WarSclerotic

via In unusual snub, Obama to avoid meeting Netanyahu | DefenceWeb.

In a highly unusual rebuff to a close ally as tensions escalated over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, the White House said President Barack Obama would not meet Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister’s U.S. visit later this month.

The apparent snub, coupled with Netanyahu’s sharpened demands for a tougher U.S. line against Iran, threatened to plunge U.S.-Israeli relations into crisis and add pressure on Obama in the final stretch of a tight presidential election campaign.

An Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said the White House had refused Netanyahu’s request to meet Obama when the Israeli leader visits the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly, telling the Israelis, “The president’s schedule will not permit that.”

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor denied that Netanyahu had ever made such an overture – let alone that it had been spurned – insisting instead that the two leaders were attending the General Assembly on different days and would not be in New York at the same time, Reuters reports.

With U.S.-Israeli differences increasingly laid bare and allies of Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney seizing the chance to slam Obama over his Israel policy, the president phoned Netanyahu on Tuesday night.

Netanyahu has had a strained relationship with Obama, but they have met on all but one of his U.S. trips since 2009. The president was on a foreign visit when the prime minister came to the United States in November 2010.

By withholding a meeting, the Democratic president could alienate some Jewish and pro-Israel voters as he seeks a second term in the November 6 election. Romney has already accused Obama of being too tough on Israel and not hard enough on Iran.

Obama and Netanyahu, according to a White House summary of their call, reaffirmed a “united” determination to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and to continue close consultations. But they mentioned nothing about the “red lines” Netanyahu wants Obama to set for Tehran.

Obama’s avoidance of a face-to-face meeting could signal U.S. displeasure with Netanyahu’s intensifying push a specific ultimatum to Iran. Obama aides say privately they believe Netanyahu favors Romney, a fellow conservative, although the Israeli leader has been cautious to avoid being seen interfering in the election campaign.

Word that the two men would not meet came on the same day that Netanyahu said the United States had forfeited its moral right to stop Israel from taking action against Iran’s nuclear program because it had refused to be firm with Tehran itself.

Netanyahu has argued that setting a clear boundary for Iran’s uranium enrichment activities and imposing stronger economic sanctions could deter Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and mitigate the need for military action.

In comments that appeared to bring the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran closer, Netanyahu took Washington to task for rebuffing his call to set a clear “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program, which has already prompted four rounds of U.N. sanctions.

“The world tells Israel, ‘Wait, there’s still time.’ And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?'” Netanyahu said.

“Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” he added, addressing a news conference with Bulgaria’s prime minister.

John McCain and Lindsey Graham, Republican senators and critics of Obama’s foreign policy, said in a joint statement: “It is puzzling that the president can’t make time to see the head of state of one of America’s closest allies in the world.”

“If these reports are true, the White House’s decision sends a troubling signal to our ally Israel about America’s commitment at this dangerous and challenging time,” they said.

‘UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK’

The website of Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz called Netanyahu’s words “an unprecedented verbal attack on the U.S. government”.

Iran makes no secret of its hostility to Israel, widely assumed to be the region’s only nuclear-armed power, but says its nuclear program is purely peaceful.

Netanyahu’s relations with Obama have been tense because of Iran and other issues, such as Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

But he has never framed his differences with Obama – who has pledged he will “always have Israel’s back” and has not ruled out military action against Iran if all else fails – in moral terms.

Obama has been seeking to shore up his advantage over Romney with Jewish voters – who could make a difference in election battleground states like Florida and Ohio – by stressing his support for Israel’s security. He received 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, but a nationwide Gallup poll in June showed him down to 64 percent backing versus Romney’s 29 percent.

While seeking to put Netanyahu in his place might not go down well with pro-Israel voters, the White House may also be trying to avoid an embarrassing encounter. When the two men met in the Oval Office in May 2011, Netanyahu lectured Obama on Jewish history and criticized his approach to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

Netanyahu’s office had offered a solution to the leaders’ scheduling problems by having him visit Washington before his U.N. speech on September 28, but the White House did not accept the idea, the Israeli official said.

