.png)
In the 3rd Apr 22 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
Israelis are treating thousands at its field hospital in Ukraine.
Five positive news items about Jewish and Arab Israeli women.
Israel summit with foreign ministers of UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Egypt.
Three Israeli environmentally friendly successes.
Three new billion-dollar Israeli companies.
Jerusalem’s women’s marathon was won by a Ukrainian refugee.
An excavated lead amulet is a 3,200-year-old Biblical relic.
In one month, Israel has absorbed 10,000 immigrants from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
Please click here, to donate (a small or large amount) to help me publicize VeryGoodNewsIsrael.
If someone wishes to be added to the free email subscription list, they should either click here or send a request (with their name) to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Medical clowns aid Ukrainian refugees. (TY JNS) The huge numbers of Israeli volunteers aiding refugees from Ukraine in Moldova include the medical clowns of Dream Doctors (see here previously). Their costumes, big red noses and funny antics light up the faces of exhausted Ukrainian women, children, and elderly men.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Ukraine field hospital treats thousands. Israel’s “Shining Star” field hospital has been established by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and Sheba Medical Centre, assisted by Israel’s healthcare system. In its first week it treated 1,100+ adults and children, including a 10-year-old heart patient.
https://www.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Hope for advanced head & neck cancer patients. (TY WIN) Researchers at Ben-Gurion University have developed an innovative treatment for Head & Neck Cancer (HNC) sufferers. It blocks the hyper-activation of a specific cell-signaling pathway that is found in over 40% of HNC patients.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/
Accurate diagnosis. (TY UWI) Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that after a minor head injury many children later displayed symptoms that were often misdiagnosed as ADHD. 200 children were monitored and 25% were found to suffer chronic persistent post-concussion syndrome, requiring much different treatment.
https://www.israel21c.org/
International research grants. Ben Gurion University’s Dr. Shai Pilosof has won a $100,000 grant from the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization (HFSP) for researching animals and environment. His colleague Dr Benjamin Palmer is investigating the diversity of color in the natural world.
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
Mentoring for women in hi-tech. Israel’s Melio (see here previously) recently launched MentorMe - its mentoring program for female developers that brings together highly-experienced women with those at the beginning of their careers, to learn and discuss the challenges they face. 50 women were selected to participate.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Women move up in the IDF. Good video showing the opportunities for women in the Israel Defense Forces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Israel’s Arab sector is modernizing. Dr Nasreen Haddad Haj-Yahyais director of the Arab Society in Israel program at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI). She highlights Arab students, graduates and PhD candidates at university compared to 2010. Other positives include the medical profession and Arab women in employment.
https://www.jns.org/
Arab women learn Hebrew. (TY JNS) Israeli nonprofit Lissan (Arabic for “language” or “tongue”) promotes gender and social equality in Jerusalem. It oversees the “Women Speaking Hebrew” program where 40 volunteers teach Hebrew to some 400 Arab women, empowering them and giving them more independence.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Israeli woman to host UAE lifestyle TV program. The Khaleej Times, the United Arab Emirates’ longest-running English newspaper, has named Israeli broadcast host Michal Divon, as host and executive producer of its new digital show “Dubai This Week.” It promises unique access to the Emirates and celebrity interviews.
https://www.
Singapore to open embassy in Israel. Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that it will upgrade its consulate in Israel to a full embassy, as part of a series of agreements reached between the two governments. The two countries are keen to conduct joint projects in Artificial Intelligence.
https://www.
From war in Ukraine to studies at Israeli university. Tel Aviv University welcomes Maryana Sytar - the first Ukrainian graduate research student to arrive as part of TAU's emergency scholarship program. Maryana was working towards her PhD at the Koretsky Institute of State and Law of Ukraine before the war broke out.
https://english.tau.ac.il/
Israelis donate aid to Ukrainians. The Jewish Agency is leading Operation Out Turn, involving 110 local authorities and organizations from all over Israel. It includes an air train of 23,000 boxes (sone 230 tons) of humanitarian aid donated by the Israeli public for the victims of the war in Ukraine.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Helping refugees in their own language. Israel is sending a delegation of 15 Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking police officers to Poland to assist Ukrainian refugees who want to come to Israel (see here previously). Additionally, police will reserve rooms at Israel’s National Police Academy to host some 100 refugees.
