Is Hezbollah Eating the Iranian People's Bread?

In this mailing: - Yves Mamou: Is Hezbollah Eating the Iranian People's Bread? - Denis MacEoin: Iran Sends More to the Gallows - A. Z. Mohamed: Egypt: State-Run Media vs. President el-Sisi [] [Is Hezbollah Eating the Iranian People's Bread?]( by Yves Mamou • January 4, 2018 at 5:00 am - Ironically, Iran's receiving more than $100 billion in frozen assets succeeded in breaking the solidarity between the Iranian people and the Ayatollahs' regime better than the sanctions did. - Without Iranian money, Hezbollah would not exist. At least, not exist as an Iranian foreign legion, militarily engaged against Israel and in other Middle East regional conflicts. Without Iranian subsidies, Hezbollah would be just a narco-mafia. - Hezbollah has developed deep connections to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, directly to facilitate the distribution of drugs throughout the Middle East and the US. Pictured: Portraits of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (left) and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (right) in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2006. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) In the holy city of Qom in Iran, on December 30, 2017, anti-regime demonstrators shouted "Death to Hezbollah", "Aren't you ashamed Khamenei? Get out of Syria and take care of us", and "Not Gaza, or Lebanon". In an Islamic country, whose official slogan is "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", to see Iranian people shouting "Death to Hezbollah" is totally surreal. By wishing "Death to Hezbollah", Iranians demonstrators were not only protesting a "rise of the price of eggs" as the Ayatollahs' propaganda machine tried to claim. The demonstrators were demanding that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spend Iranian money for Iranian people -- and only for Iranian people. [Continue Reading Article]( [] [Iran Sends More to the Gallows]( by Denis MacEoin • January 4, 2018 at 4:30 am - Iran's judicial authorities "continued to impose and carry out cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments that amounted to torture, including floggings, blindings and amputations. These were sometimes carried out in public." At least one woman, Fariba Khaleghi, remains under a sentence of death by stoning. — Amnesty International. - What is worse, the vast majority of those put to death in Iran have not committed crimes that would be punished with that severity (or at all) almost anywhere else in the world, least of all in Europe, Israel, or 23 states (and the District of Columbia) in the USA. - Even before their trials, individuals accused of anti-state convictions are mistreated, tortured, kept in solitary confinement for months on end, and denied access to their families and lawyers. "'Confessions' extracted under torture were used as evidence at trial. Judges often failed to deliver reasoned judgments and the judiciary did not make court judgments publicly available." — Amnesty International. - As for the mullahs, they brook no criticism from any quarter and intend to keep Iran and its people under their iron grip forever, even if that means putting to death every dissident voice. The notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran. (Image source: Ehsan Iran/Wikimedia Commons) At the end of December 2017, something almost without precedent happened in cities across Iran. It started in the largest shrine city of Mashhad, then moved to Kermanshah, which had not long before suffered a major earthquake in which some 600 people died and where survivors had been neglected by the state. After that, large-scale protests moved to Sari and Rasht in the north, the clerical city of Qom, then Hamadan, and by the December 29, Tehran itself. In the following days, people were on the streets across the country. Starting on the third day, protesters were challenged by massive turnouts of pro-regime marchers. Anti-government protests, which these were, had not been seen in this quantity since the brutally-crushed risings after the 2009 presidential elections. By January 2, at least 20 protesters had been killed and more than 450 arrested. It was reported on the same day that Iran's Chief Justice, Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, claimed that protesters might be considered "enemies of God", and executed. [Continue Reading Article]( [] [Egypt: State-Run Media vs. President el-Sisi]( by A. Z. Mohamed • January 4, 2018 at 4:00 am - Egypt's state-run press persists in the practice of condemning the United States and Israel -- an attitude that contradicts President el-Sisi's positions and vision for reforming Islam. - This is one of the conflicts that still beleaguer Egyptian society -- or perhaps signs of a growing power struggle. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi responded to U.S. President Donald Trump's official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital with cautious pessimism. He warned his ally in the White House not to take measures that would undermine prospects for peace in the Middle East. The delicate balancing act he has been performing, to avoid jeopardizing his relationship with Washington, and at the same time not antagonize the Palestinians and much of the Egyptian public, was probably to be expected. Not expected was the depth of extremist anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment spread by Egypt's state-run media. Two particularly jarring examples illustrate this disturbing trend. [Continue Reading Article]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [RSS]( [Donate]( Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved. 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