The Iranian nuclear topic is unlikely to take central stage in the upcoming Israeli election, but politicians in Israel and Iran speak out on this issue more and more often following US President Joe Biden's announcement that he wants to salvage the Iranian nuclear deal, Israeli experts told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd March, 2021) The Iranian nuclear topic is unlikely to take central stage in the upcoming Israeli election, but politicians in Israel and Iran speak out on this issue more and more often following US President Joe Biden's announcement that he wants to salvage the Iranian nuclear deal, Israeli experts told Sputnik.
Israel is heading toward its fourth election in two years after the collapse of Benjamin Netanyahu's center-right coalition. The snap parliamentary elections will take place on March 23.
"Iran will unlikely to dominate the election sphere because still we are in the midst of the pandemic, and even if Israel is doing good with vaccination, the country is closed and many people are jobless and the crisis is still here," Ksenia Svetlova, a former Israeli lawmaker, told Sputnik.
According to the politician, the main political focus in Israel is still the spread of the coronavirus, the failing economy and job losses that continued in recent months despite the fact that Israel made a great leap in effort to vaccinate the bulk of its population against COVID-19.
However, in general, Svetlova says she expects an Iranian comeback to the election debates especially if the situation with COVID-19 calms down a little.
"It seems that there is a slight turn on behalf of the prime minister and there is more and more references to Iran on behalf of the chief of staff," she said.
Yaakov Kedmi, a retired high-ranking Israeli intelligence official echoed Svetlova's statements, telling Sputnik that relations with Tehran were neither pressing nor oft-debated issue during the ongoing election campaign in Israel.
"It is unlikely that it will be a serious topic, because in essence the problem is not in the Israeli hands as of today. Therefore, nothing to discuss, the Iranian problem is not an important electoral topic today," Kedmi said.
He stressed, however, the possibility that those in power, chiefly prime minister Netanyahu, would begin to further heighten the level of anxiety and mistrust "to create the impression before the election of the homeland being in danger because of Iran calling on people to consolidate efforts and stand behind the leader to eliminate the danger."
He also noted that as of today, the majority of politicians in Israel were in favor of reviving the nuclear deal.
"Almost all army people and the intelligence community are in favor of the deal. They point out that the deal is not perfect but signing a deal is the only option. All other options are much worse. Almost all politicians are now being forced to advocate this deal because they do not want to be in confrontation with Biden's administration," Kedmi stressed.
A group of former leaders of the Mossad and other high-ranking military officials published recently an open letter in which they expressed their support for the deal. Among those who signed the letter are the former head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo, the former head of the National Security Council Uzi Arad, the former deputy chief of the General Staff Matan Vilnai and others.
Two main Netanyahu's rival opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Gideon Saar in their public speeches called the old deal "terrible" but at the we same time avoided mentioning whether they have plans to fight it.
Lapid did agree with Netanyahu's assessment that the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran was not the best solution and needs to be improved. Netanyahu said last week the accord paves the way for Iran to obtain a nuclear arsenal. The Prime Minister's Office said in a statement that Israel is in close contact with the United States on this matter.
"Lapid and Saar have repeated the talking point made by Netanyahu that Iran cannot be trusted. Both of them are quite reluctant to promise that they will fight against the new deal. The position on both sides are quite the same. The deal is bad but they are very cautious not to clash in advance with the elected American administration," Svetlova noted.
According to Israeli experts, the nuclear deal issue is unlikely to turn into hot-blooded war between rival camps during the electoral race in Iran as well. Iran is also heading toward national elections in June.
"The deal itself is not a critical point in Iran, although both political forces are trying to use it. Iran's serious economic problem is pushing everyone to make a deal. The subject will be on the debate agenda but will not dominate them," the former Israeli intelligence officer said.
Iranian hardline candidates, including presidential hopeful Hossein Dehghan, openly oppose any kind of deal or rapprochement with the United States which reflects on distrust between the countries following Trump's decision to leave the deal and the opposition's attempt to undermine President Hassan Rouhani's effort to save the accord, according to Kedmi.
In 2015, Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union signed the nuclear deal, stipulating the removal of international sanctions from Tehran in exchange for it scaling down its nuclear program. In 2018, Washington unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded by gradually abandoning its own commitments.
In December, Iran passed a law to increase its uranium enrichment and stop IAEA inspections of its nuclear sites in a bid to achieve the removal of US economic sanctions. In early January, Iran's atomic energy organization announced that the country had succeeded in enriching uranium at 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.
Iran had also threatened to suspend all IAEA inspections of the country's nuclear facilities by February 23 if the US sanctions were not lifted by that time. However, after talks with the international watchdog, Tehran agreed to prolong the inspections but in a limited capacity.
