Paper distributed by senior Likud minister queries immediate sanctions relief, failure to secure ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections, and other alleged central flaws in Lausanne framework agreement

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF April 6, 2015,

Israel on Monday posed 10 questions to the US-led negotiators with Iran that it said underlined “the extent of the irresponsible concessions given to Iran” in the framework agreement reached last Thursday, and made clear “how dangerous the framework is for Israel, the region and the world.”

The questions were listed in a document distributed by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, a Likud party member and confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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PM says alternative to the new, ‘bad deal’ with Iran is not war, but ‘standing firm for better deal’; Feinstein: This can backfire on him

TOI

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that the political framework for a nuclear deal with Iran reached Thursday in Switzerland would keep Tehran’s vast nuclear program in place, and that its inter-continental ballistic missile system (ICBM) — an issue not addressed in the deal — was more of a threat to the US than to Israel.

Speaking to CNN as part of a US media blitz, the Israeli prime minister said the deal will not roll back Iran’s nuclear program. The deal “keeps Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure in place, not a single centrifuge destroyed, not a single nuclear facility shut down, including the underground facilities that they built illicitly. Thousands of centrifuges will keep spinning, enriching uranium, that’s a very bad deal.”

“They’re getting a free path to the bomb,” he said.
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Must see Friedman interview of Obama on April 4/15. He focusses on this deal and the Israeli perspective. Obama presents himself as Israel’s best friend.

Jewish Press summarizes:Obama Espouses his Iran Strategy: If, If, If and Blind Hope
VERIFYING IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL NOT POSSIBLE, EXPERTS SAY

By J.P. Golbert, AMERICAN THINKER

An interim deal has been made with Iran, ignoring the admonitions of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and capitulating to Iran on all important points.  There has been much written about how Arab countries will respond but not much about the possible Israeli response.

The Obama administration had essentially two reactions to Netanyahu’s address to Congress: Netanyahu said nothing new and offered no alternative to the agreement being negotiated with Iran.  The former is irrelevant; the issue is not whether Netanyahu said anything new.  The relevant question is whether what he said is true.  If so, then it bears repeating, because the Obama administration has lost sight of the goal, which was, ostensibly at least, to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability.

As to the latter, the Obama administration has a point, in a way.  What Netanyahu said is the truth and nothing but the truth, but he did not tell the whole truth.
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T. Belman. This is the same guy that cut off our military supplies during last Gaza war, shut down our international aviation for a day, is trying to force us to go back to indefensible borders, that interfered in our elections, that put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt, that is backing away from most international commitments for the safety of allies, that pulled US troops out of Iraq, that abandoned Yemen, That partners with Qatar, Turkey and Iran, all enemies of Israel, That didn’t insist on Iran changing or stop threatening or promising to destroy Israel, and on and on and we’re supposed to believe him. Like Golda Meir said to the then President, “by the time you honour your commitment, we’ll be dead”.

These remarks and more were said in an interview of Obama by Thomas Friedman. MUST WATCH. on April 4/15

President casts Iran talks as part of broader foreign policy, says rift with Israel pained him on a personal level.

YNET

US President Barack Obama sought to allay Israeli fears over the agreement the US and other world powers have reached with Iran on its nuclear program, telling the New York Times on Sunday that “if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there.”

“I have to respect the fears that the Israeli people have,” Obama said, “and I understand that Prime Minister Netanyahu is expressing the deep-rooted concerns that a lot of the Israeli population feel about this, but what I can say to them is: Number one, this is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon, and number two, what we will be doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with Israel, America will be there.
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PA president angry that Israel took out a third of the funds to pay for services rendered to the Palestinian population by Israel, including electricity, water, and hospital services.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH , JPOST

Abbas on Sunday complained that Israel deducted one-third of the tax revenues it recently transferred to the Palestinian Authority after a delay of several months, and threatened to file a complaint with the International Criminal Court.

He threatened to return the funds while speaking with reporters during a ceremony to inaugurate a new park in El-Bireh, the twin city of Ramallah.

“We will return the money. Either they give us all the money or we go to the court.
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The capacity of leftist Westerners, including Jews, to proudly embrace and “promote” their enemies is astounding.

Prof. Phyllis Chesler, INN

“There is an apocalyptic dimension to global Jihad. Jihadists believe they are engaged in a ‘sacred task’ to redeem the world via conquest. We hide our eyes while they do not hide their intentions.”

