Friday, April 01, 2022

04/01 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: The Negev Two-State Summit; Melanie Phillips: Blinken’s obscene "progressive" agenda; Israel and UAE Finalize ‘Milestone’ Free Trade Deal

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Negev Two-State Summit
To block criticism of the nuclear deal the US is now concluding with the Iranians, Blinken's challenge this week was to neutralize the Israeli-Arab anti-Iran strategic alliance. And he used the two-state solution to achieve this goal.

Before Blinken arrived at the Negev Summit Monday night, he held another summit in Ramallah with PLO chief and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. When he arrived in Sde Boker, Blinken used his meeting in Ramallah to make the Palestinians the main subject of conversation.

Given the existential threat that Iran poses to the nations of the region, Blinken's efforts wouldn't have had a chance of success without Israeli support.

Without a doubt, Blinken's greatest Israeli supporter is Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Gantz has been carrying out an independent foreign policy aligned completely with the administration's anti-Israel positions. Gantz's independent diplomatic forays have included meetings with Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan. Media reports last week indicated Gantz was working to bring both men to the Negev Summit, a move that would have ended all talk of Iran.

Gantz is not the only Israeli leader who has been ably assisting Blinken. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also helped Blinken when they failed to defend Israel against Blinken's libelous statements about "settler violence," which is all but non-existent.

In the face of Israeli Arab terror in Beersheba and Hadera, putting Blinken in his place and ending talk of a two-state solution would have been easy. The Israeli Arab terror shows that the two-state solution's first premise – that there is an upper limit to Arab demands is false. If Israel surrenders Judea, Samaria and large parts of Jerusalem the move won't bring peace. It will move the war to the Galilee, the Negev, and the rest of what will be left of Israel. Indeed, it is already there.

But Lapid and Bennett said nothing as Blinken accused their country of imaginary crimes in furtherance of the two-state solution.

Blinken's two-state solution offensive enabled him to ignore whatever protests Lapid and the Arab foreign ministers expressed at the Negev Summit. It also allowed him to change the subject. In their final statements at the end of the summit on Tuesday, the Arab foreign ministers ignored Iran and joined Blinken in voicing their support for the two-state solution.

In truth, the main reason the fake policy of "two-state solution" keeps going is that some Jews of Israel have yet to accept the truth about the Palestinian Arab conflict with Israel and what that means. The two-state solution is inherently, and necessarily anti-Israel. In a situation where the majority of Arabs living west of the Jordan River, (whether in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Negev, the Galilee, the Dan Region, or the Sharon) are unwilling to accept the Jewish state's right to exist in any borders, you can't be pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. You have to choose.

The proper and indeed only adequate response to the anti-Israel two-state solution is Zionism. To contend with the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Americans, and everything in between, Israel must adopt and maintain Zionist policies across the board, whether in military policy, foreign affairs and public diplomacy, in the legal system, in economics or in social affairs. Without Zionism, Israel will be incapable of defeating the new terror onslaught. It will be unable to block Iran's path to nuclear-armed regional hegemony. And it will be unable to contend with the Biden administration, which is facilitating both.
Melanie Phillips: Blinken’s obscene "progressive" agenda
Even more significant is their belief that final victory over the Jews is now within their grasp. These attacks are being fuelled by an exultant fervour that the United States is in retreat and, by its craven submission to Iran, is surrendering to Islam.

This plays into the strand of apocalyptic Islamic messianism promoted by Islamic preachers whipping up expectations that the weakness of America and the resulting likely victory over the Jews means that the end of days is imminent.

Blinken assumes that the “Palestinian” cause is one that needs addressing in order to achieve progress towards peace. On the contrary — since the “Palestinian” cause is nothing other than the extermination of Israel, the only way to achieve peace is to sideline that cause altogether. Insisting on making “progress” with it is tantamount to insisting upon progress in achieving the destruction of Israel.

Contrary to Blinken’s words, the Abraham Accords were indeed a crucial substitute for that cause. The alliance makes true progress in ending the war against Israel’s existence by abandoning the people who continue to wage that war.

Yet the Biden administration regards the alliance between Israel and its new Arab allies as an impediment to the actual progress it so incomprehensibly desires — to empower Iran.

