“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has gone into overdrive against a nuclear agreement with Iran. On Monday, his government made new demands that it claimed would ensure a better deal than the preliminary one that Iran, President Obama and other leaders of major powers announced last week. The new demands are unrealistic and, if pursued, would not mean a better deal but no deal at all,” write the editors of the New York Times.

“What would happen if a foreign country started lobbying for bills in the Israeli Knesset, going so far as to seek the insertion of specific clauses into them?” asks Haggai Matar.

Israeli officials reject the US assumption by which a deal with Iran would draw it closer to the West and assist in resolving other Middle East conflicts.

CIA Director John Brennan said critics who claim the preliminary Iran nuclear deal essentially provides a pathway for Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb are “being wholly disingenuous.”

Thirty-one percent of Republicans favor a new nuclear deal with Iran, creating a challenge for their party’s lawmakers who largely oppose the framework accord sealed between Tehran and world powers, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Wednesday.

Like so many Iranians before him, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived to a hero’s welcome at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport after Iran and the P5+1 announced a nuclear deal last week.

Nearly 400,000 children are still suffering from shellshock eight months after the war with Israel as billions of dollars of pledged aid to the Gaza Strip has failed to materialise.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas knows that if elections go on as stipulated in the reconciliation agreement, Hamas will become an official part of the Palestinian government, making it hard for him to win international support for his UN bid.