"Israel has lost the current round against Iran"

Sources in Israel have admitted that it has lost the current round in the dispute with Iran. “We lost the fight for this round [of talks]; we have to hope that the final agreement is much better,” officials told the Ynet website.

The statements came after Israelis appear to have lost hope about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ability to convince Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to join France and publicly denounce the talks that are in progress.

“The Iranians deny our past [the Holocaust] and repeat time after time their obligation to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the earth,” said Netanyahu after failing to convince Moscow. “It reminds us of the dark regimes in the past who plotted first against us and then against the whole of humanity.”

Nevertheless, the head of the Iran Section at the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Sima Shein, told Ynet that it is not certain that Israel has lost out in the current round against Iran. “If the battle focused on partial or full agreement from the beginning then Israel’s position was not accepted,” she told Ynet. “On the other hand, the pressure Israel applied over the last few weeks is definitely liable to improve the end deal.”

Although the battle is not lost, this is not the agreement Israel would have wanted, she added. “We are interested in a comprehensive agreement that will forbid uranium enrichment.”

In the meantime, Israeli criticisms of US Secretary of State John Kerry continue. A diplomatic source told Ynet, “You need to say the truth. Kerry just doesn’t understand the matter. He doesn’t exactly know what is being discussed. Just a few days ago he talked about the need to inspect the reactor core in Qom, except that the Qom reactor core is already under inspection.”