Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Jewish Ties to Eastern Jerusalem Didn’t Begin in 1967
National Public Radio takes a nice look at the issue of relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Daniel Estrin’s dispatch assumes Jewish ties to eastern Jerusalem only began in 1967.Hundreds of New Yorkers, Plus Pinocchio, Protest UNESCO
The western part of Jerusalem is almost entirely Jewish. The eastern part of the city was entirely Arab when Israel captured it in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Many Israeli Jews have moved into the eastern part of the city, and Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, though no other country recognizes this.
Talk about twisted context.
Jerusalem was a unified city. There were no distinctions between “East” and “West” Jerusalem until Jordan captured the city’s eastern neighborhoods and Old City. The only reason it was “entirely Arab” when Israel reunified the Jerusalem during the Six-Day War was because the Jordanians expelled the Jews from its jurisdiction, systematically destroyed synagogues, and generally made its half of the city judenfrei.
Wrapped in Israeli flags and holding signs condemning UNESCO, hundreds of people walked in Midtown yesterday protesting the UNESCO resolution.
“And to all of UNESCO, we declare ‘Am Yisrael Chai,'” shouted Rabbi Avi Weiss, who heads the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx. “We have faced enemies in the past. We have overcome. We are overcoming. We will overcome.”
On Thursday afternoon, StandWithUs, in cooperation with Artists 4 Israel, set up a giant Pinocchio effigy across from the United Nations, symbolizing the lies the U.N. is spreading about the UNESCO decision.
This followed the “We Stand Together” rally at the Israeli Consulate, organized by AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, and co-sponsored by StandWithUs New York and other groups. Among the attendees were students from the Moriah School in Englewood, N.J. and members of Weiss’s shul.
StandWithUs is a non-profit organization that educates people around the world and students on college campuses about Israel. Artists 4 Israel utilizes art to benefits all Israelis regardless of race, religion, national origin or political belief.
Khaled Abu Toameh: The Message Remains No and No
The position of the two Palestinian leaders, Arafat and Abbas, is deeply rooted in the Palestinian tradition and culture, in which any compromise with Israel is considered an act of high treason. Abbas knows that concessions on his part would result in being spat upon by his people -- or killed.
Hence the PA president has in recent years avoided even the pretense of negotiations with Israel, and instead has poured his energies into strong-arming the international community to impose a solution on Israel.
The French would do well to abandon their plan for convening an international conference on peace in the Middle East.
Declaring a Palestinian state in the Security Council only makes them look as if their actual goal is to destroy Israel -- and they know it. They would be fooling no one.
Many in Europe, particularly France, seem be aching to do just that -- as a "present" to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to show how submissive they can be; to encourage more "business" with Muslim states, and, they might hope, to deter more terrorist attacks. Actually, if the members of the UN Security Council declare a Palestinian state unilaterally, they are encouraging more terrorist attacks: the terrorists will see that attacks "work" and embark on more of them to help the jihadi takeover of Europe go even faster.
Everyone Loves Israel—Until They Don't
Arthur Herman is right: Israel is hot—diplomatically, not just meteorologically. Old adversaries are burying the hatchet; new friendships are blossoming; and suitors around the world are jockeying for the attention of Israeli leaders, diplomats, generals, scholars, investors, consultants, and hi-tech entrepreneurs.The UN’s Schizophrenia on Israel
Little of this is known—and less is appreciated—in the Washington-to-Boston corridor that defines “conventional wisdom” for the large majority of Americans, who are told that Israel is increasingly isolated around the world. But that unfortunate circumstance does not alter the array of opportunities presented by Israel’s exploding relations throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even parts of Europe. Nor does it obscure the fact that Israel remains hugely popular across large swaths of America—particularly, perhaps especially, where there are few Jews.
Still, at the risk of raining on a parade of what is, without doubt, good news for the Jewish state, I believe a warning about “irrational exuberance” is in order. This is not to disparage the remarkable achievements Israel has scored on the global front over the past decade or so, as Herman ably and comprehensively chronicles. Nor is it to criticize the wise investments Israeli governments, corporations, and civil-society organizations have made in spreading the word of Israel’s attractions and advantages to the four corners of the globe.
