Kabul 2021 vs. Saigon 1975

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, August 18, 2021

Kabul 2021 may resemble Saigon 1975 yet there is a crucial difference – and not the one Seth Frantzman mentions (“Kabul disaster isn’t like Saigon, where US saved thousands in 1975,” August 16). The West in 1975 understood Communist ideology very well. The West today has yet to do its homework on Islamic “Medina” ideology.

It is therefore imperative that in view of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Aug 4 warning that “Iran is 10 weeks from breakout to a nuclear weapon,” Israel should make its own decisions and not be distracted by the Biden administration whose understanding of the Shia “Twelvers” in Iran is no better than their understanding of the Taliban Sunni jihadists in Afghanistan.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC 

Beersheba

Gantz: Iran is 10 weeks from breakout to a nuclear weapon

 The Jerusalem Post

By LAHAV HARKOV, TOVAH LAZAROFF 

 

Iran will be able to break out to a nuclear weapon within 10 weeks, Defense Minister Benny Gantz told diplomats from UN Security Council member states on Wednesday.

“Iran has violated all of the guidelines set in the JCPOA [nuclear agreement] and is only around 10 weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon,” Gantz warned.

 “Therefore,” he added, “it is time to act. The world must apply economic sanctions and take operative action against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

 In recent weeks, top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Gantz have expressed alarm to the US and others that Iran is taking advantage of a long pause in negotiations to return to the JCPOA to dramatically advance its nuclear program. The talks have been on hold since June, and the regime in Tehran says they will not restart at least until after its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, forms a new government later this month.

 Gantz’s remarks were made in a presentation with Lapid to diplomats from UN Security Council member states on Wednesday, as part of a push by Israel for the UNSC to sanction Iran for its maritime attacks, including on the Mercer Street, which is managed by an Israeli company, and Asphalt Princess in the Gulf in the past week.

 Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud repeated Riyadh's stance at a virtual conference of the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday that it could live with a "longer and stronger" version of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if it ensured Tehran never obtained nuclear arms know-how.

 "We certainly support a deal with Iran as long as that deal ensures that Iran will not now or ever gain access to nuclear weapons technology," he said, saying Riyadh would welcome an Iran that contributed to regional stability and prosperity.

 "But that would require (Iran) engaging in the region as a state actor in a normal way..., not supporting militias, not sending weapons to armed groups, and most importantly, giving up a nuclear program which might be used... to develop nuclear weapons."

 Reuters contributed to this report

 

My comment:

If this is true Israel has no choice but to preempt.

 

Douglas Murray at his best - Israel & Nuclear Iran

 

Navi Pillay returns

 

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, July 26, 2021

 

Regarding “Israel critics comprise UNHRC’s permanent war-crimes probe,” Lahav Harkov, July 22

“International jurist Navi Pillay has been tapped to head the United Nations Human Rights Council’s permanent three-person probe into alleged Israeli war crimes.”

This is the same Pillay who in 2014 suggested that Israel should be sharing its Iron Dome defensive technology with Hamas, the very terror group that was launching rockets at Israeli civilians.

This was not a joke. Navi Pillay was serious. The UN has become a bad joke.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC

Be’er Sheva 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Prey: A Panel Discussion on Europe, Islam, and Women’s Rights

 

Episode 7: What Iran and the Palestinians Really Want

 

Fmr. Ambassador Michael Oren on Netanyahu

3:25 into the video 

Natasha Kirtchuk: I would like to turn to Netanyahu, and basically his legacy. In your opinion, has Netanyahu left Israel better off than when he first came to power as prime minister, and what were his major accomplishments, where did he fail? 

Michael Oren: Well, Benjamin Netanyahu was a transformative prime minister. He marshaled in Israel’s transformation from being a largely middle class, even lower middle class agrarian society to a high tech society, a super power economically in terms of innovation, in terms of even military power. He diversified our foreign policy. He opened up the doors to China to Russia, to Africa, to South America that did not exist before. He presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords which in itself was revolutionary. 

People don’t know this about Netanyahu, he is actually very war-adverse. He kept us out of major conflicts and the truly large-scale conflict we had was in 2006 in the Lebanon war which was under the prime ministership of Ehud Olmert. Netanyahu does not like war, he kept us out of it. We may miss him on that, by the way, in the future.  Many, many aspects. In legislation, about 32 pieces of legislation that lifted up regulatory restrictions, opened up the Israeli economy, so in effect he transformed Israel, making Israel the number one country in the world in terms of the percentage of its GDP that is invested in innovation.  Much of that is Netanyahu’s. Netanyahu’s  the finance minister, Netanyahu’s  the prime minister.  

 

So yes, I think history will judge leaders differently fifty years, a hundred years from now. Remember that looking back at Truman in the 1940s, people did not like Truman, whereas today he is viewed as one of America’s greatest presidents. I remember Menachem Begin, how many Israelis hated, hated Begin and today everyone thinks of Begin with great nostalgia, sort of wistfully. So people will judge Netanyahu differently. A lot of it depends, Natasha,  on the way he exits his office. If he exits as previous prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir, acknowledging the legitimacy of the Israeli political system of Israeli democracy, or if he follows the precedent of Donald Trump. I think that will determine to a large degree the way his legacy is viewed by future generations. 

Ex Mossad head Tamir Pardo says it was a mistake for Netanyahu to call Iran an existential threat.

Tamir Pardo

Michael Oren

Bernard Lewis 

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, June 14, 2021

Regarding “Ex-Mossad chief Tamir Pardo: Netanyahu broke policy with Iran, US” (June 9), Pardo said, “we must do everything to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” but that it was a mistake for Netanyahu to call it an existential threat. Really? I guess we are in serious trouble if the ex-Mossad head does not think that Iran is an existential threat to Israel! 

On the one hand, we have Michael Oren, the former Israel’s ambassador to the US during the Obama administration, who in his book Ally wrote: “Finally, after many months of attentiveness, I reached my conclusion. In the absence of a high-profile provocation – an attack on a US aircraft carrier, for example – the United States would not use force against Iran. Rather, the administration would remain committed to diplomatically resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, even at the risk of reaching a deal unacceptable to Israel. And if Israel took matters into its own hands, the White House would keep its distance and offer to defend Israel only if it were counter-struck by a hundred thousand Hezbollah missiles.”

On the other hand, we have Bernard Lewis, who said of the Iranian mullahs: “For people with this mindset, mutually assured destruction (M.A.D.) is not a constraint; it is an inducement…”

So how can Tamir Pardo say what he did? It makes no sense whatsoever. 

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC

Beersheba