Category: Islam

WHY THE WAR AGAINST IRAN IS NOT ONLY RIGHT BUT ESSENTIAL

Since its inception, the Islamic Republic has been deceiving and lying to the West as its centrifuges churned away enriching uranium to a level only required for a weapons program.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

Just a few months after I was born in Iran, the Islamic (Demonic) Revolution took place, hijacking the country of my birth and, today 90 million Iranians, giving birth to the Islamic Republic. Make no mistake, the Islamic Republic was conceived by evil, born in sin, and against the United States to the core of its DNA. Anyone who thinks that a war against the Islamic Republic and the ayatollahs is wrong, does not know the history and does not understand the dangerous threats that it poses to all Americans.

At its inception, the Islamic Republic never provoked people to chant “All for Allah” or “Sharia Now”.  The chants that three generations of Iranians have been brainwashed by are “Death to America”. It’s not just a catchy slogan but the game plan of the Islamists. They mean it. They have demonstrated it in many ways for nearly five decades.

Americans must never forget the hijacking US embassy on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, 52 of whom were held for more than 400 days until January 20, 1981.

The Islamic Republic is the head of the octopus of a global axis of terror that has been responsible for indoctrinating, funding, and arming countless Islamic terrorists who have the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands. 

Extremist Islam is not compatible with American and western Judeo-Christian values and Democracy. They seek not just to live by Sharia law, which is non-Western and anti-democratic, they seek to impose it on others. Islam subjugates women and minorities through intolerant and even evil misogyny that affords women rights with half those of men. As a woman and a Christian, I experienced this in countless ways before and during my arrest and imprisonment because of my faith. Anyone who cherishes democratic values and gives Islamic regimes like Iran a pass, is undermining the very spirit of democratic values.

From the beginning, the Islamic regime has strived for nuclear weapons, deceiving and lying to the West as its centrifuges churned away to enrich uranium at a level that can only be used in a weapons program. A nuclear Iran under the ayatollahs is an existential threat to the US and the world because they will use it.

Neutralizing Nuclear. The war waged against Iran today is preventing the far more dangerous war with a nuclear Iran of tomorrow.

A nuclear Iran will also trigger a nuclear arms race in the Arab/Islamic world, none of which can be trusted to have this most dangerous weapon, and each of which would feel the need to have them to defend themselves from Iran. The global nuclear threat to human life, and the world’s environment, would be radical and irreversible.

Indeed, America’s first, second, and third priority should be protecting American lives and interests. Americans need to understand a decisive war on the ayatollahs and IRGC is not optional but essential.  Yes, Iranians would be free which is also a good enough reason.  But Americans would also be free of this threat that, if they achieve, they will use.

The Islamic regime has not only openly declared its hostility toward the United States and spent years attempting to expand its influence, funding networks and seeking to infiltrate systems that safeguard our democracy. Its reach has extended beyond its borders, even exploiting criminal channels through agents in the US and around the world who have infiltrated themselves into positions of influence in politics, civic roles, media, and more.  Eliminating the Islamic regime influence will force its agents out of business.  That cannot happen soon enough.

Buying Time. Ready to once again lie and deceive, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi smiles while on his way to the first round of talks with the USA in Geneva. Within days, the US called his bluff as war broke out. (Photo:Bild: -/Iranian Foreign Ministry/dpa/sda)

This is not just a geopolitical challenge — it is an ideological one. The danger lies not only in weapons, but in ideas designed to erode values from within. History shows that destructive ideologies, when ignored, spread quietly until they become far more dangerous than any conventional threat, more than missiles or bombs.

If we care about the world our children will inherit, we must take this threat seriously. America is facing an adversary that openly calls for its destruction, and works to influence minds against the very principles that define our nation. To have ignored such a threat would not have made it disappear; it would have allowed it – like a cancer – to grow stronger.

Americans and the West must understand that removing the Islamic regime is not only about saving the Iranian people, but also about protecting the world and the future of their children from a serious threat that is spreading rapidly globally.

The Islamic Republic constantly worked to undermine US National Security interests. They have the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands. They have penetrated the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. They have never stopped trying to achieve nuclear weapons, destabilizing the Middle East and the West. They sell cheap oil to China and drones and weapons to Russia, strengthening American adversaries.

Death on Display. May the nightmare soon come to an end like public executions in a bid to intimidate the Iranian people.

This is a historic opportunity to destroy them, and history and our children will not forgive us if we close our eyes to the threats that if not eliminated, future generations will inherit, or become victim to.

We cannot make a deal with an Islamic enemy that seek our destruction.  They will lie, employing the Islamic principle of taqiyya, and hide their intentions at every turn, and wait to pounce until a leader of less fortitude is on the other side of the table. Defeating the Islamic Republic today is essential to defend humanity, preserve democracy and freedom for the future.


Brutal Crackdown. Iranian authorities responded to anti-government protests with an unprecedented deadly crackdown resulting in mass killings and serious injuries.




About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

WORD OUT ON THE STREET

From a street in Minneapolis to the streets of Teheran, what does media focus reveal about global morality and hypocrisy?

By David E. Kaplan

Yes, the fatal shooting of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis was a tragedy.  It was the second killing in less than three weeks of a US citizen in Minnesota by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and it should not have happened. However, there was something skewered and revealing about what followed.

ICE R’Age. A yellow “GO HOME NAZI” placard is in evidence at a demonstration against ICE at the site where federal agents fatally shot a man while trying to detain him, on Jan. 24, 2026. No such enthusiasm in support of the brutal crackdown of protestors in Iran. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein—Reuters)

For days on end, US TV new networks, notably CNN, were covering this solitary killing as their Number 1 news item as if nothing else was newsworthy. Well not quite; there was stiff competition from a mega-snowstorm gripping much of the country but as  the big freeze began to thaw, the ‘hot’ news returned exclusively to the street scene in Minneapolis. Different angles of film footages of the scuffle and the shooting were constantly and repeatedly screened as were the endless opinions from law enforcement experts and politicians. The divergent visuals were competing with divergent verbiage and still, five days later, it was still monopolizing the news.

In no way am I belittling the tragic event in Minneapolis either of the victim and his family nor the traumatic impact on the psyche of the American people and its political ramifications. However, contrast this for news relevance with the wholesale state sponsored slaughter unfolding simultaneously in the Islamic Republic of Iran:

 A solitary death on a street in Minneapolis by a Federal law enforcement agent against a mass murder by the thousands on the streets of Teheran and across much of Iran.

Shoveling Snow. Competing with the news on the killing in Minnesota was the mega winter storm that ‘shoveled’ the slaughter in Iran lower down the order of national interest. (Photo: Charles Krupa)

Teheran makes Minneapolis look like a day at Disneyland but what is making the news?

By some accounts, 36,500 Iranians were slaughtered over a period of 48 hours and yet, one did not need a political Richter Scale to  discern that there was little to zilch interest in the US  of  Iran’s mega-massacre – not in the written  press, not on the TV news networks, certainly not among students at colleges who one should have expected  since they did not hesitate to protest against Israel during the last two years  and not on major city streets nor outside embassies. The killing in a US street of a single protestor in confusing circumstances  solicited far more interest than the transparent slaughter of thousands of protesters on multitude streets across Iran!

The silence was staggering. Why? What was the missing ingredient that failed to ‘trigger’ moral outrage and newsworthiness?

