WarSclerotic

Following Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s attempt on Tuesday to sell the idea of the “new Iran” to the world at the United Nations General Assembly, this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have an opportunity to “tell the truth” as Israel sees it.

“I will tell the truth at the U.N.,” Netanyahu said in the twilight hours of Sunday morning before leaving for the United States. In Washington and in New York, “I will represent the citizens of Israel, our national interests, our rights as a nation, our determination to defend ourselves and our hope or peace. In the face of the [Iranian] sweet talk and the smiles offensive, we must speak out about the facts and tell the truth. I think that telling the truth today is essential to the security and well-being of the world and of course, it is essential to the security of our country.”

Netanyahu is expected to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday and to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. The ongoing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will likely come up at both events, but the prime minister is expected to focus on the topic of Iran, as he sees Iran’s nuclear capability as the greatest existential threat to Israel. Netanyahu’s principal mission is to reveal recent Iranian attempts for reconciliation as insincere and fraudulent.

On Sunday, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) discussed Netanyahu’s upcoming U.N. address on his Facebook page, saying that “it is important to keep in mind that the Iranians have been doing this for years, in a consistent pattern of deception: They use different tactics such as promises, stalling and the kind of false information that they have provided the international community time and time again. All the while they continue to advance toward their stated goal — obtaining nuclear weapons in order to pose a threat to world peace.”

“Once again this year the debate revolves around Iran’s nuclear race, only this time the world’s attention is focused on Iran’s new president and his efforts to appear moderate and conciliatory. [Hasan] Rouhani’s charm offensive is nothing but another deceptive trick, the same as North Korea,” Lieberman wrote.

Let us recall that at the beginning of the 1980s, with the nuclear reactor in Iraq, Israel was the only one to warn in advance, and in retrospect it turned out that we were right. The same is true for other instances,” Lieberman stressed. “Today, too, Israel is not willing to take part in this fraud. That is why I support the prime minister as he heads out on an important mission. I am convinced that even if the atmosphere and discourse aren’t conducive to making such harsh declarations, the prime minister will be wise enough to do it and stand strong. He will protect the vital interests, essential not only to the security of the state but to the peace and stability of the entire world.”

The prime minister’s office has adopted a policy of silence, and prior to his departure, Netanyahu instructed his ministers and senior officials not to speak to the media on recent developments. This primarily refers to Friday’s one-on-one phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani and to statements Obama has made regarding Iran’s right to a nuclear program for civilian purposes.

However on Friday, before the prime minister instructed ministers not to speak about Iran, Homefront Defense Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio that, “Netanyahu’s public relations efforts against Iran in recent years have allowed the world to impose unprecedented sanctions.” According to him, “in his remarks to the U.N., the prime minister will reveal intelligence information to the world.”

In a Sunday Times report, a senior Israeli official stated that Netanyahu will tell the world that Iran currently has 482 pounds (219 kilograms) of enriched uranium, which is enough to produce a nuclear weapon. During his remarks at the U.N. General Assembly in 2012, Netanyahu famously displayed a cartoon diagram of a bomb, demarcating his “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program, which was 90 percent of the amount of enriched uranium needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

The British newspaper went on to report that Netanyahu was expected to present Obama with a dossier containing intelligence that attests to Iran’s advancing nuclear program, including the progress made during Rouhani’s leadership.

On Monday, Netanyahu is expected to meet Monday in Washington with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry. The prime minister is also planning to embark on a “media blitz” in the coming week, in efforts to influence local public opinion to oppose the possible removal of sanctions on Iran.

According to information from well-placed sources, Netanyahu is expected to emphasize during his meeting with Obama and his speech at the U.N. that any agreement made with the Iranians will be deceitful and fraudulent. Such agreements, he is expected to claim, are designed to remove sanctions from Iran and will not prevent military nuclear capability from getting into the hands of the extremist regime in Tehran. One of the sources stated that, “Netanyahu’s objective is to lift the smoke screen Rouhani created in New York. The Iranians are trying to reverse the sanctions that were imposed on them because of Netanyahu, while seeking to give up only the auxiliary part of their nuclear program and to keep their main capabilities.”

“Netanyahu understands that there is a lot of euphoria,” said an unnamed senior Israeli official quoted by The New York Times on Saturday. “Netanyahu knows that people in the international community will want to believe. I think you’ll see in his remarks a lot of facts, a lot of facts that no one denies.” According to the report, the thaw in relations between the United States and Iran was met with suspicion and concern both in Israel and in Saudi Arabia, a bitter enemy of Tehran.

A senior state official added that, “Netanyahu will tell the truth in the clearest way. The Israeli stance on stopping the Iranian nuclear program is correct, and we will repeat it and insist upon it. The instructions of [Iranian] spiritual leader Ali Khamenei to continue with the nuclear military program have not changed.”

Netanyahu will be accompanied in New York by Erdan, Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon.

“Israel has every reason to be skeptical. It is completely understandable and appropriate that the Israeli government would be skeptical of Iran,” said a senior American official this weekend regarding the warming relations between the U.S. and Iran. The unnamed official stressed that Iran’s words must be accompanied by action. “The bottom line for us is that we cannot allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.”

In the same vein, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote Saturday that the fact that Rouhani decided not to shake Obama’s hand due to his fears that extremists at home would not approve of the action, “tells us how hard it will be to reach the only kind of nuclear deal Obama can sign on to.”

Head of Israel’s left-leaning Meretz party Zehava Gal-On agrees with Netanyahu’s suspicions. “You can’t be naive when it comes to Iran’s intentions. Like Netanyahu, I also don’t believe Rouhani when he says the nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.”