Obama, who is keeping up a busy schedule of campaign rallies across the country, is expected to take a break to address the opening session at the United Nations on September 25.

There was no immediate comment from the Romney campaign, which had curtailed its public statements out of respect for the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Netanyahu’s harsh comments on Tuesday followed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks on Monday that the United States would not set a deadline in further talks with Iran, and that there was still time for sanctions and diplomacy to work. Clinton – instead of Obama – will meet Netanyahu at the United Nations later in September, the White House said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday that Washington would have little more than a year to act to stop Iran if it decided to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf if it is attacked, and any such conflict could throw Obama’s re-election bid off course.

DEADLINE

Netanyahu did not mention Clinton by name, but pointedly parroted her use of the word “deadline,” saying: “If Iran knows that there is no ‘deadline’, what will it do? Exactly what it’s doing. It’s continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining a nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs.”

“So far, we can say with certainty that diplomacy and sanctions haven’t worked. The sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy, but they haven’t stopped the Iranian nuclear program. That’s a fact. And the fact is that every day that passes, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear bombs.”

Despite the recent tougher Israeli rhetoric, over the past week, Netanyahu, in calling for a “red line,” had appeared to be backing away from military action. Polls suggest a majority of Israelis do not want to strike Iran without U.S. support.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak seemed to criticize Netanyahu’s assault on the Jewish state’s biggest ally.

“Despite the differences and importance of maintaining Israel’s independence of action, we must remember the importance of partnership with the United States and try as much as possible not to hurt that,” a statement from his office said.

By refusing to see Netanyahu, Obama sharpens his Iran dilemma.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 11, 2012, 11:32 PM (GMT+02:00)

At odds – and no longer talking

President Barack Obama’s refusal Tuesday Sept. 11 to see Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu because “the president’s schedule will not permit that,” left Jerusalem thunderstruck – and Washington too.

At one stroke, round after round of delicate negotiations on Iran between the White House, Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, the US National Security Council, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta collapsed. They had aimed at an agreement on a starting point for the meeting that had been fixed between the two leaders for Sept. 28 in New York to bridge their differences over an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

By calling off the meeting, the US president has put paid to those hopes and publicly humiliated the Israel prime minister, turning the clock back to the nadir of their relations brought about by the comment by Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Aug. 30: “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it” – meaning attack Iran.

By rebuffing Netanyahu, the president demonstrated that the top US soldier was not just talking off the cuff but representing the president’s final position on a possible Israel strike to preempt Iran’s nuclear program.

Tuesday, the US Defense Secretary said: “If Iran decides to make a nuclear weapon, the US would have a little more than a year to stop it.” He added that the United States has “pretty good intelligence” on Iran.

“It’s roughly about a year right now. A little more than a year. And so … we think we will have the opportunity once we know that they’ve made that decision, take the action necessary to stop (Iran),” Panetta said on CBS’s “This Morning” program.

Panetta said the United States has the capability to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb. “We have the forces in place to be able to not only defend ourselves, but to do what we have to do to try to stop them from developing nuclear weapons,” he said.

Some optimists in Jerusalem took these comments to indicate that the crisis had become manageable now that the Obama administration was finally prepared to discuss a timeline and red lines for holding Iran back from making a bomb. This hope was soon dashed by word that the US president would rather confront Israel than Iran.
The White House may also have been incensed by the orders given by Netanyahu and Barak to the IDF to keep going on preparations for attacking Iran alongside the forthcoming meeting between the two leaders.
Netanyahu’s comments to a news conference earlier Tuesday are unlikely to have salved angry administration spirits in Washington.
He said that with every passing day, Iran comes closer to a nuclear bomb, heedless of sanctions and diplomac. The world tells Israel ‘wait, there’s still time’. And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” said Netanyahu on a note of frustration against the Obama administration.
debkafile reported earlier Tuesday:

The wrangling over Iran between the offices of the US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday, has been reduced essentially to a battle for the agenda of their meeting in New York on Sept. 28: Netanyahu will be pressing for a US commitment to military action if Iran crosses still-to-be-agreed red lines, while the White House rejects red lines – or any other commitment for action – as neither necessary nor useful.
Israel’s latest rebuttal came Monday, Sept. 10 from former Military Intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, who argued that even without agreed red lines, Israel was quite capable of coping with its enemies without the United States.

