WarSclerotic

Netanyahu: Iran’s nuclear program must be ‘dismantled’ | The Times of Israel.

Prime minister says Tehran seeks a partial deal that would lift sanctions while allowing it to pursue an atomic weapon

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, on Sunday, October 20, 2013. (photo credit: screen capture/NBC)

Iran is trying to negotiate a partial deal with the West that would lift international sanctions, while still allowing Tehran to pursue a nuclear weapon, Prime Minister Netanyahu warned in an interview Sunday.

“I think the pressure has to be maintained on Iran, even increased on Iran, until it actually stops the nuclear program, that is, dismantles it,” Netanyahu told NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think you don’t want to go through half-way measures.

“Suppose Syria said, ‘Well, you know, we’re going to dismantle 20 percent [of our chemical weapons], so give us the easing of sanctions’ — nobody would buy that,” he added. “That’s exactly what Iran is trying to do. They’re trying to give a partial deal that they know could end up dissolving the sanctions regime and would keep them with the nuclear weapons capabilities.”

Netanyahu was responding to a report that in the wake of last week’s negotiations in Geneva, President Barack Obama was considering releasing Iranian assets worth billions if Iran takes steps to curb its nuclear program.

Netanyahu elaborated that he was firmly against any such move because Iran was still committing the actions that brought about the sanctions.

“As far as I remember, those assets were frozen for three reasons,” he said. “One, Iran’s terrorist actions; two, its aggressive actions particularly in the [Persian] Gulf; and three, its continued refusal to stop the production of weapons of mass destruction. You know, if you get all three done and they stop doing it, well then, I suppose you could unfreeze them.”

Netanyahu also stressed that while the international community had adopted firm UN Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to dismantle the aspects of its program allegedly aimed at producing a nuclear weapon, Iran insisted on maintaining them.

“Nobody challenges Iran or any country’s pursuit of civilian nuclear energy, but 17 countries in the world, including your neighbors Mexico and Canada, have very robust programs for civilian nuclear energy, but they don’t enrich with centrifuges and they don’t have heavy water reactors,” he said. “Why do you insist on maintaining a plutonium heavy water reactor and on maintaining centrifuges that can only be used for making nuclear weapons? And the answer is because they want to have residual material for making nuclear weapons.”

Iran is reportedly willing to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and “greatly restrict” activity at its nuclear facilities in exchange for a lifting of Western sanctions. Netanyahu wants Iran’s entire “military nuclear” capacity dismantled, including all enrichment capacities.

The interviewer also asked Netanyahu if he’d prefer that President Bashar Assad remain in power in Syria rather than allow an Islamist regime to take over.

“No,” the prime minister replied. “I certainly don’t. I mean, I don’t think Assad is in power. I think Iran is in power, because basically, Syria has become an Iranian protectorate. Iran’s henchmen, Hezbollah, are doing the fighting for Assad, for his army.

“We want to end it in the best way, that we don’t have either an Iranian protectorate or a jihadist regime, a la Afghanistan, in Syria.”

Also appearing on Meet the Press was US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who said it was too early to talk about easing sanctions on Iran.

“It is premature to talk about the easing. I think the sanctions are working, and that is why the discussions have started. We need to see that they [the Iranians] are taking the steps to move away from having nuclear weapons capacity,” he said. “We need to see real, tangible evidence of it. And we will not make moves on the sanctions until we see those kinds of moves [from Tehran].”

Respond to betrayal – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Israel must sever diplomatic ties with Turkey, wait patiently for Erdogan’s reign to end

Noah Klieger

There’s no question. It is obvious that Israel must freeze its official relations with Turkey. A country that respects itself cannot let the actions and betrayals of the regime in Ankara pass. Israel must respond with the means at its disposal and sever ties with a country that intentionally caused it damage and in the most dangerous way.

Erdogan‘s Turkey is not the Turkey of the 1990s until 2000 – a period in which Turkey and Israel had a special connection. Today’s Turkey is still the Turkey of the “Marmara.”

We have already apologized for the “Marmara” affair, even though we were not at fault. We expressed regret and proved that we are interested in rehabilitating the relations. Considering all of the facts related to that affair, apologizing for what happened on the Gaza-bound ship was very a brave act. We did all we could to end the most severe crisis since Israel and Turkey established diplomatic relations.

