat, "You have lost a very great friend. But you have found a better one.”

Indeed, it was Johnson, as Senate majority leader, who stood in the way years earlier of Dwight Eisenhower's plans to cut off assistance to Israel. He knew few Jews growing up in Texas, but cultivated lifelong friendships as he rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party, which had become the natural political home for most Jews.

Historians generally regard Johnson as the president most uniformly friendly to Israel.

"Johnson was the most emotionally committed to Israel of any American president -- a fact that is not popularly known but is clear from his background," Dennis Ross, a veteran Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations, said last year at a symposium of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he is counselor.

Johnson was the first president to invite an Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, on a state visit. They got along so well -- both men were farmers -- that Johnson paid Eshkol the rare compliment ofinviting him to his ranch.

LBJ soon abandoned pressure on Israel to come clean about the Dimona reactor. He increased arms sales to Israel and in 1968, after Israel's primary supplier, France, imposed an embargo as a means of cultivating ties in the Arab world, the United States became Israel's main supplier of weapons, notably launching the talks that would lead to the sale of Phantom fighter jets to Israel.

Johnson wanted to commit more forcefully to Israel's cause in the lead-up to the 1967 Six-Day War, but he felt constrained from a dramatic show of military might because of the failures of the war in Vietnam then dogging his presidency. Nonetheless, during the war, he ordered warships to within 50 miles of Syria's coast as a warning to the Soviets not to interfere.

In a speech in the war's immediate aftermath, Johnson effectively nipped in the bud any speculation that the United States would pressure Israel to unilaterally give up the lands it had captured. He laid down not only the "land for peace" formula that would inform subsequent U.N. Security Council resolutions, but made it clear that any formula had to ensure Jewish access to Jerusalem's Old City.

Abbas was Always Anti-Semitic – Why are People Shocked by His New Anti-Semitic Speech?

Suddenly, much of the world seems to have woken up to the fact that Palestinian Authority President and Fatah Party Chairman Mahmoud Abbas a/k/a Abu Mazen is an virulent anti-Semite.  In a vile speech to the Palestinian National Council, Abbas invoked the canards that Europeans persecuted Jews not because of their religion, but rather their social function related to usury and banking, and that Ashkenazi Jews came from Khazar, with no relation to the Middle East.  Abbas trampled on and ignored established history and the genetic mapping demonstrating Ashkenazi Jews’ Middle Eastern/Israeli origins.  Even left wing and hostile-to-Israel groups and individuals condemned Abbas’s speech, including the New York Times, J Street, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, and the European Union.  (See “Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas Accused of Anti-Semitic Speech,” by Ian Lee, CNN, May 2, 2018.)  Many too-often-silent mainstream groups also joined in the condemnation of Abbas.

This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who has continued to name dozens of schools, streets, sports teams, summer camps, and public squares after terrorists who murdered innocent Jews.  He’s the same leader who honors terrorists with television specials, days of celebration and mourning, and $355 million per year of financial payments to Jew killers and their families.

But where were all these people who are now condemning Abbas, throughout the past decades?  Why did they absurdly portray Abbas as a “peace partner” for so long, despite mountains of evidence that Abbas has been fomenting violence and hatred towards the Jewish people for the past sixty years?  Abbas’s virulent vilification of the Jewish people is nothing new. 

This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who wrote a Holocaust denial doctoral thesis.

This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who arranged the financing for Black September’s sadistic torture (including brutal beatings and castration) and massacre of the eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. (See, e.g., “Abbas: Paymaster of 1972 Munich Massacre Terrorists: Abbas is proud of his role in the Munich Massacre,” by Mark Langfan, Israel Nat’l News, Apr. 10, 2013; “Widows Reveal Gruesome Munich Massacre Details Hidden By Germany: Ahead of documentary about terror attack funded by Mahmoud Abbas, widows open up about horrific torture covered up for 20 years,” by Ari Yashar, Dec. 1, 2015.)

