Following the recent parliamentary elections, there are reports that more and more Iranians are now turning to the ethnic "tribalism" and away from the central government in Tehran. After the parliamentary elections, numerous Iranian media outlets are criticizing the low turnout in the Iranian elections and many in the West noted the existence of numerous blank ballots being cast into ballot boxes as a form of protest. In fact, some joked that several seats in parliament should be left blank due to the existence of these blank ballots, which even the regime noted existed in large quantity.

Iran International, an opposition media outlet, noted: "Some newspapers such as Ham Mihan and Sazandegi, along with the pro-reform Arman Melli, delved into significant issues with headlines such as "The Decline of Politics in Iranian Society," "Ethnic Groups Supplanting Political Parties," and "A Silent Protest."" It should be noted that from nearly 62 million eligible voters, some 36 million refused to take part in the elections, even according to the inflated numbers announced by the government.

They added: "In an article for Sazandegi, Hossein Marashi of the centrist Executives of Construction Party pointed out the replacement of political parties by ethnic groups in the election, attributing it to government filtering of political parties and the expectation of a Tehran boycott, which shifted political activity to smaller towns with stronger ethnic identities. Marashi cited Urmia's election outcome, where ethnic Kurds triumphed over ethnic Azeris as evidence."

Leading up to the elections, the Azerbaijani national movement called for "freedom, justice and national government," proclaiming throughout the streets of Tabriz that there should be "no vote" in the ballot boxes. It should be noted that the Iranian regime has been increasingly repressing South Azerbaijan and other non-Persian communities, viewing them to be a threat to the continued existence of the mullah's regime.

Ahead of the elections, 50 West Azerbaijani dissidents were arrested due to their call for a boycott of the Iranian parliamentary elections. They are not alone in this. Around this period of time, Marges Mohammadi, a Nobel Prize winning Iranian human rights activist, denounced the Iranian parliamentary elections as "stage managed," adding: "I along with the people will aim to declare the Islamic Republic's lack of legitimacy and the oppressing rift with the people by sanctioning the theatrical elections."

Earlier in the month, Iran voted for the Majles, the Iranian Parliament, and the Assembly of Experts, a purely religious entity which determines who will be the Supreme Leader who holds all of the power in Iran. These elections came at a time when there is increased tension between the government and the Iranian electorate who is largely sick and tired of theological rule. It also comes at a time when Iran's ethnic minorities are increasingly demanding their rights in a political system which represses everyone who is not Shia Muslim and Persian.

It is critical to note that part of Azerbaijan is being illegally occupied by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Historically, there was no division between North and South Azerbaijan and Tabriz was an Azerbaijani, not a Persian, city. From the Sassanid Empire in the 3rd century through the 18^th century, both North and South Azerbaijan were part of the same nation. This only changed following the Russo-Iranian Wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828, when Iranian and Russian colonists decided to cut Azerbaijan in half. This led to Qajar Iran giving what is today Azerbaijan to Russia under the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828. South Azerbaijan remained under Persian domination until 1945 when the area was declared independent at Soviet instigation. However, when the Soviet forces withdrew, the dream of an independent South Azerbaijan abruptly ended and thousands of Iranian Azerbaijanis were killed by the Persian occupiers.

Today, these people do not have an independent homeland. In 1981, there was an uprising in Tabriz, where hundreds of Azerbaijanis were massacred by the Iranian regime.  Although that massacre is over, Azerbaijani people remain repressed.  Dr. Sarang Zeynizadeh, an Azerbaijani Human Rights activist based in United States, explained what happened as followed: "Modern nation-state building in Iran began from the Pahlavi dynasty. This nation-state building was based on two premises: 1) Iranians are Aryan 2) Persian is the main language of Iranian civilization. Since Iran is a multinational country, this kind of nation-state building solely based on one language (Persian) and one culture (Persian) was exclusive and denied the other ethnicities of the Iranian empire"

He added: "In this paradigm, the Iranian people living in Azerbaijan (northwest region of Iran) whose mother tongue is Azerbaijani Turkish are assumed Aryans whose language has been changed through a coercive process of Turkification by the invasion of the Turks of central Asia. Forcing Azerbaijanis to consider themselves as Aryan is just a small piece of the whole picture. The main part of this picture is the long-standing anti-Turkism. In practice, this anti-Turkism appears as a two-sided assimilation of language and race."

