With Netanyahu’s help, ‘racist’ aide could become MP
Updated 04 April 2019
AFP
HEBRON: The bespectacled man was given a hero’s welcome when he arrived for the party on the recent Jewish holiday of Purim, with teenagers singing and applauding around him.
Itamar Ben-Gvir was on the streets of Hebron, a flashpoint city in the occupied West Bank, among Israeli settlers reveling while disguised and masked according to Jewish tradition.
The support for him there was a sign of why he may soon become a member of Israel’s Parliament as part of an extreme-right party many view as racist — helped along by a deal brokered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“No way — there’s no way that they’re racist,” said Yehudit Katz, a resident of another West Bank settlement who came to celebrate for Purim in Hebron.
Several hundred Israeli settlers live in Hebron under heavy military guard — including Ben-Gvir — amidst around 200,000 Palestinians.
“The solution that they have is to keep the people that are not Jewish — the Arabs, whoever — that are loyal to the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland, and there are many Arabs like that,” said Katz.
“We don’t want terrorists. Terrorists can go live somewhere else,” he added.
Ben-Gvir, a 42-year-old lawyer, said “God willing” Jewish Power will make it into Parliament.
It is a prospect that has touched off one of the most intense debates in the campaign ahead of April 9 elections.
Jewish Power’s leaders are followers of an assassinated racist rabbi whose group was labeled a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and Israel itself.
Netanyahu’s deal that saw Jewish Power join two other far-right parties to run on the same electoral list drew disgust at home and among Jewish communities abroad, particularly in the US.
For Netanyahu, the deal ahead of what is expected to be a close election was pure politics.
He defended it by saying he does not want any right-wing votes to go to waste as he eyes his next coalition.
Running alone, Jewish Power was unlikely to pass the 3.25 percent electoral threshold.
But all has not gone smoothly for Jewish Power, whose leader Michael Ben-Ari was also running but has been disqualified by the Supreme Court for statements it ruled were an incitement to racism.
Ben-Gvir’s candidacy was also challenged at the court, but he was allowed to stand, making him the only Jewish Power representative with a chance to make it into Parliament. Jewish Power are followers of late racist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement wanted to chase Arabs from Israel.
The ideology of Kahane, assassinated in New York in 1990, also inspired Baruch Goldstein, who carried out a massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron in 1994.
Ben-Gvir acknowledges having a picture of Goldstein in his living room, but has reportedly said it is because he was a medical doctor who rescued Jews targeted in Palestinian attacks.
For Adalah, a rights group for Arab Israelis, Ben-Gvir belongs to a “racist movement recognized as a terrorist organization.”
Jewish Power strongly disputes the characterization, with Ben-Gvir telling the Supreme Court it is only against “enemies of Israel” and not Arabs in general.
Opinion polls show the list that Jewish Power is part of winning between five and seven seats in the 120-seat Parliament.
Ben-Gvir is seventh on the list.
Jewish Power advocates removing “Israel’s enemies from our land,” a reference to Palestinians and Arab Israelis who carry out attacks or who they see as not accepting the Jewish state they envision.
It also calls for Israel annexing the West Bank, where more than 2.5 million Palestinians live.
Ben-Ari was previously a member of Parliament as part of a different right-wing list between 2009 and 2013, but Jewish Power has never passed the electoral threshold.
Ben-Gvir has long been an outspoken member of the far-right.
Indicted 53 times since his youth, he boasts of having been cleared in 46 cases. He decided to study law on the recommendation of judges so he could defend himself.
He defends settlers accused of violence, including those allegedly responsible for an arson attack that killed an 18-month-old boy and his parents in 2015 in the West Bank, an incident that drew widespread revulsion.
In 1995, when only 19 and in a time of turmoil following the Oslo accords with the Palestinians, he appeared on television with what he said was the stolen emblem from then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Cadillac.
Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli opposed to the Oslo accords later that year.
“We got to this symbol. We’ll get to him,” Ben-Gvir said at the time.
DUBAI: Jordan has reopened its airspace to civilian aircraft on Saturday, signaling belief there was no longer an immediate danger of further attacks after crossfire between Israel and Iran disrupted East-West travel through the Middle East.
