JANUARY 14, 2015
    Iran Building Missile Sites in Syria
    Iranian military leaders admitted this week to building and operating missile-manufacturing plants in Syria, where it was also revealed that Tehran is helping to build a secret nuclear facility.
    An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander stated in a recent interview that the country’s Supreme Leader ordered forces to build and operate missile plants in Syria, where Iran continues to fight on behalf of embattled leader Bashar al-Assad, according to regional media reports.
    IRGC Aerospace Commander Haji Zadeh touted Iran’s capabilities and bragged that Iran has gone from importing most of its military hardware to producing it domestically, as well as for regional partners such as Assad.
    “A country such as Syria which used to sell us arms, was later on to buy our missiles,” Zadeh was quoted as saying earlier this week by the Young Journalists Club. “Right now the missile manufacturing firms in Syria are built by Iran.”
    JANUARY 14, 2015
    Lieberman calls Erdogan 'anti-Semitic bully'
    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: AP)
    In an address to Israeli envoys based in Europe and Asia, Lieberman, the leader of far-right party Yisrael Beitenu, was withering about Erdogan, a staunch critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
    "Civilized, politically correct Europe's silence over an anti-Semitic, neighbourhood bully like Erdogan and his gang takes us back to the 1930s," said Lieberman, referring to the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany.
    "We have to tell the truth and speak plainly, put it on the table," he said.
    JANUARY 14, 2015
    ‘US Consulate in Jerusalem arming Palestinian guards’
    A photo of Palestinian supporters raising a t-shirt to the US Consulate General sign in Jerusalem on September 21, 2011 (photo credit: AP Photo/ Dusan Vranic)
    The US Consulate in Jerusalem is training a force of 35 Palestinians from East Jerusalem to serve as armed guards, particularly for consular trips to the West Bank’s Area A, which is off-limits to Israelis, it was reported on Wednesday
     
    The arrangement violates a 2011 agreement between Israel and the consulate, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth stated, whereby only IDF combat veterans would be authorized to carry arms as consulate guards.
    “The consulate was authorized to keep roughly 100 handguns for security staff, on condition that they be either American diplomats or Israeli army veterans,” the paper’s Itamar Eichner wrote.
    Additionally, Israeli guards at the consulate alleged that the Palestinians were being trained with firearms in Jericho at a Palestinian Preventative Security base and in the United States