Conjuring up images of the Holocaust, Stephen F. Lynch, a Democrat  who represents Massachusetts 8th congressional district describes the death in Minneapolis  as a “brutal execution…..by ICE agents”, more specifically, “…Gestapo-like conduct,” looking like “a firing squad – taking a human life for no reason. Every American should be ashamed to watch this happening.”

Maybe they should, once the dust settles and the facts are clear. But in Lynch’s words, should not every Americanalso “be ashamed,”  to be ignoring the news out of Iran from eyewitnesses and cell phone footage that millions of protestors in the streets are being targets for state rooftop snipers and trucks mounted with heavy machine guns? On Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, an official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned on state television to anyone venturing into the streets:

“If … a bullet hits you, don’t complain.”

Can you imagine an American Federal Agent saying that?

Despite the disinterest of the major TV news networks, TIME magazine thought it about time and reported that  “As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone.” Apparently two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME that:

“So many people were slaughtered by Iranian security services on that Thursday and Friday, it overwhelmed the state’s capacity to dispose of the dead. Stocks of body bags were exhausted, the officials said, and eighteen-wheel semi-trailers replaced ambulances.”

The extraordinary high death rate over 48 hours led to speculation among experts groping for comparisons with other mass killings.

Les Roberts, a professor at Columbia University who specializes in the epidemiology of violent death, contrasted what was happening in Iran with Aleppo(Syria) and in Fallujah (Iraq),explaining that “when spasms of death this high have occurred over a few days, it involved mostly explosives with some shooting.” The only parallel offered by online databases occurred in the Holocaust when on the outskirts of Kyiv on Sept. 29 and 30, 1941, Nazi death squads executed 33,000 Ukrainian Jews by gunshot in a ravine known as Babyn Yar.

Black Days. Protesting in Iran leads to ending up in black body bags. Men stand amid rows of corpses in a morgue in Tehran following mass killings of protestors by security forces in this undated image obtained by Iran International.

So, while the US news obsessed over Minneapolis, it mostly bypassed the news out of Iran that was exposing bloodshed on a scale so horrifying it was beyond comprehension.

In a brief message sent via Starlink from Tehran to Iran International, one resident said the situation in the capital and other cities was so dire that “every person is reporting the death of a family member, relative, neighbor, or friend,” stressing that “this is not an exaggeration.”

“The air was filled with the smell of blood in Tajrish and Narmak,” an Iranian user outside the country quoted a contact as saying in a post on X, referring to neighborhoods in north and east Tehran.

“They were washing the blood from the streets with the municipal irrigation tankers they use to water roadside plants.”

Thousands more have reportedly been detained nationwide. Iranian authorities have labeled anyone present on the streets after January 8 a mohareb—“one who wages war against God”—a charge that carries the death penalty.

The whereabouts of most detainees remain unknown.

There have been reports suggesting that families being asked to pay the equivalent of €5,000 to recover the bodies of their loved ones and others asked to pay for the bullets used to kill their relatives.

Why aren’t US students, notably those at the Ivy League campuses screaming “genocide”?

What is the missing ingredient failing to ignite their passion to protest?

On Sunday, two short videos surfaced showing families inside a hangar belonging to Tehran’s forensic medicine organization in the Kahrizak area. Dozens of bodies wrapped in black bags were visible, some on gurneys and others laid directly on the floor. There is footage brought out of Iran by someone who had recently escaped the country of “… bringing in the bodies in pick-up trucks and telling people to search them themselves,” and later footage showing bodies being unloaded from trailers. “Outside the building, hundreds of people moved among rows of corpses laid directly on the ground, wailing and screaming.”

Bags of Bodies. Where are the global protests in response to photographs like these of family members searching for their loved ones among bodies placed in body bags outside the Kahrizak forensic center in the suburbs of Tehran, Iran, January 13, 2026. 

In one clip, a woman’s voice can be heard crying out to her child: “Get up my love, get up for God’s sake,” as families wander among the bodies searching in shock.

The footage appeared to capture only a fraction of what was taking place.

Sadly  – and tellingly – all this frightening footage and revolting revelations have also only captured “a fraction” of global news attention.

The geographic gap between Gaza and Iran is not too far apart but there is one difference. If you can’t blame Jews it is not news.

There lies the missing ingredient.

As the world this week on the 27 January observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day one would have hoped for a news media and those plethora of ‘people’s power’ movements more receptive to mass murder taking place and more responsive to the appeals for support.

It was not to be.

Holocaust comparisons as misappropriately expounded by  Congressman Lynch found more resonance to what was happening in Minnesota than what was happening in Iran.

“Never Again” is typically “Once Again”.






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

TIME FOR IRAN’S NUREMBERG TRIALS

Nazi Germany existed for less than a generation. Islamic republic for nearly half a century. The list of crimes and people to be tried will be endless. That alone makes this urgent.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

The elimination of the Islamic Republic cannot come too soon. After 47 years since the Demonic Revolution that brought the ayatollahs to power, and Iranians to their knees, subjugated by the mullah’s extremist Islam, Iranians need to be free.  Iranians will celebrate the fall of the terrorist regime with glee, but to be complete there also needs to be justice for the perpetrators.  What’s needed is an Iranian version of the Nuremberg Trials.

While the ayatollahs seat of power physically is in Tehran, the spiritual seat of power is in their “holy city,” Qom. The Qom Trials will turn the city from which the Islamic Republic derived its theological “authority” abusing Iranians for decades into a capital of justice.

Members of the Iranian parliament chant slogans in support of Hamas on Oct. 7. (IRNA)

Following WWII and the Holocaust (with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz commemorated this week), the allied powers needed to come up with a framework to bring justice to the perpetrators of the genocide of the Jewish people and other crimes against humanity. Facing the challenge of how to deal with Nazi war criminals, rather than summary executions or purely national trials, they instituted an international legal process to establish individual accountability and deter future such crimes.

The charges against the Nazis included: conspiracy to commit crimes, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. A total of 199 defendants were tried, 161 convicted, 37 of whom were sentenced to death. While this was groundbreaking and critical, it’s worth remembering that the Nazi’s crimes spanned less than 15 years. After 47 years of the Islamic regime in control, it seems that these numbers will only scratch the surface in Iran.

What’s needed now is to establish a new framework to try and bring to justice leaders and agents of the Islamic Republic. There is a body of international law and precedent for the world to hold foreign terrorists to trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Nazi Germany existed for less than a generation. Islamic republic for nearly half a century. The list of crimes and people to be tried will be endless. That alone makes this urgent.

While I was subject to the misogyny and cruelty of the Islamic Republic since I was a young girl, many of these experiences I recounted in my books, it’s hard to imagine anyone in Iran who doesn’t have a list of people who are responsible for unspeakable crimes. I have mine.

Ali Akbar HeydariFar who played an important role in repressing, torturing, and killing protesters in 2009, is one of the judges who sentenced the writer to death
  • Abolqasem Salavati is an infamous execution judge who ordered the execution of my best friend Shirin;
  • Ali Akbar HeydariFar is one of the judges who sentenced me to death;
  • Judge Heydari was my second judge;
  • Saeed Mortazavi was the judge who told me he will make sure I will be executed;
  • Yahya Pirabbasi, another of my judges;
  • Mohammad Moghiseh is the judge who ordered the execution of many of my friends in prison;
  • Sadegh Larijani, the head of all judges;
  • Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi, the Tehran prosecutor who visited me in prison before my release, enraged by Pope Benedict’s letter advocating for me and my friend Mariyam, and threatening not to talk to anyone about what happened to us in prison and our trial.
Infamously known in Iran as the “Hanging Judge” along with Mohammad Moghiseh and Yahya Pirabbasi, Abolqasem Salavati, presided over the case of Mohsen Amiraslani, executed for heresy for describing Jonah and the Whale as an allegory and who ordered the execution of the writer’s best friend Shirin.