“The Orange Ones”. The car being driven by volunteers from United Hatzalah broke down twice in Moldova. Each time local citizens helped fix the problem but wouldn’t accept payment. The reason? “We recognized your jackets – you are “The Orange Ones” who have come from Israel to help the Ukrainian refugees”.
https://www.
Four Arab nations at Israeli summit. (TY UWI) Israel hosted the “Negev Summit” comprising the Foreign Ministers of the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Egypt, plus the US Secretary of State and Israel’s Foreign Minister. They stated that the conference would be the first of a regular regional forum.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Intelligent Apple scholars. Two Israelis (out of 15 worldwide) have been selected as Apple Scholars in AI / Machine Learning for 2022. Moshe Shenfeld is studying privacy-preserving machine learning at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Also, Noam Razin of Tel Aviv University for fundamentals of machine learning
https://machinelearning.apple.
https://www.jpost.com/j-spot/
More sea turtles hatching. (TY Hazel) For the second year in row, Israel Nature and Parks Authority reports a sharp increase in the number of sea turtle nests along the Israeli coast. The 449 sites are nearly double that five years prior. The improvement is attributed to fishing bans, and more monitoring.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Using nature for nature. (TY SCICC LA) Israel’s Ayala Water & Ecology (see here previously) has 26 years of experience in the field of phytoremediation - the use of plants to extract and remove elemental pollutants from water. Ayala received an EU Horizon 2020 innovation award to adapt its technology for the EU market.
http://www.ayala-aqua.com/ https://www.youtube.com/
https://sme.easme-web.eu/?b=
UBQ wins innovation award. Israel’s UBQ Materials has won an innovation award in the Speculative Design category at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) event. Its recycled waste-derived thermoplastic can be used in the 3D printing industry, which currently relies on non-recycled oil-based thermoplastic.
https://nocamels.com/2022/03/
Leading the waterways. On 13th Apr (at noon ET) Ben Gurion University is hosting a Zoom webinar entitled “How Israel is Leading the Way in Water Renewal” featuring BGU’s Professor Edo Bar-Zeev. He will share his latest research on desalination and the aquatic environment.
https://americansforbgu.zoom.
https://americansforbgu.org/
Weathering the storm. (TY SCICC LA) Israel’s PLANETech and KKL-JNF are launching the Climate Solutions Prize, aiming to identify technologies that tackle extreme weather events. Israeli companies can present their solutions to predict, prevent, manage & recover from wildfires, floods, storms, extreme heat, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Technion tractors are transforming agriculture. On International Day of Forests (21st Mar) Israel’s Technion Institute reported on Israel’s Blue White Robotics (see here previously), founded by two graduates of the Technion. The latest article explains how its tractors use sensor technology to operate autonomously.
https://technionuk.org/press-
https://www.bluewhiterobotics.
Filling up. Israel’s TankU uses AI and computer vision to monitor vehicles and enable refueling, charging, and washing. At Israel’s Sonol's gas stations, a customer selects to pay through the app, is identified next to the pump or charge point, confirms the operation with a click and then begins refueling. Totally self-service.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Headset is out of this world. (TY UWI) Israel’s Brain.Space will test its electroencephalogram (EEG) enabled helmet on astronauts (including Israel’s Eytan Stibbe) on the 3rd April SpaceX shuttle flight to the International Space Station (ISS). It will be the world’s first test of the effect of microgravity on the brain.
https://www.jpost.com/
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Opportunities in Bahrain. A team from Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), led by Executive Chairman Erel Margalit, completed a 4-day visit to Bahrain as guests of the Bahrain Economic Development Board. They met Bahrain’s top business leaders to promote a new economic chapter in Bahrain-Israel relations.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Flying cars for Australia. Israel’s AIR (see here previously) has just partnered with Australian electric aircraft distributor, FlyOnE, to supply 25 AIR ONE eVTOL vehicles, worth $150,000 each, in 2025. FlyOnE will serve as AIR’s local distribution, service, and maintenance partner.
https://nocamels.com/2022/03/
Discounted housing. Israel’s Ministry of Housing and Construction and the Israel Land Authority are listing 30,000 dwellings at 20% discount to market value. The first 10,028 units will be sold by lottery in 31 cities including Acre, Dimona, Ofakim, Be’er Ya’akov, Eilat, Ashdod, Haifa, Jerusalem, and Rishon Lezion.
