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Middle East Tag

Posted by David Gerstman on August 25, 2015 18 Comments
Both Rep. Donald Norcross (D - N.J.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D - Pa.) have announced that they will stand on principle and oppose the nuclear deal with Iran (a/k/a, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.) I know almost nothing about either of these legislators, but I have tremendous respect for them. They are both freshmen and yet they have both announced that they will stand against their party's leader, President Barack Obama, even though the President has made it clear that the JCPOA is a priority. I have little doubt that both men understand the risk; the administration has made it clear that it will not tolerate apostasy. I give a lot of credit to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D - N.Y.) too, because he may have jeopardized his chances of a spot in the leadership by announcing his opposition to the JCPOA. The New York Daily News reported:
Josh Earnest, President Obama’s spokesman, ripped Schumer Friday after the senior New York senator broke with the President over the nuclear deal with Iran. Earnest all but encouraged Senate Democrats to consider Schumer's opposition to the pact when they vote next year to elect a new Democratic leader.

Posted by David Gerstman on August 23, 2015 8 Comments
A number of stories have been reported since the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear deal with Iran is known, that raise serious questions about its effectiveness to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and even about whether or not it will stop a war.

Syria's Secret Chemical Weapons Stockpile

The Wall Street Journal reported on July 23 (Google link) that Syria, contrary to previous reports, had maintained “caches of even deadlier nerve agents.” Why it's important: The first reason is that Iran is the main sponsor of Assad regime. Given that it has supported the use of WMD in Syria and suffered no consequences for this will likely embolden it. The second reason is more practical. The chemical weapons inspectors were limited by the Assad regime where they could go. They also feared that if they reported something that would displease the authorities they would be barred from other sites. The same problem will exist with Iran. But being able to declare military sites out of bounds for inspections, Iran will limit inspectors' access, compromising the effectiveness of inspections regime.

Posted by David Gerstman on August 19, 2015 25 Comments
By now, Sen. Jeff Flake's (R - Ariz.) announcement that he will oppose the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been overshadowed by Sen. Robert Menendez' (D - N.J.) Tuesday announcement of his opposition. Still, I'd like to revisit Flake's announcement because he was viewed by the administration, in the words of one report, as a "gettable" Republican. With Flake's announcement it now appears that President Barack Obama will not be able to claim bipartisan support for the JCPOA. I don't know how "gettable," Flake was. To be sure, at the July 23 Senate Foreign Relations hearing Flake was much less adversarial than most other Republicans on the committee, and that played a role in maintaining the impression that he perhaps looked favorably upon the deal. He also was less adversarial than Menendez. However, he asked Kerry some very solid questions and Kerry's responses were awful. How awful? Early in his question and answer session Flake asked Kerry about language in the JCPOA that allowed Iran to opt out if sanctions were re-imposed.

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 24, 2015 2 Comments
On July 16, Israel’s Christian Empowerment Council (CEC) released a short pamphlet titled Test The Spirits: A Christian Guide to the Anti-Israel Boycott Movement (BDS). It’s authored by Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth in the Galilee. The new guide garnered some publicity in Israel. But here in the U.S., other than a press release featured by JNS and a few other websites, it hasn’t received a lot of attention. Spread the word about this terrific new resource. Test The Spirits rejects the isolation and vilification of Israel under the banner of Christian values. It’s an unreserved and heartfelt vindication of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. http://www.cecisrael.org/

Posted by David Gerstman on July 15, 2015 13 Comments
President Obama defended his deal to Iran to Thomas Friedman of The New York Times yesterday. It was a bad deal and it represented a retreat on nearly every single element of the deal. In any case this is what Obama told Friedman:
“We are not measuring this deal by whether it is changing the regime inside of Iran,” said the president. “We’re not measuring this deal by whether we are solving every problem that can be traced back to Iran, whether we are eliminating all their nefarious activities around the globe. We are measuring this deal — and that was the original premise of this conversation, including by Prime Minister Netanyahu — Iran could not get a nuclear weapon. That was always the discussion. And what I’m going to be able to say, and I think we will be able to prove, is that this by a wide margin is the most definitive path by which Iran will not get a nuclear weapon, and we will be able to achieve that with the full cooperation of the world community and without having to engage in another war in the Middle East.”
And what about the opposition to the deal?