But the country “is continuing to assess risks to civil aviation and monitor developments after Jordan’s airspace was reopened this morning,” a statement from the civil aviation authority said, and reported by state-run Petra news.
The Kingdom on Friday closed its airspace to all flights due to the barrage of missiles and rockets from Iran.
The statement also said airlines would be provided with the “necessary” information to notify passengers and stakeholders of the latest data on air traffic.
Lebanon’s government also temporarily reopened its airspace on Saturday.
Lebanon reopened its airspace on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. (0700 GMT).
The airspace will be shut again starting from 10:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) until 6:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Sunday, NNA reported, citing the Lebanese civil aviation authority.
Iran warns US, UK and France against helping stop strikes on Israel
Tehran warns their bases and ships in the region will be targeted
Updated 41 min 56 sec ago
Agencies
SUMMARY
Tehran has warned the US, UK and France that their bases and ships in the region will be targeted if they help stop Iranian strikes on Israel.
Around 60 people, including 20 children, were killed in an Israeli attack on a housing complex in Iranian capital Tehran.
Israel’s defense chief warns that ‘Tehran will burn’ if it keeps firing missiles at Israeli civilians.
Iran’s civil aviation authority has declared the country’s airspace closed “until further notice.”
CAIRO: Iran has warned the United States, United Kingdom and France that their bases and ships in the region will be targeted if they help stop Tehran’s strikes on Israel, Iran state media reported on Saturday.
Iran’s state TV also reported that around 60 people, including 20 children, were killed in an Israeli attack on a housing complex in Iranian capital Tehran. Two people were also killed in an Israeli attack on a missile site in Assadabad in western Iran.
Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported an Israeli strike near the northwestern Tabriz refinery, saying smoke was rising from the facility.
Iran’s strikes against Israel will continue, with targets set to expand to include US bases in the region in the coming days, Iran’s Fars news agency reported on Saturday, citing senior Iranian military officials.
“This confrontation will not end with last night’s limited actions and Iran’s strikes will continue, and this action will be very painful and regrettable for the aggressors,” Fars reported, citing senior military officials.
They were quoted saying that the war would “spread in the coming days to all areas occupied by this (Israeli) regime and American bases in the region”.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that “Tehran will burn” if it keeps firing missiles at Israeli civilians.
“The Iranian dictator is taking the citizens of Iran hostage, bringing about a reality in which they, and especially Teheran’s residents, will pay a heavy price for the flagrant harm inflicted upon Israel’s citizens. If Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn,” Katz said in a statement.
The threat of a wider war comes as Iran and Israel continue targeting each other on Saturday after Israel launched its biggest-ever air offensive against its longtime foe in a bid to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s civil aviation authority has declared the country’s airspace closed “until further notice,” state media reported Saturday, as Israel and Iran continued to trade fire for a second day.
“No flights will be operated at any airports in the country in order to protect the safety of passengers... until further notice,” the official IRNA news agency said.
How Israeli strikes have pushed Iran’s leadership into a corner
Severely degraded missile capabilities and military network mean Tehran is unable to respond with effective strikes
Regional security experts believe Tehran is left with limited options, each more perilous than the other
Updated 37 min 19 sec ago
Reuters
DUBAI: Israel has gutted Iran’s nuclear and military leadership with airstrikes that leave a weakened Tehran with few options to retaliate, including an all-out war that it is neither equipped for nor likely to win, according to four regional officials.
The overnight strikes by Israel – repeated for second night on Friday – have ratcheted up the confrontation between the arch foes to an unprecedented level after years of war in the shadows, which burst into the open when Iran’s ally Hamas attacked Israel in 2023.
Regional security sources said it was unlikely that Tehran could respond with similarly effective strikes because its missile capabilities and military network in the region have been severely degraded by Israel since the Hamas attacks that triggered the Gaza war.
State news agency IRNA said that Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel on Friday in retaliation. But the Israeli military said the missiles numbered fewer than 100 and most were intercepted or fell short. No casualties were immediately reported.
