Despite the Biden administration’s strenuous efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran – yet another week has gone by without a breakthrough.

It’s been almost a month since a key interlocutor, Josep Borell of the European Union, announced that the “final text” of a deal had been sent to US and Iranian negotiators. Subsequently, the Iranians have responded with “comments,” that is, demands for additional concessions, and the U.S. has offered its own “comments” in response.

Axios reports on a key sticking point: The Iranians want assurances that investigations of undisclosed nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency will wind down by a date certain, enabling the regime to successfully stonewall those investigations.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that resolving the IAEA investigation issue is a pillar of any nuclear deal and without it, “It is meaningless to talk about an agreement…"

Iran's Supreme National Security Council is reviewing the US response to Iran’s comments on the EU draft nuclear deal.

Tehran has also demanded guarantees in case of another US withdrawal from the deal in the future…The US official said a deal could happen “quickly” but stressed it is also very possible there will be more exchanges of written responses. “This could take some time," the official said.

The Jerusalem Post has a helpful “explainer” on the details of the emerging nuclear deal with Iran and other countries that the Biden administration is trying to seal. The Biden deal envisions a four-step process of implementation. At each stage, the Iranians are expected to impose temporary and easily reversed limitations on their nuclear program in exchange for permanent relief from US sanctions.

Like the original Iran nuclear deal, former President Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Biden deal gives Iran what Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “patient pathway” to nuclear weapons capability within just a few years.

In the coming years, the JCPOA’s original “sunset clauses” would go into effect in accordance with UNSC Resolution 2231, without any extensions.

In 2024, limitations on advanced centrifuges research and development would begin to expire and in 2025 the “SnapBack sanctions” mechanism, which brings back all sanctions on Iran if it violates the deal, would expire.

In 2026, the restrictions on using centrifuges, including advanced ones, begin to expire, gradually until 2028.

In 2030, the Iran deal expires entirely, without limits on uranium enrichment, on stockpiling, heavy water reactors, or plutonium.

This is very different from what Americans were promised. Jewish Insider documents how the Biden administration ditched the rhetoric about seeking a “longer stronger” deal than the original JCPOA that it had used while campaigning in 2020 and during Blinken’s confirmation hearings: Why the Biden administration stopped talking about a ‘longer and stronger’ nuclear deal with Iran

Former Trump administration official Gabriel Noronha calls out the administration for looking to evade its obligations under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act by lifting sanctions on Iran before Congress has a chance to review and vote on the deal.

The Jerusalem Post reports that yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke with President Biden to convey Israel’s concerns about the emerging deal. Lapid had detailed those concerns in public comments already.

World powers “have to get Iran to sign a much better agreement, Lapid said. “Such an agreement can only be reached with a credible military threat, so the Iranians see they will have to pay a heavy price for their recalcitrance.”

In Tablet, Armin Rosen reports on the increasing frequency and ferocity of attacks on Jews in New York City and wonders why more perpetrators have not been brought to justice. He sees this failure as the manifestation of liberal ideology.

The growing sense of chaos, of which the failure to punish antisemitic attacks is a possible symptom, exposes a tension within the current governing project in New York and beyond. Criminal justice reform is aimed at correcting real and longstanding inequities; at the same time, rising crime denies large numbers of law-abiding citizens, most of them women or members of minority groups, of their basic right to safety. In the case of hate crimes, which are one of the most extreme ways that human beings can express their bigotry, newfound sensitivity toward the accused, however justified, clashes with a societywide crusade against bias and racism.

When irreconcilable visions of equity are in conflict—when it’s a stark choice between punishing a criminal and protecting a targeted group, for instance—a bizarre inertia prevails. 

In an encouraging development, the New York Police Department announced two arrests for suspected hate crimes against Jews the same day Rosen’s article was published online.

Jewish Insider reports on Joe O’Dea’s bid to replace Michael Bennet in this year’s Senate race in Colorado and RJC’s support for his candidacy

After winning his primary, O’Dea picked up the support of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Sam Markstein, the group’s national political director, described him as “a talented, conservative political outsider who will bring much-needed sanity back to Washington DC,” praising his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, which places O’Dea at odds with Bennet.

O’Dea described Israel as a “great ally,” explaining that the country’s “security is dependent on us, and our security is dependent on them to some extent.” He praised Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

JNS reports on RJC Board of Directors member Jason Greenblatt’s webinar presentation sponsored by RJC and moderated by the Jewish Policy Center’s Senior Director Shoshana Bryen. One of the subjects covered in the webinar and in Greenblatt’s new book, In the Path of Abraham: How Donald Trump Made Peace in the Middle East—and How to Stop Joe Biden From Unmaking It, was how the Abraham Accords came about. In conversations with Arab leaders,

American negotiators noticed what Greenblatt called “green shoots of a recognition that Israel is an important neighbor that could, in theory, become an important ally.”

The conversations changed from where the word “Israel” was taboo to talking about it outright, never in a pejorative way.

“I think the reason is that we went in as strong Israel advocates, as strong Israel friends. We weren’t afraid to say it, and I think we earned respect because of it,” said Greenblatt.

Despite being told that these countries would never make peace with Israel, he would leave the meetings [with Arab leaders] agreeing to more than 90% of the issues [Greenblatt raised].

Restore Reagan’s Military ‘Margin of Safety’

Roger Zakheim, Director of the Reagan Institute, details current national security challenges and argues that “to meet this moment, we need defense investment along the lines of what the Reagan administration pursued: roughly 5% to 6% of gross domestic product annually. To those who say we can’t afford a buildup without sacrificing our prosperity, Reagan’s response from four decades ago still rings true: ‘Our government must stop pretending that it has a choice between promoting the general welfare and providing for the common defense. Today they are one and the same.’”

Palestinian rejectionism, glorification of terrorism is stopping peace

Reacting to reports that the official organs of the Palestinian Authority celebrated the 1929 Hebron Massacre, in which 67 Jews were murdered, Emily Schrader notes “What is so telling about these actions by the PA isn’t simply that it’s embracing terrorism, but that it’s actively celebrating terrorism and ethnic cleansing that occurred long before the establishment of the State of Israel… The Palestinian government’s embrace of the Hebron massacre flies in the face of the presumption by many, disproportionately on the political Left, who claim that occupation is the primary motivator for terrorism today.

Disband this biased UN commission on Israel
William Daroff calls for the abolition of the UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, which “has repeatedly and opportunistically applied its open-ended mandate and disproportionate budget to dishonestly undermine Israel’s defensive military action. The commission places unfair blame on Israel for supposedly perpetuating conflict in the region while willfully ignoring the countless instances in which the Palestinian Authority (PA) has operated in bad faith at the negotiating table, including frequent incitement of violence against Israel and its civilian population. President Mahmoud Abbas and other PA officials have directly encouraged violence, murder, and hatred directed against Jews, particularly through “pay-for-slay” schemes that promote the killing of Jews and Israelis for profit.

RJC offices are open! Contact information for our offices can be found on our website. Please visit us online for the latest RJC news, to see details of upcoming events, and to donate to the RJC. Read past editions of this newsletter here.