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JNS reports on the Republican Jewish Coalition's response to the indictment of former President Donald Trump:

The Republican Jewish Coalition called the decision "perilous" and "suspect," insisting that "our country deserves better." It added that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a "partisan prosecutor."

See our full response here.

Axios reported this week that the Biden administration has been talking to European allies and Israel about a new nuclear deal with Iran that would "freeze" some sanctions against Iran in return for Iran "freezing" parts of its nuclear program.

Barak Ravid reported:

The new approach by the Biden administration shows just how concerned the US is about recent advances in Iran's nuclear program. The US has not ruled out diplomacy on reaching an agreement to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement but did take it off the agenda last year over Iran's military assistance to Russia and Tehran's crackdown on anti-government protests.

...The proposal discussed included some sanctions relief if Iran froze some of its nuclear activities, mainly halting enriching uranium at 60% purity, according to four of the Israeli officials, Western diplomats and US experts.

...Iranian officials have so far rejected the new approach, saying that it didn't work before and they don't want a deal that includes anything less than the 2015 nuclear agreement, according to the three Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

This is a ridiculous proposal that demonstrates how desperate President Joe Biden is to recreate the Obama-Biden deal with Iran from 2015. That deal included sunset provisions that allowed Iran to resume its quest for nuclear weapons after only a few years, ignored Iran's ballistic missile development program, which would provide the means to deliver Iranian nuclear weapons to their targets, and infused Iran will billions of dollars in sanctions relief that supported the regime's expansionist and terrorist agenda.

The RJC believes that Iran as a nuclear state would pose an existential threat to our ally Israel and a serious threat to European and American national security. We have loudly objected to any nuclear deal with the mullahs, including this proposal. JNS reports:

The Republican Jewish Coalition also rejected it."The Biden administration doesn’t have a clue," tweeted the RJC. "The only way to effectively re-engage with Iran must be with a new, broader, stronger and permanent deal."

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies provides expert analysis of this latest proposal:

What Could a Deal Look Like?

The Axios report fails to specify the sanctions that the prospective deal would lift, but it says that Tehran’s main concession would be a halt to the production of 60-percent enriched uranium – potentially leaving a turn-key nuclear weapons-capability intact. Last year, the Biden administration offered to provide Iran upfront non-statutory sanctions relief as part of a deal in exchange for a similar halt. In particular, the offer would have rescinded three executive orders sanctioning Iran’s petrochemical, automotive, construction, iron, steel, aluminum, copper, mining, manufacturing, textiles, and financial sectors, including 17 Iranian banks. Many of these sectors are tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. FDD previously estimated that rescinding these executive orders could provide Iran with sanctions-free access to least $30 billion in annual export revenue.

Congressional Review

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) of 2015 prohibits the president from suspending statutory sanctions as part of any nuclear agreement with Iran until Congress has reviewed and possibly voted on the deal over a 30-day period. The Biden administration’s new agreement would likely face congressional concerns that providing sanctions relief to Tehran will subsidize Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism against Americans, fund Russia’s war in Ukraine, and abandon Iran’s popular uprising — all while leaving Iran on the brink of a nuclear breakout. However, if President Biden limits US sanctions relief to rescinding the three executive orders, he may have no legal obligation to submit the deal for congressional review pursuant to INARA.

Two thoughtful opinion pieces this week, by Matthew Continetti and Shoshana Bryen, examine President Joe Biden's recent actions with regard to Israel and what is prompting them.

Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon:

Think it’s impossible to screw up two countries at once? You’ve never seen President Joe Biden in action.

...No matter your opinion of the judicial reform—and there are plenty of committed Zionists who are leery of it—there is no question that Biden’s rebuke of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu was a breach in US-Israel relations.

...According to public survey data, Democrats as a whole sympathize more with Palestinians than they do Israelis. And the Progressive Left is outright hostile to Israel and to the very idea of a Jewish State. What better way for Biden to shore up his base than to confront Netanyahu—even if he destabilizes Israel as a result?

Continetti attributes Biden's policy choices to three reasons: personal, political, and global. The whole article is worth your time.

Jewish Policy Center Senior Director Shoshana Bryen, writing at the Daily Caller, focuses on Biden's political calculations in his treatment of Israel:

The wailing and moaning from the Biden administration about Israel’s democracy was just an arrow in its quiver of complaints that boil down to the fact that Israeli voters — in a free, fair and democratic election in which 71% of eligible people voted — elected the "wrong" party to lead the Knesset. Israelis voted out the center-left-to-left and voted in the center-right-to-right.

...Judicial reform, clearly, was just an arrow in the quiver of a nasty American administration seeking revenge for the Obama-Netanyahu rift and the restoration of Obama’s failed policies on the Palestinians and on Iran.

Read her full analysis here.

Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive US military sites, despite US efforts to block it

Two current senior US officials and one former senior administration official told CBS News that the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the US in February gathered intelligence from sensitive US military sites: "China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said."

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