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

