WarSclerotic

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of diplomats on Sunday that Israeli agents continue to operate inside Iran as part of Israel’s efforts to thwart the nuclear ambitions of the Islamic republic.

“We are fighting all over the world in regards to Iran’s nuclear program,” he said at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Jerusalem.

“We also visit there periodically… to ‘catch up,’” Netanyahu added without giving specific details.

Netanyahu was a vocal opponent of the US-led nuclear deal between Iran and Western powers in 2015 that lifted painful economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

The Israeli leader has repeatedly argued that the Obama-era deal will not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, after its restrictions expire in the next decade or so. US President Donald Trump, with whom Netanyahu is closely allied, withdrew from the accord in May and reimposed sanctions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech on files obtained by Israel, which he says prove Iran lied about its nuclear program, at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, on April 30, 2018. (AFP Photo/Jack Guez)

Israel has admitted to covert operations inside Iran to thwart its nuclear program and undermine the agreement.

In April, Israel announced it had smuggled out of Iran more than 100,000 documents from a Tehran archive detailing the country’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu said at the time that the cache proved the Iranian leaders covered up their nuclear weapons program before signing the nuclear agreement. Iran has not acknowledged the alleged seizure.

In September, Netanyahu in his address at the UN General Assembly revealed what he said was a “secret atomic warehouse” outside Tehran, which contained nuclear materials that Iran was not allowed to posses without declaring them to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Both the archive and warehouse, he said in his UN speech, were proof that Iran had not given up its nuclear program.

He accused the IAEA of failing to investigate the cache of documents smuggled out of Iran by Israeli agents, and said he revealed the existence of the Tehran warehouse in an effort to goad the UN’s nuclear watchdog into taking action.

Photographs from the Iranian nuclear weapons archive, showcased by Israeli officials, of a metal chamber that Israeli officials said was housed at the Parchin military site and was built to conduct experiments as part of the Iranians’ rogue nuclear weapons program (Israeli government)

Last month, the Axios news site reported that the Trump administration promised Netanyahu that it would lean on the IAEA to examine the Israeli findings.

US Special Envoy Brian Hook told Israeli officials during a visit in November that the UN agency was “dragging its feet” in its investigation, and vowed that US officials would “work aggressively to make sure the IAEA seriously addresses all information provided by Israel, the US, and other countries regarding the Iranian nuclear program.”

Arab Ties

Netanyahu also addressed Israel’s burgeoning ties with the Arab world that have been largely driven by common fears over Iran.

“I won’t suspend efforts to reach peace with the Arab world until the Palestinians make peace with us. I won’t do it,” he says, describing a process of “normalization” with the region.

“We are going to the [Arab world] and are not subject to the whims of the Palestinians,” he says, repeating hopes that ties with the Arab world will open up new opportunities to reach a deal with the Palestinians.

The Arabs had in the past conditioned any normalization on Israel first reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu visited Oman last month and there has been increasing speculation of a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia, amid ongoing behind the scenes cooperation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) talks with Sultan Qaboos bin Said in Oman on October 26, 2018 (Courtesy)

He also said Israeli bilateral trade with Turkey is on the rise, despite diplomatic tensions between the two former allies.

Top Palestinian Authority official Saeb Erekat has described his combative last meeting with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, before Washington announced it was recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December of last year.

On November 30, 2017, less than a week before Trump announced he was recognizing Jerusalem and relocating the US embassy there — a move that led the PA to sever its ties with the administration — Kushner met with Erekat at the White House, Erekat told the Doha Forum on international policy in Qatar on Sunday, in comments provided by Buzzfeed.

Erekat said that during the meeting he reminded Kushner that Trump was due to sign a presidential waiver delaying the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which had been decided on by the US Congress in 1995.

Kushner, he said, then told him: “We’re not going to sign.”

“I said, ‘what do you mean we’re not going to sign? The president promised us in the White House that he would not take any step that may preempt or pre-judge Jerusalem, not before negotiations,’” Erekat recalled.

Saeb Erekat speaks to journalists in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on September 1, 2018. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, responded, “It’s our business and we will conduct our policies according to our interests,” Erekat said.

Erekat then declared that if the embassy move went ahead, the US would have “disqualified” itself from any role in the peace process.

Kushner responded: “Don’t threaten me,” to which Erekat retorted: “Read my lips. You will have disqualified yourself from any role in the peace process.”

“You don’t know the changes that are happening around you in the Arab world,” Kushner reportedly said.

“The best thing for me is to be a student, so teach me,” Erekat answered. Kushner allegedly shouted back: “Don’t be sarcastic!”

Erekat told the forum he then tried to explain his point of view and warn of the potential dire consequences to moving the embassy.

“Do you think Arab countries will open embassies in Tel Aviv and accept Jerusalem, with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as Israel’s capital?” he recounted telling Kushner. “To them Jerusalem is a red line — all of them! Saudis, Qataris, Egyptians, Jordanians, Bahrainis. So what are you talking about?”

