A Working Plan?

One wonders how an Israeli security chief can be naïve when it comes to the Americans, but with this week’s report that Benny Gantz had “intimate” and “positive” interactions with Joe Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan…one can wonder.

Sullivan apparently gave Gantz what he said Israel “needed,” that being a credible military threat to Iran, in the face of ongoing negotiations over Barack Obama’s sinister “Iran Deal.” The “deal,” which fails because it doesn’t hold Iran’s feet to the fire, has been widely panned as giving the mullahs time to develop nuclear weapons—something the deal is ostensibly supposed to prevent.

You see, in today’s American diplomacy, the regime in Washington lies both to its own citizens and to its best allies.

I do not believe Jake Sullivan about anything.

A Times of Israel report went like this:

“The official said Israel has two main concerns with regard to the potential deal: the so-called sunset clause, which will lift limitations on Iran’s nuclear program when the accord expires; and sanctions relief that would allow Iran to increase funding to its proxies.

“The official added that Israel has attempted to influence the deal in certain aspects as much as possible, but ‘as of now, it is far from serving Israel’s interests as it sees it.’ Israel seeks to make the deal ‘longer and stronger,’ the official said.”

And here is a key comment:

“Provided a new deal is signed, Israeli officials say they expect Iran to significantly ramp up funding for its proxies in the Middle East, including the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group on Israel’s northern frontier.”

This to me is madness. The West shows weakness by proposing open negotiations with the Iranians, who have done nothing in response but threaten both America and Israel. Who deals with enemies like this? I’ve read that Obama genuinely thought he could talk in good faith with Iran. This proves one of two things: he is either a clueless dupe, or he is complicit in helping terrorists threaten the West.

What the above quote shows is that even if a “deal” is signed, Iran will continue to spread terrorism worldwide.

The excellent ambassador Danny Danon rightly signals that a deal with Iran is a bad thing. He lives in reality.

“Tensions are high in Israel, as it is felt that once again the most disastrous of deals, the Iran nuclear deal, is being rushed to conclusion, its timing coinciding with the uncertain political situation in Israel. Despite persistent warnings from Israel and the region’s moderate Arab countries, the deal’s signatories, the P5+1 — namely Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany — are insisting on hurtling into an agreement that in just a few years will legitimize the very nuclear activity that the deal is meant to be preventing. Moreover, with Iran all but having achieved nuclear capabilities, the Iran nuclear deal, which was supposed to grant Iran sanctions relief in return for a tight rein on its nuclear program, is now futile.

“What makes it even more disastrous in 2022 is that not only is it a shorter and weaker deal than ever before, all known violations by the Iranian regime are being brushed aside. The deal also entirely ignores Iran’s obsession with terror and its funding of terror proxies in the region and turns a blind eye to Iran’s development of long-range ballistic missiles. Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, funding regional terror groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and (Palestinian) Islamic Jihad. Just this August, Iran was instrumental in training, smuggling weapons and sponsoring the most recent attack on Israel by Islamic Jihad when over 1,000 rockets rained down from Gaza.

“All this will be conveniently whitewashed by the deal’s signatories.”

Danon then gets to the heart of the matter, the utter insanity inherent in this deal:

“Most worryingly, and to make a disastrous deal even more horrifying, the Iranian terrorist regime will be presented with billions of dollars, estimated to be in the region of over $200 billion, that will undoubtedly be plowed into subsequent terror attacks region-wide. In essence, this illogical agreement will enrich and empower Iran and unshackle it to continue its export of terror and step up its atrocities.”

Why do we fund our enemies? It makes no sense. Danon knows full well that Israel is better off going it alone against Iran, although the country’s strengthened ties with Arab states—themselves threatened by Iran in the ongoing Sunni-Shia conflict (much like the Hatfields and McCoys). He said that the West feels that Iran’s threat is not really existential, since those nations’ borders are so far from Iran.

But an enemy as implacable as Iran cannot be dealt with in this way. The Islamic terror state must be utterly defeated.

America currently does not have the leadership/will to do that. I believe in the end, Israel will have to act alone.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Yair Doin’ Good, Kid

Yair Lapid might just be in campaign mode, but he’s making some good moves in his caretaker prime minister role, after the year-long reign of Naftali Bennett came to an end.

