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You are listening to an art media podcast.
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It's Friday, june 26th. This episode was recorded at 7:00pm new york time on Thursday. I'm deborah pardes and this is arc news daily. Just months ago, the US And Israel were bombing Iran's Revolutionary Guard leadership. Now the US May be bringing the IRGC into a close private channel. That's the headline that came out of an interview published in a British outlet called unherd. In it, J.D. vance said the Iranians told him, quote, we'll send somebody from the IRGC to go hang out in Doha with somebody from centcom. And then he added, that's how we're going to settle a lot of these disputes. We don't know for sure at this point, but these discussions could involve the new deconfliction mechanism in Lebanon that was announced in the negotiations earlier this week following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the U.S. as we know, Israel is not part of that agreement. But if the IRGC will have a direct channel to the US army, that's an amazing development. The US has designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. Despite that, the Vice President is openly talking about setting up a direct military hotline with them for Israel. The worry is that the US Is rewarding Iran without directly addressing what makes the regime dangerous in the first place. Its missiles, its proxies, and its ideological stance. Secretary State Marco Rubio acknowledged that this week. Asked if he still saw Iran's leaders as fanatics, he said, it's not that I believe it.
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It's the fact of the. I mean, the Iranian system is led by clerics, radical clerics. That's what it's always been led by, and that's what it continues to be led by.
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Rubio spent the week trying to reassure Gulf allies they were hit by Iranian missiles during the war and left out of the talks. But according to cnn, Gulf states are increasingly looking at long term accommodation with Iran because their confidence in the US has been shaken and they see few other ways to manage the regime. All the while, Iran is pressing its advantage. According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran is actively pitching a plan to charge ships for, quote, security, safety and environmental services in the Strait of Hormuz. They estimate those fees could generate about $40 billion a year. Both Trump and Rubio have drawn a hard line on that. Trump called a toll in Hormuz unacceptable. And this is how Rubio put it.
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No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law. That's the way it is and international waterways all over the world. And that's the way we expect it'll be here.
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The MOU gives the two sides 60 days to continue negotiating. But given all we've seen so far, that seems like an unrealistic timeline to settle some very difficult questions, especially as Iran has already shown that it will press for as much as it can get. Turkey has largely stayed out of the war with Iran, and yesterday at the White House, President Trump said that neutrality is going to be rewarded. He said Turkey's president, Tayyip Erdogan, was a great leader and a friend.
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You know, he was a prime candidate to go into the war with Iran, maybe on the Iran side, because he's not a big fan of Israel, as you know, and I asked him to stay out.
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He's saying the reward Trump is offering is a major arms deal. The administration just told Congress it intends to sell roughly $700 million worth of general Electric jet engines to Turkey. These engines are designed to power Turkey's first homegrown fighter jet, a program called Khan. It's been in development since 2016, and it's central to Turkey's goal of building a military that doesn't depend on foreign suppliers. The problem is Turkey's been burning through money they don't have. Yonatana Dirty is the co host of ARC Media's what's yous Number? Podcast. He explained the financial stakes to us
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at the beginning of the war. On March 1, Turkey had to sell 145 tons of gold, which it had accumulated over the course of six years, almost in order to keep its economy afloat, to allow for the defense administration to continue rolling. All of that is done on the state's budget. In many ways, this is kind of similar to the Lavi project that Israel had that brought its economy to bear and almost bankrupted Israel in the 80s. Turkey was very, very close to that point. And it seems like President Trump is alleviating that stress from the Turkish economy and also having it gain access to this very advanced and sophisticated capacity, both the engines and the potential re access into the F35.
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That last part, the F35, is the bigger story behind the engine deal. Turkey was kicked out of the F35 program in 2019 after it bought a Russian air defense system. The US position has always been that the Russian system poses a direct security threat to the F35. US law requires Turkey to get rid of the Russian system before it can rejoin the program. Congress is not happy about the engine sales, but Congressional objections are not binding, so the deal is expected to go through. For Israel, the optics are not good. Erdogan has spent years positioning himself as one of Israel's sharpest critics. He has recently again called Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon aggression. Erdogan will host a NATO summit set for July 7th and 8th. Trump says he'll attend, and a meeting between him and Erdogan is expected. Whatever gets announced there will tell us a great deal about how far Trump is willing to go to keep Erdogan in his corner and what that means for the regional balance Israel is trying to navigate. Venezuela was hit by two massive earthquakes Wednesday night, the biggest in a century. The death toll so far has reached nearly 200 people and more than 1,500 injured, though the full extent of the damage is still unknown. Global aid is coming from around the world to help, including from Israel. That's despite Venezuela being one of Iran's closest partners in the Western Hemisphere. Israel's foreign office and Israeli aid organizations mobilized within hours. Matan Civek is the chief partnership officer of israaid, a non governmental disaster relief group based in Israel. We spoke with him last night.
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It's really impressive to see how the Jewish community of Caracas manage to respond immediately. They right away open up the Jewish Community center, providing some basic food and beds and a place to stay which is safe and secure for kids, for women, for elderly.
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Sevek said There are around 200 Jews in Caracas who were directly impacted by the earthquake. Many are looking for their loved ones who are missing or injured. He says the Israeli teams will focus on providing them and others with everything they need. Venezuela cut diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009, and the country is still navigating a complicated political transition after the US Captured President Nicolas Maduro in a raid in January. Israeli groups are going in anyway, relying on networks across South America that they've established over the years. Those relationships are now critical to saving lives. I'm Deborah Pardes, and this is ArkNews Daily. Shabbat Shalom.
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Hi, I'm Daniil Hartman, president of the Sholem Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
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And I'm Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow at the Sholem Hartman Institute.
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What's more important? To be feared by your enemies or morally true to yourself?
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Should Israel strive to be a nation among nations, or should it accept the fact that it is now a fortress apart?
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What do Israelis and Diaspora Jews owe each other? If you're Jewish or a friend and
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ally, these questions have been gnawing at you these past few years.
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For some of you, like for us, these questions have been keeping you up at night, and for some, they've been simmering in the background or waiting for answers.
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But dilemmas don't always have clear answers. What they do deserve are honest and respectful debates.
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And as it happens, Yossia and I love to challenge each other to get to the bottom of things.
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We look at current events through a lens that speaks to us most deeply. A Jewish lens.
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So if today's Jewish dilemmas are on your mind, tune in to our conversation on For Heaven's Sake, a partnership between ARC Media and the Sholem Hartman Institute.
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You can find For Heaven's Sake on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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See you there.