While Israel and its Arab allies understand that the Iranian regime poses a mortal threat to themselves that must be defeated, Blinken and the rest of the Biden team are desperate for an agreement which will enable Tehran to develop nuclear weapons within a short space of time and which will funnel into its coffers tens of billions of dollars to fund its infernal activities.

What Blinken demonstrated in the Negev was what it currently means to be a western progressive. It means supporting people who murder Israelis and empowering others who want to wipe out Israel — while spouting liberal pieties out of the other side of their mouths.
Ruthie Blum: 'Pay-for-slay' Abbas takes his cue from 'Iran-Deal' Blinken - opinion
It’s not surprising, then, that Abbas was denounced as a traitor by an already disgruntled Palestinian public for daring to suggest that the killing of Israeli civilians is detrimental. His critics in the PA don’t care about his glorification and financial backing of terrorists – as long as he continues to collaborate in some fashion with Israel and suck up to the US.

BLINKEN HAD nothing to say about any of that. Instead, he took to Twitter to “condemn the horrific terrorist attack… in Bnei Brak, the third… in Israel in a week,” and extended “condolences to the families of the victims… May their memories be a blessing.”

His sympathies were as pointless as Abbas’s contorted statement. Far more significant was his equating of Arab terrorism with “settler violence,” emphasizing the latter over the former.

If rhetoric were the only problem with Blinken’s behavior, the situation would be less dire. But, as he himself boasted, with Bennett at his side: “Our administration is… rebuilding America’s relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, something I’ll continue to do… in Ramallah with President Abbas, and in east Jerusalem with leaders of that community’s vibrant and diverse civil society.”

Any Israeli who managed not to laugh at this description was weeping by the time the secretary of state got to the part about the US “increasing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, totaling half a billion dollars since April 2021.” After all, as Bennett well knows, the only “Palestinian people” who benefit from such an influx of cash are Abbas, his henchmen and the terrorists they fund.

The money in question is chump change, however, compared to the billions that Team Biden is anxious to hand over to the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, whose threats to annihilate Israel are no emptier than its arsenals. Just ask the Arab signatories to and supporters of the Abraham Accords.


Michael Doran: Disappointing and Troubling Behavior
Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, has been rebuking Middle Eastern allies lately. In the grand sweep of diplomatic history, the rebukes are minor episodes, but they nevertheless reveal a major truth about the Middle Eastern policy of the Biden administration.

On March 10, Price sharply criticized the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for inviting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for a visit. The UAE’s reception of Assad marked the first time that an Arab state had hosted the dictator since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Assad is Iran’s closest ally, and the UAE’s reception of him was part of a larger move to improve relations with Tehran. After welcoming the Syrian dictator warmly, the crown prince said, “Syria is a fundamental pillar of Arab security, and that the UAE is keen to strengthen cooperation with it.”

The United States, however, was not pleased—or so it said. “We are profoundly disappointed and troubled by this apparent attempt to legitimize Bashar al-Assad, who remains responsible and accountable for the death and suffering of countless Syrians,” a statement from Ned Price read. Two weeks later, Price scolded a second Middle Eastern ally—and for a similar reason. The ally was Qatar, and the infraction was inviting military representatives from Iran, including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to a defense exhibition in Doha. In rebuking the Qataris, Price drew on the same language he had deployed against the Emirates. The United States is “deeply disappointed and troubled,” he said.

But the statement was thoroughly disingenuous. If it had been sincere, then the Biden administration would be deeply or even profoundly disappointed and troubled by its own behavior, starting with its reported willingness to consider removing the IRGC from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. “We are very concerned about the United States’ intention to give in to Iran’s outrageous demand and remove the IRGC from the list of terrorist organizations,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at a recent cabinet meeting.

Bennett had good reason to be outraged, but the willingness to consider de-listing the IRGC is not the main reason why. The Israelis are witnessing a region-wide shift in the balance of power in favor of Iran—a shift of which the Emirati and Qatari embrace of Iran and Syria is part. The cause of the shift is the decision of the Biden administration to return to the Iran nuclear deal. Not only does the deal put an international stamp of approval on Iran’s military nuclear program, but it also channels tens of billions of dollars to Iran’s coffers in the short term, hundreds of billions over the next decade. The IRGC’s power will increase exponentially, and the Assad regime will benefit substantially from its success.
Sec. Mike Pompeo: By any means necessary. A conversation with Gadi Taub and Mike Doran.
Sec Pompeo: "We were prepared to use everything the United States had to make sure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon."

