Dear Family & Friends,

Just a quickie before dashing off for Shabbat. But, some very crucial information.

Have a wonderful Shabbat! All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

Website: WinstonIsraelInsight.com

2.Newly Declassified Documents Reveal How U.S. Agreed to Israel’s Nuclear Program

3.Arlene Kushner “They’re Joking, Right?” August 20, 2015

4.NYC Rally to Demand Senator Reverse Iran Deal Vote

5.True bipartisanship – oppose the deal By J.B. Pritzker 8/20/15

Following is a transcript of the original draft agreement between the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran covering inspections at the Parchin military site, where Iran has been accused of pursuing nuclear weapons development a decade ago. This agreement is separate from the much-broader Iran nuclear deal signed by Iran, the U.S., and five other world powers in July. Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to The Associated Press that this draft does not differ from the final, confidential agreement between the IAEA and Iran. The AP was not allowed to have a copy of the draft but was allowed to transcribe the entire text, and it appears here:

———

Separate arrangement II agreed by the Islamic State of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on 11 July 2015, regarding the Road-map, Paragraph 5

Iran and the Agency agreed on the following sequential arrangement with regard to the Parchin issue:

1. Iran will provide to the Agency photos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

1. Iran will provide to the Agency videos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.

1. Iran will provide to the Agency 7 environmental samples taken from points inside one building already identified by the Agency and agreed by Iran, and 2 points outside of the Parchin complex which would be agreed between Iran and the Agency.

1. The Agency will ensure the technical authenticity of the activities referred to in paragraphs 1-3 above. Activities will be carried out using Iran’s authenticated equipment, consistent with technical specifications provided by the Agency, and the Agency’s containers and seals.

1. The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.

6.Iran and the Agency will organize a one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.

For the International Atomic Energy Agency: Tero Varjoranta, Deputy Director General for Safeguards

For the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ali Hoseini Tash, Deputy Secretary of Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs

[GAIL SEZ: I was trying to copy & paste the Jerusalem Post article of 8/19/15: “Declassified State Department documents reveal US demanded Israel NOT deploy nuclear weapons (re: Kissinger – 1969-1972.) but, this is what came up in Google. Are they the same or different? I’ll compare on Moetzei Shabbat, Saturday night.]

2.Newly Declassified Documents Reveal How U.S. Agreed to Israel’s Nuclear Program

Documents reveal contacts between Washington and Jerusalem in late 1960s, when some Americans believed the nuclear option would not deter Arab leaders but would trigger an atom bomb race.

Amir Oren Aug 30, 2014 8:48 PM

Israeli PM Golda Meir meets U.S. President Richard Nixon in Washington, March 1, 1973. Also in the photo: Yitzhak Rabin, Henry Kissinger and Simcha Dimitz.AP

40 years on In 1973, Dayan suggested Israel prepare nukes for action, but Golda Meir refused

In rare interview Kissinger: If Israel took out its nukes in 1973, U.S. neither knew nor reacted

Military Affairs / Breaking the Taboo

Between Natanz and Dimona

Kissinger wants Israel to know: The U.S. saved you during the 1973 war

[Gail sez: Not true! Alexander Haig did. Kissinger & Nixon wanted Israel to “Bleed a little” so they held up resupply. Haig loaded all the TOW missiles from America’s East coast & from Germany onto planes to Israel.**

Eye-witness: John Loftus-author of “Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish people” 1994 “Le plus ca change….,The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The Obama administration this week declassified papers, after 45 years of top-secret status, documenting contacts between Jerusalem and Washington over American agreement to the existence of an Israeli nuclear option. The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which is in charge of approving declassification, had for decades consistently refused to declassify these secrets of the Israeli nuclear program.

The documents outline how the American administration worked ahead of the meeting between President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir at the White House in September 1969, as officials came to terms with a three-part Israeli refusal – to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty; to agree to American inspection of the Dimona nuclear facility; and to condition delivery of fighter jets on Israel’s agreement to give up nuclear weaponry in exchange for strategic ground-to-ground Jericho missiles “capable of reaching the Arab capitals” although “not all the Arab capitals.”

