After the passing of the state budget, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be required to return to an issue that has been on hold for two months – the judicial reform and negotiations over the controversial legislation led by President Isaac Herzog.

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After a long series of talks between the parties, the situation is starting to become clearer.

The Opposition is ready to compromise on one component of the reform, the law pertaining to the attorney general, which will allow MKs to receive private representation in petitions rather than being represented by the attorney general.

In exchange, the committee for the selection of judges will convene in its current format, without any changes, and the Coalition will pledge not to make any changes to it during the current government. In addition, they will also pledge not to promote any legal-administrative measures without consensus.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Simcha Rotman, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and other Coalition members are pushing to pass at least some of the bills during the current summer session, even if doing so would constitute a unilateral move.

Netanyahu will need to decide whether to comply with the demand of his Coalition partners or the Opposition. If he decides on the former, he will draw the ire of the Opposition, who might go back on any promises of a compromise and call for the reform to be stopped completely. If the chooses the latter, he will be risking the safety of his Coalition as members threatened to leave unless the judicial reform is promoted further.

Political officials understand that reaching a decision and a breakthrough in the talks in the near future is vital.

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Netanyahu on Wednesday reaffirmed his commitment to reaching a compromise on the legislation.

"We will of course continue with our efforts to arrive at a broad consensus agreement, to the extent possible, on the issue of judicial reform," he said in a video message published to social media. "I believe with goodwill and real will it's possible to come to agreements that will serve all citizens of Israel."

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Former prime minister and Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out against the coalition on Monday a day after it successfully pushed a bill through a Knesset committee that would limit a prime minister to only eight years in office, denouncing it as "Iranian" in a speech to a meeting of his Likud faction.

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"The government's polls numbers are tanking, and the opposition's are rising," Netanyahu told fellow lawmakers. "So what do they do? They have tried to pass an Iranian-style law that would create a situation in which they would stay in power even if someone else wins an election."

This kind of law "does not exist in any parliamentary democracy," added the former prime minister. "In a democracy, the public gets to elect its leaders, not some arbitrary law."

The speech came a day after the Knesset Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted unanimously in favor of the bill. It must now pass several other Knesset votes in the plenum before becoming law. The bill seeks to limit a prime minister to two four-year terms and includes non-consecutive terms if less than three years separate them.

Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who initiated the bill, tweeted: "Term limits (as opposed to unlimited terms) are a key principle underpinning the idea that the government must work for the benefit of the citizens, instead of for its own benefit and survival."

He added: "We will continue to strengthen Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

Opponents of the bill charge that it was designed to specifically target Netanyahu, who served as prime minister for more than 12 years. But the bill, in its current language, would not apply retroactively. The Likud also released a statement condemning any attempt to impose term limits, whether aimed at Netanyahu or not.

"Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a law restricting any tenure, whether it applies to him or not. Parliamentary democracies do not restrict the tenure of prime ministers but leave to the public the decision to choose in free elections who will continue to lead it every time," said the Likud.

"Germany has repeatedly elected Chancellors [Helmut] Kohl and [Angela] Merkel to 16-year terms, and so have Canadian citizens, who elected Pierre Trudeau to a 15-year term. No one thought Canada and Germany were not exemplary democracies. The attempt of those who do not pass the electoral threshold to restrict the public's choice as to who will lead it is clearly anti-democratic," said the statement.

JNS.org contributed to this report

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For the first time since taking office, President Isaac Herzog held a working meeting with Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.

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The two politicians discussed various topics on the agenda, including the alarming rise in coronavirus cases.

The president emphasized the importance of the role of the opposition in the Knesset, a position he once held as the head of the Labor party, and noted that "there is no democracy without opposition," according to a statement from the president's office.

Herzog was sworn in as Israel's 11th president on July 7. He replaced former president Reuven Rivlin, who served seven years in the largely ceremonial position.

During his inauguration, Herzog vowed before Knesset members to "faithfully fulfill his role as president."

"I stand before you today, humbled and excited," Herzog said, addressing the Knesset, saying he wanted to be "everyone's president."

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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More than a week into Hamas' latest offensive of rocket attacks against Israel, which ended early Friday with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, a growing number of non-Jewish Iranian activists, journalists and individuals in Iran and outside the country had become vocal in their support for the people of Israel.

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Whether via social media messages or by demonstrating alongside pro-Israel supporters in the United States and Canada, non-Jewish Iranians also expressed support for peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.