US policy towards the Middle East under the previous administration was based on 3 central assumptions: 1. Iran is the destabilizing force; 2. We weren't prepared to continue a 40 year of bi-partisan policy which gave the Palestinians a veto; 3. We need to maintain military capacity to prevent terrorists from operating in the region.


PragerU: Israel: What Would You Do?
The first responsibility of every government is to keep its citizens safe from invasion, violence and terror. So why is it that when Israel defends itself, much of the world sees it as the villain? David Brog invites you to step into Israel’s shoes when confronted with a real-life attack. What would you do?


Negev Summit succeeded beyond expectations, Israel envoy tells 'Post'
This week’s Negev Summit was the Abraham Accords put into action. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid worked with his counterparts from Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates on addressing their shared challenges and interests, along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, representing America’s encouragement and support.

The symbolism of four Arab foreign ministers gathering in Israel is hard to miss. It would have been “unthinkable just a few years ago,” Blinken remarked this week. The choice of Sde Boker, home and burial site of first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, as the summit’s site represented inspiration and vision for Lapid, who quoted Ben-Gurion as saying “history isn’t written; history is made.”

Iran was the big topic on the agenda. Israel, the UAE and Bahrain have been especially concerned about the direction of world powers’ talks to revive the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, and the way the US has avoided a strong response to Iranian proxy terrorism in the Gulf.

“The shared capabilities we are building intimidates and deters our common enemies, first and foremost Iran and its proxies,” Lapid said at the end of the summit. “They certainly have something to fear.”

But the areas of cooperation were much broader than that. The regional impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a major topic on the agenda, especially when it comes to food security – for example, most of Egypt’s wheat is imported from Ukraine – and changes in the energy market in light of Western sanctions on Russia.

The foreign ministers established working groups in six different areas, which is what diplomats do when they want to bring about real action on the ground.

Ambassador to Bahrain Eitan Na’eh was at the summit, in the room for Lapid’s meeting with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani and the meeting of all six ministers, and he was also Israel’s interim ambassador to the UAE right after the countries normalized relations.

“For the first time in our history,” Na’eh said, “we have a forum for our foreign ministers, gathering in Israel in Sde Boker, to talk about not just the relations between us, but about regional issues and regional problems, and trying to devise and conceptualize solutions, ways to deal with them.
Israel and UAE Finalize ‘Milestone’ Free Trade Deal
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have concluded negotiations for a free trade agreement, Israel‘s Economy Ministry and the UAE foreign trade minister said on Friday after formally establishing ties in 2020.

The UAE and Israel have between $600 million and $700 million in bilateral trade, UAE’s economy minister Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri said in September.

The UAE and Israel formally established relations in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords that also included Bahrain and Morocco.

The latest agreement included 95% of traded products, which would be customs free, immediately or gradually, including food, agriculture and cosmetic products, as well as medical equipment and medicine, the Israeli Economy Ministry said in a statement.

The agreement included regulation, customs, services, government procurement and electronic trade and would come into effect when signed by the countries’ economy ministers and ratified, the statement said, though no timetable was given.

A separate UAE statement said the agreement would substantially reduce or remove tariffs on a wide range of goods, enhance market access for services and promote investment flows.
New special rapporteur for Palestinian issues advocates ‘de facto destruction of Israel,’ says Israel U.N. envoy in Geneva
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva on Thursday slammed the appointment of a new U.N. special rapporteur handling Palestinian issues, saying “we don’t expect to receive from her any fair and objective treatment.”

The U.N. Human Rights Council is expected to officially approve Italian human rights lawyer Francesca Albanese as its new “special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” this afternoon in the body’s last session before it adjourns until June.

“We cannot expect any objectivity or professional treatment from such an activist,” Ambassador Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. and International Organizations in Geneva, told Jewish Insider on Thursday. She called Geneva, a hub for international human rights organizations, a “fantasy world where it’s really, really detached” from reality.

“The Human Rights Council doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground. It doesn’t reflect the summit of the Negev,” added Eilon Shahar, referring to this week’s historic “Negev Summit” with foreign ministers from Israel, the U.S., Bahrain, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. “Progress will be done on the ground, not here.”

Israel is not a member of the council, and Eilon Shahar will not be able to speak at the meeting in which the council’s members are expected to approve Albanese’s appointment. A State Department spokesperson did not say if Washington’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva will speak at the meeting.

