US: Allies don’t get blank check to oppose our interests
Embassy document released day after Gantz says Israel updating attack plans against Iran’s nuke sites
The Biden administration issued a warning to its allies in the Middle East not to oppose US policies and not to seek military solutions to the region’s problems.
“We do not believe that military force is the answer to the region’s challenges, and we will not give our partners in the Middle East a blank check to pursue policies at odds with American interests and values,” it said in a document the US Embassy in Jerusalem sent to the media on Friday.
The document titled “Interim National Security Guidelines” was posted on the White House website last week and outlined the Biden administration’s global strategic interests, including in the Middle East. It gave a nod in the direction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it did not mention the Palestinians or its conflict with Israel on settlement building.
The document stated that “in the Middle East, we will maintain our ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, while seeking to further its integration with its neighbors
and resuming our role as promoter of a viable two-state solution.”
It did, however, make more references to the need to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
“We will work with our regional partners to deter Iranian aggression and threats to sovereignty and territorial integrity, disrupt al-Qaeda and related terrorist networks and prevent an ISIS resurgence,” the Biden administration stated in the document.
The US policy outline was
published as Israel has increasingly spoken of the possibility that it might have to use force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Israel and the Biden administration are at odds on how best to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power and to halt its regional and global support of terror activities.
While the two allies agree on the end goal, the Biden administration believes the best way forward is to rejoin the 2015 Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, designed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
To help advance the US return to the deal, which it exited in 2018, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney is slated to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on Sunday in his role as a UN Security Council facilitator of the JCPOA.
“Ireland is a strong supporter of the JCPOA. In our role as facilitator, Ireland is keen to maintain a close dialogue with all actors, and encourage all parties to return to full compliance with the agreement,” Coveney said.
Israel believes the deal only emboldens Iran and that it retains the ability to become a nuclear power. It has laid out a series of demands it would like to see addressed in a future deal, including Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
In an interview on Fox News Thursday night, Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned against a return to the deal, noting that Iran could not be trusted.
“The Iranians are breaking everything that was agreed with them, they are bluffing,” he said as he spoke of Tehran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the possibility of a potential IDF strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The IDF is updating its attack plans, Gantz revealed to Fox News.
“We have them [the attack plans] in our hands, but we will continue [to] constantly improve them,” Gantz said.
“The Iranian nuclear aspiration must be stopped. If the world stops them before, it’s very good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves,” Gantz said.
He also spoke of the danger of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, that has Israel within its weapons scope.
During the interview, Gantz revealed a classified map to
be able to enter the country every day. The number is expected to increase to 3,000 within a few days. The mandatory quarantine in coronavirus hotels is canceled, and returnees are going to be required to isolate at home.
The special governmental committee, which over the past month and a half has been in charge of authorizing which people can travel, will continue to operate only to process the applications of those who are not vaccinated or recover and wish to leave the country.
Green passport holders will be able to depart within the scope of flights authorized by the Transportation Ministry.
Starting from Sunday the government authorized flights from New York, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Kyiv, Toronto and Hong Kong.
Higher education institutions and yeshivot will be able to return to operate in person under the green passport program, provided that they also provide alternatives for students without a green passport and appropriate distance between students and instructors.
Schoolchildren in grades 7-10 in green, yellow and light orange cities where over 70% of people over 50 have been vaccinated will also return to their classrooms, after about a year of learning online.
According to the Education Ministry, only 9% of the teachers have not been vaccinated or recovered, while some 62% are fully inoculated, 15% have received the first shot and 14% recovered from the virus.
The number of Israelis getting the jab, although decreasing in terms of how many people get vaccinated per day, continues to be striking. So far more than 4.9 million Israelis have been inoculated with at least one shot, among them over 3.7 million have had their second shot.
According to Eran Segal, a computational biologist for the Weizmann Institute of Science, as of Friday about 90% of people over the age of 16 in the general sector have recovered from the virus or had at least one dose of the vaccine. Some 70% of haredim and 67% of Arabs have also had one dose.
He added that only 100,000 people over the age of 50 have not been vaccinated or recovered from the virus.
He said when looking at the percentage of people over 50 who have been vaccinated or recovered: 98% in the general community (31,000 people left
to go), 81% of haredi (22,000 left) and 84% of Arabs (47,000 left)
Moreover he tweeted that, before vaccination, around 27% of new daily cases were 19 years or younger and today around 47% of cases fall in that age range. In contrast, 25% of new cases were 50 years or older before the vaccines. Now, only 11% of new cases are in that age range.
Some 3,716 people were diagnosed with the virus on Friday – similar to the figure on the previous day – the Health Ministry showed Saturday night. Over 105,000 tests were administered, the highest number in over a month, with some 3.6% returning a positive result. There were 710 patients in serious condition and the death toll rose to 5,856. •
which are valid until Saturday, April 3.