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July 15, 2014

A sunken Nazi sub discovered off Texas coast

Leave a Comment / United States /

In a shocking reminder of how close the Second World War came to America, a German U-boat has been discovered by marine archaeologists working off the shores of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico.

That Nazi subs once prowled the Gulf of Mexico may come as a bit of surprise to Americans.

“And there's a very good reason,” said shipwreck diver Richie Kohler in a WFAA video. “The United States government didn't want us to know. They didn't want us to know how Germany was taking us to task, how successful these U-boats were.”

Read more on io9.com.

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Novice Israeli lacrosse marks major victory over Germany

Leave a Comment / Culture, Sports /

Israel has made a smashing debut at the World Lacrosse Championship in Denver, winning all its games and qualifying for the quarterfinals Wednesday evening.

Israel has been the top-scoring team in the tournament through five games, with an aggregate score of 88-18. Tuesday’s 15-1 victory against Germany, which finished sixth in the 2010 championships, followed victories over Sweden, Slovakia, Korea, and Ireland.

Less than three years after the first lacrosse game was played in Israel, an enterprise arising from a young New Yorker’s Birthright trip has changed the international sports landscape. Scott Neiss, now a Tel Aviv resident and Israeli citizen, recruited coaches with world championship experience, established lacrosse training centers in Israel, combed the country for aliyah-niks who had played the sport in North America, and raised the resources to compete at the highest levels.

Novice Israeli lacrosse marks major victory over Germany Read More »

Gaza fighting a reality show for rocket-weary Israelis

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Sitting on a leather sofa in flip-flops and shorts, smoking and eating snacks, a group of middle-aged Israeli men look like they are watching a soccer match on TV, but they are perched atop a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip watching a very different kind of contest.

The buzz of drones flying overhead is interrupted by the blast of rockets fired from the Palestinian enclave. Surrounded by camera crews who rush to catch the action, the men watch for the distant explosions of Israeli air strikes, occasionally offering their commentary on the fighting.

“I don't come up here to cheer at their troubles,” Yochanan Cohen, 57, said of his neighbours in Gaza. “I'm sick of sitting at home all day. Everything is closed. People are scared, many have left and those who've stayed won't go out.”

Cohen lives in Sderot, a town near Gaza frequently targeted by Palestinian militants' rocket salvoes. His house was struck by a projectile just a week ago, he said.

“I'm sure the simple folk in Gaza just want peace and quiet, like we do. I don't want to see houses destroyed here and I don't want to see houses destroyed there,” he said.

“But Israel needs to go in there once and for all and get rid of the terrorists and all their weapons.”

Health Ministry officials in Gaza say at least 188 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the fighting, the worst Israel-Palestinian flare-up in two years, and 259 houses have been reduced to rubble by Israeli attacks.

Down the road from Sderot, a row of Israeli tanks stand idle by a watermelon patch. Israel has sent extra troops and called up more than 30,000 reservists in preparation for a possible ground operation in Gaza, where its offensive launched on July 8 has been mostly aerial.

A truce proposed by Egypt and adopted by Israel early on Tuesday collapsed shortly afterwards as Gaza militants kept up rocket salvoes and Israel responded with air and navy strikes.

LIMITED PROTECTION

Israel's Iron Dome missile interception system has shot down most rockets aimed at populated areas minimising casualties.

But not all projectiles are shot down. Israel suffered its first fatality when a mortar killed a civilian not far from the Gaza border. More than half a dozen other Israelis have also been wounded in rocket attacks.

One rocket landed by an apartment building on Monday, lightly wounding an 8-year-old boy, in the southern Israeli port city of Ashdod.

Surrounded by broken furniture and shattered glass that had scattered across the living room of the damaged flat, the boy's great-grandmother swept up the debris.

“How much longer can this situation go on?” said Naftali Danielov, a relative of the injured boy.

The Israeli military says Gaza militants have fired more than 1,150 rockets into Israel in the past week.

Like many Israelis living in southern towns repeatedly hit by Palestinian rockets for over a decade, Danielov wants to see tougher military action against militants firing the weapons.

