WarSclerotic

In the wake of the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, a document from Israel’s Foreign Ministry reportedly says efforts for 2019 should focus “on pressuring for an improved agreement that will address the flaws in the old deal.”

According to Haaretz, which reported on the document, this wording in the ministry’s 2019 objectives document marks a change from the 2018 ministry plan, which focused instead on “establishing red lines” and “preventing Iran from making effective progress in its nuclear program, first and foremost with regard to the nuclear agreement.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who long railed against the 2015 nuclear deal, gave a dramatic presentation a little over a week before US President Donald Trump’s May 8 decision to withdraw from the pact, in which he unveiled documents Israel spirited out of Tehran that he said proved Iran had lied about its nuclear program.

As in previous years, one of the goals of the Foreign Ministry is to work to end the presence of Iran and its proxies in Syria, the report said. However, this year a further aim of “diversifying those we rely on, including establishing and strengthening ties with Russia” has been added to the list of objectives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they prepare to deliver joint statements after a meeting and a lunch in the Israeli leader’s Jerusalem residence, Monday, June 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Jim Hollander, Pool)

For years, Israel has been concerned that Iran is using opportunities presented by the Syrian civil war to entrench itself militarily in the country in order to further threaten the Jewish state — alongside the threat already posed by Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

Israel has vowed to prevent such a military presence, but officially remains mum on most of the military’s efforts to do so. Israel reportedly carried out airstrikes against Iranian military targets in the Syrian provinces of Hama and Tartus on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 23.

According to Haaretz, the ministry also seeks to “use the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to campaign for other countries to do the same.”

Jerusalem’s status is perhaps the thorniest issue in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinians see its eastern neighborhoods as the capital of their future state. So far only Guatemala and Paraguay have joined the US in moving their embassies to Jerusalem from the coastal city of Tel Aviv.

The document also spells out a specific need to improve ties with the US’s Democratic Party ahead of the November 2018 mid-term elections.

The party has had an increasingly strained relationship with Netanyahu and his government, as Israel has been seen to align itself with US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and against the Iran deal. Netanyahu serves as foreign minister as well as prime minister.

The document also seems to demonstrate a policy shift from working only with the Americans to try to bring about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to now engaging with other partners in the Middle East and international community. On top of that, the ministry aims to continue building partnerships with “the Visegrad Group [Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland], the ‘Hellenic triangle’ and the Baltic states,” the report said.

It also noted that, in contrast to the 2018 goals, the ministry will work to avert a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip with the aim of creating long-term stability in the region.

A Palestinian checks a truck loaded with humanitarian aid from the US as it arrives in the Palestinian town of Rafah through the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip on August 6, 2014.

The document also reportedly uses the phrase “delegitimization” in a section of the report dedicated to the fight against anti-Semitism. According to the report, this represents a shift, as the phrase is most commonly used by the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which is responsible for the fight against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

According to the newspaper, the document also addresses increasing tensions between Israel and the Diaspora community, in particular with liberal Jewish individuals and groups.

“Strengthen the ties with the various streams and establish a dialogue with key liberal elements inside and outside the Jewish world” is repeated as a goal from last year.

Israel is working to thwart the production of precision missiles that can be used against the country “both near and far,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, the latest signal from an Israeli leader that Jerusalem may act against Iranian targets far from the border with Syria.

“Israel is determined to prevent Iran and its proxies from establishing a military presence in Syria,” Netanyahu told ministers at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

“We are taking strong action against these attempts and against the attempts to produce precision weaponry in all sectors, near and far. We will continue to take such action on behalf of the security of Israel,” he said.

The Israeli military on Tuesday acknowledged that it has conducted airstrikes against over 200 Iranian targets in Syria since 2017, shedding light on its largely unacknowledged activities across the border to prevent Tehran from establishing a permanent military presence in the war-torn country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (c) leads the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on September 5, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The revelation came as Israeli planes reportedly carried out strikes against Iranian and Assad regime targets in Hama and Tartus, deep inside Syria, according to a war monitor.

A day earlier, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman hinted that Israel was not ruling out action against Iranian weapons transfers in Iraq.

According to Haaretz, a military official said Tuesday that the army was aware of Iran transferring weapons into Iraq and from there into Syria.

