cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/42956

Religion News Service (4/9/26): “The synagogue was leveled in a strike overnight Monday (April 6) before the ceasefire was declared, one of scores of religious and cultural heritage sites destroyed or significantly damaged by the war led by Israeli and US forces.”

An Israeli missile attack destroyed a Tehran synagogue during the Jewish Passover holiday (Religion News Service, 4/9/26). The Israeli military “expressed regret over what it called ‘collateral damage’ to a synagogue in Tehran caused by an overnight strike,” which was “targeting a senior Iranian commander,” said the Middle East Eye (4/7/26).

Photos of the wreckage at the Rafi-Nia Synagogue have accompanied many of these pieces. The Council on American-Islamic relations condemned the attack in a statement (4/7/26):

We strongly condemn the Israeli regime’s bombing of a synagogue in Tehran, which was the predictable end result of the indiscriminate US/Israel bombing campaign against mosques, hospitals, schools, apartments and other civilian sites across Iran.

The group challenged “various Israel advocacy groups and politicians that support this war in the name of protecting Israel to condemn Israel’s synagogue attack.”

Buried at best

The Wall Street Journal headline (4/7/26) refers to the “damage” Israel did to a Tehran synagogue—similar to the “damage” done to the World Trade Center by Al Qaeda.

The story of the attack on the Tehran synagogue was, at best, buried in the US corporate media. CNN posted a brief video (4/7/26) about the bombing but had no online article about it. The New York Times (4/7/26, 4/7/26) mentioned the attack, but as background in broader stories about the US/Israel war on Iran.

A search for “Rafi-Nia” on the Washington Post website yields no results. Ditto for the AP, although the news service did post a video to YouTube (4/7/26). Al Jazeera’s coverage (4/7/26) of the attack was a mélange of AP and AFP copy. CBS News (4/7/26) also used a few paragraphs of AFP copy to report on the attack, although it was buried in the middle of a general timeline about the war.

The Wall Street Journal (4/7/26) had the story, but led with Israel’s contrition over the destruction; that’s not a journalistic construction we see in US news coverage when it comes to the Israeli bombings of other civilian structures in Iran, Gaza or Lebanon. When Israel destroys a hospital, apartment building, encampment, etc., the stories don’t lead with official regret, but rather include Israeli claims that the civilian facilities were actually legitimate military targets. The Journal’s lead provided the government with public relations cover over the sensitive issue of destroying a Jewish house of worship.

Newsweek (4/8/26), once a bigger player in the US media landscape, led with condemnation of the attack from Jewish Iranian leaders, who declared “their unwavering solidarity with Iran in defending the homeland.”

Jewish presence in Iran

Palestine Chronicle (3/6/26): “The Iranian Jewish community sees itself as part of the broader Iranian society rather than as an extension of Israel.”

Underplaying the story obscures not only the wantonness of Israel’s aggression, but the actual nature of Iranian society, which is portrayed as obsessed with wiping Jews off the map (ADL, 6/25/25). “Iranian foreign policy freely mixes anti-Israel furies with anti-Jewish ones,” wrote New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (1/13/26), a pro-war cheerleader (2/22/26, 3/24/26).

In fact, while Israel is obviously the center of Mideastern Jewish life, the Iranian Jewish population dwarfs those elsewhere in the Middle East. “Estimates range from 9,000 to 20,000 Jews currently living in Iran,” according to the Forward (6/18/25).

Wrote the Palestine Chronicle (3/6/26): “The Jewish presence in Iran is among the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the world, with roots that historians trace back more than two millennia.”

Yes, Iran is a theocracy; the government is no model for an open society. But there is a Jewish member of Iran’s parliament, who even went on record this year openly criticizing Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s handling of popular unrest (i24, 1/29/26).

‘Well-protected second-class citizens’

Reporting on Judaic studies in the holy city of Qom, the Forward‘s Larry Cohler-Esses (8/27/15) writes of “the absolute distinction between Judaism and Zionism that the [Iranian] government makes.”

US media have covered the Jews of Iran before. USA Today (8/29/18) did a story in 2018, reporting from Tehran. Former Forward reporter Larry Cohler-Esses (8/12/15, 8/12/15, 8/18/15, 8/27/15) reported extensively and critically on Iranian Jews, indicating that the country was at least open to letting a reporter for a Jewish publication do their job.

Cohler-Esses told FAIR that Jews in Iran are “well-protected second-class citizens.” In fact, when he read about the attack, he “wondered if it was the synagogue I spent Shabbat in, but it wasn’t,” because there are more than a dozen active synagogues in Tehran—a reflection of the size of the Jewish community there.

Recalling his 2015 reporting trip, Cohler-Esses said that on Shabbat, Jews would spill out of their synagogues and mingle in the street after services, a sight he didn’t often see in many places in Europe. In one instance, after he left a synagogue service, one of the congregants ran after him through a street teeming with people, wearing a kippah and a tallit (traditional religious attire), and “no one batted an eye.”

The Jews of Iran do suffer discrimination, because Muslims are favored in the legal code over all non-Muslims, Cohler-Esses said. He noted that the Jewish population of Iran has shrunk significantly since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Iranian Jews are viewed by Iranians as indigenous,” he said. “They’re the original Bundists,” a nod to the Jewish political movement that “stood not just for socialism, but for do’ikayt—Yiddish for ‘hereness,’” the concept that a Jew’s homeland was in whatever nation they resided in (New York Times, 4/6/26).