Global demand for V2X tech. Israel’s Autotalks (see here previously) has received three large orders for its V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) communications solutions. It will provide its V2X chipsets to three top auto manufacturers in Europe, Japan, and China. It doubles Autotalks orders pipeline to $200 million.
More funds for startups. Israel’s Glilot Capital Partners (see here previously) has raised $220 million for its fourth Seed fund. It is double the size of its previous fund and will invest in Israeli startups in the areas of cybersecurity, enterprise software and developer tools. Meanwhile, Israel’s Vertex VC has raised $400 million.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Cutting the cost of self-funded health care. Israel’s Marpai is a third-party administrator (TPA) for firms that manage a self-funded health insurance program. It acquired Continental Benefits, cutting its claim costs from $8 to $3 and now aims for $1. Marpai uses AI to predict and improve the health of a member firm’s employees.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Mentoring entrepreneurs. Israel’s Qumra Capital is launching a second cohort in its mentorship program to help guide new startup CEOs. During the six-month program, 10 participants will receive first-hand insight and tools to help them set and achieve growth goals and milestones.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Keeping Croatia safe. Israel’s SuperCom (see here previously) has just won another European contract, this time with Croatia. The Ministry of Justice and Administration of Croatia will deploy SuperCom's PureSecurity Electronic Monitoring (EM) Suite to track offenders outside of the prison system.
100 “Israeli” electric trucks in London. Asher Bennett (brother to the Israeli PM), is founder of Tevva Electric Trucks (see here previously). “We're trying to do something good for the world," he told Calcalist's “Mind the Tech London” conference. Tevva now operates 100 electric delivery trucks in and around London.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
This week’s Unicorns. Cybersecurity Island.io (see here previously) has just become Israel’s latest financial Unicorn by raising $115 million at a valuation of $1.3 billion. Israel’s RapidAPI (see here) raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation. Capitolis (see here) raised $110 million at a valuation of $1.6 billion.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Takeovers and mergers. Israel’s Perception Point (see here previously) has acquired Israel’s fellow cybersecurity Hysolate (see here previously). Intel is to acquire Israel’s Granulate (see here previously) for $650 million.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Investment in Israeli startups to 3/4/22: RapidAPI raised $150 million; Island.io raised $115 million; Capitolis raised $110 million; Beewise raised $80 million; Bionic.ai raised $65 million; Cyera raised $56 million; Datagen raised $50 million; ChargeAfter raised $44 million; Nucleai raised $33 million; Pinecone raised $28 million; Cyberpion raised $27 million; Home365 raised $26 million; Lightlytics raised $26 million; D-ID raised $25 million; Wing Security raised $20 million; Highcon raised $18.5 million; Kooply raised $18 million; BeamUP raised $15 million; Reigo raised $13 million; Brew (GetBrew.com) raised $12 million; Plantish raised $12 million; TankU raised
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Are we beyond "fixin?" Fischer believes not.
America’s Great Constitutional System: How to Fix What the Woke and Progressives Have Corrupted - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
By Dov Fischer
Nothing will improve unless Congress rejects its cowardly ways and again lives up to its constitutional responsibilities.
The public hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider Ketanji Brown Jackson for a seat on SCOTUS prompts reflection. All societies of laws need courts and judges.
If enacted laws are too specific, their principles cannot be applied beyond rigid limits. If a law says a person may not rob banks on Tuesdays at lunchtime, then it cannot apply to any other day or time on Tuesday. So the law needs to be broader. However, then it may become “overbroad.” So laws need some circumscription.
Similarly, laws potentially can be misinterpreted. Some laws are inartfully drafted or contain outright scrivener’s errors. Sometimes, unintended consequences later emerge. Sometimes, later societal developments or technological advances change a law’s underlying presumptions.