Rescue personnel work at an impact site following missile attack from Iran in Ramat Gan, Israel on June 14, 2025. (Reuters)
The regional security sources said Iran’s leaders, humiliated and increasingly preoccupied with their own survival, cannot afford to appear weak in the face of Israeli military pressure, raising the prospect of further escalation – including covert attacks on Israel or even the perilous option of seeking to build a nuclear bomb rapidly.
“They can’t survive if they surrender,” said Mohanad Hage Ali at the Carnegie Middle East Center, a think tank in Beirut. “They need to strike hard against Israel but their options are limited. I think their next option is withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
Withdrawing from the NPT would be a serious escalation as it would signal Iran is accelerating its enrichment program to produce weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb, experts said.
Iran’s leadership has not confirmed whether it would attend a sixth round of deadlocked talks with the US over its nuclear program scheduled for Sunday in Oman.
Tehran’s regional sway has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq – as well as by the ousting of Iran’s close ally, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
Western sanctions have also hit Iran’s crucial oil exports and the economy is reeling from a string of crises including a collapsing currency and rampant inflation, as well as energy and water shortages.
People gather for a protest against Israel’s wave of strikes on Iran in central Tehran on June 13, 2025. (AFP)
“They can’t retaliate through anyone. The Israelis are dismantling the Iranian empire piece by piece, bit by bit … and now they’ve started sowing internal doubt about (the invincibility of) the regime,” said Sarkis Naoum, a regional expert. “This is massive hit.”
Israel strikes targeting key facilities in Tehran and other cities continued into the night on Friday. The Iranian foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was defiant on Friday, saying Israel had initiated a war and would suffer “a bitter fate.”
Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, director of the Gulf Research Center think tank, said Iran has been backed into a corner with limited options. One possibility would be to offer assurances – in private – that it will abandon uranium enrichment and dismantle its nuclear capabilities, since any public declaration of such a capitulation would likely provoke a fierce domestic backlash.
Sites of strikes and explosions following the attack of June 13.
He said another option could involve a return to clandestine warfare, reminiscent of the 1980s bombings targeting US and Israeli embassies and military installations.
A third, and far more perilous option, would be to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accelerate its uranium enrichment program.
Such a move, Sager warned, would be tantamount to a declaration of war and would almost certainly provoke a strong international response – not only from Israel, but also from the US and other Western powers.
Trump has threatened military action to ensure Iran does not obtain an atomic weapon. He reiterated his position on Thursday, saying: “Iran must completely give up hopes of obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
First responders gather outside a building that was hit by an Israeli strike in Tehran on June 13, 2025. (Tasnim News/AFP)
Iran is currently enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent it would need for nuclear weapons. It has enough material at that level, if processed further, for nine nuclear bombs, according to a UN nuclear watchdog yardstick.
Israel’s strikes overnight on Thursday targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories, military commanders and nuclear scientists. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was the start of a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon.
At least 20 senior commanders were killed, two regional sources said. The armed forces chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards Chief Hossein Salami, and the head of the Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, were among them.
People chant slogans during a protest against Israel’s wave of strikes on Iran in Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran on June 13, 2025. ( AFP)
“It’s a big attack: big names, big leaders, big damage to the Iranian military leadership and its ballistic missiles. It’s unprecedented,” said Carnegie's Hage Ali.
Sima Shine, a former chief Mossad analyst and now a researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said Israel would probably not be able to take out Iran’s nuclear project completely without US help.
“Therefore, if the US will not be part of the war, I assume that some parts of (Iran’s) nuclear project will remain,” she said on Friday.
Above, a handout satellite image released by Planet Labs on June 13, 2025, shows the Natanz nuclear facilities (Shahid Ahmadi Roshan Nuclear Facilities) near Ahmadabad, Iran on May 20, 2025. (Planet Labs/AFP)
Friday’s strikes have not only inflicted strategic damage but have also shaken Iran’s leadership to the core, according to a senior regional official close to the Iranian establishment.
Defiance has transformed into concern and uncertainty within the ruling elite and, behind closed doors, anxiety is mounting, not just over the external threats but also their eroding grip on power at home, the official said.
“Panic has surged among the leadership,” the senior regional official said. “Beyond the threat of further attacks, a deeper fear looms large: domestic unrest.”
