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Netanyahu Believes Obama Admin Insults Were Bid to Weaken Israel’s Hand on Iran
Algemeiner ^ | November 4, 2014

Posted on 11/05/2014 4:58:54 AM PST by SJackson

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his associates think slanders recently published against him in the name of a senior White House official were intended to soften public opinion toward a developing major US agreement with Iran, Israel’s NRG News reported Tuesday.

Netanyahu believes that the Obama administration wants to minimize Israel’s visibility in the United States, in order to muffle attempts to delegitimize such a deal, one that Israeli officials fear would allow Teheran a “breakout” ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.

However, at this point, Netanyahu plans to work behind the scenes and is not planning an overt media campaign to block the agreement, according to the report.

“It’s too late for him to do anything,” an official quoted in the Atlantic article said, referring to Netanyahu’s options to thwart a deal he and many Israelis view as an existential threat to the Jewish State.

“Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late,” the anonymous official said, according to author Jeffery Goldberg.

According to a second official, “The feeling now is that Bibi’s bluffing,” and that “he’s not Begin at Osirak” – referencing Israel’s lightning strike in 1981 that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes likened an Iranian nuclear deal to ObamaCare in a talk to progressive activists last January, according to audio obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The remarks, made at a since-discontinued regular meeting of White House personnel and representatives of liberal interest groups, reveal the importance of a rapprochement with Iran to President Obama, who is looking to establish his legacy as his presidency enters its lame-duck phase.

Ironically, 35 years ago, on November 4, 1979, Iranian rioters – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly among them – stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, and took dozens of Americans hostage.

The quote “reflects the Obama Administration’s policy, which has been engagement with Iran and not military preemption,” said Yoram Ettinger, retired Minister for Congressional Affairs in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. with the rank of Ambassador. “ANY [diplomatic] deal with Iran, in Obama’s mind, is better than military preemption.”

Ettinger also believes that failing to remove the threat of a nuclear Iran is a policy mistake for Obama, more so than a threat to Israel, as the United States is Iran’s chief target. “Israel is only a tertiary, or even 4th rate target for Iran. The United States is their number one target, followed by US-friendly oil producing Gulf states, and then perhaps NATO.”

Last week, in response to the harsh epithets hurled at him by senior US officials, including that he was “chickenshit,” “a coward” and was “Aspergery,” Netanyahu said that “The attack on me was just because I’m defending the State of Israel. Our supreme interests, first and foremost the security and unity of Jerusalem, do not meet the top priority of those anonymous sources who attack us, and me personally.”

Political sources aver that Netanyahu is talking “with anyone he can,” to convince the representatives of six world powers negotiating with Tehran that the emerging agreement will make Iran a nuclear threshold state, one that will inevitably drag the Middle East into a nuclear race and impose a constant existential threat against Israel.

Israel is very worried that, by some accounts, the US, and the five other powers (Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany), plan to leave Iran with the means to build a nuclear weapon.

“We are standing before the danger of an agreement that will leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state, with thousands of centrifuges through which Iran can manufacture the material for a nuclear bomb within a short period of time,” Netanyahu said in a recent address.

In addition, the agreement ignores the emerging ballistic missile system Iran is developing. According to emerging details, Iran will agree to certain restrictions on its nuclear program in return for the West removing heavy sanctions imposed on its economy in recent years. At this stage it is unclear whether sanctions will be removed immediately or gradually.

The next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 will be held next week simultaneously in Oman and Vienna. In Muscat, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, the outgoing European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton (who continues to hold the Iran portfolio for the time being) will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

This meeting will be crucial as the deadline for reaching an agreement by November 24 quickly closes in.

At the same time, there will be a routine meeting in Vienna of the negotiating teams to discuss details of the deal. While the Americans and Iranians are very interested in reaching an agreement, at this stage, it’s not clear if it’s doable. US National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, was recently quoted as saying that the odds are less than fifty percent. However, some of President Obama’s advisers are very determined to reach an agreement, so all options are open.

Secretary-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, revealed on Saturday that Iran had ceased to answer questions about military operations in the nuclear field.

In remarks at the Brookings Institution in Washington on “Iranian violation of the Interim Agreement,” Amano said that the agency has reliable information that the nuclear program had “military characteristics,” but, due to lack of Iranian cooperation, the Agency was unable to prove anything.

Meanwhile, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, said that “Iran’s refusal to disclose its nuclear past casts a shadow on the future. Only complete exposure of nuclear tests in the past, will allow reaching an agreement that provides for the future.

Amano’s harsh words point, in fact, to the first Iranian violation of the Interim Agreement, based on an understanding assuming full Iranian cooperation with the IAEA. According to Stenitz, signing a definitive agreement under such conditions would be a reckless act by the wourld powers, and one to be avoided.

