Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is headed to Washington this week for his first visit to the US since coming into office in June. He is set to meet with President Biden on Thursday, and Iran is expected to be the focus of the meeting.
An Israeli diplomatic source told The Times of Israel that Bennett will present a new strategy to Biden on “confronting” Iran’s nuclear program and its regional activity that does not involve a revival of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.
Indirect negotiations between the US and Iran to revive the JCPOA have been on hold since June 20th. Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi has signaled that he’s ready to continue talks, but at this point, it’s not clear when they will resume.
“When we began to plan the visit, a return to the agreement seemed certain. Since then, time has passed, the president in Iran has changed, and things seem far less certain. In our view, it may be that there is no return to the agreement,” the source told the Times. The report didn’t offer any detail on what Bennett’s plan might be.
It’s no secret that Israel is opposed to a JCPOA revival, but Bennett has been trying to express his objections privately to avoid the confrontational approach former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took in 2015 when the deal was negotiated.
The Israelis point to Iran’s recent increase in uranium enrichment as evidence that the Islamic Republic is racing to develop a bomb. But Iran has only taken these steps in response to Israeli covert attacks. In April, when the JCPOA talks began, an Israeli attack caused an explosion at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. Tehran responded by increasing some uranium enrichment to 60 percent, which is still lower than the 90 percent needed for weapons-grade.
While the US has roundly condemned Iran’s 60 percent enrichment, Washington has refused to condemn Israel’s reckless attack, giving the covert activity a tacit endorsement.
The US blames Iran for the delay in talks, but the Biden administration’s refusal to lift all Trump-era sanctions is the reason why the two sides have not yet reached an agreement. Biden’s hardline stance is forcing Iran to negotiate and make concessions even though it is Washington that violated the JCPOA in the first place.
It appears that the Agreement is no longer expected. So Bennett is wasting time arguing against it.
The best evidence is final promotion of Iran into SCO permanent members club. Iran was an observer for years.
This SCO decision signals that the Organization is no longer concerned with US-Iran relationship. It is now in line with deteriorating and unsettled US- Eurasia relationship.
But then, Bennett will have to consult on number of things Iran. The Iranian-Saudi contacts, the just signed SCO membership for Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Push by Egypt and Jordan to recognize Syria. Obvious Turkey-Iraq-Iran-Qatar-Pakistan budding relationship under quiet protection by China and Russia. Lebanon under siege — but not breaking. Israel may want to capitalize somewhere. Lebanon and Syria are Israel’s targets, and I winder just how much of a gambler will Bennett turn out to be.
Iran survived another attempt at being framed for attacking tanker. What happened after Russia asked for an independent investigation.
The real question is — what is Israel’s motivation in pursuing Iran’s case? Nuclear bomb? It cannot be it. What is the obsession?
Everyone knows that the JCPOA is dead.
That won’t be enough to satisfy Israel.
Nuclear bomb ?, don`t be so sure the Isrealis are capeable of anything when backed into a corner like the rats they are
There are a few reasons the US harasses Iran. Some are, of course, at the behest of Israel.
1. The CIA is extremely vindictive when a coup is reversed and will spend decades if necessary punishing countries for regaining sovereignty. Cuba and Iran are good examples.
2. The ultra powerful family of bankers that founded Israel and control the US Federal Reserve, the Rothschilds, have a zero tolerance policy for countries that nationalize family assets and refuse their private central bank, as Iran has done.
3. Iran is a powerful country in the Middle East that has flatly refused to let Israel fulfill the “Greater Israel Project”. Israel is far behind schedule and originally planned to be far larger than current borders at this point.
After the fall of Iraq, Isra-hell perceives Iran to be its greatest “threat” in the region ( we should ask ourselves however, who has been attacking whom?) I don’t think Isra-hell wishes to tangle with a nation of 800 million people so they’re seeking our “help”.
The only other explanation is that the Izzies want credit for starting WWIII.
85 million.
Thanks.
More talk about the fictitious nuclear arms program, surprising how plain stupid these people in Washington can be. Or maybe just how deep their corruption runs if they know the lie but still take the money to perpetuate it.
I suspect that they aren’t stupid so much as sociopathic.
