The Latest on the US-Iran Deal, How Israel Got Shut Out of Negotiations, and the Latest on Israeli Elections

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Transcript:

Maytal Kowalski

Hi there, Jon.

Jon Allen

Hi, Maytal. Nice to see you.

Maytal Kowalski

You too. How are you doing?

Jon Allen

Pretty good, pretty good. Real, real summer here in Toronto. After waiting a while, it’s warm and okay. No complaints.

Maytal Kowalski

Take advantage of that for the midweek long weekend, whatever we call a long weekend on a Wednesday.

Jon Allen

Absolutely. Well, we call it Canada Day,

Maytal Kowalski

and I guess, yeah, let’s.. we’re probably going to release this on a Thursday, so you know, knock on wood, because we won’t put it out tomorrow, because the holidays are knock on wood that nothing, nothing explosive happens tomorrow, though. Aren’t those famous last words? Huh?

Jon Allen

I just note that the renewal of CUSMA

Jon Allen

happening on July the first. The Americans didn’t have the graciousness to realize that it was our national day, and they maybe could have postponed it, but maybe it’s because that’s when the agreement expires, and they thought they meet. I’m not sure.

Maytal Kowalski

Right, right. Well, okay. So, we’ll have, we will have something to follow up on that, though. Perhaps not directly related to our work, but let’s talk about what is related to our work, which actually does bring the US into the conversation, because I want to hear from you, as someone who’s probably following this or has some more insights that I may have right now, because it’s moving at a mile a minute. What is the latest with US-Iran negotiations, and how Israel fits in? I mean, I think that we saw that we’ve got this like 60 day memorandum of understanding, during which we’ve just continued to see attacks from the US and Iran going back and forth, so I’m just wondering if you can shed some light on where, where that’s at right now, as we go through these 60 days, what we’re looking at, and where does Israel play into all of this, as, as us, as a government, as a state, that’s kind of been largely shut out of these negotiations.

Jon Allen

Yeah, well, you’ve described it pretty well, in the sense that there, of course, was a deal, and it was a deal that was supposed to see the straits opening at first, essentially, that was the main part of the first part of the deal with sanctions relief for Iran, so that they could be selling their oil and getting some income from that. The rest of the deal, which was supposed to deal, of course, with the nuclear issue, the highly enriched and not so highly enriched uranium and the ballistic missiles, and the funds that have been frozen and might be released, and how much might be released that was to come in the in the 60 days of negotiations, right now things seem to be on hold because of allegations that Iran shot at some ships, in particular a Singaporean ship that was trying to leave the straits, that was followed by some assaults on Iran by the US, and then attacks on US bases in a couple of Gulf states. I guess we could say hopefully some talks that have been scheduled for Qatar are to be held in the coming days that would put this agreement back on track, because of course, an agreement to keep the straits open will help avoid a global recession, and and will bring a sense of stability and calm to the region, as far as Israel is concerned, you know, in the big picture, we could say this is all good for Israel and the United States, if it means from my perspective, and I think yours, that Bibi Netanyahu loses the next election, and that Donald Trump and his party lose the upcoming midterms in a very significant way for both countries in the long term, this could be ironically beneficial, but on the other hand, for Israel, the deal in so many ways is turning out to be a disaster. Nothing on ballistic missiles, and not only nothing on ballistic missiles, but Donald Trump was quoted last week as saying, well, Iran has got a hat, ballistic missiles, because and. Everybody else in the region has them, ironically, that’s the argument that Iran and its fans have used about nuclear as well. So that’s a pretty dangerous road to go down by Donald Trump. The other shocking thing for Israel is that the agreement definitely did include Lebanon, it mentioned it three times in its first paragraph, and essentially what it seemed to do, and if you marry it with the negotiations that were going on between United States and Lebanon itself, it seems to give Iran, Lebanon, and the United States the ability to determine when there has been an appropriate ceasefire, not Israel, not Israel not involved in the negotiations over Lebanon, Hezbollah, but it now is not to be determinative as far as whether or not the ceasefire has been kept, so it’s really, it’s, it’s a disaster for Bibi, he’s went on television, had a news release in prime time, Saturday, last Saturday, trying to sell this as a good deal. I don’t think anybody was buying it, and of course, the public comments, and the comments that were made not publicly, but that have been leaked about the way Donald Trump described Bibi Netanyahu have really put him into a bind. It’s really made him look like somebody that has lost control of Israel’s security agenda, and essentially Trump has said he’ll do whatever I tell him to do, and so far, unfortunately, that’s that’s been the case, so bad deal for Israelis, no question, and and then of course we could talk about what impact this is all having in Israel-US relations.

