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No one likes a party crasher

September 29, 2013

Israel Hayom | No one likes a party crasher.

Boaz Bismuth

Being the party crasher is not a popular thing. Certainly not now, in these days of bon ton. It is better to swim with the current rather than to be left out. This is how it was in 1993 during the Oslo Accords, and in 2011 during the Arab Spring. It is best to think positively. And whoever thinks differently should just stay home.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a problem: Similar to 1993 and 2011, now, too, he is seen as the “party crasher.” With the former he was perceived as anti-peace; with the latter he was seen as being anti-democracy. The facts, incidentally, are not particularly important — it is all about the bon ton.

The thing is, the party crasher cannot stay home. The prime minister is obligated to present the world with his doctrine, even if it is not popular. His mission is not an easy one, because he will have to show the U.N. General Assembly that the emporer (Iranian President Hasan Rouhani) has no clothes. The problem is that no one wants to believe it — even if it is true. On the other hand, Netanyahu can take the credit for Iran even being in the headlines in the first place.

The prime minister will also depart for the U.S. after the Iranian president has already left, following his successful public relations campaign there. Actually, it seems there was no General Assembly at all during the first week, rather a Persian film festival. Iran is no longer relegated to the horror film category (the Ahmadinejad genre), it is winning the Oscar for best romance drama, highlighted by a phone call.

This could all be quite amusing really, were we not talking about Iran and its nuclear weapons program. An Iranian taxi driver, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, was quoted on Saturday by The Washington Post as wondering, “Yesterday, we said death to America. Now we’re supposed to say hello to America?”

The problem, however, is not really with the Iranian people, rather with the regime. The Iranian people, at least a large portion of them today, are the solution. The vast majority of Iranians are not anti-American.

U.S. President Barack Obama should have remembered this during the violent crackdown on protesters in 2009, following the election fraud in June of that year, but he chose in advance to support the ayatollah regime. From his first day in office Obama hoped to be the person to break down barriers. For Obama, the phone conversation with Rouhani was undoubtedly a historic moment, perhaps even touching (were we not talking about the Iranians), but it coincides with his doctrine.

It is not clear if this coincides with the ayatollahs’ doctrine. Obama’s predecessors could have also picked up the phone to call the Iranian president, certainly after the 9/11 attacks or during the Second Gulf War, when Iran saw Western forces near its border and batted its eyelashes at the U.S. The previous administrations, however, did not trust the Iranians, and justifiably so.

Of course the harsh sanctions imposed on Iran’s economy have done their job. In New York, not only did Rouhani succeed in changing his country’s image, he managed to dictate the pace of events (no to shaking hands, yes to a phone call) and also to meet his obligation toward his people, to whom he promised to have the sanctions removed. In addition, with an impressive acrobatic display, he was also able to satisfy his boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by emphasizing that Iran would continue with its nuclear project and carry on enriching uranium.

Netanyahu also has some difficult acrobatics ahead of him: He will need to expose Iran’s true colors to the world without revealing too much, because the war is still raging and the threat of a nuclear bomb is real. Those who truly need to know what Netanyahu cannot talk about — already know. However, as we have already said, in the days of bon ton it is not the facts that matter, just the ambiance.

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Look to Congress, not the UN

September 29, 2013

Israel Hayom | Look to Congress, not the UN.

Yossie Beilin

It is hard to shake the feeling. Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s public and private performances during his visit to New York have achieved their goal.

He spoke of three months in which it would be possible, in his opinion, to conclude negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, he understands that the world does not trust his country and is expressing a willingness to cooperate with significant inspection. He acknowledged the Holocaust, even if he is not prepared to discuss its proportions, and has the support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said the West missed an opportunity to reach a deal with him following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and that the current opportunity should not be squandered.

Even the criticism aimed at Iran’s new president, from those in Khamenei’s circle, strengthens the veracity of Rouhani’s proposal for change and the sense that this is not just a ploy to camouflage an extremist policy with a conciliatory tone.

If your daughter is in love, and you think she is making a terrible mistake, do not tell her that her chosen one is ugly or stupid. It will not help. Ask her to take a look at what you think the problem is. Request that she ask him some questions. Let her feel that you are not forcing her to do anything. Do not tell her not to bring him home anymore, because she could very well decide not to come either. Place conditions that are possible to meet for you to give your blessing, if this blessing is indeed essential.

This is how Iran must be treated. The West has been expecting this moment. It waited until June 14 of this year for economic sanctions to force the evil Haman (Ahmadinejad) to be replaced by Mordechai. The West wants to believe this is what transpired. This may have happened, but maybe it did not. This is the moment to check, not to reject. This is the moment to say to the world: “We want this to be true. If only we have someone before us who is pragmatic and influential, and who is not lying when he says Iran is only interested in nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The experience of the past, however, does not allow us to accept this just because of words, and without thorough oversight we cannot abandon the implementation of the tools which led, apparently, to the political change within the ayatollah autocracy.”

