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Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei boasts that Islamic Republic cannot be stopped from building nuclear weapons. He says an agreement with world powers could be made but the infrastructure must be maintained.

The post WATCH: Iran boasts they are ‘unstoppable’ appeared first on World Israel News.

A passenger was threatened with arrest for trying to photograph flight attendant who repeatedly announced that the plane was going to land in Palestine.

By World Israel News Staff

Passengers on a RyanAir flight from Italy to Tel Aviv were shocked after a flight attendant repeatedly described their final destination as Palestine.

Israelis present on the flight told Channel 14 News that a flight attendant had said they were bound for Palestine multiple times, in both Italian and English.

About half an hour before the plane was slated to touch down at Ben Gurion Airport in central Israel, the flight attendant announced over the intercom that the plane was “approaching Palestine.”

Some of the passengers on the flight spoke up about the announcement, they told Channel 14, and asked the attendant to either correct herself or apologize.

“We didn’t [buy tickets] on the airline to deal with anti-Zionist opinions [from flight staff],” a passenger said. “All we wanted was [an announcement] that Tel Aviv is in Israel.”

Their requests were refused, and instead the cabin crew accused the passengers of creating a disturbance that endangered the safety of the flight, they recounted to the outlet.

An Italian-speaking passenger was surprised that the flight attendant doubled-down on their views during a conversation, insisting that Tel Aviv is located not in the State of Israel, but in Palestine.

The flight attendant who made the announcement was not wearing a name tag, making it impossible to identify anyone by name in order to file a complaint at a later time.

One passenger, who tried to take a picture of the attendant, was told that she would be arrested upon landing if she left her seat in order to get a clear image of the speaker, according to the Channel 14 report.

RyanAir refused to respond to multiple requests for comment from Channel 14 regarding the incident.

Channel 14 commentator Danny Newman noted that “RyanAir is an Irish company, and the Irish don’t exactly love Israel.”

Newman called on Israelis to avoid using the airline in the future, should RyanAir refuse to apologize for the episode.

The post ‘We’re approaching Palestine,’ RyanAir announces on Tel Aviv-bound flight appeared first on World Israel News.

Left-wing teacher plays victim after writing condescending letter to graduating student, framing his support for judicial reform as troubling and claiming that he doesn’t support Israeli democracy.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

A high school civics teacher opposed to potential reforms to Israel’s judicial system wrote a letter to a student upon his graduation, revealing her deep biases against the legislation and expressing her “concern” for the pupil due to his support for the measure.

Muscat Mendelson, who graduated from Leo Baeck High School in Haifa earlier in June, is in favor of reforms to the Israeli legal system, and has made his views clear during discussions and debates in his civics class.

But his former teacher, Orly Picker, framed Mendelson’s support for the reforms, along with his admiration for the right-wing think-tank Kohelet Forum, as “radical and intolerant.”

‘I have had some question marks about you’

“In the last few months, I have had some question marks about you,” Picker wrote to Mendelson in a letter, which he distributed to Hebrew-language media.

Mendelson’s “adherence to the policies of the Kohelet Forum, the serious consideration of the false propaganda on [right-wing news station] Channel 14, the extreme positions you began to voice, the completely unfounded criticism of the Supreme Court and of the retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Prof. Aharon Barak, deeply disappoint me,” Picker wrote.

“I find it difficult to accept your adoption of radical and intolerant positions. I so hope that you will delve into the facts and that you will distance yourself from the intolerant positions you have recently adopted,” she added.

After receiving the letter in the mail alongside his high school diploma, Mendelson contacted his high school principal. The principal spoke with Picker, and she sent him a revised letter “that was even worse,” in Mendelson’s view.

In the new letter, Picker wrote that Mendelson was “critical of Israeli democracy,” implying that he does not support it, and that he supports “a legal revolution.”

Speaking to Hebrew-language media, Picker presented herself as a victim and said she had apologized to Mendelson.

In her statement, she did not acknowledge that framing a student’s views on the legal reform – which are shared by a substantial portion of voters in the country – as “intolerant and radical” was inherently inappropriate.

