A new report from researchers at George Washington University has highlighted Vice President Kamala Harris’s interaction with an Iranian-born cleric with close ties to the Iranian government, raising concerns over Iranian influence in the U.S. The report details a 2021 meeting between Harris and Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, a figure with longstanding connections to Iran’s regime, at a Detroit vaccination event.
During the encounter, Elahi, who once led the Iranian Navy’s political office and has expressed allegiance to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Hezbollah, spoke with Harris and praised the administration’s efforts in combating COVID-19.
This meeting is part of a broader study by GWU’s Program on Extremism that claims Iran is spreading its ideological reach into the U.S. through figures like Elahi. His organization, the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn, Michigan, has received significant funding from the Alavi Foundation, a group previously accused of serving as an Iranian front. Researchers point out that the foundation has invested millions in U.S.-based religious and educational institutions, with ties extending into anti-Israel activism on American campuses.
Harris’s connection with Elahi, captured in photographs, underscores the report’s assertion that Iran’s reach extends into high-level American networks. The researchers indicate that through such interactions, Iran’s influence may impact American political discourse, especially on sensitive issues like Middle Eastern policy. The report has sparked calls from some officials for greater scrutiny of potential Iranian influences in the United States, especially regarding figures who maintain connections with American political leaders.
Jeremy Loffredo, 28, an independent American journalist, was arrested by police on suspicion of endangering national security after reporting on where missiles landed in the attack launched by Iran earlier this month including in the IDF's Nevatim Air Base and an intelligence base in central Israel.
In his report, Loffredo said that attacks on Gaza were launched from the Nevatim base and said that government's private jet used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was located there.
The charges against him include aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy.
His arrest has raised concerns of a potential diplomatic incident between Israel and the U.S. because of his status as a foreign journalist. Representatives from the U.S. Embassy attended the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court for a hearing on the request of the police to extend his detention.
Sheltered housing facility in Herzliya hit by drone over Yom Kippur
The IDF reported Saturday evening that approximately 320 rockets and projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israel by the Hezbollah terrorist group over the Yom Kippur weekend.
Incoming air raid sirens were triggered in towns in the Galilee, Acre, Safed, Haifa and the surrounding bay area, sending over a million Israelis to seek shelter over the holiday.
In addition, a drone from Syria exploded over the Golan Heights. On the eve of Yom Kippur, two drones penetrated Israeli airspace from central Lebanon, with one hitting a sheltered housing facility in Herzliya. Two more rockets were fired Saturday from northern Gaza, hitting Ashkelon.
Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon killed 22 people on Friday, and the IDF began evacuating 23 additional communities in southern Lebanon. Two UNIFIL peacekeepers were injured by Israeli fire, sparking international condemnation, with global leaders calling it a "serious violation by Israel." U.S. President Joe Biden urged Israel to cease actions that harm UN personnel. In separate incidents, two Lebanese soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pressed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to shift from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic path.
Meanwhile, fighting continues in northern Gaza, where dozens were killed in Jabaliya. The IDF has called on residents of neighboring Gaza City to evacuate their homes.
The U.S. announced expanded sanctions on Iran's oil industry following the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile strike on Israel at the beginning of the month. Reports suggest Iran is "extremely concerned" about Israel's potential response. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated her stance, saying, "I will never allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons."
Iran announced on Saturday that the body of the Quds Force commander for Lebanon and Syria, Abbas Nilforoushan, who was killed alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's Dahieh district, was found.
The Israel Land Authority (ILA) is seizing the land of UNRWA's headquarters in Jerusalem, in order to build 1,440 housing units.
As the extent of UNRWA and its employees' collaboration in the massacre at Gaza border communities by Hamas and their role in providing assistance for murder, kidnapping, and more continues to be revealed, a significant step has been taken for the first time against the refugee agency.