The officials – cabinet secretaries and senior advisers who wrote the documents – withdrew step after step from an ambitious plan to block Israeli nuclearization, until they finally acceded, in internal correspondence – the content of the conversation between Nixon and Meir is still classified – to recognition of Israel as a threshold nuclear state.

In fact, according to the American documents, the Nixon administration defined a double threshold for Israel’s move from a “technical option” to a “possessor” of nuclear weapons.

The first threshold was the possession of “the components of nuclear weapons that will explode,” and making them a part of the Israel Defense Forces operational inventory.

The second threshold was public confirmation of suspicions internationally, and in Arab countries in particular, of the existence of nuclear weapons in Israel, by means of testing and “making public the fact of the possession of nuclear weapons.”

Officials under Nixon proposed to him, on the eve of his conversation with Meir, to show restraint with regard to the Israeli nuclear program, and to abandon efforts to get Israel to cease acquiring 500-kilometer-range missiles with one-ton warheads developed in the Marcel Dassault factory in France, if it could reach an agreement with Israel on these points.

Origins of nuclear ambiguity

Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity – which for the sake of deterrence does not categorically deny some nuclear ability but insists on using the term “option” – appears, according to the newly released documents, as an outcome of the Nixon-Meir understandings, no less than as an original Israeli maneuver.

The decision to release the documents was made in March, but was mentioned alongside the declassification of other materials less than a week ago in ISCAP, which is headed by a representative of the president and whose members are officials in the Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Justice, as well as the intelligence administration and the National Archive, where the documents are stored.

The declassified material deals only with events in 1968 and 1969, the end of the terms of President Lyndon Johnson and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and the beginning of the Nixon-Meir era. However, it contains many contemporary lessons. Among these are the decisive nature of personal relations between a president like Obama and a prime minister like Benjamin Netanyahu; the relationship between the diplomatic process of “land for peace,” American guarantees of Israeli security in peace time, supplies of weapons to Israel and Israel’s nuclear status; and the ability of a country like Iran to move ahead gradually toward nuclear weapons and remain on the threshold of military nuclear weapons.

In the material declassified this week, one document was written by senior officials in the Nixon administration in a working group led by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, exploring the nature of the Israeli nuclear weapons program known as “NSSM 40.” The existence of the document and its heading were known, but the content had so far been kept secret.

The document was circulated to a select group, including Secretary of State William P. Rogers, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and CIA director Richard Helms, and with the knowledge of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Earle Wheeler. In it, Nixon directed Kissinger to put together a panel of experts, headed by Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco.

The experts were asked to submit their intelligence evaluations as to the extent of Israel’s progress toward nuclear weapons and to present policy alternatives toward Israel under these circumstances, considering that the administration was bound to the pledge of the Johnson administration to provide Israel with 50 Phantom jets, the diplomatic process underway through Rogers, and the aspiration to achieve, within the year, global nonproliferation – all while, simultaneously, Israel was facing off against Egypt on the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition.

The most fascinating parts of the 107 pages discuss internal disagreements in the American administration over how to approach Israel – pressure or persuasion, as Sisco’s assistant, Rodger Davies, put it in the draft of the Department of State document. Davies also formulated a scenario of dialogue and confrontation with Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, the IDF chief of staff during the Six-Day War, who continued to sign his name using his military rank of Lieutenant General.

The documents are an intriguing illustration of organizational politics. Unexpectedly, the Department of State’s approach was softer. It opposed threats and sanctions because of the fear of obstructing Rogers’ diplomatic moves if Israel hardened its line. “If we choose to use the maximum option on the nuclear issue, we may not have the necessary leverage left for helping along the peace negotiations,” Davies wrote.

The two branches of the Pentagon – the civilian branch headed by Laird, his deputy David Packard (a partner in the computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard, who objected to a previous sale of a super-computer manufactured by Control Data to Israel, lest it be used for the nuclear program) and their policy advisers; and the military branch headed by Gen. Wheeler – were more belligerent. Laird fully accepted the recommendation of the deputy secretary of defense in the outgoing Johnson administration, Paul Warnke, to use supplying the Phantoms to leverage far-reaching concessions from Israel on the nuclear issue.

