Dear Family & Friends,

So, It has begun. The Day After Negotiations & Signatures.

Now it’s in the powerful hands of the U.S. Congress, the Israelis & the American people to use the 60 days to discombobulate this suicidal agreement. Let’s learn the issues & talking points to write, speak, rally. And then do it again tomorrow & next week.

Meanwhile, have a good night, a great day. All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

1.Kerry Describes ‘Historic’ Nuclear Deal Signed Between World Powers, Iran

2.Obama Vows to Veto Any Attempt to Block Iran Deal

3.‘Peace for Our Time’ – Iran Nuclear Deal Announced on ‘Black Tuesday’

4.Iran’s Version of Nuclear Deal Differs Even at Press Release Level

5.The Iran Challenge: Was There Another Way? By: Yoram Ettinger

6.Netanyahu Urges National Unity against ‘Historic Mistake’

7.Holding On to Nuclear Deterrence for Dear Life By Louis René Beres

8.Burning Terrorist Ambush Neutralized on Highway 443

9.New Israel Fund Supporting & Openly Funding BDS Against Israel

10.Arlene Kushner “A Lethal Farce”

11.The Shamrak Report By Stephen Shamrak

1.Kerry Describes ‘Historic’ Nuclear Deal Signed Between World Powers, Iran

The US and Iranian presidents told their nations a nuclear deal has been signed, as US Secy of State John Kerry announced it to the world from Vienna.

By: Hana Levi Julian JewishPress.com Published: July 14th, 2015

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Tuesday morning in Vienna that world powers have struck an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear development program.

In return, Iran will receive billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions to be relaxed in phases as Iran begins to comply with the commitments in the agreement.

According to the 109-page accord, Iran will enrich uranium only up to an amount of slightly less than 4 percent: enough for civilian medical and energy purposes. The Islamic Republic agreed to allow spot inspections – daily inspections, Kerry said – by monitors from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – at its nuclear research and development sites.

That access, however, is not guaranteed – especially at military sites, where the country’s parliament has just passed a law banning entry to any foreign or outside element. Even a delay could last long enough to allow nuclear scientists time to hide evidence of research into atomic weapons.

A three-month extension on talks between Iran and the IAEA to resolve outstanding issues was agreed to and signed this morning with the agency’s director, Yukiyo Amano, Kerry said. “Sanctions relief will only start when Iran complies with its commitments,” he reminded.

In addition, it was agreed the United Nations arms embargo imposed on Iran will continue for the next five years as well. UN restrictions on the transfer of ballistic missile technology to Tehran could last up to eight more years. Either or both sanctions, however, could end sooner, depending on clearance by the IAEA.

The “snap back” provision that allows sanctions to be reimposed if Iran violates the agreement will also stay in the agreement. Kerry noted this point is particularly important, inasmuch as the negotiators began their talks when Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear weapon was only a total of two to three months – and when the Islamic Republic already had amassed “enough fissile material for 10 to 12 [atomic] bombs.”

Perhaps that is one reason the deal is “not built on trust, it is built on verification,” as President Barack Obama told Americans in a broadcast from the White House carried live on Iranian state television. Obama added that all potential pathways to an Iranian nuclear weapon have been cut off.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in Tehran that a “new chapter” has begun in his nation’s relations with the global community.

Kerry also commented that the signing of the agreement could not guarantee its commitment; rather, “it’s the implementation that will matter,” he said. Nevertheless, despite fiery rhetoric filled with venom and vows by Iranian leaders not to allow outside access to the country’s nuclear sites, Kerry said negotiators talked a different tale at the negotiating table.

“The negotiators absolutely affirmed to us… that they are operating with a full mandate from the President [Hassan]Rouhani, and from the Supreme Leader,” Kerry said. Whether they were telling the truth, however, only time can tell.

“In the negotiation, you lay down the procedures that are expected to be taken and you lay down the consequences for not doing that,” he added.

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

2.Obama Vows to Veto Any Attempt to Block Iran Deal

By: Hana Levi Julian JewishPress.com Published: July 14th, 2015

NOTICE THEIR FACES! THEY LOOK GUT-SMACKED! THE LOOK LIKE THEY ARE CAUGHT – AS THE EMPEROR – NAKED! THEY LOOK TRAPPED IN BIG LIES!!!

