The dissonance among Israel’s leaders, alongside their bombastic solemn pledges against Iran gaining a nuclear weapon, is obstructing clear decisions on three cardinal issues:
- Whether or not to go along with the deal shaping up between the Biden administration and the Iranian regime headed by President Ibrahim Raisi. In other words, should the four-month-old Bennett government stick to Binyamin Netanyahu’s blanket opposition to any accord with Iran?
- How close is Iran to becoming a nuclear threshold power?
- What role do the Abraham Accords serve in the current situation: They were set up as a concerted US-Israel-Gulf Arab front against Iran and its allies, such as Syria. Now, its members are defecting, following Saud Arabia in establishing neighborly relations with Tehran. Could this become a bridge between Tehran and Jerusalem?
The other event complicating decision-making on Iran in Jerusalem was the setback faced in Washington this week by Yair Lapid, foreign minister and alternate prime minister. He discovered that Israel had missed the train on the Abraham Accords main objective. Whereas they were designed as part of a US-Israel-Gulf Emirates compact at the crux of an anti-Iran front, Lapid discovered that the Biden administration had found another use for this epic event.
The anti-Iran front is crumbling fast. With Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan already on their way to détente with Tehran and its senior ally Syrian President Bashar Assad, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained to his Israeli visitor that the Abraham Accords were unrelated to the Iranian issue and must now serve to leverage a two-state solution for the Israel-Palestinian dispute. This was not what Lapid had come to hear. The last thing the inexperienced, hybrid Israel government is ready to face is fresh heat on the divisive Palestinian issue..
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