Many of the most terrible people have no online presence and go by fake names. In order never to forget them, and pray that they will be used to be brought to justice – something that seemed unimaginable in 2009 – my friend Maryam and I came up with sketches of two of the criminals. One of our interrogators went by “Rasti”. He was the one who lied and got me to the police station where the interrogations began. Another, “Haghighat” threatened to beat us until we vomited blood.

In order not to forget the faces of their tormentors in prison so that they could be brough one day to justice, the writer and her friend Maryam sketched “Rasti” and “Haghighat”.

Two more people who must be brought to justice are:

  • Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’I, the Chief Justice of Iran who has blood of countless Iranians on his hands;
  • Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While no Iranian presidents should escape justice, when I was in prison I witnessed how many people were arrested, tortured, and  killed because of his direct order and fraudulent election that sparked the Green Movement which he repressed with unspeakable brutality.

It is important that the leaders of the regime are not able to flee, and that there is an immediate means to arrest them all, and hold them until charges can be brought.  It’s also urgent that agents of the regime abroad are arrested and extradited to free Iran, and brought to justice. That’s necessary for Iranians who know who they are, but also for the Western and other countries where they live and in which they infiltrate with their evil extremist Islamic values at the behest of the ayatollahs. Left alone, they will be a national security threat to the countries that harbor them.  Any country that takes and shelters leaders and agents of the regime to be protected in their borders should face unrelenting sanctions. 

Saeed Mortazavi was the judge who told the writer he  “will make sure I will be executed”, has been linked to the closure of 120 publications, the murder of Iranian Canadian journalist in July 2003 Zahra Kazemi and the murder of protesters in the Kahrizak detention center in 2009.

Part of the justice that’s needed in order for Iranians to feel as if they are truly liberated is that the trials must be held, and justice served, in Iran. Doing so will create an example to the world and to the Iranian people.  International trials will not do the same.

The crimes of the Islamic regime and its leaders has not been limited to the horrific scenes we have seen coming out or Iran these past weeks, but the wholesale brutalization of millions of Iranians for nearly half a century. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Maybe millions. The Islamic Republic and its leaders are guilty or widespread crimes directly, and through its terrorist tentacle proxies, around the globe, where millions more have suffered. There needs to be justice for them, and there needs to be a trial of the ayatollahs, mullahs, judges, IRGC, basij, jailers, interrogators, police and others who are guilty of these crimes.

Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi – responsible for the arrest and torture of many journalists, young bloggers, human rights advocates, political activists and reformist leaders – visited the writer before her release and threatened her not to talk to anyone about her experiences in prison.

Following President Trump’s post to encourage Iranians in early January:

“KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers.  They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY! MIGA!!!,” Iranians took to the streets and have continued to protest. Tens of thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured.

Like those found guilty in Nuremberg, the bodies of those who are sentenced to death should be cremated, their ashes dumped into the Persian Gulf in order to prevent ever setting up a shrine to them. The tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini should be burned to the ground, and its remains and his also dumped into the Gulf.

Doing this will serve as an additional form of justice for the hundreds of thousands or more victims of the Islamic Republic, many of whom were simply disappeared and have no resting place, and no closure for their loved ones. While their crimes cannot be erased, every physical presence of their lives can be.

In a dream once, I asked God why He allowed the suffering to take place in Iran.  He said that He was giving the leaders the opportunity to repent and, if not, He would bring His justice. I am praying that President Trump will follow his words with swift action, that the senseless and criminal murder of tens of thousands of Iranians will stop, and that everyone involved from the “Supreme Leader” down to the lowest policeman will be arrested and see justice.



About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

IS HALTING EXECUTIONS IN IRAN GOOD ENOUGH?

Pulling back from military intervention following bellicose threats, is Trump failing – like Carter, Obama and Biden preceding him – the long-suffering people of Iran?

By Jonathan Feldstein

On January 16, 1979, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was forced to flee Iran along with his family due to the US and European countries withdrawing their support. This ushered in what’s called the Islamic Revolution, the return of exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, and the hijacking of a country that had been prosperous and a source of peace and stability in the Middle East. In the 47 years since then, chaos, death, terror have reigned.

Since then, Iran has devolved into a failed state with the Islamist leaders not even able to provide water and electricity, and its currency devalued to record lows, more than one million rials per dollar.

Since then, the Islamic Republic of Iran has become the world’s biggest funder of terrorism, with terrorist proxies literally all over the world. Tens of thousands or more have been killed at the hands of the Islamic regime and its proxies. Millions have been impacted, threatened, and havesuffered.

As we mark this anniversary of the West failing to support a stable ally, ushering in the evil terrorist regime, reports indicate that President Trump may have balked and failed the Iranian people as Carter did in 1979, as Obama did in 2009, and as Biden did in 2022. But if Trump has truly backed down from his harsh rhetoric to take action, and now may be seeking a “diplomatic solution,” the outcome of his actions will be worse than Obama and Biden. His harsh rhetoric emboldened the Iranian people who took to the streets in more than 100 cities in record numbers to protest the regime. They believed that Trump had their back, and were prepared to risk their lives to take back their country after almost half a century. And they were slaughtered by the Islamic regime and its agents in record numbers, at least thousands, if not tens of thousands.

On the verge of striking Iran, the US held off following reports of halting executions. What happens next is up to Trump who is seen here being interviewed in the Oval Office on Wednesday. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Here’s the thing however. Trump’s threats were based on a false premise. He calculated whether the US would take action based on the number of Iranians being killed. As horrific as tens of thousands being killed by forces of their own government is, the massacre of people in their own country is not sufficient pretext for the United States to take military action.

Therefore, if it’s correct that Trump walked back his battle plans based solely on reports that the Iranians “halted executions” of some 800 people who were arrested amid the ongoing recent protests, this would make little sense. “Halting” is a temporary action. No doubt these 800, along with thousands more who have been arrested, still remain in Iranian prison and can be executed at any moment. If not all at once, the regime could execute a few a week and stay below Trump’s radar of “too many” people being killed.

Let’s also recognize the fact that the protests have taken place for less than three weeks. It is a remarkable injustice that anyone can be arrested and sentenced to death in such a short period.

So much for due process!

Left in the Lurch? Nationwide protests across Iran from 289 Dec 2025 to 11 Jan 2026.

But all this – as horrible, evil and unjust as it is – is not a pretext for military action. The reasons for military action are the threats that the Islamic Republic has made and continues to make, as the single greatest source of instability and terror in the world. The Iranian President recently openly declared that Iran is at war with the United States, with Israel, and with Europe. These are threats, not to be taken lightly. They include military threats, but they also include terror, and infiltration of the West to carry out its nefarious goals of spreading radical Islam globally.

From Calling to Prayer to Calling for Executions. Tehran’s Friday prayer leader, hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of detained protesters and the arrest of anyone who supported the protests. He accused the protesters of acting on behalf of foreign powers, calling them “servants” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “soldiers of Trump.”