Kushner wouldn’t explain. “This is our business, our policies,” he reportedly said.

“If you do this, you will bring Israelis and Palestinians to brink of disaster,” Erekat said he warned Kushner.

US President Donald Trump signing a proclamation that the US government will formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, at the White House in Washington, DC, December 6, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images via JTA)

On December 7, 2017, Trump announced that he was recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that he had instructed the State Department to begin preparation to relocate the US embassy there. The Palestinian Authority has boycotted Washington ever since and on May 14 the new embassy opened in the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem.

In a twist of bureaucratic red tape, hours after his December declaration, Trump did in fact sign the waiver and then signed it again in June 2018.

Trump’s move was necessitated by the fact that the ambassador’s official residence has not yet been relocated to the capital.

The US decision led relations with the PA to spiral downwards. In light of Ramallah’s severing of ties, Washington has cut all aid to the Palestinians this year with the exception of some $42 million it gives them for ongoing security cooperation efforts. It also closed the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington DC.

The Trump administration’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace is expected to be rolled out in the coming months. Although the Trump administration has been long touting its peace plan, details of it have been scant, and the Palestinians have vowed not to cooperate with US efforts.

Rifles drawn, Israeli and Lebanese troops verbally sparred over Israel’s placement of concertina wire along the border line separating the two countries Monday morning, as part of an ongoing IDF effort to find and destroy cross-border attack tunnels.

United Nations peacekeepers were at the scene, working to prevent conflict between the two sides.

On December 4, the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Northern Shield, an effort to find attack tunnels dug into Israeli from southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah terror group. So far, the Israeli military has said it’s uncovered four such tunnels but knows of the existence of several more.

The operation has raised prospects of a possible fresh conflict on the volatile border, though Lebanon has downplayed chances of war so long as Israeli troops do not cross the border. UN peacekeepers have also stepped up patrols to ensure the frontier remains calm.

The IDF said Monday it placed rolls of concertina wire on the Israeli side of the Blue Line, the armistice line that acts as a de facto border between the two countries. The army said it had coordinated its activities with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, known by its acronym UNIFIL.

The Lebanese military, however, objected to the concertina wire’s placement and approached the area in an apparent effort to remove it.

Video from the scene showed Lebanese soldiers arguing with unarmed UNIFIL officials and Israeli troops about the exact location of the border.

“You told us it was behind the tree,” one of the Lebanese soldiers is heard saying.

The IDF said the altercation never escalated to violence. Both sides eventually left the area.

UNIFIL did not immediately respond for comment.

This weekend, the Israeli military uncovered a fourth cross-border attack tunnel that it says the Hezbollah terror group dug into Israel from southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military drills into the soil south of the Lebanese border in an effort to locate and destroy Hezbollah attack tunnels that it says entered Israeli territory, on December 5, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF refused to specify where the tunnel was found, but said the “relevant local governments” were notified of its location. “The tunnel is under IDF control and does not present a threat,” the army said in a statement.

The IDF filled the tunnel with explosives — as it did with the three other tunnels it exposed in recent weeks — in order to ensure that it could not be used to carry out an attack.

“Whoever enters it from the Lebanese side forfeits his life,” the army said in a statement.

The military said it believes the tunnels were meant to be used by the Iran-backed terror group as a surprise component of an opening salvo in a future war, to allow dozens or hundreds of terrorists into Israel, alongside a mass infiltration of operatives above-ground and the launching of rockets, missiles, and mortar shells at northern Israel.

Israeli troops search for a Hezbollah border-crossing attack tunnel from southern Lebanon, along the northern border, on December 8, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

The specific number of tunnels that Israel believes were dug from Lebanon, as well as other information about the operation, cannot be published by order of the military censor.

According to the IDF, Operation Northern Shield is taking place close to Lebanese territory, sometimes on the north side of the border wall, albeit still inside Israeli territory.

An IDF incursion into Lebanon could spark a major confrontation with Hezbollah, which bills itself as a defender of Lebanon against Israeli aggression.

A picture taken from the southern Lebanese village of Meiss al-Jabal on December 9, 2018, shows Israeli and United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) soldiers gathered on the Israeli side of the border between the two countries (Ali DIA / AFP)

Israeli officials have indicated that the IDF may operate within Lebanese territory, if necessary, to destroy the tunnels. Lebanese President Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, said Tuesday that the United States assured him that Israel has “no aggressive intentions” with its Operation Northern Shield.

The first and second tunnels were found outside the town of Metulla, near the Lebanese border. The military has refused to reveal the locations of the subsequent tunnels it found, and the military has censored much of the information surrounding the operation, citing national security.

Israel maintains that the tunnels represent a “serious violation of Resolution 1701 and the State of Israel’s sovereignty.”

UN Resolution 1701 ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War and required all armed groups besides the Lebanese military to remain north of the country’s Litani River.