Packard’s opposite number in the Department of State – Rogers’ deputy, Elliot Richardson – was Packard’s ideological ally in reservations regarding Israel. However, Sisco’s appointment, rather than an official from the strategic section of the Department of State, which agreed with the Pentagon, steered the recommendations of the officials toward a softer stance on Israel.

There was also an internal debate in the American administration over the extent of Israel’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. The Department of State, relying on the CIA, strongly doubted the evidence and described it as circumstantial in light of the inability to collect intelligence, including during the annual visits to the Dimona facility. As to conclusive evidence that Israel had manufactured a nuclear weapon, Davies wrote, “This final step is one we believe the Labor Alignment in Israel would like to avoid. The fierce determination to safeguard the Jewish people, however, makes it probable that Israel would desire to maintain the ultimate weapon at hand should its security again be seriously threatened.”

The Department of Defense, based on its intelligence agency, was more decisive in its evaluation that Israel had already attained nuclear weapons, or would do so in a matter of months.

Rabin, with his military aura and experience in previous talks on arms supplies (Skyhawks and later Phantoms) with the Johnson administration, was the key man on the Israeli side in these discussions, according to the Americans. This, even though the decisions were made in Jerusalem by Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Foreign Minister Abba Eban and their colleagues, who were not always happy with Rabin’s tendency to express his “private” stances first and only then obtain approval from Jerusalem.

The Johnson and Nixon administrations concluded that, in talks with Rabin, it had been stated in a manner both “explicit and implicit” that “Israel wants nuclear weapons, for two reasons: First, to deter the Arabs from striking Israel; and second, if deterrence fails and Israel were about to be overrun, to destroy the Arabs in a nuclear Armageddon.”

The contradiction in this stance, according to the Americans, was that Israel “would need a nuclear force that is publicly known and, by and large, invulnerable, i.e., having a second-strike capability. Israel is now building such a force – the hardened silos of the Jericho missiles.”

However, “it is not really possible to deter Arab leaders – and certainly not the fedayeen – when they themselves represent basically irrational forces. The theory of nuclear deterrence that applies between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. – a theory that requires a reasoned response to provocation, which in turn is made possible by essentially stable societies and governments – is far less applicable in the Near East.”

Four years before the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 and the general scorn for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Nixon administration wrote that Israel “would never be able to rule out the possibility that some irrational Arab leader would be willing to sustain great losses if he believed he could inflict decisive damage on Israel.”

Sisco and his advisers worried that a threat to cut off arms supplies “could build military and psychological pressures within Israel to move rapidly to the very sophisticated weaponry we are trying to avoid.”

According to the documents, the Nixon administration believed that Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would spur the Arab countries to acquire their own such weapons within 10 years, through private contracts with scientists and engineers in Europe. Moreover, “deeply rooted in the Arab psyche is the concept that a settlement will be possible only when there is some parity in strength with Israel. A ‘kamikaze’ strike at the Dimona facilities cannot be ruled out,” the document states.

The Nixon advisers concluded that, all things considered, “we cannot force the Israelis to destroy design data and components, much less the technical knowledge in people’s minds, nor the existing talent for rapid improvisation.” Thus, Davies wrote in July, two months before the Nixon-Meir meeting, the lesser evil would be to agree for Israel to “retain its ‘technical option’” to produce nuclear weapons.

“If the Israelis show a disposition to meet us on the nuclear issue but are adamant on the Jericho missiles, we can drop back to a position of insisting on non-deployment of missiles and an undertaking by the Israelis to keep any further production secret,” Davies added.

The strategic consideration, mixed with political considerations, was persuasive. The draft of Meir’s unconditional surrender – formulated in the Pentagon without her knowledge in her first month in office – was shelved, and the ambiguity option was born and lived in secret documents until the Obama administration made them public, for reasons (or unintentionally) of their own.

Amir Oren

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.613221

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal How U.S. Agreed to Israel’s Nuclear Program

3.Arlene Kushner “They’re Joking, Right?” August 20, 2015

“Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the UN agency that normally carries out such work…”

This? Surely a joke. But it is not!

The above is according to a document seen by the Associated Press (AP) and exposed on Wednesday.

This is how low the situation has sunk. Beyond anything even remotely rational, and making a total mockery of everything that is decent and ethical. See more, continuing (emphasis added)

“The agreement, for an investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is linked to persistent allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear-limits deal, the news agency said.

