Annual Jewish Leadership Conference moves to different venue after museum objects to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

By David Hellerman, World Israel News

Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage forced organizers of a June event to reschedule an event in June elsewhere in objection to the scheduled presence of Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.

In a Wall St. Journal op-ed on Thursday, Elliott Abrams and Eric Cohen wrote that they were organizing an event for their annual Jewish Leadership Conference. Abrams has served in a number of foreign policy positions for several U.S. presidents and is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Cohen is the chairman and CEO of the Tikvah Fund, a conservative Jewish think tank.

“We were working closely with the museum on the details for the June 12 event—until, out of the blue, we were told by the museum staff that Mr. DeSantis didn’t ‘align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.’ Either we disinvite the governor, they said, or our event was unwelcome,” the op-ed said.

The op-ed explained that they invited DeSantis because Jewish schools and synagogues have been expanding in recent years. His address was to be titled, “The Florida Model: Why It’s Good for the Jews.”

Rather than disinvite the Florida governor, Abrams and Cohen moved their event to Pier 60.

Museum officials did not respond to media queries, but they did post a statement on Twitter saying the Journal op-ed “contained many factual inaccuracies, including fictionalized quotes.”

“No one was banned or cancelled. The fact is that no contract with the Tikvah Fund was ever signed for this rental event to be held at the Museum and no deposit was ever made,” the statement said.

“This is not a free speech or censorship issue. The Tikvah Fund is trying to create a fight where none exists. This was simply a contractual and logistical decision.”

The statement added, “We welcome Governor DeSantis and elected officials from across the spectrum to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust for a tour of our new exhibition, The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do, when it opens this summer.”

However, the New York Jewish Week obtained a copy of the contract which Cohen said he had signed.

According to the Jewish Week, “That contract explains that museum facilities cannot be used for advancing a particular religious doctrine, political fundraising or activity that is advocating for a political candidate, group or ideology.”

The Jewish Week added, “It was after Cohen signed the contract that the museum learned DeSantis was a scheduled speaker, Cohen said. Cohen said he had spoken by phone with the museum’s CEO, Jack Kliger, who told him that the museum does not welcome political speakers of any ideology.”

But Abrams and Cohen disputed that assertion, noting in their op-ed that the museum has hosted politicians such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, U.S Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Jewish activists and organizations denounced the museum.

Dov Hikind, a former Brooklyn state assemblyman, told the New York Post, “If this happened to someone on the left, they would be outraged.”

The Coalition of Jewish Values, which represents 2,000 American rabbis, also criticized the museum.

“It is hard to see this decision as anything but politically motivated, and directly contrary to Jewish interests as well,” said Rabbi Moshe Parnes in a statement. “As a Floridian and a rabbi, I can say that one would be hard-pressed to find an elected official more attentive to the Jewish community than Ron DeSantis.”

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J-Street claims Democrats have enough support to prevent any legislation that would block the move.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Seven Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to President-elect Joe Biden Wednesday urging him to have the U.S. unconditionally reenter the Iran Nuclear Deal from which President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

The seven – Representatives David Price (D-NC), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Abigail D. Spanberger (D-VA), and Brad Sherman (D-CA) – convinced 143 other members of Congress to sign, including anti-Israel Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

“We strongly endorse your call for Iran to return to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States to rejoin the agreement, and subsequent follow-on negotiations,” says the letter, which concluded its signature-gathering phase on Wednesday and is set to be sent to Biden.

The letter was endorsed by the left-leaning J-Street organization, which said it “applauds” the move.

“By securing over 146 signers, the letter also makes clear that House Democrats have the votes needed to prevent the enactment of any legislation designed to obstruct President-elect Biden from returning the United States to the JCPOA,” J-Street said in a statement on its website, claiming that in an election night poll it commissioned 74% of American Jewish voters support re-entering the agreement.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed in 2015 and restricted the Iranian nuclear program for 15 years, but at the end removed any restrictions on the Islamic Republic, which is widely believed to have been developing nuclear weapons.

Opponents of the nuclear deal, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointed out its shortcomings and noted that for years Iran had blocked inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog group, which repeatedly complained that Iran was not fully cooperating and the agency could not account for all nuclear material.

Critics of an unconditional return to the deal have called on Biden to not blindly resume American participation, but to renegotiate key components of the deal and not lift sanctions against the rogue regime until stronger terms are in place to ensure Iran’s compliance.

Although Biden has said he wants to renegotiate some components of the deal after the U.S. rejoins, a former top American security official, Elliot Abrams, said earlier this month that the new Biden administration should be in no rush to cater to the Iranians.