“We will continue to defend Israel against unfair, one-sided actions across the U.N.-system,” the spokesperson told JI. “Rather than unfairly singling out Israel, U.N. member states should play a constructive role in advancing a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”


Amnesty’s O’Brien responds to Jewish Dems: ‘I regret representing the views of the Jewish people’
In a letter to Jewish House Democrats, Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien apologized for “representing the views of the Jewish people,” responding to the members’ unanimous condemnation of his recent remarks that his “gut” tells him American Jews want “a safe Jewish space” rather than a Jewish state.

All 25 Jewish House Democrats came together earlier this month in a rare joint statement condemning O’Brien’s comments at a Woman’s National Democratic Club event as “patronizing,” “alarming,” “deeply offensive” and “antisemitic.”

In his response letter, dated March 25 and obtained by Jewish Insider on Thursday, O’Brien wrote, “I regret representing the views of the Jewish people. What I should have said is that my understanding from having visited Israel often and listened to many Jewish American and Israeli human rights activists is that I share a commitment to human rights and social justice for all with Jewish Americans and Israelis.”

In the letter, O’Brien says he wants to “provide context” to comments to a JI reporter after the event. In those comments, O’Brien said Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state.” He claims his comments were in reference to Amnesty’s concerns about Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law. O’Brien made no reference to the Nation State Law in the conversation with the reporter, but had mentioned it in an earlier part of the event.

“During the course of the event, and at a number of times during the presentation, I stated that Amnesty takes no position on the legitimacy or existence of any state, including Israel,” O’Brien wrote. “We have been engaging with the government of Israel for decades to uphold its human rights obligations and will continue to do so.”

In comments during the event about the Nation State Law, O’Brien appeared to express opposition to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.


Tory candidate suspended after refusing to delete Israel condolence post
A Conservative local election candidate who was told to “take down” a social media post in which he expressed his “deepest condolences” to the 11 Israelis killed in terrorist attacks over the past week, has had his candidacy suspended.

Jewish News understands that Dr Shadman Zaman, who was standing as a candidate in Bury, Greater Manchester, was told to “take down” his Facebook post on Wednesday by the local Conservative Group’s leader.

On Thursday Zaman said he had been suspended as an election candidate by the local party.

Zaman, who was seeking election in the Besses ward, posted that a “third terrorist attack in a week” had “killed 11 innocent Israelis” and sent his “deepest condolences” to the “families and friends of the victims”.

Sources claimed to Jewish News that Bury Conservatives leader Nick Jones had sent a WhatsApp message to Zaman which stated: “Shadman can this be taken down. We need to keep local.”

But Jones later told Jewish News he had “categorically not told candidates they cannot post pro-Israel sentiments,” but admitted he had told them to “focus on the local election”.

Referring to Zaman, Jones added: “The candidate in question for Besses was advised that all social media would need to be approved by the Agent as per our group rules and has failed to do this.“

Zaman who hails from Bangladesh, has previously revealed himself to be a “proud pro-Israel activist”.
Guardian promotes Abbas's performative terror 'condemnation'
The Guardian’s coverage of Tuesday’s deadly terror attack in the Israeli city of Bnai Brak, in which a Palestinian gunman killed five – on top of six killed in two previous terror attacks in the past week – included a report by their Mid-East correspondent Martin Chulov and one by their former Jerusalem correspondent Oliver Holmes.

Chulov’s report included this:
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, issued a rare condemnation of the attacks.

“The killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians will only lead to further deterioration of the situation, while we are all striving for stability,” Abbas said in a statement carried by the Wafa news agency.

Holmes’ report also included Abbas’s quote, using virtually the same wording.

The Independent published an article on the terror attack, by reporter Sravasti Dasgupta, that included this:
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack in a statement and said that the killing of civilians “only leads to further deterioration of the situation and instability, which we all strive to achieve, especially as we are approaching the holy month of Ramadan and Christian and Jewish holidays”.

Another Indy article on the attack, written by Joe Sommerlad, included the same Abbas quote.

