NZ Friends of Israel Association Inc
Fighting racial intolerance in New Zealand and beyond
NZFOI held a gathering of members to review the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal (aka JOCPA) and to discuss the high-level issues arising from the Biden administration’s moves to resurrect the deal.
For those who missed the gathering, you may download the slide deck here.
The UN nuclear watchdog found uranium particles at two Iranian sites it inspected after months of stonewalling, diplomats say, and it is preparing to rebuke Tehran for failing to explain, possibly complicating US efforts to revive nuclear diplomacy.
The find and Iran’s response risk hurting efforts by the new US administration to restore Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump abandoned.
Although the sites where the material was found are believed to have been inactive for nearly two decades, opponents of the nuclear deal, such as Israel, say evidence of undeclared nuclear activities shows that Iran has not been acting in good faith.
USS Iwo Jima moored at Haifa
A Chinese company is planning to take over management of Israel’s Haifa port as Beijing continues to advance its global influence in the form of economic projects and big commercial deals.
The Haifa port sits close to the hub of the Israeli navy base that is reportedly home to the country’s nuclear-capable submarine force, according to The Times of Israel. Israeli critics are calling for an investigation into potential security issues posed by the Chinese presence along the country’s Mediterranean coast.
At the University of Haifa’s Workshop on Future of Maritime Security in the Eastern Mediterranean conference at the end of August, Shaul Chorev, reservist brigadier general of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), former navy chief of staff, and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said a new mechanism was required to keep an eye on Chinese investments in Israel.
Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday demanded that Iran make wholesale changes in its military and regional policies or face “the strongest sanctions in history,” as it sought to turn up heat on Tehran after President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from a landmark nuclear deal.
In speech that called Iran out for a wide range of “malign activities” apart from its nuclear program, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the negotiation of a new deal that would go far beyond the single focus of the 2015 agreement and would have the status of a formal treaty. The 2015 deal concluded under the Obama administration dealt only with the nuclear program and was not a treaty but rather a U.N.-endorsed executive agreement between the parties.
Unless such a treaty can be reached, Pompeo warned that Iran would face tough sanctions that would leave it “battling to keep its economy alive.” But he laid out no strategy for convincing Iran, the other participants in the original deal — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union — or others to open such a negotiation.
“These will end up being the strongest sanctions in history by the time we are complete,” Pompeo said at the conservative Heritage Foundation in his first major policy speech since taking over as top diplomat.
President Trump rolled out his much-anticipated decision to “withdraw” from the Iran nuclear deal, in keeping with a longtime campaign promise. The president claimed Tuesday that there is Israeli intelligence proving Iran is not in compliance with the agreement.
Mr. Trump said he fears the 2015 deal will allow the Iranian regime to amass nuclear weapons.
“In just a short period of time, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons,” Mr. Trump said from the White House Diplomatic Room. “Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.”
Israel’s seizure of Iran’s purported nuclear programme archive and the dramatic display of the documents taken from a facility in the heart of Tehran marked a rare case of Israel going public about the operations of its top-secret Mossad spy agency.
Mossad, long shrouded in mystery and mythology, is legendary in international intelligence circles for being behind what are believed to be some of the most daring covert operations of the past century. Only a few have come to light and often only years later. Israel is typically wary of exposing the exploits of the global arm of its vaunted intelligence community out of fear of revealing its well-cultivated sources or undermining its mystique.
The intelligence information on Iran’s nuclear program presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the world on Monday was a “smoking bomb…not just a smoking gun,” according to the Jewish state’s US envoy.
In an appearance on the “CBS This Morning” talk show, [Israeli] Ambassador [to the US] Ron Dermer said the details revealed by Netanyahu were “certainly new.”
“It puts together this giant puzzle we all had of Iran’s nuclear program,” Dermer noted. “There were a lot of question marks about Iran’s program, now we have exclamation points that they had a military nuclear program and they had an intention, and they still have an intention, to ultimately build a nuclear weapon.”
Iran has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” after he accused the country of deceiving the world about its nuclear intentions.
Mr Netanyahu produced what he said were copies of Iranian files detailing a project to build nuclear weapons, which was reportedly mothballed 15 years ago.
Iran said it had never sought to build a bomb when it signed an international deal to curb nuclear activity in 2015.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the deal.