If you want to understand why no rational person should take the United Nations seriously, consider the following three facts: Last week, the World Health Organization, a UN agency, named Israel the first country in the world to be awarded its highest ranking for medical emergency response teams deployed overseas. In other words, the organization deemed the Israel Defense Forces its first responder of choice for any disaster worldwide. Two weeks ago, the daily Israel Hayom reported that the UN’s peacekeeping service asked Israel to train its peacekeepers in emergency field medicine; the seminar is expected to take place in the coming weeks. And every year, this same UN labels Israel the world’s worst violator of health rights, the only country deserving of a country-specific condemnation.Muslim Democracy Makes Everything Worse
So if you take all three of those decisions seriously, you’re forced to conclude that the UN thinks the world’s worst violator of health rights is the ideal choice to be first on the scene in any medical disaster worldwide and also to train the UN’s own peacekeepers. The UN, by an overwhelming majority, regularly passes resolutions that even its own professional staff knows to be nonsense. Its latest condemnation of Israel for ostensibly violating health rights, for instance, passed in May by a vote of 107-8 with eight abstentions.
And lest anyone thinks there might be some way to square this circle, no, the contradiction can’t be resolved by assuming that Israel’s disaster relief efforts are somehow divorced from its regular medical practices. Over the past few years, for instance, thousands of Syrians wounded in that country’s civil war have willingly come to the Golan Heights and handed themselves over to an enemy army (Israel and Syria are still officially at war) in order to obtain medical care from Israel that they can’t obtain elsewhere. That’s the same Golan Heights where, according to the resolution, Israel is regularly violating Syrians’ health rights.
Similarly, West Bank Palestinians have higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality than Mideast neighbors like Egypt and Jordan or even OECD member Turkey, due in part to their access to Israeli hospitals. That’s the same West Bank where, according to the resolution, Israel is regularly violating Palestinians’ health rights.
Under the Islamists, Turkey went from being an American ally to becoming an enemy. The fault lay in democracy. To the extent that we have allies in the Muslim world, they are to be found among secular elites, prosperous members of the upper classes who enjoy our way of life and want to be more like us.What Diaspora Jews Could Learn from Israeli Arabs
Democracy displaces these elites and empowers the poorer population that benefits from Islamic social services, the local version of the welfare state, and believes that Islamic governments will eliminate corruption and put non-Muslims in their rightful place, under the feet of the Muslims, to have its say.
And that’s how you end up with an Erdogan.
Turkey’s terror should be a final lesson in the master class of Muslim democracy. Muslim democracy is not a solution, it is a problem. It will not make the Muslim world like us; instead it will empower those in the Muslim world who hate us the most. Muslim democracy will not even lead to democracy. Instead it will replace secular tyrants with Islamist tyrants who will be even more ruthless and ambitious.
Erdogan has already made the Turkish military look benevolent and he is only getting started. His ambitions won’t be limited to Cyprus. His vision extends across the lost lands of the Ottoman Empire.
During the Cold War we slowly came to understand that any democratic process which allowed Communists to come to power should be instinctively opposed.
It’s time that we made the same mental leap when it comes to Muslim democracy.
In the newspaper Haaretz, the journalist Odeh Bisharat recently urged his fellow “Arab leaders of public opinion to say outright” that, despite “a mountain of problems,” Israeli Arabs “have it good” in Israel. Indeed, notes Evelyn Gordon, a number of surveys have shown that, whatever their politicians and media may be saying, this is the opinion of most Israeli Arabs:Statements by PM Netanyahu at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America
The latest evidence came from last month’s Peace Index poll, [which] found that Israeli Arabs are actually more optimistic than Israeli Jews about the country’s situation—in sharp contrast to what one would expect to find if, as both Israeli and foreign-media outlets like to claim, Israel was suffering from a rising tide of [Jewish] anti-Arab racism. . . .
