Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
The American lobby group accused those behind Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s assassination of “stop[ping] at nothing to kill the [Iran nuclear] agreement once and for all.”
By World Israel News Staff
On Saturday, the J Street lobby group condemned the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, portraying the killing as an attempt to “sabotage” potential future efforts on the part of the U.S. to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.
In 2018, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement, which he called “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.” Trump added at the time, “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has said he plans to rejoin the deal, which critics argue never effectively curbed Iran’s nuclear program.
“The assassination of a senior Iranian nuclear scientist appears to be an attempt to sabotage the ability of the incoming Biden administration to re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as well as the chances of further diplomacy, either by limiting the political leeway of Iranian officials who want to restore the deal, or by triggering an escalation leading to military confrontation,” said a statement released by J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami.
“It seems those who oppose the JCPOA will stop at nothing to kill the agreement once and for all,” Ben-Ami added in an apparent reference to Israel.
Iran suspects Israel of carrying out Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, but no official statement has been released by the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned Fakhrizadeh by name during a televised address in 2018 after Israeli agents smuggled out of Tehran half a ton of documents related to Iran’s nuclear program, including evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program.
During that address, Netanyahu revealed evidence showing that Iran continues to lie about its nuclear program, demonstrating how the 2015 nuclear deal gave Iran a path to a nuclear arsenal.
Israel opposes the deal, as do Arab states in the region, such as Saudi Arabia.
Speculation has arisen in recent weeks that Trump will launch a strike on Iran prior to the end of the year.
Fakhrizadeh is the latest high-profile targeted killing in the recent past, with the Iranian nuclear scientist joining Iranian General Hossein Salami, who directed Iran’s terror proxies throughout the region.
Other assassinated terrorists include al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah (Abu Muhammad al-Masri), who was shot on the street in Tehran three weeks ago.
The New York Times reported the al-Masri hit was carried out by Israeli agents at the United States’ direction.
J Street calls itself a a “pro-Israel and pro-peace” organization, but has been accused of actually promoting an anti-Israel agenda.
“J Street spends its time and money besmirching Israel, smearing AIPAC and other leading American Jewish organizations, boosting former President Barack Obama’s dangerous deal with Iran (and now trying to bring it back), and supporting political candidates for whom BDS is a badge of honor,” wrote the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies’ David M. Weinberg in 2019.
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