One more question arises: Will the American Congress agree to lift the heavy sanctions it has imposed on the Iranian economy, even if President Barack Obama is convinced that the time is right? Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post raises a giant question mark about to this effect, justifiably so. It is possible that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany will agree to a gradual lifting of sanctions, but that Congress will object due to its refusal to approve anything that Obama wants. It is possible that the sanctions imposed on Iran by various other countries will be eased, and that Obama too will cancel the administrative sanctions he has imposed, but that the most severe sanctions will remain in place because of inter-party politics in America.

If this is the case then it is certainly wise to leave this argument to the American political system itself, and not to act as the world’s bearer of doom and gloom. This is not only because the world prefers happiness over those who seek to damper it, but because the real decision will not be made in New York — it will be made in Washington.

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The Obama doctrine

September 29, 2013

Israel Hayom | The Obama doctrine.

Richard Baeher

Major American newspapers, observing the new politically correct guidelines of the Obama administration and its various agencies, have become very careful about the use of the word terrorist, and especially careful about attaching the word to anything Islamic or Muslim. Militants attacked the mall in Nairobi last week.

Violence also “broke out” and violent attacks were initiated by militants, insurgents and rebels in the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria and Iraq the same weekend. In total, there were about 500 people murdered in the five identified attacks over two days. But fear not, Islamophobes. U.S. President Barack Obama argued just a few months back that the war on terror is over, and we now face a much more modest threat abroad and at home, from the few remaining branches of al-Qaida, and presumably the other practitioners of the over 21,000 terror attacks launched around the world under the banner of Islam since 9/11.

Terrorism is no longer a significant threat and now Mideast peace is also at hand. Syria’s Assad, in particular, is wearing a smile, like Hitler leaving the Munich conference in 1938. Assad seems very content with a resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council by a unanimous vote, designed to peacefully address his regime’s use of chemical weapons in a civil war that has claimed over 100,000 victims in two-plus years of fighting. Obama and his spokespeople argued that Syria came to the table because the U.S. threatened the use of force. But the reality is quite different — Obama got cold feet, and threw the decision on the use of force to Congress, where it faced certain defeat. Then, when the Russians took advantage of a throwaway line from Secretary of State John Kerry on how the Syrians could avoid an attack, Obama rushed to endorse their plan, which guaranteed that Assad remains in power, and the balance of power in the conflict would not change. It is no surprise that Syria is comfortable with the new resolution, since it contains no call for action of any kind should Syria prove unwilling to abide by the terms of the resolution and fails to turn over all of its chemical weapons supplies. If something less than full Syrian cooperation with the disarmament effort occurs, then the U.S. and its European allies can return to the Security Council and attempt to get sanctions or military action approved, a measure certain to be vetoed by Russia and China. Syria, in an initial indication of exactly how forthcoming it will be, appears to have identified barely half of its chemical weapons sites that both Israel and the U.S. believe exist.

The biggest news of the week on the international front is the apparent thaw in American-Iranian relations, after 34 years of a freeze in high-level contacts dating to the Khomeini regime’s takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the seizure of hostages in 1979. The Iranian charm offensive, begun after the election of the new so-called moderate leader President Hasan Rouhani, has, to use a metaphor, worked like a charm on the Americans and the international community. That international community, and the pack of foreign policy “realists” and media sycophants, are hungry for evidence that in his second term, our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president, is finally getting around to accomplishing all that the Nobel selection committee envisioned when they decided to give him the prize even before he took office. They too believed that his election, in and of itself would mean that “the world would start healing” and the “oceans would stop rising.” Megalomania never sounded so stirring or had so many adherents.

The Iranian script for the next few months is designed to demonstrate to the West that Rouhani, “the good guy in Iran,” still faces hardline foes at home that he needs to overcome to make a deal with the West on its nuclear program. Some of these “hardliners” greeted him upon his return to Iran, by attempting to throw things at his car while shouting the most popular chants in the country the last three decades: “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel.” The message to the West was clear: If you want any movement from Iran, do not push too hard, and make Rouhani’s job easier by offering some positive gestures — say, like easing some of the sanctions that have actually worked to the point that Iran has been forced to fake a new openness to the U.S. in order to get them removed. Rouhani, of course, is a moderate in the same way that Mahmoud Abbas is a moderate. Abbas wrote a doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust occurred. Rouhani, has advanced from that level. The mastermind of the attacks on the U.S. forces in Beirut in the 1980s has now come around to acknowledging that a “group of Jews” were harmed by the Nazis, as were many others.

