A sleeping beast hides in the depths of the nuclear agreement, but... by Dror Eydar

...The 2015 nuclear agreement is a clear example of those elites' irresponsible perception – a product of self-persuasion – that in front of them is not in fact a labyrinth housing a monster that requires human sacrifices, but rather a normal country that makes rational decisions. The shame and the imminent war have now been joined by deception.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
04 May '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/05/04/the-sleeping-iranian-beast/

1.

On May 28, 1987, a Cessna 172 plane landed in the heart of Moscow, in Red Square. The aircraft was piloted by West German amateur aviator Mathias Rust, who managed to breach the air defenses around the Soviet capital and embarrass the Soviet leadership. His smooth landing in the middle of such a sensitive area exposed the Soviet empire's impotence, making it look ridiculous in the eyes of its allies and its citizens. Above all, it lifted the curtain to reveal the lies behind the Kremlin's longtime propaganda.

The blow to the leadership's prestige was devastating. It prompted then-President Mikhail Gorbachev to replace his security team and unwittingly expedite the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is safe to assume that Monday's unprecedented unveiling of Iranian nuclear documents, obtained by Israel's Mossad agency in a daring operation in Tehran, had the same effect on Iran. It exposed the leadership's weakness both to Iran's own citizens and to the world. Every mullah in the Iranian regime is now both a suspect and suspicious of others. The Arab world is laughing at Iran's bravado. The country's economic and social chaos is now compounded by this severe blow to the respect once commanded by the ayatollahs' regime.

The thought that now hounds them is this: If Israel managed to transport half a ton of confidential materials from the heart of the Iranian capital to Israel, what would it be able to do in a state of active war?

The unveiling was also intended to demonstrate to the Arab countries that fear Iran that Israel is strong and they should consider what that means for their own security. This knowledge will encourage them to seek closer relationships with Israel without having to pay a price in the form of abandoning parts of the homeland.

2.

Unfortunately, the revelation, which could have been a strong psychological warfare move, was dampened by Israel's own commentators and journalists. They rushed to downplay the value of the seized materials and essentially aligned themselves with Iran's propaganda. They dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's contribution to the operation, even though he had ordered it and assumed sole responsibility for its success or failure.

"There is no smoking gun," the commentators declared triumphantly upon studying the seized documents. They were promptly quoted by the Iranian and Hezbollah media channels, as well as by Hamas and other scourges, to prove that "nothing happened." They can always count on the Israeli media and its pathological hatred of Netanyahu to sacrifice Israel's security on the altar of this hate. As in the fable in which the scorpion stings the frog and dooms them both, it is simply their nature. They can't help it.

Time to ensure that Iran genuinely rips to shreds every aspect of its nuclear program, in perpetuity - by David M. Weinberg

After Israel's intelligence coup, the question becomes this: Will the boosters of the deal continue to deny reality and accuse Israel of being alarmist? Will they continue to pretend they didn't know, and to accept Iran's blatant denials? Can they possibly continue to defend the weak verification regimes and early sunsets of this inadequate accord?

David M. Weinberg..
Israel Hayom..
04 May '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/nobody-knew/

A new exhibit opening this month at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC asks the question: What did Americans know in real time about the Nazi slaughter of Jews in Europe?

Turns out that ordinary Americans, and certainly government decision-makers, knew a lot about Nazis and the Holocaust as it was happening – and quite early in the war.

But this was based on partial information. There was no absolute proof, and nobody wanted to be branded an alarmist. Moreover, few wanted to pay the price of moral action.

Turning a blind eye was somewhat easy, because there were no YouTube videos or satellite feeds, and no Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter messages with pleas for help from Jews about to be gassed and incinerated.

So people preferred to pretend they didn't know, or they could tell themselves that they weren't sure enough to act, or they could accept denials of the emerging atrocities at face value.

You might say: There was no smoking gun.

In today's world, none of these exculpations holds water. In today's world – with live feeds and social media everywhere – everybody knows everything instantaneously. It's hard to take refuge in denialism when atrocities occur or when threats are building up.

And yet, in relation to the Middle East, people have preferred to pretend they didn't know, or to tell themselves that they weren't sure enough to act, or to accept denials of the atrocities and threats at face value.

This applies to the seven-year-long war in Syria and to massive human rights violations in Turkey. The community of democracies has done nothing to stop Assad's slaughter; few have protested Erdogan's dictatorial takeover.

It applies to the Hezbollah missile buildup in Lebanon, and to Yasser Arafat's and Mahmoud Abbas' anti-Semitic leadership of the Palestinian national movement, and so much more. People have preferred to look the other way or pretend they didn't fully know – and thus they are not compelled to act.

The same goes for the Iranian drive to build nuclear weapons.

Israel's Unveiling of Iran’s Nuclear Shroud - by Gilad Zwick

The scandalous conduct of the Obama administration regarding the nuclear deal, the failure of the world Intelligence Agencies and other consequences of Israel’s amazing Intelligence coup against Iran

Gilad Zwick..
MiDA..
01 May '18..

As President Trump indicates that the US is leaning toward withdrawing from the nuclear deal, a series of international experts are astonished by the new revelations Israel exposed last night regarding the Iranian nuclear program. “The new information reveals that Iran lied when it declared that it had never attempted to develop nuclear capabilities for military purposes,” says Mark Dubowitz, one of leading analysts of Iran’s nuclear program.

Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was considered the driving force behind the economic sanctions imposed on Iran during President Obama’s tenure. He has, until recently, supported the amendment of the agreement though not its total cancellation.

As a result of the information revealed by Israel, he is reconsidering his position. “The new discoveries make it very difficult to support just the amendment of the agreement,” he admits. “Bibi revealed that Iran took all the instructions for making a nuclear bomb and buried them deep away from the prying eyes of the IAEA and Western intelligence”

Dubowitz also clarified that the information exposed yesterday had the power to thwart the nuclear deal at the time:

“If we knew in 2015 what we know today, that [the] Iran regime had hidden a massive atomic archive with the details of how to rebuild its military-nuke program at a time of their choosing, there wouldn’t have been a nuke deal.”

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Nuclear Deal Made Last Week’s Incursion of an Iranian Drone into Israel Possible - by David Gerstman

...To be certain, Israel has the capacity to defend itself. But it is now facing a new direct threat, an Iran which is both dedicated to its destruction, and emboldened and strengthened by the 2015 nuclear deal. Maybe Iran would have eventually reached Israel’s borders, but the nuclear deal ensured that it would happen sooner rather than later.

David Gerstman..
thetower.org..
16 February 18'..

