2 Responses

1. Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet and former commander of the Israeli Navy, said that the agreement was “the best option” for Israel, saying that “When negotiations began, Iran was two months away from acquiring enough material for a [nuclear] bomb. Now it will be 12 months.” Ayalon said that opposition to the deal in Israel was “more emotional than logical.” Efraim Halevy, the director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad from 1998 to 2002, wrote in support of the agreement in Yedioth Ahronoth, arguing that the JCPOA includes “components that are crucial for Israel’s security” and warning that a collapse of the agreement will leave Iran “free to do as it pleases.”

   I think it was last winter a group of US congressmen visiting Israel wanted to meet with Israeli intelligence experts in nuclear disarmament to hear what they have to say and Netanyahu tried to stop that meeting because he knew that they agreed with Obama’s approach more than his. The congressmen pushed hard and eventually the PM had to let them meet. Wendy Sherman says Israeli experts were consulted in drafting the agreement and had significant input into it. I suspect Netanyahu is still trying to keep their opinions from being heard and they’re probably afraid of losing their jobs. Most disarmament experts in the world think this is a very good deal and that the consequences of it not going through will be far worse. To my mind it’s worth paying more attention to the experts than the politicians.

2. If they already have enough material for a bomb, why make an agreement?
   If they are going to cheat. and have no way of assuring that they do not cheat, why make an agreement?
   Why make an agreement that allows the most clandestine sites to go uninspected?

   No release of sanctions means that they don’t get $150 billion to sponsor terror and pursue undisclosed research.
   No deal means that the US and P5 do not get to help them thwart sabotage, no buddy, it’s not “speculation” about a written clause in the agreement, when Kerry refers to it in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
   Keeping sanctions as they are, or increasing, is not a “perfect” deal or leaving the situation, as is, is not a good solution. but it is better than dealing with and legitimizing terrorists!
   What ever happened to that line, “We don’t deal with terrorists.”?
   Maybe all those people who say that this is a good deal are looking at it from a certain aspect, given normal conditions of cooperation.
   Maybe the PM, doesn’t want others talking that will give their version of the situation, it doesn’t really matter how “expert” one is when you are dealing
   with conditions that are a fantasy.
   Maybe Obama’s priorities are a change in the M.E.?
   Maybe he and all those “disarmament experts” can live with that change, which, believe me will happen, because the deal legitimizes the world’s #1 sponsor of terror to definitely get nuclear weapons in 10-15 years, and clandestinely maybe before. THAT is the politics involved here, choosing what you want the M.E. to look like. Cold hearted “experts” don’t have to look at that, they just have to look at pristine, clinical conditions, not the REAL WORLD.
   In the real world we have a terror state intent on destroying Israel with nuclear weapons OR thru massive attacks, made available by the lifting of the arms embargo and the $150 billion freed up from the US removal of sanctions.
   So, really, people, the question is do you want to support the ‘vision” of a man who denied the delivery of US arms to Israel during Israel’s last summer’s Gaza conflict or do you want to support the caution of a man who works to keep Israel safe?
   The US is only as safe as it deserves to be in light of it’s role as a leader of the world of freedom and justice. Remind your Senators of that role,.