The way America’s constitutional republic is supposed to operate is this:
People elect legislators to enact laws reflecting voters’ values. Our smaller colonies feared the large ones would dominate. However, larger states feared the itsy-bitsy ones would emerge with expansive influence disproportionate to their sizes. Therefore, in a sensible compromise, two legislative houses were established. One would allot each state equal influence with two representatives per state, whether Delaware or New York. The other would assign seats proportionate to the state’s population, so a larger state might get 30 to 40 representatives while an itsy-bitsy one might get only one. We call the former the “United States Senate” or the “Upper Chamber,” and we call the latter the “House of Representatives” (and other things). Many states have bicameral legislative arrangements similar to this federal compromise.
It was decided that all House representatives would have two-year terms so that ever-changing political winds and trends in thinking could be reflected in a timely manner, while senators would serve six years to protect a more stable alternate structure from gyrating too wildly. For added stability, only one-third of senators would face reelection every two years. Within their respective chambers, certain procedural differences would reflect these different structural purposes. For example, the Senate eventually evolved a filibuster rule that now requires 60 percent agreement for a law to pass, while the House can pass bills on a simple majority.
Under this grand compromise, a law is not enacted until both bodies pass it. Often, the two chambers pass similar laws, but not identical. In such cases, the House and Senate then send delegates to confer, trying to harmonize their two bills to be identical. If unsuccessful, the enactment fails. If they reach identical wording, the conference delegates present their modified version to their respective colleagues for a new vote. If both bodies then vote to pass that exact same law, it becomes law — probably.
Meanwhile, the president’s role is supposed to be executive — not to enact but to administer laws. The president also can veto laws he opposes. That great power can be overridden if two-thirds of each legislative chamber so choose. Otherwise, the vetoed bill is dead. However, if the veto is overridden, the president must implement it. Because the legislative process consumes time — including speeches, drafting, seeking public input at committee hearings, lobbying from the outside, horse-trading on the inside (“If you vote for my farm bill, I will vote for your energy bill”), rewriting, and more — a law can take months or years to be enacted. Therefore, for urgently pressing matters, the president properly enjoys the power to issue “executive orders” for immediate action — meanwhile.
Executive orders are intended for urgencies, not as a routine circuitous congressional bypass. Unfortunately, executive power is abused from the day a president enters because no formal limiting mechanism exists. Similarly, as the world has grown increasingly complex these past 230 years, government agencies have been established to administer laws. So the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchanges Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Internal Revenue Service, and so many other “alphabet soup” agencies now execute laws. In theory, they exist only to help the president implement Congress’s enactments. In reality, they have evolved into a shadow unelected government.
Agencies sometimes legitimately need new mechanisms or guidelines for administering laws. To obtain that authority, they publish proposed new rules in the Federal Register, invite public comment, and then publish final decisions in the Code of Federal Regulations. As with presidential executive orders, this necessary rulemaking power is abused — often. Consequently, unelected agency bureaucrats now make laws independent of voters’ input. Little constrains an agency’s usurpation of democracy, but courts can reverse “arbitrary or capricious” rulemaking.
With Congress enacting bills and the president and agencies executing their administration, courts are needed to interpret laws that are unclear. Thus, if “speech” is protected, is naked dancing at a “strip club” deemed “speech”? Viewpoints are poles apart. Is burning an American flag? Are there limits to First Amendment protections? What about yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater (or yelling “Movie!” in a crowded fire station)? A bullhorn on a street corner outside an apartment building at midnight? Inciting a mob into imminent lawless action? Cyberbullying aimed at an adolescent?
Thus our system of checks and balances: The president can veto Congress, while Congress not only can override but even can remove a president from office subject to the House issuing an indictment (“impeachment”) and the Senate convicting at trial. The Upper and Lower Chambers can cancel each other unless they compromise in conference. Courts can strike down laws and presidential actions that exceed the Constitution’s limits. On the other hand, the president nominates federal judges, subject to the Senate’s advice and consent (and whether they’re a Black woman). Judges thereupon enjoy life tenure to protect impartiality; even raging popular pressure should not impact their independence. Although they may not enact laws but are obliged to interpret laws — applying only the Constitution as their compass — judges have authority to inform Congress that a properly enacted law is “unconstitutional.”
That is how the “checks and balances” system is supposed to work brilliantly. Alas, humans are imperfect.