“The rest of the letter is full of compliments that the student certainly deserves,” Picker told Ynet. “it is not clear to me why, after a week, he chose to contact the media…Unfortunately, I understand that he wanted to hurt me.”

Picker claimed that she had received support from “hundreds of my past and present students, who [praise] my respectful and tolerant approach. I will continue to adhere to my all-important educational mission.”

‘Fascist spirit’

Communications Minister Galit Distel-Atbaryan (Likud) said she does not believe that Picker should be allowed to continue in her current position.

“She should have received a dismissal letter from the Education Ministry today,” Distel-Atbaryan said in a media statement.

“She insulted the student in order to break his spirit…implying in her ‘abuse letter’ that his ‘mental state is worrying. She is a bully.

“Anyone who exhibits a fascist spirit cannot be a teacher for citizenship in democratic Israel. She is shallower than her student,” Distel-Atbaryan added.

The Ministry of Education shirked responsibility for the incident, saying that Picker had written the letter outside of school hours and not within her role as a teacher, nor on behalf of a school. Picker was given a stern talking-to by the principal, the Ministry claimed, and did not elaborate on any further disciplinary action.

The post Haifa teacher slams student as ‘radical, intolerant’ for judicial reform support appeared first on World Israel News.

Despite blocking highways and physically attacking police officers, not a single criminal charge has been filed against any person arrested during the anti-government protests, according to recent report.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Following an incident in which Energy Minister Israel Katz was repeatedly spat on by left-wing protesters, MK Keti Shitrit (Likud) questioned why violent protesters opposed to judicial reform and the current government are not facing criminal indictments for their behavior.

“It is unbelievable that there are no arrests and no investigation and indictments against those violent bullies who call for rebellion and spit on MKs and ministers,” Shitrit said during an interview with Radio Kol Chai on Tuesday morning.

The lawmaker noted that during the evacuation of Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip 18 years ago, security forces rounded up right-wing protesters and kept them incarcerated for long periods of time.

“I would like to remind everyone of the girls who spent months in detention over their behavior during the [2005] Disengagement,” she said. “What message are we conveying?”

Protesters are essentially granted carte blanche to stalk and intimidate members of the ruling right-wing coalition, she said.

“They honk horns in our ears, they harass families of public officials. It is impossible. We have reached a point of no return.”

Sheetreet stressed that the “police and the justice system need to do some soul-searching” regarding what she said was a double-standard in the treatment of protesters, based on their political views.

A recent report by Channel 14 News found that while some individual protesters were arrested for blatantly violating the law, such as attacking police officers and blocking major highways, not a single criminal indictment has been filed against participants in left-wing demonstrations.

At the time of the report in early June, the news outlet found that 92 out of 96 protesters arrested in recent weeks were released within hours of being detained. Just four arrestees were held for more than a few days.

Notably, not a single criminal charge has been filed against any person arrested during the protests.

“During the disengagement period, the [police and prosecutors’ office ] acted like a fearsome tiger and filed hundreds of indictments for blocking roads at lightning speed, including requests for detaining arrestees [and not releasing them from incarceration] until the end of the [criminal] proceedings,” said Minister for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee Yitzhak Wasserlauf.

“Now, they’re taking a cat nap and not making any effort to produce even a semblance of an iota of some kind of enforcement.”

The post MK asks: Why aren’t violent left-wing protesters criminally charged? appeared first on World Israel News.

Zionism is the legacy of Cyrus the Great and the national inheritance of the Iranians. The Islamic Republic’s anti-Zionism is not a historical norm, but a radical break from history by a radical regime. The Iranian revolution seeks to return to its historical origins, and Zionists must rejoice if it succeeds.