If six million dead comprises “a group,” then presumably the few hundred Jews murdered by Hezbollah at Iran’s direction in Argentina, and in Israel, do not even measure on the victim scale.

There is speculation that the Iranian pose of a new moderation and openness to the West has another motive. The Iranians may have calculated that just as the Russians found a way for Obama to stand down from his “red line” on use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, they too, can provide a face-saver for the president to stand down from a more significant red line — that he will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. In this case, the Iranian strategy will be their time honored one — talks, and more talks with the West, in this case with Kerry, added to the conference room to join the usual contingent of several European emissaries, for a chat-fest that has gone on unproductively for close to a decade. The presence of Kerry at such a meeting serves another Iranian objective, and one that is likely shared by Obama. The president wants to make his own decision about not using force or withdrawing our forces from abroad. He has no interest in unilateral military action, whether by the U.S., or by Israel, to strike at Iran. If the president and his secretary of state are talking on the phone to Rouhani, or in person with his foreign minister, it would be unseemly in American eyes, if an Israeli action against Iran interfered with the peace offensive.

There are certainly well-developed arguments for and against military action against Iran, if nothing else stops their march to the bomb, but a president who fears blowback from an “incredibly small” one- or two-day American operation against Syria, an Iranian ally, has to have a lot more concern about a strike by a third party or by America against Iran itself. It seems likely that Kerry and the president are, as a result, both anxious for some face-saving “solution” that pretends to stop an Iranian nuclear weapons development, while preserving Iranian dignity, and right to develop nuclear power for “peaceful uses.”

With Syria an issue to forget, and Iran an issue that can be soft pedaled, the administration is left with only one active Middle East engagement — creating a Palestinian state. Of course, the president couched the objective in terms of helping Israel:

“Friends of Israel, including the U.S., must recognize that Israel’s security as a Jewish and democratic state depends upon the realization of a Palestinian state.”

After the quick “success” achieved by giving up the fight in Syria, and the hunger seen in responding to the Iranian gestures, the president is undoubtedly emboldened that his new allies — Russia, Iran and Syria — can help achieve Middle East peace and a two-state solution, a concept obviously dear to his new allies, who want nothing more than to see “a Jewish democratic state live side by side in peace and security with a new Palestinian state.”

The last few weeks have seen rapid movements in the president’s international positions. The nation, he believes, is now on a peace footing after a decade of war. But there are still battles to be fought. Terrorists remain out there, though they are not Islamic. White House Senior Advisor Dan Pfeiffer laid out the terror threat this week:

“‘We are for cutting spending. We are for reforming out tax codes, reforming out entitlements,’ Pfeiffer told Jake Tapper. ‘What we’re not for is negotiating with people with a bomb strapped to their chest. We’re not going to do that.'”

The Obama administration seems to think that Republicans are the world’s last remaining terrorists, other than those few al-Qaida stringers and their annoying butchery. Forget the 9/11 attacks. This administration seems more bothered that the sequester is still in effect, and the Republicans are not letting up in demanding the administration backtrack on its unpopular health-care reform — Obamacare. The war the Obama administration has always cared about is at home — increasing the size of government, and its regulatory reach, and paying for it, if at all, with higher taxes on wealthy people. If you want to see some passion from the president, you will see it when he is bashing Republicans for resisting his effort to transform the American economy. Terrorists, of course, deserve no better.

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Analysis: Rouhani drives wedge between Netanyahu, Obama on Iran issue

September 29, 2013

Analysis: Rouhani drives wedge between Netanyahu, Obama on Iran issue | JPost | Israel News.

By REUTERS

09/29/2013 15:22

“American and Israeli officials like to say there’s no daylight between them on Iran,” former US official says. “But with his words alone, Rouhani has opened a window.”

U.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

U.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Photo: REUTERS/Jason Reed

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM – Six months after US President Barack Obama eased a strained relationship with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel dubbed “Operation Desert Schmooze,” the two leaders now face the biggest test of whether they can work together – and the stakes are higher than ever.

A diplomatic charm offensive by new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has suddenly opened up a gap between the White House and Netanyahu’s government. How they respond could have far-reaching implications for their political legacies as well as the future stability of the Middle East.

Coming three days after Obama and Rouhani had a historic phone call, which was the highest-level contact between the two countries in three decades, Monday’s White House meeting between the US and Israeli leaders is shaping up as perhaps their most consequential encounter.

Obama and Netanyahu will try to avoid any repeat of previous clashes as they seek to project unity. But behind closed doors, their differences over Iran may prove hard to bridge.

Unnerved by the pace of the US outreach to Iran and deeply skeptical of Rouhani, Netanyahu will push Obama for specific steps and deadlines to prevent Tehran from using talks to “run out the clock” while it advances toward making a nuclear weapon.

