We know. That's the problem
https://t.co/khQ1ofbKSz
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 31, 2015
Obama's inability to ram his sellout to a nuclear Iran through Capitol Hill is one of the great hopes of the West.Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:02 PM
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The quotations from Sherman come from this article in the Hill:
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who has been one of the more skeptical Democrats on the agreement, said that Obama appeared ready to ignore Congress, even if lawmakers vote to kill the deal and then marshal the two-thirds majorities to override a White House veto.
“The main meat of what he said is, ‘If Congress overrides my veto, you do not get a U.S. foreign policy that reflects that vote. What you get is you pass this law and I, as president, will do everything possible to go in the other direction,’” Sherman told reporters off the House floor after the meeting.
“He’s with the deal — he’s not with Congress,” Sherman added. “At least to the fullest extent allowed by law, and possibly beyond what’s allowed by law.”
He always wanted to be a dictator. What could go wrong?Sherman suggested that Obama could refuse to enforce the law and could actively seek to undermine congressional action in other countries, if Capitol Hill insists on stymieing the plan.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Brad Sherman, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:52 PM
1 comments
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, nuclear weapons
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:29 PM
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Labels: Eugene Moniz, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Islamic terrorism, John Kerry, Qassem Suleimani, Tom Cotton
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:50 PM
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TT @dandayan (frmr head of Yesha Council) Must tell truth: Almost happened in past in Huwara & in Bat Ayin taxi 1/2 https://t.co/yjCaTEnLuE
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) July 31, 2015
TT @dandayan Was inevitable. We knew. We feared it. But we didn't fight it as we know how. 2/2 Comment to follow https://t.co/yjCaTEnLuE
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) July 31, 2015
Disgraceful. Jews don't behave this way. Those who do have stooped to other side's level. This is murder and worse https://t.co/yjCaTEnLuE
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) July 31, 2015
I hope and pray that a Jew didn't do this... but I fear otherwise. https://t.co/XO0HSdo38X
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) July 31, 2015
Important difference: in #Israel there's been immediate wall-2-wall unequivocal condemnation. No public squares named. No celebration. #Duma
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 31, 2015
Medical evacuation by #IDF of Palestinians wounded in #Duma terror attack, coordinated by @cogat_israel pic.twitter.com/HAreSu2fan
— Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) July 31, 2015
A horrific act of terror against Palestinians overnight in #Duma. #IDF operating to locate the terrorists responsible
— Libby Weiss (@Libby_weiss) July 31, 2015
Naftali Bennett: "Its not a hate crime or price tag, its murder." #Duma https://t.co/DySMGszLv9
— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) July 31, 2015
Ostensibly in response, Hamas is now saying that every Israeli is a legitimate target for a terror attack.Hamas said Friday that every Israeli is now a legitimate target following the deadly terror attack in the village of Duma in which a Palestinian toddler was killed, Israel Radio reported. In an official message to the public, Hamas also called for a "day of rage" to protest the deadly terror attack and "in order to protect al-Aksa mosque."As noted above, the difference between Israel and the 'Palestinians' is that the condemnation of this attack is across the board. Of course, it could still turn out that the attack was not carried out by Jews. But it should be condemned in any case.
Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabsha was killed and three members of his family injured after a molotov cocktail was thrown at their home by suspected far-right extremists, in the village of Duma, in the northern area of the West Bank, outside the city of Nablus.
Israeli and Palestinian security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank were placed on high alert following the attack.
A suspected Palestinian terrorist carried out a drive-by shooting attack on an Israeli vehicle on Friday in the Binyamin region of the West Bank near Kochav Hashahar. The Israeli driver in the vehicle told the army he fired back at the gunman. There were no injuries in the incident. The army found three bullet holes in the Israeli vehicle that came under fire.There's enough terrorism in this country without vigilantism. Whoever murdered that child should be sent to jail for a long, long time.
A couple of hours later, Palestinian rioters clashed with IDF soldiers in Hebron. The incident occurred near the al-Rasoul Mosque, when Palestinians on a march hurled rocks and burning tires at security forces in the area.
Soldiers responded with riot dispersal means, and fired Roger low intensity rounds at the legs of a suspect, an army spokeswoman said. He sustained a light injury, the spokeswoman added.
Labels: Hebron, Jerusalem, Shchem, terrorism
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:48 PM
1 comments
The French official, Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.
According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.
“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told me in an interview. “He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.”Audibert is also not anxious to see US sanctions on Iran lifted.
Audibert disagrees with that analysis, too, according to the two lawmakers. He told them that if U.S. sanctions were kept in place, it would effectively prevent the West from doing extensive business in Iran. “I asked him specifically what the Europeans would do, and his comment was that the way the U.S. sanctions are set in, he didn’t see an entity or a country going against them, that the risk was too high,” Sanchez said.And Audibert has some objections to the deal.
Audibert also wasn’t happy with some of the terms of the deal itself, according to Sanchez and Turner. He said he though it should have been negotiated to last forever, not start to expire in as few as 10 years. He also said he didn’t understand why Iran needed more than 5,000 centrifuges for a peaceful nuclear program. He also expressed concerns about the robustness of the inspections and verification regime under the deal, according to the lawmakers.Ya think?
Labels: Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Jacques Audibert, John Kerry, Loretta Sanchez, Mike Turner, P 5+1, US House of Representatives
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:09 PM
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Netanyahu, a fierce critic of the nuclear accord, said that the Iran deal “has nothing to do with us, and has no influence” on Israeli policy, before adding, “We’re not at the table, we are one of the courses on the menu itself.”
