10 | JUNE 24 • 2021
PURELY COMMENTARY
continued from page 8
may be ongoing in the present.
Albright deduces that Iran’s
rulers currently have “a robust
capability to make weapon-grade
uranium, a capability that will
eventually grow more than ten-
fold” as restrictions in the JCPOA
“sunset”— expire according to
calendar dates and regardless of
Tehran’s conduct.
BUILDING A WEAPON?
“
At a minimum, Iran has a coor-
dinated set of activities related
to building a nuclear weapon,
”
writes Albright. “
At worst, the
weaponization team has already
conducted a cold test, fulfilled its
post-Amad goal of building an
industrial prototype, and is reg-
ularly practicing and improving
their nuclear weaponization craft
under various covers or in clan-
destine locations.
”
Which leads to this conclusion:
“
A reinstated JCPOA combined
with less-than-vigorous IAEA
verification of Iran’s military sites,
of the type that existed from 2015
until 2018, appears particularly
unstable and dangerous.
”
Spies risked their lives to steal
secrets from an Islamist police
state. An esteemed American
expert has detailed what those
secrets reveal. President Joe Biden
can adjust his policies to reflect
the reality that has been exposed.
Or he can gift militant theo-
crats whose rallying cry is “Death
to America!” billions of dollars
and let them develop a nuclear
weapons capability over the years
ahead. That is almost certain to
lead to runaway nuclear prolifer-
ation and devastating conflicts.
This should not be a tough call.
Clifford D. May is founder and pres-
ident of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD), and a columnist for
The Washington Times.
O
n Sunday, June
13, a new Israeli
government was
sworn in, and for the first
time in 12 years, Benjamin
Netanyahu was
not the prime
minister.
Having served
for 15 of the
last 25 years,
Netanyahu
has been
Israel’s longest
serving prime minister. A
charismatic communicator
and a master politician,
Netanyahu can be credited
for forging relations with
the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco
and Sudan, as well as
improving relations with
countries such as India.
However, Netanyahu
also inflicted great harm
to the country, weakening
Israel’s democracy, further
polarizing its society,
weakening U.S. bipartisan
support for Israel and
undermining prospects for
Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Going into this last
election, Netanyahu faced
obstacles: For months,
thousands of Israelis
demonstrated every week
against him, and he was
already on trial for breach
of trust, bribery and fraud.
But it was his own lack of
emotional intelligence that
ultimately caused his defeat.
Netanyahu does not
have many long-lasting
political friendships; he
expects his advisers to
be a revolving set of yes-
men; and his extreme
suspicion of others
created a self-fulfilling
prophecy by turning
allies into enemies.
That is why rather
than joining him, the
leaders of right-wing
parties who would
otherwise have been
his natural ideological
allies — and all of whom
had already worked with
Netanyahu in the past —
preferred to join a coalition
of parties with whom they
would seem to have less
in common: two Zionist
centrist parties, two left-of-
center Zionist parties and
an Arab Islamist party.
Netanyahu has broken
so many promises to and
alienated so many potential
allies, that no one trusted
the promises he made to
lure them into a coalition.
This paved the way for
Naftali Bennett, whose
Yamina party is to the right
of Netanyahu’s Likud party,
to become prime minister
of Israel, even though his
party only secured six seats
in the Knesset. Bennett
served as Netanyahu’s chief
of staff from 2006-2008,
but Netanyahu’s propensity
to undermine those loyal
to him for fear of them
becoming rivals became a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
It is fitting that this
article on the new Israeli
government begin with
several paragraphs devoted
to Netanyahu, because a
rejection of Netanyahu
is the glue that holds
the ideologically diverse
parties of that government
together. Bennett will serve
as prime minister for the
first two years, with Yair
Lapid — whose centrist
party earned almost three
times more votes than
Bennett’s — serving as
alternate prime minister
and foreign minister. Lapid
will transition to prime
minister for the latter two
years of the government;
during the four years, each
can veto the other’s policies.
On one hand, this will
significantly limit any real
change in several crucial
areas around which the
Yael Aronoff
guest column
Hope Against
Hope: The New
Israeli Government
continued on page 12
Naftali
Bennett