The Latest from Iran (17 November): More Posturing on Gaza

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- From Death in Detention to Economic Suffering
Iran Analysis: Assessing the Latest Nuclear Report --- Is There an "Imminent Threat"?
The Latest from Iran (16 November): Taking Advantage of Gaza

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2021 GMT: Gaza Watch. Fars reports that 20,000 Basij militia, staging exercises in Isfahan, have declared their readiness to fight in Gaza --- defending and reclaiming the "occupied land.

2005 GMT: Foreign Affairs (US Front). A judiciary statement reports that the US has denied visas to Iranian officials planning to attend a meeting in New York of the United Nations' Third Committee, which focuses on social issues and human rights.

"The U.S. government, by not issuing visas to the members of the delegation, wants to ruin the possibility of the presence of the delegation, and prevent its members from conducting their mission of interacting and cooperating with the United Nations," said the statement.

1712 GMT: Gaza Watch. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of Parliament's National Security Committee, has denied that Iran supplied Fajr 5 rockets to Gazan fighters.

"We deny having delivered the Fajr 5 to the Palestinian resistance. The aim of such accusations is to portray the resistance as weak whereas it is perfectly capable of producing the arms it needs," Boroujerdi said.

Gazan groups such as Islamic Jihad have claimed Fajr 5s have been fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the first attacks on those cities since the 1991 Gulf War (see Israel-Palestine Live Coverage).

1252 GMT: Gaza Watch. Minister of Defense Ahmad Vahidi has said, "Putting an end to the Zionist regime's crimes is only possible through a united, revolutionary retaliation by the Muslim world."

Vahidi said Israel is "massacring the oppressed Palestinian people, including women and children" with airstrikes that are a "clear example of war crimes".

1115 GMT: The Battle Within. Jomhouri-e Eslami has swung at the President in an editorial, “Ahmadinejad's Devices Are Not Working Anymore”.

The newspaper took issue with Ahmadinejad's speech this week to retirees in which he challenged critics of his economic programme, "When we want to pay people, some elements in the country begin a noisy quarrel," criticising the Government for supporting the poor but ignoring those who benefited from "very large loans from the Iranian banks".

Jomhouri-e Eslami replied that Ahmadinejad was now acknowledging the effect of sanctions when he had earlier derided them as “scraps of paper”. It then blamed the Government for economic mismanagement and the currency crisis.

Just as significant as the editorial is its highlighting by Khabar Online, the outlet linked to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, in both Persian- and English-language editions.

1005 GMT: A Death in Detention. Omid Memarian speaks to friends of the family of Sattar Beheshti, the blogger killed during interrogation in prison earlier this month:

The story that Beheshti’s supporters are leaking is grim indeed. According to a source close to the family, Beheshti’s brother-in-law went to view the blogger’s body at the morgue, in order to confirm his identity. “He observed that Sattar had a dent in his skull and a bloody leg,” says the family friend. “He had no doubt that Sattar Beheshti was severely tortured and possibly died of a heart attack under torture.”

A few days earlier, on November 4—a day after the blogger’s death—security forces had appeared at Beheshti’s home and asked his mother whether he’d ever suffered from a heart condition, or whether he’d been taking any medications. In hindsight, the family thinks, they might have been looking for a way to connect Beheshti’s death to a prior illness. When the authorities learned that Beheshti had been healthy, they delivered his body to his family, but reportedly threatened them with arrest if they spoke to the media.

See Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- From Death in Detention to Economic Suffering

0915 GMT: The House Arrests. Conservative MP Ali Motahari has condemned the continued detention of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi: "We are not very convincing when we impose punishment without trial. This behaviour is not acceptable."

Mousavi and Karroubi, both candidates in the 2009 Presidential election, have been held under strict house arrest --- along with Mousavi's wife, activist and academic Zahra Rahnavard --- since February 2011.

0825 GMT: Nuclear Watch. In a separate analysis this morning, we noted that --- in contrast to coverage of previous International Atomic Energy Agency reports on Iran's nuclear programme --- there had been little "exaggeration and distortion of the findings", thus opening the space for measured assessment.

Jay Solomon of The Wall Street Journal tries to prove it wrong in an over-blown piece, "Iran Set to Double Nuclear Fuel Capability".

Beyond the vague headline --- what does "doubling nuclear fuel capability" mean? --- Solomon puts out a mix of sweeping assertion, blatantly wrong "facts" ("as little as three to four months" for a Bomb), and hyperbolic "expert" soundbites to support a Warning of War:

These advances, outlined in a report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, could allow Tehran's Islamist leaders to accumulate in as little as three to four months enough uranium enriched to 20% purity for one atomic weapon, according to nuclear experts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cited this level of nuclear-fuel production by Tehran as the "red line" for when the Jewish state might launch military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran was likely to amass this stockpile of fissile material by next summer, Mr. Netanyahu estimated in a September speech at the U.N.

The installation of the nearly 3,000 centrifuge machines at Qom could allow it to reach this point much quicker, experts say, if the machines there and at a second nuclear-fuel site at the city of Natanz are utilized.

"The number of centrifuges are steadily increasing, which diminishes the time for a breakout for a nuclear weapon in two ways," said Olli Heinonen, a former chief weapons inspector at the IAEA. "Iran's inventories will increase as well as its pace of production."

Immediately after this passage, Solomon gives an accurate paragraph of the IAEA report, but seems unable or unwilling to note that it contradicts the rest of his article:

"Iran currently has a stockpile of 232 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, or about 510 pounds, of which 96 kilograms has been detected for the production of fuel plates, according to the IAEA. Nuclear experts estimate that Iran would need 220 to 250 kilograms to produce one nuclear weapon.

0725 GMT: After Friday's attempt to mobilise protests against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, State outlet Press TV continues the campaign today, to the exclusion of almost all other news. The top five stories in its "Iran" section are all about the conflict hundreds of miles away.

As he did on Friday, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani takes the lead, with a phone call to his Turkish counterpart expressing concern and condemning Israel and "global hegemonic powers". A Parliamentary delegation said it would travel to Gaza and is consulting with Egyptian officials over entry via the Rafah border crossing, although "the exact time of the visit is not set yet".

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called Hamas' political director Khaled Meshaal to criticise the Israeli attack and offer humanitarian aid. He put out a similar message in a statement to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Yet in all this effort to highlight the Gaza issue, there has been an interesting twist. While outlets such as IRNA, Fars, and ISNA devoted space to the photographic gallery of the Friday rally in Tehran, other prominent sites --- Alef and Larijani's Khabar Online among them --- paid little if any headline attention.

So is there any domestic benefit for the regime, amid the economic and political tensions, from continued promotion of the Gaza situation as a priority?