Netanyahu was on an official visit to Cyprus on Tuesday, where he spoke about the international terrorist network supplied by Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. Netanyahu said that the sophisticated network “covers over 30 countries on five continents, including just about every country in Europe.”
...
In defending his alleged snub to the Jewish state, Kerry said, “I think I’ve had more meetings with an Israeli prime minister and more visits than any secretary of state in history. And I consider Bibi a friend, and we talk still and we disagree on this, obviously, and I’ve told him my feelings.”I can't wait until Netanyahu's book comes out to hear what 'Bibi' thinks of their 'friendship.'
Ash Carter was in Israel hoping to begin a dialogue on how the U.S. and Israel can mitigate risks of the international accord intended to limit Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and to lift many economic sanctions. But Carter didn’t even get to begin that beginning. Netanyahu is said to have insisted on talking only about how the Israeli government would work against the deal while Congress is reviewing the accord for 60 days, a period mandated by recent legislation.
An Israeli official familiar with the conversations told us this week that Israel is for now trying to thwart the deal. But that could change on Day 61, the official said.
Carter confirmed on Wednesday that in the meeting, Netanyahu "was very clear as he has been publicly in his opposition to the deal." And a U.S. defense official told us that in the meeting, Netanyahu didn’t explicitly rebuke the defense secretary. In fact, at other meetings in the trip, Carter discussed expanded security cooperation with Israel, and the official said Carter left optimistic despite tension on Iran.
...
"The decision makers in Israel believe we don't start the dialogue now because it will be used to make it seem like we acquiesce on the deal,” said Michael Herzog, a former senior Israeli defense official and the brother of the leader of Israel's Labor Party. All of Israel’s major political parties have come out against the deal.
The Israeli campaign for now is focused on Democrats in Congress. Israel's ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, has had dozens of meetings with lawmakers, urging them to vote against the deal after the review period ends in September, according to Senate and House lawmakers and staff members.
While Dermer and allies like AIPAC are working Capitol Hill, Netanyahu will have lots of opportunities to make his case directly to lawmakers as well. Dozens of U.S. lawmakers will travel to Israel during the August recess. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a key and as yet uncommitted vote on the Iran deal, will lead a group of freshman Democratic members of Congress to Israel next month.Meanwhile, as soon as the vote in Congress is over, the Obama administration is likely to allow a resolution that will be aimed at mandating 'Palestinian statehood' to pass the United Nations Security Council, and Obama may give us bunker busters, which he will of course prevent us from ever using.
Labels: Ashton Carter, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, bunker busters, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, nuclear weapons, United Nations Security Council
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:25 PM
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That’s the implication of a little-noticed YouTube video on which he was last month captured talking with a delegation of Orthodox Jews in Washington.
The video has been given little coverage, even as Schumer emerges as a pivotal figure in the debate in the Senate. The meeting was with a delegation of one of the most distinguished Jewish groups, the Orthodox Union. It was apparently filmed on a cellphone by a member of the audience and was uploaded onto YouTube in June.
Schumer was aware of that possibility, because he started out by saying he’d “wanted to talk a lot of tachlis about Iran” — meaning, roughly, get down to business. But, he said, “I’m not going to do this because you’re recording it.”
Then he proceeded to talk tachlis anyhow, characterizing the question as “which is better — no agreement or an agreement that is not close to the ideal.” It would, though, be inaccurate to suggest that Schumer simply endorsed what the administration is doing.
Schumer was nuanced and thoughtful. He gets that an Iranian bomb would be an existential threat to Israel. But he mocked those who advocate a military strike against Iran’s bomb-making facilities, calling it “the next-worst solution.”
...
Then, toward the end of his remarks, he asked that the door be closed.
“This is the tachlis part,” the senator said. He spoke of how the failure to reach an agreement would leave sanctions in place but only if everyone else stays in. “It so bothers me to have the Jewish fate in European hands,” Schumer said.
“We’ve been through this before, we Jewish people,” Schumer said. He then spoke of what a difficult decision he was facing. Noting that he’d been an elected official for 41 years, he said he would not let political pressure interfere.
Yet maybe Schumer will remember Mordechai’s injunction to Esther: “If you remain silent at this time, relief and rescue will arise for the Jews from elsewhere, and you and your father’s household will perish.”Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Charles Schumer, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:45 PM
2 comments
President Obama’s claim that Congress must either back his deal with Iran or plan for war does not square with the advice he has received from his top general, Senate lawmakers learned on Wednesday.Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, never presented Obama with such a binary choice. “At no time did that come up in our conversation nor did I make that comment,” Dempsey told Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) during a Senate hearing on the Iran deal. “I can tell you that we have a range of options and I always present them.”
...
What could go wrong?Dempsey also acknowledged that he advised the president not to agree to the lifting of sanctions pertaining to Iran’s ballistic missile program and other arms. “Yes, and I used the phrase ‘as long as possible’ and then that was the point at which the negotiation continued — but yes, that was my military advice,” he told Senator Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.). In the event the new deal goes into effect, the arms embargoes will expire over the next several years.Citing chapter and verse of the deal, Ayotte pointed out that the “plain language” of the bargain requires the United States “to help strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against sabotage of its nuclear program” — even to the point of warning Iran if Israel tries to launch cyberattacks against the program.