“We are not afraid. We are willing to sit here and take it as long as it takes for them (Israel) to end it, not in a year or two or ten. Enough already. Either we live in peace or I'm ready to go to war,” Danielov said.

Violence has flared several times in the past few years across the Gaza border, forming a pattern in which an Egyptian-mediated truce takes some days to take hold, followed by months of relative calm, eventually broken by another flare-up.

One of the Sderot residents who had spent the night on the hilltop sofa seemed sceptical that the overnight lull he had just witnessed would last for long.

“Okay, it's over,” he said as he headed home. “See you again next year.”

Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Janet Lawrence

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Don’t lose sight of the Iranian threat

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

The bloody sectarian warfare in Iraq and Syria and the swift takeover of wide swaths of territory by the Sunni fundamentalist ISIS — now calling itself a “caliphate” — has triggered calls to cooperate with Shiite Iran as a counterweight.

Yet we must not allow our justified concerns about ISIS to blind us to the even greater danger to regional security posed by a nuclear Iran.

We must remember that a nuclear Iran could credibly threaten our allies with destruction — especially Israel, which Iran has promised to wipe off the map — furnish Hezbollah and other non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons, and start a nuclear stampede as other countries in the area initiate nuclear programs of their own.

International negotiators resumed talks in Vienna on July 2 to address this danger to world peace. With a July 20 deadline looming, it is the latest — and, unless they are extended, the final — round of negotiations between Tehran and the P5+1 nations (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) aimed at preventing Iran from achieving military nuclear capacity, in return for which the international community will end the economic sanctions that have been placed on the country.

This series of talks was agreed upon in an interim agreement, announced on November 24, 2013, after Hassan Rouhani, viewed as a comparative moderate, assumed the presidency of Iran. When the interim accord went into effect in January, Iran froze elements of its nuclear program and the U.S. eased some of the sanctions.

Since it was the economic sanctions that had forced Iran to the negotiating table, Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) proposed legislation, to take effect after the July 20 deadline, that would hold Iran’s feet to the fire by ratcheting up sanctions if the current talks collapsed or Iran violated its obligations. But when the Iranians protested this threat of new sanctions, the administration convinced the senators to stand down. Nevertheless, Secretary of State John Kerry publicly stated that the sanctions would be re-imposed and strengthened should the talks fail.

The key issue separating the two sides is Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes, but the P5+1 warn can be used to produce nuclear weapons. Iran today has some 10,000 operating centrifuges, the mechanisms that do the actual enrichment, and the “breakout time” — how long it would take Iran to produce a nuclear bomb should it decide to do so — is estimated at a few months.

Western observers say that little progress has been made toward a comprehensive agreement due to Iranian defiance and refusal to diminish its nuclear facilities already built. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has issued several reports raising questions about the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. On June 2, the IAEA’s director general, Yukiya Amano, called Iran’s posture a “jigsaw puzzle” and made clear that the IAEA’s inquiries would not be completed by the July 20 deadline.

“That is not our timeline. It is their timeline,” said Amano, referring to the P5+1. “We will take the necessary time to resolve all the outstanding issues.”

Leading figures in the American administration have said — almost like a mantra — that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” And Secretary of State John Kerry, in a June 30 Washington Post opinion article, noted that the “public optimism” shown by the Iranian negotiators “has not been matched, to date, by the positions they have articulated behind closed doors.”

Emphasizing the large gap between Iran’s professions of peaceful intentions and “the actual content” of its nuclear program, Kerry cited numerous previous instances of the country’s violation of international obligations. He wrote that the P5+1 will not agree to an extension of the July 20 deadline “merely to drag out negotiations,” and warned that should Iran not satisfy the demands of the international community, “sanctions will tighten and Iran’s isolation will deepen.” If that doesn’t deter Tehran, the administration has said that “all options are on the table.”

Should the deadline pass without an agreement or a time-specific extension, we must be prepared to follow through on the administration’s wise words, and encourage the international community to follow suit. Nothing that is happening in Syria or Iraq mitigates the specter of a nuclear Iran.

(Lawrence Grossman is the American Jewish Committee’s director of publications.)

