If America signs a nuclear deal with Iran, it will be a “phony deal,” according to Ruthie Blum, JNS analyst and editor.
She told ILTV on this week’s Insider that America’s chief envoy, Steve Witkoff, “doesn’t know anything about the Middle East or Iranian mentality,” and that he sounds too much like those who ran the negotiations for the previous Iranian deal under the Biden administration.
“The Iranians are liars,” Blum said. “They are killers. And Israel is going to have no choice but to launch a military strike on their facilities.”
Blum made the comments on Tuesday, just before a report by The New York Times revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump had blocked a planned Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites—opting instead to pursue a new deal with Tehran.
The Times cited senior American and Israeli officials.
Israel had hoped to carry out the strike as early as May, with U.S. military support seen as essential to its success—and to containing an Iranian retaliation, the report said.
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Offering a different perspective, Nadav Tamir, head of J Street Israel, told ILTV that Netanyahu “needs to support what Witkoff is trying to do.” He acknowledged that Witkoff’s deal sounds very much like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed under President Obama. However, according to Tamir, “if someone would have told Trump that the JCPOA is yours or not Obama’s, he would celebrate it, because he wants to be the deal maker.”
Tamir argued that Trump only pulled out of the JCPOA because Netanyahu and some of his backers in Washington pressured him to do so. He added that re-signing a similar agreement is “the right thing to do and I hope that this time Netanyahu will be a team player and will not try to sabotage the deal.”
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