And this is the same Mahmoud Abbas, who via the party he leads (Fatah), has continued to hail the Munich Olympics Massacre as an “heroic operation” and “one of the most important actions in modern history.” (“Palestinian Celebration Of Munich Olympic Massacre Shows They Are Not Ready For Peace,” by Michael Oren,” Newsweek, Sept. 22, 2016.)

This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who has continued to name dozens of schools, streets, sports teams, summer camps, and public squares after terrorists who murdered innocent Jews.  He’s the same leader who honors terrorists with television specials, days of celebration and mourning, and $355 million per year of financial payments to Jew killers and their families .  Indeed, the very same week that the United States enacted the Taylor Force Act, Abbas’s Palestinian Authority published its 2018 budget showing that, in open defiance of U.S. law, the PA is continuing to make its heinous “pay to slay” payments to Palestinian Arabs to murder Jews.  (“PMW: PA Publishes New Budget; Continues To Defy US And Europe By Rewarding Terror,” by Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch, Mar. 28, 2018.)

This is the same Abbas who incited the horrendous “knife intifada” wave of terror, in which Palestinian Arabs murdered 65 innocent Jews and wounded close to a thousand innocent Jews, by broadcasting in September 2015 and repeatedly rebroadcasting Abbas’s blessings on those who spill blood for Allah, to “protect” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from being defiled by Jews’ (and presumably Christians’) “filthy feet.”  “Abbas: We Won’t Allow Jews’ ‘Filthy Feet,” by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, Sept. 17, 2015).

This is the same Abbas who, via the party he leads’ Facebook page, bragged of killing more Jews than Hamas has.  (“Fatah Brags: We Killed 11,000 Israelis: Party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas boasts of killing 11,000 Israelis, sacrificing 170,000 ‘martyrs’,” by Hillel Fendel, Israel Nat’l News, Aug. 3, 2016.)

It’s thus mind-boggling how too many refused to acknowledge the truth until now.  Abbas’s views tragically reflect the views of the Palestinian Arabs. It’s high time to realize Israel doesn’t dare make any more land concessions or create a Palestinian state which would only strengthen the ability of the Palestinians to endanger the Jewish State of Israel. 

From Truman to Trump A series of emails on American presidents and their relationships with Israel; John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963 A martyr who worried about the spread of nukes By Ron Kampeas, JTA DC Bureau Chief

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, devastated Americans, and American Jews were no exception. 

On Nov. 25, a Monday, synagogues opened for the national day of mourning — and Jews flocked to services in large numbers. (The night of assassination, nightclub owner Jack Ruby attended a memorial service for the president at Temple Shearith Israel in Dallas. Two days later, he would shoot and kill the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, fueling a half-century of conspiracy theories. A key piece of evidence was a film of the motorcade as Kennedy was shot; it was made by a Jewish Kennedy supporter from Dallas named Abraham Zapruder.)

Kennedy was the first non-Protestant, and Irish Catholic to boot, to be elected president. Stories imagining the once unimaginableproliferated in the Jewish press after he secured the nomination: Could a Jew one day be elected president? More Cabinet-level Jews worked for Kennedy than any predecessor.

Kennedy overrode Eisenhower-era State Department policies and increased arms sales to Israel. Kennedy unabashedly dove into pro-Israel politicking: He was supposed to be the guest of honor at the annual dinner of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, which took place on Dec. 5 after his death. In 1961, Kennedy pardoned Herman Greenspun, the Las Vegas Sun publisher who had been convicted in 1950 on charges related to gun running to the nascent Zionist state.

The one phenomenon Kennedy feared above all was the proliferation of nuclear weapons on his watch. He demanded an accounting of the purpose of the nuclear reactor Israel was building near Dimona. At a 1961 meeting in New York with Ben-Gurion, the prime minister noticeably mumbled a lot and used terms like "for the time being" in promising that the reactor would not produce weapons-grade fissile material.

Kennedy wanted Americans to inspect the plant; Israel kept dodging the requests. In May 1963, Kennedy threatened to isolate Israel unless it let in the inspectors. Neither he nor Johnson ever made good on the threat, and today, Israel's nuclear capabilities are its worst-kept secret.

