The Iran-Israel Observer

at least in the short term…my comments this afternoon to I24 news in Israel (in English).

So far, 52 people have been killed today in clashes between Gazans some of whom were armed, and Israeli security forces.

I have these two questions which I believe to be very important to the leadership in Israel and Gaza: 

1. Out of all the places in Gaza: why is Hamas allowing Gazans to demonstrate in the dangerous and ultra-sensitive Israel – Gaza border when it bars Gazans from demonstrating inside Gaza against its own rule? 

2. Out of all of the days in the year: why did Israel and US decide to open the US embassy in Jerusalem, exactly one day before Nakba day, which is one of the most politically explosive days in Palestinian history?

One hour after Trump’s dramatic to walk away from Iran nuclear deal, I was interviewed by i24 news in Jaffa Israel.

You can see my interview below: in short, in my opinion, for those who want to limit the danger posed by Iran’s nuclear program, the decision by Trump was a historic mistake.

I explain why:

مصاحبه دیروز ۴ ماه مهٔ, مصادف با ۱۵ اردیبهشت با بی بی سی فارسی در مورد عواقب و اظهارات اخیر محمود عباس در مورد هولوکاست

On the 30th of April, during his live presentation, Netanyahu presented a slide with potentially explosive information: stating that Iran is currently carrying out its clandestine military nuclear program in 2018, as part of the SPND project.

That information was presented as part of a slide entitled “Today this work [nuclear military program] is carried out by SPND”. This was huge. By stating this, Netanyahu was basically stating that Iran is cheating the P5+1 and the Iran nuclear deal.

But it took one day for the Netanyahu administration to go back on this key assessment.

The next day, as noted by I24 news senior defense correspondent Shai Ben Ari, in the copy of the slides sent to journalists, the slide entitled “Today this work is carried out by SPND” is altered. It now simply said “SPND”. In other words, Netanyahu is no longer claiming that Iran is currently carrying out a clandestine military nuclear program.

A big reversal. And it took less than 24 hours.

This could explain why the Trump administration also had to correct its “clerical error” by changing its statement from Iran “has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program” to “had”.

Yesterday, majority of the attention of the international media was on Netanyahu’s comments and revelations regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

As far as the nuclear deal is concerned, his revelations did not reveal anything which can be used to say Iran cheated after the nuclear deal was implemented. Yes, we know that Iran lied before when it said it never had a nuclear weapons program. This is an important reason why  the nuclear deal was reached in the first place: to make sure that if Iran lies again and tries to make a bomb, we have a better monitoring system to detect its activities. This is also why the Iran nuclear deal made sure that between all the countries of the world who are signatories of the NPT, Iran is the most inspected country by the IAEA. It’s precisely because Iran lied before that the nuclear deal put such tough inspections in place.

To me, the two BIGGER stories yesterday which could have geopolitical consequences were:

1- reports by the foreign press which suggested that Israel had attacked two different places in Syria. In one of these attacks, 200 missiles were reported to have been destroyed. The explosion was so large, that seismic measures were registered. Iran wanting to transfer 200 missiles into Syria and Israel reportedly destroying them show that the conflict is entering a new phase.

2- the other important story, as reported by the Times of Israel being: “In a surprise and potentially far-reaching victory for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Knesset on Monday evening gave the prime minister the authority to declare war or order a major military operation by consulting only the defense minister, and not via a full cabinet vote as the law had previously required.” The deal was backed by 62 Knesset members, with 41 opposing.

Israel for the last 3 years telling Iran via the Russians that they will not allow the Revolutionary Guards to use Syria territory to threaten Israel. Israelis government officials have repeated this message until they are blue in the face and Russians have passed on the message to Iranian officials.

Additionally, in countless Track II meetings where Iranian and European academic meet, Israeli academics via their European colleagues have passed on the similar message to Iranian academics on umpteen occasions. But the Revolutionary Guards has ignored this message..So when you put points 1 + 2 together = Israel is done with using diplomacy. The Revolutionary Guards and their commander Ayatollah Khamenei do not seem to be interested in finding a diplomatic solution via the Russians. And most importantly to Israel, the Russians realize this. Don’t expect them to rush to the Revolutionary Guard’s help.

در این مصاحبه در مورد عواقب احتمالی این اقدام هم صحبت کردم