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Lebanon seems to be having a flag sale.

Iranian flags, Hezbollah, UN, Spanish, Palestinian flags. They are all flying provocatively along the border with the northern Israeli community of Metulla.

Meters from the fence that separates the countries, not far from the site of a 1985 terrorist attack, Hezbollah has festooned the roads with signs of its presence. Its purposely done so Israeli residents can see the flags and the billboards next to them. In Metulla there is a memorial for the 12 Israeli soldiers killed in the March 10, 1985, suicide bombing, while just across the border a huge billboard celebrates the massacre.

I spent Tuesday touring the Lebanese and Syrian borders to see the tense situation in the north of the country. The flags across the border seemed representative of the situation that prevails today. Next to the Hezbollah flags is a small post that has a UN logo. Near it the Amal Shia Lebanese movement has erected a large banner reading To he of pure hands and a generous soul, thank you Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri.

(Berri is also the leader of Amal.) On the banner is the Iranian flag. Here is a visible presence of Iran just a stones throw from Israel. Its not the only Iranian symbol here.

On a hill overlooking houses being constructed in Metulla is another huge poster with a photo of the Dome of the Rock. The face of Ayatollah Khomeini glowers down over the dome and Hezbollah has written: We are coming in Hebrew and Arabic.

Theyve put a giant Palestinian flag next to the poster. The message is clear, and disconcerting.

Here is Iran glowering down on Israel from the north. As we toured the border area with Lt.-Col. (res.) Sarit Zehavi, the head of Alma, an organization that gives briefings on Israels security challenges on the northern border, what should be a tense situation seemed quiet. This area has known war for many years. There is a British police fort from the 1930s, when terrorists also struck at Jewish communities. Zehavi stresses that the situation along the Lebanese border has not affected tourism or housing prices, and the new construction is evidence of that.

Living with the Iranian threat is not a new phenomenon, but it is an increasingly complex one because of the Syrian civil war. Tehran is reaching a peak of influence and power in the region. Its tentacles stretch across Syria and Iraq, and Hezbollah is emboldened.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasts of bringing thousands of foreign fighters to help him attack Israel. He sees Shiites from Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen joining the assault. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted on Monday that today the fight against Zionist regime is wajib [obligatory] and necessary for Muslims. Why do some evade this duty? He also claimed: Palestine is the No. 1 issue of the Islamic world. From his 300,000 followers on his English language page, he only got several hundred likes on his statements.

So, is the relative quiet in northern Israel illusory? Are the Iranian flags just meant to intimidate and sow fear, or are they a sign of a much deeper problem to be taken seriously? The feeling one gets as a visitor is that of a kind of mirage. There is Hezbollah, a vicious, dangerous terrorist group with more than 100,000 rockets, a few hundred meters away, but familiarity breeds a bit of contempt. The first time you see the flags its surprising. The second time, interesting. The third time, boring.

The flags are just the visible expression of what goes on quietly in villages over the border, and of what Hezbollahs Iranian masters sitting 1,500 kilometers away are thinking. Theyd like to boast of conquering Jerusalem or show some murderous and symbolic attack against Israel. But traversing the border, in the shadow of the flags, is the Israeli army, its Humvees and other vehicles, watching for threats.

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Iranian flag joins array of enemy symbols planted on Lebanon ... - The Jerusalem Post

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said Wednesday that efforts to resolve House concerns with a bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran have hit a new snag. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Elana Schor

06/28/2017 03:16 PM EDT

Updated 06/28/2017 06:37 PM EDT

An overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran hit a new snag Wednesday, as Democrats sought assurances that House Republicans will not water it down after what the GOP has billed as a simple fix.

Senior senators have negotiated with their counterparts across the Capitol since the sanctions bill, passed by the Senate on a 98-2 vote, ran into a constitutional objection in the House last week.

Story Continued Below

But when Democrats aware that the White House is urging House Republicans to make the sanctions bill more friendly to President Donald Trump asked the GOP to commit to no new, significant changes in the House, that commitment didn't arrive, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a leader in the bicameral sanctions talks, declared Democrats' response "self-defeating" and "actually accommodating Russia" by furthering the delay in the legislation.

