Daily Kickoff: Day 7 in search for kidnapped boys | ‘Heeb’ & ‘Redskin’ | Iran digs in | Study: Listing Religion On Resume Hurts – Unless You’re Jewish
By Jacob Kornbluh & JI Staff
SCENE LAST NIGHT: The Endowment for Middle East Truth held its 8th annual dinner last night at the Grand Hyatt in downtown D.C. The evening’s featured speakers were Dr. Charles Krauthammer, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Krauthammer noted that while there are multiple narratives in the Middle East today, there is only one history and one set of facts…. Krauthammer compared middle east news analysis to watching the weather. “The evening news shows present the weather with a map of the entire United States and then five minutes later – when they move on to cover the middle east – Israel takes up the same screen space as the entire U.S… In reality, the Jordan River is like Rock Creek Park after a rainstorm… Mt Olives is a speed bump… And the Sea of Galilee is a pond that could easily disappear in Cape Cod. Your job is to tell Americans the reality and the truth.”
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Daily Kickoff: Untold Story of Iran Negotiation that Worked; Fischer to Fed; Why Jewish Wall Street Titans want Hillary & Christie in 16; CIA Arabists
Behind the Scenes: Thirteen Jewish Prisoners in Iran – The Untold Story of a Negotiation That Worked: As the Israeli government and its most ardent backers in the United States continue to ramp up their criticism of the Obama administration’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, they might do well to heed the lessons from the last time they were involved in arms-length diplomacy with their arch-enemies in Tehran. Nearly a decade ago, the U.S. Jewish community and the United Nations played a key role in a series of secret negotiations to win the release of thirteen Jews imprisoned in Iran.
–In 1999, the story started almost predictably. Security agents arrested thirteen Jewish residents of the southeast Iranian city of Shiraz, including five merchants, a rabbi, two university professors, three teachers in private Hebrew schools, a kosher butcher and a 16-year-old boy, accusing them of spying for Israel. After an elaborate, partially televised show trial, 10 were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, while Israel organized a high-level pressure campaign globally to win their release. The prisoners were gradually freed in small groups, with the news kept under wraps until the barest of details were leaked in March 2003, a month after the last one left Iran for Israel. But the inside story, never told until now, appears to show that opposite sides can make a deal, no matter how limited the scope. In interviews, the two key players in the negotiations – U.S. Jewish leader Malcolm Hoenlein and Giandomenico Picco, then a UN diplomat – revealed a delicate diplomatic minuet in the shadows that finally coaxed Iran to release the prisoners. (more…)