“It won’t be a good agreement,” he told Army radio Sunday. “We are doing our best to make sure it’s not a catastrophe.”


TOPICS: Germany; Israel; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: china; france; germany; iran; israel; jeffreygoldberg; lebanon; russia; theatlantic; unitedkingdom

1 posted on 11/05/2014 4:58:54 AM PST by SJackson
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To: SJackson

Obungler has no clue about The American people, he grossly underestimates US and Israel...


2 posted on 11/05/2014 5:02:19 AM PST by seeker41 (take your country back by whatever means necessary & remove the son of a kenyan mooslimb)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

A virtual admission by our President that the agreement he's striking with Israel is a massive threat to Israel.

3 posted on 11/05/2014 5:03:48 AM PST by SJackson (incompetent and feckless..the story of the Obama presidency. No hand on the f***ing tiller, Hillary)
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To: SJackson
With every step and mis step, “O” gives himself away.

It's always obvious that he is NOT an educated or well read person.

He is just some guy from a Liberal background and with life-long, shamelessly cozy associations with radicals who figured out right from the beginning, how to manipulate him.

“O” sold himself to them a long time ago and has re sold himself again and again ever since.

It's like prostitution...the best profession on earth! You have it ... you sell it... you STILL have it!! :)

4 posted on 11/05/2014 5:12:53 AM PST by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SMARTY

I call on the LA Times to release the Rashid Khalidi video
and let us all see how anti Israel Obama really is.

On Iran, the Senate isn’t going to OK a giveaway to Iran on the Nukes, Period.

I look for Kerry to finally stop pushing Israel around, no more BS peace talks.

Obama has to stop telling BIBI he won’t veto UN anti Israel resolutions, threats to friends is off the table.

Time for Kerry to resign, and go wind surfing


5 posted on 11/05/2014 5:19:41 AM PST by Zenjitsuman (New Boss Nancy Pelosi)
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To: Zenjitsuman
Kerry can resign but his boss won't.

The problem is not just Obama & Co. but the entire strata of State Department and “leadership” folks who live in fantasy land.
Their perception and concepts about how the world works are proven wrong, time and time again and yet, they continue wit the same old vision that is bound to fail, especially with regards to the Arab-Muslim existence on this planet.

6 posted on 11/05/2014 5:31:44 AM PST by Netz
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To: Zenjitsuman

Israel always was the US foreign policy political football.

In the past, before radical Islam took control of events in the ME, Liberals in the US could afford to be maladroit and malicious, when it served them.

They have retained this habit but unfortunately, circumstances are altogether different NOW that the radical terrorists are in control. It’s time for American Liberals to face the same realities that the Israeli’s and the rest of the world has recognized for decades.

Israel HAS demonstrated superhuman, almost unbelievable tolerance toward the terrorists AND the US.

What are they supposed to do? When the ground under their feet is smoking ashes and their clothes are on fire... THEN will it be OK for them to retaliate?


7 posted on 11/05/2014 5:33:39 AM PST by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: Netz

Correct, and Hillary wouldn’t be any better than Obama


8 posted on 11/05/2014 6:11:21 AM PST by Zenjitsuman (New Boss Nancy Pelosi)
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To: SMARTY

Its time for American Jews to stop support for Dems who have pushed Israel into isolation.


9 posted on 11/05/2014 6:12:48 AM PST by Zenjitsuman (New Boss Nancy Pelosi)
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To: Zenjitsuman
...no and Hilliary might be even worse. I give her credit in terms of experience. She has more experience than 11 Obama lifetimes combined, but...
she would spell disaster for the USA and the West.
The world is in chaos and millions are looking to the Mantle of Democracy and Freedom to LEAD THE WAY. Unfortunately, for the Feminists, at this time, we require a tough male figure in the WH to counterbalance the Islamic onslaught. You see, while we try to be fair and balanced, Liberal and Gender balanced, the male Arab world despises any female in a position of power. Therefore, we need a ballsy male like former UN Ambassador John R. Bolton who, is perceived as a dangerous righ-wing nut job by many Americans and RESPECTED by our enemies. His unpredictability that he might go bananas in response to an act of terror is precisely what we need at this unstable time in Foreign Affairs...
10 posted on 11/05/2014 6:23:34 AM PST by Netz
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To: SJackson

Making headlines isn’t going to minimize Israel. However, making childish remarks will minimize Prez Stompy Feet.


11 posted on 11/05/2014 6:26:19 AM PST by bgill (CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: SJackson

With Iran, you mean?


12 posted on 11/06/2014 4:10:58 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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