Dempsey seemed caught off guard when asked about that provision. “I hadn’t thought about that, senator, and I would like to have the opportunity to do so,” he told Ayotte.That exchange came shortly after Dempsey and other administration officials acknowledged a concern that Iran could launch cyberattacks against the United States and even the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is tasked with key oversight of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program under terms of the deal.
Labels: cyberwar, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Martin Dempsey, United States Senate
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:42 PM
2 comments
But the U.S.-Israel crackup isn’t a tabloid romance gone sour. The differences between the two countries are rooted in the administration’s reckless pursuit of an entente with Iran at the cost of its friendships with both Israel and moderate Arab states. That pursuit began in Obama’s first months in office, and nothing Netanyahu could have done or said would have deterred the president from this course of action. His success was achieved by a series of American concessions on key nuclear issues and not by pique about Israel’s stands on the peace process with the Palestinians or perceived rudeness on the part of Netanyahu.
Despite the attempt to portray Netanyahu’s interventions in the debate about Iran as a partisan move or an insult to Obama, keeping silent would not have advanced Israel’s interests or made more U.S. surrenders to Iran less likely. At this point, Israel has no choice but to remind U.S. lawmakers of the terrible blow to American credibility and regional stability from the Iran deal. It is the White House that has turned the Iranian nuclear threat — which was once the subject of a bipartisan consensus — into a choice between loyalty to the Democratic Party and its leader and friendship for Israel.
It is almost a given that the next president — no matter who he or she might turn out to be — will be friendlier to Israel than Obama. But the president’s legacy may not only be the strengthening of a terror state in Tehran. It has also chipped away at the U.S.-Israel alliance in a way that will make it that much harder to maintain the across-the-board pro-Israel consensus in Congress in the coming years. Given the growing dangers that the deal poses to Israel this is something that should have both Republicans and Democrats deeply worried.Coming into office, Obama had two independent foreign policy goals in the Middle East: To weaken or destroy the United States' relations with what he sees as 'neo-colonialist' Israel, and to bring Iran back into the fold of nations. Each goal has been pursued independently. The goal of weakening the alliance with Israel has been pursued through the Obama administration changing the terms of the 'peace process' as much as it has been played by making Iran a strong enough power to check Israel. The goal of bringing Iran back into the fold of nations has been pursued through the nuclear sellout. There is nothing Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader could have done to stop Obama on either front.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Moshe Dayan, Shimon Peres, US-Israel relationship
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:39 PM
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Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, nuclear weapons, P 5+1, treason
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:22 AM
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What matters is substance, and on the substance, Huckabee is exactly right in his assessment of Iranian motives and Israel’s potential vulnerability.
How many times do Iranian officials and Iranian allies have to express genocidal intentions before we believe them? While there’s long been argument as to whether former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually said Israel “must be wiped off the map,” there is an enormous amount of evidence that this sentiment has been repeated (even stated in English) and amplified by Iranian officials and allies on multiple occasions. For example, the inscription below (on a missile, no less) has been translated as saying “Israel must be uprooted and wiped off [the pages of] history.”
And in the banner below, the Iranians helpfully provided their own translation:
Perhaps Obama wants to wait until Iran nukes Israel for it to be politically correct to call Iran’s wiping Israel off the map a “Holocaust.” But, make no mistake, Obama knows full well that Iran intends to wipe Israel off the map with its Obama-blessed Nukes.
Come on, does anyone (except the American left-wing cool-aid drinking Jews) really believe that Iran will abide by their “voluntary” protocols under the Vienna announcement? Of course not! Are Obama or any of the European Union leaders so rank stupid and naïve that they think Iran won’t build a bomb just like North Korea? Does anyone not know that one of Iran’s first targets will be to annihilate Israel?
Of course Obama knows Iran will seek to annihilate Israel, so that must be what Obama wants.
Obviously, Obama doesn’t care if he enables the murder of another 6 million Jews through a Palestinian State’s chemical Sarin-tipped Katyusha rockets, or an Iranian Nuke. It’s simple: Obama wants Israel and its Jews offed. What is so difficult to understand about that? Every move Obama has made from the very first moment of his presidency has been to irreparably harm Israel and Saudi Arabia, and irrevocably empower Iran. It doesn’t matter what Obama’s specific motivation is. Obama may believe in Farrakhan’s and Rev. Wright’s virulent Chicago anti-Semitism; Obama may be merely steeped in anti-British anti-Colonialism; or both. All that matters is Obama is acting in ways that will allow others to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Indeed.If Obama walks like a Jew-hater, arms Iran like a Jew-hater, and creates a PA "West Bank" State like a Jew-hater, he’s a Jew-hater.
But, now here come the American Leftist Jewish “Holocaust” speech-police like Debbie Wasserman-Schulz who say one isn’t allowed to invoke the “Holocaust” or “Auschwitz” into a political debate when it is Iran’s highest leaders who have repeatedly, openly, and notoriously injected into the political debate that they intend to wipe Israel off the map. And, in plain sight, Obama is crowning Iran, the greatest openly Holocaust-threatening, terror-state in the world, the nuclear hegemon-state of the Middle East because Iran is “stable.” I guess Obama forgot he helped quash a popular uprising there as his first foreign policy debacle.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Holocaust, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian elections, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, nuclear weapons
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:18 AM
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In early 2013, the material indicates, Israel learned from its intelligence sources in Iran that the United States held a secret dialogue with senior Iranian representatives in Muscat, Oman. Only toward the end of these talks, in which the Americans persuaded Iran to enter into diplomatic negotiations regarding its nuclear program, did Israel receive an official report about them from the U.S. government. Shortly afterward, the CIA and NSA drastically curtailed its cooperation with Israel on operations aimed at disrupting the Iranian nuclear project, operations that had racked up significant successes over the past decade.