U.S. President Barack Obama stated bluntly Tuesday morning that he would not tolerate any attempts by American lawmakers to modify or neutralize the new accord with Iran signed in Vienna by Secretary of State John Kerry and five other nations.

“I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal,” Obama stated clearly in a live speech broadcast from the White House not only to the nation, but also live in Iran.

Obama saved that warning till the very end of his speech, which was dedicated primarily to a sales pitch designed to persuade the American people the agreement signed in Vienna is one that will block Iran from creating an atomic bomb.

Nowhere in his speech did the president point out that Iran has already amassed enough fissile material to be able to create at least 10 atomic bombs within a two to three month breakout period. The current agreement expands that breakout period to approximately one year at most and reduces the amount of fissile material available to create such an arsenal.

The president also did not mention that although an agreement was signed today between the U.S., Iran and five other world powers, there has yet to be a completed agreement between Iran and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Talks between the Islamic Republic and Tehran are to continue for another three months at least.

Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of the nation’s Security Cabinet in the late afternoon following the announcement. “The world is a much more dangerous place today than it was yesterday,” Netanyahu told reporters as he headed into the meeting.

Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not. A comprehensive long term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

This deal demonstrates that American diplomacy can bring about real and meaningful change; change that makes our country and the world safer and more secure.

This deal is also in line with a tradition of American leadership.

“Because of this deal we will for the first time be in a position to verify all of these commitments,” he said. “That means this deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification.”

“Inspectors will have 24/7 access to Iran’s key nuclear facilities. Iran (sic) will have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, its uranium mines, its melts, its conversion facility, and its centrifuge manufacturing storage facilities.

“This ensures that Iran will not be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Some of these transparency measures will be in place for 25 years.

“Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location. Put simply the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary.

“That arrangement is permanent.

“As Iran takes steps to implement this deal they will receive relief from the sanctions we put in place because of Iran’s nuclear program, both America’s own sanctions, and sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. This relief will be phased in.

“Iran must complete key nuclear steps before it begins to receive new sanctions relief. And over the course of the next decade Iran must abide by the deal before additional sanctions are lifted.

“All of this will be memorialized and endorsed in a new United Nations Security Council resolution.

“And if Iran violates the deal all these sanctions will snap back into place. So there’s a very clean incentive for Iran to follow through, and there are very real consequences for a violation.

“I am confident that this deal will meet the national security interests of the United States and our allies — so I will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation of this deal,” Obama concluded.

“The leading international powers have bet our collective future on a deal with the foremost sponsor of international terrorism,” Netanyahu warned. “They’ve gambled that in ten years’ time, Iran’s terrorist regime will change while removing any incentive for it to do so. In fact, the deal gives Iran every incentive not to change.”

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

3.‘Peace for Our Time’ – Iran Nuclear Deal Announced on ‘Black Tuesday’ July 14, 2015

An announcement of an agreement is expected at 11:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. EDT). By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Jewish.Press.com Published: July 14, 2015

Destroying Israel is non-negotiable.” said Mohammad Reza Naqdi, head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Iran and the P5+1 powers announced a final agreement shortly after noon (Israeli time) on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. It will take a year to understand if the deal actually stops helps Iran get its hands on a nuclear weapon.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned yesterday that Israel’s failure to prevent a “bad deal” does not change its determination to use whatever means necessary to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

French Foreign minister Laurent Fabius said the nuclear deal will sufficient for “at least for the period of the first 10 years.”

Congress has 60 days to review the bill, but it will not be able to torpedo it unless there is a wholesale rebellion of Democrats that would prevent a presidential veto of non-approval by legislators.

Rouhani has provided plenty of ammunition for opponents to the deal, having said that Iran still will consider the United States an enemy country.

About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.

4.Iran’s Version of Nuclear Deal Differs Even at Press Release Level

By: JNi.Media JewishPress.com Published: July 14th, 2015

JNi.media) The United States and three Western Countries, plus Russia and China, say they’ve reached a historic agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The deal’s general outline has been described as putting tough restrictions on Iran’s nuclear plans and setting up an inspections regime to verify that Iran is meeting its obligations. In exchange, the sanctions on Iran will be dropped, allowing Iran to sell more oil and become part of the international financial system.

