The daylight between Israel and the West
By JAMAL KANJ
THIS week the 5+1 are back negotiating the easing of economic sanctions against Iran and new unprecedented rigid inspection regimen including daily reactor checks to certify compliance.
According to US State Department reports the agreement calls for a six-month “reversible” $10 billion relief reducing the cost of sanction against Iran from approximately $100bn to $90bn.
Leaked excerpts from the draft accord compel Iran to limit its enrichment to less than 20 per cent (19.75) purity and convert its 20pc stockpile-enriched uranium into fuel rods, “rendering it unusable for the higher level enrichment necessary for nuclear weapons”.
Following the breakthrough, the US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs flew to Tel Aviv to brief Israeli officials on the impending agreement.
Fearing an accord with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius urging him to delay the signing giving him an opportunity to leach his US lobbyists to force the US government to back off.
Fabius, the son of a wealthy Jewish art dealer who converted to Catholicism, was a staunch Israeli advocate serving French Prime Minister during Francois Mitterrand’s administration between 1984 and 1986. This combined with an 11th hour cajoling from long time Israeli Likud party subordinate Meyer Habib, a member of the French parliament, who warned Fabius that Netanyahu will attack Iran “if you don’t toughen your position”.
Succumbing to Israeli Prime Minister’s blackmail, Fabius took the unusual step of using the French-Inter radio to criticise the very draft agreement he helped negotiate.
Mind you that this comes from a leader of the same Socialist party that introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East in the mid-1950s sending French engineers to build Israel’s first nuclear reactor. Israeli prime minister Ben-Gurion claimed then the project was a colossal pumping station to desalinate seawater.
Israel is run by amoral political leaders who will do and say anything to get what they want. Recent resurfaced reports have revealed that Tzipi Livni- current chief peace negotiator and Israel’s Justice Minister- secured rabbinical edict permitting her to “prostitute” during her service with the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency in Europe.
Israel is not interested in verifiable measures to end Iran’s military nuclear ambitions, not even in the physical dismantlement of its nuclear programme. Israel would not stop short of eliminating the technological knowhow as they did assassinating Iraqi scientists before and during the American occupation of Iraq.
Discussing the impending agreement with Iran, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz declared “We want an outcome more like Libya ….”
Responding indirectly to Israeli concerns US Secretary of State told the NBC Meet the Press news programme last Sunday “we are not blind, and I don’t think we are stupid”.
It is, however, apparent Netanyahu believes otherwise. He was caught on video in 2001 telling Israeli settlers “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily.”
They “moved” America in 2003 invading a country to destroy its false “weapon of mass destruction,” a war that was paved with the blood of more than 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis before sending the US economy south.
Fearing a repeat of the Iraq blunder, two prominent policy experts from two different administrations, Democratic Zbigniew Brzezinski and Republican Brent Scowcroft issued a joint statement early last week urging the US to seize the “historic opportunity … to achieve our non-proliferation goal” or increase “the probability of war”.
Brazened by the recent dismantling of Syria’s chemical stockpile, Israel will not rest until it drags the US into another Middle Eastern quagmire.
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About the Author
Jamal Kanj
* Mr Kanj (www.jamalkanj.com) writes weekly newspaper column and publishes on several websites on Arab world issues. He is the author of “Children of Catastrophe,” Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. A version of this article was first published by the Gulf Daily News newspaper.
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