Posted by David Gerstman on July 12, 2015 14 Comments
President Barack Obama has, at least since 2012, claimed that he has Israel's back regarding his engagement with Iran. But as the Iran nuke negotiations move closer to an agreement, with reports it could happen by tomorrow, it is clear that Obama's words are empty rhetoric. In May ahead of his talk at a Washington D.C. synagogue, Obama said it once again, telling Jeffrey Goldberg, "It’s because I think they recognize, having looked at my history and having seen the actions of my administration, that I’ve got Israel’s back..." Events of this past week gives lie to Obama's contention. No this deal won't make Israel safer. But let's check what Iranians are saying. Last week, for example, Iran's former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, someone often called a "moderate" and an ally of current president, Hassan Rouhani, threatened to "wipe Israel off the map."
In response to a question why the Zionist regime has done its best to prevent the path for reaching a nuclear agreement between Iran and the West, Ayatollah Rafsanjani said that even Tel Aviv knows well that Iran is not after acquiring nuclear weapons.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 13, 2015 9 Comments
As a direct result of Obama's amateurish, quasi-idealistic, and completely ideological failings in Iraq, we will almost certainly end up sending ground troops back in order to undo the damage wrought by the failed Obama doctrine. Obama knows this, of course, and his plan is to run out the clock rather than make the decision that needs to be—and will be—made by the next president.  The National Journal reports:
On using U.S. combat troops? In a detailed interview with The Atlantic, Obama made his view clear. "If they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them," he said, but added that he's committed to training Iraqis over a "multi-year" period. How many, exactly, is "multi?" State Department official and ISIS expert Brett McGurk laid that out on NPR: "It's a three-year campaign to degrade the organization." Three years marked from mid-2014, of course, falls after Jan. 20, 2017, the date Obama leaves office. Translation: The strategy is to avoid sending ground troops for the remainder of his term. So stop asking.

Posted by David Gerstman on June 03, 2015 21 Comments
President Obama's speech a week and a half ago at Washington D.C. synagogue Adas Israel was alternatively promoted as both an opportunity to address the scourge of anti-semitism, and a chance to reach out to American Jews. The speech did nothing to advance either goal and was tone-deaf to any Jews, or Americans for that matter, who don't buy into the president's foreign policy. As far as his reaching out, the president simply rehashed all of his administration's arguments about closing off Iran's paths to a nuclear weapon. He offered nothing new. Of course, he said that the deal he's trying to make with Iran will make Israel safer. He made a point of saying that he shares the goal with Israel of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; but he said it with no real conviction. He was just repeating a talking point. Repeating all of his talking points isn't going to convince someone who doesn't already agree with him. Notably, he repeated his 2012 line about having Israel's back. But with Israel's political establishment - Isaac Herzog is no less skeptical of the emerging deal than Benjamin Netanyahu is - doubting the efficacy of the ongoing diplomacy, that claim hardly seems credible. He says that he welcomes debate, but the night before Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress, Obama gave an interview to Reuters attempting to undercut Netanyahu's arguments.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 22, 2015 8 Comments
When in 1993 Israel and the PLO agreed to make peace, PLO chief Yasser Arafat committed to forswear violence and engage in bilateral negotiations. The thousands of Israelis killed, especially during the so-called Aqsa intifada - really a terror campaign orchestrated by Arafat - show that the Palestinians didn't keep to the first commitment. The ongoing lawfare campaigns against Israel in the United Nations and other international organizations show that they haven't kept the second either. The latest manifestation of this lawfare against Israel to make the news is the effort by Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) to suspend Israel from FIFA, the governing body of international soccer. Sepp Blatter, the controversial president of FIFA is trying to defuse the situation. He is also running for reelection. At FIFA's Congress later this month Rajoub wants to bring his motion to a vote. To suspend Israel would require a three fourths vote against Israel. The problem is that Israel has not violated any of FIFA's bylaws. But that doesn't mean that Rajoub won't try.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 13, 2015 3 Comments
A couple of remarkable news reports have been broadcast in recent days about the care given Syrians wounded in the civil war across the border. One - the more dramatic one - was at the Israeli news site Ynet (affiliated with the daily Yedioth Ahronot); the other at CNN. The Ynet article written and narrated by one of the paper's top journalists, Ron Ben-Yishai told of an injured man -likely a jihadist - who was severely injured by a bullet to the stomach and shrapnel wounds. Israel has "trusted intermediaries," on the other side  of the border who communicate when there is an injured person who needs treatment in Israel. Most of the injured are woman, children and the elderly. However there are also younger men, such as the subject of the article. In this case the Israeli were told that without a hospital the man would die. Despite having contacts in Syria, the Israelis know who's on the other side of the border on the Golan Heights, so they have to take care:
At around 8 pm on the day the wounded Syrian was transferred, parties on the Syrian side announced they were approaching the fence. The Israeli ambulance and paramedics readied themselves, while Givati troops received a briefing and then headed out to the fence area. Their role is to make sure that those who sent the wounded citizens to the area had not laden them with explosives, as well as to ensure that the wounded person was not bait in a scheme designed to lure IDF troops into an ambush. Considering the information Israel has on its new neighbors across the border on the Golan Heights – these extra precautions are necessary. Half an hour later, the commander of the forces stationed near the border gave approval to send out the armored vehicle carrying the paramedics to collect the wounded citizen, who was already waiting on the Israeli side.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 10, 2015 3 Comments
Late Friday afternoon Reuters had a huge scoop. Inspectors found traces of prohibited chemical weapons at a previously undeclared site in Syria.
Samples taken by experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition and Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in December and January tested positive for chemical precursors needed to make the toxic agents, the sources told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because the information is confidential. "This is a pretty strong indication they have been lying about what they did with sarin," one diplomatic source said. "They have so far been unable to give a satisfactory explanation about this finding." ... The diplomatic sources said the sarin and VX nerve samples were taken from the Scientific Studies and Research Centre, a government agency where Western intelligence agencies say Syria developed biological and chemical weapons.
After it was established that Syria had used chemical weapons against civilians in a Damascus suburb, President Barack Obama said that he would seek Congressional authorization to use force. But in the end chose the path of diplomacy to deal with Syria's breach of international conventions by using chemical weapons. The deal, agreed to with Russia, a patron of Syria, called for Syria to declare all of its chemical weapons sites, destroy their chemical stores and destroy their means for making them. At the very least, Friday's news means that Syria did not fully comply with its obligations under the deal. At the worst it suggests that despite the hoopla about Syria destroying thousands of tons of chemical agents, Syria has an active chemical weapons program still remaining. (This is in addition to Syria's use of chlorine, which is prohibited for use as a weapon, even if chlorine is not prohibited to possess.) This wouldn't be the first time Syria has been caught cheating. In October of last year Syria admitted to having four chemical weapons facilities that it had not previously declared. Worse than that, The New York Times reported in January that the administration had informed Assad that the United States will train rebels to fight ISIS, not Syria.