But the most scant examination of the Iranian version of the deal reveals disturbing differences between it and the Western version.

Speaking from the White House, President Barack Obama said that this deal will keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Obama insisted the deal cuts off “every pathway” Iran has to acquire a nuclear weapon. It removes two-thirds of Iran’s centrifuges; Iran commits to avoid using its advance centrifuges for 10 years; Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium will remain limited for 15 years.

But Iran’s version of the deal, according to IRNA, says “All nuclear installations and sites are to continue their work contrary to the early demands of the other party, none of them will be dismantled.”

Obama also said the deal gives international inspectors 24/7 access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. “That means this deal is not built on trust; it is built on verification,” Obama said.

Without a deal, Obama argued, Iran would have been able to get closer to having a nuclear weapon, necessitating a military confrontation in order to stop it.

“We give up nothing by testing whether or not this problem can be solved peacefully,” Obama said, promising that the president that follows him could always go back to imposing sanctions or taking the military option.

File that under things that are easier said than done. Many Israelis will remember the Ariel Sharon administration promising on the eve of the pullout from the Gaza Strip: what’s the worst that can happen—if the Palestinians use Israel’s unilateral retreat to heat up the area, Israel could always take over again.

In fact, IRNA’s version makes a point of the fact that Iran expects Tens of billion dollars of its revenues which had been frozen over the past several years due to unfair sanctions overseas will become available.

A future president’s attempt to impose future sanctions would look a lot like closing the barn door after the runaway horse died of old age.

The president said his administration is prepared to brief Congress on every possible aspect of the deal, but warned that it would “irresponsible to walk away from this deal,” and that he would surely veto such a move.

“This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction,” Obama said. “We should seize it.”

In the US Senate there are probably 54 solid Republican votes against the deal. So the question is whether 13 Democrats would cross the aisle to defeat an Obama veto. A lot will depend on Senator Chuck Schumer from NY, whose take on the Iran deal will probably spell its destiny.

Secretary of State John Kerry also went into more details about the deal in Vienna, saying that it does Allow Iran to enrich uranium, but only up to 3.67 percent, which is needed for civilian—medicinal—purposes, but a whole lot lower than what is required to build a weapon.

IRNA says: “Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, no centrifuges will be dismantled and research and development on key and advanced centrifuges such as IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, IR-8 will continue.”

Also: “The policy on preventing enrichment uranium is now failed and Iran will go ahead with its enrichment program.”

Kerry said Iran has agreed to turn its Fordow facility, an underground bunker, into a research facility that will invite world scientists to work there.

As to the heavy-water reactor in Arak, which was capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium—it will be rebuilt using a design approved by the international community, according to Kerry. And that design, Kerry said, would make the production of weapons-grade plutonium there impossible.

IRNA says: “Arak Heavy Water Reactor will continue its work and remain intact, to be modernized, and equipped with latest technology, new laboratories and new installations and through cooperation with the owners of most sophisticated and most secure technologies in the world, early demands for dismantling or changing it to a light water reactor is void.”

Also, according to IRNA: “Ban on procurement of sensitive dual-purpose items to be lifted and Iran’s requirements to be facilitated and removed through referral to Iran-G5+1 Joint Commission.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted Tuesday afternoon:

“From the initial reports we can already conclude that this agreement is a historic mistake.”

So he’s not seizing the opportunity for now.

5.The Iran Challenge: Was There Another Way? By: Yoram Ettinger

JewishPress.com Published: July 14, 2015

{Originally posted to the author’s website, The Ettinger Report}

President Obama asserted that he was ready to conclude an agreement with the Ayatollahs “only if Iran came to the table in a serious way.” Shortly thereafter, Obama stated that it would be “a fundamental misjudgment” to precondition an agreement with the Ayatollahs upon the transformation of the nature of their regime.

Indeed, the Ayatollahs must come to the table in a serious way for an effective agreement to be concluded – advancing peaceful coexistence, rather than fueling violence. However, “a serious (peace-driven) way,” on the one hand, and the nature of the Ayatollahs, on the other hand, constitutes an oxymoron.