While Trump was correct to offer support for the Iranian citizens who are protesting for their own freedom, the basis for that support should never have been the number of people killed. It’s a perverse inversion of the Biblical story of Abraham negotiating with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah. How many people are too many?  10? 100? 500? 1000? 10,000? And in any event, if that was the measure, reports of at least 12,000 to more than 20,000 civilians being slaughtered in the streets is, and should have been, enough for the US to take action. “Halting” 800 extra-judicial executions on top of the many thousands who were slaughtered in the streets is also not grounds for not taking action.

Flowers for the Fallen. Impressing upon the US President, flowers are placed next to a display with photos of Iranian protestors killed by Iranian Americans outside the White House in Washington, January 16, 2026. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP)

I fear that Trump has not only failed the Iranian people, but the West, and the world. His rhetoric put a wind in the sails of Iranian citizens who took to the streets, risking their lives only to see them shot down in cold blood. This has been the single greatest opportunity since 1979 to eliminate the Islamic Republic once and for all. THAT should have been the stated goal of any US action, and it should not have been qualified based on the number of Iranians that their government massacred.

Bodies Piling Up. Distressing new videos have emerged from a mortuary in Tehran showing rows of bodies, blood-soaked floors and crowds of people searching for loved ones following a deadly government crackdown on protesters in Iran.

An additional failure is that China, Russia, and numerous Arab and Islamic nations are watching and measuring what they can get away with. They saw Trump sweep in to arrest Maduro in Venezuela next door, but are seeing the US now inept at doing anything about the ayatollahs on the other side of the world. That gives American adversaries around the world license to invade other countries, support terror, engage in direct and indirect threats to the United States and the world, and even slaughter their own citizens and others with impunity.

I’m not saying that making an example of the Islamic regime is a suitable goal of military action, but threatening military action and not pulling the trigger risks losing on a global scale in ways that will not only keep the ayatollah in power for another generation, but also embolden terrorists around the world.

It’s horrific if hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands have been executed in the streets of Iran with impunity. To the extent that they protested and lost their lives because of a threat that Trump made and was never prepared to carry out, their blood is on his hands. If that’s the case, he has let down the Iranian people even more radically than his predecessors by setting them up and not following through.

Fired-Up. Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. (Photo: MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

Let’s be clear, if we ever want to see peace in the Middle East, the only way is the elimination of the Islamic Republic and the reasoning to reach this decision does not require counting how many more people have been slaughtered. On this 47th anniversary of the US withdrawing support for the Shah causing him and his family to flee, it seems that Iran and its people may have been let down once again. They and the world will continue to suffer.

If I am wrong, and I hope I am, I will publicly apologize – but if I’m right, then President Trump should apologize to the Iranian people, to Americans, and to the world. Even Obama recognized in retrospect his inaction in 2009 was a miscalculation. The negative consequences of Trump’s action – or rather inaction – will be felt for years to come.



About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein ­­­­- President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Journal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

PROTESTS IN TEHRAN TODAY BRING HOPES FOR IRANIANS TOMORROW

If President Trump likes to speak of “making deals“, the best deals are to be made after the Islamic regime falls.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

(First published in The Times of Israel)

Unprecedented protests are taking place across Iran, both in terms of the number of people participating, and number of cities in which the protests are taking place. Countless videos have documented Iranians protesting. And it’s growing. The reason is the compounded suffering to which Iranians have been subject under the Islamic republic, and which hopefully are at the breaking point.

Irate Iranians. Protestors march over a bridge in Teheran 29 December 2025 (Photo: Fars News Agency via ATP/file)

The Iranian rial is at lowest point in history. Today, one million rials are worth less than $1. The economic impact is widespread, punishing, and impacting every single Iranian.

This is the impact of the ayatollahs stealing billions from Iranians to fund its jihadi goals including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others, around the world. Yet the policy of funding the world’s largest terror network has come home to roost.

For months, Iranians have also suffered an unprecedented water and energy crisis, leading to power outages across the country, and reservoirs so low that there has been talk of evacuating millions from Tehran due to the inability to provide water.

Even if they were not living under a brutal, evil Islamic regime for nearly five decades, Iranians collectively are suffering the most they have since then, the cumulative impact of the evil regime focusing on spreading extremist Islam, fighting the West, and mismanagement and corruption of every basic need.

Iranians are not just living under widespread mismanagement, they are living under the cumulative national disaster of millions having been arrested, beaten, tortured, murdered, and disappeared. My knowledge is firsthand growing up and spending most of my life there, but also being arrested and sentenced to death, held in the notorious Evin prison for nine months, all because of my Christian faith.

The drought has not only exposed incompetence and mass mismanagement of basic needs.  As reservoirs have dried up, 74 bodies have been found just in one location, bound, at the bottom of the once life-giving bodies of water that are all but gone, and which became their victims graves.  Being bound shows an extra level of evil that they were thrown in alive rather than executed elsewhere and thrown into the water to hide the Islamic regimes crimes.

There have been protests in the past over the murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022, and more recently truckers going on strike in 160 cities due to massive increased in prices.  For a variety of reasons these protests did not cause the regime change for which most Iranians are praying.

Iranians are having it no more. The current protests are because all Iranians are hurting economically, and without the basic needs to live.  The current crisis has exposed new depths of the evil of the Islamic regime.  More than ever, and more publicly than ever, Iranians are chanting for the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty, and in favor of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and death of the ayatollahs.

Currency Collapse. Protesters march in downtown Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29, 2025 following the collapse of the rial with prices up on meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The nation has been struggling with an annual inflation rate of some 40%. (Photo: Fars News Agency via AP, File)

It’s a formula that will hopefully bring the pressure needed for the regime to fall and Iran to be free.

Pressure is also needed from the world because the threats are directed at the world. We even heard it from the “moderate” Iranian president this week, that Iran is at full scale war with the US, Israel, and Europe.  

At the same time Iranians are risking their lives just to protest, it was encouraging to hear President Trump speak out in favor of renewed military action against the regime and particularly the brutal IRGC. In the wake of the 12-day war between Israel and the Islamic Republic in June, standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump stated that he supports renewed military action against Iran if they try to rebuild their ballistic missile or nuclear program. 

Rather than pretending that the Islamic regime will ever negotiate for anything in good faith to make a deal, other than to keep itself alive and in control of Iran for another day, Iranians know that what’s needed from outside is unrelenting destruction of the regime, its leaders, military, and if necessary, its ability to fund itself through oil exports and more. Iranians are prepared to suffer more if it means their eventual freedom.

The United States needs to lead the charge, along with Israel and the EU, and even the Saudis, Emiratis, and other Arab states, to bring down the regime. Iranians pray for that. Iranians were frustrated, even feeling abandoned, that the 12-day war in June did not go on and end with the destruction of the regime, or at least giving Iranians cover to do what’s needed on the ground to do so themselves.

The Islamic Republic has created unprecedented suffering for all Iranians, and for millions of people all around the world.  Not just by targeting Israel and the Jewish people, but by infiltrating the West, in developing nations, and across the Arab and Islamic world. In fact, it’s hard to think of a place in the world that has not suffered as a result of the Islamic revolution in 1979. 

