Leading US newspapers disagree on Netanyahu speech

Washington Post calls on White House to respond to PM’s claims, while NY Times says address was ‘political theater’

BY LAZAR BERMAN March 4, 2015, 6:35 am
http://www.timesofisrael.com/leading-us-newspapers-disagree-on-netanyahu-speech/

Leading American newspapers took starkly divergent editorial stnces on Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Tuesday, with the New York Times calling it “exploitative political theater.”

The NY Times editorial board argued that the “unconvincing” speech was “obviously intended to challenge President Obama’s foreign policy.”

“Mr. Netanyahu’s speech offered nothing of substance that was new, making it clear that this performance was all about proving his toughness on security issues ahead of the parliamentary election he faces on March 17,” wrote the editors. “He offered no new insight on Iran and no new reasons to reject the agreement being negotiated with Iran by the United States and five other major powers to constrain Iran’s nuclear program.”

“His demand that Mr. Obama push for a better deal is hollow,” claimed the NY Times. Netanyahu, it argued, doesn’t want negotiations and did not suggest a reasonable alternative approach to stop Tehran’s nuclear program.

The Washington Post, which has been far more skeptical of a potential deal with Iran, said that “Mr. Netanyahu’s arguments deserve a serious response from the Obama administration — one it has yet to provide.”

“The White House has sought to dismiss the Israeli leader as a politician seeking reelection; has said that he was wrong in his support for the Iraq war and in his opposition to an interim agreement with Iran; and has claimed that he offers no alternative to President Obama’s policy. Such rhetoric will not satisfy those in and out of Congress who share Mr. Netanyahu’s legitimate questions.”

Instead of attacking Netanyahu, argued the Post, “the administration ought to explain why the deal it is contemplating is justified — or reconsider it.”

Before the talk, the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that “Netanyahu deserves a respectful hearing even if the auspices of his appearance are exasperating.” It also said that Israel’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear program were “understandable.”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu warned in his landmark address before the joint houses of Congress that the nuclear deal taking shape between Iran and Western powers “paves the path for Iran” to a nuclear arsenal, rather than blocking it, and urged American leaders to walk away from what he called “a very bad deal.”

The emerging agreement, he told the assembled congressmen and senators, would leave Tehran with “a vast nuclear infrastructure” that placed it dangerously close to the ability to break out to a nuclear bomb. It “will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It will all but guarantee that Iran will get nuclear weapons and a lot of them.”

“Iran has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted,” no matter what it says about permitting verification of the terms of any accord designed to prevent it from getting such weapons, he said. “This is a bad deal, it’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.



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Obama Plays Hardball with Israel?

Obama's sane policies needs to be understood, he is good for Israel and good for America and Palestine.  He needs to scream it out loud so the Netanyahu ass-kissers know that Netanyahu is not Israel.

Mike Ghouse

*Obama Plays Hardball with Israel?
By Mark H. Gaffney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40994.htm

Finally. After many years of official hypocrisy, a US president appears
to be playing hardball with Israel. The other day, the US government
declassified a 1987 report

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40986.htm>documenting
Israel's secret nuclear weapons program.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/12/nuc%20report.pdf
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/12/nuc%20report.pdf>

I have been a critic of President Obama, but one has to admire the
timing of the release which I suspect was ordered by the White House.
Next month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to
speak before Congress, at the behest of House speaker Boehner, and the
topic of Netanyahu's address reportedly will be Iran's alleged nuclear
weapons program. The fact that neither Speaker Boehner nor the Israeli
government first cleared the speech with the White House has become
controversial, and for good reason. Several prominent members of
Congress, among them Senator Leahy, have already indicated they will
boycott the speech, which will be a transparent attempt at an end run
around the president.

Israeli PM Netanyahu is a smooth talker, but he is in no position to
lecture Iran or any other state about nuclear weapons. The
just-declassified report shows up Netanyahu for what he is, a liar.

All sixteen US intelligence agencies agree there is no hard evidence
that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. As a signatory of
the nuclear non proliferation treaty, Iran's nuclear power program is
fully safeguarded by IAEA inspections. Israel by contrast is a rogue
state that secretly developed nukes while thumbing its nose at the
world. Israel has long refused to sign the NPT.
The declassified 1987 report indicates that from the 1980s on the US was
well-informed about Israel's hidden nuclear agenda. Israel's nuke
program is evidently a carbon copy of the US program.
We know that Israel smuggled nuclear technology (triggers, known as
krytrons) out of the US, highjacked a ship on the high seas loaded with
uranium ore, deceived US inspectors, and much more, all the while lying
about its true intentions.

It also appears that Israel provided the IAEA with phony documents about
Iran's nuclear program.
http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Israel-Provided-IAEA-with-Fake-Documents-on-Iran-s-Nuclear-Program.htm

Timing is everything in politics. With the report now public, Obama will
be in a stronger position to apply pressure on Israel to sign the NPT
and open its nuclear sites to IAEA inspectors; or face the prospect of
losing US economic and military aid. 

Why? 

Because a US law (the Symington amendment of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act) bars the US from giving aid to nations that engage in clandestine nuclear weapons proliferation. For many years, the US chose to ignore the law. But now that Netanyahu plainly intends to stir up trouble for Obama in Congress
over Iran, the president has apparently decided to take off the kid gloves.

If Obama follows through, and I hope he does, it will the
smartest policy move of his presidency. The president deserves all the
support that we the people can give him on this issue.

The timing of the 1987 report was no coincidence either. No doubt it was
occasioned by a three-page expose that appeared in the London Sunday
Times in 1986, based on evidence provided by an Israeli whistleblower
named Mordechai Vanunu. The stunning Times expose featured inside photos
and details about Israel's top-secret plutonium separation plant buried
80 feet below the Negev desert. For years, Israel had claimed that its
Dimona nuclear plant was peacefully generating electricity. But Vanunu
showed this was a deception.

For his courage Vanunu suffered a fate worse than death. Kidnapped by
Israeli agents, he was taken back to Israel in chains and convicted of
treason in a kangaroo court. The man of conscience spent 18 years in
Ashkelon prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement, during which time
he endured terrible abuse by his Israeli handlers. Though Vanunu was
released in 2004, he remains under house arrest in Israel to this day; a
shocking example of double jeopardy.

I want to personally thank Mordechai Vanunu for the incredible courage
he has shown over many years, which now finally appears on the verge of
bearing positive fruit. Never doubt that one brave man can change the
world. Vanunu did. He will be remembered for his strength in the service
of truth, while Netanyahu may well become notorious as the dissembler
who destroyed Israel's credibility.

Mark H. Gaffney is the author of Dimona: the Third Temple (1989), a
pioneering study of Israel's nuclear weapons program.