New billboard campaign targets New York Times’ ongoing coverage on Israel Looking out their office windows, editors and writers now see a massive billboard that reads: “The New York Times At it AGAIN: Defaming Israel with distorted 'news.’ Stop the bias.”

Derisive response to PM’s exposé shows world still refusing to get real on Iran - The 2015 accord did not dismantle Iran's nuke program, nor block its path to the bomb. If the negotiators knew everything Iran was up to, their failure is all the more indefensible

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presents material on Iranian nuclear weapons development during a press conference in Tel Aviv, April 30 2018. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Why would they violate the terms of an agreement that dismantled the painstakingly constructed sanctions regime that forced them to the negotiating table in the first place, and risk the re-imposition of those sanctions?

And why, finally, would they violate the terms of an agreement whose “sunset clauses” mean they need merely wait a few years before resuming their march to the bomb?


From left: EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini; Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif; British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond; and US Secretary of State John Kerry line up for a press announcement at the nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, April 2, 2015. (photo credit: AP/Keystone, Jean-Christophe Bott)

No, Israel’s contention is not that Iran is breaching the deal. It is, rather, that this agreement, far from preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapons arsenal, paves Iran’s path to it.

And what that haul of Iran’s own documentation conclusively demonstrated is that this is precisely what Iran intends to do. Compelled to freeze the program in 2003, Iran is merely biding its time before resuming nuclear weapons-related activities, empowered by the R&D progress it is being allowed to make under the terms of the accord.

Nothing new? That makes it worse

Netanyahu’s critics further assert that there was nothing new in the material he presented — nothing new in the showcasing of Iran’s own evidence of its deceit, and of the specifics of its nuclear weapons program.

First of all, that criticism is patently false. The International Atomic Energy Agency, in its own reporting, has never claimed to have attained remotely comparable access to Iran’s own documentation. The Mossad spirited out 100,000 files. The P5+1 negotiators should race to pore over the material.

But secondly, if it is the P5+1’s contention that they knew every detail of the program as now conclusively presented by Netanyahu, and knew therefore the precise extent of Iran’s duplicity, then how could they possibly have negotiated so lax an accord with the ayatollahs?


Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, and the European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrive to attend a press briefing after their meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, April 16, 2016. (AP /Ebrahim Noroozi)

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, one of the cheerleaders of the 2015 deal, grandly declared on Monday night that the pact “was put in place exactly because there was no trust between the parties; otherwise we would not have required a nuclear deal to be put in place.”

Wow, let’s read that again: We knew they were lying, and that’s why we had to put this accord into place.

Put it another way: We knew they were lying, and that’s why we cut a lousy deal with them, a deal that did not dismantle the nuclear program we knew they had even though they swore blind that they didn’t.

It must have been galling for the P5+1 negotiators and their defenders to watch that irritating Netanyahu strutting around in front of those shelves of files and those racks of CDs, claiming vindication and underlining the negotiators’ scandalous failure

We knew they were lying, and that’s why we cut a lousy deal with them that allowed them to boast that they had faced down and outsmarted the West.

We knew they were lying, and that’s why, when the sanctions had finally put them on the ropes, we cut a lousy deal with them that lifted the economic pressure — and thus entrenched their repressive regime in power, the better to oppress their own people, and gave them the financial resources to spread havoc and bloodshed throughout the region.

It must have been galling for the P5+1 negotiators and their defenders to watch that irritating Netanyahu strutting around in front of those shelves of files and those racks of CDs, claiming vindication and underlining the negotiators’ scandalous failure.

But the fact is that the 2015 deal was a terrible, misconstructed accord. It let the duplicitous Iranians off the hook. It did not dismantle the weapons program they still lie about. It did not close their path to a nuclear weapons arsenal.

I wonder when the negotiators and their defenders will finally apologize for their failure. When Iran starts testing its nukes, perhaps? Or will they still be sneering then?