Actually, the authorities in Ankara should have apologized for the “Marmara” affair. They permitted the provocation that was the voyage to Gaza – and there is no doubt they knew that aboard the vessel were terrorists from an extremist anti-Israel organization. Therefore, there is no problem with freezing the relations, which do not exist anyway.

As long as Turkey is ruled by Erdogan, the radical Muslim who essentially turned the country into a dictatorship and is trampling the basic rights in a democratic regime – such as freedom of speech and the freedom to protest – there is no chance of maintaining proper relations with Turkey.

Therefore, Israel must wait for Erdogan’s reign to end. Only then will we be able to restore the close relations which had existed between Israel and Turkey for years.

Israel Hayom | The trial balloon method.

Dan Margalit

Robert Fulford: A second chance to strike first | National Post.

Robert Fulford | 19/10/13 | Last Updated: 18/10/13 4:40 PM ET

Every autumn Israel notes with sorrow the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a calamity that most of the world recalls as a marginal event, if we remember it all.

For Israelis, it’s lodged permanently in the national memory as the victory that felt more like a defeat. For many Israelis it’s a piece of history that carries important lessons for the present.

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Egypt and Syria staged a surprise attack on Israeli positions. Backed by the Soviet Union, they were intent on avenging their defeat in the Six-Day War of 1967.

The Israelis turned them back and in about two weeks had troops fighting their way toward Cairo and Damascus. The fighting ended after 19 days with a UN-brokered peace — a relief to everyone who feared that the war might broaden into a U.S.-Soviet conflict.

By then 2,656 Israelis had died in action. That’s a figure no one wants to forget.

This being the 40th anniversary of that war, it’s stimulated even more discussion than usual. On Tuesday, during a commemoration of the Yom Kippur War at the Knesset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it plain that he was thinking not only of the war in 1973 but also of Israel’s current position and the possibility that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities might be necessary. Israel would remain vigilant with regard to its security and would not fall asleep on its watch, he said. The Yom Kippur War had taught Israel that a preventive strike is a possibility that should not be abandoned easily — “It should be weighed carefully as a viable option.”

These events were the main subject at breakfast yesterday when Yossi Klein Halevi was explaining to a group of Canadians how an Israeli sees this difficult, often frustrating period. Halevi is  on a tour connected to his current book, Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation. He’s a Brooklyn native whose journalism marks him as one of the most sensitive analysts of Israel.

Everyone knows something went wrong in the Yom Kippur war, Halevi said. The left has always believed it happened because Israelis grew arrogant after the Six-Day War and relied on their military strength when they should have worked toward an agreement with the Palestinians. This argument led to the Oslo peace process, a failure of hope on a grand scale. Those on the right have a different explanation: Israelis lowered their guard and forgot that they lived among nations that want Israel destroyed.

But there was something else, as Halevi pointed out. It was suspected at first, then later confirmed, that in 1973 many in the government, including Prime Minister Golda Meir, knew that Egyptian and Syrian armies were massing near the borders. There were other telltale signs: The families of Russian advisers and embassy staff had been flown out of Egypt and Syria.

Meir decided against a pre-emptive strike, fearing a negative response from Washington. Public anger about the war effectively ended her government. A few months later she resigned.

Now, with the looming possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb, Israelis face another danger of falling asleep. A pre-emptive strike is constantly debated.

Israel’s government believes that the Iranians have made so much progress that they must be stopped soon, perhaps in a matter of months. Israeli planners have been developing the idea of a strike for years. They believe they could hobble the Iranian project, delaying it for two or three years.

What good would that do? It could result in grievous harm to Israel, by inviting rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, which the Israeli missile defence systems might not be able to fully neutralize.

But it could, Halevi suggested, lead to a change for the better. In the Middle East, two years are a long time, as everyone knows who has watched the Arab Spring turn into a springboard for despots. An attack on Iran’s nuclear system might empower the Iranian opposition, re-igniting the Green Revolution.

Of course Barack Obama opposes an Israeli strike, but his diplomacy has made Israel particularly fearful. Israelis don’t trust Obama. They don’t like the way he moved into the current talks with Iran and can’t see anything good coming from them. Halevi summarized a popular attitude: “Israelis believe the present talks are the result of Iranian deception and American exhaustion.” Halevi had one other comment, “This is a devastating moment for Israel.”

