By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
WASHINGTON — November 7, 2014 … According to the Christian Science Monitor, the majority of US Jews have forgotten the lessons of the Holocaust.
Iran, which funds and sends Islamic suicide bombers to Israel, has sworn to destroy the Jewish state. And they are dead serious in their threats.
President Obama appears either oblivious or totally negligent as he presses to reach a compromise with Iran on its nuclear program by the end of the month. But what is truly jaw dropping is that he can count on strong support from American Jews.
Jewish backing of Obama’s efforts to strike a deal suggests that American Jews do not hear the alarms being sounded in Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He warns that any deal that leaves Iran with an enrichment program constitutes a mortal danger to Israel.
Strong Jewish support for a nuclear deal that limits, but doesn’t completely stop, Iran’s uranium enrichment abilities was a surprise finding of a telephone poll of Jewish voters who took part in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The poll also found strong support for an active US role in efforts to forge Arab-Israeli peace. At the same time, the survey found strong support for Israel’s handling of Operation Protective Edge, this summer’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
But it was the findings on Iran and the implication that American Jews would be comfortable with Iran retaining a nuclear program that stood out.
The survey found that over 75 percent of American Jews would favor either strongly or somewhat a deal with Iran that would alleviate tough sanctions on the Iranian economy in exchange for Iran’s agreement to limit its nuclear program to civilian purposes and accept inspectors at its nuclear facilities.
The United States and five other world powers face a Nov. 24 deadline for reaching a deal with Iran. Mr. Obama said Wednesday that the nations in talks with Iran have presented Tehran with a “framework” that would “allow them to meet their peaceful energy needs,” but he said he wasn’t sure if a deal could be reached by the approaching deadline.
President Obama reportedly wrote a secret letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month discussing their shared interest in fighting the Islamic State — a development one congressional source told Fox News “f***s up everything.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that, according to people briefed on the letter, Obama wrote to Khamenei in the middle of last month and stressed that any cooperation on dealing with the Islamic State, or ISIS, was tied to Iran striking a deal over its nuclear program. The U.S., Iran and other negotiators are facing a Nov. 24 deadline for such a deal.
According to the Journal, Obama has written to Khamenei four times now since taking office.
The congressional source told Fox News that the letter would upset the inroads they’ve tried to make with “the Sunni league,” noting that the president should have informed Congress of this back-channel if it was in fact going on.
“This f***s up everything,” the source said.
Iran’s government is Shiite-led, while the Islamic State is a Sunni terror group. The source was apparently referring to efforts to rally support among Sunni-led Arab states to confront ISIS.
Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina issued a joint statement Thursday night saying it was “outrageous that, while the cries of moderate Syrian forces for greater U.S. assistance fall on deaf ears in the White House, President Obama is apparently urging Ayatollah Khamenei to join the fight against ISIS.”
“Iran should not be included in any coalition that is formed to fight ISIS, Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman warned on Friday, during a joint press conference with visiting EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.
“This kind of deal, this linkage between their nuclear program and their participation in a coalition against ISIS, it is a vision that we are completely against,” Liberman said.
“This approach is a mistake,” he said.
“Iran is completely unacceptable as a partner for any coalition,” said Liberman, noting that this was true even when fighting extremist forces in Syria and Iraq.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke about Iran when he met with Mogherini. He warned Western powers now in negotiations with Tehran not to accept any deal in which Iran would remain a nuclear threshold state.
“That would be a big mistake. If Iran is left with residual capacity to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb, ultimately this will destabilize the world,” Netanyahu said.
“Better no deal than a bad deal that leaves Iran with a capacity to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb,” Netanyahu said.
One truly wonders where are American Jewish leaders?
Their silence is shockingly reminiscent of Jewish leadership in Europe prior to the Holocaust.