“I will speak the truth. Facts must be stated in the face of the sweet talk and the blitz of smiles,” Netanyahu said at the airport in Tel Aviv before departing for Washington on Saturday night.

Obama will press Netanyahu for time to test Rouhani’s intentions, while trying to reassure Israel he will not ease sanctions prematurely. He is likely, however, to resist Israeli pressure for a precise time limit for diplomacy with Iran to produce a deal, according to a source close to the White House.

“American and Israeli officials like to say there’s no daylight between them on Iran,” a former US official said. “But with his words alone, Rouhani has opened a window.”

Looming large is the question of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to prevent Tehran from pressing ahead with what Israel and the West suspect is a drive to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies it is seeking a bomb.

Some Israeli officials doubt whether Obama has the stomach for attacking Iran after he pulled back earlier this month from a threat to bomb Syria over its suspected use of chemical weapons.

“It totally suggests that for the president, all options are not on the table with Iran,” said Elliott Abrams, a Middle East adviser under Republican former President George W. Bush, now at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Further complicating matters is Obama’s reinvigorated push for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians in talks that restarted earlier this year. Middle East diplomacy is expected to figure more prominently in Monday’s meeting than originally thought, after Obama listed it beside Iran as a top priority in his address to the United Nations on Tuesday.

Netanyahu will be in anything but a conciliatory mood. One Israeli official suggested privately that Obama was “talking up the Palestinian issue to keep the Sunni Arab world on his side” as he builds bridges with predominantly Shi’ite Iran.

NO OVAL OFFICE BLOWUP EXPECTED

Obama and Netanyahu have a track record of difficult encounters, including a blowup in the Oval Office when Netanyahu famously lectured the president on Jewish history. He later made no secret of his fondness for Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama in last year’s presidential election.

Obama made his first presidential trip to Israel in March to reset his relationship with Netanyahu, using some old-fashioned backslapping to move beyond their confrontational past. American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, an authority on the Middle East, described it as “Operation Desert Schmooze.”

Although Obama may not have won the hearts of the Israeli public like former president Bill Clinton did in the 1990s, he appeared to make a big dent in their suspicions about him dating from his 2009 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

“He had a very dysfunctional relationship with Netanyahu and they managed to overcome it,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department adviser now at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “The idea that he would now pick a fight with the Israelis is improbable. They will look for common ground.”

But all indications are that the White House talks will be less than a total meeting of the minds. Friday’s phone call between Obama and Rouhani is sure to increase Israeli wariness over the prospects of US-Iranian detente, even though the White House gave Israeli officials the courtesy of letting them know in advance.

In a nod to Netanyahu’s concerns, Obama insisted on Friday he would not do anything to endanger Israel, and a senior administration official acknowledged that “the Israeli government has every right to be skeptical” of Iran.

Obama’s ability to calm Israel about his engagement with Iran might be limited by the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are quick to defend the Jewish state.

Robert Menendez, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham, a veteran Republican senator, wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Friday arguing for further oil sanctions against Iran.

‘CREDIBLE MILITARY THREAT’

Netanyahu will be looking for proof of Obama’s commitment to confront Tehran with a “credible military threat” if diplomatic efforts fall through. Obama has insisted he is not bluffing, but has not been as explicit as Netanyahu wants.

The Obama administration official hinted that the president might go further this time, at least in private, saying the two would focus on “red lines” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Obama has long resisted Netanyahu’s demand for a clear and specific ultimatum to Iran on the US use of force, and there is little reason to believe he will issue one now.

Netanyahu brandished a cartoon bomb last year in his UN speech to illustrate what he called Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms, but Israeli sources predict he will opt for a less flashy message when he addresses the world body on Tuesday.

Obama may prefer a more toned-down approach by the sometimes abrasive Israeli premier. But allowing Netanyahu to play “party pooper” – as Israeli media have dubbed it – may serve a purpose for Obama of keeping the heat on Iran while pressuring European partners not to break ranks on sanctions.

Some analysts believe Netanyahu’s earlier threats helped lead to Iran keeping uranium enrichment below the cartoon bomb’s “red-line” threshold – enough medium-enriched uranium for a single bomb – that he suggested would trigger Israeli strikes.

“The greater the economic and military pressure, the greater the chance of diplomacy succeeding,” said Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, a Netanyahu confidant.

As Obama moves deeper into his second term, however, he may see rapprochement with Iran after decades of estrangement as part of his foreign policy legacy – especially at a time when he faces criticism for his response to Syria’s civil war and Egypt’s military takeover.

But Obama may be mindful of the damage to his record if, as Israeli leaders suggest, it turns out Iran is just buying time.

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Iranian Agent Arrested in Israel

September 29, 2013

Iranian Agent Arrested in Israel – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Arrested agent had photographs of United States embassies in Israel.