An analysis of last week’s incursion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace and Israel’s military response to it in The New York Times characterized the incident as “a sharp escalation of long-brewing hostilities.” This is an accurate characterization of the clash, as one of Islamic Republic’s goals, as evidenced by statements of its political and military leaders, since its founding in 1979 has been the destruction of Israel.

Iran’s behavior since the conclusion of the nuclear deal in July 2015 has shown that with an infusion of billions in cash and a blind eye towards its aggression has allowed it to pursue its goal. The first direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran reflects Iran’s continued efforts toward that end.

That Iran’s leaders call for Israel’s destruction has been well-documented. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) has published a number of reports cataloguing these statements. Based on Iran’s military actions, these threats cannot be dismissed as simply rhetorical excesses, but must be viewed as statements of purpose that the regime is taking concrete steps to implement.

One of the JCPA studies observed that “incitement to commit genocide as a war crime” and further that “much of the Iranian language regarding Israel can certainly be legally defined this way.” The initial study focused on the time when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president of Iran, but when Hassan Rouhani succeeded him, the latter “has nonetheless referred to ‘the Zionist regime’ as an enemy nation and pledged to find a way to achieve Khomeini’s long-term goal of ensuring that Israel ceases to exist.”

In fact in April 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the nations negotiating the nuclear deal for continuing the nuclear talks after Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the commander of Iran’s Basij militia, stated “Israel’s destruction is non-negotiable.”

A few months later, after the deal was agreed to, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah, that the nuclear deal “created a historic opportunity to [sic] for regional cooperation” to fight Zionism.

The official Iranian view, as expressed by Zarif, showed that the regime intended to use the windfall of sanctions relief to further its goal of destroying Israel.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Question. Was Meir Dagan Right About Iran? - by Jonathan Tobin

...Dagan, the man who was the loudest in opposing an Israeli attack, was a genuine hero who deserves to always be remembered as such, despite his bitter and often unseemly bickering with Netanyahu during his final years. But if Iran does ultimately obtain a weapon with which it could fulfill its threats to wipe Israel from the map — recently reiterated during its illegal ballistic missile tests — and launch a second Holocaust, then Dagan’s opposition to the prime minister will not look quite so wise.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
25 March '16..

When former Mossad chief Meir Dagan died last week, the well-deserved tributes from his comrades in arms, admirers, as well as others with whom he feuded, all noted with praise his service to Israel. Dagan was a military hero who turned to intelligence work after leaving the army but began life as a child of Jews who had fled the Holocaust in Poland. All of the obituaries noted the fact that in his office hung a photo of his grandfather taken by Nazi soldiers moments before they murdered him. He spent his life seeking to preserve Israel against those who would seek to further the work of the Nazis by destroying the Jewish state. But it was not that lifetime of battles against Israel’s enemies for which he was best remembered. Rather, it was his battles with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how best to counter the Iranian nuclear threat, as well as differences about the Palestinians that marked his last years and made him known far beyond Israel.

Dagan was a fervent opponent of a proposed Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities and did his best to frustrate any move by Netanyahu in that direction while he was at the Mossad. After leaving the spy agency, he came out of the shadows to become a public foe of the prime minister. Netanyahu has won re-election twice since Dagan left the agency and seems firmly ensconced in office despite the former spy chief’s withering criticisms. Now that the West has signed a deal with Iran that gives Tehran’s nuclear program international recognition, such an operation is out of the question for as long as the accord lasts. Thus, in the eyes of many observers, such as the New York Times’ David Sanger, Dagan won the argument with Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

As is the case with the nuclear deal, history will be the final judge as to whether Netanyahu or Dagan were right about how best to deal with Iran. But while there were good reasons for Israel striking Iran on its own, the assumption held by many in the media and Netanyahu’s left-wing critics that Dagan was the wise counselor locked in a struggle with a cynical politician interested only in his own survival is a distorted version of a complex political and security puzzle. If, as is as likely as not, Iran eventually emerges from the aftermath of a nuclear pact that will expire in a decade with a bomb, then the accolades being heaped on Dagan for thwarting the prime minister may not look so smart.

Dagan’s views were entitled to respect. But there are a few important facts about Dagan’s position about Iran that are often overlooked in the discussion about his arguments with Netanyahu.

The True Legacy of Holocaust Denial and the Mullahs

...Perhaps he truly believed that the Iranian leadership was moderate. Obama — and later Secretary of State John Kerry — have long been guilty of projection when confronting adversaries. But after so much subsequent time and interaction, neither naïveté nor ignorance can be excused. Obama, Kerry, and their close-knit circle of advisors certainly understand the radicalism, racism, and anti-Semitism at the heart of the Islamic Republic but chose to engage, trust, and enrich the regime anyway. That decision reflects not only on the judgment of Kerry and his team, but also their character. Kerry may seek a Nobel Prize and his aides might seek promotion, but their true legacy will be the empowerment of what after North Korea remains one of the world’s most unrepentant and odious regimes.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
20 December '15..

So much for the moderation that $100 billion in sanctions relief and new investment was supposed to usher in inside Iran. The Islamic Republic News Agency has announced a new Holocaust cartoon contest theoretically meant to practice free speech but, in reality, meant to belittle and ridicule the murder of Jews. After all, if the Islamic Republic truly cared about free speech, it would not invest millions of dollars to hunt down and imprison those who traded jokes about the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on social media.

The only surprise is that anyone would be surprised by the latest Iranian antics. To be surprised is to be ignorant of the true character of the Islamic Republic and the leaders who serve and defend it. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is no moderate. He has always been the regime’s “Mr. Fix-It” and is a true believer in Khomeini’s ideology. He may have reduced the numbers of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps veterans serving in his cabinet, but he replaced them with Ministry of Intelligence veterans, in effect, selecting a KGB cabinet.

The reality is that while politicians noticed Iranian Holocaust denial under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, such animosity toward Jews — whose population in Iran has declined by 80 percent since the Islamic Revolution — and the lionization of the Holocaust predates Ahmadinejad. While Ahmadinejad proudly questioned the Holocaust, his predecessor Mohammad Khatami spoke to diplomats about dialogue while simultaneously inviting to Tehran Holocaust revisionists such as Gerald Fredrick Töben, a German expatriate in Australia, to lecture about how the Auschwitz death camp was too small to orchestrate the mass killing of Jews.

