Updates

• Ali Akbar Dareini gives an on-the-ground report on the progress of Iran sanctions. Meanwhile, Elliott Abrams notes an Iranian call for genocide against the Jews and reports emerge of Iran expanding its uranium enrichment and banning Simpsons dolls.  (AP, CFR, Reuters)

Under this pre-emptive defensive doctrine, several Ground Zero points of Israel must be destroyed and its people annihilated. Forghani cites the last census by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics that shows Israel has a population of 7.5 million citizens of which a majority of 5.7 million are Jewish. Then it breaks down the districts with the highest concentration of Jewish people, indicating that three cities, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, contain over 60 percent of the Jewish population that Iran could target with its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, killing all its inhabitants.

 

• Council on Foreign Relations head Leslie Gelb implored Benjamin Netanyahu to stop talking about attacking Iran, just as reports emerged that Netanyahu had in fact ordered his cabinet to do so. Meanwhile, Harvard’s Niall Ferguson also wants Israel to stop talkingabout an attack on Iran – and just go ahead with it. (Daily Beast, HuffPo, Daily Beast) 

• A scientific breakthrough may have led to the discovery of missing mass-graves at Nazi death camp Treblinka, exactly where many eye-witnesses had placed them. This comes as yet another blow to numerous conspiracy theorists who commonly use the graves’ unknown whereabouts as “evidence” against the Holocaust. (JTA)

• Michael Ezra exposes the shoddy journalism of anti-Israel author Ben White, who knowingly misquoted an expert in a recent essay to make Israel sound racist. (Harry’s Place)

• “Rockstar Rabbi” Shmuly Boteach has announced a plan to run for Congress and is seeking the Republican nomination in New Jersey’s ninth district. A successful run would make him the first rabbi in US Congress. (JPost)

• A flag salesman in South-East Melbourne is insisting on flying Nazi flags outside his shop.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz