Thank you to the Great Neck News for printing letters mentioning Great Neck members of the Zionist Organization of America who helped organize the Times Square Rally opposing the catastrophic Iran deal.
ZOA is proud of being an active member of the coalition of over 100 organizations involved in the Stop Iran Rally.
Another very important Stop Iran Rally (and press conference) will take place in New York City on Tuesday evening, Sept. 1st, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., in front of the offices of senators Schumer and Gillibrand, at 780 Third Avenue, at 49th Street.
We will demand that Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (who announced that she will vote for the dangerous Iran deal, even though she acknowledged serious concerns with the deal) should change her critical vote. Sen. Gillibrand should join Sen. Chuck Schumer in opposing the Iran deal. We urge everyone to attend this extremely important rally.
Sen. Gillibrand’s statement supporting the deal is based on the false premise that the deal’s inspections will provide us with necessary information about Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
In fact, the Iran deal will not have “anytime anywhere” inspections of Iran’s critical undeclared facilities, and does not have comprehensive inspections or verification.
The inspections will not enable us to know if Iran is working on its nuclear weapons program.
The U.S. has no right to inspect. U.S. scientists cannot be on the IAEA inspection team. (This differs from our treaties with Russia.)
The only entity that will be “requested” to make inspections, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has to make a series of detailed requests for access to Iran, give Iran opportunities to provide “clarifications,” “explanations” and alternatives to inspections, and submit to consultations before a Joint Commission that includes Iran and its trading partners.
This convoluted process that can easily stretch out to a month or much longer – well beyond the 24 days one hears about in the news, since the first “request for clarifications” step in this lengthy process to attempt to obtain access has no time limit on it.
The Joint Commission could then decide not to grant inspections. See Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) ¶¶74-78.
Our U.S. Congressman, Democrat Steve Israel, stated about the Iran deal’s inspection provisions: “That’s a far cry from what I understood to be anywhere, anytime.”
Likewise Sen. Chuck Schumer stated: “Even more troubling is the fact that the U.S. cannot demand inspections unilaterally.
By requiring the majority of the eight-member Joint Commission, and assuming that China, Russia, and Iran will not cooperate, inspections would require the votes of all three European members of the P5+1 as well as the EU representative.
It is reasonable to fear that, once the Europeans become entangled in lucrative economic relations with Iran, they may well be inclined not to rock the boat by voting to allow inspections.”
The Iran deal also limits inspections of military facilities – the most likely site for nuclear weaponization activities.
Paragraph 74 of the deal provides that requests for access “will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities.” A top advisor to Iran’s Supreme leader, Ali Akar Velayati, confirmed: “The entry of any foreigner, including IAEA inspectors or any other inspector, to the sensitive military sites of the Islamic Republic is forbidden, no matter what.”[1]
In addition, the deal’s secret annexes reportedly further limits verification, including by permitting Iran to take its own soil samples. These annexes relate to PMD — the Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program pointed out in the 2011 IAEA report: namely, Iran’s development of ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads.
Democratic Congressman David Scott, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who also serves on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, is an Iran expert who opposes the Iran deal.
Congressman Scott’s 2012 Report to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly describes (among other things) the IAEA’s 2011 report on Iran’s Project 111: “a structured and comprehensive programme of engineering studies to examine how to integrate a new spherical payload [in other words, a nuclear warhead] into the existing payload chamber which would be mounted in the re-entry vehicle of the Shahab 3 missile” and “additional work was conducted on the development of a prototype firing system that would enable the payload to explode both in the air above a target, or upon impact of the re-entry vehicle with the ground.”
This is a program to develop nuclear weapons and place nuclear weapons on Iran’s existing missiles.
The Obama administration’s responses to the deal’s inspection delays are nonsensical.
First, the Obama administration falsely argues that “inspections delays don’t matter because we have good intelligence about what Iran is doing.”
This is false. Our intelligence has repeatedly been proven inadequate to detect Iran’s nuclear weapons work. The U.S. and Israel did not know about Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak for years, and only learned about them when an Iranian dissident came forward.
The Obama administration’s other absurd argument is that “it doesn’t matter if there is a 24-day delay because nuclear material has a long half life and can be detected after 24 days.”
Arriving at a site after radioactive material has been moved will not tell us where the fissile material is located now, or what Iran has been doing with it.
Moreover, many aspects of nuclear weaponization programs do not utilize radioactive material.
Sen. Schumer correctly explained: “While inspectors would likely be able to detect radioactive isotopes at a site after 24 days, that delay would enable Iran to escape detection of any illicit building and improving of possible military dimensions – the tools that go into building a bomb but don’t emit radioactivity.
Furthermore, even when we detect radioactivity at a site where Iran is illicitly advancing its bomb-making capability, the 24-day delay would hinder our ability to determine precisely what was being done at that site.”
There is much else wrong with the Iran deal, which paves Iran’s way to nuclear weapons, and gives Iran billions of dollars to expand its terrorism activities throughout the world.
Our former Congressman, liberal Democrat Gary Ackerman, has spoken out against the Iran deal, saying: “Stakes are too high to allow for so many loopholes. To make a deal with an enemy who then vows to kill you later, means you left something out of the deal. Don’t you think?”
I never thought I’d say this, since I ran against Congressman Ackerman in 2008, but everyone — especially Senator Gillibrand – should listen to Congressman Ackerman now.
And we should also heed the wise words of all the current Democratic Congresspersons who have put aside partisanship to oppose this dangerous deal, including Sen. Schumer and Congresspersons Alcee Hastings and David Scott (both members of the Black Congressional Caucus), Grace Meng, Steve Israel, Juan Vargas, Kathleen Rice, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutsch, Albio Sires, Eliot Engel and Brad Sherman. (The ZOA.org website has articles setting forth each of these Congresspersons well-reasoned statements opposing the Iran deal.)
Please note that in addition to the rally in New York City on Sept. 1, there will be rallies against the Iran deal in Washington D.C. on Sept. 9 and 10, and ZOA will be in Washington D.C. on Sept. 10.
Elizabeth (Liz) Berney, Esq.
Elizabeth (Liz) Berney is the Long Island-Queens Executive Director for the Zionist Organization of America. She can be reached at liz@zoa.org