"The principal strategy to assimilate Azerbaijanis over the past hundred years was to spread this propaganda that the mother tongue of Azerbaijanis is Azeri (Azeri is an extinct language in the Indo-European family and has nothing to do with Azerbaijani language), not Azerbaijani Turkic," he noted. "Imposing this new identity sets the ground for eradication of the Azerbaijani Turkic language and extensive assimilation. To this end, both teaching of Azerbaijani Turkic and educating in this language were prohibited. During the Pahlavi dynasty, even speaking this language at school was forbidden and those who violated this rule had to pay a penalty. This cliché has been used for decades to suppress the linguistic identity of Azerbaijanis. In line with this policy of oppression, many names such as a village's name, a city's name, a river's name or a mountain's name were changed to Persian names. Additionally, press and newspapers written in Azerbaijani Turkic language encountered substantial restrictions which are still in effect."

According to Zeynizadeh, "Since the beginning of this suppression, there have always been people fighting against identity oppression who strive to preserve their language and culture. However, the government has strictly suppressed these activists under both the Pahlavi and Islamist regimes."

The Southern Azerbaijanis are not alone since the cultural oppression in Iran includes all the non-Persian ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Arabs (in Ahwaz) Baluchis, Turkmens and many others. People and states all over the world which support human rights and minority rights should support the plight of all the ethnic minorities in Iran in their struggle for freedom and independence from the Persian yoke.

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Israel is in the middle of a war. Rockets from Lebanon are raining down on us every day. We are trying to defend ourselves against ruthless terrorists, who massacred, maimed, mutilated, raped and burned Israeli civilians en masse on Oct. 7 for the crime of being Jewish. However, not many people in the community of nations are sympathetic to our plight.

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US President Joe Biden called Israel's response to the war in Gaza "over the top." Michelle O'Neil, who was recently elected the First Minister of Northern Ireland, said "Hamas will eventually be regarded as a future partner for peace." The French President Emmanuel Macron said that Israel's goal of fighting terrorism did not mean that "it had to flatten Gaza."

Nardia Harman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, recently declared: "Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences. There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. The international community should take action to prevent further atrocities."

The lead story in the BBC is an article titled "Gazans surviving off animal feed and rice as food dwindles." One of the top stories in CNN is "Girl who was trapped in car with dead relatives after it came under Israeli fire was found dead." The lead article in Le Monde also declares: "Benjamin Netanyahu demands the evacuation of civilians and the destruction of Hamas in Rafah. According to the UN, over 1.3 million Palestinians can be found presently in that area."

Indeed, across the world, Israel is facing a public relations crisis. In recent days, anti-Israel protests have swept across 54 Moroccan cities. Morocco is an Arab country that joined the Abraham Accords. If anti-Israel protests have erupted there, the situation for Israel is ten times worse in other Muslim countries, who are not at peace with Israel. Around the same period of time, students in the UK held walkouts and protests demanding that institutions withdraw support for companies like BAE Systems who are providing weapons and defense support to Israel.

About a week ago, anti-Israel protesters gathered near Columbia University and clashed with the NYPD. Around the same period of time, thousands of people marched against Israel in London. This is only a small sample of the hostility that Israel is presently facing in the international community. As we speak, there are members of the American Jewish community who are deliberately avoiding certain areas, just to avoid violent anti-Israel protesters.

In a time like this, when Israel faces so many challenges in the international arena, the Jewish state should really appreciate a country like Azerbaijan, which has zero anti-Semitism and has stood beside Israel, supplying the Jewish state with 40% of its oil supply as we fight against Hamas. Although some might diminish the rich relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan as being nothing more than a deal to get "oil for weapons," I believe that there is a lot more to the strategic relationship between the two countries than that.

Azerbaijani-Jewish relations span back 2,700 years, when Jews fleeing the Babylonian Exile settled in the Caucuses country. Unlike in other countries where Jews experienced oppression, with the sole exception of the persecutions of Nadir Shah and the Soviet regime, the Jewish people did not face any sort of discrimination in Azerbaijan, even though the country is mostly Shia Muslim. On the contrary, the Jewish community is greatly valued by the Ilham Aliyev government which recently won a fifth term.