Maytal Kowalski

Yeah, so let’s, let’s talk about, let’s talk about that. But I first wanted to ask, you know, I think something that people are wondering about, and I might put you on the spot a little bit here. So, so answer to the best of your ability, but you know, this is not the first time that a deal has been attempted with Iran. In fact, there was a deal reached, which is the JCPOA, which was reached under the Obama administration, which Netanyahu urged Trump to add to tear up during Trump 1.0 Is there anything, is there anything even remotely closer? What, what is the same? I guess what remains the same with the JCPOA, and what’s being discussed now, and you know, is it true, in fact, that the JCPOA was a better deal, more comprehensive deal than what, what may come out of these negotiations, or is it too early to know?

Jon Allen

Well, I mean, first of all, what’s worse is that the Strait of Hormuz has now entered the picture. It didn’t, or I think we may have talked before about this. Iran never used the Strait of Hormuz before, because they were deterred from doing it, they did not want to be attacked, and they thought they would be. Once they were attacked, they used the quote nuclear option, not quite nuclear, but pretty nuclear. As to the rest, of course, it remains to be seen what the nuclear negotiations end up with we don’t know whether the highly enriched uranium is going to be removed or is going to be diluted under the JCPOA, it was to be removed, it was to be sent to Russia, if it’s going to remain in Iran and just be diluted to it sometime in the future be re-enriched, then you’d say that was not as good. Then there’s a whole question of the timelines in which Iran agrees not to be involved in any enrichment whatsoever. The timelines in the JCPOA were 15 and 20 years, depending on what depends on what they come up with in a negotiation, of course. The JCPOA was heavily criticized because it didn’t deal with ballistic missiles and proxies. Query whether this deal is so. It’s hard to see, frankly, that this deal is going to be better than the JCPOA, and the thing that’s really worth mentioning is if the JCPOA had stayed in place, it would still be in place. There might not have been a war, there would not have been a closure of the straits, there would not have been all these Gulf countries having their, their stability and their branding essentially well, if not destroyed, certainly damaged, seriously. So it’s pretty hard to argue that this war was beneficial and is going to end up with a better deal.

Maytal Kowalski

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, so then, so then, yeah, given all of that, let’s talk about what that Israel-US relationship looks like. I mean, you kind of alluded to it. We’ve seen different statements. I think there was that, that, that quote from Trump, from, I can’t remember what book it was that just came out. It’s some White House correspondent, and the quote about Netanyahu saying on a call to Netanyahu, “I’m sick of you, all the Jews hate you, even the two Jews on this call hate you, referring to Kushner and Witkoff, which did make me laugh. I have to admit, you know, there’s, there’s something, there is something, actually, I think very worrisome in what we’re seeing now, which is that Israel, first of all, support for Israel on either end of the either side of the political aisle has become more of a liability than than a benefit for politicians. There’s an absolute erosion in the relationship. We also saw Canada, we saw Israel recall it’s a defense defense attache, right? We can, we can talk about that a little bit too. You know, this, this real erosion, both in terms of the relationships between the US, less so the US and Israel, maybe, but definitely Canada and Israel, and also for politicians who, you know, you mentioned the midterms. We also, you know, we’re going to see, we’re probably going to see something similar play out the next time we go to elections as well. That Israel, first of all, Israel-Palestine is first of all going to be far more front and center in the discourse, the political discourse in support from pro-Israel lobbies or pro-Israel voices is going to, I think, politicians are going to be questioning whether or not they want that type of endorsement or that type of support. What do you see? What do you see happening right now in the US, and do you think the same, we might see the same thing in Canada?