On Nov. 8, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw him off at Ben Gurion Airport and told him that Israel had received intelligence that indicated the United States was ready to sign “a very bad deal” and that the West’s representatives were gradually retreating from the same lines in the sand that they had drawn themselves.
Perusal of the material Netanyahu was basing himself on, and more that has come in since that angry exchange on the tarmac, makes two conclusions fairly clear: The Western delegates gave up on almost every one of the critical issues they had themselves resolved not to give in on, and also that they had distinctly promised Israel they would not do so.
One of the promises made to Israel was that Iran would not be permitted to stockpile uranium. Later it was said that only a small amount would be left in Iran and that anything in excess of that amount would be transferred to Russia for processing that would render it unusable for military purposes. In the final agreement, Iran was permitted to keep 300kgs of enriched uranium; the conversion process would take place in an Iranian plant (nicknamed “The Junk Factory” by Israel intelligence). Iran would also be responsible for processing or selling the huge amount of enriched uranium that is has stockpiled up until today, some 8 tons.
The case of the secret enrichment facility at Qom (known in Israel as the Fordo Facility) is another example of concessions to Iran. The facility was erected in blatant violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and P5+1 delegates solemnly promised Israel at a series of meetings in late 2013 that it was to be dismantled and its contents destroyed. In the final agreement, the Iranians were allowed to leave 1,044 centrifuges in place (there are 3,000 now) and to engage in research and in enrichment of radioisotopes.
At the main enrichment facility at Natanz (or Kashan, the name used by the Mossad in its reports) the Iranians are to continue operating 5,060 centrifuges of the 19,000 there at present. Early in the negotiations, the Western representatives demanded that the remaining centrifuges be destroyed. Later on they retreated from this demand, and now the Iranians have had to commit only to mothball them. This way, they will be able to reinstall them at very short notice.
Israeli intelligence points to two plants in Iran’s military industry that are currently engaged in the development of two new types of centrifuge: the Teba and Tesa plants, which are working on the IR6 and the IR8 respectively. The new centrifuges will allow the Iranians to set up smaller enrichment facilities that are much more difficult to detect and that shorten the break-out time to a bomb if and when they decide to dump the agreement.
The Iranians see continued work on advanced centrifuges as very important. On the other hand they doubt their ability to do so covertly, without risking exposure and being accused of breaching the agreement. Thus, Iran’s delegates were instructed to insist on this point. President Obama said at the Saban Forum that Iran has no need for advanced centrifuges and his representatives promised Israel several times that further R&D on them would not be permitted. In the final agreement Iran is permitted to continue developing the advanced centrifuges, albeit with certain restrictions which experts of the Israeli Atomic Energy Committee believe to have only marginal efficacy.
As for the break-out time for the bomb, at the outset of the negotiations, the Western delegates decided that it would be “at least a number of years.” Under the final agreement this has been cut down to one year according to the Americans, and even less than that according to Israeli nuclear experts.There's much more. Read it all.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, P 5+1, uranium enrichment, Wendy Sherman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:21 PM
0 comments
Obama administration officials flooding Congress to sell the pact are now working in tandem with ambassadors from the three European nations — Great Britain, France and Germany — that also signed off on the July 14 agreement.
The diplomatic trio, whose countries are known together as the “E3,” echo administration talking points and parries specific concerns from skeptical members of Congress. They also push a signature message: that the Iran deal is an international agreement, not just the handiwork of a Democratic president scorned by the GOP.
“We think it’s important that people who will vote on the bill understand that it’s not just about this administration and the Iranian government. The other governments who are part of the deal, what we call the P5+1, also have views on it and also think it’s the right way to go,” British Ambassador Peter Westmacott told POLITICO just after meeting with senators on Tuesday.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, joint session of Congress, P 5+1, United States Congress
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:03 PM
1 comments
Labels: House Foreign Affairs Committee, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, terrorism
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:16 PM
2 comments
HEZBOLLAH LEADER ALLAH-KARAM: Mogherini went to Saudi without Hijab, insulting http://t.co/3gsgRPinuG she wore Hijab, bowing to our power.
— Amir Taheri (@AmirTaheri4) July 28, 2015
First picture Mogherini Saudi Arabia on Monday, second picture Mogherini with Javad Zarif in Tehran today.
Labels: Federica Mogherini, hijab, Iran, Saudi Arabia
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:16 PM
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Israeli news - Pollard lawyers officially notified of his release on Nov 20.
— Amir Radberg (@aradberg) July 28, 2015
Whether he'll be allowed to leave the US remains to be seen. Labels: Jonathan Pollard
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:26 PM
4 comments
.@JohnKerry now: How the Iran deal is good for Israel, according to Israelis who know what they’re talking about: https://t.co/y8YrN3kuoM
— Marie Harf (@marieharf) July 23, 2015
There's one small problem: Harf and the Washington Post lied.Tharoor first mentions Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and links to a Daily Beast piece entitled "Ex-Intel Chief: Iran Deal Good for Israel."