“My hope is that the next administration recognizes that we have the upper hand. Iran’s economy is reeling. Iran’s people despise this regime, as they showed in November of last year. There is no reason that we have to make all sorts of concessions to Iran,” Abrams said.

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Watch the video below to see what you may have missed this week but shouldn’t have!

The post UNDER THE RADAR: What You May Have Missed This Week but Shouldn’t Have appeared first on World Israel News.

“If we discard the leverage we have, it would really be tragic and foolish,” said envoy Elliott Abrams.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

President Donald Trump intends to continue pressuring Iran until the end of his administration, Washington’s Special Envoy for Iran and Venezuela said Wednesday.

Envoy Elliott Abrams said Trump’s sanctions strategy will continue while he remains in office until January and will include a series of new sanctions.

During a video conference hosted by the Berlin Institute, Abrams said he believes that the new administration of President-elect Joe Biden “has a great opportunity” to negotiate a new deal with Tehran.

“There will be sanctions that deal with arms, that deal with weapons of mass destruction, that deal with human rights. … this will continue on for another couple of months, right until the end,” Abrams said.

Two years ago, Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, which he criticized for being too weak and not addressing Iran’s ballistic missile program, while allowing the Islamic Republic to continue to stymie international efforts aimed at curtailing its aggression in the region.

A veteran politician who has served in foreign policy and diplomatic positions for Republican presidents since the 1980s, Abrams cautioned Biden not to repeat what he called the mistakes made by the Obama administration.

“If we discard the leverage we have, it would really be tragic and foolish. But if we use it, there is a chance I think for constructive agreement that addresses all of these problems,” Abrams said.

Iranian leaders have repeatedly said they are unwilling to negotiate until the U.S. removes all sanctions and pays compensation for damages from the losses they incurred.

“The new U.S. government will have to compensate for the bad policies that were enacted over the last four years by the [Trump] administration,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday. “Iran and the United States can agree and declare that both sides are willing to return to the terms and conditions” that existed before Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal.

Biden is scheduled to be sworn into office on January 20. He has said he intends to go back to the nuclear agreement.

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Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on November 10, 2020.

And in case you missed our last recap…

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U.S. special envoy for Iran: ‘Doesn’t really matter who is president … there’s going to be a negotiation with Iran anyway.’

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

The U.S. special envoy for Iran said Monday that regardless of the presidential election outcome, the Trump administration is continuing to apply sanctions on Iran. and he expects U.S.-Iran talks to take place in 2021.

“It does not really matter who is president on January 20 in the sense that there was going to be a negotiation with Iran anyway,” Elliot Abrams said at a press press briefing in Tel Aviv after he held talks Sunday and Monday with Israeli leaders.

Abrams said the Trump administration policy on Iran includes negotiating with Iran, so even after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, “that is not a source of disagreement.”

However, the veteran diplomat, who also served in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, said it “remains to be seen” whether or not it is even possible to go back to the Iran nuclear deal that was signed in 2015 during the Obama administration.

“It’s five years old. The first sunset has already taken place in the eyes of many countries in the world – the [expiration of the Iran] arms embargo, which we have been trying to avoid through snapback sanctions,” Abrams said.

“We have a maximum pressure sanctions program. This will continue in November and December, because it’s unrelated to politics, it has nothing to do with the elections. It’s the foreign policy of the U.S., and it’s based on Iran’s conduct,” Abrams noted.

On Monday it was reported that the Trump administration is expected to add “a flood of sanctions” on the Islamic Republic in order to “make it harder for the Biden administration to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.”

Abrams speculated that a Biden administration would continue to use the existing sanctions if it enters into negotiations with Iran, because removing them would not be easy.

“Legally, it is correct that a president has the right to reverse any executive act that he took or that a previous president took. Whether it is advisable and politically possible is a different question,” Abrams said, noting that many of the sanctions on Iran related to human rights and terrorism.

“In theory they can be reversed, but it is hard to see how any president would really do that without a change in Iran’s behavior,” Abrams said.

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Trump’s special envoy held talks with Netanyahu. Secretary of State Pompeo is expected to arrive in the region on Nov. 18 to push further Iran sanctions.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

The Trump administration’s special envoy on Iran held talks in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the Iranian threat, the U.S. Embassy in Israel reported Sunday.

Elliott Abrams, the Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela, arrived in Israel on the weekend, and after holding additional talks Monday with Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, he will head to the Gulf region for talks in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The embassy tweeted that Abrams met Netanyahu “to discuss issues of mutual concern such as countering Iran’s malign actions.” Both Gantz and Ashkenazi are retired generals who served as commander of Israel’s military before turning to politics.