Cohler-Esses was hopeful that coverage of the synagogue’s destruction in Israeli press (JTA, 4/7/26; Jerusalem Post, 4/7/26) had the “potential to make Jewish readers of Jewish media outlets go, ‘Oh, they have synagogues there.’” But with the underplaying of the story in US media, it’s a missed teachable moment for news consumers generally.

More robust press coverage of the attack could have taught Americans that the Jews of Iran do have something to fear: Israel.

From FAIR via This RSS Feed.

Snip:

Syrian government forces took control of the last US base in the country on 16 April in a move that marked the end of the US occupation of the country under the pretext of fighting ISIS.

The Syrian military moved into the Qasrak Base in Hasakah Governorate in north-eastern Syria on Thursday following the US withdrawal.

The US withdrew from its bases in Shaddadi in eastern Syria and Al-Tanf on the Syria–Jordan–Iraq border in February.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Washington had decided to “complete its military mission” in the country. “The Syrian state is today fully capable of leading counter-terrorism efforts from within, in co-operation with the international community,” it said.

Snip:

Leader of Yemen's Ansarullah movement Abdul-Malik al-Houthi says the United States agreed to a ceasefire with Iran “out of necessity”, stressing that Washington made the hard choice after the US-Israeli military coalition was defeated in in its war of aggression against the Islamic Republic.

“The enemies were forced into the truce after suffering heavy losses in terms of soldiers and manpower, with hundreds killed and wounded,” al-Houthi said, adding that the aggressors “suffered significant losses in terms of military equipment and the destruction of American bases in the region,” he said in a televised Thursday.

He said that “the current situation is part of a major confrontation between the axis of Islam, Jihad, and Resistance, and the enemies of the nation who are targeting our region.

"Forty days into the Iran war, a Pakistan-brokered two-week ceasefire went into effect but Washington-Tehran negotiations in Islamabad failed to reach a deal due to the American delegation’s excessive demands and shifting goalposts," al-Houthi said.

Snip:

On Thursday, Cubans commemorated the 65th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Revolution with mass events in several cities across the country.

In Havana, President Miguel Diaz-Canel rejected the hostility of the U.S. government, which has maintained an economic, commercial and financial blockade for more than six decades.

[...]

Diaz-Canel affirmed that Cubans will face any external threat and will fight to defend their sovereignty and independence.

“The socialist character of our revolution is not a phrase from the past; it is the shield of the present and the guarantee of the future. Cuba does not surrender. No one surrenders here. As the song goes, here, we will bring fire,” he said.

Fuel prices are expected to rise within hours following a major fire at one of Australia’s last remaining oil refineries. The blaze impacted a facility responsible for a significant share of the national fuel supply, reigniting fears of shortages.

Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of the illegal possession of a gun and firing it in public.

Magistrate Twanet Olivier delivered her ruling at the East London Regional Court in KuGompo City, Eastern Cape.

Malema's lawyer said that he would appeal the decision.

The opposition leader was convicted last year on five charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm and discharging a weapon in a public place, over the 2018 incident at a stadium in the Eastern Cape province. According to the charges, Malema fired several shots in the air during his party's fifth anniversary celebrations in 2018 after using a semi-automatic rifle.

The EFF is the fourth-biggest party in parliament.

he's being sentenced to half a decade for a firearm discharge from eight years ago.

meanwhile, how many have been prosecuted for the massacres at marikana and stilfontein?

also, them doing this right after appointing apartheid criminal roelf meyer as ambassador to yankeestan.

Snip:

Iran is “not blockadable,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman says, rejecting the US attempt to impose a naval blockade on the country, while warning that it violates the fragile ceasefire and could trigger a proportional response from Iranian armed forces.

[...]

“Firstly, Iran is not blockadable,” the spokesman said. “Secondly, if you fail to reach a result through a diplomatic process, resorting to other means of pressure will certainly not lead to any result and you will not succeed.”

He added that the US move is a provocative act, contrary to the principles of international law, and has no legal legitimacy. “This US action could be considered a prelude to violating the ceasefire,” he warned.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran and its armed forces are carefully monitoring developments and will respond proportionally wherever necessary.”

Snip:

The survey, released on the Pew Research Center website under the title "Americans' views of China have grown somewhat more positive in recent years," draws on data from two Center surveys. One surveyed 3,507 US adults from March 23 to 29, and the other surveyed 8,512 US adults from January 20 to 26. Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center's American Trends Panel. The surveys represent the views of the full US adult population, according to the Pew Research Center.

According to the survey, 27 percent of Americans now hold a positive opinion of China, up 6 percentage points from last year and nearly doubled since 2023, reflecting a modest softening of US views toward China on multiple fronts. When asked whether China is a partner, enemy or competitor of the US, fewer Americans now describe China as an enemy than in 2025, although most still see it as a competitor. Slightly fewer respondents than last year said China is benefiting from trade at the expense of the US.

The persistent inflation in the US and the increasingly hegemonic and exploitative nature of US foreign policy have all weakened public faith in "America First" and Washington's so-called promise of peace. Against this backdrop, China's relatively steady role in the multilateral system has made its pragmatic diplomacy easier for many in the US to apprehend, Zhu Ying, a professor from the Baize Institute at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

original headline: How a UK arms shipment to Israel was seized in Belgium