Unfortunately for Tharoor (and for Daily Beast commentator Jonathan Alter), Ayalon, who begrudgingly supports the deal because it is "the best plan currently on the table" and because he believes there are no available alternatives, nonetheless has said in no uncertain terms, "I think the deal is bad. It's not good."
Tharoor then cites former intelligence chief Efraim Halevy, but strangely links to an Op-Ed Halevy wrote after a framework agreement was finalized in Lausanne last April but before the details of this final deal were agreed upon in Vienna this month. In a more recent (and thus relevant) Op-Ed, Halevy described what he sees as several strong points in the agreement and concludes that it is "important to hold a profound debate in Israel on whether no agreement is preferable to an agreement which includes components that are crucial for Israel's security."
He didn't explicitly state which side of the debate he favors, although there is a sense that leans toward the idea that Israel must get behind the deal. But like Ayalon, his tepid defense of the deal, if it is even that, seems to hinge on the idea that this agreement makes the emergence of any other, better deals unrealistic. "There will be no other agreement and no other negotiations," Halevy says in his recent Op-Ed.
What he does not say is that the deal signed in Vienna is, as a whole, "good." In an interview with Israel's Channel 2, he repeats his call for national debate, and paints a much more equivocal picture: "This is not an agreement that is entirely bad," Halevy said. "There are positive elements in it." Later, he added that "this agreement has a number of very good elements for Israel, and there are elements that are not as good." That quote, with its shades of gray, might not make for as dramatic a headline as the one chosen by the Washington Post.
But if equivocation is what the newspaper has to work with, then equivocation is what it should be capturing in its headlines—even if that means the piece can't be used by State Department officials.
Next, Tharoor mentions Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel's Military Intelligence branch. It is not clear why: Yadlin, who has cautioned against panic and excesses on the part of Israel's government, nonetheless believes, as explained in an interview with Israel's Ynet, "This is not a good deal. This a problematic deal. You also could call it a bad deal."
Tharoor's article intially gave no hint of Yadlin's criticism of the deal, but sometime later the author snuck in a throw-away statement noting that Yadlin is "not a fan of the deal." (The stealth correction appears to violate the newspaper's correction policy.)
Finally, the Washington Post blogger mentions Meir Dagan, another former Mossad chief. It appears, though, that Dagan has not gone on record one way or another about the nuclear deal finalized in Vienna. (We looked for any recent statements by him in Hebrew or English, and came up with nothing. We will of course add an update if we find any relevant commentary by Dagan from before Tharoor wrote his article.)Hmmm. I'm shocked. Just totally shocked. (Not!).
Labels: Ami Ayalon, Amos Yadlin, Barack Hussein Obama, Ephraim HaLevy, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Marie Harf, Meir Dagan, P 5+1, Wendy Sherman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:01 PM
1 comments
This is nothing other than the mentality of disruption applied to foreign policy. In the realm of technology, innovation justifies itself; but in the realm of diplomacy and security, innovation must be justified, and it cannot be justified merely by an appetite for change. Tedium does not count against a principled alliance or a grand strategy. Indeed, a continuity of policy may in some cases—the Korean peninsula, for example: a rut if ever there was one—represent a significant achievement. But for the president, it appears, the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. Certainly it did in the case of Cuba, where the feeling that it was time to move on (that great euphemism for American impatience and inconstancy) eclipsed any scruple about political liberty as a condition for movement; and it did with Iran, where, as Rhodes admits, the president was tired of things staying the same, and was enduring history as a rut. And in the 21st century, when all human affairs are to begin again!
Obama’s restlessness about American policy toward Iran was apparent long before the question of Iran’s nuclear capability focused the mind of the world. In his first inaugural address, he famously offered an extended hand in exchange for an unclenched fist. Obama seems to believe that the United States owes Iran some sort of expiation. As he explained to Thomas Friedman the day after the nuclear agreement was reached, “we had some involvement with overthrowing a democratically elected regime in Iran” in 1953. Six years ago, when the streets of Iran exploded in a democratic rebellion and the White House stood by as it was put down by the government with savage force against ordinary citizens, memories of Mohammad Mosaddegh were in the air around the administration, as if to explain that the United States was morally disqualified by a prior sin of intervention from intervening in any way in support of the dissidents. The guilt of 1953 trumped the duty of 2009. The Iranian fist, in the event, stayed clenched. Or to put it in Rhodes-spin, our Iran policy remained in a rut.
But it is important to recognize that the rut—or the persistence of the adversarial relationship between Iran and the United States—was not a blind fate, or an accident of historical inertia, or a failure of diplomatic imagination. It was a choice. On the Iranian side, the choice was based upon a worldview that was founded in large measure on a fiery, theological anti-Americanism, an officially sanctioned and officially disseminated view of Americanism as satanism. On the American side, the choice was based upon an opposition to the tyranny and the terror that the Islamic Republic represented and proliferated. It is true that in the years prior to the Khomeini revolution the United States tolerated vicious abuses of human rights in Iran; but then our enmity toward the ayatollahs’ autocracy may be regarded as a moral correction. (A correction is an admirable kind of hypocrisy.) The adversarial relationship between America and the regime in Tehran has been based on the fact that we are proper adversaries. We should be adversaries. What democrat, what pluralist, what liberal, what conservative, what believer, what non-believer, would want this Iran for a friend?