Posted by David Gerstman on May 08, 2015 12 Comments
Iran released the Maersk Tigris, the cargo ship it seized at sea last week. The New York Times reports:
The Maersk Line, the Danish shipping giant, confirmed in a statement that the vessel and its 24-member crew, forced to anchor near Iran’s southern port of Bandar Abbas since its seizure on April 28, were now free and en route to the port of Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates. ... The Maersk Tigris is registered in the Marshall Islands. It is managed and staffed by Rickmers Shipmanagement, a subsidiary of Germany’s Rickmers Group, a maritime services company, which reported that the crew was in good condition. ... The apparent stand-down reflected what political analysts called a wish by both Iran and the United States to avert an escalation of tensions that could sabotage the nuclear talks between Iran and a group of six powers that includes the United States.
From the language of the report it appears that Maersk agreed to a settlement of the claim an Iranian company had against it. CBS offered the judgment of one of its security analysts.
The Iranian decision to board the vessel was "a reflection of the fact that tensions are running very high, and these tensions don't really have borders," explained CBS News senior national security analyst Juan Zarate. "These are conflicts that are happening on the ground, they're happening in the shipping lanes, and there are places and points of vulnerability that could... serve as flashpoints for conflict."

Posted by David Gerstman on April 15, 2015 10 Comments
There have been a number of reactions to the Corker-Menendez bill, which provides for Congressional oversight of whatever nuclear deal the administration makes with Iran. It passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday with a 19-0 vote. J. E. Dyer at Liberty Unyielding looks at the numbers and sees the bill as a loss.
If Congress rejects the Iran deal, and the president vetoes its legislation, Congress will have the balance of a 52-day period to override the veto. If the Senate finds itself unable to act, at some point in this process, Obama’s deal can be implemented without assent from the Senate. To override a veto, of course, opponents will need 67 votes. To uphold a veto, Obama just has to make sure there are 34 votes for his deal. He doesn’t have to have even 51 votes to implement it. With 34, he’s got a major win. The beauty of this for Obama is that he still gets a win if the Senate at any point can’t bring a floor vote. His deal just gets implemented because the Senate failed to act. So it won’t matter if the president has 34 votes for the Iran deal, but not enough to bring the deal to a vote. The win for Obama is merely less photogenic in that case. The effect is the same.

