A poll showed majority support for the Obama administration strategy of easing sanctions on Iran in exchange for a partial rollback of its nuclear program.

A CNN poll released Thursday and conducted by ORC international showed 56 percent of respondents favored “an interim deal that would ease some of those economic sanctions and in exchange require Iran to accept major restrictions on its nuclear program but not end it completely and submit to greater international inspection of its nuclear facilities” and 39 percent opposed.

The poll, based on phone interviews between Nov. 18-20 of 843 respondents, has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

A Washington Post-ABC poll published Nov. 19 showed 64 percent of respondents supporting a deal “in which the United States and other countries would lift some of their economic sanctions against Iran, in exchange for Iran restricting its nuclear program in a way that makes it harder for it to produce nuclear weapons” and 30 percent opposed.

Unlike the CNN poll, the Post-ABC poll did not specifically address the crux of the difference between the Obama administration and Israel: Whether Iran should suspend all or some of its nuclear activities in an interim deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by some U.S. lawmakers, has insisted that Iran must totally dismantle its nuclear program and end all enrichment in exchange for any easing of sanctions.

A third round of talks between Iran and major powers is underway in Geneva this week.

The Post-ABC poll also showed that only 36 percent of respondents were confident that such a deal would stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while 61 percent were not confident.

This poll was conducted Nov. 14-17 over the phone and reaching 1,006 respondents. It too had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Speaking to an audience of Jewish community leaders in Moscow on Thursday, Netanyahu stated that he guarantees that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, according to a report in Makor Rishon.

Israel has been has been threatening, almost explicitly, that any agreement signed with Iran will not restrict Israel from acting unilaterally to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear breakout capability.

Netanyahu’s remarks came in the footsteps of Washington’s overwhelming silence in response to the latest Antisemitic remarks emanating from Iran.

Netanyahu expects that an agreement will be signed in Geneva, if not this week, then the next.

During Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Putin, he could not get Putin to back off from supporting the Geneva deal. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Netanyahu that Russia will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet in the Kremlin in Moscow.

A senior Israeli official told Makor Rishon that Barack Obama is interested in Iran not having nuclear weapons while he sits in the White House, but it doesn’t bother him if they are at the edge of the breakout point.

The official reiterated that Israel’s position is that Iran must remove all capabilities for making nuclear weapons, while the US government only wants Iran to not assemble the weapon itself.

In the meantime, Iran is demanding the right to continue to enrich uranium for “civilian purposes”, and wait until the world is distracted with some other problem, to put the bombs together.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has been warning, during an official visit to Canada, that Iran would use ‘dirty bombs’ in its terror war against Western targets.

Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon visits the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.

White House officials are saying that Israeli demands that Iran stop all enrichment would lead to war, according to a JTA report. The report says that given the choice of no enrichment, the White House believes Iranians would choose to build a bomb.

Which is exactly what Iran is going to try to do either way.

Opposing the White House is Senator Mark Kirk (R), who said that that Netanyahu’s assessment is correct, and that increasing, not reducing, sanctions at this point is what will force Iran to physically halt their nuclear weapons program.

The schizo anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect, with the help of Norwegians, has bought a fully equipped ambulance and has shipped it to Hamas as a “gift for the Gaza children,” it announced on its Facebook page Wednesday.

Their belated Halloween trick is their biggest PR gambit since 2006, when one of the cult’s factions visited Iran and praised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling for the Zionist regime to vanish and then later in the year returned to Tehran for a conference that focused on Holocaust denial.

It is nice to know that there are Jews who are so caring of others, even if they are non-Jews.

The Hamas regime in Gaza now has another vehicle which can transport explosives and terrorists through Rafiah and then east to the border with Eilat. With a moaning terrorist disguised as a pregnant woman, laying on a stretcher, a pillow stuffed under his shirt and the ambulance shrieking its sirens and flashing its lights, Israel certainly would let it across the Taba crossing and into Eilat rather than be accused of denying humanitarian assistance.

And when, God forbid, the suicide ambulance blows up at the hospital, Neturei Karta can start looking for God.