"I'm not saying Israel is a perfect country, but I support Israel because it's the only country in the Middle East that provides equal rights and opportunities to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike," said Ahmad Batebi, an Iranian non-Jewish activist and journalist. "As Iranians, our hearts break whenever we see the death of an innocent Palestinian or Israeli child. But we know that Israel does not intentionally seek to harm these children and only a sick terrorist group like Hamas uses them as human shields."

Batebi was one of thousands of Iranian Americans worldwide who posted messages of support for Israel on social-media outlets such as Twitter using the hashtag "I Stand With Israel" or "Hamas Terrorists."

Despite the Iranian regime's heavy filtering of Twitter and other Western social-media sites, many inside Iran sent their own messages supporting Israelis. One particular account identified as "Mamadou Archives" and shown to be based in Iran hosted a live session on May 13 with more than 25,000 participants – primarily Iranians – that sent out nearly 100,000 tweets during the course of seven hours.

Batebi and many other anti-regime activists said they were frustrated with the Iranian nation's wealth being handed over to Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East for decades while average people in Iran have suffered economically.

"For 40 years, the Palestinians have taken Iranian money but never thanked us; they still express hate for Iranians and even supported Saddam [Hussein] during the Iran-Iraq war [in the 1980s]!" said Batebi, who lives in Washington, DC. "Enough is enough! The money that could be used to put food in the mouths of Iran's children shouldn't be given to these Palestinian murderers and terrorists."

One recurring message from anti-regime activists in social media was their extreme anger at the Iranian regime for spending the county's wealth on funding Hamas rockets instead of on coronavirus vaccines. Iran is currently among the nations of the world with the highest rates of deaths from the virus.

"Are you seeing the Iranian people's vaccine money exploding over the skies of Tel Aviv tonight?" asked one Iranian opposition activist in a Farsi tweet.

At the same time, various Iranian opposition activists within Iran also boldly sent out video messages in support of Israel while hiding their faces. Any public displays of support for Israel in Iran are punishable by long prison terms or even execution, according to the regime's laws. Yet those who follow Iranian internal affairs said the current situation is reaching a boiling point for many who are willing to take the risks and defy the regime's authorities by speaking out.

'They do not represent us by any stretch of imagination'

"The Iranian people have long chanted in their protests, 'Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon. My life is only for Iran!' and 'Syria and Palestine are the cause of our problems!' because the Islamic Republic has spent untold billions to support terrorist groups like Hamas," said Cameron Khansarinia, policy director of the "National Union for Democracy in Iran," an anti-regime nonprofit group based in Washington, DC.

Mariam Memarsadeghi, a non-Jewish Iranian opposition activist in Mayland, said the vast majority of Iranians in Iran do not believe the Iranian regime's 42-year, anti-Israel propaganda because they see Israel as a beacon of freedom, peace and economic opportunities in the region they desire for themselves.

"The affinity the regime in Iran has expressed for the people of Gaza and Lebanon is seen by many people in Iran as a big lie that the regime uses to maintain their stranglehold on the population in Iran and the people see right through it," she said.

Dr. Reza Behrouz, a non-Jewish Iranian activist and neurologist in San Antonio, said many Iranian Americans have been especially vocal about supporting the Jewish state right now because a few Iranian organizations purporting to represent all Iranians in the United States have in recent years been spewing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic messages they strongly oppose.

"These organizations and people are very well known to the larger Iranian-American community, and there are justifiable speculations that they work on behalf of the Islamic regime [in Iran]," said Behrouz. "We have nothing to do with them, and they do not represent us by any stretch of the imagination."

Indeed, one organization – the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) – has been accused of ties with the Iranian regime, including cooperation between the organization's founder Trita Parsi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Last year, three Republican senators – Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Braun of Indiana – said that the NIAC violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by "amplifying regime propaganda in the US."

The NIAC signed on to a letter urging the Biden administration to press Israel to halt "the illegal and forced displacement of Palestinian residents from Sheikh Jarrah [in eastern Jerusalem], which precipitated the dangerous escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians."

"We condemn without reservation the violence from Israel's armed forces, armed Palestinian groups like Hamas, and mob attacks that have targeted civilians along sectarian lines," said NIAC.

'Israel is the good we do not have in the Middle East'

Other non-Jewish Iranian activists outside of Iran said they supported Israel because of its culture of promoting tolerance and the long-standing friendships they have enjoyed with Jews, which were first developed by the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great.

