Pro-Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming speech to Congress about the Iranian nuclear threat is crucial because Congress is one of the only bodies that can actually stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, he said during an interview to a haredi radio station on Friday morning.

"I am writing the speech and it is important, because I am going there to try to stop the deal from happening. We remember the times when Persia tried to destroy us, and today in the same Persia there is a ruler who calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and they plan on doing it with nuclear weapons," he said.

Netanyahu's speech to US Congress, due on March 3, has caused a rift between himself and US President Barack Obama's administration. During his speech, Netanyahu will speak out against the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1. 

The prime minister shared that following his Congress speech, he will dine with Republicans and Democrats in Washington. "I take it as a blessing. There was an invitation from both sides...this shows that there is a greater interest." he said.

"According to the signs, in most of the US, there is support for Israel. So I can have differences with the US president, that is legitimate, so what is not legitimate about us speaking our minds? Especially when the majority supports us."

Netanyahu was asked about his feelings towards the negative media attention he garners, and he answered "you need to strong. The feeling is hard, when you and your family are being attacked and slandered." 

In regards to the upcoming election, Netanyahu was asked to whom his first phone call will be in order to make a coalition after the elections. He responded that depending on the results, the coalition building could fall on Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog, but if it doesn't, he will call on Naftali Bennett, Moshe Kahlon and Avigdor Liberman. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry played defense Wednesday on Capitol Hill, fielding dozens of questions from lawmakers worried about what Iran could get in a deal being negotiated to block its ability to make an atomic weapon.

California Republican Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Kerry at a hearing that members of the panel have serious concerns about the direction of the more than 1-year-old talks, which are at a critical juncture. Negotiators are rushing to try to meet a March 31 deadline for a framework agreement between Iran and the US and five other world powers.

“I’m hearing less about dismantlement and more about the performance of Iran’s nuclear program,” Royce told Kerry. “That’s particularly disturbing when you consider that international inspectors report that Iran has still not revealed its past bomb work.”

New York Rep. Elliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the committee, expressed skepticism too.

Engel noted news stories claiming that negotiators are willing to ease limits on Iran’s enrichment production during the later years of an accord in order to bridge the differences between the two sides over how long an agreement should last.

“We’re hearing troubling reports on the scale and duration of the program that Iran may be allowed as part of a deal,” Engel said.

The secretary testified in the House two days after returning to Washington from the latest round of talks in Geneva. US and Iranian officials reported progress on getting to a deal that would clamp down on Tehran’s nuclear activities for at least 10 years but would then slowly ease restrictions.

Any comprehensive pact could ease 35 years of US-Iranian enmity — and seems within reach for the first time in more than a decade of negotiations.

Royce said the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency is worried about the scope of Iranian military-related activities, including its work in designing a nuclear payload for a missile.

“The IAEA inspectors have amassed over 1,000 pages which showed research, development and testing activity on technologies needed to develop a nuclear weapon,” the congressman said. “Of the 12 sets of questions that the IAEA has been seeking since 2011, Iran has answered part of one of them,” adding the Iranians are withhold information on the remaining set.

“They are legitimate and the questions have to be answered,” Kerry replied. “And they will be if they (the Iranians) want to have an agreement.”

He said Iran has complied with all the provisions of a first-step agreement, which launched the talks. “They agreed to roll back their program,” Kerry said. “I think that’s cause for hope.”

Wednesday was Kerry’s second appearance before Congress in as many days. As he did on Tuesday in the Senate, Kerry declined to disclose details of the discussions and told members of the House that it’s inappropriate to condemn what is in an agreement before anybody knows what it is — or even if there even will be a deal.

“It’s fair to be skeptical until you see the agreement, and it’s important to be hopeful. And that’s the way I’d put it,” Kerry said. “I’m not sitting here expressing confidence. I’m expressing hope, because I think we are better off with a viable, acceptable, good, diplomatic agreement than with the other choices. But it remains to see whether or not we can get that kind of agreement.”

“There are some big issues yet to be resolved. We are not there yet,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he would do “everything I can” to prevent what he considers a bad nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, a week ahead of travelling to Washington.

Netanyahu’s government has long opposed the deal taking shape with Tehran over its nuclear program and he is to address the US Congress on March 3 on the subject, in a move that has angered the White House.

“The information which has reached me in recent days greatly strengthens our concerns regarding the agreement being formulated between the major powers and Iran,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

“This agreement, if indeed it is signed, will allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state,” he said.

“It is my obligation as prime minister to do everything that I can to prevent this agreement. Therefore, I will go to Washington… because the American Congress is likely to be the final brake before the agreement,” he said.

House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on March 3.

President Barack Obama has refused to meet Netanyahu during his trip, saying diplomatic protocol forbids him from doing so, since the Israeli leader is running for re-election on March 17.

The two leaders have a famously frosty relationship, which has grown even more tense as a result of the disagreement over Netanyahu’s upcoming speech.

Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — known as the P5+1 — have been seeking a comprehensive accord with Iran that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for an easing of economic sanctions.

Tehran says its nuclear program is purely for civilian use.