The sparring appeared to have reached a point of no return, leaving Obama and Netanyahu nothing more to discuss. However, just the opposite is true. For both leaders their upcoming tête-à-tête is vital. It is the US president’s last chance to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program before he faces the American voter on Nov. 6, while the prime minister will not forego any opportunity to harness the US to this attack. He needs to prove – not just to the anti-war camp ranged against him at home, but also to assure the military – which has been falsely reported as against an attack – that he bent over backward to procure US backing.
Netanyahu does not feel that even if he fails to talk Obama around (more likely than not), he has lost American support; he counts on the US Congress to line up behind Israel’s case for cutting down a nuclear Iran which is sworn to destroy the Jewish state, as well as sections of the US public and media and some of he president’s Jewish backers, including contributors to his campaign chest.
Those are only some of the reasons why the last-ditch US-Israeli summit cannot be avoided and indeed may be pivotal – both for their participants’ personal political destinies,and for the Middle East at large.
debkafile’s Washington and political sources disclose that their dialogue will have two levels according to current planning:

1. In New York, Obama and Netanyahu will try and negotiate a common framework;
2. At the Pentagon in Washington, defense chiefs Leon Panetta and Ehud Barak will be standing by to render any agreements reached in New York into practical, detailed plans which would then be referred back to the two leaders for endorsement.

The heated dispute between US and Israeli officials over “red lines” was therefore no more than sparring over each of the leaders’ starting-points for their New York dialogue and therefore their agenda and final understandings. Behind the clash of swords, US and Israeli diplomats are working hard to negotiate an agreed starting point. They are putting just as much effort into preventing the row deteriorating into a total rupture before Sept. 28.

Netanyahu discussed another red line Monday when he interviewed President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, their first meeting in three months. Although the Israeli presidency is a largely titular function, Peres has elected himself senior spokesman for the opponents of an Israeli military operation against Iran.

While their advisers sought to establish agreed lines between them ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama, debkafile reports that the confrontation between the two Israeli politicians ended inconclusively, because Peres kept on demanding that the prime minister bend to the will of the White House.

Israel Hayom | ‘US ambassador killed in Libya in riots over anti-Islam film’.

Libyan officials say the U.S. ambassador and three other embassy staffers have been killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi by protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

The officials, three in all, say Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed Tuesday night when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff. The protesters were firing gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades.

The officials who reported the ambassador’s death were Deputy Interior Minister for eastern Libya Wanis al-Sharaf; Benghazi security chief Abdel-Basit Haroun; and Benghazi city council and security official, Ahmed Bousinia.”The American ambassador and three staff members were killed when gunmen fired rockets at them,” a Libyan official in Benghazi told Reuters. Asked about the deaths, a U.S. Embassy employee in Tripoli said: “We have no information regarding this.” The employee said the embassy could confirm the death of one person.

The Libyan official said the U.S. ambassador had been on his way to a safer venue after protesters attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and opened fire, killing a staff member, in protest at a U.S. film that they deemed blasphemous to the Prophet Muhammad.

The official said the U.S. Embassy had sent a military plane to transport the bodies to Tripoli to fly them to the United States.

Gunmen assaulted the Benghazi compound on Tuesday evening, clashing with Libyan security forces, who withdrew under heavy fire. The attackers fired at the buildings while others threw handmade bombs into the compound, setting off small explosions. Small fires were burning around the compound.