The well-documented nature of the Ayatollahs consists of: Islamic supremacy; violent intolerance of the Christian and Jewish “infidel;” apocalyptic and megalomaniac worldview and policies; worshipping martyrdom/suicide bombing; ruthless domestic repression; hate-education in K-12; sponsorship of global Islamic terrorism; subversion and terrorism against all pro-US Arab regimes; collaboration with all anti-US regimes; nuclear cooperation and co-development of long-range ballistic capabilities with North Korea, a rogue nuclear power; expansion of economic, military, gas and nuclear cooperation with Russia, which collaborates with Iran in Syria and Yemen; undermining the US position in Latin America via the enhancement of economic, military and gas cooperation with Venezuela and Bolivia, which supply uranium to Iran, as well as overall cooperation with Argentina and uranium-rich Ecuador; demonization of the USA in schools, media and mosques – “the Great Satan;” celebration of the November 4 “Death to America Day;” systematic non-compliance with agreements through the art of nuclear concealment, double-talk and deception (Taqiyyah).

The nature of the Ayatollahs’ regime constitutes a clear and present threat to vital US interests.

An effective agreement must not subordinate reliability to desirability. Therefore, the track record of the Ayatollahs should override – and must not be sacrificed on the altar of – the hopes and aspirations of reaching an agreement. The reality inside the negotiation halls must be determined by – and not conflict with – the reality of Iran’s track record outside the negotiation halls. As pertinent as are the details of an agreement, the details of the Ayatollahs’ track record – domestically, regionally and globally – constitute the dominant element which will shape the ripple effects of an agreement: will it promote peaceful coexistence or intensify violence?

Short-term political convenience and assessments must be subordinated to long term assessments of the imperialistic goals and rogue foreign and national security policies of the Ayatollahs.

An agreement with a rogue regime cannot be effective unless preconditioned upon the dramatic transformation of the nature of the regime.

The ethos, mission and long-term vision of the Ayatollahs are reflected most authentically and lucidly in their school textbooks, which were analyzed by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP). According to CMIP, which analyzed 115 textbooks, “Hostility towards the USA is apparent everywhere in the textbooks, backed by a set of titles of which ‘the Great Satan’ is exclusively reserved for the USA…. Iran prepares its school students to fight the West – the US in particular – as an indispensable phase of the Islamic Revolution….

Much emphasis is put on Jihad [Holy War] and martyrdom…. Iran’s school system prepares its pupils for World War III in the name of Islam against American world hegemony…. A life-or-death global war against the infidel oppressors….

‘O Muslims of the world, you should overcome the fear of death and leverage the passionate and martyrdom-seeking youths…. We shall not cease until the annihilation of all of them (Islamic Viewpoint, Grade 11)’…. ‘The exalted God gives eternal Paradise to anyone who becomes a martyr [Islamic Culture and Religious Instruction, Grade 8]….

There is a clear differentiation between Islam and the other monotheistic religions. Islam is considered superior… the only valid religion…. Israel is presented as a base created by Western Colonialism for the control of the Arabs and Muslims [Geography, Grade 11]….”

Unlike the USSR which adhered to the principle of mutual assured destruction (MAD), the apocalyptic worldview of the Ayatollahs– who had no compunction in dispatching 500,000 children to clear minefields during Iran’s war against Iraq – considers MAD-driven martyrdom an inducement, a sublime prize. Furthermore, the Ayatollahs believe in the imminent emergence of the 12^th (Hidden) Imam, the Mahdi – Muhammad’s successor – through apocalyptic events, which could be accelerated via military confrontations, including nuclear.

While negotiating with the USA, the Ayatollahs follow core Islamic principles such as The Hudaybiyyah Treaty – which allows Muslims to conclude an agreement, to be abrogated, in order to overcome the “infidel” – and Taqiyyah, which legitimizes deception in the pursuit of Islamic goals.

For example, on November 5, 2004, notwithstanding the facts, the current Foreign Minister Zarif, wrote: “The predominant view among Iranian decision-makers is that possession of nuclear weapons would only undermine Iranian security…. There are also serious ideological restrictions against weapons of mass destruction…. A costly nuclear weapon option would reduce Iran’s regional influence and increase its global vulnerabilities.”

On September 12, 2002, Iran’s current President Rouhani, proclaimed on ABC-TV: “We are not pursuing nuclear, chemical, biological weapons.”