"It is a ridiculous position to take that youre not going to let our bill go to the House in an appropriate manner until you know exactly how the House is going to deal with a bill we passed," Corker told reporters Wednesday.

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Before the partisan tensions bubbled over, a deal on a technical fix to the sanctions package appeared within reach as the latest proposal earned sign-off from Corker's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin.

For Democrats who fought hard for language in the bill that hamstrings Trump's ability to warm relations with Vladimir Putin's government, however, the prospect of diluting the sanctions package in the House is hard to swallow.

"House Republicans have also not committed that this is the last change bill would undergo," the Democratic aide said. "We are happy to make changes to the bill to deal with the problem, provided it doesnt weaken or fundamentally alter the core of the bill. We need assurances that thats it, that bill is not going to be weakened or watered down in the House."

The crux of the sanctions delay has been a provision in the Senate-passed bill that allows Congress to block Trump from easing or ending sanctions against Russia. Changing sanctions policy would affect federal revenue, and the Constitution requires any bills that change revenue to start in the House triggering a so-called "blue slip" delay that has stalled the Senate-initiated legislation from moving forward.

Democrats have raised repeated concerns that the White House plans to push House Republicans to dilute the congressional review provision to make it friendlier to the president. House Republicans have pushed back against the suggestion of any such political motivations behind their procedural holdup of the Senate bill.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) told Fox News on Wednesday that "now that the Senate has some time on its hands" with the postponement of a health care vote, "it should fix the constitutional problem in the bill."

We need to send this message to Putin and to Russia that there will be consequences for their intervention in undermining democracies around the world," Royce added.

As recently as Tuesday afternoon, Cardin said he was inclined to sign off on the House's proposed change to the congressional review provision.

"I think I'm okay with it" based on a staff-level review of the House-drafted language, Cardin told reporters, warning that other Democrats may not have all agreed.

The proposed revisions to the sanctions bill should not change its effect "if interpreted properly," Cardin told reporters, but "we're not sure that's the holdup to passing it." Democrats suspect the Russia bill's delay may be "a little bit more Machiavellian" in nature, the Maryland Democrat added.

The Senate's bill imposes new sanctions against Moscow and codifies existing sanctions into law, while also adding new penalties against Tehran related to its ballistic missile program, human rights violations and support for terrorist groups.

One source described the changes under consideration for the sanctions bill as technical rather than substantive, adding that the House Rules Committee had also identified a minor issue that could be in line for a fix.

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Russia-Iran sanctions talks hit new hiccup - Politico

United Nations Iran is accusing US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of a brazen interventionist plan to change the current government that violates international law and the UN Charter.

Irans UN Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated on Tuesday that Tillersons comments are also a flagrant violation of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United States pledged not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Irans internal affairs.

Tillerson said in a June 14 hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the 2018 State Department budget that US policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.

Those elements are there, certainly as we know, he said.

Khoshroo said Iran expects all countries to condemn such grotesque policy statements and advice the government of the United States to act responsibly and to adhere to the principles of the (UN) Charter and international law.

He noted that Tillersons comments came weeks after President Hassan Rouhanis re-election to another four-year term and local elections in which 71 percent of the Iranian people participated. Rouhani is a political moderate who defeated a hardline opponent.

The people of Iran have repeatedly proven that they are the ones to decide their own destiny and thus attempts by the United States to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs will be doomed to failure, Khoshroo said.

They have learned how to stand strong and independent, as demonstrated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

He said Tillersons statement also coincided with the release of newly declassified documents that further clarified how United States agencies were behind the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular and democratically elected prime minister of Iran on August 19, 1953.

At the June 14 hearing, Tillerson said the Trump administrations Iranian policy is under development.

But I would tell you that we certainly recognise Irans continued destabilising [role] in the region, Tillerson said, citing its payment of foreign fighters, support for Hezbollah extremists, and their export of militia forces in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen.

US lawmakers have long sought to hit Iran with more sanctions in order to check its ballistic missile programme and rebuke Tehrans continued support for terrorist groups, and on June 15 the Senate approved a sweeping sanctions bill.

