Jacob Jaffa

1 week ago | thejc.com | Jacob Jaffa

According to The Spectator, Hermer may be at the centre of this approach, with a Whitehall source telling the magazine: “The Attorney General has concerns about the UK playing any role in this except for defending our allies.” Given that the Attorney General’s role is to advise the government on the legality of its policies, this would seem to indicate that Hermer’s position is that greater involvement could constitute a contravention of the UK’s legal obligations.

1 week ago | thejc.com | Jacob Jaffa

In the same post, Katz appeared to confirm that wider governmental reform in Iran was also among the IDF’s goals, saying: “The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against government targets in Tehran in order to remove threats to the State of Israel and undermine the ayatollahs’ regime.” Regime change was reported yesterday to be an “unspoken goal” of the Israeli war effort.

1 week ago | thejc.com | Jacob Jaffa

Axios reported yesterday that Trump had “seriously considered” launching strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during a National Security Council meeting the night on Tuesday night. Under particular scrutiny is the heavily defended Fordow nuclear plant, which is effectively embedded into a mountain in north-western Iran. The Israelis do not have the so-called “bunker busting” bombs required to destroy the facility, nor the B-52 bombers required to carry them – but the US does.

1 week ago | thejc.com | Jacob Jaffa |Lorin Bell-Cross

The body of the message, seen by the JC, instead thanked the recipients for registering their presence in the country with the British embassy and repeated the generic official travel advice. It read: “As you will have seen we made an update to the Travel Advice this morning. Airspace remains closed, but land borders listed in the Travel Advice remain open. Commercial flights continue to operate from airports in the region to various destinations, including the UK.

1 week ago | thejc.com | Jacob Jaffa

Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, has previously alleged to facilitate sanctions busting for the Islamic Republic, with Reuters reporting in 2022 that it openly offered customers advice on how to avoid sanctions on its website. Since the attack, the collective assets held in the exchange reportedly fell from $1.8 billion to just over $100 million.