There is a heightened sense of urgency as the clock ticks down towards a March 31 deadline to agree on a political framework for the deal.

The American failure to highlight Jew hatred when engaging with entities such as Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood may be defined as “institutional anti-Semitism,” an expert on the topic told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

In Israel to address a conference on far right radicalism at IDC Herzliya, Dr. Charles Asher Small, director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, further expressed the view that American Jews have not engaged with the issue.

“I think that the American Jewish organizational establishment is more willing to speak clearly on European anti-Semitism [than] what is going on in the United States,” he said. “It is easier to look at the anti-Semitism far away than it is to look at the anti-Semitism within American society.”

Small was careful to explain that while he is far from accusing any members of the current administration of harboring anti-Semitic attitudes, he believes that a sort of functional anti-Semitism exists.

As the United States takes part in dialogues with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Republic, it fails to bring up the issue of the “genocidal agenda of anti-Semitism” that both bodies have expressed, he said.

“To not deal with anti-Semitism is not only immoral, but I would call it, and this is coining a phrase, institutional anti-Semitism.”

Riffing off the term institutional racism coined by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton during the 1960s, Small explained that both concepts relate to a system “in which individuals may not be racist, individuals in this case may not be anti-Semitic, but there is an institutional culture which promotes certain types of behavior. And when an administration is engaging those who want to exterminate Jews and [by] not engaging this immoral and horrific form of hatred they give oxygen to it and allow it to fester.”

“Can you imagine dealing with the apartheid regime, negotiating with it, and not not mentioning racism,” he asked.

Small added that he agreed with a recent assessment by thinker David Hazony, who asserted in an article that the “myth of Israeli centrality” to the world’s problems, a common perception in certain policy and academic circles, is functionally anti-Semitic and that those who believe in it are spreading a modern version of the ancient trope of Jewish complicity in all of the world’s problems even if they themselves are not anti-Semitic.

“In the modern reinvention of the idea, however, it is not the Jewish people but the Jewish state that is the core problem in the world, the key obstacle to betterment. The claim takes different forms and has long been fueled by the propaganda juggernaut of the Arab world. By the time it reaches the softer shoals of places like Foggy Bottom, of course, it goes through a filtration system of bureaucratic qualifiers,” Hazony wrote in a recent issue of the online magazine Tower.

“I think that there are still people in the United States and in the [Obama] administration who believe that if it were only for the settlements, jihad would dissipate,” Small commented. “There are people who still hold on to these views and it's irrational thinking.”

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be running for office in Israel, but this week he had plenty of strong messages for Jews in the United States and Europe.

Speaking Monday in Jerusalem to leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Netanyahu said he would press ahead with plans to speak March 3 to the US Congress even though the speech has roiled the US capital.

“I think the real question that should be asked is how could any responsible Israeli prime minister refuse to speak to Congress on a matter so important to Israel’s survival?” Netanyahu said. “How could anyone refuse an invitation to speak on a matter that could affect our very existence when such an invitation is offered?”

Netanyahu also sparked controversy with his comments after the weekend attacks in Copenhagen that killed two people, including a synagogue security guard.

“To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world,” Netanyahu said, “I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms.”

In both cases, Netanyahu stuck with highly charged messages along with his repeated insistence that his top responsibility — even more than pleasing allies — is to speak out when Israeli security and Jewish safety are at stake.

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the speaker of the US House of Representatives, added fuel to the controversy over Netanyahu’s speech when he told Fox News over the weekend that he purposely kept President Barack Obama out of the loop regarding the invitation to the Israeli prime minister.

“It is no secret here in Washington about the animosity this White House has for Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Boehner said. “I simply didn’t want them getting in the way and quashing what I thought was a real opportunity.”

Boehner issued Netanyahu the invitation without consulting with the White House, notifying it just an hour or so before he issued the announcement on Jan. 21. Boehner also did not notify Democrats, and much of the pro-Israel community was kept out of the loop, too.

Top Obama administration officials have said they will not meet with Netanyahu in part because he is speaking just two weeks before Israel’s election and appearing with him would be inappropriate.

Netanyahu said that the looming March 24 deadline for an outline of an agreement between Iran and the major world powers trumped any other timing issue. That date is what “drives the speech,” he told US Jewish leaders.

“Now is the time for Israel to make its case – now before it’s too late,” Netanyahu said. “Would it be better to complain about a deal that threatens the security of Israel after it’s signed?”

US officials including Obama have said that any likely deal will leave Iran with the capacity to enrich uranium, albeit at a civilian scale. Netanyahu insists that even at minimum levels, an ability to enrich leaves Iran with breakout capacity.

Details of what minimum enrichment would look like have been leaked to the Israeli media, and the Washington Post reported Monday that this has led infuriated US negotiators to limit what they convey to the Israelis after each session with the Iranians.

Netanyahu’s response, again, has been to intimate that the urgency of keeping Iran from going nuclear outweighs the niceties of keeping secret briefings from what both sides have agreed is an extraordinarily close defense and intelligence relationship.

