The limitations of Biden’s ‘I’m not Trump’ Iran strategy

The Biden administration has hit its first brick wall with Iran.

A report by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday confirmed prior statements by Iran that they have rejected a first offer by the Biden administration to reengage in nuclear negotiations.

The question is whether Washington has more up its sleeve to gain Iranian cooperation than “I’m not Trump,” or whether another round of an extended nuclear standoff, including more provocations from

Tehran, is on the horizon.

It is unclear if an initial Iranian rejection was and still is the plan, and if the Biden administration has the stamina to play chicken longer than the Islamic Republic to negotiate its way to a “stronger and longer” version of the 2015 nuclear deal.

On February 18, the US and the E-3 (England, France and Germany) pitched Tehran their proposal to restart talks. They offered to talk to the ayatollah’s negotiators, with neither side having to pay a

Protektzia has long been a fixture of Israeli life but not a constructive fixture, contributing neither to equality nor to fairness. The lack of protektzia for new immigrants and for Israeli Arabs has long been viewed as an impediment to full acculturation – and oftentimes optimal advancement – in Israeli society.

One can argue that the political revolution of 1977 – when Mizrahim voted overwhelmingly for Menachem Begin and the Likud – was to some degree fueled by Mizrahi resentment that they were on the wrong end of the protektzia equation during the first three decades of the state, when the country was under Mapai rule.

During those years, the best public housing and the best jobs were handed out by Mapai party functionaries to cronies – and the Mizrahim to a large degree were left out in the cold.

Talk to people in the periphery to this day, in places like Dimona in the South or Shlomi in the North, and you will still hear resentment over that system, where if you did not have a red Histadrut card it would be difficult finding work or even gaining membership into a health fund.

Since then, however, the tables have turned, and now it is the Likud and its haredi party allies – having been in power for the better part of four decades – who are in position to distribute favors to cronies and bump supporters up to the head of the line.

And, if the Channel 12 report is to be believed, that is why some Israelis are allowed into the country while others – with heart-breaking stories of sick relatives abroad – are not getting the special dispensation.

Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beytenu have sent a letter to the attorney-general saying that those being let in are those who will surely vote in three weeks for a party that will make up a Netanyahu-led right-wing coalition. Even if this may be a stretch, there is no doubt that

protektzia has a corrosive effect on society.

Protektzia ensures that the playing field will be forever uneven, and that those with connections will always have a leg up on everything – from job choices, to schools, to preferential treatment in the time of a global pandemic.

One of the keys to fighting the pandemic is solidarity – that everyone is in this together and looks out for one another, that we all have a sense of common purpose and shared destiny.

Protektzia, also known as “Vitamin P,” is the antithesis of solidarity. It works against solidarity. Protektzia does not advance the idea that everyone is in this together equally, but rather that some – by virtue of who they are or whom they know – are more equal than others.

When the government decided last month to close the airport, it invited trouble by setting up an Exceptions Committee headed by a politician, rather than a health official, to deal with individual cases. That unhealthy situation has been compounded by a complete lack of transparency into the process of attaining an exemption and being able to fly in or out of the country. It is not clear to the public who sits on the committee, how it works, or what are the guidelines governing why one person will be allowed in while another must remain abroad.

Moreover, that very lack of transparency fuels conspiracy theories, such as that this is all a way of letting right-wing voters back into the country in time for the election, while keeping out supporters of other parties.

Open up the discussions of the Exceptions Committee, let the public know who the members are and how the decisions are made, and some of those theories will not spread.

But the country’s disturbing lack of solidarity predated the decision to close the airport. In fact, it is one of the reasons why the country’s gates are closed to returning Israelis in the first place: because people returning could not be trusted to abide by the quarantine regulations after they landed.

Had more Israelis gone into self-inflicted quarantine when they returned to the country, and had more people actually gone to the corona hotels as required when they returned, then the airport could have remained open.

But too many people opted to break those regulations, displaying a lack of mutual responsibility and solidarity that runs counter to the image Israelis have of themselves and the country: that when push comes to shove, when people really need one another, they are always there for each other. Over the past year, the coronavirus has shown that, sadly, this is not necessarily the case.

The closure of the airport unraveled another ideal that was long viewed as an integral part of the national ethos: that Israel will go to great lengths to bring its nationals back home.

Think back to the start of the pandemic a year ago, when special flights were sent to the far-flung corners of the earth to retrieve Israeli backpackers and tourists unable to find a way home. This is Israel, we were told, and many took pride in a country that looks after its own, no matter what.

Now, however, it is a country that is forcing its own people to look after themselves around the world – even if they went there not on vacation or for an adventure, but rather to visit sick parents or for other humanitarian purposes.

And how are those abroad looking after themselves? By pulling strings here, by using protektzia, by jumping to the head of the queue in a manner that pushes those without similar recourse further down the line.

It is time to open the airport and let our people in – while figuring out a way, through electronic bracelets or other types of effective monitoring, to ensure that returnees remain in quarantine for as long as the state determines, to ensure that they do not import any new kind of corona variant.

Keeping the airport closed will only cultivate and promote more ugly behavior, which will further erode the already badly frayed – but still desperately needed – national solidarity. •

The citizens said if they could not vote in the embassy, a polling station should travel between cities abroad to enable voting by citizens like them who are prevented from entering Israel by the closure of Ben-Gurion Airport.

But the committee, led by Supreme Court Justice Uzi Vogelman, said both requests were beyond the committee’s jurisdiction. He stressed that he did not have the authority to allow exceptions to the law nor to provide measures to allow Israelis abroad to vote.

The committee decided that the citizens do not have the “right by law” to vote in the Israeli Embassy. Only a civil servant or an employee of the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund or the United Israel Appeal (Keren Hayesod) who are abroad due to their work are allowed to vote in Israeli embassies. The spouses and children of such employees under the age of 20 are allowed to vote at embassies as well.

Voting for such emissaries abroad and their families will begin on March 10 at the Israeli Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand, and end two days later at the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles. There will be 100 embassies and consulates facilitating voting, including for the first time in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

The Israel Democracy Institute submitted an opinion to Deputy Attorney-General Raz Nizri, asserting that setting sweeping restrictions on Israeli citizens’ ability to return to the country from overseas is extremely problematic from a constitutional perspective and is without parallel in the democratic world. The opinion also stated that restrictions on entry by citizens and permanent residents at this time could infringe on the right to vote in the upcoming elections as Israelis must be present in the country to cast their ballot.

The authors of the opinion, Prof. Yuval Shany, Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, Dr. Amir Fuchs, Dr. Guy Lurie and Nadiv Mordechai, called on the government to end without delay the ban on citizens’ entry, or at the very least to decide that the current severe restrictions on their return to Israel will not be extended beyond their current expiration date.