The Hebrew language Kikar HaShabbat website wrote Thursday, “The representatives of the extremist organization [meaning Neturei Karta, not Hamas] were invited to a festive ceremony to receive a certificate of honor where they were photographed with Palestinian leaders as a souvenir.”

The website must have meant that the Neturei Karta crazies “were to be photographed” with Hamas crazies because there are no pictures showing officials of the two extremist groups together, and there is no way the IDF would have let anyone from Neturei Karta or any other Jews, nutty or not, into Gaza.

The ambulance has not even arrived yet, according to the Neturei Karta Facebook page.

It said the vehicle was shipped to Gaza via Alexandria, Egypt and “is now to be transported by road along the Sinai coast to Rafiah, located on the border with Palestine, and further into Gaza.”

Neturei Karta launched the campaign to raise funds for the ambulance last May. “People in Norway, in co-operation with American anti-Zionist Torah Jews, have collected money and bought and outfitted an ambulance which was then sent to the people of Gaza,” it stated. ”On the occasion of departure from Oslo, Al-Quds Day earlier this autumn, there was a large popular demonstration in support of the project.”

Egypt is not letting Neturei Karta officials accompany the ambulance. ”The Egyptian Embassy in Oslo also warned that the Jewish donors would not be issued visas to Egypt,” Neturei Karta said. Egypt also did not issue visas for the “Friends of Jerusalem (Al Quds)” to escort the vehicle.

Neturei Karta added, “The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) of Egypt gracefully took it upon themselves to arrange for transport to Rafiah, where their Palestinian counterparts will assume responsibility and later represent the donors as well as themselves at a formal reception in Gaza, thanking both the Norwegian donors and the American anti-Zionist Jews.”

Before we get all upset about this latest gambit to mock Israel, let’s look at this as a win for the Zionist entity.

If Iran and Hamas need friends like Neturei Karta, the terrorist organization really are on their last legs.

Extremists usually disappear by melting into the Establishment or isolating themselves into oblivion.

That is what will happen to Hamas and the radical Muslims in Iran and elsewhere, but for better or worse, the Jews, even the extremists in Neturei Karta, know how to survive and will look for another way to do other big mitzvahs.

Once Hamas disappears, they can always ship an ambulance to the Ku Klux Klan.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Jewish community leaders in Moscow during his trip to Russia, “The Iranians deny our past and repeat their commitment to wipe the State of Israel off the map. This reminds us of the dark regimes of the past that plotted against us first and then against all of humanity.”

The Prime Minister , who has made Iran the one and only topic in recent statements, explained to the Jewish leaders, “They are also using propaganda: They are now creating a propaganda film in which hears a piano being played, and sees the Foreign Minister going through a building, talking about the need for peace in the future.

“This is not the real Iran. The real Iran is what the leader of Iran, Khamenei, said yesterday. He called Jews ‘rabid dogs’ and said that they were not human. The public responded to him with calls of ‘Death to America! Death to Israel!’

“Doesn’t this sound familiar to you? This is the real Iran! We are not confused. They must not have nuclear weapons. And I promise you that they will not have nuclear weapons.”

An Israeli lawyer who has won billions of dollars for relatives of terror victims has asked Obama administration officials why they are discussing letting Iran off the hook on sanctions while it owes American relatives colossal sums of money.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who heads the Israel Law Center, has won billions of dollars for relatives of terror victims in lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organization as well as banks and other agencies that aid terrorists or act as a pipeline for funds for them.

She wrote Under Secretary Wendy Sherman last month, “Iran must not be allowed under any circumstances to avoid making payment of reparations and due compensations to the families of those whose lives they have destroyed through terrorism…and through the terror organizations it supports: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.”

In a blog posted this past week on The Hill website based in Washington, Darshan-Leitner noted that Sherman did not respond, and she added, “As a result of lawsuits taken by American victims of terror in U.S. courts, the Iranian regime currently owes billions of dollars from decades of terrorist activity resulting in dozens of victims and severed families. This debt has yet to be recognized or paid by the Iranian government with no sign of an intention to do so.”

