With US President Joe Biden due to arrive in Israel this week, there is still a discrepancy between the American and Israeli views on how to handle the issue of Iran's nuclear program, a diplomatic official has disclosed to Israel Hayom.
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In Sunday's cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Yair Lapid urged the international community, including the United Nations Security Council, to take further steps against Iran and apply new sanctions to the Tehran regime.
"Yesterday [Saturday] we discovered that Iran is enriching uranium in advanced centrifuges, in total violation of the agreements to which it is a signatory. The international community's response should be decisive," Lapid said.
Lapid said that sanctions should be reapplied against Iran, in full, and emphasized that Israel reserved the right to "full freedom of action, both operational and diplomatic" to curb the Iran threat.
Lapid's comments came after Biden published an oped in the Washington Post in which he claimed the US was already working to isolate Iran.
"My administration will continue to increase diplomatic and economic pressure until Iran is ready to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, as I remain prepared to do," Biden wrote.
Israeli officials, however, think that the US is far from bringing its full weight to bear on the Iranian issue. One diplomatic official told Israel Hayom that "Like the prime minister said, we want to take the matter to the UN Security Council and activate snapback sanctions against Iran under the 2015 deal's provisions for violations. The US won't agree."
A western intelligence official told Israel Hayom that "The US also avoided warning Argentina about the suspicious plane that landed there, even though it had the information."
The same official said that "Other, extra governmental, officials were the ones who handed the information over to the Argentinian authorities."
The western official said that there were a number of steps the US was avoiding taking against Iran in order to keep the negotiations for a new deal afloat. He said that the US had already removed the Iran-sponsored Houthis in Yemen from the US list of state-sponsored terrorist entities, and not responded to warming ties between Iran and Venezuela, even though it could easily act.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, former head of Israel's National Security Council, told Israel Hayom that the Biden administration continued to demonstrate change its positions on the Iran issue, still hoping to reach a new nuclear deal.
"Robert Malley, who is heading the US negotiating team and whose positions are seen as problematic for Israel, is trying to press the administration to show even more flexibility – much beyond the terms of the original deal. What is encouraging is that thus far, Malley can't manage to enlist support in Washington, but here in Israel there are a few security officials and former security officials who are backing his approach and who talk about a return to the nuclear deal as the lesser evil," Nagel said.
"This would be a dangerous mistake that would remove Israel's legitimacy to take action against Iran, while buying time that is irrelevant. This is because of the danger that under the deal, the Iranians could move ahead toward a nuclear bomb before Israel is able to upgrade its level of readiness for a military option," Nagel added.
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