Abrams’ surprise visit to the region comes as the Trump administration is expected to add “a flood of sanctions” on the Islamic Republic in order to “make it harder for the Biden administration to revive the 2015 nuclear deal,” Israeli sources told the Axios news website, which also reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will arrive on Nov. 18 to push the Iran issue.

“The goal is to slap as many sanctions as possible on Iran until Jan. 20,” when the next president is inaugurated in Washington, the source said, because the Trump administration believes it will increase pressure on the Iranians and make it harder for the Biden administration to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

On Saturday, Abrams’ office announced the special envoy will be in the region November 7-12 “for consultations on Iran.”

Iran has for decades threatened countries in the region, and Iranian leaders have repeatedly stated their goal is the “total annihilation of Israel.” Iran’s population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, and the leaders of the Islamic Revolution there have repeatedly threatened neighboring Gulf states that are predominantly Sunni Muslim.

The Obama administration brokered the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under which economic sanctions on Iran, widely believed to be developing nuclear weapons, would be lifted if the Iranians scaled back their nuclear program. Israel strenuously objected to the deal, which expires after 15 years and would free Iran to to resume its weapons program.

In 2018, Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal, saying the Iranians had lied about their intentions. For years, Iran had blocked international inspection of its nuclear sites and had totally hidden one major facility, provoking international outrage and sparking UN sanctions against the country.

“The Iran issue will likely be the focus of the [Biden] administration’s Middle East policy,” wrote Michal Hatuel-Radoshitzky and Eldad Shavit of the respected Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

In a paper assessing the “changing of the guard” in Washington, the two specialists in Middle East geopolitics noted that during the campaign, Biden wrote an op-ed outlining “his commitment to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons and to return the United States to the JCPOA if Iran fulfills its obligations, as outlined in the agreement.”

They said that despite Biden calling for renewed negotiations with Tehran, he has not revealed his position on the Iranian demand that all U.S. sanctions be lifted and Iran receive compensation for the economic damage it claims Trump caused.

The INSS paper noted that whether negotiations with Iran are renewed or the Islamic Republic escalates the situation, “Israel should anticipate gaps between its interests and those of the United States.”

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President of American Jewish Congress says Abrams “will have little time to settle in,'”citing upcoming deadline to extend UN arms embargo on Iran.

By Jackson Richman, JNS

American Jewish and pro-Israel groups reacted to the news on Thursday that Elliott Abrams has replaced Brian Hook as U.S. Special Representative for Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the announcement that Hook was resigning after being the main point person for the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the Iranian regime.

Abrams has been serving as the U.S. State Department’s special representative for Venezuela, a post he will continue to retain.

President of the American Jewish Congress Jack Rosen told JNS that Abrams “will have little time to settle in,” citing the upcoming deadline to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran. He expressed faith that the new appointee, like his predecessor, will “work determinedly towards countering Iran’s malignant activities in the Middle East.”

The United States will present a resolution at the U.N. Security Council next week to extend the U.N. arms embargo on Iran, announced Pompeo on Wednesday.

The 2010 arms embargo is set to be lifted on Oct. 18, in accordance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration withdrew from that agreement in May 2018, reimposing sanctions lifted under it, along with enacted new financial penalties against the regime.

B’nai B’rith CEO Daniel Mariaschin told JNS that his organization welcomes the appointment of Abrams, whose “deep experience and longtime knowledge  of the region and its players, and his long record of calling out those who engage in malign behavior and incessant support for terrorism, especially Iran, make him eminently qualified for this post.”

Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) founder and president Sarah Stern called Abrams “extraordinarily” capable, and “an experienced diplomat and negotiator.”

She also told JNS that “Brian Hook did an exemplary job, while acting as the administration’s chief envoy on Iran—first in trying to strengthen the flawed [2015] Iranian nuclear deal, and then in an attempt to isolate Iran from the community of nations as a result of the highly stringent U.S.-led sanctions. He has exerted maximal effort in trying to convince the international community about the degree to which Iran had been in violation of the agreement.”

Zionist Organization of America president Mort Klein told JNS that Abrams “is a very knowledgeable, highly intelligent, and a committed Zionist and American patriot whom I’m pleased was chosen.”

“We appreciate Brian Hook’s service and his determined efforts to combat the Iranian regime’s destabilizing actions,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JNS. “Elliot Abrams brings impressive experience to the effort  to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon and prevent its regional aggression.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said in a statement that it welcomed Abrams, “a formidable diplomat,” taking on the new role and maintaining his duties concerning Venezuela. Abrams, the Conference said, is a “strong advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship and will capably advocate American policy at a critical time. We look forward to working with him as he builds upon Special Representative Hook’s success.”

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