 

Don’t lose sight of the Iranian threat Read More »

Netanyahu: Hamas leaves Israel no choice but to intensify Gaza op

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Israel will “expand and intensify” its military operation against Hamas in the wake of a failed cease-fire attempt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

In an address to the nation Tuesday night, which came less than an hour after the announcement of the first Israeli death in the latest Gaza conflict, a civilian, Netanyahu said, “If there is to be no cease-fire, our answer is fire.”

“It would have been preferable to have solved this diplomatically, and this is what we tried to do when we accepted the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire, but Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it,” he said.

Netanyahu said the campaign will continue until the military has eliminated the threats to Israel.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in the same address that the country is “determined to continue the operation” in Gaza and “will not compromise the security of the state.”

The person killed was a 37-year-old civilian who brought food and treats to Israeli soldiers operating near the Erez border crossing with Gaza. He was hit with a mortar fired from Gaza.

Nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the start of the operation.

Also Tuesday, 25 mobile bomb shelters donated by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews were placed in southern Israeli communities hard hit by rockets from Gaza, including Ashdod, Ashkelon and Lachish.

The group raised more than $2 million in the early days of Operation Protective Edge, now in its eighth day. Part of the funding was used to open an emergency support center for the elderly in areas affected by the rockets, providing assistance including delivering food and medicines, as well as staying in contact with them.

Netanyahu: Hamas leaves Israel no choice but to intensify Gaza op Read More »

8 things you need to know about the Gaza-Israel conflict

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile /

Israel and Hamas are fighting their third major conflict in six years, and while some things have stayed the same, the battle lines have also shifted in a few notable ways. Here are eight things you need to know about the current conflagration:

• Iron Dome has been a game changer:

The U.S.-funded Israeli anti-missile system was operational during the last conflagration, in November 2012, but its remarkable success rate this go-around has reduced Gaza’s missiles to more of an irritant than a deadly threat for Israel — so far.

In the eight-day conflict of 2012, Gaza fired some 1,500 rockets into Israel and killed six Israelis, five of them from rocket fire. In the three-week war of 2008-09, 750 rockets were fired into Israel, killing three (another 10 Israelis were killed in fighting). By comparison, more than 1,100 rockets have been fired toward Israel this time and thus far there’s only been one Israeli death — and by mortar fire at a border area, not a rocket attack.

While one missed rocket can make things drastically worse, the success of Iron Dome has bought Israel time to carry out its Gaza operation without overwhelming domestic pressure for either a cease-fire or an escalation.


An Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor rocket in Ashdod on July 8. Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters

• Iron Dome’s success is bad for Israeli PR:

It’s a paradox of Israel’s able defenses that media coverage of this conflict has focused overwhelmingly on Palestinian suffering in Gaza, prompting complaints from some supporters of Israel. But in the absence of Israeli deaths, Gaza is where the story is. The scenes of devastation there, the tales of human loss and the Palestinian death toll are much more compelling for most viewers and readers than images of Israelis hunkering down in bomb shelters, taking cover in shopping malls or peeking into a hole in the ground where a rocket landed.

But Israelis would rather suffer bad PR than battlefield losses.

• Israel does not want a full-scale war:

Israel’s quick embrace of an Egyptian-proposed cease-fire early Tuesday was a sign of its reticence to launch a ground invasion of Gaza and turn this into a full-scale war — despite calls from some hawkish Israeli Cabinet members to deal Hamas a death blow.

Israel would love to eliminate Hamas, but it doesn’t seem able to do so. Despite some limited success, after every conflagration Hamas has managed to rearm and improve its rocket capacity, as evident in the rocket range on display in this round of fighting. Another ground operation likely would result in greater loss of lives on the Israeli side and worse carnage in Gaza.

The Israeli government wants this over quickly because the longer it lasts, the greater the chances an errant Israeli strike causes mass Palestinian civilian deaths or a Palestinian rocket manages to penetrate Israel’s defenses and cause significant Israeli casualties.


Israeli armored personnel carriers (APCs) drive outside the Gaza Strip on July 15. Photo by Nir Elias/Reuters

• Israel and Hamas are at a stalemate:

On the defensive front, this confrontation has been a big win for Israel: Iron Dome has managed to render Hamas’ rockets mostly impotent, and the Israeli army foiled an attempt by Hamas attackers to infiltrate Israel via sea. The’re been just one Israeli death so far — from mortar fire at the Erez border crossing where Israel and Gaza meet.