Regime Rickety. Displaying a leadership’s anxiety as much as  an anti-US and anti-Israel message on this  billboard that reads ‘watch out for your soldiers’ in Tehran on January 4, 2026 (Photo: Atta Kenare/ AFP)

Accordingly, it’s necessary that people and nations across the world unite with a singular purpose, to end the Islamic regime and to bring Crown Prince Pahlavi to power and restore the once thriving nation that Iranians yearn for. No one singular act -certainly since the end of World War II – has the potential to eliminate suffering of millions and bring peace.

President Trump likes to speak of making deals. The truth is the best deals to be made are after the Islamic regime falls, and Iran begins necessary reconstruction. The US can play a huge role in that, bringing prosperity to Iran, and peace to the world.  Israel can also play an important role by rescuing Iran with its world-leading water reclamation and desalination abilities, filling up the reservoirs and bringing Iranians hope, and life.


About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

APPEASEMENT IS BACK

How Australian government policies led to the disaster on Bondi Beach.

By Neville Berman

Year after year governments around the world are passing deficit budgets that include massive increases in defense spending. They are arming themselves in the hope of being able to better defend themselves against external enemies.  At the same time, in the name of multiculturalism, diversity, and equality, they have opened their borders to millions of immigrants who do not share their culture, language, religious practices or heritage. The threat to many countries is now internal rather than external. 

What is happening is that incredibly rich Muslim oil exporting countries are promoting the subjugation of the west to Islamic doctrine. One of the ways that they are using to undermine the west is to finance the building of large mosques in major Western cities across the world. The Imams in these mosques are handpicked by the people providing the finance.  They are spreading their opposition to Western culture, and are radicalizing their followers to incite and create anarchy. They are well organized and financed and face almost zero opposition from local governments. They are using the western concept of free speech in order to promote hatred.

Iman Influence. Twenty-four-year-old Bondi Beach shooting gunman Naveed Akram, was a follower of pro-Islamic State preacher Wisam Haddad (above) who has been closely watched by ASIO for most of his adult life but has never been charged with a terrorism offence. (Photo: Four Corners/Sissy Reyes).

The latest attack at Bondi Beach in Australia is the direct result of the total lack of any attempt by the Australian government to take action against hate speech. What is really amazing is to see the current TV briefing by Australian officials. Initially the New South Wales police announced that they were treating the incident as a terrorist attack.  It must have taken a person of exceptional bravery or stupidity to use the word “terrorist” in this day of political correctness. The word “terrorist” has become offensive to millions of people around the world who cheered the attack against America by al-Qaeda on 9/11, 2001.  It is also offensive to millions of people who celebrated the attack on Israel by Hamas on the morning of October 7, 2023.  These are the people that are now setting the standards that society needs to adhere to. The word terrorist conjures up visions of hundreds of actual Muslim terrorist acts across the world, that have killed and maimed thousands of innocent people. The West has simply bowed to the demands of those who want to destroy western culture and civilization and has decided that the word terrorist is now a derogatory term that needs to be removed from the lexicon of the English language. Words like ‘apartheid’, ‘genocide’ and expressions such as ‘rape their daughters’ are now completely acceptable.  Terrorists have become ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘militants’, and the Australians have now found a plethora of new words to lower the bar even further.

Videos show Naveed Akram preaching on the streets of Sydney as a 17-year-old.

The Australian Prime Minister immediately called the incident an act of antisemitism. Considering the fact that that the attack was against thousands of Australian Jews celebrating the first night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, one can assume that the detective acumen of neither a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot were needed to conclude that it was indeed an antisemitic act. The fact that the same Prime Minister has failed to take any serious action against hundreds of demonstrations that have taken place on Australian soil, against Jews and Israel, speaks volumes about his political bias and his concerns to appease the growing Muslim immigrant population in Australia. History has shown over and over again that appeasement leads to calamity. What happened on Bondi Beach did not happen in a vacuum. Ever since the Australian government opened its borders to large scale immigration from Muslim countries, the government has allowed hate speech to go unpunished. Hate speech and Jihad should have no place in Australia or anywhere else for that matter. 

In a TV broadcast soon after the attack, the head of New South Wales governing body described the terrorists who carried out the attack as “shooters.” The next speaker used the word “gunmen.” The spokesman for the New South Wales Police stated that “The offenders have been identified as a 50-year-old father and his 24-year-old son.”  This is hardly the language that one would expect the spokesman of the police department to use about  mass killers of innocent people celebrating on a beach!

Targeting Jews. This is where global antisemitism leads. As if playing an arcade video game, killer Naveed Akram takes aim and shoots to kill, defenseless Jews on Bondi Beach.

So, there you have it, the two radicalized Islamic terrorists that killed 15 innocent civilians and wounded 40 others on Bondi Beach are described as antisemites, then shooters, then gunmen, and finally offenders. Not a single one of the spokespersons used the words Muslim Terrorists or Militant Islamists to describe what happened on Bondi Beach. Not once have the victims of this terrorist attack been described as innocent civilians. The double standards are obvious. Welcome to Australia today.

The one person that stands out in the whole affair is Ahmed al-Ahmed who risked his life and single handedly disarmed one of the terrorists who was shooting at the people on Bondi Beach. The fact that he is a Muslim is a credit to the millions of Muslims who abhor terrorism. He is a shining light that shows that despite all the hatred that is now spreading across the world, there are still people of character and courage. Ahmed al-Ahmed deserves a medal.

Stepping Up Too Late. A report that has sat on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s desk for months is being raised by critics as key evidence that the federal government has done too little, too late to respond to the rising tide of antisemitism since the 7 October terror attack in Israel.

The tragedy on Bondi Beach needs to be the catalyst that unites Australia and the Western world against the falsehoods and hatred that has arisen in the world.  Hatred is not a policy. It is a one-way street to anarchy. It is time to wake up to the fact that countries are abandoning their own culture and heritage by bowing to the demands of those immigrants that wish to subjugate the lifestyle and beliefs of the countries that have welcomed them and provided them with enormous assistance and financial aid. The past cannot be changed. The future definitely needs to be changed.  The writing so to speak is on the wall. What a pity that the only action of the present Australian government is to announce that they will be tightening up on gun control. What a pathetic attempt to find an excuse for their own disastrous policies and appeasement of hatred.  




*Feature picture: People paying tribute to the victims of the Bondi Beach mass shooting during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia, where 15 people were killed and 38 others hospitalized.  (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images).



About the writer:

Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award.  In 1978 he immigrated to the USA  to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel.  He is married with two children and one granddaughter.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

THE GREAT PRETENDER

Behind the polished façade, the “gifts” of Gift of the Givers has a price tag.

By Allan Wolman

Back in the 1950s, The Platters made a hit song called The Great Pretender. Over the decades it was revived by any number of performers — most memorably Freddie Mercury in 1987. Since then, the world has never been short of “great pretenders”, not only on the entertainment stage but very prominently on the political one, where the list of contenders is endless.

Today I want to propose the greatest of the modern-day “Great Pretenders”: none other than Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers, a man who has pulled the wool over an entire nation’s eyes and risen to become South Africa’s most admired humanitarian — both at home and abroad.

Parallel Power. Why is this man – Imtiaz Sooliman – treated by the media as a minster?

With every natural or man-made disaster anywhere in the world, Gift of the Givers is among the first to appear on the scene, ensuring their efforts are rewarded with generous front-page coverage — complete with a full-colour photograph of the good doctor in his trademark green shirt and boldly displayed logo. Not to mention the tsunami of philanthropical donations he attracts.