The assault followed a protest in neighboring Egypt where demonstrators scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy, tore down the American flag and burned it during a protest over the same film which they said insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

It was the first such assaults on U.S. diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime leaders, Moammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak in uprisings last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the film — titled “Innocence of Muslims” — was “directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam” adding that the movie had also been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who has sparked deadly riots in the past by publicly burning copies of the Quran.

The Wall Street Journal reported further that the film’s 52-year-old writer, director and producer, Sam Bacile, said that he had funded the movie with $5 million in donations from “about 100 Jews” whom he declined to identify. “Islam is a cancer,” the paper quoted him as saying. “The movie is a political movie. It’s not a religious movie.”

The film was also being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States. A 14-minute trailer of the movie that sparked the protests, posted on the website YouTube in an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, depicts Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly ridiculing way, showing him having sex and calling for massacres.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed that one State Department officer had been killed in the protest at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. She strongly condemned the attack and said she had called Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif “to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya.”

Clinton expressed concern that the protests might spread to other countries. She said the U.S. was working with “partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.”

“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” Clinton said in a statement released by the U.S. State Department. “The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

The violence at the consulate lasted for about three hours, but the situation has now quieted down, said one witness.

“I heard nearly 10 explosions and all kinds of weapons. It was a terrifying day,” said the witness who refused to give his name because he feared retribution.

Hours before the Benghazi attack, hundreds of mainly ultra-conservative Islamist protesters in Egypt marched to the U.S. Embassy in downtown Cairo, gathering outside its walls and chanting against the movie and the U.S. Most of the embassy staff had left the compound earlier thanks to early warnings of the upcoming demonstration.

“Say it, don’t fear: Their ambassador must leave!” the crowd chanted.

Dozens of protesters then scaled the embassy walls, and several went into the courtyard and took the American flag off a pole. They brought it back to the crowd outside, which tried to burn it, but, failing that, tore it apart.

The protesters on the wall then raised on the flagpole a black flag with a Muslim declaration of faith, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet.” The flag, similar to the banner used by al-Qaida, is commonly used by ultra-conservatives around the region.

The crowd grew throughout the evening with thousands standing outside the embassy. Dozens of riot police lined up along the embassy walls but did not stop protesters as they continued to climb and stand on the wall – though it appeared no more went into the compound.

The crowd chanted, “Islamic, Islamic. The right of our prophet will not die.” Some shouted, “We are all Osama,” referring to al-Qaida leader bin-Laden. Young men, some in masks, sprayed graffiti on the walls. Some grumbled that Islamist President Mohammed Morsi had not spoken out against the movie.

A group of women in black veils and robes that left only their eyes exposed chanted “Worshippers of the Cross, leave the Prophet Muhammad alone.”

By midnight, the crowd had dwindled. The U.S. Embassy said on its Twitter account that there will be no visa services on Wednesday because of the protests.

A senior Egyptian security official at the embassy area said authorities allowed the protest because it was “peaceful.” When they started climbing the walls, he said he called for more troops, denying that the protesters stormed the embassy. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

The Cairo embassy is in a diplomatic area in Garden City, where the British and Italian embassies are located, only a few blocks away from Tahrir Square, the center of last year’s uprising that led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. The U.S. Embassy is built like a fortress, with a wall several meters (yards) high. But security has been scaled back in recent months, with several roadblocks leading to the facility removed after legal court cases by residents.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry promised in a statement to provide the necessary security for diplomatic missions and embassies and warned that “such incidents will negatively impact the image of stability in Egypt, which will have consequences on the life of its citizens.”

One protester, Hossam Ahmed, said he was among those who entered the embassy compound and replaced the American flag with the black one. He said the group has now removed the black flag from the pole and laid it instead on a ladder on top of the wall.

“This is a very simple reaction to harming our prophet,” said another, bearded young protester, Abdel-Hamid Ibrahim.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Egyptian police had removed the demonstrators who entered the embassy grounds.

Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any fashion, much less in an insulting way. The 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

A YouTube spokesperson said the website would not take down the video at this point. The website’s guidelines call for removing videos that include a threat of violence, but not those only expressing opinions. YouTube’s practice is not to comment on specific videos.

“We take great care when we enforce our policies and try to allow as much content as possible while ensuring that our Community Guidelines are followed,” the YouTube spokesperson said. “Flagged content that does not violate our guidelines will remain on the site.”

Bacile, the American citizen who said he produced, directed and wrote the two-hour film, said he had not anticipated such a furious reaction.

“I feel sorry for the embassy. I am mad,” Bacile said.

Speaking from a telephone with a California number, Bacile said he was Jewish and familiar with the region. Bacile said the film was produced in English and he doesn’t know who dubbed it in Arabic. The full film has not been shown yet, he said, and he said he has declined distribution offers for now.

“My plan is to make a series of 200 hours” about the same subject, he said.

Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-born Christian in the U.S. known for his anti-Islam views, told The Associated Press from Washington that he was promoting the video on his website and on certain TV stations, which he did not identify.

Both depicted the film as showing how Coptic Christians are oppressed in Egypt, though it goes well beyond that to ridicule Muhammad – a reflection of their contention that Islam as a religion is inherently oppressive.

“The main problem is I am the first one to put on the screen someone who is [portraying] Muhammad. It makes them mad,” Bacile said. “But we have to open the door. After 9/11 everybody should be in front of the judge, even Jesus, even Muhammad.”

For several days, Egyptian media have been reporting on the video, playing some excerpts from it and blaming Sadek for it, with ultraconservative clerics going on air to denounce it.

Medhat Klada, a representative of Coptic Christian organizations in Europe, said Sadek’s views were not representative of expatriate Copts.

“He is an extremist … We don’t go down this road. He has incited the people [in Egypt] against Copts,” he said, speaking from Switzerland. “We refuse any attacks on religions because of a moral position.”

But he said he was concerned about the backlash from angry Islamists, saying their protest only promotes the movie. “They don’t know dialogue and they think that Islam will be offended from a movie.”

Israel Hayom | Obama, Netanyahu ‘united’ on Iran despite mounting tensions.

Romney: Early U.S. response to attacks a disgrace » Anderson Independent Mail.

U.S. ambassador to Libya killed after consulate in Benghazi stormed.

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

The death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, has been reported. (Photo courtesy White House)

  inShare

US envoy dies in Benghazi consulate attack – Africa – Al Jazeera English.