Nevertheless, there’s one very real barrier to further improvement: Israeli Jews largely believe that most Israeli Arabs care more about the Palestinian cause than about their own country’s wellbeing, for the very good reason that this is what they hear, over and over, from Israeli Arab leaders. This obviously encourages anti-Arab sentiment and impedes integration. And as Bisharat correctly noted, it will be very hard to change this perception as long as Arab-Israeli opinion leaders refuse to say publicly that it’s false.
Bisharat’s advice, however, is no less applicable to the Jewish world—there, too, the refusal to “say outright” that things are good in Israel, despite the problems, is causing serious long-term damage. . . .
Thank you. President Obama at the UN in 2011 said, and I quote, "peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN. Ultimately it's Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately it's Israelis and Palestinians, not us, who must reach agreements on the issues that divide them – on borders, security, on refugees and on Jerusalem. Mr. Prime Minister, now that our presidential election is over do you see any change in the position of this country on the subject of the UN and do you expect a resolution to be brought to the UN any time soon?EU-Israeli relations: A new year, a new era?
Netanyahu: Well, I think President Obama's statement is right on. I think he's expressed it and with great precision. The only way you really get a workable and enduring peace is to have the parties agree to it. This is what happened in our peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. It's holding because there was mutual negotiations, mutual compromise, mutual agreement, and it sticks. It's weathered many, many storms, especially our peace treaty with Egypt is now many, many decades, our peace treaty with Jordan, many decades. We've had convulsions in the Middle East, and yet those peace treaties hold because they were directly negotiated between the parties. If you try to impose peace from the outside, it never works. It just doesn’t work. And I think that it's important to understand that the reason we'll object to any such effort is: a. it will harden the Palestinian positions; and b. because it will harden the Palestinian positions, it will push peace back. It could push peace back decades.
Look, I think that there may be possibilities that have emerged in the Middle East as a result of the different appreciation that many in the region have for Israel's role in resisting the twin forces of militant Islam, that led by Iran and that led by Daesh, by ISIS, and I think that may open up prospects for peace and probably will help us move towards some kind of resolution with the Palestinians.
But I think that one thing is certain, that trying to impose peace from the outside won't. So I very much hope that President Obama will continue the policy that he enunciated, which wasn't only his policy. It was the longstanding policy of the United States, and I look forward also to working with President-Elect Trump when he becomes President and his administration to further the twin interests of peace and security. These are interests of Israel and the United States but they'll be achieved by direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions.
This week, a five-member Knesset delegation, headed by MK Yaakov Perry, will visit the European Parliament in Brussels. It is always a great pleasure to welcome Israeli friends, especially now, around the start of the Christian and Jewish new years. It makes it an opportune moment to reflect on the state of EU-Israel relations and highlight some positive and worrying tendencies.Netanyahu Announces First-Ever Visit of Israeli PM to Fiji
The recent EU-Israeli cooperation on Creative Europe, to increase jobs and growth by supporting the cinema, cultural and creative sectors in Europe and Israel, is to be welcomed.
While such efforts and other EU-Israeli cooperation on mutually beneficial subjects are to be supported, they may not be overshadowed by two worrying security trends in Europe.
The first worrying trend is to not call a spade a spade, or rather, call both the “military” and “political/social” wings of terrorist organizations terrorist organizations. It is part of the Oriental naiveté through which the EU views the Middle East.
Describing it as one more step in dismantling the “the automatic majority against Israel in the UN,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that he would be visiting the South Pacific island nation of Fiji early next year.UN peacekeepers return to Syrian side of Golan Heights
Netanyahu’s South Asian tour next February will also include Australia and Singapore. The prime minister announced two weeks ago that he would also visit Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and countries in West Africa next year.
“Why am I going to Fiji?” Netanyahu said in a video address to the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly in Washington. “Because fifteen countries, fifteen islands that each one has a vote in the UN are coming to that meeting.”
“I’m telling you that it will be no more than a decade, and possibly a lot sooner, that the automatic majority against Israel in the UN will collapse, and Israel will actually find a fair hearing there,” Netanyahu added. “Now it’s not going to happen tomorrow. But it’ll happen, and sooner rather than later.”