Jon Allen

Well, you described the situation in the US pretty well. I think you know, I think first of all we have to acknowledge that at the time that Bibi Netanyahu went to Washington during the Obama administration, uninvited by the President, and argued to dump the JCPOA, that was the first clear indication that Israel was setting aside its bipartisan program with the United States, whereby it was appealing to both Democrats and Republicans, and it went, it went much more GOP Republican, then you had october 7, where Joe Biden did more than any other president has ever done in terms of his support for Israel at its most dire and trying time, and then subsequently to his party and to his own harm supported Israel through the war in Gaza and then was really dumped on by Israel by the politicians in Israel because he once decided to withhold some 5000 pound bombs, so then you had Israel 100% in for Trump, and of course at the beginning it seemed it was all working out just as they had hoped, but they seemed to forget that Donald Trump’s a transactional actor, that’s really all that’s important when his interests are involved, it’s his interests that are going to be dealt with, and those are the ones that are going to succeed. And so, as he saw the war a failure, and in part I think the administration is blaming the Israelis, because I think they were maybe convinced that the war was going to be a lot easier than it turned out to be, and that regime change was going to happen, et cetera, et cetera, so there’s a combination of we’ve lost and we’ve got a. Figure a way to get out of this, so we’re getting out of it, but also an element of blame on Israel for what happened. Marco Rubio, of course, said it was Israel that convinced to that effect that convinced states to go, that was since walked back, but you know, comments by JD Vance most recently that Ben Gumery and Company should be careful about criticizing the only power in the world that supports Israel, the only power, and so combination of threat and reality check from the Vice President of the United States, who is also conducting the negotiations, so the situation, as you know, amongst 18 to 45 year olds has changed dramatically in the United States, not just Democrats, but right across the board, where their favorability for Palestine is now much considerably larger than that for Israel. The politicians, as you have suggested, are beginning to wonder whether the $3.8 billion a year in guaranteed arms money for arms to Israel is going to be continued, and should be continued, and, and, and we’ve also seen the waning of the power of AIPAC, which was the major establishment advocacy group on behalf of Israel and things Jewish in the United States. We saw that in particular, of course, in New York, where three of Mayor Mamdani’s candidates, those he who he supported from the Democratic Socialists, won and actually won big. Mm-hmm. so you’ve got to wonder. I don’t think that’s reflective of the Democratic Party in total, and I’m not sure that the Democratic Socialists - I am sure that the Democratic Socialists do not represent the Democratic Party across the board, but the sentiments about Israel and about its effect on the political game, and, and the criticism of Israel for what’s happening in the West Bank, in Lebanon, and in Gaza are getting a voice that really hasn’t been heard to this extent,

Maytal Kowalski

and I think to tie it back to like what we’re seeing in Canada, you know, something that I think is the one thing I think that is interesting, and the reason that I said that it was worrisome is that really, you know, our legacy institutions or the Jewish organizations that have at this point the most political power, and who are also tasked with, you know, whether, whether we think that it’s right for organizations to do both of these things or not, are also tasked with, you know, fighting antisemitism, and you know, calling out antisemitism, you know, if those are seen as unreliable actors and seen as, you know, kind of putting, putting the nation state, not just the nation state of Israel, but, but the current government of the nation state of Israel above the interests of American Jews, you know, we’ve, we’ve got a real problem, and, and part of what you’re talking about, we should remember that, that it used to be a bipartisan, something like AIPAC, used to be, used to operate in a more bipartisan manner, that it was just about whichever, you know, candidates that support Israel in a certain way, and then, as you said, completely kind of changed tactics to be all in on a very right-wing kind of Republican-centered approach and strategy, and now that that has little influence, and as we said, is more of a liability than an asset, you know. Where are those institutions that are meant to protect us? They’re seen as increasingly unreliable, increasingly biased, increasingly not worth listening to. And then we see that when legitimate accusations of anti-Semitism come to light, people are very quick to dismiss them, because they feel like the people speaking to them are, you know, are unreliable. I think that also goes for, you know, the ADL in the US, and that concerns me in Canada as well. Right? I mean, for as much as I first of all, JSpace doesn’t deal with with work around anti-Semitism, and we don’t have many organizations that do, and as much as I may have my disagreements with our legacy institutions, there does need to be a strong Jewish voice, I think, in parliament, talking about those issues and focusing on those issues, and having the resources from the community to focus on those issues, and you know, for them to bail on that, to, you know, really instead push this hard line on Israel and. I think that that’s, I think that that’s a real disservice to the community and to Jews, and I think that that puts us in a much more dangerous position than, you know, any rhetoric happening on college campuses or anything like that. So, I’m just wondering, you know, how do you, how do you see the landscape in Canada around that as well?