First Publish: 9/29/2013, 10:46 AM

Mansouri in Tel Aviv

Mansouri in Tel Aviv

Shin Bet spokesperson’s office

An Iranian agent was arrested in Israel on September 11. The arrest was under a gag order for several days, but has now been cleared for publication.

The detainee is a 55-year-old Belgian citizen who goes by Alex Mans. He was arrested by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, and the Israel Police as he attempted to leave the country.

The suspect also has Iranian citizenship, and his original name was Ali Mansouri. He lived in Iran until 1980, and then moved to Turkey, where he lived until 1997.

A Shin Bet investigation revealed that he was sent to Israel by Iran’s intelligence services. He has confessed to working on behalf of Iran during his visits to Israel.

Mans had made two previous trips to Israel, one in July 2012, and one in January 2013. Both visits are believed to have been conducted with guidance from his Iranian handlers, in exchange for large sums of money.

He was discovered to have pictures of several sites in Israel, including the building of the United States embassy in Tel Aviv.

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Netanyahu to Tell UN: Iran Can Make Nukes

September 29, 2013

Netanyahu to Tell UN: Iran Can Make Nukes – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans to tell the UN that Iran has enough uranium to produce nuclear weapons, reports the Sunday Times.

By Elad Benari

First Publish: 9/29/2013, 5:00 AM

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans to tell the United Nations General Assembly that Iran has enough uranium to produce nuclear weapons, according to the Sunday Times.

An unnamed senior Israeli official was quoted as having told the newspaper that Netanyahu will say in his speech on Tuesday that Iran currently has 219 kilograms (482 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is enough to produce a nuclear weapon.

The report said that Netanyahu will also claim that “Iran has made significant progress in its nuclear program since the new president Hassan Rouhani was elected.”

The Sunday Times also reported that during Netanyahu’s meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday, the Israeli prime minister will present Obama with an intelligence dossier containing evidence that Iran is stepping up its nuclear program.

As he left for New York overnight Saturday, Netanyahu promised “to tell the truth in the face of the sweet talk and charm offensive of Iran.”

“Telling the truth at this time is essential for world peace and security and, of course, for Israel’s security,” noted Netanyahu.

Earlier in the week he described the so-called “moderate” Rouhani’s conciliatory speech to the United Nations General Assembly as “cynical” and “full of hypocrisy.”

In his UN address, Rouhani said that “nuclear weapons… have no place in Iran’s security and defense doctrine.” He claimed that Iran poses a threat to noone.

Rouhani made history on Friday by speaking by phone to U.S. President Barack Obama, in the first contact between the countries’ leaders since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

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‘Netanyahu to tell Obama Iran has enough uranium for a bomb’

September 29, 2013

‘Netanyahu to tell Obama Iran has enough uranium for a bomb’ | The Times of Israel.

PM, before meeting with US president and United Nations address, derides Rouhani’s gestures as ‘sweet talk and… smiles’

By Raphael Ahren and Times of Israel staff September 29, 2013, 4:08 am

An Iranian Shahab-3 missile launched during military exercises outside the city of Qom, Iran, in June, 2011 (photo credit: AP/ISNA/Ruhollah Vahdati/File)

An Iranian Shahab-3 missile launched during military exercises outside the city of Qom, Iran, in June, 2011 (photo credit: AP/ISNA/Ruhollah Vahdati/File)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he meets Barack Obama on Monday, will present the US president with an intelligence report asserting that Iran has amassed enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon, according to Britain’s Sunday Times. Netanyahu on Saturday night flew out for a four-day visit to the United States, vowing to expose “the truth” in the wake of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s recent overtures to the United States.

The dossier also states that Iran is developing a nuclear detonator at the Parchin site and conducting ongoing tests of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile, while producing plutonium at another site, Arak, the report said. “Iran has been making considerable progress with its nuclear program since June, when Rouhani was elected,” according to a source that the Times said was privy to the content of the intelligence report.

Israeli media reports over the weekend quoted sources in the Israeli government as saying that Iran was only a few months away from possessing enough enriched uranium for a bomb, with one report going so far as to state that Tehran had already produced at least one such weapon.

Israel is concerned over the thaw in Western-Iranian ties that has been developing at breathtaking pace in the last few days and culminated Friday with a phone call between the American and Iranian presidents.

“I am going there to represent the interests of the people of Israel, our readiness to defend ourselves and our hope for peace,” Netanyahu told reporters on the plane before taking off for the US. “I will say the truth. In the face of the sweet talk and the smiles one needs to tell the truth. Only the truth, today, is vital to the security of the world, and of course essential to the security of our country.”

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Obama at the White House on Monday. A day later, he will be the final world leader to address this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York.

