[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
Yesh Atid party leader MK Yair Lapid called the signing of the deal between Iran and P5+1 “A bad day for the Jews, the State of Israel and the entire free world. We must battle to persuade our friends in Congress and the Senate, including the White House, that we must focus on the monitoring aspect.
“If the agreement is really good then how are they explaining that inspections must be preceded with a 24-day notice and Iranian approval and all the ridiculous provisions that do not permit monitoring the adherence to an agreement that is bad from the get do”.
Lapid, whose part is a member of the opposition, joins the other Jewish parties in condemning what US President Barak Obama calls a “significant achievement”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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This story leaves out several important points made by Lapid and other opposition figures. Here they are from Wikipedia:
Yair Lapid, head of the opposition Yesh Atid party, said that Netanyahu’s diplomatic campaign was a “colossal failure” and said that the prime minister should resign. Lapid stated: “I also am not thrilled by Obama’s polices. But Netanyahu crossed a line that caused the White House to stop listening to Israel. In the last year we weren’t even in the arena, we had no representative in Vienna, our intelligence cooperation was harmed, and the door to the White House was closed to us.” Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog echoed Lapid’s comments. Shelly Yachimovich, a Zionist Union member of the Knesset, said Netanyahu should “immediately cease and desist from confronting the Americans.”
This story also leaves out that most Western and world leaders, and experts in arms control were positive to very positive about the agreement. Also from Wikipedia:
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – Director General Yukiya Amano welcome the agreement and congratulated Iran, P5+1 countries and the European Union and said he is confident that IAEA is capable of doing the necessary monitoring and verification activities when requested.
Siegfried S. Hecker of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University wrote that “the Iran nuclear deal was hard-won and is better than any other reasonably achievable alternative.” Hecker wrote that “Iran agreed to considerably greater restrictions on its program than what I thought was possible.” Hecker’s view is that it is “imperative that the international community develops a credible and decisive response in the event of an Iranian violation of the agreement.” He noted that “this agreement was one of the most technically informed diplomatic negotiations I have seen,” with both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif being advised by “world-class nuclear scientists”: U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Atomic Energy Organization of Iran chief Ali-Akbar Salehi, respectively
What I have not seen is what Israeli arms control and intelligence and security experts, rather than politicians, are saying about it. At one point Netanyahu tried to stop a group of American congressmen visiting Israel from meeting with Israeli intelligence experts who didn’t agree with him on the Iran negotiations but the congressmen insisted and eventually got to meet with them and heard that not everyone in the Israeli intelligence establishment agrees with Netanyahu. He’s probably doing everything he can to keep them quiet now. We’re getting a very one sided view of this issue.