"The one thing I know about Iranians is their love for peace and co-existence – the Islamic regime's revolutionary destructive slogans or actions are not generally in the Iranian blood," said Mina Bai, a non-Jewish Iranian journalist based in Norway.

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Dr. Danial Jafari, president of Iranian-Americans for Liberty, a nonprofit advocacy group opposed to the Iranian regime and based in Washington, DC, said many Iranians have sympathy for Israelis facing Hamas rockets because they, too, experienced the horrors of Iraqi missiles attacks on Iranian cities during the Iran-Iraq War from Sept. 22, 1980 to Aug. 20, 1988.

"Iranians understand that no government should tolerate an act of war and must do everything in their power to protect its citizens," said Jafari, a non-Jewish physician living in New York. "This is not a hard decision to make for those of us who woke up in the dark of the night rushing down the stairs, grabbing our loved ones by an arm to seek shelter."

At the same time, other non-Jewish Iranian activists outside of Iran said they joined Jewish pro-Israel groups in recent public demonstrations in support of Israel. One such activist was Salman Sima, an Iranian Muslim anti-regime activist in Canada.

Sima posted a message on Twitter about being attacked along with a Jewish man by pro-Palestinian militants on May 16 during a pro-Israel rally in Toronto. Despite the growing rate of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel demonstrations in Canada, Sima said he would continue to voice support for Israel.

"Israel alone is all the good we do not have in the Middle East today," he said. "In short, Israel is at the forefront of the fight against Islamism and radicalism, so we must therefore stand with the Israelis."

For their part, Iranian-Jewish activists in Southern California said they were not surprised by the growing number of Iranians in Iran and elsewhere in the world voicing support for Israel.

Said George Haroonian, an Iranian-Jewish activist based in Los Angeles: "Ordinary Iranians see much more of a benefit in friendship and support with Israel and Israeli people as natural allies of Iranian people than supporting an Islamic terrorist organization that is indiscriminately attacking civilians."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Prominent Syrian dissident Michel Kilo, a writer who was jailed for opposing the country's leadership, died in France from COVID-19, opposition politicians said on Monday.

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Kilo, a Christian in his early eighties from the coastal city of Latakia, was involved in the opposition early on in the 10-year conflict in Syria that spiraled after a crackdown on mass protests against President Bashar Assad's rule.

Before his exile, Kilo had tried to operate within the confines of Syria's political system, monopolized by the Baath Party for decades.

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A series of articles published recently in the Turkish, British, and American media indicate that Iranian intelligence is making effective use of major international crime organizations and drug cartels in several countries to advance its goals, notably capturing dissidents in the diaspora. These organizations have affiliates in other countries, for example, Romania, a country where a senior Iranian judge was recently assassinated during a mysterious trip.

British and American news outlets reported that Turkish police recently arrested at least 13 members of an international crime organization on charges of collaborating with Iran's intelligence services.

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One such organization has become the long arm of Iranian intelligence. It is run by Naji Sharifi Zindashti, born in Oroumieh, Iran, and the son of a Peshmerga fighter. Zindashti was detained in Evin prison after a conviction for drug trafficking at the age of 20. He escaped from prison and lived in Turkey for many years. Zindashti had contacts with Turkish politicians in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP party, but he made sure to donate financially to the organization headed by Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Turkish opposition in exile who resides in the United States.

Zindashti was reportedly a secret witness in the Ergenekon trial, and detained on charges of attempting to topple the Turkish government. He was mysteriously released from prison in 2010 after his arrest in 2007 in Turkey for possession of 75 kg (175 pounds) of heroin.

Turkey's official news agency, Anadolu, recently confirmed that Iran's intelligence ministry used Zindashti's organization to assassinate and kidnap Iranian dissidents on Turkish soil. Turkey suspects that Zindashti's envoys have acted uninterrupted against Iranian exiles since at least 2015.

A 'honeytrap'? The recent kidnapping by an Iranian 'Swallow'

A video broadcast on Sky News on Dec. 16 portrayed the kidnapping in October of Habib Farajula Kaab, known as Habib Assyud in Turkey, in what the network called a "honeytrap." Assyud was vice president of the Executive Committee of the Arab Struggle Front for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), a party working for the rights of Iran's Arab minority. The Turkish Ministry of Justice issued a "Red Notice" from Interpol to arrest a woman named Sabreen Saeedi, (apparently a Sununuh or "Swallow" agent) for alleged involvement in the Assyud abduction. The video footage showed Saeedi luring Assyud to fly from Sweden to Turkey and meeting him in a petrol station 80 km (50 miles) from Istanbul. He was then abducted by Zindashti's gang and driven 1,600 km (994 miles) to Iran to stand trial.

