Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday told visiting Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs Gen. Martin Dempsey of the appreciation Israel has for what America’s servicemen and women are doing in the region and for the sake of freedom.

The two men met in Jerusalem during a visit to the country by the top US military commander.

“You’ve been a wonderful friend and a grand champion of America and of America-Israel relations,” Netanyahu said. “We appreciate it. I want to take this opportunity to also express our respect and deep admiration for America’s fighting men and women.

“We know you’re extended around the world, including in our region. We know we have no better friends than the American people, the American governments, the American fighting men and women. You fight for America, but you also fight for freedom,” he said.

Dempsey recalled the US military’s strong ties with IDF commanders, and how Netanyahu, as prime minister, serves the Israeli people.

“The greatest gift has been the friendship that we’ve managed to forge with the leaders in the IDF, and I know you’re proud of them but we are too. It’s our constitution, and you know that that’s what inspires us as I know service to your nation inspires you,” he said.

On Wednesday Dempsey met with President Reuven Rivlin, who told him that Israel respects a ruling by the US Supreme Court earlier this week that said Jerusalem-born Americans cannot list Israel as their birthplace on passports.

Rivlin told Dempsey that since Israel “salutes” the rule of law, it didn’t object to the Supreme Court justices’ decision to uphold the State Department’s right to not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“Of course we have no criticism of the decision of the Supreme Court in Washington,” Rivlin said during an official meeting at the presidential residence in Jerusalem. “They ruled what they had to rule.”

Dempsey, who arrived in Israel on Monday on his sixth and final official visit to Israel, reassured the president that security ties between the two allies would remain strong.

“I am happy to back in Israel. I am here to gain a better understanding with our counterparts in the IDF, of the threats and security challenges, and of what we can do to address them,” he said.

On Tuesday, Dempsey assured Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon that Washington would ensure that Israel maintained its “qualitative military edge” over its potential adversaries in the region.

BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL June 9, 2015, 2:43 am THE TIMES OF ISRAEL 

WASHINGTON — A long list of major American Jewish organizations, many of which had filed amicus briefs supporting the inclusion of the word “Israel” on passports for US citizens born in Jerusalem, expressed dismay at Monday’sSupreme Court ruling that American citizens born in Jerusalem may only list their birthplace as Jerusalem, rather than as Jerusalem, Israel.

The ruling affirmed that the president holds the power to grant formal recognition to a foreign nation and that Congress cannot pass a law directing the State Department how to record the place of birth of a child born to American parents abroad. The original case was brought by the parents of now-13-year-old Menachem Zivotofsky, in an effort to have “Israel” appear on their Jerusalem-born son’s US passport.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella group representing 51 organizations, issued a statement saying that the organization’s leaders were “deeply concerned” by the ruling.

“We do not believe that Jerusalem-born American citizens having Israel on their passport would impinge on future negotiations or compromise the role of the United States,” argued Chairman Stephen Greenberg and Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein. “Tens of thousands of Americans are affected by this decision.”

Hoenlein and Greenberg expressed hope that “a constitutionally acceptable path can be found to assure that Americans born in Jerusalem will be accorded their full rights, including the designation of their country of birth.”

Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, described the US government’s approach regarding Jerusalem as “hypocritical and myopic.”

The ADL had spearheaded an amicus brief signed by 12 Jewish organizations which argued that Americans born in Jerusalem should be able to identify their country of birth on their passport in the same way other American citizens born abroad may do.

“The question for the Supreme Court in this case involved a simple and ministerial act – whether or not US citizens born in Jerusalem should be allowed to list their birth place as Israel,” Foxman wrote after the ruling. “The answer to that should have been an easy yes. And the court did not have to issue a sweeping decision about executive power to reach that conclusion.”

Foxman called on the administration to “step up,” asking “how long will the US government continue to have this hypocritical and myopic approach?”