Pavel Elizarov, the chairman of the All-Israeli Association of Mountain Jews from the Caucasus, general director of the Parliamentary Lobby of Mountain Jews and Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on issues of Jews from the Caucasus, sent a congratulatory letter to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in connection with his election victory.

He did this because President Ilham Aliyev and his father the late Heydar Aliyev played a prominent role in rebuilding Jewish life in Azerbaijan following the collapse of the Soviet Union, funding the reconstruction of synagogues, the operation of Jewish schools, and other activities. Many American Jews could only dream that President Biden would one day fund the Jewish community with US taxpayer money as Aliyev does for the Jewish community in Azerbaijan.

When the Oct. 7 massacre occurred, the Azerbaijani government officially condemned it and has stood by Israel ever since. While anti-Israel protesters march the streets of New York and London, one cannot really find them in Baku. Yes, the Azerbaijanis are greatly saddened by the civilian suffering in this conflict, but they are not taking a biased stance against Israel. This is what makes them different from other governments around the world. For this reason, Israel should cherish this friendship.

I would like to mention that there are some European countries, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic which usually stand side by side with Israel against anti-Israeli decisions in the EU.

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As the Islamic Republic of Iran opens its new embassy in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijani-Iranian relations continue to deteriorate. In recent days, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry issued a warning against Azerbaijani citizens traveling to Iran. This comes as Azerbaijani embassies across the world increase their security in the wake of the Iranian threat and as an Azerbaijani student, Farid Safarli was imprisoned in the Islamic Republic after traveling to Tehran to visit his girlfriend. Presently, Safarli faces espionage charges.

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In the wake of the visit of Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, to Azerbaijan, Iranian rhetoric against Baku has only worsened. There have been media reports that Nasser Kananai of Iran's Foreign Ministry referred to Israel's president as the president of the "fake, child-killing and occupying Zionist regime" and slammed Azerbaijan for hosting him.

This comes after the Azerbaijani authorities closed the offices of the Iranian Cultural Attaché in Baku, declared 6 Iranian officials to be persona non grata, and gave them 48 hours to leave Azerbaijan. Iran did the same to four Azerbaijani diplomats in Tehran. These latest moves were taken after Iran attacked the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran last International Holocaust Memorial Day, killing a security guard, waged an assassination attempt against Azerbaijani MP Fazil Mustafa, and tried to kill Azerbaijani dissident in the US, Ahmad Obali and his son Deniz.

Iran's hatred of Azerbaijan has deep roots. The Iranians despise Azerbaijan for being a majority Shia country that chooses to be secular, modern, tolerant, and multicultural. For this reason, the Iranians always backed Armenia in their dispute with Azerbaijan and are doing everything possible to block a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as this will lead to Iranian influence decreasing in the region. Furthermore, the Iranians also hate Azerbaijan for building a positive relationship with the State of Israel and opening up a new embassy in Tel Aviv.

The Iranians especially hate the State of Israel. In their eyes, Israel is the little Satan while the US is the big Satan. They are propping up Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in their war against Israel. They believe that Israel should be wiped off the map. They were opposed to the Abraham Accords and every other peace agreement signed between Israel and other Muslim-majority countries.

Recently, it was exposed by MEMRI that Esmail Qaani, the head of the Quds Force, sent a letter to the Palestinian terror groups, saying: "I stress once again that the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to use all its abilities and resources to support the Palestinian people and their courageous resistance, and to strengthen the resistance axis until the oppressive Zionist entity is removed from all the lands of blessed Palestine."

Meanwhile, as the Iranians seek to support and strengthen terror groups that are opposed to Israel, they also want to weaken Azerbaijan and other countries that are at peace with Israel. Since 40% of the Iranian population is of Azerbaijani origin and these people seek to secede from Iran and form an independent South Azerbaijan, the Iranians have even more vengeance against Azerbaijan than they have against other Abraham Accords countries since they view a strong Azerbaijan as a threat to the mere existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

After all, a strong Azerbaijan that reclaims Shusha, Fizouli, Aghdam, and other cities in Karabakh can one day also reclaim Tabriz and other Azerbaijani cities that were separated from Azerbaijan unfairly due to the colonial Treaty of Turkmenchay between Qajar Iran and the Russians in 1828.