The US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, has died from smoke inhalation in an attack on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, the country’s interior ministry and security sources have said. An armed mob attacked and set fire to the building in a protest against an amateur film deemed offensive to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, after similar protests in Egypt’s capital. The ambassador was paying a short visit to Benghazi when the consulate came under attack on Tuesday night, Al Jazeera’s Suleiman El-Dressi reported from the eastern Libyan city. He died of suffocation during the attack, along with two US security personnel who were accompanying him, security sources told Al Jazeera. Another consulate employee, whose nationality could not immediately be confirmed, was also killed. Christopher Stevens had served as ambassador since earlier this year, and had twice served in Libya previously [US State Dept] Two other staffers were injured, Idrissi reported. The deaths were confirmed by Wanis al-Sharif, the Libyan deputy interior minister, to the AFP news agency. Mustafa Abu Shagur, the Libyan deputy prime minister, condemned the “cowardly act of attacking the US consulate and the killing of [the ambassador] and the other diplomats”. The bodies of the dead were transported to the Benghazi international airport, to be flown to Tripoli and then onwards to a major US airbase in Germany. Abdel-Monem al-Hurr, a spokesman for Libya’s Supreme Security Committee, said on Wednesday that rocket-propelled grenades had been fired at the consulate from a nearby farm. “There [were] fierce clashes between the Libyan army and an armed militia outside the US consulate,” he said. He also said roads had been closed off and security forces surrounded the building. A group calling themselves the ‘Islamic law supporters’ carried out the attack in response to the relaese of the film, Al Jazeera’s El-Dressi reported. Stevens, a career member of the US foreign service, arrived in Tripoli to take up the post of ambassador in May 2012, having previously served twice previously in Libya. He had also served as the US government’s representative to the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) during the 2011 uprising against the government of Muammar Gaddafi. Cairo attack Just hours earlier on Tuesday, thousands of Egyptian demonstrators apparently angry over the same film – a video produced by expatriate members of Egypt’s Coptic community resident in the US – tore down the Stars and Stripes at the US embassy in Cairo and replaced it with a black Islamic flag. The two incidents came on the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. “Some have sought to justify this vicious behaviour as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet,” said a statement by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, who also confirmed the death of the consulate employee. “The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” she said. In the day’s first such incident, nearly 3,000 demonstrators, most of them Islamist supporters of the Salafist movement or football fans, gathered at the US embassy in Cairo in protest against the amateur film. A dozen men scaled the embassy walls and one of them tore down the US flag, replacing it with a black one inscribed with the Muslim profession of faith: “There is no God but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” Demonstrators also scrawled the first part of the statement “There is no God but God” on the walls of the embassy compound. Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from outside the US embassy in Cairo, said that the protesters want the film – portions of which can be found online – “out of circulation”. “Most of the people I’ve spoken to here, a lot of them from the ultra-conservative Salafi movement, say that they’ve seen the trailer to this film and that they’re here outside the American embassy to stay until the film is pulled,” she said. “There’s also a situation with the police, where there are thousands of riot police guarding the American embassy because there of the breach earlier on, when a lot of people stormed into the inner wall of the embassy and put a black flag up.” Egyptian police intervened without resorting to force and persuaded the trespassers to come down. The crowd then largely dispersed, leaving just a few hundred protesters outside the US mission. Embassy reaction When asked whether the flag the protesters hoisted was an al-Qaeda flag, on the anniversary of the killing of nearly 3,000 people in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania, a US state department official said she thought not. “We had some people breach the wall, take the flag down and replace it. What I heard was that it was replaced with a plain black flag. But I may be not be correct in that,” she said. “In Cairo, we can confirm that Egyptian police have now removed the demonstrators who had entered our embassy grounds earlier today,” said a senior State Department official, who added that he could not confirm any connection with the incident in Libya. Egyptian activist Wael Ghoneim wrote on his Facebook page that “attacking the US embassy on September 11 and raising flags linked to al-Qaeda will not be understood by the American public as a protest over the film about the prophet. “Instead, it will be received as a celebration of the crime that took place on September 11,” he said. Americans on Tuesday marked the 11th anniversary of the September 11, attacks in which nearly thousands were killed when hijacked airliners crashed into the Pentagon and New York’s World Trade Center, and another was brought down in Pennsylvania. ‘Sorry for the embassy’ The film was made by an Israeli filmmaker, Sam Bacile, who has gone into hiding. The film was promoted by Morris Sadek, an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner who lives in California. Speaking by phone to the Associated Press from an undisclosed location, writer and director Bacile remained defiant, maintaining his stance on Islam as “a cancer” and that he intended his film to be a provocative political statement. Bacile admitted he had not anticipated such a furious reaction to his film and said: “I feel sorry for the embassy. I am mad”. The 56-year-old filmmaker said he believed the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world. “My plan is to make a series of 200 hours” about the same subject. He also said the film was produced in English and that he did not know who had dubbed it in Arabic. The full film has not been shown yet, he said, and he said he has declined distribution offers for now. The two-hour movie, “Innocence of Muslims”, cost $5m to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile. Sadek said that he had promoted the video on his website and on certain TV stations, which he did not identify.

American ambassador to Libya killed by protesters, Al Arabiya reports | The Times of Israel.

