You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:
In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:
1) The details of the debate between the US and Israel over support for the Iranian nuclear agreement
US President Barack Obama and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are in a heated debate over the merits of the Iranian nuclear agreement recently negotiated between Iran and the P5 + 1 powers which includes the United States over its nuclear program. Obama believes that the agreement will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb while Netanyahu believes the agreement will make it easier for Iran to get a nuclear bomb. Regarding the terms of the nuclear agreement, Netanyahu said: “Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran because Iran continues to seek our destruction,” he said. “We will always defend ourselves.”
Netanyahu’s office wrote a document outlining the Israeli opposition to the Iranian nuclear agreement. Netanyahu said that with this agreement, Iran has two paths to acquire a nuclear bomb. Primarily, if the Iranians violate the deal, as they have done in the past, they can develop a bomb by cheating. Secondly, if Iran abides by the agreement then, in about a decade, when the central restrictions on its program are automatically removed, they will be able to “carry out unlimited enrichment of uranium with full international legitimacy,” the document says. At that time, “Iran’s breakout time will be close to zero, as Obama himself has said.”
After the agreement, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said that the nuclear deal with the world powers did not include limitations on Iran’s weapons capabilities or missile power and that Iran would keep arming its regional allies. We have told them [the P5+1 world powers] in the negotiations that we will supply arms to anyone and anywhere necessary and will import weapons from anywhere we want and we have clarified this during the negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state TV. Araqchi emphasized that Iran would do what it thinks necessary to maintain its regional alliances. “We will take any necessary action to maintain and expand our defensive capabilities, safeguard our independence and sovereignty and help our regional allies to fight against terrorism,” he said. “We are not ready to even negotiate on our security and defensive issues, let alone compromising them,” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listed Iran’s allies as follows: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will not give up support of its friends in the region — the oppressed people of Palestine, of Yemen, the Syrian and Iraqi governments, the oppressed people of Bahrain and sincere resistance fighters in Lebanon and Palestine… Our policy will not change with regards to the arrogant US government.” Last year, Khamenei said that Iran should keep arming the Palestinians until Israel is destroyed “by a referendum of the people living there.”
With the agreement, Iran will ultimately be receiving over $150 billion dollars from the relief of economic sanctions. While conceding that the nuclear agreement will give Iran more money to fund its military allies, Obama downplayed the Iranian aspirations to continue arming its regional allies saying that — even in its most dire financial state — had never ceased to fund terror groups such as Hezbollah. Obama said: “Does the IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] or the Quds Force have more resources [as a result of the deal]? Probably, as the economy in Iran improves. But the challenge that we’ve had, when it comes to Hezbollah, for example, aiming rockets into Israel is not a shortage of resources,” Obama said. “Iran has shown itself to be willing, even in the midst of real hardship, to fund what they consider to be strategy priorities.”
Israel has been fiercely critical of the nuclear deal, arguing that the money Iran receives, as sanctions are lifted, will be used to sponsor terror and destabilize the region. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “They say this agreement pushes war away but in fact it brings war closer. Firstly, because Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars and already now states openly that it will use this money to fund its terror proxies. Secondly, [the deal] will start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry’s Director General Dore Gold said that Israel anticipates a “major escalation” of Iranian-backed terror attacks on its borders as a direct result of the nuclear agreement. Gold warned that “the moment that the funds become available from frozen accounts… that’s when the Middle East goes south and things become extremely dangerous in the region.” Saying that the release of $150 billion of frozen funds would free Iran from having to choose which terror activities to support, Gold said Iranian troops and their proxies in the region “will have an ability to be everywhere simultaneously.” Iran has also made great efforts to acquire and distribute advanced weaponry to terror groups, Gold said. “We have been seeing an expansion of Iranian deployment around Israel.”
In association with the nuclear agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a unit of the United Nations, has negotiated two side deals with Iran involving critical data collection processes. In a US Senate hearing, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, revealed that the covert military base Parchin will be off limits to international inspectors. Instead, Iran will take its own samples from Parchin and do its own testing of the covert site. Kerry explained in the hearing that the agreements on Parchin are part of the classified section of the deal. Kerry explained that the US government will not be revealing to the American people the contents of “secret side deals” made with Iran on its nuclear enrichment program. Kerry said that he has not read the agreements but has been “briefed” on their contents.
