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A new nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers is off the table and will not be signed in the “foreseeable future,” US President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly told Israeli officials in recent conversations.
The news broke after Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to Iran’s negotiating team, over the weekend said that “Iran won’t accept ambiguities or loopholes in the text. Winter is approaching and the EU is facing a crippling energy crisis… Iran will be patient.”
The possible restoration of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been at the center of the Jewish state’s security concerns over the past year, with a concerned Jerusalem closely monitoring the indirect talks in Vienna between Tehran and Washington.
Israel carried out an “intensive campaign” to prevent the revival of the “dangerous” accord, Prime Minister Yair Lapid revealed at this week’s Cabinet meeting.
The nuclear deal that was being negotiated since President Biden entered the White House in January 2021 focused on removing sanctions on the Iranian regime in exchange for partially restricting its capabilities to build a nuclear weapon.
In recent weeks, the sides exchanged several draft agreements, including a “final” proposal brought forth by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. According to experts cited by the Jewish News Syndicate, the pact under review would be considerably “shorter and weaker” than the 2015 JCPOA.
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Amid a surge in violent attacks across Judea and Samaria, the Israel Defense Forces arrested 25 West Bank Palestinians on suspicion of terrorist activities on Wednesday morning. Security forces operated in multiple locations, including in the villages of Dora, Hares, Deir el Asel, Beita, and the city of Tulkarm.
During one raid, a 21-year-old Palestinian from al-Fara was killed after reportedly throwing an explosive at troops. “An improvised explosive device was thrown and a shot was fired at the force, who responded by shooting,” the military commented.
As part of the activity in Kfar Ezaria, about 6,000 shekels ($1,750) were confiscated, which the IDF said were earmarked for terrorist activities. In other Palestinian localities throughout the Etzion regional division, forces found an illegal gun, three cartridges, and an M-16-type assault rifle.
Another M-16 was confiscated in the city of Nablus, where a man wanted for involvement in terrorism was arrested.
The IDF initially stepped up its operations in the northern West Bank after a wave of attacks killed 19 people, mostly Israelis, earlier this year. As part of Operation Break the Wave, Israel carried out near-nightly incursions into Palestinian Authority-administered towns and cities, which it said prevented “hundreds of attacks.”
Following a shooting attack on a bus in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley on Sunday, in which seven people were wounded, security officials warned of another eruption of violence, with some Israelis viewing the recent events as the possible start of a “third intifada.”
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The United States will push Israel to review the IDF’s rules of engagement in the wake of the death of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said.
Following a four-month investigation, the Israel Defense Forces this week released the findings of its inquiry into the tragic death of Abu Akleh. According to the internal probe, the reporter was likely shot by mistake by an IDF soldier who did not identify her as a member of the press.
The military announced on September 5 that, “after a comprehensive examination of the incident, and based on all the findings presented, the Military Advocate General determined that under the circumstances of the incident…there was no suspicion of a criminal offense that warrants the opening of an MPCID [Military Police Criminal Investigation Division] investigation.”
Israeli security officials have expressed fears that the IDF’s in-depth investigation is unlikely to fend off pressure from the international community.
Pressed by journalists, State Department spokesman Patel on Tuesday stated that the US will “continue to press our Israeli partners to closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement and consider additional steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, protect journalists and prevent similar tragedies in the future.”
As HonestReporting has repeatedly outlined, Israel’s army adheres to an unusually high moral standard of conduct. The IDF goes to great lengths to avoid harming civilians, often going beyond its obligations under customary international law.
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President Isaac Herzog addressed Germany’s parliament on Tuesday about the horrors committed during the Nazi era. “Never in human history was there a campaign like the one the Nazis and their accomplices conducted to annihilate the Jewish people,” Herzog told lawmakers at the Bundestag in Berlin.
He added: “Never in history was a state responsible, as Nazi Germany was responsible, for the loss of all semblance of humanity, for the erasure of all mercy, for the pursuit of the worldwide obliteration, with such awful cruelty, of an entire people.”
Israel’s president also spoke about his father — former Israeli president Chaim Herzog — who, as an officer of the British Army, was among the liberators of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945.
“I shall never forget how he described to me the horrors he witnessed. The stench. The human skeletons in striped pajamas, the piles of corpses, the destruction, the hell on earth.” During the address, Herzog put on a kippah and recited the prayer of Yizkor in memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.
President Herzog arrived for a state visit to Germany earlier this week. The itinerary also included a trip to Munich, where he participated in the memorial ceremony for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games.
I stand here today but I am not alone. I stand as an emissary: as the President of Israel and a proud son of the Jewish People. I stand here carrying hopes and dreams, pain and relief, memories of destruction and revival. Above all, I stand with one imperative: Remember. 🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/qysQl1L63i
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) September 6, 2022
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After a federal judge in Manhattan earlier this month rejected Ben & Jerry’s injunction challenging the sale of its business in Israel by parent company Unilever, the ice cream company is renewing its efforts to boycott the Jewish state.
In a letter to the court filed on Tuesday night, Ben & Jerry’s said it plans to file an amended complaint by September 27, with Unilever’s response due by November 1. Unilever has agreed to the timetable, the brief said.
US District Judge Andrew Carter earlier this month decided that Ben & Jerry’s did not deserve an injunction because it failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm. However, he has yet to decide on the lawsuit’s merits.
In July 2021, Ben & Jerry’s — which has an independent board — published a statement saying that, starting in 2023, it would boycott Israelis in what it called “occupied Palestinian territory.” The move was widely condemned in Israel and abroad, with Jerusalem’s Foreign Ministry urging US states to activate their anti-BDS laws to punish Unilever.
Then, on June 29, 2022, following litigation in US federal court, Unilever sold off its Ben & Jerry’s Israeli business interests to Avi Zinger, allowing him to continue selling the ice cream in all territories under Jerusalem’s control. “I now have the right to sell Ben & Jerry’s using its Hebrew and Arabic name to all our Israeli and Arab customers throughout Israel and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) — forever,” Zinger explained at the time.
In response, the Vermont-based ice cream makers filed the civil suit in the US Southern District Court of New York, stressing again that they “continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry’s values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The firm’s lawyers insist that Unilever did not have the right to enter into the agreement with Avi Zinger.
Recommended Reading
- Will Britain’s Newly Elected PM Liz Truss Be the Country’s Most Pro-Israel Prime Minister? (All Israel News)
- Back When Palestinians Insisted There’s No Such Place as Palestine (Steven E. Zipperstein, Times of Israel)
- Hamas Tells Media to Lie: What Should the Media Tell its Readers? (Toby Dershowitz, National Interest)
- Hezbollah Is on High Alert Toward a Possible Confrontation With Israel (Alma Research and Education Center)
- Magen David Adom to Visit Highland Park, Offer Terror Response Training (Jerusalem Post)
