Showing posts with label Cyprus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cyprus. Show all posts

Sunday, June 25, 2023



Cyprus' Philenews reports:
A terrorist act was prevented on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, which was aimed, as estimated, at killing citizens of Jewish origin.

The perpetrators, according to reports, were apparently intelligence services linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This, informed sources say, was achieved by coordinated actions and operations of our country's intelligence service, in cooperation with Western partners, believed to be the respective American and Israeli agencies. This is the second such operation, after the arrest, two years ago, of an Azeri with a Russian passport, who also appears to have been acting on behalf of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

In this case, ...a network of terrorists, who seem to make full use of the occupied territories from where they send their recruits to the free areas from places that the Republic of Cyprus does not control.

...Although the main perpetrator escaped the equipment he would have used was located. 

An official noted to "Filelefthero" that with this development the Republic of Cyprus is sending the message that it shows zero tolerance for such terrorist acts and actions. Furthermore, he declares that no illusions should be created that Cyprus is the weak link due to the "security hole" created by the occupied territories.
Two things are clear: Iran planned to attack Jewish targets, and they tried to use Muslim Turkey's occupation of parts of Cyprus to stay off of the radar of Cypriot intelligence. 

There has been a steady stream of such attempts in the region, all linked to Iran.

In 2021, Cypriot authorities arrested a terror cell linked to Iran, planning to attack Israeli businessmen in that country.

Earlier this year Greek authorities arrested a cell that planned to attack a Chabad in Athens as well as businesses linked to Israelis in another Iranian plot.

In 2022, an Iranian terror cell was caught in Turkey attempting to assassinate an Israeli businessman in Istanbul.

There is no doubt about Iran's direct involvement in terrorism. Apparently, that isn't even a factor with the Biden administration's desire to come to agreements with the Islamist terror regime reportedly on the cusp of testing nuclear weapons. 



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Monday, August 22, 2022


Times of Israel reports:
A group of Palestinians took off to Cyprus on Monday, for the first time using Ramon Airport outside the southern city of Eilat as part of a pilot program allowing the facility to be used by residents of the West Bank for certain flights, part of a series of gestures from Israel aimed at easing the lives of Palestinians.

Until today, Palestinians wishing to fly abroad needed to travel to Jordan and board a flight from there, or secure a hard-to-come-by entry permit into Israel to fly from Ben Gurion Airport.

Arkia Airlines is operating the inaugural service, which is flying 40 residents of Bethlehem and Hebron from Ramon Airport at 11:30 a.m. to Larnaca. A return flight is scheduled for Friday. The route will also serve Israelis, who will be seated alongside the Palestinian passengers.
So much for "apartheid."

Who are the Palestinians traveling to Cyprus?

According to Ultrapal, they are doctors and pharmacists who work for a Ramallah-based pharmaceutical company who is paying for the trip. Their families are coming as well. 

The employees were given a choice of whether they prefer to fly out via Amman or Ramon Airport. About 40 are leaving through Israel. 

I wish my employer would pay for a free vacation for my family!

I can't determine which company is behind this. The Palestinian pharmaceutical sector is pretty successful; the largest company Jerusalem Pharmaceuticals has manufacturing facilities in Jordan and Algeria as well. There are several other major pharmaceutical companies in Ramallah.

Israel Hayom reports that when this initiative was first announced, many Palestinians expressed interest in taking the hours-long trip to Eilat to fly from Ramon, because travel to and from Jordan has been a nightmare.The Palestinian Authority has been discouraging Palestinians from using Ramon Airport, because anything that makes Israel look like anything other than a monstrous regime is anathema to them, and they would prefer their own people suffer than to allow them to benefit from anything Israel does to make Palestinian lives easier. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, December 24, 2021




From MiddleEast-in-24.com:

A number of rabbis met today (Wednesday) with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his palace in Ankara, and discussed with him a number of issues related to Jewish life in the country and around the world. The meeting was attended by many rabbis, led by Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Berl Lazar. The person who was supposed to arrive was also the Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who was eventually forced not to arrive because Turkey is a red state.

The rabbis discussed with Erdogan and then ate a sumptuous dinner. According to the organizers of the meeting, this is the first time that a strictly kosher meal is served in Erdogan’s palace.

Erdogan even surprised when he promised to approve the construction, for the first time ever, of a synagogue in northern Cyprus – a territory occupied by Turkey a few decades ago, unrecognized by world nations and having Chabad activities. The Turkish president even stepped in when he said he hoped the synagogue will be inaugurated in about a year. Today there is an improvised and semi-secret prayer house in the Chabad house in the Turkish half of the island, and now the Turkish president has promised to take active action to establish a synagogue there.
Turkey has been building settlements on occupied territory for decades, and it is met with a shrug from the same world leaders who say that Jews building houses in disputed territories are guilty of war crimes.

