Eye on Iran: Huge Iran al-Quds Day Rallies Call for 'Death to Israel'

Join UANI           Top Stories AFP: "Iranians rallied nationwide on Friday in a show of support for Palestinians as archfoe Israel pursued its deadly campaign against the Gaza Strip. Demonstrations were held in Tehran and more than 700 towns and cities across the country on the last day of prayer and rest of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, state television reported. In the capital, footage showed demonstrators, carrying placards proclaiming 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America', converging from nine different points on Tehran University in the city centre. Iran holds Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) rallies in support of the Palestinians every year on the last Friday of Ramadan, but this year's demonstrations came on the 18th day of Israel's deadly campaign against rocket-firing militants in Gaza." http://t.uani.com/1pgCBqg Press TV: "Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has condemned Israel's brutal war on Gaza, urging Islamic countries to support the Palestinian resistance in unison. Rouhani who joined International Quds Day rallies in the Iranian capital Tehran on Friday condemned Israel's war on Gaza as 'inhumane and genocidal' and said all Muslims should show their rage and resentment, unity and resistance against Israel... He said that all Muslims should rise up against Israel, saying there is no way to confront Israel except through unity and resistance." http://t.uani.com/1rRlpJ2 AFP: "Iran provided Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas with the technology it has used to rain down rockets on Israel from Gaza, its parliament speaker said on Thursday. Tehran frequently boasts of the financial and material support it gives to Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad but more rarely talks of its military assistance. 'Today, the fighters in Gaza have good capabilities and can meet their own needs for weapons,' speaker Ali Larijani told the Arabic service of state television. 'But once upon a time, they needed the arms manufacture know-how and we gave it to them,' he said." http://t.uani.com/1lDhQB9     Nuclear Program & Negotiations Reuters: "The U.N. atomic watchdog said it needs 1 million euros in extra funding to help pay for its monitoring of a four-month extension of an interim nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers. The request was made in a note to member states of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dated July 24 and seen by Reuters on Friday, six days after the extension of last year's agreement was announced... The IAEA saw its workload increase significantly under last November's preliminary accord, initially due to run for six months from Jan. 20 but now prolonged until Nov. 24. Its inspectors accessed Iran's uranium enrichment facilities of Natanz and Fordow daily, compared to about once a week before. The agency also provides monthly updates to member states on how Iran is implementing its commitments." http://t.uani.com/UrZooe Human Rights AFP: "Tehran's chief justice Gholamhossein Esmaili on Friday confirmed the arrest of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and his wife, also a journalist, the official IRNA news agency reported... The Washington Post said on Thursday Rezaian appeared to have been detained in Iran with his wife Yeganeh Salehi and two freelance photojournalists. Rezaian, 38, has been the Post correspondent in Tehran since 2012 and holds both American and Iranian citizenship, according to the newspaper. His wife is an Iranian who has applied for US permanent residency and works as a correspondent for a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates, the Post said... Esmaili was quoted by IRNA as saying: 'The security forces have the whole country under surveillance and control the activities of enemies.' 'They will not permit our country to become a land where our enemies and their agents carry out their activities.'" http://t.uani.com/1zbYk7g Al-Monitor: "The emergence of a series of horrifying stories about minors being sexually and physically abused by their teachers or headmasters in schools and kindergartens has once again raised public concerns about students' security in Iranian schools, where the education system has Islamic underpinnings." http://t.uani.com/1tJLhXJ Foreign Affairs Tasnim (Iran): "Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described the Zionist regime's killing of Palestinian children and women as a blatant war crime. Based on no international law nor any interpretation (of the laws) can the Zionist atrocities be called anything but 'genocide, crime against humanity and international crime,' Zarif said on Thursday while addressing a gathering held at the Foreign Ministry to mark the International Quds Day. He described what is going on in Gaza as yet another example of the decades-long barbarism of the occupying regime of Israel against the oppressed Palestinian nation." http://t.uani.com/UxPUHz Press TV (Iran): "A senior Iranian military commander says Palestinians are determined to avenge the deaths of their countrymen killed in recent Israeli strikes. 'We will chase you house by house and will avenge every drop of blood [shed from] our martyrs in Palestine, and this is the starting point of the awakening of Muslim nations for defeating you,' Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the second-in-command of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said on Friday. The general said no spot in the occupied Palestinian territories is safe for the Zionists, adding, 'Today, the [power of] Palestinian resistance's missiles are far beyond the Zionists' estimate.' Salami said the Palestinian nation will emerge winner in the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip and the 'Muslim world will finally become a grave for the policies of the United States, the Zionist regime and their regional reactionary allies.' 