The Telegraph published an article on the terror attack, written by their Jerusalem correspondent James Rothwell, as did The Times, which was written by Anshel Pfeffer. But, unlike the Indy and Guardian, these didn’t note Abbas’s ‘condemnation’. What’s concerning about the Guardian and Indy’s inclusion of the Abbas quote is two fold:

First, neither the Guardian nor Indy noted that Abbas’s comments reportedly came less than an hour after Defence Minister Benny Gantz’s office passed along a “stern message” pressuring him to condemn the B’nai Brak attack. Based on Times of Israel’s reporting, Abbas was likely told by Gantz that Israeli policies easing restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza ahead of Ramadan, which begins in early April, could be jeopardised without a condemnation. The easing of restrictions include “additional entry permits for elderly Muslim worshipers to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque, expanding the hours of such permits” and “increasing the number of permits for Gazans to work in Israel”.

The fact that Abbas was reportedly pressured into the condemnation is extremely important context.
Umm el-Fahm Mayor resigns, un-resigns two hours later after condolences controversy
Umm el-Fahm Mayor Samir Mahamid resigned from his post on Thursday — only to reverse course and un-resign two hours later — after Mahamid offered the family of the Hadera terrorist condolences on Facebook and was rebuked for his apparent sympathies for terrorists, according to Israeli media.

"In my name and on behalf of my friends and employees of the municipality, we send our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the family of Yosef Rushdie following the deaths of Ayman Agbaria and Ibrahim Agbaria," read Mahamid’s Thursday Facebook post. The post was deleted less than an hour after it was posted.

Mahamid, who had issued a statement on Monday condemning the terror attacks, was met with irate commenters and overall rage from the Israeli public. Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked directed her ministry to order the deletion of the post.

"It is inconceivable that a municipality in the State of Israel would console families of terrorists. This is a serious and shameful post and it is good that it has been deleted," Shaked said, adding that the ministry "will continue to show zero tolerance for supporting terrorism on social networks and in general.”

Amid the backlash, Mahamid decided to abruptly resign on KAN 11’s live TV news broadcast on Thursday evening at 8:00 PM — merely a few hours after the Facebook post was originally published — saying that he was "leaving the job in a lot of pain because I came to contribute."
BBC double standards on reporting terrorism continue
BBC coverage of the March 29th terror attack in Bnei Brak included an item in the evening edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’.

“Also in the programme: a shooting in Israel is reported to have killed at least four people…”

Listeners to BBC Radio 4’s ‘The World Tonight’ heard reports from the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell in a news bulletin (from 04:28 here) and a later item.

The sole mention of the word terror in all those items came from the Israeli journalist interviewed by ‘Newshour’.

The BBC News website published a report on the evening of March 29th which was amended several times in the hours that followed as new details came to light.

The fifth version of that report – published on the morning after the attack – was headlined “Five killed in latest deadly attack in Israel” and, like the two subsequently published versions, it opened:
“Five people have been shot dead by a Palestinian gunman in a suburb of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, in the third deadly attack of its kind in a week.”

The phrase “of its kind” obviously does not relate to the location (the previous two attacks were not in the Tel Aviv area), the means of attack (the first incident was a combined stabbing and vehicular attack) or the identity of the perpetrator (the terrorists in the first two attacks were not “Palestinian”). Rather, that phrase actually means that three terror attacks have taken place in a week but – as usual and as it did in its reports on the incidents in Be’er Sheva and Hadera – the BBC avoids using that term to describe the politically motivated murders of Israelis.


Palestinian throwing firebomb shot and killed by Israeli troops in Hebron clashes
Palestinian Authority health officials said a 29-year-old Palestinian man was killed by live Israeli fire during clashes Friday with soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that troops opened fire and hit a man in Hebron, saying that he “threw a firebomb at troops, endangering their lives.”

Palestinian media identified the man as Ahmad al-Atrash. He formerly served prison time in Israeli jails for security offenses, Palestinian media reported.

Video published by the Kan public broadcaster showed a number of young Palestinians chanting “with spirit, with blood, we’ll redeem you martyr,” after his death was announced.

The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said dozens of Palestinians were wounded in weekly demonstrations elsewhere in the West Bank, where protesters often throw rocks and firebombs at Israeli troops, who fire tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and sometimes live rounds.


Saving the Ayatollahs
The Islamic Republic is in trouble. Its economy, heavily socialized and riddled with corruption, needs high-priced oil to stay afloat. Its politics are broken: Since the end of the 1990s, when a real reform movement, led mostly by lay, left-wing Islamists who thought that democracy could resuscitate and humanize the revolution, was suppressed, the regime has been rapidly losing ideological appeal and a solid base of support. Its bickering elite constantly plot against one another, finding common ground on fewer issues. Given its continuing commitment to subvert the regional order, the clerical regime remains permanently at odds with most of its neighbors.