“It is sad and unfortunate that Israel – as a sovereign nation – is the only country in the world whose capital comes under such scrutiny and has to defend its right to determine where its capital city exists,” Foxman continued. “It’s time for the Executive Branch to face the reality: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” he concluded, echoing statements made Monday by Israeli leaders.

Similar expressions of disappointment came from across the Jewish religious spectrum.

Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that his organization was “disappointed” by the decision, which he described as “circumscribing the right of Americans born in Jerusalem to lawfully and accurately identify their birthplace as Israel.”

“We are saddened that American citizens born in Jerusalem, the holy city to which the Jewish people worldwide have an enduring and unbreakable connection, and the capital of the United States’ longstanding ally, Israel, will be barred from having their place of birth listed as ‘Israel’ on their birth certificates and American passports,” Pesner wrote in a statement Monday.

The Religious Action Center was one of the organizations that signed on to the ADL brief, and Pesner noted that “the Reform Movement has long called for US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that nation should not be subjected to legal disadvantages under US law that are not applied to other nations.”

America’s largest Orthodox umbrella organization, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, also expressed disappointment with the Monday morning ruling by the US Supreme Court in the Jerusalem passport case.

Nathan Diament, executive director for public policy of the Orthodox Union, wrote in a statement that while the organization was “of course, disappointed” by the Monday ruling, “we are more disappointed by the persistent policy of the United States government – carried out by successive presidents – to treat the capital city of Israel with less respect than that accorded to capital cities of virtually every other nation.”

“Jerusalem is unquestionably the capital of Israel,” he added. “Even after this court decision, it is high time for the US administration to acknowledge the reality of Israel’s capital – Jerusalem.”

The Orthodox Union, like the Religious Action Center, was also a signatory on the ADL friend of the court brief that urged the justices to uphold Congressional legislation requiring the State Department to write Jerusalem, Israel, on US-issued passports. Other organizations signing the brief included the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), B’nai B’rith International, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Hadassah, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Council of Young Israel, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Union for Reform Judaism, Women of Reform Judaism, and the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism

The news of the ruling came in the midst of the American Jewish Committee’s annual Global Forum. The AJC wrote that it was also “deeply disappointed” by the ruling.

“The Supreme Court ruling is a personal tragedy for the Zivotofsky family, and a greater one for all US citizens who legitimately claim Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, as their place of birth,” said AJC General Counsel Marc D. Stern.

The AJC had also filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that “Congress has an important role to play in determining America’s decision on recognition of foreign governments and in setting passport policy.”

BY AP June 8, 2015, 11:30 am | The Times of Israel 

VIENNA — Iran must cooperate with a stalled UN probe of suspicions that it worked on atomic arms if the country wants a nuclear deal that will see removal of sanctions, the European Union said Monday.

The cautionary EU statement comes ahead of a June 30 target date for such an agreement.

It was obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its delivery at a meeting of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency that opens Monday.

Iran denies any work on — or interest in — nuclear arms and has fended off IAEA demands for cooperation with its investigation.

The EU statement says getting to the bottom of the allegations “will be essential” to a nuclear deal.

Iran also would have to accept limits on its present nuclear activities.

On Sunday, an EU delegation was stopped from speaking to foreign media in Tehran on Sunday, with an Iranian security official threatening action against reporters and photographers if they tried to film the incident.

Having called a press conference at their hotel in the capital, the plans of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament were disrupted, prompting an angry exchange on the street.

Sunday’s incident occurred despite the group of seven EU lawmakers being invited to Tehran by their Iranian counterparts.

The group, which will leave Tehran later Sunday, was the first European parliament delegation to visit Iran since December 2013.

On April 2, Iran and the P5+1 — the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia plus Germany — agreed to the main outlines of the nuclear deal, with Tehran agreeing to mothball parts of its atomic program.

The EU delegation met senior Iranian politicians including parliament speaker Ali Larijani and Masoumeh Ebtekar, one of Iran’s vice presidents.