Wow, and it isn’t even August 31st yet! Ben-Nut isn’t wasting any time trying to get Amerikkka involved in another war, is he? (One in which Amerikkkans, not Izzies, will die, of course.)
The very most important factor in keeping peace in the Middle East is that one other nation besides Isra-hell goes nuclear. Others may disagree with that, and I am in no way advocating nuclear war, but what an effective deterrent to have on hand. And it appears that Iran is the country closest to achieving that goal.
What Amerikkka and Isra-hell don’t get: Iran doesn’t have to do what they’re told to by the two most murderous nations on earth. Isra-hell just might think twice about its actions if there’s the prospect of a nuclear bomb being dangled over Tel Aviv like Damocles’ sword.
Iran will probably get nukes from China / Russia ect if it wants some altho i doubt they will , remember America steers clear of countries with nukes N.K an example.
Hello all you fools in Washington DC – Iran has just been elevated to become a partner in the SCO (Shanghai Co-operative Organization) which means that it will join a mutual defensive pact with China and Russia. Also, as a Mid East anchor of the Silk Road, she and the “Stans” of Central Asia will enjoy helping Afghanistan develop its lithium resources.
But be consoled with this – you and Israel will still be sweethearts – but don’t expect fidelty from her.
Why would Iran be the only SCO country to get a “mutual defensive pact” out of the deal? All the others just enjoy “military cooperation.” None of them are bound by the SCO agreement to take another’s side in a war.
And that is how NATO should have been as it is all members are tied into article 5 which compels them to join in any war altho they may not want to.
Mr. Knapp,
Do you think that Russia and China think that Iran is just another SCO “partner” – or do you think that they realize that Iran is another victim of unjustified sanctions – just like them? Maybe, they think – “Either we hang together or we all hang seperately”. Shared injustice feeds solidarity.
I doubt that the Russian or Chinese regimes give a tinker’s damn whether Iran is “another victim of unjustified sanctions,” any more than the US regime really cares whether or not the Uighurs are really persecuted or Afghan girls will get to go to school now. Like Kissinger, quoting Temple, said, “nations [by which he meant regimes] do not have permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
Do I think that the Russian and Chinese regimes will find it worthwhile to cultivate good relations with Iran, in part to form a trading bloc that makes US sanctions largely irrelevant? Yep. They’d be stupid not to.
Do I think it’s conceivable that the Russian or Chinese regimes would weigh in militarily in any conflict involving Iran? Of course, up to and including open war, if they decide their interests are sufficiently at stake.
Does SCO membership entail a mutual defense pact between any or all of the members? No.
Mr. Knapp,
Strong trade relations, mutual harrassment from sanctions, and common enemies will lead to mutual defense pacts, no?
Maybe, maybe not. And irrelevant to the specific claim. SCO membership does not imply a mutual defense pact, merely “security cooperation.” That’s just a fact. Could there be mutual defense pacts in the future? Sure. Are there now? No.
Mr. Knapp,
Please quit straining at swallowing a gnat – is there a formal mutual defense pact with Israel? No. Is there an unwritten agreement that America will put itself on the line to defend Israel? – You Betcha!
Likewise, there will soon be a mutual defense pack between the SCO partners, and there is now an unwritten understanding amonst the SCO partrners about the difference between push and shove. Of course our Zionist state dept. won’t know it when they see it.
NATO is a “mutual defense pact.” It requires all member states to treat an attack on any of them as an attack on all of them. The Warsaw Pact had similar provisions.
The SCO has no such provisions. If Poland invaded Russia tomorrow, it would be entirely optional for other SCO members to go to war with Poland, and it’s likely that some of them would demur even if asked.
Would a mutual defense pact including Iran, Russia, and China (and other SCO members) be a good thing. Personally, I think it would. But I’m not going to fantasize that any such pact exists.
“It’s no secret that Israel is opposed to a JCPOA revival, but Bennett has been trying to express his objections privately to avoid the confrontational approach former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took in 2015 when the deal was negotiated.”
Yes, because begging us to go to war is so much better when done privately.
Biden would most likely fall asleep in this meeting…!
And Blinken would just shrug at Bennett.
Well with Chinas belt and road going all the way to Iran with Iran getting Chinese missiles no wonder the Isrealis are scared and about time too , and there ain`t a thing the Americans can do because their blocaded with carrires will be null and void ,catch Max keisers report on RT to day.