The former crown prince of Iran and the most prominent opposition figure, Reza Pahlavi, became the most prominent Iranian to have ever visited Israel this week. He made history by taking the first step to restore it. Pahlavi’s cautious approach to leadership, out of the fear of alienating Iranians from different camps, has been a point of criticism over the decades. His trip doesn’t suggest that he has overnight become more risk-taking, but that he understands that anti-Zionism is no longer a political force among his audience inside his country. This is an early sign that a free Iran will cease hostilities with Israel and end the region’s most destabilizing conflict, caused by one of the most destabilizing regimes in the world. Only a few years after Abraham Accords, we can now envision the potential for the future Cyrus Accords.

Pahlavi’s trip was as much about symbolic gestures as it was political business, evident by his decision to visit during Holocaust Remembrance Day and participate in the ceremonies. He posted a picture of himself wearing a kippah and his wife praying at the Western Wall. His post’s caption cited the Book of Ezra and Cyrus the Great’s edict to rebuild the Second Temple. On Farsi social media, Cyrus Accords immediately began to trend, with more than 100,000 tweets in 24 hours.

The Iranian opposition leader also met with Israeli government officials, likely to seek their assistance for the protest movement that has been roiling Iran for the last seven months. Minister of Intelligence Gila Gamliel hosted the crown prince, and the itinerary included meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. Given Israel’s covert assets in Iran, Pahlavi’s following there, and the two parties’ mutual interest in regime change, it is a reasonable guess that they discussed avenues of cooperation to effect change. He had also mentioned that, given Iran’s water crisis and Israel’s expertise in desalination, he intended to meet with Israeli water experts, so Gamliel gave him a tour of the water desalination facility in Shurk.

As seen by their reactions to Pahlavi’s visit, for many Iranians, Israel has transformed from an enemy to an ally against the Islamic Republic. Masih Alinejad, another opposition leader, tweeted that “the nation of Iran has no enmity with Israel. It is the Islamic Republic that has conquered the borders of hostility against Jews, not just in Iran, but also in the region and the world.” Hichkas, the first professional Iranian rapper, humorously tweeted his wish that the trip would result in countless Qassem Soleimani-like assassinations. Former national soccer team captain Ali Karimi, the opposition leader most in tune with the Iranian street, posted a picture of the Pahlavis and Gamliel with Iranian-flag-colored hearts.

The regime’s response, on the other hand, has been official silence. The spokesperson for the ministry of foreign affairs dismissed a question on the topic for it concerned “an irrelevant individual to an irrelevant destination country.” Unofficial and semi-official media tried to downplay it by mentioning Israel’s domestic political turmoil and the Pahlavi dynasty’s historically warm views of Israel. The combination of the regime’s dismissiveness and the opposition’s embrace is a hint that both sides are aware that Israel has ceased being a bogeyman in Iran.

There was recently another episode within the Iranian opposition that highlighted this change in Iranian attitudes. In February, several Israeli reporters mentioned that opposition leader Hamed Esmaeilion refuses to talk to them. On Farsi social media, Esmaeilion’s past quoting of Yasser Arafat resurfaced. 

Iranians’ reaction to Esmaeilion’s anti-Israeli sentiments vary from verbal attacks and harsh rebuttals to mild criticisms and silence, but nobody rushed to his defense. Kaveh Shahrooz, a prominent Iranian–Canadian human rights lawyer and occasional collaborator with Esmaeilion, tweeted, “The Islamic Republic is our enemy, not Israel.” The less prominent the figures and platforms got, the harsher the language became. Some went so far as to compare Esmaeilion with Ruhollah Khomeini for their shared anti-Zionism.

It was only a short time ago that Zionism was a political liability among Iranians. Now, anti-Zionism is becoming one.

Sensing this change, Pahlavi subtly rebuked Esmaeilion during a talk in London a day later. He cited Iran’s sole founding father Cyrus the Great’s pioneer Zionism, talked of “the Biblical relationship we have with Israel long before it became a state,” and confidently predicted that a free Iran will have good relations with Israel. He also cited material interests, including that his country’s water crisis necessitates Israel’s water desalination technology.