“With this visit the European Parliament wants to give a strong signal of its commitment to building trust in this key moment in EU-Iran relations,” Elmar Brok, chairman of the EU committee said separately in a statement.

The talks centered on instability in the Middle East, including in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as drug smuggling in neighboring Afghanistan, climate change and the environment.

US President Barack Obama is expected to huddle with his European counterparts over the emerging Iranian nuclear deal while at the G7 summit of world leaders in Germany this week.

The president was expected to try to push French President Francois Hollande on dropping some reservations about the pact in a meeting on the sidelines of the summit Monday.

France at times has taken a harder line and expressed more skepticism than Washington on the Iran negotiations.

Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for New American Security who worked on foreign policy in President George W. Bush’s White House, said he would advise Obama to deliver a direct message to Hollande.

“What is it going to take to get you back on the bus? Because let’s keep these disagreements behind closed doors, rather than doing this in the press, which is harmful to our position,” Fontaine said.

An extremely unusual public meeting of high-ranking Israeli and Saudi officials took place in Washington on Thursday, when the incoming director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry shared a stage — and shook hands — with a retired Saudi general who is a former top adviser to the Saudi government.

In their back-to-back addresses to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Dore Gold and Anwar Eshki both espoused Israeli-Saudi peace and identified Iran as the chief threat to regional stability.

Eshki spoke at length of Iran’s hostile and aggressive actions in the region and signaled that peace with Israel, based on the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative, was a top priority. He also spoke of the need for a joint Arab military force to increase regional stability.

Gold, the current head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank, is expected to be confirmed as the Foreign Ministry chief in the coming days. He too spoke of the challenge posed to the Middle East by Iran, and warned of a weak nuclear accord with Tehran which would leave the Islamic republic as a nuclear threshold state.

Bloomberg News reported that the two countries, longtime foes with no diplomatic relations, have held five clandestine meetings over the past 17 months on the threat posed by Iran. Long-rumored back-channel talks between Jerusalem and Riyadh have never been officially confirmed.

Shimon Shapira, described by Bloomberg as an expert on Lebanese terror group Hezbollah who took part in the meetings, said: “We discovered we have the same problems and same challenges and some of the same answers.”

While Gold and Eshki stressed that they were not speaking as official representatives of their nations, but rather as foreign policy experts, they expressed hope that their states could find common ground in the face of regional challenges.

“Our standing today on this stage does not mean we have resolved all the differences that our countries have shared over the years,” Gold said, according to Bloomberg News. “But our hope is we will be able to address them fully in the years ahead.”

While stopping short of fully endorsing the Arab Peace Initiative, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that he welcomed the general idea behind it — a regional agreement between Israel and the moderate Arab states.

The Arab Peace Initiative, originally proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002, has many problematic aspects to it, the prime minister said, such as its call for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and the return of Palestinians refuges to Israel. “There are positive aspects and negative aspects to it,” he told Israeli diplomatic correspondents at a rare on-record briefing. “This initiative is 13 years old, and the situation in the Middle East has changed since it was first proposed. But the general idea — to try and reach understandings with leading Arab countries — is a good idea.”

In the framework proposed by the initiative, all Arab and Islamic states would establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel after the successful conclusion of the peace process with the Palestinians.

The Israeli government has never fully endorsed the plan. But Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that given Iran’s nuclear and regional aspirations, the moderate Arab states and Israel have a common enemy and grounds for increased cooperation.

Meanwhile, a new telephone poll conducted by an Israeli college among citizens of Saudi Arabia concluded that the Saudi public is far more concerned about the threats of Iran and the Islamic State group than Israel, and that the vast majority of Saudis support the decade-old peace offer to the Jewish state.