On March 21, 2003, the Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei, stated: “The statement that the Islamic Republic wants to obtain chemical weapons and the atomic bomb is totally false.”

Against the backdrop of the track record of the Ayatollahs, it would be a well-intentioned fundamental misjudgment – which could lead to a global chaos, including a nuclear war – not to precondition an agreement with the Ayatollahs upon the drastic transformation of the nature of their regime.

About the Author: Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger is consultant to Israel’s Cabinet members and Israeli legislators, and lecturer in the U.S., Canada and Israel on Israel’s unique contributions to American interests, the foundations of U.S.-Israel relations, the Iranian threat, and Jewish-Arab issues.

6.Netanyahu Urges National Unity against ‘Historic Mistake’

The Prime Minister said the deal will give Iran hundreds of millions of dollars to fuel terror.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu JewishPress.com Published: July 14, 2015

The agreement between Iran and the P5+1 power on Tehran’s nuclear programs is “an historic mistake” that will enable hundreds of millions of dollars to flow into Iranian coffers to incite and carry out terror worldwide, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday morning.

He issued a statement at his meeting Tuesday with Netherlands Foreign Minister Bert Koenders.

Prime Minister Netanyahu stated:

“When you are willing to make an agreement at any cost, this is the result… This agreement is an historic mistake for the world….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.’

“He charged that the desire by Western powers to reach an agreement was “stronger than anything” and that while “we did not commit to preventing an agreement, we did commit to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and this commitment still stands.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu called on Israeli leaders “to put petty politics aside and unite” behind the government’s continuing campaign to convince Congress to ditch the agreement.

He made his statement shortly after Tzipi Livni, second fiddle to Opposition leader Yitzchak Herzog, blamed Netanyahu for the deal because he fought so hardly against it.

About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.

7.Holding On to Nuclear Deterrence for Dear Life By Louis René Beres

“Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Monday, July 13, 2015 2:33 PM

Left to themselves, especially as more “normal” hostilities dissolve into a full-blown regional chaos, Israel’s adversaries could drive the Jewish State toward an unconventional war, into fire, into ice. This fateful endangerment could be produced singly or collaboratively, by deliberate enemy intent, or by the “collateral damage” of sectarian strife. Militarily, these Islamic adversaries of Israel, both Sunni and Shia, could be either non-nuclear, or, in the future, nuclear.

They might also include certain well-armed sub-state or terror-group fighting forces. Already, Iranian-backed Hezbollah may have more usable missiles than all NATO countries combined.

To most effectively deal with such interpenetrating threats – including reasonably expected “synergies” and “force multipliers” – Israel’s leaders will first need to consider some largely-opaque factors. These include:

(1) probable effects of regional chaos upon enemy rationality;

(2) disruptive implications of impending Palestinian statehood; and (3) re-emergence of a corrosively Cold War-style polarity between Russia and the United States.

Apropos of a “Cold War II,” there is already evidence of growing contact between Russia and Saudi Arabia, the world’s two largest oil producers.

In essence, Jerusalem must take all necessary steps to successfully manage an expectedly unprecedented level of adversarial complexity and weaponization. Israel’s leaders, in this connection, must take proper measures to ensure that any conceivable failures of its national deterrent would not spark biological or nuclear forms of regional conflict. To accomplish this indispensable goal, the IDF, inter alia, must continue to plan carefully around the core understanding that nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence are inherently interrelated and meaningfully “seamless.”

Sometimes, in strategic matters, seeing requires distance. A nuclear war in the Middle East is not beyond possibility. This is a sensible assessment, even if Israel were to remain the only nuclear weapons state in the region.

How is this possible? A bellum atomicum could come to Israel not only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” enemy nuclear attack (either by a state, or by a terror-group), but also as the result, intended or otherwise, of certain uncontrolled military escalations.

Needed prudence in such narratives calls for additional specificity and precision. If particular Arab/Islamic enemy states were to launch certain overwhelming conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem could then respond, sooner or later, with calculated and more-or-less calibrated nuclear reprisals. Alternatively, if some of these enemy states were to launch other large-scale conventional attacks, Jerusalem’s own still-conventional reprisals could then be met, perhaps even in the not-too-distant future, with enemy nuclear counterstrikes.