When one speaks about an unfree country, one may refer either to its people or to its regime. One cannot refer at once to both, because they are not on the same side. Obama likes to think, when he speaks of Iran, that he speaks of its people, but in practice he has extended his hand to its regime. With his talk about reintegrating Iran into the international community, about the Islamic Republic becoming “a very successful regional power” and so on, he has legitimated a regime that was more and more lacking in legitimacy. (There was something grotesque about the chumminess, the jolly camaraderie, of the American negotiators and the Iranian negotiators. Why is Mohammad Javad Zarif laughing?) The text of the agreement states that the signatories will submit a resolution to the UN Security Council “expressing its desire to build a new relationship with Iran.” Not a relationship with a new Iran, but a new relationship with this Iran, as it is presently—that is to say, theocratically, oppressively, xenophobically, aggressively, anti-Semitically, misogynistically, homophobically—constituted. When the president speaks about the people of Iran, he reveals a bizarre refusal to recognize the character of life in a dictatorship. In his recent Nowruz message, for example, he exhorted the “people of Iran … to speak up for the future [they] seek.” To speak up! Does he think Iran is Iowa? The last time the people of Iran spoke up to their government, they left their blood on the streets. “Whether the Iranian people have sufficient influence to shift how their leaders think about these issues,” Obama told Friedman, “time will tell.” There he is again, the most powerful man in the world, backing off and bearing witness.
If I could believe that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action marked the end of Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon—that it is, in the president’s unambiguous declaration, “the most definitive path by which Iran will not get a nuclear weapon” because “every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off”—I would support it. I do not support it because it is none of those things. It is only a deferral and a delay. Every pathway is not cut off, not at all. The accord provides for a respite of 15 years, but 15 years is just a young person’s idea of a long time. Time, to borrow the president’s words, will tell. Even though the text of the agreement twice states that “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons,” there is no evidence that the Iranian regime has made a strategic decision to turn away from the possibility of the militarization of nuclear power. Its strategic objective has been, rather, to escape the sanctions and their economic and social severities. In this, it has succeeded. If even a fraction of the returned revenues are allocated to Iran’s vile adventures beyond its borders, the United States will have subsidized an expansion of its own nightmares.I don't believe that Obama is so stupid as to decide to ignore history entirely. I think he wanted change - a different policy - that aligned the United States with rogue regimes like Iran and Cuba. Those are the people with whom he feels most comfortable. Another reminder.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Cuba, history lesson, Iran, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Venezuela
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:23 PM
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The National Jewish Democratic Council immediately called on members of the Republican Party to denounce Huckabee’s comments, saying it is “not only disgustingly offensive to the President and the White House, but shows utter, callous disregard for the millions of lives lost in the Shoah and to the pain still felt by their descendants today.”
“It may be the most inexcusable we’ve encountered in recent memory,” the organization added in a statement.
The Anti-Defamation League, a group that fights antisemitism, said that while they are wary of the deal, Huckabee’s comments are “completely out of line and unacceptable.”
“To hear Mr. Huckabee invoke the Holocaust when America is Israel’s greatest ally and when Israel is a strong nation capable of defending itself is disheartening,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in a statement.The NJDC is an organization of the Democratic party that has come out in favor of the Iranian nuclear sellout. It exists to promote the Democratic party (and Jewish donations to it) and is definitely not Jewish. The ADL is a group of paranoid liberals that is too busy finding anti-Semitism on every street corner to think about what it means to be Jewish. In fact, I am surprised that they did not accuse Huckabee of being an anti-Semite.
"Look, we have a very serious disagreement with the administration on a very serious issue," Ambassador Ron Dermer told Capital Download. "But what I don't doubt is the sincerity of the president or his team when they say they believe this deal not only makes America safe but makes Israel safe. Where we disagree is the judgment of actually what this deal is going to do."
On Huckabee's comments, he said: "These are not words that I would use or that I think are appropriate."But what did you expect him to say while he's the Ambassador? That Obama is at best indifferent and at worst hostile to Israel's existence as a state? Consider what Dermer's predecessor wrote once he was out of office (from a review by John Podhoretz):
It’s not that there’s lots of breaking news in “Ally” that will startle people. Rather, it makes news on almost every page with its incredibly detailed account of the root hostility of the Obama administration toward the Jewish state.
What makes the details especially credible is that Oren is no flame-breathing Israeli right-winger but very much (and at times distressingly) an Establishment creature and one, moreover, who makes it clear he drank the Obama hope-and-change Kool-Aid in 2008. (Indeed, he now serves in Israel’s Knesset not as a member of Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud but of the new centrist Kulanu party.)
On major matters, the administration seemed to hold Israel accountable for problems it had nothing to do with.
Example: The Palestinian Authority made moves toward seeking a declaration of statehood at the United Nations in 2011, which would’ve triggered a law shutting down their US mission and suspending all aid to the PA and to UN agencies that recognized Palestine.
In response, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides called Oren into his fancy Foggy Bottom office and screamed at him: “You don’t want the f - - - ing UN to collapse because of your f - - - - ing conflict with the Palestinians, and you don’t want the f - - - king Palestinian Authority to fall apart either.”
To which Oren replied that Israel didn’t want the United Nations to collapse “but there are plenty of Tea Party types who would, and no shortage of Congress members who are wondering why they have to keep paying Palestinians who spit in the president’s eye.” He reports that Nides “slumped into his Louis XVth chair.”
Oren also writes about bizarrely petty offenses. In 2010, Obama left Israel off a list of countries he mentioned as having helped in the wake of the Haiti earthquake when it was the first nation in the world to dispatch relief teams and get them to the disaster sites — because the president was angry about something having to do with the peace process.