( My GOD!  Radical Islam strikes again… – JW )

Violent mob spurred by outrage over a film ridiculing Muhammad, produced by an Israeli filmmaker living in California

US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stephens (photo credit: Youtube screen capture)

One of four Americans killed when an angry mob stormed the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was the American ambassador, Chris Stevens, Al Arabiya reported on Wednesday. Earlier reports had indicated that only one American national — a consular official — had died in the riot.

Violent protesters also stormed the US Embassy in Cairo Tuesday night, scaling the walls of the compound and replacing an American flag with an Islamic banner.

The protests in both countries were sparked by outrage over a film ridiculing the prophet Muhammad, produced by an Israeli filmmaker living in California and being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States.

A 14-minute trailer of the movie that sparked the protests, posted on the website YouTube in an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, depicts Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly ridiculing way, showing him having sex and calling for massacres.

These were the first such assaults on US diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime leaders, Muammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak, in uprisings last year.

Sam Bacile, the writer, director and producer of the movie, which he says showcases his view of Islam as a hateful religion, was funded by $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors who he declined to identify, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

In Benghazi, a large mob stormed the US Consulate, with gunmen firing their weapons, said Wanis al-Sharef, an Interior Ministry official in Bengazi. A witness said attackers fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at the consulate as they clashed with Libyans hired to guard the facility.

The Associated Press: White House: No rift with Israel over Iran.

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is denying reports of a U.S. rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he and President Barack Obama have reaffirmed the two countries’ commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Obama and Netanyahu spoke for an hour Tuesday night. The White House said in a statement later that the two men agreed to continue “close consultations going forward” regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The White House denied published reports that Obama had rejected Netanyahu’s request to meet with Obama in Washington next week. No such request was made or rejected, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

The unusual, late-night announcement from the White House comes after Netanyahu criticized what he called the world’s failure to spell out what would provoke a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Netanyahu has urged the U.S. to set “red lines” for Tehran. The Obama administration has refused.

“Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu said Tuesday.

Netanyahu says peaceful methods against Iran are not working, and he has warned repeatedly that Iran is getting perilously close to acquiring a nuclear bomb. His remarks have generated speculation Israel is readying to strike on its own to prevent that from happening.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. Although the United States has accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapon capability under the cover of a peaceful program, the Obama administration has said it does not believe Iran has yet decided whether to build an atomic bomb — if it in fact develops the ability to do so.

Netanyahu’s strong words risk antagonizing Obama in the midst of a closely fought a re-election campaign and could strain relations with the U.S., Israel’s closest and most important ally. Relations between the two leaders have often been tense in the past.

Differences between the two counties over how to deal with Iran have boiled over into palpable tensions in recent weeks.

On Monday State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said “it is not useful” to set deadlines or declare “red lines.” She and White House press secretary Jay Carney also noted that Obama has stated unequivocally that the United States will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

On Tuesday, Nuland said the Iranian situation is a matter of “intense discussion” with Israel. She declined to elaborate, saying she did not want to conduct diplomacy in public.

Some U.S. officials have bristled at what they see is Netanyahu’s attempts to exploit the U.S. campaign season to push Obama into a difficult position. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive diplomatic matter.

The U.S. officials stopped short of accusing Netanyahu of taking sides in the election, but the Israeli prime minister has a longtime relationship with Republican candidate Mitt Romney and with Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate and top donor to the Republican Party. Romney, who visited Israel in July, has repeatedly criticized Obama’s handling of the nuclear issue.

Obama and Netanyahu have long had a rocky relationship because of policy differences and a lack of personal chemistry. In one notable incident, a frustrated Obama left a White House meeting with Netanyahu to go eat dinner with his family.

U.S. and Israeli officials confirmed Tuesday that Obama would not meet with Netanyahu when the Israeli leader goes to New York for the U.N. General Assembly later this month. Both sides cited scheduling issues and rejected suggestions that Netanyahu had been snubbed.

Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper in Washington, George Jahn in Vienna and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Obama, Netanyahu reaffirm ‘united… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.