Posted by David Gerstman on April 09, 2015 9 Comments
I visited the State Department's website earlier this week and I was greeted by an item hailing the 45th anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). After hailing the treaty the article goes on to say more explicitly, "[i]f we didn’t already have the NPT, we would desperately need it today." A couple of paragraphs later the article boasts about the latest efforts to strengthen the NPT.
The United States is committed to strengthening the nonproliferation regime and the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency to implement nuclear safeguards -- a set of measures to verify that nuclear materials are used for peaceful purposes. The Treaty provides the foundation and context to resolve outstanding challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The ongoing negotiations with Iran provide the best diplomatic path forward for Iran to return to full compliance with the NPT. The IAEA instills confidence among all NPT parties that a state’s civil nuclear energy is not being diverted into a nefarious weapons program. In New York, the United States will promote the IAEA Additional Protocol, now recognized as the foremost international standard for safeguards that provides the IAEA with the authority to ensure that all nuclear material is used for peaceful purposes, in accordance with the NPT.

Posted by David Gerstman on February 22, 2015 13 Comments
An effort last week to marshal Congressional Democrats to urge House Speaker John Boehner to delay Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Congressional speech next month gained the support of only 23 out of 188 House Democrats. There is more than one way to explain this. Here's administration defender Greg Sargent of The Washington Post.
Some House Democrats have circulated a letter calling on House Speaker John Boehner to delay the speech, on the grounds that it represents a partisan effort by Republicans to enlist the help of a foreign leader in scuttling one of the President’s chief foreign policy goals, i.e., reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, which Netanyahu bitterly opposes. ... All in all, the failure of more Democrats to sign this letter suggests many still fear the politics of appearing out of sync with whatever Israel wants. It’s true that a number of Democrats have said they will skip the speech. But many of those have clarified that this isn’t due to any organized boycott, and far more are attending. And, really, all the talk of a “boycott” is misdirection. It shouldn’t be all that difficult for Democrats to call for a mere delay in this speech, while rebuffing efforts to portray such a move as “anti-Israel,” given how egregious the circumstances surrounding this event really are.
(It's important to note that Sargent quotes a poll showing that most Americans are unhappy with the way the invitation was extended - i.e. dissatisfaction with Boehner's actions, other polls show strong American support for Netanyahu speaking.) Not surprisingly Sargent uses his cherry-picked data point to point out the the big bad Israel lobby as the culprit.(In blaming the pro-Israel lobby, Sargent took a page from the playbook of President Obama who, last month, according to The New York Times, effectively accused Sen. Robert Menendez of not loving his country enough, "The president said he understood the pressures that senators face from donors and others, but he urged the lawmakers to take the long view rather than make a move for short-term political gain, according to the senator.")

Posted by David Gerstman on February 08, 2015 8 Comments
Is the Palestinian Authority interested in peace? Although you probably knew the answer, we now have more proof that the PA directly rewards terrorism against Israel, and has developed a process to determine how much to reward terrorists based upon how serious the terror act was. Edwin Black reported Friday that unsealed documents not only show that the Palestinian Authority (PA) paid terrorists, but had a formula for rewarding terrorist acts against Israel.
Thousands of documents, newly obtained by this reporter through a lawsuit to unseal court-protected files, demonstrate that these payouts are not blind automated payments. Rather, senior Palestinian Authority officials as high as President Mahmoud Abbas scrutinize the details of each case, the specific carnage caused, and the personal details of each terrorist act before approving salaries and awarding honorary ranks in either the PA government or the military. Ministry of Prisoners spokesman Amr Nasser has explained, “We are very proud of this program and we have nothing to hide.” Nonetheless, in response to the international furor over the payments, the Palestinian Authority announced last year it would replace the Ministry of Prisoners with an outside PLO commission known as the Higher National Commission for Prisoners and Detainees Affairs.
Black provided an example of this system:
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