During his address to the General Assembly in 2012, Netanyahu famously produced a cartoon diagram of a bomb and went on to elucidate his “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program: 90 percent of the amount of enriched uranium required to produce an atomic weapon. While beseeching Obama to present a “credible” military deterrent of his own, Netanyahu has threatened to order a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if Tehran threatened to cross that “red line.”

The prime minister has said he regards Iran’s recent outreach as a “smokescreen” designed to “fool” the West while the regime advances toward a nuclear weapons capability. He has set out conditions that he wants the international community to maintain before any lessening of economic sanctions.

Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama will mark the first time the two leaders have sat together since the American president’s March visit to Israel, and, more dramatically, since the historic phone call between Obama and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani — the latest in a series of developments last week that signaled a warming of ties between the new nations. The last time a sitting US president spoke to a sitting Iranian president was before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Netanyahu issued no direct comment on the Obama-Rouhani conversation and instructed his ministers to remain mum. He intends to discuss Israel’s position on the Iranian president’s charm offensive – which included more benevolent rhetoric on ties with the US and the West, a stated willingness to compromise on transparency of the Iranian nuclear program and an acknowledgement that the Holocaust occurred – during his meetings with senior US officials. He will also make a public plea against easing the sanctions on the regime during his speech Tuesday at the General Assembly.

“Netanyahu understands that there is a lot of euphoria,” according to an unnamed senior Israeli official quoted by The New York Times. “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.”

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In J Street speech, Livni extolls peace for ‘entire region’

September 29, 2013

In J Street speech, Livni extolls peace for ‘entire region’ | The Times of Israel.

Chief negotiator with Palestinians says deal must ensure Israel’s security; cautions West not to be ‘naive’ on Syria and Iran

By Elie Leshem September 29, 2013, 5:52 am

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians, on Saturday addressed the J Street conference in Washington, affirming Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution and arguing that a peace deal would effect fundamental change throughout the Middle East.

“Yes, we can love Israel and at the same time fight for peace,” Livni told a supportive crowd at the annual gathering of the left-leaning pro-Israel group. “Those who love Israel must search for peace,” Livni added, before echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s past statements in asserting that any deal would have to guarantee Israel’s security interests.

“Peace and security,” she said, “nobody should choose between peace and security. The State of Israel doesn’t need to choose between peace and security…. As I’m fighting for peace – and there is a political price for it – in the negotiations room, I’m fighting also for Israel’s security. And I’m here today in order to ask you, this special audience, those who are fighting for peace: In your quest for peace don’t abandon Israel’s security needs.”

Livni went on to say that peace with the Palestinians would not happen overnight, but rather culminate a process that would only truly begin with the signing of an agreement.

“The Middle East is not… a fairy tail or a Hollywood movie,” she said. “We live in a tough neighborhood and even after a peace agreement is reached… it will remain a tough neighborhood. Peace — real peace — will not come in the same moment in which we sign, hopefully, the peace treaty.

“We cannot just throw the keys over to the other side of the new border and hope for good,” she cautioned. “We did it once, in Gaza, and got terror in return.”

The solution to the problem, she continued, was “to reach an understanding and [a] peace agreement with those who are not using terror, those who are willing to end the conflict.”

Livni claimed an agreement with the Palestinians could also create a “new situation, a new opportunity in our troubled region.” She said Israel had common interests with Arab countries, which also faced the threat of an Iran allegedly bent on possessing nuclear weapons and the rise of fundamentalist Islamist factions throughout the Middle East.

“They feel, like us, that these are the threats, but unfortunately, they feel that they cannot express this understanding, this shared interest with Israel, because we have this ongoing, existing conflict between us and the Palestinians,” Livni said.

Ending hostilities with the Palestinians, she added, will “create new opportunities, new allies and alliances in the region. Because peace with the Palestinians can change the situation in the entire region.”

Livni alluded to Iran’s recent overtures to the West over its nuclear program, as well as an agreement that would see Syria’s chemical weapons destroyed, cautioning, “We cannot afford in our region to be naive.”

“The world leadership is being tested and examined by the extremists in our region – on Syria [and] on Iran,” she said.

On Monday, US Vice President Joe Biden will address the J Street conference — the highest-ranking American official to do so this year — which is focused on attaining peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Martin Indyk, the US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, will also address the conference, serving as the keynote speaker for the gala dinner to be held on the same day as Biden’s address.

J Street has repeatedly emphasized that it views this year’s conference as unprecedented in the number and diversity of its participants, among whom are a number of members of Congress as well as representatives of six Knesset parties.

Meretz party chair Zahava Gal-On, who was among the Israeli parliamentarians in attendance on Saturday, termed the conference “exciting” and said that “the hall is packed with about a thousand students… The ball’s in Netanyahu’s court now.”