Sooliman has once again made headlines, this time regarding the mysterious “unknown aircraft” that recently landed at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg. I urge you to read this excellent exposé posted on Facebook by Ivor Blumenthal:

WHY THAT LEGAL CHALLENGE IS IMPERATIVE?



*[Editor’s note: Soon after this article was written, South Africa revoked visa-free access for Palestinian passport holders. Taking its cue from Sooliman’s outrageous initial accusation, the SA government followed blindly reiterating the antisemitic rhetoric of the Gift of the Givers CEO by speculating without substantiation that the mystery flight is an Israeli plot to ethnically cleanse Gaza.]


The South African media should hang their heads in shame. But as the obedient mouthpiece of a rotten and corrupt government, that same media — devoid of morality, integrity, or even the most basic sense of journalistic honesty — would never dare venture into the territory that exposes who and what this organisation really is — and, more importantly, what the man’s true agenda appears to be.

Over decades, Imtiaz Sooliman has cultivated an image of saintly benevolence, rushing from one disaster zone to the next, dispensing aid and compassion with no political or ideological motive, (I also once believed in the tooth fairy). Very few people living a ‘humble’ lifestyle could command aircrafts and other costly facilities at a moment’s notice, but Gift of the Givers opens more doors than presidents and monarchs. Scratch even lightly beneath the surface and a very different picture emerges — one of a shrewd operator who understands perfectly how to manipulate optics, press coverage, and public sentiment.

Unapologetic Law Breaker. In his own words, this man is a law unto himself.

BLOWING THE WHISTLE
However, the true face of Sooliman and his Gift of the Givers is being revealed not by the media but by ordinary folk – non-Muslims – who not only see through but experience the ‘packaged’ deception. Watch the video clip below of a South African woman exposing the true face on this so-called Muslim human rights organization that weaponizes food aid by tying it to conversion. Her outrage disabuses the polished public image of Gift of the Givers, exposing it for leveraging hunger as a recruitment tool for Islam. It has been reported that food parcels have been distributed exclusively to Muslims, while vulnerable Christian families were told they will “get more” if they embrace Islam. Behind the polished façade, the “gifts” of Gift of the Givers has a price tag.

Gift of the Givers is a slick well-oiled reputational machine, capitalizing on every episode of suffering that Sooliman exploits to the full creating another opportunity for branding, hero-worship, and political leverage. The green shirt is no accident; it is a uniform designed for instant recognition, ensuring that Sooliman himself — not the cause, not the victims — becomes the headline.

And here’s where the media and gullible public looks the other way, ignoring the company this man keeps. He has no shame aligning himself to radical Islamic causes, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS, openly stating on national television that he adheres to only one law, NOT the law of the land. That’s a statement that goes beyond mere arrogance, but showing his middle finger to his country and the world.

The False Humanitarian. At a protest against Israel in Cape Town on the 5 October 2024, ‘humanitarian’ charity ‘Gift of the Givers’ founder, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman stood beneath this banner “WE ARE ALL HAMAS” and engaged in antisemitic conspiracy theories, railing against Israel and Jews who “run the world with fear … and control the world with money”. 

Aligning himself with the ANC ‘s agenda of open hostility to Israel and the Jewish people has elevated his stature within South Africa’s political elite affording him a hotline to government ministers who comply to his demands. All this while the media tip-toes around the mysterious aircraft incident at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport and allows Sooliman and his cunningly crafted ‘humanitarian’ Gift of the Givers to weaponize their aims.

Behind the veneer of humanitarianism, a toothless media lacking courage and hiding the truth from the public, feeds the man and his hidden agenda.

Asserting this point, Tim Flack writes in BizNews (8 December), that institutions in South Africa today:

 “…have grown weak and individuals with charismatic branding have filled the void. Sooliman is the clearest example of this trend. He speaks like a minister, moves like a minister, negotiates like a minister, and is treated by the media as if he has the democratic legitimacy of a minister.

But he does not.

He is unelected. He is unappointed. He is unaccountable. And the country has quietly allowed him to operate as a parallel authority in everything from refugee management to foreign policy interpretation.

This is not humanitarianism. It is governance without consent.”

Its time for the media to do their job and expose the true aims behind the façades ofDr. Imtiaz Sooliman and his Islamic charity –  Gift of the Givers.



About the writer:

Allan Wolman in 1967 joined 1200 young South Africans to volunteer to work on agricultural settlements in Israel during the Six Day War. After spending a year in Israel, he returned to South Africa where he met and married Jocelyn Lipschitz and would run  one of the oldest travel agencies in Johannesburg – Rosebank Travel. He would also literally ‘run’ three times in the “Comrades”, one of the most grueling marathons in the world as well as participate in the “Argus” (Cape Town’s famed international annual cycling race) an impressive eight times. Allan and Jocelyn immigrated to Israel in 2019.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

THE HYPOCRISY AND BRAINWASHING OVER GAZA

Israeli withdrawal from Gaza exposes  horrific global hypocrisy and silence of those who ‘claim’ to be pro-Palestine.

By Jonathan Feldstein

The recent days of October 2025 in Israel have been filled with heart wrenching euphoria mixed with cautious optimism, and foreboding.  After two years in unspeakable conditions and captivity, Hamas has released all the 20 living hostages who have returned home to begin a long process of physical and emotional recovery.  Predictably, Hamas has also violated the terms of the agreement to release all the bodies of the 28 remaining hostages. As of this writing, most still remain in the terrorists’ clutches and one of the bodies that they released was not that of a hostage – a ploy they have done before. It’s noteworthy that each of the coffins released needs to be scanned first for explosives before beginning the process of identification of the remains and autopsies.

These are violations of the terms of the agreement that Hamas signed, another form of psychological terror, fitting well in the Islamic practice of taqiya – lying to “infidels”.

At the same time, Israel has agreed to release 2000 terrorists, hundreds of whom serving multiple life sentences for maiming and murdering Israelis. The pain and suffering from the family members of the victims is palpable, as is the fear that any of us could be these terrorists next victims. Or one might rise to become a leader like Yahya Sinwar who masterminded the October 7 attack and massacre, and who was released in a previous deal to free one kidnapped Israeli soldier over a decade ago.

We are also witnessing something only slightly less horrifying: the silence of Hamas supporters around the world who have been chanting for a ceasefire and to protect Gazans for the past two years, even before the slaughter of Hamas terrorists on October 7-8, 2023, was put down.  It’s not new, but flies in the face of anyone claiming to be pro-Palestine (whatever that means), using any made-up reason to blame Israel for the suffering of Gazans, but turning a blind eye to the fact that all the Gazans’ suffering is a direct consequence of Hamas using them as human shields.

Now that Israeli troops have withdrawn from Hamas controlled population centers, what we’re witnessing today is a horrific hypocrisy met by silence of those who claim to be “pro-Palestine”. Hamas has not only not disarmed per the deal, but has undertaken widespread executions in broad daylight across Gaza, ostensibly to eliminate collaborators, but mostly to exert their control and continue to instill fear among Gazans. The gruesome public executions are witnessed and filmed by hundreds.

Sin City. The true nature of Gaza that the world shuts its eyes to – a closeup of a huge crowd of civilians watch an execution in public in Gaza City. Videos showing Hamas carrying out execution – style killing in Gaza

The world remains silent!

