Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2014, Pages 8-9, 11
Special Report
Kerry Faces Down Israel and Its Lobby to Achieve Agreement With Iran
By Rachelle Marshall
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (l) reacts next to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (c) as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (second from right) embraces French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius after a statement early on Nov. 24, 2013 in Geneva, where Iran and the P5+1 reached a temporary agreement halting parts of Iran’s nuclear program. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
In helping to broker a deal with Iran that freezes Iran’s nuclear capacity and paves the way for a permanent agreement, Secretary of State John Kerry should be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. But above all he deserves a medal for valor. In settling for a compromise that holds out hopes of permanent peace, and refusing to demand Tehran’s abject surrender, Kerry had to overcome an army of opponents.
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman commented on Nov. 19, “Never have I seen Israel and America’s core Arab allies working more in concert to stymie a major foreign policy initiative of a sitting president, and never have I seen more lawmakers—Democrats and Republicans—more willing to take Israel’s side against their own president’s.”
And never, he might have added, has AIPAC’s influence in Congress been so clearly demonstrated.
By far the loudest protests came from Israel, which demanded that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear program. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appeared weekly on U.S. television, and made numerous speeches to American Jewish leaders, in which he called a pact with Iran “a historic mistake” and an “extremely dangerous” one. The Israeli leader’s warning that Israel would not be the only target of a nuclear-armed Iran, and his calls to American supporters to ”Do something about it,” were finally too much for Kerry. “We are not blind and I don’t think we are stupid,” he snapped back on “Meet the Press,” adding, “We have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe.”
On Nov. 24, after three sessions of non-stop talks in Geneva involving Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany, 34 years of enmity between Iran and the West came to a tentative end. Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium to below 5 percent, dilute or convert its uranium enriched to 20 percent, install no additional centrifuges, suspend work on a heavy-water reactor, and open its nuclear facilities to regular inspections. In return, the U.S. would unfreeze $6 to 7 billion in Iranian assets and lift sanctions on minor items such as auto and aircraft parts.
The agreement is to last for only six months, during which the two sides will negotiate a permanent pact. Critics charged that Iran would use the agreement to buy time for its weapons program, but eight days after the signing Tehran opened its heavy water plant at Arak to international inspectors. The plant had previously been off limits to inspection.
President Barack Obama hailed the agreement as making the world—and Israel—safer, arguing that ending Iran’s isolation and allowing its return to the international community is a step toward that goal. Middle East scholars pointed out that Iran’s moderate leadership could be helpful to the U.S. in other parts of the region, such as Syria and Afghanistan. What may be the pact’s most important benefit is that it strengthens the hand of President Hassan Rouhani against the hard-liners eager to replace him. Cries of “Death to America” in Tehran have for the moment been silenced.
But there has been no let up from Israel’s corner. Netanyahu, to whom negotiations are a winner-take-all proposition, warned that Israel is “not obliged” to recognize the agreement. AIPAC, Israel’s major lobby, pledged that “There will be no pause, delay, or moratorium in our efforts to further strengthen sanctions,” and Senate leaders immediately announced plans to take up a new round of sanctions when Congress reconvenes in December.
Instead of convincing Iran to dismantle its nuclear program, however, additional sanctions are likely to have the opposite effect. The Iranians may conclude that the real goal of the U.S. and Israel is to bring about regime change, and therefore no concessions on Iran’s part will bring an easing of the sanctions. Their only alternative in that case would be to build a nuclear weapon as a deterrent. The danger, of course, is that any move by Iran in this direction would inevitably bring an Israeli military strike and the likelihood of a wider war.
The question seldom asked is why Israel, with its arsenal of 200-plus nuclear bombs, is so anxious to scuttle any agreement with Iran. Since President Rouhani took office last August, his government has scaled back production of enriched uranium and installed many fewer centrifuges. The Iranians are aware that if they came close to producing a weapon Iran would be subject to devastating punishment by the U.S. and Israel. Finally, if Iran is a threat to Israel, why isn’t Pakistan, which possesses at least 100 nuclear bombs, and where al-Qaeda and its offshoots have an active presence, an equal threat?
The evidence suggests it isn’t Iran’s nuclear program that Israel fears most but Iran’s influence in the region, and especially its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. A totally impoverished Iran would no longer be capable of sending aid to the two organizations that pose a challenge to Israel’s dominance over its neighbors and to its continued occupation of Palestine. Iran is also an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Israel would like to see weakened, though not necessarily replaced.
A revealing interview in the Nov. 16 issue of The New York Times with Brig. Gen. Herzl Halevi, commander of Israeli forces in the Galilee, made it clear that Israel regards Hezbollah, not Iran, as its major enemy. According to the Times, Halevi sees Hezbollah as “Iran’s proxy, the Palestinians’ enforcer, the boots on the ground in global terrorist attacks and the likeliest to retaliate for Israeli aggression anywhere in the world” (italics added).
Halevi’s next job will be as head of the Staff Command College, where he said he will train senior officers for the next war with Hezbollah. He predicts it will be “a very decisive and strong war,” and said he keeps a thick book of war plans that is constantly being added to.