She called on Congress to ensure that the U.S. government is working to keep the interests of the terror victims’ families on the table.

Darshan-Leitner pointed out that when George W. Bush was President, he conditioned repealing of any sanctions against Libya on payment of reparations to the victims of Libyan terror. “This move resulted in the payment of $1.5 billion dollars to the victims’ families,” she wrote.

On the other hand, Bush also removed North Korea from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 2008, without compensation being paid to American families, she added.

“We fear this lack of response not only portends a potential Iranian exemption from paying reparations and giving due compensation to families affected by terror in return for normalization of relations, but that it also signals a softening of Sherman’s position on the proliferation of terrorist activity and most significantly, creates difficult implications for the United States’ reputation as a pillar of justice in the war on terror,” according to Darshan-Leitner.

Her blog continued, “As lawyers for American, Canadian and Israeli victims of Iranian terror, we call on Congress to take action and place a check on Under Secretary Sherman in this current round of negotiations… We call on all members of Congress to ensure that victims of terror are not forgotten and to help make the Iranian regime provide the proper reparations and due compensation for the innocent lives taken at the hands of terrorist activities and not to gain a free pass in the name of diplomatic maneuverings.”

A group of Iranian Jews demonstrated in front of the United Nations office in Tehran on Tuesday to voice their support for Iran’s right to go nuclear.

They even held Torah scrolls, according to the regime’s official Fars News Agency, which added, “The Jewish demonstrators also performed mass religious ceremonies.”

The photo accompanying the blurb shows enough men, most of them apparently in their 70s and 80s and a couple of young boys with a kippa, for a minyan.

So that “mass religious ceremony” was davening the afternoon prayers? No, that won’t do because there were women, also very elderly, and there was no mechitzah to separate the sexes.

It is not Purim, so they were not reading from the Book of Esther about the Jews in ancient Iran – Persia – who were saved at the last moment from destruction by the Iranian regime’s ancestors.

The Iranian Jews obviously were praying for the government, as all Jews do wherever they live, except for certain groups in Israel who shall remain unnamed.

The Jews also issued a statement, according to Fars, to wit, “We, the Iranian Jews, announce our full support for Iran’s negotiating team in the talks with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) and advise the other party to seize this opportunity.”

It is amazing that these people are so well-versed in current events that they can spout off “Group 5+1” so easily, but you know the Jews; we know everything.

In case you think the pro-nuke rally was sincere, the Propaganda Ministry, known as Fars, dispelled all doubts by writing that the Jews stated, “The Iranian Jews insist on standing by their Muslim brothers in defending the right to use peaceful nuclear energy for scientific and economic progress of Iran and supporting global peace.”

How do they know that the Islamic Republic has only peaceful intentions and does not want to annihilate the Iranian Jews’ Jewish brothers in Israel? They know because Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei says so. After all, he issued a  Muslim fatwa religious edict that “the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons [is] ‘a grave sin’ from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint.”

“The Jewish demonstrators reiterated that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism and noted that the Iranian Jews have complete freedom to observe their religious rituals in Iran,” Fars added.

Just to make sure we are not being too cynical, God forbid, The Jewish Press checked in with a local acquaintance whose family is from Iran.

Yes, Jews have religious freedom in Iran, he said.

Yes, the Jews live in fear, he said.

And, yes, it is nonsense to believe that Iranian Jews would initiate on their own a demonstration in favor of nuclear weapons that could wipe out Israel.

But how do the Iranian Jews know that the regime wants to use peaceful nuclear energy for nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.

Of course, they know.

Jews know everything, especially those living in Iran.

Iran’s attempt to soft-pedal its nuclear program in talks in Geneva has not affected its rabid anti-Zionism, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei now calling Israel the “rabid dog” of the Middle East.

“It came from the mouth of the rabid dog of the region – Israel – that Iran is a threat to the world,” he said in a speech broadcast on the regime’s official Press TV with an English translation. “No, the fake regime Israel and its allies are the threat,” Khamenei said.

He added, “We do insist that we will not step back one iota from our rights.”