Jon Allen

Well, I’ve never been able to understand why you can’t call out anti-Semitism, the hatred against Jews, and at the same time call out human rights abuses in the West Bank, for example. Now, what? What I mean, there’s there can be a debate about what happened in Gaza. I mean, I have one view, other people have another view, you know, self-defense crimes against humanity. Okay, there’s a wide range there, and, but there’s, there’s no, there’s no escaping what is going on in the West Bank, none whatsoever. It’s, it’s so well documented. Why, why can’t our institutions demonstrate that they can separate out what is happening on the ground in Israel and be critical not of the state but of the current government’s activities or the government ministers, etc. So that’s part of the problem. I found it ironic that the criticism of Prime Minister Carney’s speech at Holy Blossom, when he brought out the antisemitism and other programs to deal with racism, when he announced it, that he was somehow criticized for not mentioning Israel. I mean, if you were going to mention Israel, you would have to make the connection, which I certainly see, between what’s happening in Israel, unfortunately, and the anti-Semitism, because I think what’s happening on the ground in Canada, unfortunately, is real anti-Semitism, hatred against Jews, but it’s also confusion. It’s criticizing what’s going on in Israel, and somehow thinking that by attacking a synagogue in Israel, you are manifesting that criticism, attacking a synagogue in Canada, manifesting that criticism of Israel. When the two shouldn’t necessarily be connected. On the other hand, if a synagogue has a sign that says we stand for Israel, it says to some people who are confused anyways and nasty that well, they do stand for Israel, and everything it’s doing in the West Bank, in Gaza, in Lebanon, etc. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a very complicated, difficult situation. We should be able to condemn anti-Semitism outright and ask our Muslim and Christian brothers to join us in doing it, and we should still be able to say that the current government’s activities in the region are worthy of criticism and are contributing, in effect, in fact, to some of the problems now, you know, in Canada. Frankly, I think the establishment and AIPAC and other legacy organizations went all in for the Conservative candidate in the last election. I think it was pretty clear. It was pretty clear because of what they said going into the election, and how they criticized the previous government as being anti-Israel, and in some cases anti-Semitic. Unfortunately, I think some of that criticism is continuing now. I’ve heard Nan being called antisemitic and anti-Israel. I’ve heard the same of Kearney, et cetera, et cetera. I think this is wrong. I think it’s, it’s, it’s.. I mean, it.. it’s hurting the community to be saying things like that, when in fact those people are neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Israel. They are critical of the government, but you know, you could say the same about what’s going on in Europe. I mean, Israel’s greatest friends in Europe, Italy, Germany, those, those were countries that have supported Israel down the line, and they too are being called, you know, anti-Israel, whenever they’re, they’re critical. So, there’s this, there’s this response, immediate response by the Foreign Ministry and by the Prime Minister in Israel that any criticism has to be dealt with in this aggressive way, and it’s, it’s not helpful for Israel’s image abroad, and and it’s not helpful for. Fighting anti-Semitism, either. I think,

Maytal Kowalski

yeah, you’re.. I mean, you’re exactly right. Right, I think that that’s kind of the piece that I’m talking about, about it being so worrisome. The fact that when we start conflating these things for political points and using Israel and Jews as one in the same, when it benefits us, and then trying to say that we can’t conflate them when it, when it doesn’t benefit us. You’re right, that it creates a lot of confusion. We should be the ones leading really critical and nuanced conversations. By we, I mean, you know, the Jewish community and our leaders, you know, should be the ones leading really critical conversations and helping people through this, and not, not trying to score political points, and it’s really, it’s really frustrating that the loudest voices are those with the largest megaphones are able to do so, because I do think that it does not help, it does definitely hurt our community more. One last topic that I want to talk about, going back to Israel now, for a second, because we know that we’re going to have elections pretty soon in Israel, it’s looking like october 20. There’s two things that are happening that are really interesting right now. I think the first is that we see, for the first time, we see Gadi Eisenkot actually like accelerating in the polls, which you know, like personality of like a beige strip of paint, that guy, but maybe that’s what people are looking for, that’s what people want, so that’s really interesting. We see the Lapid and Bennett merger actually losing seats in the polls, and this new party, which is the two leaders, Rula Daood and Alon-Lee Green, from Standing Together, forming this new Jewish-Arab partnership party. There was just an article today, and I saw Alon-Lee Green wrote an op-ed in Haaretz last week, kind of defending their, their, their decision to get into politics today. There was an op-ed, I can’t remember by who, but we’ll share it in the email. There is an op-ed, kind of arguing the, the other point that you know they should say as a grassroots civil society organization. So I’m curious, um, so we’ve got two, we’ve got two different angles, we’ve got, we’ve got a real competitor to Netanyahu, and then we’ve got maybe a real competitor to the Democrats, and you have gone on, and I’m wondering what you think of this changing landscape.