On the offensive front, however, Israel hasn’t managed to curtail the rocket fire, kill the top leaders of Hamas or significantly disable its fighting capabilities. Hawks argue that Israel could accomplish those goals if it launched a full-fledged war, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu either doesn’t agree or is unwilling to pay the price in Israeli lives or Palestinian collateral damage.

For Hamas, which started off the war severely weakened politically, the battle has been an opportunity to demonstrate the improved range of its rockets and reassert its position as the Palestinian faction willing and able to take on Israel. But Hamas’ inability to inflict any significant damage on Israel or protect Gaza from Israeli assault is not good for its reputation.

• Hamas’ Egyptian lifeline is dead:

If it wasn’t clear before Egypt’s cease-fire proposal, it certainly is now: Hamas has no friend in Egypt. The proposal did not include any of the Hamas leaders’ demands, highlighting the stark changes in the Egypt-Hamas relationship since Hamas’ 2012 confrontation with Israel.

When the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was elected Egyptian president in June 2012, Hamas rulers in Gaza gained a powerful ally in their neighbor to the south (Hamas is affiliated with the Brotherhood). Trade and arms trafficking in the tunnels linking Gaza and Egypt increased, and with the blockade of Gaza breached, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula became a staging ground for attacks against Israel.

That’s over now. Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi treats Hamas with the same disdain and antagonism he has for the Muslim Brotherhood, and he has choked off Hamas’ access point at the Egypt-Gaza border.

And in today’s Egypt, where intimidated press outlets take their cues from the government, Egyptian media have followed suit. A clip of excerpts from Egyptian TV programs taken July 9-12 and compiled by the Middle East Media Research Institute shows Egyptian commentators and anchors slamming Hamas.

“We are not prepared to sacrifice even a single hair from the eyebrow of an Egyptian soldier or civilian for the sake of Hamas and all the people who wage jihad while indulging them in all kinds of dishes at the swimming pool,” Egyptian talk-show host Mazhar Shahin said July 12. “They goad people into fighting, terrorism and violence under the pretext of jihad while they themselves sit at a hotel, a swimming pool or a nudist beach.”

• The psychological effects of air-raid sirens across Israel may be long lasting:

For the first time, Israel’s populous center, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, are the sites of frequent air-raid sirens. Though the incoming rockets are either being intercepted or allowed to fall harmlessly in unpopulated areas, the psychological impact of this conflict is likely to reinforce Israelis’ sense of being under siege — particularly for those too young to remember the last time their cities were the site of bombings or rocket fire.


Israelis enter a bomb shelter as a siren sounds warning of incoming rockets in Ashkelon on July 9. Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters

As Israeli author and journalist Ari Shavit wrote in London’s Sunday Times, the quiet of the last decade or so in metropolitan Tel Aviv — since the end of the Second Intifada — helped lull many Israelis into thinking they lived in some kind of Middle Eastern version of California, complete with skyrocketing real estate prices and high-tech start-ups. But with parents now running with their kids to bomb shelters, that bubble has burst.

Combined with the wars in Syria and Iraq, the revolution and counterrevolution in Egypt, and the rest of the Arab Spring, Israelis now may have more reason than ever to be wary.

• The link between Middle East ferment and anti-Semitism worldwide persists:

As with past conflagrations between Israel and the Palestinians, anti-Semitic incidents around the world have spiked since Israel launched its bombing campaign in Gaza. A rabbi in Morocco was attacked on his way to shul last Friday night. Protesters in Paris marched to the Abravanel synagogue on Sunday chanting anti-Semitic slogans, throwing projectiles, and clashing with police and Jewish security guards. A synagogue elsewhere in France was firebombed. In Chile, a Jewish home was stoned while assailants yelled anti-Semitic epithets, according to the World Jewish Congress.