We also must take into account the Turkish reluctance to any rapprochement between Azerbaijan and Iran. This reluctance is a result of the common Turkic national sentiment which considers Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkic republics of the Russian Federation, and the Eastern (Chinese) Turkestan (homeland of Uyghurs) to be indivisible parts of the Turkic ("Pan-Turan") nation. Iran is led by Persians, and hatred between Turks and Persians has deep historic and cultural roots on both sides.

In light of all these reasons, it is unlikely that there will be any sort of rapprochement between Tehran and Baku in the near future.

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On Dec. 17, 2010, in a small provincial town in Tunisia, a young man named Muhammad Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against a slap he had received from a policewoman for running an unauthorized vegetable stand in an effort to make a living. His friends launched demonstrations against the corrupt government of President Zine Abidine Ben Ali, and those protests spread rapidly to Tunis, the capital.

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Al Jazeera beamed the demonstrations across the airwaves nonstop, prompting more and more Tunisians to join them in a mounting tide. After about a month of massive protests, the president fled with his wife and children to political exile in Saudi Arabia.

Starting in Jan. 2011, the demonstrations spread to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Iraq, Sudan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania and even Saudi Arabia and Oman. In most of these states, they subsided, or were suppressed, through foreign intervention like that of Saudi Arabia in Bahrain. In Syria, Libya and Yemen, however, the bloody domestic strife has continued to this day, while drawing armed foreign intervention.

Egypt has undergone major regime changes – including a year of Muslim Brotherhood rule – and these changes further afflicted the already ailing economy. Tunisia has vacillated between opposing civic forces, from political Islam to liberalism of a European hue.

Al Jazeera, which was launched at the end of 1996, had become a media jihad outlet representing the Muslim Brotherhood, and it spread the fervor of the demonstrations and the revolt against the authorities from country to country. The Arab world at the end of 2010 was like a powder keg with Al Jazeera lighting sparks all around it. Bouazizi was the spark that ignited the masses.

Countries that had been at the forefront of pan-Arabism for many years – Syria, Libya and Iraq (where the turmoil began in 2003) – descended into civil war, and their heterogeneous populations are still struggling for survival to this day. The Arab League, the organization that used to represent the "Arab nation" to the world, while playing a conciliating and mediating role within the Arab domain, has fallen into total paralysis.

When regimes cease to be effective and anarchy prevails, whoever is able to flee does so as quickly as possible. Millions of Arabs have emigrated to whatever country in the world will take them in. College-educated people, academics, engineers, doctors and those in the liberal professions went abroad to find quiet, safe environments for themselves and their families. Millions of emigrants went to Turkey, Europe and elsewhere, leaving their native countries without the ability to rebuild themselves.

At the same time, the most dangerous actors, those who had been subjugated but were awaiting an opportunity to rise to the surface, now emerged into full view: namely, the radical Islamic organizations spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood madrassas, particularly al-Qaida and its offshoots. They gained legitimacy for themselves by remorselessly battling – that is, waging jihad against – the cruel, corrupt regimes.

In 2014, they achieved a major goal by setting up the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This state sowed fear all over the world with horrific forms of murder and gave rise to an international consensus on the need for foreign intervention, particularly on the part of Russia and the US The demolition of ISIS did not, however, eradicate the radical ideology on which it was based; instead, that ideology simply sought new pastures. It is now alive and killing in Sinai, Algeria, Africa, Europe and everywhere the ISIS terrorists fled. From time to time it mounts terror attacks. Just recently we saw ISIS knives in action in France.

The big losers of the "Arab Spring" are the unfortunate masses who took to the streets with entirely justified demands, but encountered brutal force and the deafening silence of international apathy towards the rampant bloodshed. The naked hypocrisy of the UN Human Rights Council was exposed when it granted seats to precisely the states accused of massive human rights violations.

The tragedies of the "Arab Spring" turned the Palestinian problem into a marginal issue. Many Arab politicians understand that this problem is not moving towards a solution, mainly because Israel is not submitting to the narrative concocted by the terror groups – from Fatah and the "Front" organizations to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In Saudi Arabia it has even been claimed that the al-Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Koran was in the Arabian Peninsula rather than in Jerusalem, thus upending Palestinian religious claims to proprietorship over Islam's third-holiest shrine and, by implication, to Jerusalem and Palestine.

