• Diplomats: Iran Nuke Overture More of a Promise than an Offer - George Jahn
  Diplomats familiar with the Iran nuclear talks say significant gaps remain between what the Iranians offered and what the six negotiating powers seek. Two diplomats said the chief advance achieved at Geneva was not detailed Iranian concessions, but Tehran's apparent willingness to engage - a departure from previous Iranian refusal to even discuss most of the other side's demands.
      The demands on Iran from the six powers include a halt on enriching uranium to 20%, disabling enrichment operations at the underground Fordo facility, a cap on how much enriched material Iran can produce and stockpile, the removal of Tehran's supply of 20%-enriched uranium and stricter UN supervision of its lower-grade enriched uranium stockpile, and a halt in construction of a reactor that will produce plutonium.
      Abbas Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, predicted Monday the nuclear talks could take as long as a year. On Tuesday, Gen. Masoud Jazayri, the deputy chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, warned, "Iranian diplomats will never give in to the oppressive West."  (AP-Denver Post)
• Saudi Arabia Set for Diplomatic Shift Away from U.S.
  Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief has said the kingdom will make a "major shift" in dealings with the U.S., a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday. Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that Washington had failed to act effectively on the Syria crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was growing closer to Tehran and had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011, the source said. (Reuters-Guardian-UK)
• Israel Distances Itself from Diplomatic Confrontation with Turkey - Sevil Erkus
  Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor said Tuesday that a Washington Post story by David Ignatius claiming that there were intense "spy wars" between Turkey and Israel "does not serve any Israeli purpose." He said the information that Turkish intelligence had disclosed to Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting in Turkey with their Mossad case officers was not leaked from Israel.
      "Israel wishes to stay away from public polemics with Turkey....Was it leaked by Israel? I can confidently say: Of course not."  (Hurriyet-Turkey)
      See also Jewish Youth Leaving Turkey Due to Rising Anti-Semitism and Deteriorating Relations with Israel - Sevil Erkus
  The negative atmosphere and deteriorating relationship between Turkey and Israel is putting pressure on Turkey's 15,000 Jews and prompting young Turkish Jews to emigrate, said Nesim Guvenis, deputy chairman of the Association of Turkish Jews in Israel. (Hurriyet-Turkey)

• Netanyahu: Even 3% Enriched Iranian Uranium Is Dangerous
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta in Rome on Tuesday that Iran is insisting on centrifuges and plutonium in order to be able to produce enough materials for a nuclear bomb. He pointed out that the Iranians can move directly from enrichment at the low level of 3.5% to a level of 90% without the need for an interim level of 20% and that they must not be allowed to do so. He declared that Israel's aspiration for peace is liable to be severely affected if Iran succeeds in its aspiration for nuclear weapon capabilities. (Prime Minister's Office)
• Israel to UN: Keep Pressure until Iran Plays by Rules - Yitzhak Benhorin
  Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor warned the Security Council Tuesday that Iran is continuing its steady march towards developing nuclear weapons. While there are 17 different countries peacefully producing nuclear energy without uranium enrichment, Iran continues insisting on the matter. "Make no mistake - the Iranian program is not for peaceful purposes....When negotiating with Iran, the international community must - as Prime Minister Netanyahu said - distrust, dismantle and verify," Prosor said.
      "The Iranian economy is crumbling under the weight of crippling sanctions. And this pressure is getting results. (Iran) reminds me of a boxer who is clinging to the ropes in the final round. Give him a moment to rest and he will turn around and attack you with more vigor. We must keep up the pressure until Iran agrees to play by the rules."  (Ynet News)
      See also Text: Amb. Ron Prosor Addresses UN Security Council (Times of Israel)
• Report: Israel Destroys Weapons Shipment from Syria to Hizbullah - Yasser Okbi
  According to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, Israeli planes on Tuesday destroyed a shipment of missiles that were to be delivered to Hizbullah near the Lebanese-Syrian frontier. (Jerusalem Post)
• Ya'alon: West Bank Seeing "Infectious Wave of Terror Attacks"
  Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon on Tuesday warned that an "infectious wave of terror attacks" was occurring in the West Bank. Ya'alon blamed continued incitement by the Palestinian Authority for the attacks. (Jerusalem Post)
      See also Five Israelis Injured by Palestinian Rock Throwers near Jerusalem - Yaakov Lappin
  Five Israelis were injured in their vehicles after being attacked by some 50 Palestinian rock throwers on the Jerusalem-Tekoa road east of Bethlehem on Tuesday. (Jerusalem Post)