“No, I haven’t seen it,” Kerry said, adding that “we don’t have access to the actual agreement.” Kerry also said that national-security adviser Susan Rice had not seen them either. Kerry said that Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state, “may have” looked at the side agreements during a meeting at an IAEA facility. However, Kerry said that he couldn’t recall whether Sherman had seen the final version: “I don’t know whether she read a summary or a draft,” Kerry said. “I have no idea.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wanted to know why these deals can’t be made public to the American people asking Kerry, “Why can’t we confirm or deny the content of these agreements in public? Why is this classified? It’s not a sensitive U.S. government document. The Ayatollahs know what they agreed to.” Kerry replied: “Because we respect the process of the IAEA and we don’t have their authorization to reveal what is a confidential agreement between them and another country.” Cotton responded to Kerry, “So the Iranian ayatollahs will know what they agreed to but not the American people?” Kerry said members of Congress would be able to learn about it in a classified briefing.
Kerry said that the United States never intended to dismantle Iran’s entire nuclear program and the nation’s top diplomat never promised “anytime, anywhere inspections.” In response, US Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) told Kerry, “I believe we’ve been fleeced and in the course of being fleeced you turned Iran from being a pariah into Congress being a pariah,” he said. “A few weeks ago, you said that no deal was better than a bad deal. What you say now is that somehow if Congress were to turn this down, the only option is war.” Corker told Kerry that he had “crossed a new threshold in US foreign policy where it is now the policy of the United States to allow a state sponsor of terror to develop a sophisticated nuclear program.”
Since Israel does not believe that the agreement will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would not rule out Israeli military action to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear arms. Furthermore, Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also indicated that a military option was not off the table, saying that even though the nuclear agreement “is a historic mistake” and will enable Iran to be a “legitimate nuclear threshold country,” Israel “will continue to defend ourselves on our own.”
US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) put Kerry on the spot when he asked him whether the controversial articles in Annex III on page 142 of the 159-page deal would stipulate that the US block Israeli attempts to stop the Iranian nuclear threat. The articles in question state that the US, world powers and the EU obligate to “co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage.” Rubio asked, “If Israel conducts an airstrike on a physical facility, does this deal…require us to help Iran protect and respond to that threat?” In a separate interview, Kerry said that any future Israeli military action against Iran over its nuclear program would be a “huge mistake.” Asked if the nuclear deal signed between the world powers would make it more likely that Israel would attempt an attack, Kerry said: “That would be an enormous mistake, a huge mistake with grave consequences for Israel and for the region, and I don’t think it’s necessary.”
Furthermore, Kerry told Rubio that “the purpose of these clauses is to be able to have longer-term guarantees as we enter a world in which cyber warfare is increasingly a concern for everybody. If you are going to have a nuclear capacity, you clearly want to be able to make sure that those are adequately protected.” Responding to Kerry’s hint that the clause is meant to defend Iran from “cyber warfare,” Rubio asked if the deal obligates the US to defend Iran from an Israeli cyber attack. “I assure you that we will be coordinating very, very closely with Israel as we do on every aspect of Israel’s security,” said Kerry, tellingly refusing to directly answer what the deal obligates the US to do in such a scenario essentially indicating that America’s actions won’t be clear until the moment of truth.
In strongly opposing the Iranian nuclear agreement, a senior Israeli diplomatic source said that the agreement “not only allows the Iranians a warning time of 24 days (before inspections of its nuclear facilities) to clean things up but now we learn that they’re the ones collecting the samples as part of the inspections. This means that this agreement will allow the Iranians to fabricate the samples and there is no chance that breaches (of the deal) will be found. In practicality, it means that there won’t be any real inspections of Iran’s nuclear program.”
A senior minister of the Israeli government was quoted as saying, “In this deal and its annexes there are lots of astonishing things, like the fact that Iran is the one to collect the samples from nuclear sites, and that the world powers are also obligated to help Iran prevent sabotage at its nuclear facilities,” said the minister. He added, “each day it becomes clear how awful this deal is. This deal is full of holes. Everyone understands that they (the Iranians) tricked them. The more we go deeper into this deal and its annexes, we discover that the Americans and the international community crossed many red lines.”