In other words, the mullahs need a nuclear deal to give them relief from a predicament of their own making. As surely as détente prolonged the life of the Soviet Union, the West’s addiction to arms control is the theocracy’s own form of salvation. Contrary to what many observers have suggested, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the muscle behind the theocracy, supported Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because it brought so much cash with less-than-onerous inspections, sunsetting nuclear restrictions, no restraints on the IRGC’s foreign machinations, and no limitations on the country’s ballistic-missile program, which is under the IRGC’s control. By yielding little to and getting much from the Biden administration in the ongoing negotiations in Vienna, the clerical regime is trying again to have both guns and butter.

The defining truth: Iran isn’t an island of autocratic stability in a turbulent Middle East, which many commentators routinely suggested while the Arab world cracked up over the last 20 years. Economic malpractice, much more than sanctions, has left the Islamic Republic routinely subject to unrest. The mullahs have never managed to tame inflation, create suf­ficient jobs for the young, or temper their greed. When the Iranian press periodically reveals massive corruption scandals, this means, translated from Persian, that one mafia within the regime has the high ground over another, allowing prosecutors and judges, always aligned with the supreme leader’s current interests, to shred the offending party. American sanctions have aggravated all of these forces and the regime’s basic incompetence; the Covid-19 pandemic was so grossly mismanaged that even Iranian health officials have had the courage to say that U.S. sanctions, which have always had openings for health care, weren’t responsible for the shocking death tolls and clinical meltdowns. Or as the deputy minister of health, Younes Panahi, put it: “We have been dealt more damage by Covid-19 than we were in eight years of war [with Iraq].”
Israel's hands not tied if Iran deal signed, US envoy Nides says
United States Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides said Thursday that Israel would not face any restrictions from the US to act against Iran, regardless of whether a nuclear deal is signed between Tehran and world powers.

"The president… will do whatever he can do to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon… It's clear we'd like to do it through a diplomatic channel," Nides told Channel 12 news.

"The Israelis know very clearly exactly what is going on. I'm not suggesting they necessarily like it always, but there are no secrets here," he said.

Nides avoided a direct question on the US removing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its terrorism blacklist, as he also did in a previous interview with Channel 13.

When asked whether the US expected Israel to "sit quietly and do nothing if the agreement is signed, Nides insisted, "Absolutely not. We've been very clear about that. If we have an agreement, the Israelis' hands are not tied. Israel can do and take all the steps it needs to take to protect the country."

As for Israel's policy on the Ukraine war, the US envoy said that "we are very comfortable with what the Israelis are doing toward Ukraine. And as for the mediating role they can play, we welcome it."
Congress Wants To Expose How Sanctions Relief Will Empower Iranian Terrorist Groups
Bipartisan legislation in Congress would force the Biden administration to release information about how its bid to unwind economic sanctions on Iran would empower and fund the hardline regime’s regional terrorism enterprise against Israel, according to a copy of the bill obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.

Reps. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas) and Stephanie Murphy (D., Fla.), along with 19 other House members, introduced on Thursday the Keeping Israel Safe From Iranian Proxies Act, legislation that would force the Biden administration to tell Congress how sanctions relief would help Iran fund Hamas and Hezbollah, the top two Iranian-backed terrorist groups waging operations against Israel. Murphy, as well as Rep. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), are members of the House Armed Services Committee.

The legislation would require the secretary of defense to detail the capabilities these two terrorist groups have and explain how sanctions relief that is slated to be granted as part of a revamped nuclear accord with Iran will impact them. Hamas and Hezbollah are Iran’s leading terrorist proxy groups and receive funding and military equipment from the hardline regime in Tehran. With a new nuclear deal expected to be announced in the coming days, virtually all sanctions on Iran will be lifted, enabling it to pump more resources into both groups.

The bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are concerned that sanctions relief for Iran will embolden both terror groups and lead to an increase in terror strikes on Israel, which saw a wave of attacks that have killed 11 citizens in the last two weeks. The removal of sanctions has been a sticking point in diplomatic talks with Iran and has fueled opposition to the deal in Congress. When the 2015 accord was inked, the cash assets repatriated to Iran helped it to ensure that Hamas and Hezbollah have cutting-edge military equipment on hand.

