Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid

Israeli officials have ramped up their warnings this week against a return to the nuclear deal, with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid holding a press conference with international media based in Israel on Wednesday in which he emphasized that the U.S. and the West are ignoring their own red lines in order to sign “a very bad deal,” that will fail to curb Tehran’s efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports. 

State of play: Lapid’s press conference came hours before the U.S. submitted its response to the latest proposal put forth by E.U. negotiators. The U.S. response was given to the Europeans, who in turn passed it along to Tehran. Iranian officials will now review the American response and give one of their own.

Capitulating to Iran: Lapid said that the new agreement, which according to media reports this week is close to being finalized, must not be accepted as it is currently written. “In our eyes, it does not meet the standards set by President Biden himself: preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state,” the prime minister continued, accusing the U.S. and the West of capitulating to Iranian demands and being willing to reach an agreement at any cost. “This is not the first time this has happened,” continued Lapid, who replaced Prime Minister Naftali Bennett two months ago as Israel heads to another national election in November. “The countries of the West draw a red line, the Iranians ignore it, and the red line moves.”

Terror funding: Israel believes that the deal being formulated will remove key sanctions that have effectively crippled Iran’s economy, allowing an estimated $100 billion to flow into the country’s coffers. That money won’t go to schools or hospitals, Lapid said, but to “undermine stability in the Middle East and spread terror around the globe.” “This money will fund the Revolutionary Guards. It will fund the Basij [a paramilitary militia], who oppress the Iranian people. It will fund more attacks on American bases in the Middle East. It will be used to strengthen Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This money will go to the people who are trying to kill authors and thinkers in New York,” he said, referring to the recent attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, adding, “And of course, it will be used to strengthen Iran’s nuclear program.”

Urgent meeting: Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz will arrive in the U.S. on Thursday for meetings with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, as well as CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla.

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Supporters of the Huthi group gather to commemorate the death anniversary of Shiite Imam Zaid bin Ali in the Huthi-held Yemeni capital Sanaa, on August 23, 2022.

Months after Yemen’s Houthi rebels attracted international headlines due to a series of drone attacks on targets in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the geopolitical landscape in the Persian Gulf has shifted. In the past several months, the Houthis have all but disappeared from the international stage as a truce has held in Yemen, creating an impression of stability in the region, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Shifting dynamics: Last week, the UAE announced that it would restore full diplomatic ties with Iran after years of tensions, a nod toward broader efforts in the Sunni Arab world to reconcile with Iran as a nuclear deal with the country and Western powers appears imminent. But the United Nations-mediated truce that has largely brought the Yemen war to a standstill is fragile, and a political resolution to the conflict remains distant, observers believe. The Houthis are closely connected to Iran, which has provided weapons to the rebels for years. 

Fragile peace: “What’s happening with the truce is that, OK, it is broadly holding … but it’s very imperfect. It’s better than it was, but it’s really not perfect. There have been a lot of violations on both sides. I think the real fear is that the Houthis are using the opportunity to gather their forces [and] to build their strength,” Elisabeth Kendall, a senior research fellow at Oxford University, told JI. “It’s not going so well. In a sense, it’s going quite well for the Houthis because they hold more of the cards now in Yemen.” 

Iran angle: John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, told reporters on Wednesday that ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran touch only on its nuclear program, not its malign activities elsewhere in the region, such as in Yemen. “This deal is about their nuclear weapons capability. That’s the primary effect. That’s the only focus of it,” Kirby said, noting that the deal will include sanctions relief. But, he added, “it does not abrogate, it does not reduce, it does not constrain us from holding Iran accountable for their other malign activities, to include their support for terrorists, and there are ample sanctions available to us, in fact in place today that will stay in place going forward.” 

Separate issue: “Yemen is not part of the JCPOA negotiation talks,” a State Department spokesperson told JI on Wednesday. The spokesperson said the truce “is having real impact and delivering tangible benefits for the Yemeni people,” noting that “civilian casualties inside of Yemen are down by 60 percent,” and zero cross-border attacks have occurred since the truce went into effect.

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Attorney Dan Goldman stands with members of his family and supporters during an address on the evening of the Democratic primary election Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022, in New York.

New York City’s one-man Jewish congressional delegation is poised to double in size following Tuesday’s primaries, when Dan Goldman won a crowded race for an open seat in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is the city’s only Jewish House member, prevailed over a fellow incumbent, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), in a bruising contest. “My Jewish faith and values have inspired me to dedicate my career to public service, and I look forward to joining Congressman Nadler in Congress to represent the Jewish community in the city and country,” Goldman told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Wednesday.

‘Common ground’: Goldman, a former Trump prosecutor, consolidated his position as the Democratic frontrunner thanks in part to dual endorsements from the editorial board of The New York Times as well as a broad coalition of Hasidic leaders in Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park. Goldman, 46, was heavily favored among Orthodox voters on election night, even if the neighborhood tilts conservative. “Dan is someone who appreciates the diversity of the city, and that includes the Orthodox Jewish community,” Simcha Eichenstein, a Democratic assemblymember in Borough Park, told JI. “I look forward to working with him on the issues where we find common ground.”

Tzadik Tzedek: Moshe Margaretten, an Orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn, said he supported Goldman with a bipartisan political action committee, Tzedek PAC, that is focused on criminal justice reform and other humanitarian issues. The group spent just under $30,000 on voter outreach initiatives, including an absentee ballot operation that targeted Orthodox residents of New York’s 10th Congressional District who were vacationing in the Catskills and Pennsylvania, according to a consultant who advised the PAC, Diana González.

‘Get the ballots in!’: Tzedek’s efforts concluded, González told JI, in a frantic rush to hand-deliver one last cluster of ballots just minutes before polls closed on Tuesday night. “We had someone bringing ballots in from the Catskills who got to the Board of Elections Office at 8:59 p.m. with 22 absentee ballots,” she said. “He had us on speaker and we were screaming at him, like, ‘Go to the front desk! Get the ballots in! Get the ballots in!’” González confirmed that the ballots were “just barely” delivered “on time,” and have yet to be counted.

Yiddishe kop: Richard Ravitch, the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority who briefly served as lieutenant governor of New York, is a Yiddish word used to describe a quality that had motivated his decision to endorse Goldman’s campaign last month. “Sechel,” he said, using a Yiddish word. “You know what ‘sechel’ is? Brains.”

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