How should Israel prepare for such perilous contingencies? More than likely, Israel has already rejected any doctrinal plans for fielding a tactical/theatre nuclear force, and for assuming any corollary nuclear war fighting postures. It would follow further from any such well-reasoned rejection that Israel should do whatever is needed to maintain a credible conventional deterrent. By definition, such a measured threat option could then function reliably across the entire foreseeable spectrum of non-nuclear threats.

Still, any such strategy would need to include an appropriately complementary nuclear deterrent, a distinctly “last-resort” option that could display a “counter-value” (counter-city) mission function. Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum. “If you want peace, prepare for atomic war.”

A persuasive Israeli conventional deterrent, at least to the extent that it might prevent a wide range of enemy conventional attacks in the first place, could reduce Israel’s growing risk of escalatory exposure to nuclear war. In the always arcane lexicon of nuclear strategy, a complex language that more-or-less intentionally mirrors the tangled coordinates of atomic war, Israel will need to maintain firm control of “escalation dominance.” Otherwise, the Jewish State could find itself engaged in an elaborate but ultimately lethal pantomime of international bluster and bravado.

The reason for Israel’s obligation to control escalatory processes is conspicuous and unassailable. It is that Jerusalem’s main enemies possess something that Israel can plainly never have. Mass.

At some point, as nineteenth century Prussian military thinker, Carl von Clausewitz, asserts in On War: “Mass counts.” Today, this is true even though Israel’s many enemies are in substantially chaotic disarray. Now, amid what Clausewitz had famously called “friction” and the “fog of war,” it could become harder for Israel to determine real and pertinent differences between its allies, and its adversaries.

As an example, Jordan could soon become vulnerable to advancing ISIS forces. Acknowledging this new vulnerability, an ironic question will come immediately to mind: Should Israel support the Jordanian monarchy in such a fight? And if so, in what specific and safe operational forms?

Similarly ironic questions may need to be raised about Egypt, where the return to military dictatorship in the midst of surrounding Islamist chaos could eventually prove both fragile and transient. Should President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi fail to hold things together, the ultimate victors could be not only the country’s own Muslim Brotherhood, but also, in nearby Gaza, Palestinian Hamas.

Seemingly, however, Hamas is already being targeted by ISIS, a potentially remorseless opposition suggesting, inter alia, that the principal impediment to Palestinian statehood is not really Israel, but rather another Sunni Arab terrorist organization. Of course, it is not entirely out of the question that ISIS’s Egyptian offshoot, the so-called “Sinai Province of Islamic State,” could sometime decide to cooperate with Hamas – the Islamic Resistance Movement – rather than plan to defeat it.

To further underscore the area’s multiple and crosscutting axes of conflict, it is now altogether possible that if an ISIS conquest of Sinai should spread to Gaza, President al-Sisi might then “invite” the IDF to strike on Egypt’s behalf. Among other concerns, Egypt plainly fears that any prolonged inter-terrorist campaign inside Gaza could lead to a literal breaking down of border fences, and an uncontrolled mass flight of Palestinians into neighboring Sinai.

Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” With such peculiar facts in mind, why should Israel now sustain a conventional deterrent at all? Wouldn’t enemy states, at least those that were consistently rational, steadfastly resist launching any conventional attacks upon Israel, for fear of inciting a nuclear reprisal?

Here is a plausible answer. Suspecting that Israel would cross the nuclear threshold only in extraordinary circumstances, these national foes could be convinced, rightly or wrongly, that as long as their initial attacks were to remain conventional, Israel’s response would remain reciprocally non-nuclear. By simple extrapolation, this means that the only genuinely effective way for Israel to continually deter large-scale conventional war could be by maintaining visibly capable and secure conventional options.

As for Israel’s principal non-state adversaries, including Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni ISIS, their own belligerent calculations would be detached from any assessments of Israeli nuclear capacity and intent. After all, whatever attacks they might sometime decide to consider launching against the Jewish State, there could never be any decipherable nuclear response.

Nonetheless, these non-state Jihadist foes are now arguably more threatening to Israel than most enemy national armies, including the regular armed forces of Israel’s most traditional enemies – Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

Some other noteworthy nuances now warrant mention. Any still-rational Arab/Islamic enemy states considering first-strike attacks against Israel using chemical and/or biological weapons would likely take Israel’s nuclear deterrent more seriously. But a strong conventional capability would still be needed by Israel to deter or to preempt certain less destructive conventional attacks, strikes that could escalate quickly and unpredictably to assorted forms of unconventional war.