File: An Iranian worker at the Uranium Conversion Facility at Isfahan, 410 kilometers south of Tehran, January 2014. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Mossad agents snuck nuclear files out of Iran with authorities ‘on their tails’ - TV reports say Israel utilized expansive operational infrastructure on Iranian soil; PM's exposé said aimed chiefly at IAEA; unconfirmed report of mass arrests in Iran after breach

A warehouse in Shorabad, south Tehran, where Mossad agents discovered and extracted tens of thousands of secret files pertaining to Iran's nuclear weapons program (Prime Minister's Office)

Agents of Israel’s spy agency Mossad smuggled hundreds of kilograms of paper and digital files on Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program out of the Islamic Republic with Iranian agents “on their tails,” Hadashot television news reported Tuesday night, based on briefings by Israeli officials.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed the operation Monday as he displayed the trove of documents in a presentation aimed at proving that Iran has lied about its covert atomic weapons program.

The operation required an expansive operational infrastructure within Iranian territory, Hadashot reported.

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The warehouse storing the files was located in the Shorabad suburb in southern Tehran, in an industrial area. Mossad discovered the warehouse in February 2016, and had had the building under surveillance since then. Before arriving at the site, the secret archives had been moved by Iranian authorities several times in a bid to keep their whereabouts a secret.

In late January of this year, Mossad agents received pinpoint information pointing them to certain safes in a specific container inside the warehouse. The team then broke in, removed the files and transferred them to a secondary location.


Safes inside a warehouse in Shorabad, south Tehran, where Mossad agents discovered and extracted tens of thousands of secret files pertaining to Iran’s nuclear weapons program (Prime Minister’s Office)

From there a complex extraction operation began.

According to Hadashot, Iranian officials realized that information had been taken before the files were out of the country. Mossad agents managed to smuggle the data out of Iran with authorities “on their tails,” searching for them.

According to a New York Times report Monday, agents broke into the building, took the documents and moved them back to Israel that same night.

Intelligence Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said the operation was unprecedented in Israel’s history.

“When the idea of ??the operation was first presented, I did not believe they could achieve it,” he told the Ynet news site. “They did something unprecedented here. They took tons of authentic documents here — and brought them here.”

The warehouse was maintained by the Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence Organization, formed in 2009 by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and headed by cleric Hossein Taeb.

Hadashot Arab affairs analyst Ehud Ya’ari said Western officials now believe a reckoning is in store for Taeb and other officials under whose watch the top secret files were taken.

Channel 10 News’s Arab affairs correspondent Zvi Yehezkeli said Tuesday Iranian authorities had launched a wave of arrests following Netanyahu’s exposé, and that those responsible could face execution.

Hadashot further reported that though Israel was anxious to provide the data it has obtained to the US, Europe and other allies, its most important audience may be the International Atomic Energy Agency. Israeli leaders are intent on demonstrating to the atomic watchdog the depth of Iranian deception, and to reveal to them the infrastructure of lies upon which Tehran based its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.

Hadashot said that the decision to publicize the contents of the intelligence heist was taken at a meeting involving Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, Mossad head Yossi Cohen, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, and head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Tamir Hayman.

All reportedly agreed that the data should be publicized with “as much noise as possible.”

Netanyahu on Monday night appeared on TV to present the file trove, saying it was a vast archive of Iran’s own documentation demonstrating that Tehran worked to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal and brazenly lied to the international community about it — facts which, the prime minister claimed, totally undermined the legitimacy of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers.

US President Donald Trump has until May 12 to decide whether to pull the US out of that deal.

German Newspaper’s Israeli Flag Test Yields ‘Frightening Results’

As Germans continue to probe the connection between antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of recent antisemitic incidents across the country, a leading newspaper on Monday carried out a live experiment to determine how long an Israeli flag could be displayed in major urban thoroughfares before being removed.

Israeli flags hung in three locations by reporters from the Bild newspaper were removed within ninety minutes by individuals who happened to be passing by, video revealed.

