Israelis Weigh In on Iranian Deal
JERUSALEM, Israel -- While President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry praised Tuesday's deal with Iran, Israeli leaders determined to pull together on this issue despite their differences.
On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed opposition leader and Labor Party chairman Yitzhak Herzog on the security implications of the agreement signed by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany.
Netanyahu stressed the need "to show the world a unified front on this issue, which is linked to Israel's most significant national interest."
The fact that there is agreement between the coalition and the opposition on this issue, he said, is especially important at this time.
Herzog, for his part, reiterated earlier remarks that it is indeed a "bad deal" and promised to do his utmost on behalf of Israel's security in the new situation that's been created.
A day earlier however, at a Zionist Union faction meeting, Herzog called the Iranian deal the prime minister's "worst failure."
"We have a long list of complaints about Netanyahu, but this is without question his worst failure," Herzog told faction members. "We will yet make him give an accounting for failing to force the negotiating nations to take Israel's issues into consideration."
On his Facebook page, Herzog said the "personal rift" between Obama and Netanyahu factored into Israel's exclusion from a deal that threatens its very existence.
"One of the most severe issues in the current situation is that the deal with the highest effect in this generation on Israel's existence was signed without Israel in the picture," Herzog wrote. "Without consulting Israel, without updating Israel, Israel's interests have been forsaken, due, among other reasons, to the personal rift between Netanyahu and the U.S. president."
Meanwhile, Israeli U.S. Ambassador Ron Dermer outlined the agreement's four major problems in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
First, he wrote, it leaves Iran's vast nuclear infrastructure intact while allowing it to hone centrifuge development and its intercontinental ballistic missile program, all with minimal concern for oversight.
Second, Dermer pointed out, the restrictions on its nuclear program are temporary at best, with the most important ones expiring in a decade.
Third it not only paves the way for Iran to develop nuclear bombs, it precipitates nuclear proliferation, allowing "the most dangerous region on earth to get infinitely more dangerous."
And fourth, it transfers some $150 billion from frozen foreign bank accounts to Iran, which Dermer says "is the equivalent of $8 trillion flowing into the U.S. treasury."
It's highly unlikely those funds will benefit the people of Iran, Dermer said.
"Instead tens of billions are likely to flow to the Shiite militias in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian terror groups in Gaza and other Iranian terror proxies in the region," he concluded.