Rebecca Shimoni Stoil contributed to this report.

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Israel and Others in Mideast View Overtures of U.S. and Iran With Suspicion | NY Times

September 29, 2013

Israel and Others in Mideast View Overtures of U.S. and Iran With Suspicion | Treilo News.

JERUSALEM — For Israel and Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, President Obama’s historic telephone call with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran on Friday was the geopolitical equivalent of discovering your best friend flirting with your main rival.

e1c04 mideasat articleInline Israel and Others in Mideast View Overtures of U.S. and Iran With Suspicion

President Obama is to meet on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

Though few nations have a greater interest in Mr. Obama’s promise to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, his overtures to Mr. Rouhani were greeted with alarm here and in other Middle East capitals allied with the United States. They worry about Iran’s sincerity, and fear that Mr. Obama’s desire for a diplomatic deal will only buy Iran time to continue a march toward building a nuclear weapon.

But beyond that, the prospect of even a nonnuclear Iran — strengthened economically by the lifting of sanctions, and emboldened politically by renewed relations with Washington — is seen as a dire threat that could upend the dynamics in this volatile region.

One gulf academic in a Twitter post likened the phone call to “the fall of the Berlin Wall.” An Israeli lawmaker said in a radio interview that he hoped that Mr. Obama would not be the next Neville Chamberlain, known for appeasement of the Nazis in 1938.

“There is a lot of suspicion and even paranoia about some secret deal between Iran and America,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist who is close to the royal family. “My concern is that the Americans will accept Iran as it is — so that the Iranians can continue their old policies of expansionism and aggression.”

Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni-dominated gulf countries share a concern about a shift in the balance of power toward Iran’s Shiite-led government and its allies. For Israel, Iran remains the sponsor of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, both avowed enemies of Israel’s existence, and of global terrorism.

“They can change the regime, but one thing won’t change and that is the hostility against Israel,” warned Uzi Rabi, chairman of a Middle East studies center at Tel Aviv University. “Part of the plan is to drive a wedge between Americans and Europeans and Israel. I hate to say it, but what the Iranians managed to do is to change the whole game.”

There was no official reaction Saturday from Riyadh or Jerusalem to the telephone call that was the first direct conversation between American and Iranian presidents in more than three decades. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spent the day rewriting the speech he is scheduled to deliver Tuesday at the United Nations and preparing for a meeting on Monday with Mr. Obama. After years in which Mr. Netanyahu exploited Iran’s nuclear ambitions to rally the world against Iran and force its isolation, Israel could find itself increasingly isolated in its hard-line stance.

“Netanyahu understands that there is a lot of euphoria,” a senior Israeli official said. “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.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to do otherwise, and Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, declined to discuss the phone call. “The main thing is not procedures but substance,” said Mr. Steinitz, who led Israel’s delegation in a boycott of Mr. Rouhani’s United Nations speech. “The most critical problem with Iran is its aim of achieving nuclear weapons, but the problem with Iran is wider,” Mr. Steinitz added. “Iran is not a peace-seeking country or regime — on the contrary. Iran is maybe the most aggressive country in the world, and it’s not just against Israel.”

Saudi Arabia and other gulf states view Iran as a regional nemesis whose nuclear program is only one element of a broader effort to project power. The rivalry is made more bitter by the sectarian dimension, and competition over supplying oil to the world. The Saudi leadership has long been uneasy with Mr. Obama’s handling of the Arab uprisings that began in 2011, which it sees as a threat to the regional order. The president’s overtures to Iran add to a growing impatience and exasperation among Arabs in the gulf over Washington’s retreat from threats to strike Syria, whose civil war is viewed as a proxy for the larger sectarian and strategic battle unfolding across the region.

“The gulf states, and the Iranians, still see this as a balance-of-power struggle,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center. “And Obama’s warning and Rouhani’s charm offensive, as well as what they would see as a hoodwinking of the United States on the nuclear issue, could have far-reaching consequences on the balance-of-power struggle.”

Mustafa Alani, a Dubai-based security analyst, said the Saudis think Mr. Obama is “not a reliable ally, that he’s bending to the Syrians and Iranians.” Mishaal al-Gergawi, a political analyst based in the United Arab Emirates, said, “There is a lot of cynicism and it feeds into the notion that Obama is very naïve — he was naïve with the Muslim Brotherhood, naïve with Bashar al-Assad, and he is now naïve with Iran.”

Israeli analysts, too, worry over what they see as the Obama administration’s weak and wavering policies toward the Middle East. After the Syria chemical weapons crisis, some said the phone call only upped the ante for a diplomatic victory that could lead Washington to accept what Jerusalem would consider a “bad deal” with Iran, which insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

“Obama is interested in showing foreign-policy success because he hasn’t had too many of them,” said Emily Landau, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “I’m afraid that for the sake of that he might be willing to compromise on the nuclear issue in a manner that I think is detrimental to U.S. national security interests, leave aside Israel.”

