Today’s Top Stories
1. Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center) has filed a war crimes complaint against Hamas in the U.S. court system. The compliant relates to Americans whose flights were affected by rocket fire towards Ben-Gurion Airport during the Gaza conflict.
According to Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin, Hamas “intentionally targeted Ben-Gurion airport this summer with the goal of killing passengers and destroying international carriers. Hamas openly boasted of its success when the FAA prohibited American flights to Ben-Gurion during the terrorist rocket attacks. The United States Department of Justice has the clear jurisdiction to indict these Hamas leaders and the Attorney General needs to let the Palestinian terrorists understand that they will no longer be getting a free pass for the war crimes they committed.”
Darshan-Leitner, will be discussing this and taking the battle against terror and BDS to court, at a special FREE HonestReporting event in Jerusalem on Sunday, April 5. Click here for more info.
2. Cyber activist group Anonymous has released an internet video which threatens Israel with an “electronic Holocaust” on April 7, in a massive cyber attack planned to fall just a week before Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Israeli officials were notably unmoved:
Benjamin T. Decker, senior intelligence analyst at Tel Aviv-based geopolitical risk consultancy The Levantine Group, says that the hacker collective makes the threat every year and, thus, Israel has acclimatised to the cyber threat, with less damage done with every year.
See the video for yourself below.
3. It’s the final day of Iran nuclear talks before the deadline. Or is it? According to the AP, the parties are preparing to issue a general statement agreeing to continue negotiations in a new phase aimed at reaching a comprehensive accord by the end of June.
The joint statement is to be accompanied by additional documents that outline more detailed understandings, allowing the sides to claim enough progress has been made thus far to merit a new round, the officials said.
One of the officials said the statement was general in part because differences between the sides remained ahead of a new phase of negotiations toward a comprehensive deal by late June. The second official said other documents will be more technical in nature and will also be made public later in the day.
Perhaps it’s just as well that a comprehensive deal has been finalized as the U.S. has made fundamental mistakes in nuclear negotiations with Iran that have wrecked the chances for a good deal, an expert on Tehran’s ambitions has claimed. (Paywall)
Mark Dubowitz, who has advised the Obama administration and is considered to be the architect of the sanctions regime devised by Congress, said that the Iranians had “systematically worn down” the US position.
While the US said 18 months ago that its goal was to dismantle the Iranian military nuclear programme, it is now looking for technical fixes to restrain Iran, Mr Dubowitz, the executive director of theFoundation for Defense of Democracies think-tank, said.
Those technical fixes are believed to include agreements on where uranium is stockpiled and the number of observer visits rather than a more substantive deal.
Mr Dubowitz said that Iran had been emboldened by the decision to ease the pressure of sanctions and the message from President Obama that there was no military solution to the issue.
“I’m a big believer that in negotiating with this regime you need significant coercive leverage,” he said. “It was tough sanctions that got Iran to the table. Unfortunately the approach of confidence-building measures, giving concessions to change Iranian behaviour, has done exactly the opposite and completely backfired.”
He added: “The net result is that Iran has hardened its positions, drawn red lines that it doesn’t move from, which has . . . made it more difficult to get the Iranians to make that fundamental strategic decision that it is no longer interested in pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.”
Israel and the Palestinians
• Support for Israel has become a major platform point for Republicans.
“If you’re a Republican and you hedge on your support on Israel, it’s viewed as having a flawed foreign policy,” said Ron Bonjean, a party strategist who has worked for Republican leaders in Congress. “It’s a requirement for Republicans these days to be very strong on Israel if they’re going to be taken seriously by primary voters.” Any deviation on that, he said, leads to inevitable questions: “If you’re not supporting Israel, then who are you supporting? Are you supporting Iran?”
• NY Times article notes that Mahmoud Abbas is falling in popularity, but also looks at issues working against Palestinian independence.
Much attention has focused recently on the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s apparent disavowal of a two-state solution and his shattered relationship with the Obama administration.
But of perhaps equal importance is a growing discontent in Palestinian ranks, much of it focused on Mr. Abbas. While the United States and Europe seem ever more ready to pressure Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank, some Palestinians are questioning whether their leader, who celebrated his 80th birthday last week, will be able to seize the opportunity.
• PM Netanyahu’s pledge to prevent a Palestinian state on his watch has rippled down to questions about the PA’s security coordination with Israel.
Commentary/Analysis
• Roger Cohen argues that a bad deal with Iran is better than no deal – even from Israel’s perspective:
Only elementary knowledge of Iran is needed to know that sanctions will never bring this proud nation to its knees. It would rather starve than cave. What better assures Israel’s security, a decade of strict limitation and inspection of Iran’s nuclear program that prevents it making a bomb, or a war that delays the program a couple of years, locks in the most radical factions in Tehran, and intensifies Middle Eastern violence? It’s a no-brainer.
• According to the Washington Post, most Americans agree, even among Republicans:
Republicans are about evenly divided on an Iran deal, with 47 percent in support and 43 percent opposed. The split contrasts with Republican lawmakers’ widespread backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech deriding the potential deal in early March before a joint meeting of lawmakers. Additionally, all but seven Republican senators signed a letter to Iran’s leadership warning that Congress or a future president could override any agreement made by the Obama administration.
• Jennifer Rubin writes about the ongoing efforts to put the brakes on the White House’s free-fall in relations with Israel, this time a bipartisan letter to the President.
• The Washington Post expresses doubts about burgeoning Arab military force being formed by Saudi Arabia:
This development may be welcomed by an administration that has sought to extract the United States from Middle East wars. But the Arab initiatives — under-resourced and with questionable objectives — are as likely to compound as resolve the region’s wars, and they ultimately may undermine U.S. interests.
The skepticism is shared by the LA Times.
• Dennis Ross, David Makovsky and Ghaith Al-Omari write in Politico that both Israel and the Palestinians are heading for a cliff and that the situation will energize the delegitimization movement against Israel:
One problem with the White House’s reaction to Netanyahu’s comments is that it will feed not just the de-legitimization momentum but it will make the Palestinians feel free of any obligations. The onus will be on Israel, Palestinians can push the campaign against Israel at the International Criminal Court and other international fora, and nothing will be expected of them. Unfortunately, none of these steps will advance the day that Palestinians see an end to Israeli occupation or the emergence of their state. And, that will deepen the frustration of the Palestinian public which sees a gap between what its leaders claim and what they produce on the ground. That frustration is made all the worse when they see the conflict between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas paralyzing any efforts to rebuild a devastated Gaza—a reality that according to Palestinian pollster, Khalil Shikaki, has deeply undercut support for President Mahmoud Abbas among Palestinians.
Israel needs to take an initiative to counter the de-legitimization movement and show it is not the reason that nothing is possible on peace. Ironically, such an initiative might also shift the onus onto the Palestinians and move them off the position that all the responsibility for the conflict is Israel’s and they need do nothing. In addition, it could also convince the Obama administration that it need not proceed either to support or draft a U.N. Security Resolution laying out the parameters for a permanent status deal, especially because Israel was acting to alter an unsustainable status quo.
Rest of the Roundup
• According to the organizers, an anti-Israel conference slated to discuss Israel’s legitimacy has been cancelled by Southampton University.
• The U.S. denies that a drone strike killed two Iranian military advisers in Iraq.
Featured image: CC BY Pedro Ribeiro Simo?es via flickr with additions by HonestReporting.
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