Alon Pinkas

DETROIT — According to Alon Pinkas, the former Consul General of Israel in New York, American Jews are more in favor of the Iran nuclear deal than the general American public.

A telephone poll of 501 respondents conducted by the LA Jewish Journal found that 49 percent of American Jews favor the deal, while 31 percent don’t and 20 percent are undecided. By contrast, a poll of 522 Americans in general found that 28 percent supported the deal, 24 percent oppose it and the remaining 48 percent are undecided.

Pinkas, who has nearly two decades of experience in foreign affairs and has devoted his career to Israeli international relations, spoke with area reporters about the Iran nuclear deal in a teleconference this week. He was joined by personal injury attorney Jerry Acker of the law firm Goodman and Acker. 

Pinkas said he wasn’t in town to ask people to support the deal.

“What I am doing is trying to talk to people in the media and to lawmakers on how this will affect Israel and what the possible consequences on Israel are,” he said.

Acker and Pinkas emphasized the American Jewish community’s support for the agreement, signed in Vienna on July 14.

“Michigan’s Jewish community and our community overwhelmingly support the deal,” Acker said.

He added that Israel is more secure if Iran can’t threaten it with a nuclear weapon.

In the historic deal, the six world powers known as P5+1 (China, France, Russia, The U.K. and the U.S. and Germany— along with the European Union) convinced Iran to considerably reduce its nuclear activities to a point that makes it impossible to produce a nuclear weapon. The agreement also lifts economic sanctions on Iran if it complies.

Targeting the Iranian economy mostly affected civilians. The embargo caused unemployment, poverty and inflation in Iran. 

Congress is in the early stages of reviewing the pact and President Obama has vowed to veto any congressional rejection of the deal.

Public opinion will be a major factor lawmakers will consider when making a decision. 

Israeli opponents of the deal believe the deal is bad for Israeli interests, while feelings about the deal differ widely among Americans. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 38 percent of Americans who are aware of the deal approve of it while 48 percent do not.

And a poll released by CNN showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans— 52 percent— say congress should reject the deal, while 44 percent say it should be approved. 

“I think the difference has to do with how much suspicion and fear has been instilled in people about this,” Pinkas said.

Preventing countries in the Middle East from obtaining nuclear weapons has been a longtime concern for the international community. Iraq was invaded in 2003 after being accused of having weapons of mass destruction. However, Israel has not been questioned about possessing nuclear weapons in the same way Iran, Syria and Iraq have, despite being accused of war crimes and human rights violations by Amnesty International. 

The Arab American News asked Pinkas why the international community isn’t concerned about Israel having nuclear weapons.

“I don’t know that we have nuclear weapons,” he replied. “I am not trying to be clever. I don’t know what we have and don’t have.”

Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear weapons, but many in the international community believe it does possess some nuclear arms. However, it is unclear how many weapons Israel may possess.

In April, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sitting on 400 nuclear warheads that have been acquired in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Pinkas said the deal with Iran is neither good nor bad. 

“This is a very complicated, complex agreement,” he said, adding that the deal would help curtail Iran’s nuclear development.

Supporters of the agreement say that if Iran is building a nuclear weapon, the agreement makes such action more easily detectable.

“It is going to be more easily detected now than under any [other] agreement,” Pinkas said. 

Building a nuclear bomb requires either uranium or plutonium. According to the White House, Iran’s four possible ways to leverage those fissile materials are blocked under the terms of the deal. 

President Obama has said that without the deal there would be no limits to Iran’s nuclear program and Iran could move closer to having a nuclear bomb. 

Supporters of the deal believe the United States would risk even more war in the Middle East without the deal. 

Pinkas, who has visited other communities around the country to discuss the game-changing deal that cuts off Iran’s capacity to build nuclear weapons, said one common concern about the deal people have shared with him— whether they be in D.C., Baltimore, Detroit or Portland— is that it does not prevent the funding of violence or control Iran’s behavior in the Middle East.  

“This deal is about curtailing Iran’s nuclear program and not its regional behavior,” he said.