U.S.-Iran Deal Doesn’t Mean Full Nuclear Pact Is Next – but It Shows Israel’s Limits

Ahnaf Kalam

Israeli officials did not sound thrilled in the wake of last week’s deal between the US and Iran, which will see Tehran free five American detainees in exchange for the release of several billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets.

“Arrangements that do not dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will not stop its nuclear program, and will only provide it with funds that will go to terrorist elements sponsored by Iran,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

He was not the only Israeli voice tying the prisoner deal to Iran’s nuclear program.

Read the full article at the Times of Israel.

Lazar Berman is the Times of Israel‘s diplomatic reporter and a Middle East Forum Writing Fellow.

Lazar Berman is the Diplomatic Correspondent at yhe Times of Israel, where he also covers Christian Affairs. He holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University and taught at Salahuddin University in Iraqi Kurdistan. Berman is a reserve captain in the IDF’s Commando Brigade and served in a Bedouin unit during his active service.
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I recently witnessed something I haven’t seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews. The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt him and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.