  • Why are these executions happening?
  • Why are people standing around watching, filming, and not resisting?
  • Why is the world largely silent?
  • Why is there no widespread media outrage calling out Hamas as the inhuman brutal Islamic terrorist organization that it is?
  • Why are there not a plethora of public statements from world leaders and celebrities who have protested against Israel?
  • Why are there no “Free Palestine” hashtags in response to these executions?

Because without Israel to blame, the actual suffering of Gazans isn’t worth a tweet. Because nobody really cares about Gazans. Their ire is more against Israel rather than pro anything.

With Israeli troops withdrawn and a ceasefire in place, even the UN now admits there’s enough food in Gaza for three months. What happened to the “famine” narrative? The UN’s hypocrisy underscores that there never was one, but it was just another lie, ingested by a world smacking its lips to villainize Israel.

Gazan ‘Humanity’. The world stands silent while other pro-Palestinian activists justify as Hamas militant grabs a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel, before being executed in Gaza City, August 22, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)
 

The veil has been lifted.  No famine and Hamas executing Gazans. But wait, there’s more.

Of the alleged “genocide” Hamas claims that 67,000 have been killed since October 7, 2023.  Other than the fact this this conflates several thousand terrorists who were killed that day, and tens of thousands more in targeted combat, the Hamas numbers are not verifiable. Nevertheless, if we’re to believe that number, it’s now also reported that 58,000 of them were terrorists…that’s an 86% ratio, the lowest proportion of civilian to combatant casualties in any war in history. Ever.

If Israel attempted a “genocide”, then Israel executed the most failed genocide ever. It’s astounding how many bought into the “genocide” lie, and who are now silent.

Comprending the Incomprehensible. British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore laments that while the October 7 2023 Hamas attack resembled “a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies,” academics, students, artists, and activists “have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders….”

With Hamas streaming the deliberate killing of Gazans, the veil is lifted. Why are there no:

– “Free Palestine” outcries

– no pleas to save Gazans from Hamas?

Because it was never about freeing “Palestine” but excoriating Israel.

That fraudulent brainwashing has been nothing less than psychological manipulation designed to make the world hate Jews even more. To make Jew-hatred acceptable. Through their vile protests, in which people were paid to partake and instigate others, they have made the world think that the Jews are the Nazis. But in fact, it’s the deliberate mass brainwashing of millions of eager gullible people, and the literal execution of perceived opposition and enemies of their regime, it’s clear that they are the Nazis. Their ideology is what is genocidal.

October 7th was the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust and somehow, the narrative was twisted. Israel and Jews have been blamed for all of it, and the world actually believed it. If you’re reading this, please take the time in the coming weeks and months to dig deeper. To understand. Not to accept the reflexive blame of Israel that will continue to come from the four corners of the world, and which has always been a lie. Do not accept the silence as so many Gazans continue to be tortured by Hamas. Have the courage to speak out against abhorrent false information.

The threats are real, to Gazans, to Israel and to the West.  The enemy is the same. Please take time to understand, and speak up. The deal reached, and already violated by Hamas, is not a peace deal, but an agreement to see the end of active combat and release of all the hostages – dead and alive.  Hopefully.

Gazan ‘Justice’. A graphic clip, which ABC NEWS has verified shows several men in Gaza City being forced to kneel in the middle of a large gathered crowd as they are about to be executed in public by high-powered weapons.(Planet Labs PBC)

Please pray for the hostages and their loved ones, that they should have full physical and emotional rehabilitation. Pray for the families of those who have been killed as they, hopefully, received their loved ones remains and begin to find closure. Pray for Israel, and its continued safety and security and, if needed, success in continuing to eliminate Hamas threats.




*Feature picture:  Hamas militants kill seven suspected collaborators with Israel in a public execution in Gaza City.



About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein ­­­­- President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

SOUTH AFRICA SHOULD TREAD VERY CAREFULLY WHEN IT COMES TO JIHADIST TERRORISM

Why should a minority foreign import be allowed to determine the future of the majority?

By Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe

I was taken aback by the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) when it accepted the application of the Shariah-based political party called the Islamic State of Africa (ISA). This application was forwarded by a man who is not new to controversy. Farhad Hoomer was arrested in 2018 after he was accused of being involved in the deadly attack at the Imam Hussain Mosque in Verulam,  a town 24 kilometres north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, however, his charges were later withdrawn.

The name Islamic State of Africa raises a serious concern as it suggests that Hoomer may be associated with Islamic State (ISIS or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations (UN) and many countries around the world, including Muslim countries.

Hoodlum Hoomer. Farhad Hoomer and four others were arrested at a warehouse in Mayville, Durban in June 2021 where police seized more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, handguns, an AK-47, a bolt action rifle with a scope and a cellphone jammer. Charges were later dropped against Hoomer and his co-accused. (Photos: SAPS)

This terrorist organisation needs no introduction in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as it continues to cause chaos in Mozambique where South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has been involved to stop the Jihadi terrorism unleashed by a group known as Islamic State of Mozambique (ISM).

The accusations by some Western politicians that Africa  – to some extent – is an enabler of growing terrorism on the continent could be true. Countries such as Sudan and Chad have allowed the Islamic organisations to operate in their countries, at times offering their countries as covers for wanted terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden.

The ideology and political aims of South Africa’s new party, ISA, does not in any way align with the country’s constitution. Just as the founder, Hooker, has said, its constitution makes it very clear that it will implement Shariah law – a legal and moral framework within Islam derived from the Quran and Islamic tradition. The chaotic scenes deriving from the Middle East and Asia are entirely caused by the proponents of this belief, who are convinced that the whole world should be forced, through violence, to follow Islam. 

Farhad has visions of getting far ahead. Durban businessperson Farhad Hoomer – accused by the US of leading an “Isis cell” – denies being a terrorist but says his goal is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and he is willing to take up arms to achieve his goals. He sees democracy as a form of “evil, tyranny and enslavement”. 
 

What Hoomer should understand is that South Africa is and will forever remain a secular state, which has a greater respect for all religions and has always allowed everyone to practice their religion. Section 15 of the South African Constitution guarantees to all the “freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion.” With South Africa being a predominantly Christian country – a legacy due to its colonial past – it is not nor will ever be a religious state. From this vantage point, it does not make sense that a minority Islamic sect could be allowed to determine the future of the majority. 

Spearheading Sharia. Farhad Hoomer who wants his new political party, the Islamic State of Africa (ISA), to be part of South Africa’s political landscape said in an interview with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime “Will I fight for Sharia? I would say yes.”
 

The concern here is not whether this Sharia-based party’s application to the Electoral Commission would be approved or that Hoomer may not even get a parliamentary seat, but about the principle. The IEC was not supposed to even entertain the application of Farhad Hooler which would be a green light to import violence to South Africa. Just on our doorsteps in Mozambique, our brothers and sisters are terrorised by similar Islamic groups. 

South Africa is also harbouring immigrants and refugees who are running away from the Middle East and African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Nigeria, and many others.

Potential Import. In South Africa’s northern neighbour Mozambique, residents near Macomia in Cabo Delgado province, gather after their village was attacked in 2024 by the Islamic State group. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

According to the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI), South Africa has been and remains a source of funding for many terror activities across the African continent. There are Islamic State-loyal cells inside our country who are acting as middlemen by consolidating all the funds from all related terror organisations to generate income. MEARI further observes that Somalia and South Africa are financial hubs of all Islamic State cells or provinces as they are called, the money is then pooled inside South Africa and laundered across East Africa through an intricate network that finances the Islamic State’s activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique.

