Today’s Top Stories
1. After a week off from the computer, there’s a lot developments and fallout with the Iranian nuclear understanding to catch up on. The White House is touting an understanding but contradictory accounts of what’s been agreed to and criticisms from heavyweight personalities like Henry Kissinger and nuclear experts are dogging the deal.
So where does this leave Israel and the rest of the Mideast? See below for all you need to know on the disclosures, commentary, and spin games.
2. Closing in on Damascus, ISIS overran the Yarmouk refugee camp, reducing most of the camp to a “smoldering rubble,” and beheading Palestinians in the process. YNet was in contact with some of the camp’s desperate refugees. The Palestinians are joining forces with Bashar Assad (Officially or unofficially?) to oust ISIS.
Meanwhile, Hamas is allowing ISIS-affiliated jihadists injured in the Sinai to be treated in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, according to Israeli media reports.
The report did not specify how many jihadists were being treated.
Hamas was making significant efforts to hide the patients’ identity in order to avoid being seen as affiliated with the radical Sunni organization, the report said.
More on the Yarmouk situation at the Washington Post.
3. It’s looking less likely that a government coalition will be formed by the April 22 deadline, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu will ask President Reuven Rivlin for a two-week extension. Details at YNet.
4. Video: Bankrupting Terror One Lawsuit At a Time: More than 500 people gathered at HonestReporting’s Jerusalem headquarters to hear Nitsana Darshan-Leitner discuss the Israel Law Center’s legal battles against terror groups and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The Iranian Atomic Understanding
• Understanding what’s been agreed to or not is rather difficult with conflicting versions coming from too many sides. This New York Times snippet sums up the problem:
On Tuesday, Wendy Sherman, the chief negotiator for the State Department, acknowledged that anyone listening to the descriptions of the agreement in Washington and in Tehran might wonder if they were hearing about the same one.
“We understood that our narratives were likely to be somewhat different but we pledged to try not to contradict each other,” she said on MSNBC.
Indeed, Iran’s Persian statement on ‘deal’ contradicted Obama’s claims, and a French document seen by the Times of Israel raised more discrepancies between US and Iranian explanations of centrifuges, sanctions relief, and access for inspectors.
And while the US says sanctions will be gradually removed as Iran demonstrates compliance, Hassan Rouhani said there will be no deal unless all sanctions are lifted at once. All this left State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke struggling to reconcile the contradictions. More on the conflicting “agreements” at Business Insider.
• President Obama admitted to NPR (video or transcript) that Iran could have an almost “zero breakout point” to nuclear weaponization in 12-14 years according to the understandings reached. This sparked a rare endorsement from Prime Minister Netanyahu. You can skip to the 4:15 point of the NPR video.
What is a more relevant fear would be that in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.
• While the White House touts “snap back” sanctions that can be quickly reimposed if Iran violates the deal, AP reports problems with all the mechanisms under discussion.
• Iran rules out inspections for military sites.
• Iranian officials say they’ll use their fastest centrifuges once the deal takes effect. Picking on Fars News, the Times of Israel writes:
If accurate, the report makes a mockery of the world powers’ much-hailed framework agreement with Iran, since such a move clearly breaches the US-published terms of the deal, and would dramatically accelerate Iran’s potential progress to the bomb.
• Israel set out a list of key changes to improve the nuclear understanding.
• The 6 key aspects of the deal that Israel and the US are at odds over
• President Obama sparked further debate while plugging the understandings in an interview with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared on US talk shows criticizing the deal. The Times of Israel and Khaled Abu Toameh rounded up Arab reactions.
Last but not least, Elliott Abrams wrote a withering response to the Friedman interview, especially Obama’s comment that “If anybody messes with Israel, America will be there.”
• The Washington Post looks at how American-Israeli dual citizens relate to the tensions between their two countries.
• Sparking a lot of buzz, ex-Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz panned the understanding, raising serious questions in a Wall St. Journal op-ed (click via Google News). Former IAEA deputy chief Olli Heinonen also spoke out against the deal.
By the way, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf got herself into some hot water when she dismissed Kissinger and Shultz’s criticisms as “a lot of big words and big thoughts.”
• Does Iran have nukes in North Korea?
• During the nuclear talks, the Pentagon upgraded its biggest bunker-busting bombs with improved guidance systems and protection from Iranian jamming. The Wall St. Journal (click via Google News) says the system was most recently tested in mid-January, and that US military officials have shared info about this with their Israeli counterparts.
To destroy or disable the underground facilities, the Pentagon envisages guiding two or more of the bunker busters to the same impact point, in sequence, extending the weapon’s burrowing power, the officials said.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The plight of Palestinian women
The position of women today in the West Bank and Gaza provides chilling insight into what life in a Palestinian state will be like if that state ever becomes a reality.