Yossi Kuperwasser - The Mistaken Rationale behind the Iran Nuclear Deal

...The nuclear agreement with the main world powers is set to enable Iran safely, legally, and without economic hardships or changes in its rogue policies, to overcome the main obstacles on its way to possessing a nuclear weapons arsenal and becoming a regional hegemonic power. Regardless of what the deal’s champions say, it appears that the deal’s rationale was to postpone and contain – and not prevent – Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons. This is why the U.S. Administration tried to compare the period the deal postpones nuclear weaponization (under the logic of containment) with the period a military attack would set back the nuclear program. This ignores the very purpose of a military attack – prevention. By endorsing the deal, its supporters actually surrender the most effective tools to convince the Iranians to make concessions and give up their nuclear program, namely the biting sanctions and the credible military threat. A containment policy by definition makes a military option irrelevant.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser,..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
Institute for Contemporary Affairs..
09 September '15..






- The claim that Iran’s enrichment routes to a nuclear bomb have been blocked has no basis. In fact, Iran will have four routes to enriching uranium to a military level.

- The nuclear agreement with the main world powers is set to enable Iran safely, legally, and without economic hardships or changes in its rogue policies, to overcome the main obstacles on its way to possessing a nuclear weapons arsenal and becoming a regional hegemonic power.

- The agreement will legally provide Iran with the capability to shorten the time required to produce such an arsenal within the next 10-15 years (including the production of fissile material, weaponization, acquiring delivery systems, and improved military capabilities to protect the military nuclear program).

This study presents technical details of the Iran nuclear deal. It goes beyond the political points raised in Vital Points on the Iran Deal: Major Flaws and Positive Elements.

The Bigger Problem

The main problem with the deal is not its numerous weaknesses, each of which in itself casts doubt on whether the deal can prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons whenever it decides to do so – whether during the period when the restrictions pertain to it or afterward. The main problem is that the deal basically gives Iran all that it has dreamed of without any real payment on its part and hence is extremely dangerous to the future of the Middle East, the world order, U.S. interests, and Israel’s security.

What is the problem that Iran confronts in the nuclear sphere, and what is the optimal solution from its standpoint? The core of the problem is the high risk currently entailed in attempting to cross the threshold (the requisite length of time) between mastering the technologies and building the required infrastructure to produce nuclear weapons on the one hand, and, on the other, producing an arsenal of nuclear weapons. In other words, how can Iran shorten the threshold until it is close to zero without taking a risk?

The solution is to create a reality in which one greatly diminishes the threshold in a legitimate process that does not justify either a military operation or harsh sanctions. The deal gives Iran everything it needs to arrive, in 10 to 15 years, at precisely the point where it wants to be, where the width of the threshold will be close to zero. Iran achieves that point without any risks or payment at all, since it receives an international stamp of approval to arrive there, and the sanctions are lifted at a very early stage. This is what is meant by saying that the deal paves Iran’s way to a nuclear arsenal.

What Is Needed to Produce Nuclear Weapons?

Producing nuclear weapons necessitates obtaining fissionable material (by enriching uranium or separating plutonium), transforming it into a weapon (a bomb or a warhead for a ground-to-ground missile), and having the means (planes or missiles) to deliver the nuclear weapons to the target.

Uranium Enrichment

The claim that Iran’s enrichment routes to a nuclear bomb have been blocked has no basis. In fact, Iran will have four routes to enriching uranium to a military level.

(Incidentally, characterizing an enrichment level of 3.67 percent as unimportant is misleading because enrichment to that level consumes about 40-50 percent of all the effort required for military-level enrichment, which occurs at about 90 percent.)

1. The option of breaking the rules – “Break out”: Notwithstanding the U.S. Administration’s claim that during the first 10 years of the deal the time span required to amass enough fissionable material for a first bomb will be about a year, the required time is actually about six months. From the moment that Iran violates the deals and expels nuclear inspectors, it will be able to reinstall the 13,000 centrifuges that will be removed from the various enrichment facilities and stored in the underground facility at Natanz, along with the equipment needed for their reassembly and activation. The more the Iranians progress in reassembling the centrifuges, the more they will bolster their enrichment capability.

Some of the centrifuges will probably be installed at the military enrichment facility at Fordow, which is not to be destroyed. It should be noted that about a thousand of these centrifuges are advanced ones of the IR-2M kind. Because Iran is being allowed to keep developing advanced centrifuges of different kinds, including the faster IR-6 and IR-8, once it breaks the agreement it will immediately be able to start manufacturing these centrifuges and using them for enrichment. It should also be noted that there is no restriction on the quantity of unenriched UF6, of which Iran has a huge amount. This substance is the raw material of enrichment.

2. The option of crawling to a bomb – “Sneak Out”: This option, too, is feasible during the time span of the deal, along two routes:

a. Building clandestine facilities in Iran and using raw material that is not under IAEA supervision (though it is not clear if such material exists in Iran, it can be procured abroad in any case – such as from Iran’s ally, Venezuela). In light of the limited nature of the monitoring, which will be effective only at declared sites, it is doubtful whether such clandestine facilities will be detected and whether it will be possible to visit them before the evidence is removed from them. It should be recalled that huge facilities such as Natanz and Fordow (like the Syrian reactor at Deir ez-Zor) were detected after a delay of years and not necessarily by the Americans.

b. Using enrichment and weapons facilities abroad: Supposedly, if Iran wants to engage in nuclear cooperation with foreign actors, it has to request permission from the supervisory committee. But given the lack of mechanisms to monitor either activity abroad or the activity of Iran’s own nuclear scientists, Iran will have no particular trouble conducting such activity surreptitiously.

3. “Wait out,” version 1: The option of adhering to the deal for 10 years: After the 10 years Iran can increase the number of centrifuges without limit and use advanced centrifuges. This means it will soon have an enrichment capability that will generate fissionable material of a sufficient quantity to produce a large number of bombs within a short time.

4. “Wait out,” version 2: The option of adhering to the agreement for 15 years: After 15 years the stipulation that uranium can only be enriched to 3.67 percent will expire, and Iran will be able to produce and amass high-level enriched material legally and without limitation. In other words, Iran will be able produce a nuclear arsenal within a very short time.

The issue of the enrichment site at Qom/Fordow merits special emphasis. This is a site that was built solely for military purposes. It was built deep in the mountain and can contain 3,000 centrifuges. The fact that this facility is left in place, despite President Obama himself having asserted that it has no justification, is a shameful indication of the weakness of the deal.

In sum, the deal paves Iran’s way to building a capability to produce a substantial military nuclear arsenal via uranium enrichment within 10 to 15 years, and enables it to race to a bomb before then if it decides to do so.

CNN's Amanpour interviews Iran's Larijani : Referendum for "All People" or "Elimination of Israel"?