My general sense of him the last several years is that he’s just another garden-variety political opportunist united with several in their efforts to get rid of Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s probably not an illegitimate assessment.

But Lapid has somewhat surprised with some good decisions and strong statements that lets the world know—and specifically, Israel’s regional enemies—he is no pushover.

His latest is publicly saying that the world should walk away from the so-called Iran Deal (launched by that fiend, Barack Obama, and his team of anti-American/anti-Israel advisors). Rather than deal with Iran from strength, as Donald Trump did, this “deal” allows the Iranians to continue their drive for nuclear weapons. It kicks certain things down the road and most importantly, gives the state sponsor of terrorism more time to develop nukes.

From the Times of Israel:

“’The Europeans sent Iran a final offer, which doesn’t even meet the demands that the Americans committed to, and established that this offer was ‘take it or leave it,’ said a senior Israeli official at the highest level of decision-making on Thursday.

“’Iran turned down the offer, and the time has come to get up and walk away,’ the official continued. ‘Anything else sends a strong message of weakness.’”

Frankly, the diabolical Joe Biden Regime in Washington is driving this as much as anything, in terms of projecting weakness.

(I’ve long thought that Obama intentionally projected weakness, first because he hates America and secondly, he wanted to take practical steps to place us on equal footing with the Frances of the world. Remember our credit-rating downgrade?)

“Israel believes Iran wishes to build a nuclear bomb, and has reportedly carried out sabotage operations within the Islamic Republic to delay the development of such a weapon.

“Iran has denied any nefarious intentions and claims its program is designed for peaceful purposes, though it has recently been enriching uranium to levels that international leaders say have no civil use.

“Two major roadblocks remain in the negotiations if Tehran does want to return to the deal: Iran is demanding an end to International Atomic Energy Agency investigations into its nuclear program, and wants guarantees to cover the possibility of the US ditching the agreement again in the future.”

That last sentence is interesting, since international leaders still fear a return to office for Donald Trump, who would no doubt be even more forceful in confronting the mullahs.

For his part, Biden is worse than weak. I believe he is a mendacious figure and not quite so doddering. He is part of an international criminal cabal, and helping Iran is in his best interests financially.

Closer to home for Israel, the Iranians still continue their mischief by bankrolling various terrorist entities, including and especially Hamas. The following item from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is obviously written from an Iranian propaganda perspective, but there is one tantalizing sentence that I hope you pick up on:

“On August 6, the Secretary General of PIJ, Ziad al-Nakhleh, met with the Commander of the IRGC, Hossein Salami. In the meeting, Salami insisted that the decline of the power of the Zionists is an unavoidable process that cannot be reversed, and that the liberation of Jerusalem is near. He asserted that Israel, frustrated due to the inability of the United States to protect it, is trying to build closer relations with some Arab countries to strengthen itself, but this strategy cannot save it, and the weakness of the Zionist regime prevents it from fulfilling its ambitions. Salami argued that the weakness and helplessness of the Zionists are becoming clearer day by day, while the power of the Palestinians becomes more apparent. He added that the Zionists are crumbling from within, and it is possible that the Palestinian resistance will not need to wage war to bring about Israel’s collapse. He stressed the unyielding support of the Islamic Republic to the Palestinians and the ‘resistance’, and condemned the Israeli actions in Gaza, asserting that the Zionists will pay a heavy price for their crimes. He averred that the swift response of the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli attack indicates that the resistance is now at an evolved stage of its power. Al-Nakhleh thanked Salami for Iran’s support, led by Ali Khamenei, to the Palestinians, and proclaimed that the Islamic resistance achieved significant advances in its military capabilities, and this trend will persist. He added that Iran’s defiance in the face of the United States and Israel provides strength to the Palestinian people and to the other forces of resistance (Tasnim, August 6).”

Did you catch that? The “liberation of Jerusalem is near.”

At the moment, there is a fascinating synergy between terror states like Iran and “respectable” Western countries. That close coordination is born I think from frustration that the Oslo Accords have to this point not destroyed Israel by creating a Palestinian state. For many years I have believed that Palestinian statehood, at least the prospect of it, and the status of Jerusalem would be the spark that would ignite the war described in the book of Zechariah.

We are closer than ever to that moment.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com