“The results are frightening,” the newspaper reported. “At the Hermannplatz in Berlin-Neukölln, the Israel flag flew for 42 minutes, for 61 minutes in Munich’s Bahnhofsviertel, and for 81 minutes in the center of Frankfurt.”

Video shot in Munich caught two men walking past an Israeli flag draped over a bicycle railing. Moments later, the men returned and angrily tore the flag down. Meanwhile in Berlin, two youths were filmed at the entrance to a rail station ripping the flag and throwing it to the ground, before one of them tried – and failed – to set it on fire with a cigarette lighter.

German politicians from across the spectrum interviewed by Bild were unanimous in their condemnation of the flag removals.

“The tearing down of the Israeli flag is something we will not tolerate in Germany,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the paper. “We will clearly stand against any form of antisemitism.” His colleague Horst Seehofer, the Interior Minister, pledged to show “zero tolerance” for antisemitic displays.

A spokeswoman for Berlin’s mayor, Michael Müller, stated that the German capital stood by its “close ties to Israel.”

“Jewish life is part of this city – hatred is not,” the spokeswoman added.

A reporter from German newspaper ‘Bild’ pulls out an Israeli flag dumped in a garbage can. 

Germany recently appointed veteran diplomat Felix Klein to be the first incumbent in the new post of federal commissioner against antisemitism. Interviewed last week, Klein said that official statistics on rising antisemitism in Germany downplayed the involvement of Muslims in attacks on Jews.

“Muslim antisemitism is stronger than is reflected in the statistics,” Klein said.

“Antisemitism is common in many Muslim countries and is often brought into Germany,” he continued. “We cannot accept that.”

Thousands of Germans from all backgrounds took to the streets in special “kippa marches” over the last week, wearing skullcaps in solidarity with German Jews – many of whom are afraid to wear Jewish symbols openly because of a rise in antisemitic violence.

An Iranian Embassy in Jerusalem? Makes Sense!

From Truman to Trump A series of emails on American presidents and their relationships with Israel - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961 A war hero seeks a "balanced" approach By Ron Kampeas, JTA DC Bureau Chief

Dwight David Eisenhower sailed into office in the 1952 election because he was the general who ended the second World War.

 

There was a specifically Jewish reason to buy into the hero worship: Eisenhower insisted that the world learn of the barbarism he witnessed when he liberated the Nazi death and concentration camps because he correctly anticipated there would be efforts to deny it.

 

Speaking to a group of journalists and congressmen he had led through Buchenwald in 1945, he said: "You saw only one camp yesterday. There are many others. Your responsibilities, I believe, extend into a great field, and informing the people at home of things like these atrocities is one of them."

 

His comprehension of the horror included the realization that Jews were its principal victims.

 

"The Jews were in the most deplorable condition. For years they had been beaten, starved, and tortured,” he wrote in his 1948 account of the war, "Crusade in Europe.”

 

Nevertheless, Eisenhower believed Truman tilted U.S. policy toward Israel and sought a more "balanced" approach, which led to years of frustrations with Israel and to the establishment of two important Jewish institutions: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which cultivated support for Israel in Congress, as a means of tempering Eisenhower's coolness toward the state, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, established to show Eisenhower that the U.S. Jewish community was unanimous in its support for Israel. (Eisenhower aides had played up support for Israel-critical policies by marginal Jewish anti-Israel groups to explain his coolness to the country.)

 

The relationship reached a crisis in 1956 after Israel joined Britain and France in capturing the Sinai peninsula as a means of keeping Egypt from nationalizing the Suez Canal. Eisenhower was furious, and his pressure on Israel forced a pullout. He contemplated cutting off not only U.S. assistance to Israel but private money going to the Jewish state, he later wrote.

 

Who stood in the Republican president's way? The Senate majority leader, a Democrat from Texas named Lyndon Baines Johnson, who said that "cracking down" on Israel would show a double standard, considering how soft Eisenhower had been on the repression of democratic protesters in Hungary the same year.