Showing posts with label nuclear threat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear threat. Show all posts

Thursday, October 2, 2014

What did Netanyahu discuss with the President in the Oval Office? - Joel Rosenberg

What did Netanyahu discuss with the President in the Oval Office? Stopping Iran. Here’s the latest.

by joelcrosenberg
President Obama talks to Israeli PM Netanyahu during an Oval Office meeting on October 1st. (Credit: YouTube/The White House)
President Obama talks to Israeli PM Netanyahu during an Oval Office meeting on October 1st. (Credit: YouTube/The White House)
Many issues have complicated the U.S.-Israeli relationship -- and particularly the personal relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu -- in recent years. The Palestinian issue. The future of Jerusalem. Settlements. Hamas and Gaza. But none have divided the two leaders more than how to deal with Iran.
Obama and Netanyahu have deeply divergent views of the urgency of the nuclear threat, and how best to stop Iran from building nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them. Now we are rapidly approaching the end game with the P5+1 talks with Iran. It is crunch time, and Netanyahu is worried that Obama is not worried enough. The Israeli premier is concerned that the President is too willing to make too many concessions to Iran, concessions that could make it easier for Iran to quickly build The Bomb.
Many issues were touched on in Wednesday's Oval Office meeting. But none so important as the Iran issue. Here's a sampling of the coverage from major media outlets:
(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday that he must make sure that any final nuclear deal with Iran does not leave it at the “threshold" of being able to develop nuclear weapons.
Even as Netanyahu pressed Obama over Iran in White House talks, the president urged the Israeli leader to help find ways to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties like those inflicted in the recent Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.
Netanyahu's visit was clouded by word of Israel's approval of the planned construction of more than 2,600 settler homes in mostly Arab East Jerusalem.
The White House said the matter came up in the leaders' closed-door talks and warned that it would draw international condemnation, "poison the atmosphere" with the Palestinians as well as Arab governments and call into question Israel's commitment to peace.
Meeting for the first time in eight months, the two leaders, who have a history of strained relations, avoided any direct verbal clash during a brief press appearance and even seemed in sync over the fight against Islamic State militants.
But they were unable to hide their differences on some of the issues that have stoked tension between them.
Underscoring Israeli misgivings at a critical juncture in nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, Netanyahu made clear that he remains at odds with Obama about the course of international negotiations with Israel’s regional arch-foe.
"As you know, Mr. President, Iran seeks a deal that would lift the tough sanctions that you worked so hard to put in place and leave it as a threshold nuclear power," Netanyahu said. "I firmly hope under your leadership that would not happen."
The crux of the U.S.-Israeli disagreement is that Netanyahu wants Tehran completely stripped of its nuclear capability, while Obama has suggested he is open to Iran continuing to enrich uranium on a limited basis for civilian purposes.
While Netanyahu put the emphasis on Iran, Obama was quick to focus on the bloody 55-day Gaza conflict, which ended in August with no clear victor. This followed the collapse of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Palestinians in April.
“We have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and school children in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire, but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well,” Obama said.
The Obama administration had backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas cross-border rocket fire, but also voiced rare criticism of Israeli military tactics as Palestinian civilian casualties mounted.
The conflict killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed.
THINKING 'OUTSIDE THE BOX'
Netanyahu said he remained “committed to a vision of peace for two states for two peoples," but he did not offer any path toward restarting negotiations.
Instead, he suggested there was a need to “think outside the box” and recruit moderate Arab states to advance peace in the region, though he offered no specifics. Palestinians have dismissed this approach as a bid to circumvent direct talks.
Within hours of the talks, both the White House and State Department blasted Israel's housing decision, reported by the anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now, to move forward on the settler housing project slated for construction since 2012.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined to speculate whether disclosure of the settlement plan was timed for Netanyahu's Washington visit.
The Obama administration has repeatedly urged a halt to settlement expansion.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem after its capture in the 1967 war, when the West Bank and Gaza were also seized. Citing Biblical roots, Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally.
The leaders showed no outward tension as they sat side-by-side in the Oval Office. Both were cordial and businesslike. The last thing the White House wanted was a repetition of a 2011 visit when Netanyahu lectured Obama on Jewish history.
But even with calm words, there was little doubt about the lingering differences.
Netanyahu was expected to use the Oval Office meeting to reiterate the warning he issued in his speech at the United Nations this week – that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a far greater threat than Islamic State fighters who have seized swathes of Syria and Iraq. An Iranian U.N. delegate accused Netanyahu of "propagating Iranophobia and Islamophobia."
Though Israel backs Obama’s efforts to forge a coalition to confront Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, some Israelis fear that world powers could go easy on Shi’ite Iran’s nuclear program so it will help in the fight against the Sunni Islamist group.
"The president made clear to the prime minister that regional events, including the need to destroy ISIL, won’t change our calculus on this issue," said White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan. "We must see concrete, verifiable steps that Iran’s program is exclusively peaceful.”
Netanyahu has cast Iran's nuclear ambitions as an existential threat to Israel. Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons. Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal.
Iran and six world powers ended 10 days of talks in New York last week that made little progress toward a long-term agreement by a November 24 deadline.
joelcrosenberg | October 2, 2014 at 7:38 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-38j