The big winners of the "Arab Spring" are the states of the Arabian Peninsula (apart from Yemen) that escaped its brunt. Countries that until a decade ago were on the margins of the Arab world, far removed from the regional and international political spotlight, are now key actors in the international politics of the Middle East.

The Middle Eastern upheavals have enabled non-Arab forces – both peripheral and foreign – to penetrate the region at will. Russia rescued the Assad regime in Syria in return for taking over the western part of the country and the huge natural-gas deposits in the Mediterranean seabed that belong to Syria. Iran, through its proxies and expeditionary forces, has gained control of Iraq, central and eastern Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey is assuming control of parts of Syria and Libya. Meanwhile, Israel – which in the past was described as a "knife in the heart of the Arab nation" – keeps lengthening the list of Arab states that have accepted its existence, recognized it and made peace with it.

Ethiopia feels strong enough relative to Egypt that it has built a dam on the Nile that could cause a devastating water shortage for Egypt's 100 million residents. Sudan has split into two countries, South Sudan and Sudan, and that process could continue beyond Sudan in other Arab states.

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The 10 years of the "Arab Spring" – the last of which is the year of COVID-19 – have brought many Arab countries to the edge of the abyss. The food shortage, the unending wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the Iranian expansion and global apathy have worsened the distress of the Middle East.

The worst of all looms in the near future: the incoming US administration, which aims to return to the 2015 nuclear deal and lift the sanctions on Iran. Those steps will enhance Tehran's ability to interfere in Arab countries and sow death and destruction. One result could well be a further surge of emigration (or, more accurately, flight) by millions of Middle Easterners to new countries where they can rebuild lives that were destroyed by the "Arab Spring."

In sum, just as great as the hopes that attended the "Arab Spring" at its inception is the disillusionment that it has left in its wake.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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One of the realities to which Israel will have to adjust during a Biden administration is that Barack Obama will probably play a role, officially or otherwise, as an adviser on national security or political affairs. This means Israel needs to start having conversations with members of the emerging Biden administration rather than moving forward, in the waning days of Trump's term in office, towards goals a Biden administration will not accept.

It has been suggested that Israel should exploit the remaining months of the Trump presidency to extend sovereignty over parts of the West Bank. Doing so would echo the approach of Obama, who, during his own transition out of the Oval Office in December 2016, supported the thoroughly anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334, spurning President-elect Trump's request that he not do so.

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Applying Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank over the next two months without coordination with the incoming Biden administration might so greatly disturb that administration that pressure could be brought to bear to declare all Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank illegitimate. Implementation of sovereignty could even result in the imposition of US sanctions on Israel (in relation to settlement, sovereignty, or both), a move that would be heartily endorsed by members of Congress such as Rashida Tlaib and  Ilhan Omar, as well as by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Israel must absorb the fact that the Democratic Party of today is not the same party it was eight years ago. It has become extremist in some ways, a process that intensified sharply in response to Trump's entry into the White House and accelerated throughout his four-year term in response to his policies, both domestic and foreign. Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel positions have multiplied and increased their grip on Democratic constituencies. Voices are already being heard suggesting the reopening of Palestine Liberation Organization offices in Washington and moving US Embassy activities back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem.

But the most complicated problem with applying sovereignty right now concerns the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, and also (implicitly) Saudi Arabia. These countries will view an Israeli implementation of sovereignty without prior coordination with them as evidence of Israeli fraud because the excuse to normalize relations with Jerusalem was Israel's agreement to indefinitely postpone the application of sovereignty in the West Bank. If Israel responds to Trump's loss by immediately withdrawing from its commitment not to enforce sovereignty, Jerusalem's new friends will feel it has deceived them. That feeling will surely work against Israeli interests.

During the interim period before Biden takes office, Israel must contact the leaders of the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt with a view to establishing a joint bloc to appear together before the new administration. That bloc would present a united front on these issues: that the United States not bow before Iran regarding the nuclear file, not lift sanctions on Iran and not allow Tehran to interfere in the affairs of other countries. This coalition may or may not eventually give Israel tacit approval to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, but Jerusalem should not proceed with any such plan without prior coordination with these countries. Indeed, coordination with Israel's new friends in the Arab and Muslim world is more important than coordination with the incoming Biden administration, vital though that is.