Biden, Blinken & Sullivan (like almost everyone else) recognizes that the future belongs to Beijing, … unless the West (meaning NATO, meaning Washington) can degrade their momentum. And it seems, unlike Obama, Biden is determined to face down the War Party (NeoCons, Pentagon, war industry, main stream media), as is hopefully evident by his present defiance of their lies in order to get out of Afghanistan, and to make the grande push to accomplish the long looked for Pivot to China.
This necessarily entails liquidating the War on Terror (aka, Mid-East Islam, aka Zionist “Clean Break”). Israel is getting the uneasy feeling Joe’s profession of undying faithfulness is no more meaningful than the usual marriage vows, ….
Could it possibly be She will be agandoned?
There seems to be a bit more to the “meeting” than just Iran. Trump screwed over the Palestinians, and Biden wants to go back to pretending the US cares about their situation.
Palestinian consulate pressure, differences on Iran loom over Bennett-Biden meeting
The Apartheid state doesn’t want that to happen, and the meeting may turn out to be a test of how much Wag-The-Dog still works.
Another wild card is this:
In Shift, Israel Quietly Allows Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount
They’re really playing with fire on this one, and forcing the US to deal with infuriated Muslims around the world is something the little terrorist state will really want.
Why would Muslims object to other “People of the Book,” as they call adherents of Abrahamic religions, praying to a shared God in a particular place — especially a place that was sacred to the other two major Abrahamic religions even before Mohammed’s revelation? Seems like it would be a way of bringing those “People of the Book” together.
I guess we’d have to ask a Muslim, preferably a Palestinian Muslim, if they’re cool with this. My thought is, no.
In English, you’re saying that your thought is that Muslims aren’t reasonable. I disagree.
You’ve positioned yourself as saying that the Muslims would be “reasonable” to allow joint worship. What other concessions would you advise them to make at this site?
If the Zionists offered to build a special room in the new Third Temple – the one the one to replace the current Dome monument after it gets bulldozed or blown up – would you agree this is in the ballpark with the offer made by the nice Muslim guy in New Hampshire?
Is there any point where one-sided appeasement is no longer acceptable?
I haven’t “positioned myself as saying” anything. I’ve actually said something.
Not attacking people for praying isn’t “one-sided appeasement,” it’s basic human decency. And the side that openly violates it — as we saw when the Israelis attacked Muslim worshipers during prayers on the same spot — is basically screaming at the top of its lungs “WE’RE THE BAD GUYS, DON’T BELIEVE A WORD WE SAY ABOUT ANYTHING.”
Of course I’m not saying that, quit setting up strawmen. What I’m questioning is, given the nakba and everything since, the Palestinian Muslims are going to be cool with settler Jews, who have been taking over their territory through settlements and yelling “Death to Muslims” in marches through East Jerusalem, when they just waltz right in and start praying next to them, as though this was a mosque in New Hampshire? I think that’s naive at best.
ARE they going to be cool with it? Probably not.
WHY aren’t they going to be cool with it? Because as in any population, half of them are below median intelligence and demagogues find it easy to rile up idiots.
I think there’s still a lot of bad blood between Palestinians and settlers, and it has to do with past and current treatment of Palestinians by Israel. Maybe you’re right, though, and it’s just the idiots and demagogues that are the problem. Are the settlers brave enough to try praying there, without armed police protection? We’ll see.
The squatters (“settlers”) are obviously a problem.
But who said it would necessarily be them praying?
The site of the Muslim Dome of the Rock monument is “holy” to the Zionists in the same sense that Saddam Hussein attacked the US September 11, 2001. Both are fabrications for political purposes. This is about Muslim Removal, not religion.
Herod’s Temple was NOT on the top of that hill, but was situated somewhat below. The actual layout was very much like this reconstruction.
http://www.signsfromheaven.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Temple-site-Josephus-2.jpg
Anyone who bothers to a bit of research will locate the reams of evidence this
is the case. The Muslim monument is built on the site of the Roman Fort Antonio. The famous “wailing wall” is a foundations of that fort. When the Gospels of Matthew and Mark wrote about the destruction of Jerusalem, they described what the authors of those Gospels had seen with their very own eyes.