A strict constitutionalist judge — the only kind there should be — is required to set personal feelings aside. All that matters is whether the Constitution permits it. If the Constitution says abortions shall be legal, then a judge has almost no right to approve a law banning them. If the Constitution says illegal, then a judge has almost no right to uphold them. The only question of interpretation should be whether the Constitution’s framers addressed themselves in such a way that leaves open the possibility they would have allowed or forbidden something more if today’s science, technology, or other trends had existed then.
For example, the Constitution’s 1791 Fourth Amendment does not imagine wiretaps, and the 1791 Eighth Amendment does not contemplate electric chairs for executions but does bar “cruel and unusual punishment.” That leaves Congress, after Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison emerge, to decide whether new developments in phones and electricity justify applicable legislation. Courts ultimately would need to determine whether the electric chair is within the rubric of “cruel and unusual punishment” banned by the Founders or whether John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and others among them would have been as sanguine with such devices as with the gallows that graced John Wilkes Booth’s cervical vertebrae. The judge’s role in such cases is not to say “The Founders would find electric chairs a reasonable punishment device, but I personally find them repugnant.”
The main two developments that have corrupted this excellent construct in recent years are these:
1. Too many judges superimpose personal values for Constitutional provisions. If a judge really is smarter, offering better ideas than the Founding Fathers, the Constitution contemplates the jurist will seek elective legislative office and, if successful, will vote with others similarly elected amid a popular wave reflecting a new zeitgeist — spirit of the times — by amending the Constitution. Prohibition — and then its reversal — are examples. Chief Justice John Roberts is partly correct that judges often adjudicate fairly and impartially, like when deciding an eviction order for non-payment of rent, a bank robbery, a slip and fall on a banana peel, and a case litigating a broken contract to supply 100 widgets in good working order when only 50 broken widgets are supplied. However, particularly since the Warren Court, judges on the left have been fabricating laws when contested public policy enters the mix. They amplify corruption by wresting authority on matters outside their proper jurisdiction. They did this in Roe v. Wade. They did it in Obergefell. If the American people want same-sex marriage legalized, they can elect legislatures to enact such laws or amend Constitutions accordingly. It is outside the proper purview of judges to enact marriage law. Moreover, family law belongs within state court jurisdiction.
2. This phenomenon underscores the main corruption. Elected House representatives and senators, fearing ouster from their cushy and powerful promontories if they make too many enemies among voters in their constituencies and among donors living outside, prefer avoiding taking stands — either way — on controversial matters. When certain difficult matters must be addressed, they therefore routinely punt to the courts. Thus, they consciously shirk legislative duties, going instead through the motions of enacting laws like naming post offices — while they leave the “smaller stuff” like abortion, same-sex marriage, church-state issues, privacy, search-and-seizure laws, and Obamacare for unelected executive agencies to make rules and unelected judges to craft law.
This is terrible. The Constitution was not contemplated to operate this way. It is fixable. When Congress gets back to owning lawmaking and judges to interpreting, it will hum like clockwork.
Don’t hold your breath.
Read Dov Fischer every Monday and Thursday in The American Spectator and follow him on Twitter at @DovFischerRabbi
++++++++++++++++++
Needs no comment:
Former US official raises alarm on Iran nuclear negotiations
Gabriel Noronha, who served as special advisor for Iran in the U.S. State Department and as a Republican staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was compelled to come forward with details of the negotiations by his former colleagues within the U.S. government.
By Dmitriy Shapiro
The man who made public many of the latest details now being discussed as talks to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal—formally, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—with Iran is near the conclusion, according to a webinar hosted by the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) on Wednesday. Gabriel Noronha said the stakes of what the United States was giving up in the negotiations were too great to keep from the public and lawmakers.
Noronha, who served as special advisor for Iran in the U.S. State Department from 2019 to 2020, and as a Republican staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2015 to 2019, said he was compelled to come forward with details of the negotiations by his former colleagues at the U.S. State Department, National Security Council and the European Union because they were appalled at dangerous concessions to Iran being made by American negotiators, led by U.S. special representative for Iran Robert Malley.
Noronha published many of the developments in a Twitter thread on March 4 as well as in a Tablet article on March 8.
The professional staffers contacted Noronha, hoping he can get the information to the public, as well as lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who they said needed to know what was happening behind closed doors in the talks being held in Vienna.
