From Haaretz:
The director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, called the Middle East’s Sunni Arab nations “Israel’s allies.” Gold used the term twice in a presentation Wednesday in New York focused on the shortcomings of the Iran nuclear deal.
“What we have is a regime on a roll that is trying to conquer the Middle East,” Gold said of Iran, “and it’s not Israel talking, that is our Sunni Arab neighbors — and you know what? I’ll use another expression – that is our Sunni Arab allies talking.”
Gold was at one time the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. He has been a senior advisor to Israeli prime ministers from the right-wing Likud, and is the author of “Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.” Amos Yadlin, former chief of Israeli military intelligence who now heads Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. They were speaking in New York at a meeting organized by the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an
umbrella group for AIPAC, ADL, ZOA etc. .
Both Yadlin and Gold warned of the perils of the Iran nuclear agreement. Gold called Iran a major force of instability in the Middle East, and Yadlin said that while the deal gets a B+/A- on its short-term accomplishments of rolling back and freezing Iran’s nuclear program, it’s a “disaster” when it comes to the long-term implications of where it leaves Iran in 15 years.
A few questions come to mind:
- Is this why a
late model Mercedes with Saudi plates now calls Tel Aviv home?
- If the deal gets an A- short-term, what crystal ball does Bibi have that lets him see what Iran will be in fifteen or twenty years, especially given the young population?
- Can we all say "My enemy's enemy..." in unison?
- Does this mean it's okay to "
engage in diplomacy" with "state sponsors of terror"?
- Or is it only when they are ultra-conservative gerontocracies?
And lastly:
Why does Likud get any say in whether Iran (or for that matter the West Bank and Gaza) can trade freely with the world? Or perhaps it is about weakening the economies of its regional competitors, and their people be damned?
The consul general of Israel for Philadelphia (Yaron Sideman) warned Tel Aviv U.S. Jews aren't united behind Israel on Iran deal. In a confidential telegram he wrote:
Sideman wrote that a CEO of one of the Jewish federations in the Philadelphia region told him that in his view, Israel’s status vis-à-vis the Obama administration is at a low point, which could adversely affect the Jewish community.
...before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress some two weeks before the Israeli election, Sideman warned of the growing criticism of the speech in the Jewish community and among Israel’s non-Jewish friends.