If Arab/Islamic enemy states did not perceive any Israeli sense of expanding conventional force weakness, these belligerent countries, now animated by credible expectations of an Israeli unwillingness to escalate to nonconventional weapons, could be more encouraged to attack. The net result here could be:

(1) defeat of Israel in a conventional war;

(2) defeat of Israel in an unconventional (chemical/biological/nuclear) war;

(3) defeat of Israel in a combined conventional/unconventional war; or

(4) defeat of Arab/Islamic enemy states by Israel in an unconventional war.

For Israel, even the presumptively “successful” fourth possibility could prove too costly.

Perceptions are vitally important in all calculations of nuclear deterrence. By continuing to keep every element of its nuclear armaments and doctrine “opaque,” Israel could unwittingly contribute to the injurious impression among its regional enemies that Jerusalem’s nuclear weapons were unusable. Unconvinced of Israel’s willingness to actually employ its nuclear weapons, these enemies could then decide to accept the cost-effectiveness of striking first.

With any such acceptance, Israeli nuclear deterrence will have failed.

If enemy states should turn out to be correct in their calculations, Israel could find itself overrun, and thereby rendered subject to potentially existential harms. If they had been incorrect, many states in the region, including even Israel, could eventually suffer the assorted consequences of multiple nuclear weapons detonations. Within the directly affected areas, thermal radiation, nuclear radiation, and blast damage would then spawn uniquely high levels of death and devastation.

To prevent a nuclear war amid steadily growing regional chaos, especially as Iran will soon be fully nuclear (and the grateful beneficiary of President Obama’s pretend P5+1 diplomacy), Israel will need suitably complementary conventional and nuclear deterrents. Even now, at the eleventh hour, it will also require a set of residual but still-available preemption options.

Under authoritative international law, actually exercising any such last-resort options would not necessarily represent lawlessness or “aggression.” On the contrary, such strikes could readily meet the long-established and recognizable jurisprudential standards for “anticipatory self-defense.”

Going forward, Israeli nuclear deterrence – reinforced, of course, by ballistic missile defense – must become an increasingly central part of the Jewish State’s overall survival plan. Fulfilling this requirement should in no way suggest any corresponding violations of international law.

After all, every state in world politics has an overriding obligation to survive.

International law is not a suicide pact.

Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), and is the author of many books and articles dealing with both U.S. and Israeli nuclear strategy. His recent writings on these complex issues have been published in the Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College; International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; The Brown Journal of World Affairs;BESA Center for Strategic Studies (Israel); The Atlantic; U.S. News & World Report; Israel National News; The Jerusalem Post; The Hill; Oxford University Press; and International Security (Harvard). Professor Beres’ tenth book, Israel’s Nuclear Strategy: Surviving amid Chaos (Rowman and Littlefield) will be published later this year. He was born in Zürich, Switzerland, at the end of World War II.

8.Burning Terrorist Ambush Neutralized on Highway 443 Sappers neutralized a “surprise” on Monday tucked under a pile of burning tires on Highway 443. By: Hana Levi Julian JewishPress.com Published: July 13, 2015

Maccabim checkpoi t on Highway 443 near Modi’in. Photo Credit: Google maps

A terror attack was averted at 3 am Monday morning. A pile of blazing tires on the old Jerusalem highway (Highway 443) stopped commuters in their tracks. The ambush, located just 500 meters (about 1/3 mile) from the Maccabim checkpoint, blocked the approach from Modi’in to Jerusalem close to the line that separates pre-1967 from Area A of the Palestinian Authority territory – near the Arab village of Hirbhat el-Mitzbach, east of Modiin.

It was the two firefighting crews sent to the scene to extinguish the flames who discovered the blaze was actually a cover for something a little more ominous.

Terrorists had hidden a gas cylinder among the burning tires blocking the Jerusalem-bound side of the road.

The bomb squad was called to the scene and sappers were able to neutralize the threat in short order.

Police reported no injuries and no property damage as a result of the incident. An investigation has been launched.