“The agreement was worked out between the IAEA and Iran. The United States and the five other world powers with whom Iran negotiated were not party to it but were briefed by the IAEA and endorsed it as part of the larger package, according to AP.

“The agreement diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied – trying to develop nuclear weapons.

“The While House has repeatedly denied claims of a secret side deal favorable to Tehran. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told Republican senators last week that he was obligated to keep the document confidential, and Iran has declared that the Senate must not be allowed to review the agreement due to its secret nature.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/199676#.VdXr65sVjIU

Got it? Iran has been accused of having worked on developing nuclear weapons at its secret military compound at Parchin.

And so, in a confidential side agreement worked out between the IAEA – which is responsible for monitoring possible nuclear weapons activity by Iran as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action –and Iran, Iran is going to be permitted to monitor itself.

The P5+1 nations were not privy to the negotiation of this agreement, but they were briefed on it, and and endorsed it. This, in spite of the fact that the Obama administration has denied there are any secret side deals.

So, maybe this is a joke. A very very sick joke levied at all of us. For sure the Iranians are collapsing with laughter at what they have accomplished.

Run, my friends, do not walk. Run to the nearest telephone.

Place a call to every single one of your Congresspersons and Senators who has not declared publicly against the Iran deal. Share the above information and demand that they take a stand to stop the deal, which is a cruel farce that will bring no good.

For your Congresspersons: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

For your Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

According to one of my readers (thank you! Fred E.), this critical information did not even make it into the NY Times.

And so, clearly, if the news is being buried, it falls to all of us to get it out. Share this posting with everyone you can. Put it up on Facebook and on your website. Share it with discussion lists. Write letters to the editor. Talkbacks on the Internet. No need for anything extensive. Simply site the information about.

In a statement yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner referred to the briefings that have been provided as “totally insufficient.” “…it still isn’t clear whether anyone at the White House has seen the final documents.” he said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/19/politics/iran-nuclear-deal-inspections-parchin/index.html

My best guess is that the White House has not seen the documents. I ran a video recently of a hearing in the Senate with Kerry testifying. When asked if he had read certain documents connected to the deal, he hemmed, and hawed, and said no, he had not, but maybe someone on the negotiating team had – he wasn’t sure, maybe it was just a summary.

He wasn’t sure?

And in case the above is not enough, allow me to share more information about secret deals:

“Two leading U.S. senators are calling on the Obama administration to release secret letters to foreign governments assuring them that they will not be legally penalized for doing business with the Iranian government, according to a copy of a letter sent Wednesday to the State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) disclosed in the letter to the State Department that U.S. lawmakers have been shown copies of several letters sent by the Obama administration to the Chinese, German, French, and British governments assuring them that companies doing business with Iran will not come under penalty.”

‘The Obama administration is purportedly promising the foreign governments that if Iran violates the parameters of a recently [concluded] nuclear accord, European companies will not be penalized, according to the secret letters.”

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/senators-obama-admin-hiding-secret-iran-deal-letters/

Guaranteed, we have not seen the end of this. There’s a whole lot more that we do not know about yet, I am confident: Because it’s “secret.”

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution. If it is reproduced and emphasis is added, the fact that it has been added must be noted. See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner18@gmail.com

Arlene Kushner “They’re Joking, Right?” August 20, 2015

4.NYC Rally to Demand Senator Reverse Iran Deal Vote

Iran deal opponents seeking to repeat mass turnout, urge Senator Gillibrand to change her mind and join Schumer in opposing the deal. By Arutz Sheva Staff Publish: 8/20/2015, 10:56 PM

After getting thousands to protest the Iran nuclear deal in New York City’s iconic Times Square last month, the Stop Iran Rally is back with a protest planned for September 1, focusing on Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

The rally is expected to get a large turnout, and will take place in Manhattan at 780 Third Ave on 49th Street, in front of the offices of both Gillibrand and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Gillibrand announced her support of the deal on August 8, hours earlier on the very same day that Schumer came out as the first Democratic senator to oppose the deal.

Calling for Gillibrand to reverse her support, the rally is to convene under the theme: “Gillibrand: never surrender America – join Schumer to oppose this bad deal.”