Let’s stop deluding ourselves about Turkey, says Liberman | The Times of Israel.

Amid dispute over exposure of Mossad spy ring, former FM calls Ankara’s accusations ‘baseless,’ slams ‘Islamist extremist’ Erdogan

By Times of Israel staff October 19, 2013, 10:22 pm

Head of the Yisrael Beytenu party Avigdor Liberman July 30, 2013. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israelis must stop deluding themselves about Turkey’s willingness to improve relations with Israel, former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman said late Saturday, slamming Ankara for its latest claims against Jerusalem amid another marked deterioration in relations between the two countries.

Responding to Turkey’s accusation that Israel was behind a “media campaign” against Ankara over the exposure of an Israeli spy ring in Iran, as well as past accusations, Liberman said the claims were “baseless” and served as proof that Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would never warm to Israel, despite the formal apology issued to Erdogan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March over the 2010 Mavi Marmara affair.

“My opposition to apologizing to Turkey is nothing new. I expressed it clearly before and after the fact,” Liberman said. “I thought, and explained, that it would not bring about improved relations between the two countries, but would only hurt Israel’s standing in the region and play into the hands of extremists in the Middle East — among them Turkey under the Islamist extremist Erdogan.”

He added that he was not surprised by Ankara’s latest accusation. Comparing it to past accusations that Israel had stood behind the Taksim Square protests and the Egyptian coup that led to Mohammed Morsi’s ouster, Liberman said it showed Erdogan’s Turkey had no interest in improving its relationship with Israel.

“Therefore, I hope we all stop deluding ourselves and understand the reality in which we live,” Liberman said.

Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan (YouTube Screenshot)

The Yisrael Beytenu leader was responding to Ankara’s claim that Israel was behind a Washington Post report Thursday which claimed that the Turkish government in early 2012 deliberately blew the cover of up to 10 Iranian intelligence assets who had secretly been meeting with Mossad handlers in Turkey. The report suggested that the head of Turkey’s Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT) intelligence service, Hakan Fidan, was responsible for the deliberate exposure to the Iranians of the Mossad assets. Israel did not deny the Washington Post report, and former Mossad chief Danny Yaton said that if it were true, no Western intelligence service would be able to cooperate in the future with Turkish intelligence.

“We see this media campaign as an attack and there might be an Israeli effort behind it,” the Turkish Daily Hurriyet quoted an unnamed Turkish intelligence source as saying earlier Saturday. “Especially after the Washington Post story on Oct. 17 and the follow-ups with Jerusalem bylines,” the source added.

Israel’s Minister of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs said Saturday that “there was no Israeli media assault,” and slammed Erdogan as “almost ideologically” opposed to Israel. And an unnamed senior Israeli official was quoted by Channel 2 news as saying, “Erdogan is man of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hamas support, who is anti-Israel if not an anti-Semite.”

According to the Hurriyet article, “sources in Ankara believe that, besides trying to defame Turkey in US eyes as a country tolerating terrorists like Iran – and because of its ‘independent tack’ on Syria, amid an effort to try and corner it in a possible move in the US Congress — Israel might have had another motivation. That might be, according to those sources who asked not to be named, an attempt to avoid paying compensation for the nine Turks killed by Israeli commandoes [sic] on May 31, 2010, on board the Mavi Marmara on its way to carry humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.”

Israel and Turkish negotiation teams have been working over the past few months to reach an agreement over compensation to families of those who died in the Gaza flotilla incident. In March, Israel-Turkish relations began to thaw following a President Barack Obama-brokered call by Netanyahu to Erdogan to deliver a formal apology for operational errors made in the raid and promising compensation.

The Hurriyet article noted Israeli and US uneasiness with Turkish intelligence chief Fidan, for his “friendly links with Tehran,” as cited in the Washington Post report, and claimed such reports were aimed at “targeting” Fidan.

Hurriyet cited the unnamed Turkish intelligence official as saying “the campaign coincided with approaching Syria talks in Geneva” — which are slated for late November — “and a dramatic change in Iran’s relations with the West under its new president, Hassan Rouhani.”

On Thursday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu dismissed the Washington Post allegations, claiming these were part of an orchestrated campaign to discredit Turkey.

There have been “various campaigns, both on [an] international and national level,” aimed at the policies of senior government officials, including Erdogan and Fidan, Today’s Zaman reported Davutoglu as saying.

