At its peak, the coordination between the two sides was tight and personal, with local officers meeting or calling one another five or more times a day and senior commanders meeting every week or so, said Avi Issacharoff, an Israeli reporter who focuses on Palestinian affairs.
.. One hazard for the Palestinians is the threat that Hamas could pose in the West Bank if security cooperation ended. An expansion of Hamas’s presence from Gaza to the West Bank would risk upturning Mr. Abbas’s government. Scaling back coordination would also antagonize international donors who help fund the Palestinian Authority and risk the collapse of the security forces themselves.
.. Palestinian forces no longer try to prevent protesters from heading toward Israeli checkpoints and watchtowers. Instead, plainclothes officers just watch for instigators and weapons beyond stones and firebombs.
How Jeb Bush Lost the Sheldon Adelson Primary
But in the Sheldon primary, according to multiple sources, one top candidate is already a dead man. That’s former Florida governor Jeb Bush, whose aides have, for the past several months, been making overtures to Adelson in an attempt to get him to open his wallet to a Bush super PAC that is expected to raise record sums. But at this point, it looks like none of that money will come from Adelson. “I think he’s lost the Sheldon primary,” says the leader of a top conservative group.
.. Adelson sent word to Bush’s camp in Miami: Bush, he said, should tell Baker to cancel the speech. When Bush refused, a source describes Adelson as “rips***”; another says Adelson sent word that the move cost the Florida governor “a lot of money.”
What If Barack and Bibi Are Both Right?
Could it be that opponents of the deal actually believe this, a Persian North Korea, is a better outcome than a vibrant, successful regional power without nukes.
.. but if you look at the impact on regional players (Israel, Saudi, Turkey), there is a rational argument that a weak nuclear armed Iran is preferable to an economically strong and diplomatically active Iran without nuclear weapons, pursuing regional domination.
.. what the anti-deal side may be most afraid of isn’t that the deal will fail because of Iran cheating. It may be that they are afraid of what will happen if it succeeds as intended and changes the status quo in the region with Iran gaining stronger international ties and diplomatic leverage.
.. What people who oppose the deal say they want is ‘a better deal’ but they said that with Healthcare after doing nothing on healthcare, after being okay with how things were.
.. Ultimately, I think people opposed to the deal need to be honest about what they want and it’s not a better deal and it isn’t stronger sanctions. It’s what we had before. An Iran that was more isolated and had a hostile interaction with the United States.
Why Iran’s Anti-Semitism Matters
A few days ago, I spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about the politics of the Iran deal (you can find the full interview here), and at one point in our conversation I put to Kerry what I thought was—to be honest—something of a gimme question: “Do you believe that Iranian leaders sincerely seek the elimination of the Jewish state?”
Kerry responded provocatively—provocatively, that is, if you understand Iranian leaders, and in particular the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the way I understand them: as people theologically committed to the destruction of Israel. Quotes such as this one from Khamenei help lead me to this conclusion: “This barbaric, wolflike, and infanticidal regime of Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated.”
.. Kerry’s understanding, in shorthand: Iran is dangerous to Israel at this moment (he repeated the term “at this moment” in his next statement, in fact); Iran has had plenty of opportunity to hurt Israel but has chosen not to; and, finally, the answer to the question concerning the true intentions of Iran’s leaders when it comes to Israel is unknowable, and also irrelevant to the current discussion.
.. the president said. “I take what the supreme leader says seriously. I think his ideology is steeped with anti-Semitism, and if he could, without catastrophic costs, inflict great harm on Israel, I’m confident that he would. But as I said, I think, the last time we spoke, it is possible for leaders or regimes to be cruel, bigoted, twisted in their worldviews and still make rational calculations with respect to their limits and their self-preservation.”
.. the third is that supporters of the deal appear to be as sure of their position as those who supported the Iraq War (yours truly among them) were of theirs.