It will be organized by the Stop Iran Coalition and the Jewish Rapid Response Coalition (JRRC).

“Let Gillibrand and other Senators and Congressmen know: There’s still time to change your mind as the data we have now is clear: this deal is NOT built on verification and supporting it would be the biggest act of treason our country has seen,” wrote organizers of the rally on the movement’s Facebook page.

As noted in the statement, Iran is to inspect its own Parchin nuclear facility where it has reportedly conducted nuclear detonator tests, according to classified deals with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that are being withheld from the US.

Ahead of the rally, organizers have released a radio advertisement to spread the word and urge a large turnout by concerned citizens.

NYC Rally to Demand Senator Reverse Iran Deal Vote

This work was made all the more complicated by the need to coordinate the widely disparate interests among the P5+1 countries of Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Anyone who has been in business negotiations with multiple parties, as I have, knows how difficult it can be to find common ground with so many strong voices in the room. The challenge in multi-lateral negotiations is not to lose sight of one’s over-arching goal in the midst of the cacophony of opinions at the bargaining table. For the U.S., which Iran has dubbed its No. 1 enemy in the world, our objectives were to reduce the threat to the homeland, to American interests abroad and to our allies in the region.

Regrettably, the Iran deal fails to meet these goals and raises the prospects for war. I cannot support a deal that reduces all our leverage upfront, giving Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, in return for permitting it to maintain its advanced nuclear program and the infrastructure of a threshold nuclear state.

For decades, Iran has covertly worked to develop a nuclear weapons program and has repeatedly violated its international obligations. The United States cannot afford to give Iran the benefit of the doubt; our national security will depend on it.

In addition to gaining access to up to $100 billion worth of frozen assets and the lifting of sanctions at the beginning of this agreement, the deal lifts the arms embargo in only five years and critical ballistic missile restrictions after only eight years. This regime has no respect for human rights or international norms and is the world’s most robust supporter of terrorists bent on destroying Western countries.

A financially bolstered hard-line Iranian regime will result in increased terrorism abroad and even more repression at home. Given Iran’s atrocious human rights record, we risk compromising our progressive values if we eliminate sanctions and prop up this reactionary regime.

I am a lifelong Democrat. Like a rapidly expanding list of Democrats across the country, I oppose this deal. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) encapsulated our thoughts most eloquently when he recently came out against the agreement: “better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.”

The president and Secretary Kerry disagree with us. We are all Democrats. Apparently, this is not a partisan issue.

I have been disappointed to read the president’s remarks tainting the debate by challenging the motivations of deal opponents like myself. There is room in our party to have opposing views of the Iran deal. Democrats on both sides can legitimately reach alternate conclusions based on different interpretations of the facts without questioning their loyalties or their intentions.

Instead, I question the motives of Iran. Just days after the agreement was announced, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei announced that his “government’s policies toward the arrogant government of the United States will not be changed at all” as his audience responded with exuberant shouts of “death to America.”

Some will argue that if this agreement works, it will buy us 15 years and prevent the need for military engagement. But they ignore that the agreement allows Iran to continue research and development on advanced centrifuges, and therefore it will be only days away from breaking out to a nuclear weapon after 15 years. Iran will have done this within the confines of the agreement, so the U.S. and the international community will have legitimized Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state, not prevented it.

This will leave the U.S. with two bad options: accept a nuclear Iran, or take military action. By legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program, removing the pressure of economic sanctions and allowing it to obtain conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, this agreement makes the prospect for war more likely, not less.

Rejecting this deal will not end the diplomatic process. In fact, accepting this deal would likely cut off the diplomatic process for at least 15 years and would preclude us from negotiating a better deal.

For the sake of our values and our security, Congress should reject this deal, leave the sanctions in place, and support efforts to negotiate a better agreement.

Pritzker is co-founder and managing partner of Pritzker Group, a Chicago-based private investment firm, and served as national co-chair of Hillary Clinton for President in 2008. He is also the brother of Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/251454-true-bipartisanship-oppose-the-deal?elq=9baf833396c14863baf7cf55fceba062&elqCampaignId=7165&elqaid=11318&elqat=1&elqTrackId=8db6bc08c267402db20226cab2f9a730

True bipartisanship – oppose the deal By J.B. Pritzker