A moderate former Iranian official said the killing in 2020 of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, on the orders of President Donald Trump, started the rot.
Since then, the Islamic Republic has struggled to reassert its influence across the region and has never fully recovered. “This attack might be the beginning of the end,” he said.
If protests erupt, and the leadership responds with repression, it will only backfire, the former official said, noting that public anger has been simmering for years, fueled by sanctions, inflation and an unrelenting crackdown on dissent.
In his video address shortly after the attacks started, Netanyahu suggested he would like to see regime change in Iran and sent a message to Iranians.
“Our fight is not with you. Our fight is with the brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for 46 years. I believe the day of your liberation is near,” he said.
The hope for regime change could explain why Israel went after so many senior military figures, throwing the Iranian security establishment into a state of confusion and chaos.
“These people were very vital, very knowledgeable, many years in their jobs, and they were a very important component of the stability of the regime, specifically the security stability of the regime,” said Shine.
Iranian state media reported that at least two nuclear scientists, Fereydoun Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, were killed in Israeli strikes in Tehran.
Iran’s most powerful proxy in the region, Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, is also in a weak position to respond.
In the days leading up to the strikes on Iran, security sources close to Hezbollah told Reuters the group would not join any retaliatory action by Iran out of fear such a response could unleash a new Israeli blitz on Lebanon.
Israel’s war last year against Hezbollah left the group badly weakened, with its leadership decimated, thousands of its fighters killed, and swathes of its strongholds in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs destroyed.
Analysts said Trump could leverage the fallout from the Israeli strikes to bring Iran back to the nuclear negotiating table – but this time more isolated, and more likely to offer deeper concessions.
“One thing is clear: the Iranian empire is in decline,” said regional expert Naoum. “Can they still set the terms of their decline? Not through military terms. There’s only one way to do that: through negotiations.”
Iran still undecided on joining US in nuclear talks
"You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime (Israel) to target Iran’s territory,” says Iran's foreign ministry spokesman
Updated 14 June 2025
Agencies
CAIRO/TEHRAN: Iran has yet to decide whether to join a sixth round of nuclear talks with the United States on Sunday, state media reported, as Israel and Iran traded fire for a second day.
“It is still unclear what decision we will make for Sunday,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said of the talks in Oman, quoted by the official IRNA news agency on Saturday.
Baghaei said on Friday the dialogue with the US over Tehran’s nuclear program is “meaningless” after Israel’s biggest-ever military strike against its longstanding enemy, accusing Washington of supporting the attack.
“The other side (the US) acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless. You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime (Israel) to target Iran’s territory,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Baghaei as saying.
He said Israel “succeeded in influencing” the diplomatic process and the Israeli attack would not have happened without Washington’s permission.
Iran earlier accused the US of being complicit in Israel’s attacks, but Washington denied the allegation and told Tehran at the United Nations Security Council that it would be “wise” to negotiate over its nuclear program.
The sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks was set to be held on Sunday in Muscat, but it was unclear whether it would go ahead after the Israeli strikes.
Iran denies that its uranium enrichment program is for anything other than civilian purposes, rejecting Israeli allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
US President Donald Trump said that he and his team had known the Israeli attacks were coming but they still saw room for an accord.
UN chief urges ‘maximum restraint’ after Israel strikes Iran
Peace and diplomacy must prevail,” Antonio Guterres said on X after Israel’s “preemptive” strikes on Iran and Tehran’s counter-attack
Updated 14 June 2025
AFP
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Israel and Iran to “show maximum restraint” after Israel’s wave of air strikes, the secretary-general’s spokesman said in a statement late Thursday.
While broadly condemning “any military escalation in the Middle East,” the statement by Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq noted Guterres was “particularly concerned” by Israel’s strikes on nuclear installations amid the ongoing US-Iran negotiations.
“The Secretary-General asks both sides to show maximum restraint, avoiding at all costs a descent into deeper conflict, a situation that the region can hardly afford,” it added.
“The solution that they have is to keep the people that are not Jewish — the Arabs, whoever — that are loyal to the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland, and there are many Arabs like that,” said Katz.
