If it weren't so sad, it might be funny. The explanations from "associates of the prime minister" about why Naftali Bennett didn't meet with Dr. Robert Malley, US special envoy for Iran, were childish. The "associates" said that protocol dictated that the prime minister was not obligated to meet with "minor functionaries," not even when the person is question is leading the line that is working to bring the US back to the Iranian nuclear talks.
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But Dr. Malley has been one of the most important decision makers in Washington since the days of President Bill Clinton. He is an expert in Middle East affairs and very knowledgeable, especially when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his youth in Paris, he was a classmate of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and he studied law at Harvard with former President Barack Obama. Like the latter, Malley believes that one need not necessarily be a Likud supporter in order to love Israel.
Malley led the negotiations between Iran and the western powers, and brought about a deal that significantly postponed Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state. The criticism about the disadvantages of some aspects of the deal (such as Iran's ballistic missiles and the mechanism behind Iran's terrorist activity) is certainly warranted, and justifies adjustments, but former President Trump's hasty decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal (as a result of former Prime Minister Netanyahu's "success" in persuading him to do so) – without any other option – did both Israel and the world a lot of damage.
President Biden's policy is to make an effort to bring America back to the deal, and fix certain important points. The American envoy charged with implementing that policy is Malley. Rejecting him essentially means rejecting Biden. This is a serious diplomatic error.
Not only because of manners. The lack of a meeting can be explained by diplomatic protocol. But it could have been a chance to sit down with Malley and explain in detail what the weak points of the Iran deal are and on what the signatories must insist. Netanyahu's policy in the middle of the last decade, which boiled down to vigorous opposition to any deal with Iran and forgoing any chance of influencing the American side in the negotiations, appears to be repeating itself, and could wind up causing Israel major harm. If Malley is indeed leading the gambit, and is not a mere representative who should be respected, this is an opportunity for Israel to be involved rather than watching from the sidelines. Otherwise, Bennett will wind up a poor man's Netanyahu.
Bump in the night
You need to look closely at the image to believe it. In the middle of the night, an IDF unit enters a Hebron home to check to see if the 13 children sleeping there were involved in throwing rocks. The kids, their sleep interrupted, were gathered on the balcony, and the officer who took their picture asked them to smile, like in a class photo.
I was sure it was wrong. That the IDF Spokesperson would explain that it was photoshopped, that these weren't kindergartners or primary school children. That it was more material created by Israel's enemies to slander us for something we didn't do. I was wrong.
The IDF response was that it was wrong to photograph minors and that that a complaint had been registered about the officer who took the picture and asked the kids to smile. The military promised to fine-tune its regulations.
Attn: Benny Gantz
In the 1992 election campaign, the late Yitzhak Rabin declared that a Labor victory would lead to a change in the country's priorities. On Jan. 24, 1993, his government decided on preferment that would be awarded to the periphery, but not to communities in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Thus the first map of national priorities was born.
The right-wing governments changed the map in favor of the settlements. A map of priorities can be drawn when the government is unified. When eight different parties from the center, left, and right make up the government, it would be best to throw out the map and go back to handling each community based on its own needs, like we did before 1993.
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