Recently, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that in spite of the nuclear agreement, Iran’s policies toward the US and the world will not change. He said: “Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change.” After Khamenei spoke his words, the crowd responded by saying, “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” In response, Khamenei said that he hoped that God would answer their prayers. Regarding Iran’s open animosity to Israel, US Secretary of State, John Kerry said that while “they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment” that doesn’t necessarily mean “that translates into active steps” therefore, the discussion about Iran’s hostility toward Israel in connection with the nuclear deal is “a waste of time”.
In rejecting the Iranian nuclear deal, Netanyahu said that Israel was “not at the table” when it was being negotiated, instead the agreement reveals that Israel was “one of the courses on the menu itself.” US Secretary of State, John Kerry, accused Netanyahu of going “way over the top” in his criticisms. In addition, Kerry argued that the nuclear agreement signed with Iran is in Israel’s interest and that the Israeli government’s decision to oppose it could further its international isolation. Kerry said: “I fear that what could happen is if Congress were to overturn it, our friends in Israel could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed.”
As for Israel’s ability to stop the nuclear agreement, they are engaging in an intense lobbying effort in the U.S. Congress to block the deal. The US Congress will have until September 17th to review and vote on whether to support or reject the Iranian nuclear agreement. Under an agreement that Obama struck with lawmakers, Congress has 60 days to review the agreement before Obama can start easing economic sanctions on Iran. As a result, US lawmakers will likely try to derail it by passing new sanctions or prevent Obama from lifting existing sanctions by voting to reject the agreement.
Obama has said that he will veto any resolutions from Congress seeking to undermine the deal, meaning opponents would have to muster a two-thirds majority in Congress to override the veto. That would require dozens of Democrats to vote against the president which appears unlikely. Speaking to members of congress, Netanyahu called on “all those who care about Israel’s security” to unite behind the commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
In response to Netanyahu, Obama said that he was confident that the US Congress will not be able to muster enough no votes to block the agreement. “[P]erhaps [Netanyahu] thinks he can further influence the congressional debate, however, I’m confident we’re going to be able to uphold this deal and implement it without Congress preventing it.” In addition, Obama said that Israel’s rejection of the Iranian nuclear agreement was “sincere” but “wrong.” The UN Security Council “unanimously supported it” by a vote of 15 – 0 so Israel is the only country who opposes it and in doing so is being internationally isolated.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Prime Minister’s Office gears up for battle in US against Iran accord
2) Iran’s deputy FM: We told world powers we’ll keep arming our allies
3) Obama Admits: Iran Being Given Billions for Terror Funds
4) Obama’s Deal: $150 Billion to Iran to Destroy Israel with Conventional Arms
5) Obama downplays nuke-deal benefits for Iran’s proxies
6) ‘No Inspections’: Iran to Test its Own Covert Nuclear Sites
7) Does Iran gets to inspect its own suspect nuke sites? US won’t say
8) Kerry bombshell: U.N. in ‘secret deal’ with Iran
9) John Kerry hasn’t even seen one of the most crucial parts of the Iran agreement
10) Senator to Kerry on Iran deal: ‘We’ve been fleeced’
11) Watch: Kerry Indicates US Will Defend Iran from Israel
12) Kerry: Israeli strike on Iran would be ‘huge mistake’
13) Netanyahu said to bitterly attack Kerry for placing Israel ‘on the menu’ of Iran deal
14) PM hints military option against Iran not off the table
15) Kerry Says Israel May Deepen Its Isolation by Opposing Iran Nuclear Accord
16) Kerry casts doubt on Iran’s desire to annihilate Israel
17) Embattled Israeli leader faces tough task fighting nuke deal
18) Obama threatens to veto Congress moves to block Iran deal
19) Netanyahu’s bid to lobby Congress to kill Iran deal will fail, Obama says
20) Obama: Netanyahu cannot stop Iran deal
21) Obama: Israel sole objector to Iran deal; Netanyahu is ‘wrong’
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l