This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world's nuclear club within a month, raised the pitch of Iranian anti-US rhetoric to a new high Tuesday, April 13, as 47 world leaders gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit. The statement published by Kayhan said: "If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America's main cities." For the first time, debkafile's military sources report, Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States.
Without specifying whether those elements would be Iranian or others, Tehran aimed at the heart of the Nuclear Security Summit by threatening US cities with nuclear terror.
Debkafile's Iranian sources report that Tehran is playing brinkmanship to demonstrate that the Washington summit, from which Iran and North Korea were excluded, failed before it began, because terrorist elements capable of striking inside the US had already acquired nuclear devices for that purpose.
Although Iran has yet to attain operational nuclear arms, our military sources believe it does possess the makings of primitive nuclear devices or "dirty bombs."
In an interview ahead of the summit, President Obama warned: "If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications... would be devastating."
In another shot at the summit, Behzad Soltani, deputy director of Iran's Atomic Commission, announced Tuesday: "Iran will join the world nuclear club within a month in a bid to deter possible attacks on the country." He added: "No country would even think about attacking Iran once it is in the club."
Ed Koch was wrong to run around Florida personally vouching that Barack Obama would be safe for Israel. He should have known better. At least, he is man enough to admit as much. He is also right to remind Americans, most especially Jews, that once again they are cowering in shameful silence.
"I weep today because my president, Barack Obama, in a few weeks has changed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel from that of closest of allies to one in which there is an absence of trust on both sides.
... Our closest ally - the one with the special relationship with the U.S., has been demeaned and slandered, held responsible by the administration for our problems in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The plan I suspect is to so weaken the resolve of the Jewish state and its leaders that it will be much easier to impose on Israel an American plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leaving Israel's needs for security and defensible borders in the lurch.
I believe President Obama's policy is to create a whole new relationship with the Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, and Iraq as a counter to Iran - the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the Muslim world which we are now prepared to see in possession of a nuclear weapon. If throwing Israel under the bus is needed to accomplish this alliance, so be it.
I am shocked by the lack of outrage on the part of Israel's most ardent supporters. The members of AIPAC, the chief pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington, gave Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a standing ovation after she had carried out the instructions of President Obama and, in a 43-minute telephone call, angrily hectored Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Members of Congress in both the House and Senate have made pitifully weak statements against Obama's mistreatment of Israel, if they made any at all. The Democratic members, in particular, are weak. They are simply afraid to criticize President Obama. What bothers me most of all is the shameful silence and lack of action by community leaders - Jew and Christian. Where are they?
If this were a civil rights matter, the Jews would be in the mall in Washington protesting with and on behalf of our fellow American citizens. I asked one prominent Jewish leader why no one is preparing a march on Washington similar to the one in 1963 at which I was present and Martin Luther King's memorable speech was given? His reply was "Fifty people might come."
Remember the 1930s? Few stood up. They were silent. Remember the most insightful statement of one of our greatest teachers, Rabbi Hillel: "If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"
We have indeed stood up for everyone else. When will we stand up for our brothers and sisters living in the Jewish state of Israel?
If Obama is seeking to build a siege ramp around Israel, the Jews of modern Israel will not commit suicide. They are willing to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians, but they will not allow themselves to be bullied into following self-destructive policies.
To those who call me an alarmist, I reply that I'll be happy to apologize if I am proven wrong. But those who stand silently by and watch the Obama administration abandon Israel, to whom will they apologize?
'It is in the vital self-interest of all Americans to protect Israel - an extension of Silicon Valley and human progress,' attests economist and futurist George Gilder. The microchips of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so many of which are designed at Intel Corp's design center in Israel is just one of many examples of how vital keeping Israel stable is to the condition of our world.
Mr. Gilder, author of "The Israel Test," elucidates how being an ally to Israel benefits the human condition - via medical research & cures, communications technology, security intelligence, and economic stability. Filmed at Los Angeles' Sinai Temple; interviewed by Rabbi Steven Wolpe, Q&A led by AIPAC's Elliot Brandt, concluded by American Freedom Alliance's Avi Davis. Mr. Gilder emphasizes civilization's interest in safeguarding Israel from delegitimization from political and economic rivals, and the Obama Administration's mid-east policies.
Center for Security Policy's Sr. Middle East fellow, Caroline Glick, explains why the Obama administration's policies towards Iran and Israel are counterproductive for the security of the world. Ms. Glick explains why it is critical, in her view, for the world to deny Iran the development of nuclear weapons - at any cost (and why Obama's focus on Israel diverts and distracts global attention to the world's detriment).
DEBKAfile's military sources point in particular to the work of two eminent experts on Iran's nuclear program, Anthony Cordesman and American-Jordanian Abdullah Toqan for the Washington Institute for Strategic Affairs, who report the belief in some American military circles that "…nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground or in tunnels…"
The quote was embodied in a 208-page report published Friday, March 26 under the heading: Options in Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Program. They explain that because of the limited scale of its air and missile forces, Israel would resort to "using these [nuclear] warheads as a substitute for conventional weapons, given the difficulty its jets would face in reaching Iran for anything more than a one-off sortie."
The White House has waved off suggestions that President Barak Obama was "embarrassed" to be photographed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid questions over the minimal media coverage of their meeting in Washington this week.