A first group of 127 UN peacekeepers returned Monday to a camp on the Syrian-held side of the Golan Heights, two years after withdrawing amid clashes with Al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels.Ties on the mend, Israel names new ambassador to Turkey
UN spokesman Farhan Haq said more troops from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) would return to camp Faouar this week and that both governments in Israel and Syria supported the move.
“The total number of troops that deployed to Camp Faouar this morning is 127 and more are expected to join in a week,” said Haq.
“For now… they will perform as many of the mandated tasks as they can, security conditions permitting,” he added.
The UNDOF monitors a 1974 ceasefire between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights.
Hundreds of UN troops withdrew from the Syrian-held side of the Golan to the Israeli side in September 2014 after Al-Qaeda-linked rebels kidnapped dozens of peacekeepers.
The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday appointed veteran diplomat Eitan Na’eh Israel’s new ambassador to Turkey, the first envoy in Ankara since diplomatic relations were downgraded in 2011, concluding a restoration of bilateral ties inked earlier this year.Russia withdraws support from international court in Hague
Na’eh’s appointment mirrors Turkey’s announcement in October that Ambassador Kemal Okem would represent Ankara in Tel Aviv. Now that Israel has announced its choice, Okem’s appointment will be officially confirmed.
The two appointments formed part of a bilateral agreement signed in the summer to end the breakdown in relations sparked by the killing by Israeli forces of nine Turks and one Turkish-American in a melee aboard the Mavi Marmara ship in 2010, when Israeli commandos were met with violent resistance from a mob, some of whom were wielding knives and clubs. The ship was sailing toward Gaza to break an Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Hamas-run territory, imposed to prevent Hamas importing weaponry, and was commandeered after it refused to turn back.
Born in the northern city of Haifa, Na’eh joined the Foreign Ministry in 1991.
Throughout his career, he specialized in Turkish affairs, a Foreign Ministry statement said, and was posted to Ankara in 1993 where he served as second, and later, as first secretary.
Russia said Wednesday it is formally withdrawing its signature from the founding statute of the International Criminal Court, saying the tribunal has failed to live up to the hopes of the international community.ICC: Americans may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan
Russia in 2000 signed the Rome Statute setting up the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes court, but never ratified the treaty.
“The court did not live up to the hopes associated with it and did not become truly independent,” Russia’s foreign ministry said, describing its work as “one-sided and inefficient.”
Moscow said it is unhappy with the ICC’s treatment of the case on Russia’s short war with neighboring Georgia in 2008, saying the court ignored aggression by Tbilisi against civilians in South Ossetia — a pro-Moscow separatist region of Georgia.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague say there are preliminary grounds to believe U.S. forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan and at secret detention facilities elsewhere in 2003 and 2004, Reuters reported on Monday.Jewish, Arab fertility rates in Israel on par for first time
In a report, prosecutors said there was a "reasonable basis to believe" that U.S. forces had tortured prisoners in Afghanistan and at Central Intelligence Agency detention facilities elsewhere in 2003 and 2004.
"Members of US armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture," the prosecutors' office wrote, according to Reuters. It added that CIA officials appeared to have tortured another 27 detainees.
"These alleged crimes were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals," the report said. "They appear to have been committed as part of approved interrogation techniques in an attempt to extract 'actionable intelligence.'"
The prosecutors' office, headed by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, said it would decide imminently whether to pursue a full investigation.
The results of a full investigation could potentially lead to charges being brought against individuals and the issuing of an arrest warrant, but the ICC is a court of last resort and would only bring charges if domestic authorities were not dealing adequately with allegations.
The fertility rates of Jewish and Arab women were identical for the first time in Israeli history in 2015, according to figures released by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday to mark International Child Day.IDF uncovers weapons cache, nabs 6 wanted terrorists
Jewish and Arab women had given birth to an average of 3.13 children as of last year, the report said.
In 2000, the fertility among the country’s Arab population stood at 4.3 children per woman, while the fertility rate of Jewish women was 2.6. Since then the gap has narrowed as the Arab rate dropped off and the Jewish fertility rates steadily increased.
