In recent weeks, publications like the New York Times have been reporting about post-nuclear deal Iran and speculating about which sector of its society will benefit the most from the cash windfall that will result from the end of international sanctions on Tehran. The short answer to that question is that very little of the billions that will flow into Iran will find its way to ordinary citizens.Instead, most of it will wind up in the coffers of the government, its Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the companies that terror group and the regime control.
But it won’t be just the IRGC and the entities directly under the ayatollahs’ control that benefits from Western largesse. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon has announced that Iran will now be offering new cash bonuses to Palestinian terrorists.
As the Times of Israel reports:
Mohammad Fateh Ali said Tehran will give $7,000 to families of “martyrs of the intifada in occupied Jerusalem” and a further “$30,000 to every family whose home the occupation has demolished for the participation of one of its sons,” according to local news reports.
It should be noted that the Palestinian Authority already pays pensions to the families of Palestinians that have been jailed by Israel for terrorism. Indeed, PA TV has a regular program profiling such people and treating them as heroes and martyrs. This is an integral part of a political culture that considers Jews to have no rights to any part of the country, including pre-1967 Israel. More importantly, Palestinian public opinion, egged on by the official media of both Fatah and Hamas, treat attacks on individual Jews, including women, children and the elderly as acts of heroism, not crimes.
But the offer of cash bonuses from Iran to those Arabs who seek out random Jews for slaughter in what is known as the “stabbing intifada,” lends added legitimacy to a society that has legitimized terror.
It should be noted that during the past few months, 32 people have been killed in the terror surge that began when the PA and its leader Mahmoud Abbas spread the lie that Israel was planning to harm the mosques on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Though apologists for the Palestinians have tried to place the blame for the violence on Israeli policies, the bloodshed is rooted in hatred for Jews. As the Palestinians have made clear, they view Jews sitting in Tel Aviv cafes as being as much of a legitimate target as those living in remote West Bank hilltop settlements. Moreover, the Palestinians refusal to negotiate, let alone accept repeated Israeli peace offers, gives the lie to the idea that more concessions from the Netanyahu government or territorial withdrawals would magically end the conflict.
But Iran’s willingness to inject its financial power into the already toxic Palestinian political culture ought to particularly worry an Obama administration that has sought to create a new détente with Tehran.
On the same day as Iran’s cash for terror offer, reports were published of meetings in Tehran with representatives from Hamas. The agenda was apparently another Iranian financial offer, this time to help fund Hamas terrorism against Israel.
Iran was Hamas’s chief sponsor during the second intifada. But the group broke with the Iranians when Hamas joined other Sunni Muslim groups in calling for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s ouster. But now, thanks to military intervention by Iran, its Hezbollah auxiliaries, and Russia (as well as American acquiescence to Iran’s foreign policy goals in the wake of the nuclear deal), that Assad’s continued rule is assured, Hamas has reconciled with its former patron. The IRGC is planning to funnel even more aid to Hamas that will allow it to continue its terror tunnel-building program in Gaza as well as to replenish and upgrade its rocket arsenal.
Of course, Iran is interested in more than just helping Palestinians who kill Jews. They wish to expand their influence among Palestinians as part of their push for regional hegemony that so scares Arab nations like Egypt and Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia. This has created an upside down regional alignment that finds these Arab states allying themselves with Israel as they seek mutual protection against an increasingly aggressive Iran.
Iran’s desire to make mischief and to maintain pressure on Israel isn’t new. But the nuclear deal that President Obama imagined would be the start of a new and more peaceful era is giving Tehran the economic muscle to make the region even more dangerous. Instead of helping Iran to, as President Obama hoped, “get right with the world,” those who argued that the deal was good for Israel must now account for the fact that the West’s cash will now subsidize the slaughter of Jews.
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