• American Jews are playing their familiar role:

The Israel-Diaspora relationship may be changing, but the way American Jews react to Israel in a time of crisis is not. The American Jewish organizational establishment is collecting money, going on solidarity missions and taking to the airwaves to defend Israel’s reputation abroad. Those staples of solidarity efforts, Israel emergency fundraising campaigns, are back in full swing.

8 things you need to know about the Gaza-Israel conflict Read More »

Netanyahu fires deputy defense chief over criticism of Gaza campaign

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed Danny Danon from his post as Israel’s deputy defense minister after Danon criticized the government’s handling of the Gaza operation.

“At a time when the Government of Israel and the IDF are in the midst of a military campaign against the terrorist organizations and is taking determined action to maintain the security of Israel’s citizens, it cannot be that the Deputy Defense Minister will sharply attack the leadership of the country regarding the campaign,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued Tuesday evening. “These sharp remarks on the Deputy Defense Minister’s part are irresponsible, especially given his position.”

Danon is a Knesset member from Netanyahu’s Likud party and is chairman of World Likud.

Netanyahu said that given Danon’s stated lack of confidence in the government, it would have been expected that he would resign from his position.

“Since he has not done so, I have decided to dismiss him from his post,” he said.

Earlier Tuesday, Danon criticized the security Cabinet’s decision to approve an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire.

“Once again Hamas is setting the tone for this operation,” Danon said while visiting reservists on the Gaza border. “We must retake the initiative and correct the mistake made in this morning’s Cabinet meeting. Now is the time to let the IDF win this battle.”

Following his firing, Danon said in a statement, “It is unfortunate that Prime Minister Netanyahu does not accept that there are different voices than his within our party. The Prime Minister capitulated to Abu Mazan (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) when he agreed to release murderers in return for negotiations, did not react strongly enough when our three teenagers were brutally murdered, and this morning he accepted a cease-fire with Hamas that weakens Israel.  I could not accept the defeatist atmosphere that has become prevalent in our Cabinet.”

Earlier in the day in a televised news conference at the Knesset, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman also was critical of the Netanyahu government’s handling of the Gaza operation, saying Israel should retake Gaza.

“Israel must go all the way in Gaza. The world must give us its full backing to go all the way,” Liberman said. “All this hesitation works against us.”

After agreeing to the cease-fire, Israel had halted its operation known as Protective Edge. But after six hours and more than 40 rockets fired throughout Israel, the military resumed its campaign to stop the attacks from Gaza.

Netanyahu fires deputy defense chief over criticism of Gaza campaign Read More »

What’s behind Bibi’s firing of Danny Danon?

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile, News /

Apparently, Danny Danon went too far.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday fired Danon, a hawkish Likudnik who had been deputy defense minister, from his post after Danon slammed the Israeli Cabinet decision to endorse a proposed cease-fire with Hamas. Danon had called the decision a “slap in the face to all the residents of Israel.”

Netanyahu issued this statement about Danon’s firing:

At a time when the Government of Israel and the IDF are in the midst of a military campaign against the terrorist organizations and is taking determined action to maintain the security of Israel’s citizens, it cannot be that the Deputy Defense Minister will sharply attack the leadership of the country regarding the campaign… In light of his remarks, which express a lack of confidence in the government and in the prime minister personally, it was expected that the Deputy Defense Minister would take responsibility for his actions and resign. Since he has not done so, I have decided… to dismiss him from his post.

There are two ways to interpret Danon’s dismissal (he remains a Knesset member from Likud, Netanyahu’s party). One is that Netanyahu had had enough of Danon’s right-wing agitation, considered him out of line with the values of the Israeli Cabinet and wanted to enforce the rule of maintaining unity during wartime.

The other is that Netanyahu views Danon as a threat on his right flank, and took advantage of this opportunity to oust him from the Cabinet.

An unapologetic nationalist, Danon’s political ascent has been rapid. (Read my 2012 profile on Danon.) He is opposed to Palestinian statehood, wants to annex as much of the West Bank as possible and wants the remaining Palestinians to become part of Jordan. Those ideas have strong currency among the Likud rank-and-file.