“Just as Iran knows what kind of agreement is being offered, it’s only natural that Israel should know the details of the deal being formulated,” he told Haaretz as he headed into the meeting with the Presidents Conference. “But if there are those who think this is a good agreement, why must it be hidden?”

Officials on both sides have taken pains to assert that the strength of the relationship persists.

After news of US plans to withhold information first made headlines in Israel, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz issued a statement noting that he recently met with the top two US officials consulting on the Iran talks — Wendy Sherman, the under secretary of state leading the U.S. side in the talks, and Phillip Gordon of the National Security Council.

The sides had differences, Steinitz said in his statement, but the meeting Monday with Gordon was in “a good and friendly atmosphere” and another one with Sherman a week earlier included a lengthy one-on-one session – code meant to convey that the United States was still sharing sensitive information.

Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador to Israel, also was at pains to say that the defense and intelligence-sharing relationship persisted at full strength.

“Whether it be in the intelligence sphere, where we have reached new heights of intelligence sharing and cooperation, or with respect to joint training and readiness, our two defense establishments and our two fighting forces have never been closer,” Shapiro said at the annual conference of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.

He acknowledged, however, that there were “hot-button issues defining this election season,” but deferred to others at the conference to address them.

After his 2012 reelection, Obama said he would be tougher on Israel, one of his top advisers, David Axelrod, wrote in a book published this month titled “Believer: My Forty Years In Politics.”

Axelrod, who is Jewish, said Obama was a strong supporter of Israel, but he “felt he had pulled his punches with Netanyahu to avoid antagonizing elements of the American Jewish community.” CNN reported on the Israel sections of the book.

At the same time that the debate over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress raged on, the Israeli prime minister also found himself on the receiving end of criticism regarding his call for European Jews to consider making aliyah following the attacks in Copenhagen.

“Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country, but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home,” Netanyahu said. “We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe. I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are, Israel is the home of every Jew.”

Netanyahu made the statement on Sunday morning before Israel’s Cabinet approved a $46 million plan to encourage immigration and adapt the absorption process to Jews from France, Belgium and Ukraine.

In response, Denmark Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior said, “Terror is not a reason to move to Israel.”

Israel’s former president, Shimon Peres, sounded a similar note, telling more than 1,000 attendees at the Times of Israel gala in New York on Sunday that Jews should come to Israel “because you want to live in Israel.”

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt visited the synagogue late Sunday morning, laying a bouquet of flowers at its gate and vowing that Denmark “will do everything” it can to protect its Jewish community.

“Jews are a very important part of Danish society,” she said earlier at a news conference. “I say to the Jewish community, you are not alone.”

Netanyahu has pushed forward with such calls for aliyah, even as he works to cultivate close ties with European leaders in his bid to head off what he sees as a bad Iran deal, and also to limit the influence of those in Europe calling for boycotts of Israel because of its policies regarding the Palestinians.

One of Israel’s main allies in both spheres is France, perhaps the most hawkish of the six major powers negotiating with Iran. Still, Netanyahu has irked the French with the immigration plan passed Sunday, budgeting for an expected surge in aliyah from France in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris last month. The attacks included the siege of a kosher supermarket in which a terrorist killed four Jews.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls rejected Netanyahu’s call for European immigration to Israel, saying, “My message to French Jews is the following: France is wounded with you and France does not want you to leave.”

European officials have confirmed that the US State Department cautioned them against providing Israel with sensitive information on the current round of negotiations with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The account came amid vehement denials by the White House and State Department that they had stopped updating Jerusalem on the progress in the talks, even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted Monday that Israel was indeed being kept in the dark.

The report quoted an unnamed European official involved in negotiations who said he was told recently by the State Department’s Wendy Sherman, the lead American negotiator with Iran, not to disclose too much information to the Israelis because “the details could be twisted to undermine a deal.”

Another unnamed State Department official speaking on Sherman’s behalf noted that talk with Israel was encouraged, so long as it remained clear “that the negotiation should take place in the negotiating room,” a reference to the fact that Israel is not directly involved in the talks.

The comments echoed those of an Israeli official interviewed for the report who quipped that he received only “empty” briefings on the looming deal, signalling perhaps a further chill in ties between the Obama administration and the Jewish state that The New York Times compared to “posting notes to each other on a refrigerator door.”

Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the Iranian nuclear program is an existential threat to Israel and that Tehran is intent on developing nuclear weapons to use against the Jewish state.

To that effect, Netanyahu vowed to go ahead with a speech before the US Congress on March 3 to discuss the looming nuclear deal, raising the ire of the White House, some US congressmen and his political opponents in Israel.

The report quoted another European official who said that US Secretary of State John Kerry was “fuming about [the] Israeli leaks” following a report Sunday on Channel 2 to the effect that the administration has been withholding information from Israel.

According to the TV report, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice had cut off contact with Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, while Sherman was quoted as saying that she will no longer keep Israel informed either.

The report was hurriedly denied by both US and Israeli officials.

Kerry, who has been leading the negotiations along with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, argued that it was in no one’s interest to negotiate in public.

Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — known as the P5+1 — have been seeking a comprehensive accord with Iran that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for an easing of economic sanctions.