...While he and other Iranian leaders have spoken similarly of Israel in the past, the one-page document, packed with specific details, was new. It says the "proper way of eliminating Israel" is for "all the original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews wherever they are, whether inside Palestine, in refugee camps in other countries or just anywhere else, take part in a public and organized referendum." The "Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part," he adds. It's unclear who Khamenei thinks the "original people of Palestine" are, given that the region's history dates back thousands of years and includes countless waves of immigration and exile.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
02 September '15..

Despite probing questions from Christiane Amanpour, Ali Larijani, Iran's speaker of the Parliament, successfully evaded answering her queries about Iranian plans to attack Israel yesterday on CNN.

"Well, can I just get this straight? Does Iran envision attacking Israel then?" Amanpour presses, after Larijani ducked her initial query: "Can you say anything that would reassure Israel that you are not committed to the destruction of that country?"

But Larijani prevaricates, transforming a 2014 call by Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei for the elimination of Israel into a "solution . . . totally compatible with democratic principles." Thus, he insists:

Several years ago, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, came up with a solution for this problem, which I think is totally compatible with democratic principles.

He said that the solution actually lies in a referendum. There should be a referendum in occupied territories and people — all people, Muslims, Jews and Christians — should participate in that referendum. And they should choose their own destiny.

Whatever they decide should be implemented. And this solution is the one that Iran will adhere to. This is our — in our vision. And I think this is something that is, as I said, compatible with democratic principles.

At this point, Amanpour does not question Larijani's account of Khamenei's referendum solution "compatible with democratic principles" and proceeds to move on to the next topic. But as CNN's own 2014 coverage of the Khamenei's referendum "solution" for Israel shows, the Supreme Leader's plan was for nothing less than the elimination of Israel.

As CNN's Josh Lev reported online ("Iran leader's call to 'annihilate' Israel sparks fury as nuclear deadline looms"):

The Iranian leader made his call for Israel to be "annihilated" on Twitter over the weekend. Mixed in with tweets insisting that Iran is committed to diplomacy on other issues, Khamenei posted a series of tweets slamming Israel. Among them was a document called "9 key questions about elimination of Israel."

While he and other Iranian leaders have spoken similarly of Israel in the past, the one-page document, packed with specific details, was new.

It says the "proper way of eliminating Israel" is for "all the original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians and Jews wherever they are, whether inside Palestine, in refugee camps in other countries or just anywhere else, take part in a public and organized referendum." The "Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part," he adds.

It's unclear who Khamenei thinks the "original people of Palestine" are, given that the region's history dates back thousands of years and includes countless waves of immigration and exile.

Coverage of Khamenei's tweets calling for Israel's annihilation. Amanpour doesn't challenge Larijani's recasting of Khamenei's referendum plan as "totally compatible with democratic principles"

Is Israeli Intelligence Actually for the Iran Deal?

...it’s vital for Israeli planners to think about the day after a done deal on Iran, and how Israel can make the most of it. But that’s all it is. Goldberg’s latest job is a conspiracy theory for the gullible. You don’t have to be an intel officer to know that it’s a red herring.

Martin Kramer..
Commentary Magazine..
24 August '15..

J.J. Goldberg at the Forward has been running a campaign to persuade Americans that Israel’s intelligence community is at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Iran deal. Not only the preponderance of retired professionals but also currently serving ones, dissent from Netanyahu’s read of the deal. Netanyahu can’t silence the former, but he’s given a “gag order” to the latter — to no avail. Military intelligence has even produced a “surprising,” “game-changing” assessment that undermines him completely, according to which the “upsides [of the deal] aren’t perfect,” but “the downsides aren’t unmanageable… The disadvantages are not too calamitous for anyone to cope with them.” Military intelligence sees “an imperfect but real opening in Iran. It believes that opportunities are being lost.” Netanyahu’s own “diagnosis doesn’t match his own intelligence.”

It’s all polemical and politicized nonsense.

A real expert, Emily Landau (at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv) has already taken Goldberg to the woodshed about the retired professionals (Goldberg has a weird predilection for calling them “spooks”). Landau, without naming the names of these “experts,” points out that Iranian politics and nuclear issues are well beyond the expertise of most of them. Not everyone with a pension and an opinion is equal. And most of those who think that Israel should back off a fight over the deal still think it’s a bad one. They just argue that it’s inevitable anyway, so why provoke Barack Obama? This isn’t support for the deal, its resigned acquiescence. (The military correspondent of The Times of Israel did a parallel debunking, after the White House began to tweet similar claims.)

But what about the “game-changing” assessment by those who serve now? Goldberg is referring to an analysis prepared by Israel’s military intelligence branch (Aman), which was presented to Netanyahu and the political echelon. The main points of the analysis appeared immediately in the Israeli press. To read Goldberg, you’d think that this document is an endorsement of the Iran deal, and that the deal’s flaws are equally balanced by its advantages. Neither Goldberg nor I have seen this document. But even a cursory reading of the press reports (here, here, and here) show that it’s not what Goldberg claims it is.

NY Times: Reporter For Jewish Paper Finds No Anti-Israel Plot in Iran

...Duranty may not have seen those who died from starvation (or as it suspected by many, that he did know and intentionally concealed it). But a conservatively estimated 3 million perished in what most credible historians regard as a man-made famine resulting from the determination by Soviet authorities to break the will of Ukrainian peasants (and any others) who contested the Communist regime's absolute control. Similarly, Cohler-Esses may not have seen the terror imposed on Iranian citizens or the psychopathic hatred of Israel, but it is irresponsible of him - and the Times - to present such a naive and coddled piece, especially since its intention is to sway the political debate over the nuclear agreement. The times have changed, but apparently the Times has not.

Steven Stotsky..
CAMERA Snapshots..
17 August '15..

The New York Times published a piece on August 13, 2015 conveying the report by a journalist from an "American Jewish pro-Israel publication" that "found little evidence to suggest that Iran wanted to destroy Israel, as widely asserted by critics of the Iranian nuclear agreement."

The journalist, Larry Cohler-Esses, is the assistant managing editor for news at The Forward, a Jewish newspaper that trends left and has been known to feature the views of anti-Zionist Jews. Cohler-Esses paints a relatively benign picture of Iran. In an interview with the Times' Rick Gladstone he stated, "Far from the stereotype of a fascist Islamic state, I found a dynamic push-and-pull between a theocratic government and its often reluctant and resisting people." Although he found "no one had anything warm to say about the Jewish state" when "pressed as to whether it was Israel's policies or its very existence to which they objected, several were adamant: It's Israel's policies."

What is missing here is factual context and intellectual integrity. It is as if Cohler-Esses and the New York Times operate in a vacuum, devoid of historical awareness or even common sense.