'The power balance will change in favor of the Muslim world and we warn the Zionists that you are a rootless community having no territory, no race, no history and no composing element of a nation,' said the Iranian commander." http://t.uani.com/WPSbQ5 Opinion & Analysis Bassam Barabandi & Tyler Jess Thompson in the Atlantic Council: "Early in my career as a Syrian diplomat, I learned to respect the strategic planning of the Assads. One clear memory is from 2007, during a visit from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. I remember sitting behind a two-way mirror in a room adjacent to the banquet hall at the Four Seasons Damascus. Deputy Vice President Mohammad Nasif and I huddled in the tiny room as we watched a reception featuring Syrian Ministers and their Iraqi counterparts. We took notes, monitored their interactions, and sent waiters and messengers to disrupt conversations and alter the room dynamics. As Nasif and I noted every piece of small talk, every passing gesture, I realized that no detail is too small for the Assad regime to overlook. There is always a plan, opportunities are never missed, and there are no accidents: the rise of ISIS is no exception to this rule. ISIS's role in Syria fits into a plan that has worked for Assad on several occasions. When a crisis emerges, Assad pushes his opponents to spend as much time as possible in developing a response. While implementing such diplomatic stalls, he floods the crisis with distractions designed to divert attention away from Syrian government misdeeds. His favorite diversion is terrorism, because it establishes him as a necessary force to contain it. In the meantime, world events wash away international focus on the initial crisis. Assad used this approach to protect himself after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. My colleagues took steps to appear cooperative while stalling investigations. When the tribunal requested documents, the government sent mountains of information. When tribunal staff planned a visit, the government sent countless clarifications on minute details, shifting plans last minute and obstructing the process. Meanwhile, Assad used his terrorist proxy in Hezbollah to foment sectarian tensions in Lebanon. He also continued to facilitate the flow of extremist Sunni fighters into Iraq. These steps shifted international attention to the stability of neighbors, and positioned Assad's government as a problematic, yet stabilizing force in the region. Accountability for the Hariri plot faded from view. Assad renewed a version of this approach after non-violent protestors took to the streets demanding freedom and reform in 2011. His closest advisors studied the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen to craft an approach that would protect the regime. This small group of political elites concluded that any meaningful concessions to non-violent protestors could precipitate the collapse of the regime. The advisors decided that it would enact no reforms that could weaken Assad's hold on power. Assad learned from the Libyan case that a hasty resort to large massacres, or the threat thereof, could draw intervention from NATO forces. A slower increase in violence against opponents, however, would likely go unchecked. Assad needed to take steps that would pass time and prove himself as indispensable, both to the international community and to Syrians who fear retaliation from the Sunni majority. To achieve these aims, Assad first changed the narrative of the newborn Syrian revolution to one of sectarianism, not reform. He then fostered an extremist presence in Syria alongside the activists. Further, he facilitated the influx of foreign extremist fighters to threaten stability in the region. Finally, any efforts to kill time on the clock, such as the chemical weapons deal, its slow implementation, and the Geneva process, were enthusiastically exploited. The resulting international paralysis allowed Assad to present himself as an ally in the global war on terror, granting him license to crush civilians with impunity. The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) emerged as one of those facts created to ensure Assad's survival as he and his Iranian backers seek to frame this conflict as a regional sectarian issue, with a classical choice between military powers and Sunni extremists. Early in the uprising, I was stationed in Washington. The Assad regime's public messaging sought to construct the narrative that the Syrian revolutionaries had aspirations to disenfranchise and eliminate non-Sunni minorities. Even as we received external reports that the government killed nearly 250 people in Daraa, Deputy Foreign Minister Fisal Mikdad called to assure the Ambassador and me that there had been no killing, only a sectarian misunderstanding that the government had resolved. Once the unrest shifted to an armed conflict, Assad's choice of allies promoted sectarianism. Hezbollah and the Iranian Republican Guard, primarily Shiite forces, assisted in further highlighting Assad's sectarian narrative. Today, the conflict has morphed into a sectarian regional proxy war. This is precisely how Assad envisioned it, and creates a dynamic that the internationals can dismiss as too complex or dissonant to Western interests." http://t.uani.com/1pjQMYT Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. 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