Israel’s war against Hezbollah in 2006 ended with Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, but not before Israeli forces destroyed much of southern Lebanon and left several hundred Lebanese civilians dead. The Israelis also left behind a deadly carpet of unexploded cluster bombs, barbed weapons that cause grievous injuries, especially to children. Iran provided the funds that enabled Hezbollah to rebuild homes and repair bomb- damaged roads, hospitals and schools.
Israel’s Periodic Charade
A rescue worker carries a child through Gaza’s dark and sewage-filled streets. (Photo Mohammed Omer)
Difficult as it was to reach a satisfactory agreement with the Iranians, Kerry faces a far more formidable challenge in persuading Israel’s leaders to accept a just peace with the Palestinians. As of mid-November, halfway through the talks’ nine-month time limit, negotiations remain on hold, with Israel again only going through the motions of what has become a periodic charade. Netanyahu has made it clear he will remain unyielding on the Palestinians’ basic demand—an independent state based on the 1967 borders, with a capital in East Jerusalem.
On Nov. 4 Israel issued bids for nearly 2,000 new settlement units in the West Bank and 828 in East Jerusalem. At the same time the government issued demolition orders for 2,000 Arab homes in the Shufat neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Israel then sealed its intent to retain control of the West Bank by announcing it was extending its illegal separation wall to the Jordan Valley. “Israel will never cede the Jordan Valley,” Netanyahu said. “It’s vital, absolutely vital that Israel maintain a long-term military presence.”
In what could have been a fatal blow to the negotiations, on Nov. 12 the Housing Ministry announced plans for 20,000 additional units in West Bank settlements, and a Ministry spokesman said Israel would build “all over the country.” Both the Palestinians and Kerry were quick to respond. “This is not going to be tolerated,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “Either they revoke this order or they will be held responsible for the end of the peace process.”
Netanyahu later ordered the housing minister to reconsider the plans, but not before Kerry warned that Israel faced international isolation and the possibility of renewed violence if it did not make an earnest effort to achieve peace with the Palestinians. In an intervew with Israeli and Palestinian journalists he said, “If you want peace, and a Palestine that is a whole Palestine that belongs to the people who live there, how can you say, ‘We’re planning to build in the place that will eventually be Palestine’?”
Netanyahu was unmoved. “Pressure has to be put where it belongs,” he said, “that is, on the Palestinians who refuse to budge.” It is hard to imagine what additional pressure could be imposed on the Palestinians as they watch their land disappearing under Israeli homes and golf courses and their economy remain shackled by Israeli restrictions. The World Bank reported last year that if these restrictions were lifted, and the Palestinians were free to use all of their land and resources, 130,000 jobs would be created (see story p. 14).
Hardships steadily increase for the nearly two million Gazans who are being deliberately kept cold and hungry by the blockade Israel imposed seven years ago in order to pressure them to renounce Hamas. Gaza’s only remaining power plant was shut down in early November for lack of affordable fuel, and as a result the daily blackouts that had become routine have lengthened from 8 hours a day to 12 hours and longer. Sewage stations unable to operate their electric pumps are overflowing, and in late November a neighborhood in Gaza City was flooded with 3.5 million cubic feet of raw sewage.
What had been hailed as a small triumph over hardship turned to sadness in late November when two healthy lion cubs born of a lioness who had been smuggled into Gaza from Egypt died. An Israeli bombing raid on several sites not far from the zoo caused the mother to panic and step on the newborn cubs, crushing them to death. One of the zookeepers said the lions had also suffered because the zoo could not shelter them from the winter’s cold.
In Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank, Palestinian farmers again faced this fall what Haaretz columnist Amira Hass calls “agricultural terrorism.” In what is now an annual occurrence when the olive harvest begins, settlers launch daily attacks on the orchards, burning or uprooting trees that have supported families for generations.
The vandals are seldom if ever punished. According to the U.N., 7,714 Palestinian-owned trees were damaged during the first eight months of 2013, a 27 percent increase over 2012. But since 2005, only four reported cases of vandalism have ended in indictments. When one farmer, Abd Al-Razeq, reported to police that he had seen a group of settlers from Qedumin setting fire to his trees, the police investigator said his report “did not constitute evidence.” The raiders burned 27 of Al-Razeq’s mature trees and 70 saplings.
As talks between Israel and the Palestinians continued without result, Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., suggested that Netanyahu was using possible concessions to the Palestinians as leverage to prevent a U.S. pact with Iran. “There has always been some sort of linkage between the Iranian issue and the Palestinian issue,” Rabinovich said—and, indeed, when Kerry criticized Israel for its continued settlement construction, Netanyahu responded by reaffirming his threat of unilateral action against Iran.
Obama rejected Netanyahu’s implied threat and opted instead to end three decades of hostility between the U.S. and Iran. The agreement approved in Geneva grants a modicum of relief to Iran while reducing Iran’s chances of acquiring a nuclear weapon. In view of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, it is not a fair solution but it is a rational one, achieved in the face of massive opposition. If Obama and Kerry could now muster up the same courage and commitment to secure independence for the Palestinians, there would at last be hope for peace in that troubled region.
Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Mill Valley, CA. A member of Jewish Voice for Peace, she writes frequently on the Middle East.