His audience responded with the blessing, “Death to America” to  back Iran’s intentions that it wants nuclear power for peaceful purposes,  such as obliterating Western culture and making the world safe for radical Islam.

Israel is openly opposed to the nuclear weapons deal the United States seems dead set on consummating with Iran.  The goal of that deal is the easing of international sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran taking limited steps suggesting a possible shift away from its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.

The disagreement between the U.S. and Israel about the wisdom of this deal has become what many are calling a significant strain between the two allies.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned against the deal last week, calling it “a bad deal, a very, very bad deal,” and Israel remains steadfastly opposed. In turn, Secretary of State Kerry was quoted by senators as having told them to “ignore” what the Israelis were telling members of congress about the potential consequences of the deal.

Tuesday evening, Nov. 19, Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev told CNN’s Jake Tapper that it isn’t just Israel in Iran’s cross-hairs, but it is the U.S. itself that is an intended target of Iran’s nuclear weapon.

The interview began with Tapper quoting the Iranians who said that Israel is “trying to torpedo the agreement.”

Regev explained that Israel is certainly not opposed to an agreement that will end Iran’s rush towards nuclear weapons. But, he explained, what Israel wants is a good agreement.

Regev suggested that the alternatives aren’t between coming to an agreement and going to war.  To illustrate, he offered the nuclear weapons agreement with North Korea that was entered into by the global community with great fanfare and celebration, but which turned out to be a very bad deal, as everyone learned.

North Korea, after having “shaken hands” on an agreement that barred it from developing nuclear weapons, within a year had not only developed those weapons, but exploded one. That was a spectacular display of what happens when a hopeful but naive global community places its trust in an inherently untrustworthy partner.

Israel’s goal is one Regev described as an agreement that actually, effectively, dismantles Iran’s nuclear weapons program, in contrast to the far more limited results the U.S. is seeking at this stage.

“Look, you can have an honest difference on what the estimates are,” Regev told Tapper, but the difference is not only about amounts, the difference is in direction.  And Israel fundamentally disagrees with the U.S. view of the equation.

The U.S. view is that “the Iranians take small steps and then the international community, in parallel, takes small steps, to encourage them to move in the right direction.”

“The trouble with that equation is that it’s based on a falsehood,” because, Regev stated the Israeli understanding, it is simply not true that the Iranians are taking steps in the right direction.

And here’s the fundamental distinction: “All that we’ve seen, all the information that we have is that the Iranians are taking only cosmetic measures that in no way undermines their goal of having a nuclear weapon.

“They’re not willing to take any serious step. Not to dismantle a single centrifuge.”

That’s not just a difference in degree, it’s a difference in kind.  It isn’t a question of how much, it is a question of “at all.”

The other significant concern which Regev touched on was that any easing of sanctions will actually lead to a complete collapse of the pressure on the Iranian economy, and therefore will mean there will be no pressure on Iran to even make the minor adjustments it has finally offered at this late stage.

But the really big news, the news that the Israeli government clearly wanted the American people to hear, is the direct consequences for Americans sitting in their homes in New York and Boston and Los Angeles and Houston.

This was the “okay, Washington, you may be willing to bet Iran won’t attack Americans in their homes, but the American people may feel a bit differently about that” approach.

Regev’s delivery and timing was perfect:

I mean, the Iranians are building intercontinental ballistic missiles. They’re not building them for us, they’ve already got missiles that can reach Israel.  They’re building them for you! For targets in North America and Western Europe. It’s crucial that we don’t allow them to get nuclear weapons.

The interview ended with Tapper trying to get Regev to comment about the strain between the two nations, but Regev was not interested in that line of questioning.  Instead, he ended the interview reminding the (American) audience that “Israel is directly affected by this.  This is for us a core issue in our national security.”

Regev’s mission for this interview was to present the idea that it isn’t just Israelis in Tel Aviv and Haifa who need to worry about Iran having nuclear weapons.  His message was that Americans need to see the problem of Iran becoming a country with nuclear weapons, one with its ICBMs pointed at the U.S., as a core issue for their national security.