Even when the administration is acting friendly, Oren senses it is doing so not out of genuine fellow feeling but to keep Israel close — hugging it to prevent it from acting, especially when it came to Iran’s nuclear program.Dermer is (a) still in office and (b) a 'flame-breathing Israeli right winger.' He is also a Republican at heart and therefore cannot agree with Huckabee and still keep his position in Washington. Obama is already obsessed with removing Dermer.
Labels: ADL, Barack Hussein Obama, Holocaust, Iranian nuclear threat, liberal media bias, Michael Oren, MSNBC, National Jewish Democratic Council, Ron Dermer
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:20 PM
1 comments
The issue is not whether the executive can without a treaty enter into agreements with foreign governments. Of course it can. That happens often from negotiating minor details of landing rights to major agreements. But these executive agreements are done consistent with treaty obligations, or certainly not in conflict with them. The Iran Deal conflicts with the NPT.
Treaties are the law of the land and have the status of federal statutes. They do not trump either the Constitution or subsequently enacted statutes. As a statute, however, a treaty would supersede a regulation, an executive order, or an executive-signed agreement. If an executive agency or an independent agency has the latitude to issue orders or sign agreements that conflict with treaty obligations, then treaties ratified by the United States have little if any enforceability.
In the United States, the administration or an independent agency cannot simply write an order that conflicts directly with a statute. The rule of law flows insists on no less. Why should a treaty, the NPT have lesser status?
The Iran Deal will not have the status of even a statute. As currently planned, it will not be subject to the constitutionally mandated process for Senate consent for a treaty. Nor will the Iran Deal become a statute even under the Corker-Cardin process of Congressional review. Moreover, as seems likely, the Iran Deal will result in a joint resolution that will have the support of fewer than half of the members of either house of Congress, hardly the foundation for a statute.
Congress had not seen the Iran Deal before the Corker-Cardin process was enacted and had no reason to believe that it would violate the NPT. On April 27 just before the Corker-Cardin bill was approved, Secretary Kerry remarked at the 2015 NPT meeting that “nonproliferation must be non-negotiable. There is no room under the NPT for a country to negotiate its way into becoming a nuclear-armed state … “[A]ny deal with Iran will rely not on promises, non on words, but on proof…verification is at the heart of the NPT.”
The Corker-Cardin bill established a process to review an executive order, not review a treaty amendment. No one has put forth an argument that Congress can bind itself in advance to a process to create or amend a treaty by a process different from that stated in the constitution.Read the whole thing. He goes through the treaty and lists several violations.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Ben Cardin, Bob Corker, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Senate's treaty powers
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:09 PM
2 comments
A senior Israeli diplomatic source revealed on Monday that if Jonathan Pollard is released in November as has been reported, he won't be allowed to come to Israel for fear he will receive a hero's welcome.
"The Americans are very worried of a situation in which Pollard will be received as a hero in Israel, and therefore they likely will prevent Pollard from leaving American territory," the source told Yedioth Aharonoth.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Saturday that she won't interfere in the possible release of Pollard, and denied that the move was timed to assuage Israeli concerns over the Iran nuclear deal.I don't know what makes them think Pollard will be any more interested in being released in exchange for Israel accepting a nuclear Iran than he was in being released in exchange for terrorists. And some of the people who generally oppose Pollard's release point out that there's no connection between Pollard and Iran.
"Releasing Pollard was a bad idea in 1998 and 2001. It is not a better idea today," [Former US Secertary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld posted on Twitter, along with a copy of letters stating his opposition to the move, which he sent to former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush while serving as secretary of defense.
In another tweet Rumsfeld wrote, "Releasing spy Jonathan Pollard doesn't make the #IranDeal any less of a disaster for Israel and the free world," suggesting that Pollard's possible release and the Iran deal are directly related.
Releasing Pollard was a bad idea in 1998 & 2001. It is not a better idea today. via http://t.co/kaSMo2yCnR pic.twitter.com/ADigmDgDh4
— Donald Rumsfeld (@RumsfeldOffice) July 27, 2015
I disagree with Rumsfeld and think Pollard ought to be released. But I agree with him that Pollard's release ought not to be connected with Iran. Seth Lipsky reminds us why.It’s not that Pollard’s breach of our Espionage Act wasn’t serious. It certainly was. But the charge to which he pled guilty comprised a single count of passing classified secrets to a friendly nation. In exchange for his plea, which saved the government the risk of losing in court or being forced to drop its case rather than disclose the secrets, the government made promises it failed to keep.
This came to a head in the early 1990s. Pollard was arrested in 1985. He pled guilty in 1986. He drew life in 1987. He sought to withdraw his plea in 1990. And the Appeals Court judges who ride circuit in the District of Columbia disposed of his claims in 1992. It was an incredibly distinguished panel, including Laurence Silberman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Fain Williams.
Yet two of the three judges took what can only be described as a powder, casting Pollard into prison for what the law calls life (30 years) on the grounds that he didn’t appeal the life sentence in a timely manner. The memorable opinion in the case was the dissent of Judge Williams, who concluded that the government that put Pollard away had broken the promises it had made in return for his plea.
The promises were that it would bring to the court’s attention the value of Pollard’s cooperation, refrain from seeking a life sentence, and limit its allocution — its statements — regarding “the facts and circumstances” of Pollard’s crimes. Williams concluded that the government “complied in spirit with none of its promises” and, in respect of the third promise, “it complied in neither letter nor spirit.”