Over the next two months, Israel can encourage the search for a solution to the problem of what became of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas tore it into pieces 13 years ago – before the PA, during the Obama administration's eight years in power, descended into a failed and corrupt terrorist state based entirely on hatred of Israel.

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Jerusalem should endorse a plan for Palestinian emirates in which seven separate and independent emirates are built, in the West Bank cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Jericho and Arab Hebron. Once the Palestinian emirates are established, Israel will be able to apply sovereignty to rural areas. Biden, Harris and Obama will not be able to revive the sclerotic and self-defeating P.A., and the coalition countries won't shed many tears over its end.

By approaching the Biden administration as a united front, Israel and its five friends in the Arab world will all be in a greatly enhanced position. As Aesop put it in the sixth-century BCE: United we stand, divided we fall.

Their alliance can be useful not only on the Iranian issue but on another key issue as well: the waters of the Nile. Tensions have arisen between Egypt and Ethiopia over a dam Ethiopia built on the river that threatens to cut water flow to Egypt to dangerous levels.

If this alliance is based on the Middle East stage as an active group, other Arab and Islamic nations will probably join it. Countries that could be interested are Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Kuwait, Mauritania, Chad and Niger. As the alliance grows, its political weight is likely to increase in the eyes of the Biden administration, and all the member states will be beneficiaries – both from their internal cooperation and from their ability to present a unified bloc to the American administration.

Is this utopia? Absolutely not. A year ago we wouldn't have even dreamed of normalization with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan. And if Trump departs office on Jan. 20 following a collapse of the Iranian regime, it will be a diamond in the crown of the Trump legacy.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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The Lebanese parliament, government, president, and all other state institutions are nothing more than a façade for players directed by Nasrallah, who also decides on what they will be paid for "good behavior" and whether his collaborators can collect favors from the corruption that is running rampant.

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The public is well aware of the situation and is furious about it. Two weeks ago, the people took to the streets to protest "corruption" and demand that the government resign. The unifying slogan has been "Everyone – as in, everyone," meaning – get rid of all the ministers because they are all corrupt, including the ministers that Hezbollah has placed in the government.

Nasrallah and his Iranian sponsors are afraid that the mask will fall off, break, and expose the country's true face – which is the face of Hezbollah – to the world at large. If that happens, the world will stop selling weapons to the Lebanese army ("We have to strengthen the Lebanese army for the challenges facing it," say French weapons manufacturers and others) and stop lending the country money that just goes to support the thieving regime Hezbollah has put in place.

In a speech last Friday that lasted over an hour, Nasrallah warned the citizens of Lebanon against anarchy, warning that if the protests got out of control, they would meet "active intervention" (meaning, the forcible dispersal of the protests) by members of the "resistance" (Hezbollah).

On Tuesday, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned, along with the rest of the government, including Hezbollah ministers – meaning the demonstrators' first demand has been met. Their second demand is to appoint a government of non-party-affiliated experts to run the country. It appears that Nasrallah won't object to the idea, if only to keep his mask on. He will, however, make sure that the "experts" will do what he tells them to. That way, he can play for time, but the public could take to the streets again if they realize they were fooled.

Hariri's resignation and the fall of the government is the first crack in the mask, and Nasrallah will now hunker down and start working assiduously to breathe life into state institutions so they resume functioning and keep supplying him with cover like they did in the past. He doesn't have an easy task ahead of him, because the protesters are as sick of Nasrallah as they are of his corrupt lackeys.

The sense of togetherness that has blossomed in the nation's squares, the "festival" that has gone on for two weeks already, the major role the women of Lebanon are playing in the protests, and the national flags with their stylized cedar trees and the slogans being shouted are all signs that the genie is out of the bottle, and at this stage is refusing to go back in. If, heaven forbid, a few dozen of the protesters were killed, it might be the final nail in the coffin. Or it might not. Nasrallah is sweating bullets, that's for sure.

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I would remind the official that in classical Arabic, Jerusalem is referred to as Bayt al-Maqdis, meaning "temple," and that this is further proof of the falsehood that prevails today among the people of the region, according to which a temple never existed on the site.

