Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, props up the Assad regime in Syria, and has made war against American forces in Lebanon and Iraq. As the November 24 deadline nears for a deal that might allow Iran to progress toward nuclear weapons, some in the media are trying to portray the Islamic Republic as a friendly place. The New York Times has led the way by promoting a trip to Iran accompanied by Times journalists. Ron Radosh has some advice for would-be tourists:

Just ignore public hangings of gays that might be taking place while you’re in a major city like Tehran. Ignore the political prisoners tortured in the city’s jails, and the religious police who see to it that young people dancing to the hit tune “Happy” are thrown into jail, just as yesterday, a young woman received one year in prison for daring to go to a soccer game in Tehran’s stadium. Sports events, after all, are only for men to view. One has to ignore all this, since Persia was “the birthplace of civilization,” and remember that often Iran simply rejects our ways. We can’t be ethnocentric, after all. And the Times also informs us that “conservative elders uphold the traditions of the country’s past while the young and fashionable find ways to celebrate in a country that bans alcohol.”

Examining the Trump administration’s proposals for the people of Gaza, Danielle Pletka writes:

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza—a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948— is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its anti-Semitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the Palestinian Authority have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. . . . What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness?