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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)
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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.

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South Korean Opposition Submits Motion to Impeach Country's Acting President

South Korea's acting President Han Duck-soo speaks at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Choi Jae-koo/Yonhap via AP)
South Korea's acting President Han Duck-soo speaks at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Choi Jae-koo/Yonhap via AP)
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South Korean Opposition Submits Motion to Impeach Country's Acting President

South Korea's acting President Han Duck-soo speaks at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Choi Jae-koo/Yonhap via AP)
South Korea's acting President Han Duck-soo speaks at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. (Choi Jae-koo/Yonhap via AP)

South Korea’s main opposition party submitted a motion on Thursday to impeach the country’s acting leader over his reluctance to fill three Constitutional Court vacancies ahead of the court’s review of rebellion charges against impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol stemming from his short-lived martial law decree on Dec. 3.
The court appointments have stalled amid an intensifying dispute between the liberal opposition and Yoon’s conservative party, and the potential impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo may deepen the political paralysis that has halted high-level diplomacy and rattled financial markets, The Associated Press reported.
The opposition-controlled National Assembly also passed motions calling for the appointment of three Constitutional Court justices as the court prepares to start deliberations on whether to dismiss or reinstate Yoon. The vote came shortly after Han reiterated in a televised statement that he wouldn’t appoint the justices without bipartisan consent.
National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik urged Han to swiftly appoint the justices, saying that his calls for bipartisan consent essentially amounted to a refusal and “infringes on the National Assembly’s right to select Constitutional Court justices.”
Yoon’s People Power Party, whose members mostly boycotted the National Assembly vote, argued that Han shouldn’t exercise presidential authority to appoint the proposed justices while Yoon has yet to be formally removed from office.
The main opposition Democratic Party has accused the conservatives of undermining the court process to save Yoon’s presidency, and its motion to impeach Han could go to a floor vote as early as Friday. The Democrats’ floor leader, Park Chan-dae, said Han’s comments showed “he lacks both the qualifications to serve as the acting leader and the will to uphold the Constitution.”
Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14 over an attempted power grab that lasted only hours but has triggered weeks of political turmoil that has shaken one of Asia’s most robust democracies.
To formally end Yoon’s presidency, at least six justices on the nine-member Constitutional Court must vote in favor. Three seats remain vacant following retirements and a full bench could make conviction more likely.
The court, which is to hold a pretrial hearing in Yoon’s case on Friday, has said it believes the acting president can exercise the right to appoint justices.
Three of the court’s nine justices are directly appointed by the president. Three are nominated by the head of the Supreme Court and three by the National Assembly, and they are then formally appointed by the president in what is widely considered a procedural matter.
The three seats that are currently open are to be nominated by lawmakers. South Korea’s Constitution states that the National Assembly “selects” three spots on the court rather than recommends, suggesting that the presidential appointments for these spots are a formality rather than a substantive authority, according to some legal experts.
“The consistent spirit reflected in our Constitution and laws is that an acting president should focus on maintaining stability in governance to help the country overcome crisis while refraining from exercising significant powers exclusive to the president, including appointments to constitutional institutions,” Han said. “I will withhold the appointment of Constitutional Court justices until the ruling and opposition parties submit an agreed-upon proposal.”
Han has also clashed with the Democrats over his vetoes of bills calling for independent investigations of Yoon and corruption allegations involving his wife, Kim Keon Hee.
If Han is impeached, Choi Sang-mok, the country’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, is next in line.
The impeachment vote against Han could face legal ambiguities. Most South Korean officials can be impeached with a simple majority of the National Assembly, but impeaching presidents requires two-thirds. The rival parties differ on which standard should apply to an acting president. The Democratic Party controls 170 of the National Assembly’s 300 seats, so it would need support from members of other parties including Yoon’s own to get a two-thirds majority.
While focusing on defending himself in the Constitutional Court, Yoon has dodged several requests by law enforcement authorities to appear for questioning over rebellion charges and also blocked searches of his office.
Authorities have already arrested Yoon’s defense minister, police chief and several other military commanders involved in the attempt to implement martial law, which harkened back to the days of authoritarian leaders the country hasn’t seen since the 1980s.
In a news conference in Seoul, Yoo Seung Soo, lawyer for former Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, repeated Yoon’s claim that his martial law decree was to “sound alarm against ... political abuse” by an opposition that has bogged down his agenda, and did not amount to a rebellion.