The signs of Iranians’ growing friendliness toward Israel have been increasingly evident since the late 2010s. In the early weeks of recent protests sparked by the murder of Mahsan Amini, pictures of “Palestine Street” street signs taken down and vandalized began circulating. Videos of young Iranians refusing to step on Israel’s flag frequently are distributed on social media—as well as the one video of a member of the basij catching fire from the Israeli flag he torched, which Iranians jubilantly shared. Outside regime-orchestrated protests, which are shrinking at a rapid and accelerating pace, nobody can find any protests wherein people denounce Zionism and Israel. Previous visits to Israel by less prominent opposition figures did not face public backlash, likely an encouraging factor in Pahlavi’s decision to travel there.

The death of Iranians’ anti-Zionism also has to do with convenience, reflexive anti-regime sentiments, rampant secularism, a young population that doesn’t have living memories of an Israel whose future existence was a question mark, and accepting the status quo. In this case, Iran is not that different from the Arabs who have made peace with Israel.

Most importantly, a driving factor of the Abraham Accords has been the parties’ shared opposition to the Islamic Republic, but that opposition is nowhere as strong as inside Iran, as the terror the Islamic Republic inflicts on its neighbors pales in comparison to what an average Iranian endures on a daily basis. The Israel that assassinates regime officials is not the enemy; it’s an ally. Moreover, while anti-Zionism as a political force was partly out of Jew-hatred, partly out of resenting the ruling Pahlavi regime with close ties with Israel, and partly out of religiosity, those factors have all turned upside down. Young revolutionaries associate anti-Zionism with political Islam and the ruling theocracy, hence a malignant force, with nostalgia for the Pahlavi era. The regime’s decades of starving its own people to fund anti-Israeli terrorist groups have only led to the popular chant, “Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, my life [only] for Iran.”

During his talk, Pahlavi cited Iran’s water crisis of the last decade, adding that Israel’s abundance of water engineers means the key to solving a hot-button grievance in Iran rests in Israel. This has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fingerprints all over it. In 2018, he released a series of videos directly speaking to the Iranian people, making similar points as Pahlavi about the millennia of friendship between Iranians and Jews, as well as the sizable Persian Jewish population, and shrewdly feeding into the national pride of Iranians for their past. In one video, Netanyahu talked about the water crisis in Iran, expressing his regret for not being able to share his nation’s technology with his Iranian audience, but offering Farsi resources provided by his government so Iranians could on their own do the possible minimum. The videos were well-received, and they drew a sharp contrast between a regime that tries to conceal the pre-Islamic heritage Iranians take so much pride in and an alleged enemy who celebrates it.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu was busy attacking the Islamic Republic’s military and nuclear sites—and, on social media, many Iranians were celebrating those attacks. In the midst of the recent wave of protests, Israel reportedly attacked an Iranian UAV factory in Esfehan. There was no rallying ‘round the flag for the Islamic Republic, but a lot of Iranians took to the internet to humorously debate where Israel should strike next. Leader Ali Khamenei’s residence won by a nearly unanimous vote. Those who were not celebrating were only condemning that the attacks should be targeted in a way that would help the revolution. Again, this was not a surprise. Israel’s suspected attacks against Iran always incite the exact same reaction.

I have witnessed this change of attitudes among my friends too. Those who used to berate my [imprudently] vocal Zionism while living in Iran ten years ago are now supporters of not merely Israel but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for being the Islamic Republic’s chief antagonist.

This is not to say that support for Israel in Iran reaches an overwhelming majority. It is more correct to say that, for most Iranians unfriendly to Israel, the issue is not among the top 20 issues they care about—and they certainly are not willing to make sacrifices for the Palestinian cause even if they dislike Israel—and they are often older Iranians who are not among the revolutionaries and will not determine the future of Iran. For the young revolutionaries, feelings are much warmer, and pro-Israel sentiments are far higher on the agenda.

Iranian–Israeli peace will be the contemporary Middle East’s most monumental development, and it is in sight. This won’t be an alteration of history, but a return to it—not merely to the pre-Islamic Revolution history, but to Cyrus the Great. 

