Iran and world powers reach nuclear deal, Netanyahu calls it ‘historic mistake’
(JNS.org) Iran and the P5+1 nations on Tuesday reached a final nuclear deal whose details are still emerging.
According to reports, in exchange for the lifting international oil and financial sanctions on Iran, the deal restricts the amount of nuclear fuel that Iran can keep in its stockpile for 15 years, requires Iran to reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98 percent, and reduces the number of centrifuges spinning at Iran’s enrichment center at Natanz by two-thirds. But American officials “acknowledged that after the first decade [of the deal], the breakout time [for an Iranian nuclear weapon] would begin to shrink,” the New York Times reported.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said “all sanctions will be lifted,” according to Press TV.
“This is a pitiful chapter in Western diplomacy that I think will rank right up with poor Mr. [Neville] Chamberlain stopping at the top of the stairs at that plane and waiving a sheet of paper, and thinking that somehow ink on paper would stop the ravenous appetite of a madman like Hitler,” Gary Bauer, head of Christians United for Israel’s (CUFI) new Action Fund and an official in former president Ronald Reagan’s administration, told reporters at CUFI’s Washington Summit before the deal was reached. “We’re facing the same kind of hatred, the same kind of ideology that is not only anti-Israel, it’s anti-Semitic, and the idea that the mullahs of Iran would sign anything that the West could rely on is I think outlandish.”
President Barack Obama said the U.S. and the international community “have achieved something that decades of animosity has not.” But the Iran deal is expected to receive a stiff challenge from Congress, where it can now be reviewed for 60 days because negotiations went past July 9.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, “I will refer later to the details of the agreement, but before that, I would like to say here and now—when you are willing to make an agreement at any cost, this is the result.”
“From the initial reports we can already conclude that this agreement is an historic mistake for the world,” he said. “Far-reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe. One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting, ‘Death to America.’”
“I say to all the leaders in Israel, it is time to put petty politics aside and unite behind this most fateful issue to the future and security of the State of Israel,” added Netanyahu.
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California lawmakers approve measure urging action on campus anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) The California State Assembly on Monday passed a resolution urging action on the increasingly rampant anti-Semitism on University of California (UC) campuses.
The resolution urges each UC campus to “adopt a resolution condemning all forms of anti-Semitism and racism.”
The bipartisan measure was introduced by State Senator Jeff Stone (R-Riverside County) following a series of events that targeted Jews and Israel on UC campuses, including an incident at UC Davis in which a swastika was painted onto an Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Jewish fraternity building and the UCLA student government’s probing of a Jewish student’s religious identity during a hearing on her application for a judicial board position.
The resolution was previously passed unanimously in May by the California State Senate, 35-0, and by the California Assembly’s Higher Education Committee, 8-0, in June.
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Canadian-Israeli woman who fought with Kurds in Syria returns to Israel
(JNS.org) Canadian-Israeli woman Gill Rosenberg, who was the first woman to go into Syria and help the Kurds fight the Islamic State terror group, has reportedly returned to Israel.
Rosenberg, 31, was embedded in the region for eight months, during which time she was unreachable for a lengthy period. This had sparked rumors that she was kidnapped. Rosenberg eventually did release a message that she was unharmed.
On Monday, Rosenberg cited the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East as part of the reason for her decision to return to Israel.
“I think we as Jews, we say ‘never again’ for the Shoah, and I take it to mean not just for Jewish people, but for anyone, for any human being, especially a helpless woman or child in Syria or Iraq,” Rosenberg told Israel’s Army Radio.
“But in the past few weeks I think a lot of the dynamics have changed there, in terms of what’s going on in the war. The Iranian involvement is a lot more pronounced. Things changed enough that I felt that it was time to come home,” she said.
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12 Christian IDF soldiers attacked by Arab Muslims this year, leader says
(JNS.org) A dozen Christians serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been attacked by Arab Muslims this year, an Israeli Christian leader said.
“So far this year, 12 Christian soldiers have been attacked,” Father Gabriel Naddaf told the Jerusalem Post, adding that “nobody is doing anything about the phenomenon.”
For several years, Naddaf has led efforts to increase participation of Israeli Christians in the IDF. Naddaf’s own son was attacked in December 2013 due to his pro-IDF views.
“I call on the [Israeli] government to quickly put an end to this phenomenon [of Muslim attacks on soldiers] because it will cause Christians to think twice before joining the army,” he said.
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90-year-old woman ‘going home,’ makes aliyah
By Maayan Jaffe/JNS.org
Susan Friedman proves that it’s never too late to be a pioneer. At the ripe age of 90, she made aliyah Monday on a charter flight through the Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) agency.
“I am going home,” she told JNS.org.
Friedman said she wanted to move to Israel from the time she was 13, when her parents left Germany for a better and safer life in the United States. Her father told her to start in America, and eventually she could move to the Jewish homeland. In 1938, the State of Israel had not yet been established, and her father was worried she would struggle.
Five children, 18 grandchildren, and 37 great-grandchildren later, she is moving to Ra’anana, where she will live in an independent living facility. She has traveled to Israel at least once annually over the last 50 years, including spending time there with her late husband, Prof. Gerald M. Friedman. Today, she has two daughters and their families living in Israel, including her granddaughter Member of Knesset Rachel Azaria (Kulanu).
Friedman said she knows “some Hebrew,” having studied Hebrew grammar in Germany. Her daughter, Judith Friedman Rosen, who was in tears of emotion watching her mother prepare to board the plane, will be in Israel around Passover time for a bar mitzvah and to visit her mother.
“I am ready to go,” Friedman said at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport before departing on NBN’s 53rd charter flight.
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