At the end of 2015 there were 2.8 million children in Israel aged between 0-17, amounting to 33 percent of the population, of whom roughly two million (71.3%) were Jewish, 718,000 were Arab (25.7%) and 84,000 (3.0%) classified as others.
Israeli security forces captured six wanted terrorists across Judea and Samaria in a series of pre-dawn raids.Palestinian handed 17.5 years for stabbing IDF soldier
The operations, conducted in cooperation between the IDF and the Israeli Police Department’s Judea and Samaria District, targeted terror suspects wanted for incitement and attacks against Israeli civilians and military forces.
In Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, one terrorist was captured in Takua, an Arab village near the Jewish town of Tekoa. A second terrorist was arrested in Hussan, near the Jewish city of Beitar Illit. An additional two terror suspects were nabbed in El Aroub, in the southern portion of Gush Etzion.
In Samaria, one suspect wanted for alleged involvement in anti-Jewish incitement was arrested in Qalqilya.
A sixth suspect was arrested in the Jordan Valley area.
The Nazareth District Court on Tuesday sentenced a West Bank Palestinian man to 17 and a half years behind bars for stabbing an Israeli soldier in the northern city of Afula last year.IDF Blog: Yahalom: Fighting Hamas' Terror Tunnels
Tariq Abd el-Fattah Yahya, a resident of the Jenin-area village of Arqa, was previously convicted of attempted murder for the October 2015 knife attack that moderately wounded an Israel Defense Forces solider.
According to court documents, 21-year-old Yahya expressed remorse for carrying out the attack during the sentencing, but declined to denounce the nationalist ideology that motivated him.
Yahya was ordered to pay his victim NIS 40,000 ($10,400) in damages.
According to the indictment filed last October, Yahya after his arrest told police he sneaked into Israel from the West Bank and was living in the Arab city of Umm al-Fahm illegally. He also admitted to buying a knife and traveling to Afula looking for Israeli victims after watching a video on social media urging attacks on Jews.
Before he left home, police said Yahya wrote a message to family members on Facebook asking for their forgiveness if he did not return.
Israel okays Palestinian village master plan in Area C
In a rare move, Israel recently approved a master plan for a Palestinian village in the part of the West Bank where Israeli settlements are located, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported Tuesday.Hamas threatens Tel Aviv
Ti’anik, population around 1,000, will be able to obtain building permits for existing houses and new ones, and avoid having to face Israeli demolitions for illegal construction.
“The legal recognition of the village will allow for future development,” a statement from the Civil Administration, Israel’s governing body in the West Bank, said.
Ti’anik is located near Jenin in the northern West Bank. The master plan was submitted by the village’s local council and dignitaries, according to Ma’an.
Eight days ago, the Civil Administration issued building permits to retroactively legalize parts of two schools, one in Bethlehem and the other in Hebron, the website reported.
The Hamas terror group is continuing its military build-up, a senior official in the organization claims, and now possesses a large stockpile of powerful, long-range missiles capable of wreaking havoc across large swaths of Israel.JCPA: Can Turkey and Israel Reconcile?
Speaking at a memorial service marking the fourth anniversary of the targeted killing of Al-Qassam commander Ahmed Jabri, Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas official and spokesperson for the group, declared that the terror organization possed “hundreds and even thousands of missiles that can blow up Tel Aviv and even [targets] beyond it.”
Al-Masri also touched upon the two fallen Israeli soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, whose bodies have been held by Hamas since 2014, saying that they would not be released, except as part of negotiated deal, on terms determined by Hamas.
The Hamas leader rejected what it claimed were efforts by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to extract information on the two fallen soldiers, and remained confident that a deal will ultimately be reached that is beneficial to the terrorist group.
Turkey’s entry into Gaza has several implications: challenging Turkey’s enemies in the Middle East, Egypt and Iran; and placing Gaza’s rehabilitation in Turkey’s hands, which pulls the rug out from under Europe’s patronage.Turkey, Israel Hold First Meeting on Gas Pipeline
During the attempted coup in Turkey, Fatah and Hamas expressed common support for Erdogan, while leftist Palestinian organizations linked to Syria did not. The Popular Front and Islamic Jihad, which favor Iran, issued statements criticizing the Israeli-Turkish agreement.