Please meet Professor Richard Landes, a medieval historian who specializes in apocalyptic movements. He knows what he is talking about. Landes delivered a stellar speech earlier this week for the Institute for Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP).

We sat around a table in a well-appointed room which serves as the ISGAP office in New York City. We were an attentive and appreciative audience.
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The Lausanne agreement is evidence of just how hard – and successfully – the Iranians fought to preserve the essential components for creating nuclear weapons.

By Alex Fishman, YNET

Just guard me from my friends; from my enemies, I’ll guard myself. We are forced to learn this age-old lesson each time anew.

The document agreed upon and signed in Lausanne on Thursday by the best of our friends from around the world makes no mention of nuclear development for peaceful purposes. Nothing in the clauses outlined in the declaration of principles indicates that Iran’s nuclear program for military purposes will be converted into a program designed to further civilian-scientific objectives.

On the contrary; the document is evidence of just how hard, and successfully too, the Iranians fought to preserve the essential components for creating nuclear weapons. And this is an indication of the strategic importance Iran attributes to its military nuclear program, and the price it is willing to pay to protect it.
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State Department says agreement with Tehran is ‘only about nuclear issue’. White House bids to prevent congressional interference

BY ITAMAR SHARON AND AP

The US State Department rejected over the weekend Israel’s demand that any final deal with Iran on its nuclear program include recognition of Israel’s right to exist, saying that was not the issue at hand.

“This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Friday night, according to Fox News. “This is an agreement that doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it.”

Meanwhile the New York Times reported that the White House was already making intense efforts to sell the emerging deal to a reluctant Congress, in order to prevent legislators from blocking the accord.
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Egypt lets Israel use its airspace

By Gil Ronen, INN

Arab news sources reported at week’s end that an unidentified jet believed to be Israeli destroyed warehouses in southern Libya that held weapons bought by Iran for Hamas.

According to the reports in Al Watan and other news outlets, the warehouses were completely destroyed. The weapons that were inside them had allegedly been purchased by Iran, by means of weapons dealers in Sudan and Chad, and were supposed to be smuggled to Hamas through Egypt, by means of the smuggling tunnels between Sinai ands Gaza.

The destruction of the weapons stores in southern Libya was carried out in coordination with the Egyptian security and intelligence apparatuses, the reports claimed.

Al Watan added that Egypt allowed the Israeli jet to pass through its airspace en route to southern Libya.

Declared differences over what was agreed in Lausanne relate to issues such as when sanctions will be lifted and how long enrichment restrictions will apply

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF

Two days after the US-led powers and Iran hailed a historic framework understanding designed to ensure Iran’s nuclear program not enable it to build nuclear weapons, a leading Israeli analyst on Saturday highlighted six gaping areas of discrepancy between American and Iranian accounts of what the agreement actually entails.

Ehud Ya’ari, Middle East analyst for Israel’s Channel 2 News and an international fellow at the Washington Institute think tank, said the six discrepancies represent “very serious gaps” at the heart of the framework accord. They relate to issues as basic as when sanctions will be lifted, and how long restrictions on uranium enrichment will remain in place.
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By Cathy Burke, NEWSMAX

A longstanding alliance between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party no longer appears very durable.

The rift — aggravated by a nuclear deal with Iran and sour relations between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — will likely have political implications in the 2016 elections, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“At this moment in time, many American Jews who have consistently voted Democratic are beginning to waver in that support, because they’ve felt the bedrock relationship between Israel and this administration has been severely shaken,” Rabbi Howard Buechler, of the Dix Hills Jewish Center in New York, told the Journal.
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By Caroline Glick, JPOST

The world powers assembled at Lausanne, Switzerland, with the representatives of the Islamic Republic may or may not reach a framework deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But succeed or fail, the disaster that their negotiations have unleashed is already unfolding. The damage they have caused is irreversible.

US President Barack Obama, his advisers and media cheerleaders have long presented his nuclear diplomacy with the Iran as the only way to avoid war. Obama and his supporters have castigated as warmongers those who oppose his policy of nuclear appeasement with the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.

But the opposite is the case. Had their view carried the day, war could have been averted.
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

None so deaf as those that will not hear. None so blind as those that will not see.

– Matthew Henry (1662–1714)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

– An aphorism of uncertain origins, sometimes attributed to Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

One might expect that any support for a single state among Israeli Jews would come from the far Left… Recently, proposals to grant Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank, including the right to vote for the Knesset, have emerged from a surprising direction: right-wing stalwarts… We should watch how this debate develops and engage and encourage it carefully.