One of the points Williams marked was the government’s suggestion that Pollard had committed treason. That came in a memo to the court from the defense secretary at the time, Caspar Weinberger, who asked the Court to mete out a punishment reflecting the “magnitude of the treason committed.” Yet Weinberg and the Court knew that whatever Pollard did was not treason.
Read the whole thing.That’s because the Constitution prohibits Congress from defining treason as anything other than levying war against the U.S. or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Treason, Williams noted, carries the death penalty. It can be committed only with an enemy. The espionage statute to which Pollard pled encompassed aid to friendly nations and carried a maximum of life.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Donald Rumsfeld, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Jonathan Pollard, spying
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:23 PM
3 comments
Labels: double standards, hypocrisy, Palestinians, Syria, Syrian uprising
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:35 AM
0 comments
A private individual who holds no official position in the Israeli government acted as a middleman in preparing for last Thursday’s meeting between Interior Minister Silvan Shalom and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Haaretz has learned.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were aware of the talks about holding the meeting and approved it. Senior officials in the Jordanian government and the European Union were also involved. The United States, however, was kept in the dark and Israel did not update the Americans before or after the meeting took place.
...
At a certain stage European Union envoy Fernando Gentilini tried to coordinate between the sides and even suggested the meeting be held in Brussels, however Erekat asked that it be held in Amman, Jordan, which brought the Jordanian government into the secret. Erekat did not present preconditions for the meeting, beyond that it be held at a neutral venue.
The two-hour meeting was mainly intended for the two to get acquainted. Both Erekat and Shalom presented initial suggestions on how to restart the peace process, but did not enter into a detailed discussion. They agreed to report back to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and to meet again in the near future.
The Amman meeting began in the presence of Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, and later Erekat and Shalom continued in private.I don't really expect this to go anywhere. The 'Palestinians' are hoping the United Nations will do their dirty work by passing a resolution in September mandating a 'Palestinian state.' But the big story here is the non-existent American influence. #ThanksObama.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, European Union, Jordan, Middle East peace process, Saeb Erekat, Sylvan Shalom
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:04 AM
0 comments
Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator in nuclear talks said that under the terms of the recently inked accord, the Islamic Republic is permitted to violate current embargoes on the shipment of arms and construction of missiles, according to recent comments made before Iran’s parliament.
Zarif, who spoke to the country’s parliament about the terms of the nuclear deal, also bragged that the finalization of the accord “puts the Zionist Regime in an irrecoverable danger,” according to an independent translation of his Persian language remarks provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Zarif insisted that “violating the arms and missiles embargo” placed on Iran by the United Nations “does not violate the nuclear agreement.”Is it possible to say that someone was fleeced on purpose?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Mohammad Javad Zarif
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:37 PM
1 comments
In an important essay for the online journal Mosaic this past November, Meir Soloveichik, the Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University in N.Y., writes that Israel’s 1967 “status quo” arrangement is one of the “most misguided in Israel’s history”.
Instead of setting aside a designated section on the Temple Mount for Jewish prayer—one that wouldn’t have interfered with Muslim worship and would’ve also been appropriate according to halakhah (Jewish religious law), which forbids Jews from visiting certain portions of the Har HaBayit—the government’s decision “set in place a policy that resulted in the worst of all possible worlds”:
First, many Jews who continued to visit the Mount did so without any rabbinic guidance, entering areas where according to halakhah they should not have set foot. Second, Israel’s self-imposed ban on Jewish prayer persuaded both the Waqf and the Palestinians and Arab world in general that Israel’s leaders lacked any attachment to or reverence for the site”.According to Soloveichik the indifference has merely reinforced the “foul false narrative” that the Jews never worshipped God on the Mount, that the Temples never existed, and that the Jewish nation has no historical legitimacy.
It’s a sentiment echoed recently by the indefatigable Vic Rosenthal. Writing in Abu Yehuda, a “blog about the struggle to keep the Jewish state”, Rosenthal claims that Israel now either has to “exercise sovereignty” on the Temple Mount “or lose it”:We have only ourselves to blame. But then, it's not surprising. Anyone who has read Michael Oren's account of the Six Day War is aware that the government did not want to liberate Jerusalem and the Temple Mount - only the late Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren was interested in doing so. Unfortunately, the government of Israel has never reconciled itself to being in control of the Mount.
When Israel conquered the Old City in 1967, the Arabs expected that they would be kicked out. After all, that is what they did to the Jews in eastern Jerusalem in 1948. That is what a victorious people in a national conflict over possession of land have always done, if they didn’t kill or enslave the population. But that is not what Israel did. When Israeli law was extended to eastern Jerusalem in 1967, Arab residents were offered Israeli citizenship. Most refused and became permanent residents, with the right to vote in municipal elections, health and social security benefits, etc…When the IDF took control of the Temple Mount, IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren wanted to build a synagogue there…But Defense Minister Moshe Dayan had other ideas: he prohibited Jews from praying on the Mount, and placed its administration in the hands of the Jordanian waqf…Thus were the seeds planted for the current situation, which includes absurdities like Israeli police officers arresting Jews who are seen to move their lips when visiting the Mount, and shrieking Arab women confronting Jews who want to just stand there”.
Labels: Michael Oren, Old City of Jerusalem, Palestinian riots, prayers, Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik, Temple Mount
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:55 PM
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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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