"We were very comfortable with the coverage for last night's meeting," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. But media-savvy critics have posted their own commentary on the matter, with video clips like this emerging on You Tube:
When asked in a press conference on Wednesday whether he saw "any contradiction at all when the Secretary of State goes before AIPAC and says that the U.S. has no stronger, no closer ally than Israel - and then the President won't even allow a photograph of him and the Israeli Prime Minister", Gibbs responded: "No, I don't see a contradiction at all." (Ha'aretz)
The high-stakes conversations Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu held in Washington with President Barack Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton on March 23-24 only deepened the crisis marring relations between the two governments, DEBKAfile's Washington sources report.
Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak and their aides, received a strong impression that the White House's hand was behind certain European steps to drive Israeli into a corner on the points at issue. For example, even if the British government needed no encouragement to pick a fight with Israel over an unproven link with the forged passports used by the Dubai killers, Washington knew about the British plan to expel an Israeli diplomat. Its silence was taken by London as a go-ahead and a signal to the Netanyahu government that punishment could be coming from Washington too and that Israel could pay for defying the Obama administration with broad international isolation. France is also considering lining up behind this campaign.
President Obama showed his displeasure with the Israeli government's failure to cave in to his demands - especially after Netanyahu's declaration that Jerusalem is no settlement but "our capital" to the AIPAC conference Monday - by ordering all the Israeli prime minister's meetings in Washington to take place without statements, news coverage or the cameras which normally record smiles and handshakes between friendly leaders.
The warm public bipartisan welcome he received on Capital Hill was followed by the cold, peremptory shower given him at the White House.
"We in Congress stand by Israel," the Democrat leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said. "In Congress we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel."
"We have no stronger ally anywhere in the world than Israel," said the House Republican leader, John Boehner. "We all know we're in a difficult moment."
At their first 90-minute encounter, the president made clear what he expected the Israeli prime minister to do on Jerusalem, West Bank settlements and Iran and where he drew the line. Every effort by Netanyahu and, behind the scenes, Barak and their advisers, to ease the pressure fell on deaf ears.
As the tension climbed in the Oval Office, Netanyahu asked to consult privately with his staff and after an hour, asked to see Obama again. A second 35-minute conversation followed, after which the Israeli leader left without achieving any breakthrough on their differences.
DEBKAfile's Middle East sources report that this latest turn of events in US-Israeli relations makes naught of American leaders' constant affirmations of commitment to Israel's security. Iran, Syria, Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are acutely sensitive to the slightest crack in American support for Israel and ready with tactics for widening the rift. They will now drive hard to separate the Obama administration from America's historic military backing for the Jewish state. Debka also reports: Netanyahu flies home amid disagreement with Obama on key issues
US president Barack Obama kept on turning the screw on Israeli minister Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday, March 24, after their harsh conversation in the White House Tuesday: Netanyahu was told bluntly to issue a White House-dictated public pledge before leaving Washington for home to eschew further construction in East Jerusalem, or else face a US presidential notice condemning Israel and holding its government responsible for the failure to restart indirect Israel-Palestinian talks.
Reporting this, DEBKAfile's Washington sources add that Netanyahu's public renunciation of Jerusalem construction was required to include also the large Jewish suburbs of the city and remain in force for the duration of negotiations. He must also pledge further concessions to the Palestinians.
As part of the ultimatum, the US president warned the Israeli prime minister that he also intended formulating in detail for the first time the settlement the US government sought for solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Netanyahu flew out of Wednesday night without reaching common ground with the president on the key points at issue. He and defense minister Ehud Barak spent their last hours in the US capital working on a statement that might satisfy the White House. Barak worked out of the Israel embassy with the president's special adviser Dennis Ross at the National Security Council's office at the White House. Middle East envoy George Mitchell shuttled between them in an effort to save his mission.
A high-ranking US official categorized the current crisis in US-Israeli relations as the most acute in 54 years, ever since 1956 when President Dwight Eisenhower gave David Ben-Gurion an ultimatum to pull Israeli forces out of Sinai - certainly more serious than the impasse over the Madrid conference between the first President Bush and Yitzhak Shamir in 1992.
A US presidential notice condemning Israel and predetermining the shape of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would be tantamount to a US diktat and put the lid on negotiations, direct or indirect, because Israel would be dragged to the table in handcuffs to face an Arab partner who would accept nothing less than the terms Washington imposed in advance on Israel.
Such a notice would put a clamp on the close dialogue which has historically characterized US-Israeli ties - to the detriment of Israel's international standing.
The Washington Post laid the blame for the crisis squarely on President Obama, whom it accused of treating Netanyahu "as if he were an unsavory Third World dictator, needed for strategic reasons but conspicuously held at arms length."
The WP went on to say: "Obama picked a fight over something that virtually all Israelis agree on, and before serious discussions have even begun.
"A new administration can be excused for making such a mistake in the treacherous and complex theater of Middle East diplomacy. That’s why Obama was given a pass by many when he made exactly the same mistake last year. The second time around, the president doesn’t look naive. He appears ideological -- and vindictive."
A DemoCast exclusive video: Prof. Alan Dershowitz gives a comprehensive (1 hr) exposition of his views about the Obama administration's direction of middle-east policies, its effect on Israeli security, Jewish safety, and global stability.
Presented by the Los Angeles division of Shmuley Boteach's This World: The Values Network, moderated by Arash Farin, chairman, at Sephardic Temple Tifereth.
This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world's nuclear club within a month, raised the pitch of Iranian anti-US rhetoric to a new high Tuesday, April 13, as 47 world leaders gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit. The statement published by Kayhan said: "If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America's main cities." For the first time, debkafile's military sources report, Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States.