– Ali Abunimah, “Israeli Right embracing one-state?” Al Jazeera, August 29, 2010

One of the most astonishing and alarming developments that has emerged from the tumultuous events that have taken place in the Israeli political system in recent years is the dramatic convergence of its two allegedly antipodal extremes.
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David Goldman, PJ MEDIA

Liberals believe that social engineering can bring about universal success; conservatives want to foster individual responsibility and initiative. For liberals, the failure of an individual is a failure of society; for conservatives, individuals should be allowed to succeed or fail on their own merits. There are degrees, of course; most conservatives eschew Social Darwinism or Ayn Rand’s egotism, and most liberals do not believe in the strict application of the Communist maxim, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” But that is the bright line that divides us conservatives from the liberals.
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By Isi Leibler, ISRAEL HAYOM

It is ironic that as we prepare to celebrate Passover, the festival of freedom, we are facing vicious efforts by the vindictive leader of the United States, our greatest ally, who is abandoning us — the only democratic state in a region suffused with barbarism.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obliged to respond diplomatically to the outrageous provocations directed against him by U.S. President Barack Obama. But we, Israel’s citizens, must rise above political correctness and come to terms with an unpleasant reality.

The president of the United States, the leader of the free world and of Western civilization, is not merely venting his personal frustration against Netanyahu or throwing temper tantrums over the Israeli public’s decision to re-elect him. Obama himself stresses that he is motivated by ideological reasons that can be traced back to the Cairo speech he delivered after his first election victory.
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Head of the IDF Planning Directorate Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer tells Israel Hayom that “Israel will do whatever is best for Israel” if it feels Iran threatens its existence, even if it means defying the U.S. • “Any true partner would accept that,” he says.

Yoav Limor, ISRAEL HAYOM

Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer | Photo credit: Ziv Koren

When asked whether he could feasibly envision a situation in which Israel’s air force bombs an Iranian nuclear facility contrary to U.S. directives, Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer told Israel Hayom that “since it has happened in the past, I have no reason to believe it won’t happen again.”

Sheffer, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Planning Directorate, warned of the perils of the nuclear deal currently being negotiated between Iran and key world powers. “The agreement, the way it is coming together at this time, will not be good for Israel. If ultimately an agreement is in fact signed, we will have to ask ourselves, ‘Okay, what are we going to do with this?’ If someone builds a bomb and at the same time declares that Israel has no right to exist, we have to think about how to respond.”
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Talk is cheap, but meaningless in the Middle East. Look at what they do, not at what they say.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, INN

Analysis of the events that occurred over the last few years in the Middle East, shows that the most powerful, central and influential component of these events is not a verbal one – not speeches, promises, documents and agreements. What counts are actions on the ground and the accompanying threats of violence.

There is no dearth of examples that prove this rule:

Egypt is the most obvious. In June 2012, Mohamed Morsi was elected to the presidency, in the first ever democratic elections held in Egypt. A little over a year later, in July 2013, Defense Minister Abd el Fatah al-Sisi arose and deposed Morsi. The world erupted, Obama reached the boiling point, and the USA froze its military aid to Egypt. Everyone demanded that Sisi put Morsi back in office, but he refused. Then Sisi held democratic elections and won. This week – twenty months after Morsi was deposed – Obama finally realized that his dream of bringing about Muslim Brotherhood hegemony over the entire Middle East has to be put on hold. He phoned Sisi and told him that the US will renew military aid to Egypt. Sisi’s stubbornness paid off in a big way, and the Egyptian general succeeded in forcing his agenda on the President of the United States.
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T. Belman. This article doesn’t make mention of the fact that Israel of necessity, must spend a much higher percent of its budget on defense that European countries spend.

Israel shells out almost a fifth of national budget on defense, figures show
State spending is more than six times what industrialized nations and Arab countries drop, on average; in 2011, defense cost the Israeli economy about NIS 66.8 billion – more than 50% on salaries.

Bank of Israel says GDP per capita 14% lower than OECD average; BoI chief says Israel need NIS 2B rise in tax revenue.

Gad Lior, YNET

When it comes to poverty, social gaps, education and long work hours, Israel, in relation to many Western countries, has a lot of catching up to do, according to the Bank of Israel’s Annual Report for 2014.

The report also notes that GDP per capita and per work hour in Israel is 14 percent lower than the OECD average, and that the gap in labor productivity has not narrowed since the 1970s.
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