Since Iran cut back its support for Hamas, Turkey has been its main supporter, and the organization has relied on Erdogan’s backing in all of its struggles against Israel.
Will Turkey’s reconciliation with Israel, along with the lessons of the failed rebellion against him, lead Erdogan to be less “Islamic” and more “Turkish”?
Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz says there are talks on exporting gas to Egypt as well.How the Syria Echo Chamber Works
Minister of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources Yuval Steinitz said this morning that professional teams from Israel and Turkey has begun discussions on the laying of a gas pipeline from Israel to Turkey, and that there were talks with Egypt on the export of gas from Israel to that country. Sources inform "Globes" that Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources director general Shaul Meridor together with professionals from the Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs met the Turkish deputy energy minister and Turkish officials last week to discuss the technical details of laying the pipeline.
Steinitz and his Turkish opposite number Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Berat Albayrak held talks a month ago on a framework agreement between the two countries calling for a pipeline to be laid by April 2017, but it is believed that the completion date of the agreement is likely to be deferred.
Over the past five-and-a-half years, the Obama White House has used the Syria echo chamber it created in the American press and on social media to defend and advance the president’s policy of nonintervention against the Assad regime. After the White House’s attempt to negotiate a deal to cooperate militarily with Russia in Syria fell apart last month, one of the administration’s most experienced Syria echo-chamber hands—Steven Simon—sprang into action.State Dept Admits Nothing Productive Has Occurred in Geneva Discussions on Syria
To help readers understand how this inside baseball is played, I have annotated a recent article that Simon, a former National Security Council official in the Obama White House and now a supposedly impartial analyst, published, together with Jonathan Stevenson, in The New York Times. The genre of Simon’s current piece could be described as “policy advice to the new president.”
In the past, Simon has written articles making the White House’s case in different genres, such as the “time for a new Syria policy” genre, which I explained here, which validates current Obama policy in the guise of “rethinking” it, and then proposes a supposedly “new” approach—which will invariably prove to be the next step in the current policy. As Obama’s term comes to a close, the goal of the echo chamberists is for the next president to continue with Obama’s Syria policy.
State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau admitted Monday that although the United States has been participating in multilateral discussions on the Syrian civil war in Geneva, Switzerland for some time now, virtually nothing productive has come from them.House Lawmakers to Nix Obama Admin-Backed Sale of U.S. Planes to Iran
Trudeau was pressed by Associated Press reporter Matt Lee on the worth of the talks that have been in their current setting for approximately a month and a half. The Geneva discussions have involved several countries but generally pitted the United States and other western nations against Russia and the Syrian regime.
Trudeau said she would not detail the discussions, although she confirmed that the talks were still ongoing. Lee then began questioning Trudeau on how worthwhile the diplomatic efforts have been.
“Can you point to any kind of success that these talks, that you continue to have, have made?” Lee asked.
“I can’t point to success, but I can point to the fact that we continue to think that they’re valuable enough that we remain at the table,” Trudeau said.
“But they produce nothing then, right?” Lee asked.
“At this stage, we continue to engage,” Trudeau said. “I don’t have a result to point to.”
Lawmakers in the House are expected to overwhelmingly pass new legislation on Wednesday that would prohibit the Obama administration from facilitating the sale of U.S. aircraft to Iran, according to senior congressional sources who told the Washington Free Beacon that Iran is likely to use American-made planes to rebuild its aging air force.
The legislation is viewed as an early test for the incoming Trump administration, which has broadly opposed last year’s comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran and intimated that it would be more confrontational with the Islamic Republic.
Senior congressional sources told the Free Beacon that House leaders scheduled the vote on this bill immediately following the election to signal that lawmakers are frustrated with the Obama administration’s ongoing diplomacy with Tehran.
If approved, the new bill would bar the Obama administration from granting legal exemptions to corporations such as Boeing, which is working to finalize a multi-billion dollar landmark deal with Iran. The Obama administration has already vowed to veto the legislation.
