Israel Criticizes Biden's 'Tolerance' with Iran

Defense Minister Benny Gantz with US secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Jerusalem (Reuters)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz with US secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Jerusalem (Reuters)
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Israel Criticizes Biden's 'Tolerance' with Iran

Defense Minister Benny Gantz with US secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Jerusalem (Reuters)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz with US secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Jerusalem (Reuters)

Officials in Tel Aviv condemned the US silence over Tehran's procrastination, accusing the administration of President Joe Bide of delaying the deadline on the nuclear talks.

Israeli sources said that the US, through its National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, had set a deadline for the talks last December.

Sullivan said that the United States and its partners would not accept continuing negotiations indefinitely and initially set February as the time to halt the talks, and then the deadline was moved to March, which has also passed.

Officials in Israel believe that the Iranians are having difficulty deciding whether to move toward signing the agreement and are also awaiting Biden's announcement on removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its terrorist list.

Israel continues to believe that Iran has taken advantage of the time during which it held talks with the world powers to strengthen its nuclear program.

According to Haaretz, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said earlier this month that while "treading water" in Vienna, Iran has completed the enrichment of about 50 kilograms of uranium to 60 percent and continues to advance its military nuclear program.

The newspaper confirmed conflicting positions within the Israeli government on the agreement.

Several officials in Tel Aviv believe the faltered negotiations are promising for Israel and evidence of the difficulty of reaching an understanding. It may lead the talks to a dead end.

They believe the agreement's failure will put the West, led by the US, in a military alliance that threatens clashes with Tehran, forcing it to reverse its policy.

Yair Golan, a former Deputy Israeli Chief of Staff and Israel's Deputy Minister of Economics and Industry, believes that reaching an agreement is the best option.

He said Washington is not interested in a military solution, as are the allies in Europe. They believe that the 2015 nuclear agreement, despite its many disadvantages, contains monitoring and accountability devices for the Iranians, and its duration is until 2031, which is not very long.

However, it is sufficient to limit Iranian nuclear activity and examine other means of pressure.

Golan says that relying on sanctions isn't right, adding that removing al-Quds Force from the terrorist list is not an issue.

Sources in Tel Aviv indicated that the pressure campaign launched recently by the Israeli government against withdrawing the IRGC from the US terrorist list is bearing fruit.

Biden now supports the Israeli position in this regard, unlike officials in the US State Department, and he will announce his position very soon.

Haaretz quoted high-ranking Israeli officials involved in talks with Washington saying that Israel is currently preparing for two scenarios.

One is an Iranian decision to retract its demand from the negotiating table, mainly to benefit from the skyrocketing global oil price due to the war in Ukraine. In that event, Israel would have a hard time scuttling the US plan to sign a new agreement with Iran within days.

The second scenario is that Iran insists that the Revolutionary Guards be removed from the terrorist organization list, which could delay and complicate signing a new agreement and lead the parties to further confrontation.



Pope Urges ‘All People of All Nations’ to Silence Arms and Overcome Divisions in Christmas Address

Pope Francis leads the traditional Urbi et Orbi Christmas Day blessing from the central balcony of Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican City, 25 December 2024. (EPA)
Pope Francis leads the traditional Urbi et Orbi Christmas Day blessing from the central balcony of Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican City, 25 December 2024. (EPA)
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Pope Urges ‘All People of All Nations’ to Silence Arms and Overcome Divisions in Christmas Address

Pope Francis leads the traditional Urbi et Orbi Christmas Day blessing from the central balcony of Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican City, 25 December 2024. (EPA)
Pope Francis leads the traditional Urbi et Orbi Christmas Day blessing from the central balcony of Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican City, 25 December 2024. (EPA)

Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas message on Wednesday urged "all people of all nations" to find courage during this Holy Year "to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions" plaguing the world, from the Middle East to Ukraine, Africa to Asia.

The pontiff's "Urbi et Orbi" — "To the City and the World" — address serves as a summary of the woes facing the world this year. As Christmas coincided with the start of the 2025 Holy Year celebration that he dedicated to hope, Francis called for broad reconciliation, "even (with) our enemies."

"I invite every individual, and all people of all nations ... to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions," the pope said from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica to throngs of people below.

He called for arms to be silenced in war-torn Ukraine and in the Middle East, singling out Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories, "particularly in Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave," as well as Lebanon and Syria "at this most delicate time."

Francis repeated his calls for the release of hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

He cited a deadly outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the suffering of the people of Myanmar, forced to flee their homes by "the ongoing clash of arms." The pope likewise remembered children suffering from war and hunger, the elderly living in solitude, those fleeing their homelands, who have lost their jobs, and are persecuted for their faith.

Iraqi Christians persist in their faith

Christians in Nineveh Plains attended Christmas Mass on Tuesday at the Mar Georgis church in the center of Telaskaf, Iraq, with security concerns about the future. "We feel that they will pull the rug out from under our feet at any time. Our fate is unknown here," said Bayda Nadhim, a resident of Telaskaf.

Iraq’s Christians, whose presence there goes back nearly to the time of Christ, belong to a number of rites and denominations. They once constituted a sizeable minority in Iraq, estimated at around 1.4 million.

But the community has steadily dwindled since the 2003 US-led invasion and further in 2014 when the ISIS extremist group swept through the area. The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear, but they are thought to number several hundred thousand.

German celebrations muted by market attack

German celebrations were darkened by a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday that left five people dead, including a 9-year-old boy, and 200 people injured.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rewrote his recorded Christmas Day speech to address the attack, saying that "there is grief, pain, horror and incomprehension over what took place in Magdeburg."

He urged Germans to "stand together" and that "hate and violence must not have the last word."

A 50-year-old Saudi doctor who had practiced medicine in Germany since 2006 was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. The suspect’s X account describes him as a former Muslim and criticized authorities for failing to combat "the Islamification of Germany" and voiced support for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.