• The Arab Bank lost a bid to dodge liability for Hamas attacks. The Jordan-based bank may have turned a blind eye to transactions facilitating terror attacks during the Second Intifada, but a US federal judge didn’t. Reuters coverage:
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn, New York found “ample” evidence for jurors to conclude last Sept. 22 that Arab Bank knowingly provided services directly to senior Hamas officials like Osama Hamdan, a well-known spokesman who often appeared on television to claim responsibility for attacks.
Cogan also found a “cornucopia” of circumstantial evidence to show that Arab Bank knew or was “willfully blind” to the charities’ Hamas affiliations.
• A number of news services, including Reuters, picked up on British Labor Party leader Ed Miliband saying he would recognize a Palestinian state if it would help advance Mideast peace. The British House of Commons voted in October for a non-binding symbolic resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood. Miliband was responding to a question from a Times of London reporter. British elections are on May 7.
• FIFA brass are trying to get the Palestine Football Association to drop efforts to kick Israel out of the world soccer body.
• Iran intensifies efforts to support Hamas.
• Nice profile of Ghajar, the village split in two by the Israel-Lebanese border, and close to the Syrian border. As Israel’s only Alawite community, residents vote in Israeli elections, support Bashar Assad, and don’t consider themselves Lebanese. They told Time they’re terrified of getting dragged into Syria’s civil war or getting caught between another Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
Mideast Matters
• Sudan is shifting away from Iran, joining the Saudi coalition against the Houthis, shutting down Iranian cultural centers, and is moving towards towards refusing to let Iranian ships dock at Sudanese ports. That should nicely hobble Iranian arms smuggling to Gaza.
• Hezbollah’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told Syrian TV his group isn’t capable of starting a war with Israel by itself. Judge the tea-leaves from MEMRI‘s translated video and judge for yourself.
• Argentina is declassifying all its documents related to its investigation of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. A suicide bomber believed to be sent by Hezbollah drove a pickup truck full of explosives into the embassy’s entrance, killing 29 people and injuring more than 220.
• Paris supermarket hostages from January’s Hyper Cacher attack sue media over live coverage, saying it endangered their lives. Meanwhile, French media reports say terrorist Amedy Coulibaly originally intended to kill children at a Paris Jewish school. More on that at the European Jewish Press.
• An Egyptian court sentenced to death Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and 13 others for inciting violence and chaos. Another 39 members were given life sentences.
Commentary/Analysis
• Does the world’s low-key reaction expose a double standard against Israel? Brendan O’Neill, Khaled Abu Toameh, and a New York Post staff-ed say yes, while Haaretz’s Bradley Burston challenges the Left to raise its voice. Batya Ungar-Sargon makes some thought-provoking points arguing that there’s no double standard at play.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gabi Avital argues that Palestinians of Yarmouk paying the price for the PLO intransigience on the “right” of return and Ksenia Svetlova wonders where the the Mohammed Dura of Yarmouk is.
• Israeli officials speaking out against the Iranian nuclear understandings included Moshe Yaalon (Washington Post op-ed), Yuval Steinitz (Times of Israel interview), and Naftali Bennett (CNN interview and a Chicago Tribune op-ed via Google News). David Makovsky analyzes the criticisms coming out of Jerusalem.
• Emily Landau rounded up what Israeli nuclear experts had to say. And Business Insider spoke with Thomas Moore, a longtime nonproliferation expert for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
• Loads more commentary/analysis on the Iranian deal. Here are the most noteworthy you might have missed.
The Israeli voices
– Michael Oren: The Iran deal and how not to buy a Middle Eastern carpet
– David Horovitz: The unfolding farce of Obama’s deal with Iran
– Efraim Halevy: Obama was right, Iran capitulated
– Dore Gold: Pakistan built its bomb with only 3,000 centrifuges
– Amos Yadlin: The Lausanne statement: Insights and recommendations
– Dr. Ephraim Kam: Deal makes Iran stronger than ever
– Aluf Benn: Iran deal can be scaffolding for unity government
– David Weinberg: The fantasy of snap-back sanctions
The American voices
– Jeffrey Goldberg: The least-worst option
– Jonah Goldberg: Can Iran really be brought out of the cold?
– Frida Ghitis: Why is Obama too desperate for an Iran deal?
– Clifford May: The win-win delusion
– Bret Stephens: Mutually assured obfuscation (via Google News)
The international voices
– Tariq Alhomayed: Obama is always wrong on the Middle East
– Michael Weiss: The agreement’s more than about nukes
– Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: The growing Iranian threat to the Gulf
– Greg Sheridan: Obama’s capitulation leaves the world exposed (via Google News)
• Last but not least: Is the Iran deal a requiem for Israeli nuclear ambiguity?
Featured image: CC BY Pedro Ribeiro Simo?es via flickr with additions by HonestReporting; Shultz via YouTube/Realenlighten; Kissinger via YouTube/Realenlighten; bunker buster CC Wikimedia Commons;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