According to information released to the public today, the entire UNRWA area in Ma'alot Dafna, Jerusalem, is slated to become a housing project with 1,440 units, and the project is in its preparatory stages. It should be noted that over the past year, families of kidnapped civilians and fallen IDF soldiers, alongside organizations such as "Im Tirtzu" and others, have protested in front of the UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem, demanding the closure of the agency's office, which has operated in the city without interference.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's Commissioner-General, warned the UN Security Council yesterday (Wednesday) about the possible consequences of an Israeli bill that seeks to ban the agency's activities in Israel: "Legislation to end our operations is ready for final adoption by the Israeli Knesset. It seeks to ban UNRWA's presence and operations in the territory of Israel, revoking its privileges and immunities, in violation of international law. If the bills are adopted, the consequences will be severe."
"Operationally, the entire humanitarian response in Gaza – which rests on UNRWA's infrastructure – may disintegrate", added Lazzarini.
מה יעשו לוחמי צה"ל שהתפקיד מחייב אותם לשתות בצום? ▪︎ לרב קאפ פתרונים
מאות רבות של לוחמים דתיים שתפקידם מחייב אותם שלא לצום, ייאלצו לשתות מים בשיעורים. מי ששוב היה הראשון לחשוב על הלוחמים, היה כרגיל *הרב אברהם קאפ* מבית שמש - יו"ר ארגון החסד *'עזרת אחים'* שדאג לחלק מאות ערכות 'מים בשיעורים' לחיילים הזקוקים לכך ע"מ שיוכלו להעביר את הצום כהילכתו.
צפו בלוחמים הצדיקים שמודים לרב קאפ ולארגון שבראשות
Who ever thought that world leadership could come from Canada? Not from hopeless bimbo Justin Trudeau, of course, but from Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre.
This week Poilievre made sensible comments about the situation in the Middle East. Not least about the evil colonial regime that has set the region on fire: the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran.
The Canadian media tried to make Poilievre back down. But then Poilievre showed even more leadership.
He replied: “I think the idea of allowing a genocidal, theocratic, unstable dictatorship that is desperate to avoid being overthrown by its own people to develop nuclear weapons is about the most dangerous and irresponsible thing that the world could ever allow. If Israel were to stop that genocidal, theocratic, unstable government from acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.”
The current Canadian government and media are probably on life support from hearing such truths.
But what Poilievre said was absolutely true.
Just imagine if the American government could show such leadership.
The US government has been calling for a “cease-fire” ever since the Hamas massacre of October 7 and Hezbollah joining in the war on October 8.
But why should there be a cease-fire? If 44,000 Americans had been slaughtered in the most barbaric fashion in a single day and 10,000 further Americans taken hostage (which it would be by proportion of population), I would expect the American Army to tear up the Earth to punish the perpetrators and destroy any regime that was behind them.
And if America’s allies spent every following day saying that America should exercise “restraint” and have a “cease-fire,” I would expect them to be ignored, and more.
Yet for the past year, every Israeli victory has occurred in spite of the insistence of the Biden-Harris administration.
Biden-Harris tried to stop the Israelis going into Gaza with full force to destroy Hamas and get the hostages home.
They told the Israelis not to go into Gaza City and not to go into the Hamas command center that was the Shifa “hospital.”
They told the Israelis not to pursue Hamas in Khan Younis or Rafah. And then they called for restraint and “cease-fire” when Israel went after another Iranian army — Hezbollah in Lebanon.
They told Israel not to be “proportionate” and then not to act. Biden-Harris said the Israelis must be precise in their use of weaponry and then expressed concern about the anti-Hezbollah pager attack.
An attack that wounded 3,000 Hezbollah terrorists and will go down in history as the most precise attack on any terrorist group.
For the past month, Israel has had victory after victory against Hezbollah. That terror group fired over 10,000 missiles at Israel in the past year, forcing thousands of Israeli families from their homes.
Then after the pager attack and the walkie-talkie attack, the IDF took out most of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal and killed most of its leadership, including the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
There was mild support for this after the fact from President Biden. But none of the thanks that should have gone to an ally who finally avenged the killing of 241 American servicemen by Hezbollah in 1983.
I spent part of this week on the Lebanese border, where Hezbollah is still firing missiles at Israel. In one afternoon, I watched Hezbollah fire hundreds of missiles over my head, and at one point at one of the towns, Safed, which I was in. I saw the houses that were hit and the families that were destroyed.