Frying Pan into the Fire. Fleeing civil wars, these refugees from Somalia, the DRC and Burundi camp outside the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) offices in Cape Town, South Africa in 2019 fearing for their lives due to local xenophobia. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks/GroundUp)

Recent terrorist encounters in Djibouti and Mozambique should sound alarm bells for South Africa to neither associate nor tolerate any Islamic State related organisations to operate on its soil. To do so will only create a conducive environment for radical Islamic terrorism to thrive in a country that has absorbed so many illegal migrants from across the African continent.

On a matter of principle, South Africa’s Electoral Commission should not have entertained the application of ISA whose party platform is both foreign to South Africa’s political, cultural and social ethos and most certainly at odds with the country’s internationally acclaimed liberal constitution.

As much as we respect religious nations, we are not a religious state and do not wish to become one.

Islamic State of Africa eyes 2026 LGE: Farhad Hoomer
https://www.youtube.com/embed/yIKTYw_WyCE





About the writer:

Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.








While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

LESSONS FROM MY FRIEND’S EXECUTION IN IRAN’S EVIN PRISON

Nearly executed like her cellmate affords understanding of the depravity and dangers of the Teheran regime.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

This year, more than ever, it’s impossible not to think about the execution of my best friend, Shirin Alamhooli on May 9, 2010. I met Shirin in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison where I had been arrested and sentenced to death by hanging because of converting to Christianity, a “crime” the Islamic regime calls “apostasy” and which carries a death penalty.  I was arrested in March 2009. Shirin had already been in prison for some time as a political Kurdish prisoner.

Iranian Injustice. This photo of Shirin Alamhooli was taken by the writer while in Evin Prisonm Teheran. Shiran was executed on May 9, 2010. (Photo: Marziyeh Amirizadeh)

As a Christian, I had many people advocating for my freedom from the first day, and miraculously, I was released that November, and then came to America where I have become a proud citizen. Unfortunately, neither the world nor the terrorist Islamic regime cared about the life of a 28-year-old Kurdish woman.  Shirin spent months being brutally tortured: repeatedly kicked in her stomach, bashing her head against the wall until she passed out, hanging her from the ceiling for hours on end, and beating her with a cable. They would only stop the torture for the Islamic prayer, to dedicate their savage acts to Allah. To satisfy him.

For months Shirin could not walk because the skin was torn from the bottom of her feet during the torture. Most of the time we would sit together and from a small window looked at the mountains beyond the walls of prison. She would sing a beautiful Kurdish song. She wished just to walk to the mountains freely, to fly away like a bird one more time.

At The Mercy Of Evil Men. Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish political prisoner and former aid worker, faces the confirmation of her death sentence by the Iranian Supreme Court.

We ate and talked together almost daily. She asked me to promise her that if I got released and she didn’t, to never stop fighting against the evil Islamic regime.

From the first day of my release, I started fighting for her release, even though I remained in mortal danger myself. I will never forget that horrific day I got a call from one of my cellmates still in prison:

“Marzi, Shirin was executed.”

…. then uncontrollable crying.

I felt like I died. I hung up the phone, and for a few hours I felt as if all my internal organs had frozen. My whole body froze. I could not move, talk, or think.

Along with my roommate, Maryam, with whom I had also been arrested and sentenced to death and then released, we went outside the prison with Shirin’s brother, pleading just to get her body to bury her with dignity. The prison authorities lied. They told us her body had been sent to the cemetery. We rushed there and they said they never received Shirin’s body. We returned to Evin Prison, begging them to give us her body. They refused, mocking us. Today, nobody knows her burial place, if she even has one.

Even 15 years later, Shirin’s execution is one of the most painful things in my life.  Growing up in the Islamic Republic, there were many.  This year we must take a lesson from her murder, as the Islamic regime remains the greatest threat to the US, and the world. I am pained that those leaders in my adopted country, which I love and am so grateful for, are being deceived by the notion that the ayatollahs can be rationalized with, that negotiation is anything more than a fool’s errand.

Indeed, the Iranian Islamic Republic cannot be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon – ever, under any circumstances. Negotiation will only give them time to bury their centrifuge deeper, and to hide the enriched uranium that has no civilian purpose. To be clear: if the Islamic Republic is able to acquire a nuclear weapon, they will use it.  They will threaten the US and Israel, the “Great Satan,” and the “Little Satan.” They will establish a nuclear umbrella that will let them blackmail and terrorize the rest of the world.  There is no doubt about this, yet too many in the West don’t realize it.

While all this is horrible, and is threatening, and cause enough to do everything possible to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, no less horrible is the cancerous threat of spreading of their evil, extremist Islamic ideology: in the US and the rest of the world. A nuclear bomb can kill millions instantaneously, but their dangerous ideology infects the whole world, spreading like a virus, and destroying and threatening millions from within over decades.

Condemned to Die. For 46 years, the gallows of the Islamic Republic have claimed countless women’s lives.

My friend Shirin is evidence of that. Arrested, tortured, and executed, she was one of millions of Iranians alone who are victims of this extremist ideology. While no level of torture is out of bounds in the Islamic Republic, according to their strict following of Islamic laws, it’s not allowed to execute a virgin. It is a known practice for women like Shirin, and others, that before being executed they are brutally raped, taking the level of obscenity beyond imagination. That’s another example of why negotiations are futile, and they can never be trusted.

I was supposed to be one of its victims too.  Outside Iran, through its terrorist proxies around the world including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Syrian Assad regime, Kataib Hezbollah, and more, millions of others have been killed and maimed.  Vast “no-go” neighborhoods of major European cities have become dangerous cesspools of Islamic hate.

The US and the world must be saved from this threat. But there’s another reason as well. For more than 46 years, 85 million Iranians have been held captive, hostage to the ayatollahs -victims of their lies. They have been repeatedly let down by the West looking to make a deal.  The worst of these examples was President Obama who, while I was in prison, not only abandoned the Iranian people during the Green Movement, but sent billions of dollars to Iran, thinking that he could pay off the ayatollahs. Still today, Iranians consider Obama as having betrayed them.

Revelations from the Inside. In Captive in Iran, two courageous Iranian women – the writer and a former cellmate on death row in Evin Prison who made it out alive – recount their experiences in one of the world’s darkest places.

There have been reports of Islamic Republic, today, offering the US billions in contracts to rebuild Iran, but that is nothing more than extortion. In fact, the US can achieve unlimited potential and billions in contracts rebuilding Iran by doing everything possible to bring down the Islamic regime, making Iran and Iranians free, and eliminating the world’s greatest source of terror and war.

This is what needs to be done. While it cannot bring back Shirin, it will at least fulfill her wishes for a free Iran, and those of so many others who have suffered their brutality.



*Feature picture: Shirin Alam Holi, born in 1981 in a small village near Maku, executed in Evin Prison on May 9th 2010 after passing one year and nine months in prison. She was charged for cooperating with Pajak (Iranian branch of PKK) on Nov. 29th 2009 and sentenced to death. (Photos: Marziyeh Amirizadeh)



About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.  Marzi also is the founder and president of NEW PERSIA whose mission is to be the voice of persecuted Christians and oppressed women under Islam, expose the lies of the Iranian Islamic regime, and restore the relationships between Persians, Jews, and Christians. www.NewPersia.org





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).