After his firing, Danon issued a statement slamming Netanyahu:

The Prime Minister capitulated to [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] when he agreed to release murderers in return for negotiations, did not react strongly enough when our three teenagers were brutally murdered, and this morning he accepted a ceasefire with Hamas that weakens Israel.  I could not accept the defeatist atmosphere that has become prevalent in our Cabinet, and I would not compromise my values for the sake of staying in office.

What’s behind Bibi’s firing of Danny Danon? Read More »

Kerry slam Hamas for ignoring cease-fire

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, United States /

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ripped Hamas for ignoring a cease-fire call and affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.

“I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to offer a cease-fire in which Egypt and Israel have joined together,” Kerry said Tuesday in Vienna, where he was attending Iran nuclear talks.

The previous evening, President Barack Obama defended Israel at an annual White House event honoring prominent Muslim Americans.

Israel abided for six hours by the terms of an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire on Tuesday, the eighth day of the Gaza conflict, before resuming airstrikes due to the unabated rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

“Israel has a right to defend itself, and it is important for Hamas not to be provoking and purposefully trying to play politics in order to gain greater followers for its opposition, and use the innocent lives of civilians who they hide in buildings and use as shields and put in danger,” Kerry said.

“That is against the laws of war and that’s why they are a terrorist organization. So we need to remember what is at stake here, and we will continue to work for a cease-fire.”

President Obama at the Iftar dinner said, “I will say very clearly, no country can accept rocket fired indiscriminately at citizens. And so, we’ve been very clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against what I consider to be inexcusable attacks from Hamas.

“At the same time, on top of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that we’ve worked long and hard to alleviate, the death and injury of Palestinian civilians is a tragedy, which is why we’ve emphasized the need to protect civilians, regardless of who they are or where they live.”

Nearly 200 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed in the Israeli operation dubbed Protective Edge. The Israeli army said it is striking at military targets.

A number of prominent Muslim Americans, and at least one umbrella body, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, had called for a boycott of the dinner, citing in part Obama’s backing for Israel in the current conflict.

“In the government’s silence, Israel is committing a massacre in Palestine with the possibility of an all-out ground assault,” the ADC said in a statement.

The Obama administration has said it would oppose an Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

“Nobody wants to see a ground invasion because that would put even more civilians at risk,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday. “But again, this is Israel’s decision to make, and Israeli political leaders certainly have the right — even the responsibility — to protect their citizens, and that’s what they’ll do.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until now has resisted calls from some members of his Cabinet for a ground invasion, although on Tuesday, after Israel suffered its first death in the Gaza conflict, he said Israel would expand its attacks on the coastal strip.

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Kerry: U.S. would consider extending Iran talks

Leave a Comment / Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, United States /

The United States would consider an extension to a July 20 deadline for an Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State John Kerry said.

Kerry, speaking Tuesday in Vienna after meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, and representatives of other nuclear powers negotiating with Iran, said one of the options he would put to President Obama and the Congress would be extending the talks.

The possibility of a six-month extension was written into the interim agreement governing the talks, launched in January, but the Obama administration has focused until now on the deadline date. Kerry, who was returning to Washington on Tuesday, appeared to suggest that advances in the talks merited the extension.

“We have made progress,” Kerry said, referring both to the negotiations and his recent round of direct talks with Zarif. “We have all continued to negotiate in good faith. But after my conversations here with both Iran and with our P5+1 partners in particular, it is clear that we still have more work to do.”

The P5+1 includes the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Republicans in Congress and a number of Democrats oppose an extension. Israeli leaders have said that it is the better of two bad choices, as it would at least delay a deal they see as too concessionary.

Kerry did not outline the progress he said the sides had achieved, but Zarif in an interview with The New York Times posted Tuesday said for the first time that Iran was ready to freeze uranium enrichment at civilian-use levels, between 3 and 5 percent, for up to seven years. Zarif also said Iran would not dismantle its centrifuges, a key U.S. demand.

Obama and others have said that they would find such a limit acceptable, but want it guaranteed by a dismantling of most of Iran’s centrifuges.

Western diplomats also have not spoken of a time limit for the enrichment freeze, although The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying that it should be at least 10 years.

Israel has said that any deal that does not complete dismantle Iran’s enrichment capacity is a bad one.

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