EU covers up for Israel after Iran scientist’s slaying
A protester in Tehran on 28 November shows the words “Harsh Revenge” written on her hand, the day after scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near the Iranian capital.
Ali Abunimah writes in Electronic Intifida 30 November 2020
The brazen slaying of senior Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh near Tehran on Friday is a crucial test of whether the European Union can stand up to the extremist forces of chaos and war in Israel and the United States and rescue the 2015 nuclear deal.
So far, the EU is failing.
Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif quickly pointed to “serious indications of [an] Israeli role” in Fakhrizadeh’s slaying.
“Iran calls on [the] international community – and especially [the] EU – to end their shameful double standards and condemn this act of state terror,” Zarif tweeted on Friday.
Iran has good reason to consider Israel the prime suspect.
Yossi Melman, a veteran Israeli intelligence analyst, tweeted that Fakhrizadeh “was wanted for many years by Mossad.”
The killing on Friday was also reminiscent of the murders of four Iranian scientists between 2010 and 2012.
Evidence in those crimes pointed to Israel acting in collusion with MEK, a cultish, formerly US-designated terrorist group that has paid large amounts of money to buy the support of various senior US politicians.
And in 2018, Israeli media claimed that “Israel may have decided not to assassinate” Fakhrizadeh “because it prefers to keep him alive and watch what he is up to.”
Israel fears that the incoming Biden administration will rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal – known as the JCPOA – which Israel worked to sabotage before and after its conclusion.
Benjamin Netanyahu personally took credit for persuading President Donald Trump to pull the US out of the deal in 2018.
Now the Israeli prime minister is laying down the law for President-elect Joe Biden.
“There can be no going back to the previous nuclear agreement,” Netanyahu declared just days before Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
Trump is very much on the same page. For one thing, he retweeted Yossi Melman’s tweet on the killing, very likely a sign of approval.
Earlier this month, the outgoing US president reportedly wanted to launch a military attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear energy program during his final weeks in office, but was dissuaded by senior officials.