• Rouhani Is Khamenei's "Closer" to Complete Iran's Nuclear Program - James Zumwalt
  Tehran continues to drag negotiations out until it eventually possesses the nuclear arms capability the P5+1 seeks to prevent it from achieving. It is foolish to think after more than a decade of forward progress with its nuclear program - at great economic expense - Tehran would, so close to reaching its final goal, bring its nuclear arms program voluntarily to a halt. Rouhani is simply Khamenei's "closer" whose mandate is to finish the job - not to halt the nuclear program but to bring it on home to a successful weaponized conclusion.
      Khamenei has simply replaced Ahmadinejad's dour face and belligerent attitude with Rouhani's happy face and supposedly more cooperative attitude. Meanwhile for Iran, it is business as usual. All it needs is time. For Rouhani, it is back to the same negotiating ploys he famously bragged helped him earlier deceive the West, by practicing "intelligent diplomacy." U.S. Marine Lt.-Col. (ret.) James Zumwalt served in the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War. (UPI)
• Report: Former British Foreign Secretary Peddles "Jewish Control" Trope in Parliament
  Former Israeli Knesset Member Einat Wilf wrote on her Facebook page Tuesday: "I nearly fell off my rickety British chair today when former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke at the Round Table Global Diplomatic Forum in the British House of Commons. Listing the greatest obstacles to peace, he said 'unlimited' funds available to Jewish organizations and AIPAC in the U.S. are used to control and divert American policy in the region and that Germany's 'obsession' with defending Israel were the problem."
      The trope about Jewish money and control is recognized as anti-Semitism by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia's Working Definition: "Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective - such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions."  (Trending Central)
• Hamas' Oxygen Line Runs through Israel - Shlomi Eldar
  Ever since the Egyptian government started systematically demolishing the smuggling tunnels into Gaza, Israel has become the primary provider of food and raw materials to the Strip. Without that channel, the Hamas government could not last a single day. The border crossings between Gaza and Israel are working at a rate not seen since the 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza. Between 500 and 1,000 trucks enter Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing every day with goods, raw materials and food.
      With tongue in cheek, senior Israeli security officials say that Israel has become Hamas' only ally. As long as there are no attacks and no rockets are fired into Israel, the oxygen line at Kerem Shalom will continue to operate. (Al-Monitor)
• The Post-Islamist Era - Ali Ibrahim
  Doctoral theses and treatises about the failure of political Islam and its inability to rule or solve the traditional problems of developing societies have now begun to emerge. These studies are based on what happened in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, as well as the Islamist experience of rule in both Sudan and Iran. People have discovered that they were deceived by the Islamists and that Islamist rule has nothing to offer them, while they are also fed up with the violence and societal division that accompanies political Islam. (Asharq Al-Awsat-UK)

Israelis Compelled by Reality to Be Hawks - Yossi Klein Halevi (Times of Israel)

• As ideological schisms deepen in America, Israeli society has gone a long way toward managing its own internal schisms.
• Take the issue of the future of the territories won in the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Israelis today agree about the dangers of occupying another people.
• And that same majority agrees about the dangers of trying to make peace with a Palestinian national movement that doesn't recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state in any borders.
• The result is that most Israelis want to be doves, but feel compelled by reality to be hawks.
  
  The writer is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.