But now that Erdogan is saying that he is building a synagogue for Jews in occupied territory, that might be enough to get the world upset for the first time at Turkey. 

(h/t YMedad)






Monday, September 30, 2013

From Wikipedia:
The demographic character of Northern Cyprus changed after the Turkish invasion in 1974 and especially during the last 10–15 years. The TRNC census carried out in April 2006 showed that out of a total population of 256,644 in Northern Cyprus, 132,635, or 52%, were Turkish Cypriots in the sense that they were born in Cyprus of at least one Cyprus-born parent (for 120,007 of these both parents were Cyprus-born). In addition, 43,062 TRNC citizens (17%) had at least one non-Cypriot Turkish-born parent, 2,334 TRNC citizens (1%) had parents born in other countries, 70,525 residents (27%) had Turkish citizenship, and 8,088 (3%) were citizens of other countries (mainly UK, Bulgaria, and Iran). Based on these census data, it can be argued that 113,687 TRNC residents, or 44% of the population, are not Turkish Cypriots properly speaking, but are in fact "Turkish immigrants" or "Turkish settlers" from Anatolia. Alternative sources suggest that there are 146,122 Turkish settlers from Anatolia in TRNC (2007 figures) and that the Turkish Cypriots in Northern Cyprus are today outnumbered by the Turkish settlers, contrary to the picture presented by the 2006 TRNC census.

Almost one-third of the Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus have been granted TRNC citizenship by the authorities of Northern Cyprus and have thus been naturalized. Settlement in Northern Cyprus, especially if accompanied by naturalization, is a violation to the Geneva Conventions Protocol of 1977, since the Turkish occupation has been declared illegal by the UN. The Republic of Cyprus government regards these Turkish immigrants as "illegal settlers" and does not include them in the population estimates for the entire island published by the Republic of Cyprus Statistical Service.[5]
So given that roughly half of the residents of northern Cyprus are illegal settlers, and the land is under illegal occupation by Turkey, certainly the EU would never consider investing in the illegal occupation, right?

Not really. Here is a glossy brochure from the EU that brags about all of the projects it is proudly sponsoring there:

Nowhere in this brochure, nor in the 2006 EU resolution to help the Turkish Cypriots, is any distincton made between the natives and the illegal settlers - all of them benefit equally from the EU programs to help the environment, co-existence, farming, education, infrastructure and so forth.

By any measure, the EU is funding the Turkish settlement enterprise.

Eugene Kontorovich describes the hypocrisy in a JPost op-ed (in yesterday's linkdump)
Under guidelines prepared earlier this summer, euros would not be allowed to go to Israeli entities located cross the Green Line – or to those that have any operations there. All Israeli entities applying for funding would have to submit a declaration that they do not have such operations.

Europe claims that such a move – unparalleled in its dealings with any other country – is mandated by international law. The EU does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories, and thus has an obligation to keep its money from going there. Those who celebrated the move said that Israel is finally paying the international price for its occupation.

Yet it turns out that despite the guidelines, the EU still knowingly and purposefully provides substantial direct financial assistance to settlements in occupied territory – in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus, that is. So the EU funds the occupation of an EU member state. Turkey’s invasion and occupation of Cyprus in 1974 was condemned the UN Security Council, and the EU’s official policy is that the Turkish occupation is illegitimate, and Turkey must completely withdraw. The EU does not recognize the Turkish government in Northern Cyprus.

Nonetheless, the EU maintains an entire separate program to direct funds to Northern Cyprus.
...
Projects include study abroad scholarships for students at the numerous Northern Cyprus universities (imagine such funding for students at Ariel University!); developing and diversifying the private sector through grants to small and medium- sized businesses; various kinds of infrastructure improvements (telecom upgrades, traffic safety, waste disposal); community development grants, funding to upgrade “cultural heritage” sites, and so forth. They even put on a concert.

The program basically gives grants to the Turkish business and private entities, and builds the infrastructure of the occupying government. The EU is doing exactly what its claims, in the settlement guidelines, international law prohibits.

The relevant EU resolutions and reports make no mention of any international legal question about such funding.

There are real differences between the EU’s funding policies toward Turkey’s occupied territories and Israel’s territories: the former is a much starker contradiction of the principles the Europeans proclaim to uphold. The settlement guidelines aim to regulate groups based in Israel proper, and goes out of its way to make sure no money might be incidentally spent in the West Bank (or Golan or, oddly, Gaza). Yet the Northern Cyprus project is not simply an outgrowth of standing arrangements with Turkey or Cyprus, but rather a particular funding program that by definition funds 100% occupation activities.

Indeed, the EU maintains an office in Northern Cyprus to oversee its over “1000 grant contracts...to NGOs, SMEs, farmers, rural communities, schools and students,” according to an EU report.

This office liaises directly with the Turkish occupation regime in the territory.
Hmmmm. One standard for Israel, another for everyone else. Sounds very familiar.

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