Mark 13:2
And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings?
There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Completely destroying the Jewish city of Jerusalem most certainly didn’t mean demolishing a useful Roman structure. Which explains the continuing existence of that “wailing wall”.
The Apartheid state is truly playing with worse than gasoline and matches with the Dome of the Rock issue. Unless the US is prepared to fight WW3 for the little terrorist nation, we’d darned well better stop supporting them on this one. Which, unfortunately, is precisely why the US End-Timer Fundamentalists want it to happen.
Nuclear War In Holy Land/Armageddon Starts
Jesus Returns in Second Coming
Mission Accomplished.
Next thing you’ll try to tell me is that God didn’t really create Adam right there, and that it wasn’t really the place Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, and that Muhammad didn’t really take a Night Journey to heaven from there.
When it comes to religious belief, the facts (even if you’ve got them right) don’t matter. Jews consider the place a holy site whether the Second Temple was actually located on that exact spot or not, and they believe that in worship of a god that Islam says is the same God.
An imam friend of mine started the first mosque in New Hampshire. He offered it to the local Jewish congregants, who had no nearby temple, for their sabbath services, and even set up a segregated set of kitchen tools for their kashrut requirements. I doubt he’d have a problem with Jews praying at a site held holy by both religions.
“Jews” aren’t a monolithic group any more than any other religious bunch. If you know any honest (Non-Zionist) Jewish archeologists or historians, ask them about this issue, I think you’ll get a very different answer than you will from some badly educated settler/terrorist engaged in stealing and vandalism on the West Bank.
Pretending that Mary’s Assumption Into Heaven is in the same class of reality as the claim the Earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it is mighty wild stuff.
If “facts” are created by “beliefs”, them maybe the Zionists 3000 year old land title is genuine, and the Palestinians really do need to suicide in masse. (“Believing” the Exodus happened doesn’t make it a historical fact) And maybe wearing masks for Covid really is a great sin against nature.
You’re correct. Jews are not a monolithic group.
Neither are Muslims.
I don’t assume that all Muslims are unreasonable fanatics who would have a problem with members of a religion their own scripture tells them to respect praying in a particular place that they consider holy, in part for the same reasons Muslims do.
There are certainly unreasonable Muslims, just like there are unreasonable Jews, and unreasonable Christians, but it seems odd to assume that all of them will be unreasonable, especially if there are any sensible Muslim scholars around to preach a sermon or two on cranio-rectal extraction.
Being unreasonable about prayers at the Dome of the Rock would just make it easier to paint them as unreasonable on subjects where they’re reasonable — subjects like confiscating their land and squatting on it, for example.
Three of my previous posts in a row went into moderation. Not a single curse word. What is Disqus so vigilant about all of a sudden? Does the word “Jew” automatically halt a post? Or is it something else?
Four in a row. Looks like the “keyword” speculation isn’t out of bounds.
I’ve long held to a theory that the little terrorist state has gradually assumed a subtle control over the US internet by buying up existing Blog Comment Services – or creating new ones. All to protect the Great Land Theft Project.
It’s not about some secret “keyword konspiracy” of global scope. It’s about specific terms that Antiwar.com, not Disqus, has set for putting comments on hold for examination by a moderator And yes, “Jew” is one of those terms. The legitimate discussion gets approved as soon as a moderator gets to it, the Stormfront -type content gets deleted and its posters banned. In fact, this comment will go to moderation automatically, and I’ll have to go manually approve it.
It’s not about some secret “keyword konspiracy” of global scope. It’s about specific terms that Antiwar.com, not Disqus, has set for putting comments on hold for examination by a moderator And yes, “Jew” is one of those terms. The legitimate discussion gets approved as soon as a moderator gets to it, the Stormfront -type content gets deleted and its posters banned. In fact, this comment will go to moderation automatically, and I’ll have to go manually approve it.
It’s not about some secret “keyword konspiracy” of global scope. It’s about specific terms that Antiwar.com, not Disqus, has set for putting comments on hold for examination by a moderator And yes, “Jew” is one of those terms. The legitimate discussion gets approved as soon as a moderator gets to it, the Stormfront -type content gets deleted and its posters banned. In fact, this comment will go to moderation automatically, and I’ll have to go manually approve it.