Another Sununuh agent, Sherine Najaf, is suspected of luring dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam from Belgium to Iraq, where he was kidnapped. Ram was executed by hanging on Dec. 12.

In 2018, Zindashti and members of his gang were charged in Turkey with drug trafficking, the murder of another Iranian ex-pat named Saeed Karimian, the founder and director of JAM TV channels, and drug-related killings. They were soon released, apparently as a result of a combination of lawbreaking, bribery, lack of evidence and political pressure from sources close to Erdoğan.

Zindashti, the head of a criminal and drug trafficking organization, served the long arm of Iranian intelligence in Turkey and Romania.

Exiled Iranian journalists working for Iran International television station in London reported that they had received indications that Zindashti was also involved in the assassination of a senior Iranian judge, Gholamreza Mansouri, at a hotel in Romania's capital in June 2020. According to the station, Zindashti passed an order from Iran to his cousin, Hossein Karimi Rickabadi, a well-known international criminal in Romania, to eliminate the judge, who held considerable information about the corruption of senior Iranian regime figures.

Mansouri's death was ruled a suicide (he jumped from the fifth floor of his Bucharest hotel), but his family raised many questions about the cause of death and why Iranian diplomats instructed him to go from Germany to Romania after receiving medical treatment in a German hospital. They claim his mysterious transfer to Romania happened to avoid assassinating him on German soil, which would have come at a high diplomatic, political and economic price for the Iranian regime.

Zindashti was also wanted in Greece in 2014 after the discovery of the largest shipment of heroin in European history. After the two-ton shipment was uncovered on a freighter, a series of mysterious murders took place in various countries. In September 2014, Zindashti's 19-year-old daughter, Arzu Sherifi Zindashti, was shot dead in Istanbul's Büyükçekmece district on her way to Istanbul University. Zindashti's partners in the drug deal found themselves on the receiving end of the mob boss's rage. Media outlets in Turkey, Greece and other countries pointed the finger at Zindashti in connection with at least 10 murders.

After 13 years under surveillance in Turkey for killing his opponents, Zindashti probably realized that returning to Iran would be a smarter act, and that if he cooperated with Iranian intelligence, he could also run his organization in Turkey from Iran, thus securing his future.

Zindashti's murder and kidnapping spree

Many high-profile murders and abductions of Iranian exiles are attributed to Zindashti's organization:

• On May 30, 2017, Saeed Karimian and his Kuwaiti partner, Mohammed Mutayeb Salihi, were killed in an attack on a private vehicle in Istanbul's Sharir district. Turkey said that the assassin fled (presumably to Iran).
• On Nov. 14, 2019, Masoud Mulvey, founder of Telegram Black Box, which published information about Iranian intelligence, was murdered on a major street in Istanbul. According to Turkish security officials, the gunman was a gardener at Zindashti's villa in Istanbul. The perpetrator was apparently arrested.
• On Oct. 23, 2020, Assyud was abducted from Turkey by the Zindashti gang and transferred to Iran. The crew, numbering 13 people, was recently arrested by Turkish security forces.
• In January 2019, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok revealed that his government's secret service "had strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin, in Almere in 2015 and The Hague in 2017." He defined the Iranian actions as "blatantly damaging to Dutch sovereignty and completely unacceptable." The victims were Ahmad Molla Nissi, a senior ASMLA official murdered in November 2017 at the doorstep of his home in The Hague, and Ali Motamed, who was murdered near his home in Almere in December 2015. Hezbollah maintains ties with Dutch criminal elements in various fields, including drug trafficking.
• In recent years, European intelligence services have uncovered – with the assistance of Israeli intelligence – several other attempts by Iran to target Iranian opposition activists on European soil.
• In 2018, Albania expelled Iran's ambassador and another diplomat, who it claimed were involved in efforts to target opposition figures in the country. Then, in January 2020, Albania expelled another two Iranian diplomats for "endangering Albania's national security." The two were identified as an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official and a member of the Iranian Intelligence Agency MOIS. They were reported to be associates of Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
• In October 2018, Danish and Swiss officials uncovered an Iranian agent intent on assassinating an ASMLA activist in Copenhagen.