In Syria, Israel has for years been concerned that Iran was using opportunities presented by the Syrian civil war to entrench itself militarily in the country in order to further threaten the Jewish state — alongside the threat already posed by Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

Israel has vowed to prevent such a military presence, but officially remains mum on most of the military’s efforts to do so.

The 202 targets hit in the Israeli airstrikes since 2017 were mostly shipments of advanced weaponry, as well as military bases and infrastructure, which the IDF officials said drove Iranian forces to abandon some posts.

In addition, Jerusalem has tried to get the Islamic Republic out of Syrian through diplomatic means by appealing to the two main power-brokers in the region: Russia and the United States.

While Russia does not seem to have accepted Israel’s demand for Iran to be completely removed from Syria, it has agreed to force the Islamic Republic’s forces and proxies to leave the areas closest to the border with Israel.

According to some reports, pro-Iranian forces would be required to stay 40 kilometers (25 miles) away from the border; others indicate that range would be set at 80 kilometers (50 miles).

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s foreign minister on Wednesday accused US President Donald Trump of trying to hijack the United Nations Security Council for the purposes of “bullying others” to turn against Tehran.

Trump plans to lead a meeting of the heads of state of the Security Council on Iran in late September, his envoy to the UN Nikki Haley, announced Tuesday.

With the United States now holding the presidency of the Security Council, Haley said the aim was to put further pressure on Tehran over its alleged violations of council resolutions.

But Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, hit out at the US plan.

“There’s only one UNSC resolution on Iran…@realDonaldTrump is violating it & bullying others to do same,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

Washington has sought to build up international pressure on Iran after reimposing tough, unilateral sanctions on August 7 and setting a November 5 deadline for halting Iran’s oil exports.

Those moves came after the United States decided in May to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, saying it failed to do enough to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons and stop its ballistic missile program.

In reaction to the reimposition of sanctions, Iran demanded in The Hague that the top UN court suspend the unilateral US sanctions.

Europe has resisted joining the US sanctions move, but this week Japanese media said Tokyo had agreed to suspend crude imports from Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that Iran will continue exporting crude oil despite US efforts to stop it through sanctions.

“We will continue by all means to both produce and export” oil, Rouhani said in remarks broadcast on state TV. “Oil is in the frontline of confrontation and resistance.”

The US wants to reduce Iran’s oil exports effectively to zero with renewed sanctions in November, after pulling out of the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in May.

It’s unclear, however, how much other countries will cut back on Iranian oil imports. Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, which also signed the nuclear deal, opposed the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from it. European countries are trying to salvage the landmark accord.

Rouhani also said Iran is to move its main oil export terminal from the Gulf to the Oman Sea, sparing its tankers from using the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

This photo from March 12, 2017, shows a an Iranian oil facility on Kharg Island, on the shore of the Gulf. (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare)

Rouhani said exports were already being shifted from the Kharg Island terminal, deep in the Gulf, to Bandar-e-Jask in the Oman Sea and would be completed by the end of his term in 2021.

“This is very important for me, it is a very strategic issue for me. A major part of our oil sales must move from Kharg to Jask,” Rouhani said in the speech as he inaugurated three new petrochemical plants in the southern energy hub of Asaluyeh.

To reach the oil terminal on Kharg Island, tankers must currently pass through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, slowing down deliveries.

Iran has in the past repeatedly threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz — which is used by its Gulf rivals including Saudi Arabia — when faced with sanctions on its oil exports and possible military action by the US.

The latest threat was in July when Rouhani said Iran has always guaranteed the security of the strait but warned the US “should not play with the lion’s tail.”

Moving its terminal to the Oman Sea would in theory allow Iran to continue exporting oil even if the strait was closed.

Illustrative: The Iranian warship Alborz, foreground, prepares to leave Iran’s waters at the Strait of Hormuz, in this photo released by the semi-official Fars News Agency, Tuesday, April 7, 2015. (AP/Fars News Agency, Mahdi Marizad)

The last time there was a major disruption in the flow of oil through Hormuz was in 1984 during the Iran-Iraq war when both sides attacked each other’s oil facilities and tankers.

The strait is the world’s most important oil chokepoint with roughly 35 percent of all seaborne oil passing through it, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Bloomberg reported that Iran exported 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in August, but analysts say US sanctions could reduce sales to around 1 million bpd.