Concerning the "push-and-pull" between the Iranian government and its people, there seems to be a lot of pushing, not much pulling. Here is some context from the last "free" elections Iran had:

Human rights campaigners say anecdotal evidence suggests the number of demonstrators killed in clashes with government forces after last month's poll was far higher than the official death toll of 20 and may amount to a "massacre". (July 16, 2009 by the Guardian, a leftist, anti-Israel newspaper)

The United States Institute of Peace published a report on the Green Movement that opposed the theocratic regime that recounts the widespread torture and killing of political activists.

Radio Free Europe published accounts of the regime murdering hundreds of Iranians demonstrating for political freedom.

Concerning the contention that it is Israel's policies not its existence that the Iranian leadership objects to, the evidence of the genocidal intent of the Iranian regime is vast and overwhelming. One tweet from Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted will suffice. On July 23, 2014, the Supreme Leader tweeted, "This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated." The Ayatollah's prescription suggests that his objections to Israel run deeper than just policy complaints.

Gladstone's piece on Cohler-Esses recalls the epithet "useful idiots" often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but more likely coined during the terror regime of Joseph Stalin.

The Nuclear Deal Bottom Line: No Pause in Iran’s Vow to Destroy Israel

...Iran’s current leadership, especially Revolutionary Guards leaders who progress to assume political senior positions as Parliament (Majlis) members, cabinet ministers, provincial governors and captains of economy, interpret Iran’s perceived “divine” international achievements as signs of the Mahdi’s messianic coming, reaffirming to them Khomeini’s revolutionary, activist Shiism. These signs include Iran’s retaining its nuclear program, defying Western sanctions and signing a historical nuclear deal; the repeated successes of Iranian-backed Palestinian and terror groups, namely Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, in standing up to Israel; the disintegration of Arab states and the Arab world; and the Islamic Awakening. They believe that just as Khomeini “prophesied” the downfall of the USSR and Saddam’s Iraq, his prophecy about Israel’s destruction must also come true. Iran can facilitate its downfall either by fighting Israel or by massively supporting anti-Israel terror groups. The nuclear deal establishing Iran as a threshold nuclear state with fast breakout capabilities to a nuclear bomb will enable Iran to increase its efforts in hastening Khomeini’s prophecy.

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
16 August '15..






Introduction

Iran’s Supreme Leader is the Main Agitator for the Destruction of Israel

Sixteen years after his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s founding vision — that the eradication of Zionism is an inevitable precondition for redeeming contemporary Islam — keeps guiding the current generation of Iran’s religious, political and military establishment. To him the destruction of Zionism was an axiom never to be questioned or strayed from and an objective to be perpetually and actively pursued. According to this vision, Israel should be fought as part of a protracted global struggle between Islam and the West, which “planted intentionally the Zionist Entity in the heart of Islamic World.”

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was faithful to this doctrine, making it the centerpiece of his foreign policy; current President Hassan Rouhani, his successor for the last two years, is also faithful to this doctrine, just less obvious. Notwithstanding, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei bears the torch and is the chief agitator for the extermination of Israel, spreading this message worldwide over social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, books1 and addressing various target audiences in English, Arabic and Persian.

The Iranian religious, political, intellectual and military elite support and repeat Khamenei’s messages. Members of the Iranian Army high command (as opposed to the Revolutionary Guards) have even declared their willingness and capability to destroy Israel, once the leader’s order is given. Practically speaking, the regime’s intelligence and international subversion agencies, mostly the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, massively support anti-Israel terror groups and stage repeated conferences in Iran dedicated to denial of the Holocaust and to the deligitimization of Israel’s right to exist.

(Continue to Full Report)

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The Continuing Distortion of the Truth About Iran and Israel

...Cohler-Esses’ story has something of the feel of the articles produced in the past by those who visit tyrannical states in the hope of producing favorable coverage intended to blunt the revulsions of the democratic world. But while there is much to criticize in the piece, it does not claim to prove that there is “no plot to destroy Israel.” That is entirely the Times’ invention.

  Image: Larry Cohler-Esses 

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
12 August '15..

No serious observer contends that the Iranian people, like any other group on the planet, all speak with one voice about any issue. Nor is it extraordinary to learn that some of them might express a wide range of views about Israel and the United States. But to contend that the existence of some level of dissent in Iran from the positions of its government shows that the country’s policies are changing or that it is not actively seeking the destruction of Israel is to tell a lie. That’s exactly what the New York Times did today when it published a story headlined, “Reporting from Iran, Jewish Paper Sees No Plot to Destroy Israel.” The “Jewish Paper” is the Forward, which dispatched reporter Larry Cohler-Esses to the Islamist state for a weeklong visit. Cohler-Esses’ story has something of the feel of the articles produced in the past by those who visit tyrannical states in the hope of producing favorable coverage intended to blunt the revulsions of the democratic world. But while there is much to criticize in the piece, it does not claim to prove that there is “no plot to destroy Israel.” That is entirely the Times’ invention. It demonstrates how the flagship of the mainstream liberal media will seize upon the pretext to back up President Obama’s false characterizations of Iran and its leadership as posing no real threat to Israel.

Coming to grips with the reality of the anti-Semitism and hate that is at the heart of Iranian foreign policy is a difficult problem for the administration. It has struck an agreement with Iran that, at best, merely postpones the moment when the Islamist regime will get a nuclear bomb while granting its nuclear program international approval. It also gives it a lucrative cash bonus in the form of perhaps $100 billion in unfrozen assets and the relaxation of sanctions that will enrich the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The fact that this deal will give material aid to Iran’s terrorist campaign against Israel while leaving open the door to it eventually gaining the ability to wipe out the Jewish state with a nuclear weapon ought to trouble President Obama’s supporters. Some, like The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, struggle to justify the blithe assertions from Obama that Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is “just a politician.” Obama and Secretary of State Kerry treat Khamenei’s ideology, statements and even Iran’s history of acting on his murderous goals as unimportant. They believe the chance for détente with the West, which is obviously in Iran’s best interests will always override other considerations.

Goldberg wrongly claims there are no real alternatives to the Iran deal but, unlike Obama, he understands that concerns about Iran are not purely the function of fear but rooted in reality. Just as important, he is aware that by framing the argument about Iran as one between “Jewish special interests” and “the rest of the world,” the administration and its cheerleaders are empowering anti-Semites in the Middle East as well as possibly here at home.

Unfortunately, Goldberg is too much a prisoner of his own liberalism and support for Obama’s vision to draw the proper conclusions from this or the flaws in the Iran deal. He thinks it would be a good idea if it made more of an effort to signal that it knows it is dealing with vicious anti-Semites and terror supporters. But that is exactly what Obama and Kerry can’t do because they are so wedded to their vision of détente with those anti-Semites.