Speaking to the regime-hostile Iran International last month, Netanyahu hit all the right notes to his Iranian audience, saying, “we have a man that we never forget, and that is Cyrus the Great, who entered our Bible. When we speak of Cyrus, we speak of a great leader of a great civilization, and we remember him for enabling the rebuilding of our holy temple in Jerusalem, for the return of our exiles in Babylon.” Talking about “a common history and shared values,” he savvily cited the Islamic Republic as the common enemy of Iranians and Israelis and an obstacle to peace between them, “if this regime longer will rule Iran, if the freedom movement will succeed, the friendship between Israel and Iran will surpass anything that we can imagine.”

The Islamic Republic has never been closer to collapse, and, thanks to Israel’s antagonization of the Islamic Republic and Netanyahu’s public diplomacy with the Iranian people, Iranians have never been readier to restore their historical friendship under the aegis of the “Cyrus Accords,” named after the man both sides look to in search of their common heritage.

The post <strong>The Coming Cyrus Accords?</strong> appeared first on Providence.

A tragedy shook the Annapolis, Maryland, community on Sunday night as a shooting left three dead and three injured. Charles Robert Smith, 45, has been charged with multiple accounts of murder, assault, and attempted murder in connection with the incident. According to police, witnesses say that the shooting stemmed from a parking dispute.

The scene occurred along the 1,000 block of Paddington Place, the site of an ongoing birthday celebration. Witnesses reported that a conflict between Smith and the victims over a car blocking a nearby driveway had escalated into a heated altercation.

Smith allegedly pulled out a handgun which he then used to shoot the victims. The victims, Nicholas Mireles of Odenton, Mario Antonio Mireles Ruiz, and Christian Marlon Segovia all died at the scene. The three that were injured were taken to a local hospital for treatment.

The tragedy has sparked action in the involved communities as Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman and Maryland Governor Wes Moore both commented on the violence and offered condolences to the victims. They also vowed to address mass shootings and the prevalence of firearms in communities.

Agencies such as the FBI and ATF are assisting Annapolis Police in their investigation. Annapolis Police Chief Edward Jackson noted that this type of tragedy is indicative of a grave social ailment within society and that solutions must be found outside of violence. Mayor Gavin Buckley echoed those statements, calling Smith’s actions “the most ridiculous thing that society can do.”

The tragedy in Annapolis is a solemn reminder of the damage that firearms inflict upon our communities and our need to act on gun violence. It is up to us to take measures that allow us to properly address social issues in a manner that preserves life rather than destroys it.

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A first-of-its-kind study from Jacobin, YouGov, and the Center for Working-Class Politics finds that economic populism can help progressives win more working-class voters.

Then-candidate John Fetterman waves onstage at a watch party during the midterm elections in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 2022. (Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)

As the recent defeat of progressive Philadelphia mayoral candidate Helen Gym vividly demonstrated, progressives — like Democrats broadly — continue to struggle with working-class voters. Progressives hardly ever run outside of deep-blue districts, where they typically depend on middle-class constituencies for victory. And, with notable recent exceptions like John Fetterman in 2022, they often fail to compete effectively in heavily working-class areas when they do run.

Since 2020, however, at least some progressives have begun to recognize the scale of the problem, dedicating more attention to bread-and-butter economic issues they hope will resonate with working-class voters and reengaging with the labor movement.

The Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) sees its work as part of this larger project. We aim to provide research that will help progressives expand their appeal among working-class voters, in the hope of achieving our shared political goals.

In November 2021, together with Jacobin and YouGov, the CWCP published findings from our first original survey experiment, designed to better understand which kinds of progressive candidates, messages, and policies are most effective in appealing to working-class voters.

Among other things, the survey found that voters without college degrees are strongly attracted to candidates who focus on bread-and-butter issues, use economic populist language, and promote a bold progressive policy agenda. Our findings suggested that working-class voters lost to Donald Trump could be won back by following the model set by the populist campaigns of Bernie Sanders, John Fetterman, Matt Cartwright, Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, and others.