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

9.New Israel Fund Supporting & Openly Funding BDS Against Israel

By: Hank Sheinkopf, George Birnbaum, Ronn Torossian JewishPress.com Published: July 13, 2015

Funded heavily by the New Israel Fund ($237,980 from 2006-2013), Israel Social TV is an NGO often used as a platform for conveying the anti-Israel ideologies of numerous NIF organizations. It is also used to promote the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement. Former NIF president, Naomi Chazan, serves on Social TV’s Public Council, along with noted supporter of sanctions against Israel, Noam Chomsky and Michael Sfard, the radical leftist Israeli lawyer who testified for the PLO during a federal trial in New York.

The New Israel Fund is so often – and so regularly – involved in boycotts against Israel it should pose a challenge for donors to New Israel Fund, such as UJA’s president Alisa Doctoroff and New York CRC board member Karen Adler, who both represent American Jewish groups with Pro Israel philosophies.

Doctor Ilan Pappé, a leading advocate of the BDS movement, which calls for a political, academic and economic boycott of Israel is, unsurprisingly, a frequent lecturer during Israel Apartheid week. Pappé is a political activist whose portrayal of extremist anti-Zionist views, promoting the boycott of Israel, has led to his expulsion from Israel’s academia. Despite the anti-boycott law enacted in Israel, which designates boycott initiatives as civil torts, allowing a boycotted body to sue for compensations from the party initiating the boycott, Ilan Pappé was able to find a privileged podium for his message – the “Social TV” website.

On September 13, 2014, Israel Social TV’s website screened Pappé ‘s lecture “The Role of Israelis in the BDS Movement“, on which he preaches the importance of campaigning against Israel for over an hour, and emphasizes the important role of Israeli Jews in the BDS campaign.

In his lecture Pappé states, “… I believe this helps organize the thinking of Jewish dissidents within the state of Israel… there is a history of Jews here… who thought that the hegemonic ideology is the reason for the continuing conflict, not some policy or other, not the Arab position nor the Palestinian position… I believe the BDS is the first widespread global support for this conception. Here, for the first time, we have an organizing idea that connects anti-Zionist, post-Zionist and non-Zionist thinking… that breaks the mold of the Zionist Left and the Zionist Peace Camp, and organizes intellectual collaboration and even action between this group on the inside and those groups in the territories… among the Palestinians in Israel… among the Palestinian exiles and refugee camps, and of course… in direct connection with the global Palestinian solidarity movement, which is constantly expanding and constantly growing, and it is mainly constantly becoming more organized thanks to this new organizing idea.”

In addition to Pappé’s anti-Israel lecture, Social TV frequently evaluates the BDS campaign in a positive and sympathetic vein, posts information on various BDS initiatives and airs interviews with boycott supporters. Thus, for example, in 2013, Social TV posted a new application entitled ‘BUYCOTT’ on its website, which allows users to identify products made in Israeli settlements in order to refrain from buying them: “An application called BUYCOTT – playing on the words BUY and BOYCOTT – allows consumers to learn about the companies and corporations that make the products by scanning the package barcode. Application users can choose their consumer preferences, such as: support for certain companies… boycott or refrain from purchasing products made in settlements…”

Not only did the ‘Social TV’ enact “BUYCOTT”, but they provided favorable coverage of IDF de-legitimization activities; activities conducted by NIF-funded organizations such as B’tselem. Social TV sympathetically covered the promotion of draft evasions and refusals to serve in the IDF when the website posted a video encouraging draft evasion under the title “A real Israeli does not evade the truth”. Support the NIF – and encourage draft-dodging in Israel.

In July 2014, during the Operation in Gaza, Social TV CEO Ehud Shem Tov signed a petition calling for the refusal of soldiers to serve in Gaza, which, among other things, included the following statements: “Solider, if you enter Gaza, if you bomb Gaza, there is a serious probability that you will become a war criminal with the blood of children on your hands… the Gaza ‘campaigns’ are a needless spilling of blood, a useless and destructive mass war crime… soldier, refuse to bomb Gaza and refuse to enter Gaza.”

Self-proclaimed Israel advocates and donors such as Doctoroff, Adler, Carol and Saul Zabar, the Leichtag Foundation, Sally Gottesman, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, must put actions to words and immediately stop funding organizations that lead, encourage and support a boycott of Israel.