Jon Allen

Well, my own personal view is that everything should be done to defeat the Netanyahu coalition, and anything that weakens that at this moment is problematic, because that is really the key to the future of Israel. If somehow the Netanyahu coalition would be reelected, I think it would do hugely serious damage to Israel internally, of course, on the democracy side and externally on the foreign policy side. So, while I love standing together, and I love their two leaders, and we should mention that they have said that if by election time they don’t think they’ve got enough votes to get a seat, they will, they will drop out, but I still think at this point the center and the center left and some on the center right, like Lieberman, who are anti baby, I think they and Bennett, I think they should all be sticking together for this fight, so I’m not one that supports another party coming in at this time. I’ve spoken to various Israelis, and they are kind of center-left Israelis, and they are split between Democrat team and Yair Golan and Eisenkot, they’re, you know, they’re center left, and if Eisenkot didn’t exist, they would vote for Labor Meretz Democratim, but now that Eisenkot has come, he’s honest, he’s direct, he’s, of course, he benefits from the fact that both his son and two nephews were killed in the war, I mean, and, and he’s a military guy, of course, Yair Golan is as well. So I think it’s interesting. It’s not unusual for these new parties to do well in elections, I remember the pensioners, the pensioners party ended up surprisingly well, and then disappeared. I’m not saying Eisenkot will disappear, I’m just saying it’s somehow in a, in a, an election system where coalitions all. Always exist, there’s temptation to form another party, and then that will inevitably join. The last thing I’ll say on this is, it’s quite clear that the latest polls show that the Likud coalition is at 52 and the anti-Likud coalition is at 58 It’s absolutely clear that the anti-Likud coalition will not form a solid majority government without the Arab political parties, and the sooner that they get out of their false shell and stop denying that they will join with them, as Yair Golan has said, he said he will join with them. I think Eisenkot has not ruled it out, but the others, the Lapid Coalition, has said that they would not, and Lieberman certainly would not. It’s a huge problem. Once again, the

Jon Allen

national interest requires that government to be defeated, and everything should be done, and never mind that everything should be done. The Arab parties should be included, were in the last, in the last opposition.

Maytal Kowalski

Yeah. Well, and I think, okay, so there’s something interesting, actually, in what you just said. If Eisenkot is not ruling it out, and Golan is, as we know, explicitly saying that he would sit with them. We also know from, I believe, it was a poll from the Israeli Democracy Institute, but I’ll have to double check it. But there was a question asked recently of the Israeli public, you know, for those who, who are anti Netanyahu, if for the opposition to gain a majority, majority seats in Knesset, they had to sit with either the Arab parties or the Haredi parties, which would you prefer, and it was Arab parties by far, like I think 60 something percent said Arab parties, and like 31% or something, said Haredi parties. I think unsurprising to me, unsurprising. And so I think there’s something interesting where, as Eisenkot gains popularity, and Bennett Lapid lose popularity, and a Democrat, he maybe stay more or less, you know, 10, 11, 9, 13, whatever seats, you know, and are following the polls, obviously, the idea of explicitly saying yes, we will sit with Arab parties seems to be going down easier and easier for Israelis, and I think that that’s not only to your point what needs to happen in a, in a society that wants to call itself equal and democratic, but also it does really show how political discourse can change over time, by and this is a thing we’ve talked about before, by leaders just continuously talking about it, gaining popularity as they talk about it, and that’s exactly what what leaders should do, and you know it’ll be interesting to see then if Bennett and Lapid, like, won’t it be funny if Bennett and Lapid realized that in order to recover in the polls a little bit, they have to be more explicit about their, their, their want for Arab parties to join them, that helps not only from a majority perspective but also from a where society is at and what society will, will tolerate, so you know, maybe there’s maybe.. I don’t know, you know. Let’s, let’s try to find a glimmer of hope here. Let’s put that under our conversations, trying to find a glimmer of hope, right?

Jon Allen

Sure, absolutely. You know, I know there are people that are saying the same thing about the Israeli elections as they are about the Americans, that both Bibi and Trump will find some way to tip the scales, screw them up, declare emergency. Who knows what? I think the elections are going to go ahead, and there, you know, there will be efforts to screw it up, but let’s, let’s, let’s hope.

Maytal Kowalski

Yes, yeah, yeah. I agree with you. I’m not ready to be that much of a doomerist yet. And let’s, let’s end on that exact note. We’ve, we’ve said, we said a couple hopeful things, and that feels very nice. So, let’s keep it there, John. I’m going to be, as I mentioned to you, I’m going to be in Israel very soon, so it’ll be great if we’ll play by ear, but we might be able to find a way to chat when I’m there, maybe bring in a guest or something. So let’s try to plan for something like that, but otherwise I think folks will see some reporting from me from the ground, and and then once I’m back, I think we’ll, we’ll resume our conversations as is. So, thank you, as always.

Jon Allen

I’m really looking forward to getting your, your reports from the ground, which will be so informative and important. And yes, we will see each other hopefully soon.

Maytal Kowalski

Amazing. Okay. Thank you. Much, Jon. Great talking to you, as always.

Jon Allen

Take care.

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