"The United States cannot afford to ignore the threat posed by Iran-backed proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah," Jackson, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Free Beacon. "These terrorists are an existential threat to one of our greatest allies, Israel, and to democracies around the world. Assessing their military capabilities, and how easing U.S. sanctions on Iran strengthens those capabilities, will be an important tool to help combat their plans to annihilate the Jewish State and Western values."


Democrats Privately Skeptical of Iran Nuclear Deal, McCaul Says
House Democrats are privately becoming increasingly skeptical of a new nuclear deal with Iran, as concerns mount over carveouts in the accord that will provide Iran with billions of dollars in cash windfalls and permit Russia to build up the country’s nuclear sites, according to Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC).

"We’re in the minority. But there are a lot of Democrats who don’t like this deal," McCaul told the Washington Free Beacon in an exclusive interview last week from the sidelines of the annual Republican policy retreat. HFAC members on both sides of the aisle emerged from a recent classified briefing on the deal with mounting concerns that the concessions granted under the deal outweigh the benefits of limited restrictions on Iran’s contested nuclear program.

McCaul said that during the briefing, "I was doing a whip count [and] it was not good for the [Biden] administration." Republicans would need at least eight House Democrats to break ranks and vote with them in opposition to a deal. And though the deal is likely to be announced well before the midterm elections, it is expected that if Republicans take the majority they will move to reimpose sanctions on Iran and nullify the terms of any deal Biden inks.

McCaul’s comments confirm a series of Free Beacon reports citing senior congressional sources who said Democrats are increasingly vocal in their opposition to a new nuclear deal. As negotiations reach their final stage and more details begin to leak about the agreement, foreign policy leaders in both parties have seized on carveouts that will allow Russia to cash in a $10 billion contract to construct Iranian nuclear reactors. With the ongoing war in Ukraine generating anti-Russia sentiment, provisions in the nuclear deal that empower and enrich Moscow will be a hard sell on Capitol Hill.

McCaul also said he sees signs the Biden administration will attempt to circumvent congressional approval of a new deal, in violation of a 2015 law mandating that lawmakers be given a vote on any new agreements with Tehran.
MEMRI: IRGC Commander Salami's Threat Against Israel Following Iranian Missile Attack On Erbil In Iraq Is Criticized In Iran As Mere Words, Not Actions
On the night of March 12, 2022, 12 missiles were launched from Iran that, according to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), struck bases of the "Israeli Mossad" in Erbil, Iraq. Iranian sources, including Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh and regime mouthpiece Kayhan editor Hossein Shariatmadari, said on March 15 that the launch had been an Iranian response to an Israeli operation on Iranian soil.[1] Western sources have reported that in mid-February 2022 hundreds of Iranian drones were destroyed at an airbase in Kermanshah province in western Iran, and attributed the attack to Israel.[2]

According to Iranian spokesmen, the airstrike against the Kermanshah base carried out by unmanned aircraft had been launched from Erbil. IRGC spokesman Ramadan Sharif claimed on March 17 that "the Zionists themselves declared that [their] aircraft that had reached the base in Kermanshah had taken off from outposts in Erbil."[3]

It should be noted that the first reports in Iran stated that the Iranian attack on Erbil was a response to the killing of two IRGC fighters in a March 6, 2022 attack in Syria attributed to Israel.

In a March 23 speech commemorating slain IRGC commanders that mentioned the IRGC missile attack, IRGC commander Hossein Salami stressed that the declining U.S. recognizes the rising power of Islamic Iran, and threatened Israel itself with a missile attack if it carries out another attack.

In response to Salami's threats to strike Israel itself, the IRGC-affiliated Telegram channel T.me/T_neutrino_plus criticized Salami, accusing him of being too moderate. It said that Salami's statements cast the Iranian missile attack on Erbil as a one-time occurrence that had ended, and accused him of avoiding carrying out an active operation on Israeli soil even though Israel had not settled for attacking Iranian forces in other countries but had attacked Iran on its own soil. It should be noted that Neutrino_Plus, which tends to express support for the IRGC, expressed highly unusual criticism of Salami's alleged "moderateness." It is also notable that it called for Iran to escalate the Iran-Israel conflict with a direct attack on Israel itself.




 

 

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