Mike Kelly

When Israeli strikes killed Ali Larijani on Tuesday, prominent Western journalists reached for the same word: pragmatist. For Iranians who lived through his January crackdown, Larijani's record tells a different story. Iran International's Shervin Shahrestani examines the gap.

BBC corrects inaccurate Gaza food aid claim seven months on camera-uk.org/2026/03/15/bbc…

When they speak of "Palestinian political prisoners in Israel", they are speaking about people like Amana Jawad Mona. Mona Awana, a Palestinian woman from Ramallah watched the blood thirsty Palestinian mob lynch Vadim Norzhich and Yossi Avrahami in Ramallah on October 12th, 2000. Awana watched fellow Palestinians raise hands filled with fresh blood of two innocent Jewish men and decided she wanted more of that. Awana started going online in to chat rooms, trying to lure other Israelis to come to Ramallah. She was 24 at the time and contacted a 16-year-old Israeli boy named Ofir Rahum, a high school student at the time. After months of speaking to Rahum online, she managed to convince this innocent 16-year-old boy that she was a Jewish immigrant from Morocco named Sally. Awana convinced him to meet her and Jerusalem and after he got into her car she kidnapped him. Awana drove Rahum into Palestinian-controlled territory to the outskirts of Ramallah where Palestinian Fatah terrorists shot him at close range as she stood by and watched with glee. She was released in 2009 under the Shalit deal and is just another example of who the pro-palestinian student groups on campus refer to as "a political prisoner" or "a hostage", when they are in fact murderous monsters serving time in Israeli prison for the unspeakable crimes they have committed.

You have to be kidding me. The Arab world across the Middle East and North Africa is 13 million square kilometres. Israel is 22k square kilometres! That is half the size of my old electorate of Eden Monaro! The Arab world was built off the back of violent conquest by the sword in one of the most extensive imperial, theologically driven aggressions in which local cultures and languages were largely extinguished. These regimes instituted the largest slave economy ever seen with a total of 288 million people enslaved, accompanied by systematic castration to stop them breeding. These invaders had no indigenous connection with any of these lands outside the Arabian peninsular. Not one of the countries that make up the Arab land mass could be described as a liberal democracy. The Jewish people on the other hand have had a continuos presence in the land of Israel for millennia and that presence includes the only times that area had state like autonomy. The Jewish people retain genetic and cultural links to Israel as there was very little intermarriage in the centuries after the Roman and Spanish dispersals. Most of the people living in Israel (up to 55%) come from the Sephardi and Mizrahi heritage who were expelled from the Arab world and the Islamic Republic of Iran. They left with nothing but the shirts on their backs and lost all their property. There were around 1 million of them who mostly ended up in Israel. It is the only Jewish State in the world as opposed to 57 Muslim states. You tell me who the real kleptocratic, colonising, imperialist apartheid states are.

I am reluctant to engage in some sort of pile on of you Grace Tame but I simply offer this response to your opinion that the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October was “debunked”. I will counter whatever information you are relying on by referring you to the official report of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms Pramila Patten. She actually travelled to Israel to carefully investigate these matters. She viewed 5,000 photographic images and some 50 hours of footage of the attacks. She stated in her findings that: “What I witnessed in Israel were scenes of unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality,..It was a catalogue of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture and other horrors…including sexual violence.” Since then we have the detailed Dinah Report which you can read here thedinahproject.org/wp-content/upl…. All this led to the UN including Hamas on the U.N. “blacklist” of organizations “being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict” on 14 August 2025. There are also many video testimonies of survivors you can check out if you are interested. Enough evidence for you to “believe her”.

At least 4 Palestinian women killed as Iranian missile strike hits West Bank town timesofisrael.com/liveblog-march…

Important

@mumbletwits @Artemisfornow I can certainly provide the reliable sources for the internal push back in Amnesty.

@MikeKellyofEM @Artemisfornow Even that Mike: when you say “widely reported” you mean by reliable sources or online extreme unknown publications? “Various branch offices kept pushing for them not to publish it” - any reliable sources (so not, eg, disinformation spreaders like @Artemisfornow )

Amnesty International reported that both nurses now have colostomy bags and one had to have her womb removed. Because they treated protesters. If you are part of the insane mob protesting to defend the Iranian regime, then you are the one with the problem.

@mumbletwits @Artemisfornow If you look at what Amnesty focuses on they have an interesting set of priorities. It was widely reported that they delayed for an inordinate time the report on 7 Oct because various Amnesty branch offices kept pushing for them not to publish it at all.

@MikeKellyofEM @Artemisfornow They didn't make the point very well: "Amnesty International reported that both nurses now have colostomy bags and one had to have her womb removed."

@mumbletwits @Artemisfornow I took it as sarcasm.

@mumbletwits @Artemisfornow Yep that’s the point their reporting has been cursory on the savagery of what is occurring in Iran in the face of a mountain of evidence that is accumulating daily. amnesty.ca/urgent-actions… iranintl.com/en/202603102323

@Artemisfornow @MikeKellyofEM Disinformation. Amnesty did not report this.

Irradiate Israel! Egypt's Secret Nazi Missiles Plan youtu.be/AUpnw8SyDFo?si… via @YouTube

@Tonysmarkettips I do I was there with my family. Magic last night at the Stick where I have great memories of the Montana era.

Who remembers this one?

Hi Grace Tame. Here's Arbel Yehoud's testimony about what Hamas rapists did to her. Let me know if you'd like to meet her. I can arrange it.

To the whole world: This is the real Iran. For years and years we all lived like this. You cannot ever imagine something close to what happened to us. Don’t look away. I know. It’s brutal. #DigitalBlackOutIran‌

Toddlers died in their parents’ arms, couples were killed together, men protecting the wounded were slain. These are the stories of 500 victims which must live on. Read the full story: bit.ly/3P33Cnh

Gulf states pressing US to neutralize Iran for good as Hormuz crisis deepens timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry…

BREAKING: A new Clemson University report found dozens of social media accounts associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pushing anti-Israel and anti-U.S. content to sow online discord during the ongoing Iran-U.S. war. It’s all a psyop.