America’s Withdrawal from the Iran Deal Doesn’t Prevent It from Punishing the Islamic Republic’s Violations

The 2015 “Iran deal,” as it has come to be known, in fact consists of two parts, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—an agreement among Iran, the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China—and UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which encoded elements of that plan into international law. Should Iran violate the terms of the agreement, any one of the parties can unilaterally trigger “snapback”—that is, the immediate re-imposition of sanctions—through the Security Council. Richard Goldberg explains why the time has come to take such a measure:

The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran has enriched uranium to a purity greater than 3.67 percent; increased its low-enriched uranium stockpile to more than 300 kilograms; stored excess amounts of heavy water; tested advanced centrifuges; and restarted enrichment at the Fordow enrichment plant. At the same time, the agency reports that Iran is refusing to allow international inspectors into suspected nuclear sites and may be concealing undeclared nuclear materials and activities.

Yet neither the Europeans, nor Russia and China—both of which are eager to sell arms to Iran—want to punish this misbehavior with renewed sanctions. If the U.S tries to do so, the deal’s defenders may claim, contrary to the letter of Resolution 2231, that by withdrawing from the JCPOA, it has forfeited its right to trigger snapback. Goldberg goes on to explain the complex legal machinations available to the JCPOA’s proponents to enforce their interpretation. If France and Britain endorse such steps, he argues, they will fatally undermine the Security Council itself, and their own position on it.

Meanwhile, in less than three months, the JCPOA’s “sunset clauses” will start to go into effect, and the restraints on Iran’s nuclear program will begin to vanish.

Read more at Foreign Policy

More about: Iran, U.S. Foreign policy, United Nations

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society