Ms. Landau was one of several Israeli analysts who urged the world to focus not on Mr. Rouhani’s statements in New York but the continued nuclear activity in Iran. She pointed to a Sept. 12 letter that Iran sent the International Atomic Energy Agency with 20 pages of complaints about its investigation as a sign that nothing had changed. She and others also noted that Mr. Rouhani was Iran’s nuclear negotiator in a 2003 deal that it later violated; several Iran experts have seized on a speech he gave then emphasizing the importance of enrichment ability for weapons-grade uranium as political leverage.

“Rohani confirmed the assessment that Iran had used the calm atmosphere of negotiations as a smokescreen behind which it continued to deliberately advance its nuclear program,” wrote Chen Kane, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington. The speech reinforced the view that Iran’s “main objective in negotiating” she said, “was simply to gain time.”

The skeptics’ main concern now is that four to six months of negotiations would allow Iran to get to the breakout point for developing a bomb. “It’s not just that forever we go on with an Iranian nuclear program that never reaches conclusion, it’s that diplomacy can be a way of helping it get to the finishing line,” cautioned Jonathan Spyer of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “The last week of diplomacy in New York has really created the impression that a very, very different understanding of what’s going on here, and what is potentially on the table, exists between the U.S. administration and the Israel government.”

Yoel Guzansky, who handled the Iranian nuclear file for the Israeli prime minister’s security council from 2005 to 2010, said the new momentum for nuclear talks with Iran had “sidelined” Israel as “a potential spoiler.”

“You can’t do anything while Iran and the U.S. are talking, you’ll just be someone who is destroying the last chance for peace,” said Mr. Guzansky. “If there is a change of tone in Iran and Washington, Israel should also change the tone. If there is a deal we embrace it, we support it, but show us the details.”

David K. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo, Robert F. Worth from Washington, and Ben Hubbard from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Liberman: Rouhani’s ‘appeasement attack’ is part of Iran’s ‘pattern of deception’

September 29, 2013

Liberman: Rouhani’s ‘appeasement attack’ is part of Iran’s ‘pattern of deception’ | JPost | Israel News.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

09/29/2013 09:27

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense C’tee chairman invokes Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, stating that, in that case as well, Israel was the only voice warning against the nuclear threat and acting.

Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman at press conference, March 18, 2013

Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman at press conference, March 18, 2013 Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was en route to New York to address the UN General Assembly, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avigdor Liberman warned that Iran’s recent “appeasement attack” was merely a trick to buy time for its continued development of nuclear weapons.

Liberman’s comments came after US President Barack Obama spoke with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on Friday, signaling a thaw in relations between the countries, which Israel fears will lead to decreased international pressure on Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

Netanyahu, who is set to meet with Obama on Monday prior to his General Assembly address on Tuesday, directed his ministers not to comment on the Obama-Rouhani phone call or US-Iranian relations, in an apparent effort not to embarrass him before his scheduled meeting with the US president.

As he boarded his plane to the US with his wife Sara overnight Saturday, Netanyahu said that he would “represent the citizens of Israel, our national interests, our rights as a people, our perseverance to defend ourselves and our hope for peace.”

When asked about Rouhani’s efforts to speed diplomacy in an efforts to secure a deal that would lessen international sanctions on Iran, Netanyahu said, “I will tell the truth. In the face of the lip service, the smile attack, we need to state facts, to tell the truth. I think that telling the truth today, is essential to the peace and security of the world, and of course, essential to the security of our state.”

Liberman took to his Facebook page Sunday morning warning that Rouhani’s efforts to put forth a moderate face were part of a “pattern of deception” that the Iranians have employed throughout the years.

“With different tactics of playing for time and providing false information to the international community time after time, they have continued to advance toward the goal that they have set for themselves: obtaining a nuclear weapon meant to threaten the peace of the world.”

The Yisrael Beytenu leader said Rouhani’s overtures were “just another deceptive trick,” such as those employed by North Korea to develop a nuclear weapon in the face of international scrutiny.

Liberman invoked Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, stating that in that case as well, Israel was the only voice warning against the Iraqi nuclear threat and acting.

He said that he trusted Netanyahu to protect Israel’s interests against the Iranian threat at the General Assembly and in Washington “even if the public discourse and atmosphere are not easy or comfortable for telling necessary truths.”

President Shimon Peres told Army Radio on Sunday morning, that while it was necessary to speak to Washington, and voice Israel’s concerns, he was unhappy with “the disrespectful tone” being directed at the US from Israel.

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