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog - Israeli Strike on Iran in 2014?

Joel Rosenberg



Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog - Israeli Strike on Iran in 2014?


With rumors of Israeli strike on Iran in 2014 rising, Santorum & Rosenberg write oped for CNN: Could there be a “Second Holocaust”? Lessons from Nazi Germany & modern Iran.

by joelcrosenberg
CNN-logo(Netanya, Israel) -- Greetings from Israel. I'm here doing media interviews for The Auschwitz Escape, having various meetings, and trying to get a better sense of how Israeli citizens and leaders are viewing the crisis in Ukraine and the rising Iranian nuclear threat.
Rumors are swirling in the media here about a possible Israeli preemptive strike on Iran this year. Israeli officials at the highest level -- including the Defense Minister -- are reportedly coming to the reluctant belief that they cannot count on President Obama to take decisive action to neutralize the Iranian threat before it is too late.
Here are several recent headlines worth noting:
In this context, CNN.com has just published an op-ed that former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and I have written. It examines parallels he and I find sobering between the history of Adolf Hitler and the current regime in Tehran. In the column, we also cite the exclusive new poll showing 80% of Americans fear a "Second Holocaust" if Iran is allowed to build nuclear warheads.
I hope you'll take a moment to read the full column. Then please post your comments on the "Epicenter Team" page on Facebook, and share this column with friends and get their reaction, as well.
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Lessons of history: Americans fear 'second Holocaust' if Iran gets the bomb
By Rick Santorum and Joel C. Rosenberg
(CNN) -- Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows this month when she compared Vladimir Putin's tactics in Ukraine to those of the Nazis.
She was right, but there is an even more ominous similarity between the actions of Iran and those of pre-war Germany.
On May 21, 1935, Adolf Hitler delivered his infamous "peace" speech. In his masterful history of Nazi Germany, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," William L. Shirer quotes the Fuhrer's remarks at length:
  • "Germany needs peace and desires peace."
  • "Germany has solemnly recognized and guaranteed France her frontiers."
  • "Germany has concluded a non-aggression pact with Poland."
Shirer, a CBS Radio correspondent, called the address "one of the cleverest and most misleading of his Reichstag orations this writer, who sat through most of them, ever heard him make." He observed the West seemed beguiled by the speech, noting the Times of London welcomed Hitler's words "with almost hysterical joy."
"The speech turns out to be reasonable, straightforward, and comprehensive," stated the Times editorial. "No one who reads it with an impartial mind can doubt that the points of policy laid down by Herr Hitler may fairly constitute the basis of a complete settlement with Germany."
Yet Hitler was lying to buy time. He would not bring peace, but a horrific war, annexing Austria, invading France and Poland, and ordering the extermination of six million Jews.
Indeed, Hitler's lies were apparent less than a year after the speech. On March 7, 1936, the Nazis marched into the Rhineland, the demilitarized zone between Germany and France, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
If the West had confronted Hitler then, it could have forced him out of the Rhineland with a limited application of military force.
Such history is worth noting in today's showdown with Iran. Many in the West seem beguiled by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. But are they....
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joelcrosenberg | March 25, 2014 at 7:48 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-2W7