Netanyahu considering changes to Congress speech after criticism

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Netanyahu considering changes to Congress speech after criticism

BY LUKE BAKER
JERUSALEM Mon Feb 9, 2015 1:00pm EST

(Reuters) - Israeli officials are considering amending the format of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned address to the U.S. Congress next month to try to calm some of the partisan furore the Iran-focused speech has already provoked.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress about Iran's nuclear programme on March 3, just two weeks before an Israeli parliamentary election, following an invitation from John Boehner, Republican speaker of the house.

The invitation has caused consternation in Israel and the United States, largely because it is viewed as Netanyahu, a hawk on Iran, working with the Republicans to thumb their noses at President Barack Obama's policy towards Tehran.

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As a result, Israeli officials are considering whether Netanyahu should speak in a closed session of Congress or in smaller meetings with Congressmen rather than in a prime-time TV address, so as to defuse the tensions around the event.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/09/us-israel-netanyahu-congress-idUSKBN0LD1MF20150209

[Jefferson23]

1. lol

If he is going to speak to our congress, start talking about your arsenal..liar.

Netanyahu: US, Iran galloping towards deal which threatens Israel

Prime Minister Netanyahu says US, Iranian commitment to reach nuclear deal with Iran by March a danger to Israel, vows Israel 'will do everything, take any action to foil this bad deal.'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4624318,00.html

Obama spoke Monday at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (AHN'-geh-lah MEHR'-kuhl). He says as much as he loves Merkel, if she was two weeks out from an election, she wouldn't have received a White House invitation either. But Obama says he suspects she wouldn't have asked for one.

Netanyahu plans to address Congress over his concerns about U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran. Obama says Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others involved in the talks agree with him that more sanctions wouldn't make sense.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/291288021.html

[Jefferson23]

2. UN resolution: Israel must renounce nuclear arms December 2, 2014

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved an Arab-backed resolution Tuesday calling on Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under international oversight.

The resolution, adopted in a 161-5 vote, noted that Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that is not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It called on Israel to "accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons" and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.

The United States, Canada, Palau and Micronesia joined Israel in opposing the measure, while 18 countries abstained.

Israel is widely considered to possess nuclear arms but declines to confirm it.

The resolution, introduced by Egypt, echoed a similar Arab-backed effort that failed to gain approval in September at the Vienna-based IAEA. At the time, Israel criticized Arab countries for undermining dialogue by repeatedly singling out the Jewish state in international arenas. Israel's U.N. Mission did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/un-assembly-calls-israel-join-nuclear-treaty-174032033.html

[Jefferson23]

3. Netanyahu’s Speech and the Politics of Iran Policy

2/3/2015

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of an invitation to speak to the US Congress on 3 March, two weeks before the Israeli election and without any consultation with the White House, is aimed at advancing both Netanyahu’s re-election and the proposed new set of sanctions against Iran in the US Congress. For many months, pro-Israeli legislators and lobbyists have been threatening to re-impose existing sanctions on Iran and add new ones while negotiations are still going on.

Regardless of the argument that the sanctions legislation is meant to strengthen the US negotiating hand, the real purpose of the proponents of sanctions has always been to ensure that no nuclear agreement can be reached. Those proponents take their cues from Netanyahu, and that has been Netanyahu’s openly proclaimed aim ever since the negotiations with the Rouhani government began. Netanyahu has often insisted that Israel will not accept an agreement that allows Iran to retain any enrichment capability.

The Obama administration has made it clear that it would veto such new sanctions legislation, arguing that it would leave the United States with no options except the threat of war. That argument prevailed in the Senate earlier, and the administration may well be able to use it again to defeat the Israeli effort to sabotage the negotiations through sanctions legislation. But there are more battles to come.

Influence and threats

The current tensions over the Netanyahu speech is just the latest chapter in a long-running drama involving an Israeli strategy to use its political power in the US Congress to tilt US Iran policy in the direction Israel desires. But in the past, that Israeli advantage has been combined with a strategy of trying to get the United States to take care of Iran’s nuclear problem by suggesting that, otherwise Israel might have to use force itself.

Netanyahu’s predecessor, Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, initiated that strategy in May-June 2008, when the Israeli Air Force carried out a two-week air war exercise over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece. During that exercise, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened that if Iran continued what he called “its programme for developing nuclear weapons”, Israel “would attack”.

In fact, the purported rehearsal for attack and explicit war threats were a ruse. The Israeli Air Force did not have the ability to carry out such an attack, because it had only a fraction of the refuelling capacity it would have needed. The whole exercise was really aimed at influencing the next US administration. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who conceived the strategy, sought to take advantage of the waning months of the George W Bush administration, which cooperated with the Israelis in pointing to the exercise as a signal to Iran that Israel’s most enthusiastic US ally would leave office in a few months. After Netanyahu was elected prime minister for a second time in early 2009, he kept Barak as his defence minister in order to refine the strategy of bluff to have maximum effect on the Obama administration.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/03/netanyahus-speech-and-politics-iran-policy

[Jefferson23]

4. Criticizing Netanyahu, Obama says 'united' world presenting Iran with nuclear deal

*Clear warning if there ever was one.

US president addresses concerns over PM's upcoming DC visit, warning that the perception of a Likud-Republican alignment puts a "cloud" of "partisan politics" over the US-Israel relationship.

WASHINGTON -- US President Barack Obama says that gaps in talks with Iran over its nuclear program have been "sufficiently narrowed and sufficiently clarified" that world powers can now present the Islamic Republic with an agreement.

"We are presenting to them a deal that allows them to have peaceful nuclear power but gives us the absolute assurance that is verifiable they are not producing a nuclear weapon," Obama said. "They have to make a decision."

Obama said that a year's worth of negotiations was "time well spent," overcoming a "truth deficit" between Tehran and the West.

But after two extensions were announced throughout that year, the president joined US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in rejecting prospects for further delays.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Criticizing-Netanyahu-Obama-says-united-world-presenting-Iran-with-nuclear-deal-390508

[LeftishBrit]

5. Change it? How about cancelling it!

[Jefferson23]

6. Netanyahu Says He Won't Ditch Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is determined to continue with plans for an upcoming speech to Congress, despite criticism he has received both at home and abroad. Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint meeting of Congress on March 3, after receiving an invitation from House Speaker John Boehner. Speaking on Monday, he said it is his duty to prevent Iran's nuclear program from moving forward and called it "an existential issue." Israeli officials previously said Netanyahu may speak in a closed-door session or at the annual AIPAC conference as an alternative. The White House has criticized the visit, and Vice President Joe Biden said he would not attend the speech.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/02/09/netanyahu-may-change-speech-to-congress.html

[Peter Rollins]

7. I don't understand.

If Israel is allowed to have nuclear weapons, and has been allowed for 50 years, then why can't its neighbors? It seems a double standard.

[Jefferson23]

8. Because they just can. n/t

[King_David]

9. Its just not fair ? LOL

Think the USA should allow ISIS or Gov of Gaza or Syria to have nuclear weapons.

It is JUST NOT FAIR !!!!!

[LeftishBrit]

10. So just because some countries have nuclear weapons, all others should too or it's unfair?

It would be a good thing if Israel, and the UK, and America, and Russia, and China, and India, and Pakistan, and France, and all other nuclear countries got rid of their nukes. However, they're not likely to - the best we can hope for is reductions.

And further nuclear proliferation will hardly improve the situation.