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I would present to Amman's envoy official Jordanian maps drawn prior to 1967, which have the words Mount Moriah written on the site of the Temple Mount, to its southeast the words Solomon's Stables, its south, the Valley of Josaphat, to the east of the mount, the Tomb of Zechariah and the Tomb of Absalom are listed, and to its west, Mount Zion. I would show the official these maps, and then I would note the following Arabic proverb: "A liar needs a good memory."

I would remind the official that while his country's 1994 peace agreement with Israel afforded the Hashemite Kingdom special status on the Temple Mount, Amman was not made sovereign of the site, because the sole sovereign of the site is Israel.

I would further remind the official that the Palestinians, whose rights he is so concerned about, murdered Jordanian King Abdullah's great-grandfather on the Temple Mount.

And finally, I would ask: "You claim east Jerusalem should be the 'capital of Palestine.' Why didn't you establish such a state with its capital in east Jerusalem in the 19 years in which you illegally occupied Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem, from 1948 to 1967?"

But alas, I am not Israel's ambassador to Jordan, and I believe it is highly unlikely that an Israeli envoy to Amman would pose such questions. No wonder we are discounted and dressed down like a child for realizing our religious and historical rights.

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One of the more striking of these aspects was the role of the Palestinian mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Even prior to the Holocaust, when he held various public positions in the land of Israel (1920-1937), his sermons incited the murder of Jews in the riots in 1920, 1921 and 1929, and again in the Arab Revolt of 1936. It isn't surprising that he was later involved in the genocide of Europe's Jews.

According to testimonies provided by Nazi officers at the Nuremberg trials after the war, the mufti is mentioned as one of the figures who pushed Hitler to annihilate the Jews of Europe, from the moment he arrived in Germany in late 1941. While reasonable to assume Hitler didn't need much "encouragement" from the mufti, his role in promoting the idea of destroying the Jews, and its implementation, was prominent.

The mufti also played an important role for the Nazis between the years 1942-1944, when he initiated the creation of Muslim units in the German military and the SS, whose soldiers were drafted in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. In 1944, when the majority of Hungary's Jews were rounded up – more than half a million people – in the Budapest area, the Germans intended to transport them by train to the Auschwitz extermination camp but were worried that partisan fighters would blow up the bridges in an effort to disrupt the shipments. The mufti sent the Muslim units to protect the bridges and ensure the Jews were sent to their deaths.

The mufti didn't hide his intentions. He wrote and broadcast – mainly in Arabic via radio from Berlin – his commitment to preventing at all costs European Jews from immigrating to "Palestine," whose extermination, in his view, was necessary and crucial. In July of 1945, the "Yugoslavian Commission for Determining the Crimes of Occupiers and their Collaborators" adopted Resolution 1892, which included Amin al-Husseini on the list of war criminals, for his role in the forced enlistment of the populace in territories under occupation, based on clause 23 of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.

The commission noted: "As a result of [al-Husseini's] actions … the Muslim division of the SS was established. … Everywhere they were deployed, these units committed numerous war crimes, such as mass slaughter, despicable atrocities, burned entire communities to the ground and plundered. Because of this activity, … the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini has been added to the list of international war criminals. … He bears responsibility for the induction of the Muslim masses, in other words for compelling these people, who were forced to enlist to fascist military organizations, and accordingly, he is also guilty of the same crimes." After the war, the mufti fled to France, where the French heartily welcomed him and gifted him a villa to live in for a year.

However, beyond the mufti's role, we must note in this context the concentration camps in Libya, which was under Italian control during the war. The Jews of Libya were sent to camps in the desert: Jadu, Sidi Azaz, Gharyan, Buq Buq, Ifrane. They were held in squalid conditions, suffered from hunger and thirst, hundreds perished. Who hunted the Jews? Who identified them for the Germans? The answer is clear: their Muslim neighbors.

Finally, we must also remember the "Farhud" of Baghdad, a pogrom of murder, rape and plunder perpetrated by Iraqi Arabs against the Jews of Baghdad over the Shavuot holiday in 1941. In total, 179 Jews were murdered, thousands were wounded, women were raped and children orphaned due to the demonic incitement spewed by al-Husseini, who was in Baghdad at the time.

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