Yet our initial study left many questions unanswered and posed many new ones. Which elements of economic populism are most critical for persuading working-class voters? Would economic populist candidates still prove effective in the face of opposition messaging and against Republican populist challengers? How do voter preferences vary across classes and within the working class? Can populist economic messaging rally support from working-class voters across the partisan divide?

To address these questions, we designed a new survey experiment in which we presented seven pairs of hypothetical candidates to a representative group of 1,650 voters. We assessed a vast range of candidate types (23,100 distinct candidate profiles in total) to better understand which candidates perform best overall and among different groups of voters.

Our aim was to test which elements of economic populism are most effective in persuading working-class voters, how the effects of economic populist messaging change in the face of opposition messaging, and how these effects vary both across classes and within the working class.

Overall, we find that progressives can make inroads with working-class voters if they run campaigns that convey a credible commitment to the interests of working people. This means running more working-class candidates, running jobs-focused campaigns, and picking a fight with political and economic elites on behalf of working Americans.

The key takeaways of our survey, listed briefly below and discussed in greater detail in the full report and in this summary, can inform future progressive campaigns.

Some of Our Key Takeaways

Running on a jobs platform, including a federal jobs guarantee, can help progressive candidates. Virtually all voter groups prefer candidates who run on a jobs platform. Remarkably, respondents’ positive views toward candidates running on a jobs guarantee were consistent across Democrats, independents, and even Republicans. Candidates who ran on a jobs guarantee were also popular with black respondents, swing voters, low-propensity voters, respondents without a college degree, and rural respondents. Across the thirty-six different combinations of candidate rhetoric and policy positions we surveyed, the single most popular combination was economic populist rhetoric and a jobs guarantee.

Populist “us-versus-them” rhetoric appeals to working-class voters, regardless of partisan affiliation. Working-class Democrats, independents, Republicans, women, and rural respondents all prefer candidates who use populist language: that is, sound bites that name economic or political elites as a major cause of the country’s problems and call on working Americans to oppose them.

Running more non-elite, working-class candidates can help progressives attract more working-class voters. Blue- and pink-collar Democratic candidates are more popular than professional and/or upper-class candidates, particularly among working-class Democrats and Republicans. Non-elite, working-class candidates are also viewed favorably by women, Latinos, political independents, urban and rural respondents, low-propensity voters, non-college-educated respondents, and swing voters.

Candidates who use class-based populist messaging are particularly popular with the blue-collar workers Democrats need to win in many “purple” states. Manual workers, a group that gave majority support to Trump in 2020, favor economic populist candidates more strongly than any other occupational group. Low-propensity voters also have a clear preference for these candidates.

Right-wing opposition messages do not undermine the effectiveness of jobs-focused campaigns, economic populist language, or the appeal of non-elite, working-class candidates. In fact, our study suggests that candidates running on a progressive jobs policy may actually be more effective in the face of right-wing opposition messaging.

Rural voters across the political spectrum support key elements of left-wing populism. While rural Democrats and independents support pink-collar candidates and rural Republicans support small-business-owner candidates, they all share a dislike for upper-class candidates, prefer candidates running on a progressive jobs guarantee, and respond favorably to populist messaging.

Class matters. Working-class voters respond differently to Democratic candidates, messages, and policies than other voters. As defined by occupational group, working-class respondents across the political spectrum have a particularly strong preference for non-elite, working-class candidates; managers and professionals do not. Working-class respondents also find economic populist language and a federal jobs guarantee more appealing than other messages and policies; non-working-class respondents do not.

These class-based preferences persist within racial and ethnic groups: black working-class respondents, for instance, enthusiastically favor economic populist rhetoric, while black managers and professionals are averse to it. Working-class white respondents strongly favor non-elite candidates; their middle- and upper-class counterparts do not.

Progressives running on the Democratic ballot line should consider distancing themselves from the Democratic Party establishment. Regardless of class, gender, or race, we found that respondents tend to favor Democratic candidates who call out the Democratic Party for failing working-class Americans.

You can read the full report here.

Contact:

Authors: jared@workingclasspolitics.org

Press: publicity@workingclasspolitics.org

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