Which leads us back to Cohler-Esses’ story.

The Iran Deal and the Boost it Gives to Worldwide Anti-Semitism

...An empowered Iran, then, can be regarded as the most important hub of anti-Semitism in the world today. As scholar Ruth Wisse recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Depending on the outcome of the Iran deal, this outreach to an anti-Jewish regime may one day rival the blot of slavery on the American record.” Staying alert to the threat from Tehran—even as others play it down or even mock its seriousness—is essential if we are to avoid that outcome.

Ben Cohen..
Algemeiner..
11 August '15..

JNS.org – In Europe, Jewish communities are still licking the wounds from a miserable 12 months that saw deadly jihadist violence erupt against them in Paris, Brussels, and Copenhagen. On the old continent, there has also been an unprecedented rise in hate crimes targeting Jews, along with a growing acceptance of anti-Semitic discourse masquerading as fevered, impassioned criticism of alleged Israeli crimes.

These events are entirely consistent with Europe’s trajectory since the turn of the 21st Century. One can now confidently predict that any upsurge of conflict in Lebanon, Gaza, or the West Bank that involves Israel’s military will be mirrored on the streets of Europe’s cities, with Jews subjected to verbal and physical abuse and even terrorist outrages. Indeed, data collected by the Community Security Trust (CST), the official body dealing with Jewish security in the U.K., suggests that even at comparatively quieter times for Israel, Jews are more at risk now than at any other period since World War II. During the first six months of this year, the CST recorded 473 anti-Semitic incidents, a 53-percent increase from the same period during 2014.

As CST’s Dave Rich noted in a recent essay for World Affairs Journal, “Not all anti-Semitic hate crime is perpetrated by Muslims, but enough of it is for Jews, and others, to connect it to wider issues of extremism and cohesion that can sometimes feel as if they undermine the very basis of society itself.” Hence we hear the oft-repeated but incorrect view articulated in Israel, and by some American Jews, that there is no secure future for Jews in Europe as long as they remain there.

On the scale between waking up to the threat posed by the Islamists and their fellow travelers and a mass exodus, both Europe’s Jews and Europe’s political class are still much closer to the former than the latter. True, the numbers of Jews leaving Europe have increased, especially in the French case, but a sizable majority has no plans to leave. The argument, instead, hinges on whether anti-Semitism is recognized as such, especially when it comes from immigrants and minority communities rather than natives dressed up in Nazi uniforms.

Among European governments, the answer, generally, is “yes.” In France, Germany, and the U.K., all the main political leaders have recognized the lethal strain of anti-Semitism at the heart of the Islamist ideology, and all have expressed horror at the thought that violence directed at Jews would uproot entire communities. But that’s not the case in civil society more generally.

“One factor that contributes to the relative lack of concern over anti-Semitism is the perception of Jews as a highly successful and relatively privileged group,” observes the recent “Statement on Contemporary European Anti-Semitism” authored by six British intellectuals and academics. Later on they argue, “The anti-Jewish racism of white nativists on the far right remains heavily stigmatized in the progressive mainstream. This is classed as the only true anti-Semitism, but it is minimized as a marginal threat. The equally odious anti-Semitism of radical Islamists is frequently treated far more indulgently as an unfortunate excess in an intrinsically just resistance to Western imperialism.”

BTW, Iran is Also Funding Hamas Preparations for War

...That means that contrary to Kerry’s belief about Iran having no plans in place to eliminate Israel, the entire process that will unfold from the deal is part and parcel of just such a plan. The only difference is that unlike past efforts, what will follow will happen while it has become America’s diplomatic and business partner.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
11 August '15..

When asked repeatedly by Republicans about Iran’s repeated threats to destroy Israel during Congressional testimony about the Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State John Kerry sighed and looked at his questioners the way an exasperated teacher regards dumb students. Yes, he admitted, they say that but he explained patiently, he’s seen no evidence of them planning anything to put that into effect. Kerry repeated that answer, though no doubt without the look of disdain on his face, to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg saying “I haven’t seen anything that says to me” that their “ideological confrontation with Israel at this moment” [my emphasis] will “translate into active steps.” For all intents and purposes, President Obama says the same thing when he dismisses threats to Israel from Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei even if he just published a book outlining his plans. But, as Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency made public today, Iran is taking active steps toward war with Israel. The Israelis revealed that information obtained from a prisoner as well as from other sources showed that Iran is taking an active role in allowing Hamas to rebuild its military infrastructure as well as terror tunnels aimed at facilitating murder and kidnapping. Though the administration pretends that its negotiations with Iran are proof that the Islamist regime is moderating, evidence on the ground shows that its role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror is unchanged. So, too, is its role in aiding the ongoing war on Israel’s existence.

As Haaretz reports:

During his interrogation, [Hamas operative Ibrahim] Sha’er also told of the links between Iran and Hamas, under which Iran has transferred military support into the Gaza Strip to strengthen the organization. The Iranians provide funds, advanced weaponry and electronic equipment such as equipment for disrupting radio communications to bring down Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles over Gaza, Sha’er told the Shin Bet. Iran has also trained Gaza fighters in the use of hang gliders for the purpose of penetrating into Israel, he said.

Perhaps to Obama and Kerry, these efforts should be considered minor annoyances to Israel. After all, what possible impact can terror attacks or giving Hamas the ability to wage and sustain a new war against Israel have to do with Israel’s existence? The Israeli military is strong and presumably is capable of dealing with anything that Hamas can come up with. Perhaps, the same is true of Hezbollah, which even Kerry admitted to Goldberg, had 80,000 rockets pointed at Israel.

An Accord That Only Postpones Confrontation with a Much-Stronger Iran

...The choice was between a bad agreement, like the one achieved, and a far better agreement, because the Iranians desperately needed to conclude a deal. Why the six powers agreed to a bad agreement is an interesting historical question. In the meantime, we are left to deal with its consequences, which for Israel (and in my opinion for most of the world) are extremely dangerous.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror..
BESA Center Perspective Papers No. 303..
05 August '15..

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Vienna agreement has made the situation more complex and dangerous, not less so. Even if Iran completely abides by the terms of the agreement, when restrictions and sanctions come to an end fifteen years hence, it will emerge much stronger, militarily and economically. This situation will almost assuredly lead to the use of force against Iran, because Iran undoubtedly will try to produce nuclear weapons; be much better able to withstand foreign pressures; and hold significant sway across the Middle East. The conflict that will ensue will take place in conditions far worse (from a Western perspective) than before the agreement, pitting the West (and/or Israel) against a much-stronger Iran.