“There has been a campaign… to discredit our 10-year experience,” Davutoglu said, referring to the decade that Erdogan has been in power. “They wanted to see [the] old Turkey returning back.”

Iran ready for deal but won’t shut down nuke program, sources say | The Times of Israel.

Netanyahu calls for increased pressure on Iran as long as no action is seen; Rouhani says ‘win-win’ possible

By Gavriel Fiske and Times of Israel staff October 20, 2013, 12:35 pm

Delegates from the P5+1 and Iran meet in Geneva, at the start of two days of talks regarding Tehran’s nuclear program, Tuesday, October 15, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Fabrice Coffrini)

Iran is reportedly willing to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and “greatly restrict” activity at its nuclear facilities in exchange for a lifting of Western economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic, but won’t give up nuclear technology altogether, according to Israeli officials who were briefed on the last week’s round of nuclear discussions between Iranian representatives and the P5+1 countries.

The Iranians essentially said that while they were unwilling to shut down their nuclear program entirely, they were prepared to discuss measures that would reassure the West, highly placed government sources told the Haaretz newspaper on Sunday. The Iranians “implied that a compromise was possible,” a source said.

The paper reported that US negotiator Wendy Sherman called Israeli National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror on Thursday to update him on the talks. At the same time, a team from the UK involved in the talks visited Tel Aviv to update officials.

The sources stressed that the P5+1 countries (the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, and Germany) made it clear to the Iranians that “even after Iran carries out certain measures, the easing of the sanctions will be limited,” and a full lifting of sanctions will only be possible “as part of a comprehensive agreement” on the Iranian nuclear issue.

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting,  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sunday for international pressure [on Iran] to continue, and even be increased, as long as “we don’t see actions instead of words” from Tehran.

Netanyahu stressed that the world should not forget that Iran “systematically deceived the international community” with regard to its nuclear program.

The Haaretz report followed a Friday story in Al Monitor, which quoted an Iranian source with purported knowledge of last week’s two-day talks as saying that Tehran was ready to stop enriching uranium to 20%, convert its existing stockpile into fuel rods, relinquish spent fuel for the still-to-be completed Arak heavy water reactor, accept surprise inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and convert its Fordo underground enrichment facility into a fully-supervised research facility.

The Al Monitor report was denied by Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif.

The New York Times said Friday that the Obama administration was weighing a graduated unfreezing of Iranian overseas assets, without rescinding the sanctions themselves.

Israel’s Minister for Strategic and Intelligence Affairs, Yuval Steinitz, is set to travel to the US this week — both to be briefed on what was said in Geneva, and to warn Washington against being duped into premature concessions to Iran.

Netanyahu is also set to discuss the Iranian issue with US Secretary of State John Kerry during a Rome meeting this week.

Israel’s position, according to Hebrew media reports, is that the concessions offered by Tehran would still leave Iran with the infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program in the future. Netanyahu has repeatedly demanded that Iran be stripped of its entire “military nuclear” program, with Arak and Fordo closed, all capacity to enrich uranium removed, and already enriched uranium shipped out of the country.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said over the weekend that Iran has “the necessary political will” to strike a “win-win” deal with the international community over its nuclear program, the Tehran Times reported on Sunday. He added that last week’s meeting in Geneva, called the “most serious thus far,” by the White House, showed that “others became aware of the political will of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Tehran is seeking relief from years of crippling sanctions imposed upon it by the West, which Israel insists be kept in place as the only factor pushing Iran to negotiate.

Rouhani said that Tehran hopes that “effective steps will be taken to resolve” the sanctions imposed on Iran. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will make every effort to prove to the international community that all its measures are legal and that it has nothing to conceal,” he said.

Netanyahu: Iran has systematically misled the int’l community, continue the pressure | JPost | Israel News.

Al-Hayat: West has agreed to low-grade uranium enrichment.

Turkish FM: Intel chief doing his duty by revealing Mossad spies in Iran | JPost | Israel News.

Ahmet Davutoglu seemingly confirms some allegations regarding reports.

Iran: Only removal of all sanctions will provide hope for successful nuke talks | JPost | Israel News.

Iranian parliamentarian says “crucial” for world powers to recognize Tehran’s “enrichment right”; second lawmaker says Iran should not be first to take confidence building measures.