The bill imposes mandatory sanctions on people involved in Irans ballistic missile programme and anyone who does business with them.

The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the countrys Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo. It now goes to the House. Senators insisted the new Iran sanctions wont undermine or impede enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal that Former President Barack Obama and five other key nations reached with Tehran two years ago.

Meanwhile, tensions have been escalating between the US and North Korea following the death of US student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested in North Korea and sent home in a coma after 18 months, and in the face of Pyongyangs military and nuclear ambitions.

Moon Jae-in, the new leader of North Koreas neighbour and arch enemy, South Korea, is headed to Washington for talks this week. North Koreas state news agency KCNA said: The America-first principle . . . advocates the world domination by recourse to military means just as was the case with Hitlers concept of world occupation.

And it went on to accuse Trump of following Hitlers dictatorial politics to divide others into two categories, friends and foes in order to justify suppression.

It is not the first time the secretive state has evoked Hitler in propaganda against the US.

After George W Bush branded the North, along with Iran and Iraq an axis of evil, Pyongyang hit back, saying the then-US president was a tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade and a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality.

America has been angling for tougher sanctions against North Korea because of the states insistence on developing missiles to carry nuclear warheads greater distances.

KCNA said the US policy of blocking medical supplies was an unethical and inhumane act, far exceeding the degree of Hitlers blockade of Leningrad. And it added: The Trump way of thinking that the whole world may be sacrificed, just for the better living of the US, has put even its allies and stooges in a pretty fix.

Moon is new in the job, but has already signalled he will move to pressure China on tightening the screws around North Korea. AFP

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Iran accuses US of 'brazen' plan to change its govt - Chronicle

Iran used a Star of David as a target for a missile test last year, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations revealed Wednesday.

Ambassador Danny Danon shared a startling satellite image of the Jewish and Israeli symbol with members of the UN Security Council, the Jerusalem Post reported.

This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable, Danon told the Council. This missile test not only violates Security Council resolutions but also proves beyond doubt, once again, the true intentions of Iran to target Israel.

The Star of David was used as a target for a mid-range Qiam ballistic missile test in December, according to a statement from the Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN.

Alongside the symbol, a round crater caused by the rocket also can be seen.

The Security Council must act immediately against this demonstration of hate and Irans provocative violations that threaten the stability of the entire region, Danon said.

It is the Iranians who prop up the Assad regime as hundreds of thousands are killed, finance the terrorists of Hezbollah as they threaten the citizens of Israel, and support extremists and tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world, he added.

Earlier this month, Iran fired missiles at Syria, targeting ISIS positions in the first attack by Iran outside its country in 30 years since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, the Times of Israel reported.

The missiles were seen as a threat to Israel and the US.

I have one message for Iran: Dont threaten Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack.

Iran has previously fired missiles with anti-Israel messages written on them in Hebrew.

In March 2016, it test-fired two ballistic missiles, which an Iranian news organization said were inscribed with the phrase Israel must be wiped out.

Meanwhile, it has been announced that Israel will test its Arrow 3 intercontinental ballistic missile defense system in the US next year.

The test will be carried out in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency, the Jerusalem Post reported.

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Iran once used Star of David as missile target - New York Post

A police officer stands outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2017 in Washington. Eric Thayer / Getty Images

Although foreign countries are generally immune from U.S. lawsuits, the law makes exceptions for acts of terrorism. A federal judge eventually awarded the Americans $71.5 million. But because Iran has few assets frozen in the US the usual source for satisfying such court judgments lawyers for the Americans had to come up with other assets to seize.

The Supreme Court case involved thousands of small clay tablets from Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia, on long-term loan by Iran to the

In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that the antiquities could not be used to help satisfy the court judgment, because Iran was not using them for commercial purposes.

The federal government has generally sided with Iran during the years of litigation. "Although the United States sympathizes with petitioners and other victims of terrorism, the seizure of a foreign sovereign's property via attachment or execution can affect the United States' foreign relations," said Jeffrey Wall, the Trump administration's acting solicitor general.

Originally posted here:
Supreme Court Takes Up Dispute Over Iran Antiquities in Terror Case - NBCNews.com