The agreement with Iran reached by the Western powers represents, ostensibly, a great achievement. If the Iranians abide by its terms, their ability to achieve nuclear weapons status will be set back by around fifteen years (although it could be claimed that part of the agreement is valid for only ten years). Furthermore, the strict inspection arrangements are meant to ensure that even if Iran does not observe the agreement, IAEA inspectors will be able to spot any violations, and there will be plenty of time (a year) to formulate a response.

However, this would be to ignore the central problem that arises from the agreement and from a series of inherent weaknesses in the accord. It is clear that the agreement was signed in order to delay the Iranian nuclear bomb program, not to end it. And thus, when the program rears its head again it will be a problem several times more serious and far harder to deal with.

There is no cause for hysteria. The agreement will not bring about Israel’s downfall, and in the best case scenario may even buy Israel some time to better prepare for confronting the Iranian challenge. Nevertheless, the map of reality should be read correctly, and not through rose-tinted glasses. It is important to emphasize that soberly, the verdict should be judged as a bad agreement. The reality facing Israel (and the world) following the signing of the agreement is significantly more threatening than before.

The main problem is with the substantial outcome of the agreement, which was well described by Iranian President Rouhani, as follows: Iran gets to keep its (military!) nuclear program, while sanctions against Iran are lifted. For the Iranians it was important, above all else, to gain international legitimacy for their nuclear program, and in this they have been successful.

As a basis for discussion it is important to emphasize that the Iranian nuclear program has no civilian element, and no justification other than as a military program. This is the consensus of all the international experts, some of whom will only say so privately, but most of whom are explicit in this. There is no serious expert who thinks that Iran is developing its capabilities for civilian purposes.

On the basis of this understanding, which was accepted by the American experts as well, American policy was initially clear: the agreement should dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities. This was the term used by the Americans themselves. But at some stage the US decided to move from a policy aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear capability, to a policy aimed at delaying Iran’s ability to achieve nuclear weapons by ten to fifteen years.

When coming across like a spokesman for the Iranian regime undermines ones own credibility

...In his eagerness to sell the deal, Kerry is undermining his own credibility by coming across like a spokesman for the Iranian regime.

Max Boot..
Commentary Magazine..
06 August '15..

William Saletan had an incisive piece recently at Slate entitled “Please Stop Talking, John Kerry.” His thesis: “Kerry has never been capable of staying on message. The more he talks, the more he reveals, and much of what he reveals isn’t helpful.”

As if any further confirmation were needed, check out Kerry’s interview with Jeff Goldberg, who has become the administration’s go-to interlocutor for getting their message out. A couple of points are worth highlighting.

First, Kerry was quoted as follows:

“The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said. “This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be his point.”

Really? We have to ratify the agreement so as not to “screw” with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of a state dedicated to “Death to America” and “Death to Israel?” I thought the whole point of American foreign policy is to “screw” with regimes that are attempting to do us and our allies harm. But apparently Kerry doesn’t think that Iran fits into that category. He told Goldberg:

Irrespective of Israel, does his deal make America safer or less safe? by Caroline Glick

...What is notable here is that despite the fact that it will pay the heaviest price for a congressional defeat of the Iran deal, Israel is united in its opposition to the deal. This speaks volume about the gravity with which the Israeli public views the threats the agreement unleashed. But again, Israel is not the only country that is imperiled by the nuclear deal. And Israelis are not the only ones who need to worry. Obama wishes to convince the public that the deal’s opponents are either partisan extremists or traitors who care about Israel more than they care about America. But neither claim is true. The main reason Americans should oppose the deal is that it endangers America.

Caroline Glick..
Column One/JPost..
06 August '15..

In President Barack Obama's defense of his nuclear deal with Iran Wednesday, he said there are only two types of people who will oppose his deal – Republican partisans and Israel- firsters – that is, traitors.

At American University, Obama castigated Republican lawmakers as the moral equivalent of Iranian jihadists saying, “Those [Iranian] hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal... are making common cause with the Republican Caucus.”

He then turned his attention to Israel.

Obama explained that whether or not you believe the deal endangers Israel boils down to whom you trust more – him or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, he explained, he can be trusted to protect Israel better than Netanyahu can because “[I] have been a stalwart friend of Israel throughout my career.”

The truth is that it shouldn’t much matter to US lawmakers whether Obama or Netanyahu has it right about Israel. Israel isn’t a party to the deal and isn’t bound by it. If Israel decides it needs to act on its own, it will.

The US, on the other side, will be bound by the deal if Congress fails to kill it next month.

So the real question lawmakers need to ask is whether the deal is good for America. Is Obama right or wrong that only partisan zealots and disloyal Zionists could oppose his great diplomatic achievement? To determine the answer to that question, you need to do is ask another one. Does his deal make America safer or less safe? The best way to answer that question is to consider all the ways Iran threatens America today, and ask whether the agreement has no impact on those threats, or whether it mitigates or aggravates them.

Today Iran is harming America directly in multiple ways.

Some Thoughts on Israeli Preemptive Action, Western Reaction

...The Israelis have taken to heart lots of lessons over the last 70 years. They have concluded that often the world quietly wants Israel to deal with existential threats emanating from the Middle East while loudly damning it when it does. They have learned from the experience of the Holocaust that, for good or evil, Jews are on their own and can never again trust in the world’s professed humanity to prevent another Holocaust. And they are convinced that they can also never again err on the side of the probability that national leaders, with deadly weapons in their grasp, do not really mean all the unhinged things they shout and scream about killing Jews.

Victor Davis Hanson..
National Review..
04 August '15..

The Obama administration seems peeved that almost everyone in Israel, left and right, has no use for the present Iranian–American deal to thwart Iran’s efforts to get the bomb.

Indeed, at times John Kerry has hinted darkly that Israel’s opposition to the pact might incur American wrath should the deal be tabled — even though Kerry knows that the polls show a clear majority of Americans being against the proposed agreement while remaining quite supportive of the Jewish state. President Obama, from time to time, suggests that his agreement is being sabotaged by nefarious lobbying groups, big-time check writers, and neoconservative supporters of the Iraq war — all shorthand, apparently, for pushy Jewish groups.

Obama and his negotiators seem surprised that Israelis take quite seriously Iranian leaders’ taunts over the past 35 years that they would like to liquidate the Jewish state and everyone in it. The Israelis, for some reason, remember that well before Hitler came to power, he had bragged about the idea of killing Jews en masse in his sloppily composed autobiographical Mein Kampf. Few in Germany or abroad had taken the raving young Hitler too seriously. Even in the late 1930s, when German Jews were being rounded up and haphazardly killed on German streets by state-sanctioned thugs, most observers considered such activities merely periodic excesses or outbursts from non-governmental Black- and Brownshirts.