Iran's intelligence services, including the Intelligence Ministry and IRGC (especially its Quds Force operating outside Iran), use various "covers" for their intelligence and terrorism activities. Iranian embassies, consulates and delegations traveling abroad serve as cover for terrorist activities and intelligence gathering, while Iran uses Iran Air aircraft for similar purposes. Iranian intelligence officials also turn to international crime and drug cartels (such as the attempt to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States in 2011) to carry out assassinations and gather intelligence, and use drug money to finance their activity, which hides official Iranian involvement.

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Meanwhile, mobster Zindashti fled to Iran, where he lives a public life, working openly with the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and, according to "informed sources," running his drug business.

Iran has claimed for decades that "unsung soldiers" of its intelligence services are deployed across the country and beyond. It is now clear that at least some of these "unsung soldiers" are operating through major crime and drug trafficking organizations.

It should be noted that over the years, even as Iran has carried out assassinations in European countries, these Western nations have maintained trade relations with it, while ignoring repeated human rights violations in Iran and global terrorist operations outside it. Even now, despite the sanctions imposed on the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the European Union's primary interest is to continue the economic ties with Iran. This is despite the pressure from human rights groups to condition the issue of economic cooperation to improving the regime's conduct in the area of human rights violations.

Iran's "Teflon shield" may provide more immunity ahead of US President-elect Joe Biden's entry into the White House in January and the possibility of a US return to the framework of the JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2021.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Tikhanouskaya, who has Lithuanian visa and can stay in a Baltic stay for up to a year and said on Tuesday she had fled abroad for the sake of her children, after two nights of clashes following the contested re-election of strongman President Alexander Lukashenko.

There had been concern about Tikhanouskaya's whereabouts after her campaign team said on Monday they had been unable to reach her by phone hours after she was known to have left a meeting with central election commission officials.

"She apparently faced certain pressure and did not have much choice but to leave the country," Linkevicius told a news conference.

"Apparently, the other choice was not compatible with freedom, so she needed to take the offered possibility to leave the country, and used it", said Linkevicius.

Tikhanouskaya was given a one-year visa and a place to stay in Lithuania, which is taking care of her safety, Linkevicius said.

Linkevicius continued, "Together with the lawyer, she (Tikhanouskaya) visited the electoral committee to submit a complaint about counts of the votes and she stayed for a very long time, a lawyer left the building but she stayed longer and it lasted around seven hours totally, so we didn't know where she is and what she was doing and then I informed that I cannot reach her and I cannot find her. So all night was kind of tension, then I understand that she had not that many options, just to leave the country. She has our national visa and it was her decision to leave to Lithuania, so the authorities didn't prevent this from happening and in the night time, already in the morning hours, she arrived in Lithuania. She is in Lithuania and she is safe."

Both she and the Belarusian authorities said she had not been forced to leave.

At least one person died as police clashed with protesters on Monday after the opposition accused Lukashenko of rigging the vote amid widespread criticism from Western leaders.

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On June 22, the number of hospitalized corona patients listed in serious condition stood at only 44, the ministry said.

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Israel's death toll from coronavirus stood at 422 as of Tuesday.

From midnight Sunday to midnight Monday, a total of 1,855 new cases were confirmed by the 27,290 corona tests carried out in that same period. The percentage of positive results continued to rise, standing at 10.2% for that 24-hour period.

Meanwhile, the Knesset Corona committee decided on Tuesday morning not to approve the government's plan to close down restaurants, but did pass the rest of the parts of the cabinet's directives.

Per Tuesday's decision, restaurants will be allowed to operate with up to 20 customers sitting inside and 30 outside.

Chairwoman of the Knesset Corona committee, MK Yifat Shasha-Biton, supported the decision. Coalition Chairman Miki Zohar (Likud) reported that coalition members of the committee abstained.

CEO of the Israeli Restaurants Association Shai Berman said that "cancelling the order to close restaurants is a necessary step in light of the government's delusional decisions.

"We want to thank committee chairwoman Yifat Shasha-Biton, who according to her conscience and not according to the unrealistic dictates of the government, and for the health and economic security of the citizens of Israel," Berman said.

Zohar said in a tweet that the government had offered restaurateurs a "reasonable compromise" that would allow them to keep their businesses open, but that Shasha-Biton had "fallen into the trap set for her by the opposition, which is willing to endanger the public's health to bring down the government."

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