EMET founder and president Sarah Stern began the webinar by setting the context of the talks, where at first the Biden administration promised a longer, stronger deal. But when Malley arrived in Vienna, he was not even allowed in the negotiation room as discussions were being conducted indirectly between the United States and Iran. Instead, the negotiations are being handled through third parties, such as the Russian emissary to the Iran nuclear negotiations Mikhail Ulyanov.
“As this horrific war is being executed by Russia in Ukraine, we have subcontracted our negotiations to the Russian emissary Mikhail Ulyanov,” said Stern. “That is why I consider this highly irresponsible diplomacy or even diplomatic malpractice.”
She played a video of Ulyanov in an interview praising the Iranian negotiators, and how Tehran is getting more from the negotiations than anyone expected, calling it positive results.
After being introduced by Stern, Noronha spoke of the urgency felt by American negotiators to rejoin the JCPOA, which necessitated them to make major concessions on economic relief to Iran. The career officials that spoke with Noronha believed that Congress should be made aware and counter by imposing sanctions on a wide range of Iran’s belligerent activities in the region, such as arming Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as on its ballistic-missile program.
Most concerning, according to Noronha, was the sanctions relief being offered to some of Iran’s worst terrorists, such as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was involved in mass executions of political opponents of the Iranian regime in the 1980s; Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohsen Rezaee; Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati; and others.
Noronha said that those individuals deserved far worse than sanctions, but without military intervention, sanctions are the best form of justice available to punish Iranian leaders and should not be loosened. Yet the United States would unfreeze their foreign assets and allow them to travel abroad.
He further said that the negotiations are interlinked with Russia’s attempts to also circumvent sanctions by the United States and European allies placed on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. Russian energy-sector companies have significant interests in Iran, including a $10 billion contract by Russian state nuclear-energy corporation, Rosatom, to build nuclear power plants in Iran.
Russia is also using the deal to help it reshape the world order he said, to benefit itself, Iran and China, as well as cause harm to the United States and the West.
“Shockingly,” he said, the American negotiators are empowering them.
In what he called the “deal with the devil,” the United States is willing to trade nine years of Iran not enriching uranium while giving Iran the world in return.
“What we’re doing is essentially saying we want Iran to not enrich uranium above a certain limit for nine years. And when that happens, you’re saying, ‘OK, we hope you won’t get a nuclear weapon for nine years. In return, we’ll give you $90 billion in access to the regime’s funds that have been frozen. We’ll allow you to conduct terrorism wherever you want; we’ll allow you to trade wherever you want; we’ll allow you to buy weapons from Russia and China, and sell them to the Houthis in Yemen, to Hezbollah and Hamas—wherever you want,’ ” said Noronha.
‘Congress needs to make its voice heard’
The unfrozen Iranian assets and sanctions relief would undoubtedly reverse the work of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, which was successful in reducing funding to many of Iran’s terrorist proxies, said EMET. But under the Biden administration, Iran has already resumed its malign activities and increased its security budget significantly.
This includes increased funding for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the IRGC.
Stern pointed out that the United States is negotiating with a regime that still has many American former and current administration officials on assassination lists.
She asked Noronha what could be done to stop the deal, to which he answered to put more pressure on Congress to do whatever it can to reassert its right of oversight on any agreement and not allow the administration to back out of non-nuclear sanctions Congress itself has placed on Iran.
His work in revealing many of the concessions being given to Iran by American negotiators has caused members in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate from both parties to express serious reservations about the deal being negotiated.
The administration, he said, is banking on the distraction from the issue for Congress and the American public caused by the war in Ukraine.
“Congress has a voice and needs to make its voice heard,” said Noronha.
Despite Congress urging the president to submit a final deal for review to Congress under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (INARA), Noronha said the administration is already working with its legal team to find ways to avoid it. Most likely, their argument will hinge on the fact that the re-entry is not a new deal, but one previously approved in 2015.
Noronha said that’s a farce, as everything about the deal has changed.
Meanwhile, Congress has no recourse under INARA to stop the bill and would have to sue the administration. By the time Congress could challenge the administration, Iran could already have received $90 billion in unfrozen funds.
++++++++++++++
Not much worth hearing these days but these little buggers have a future because of science.
No comments:
Post a Comment