The Obama administration, with vast oceans between Tehran and the United States, tsk-tsks over Iranian threats as revolutionary hyperbole served up for domestic consumption. The Israelis, with less than a thousand miles between themselves and Tehran, do not — and cannot. Given the 20th century’s history, Israel has good reason not to trust either the United States or Europe to ensure the security of the Jewish state. Israel has learned from the despicable anti-Semitism now prevalent at the U.N. and from the increasing thuggery directed at Jews in Europe that the world at large would shed crocodile tears over the passing of Israel on the day of its destruction, but, the next day, sigh and get right back to business in a “that was then, this is now” style.

In 1981 the Israelis took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor — sold to Saddam Hussein by France. They were ritually blasted as state terrorists and worse by major U.S. newspapers and at the United Nations — though not by Khomeini’s Iran, which earlier had failed in a preemptive bombing strike to do much damage to the Osirak reactor. Today, in retrospect, most nations are privately glad that the Israelis removed the reactor from a country that had hundreds of years’ worth of natural-gas and oil supplies and no need for nuclear power — and that is now under assault from ISIS.

In 2007, when the Israelis preempted once more, and destroyed the al-Kibar nuclear facility that was under construction in Syria, the world, after initial silence, again in Pavlovian fashion became outraged at such preemptive bombing. The global chorus claimed that there was no intelligence confirming that the North Koreans had helped to launch a Syrian uranium-enrichment plant.

Yet eight years later, most observers abroad once again privately shrug that Bashar Assad most certainly had hired the Koreans to build a nuclear processing plant — and are quietly satisfied that the Israelis took care of it. Note that the al-Kibar site lies in territory now controlled by ISIS. One can imagine a variety of terrifying contemporary scenarios had the Israelis not preempted. Most of those who condemned Israel’s attack would now be worrying about an ISIS improvised explosive device, packed with dirty uranium, that might go off in a major Western city.

In all these cases, the Israelis assumed that Western intelligence about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East was unreliable. They took for granted that Westerners automatically would blame Israelis for any preemptive attack against an Islamic nuclear site. And they likewise concluded that, privately and belatedly, Westerners would eventually be happy that the Israelis had belled the would-be nuclear cat.

John Kerry in The Atlantic: Israeli Opposition to Iran Deal "Emotional"

...Kerry “doesn’t know” if Iran is serious about eliminating Israel and that considering that issue is “a waste of time.” That may be true for Kerry and the rest of the Obama administration, but for Israelis, it’s hard to imagine what would be a better use of time.

Sarit Catz..
CAMERA Snapshots..
05 August '15..

Secretary of State John Kerry gave a lengthy interview to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg in which he tries to make the case for Congress to support the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran Deal.

Perhaps deal supporters should ask Kerry to stop trying to sell the deal.

In the interview, he says that Congressional rejection of the deal would be “the ultimate screwing” of Iran. To the majority of Americans, that may sound like a good thing.

Kerry claims the Iran deal is good for Israel:

Kerry: Look, I’ve gone through this backwards and forwards a hundred times and I’m telling you, this deal is as pro-Israel, as pro-Israel’s security, as it gets. And I believe that just saying no to this is, in fact, reckless.

Goldberg: So why do you think you can’t convince the majority of Israelis, or the majority of the organized Jewish community, of this?

Kerry: Because there’s a huge level of fear and mistrust and, frankly, there’s an inherent sense that, given Iran’s gains and avoidance in the past, that somehow they’re going to avoid something again. It’s a visceral feeling, it’s very emotional and visceral and I’m very in tune with that and very sensitive to that.

In other words, Israeli leaders across the political spectrum, Israeli military experts and the vast majority of the Israeli people are just hysterical. In fact, he seems to think Israelis make too much of constant Iranian threats to destroy the Jewish state:

Goldberg: Do you believe that Iranian leaders sincerely seek the elimination of the Jewish state?

Kerry: I think they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that translates into active steps to, quote, “Wipe it,” you know...

Goldberg: Wipe it off the map.

This isn’t about Bibi and Obama by Caroline Glick

...For Netanyahu, as for the three quarters of Israelis who support him, opposition to the deal is not the consequence of ill will toward Obama. This isn’t personal. Netanyahu opposes this deal because it is disastrous for Israel. The more Americans know about the deal, the more they will be convinced that it is a disaster for their country as well. It is a shame that some Israelis are helping Obama to hide the truth from them.

Caroline Glick..
Our World/JPost..
04 August '15..

It was obvious the fight over President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran would get very ugly, very quickly. And so it has.

It was obvious that it would be ugly because the fight over Obama’s appeasement policy toward Iran has been going on since he took office six-and-a-half years ago. And it has always been ugly.

Every time Obama has sided with the mullahs against domestic opponents he has played the Jew card in one way or another. He has blown more anti-Semitic dog whistles than many in Washington even realized existed.

Now the stakes are far higher than a mere sanctions bill. Obama has gotten his deal with Iran. And he’ll be damned if he allows it to go down.

So it is open season on Israel and its supporters.

Secretary of State John Kerry made this clear two weeks ago when he said it will be Israel’s fault if the deal goes down. Since the administration threatens that torpedoing the deal will cause war, Kerry is threatening that the administration will blame Israel if war breaks out.

As for Obama, in his conference call with leftist supporters last Thursday, he attacked AIPAC and the other Jewish organizations for daring to lobby Congress to vote against removing US sanctions from Iran and conflated their opposition to the deal with Jewish Republicans’ support for the invasion of Iraq.

In the president’s words, opposition to his deal comes “partly from the $20 million that’s being spent lobbying against the bill,” and “partly from the same columnists and former administration officials that were responsible for getting us into the Iraq war.”

One of the ironic things about this statement is that while AIPAC studiously avoided taking a position on the Iraq war, (while both of Obama’s secretaries of state and his vice president supported it), two years ago Obama strong-armed AIPAC – against the wishes of its members – to lobby Congress to support his plan to bomb regime targets in Syria. He then left AIPAC high and dry, with its credibility in tatters, when he changed his mind at the last minute and did nothing.

Moreover, Obama’s in-house Jewish organizations – J Street and the National Jewish Democratic Council – are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congressional Democrats to support the deal.

But irony is not the point. The point is demonization.

By casting aspersions on the motives and character of his opponents Obama seeks to end debate on the merits of his plan in order to force Democrats to support it.

And he will need to end that debate quickly. The longer it goes on, the less the public likes his deal.