Now that Hamas and Hezbollah have been degraded, Iran is running out of front groups. So twice in recent months they have fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel direct from Iranian territory.
No people on Earth could live like this. But still the American government says that it is Israel that should “step back from the brink.”
Well, sorry — but the revolutionary government in Iran long ago went over the brink. What is needed now is allyship with Israel and unity against the theocrats in Iran.
Since 1979, the ayatollahs have not only imprisoned the Iranian people. They have also regarded Israel as the “Little Satan” and America as the “Great Satan.”
It is “Death to America” that they chant at Friday prayers in Iran and put on the sides of the missiles that they parade through their streets.
Why should Israel have to fight alone against this regime of death? And why should it be Israel alone that should try to stop the mullahs in their search for a nuclear bomb?
If people enjoy what the ayatollahs have done before achieving nuclear weapons, then they will love what they would do if they ever get them.
After the latest barrage from Iran and Lebanon, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “The Iranian attack was aggressive but inaccurate.
“In contrast, our attack will be deadly, pinpoint accurate, and most importantly, surprising. They will not know what happened or how it happened.”
Once again the American government is urging restraint on Israel. But why? If Israel bombs Iran’s oil fields, it they could cripple the Iranian economy and certainly cause global oil price movement.
But why did the Biden-Harris administration reverse President Donald Trump’s policy, which had the mullahs bankrupt and on their knees?
Today the mullahs are riding roughshod across the region. Attacks like those from Hamas and Hezbollah have been made possible by Biden-Harris gifting them billions of dollars.
Any ordinary government might use such a bonanza to help their people. Not the theocratic fascists in Iran. They have used it to spread terror and get nukes.
So yes — Canada’s Poilievre is right. And the government in Washington is wrong. It is time to cripple the mullahs and prevent them from ever adding a nuclear weapon to their terror arsenal.
If Israel goes it alone, then Biden-Harris will probably condemn them. But the region — and the wider world — will soon thank them.
CBS News reportedly instructed its staffers not to refer to Jerusalem as being part of Israel as the network faces mounting internal pressure over its handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mark Memmott, CBS News’ senior director of standards, sent an email to all CBS News employees in late August with a list of terms to “be careful with” when “we talk or write about the news” pertaining to the war in Gaza, according to a report in the Free Press.
“Jerusalem” made the list of contentious terms.
“Do not refer to it as being in Israel,” Memmott reportedly wrote in the memo.
Memmott acknowledged the US Embassy in Jerusalem and that the Trump administration had validated Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the report said.
“But its status is disputed,” Memmot reportedly wrote. “The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
“Israel regards Jerusalem as its ‘eternal and undivided’ capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem — occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war — as the capital of a future state.”
But instead of instructing reporters not to refer to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Memmott’s memo told journalists not to acknowledge that Jerusalem is located in Israel at all.
During the CBS interview, Coates argued that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians was abhorrent and compared their experiences to those of black people in the United States and in Africa.
In his book, he condemns what he called Israeli “apartheid” in its administration of the territories captured in the Six-Day War of 1967.
CBS brass reportedly reprimanded Dokoupil for his tough line of questioning toward Coates.
“Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it?” Dokoupil had asked Coates.
On Tuesday, the morning show anchor told staffers during a teary meeting that he “regretted” putting them in a difficult position, especially fellow journalists who are overseas and in danger, The Post previously reported.
One CBS employee told the Free Press that the controversy surrounding Dokoupil has revealed a double standard at the network.
“There is a huge difference between how all ethnic or minority groups are treated and how Jews and Jewish issues are treated,” the CBS insider said. “The rule of thumb is: If you are Jewish and you are interested in reporting on Jews or Jewish issues, that’s a ‘hold on’ or a ‘no,’ whereas for any other group it would be an enthusiastic ‘yes.’”
Rabbi Raphael Mordechai Fishoff, a member of the "Knesset Yitzhak" Yeshiva in Hadera, has passed away from his wounds after being critically injured in yesterday's terror attack in Hadera. He was 35 years old.
