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Israeli Opposition to Iranian Aggression Will Continue
(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - President Obama on Wednesday secured the 34th vote in the Senate to sustain a presidential veto if Congress votes down the Iran deal as expected. The real shock would have been if a sitting president would not have been able to muster the support of one-third plus one of the 100-member Senate - a chamber in which there are 44 members of his own party - for something being defined as his signature foreign policy achievement. But the Israeli opposition to the agreement will continue. One Israeli government official said the accord "remains a dangerous deal, and it remains important to continue to point that out." Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who was in Israel last week, said after meeting with the prime minister that Netanyahu, like himself, "knows that this is not the end of the story with Iran, just the end of one chapter. Whatever happens with this deal, we will still have to confront Iranian aggression for years to come, as long as it remains in the grips of the radical ayatollahs." Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold told the Jerusalem Post that there is "no shred of evidence" that "Iran is on the cusp of becoming a more moderate country, that it is ready to join the community of nations and jettison its revolutionary past." Iran, Gold said, is trying to set up a new Hizbullah front against Israel on the Golan Heights, and is trying to transfer some of its most advanced weaponry to Hizbullah, including "kits that have been supplied to Hizbullah to take their large force of ballistic missiles and rockets and dramatically increase their accuracy with GPS units." And all that, he said, was happening during the year when the nuclear deal was being signed. Israel's rhetoric, therefore, will keep the focus on Iran as an unrepentant, pernicious regime whose ultimate anti-Israel, anti-American goals have not changed.