The International Disciplinary Center’s poll found that 53 percent of Saudis named Iran as their main adversary, while 22% said it is the Islamic State group and only 18 percent said Israel. The poll, conducted in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, surveyed 506 Saudis over the phone and had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

The results indicates significant common ground between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Netanyahu has been outspoken in his criticism of an emerging nuclear deal between Iran and global powers, saying the deal will leave much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact. He has also claimed that unnamed Arab countries, presumably Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf countries, share his concerns.

“What we think here in Israel about the Saudis is not exactly what they are,” said Alex Mintz, who heads the IDC’s Institute for Policy and Strategy and oversaw the survey. “There is a great identity of interests and threats and agendas … some would even like to join forces with Israel.”

The questioners told respondents that they worked for the IDC, though they did not say they or the school were Israeli. Mintz said few people questioned the source of the survey, and those who did raise questions did not make the connection to Israel. He said there were no unpleasant exchanges.

By JPOST.COM STAFF \06/04/2015 11:42| The Jerusalem Post

Netanyahu echoes claims that Iran developing technologies and negotiating nuclear deal simultaneously.

The  US Defense Department issued a statement saying Iran has continued to work on developing advanced military technologies – such as ballistic missiles – while in the midst of finalizing a nuclear deal,Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

According to Bloomberg, a Pentagon report of Iran's military capabilities concluded that the Islamic Republic paused progress in its nuclear program once obligations under the Joint Plan of Action, reached with the US and other world powers, were fulfilled. 

The Pentagon assessment found that "covert activities [by Iran] appear to be continuing unabated," particularly in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Bahrain, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards have a strong base.

Iran's military prowess is defensive, the report claimed, intended to isolate the regime "from the consequences of Tehran's more aggressive policies" of terrorism and covert activities. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a similar press statement on Wednesday after his meeting with New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully. He alleged that Iran was continuing to operate its nuclear program while world powers are preparing to resume negotiations with the Islamic Republic.

"There are reports that show Iran is continuing to increase its nuclear arsenal while continuing to negotiate," part of the statement read.

Nuclear talks are headed towards a June 30 deadline.

In an excerpt aired Monday on Channel 2 of an interview with veteran journalist Ilana Dayan, Obama said that military action against Iran would not deter its nuclear ambitions and that he could prove that a “verifiable” agreement with Iran was the best way forward.

“I can, I think, demonstrate, not based on any hope but on facts and evidence and analysis, that the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement,” he said.

“A military solution will not fix it. Even if the United States participates, it would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program but it will not eliminate it,” Obama added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday rejected Obama’s comments, warning that the emerging deal would “pave the way” for Iran to attain a nuclear arsenal. He said the deal would also see Iran’s economy boosted and thus enable it to engage in further terrorist activity.

Touching on the deeply uneasy relationship between Obama and Netanyahu on the issue, Dayan asked the president about the possibility of Israel striking Iran without informing the US in advance.

“I won’t speculate on that,” he said. “What I can say is, to the Israeli people: I understand your concerns and I understand your fears.”

Obama has led the diplomatic initiative to try to end a 12-year international standoff between Tehran and the West, and put a nuclear bomb beyond Iran’s reach.

Netanyahu has long decried the emerging deal as dangerous, saying it will “pave the way” to an Iranian bomb, and has repeatedly warned that the easing of sanctions would enable the Iranian government to continue sponsoring terrorism and fomenting unrest across the region.

On Sunday, Netanyahu told German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that Iran is “the greatest threat to Israel’s security, to the stability of the region and to the peace of the world.”

Obama’s interview came less than a month before the June 30 deadline for a finalized deal between Iran and the six world powers led by the US. The emerging agreement aims to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment and put in place a stricter inspections regime, in exchange for an easing of punishing economic sanctions.

The full interview with the US president is scheduled to air during Channel 2’s “Uvda” investigative news program on Tuesday evening.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday decried Iranian “aggression” across the Middle East, telling German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that an emerging nuclear deal should take into account not only Tehran’s alleged nuclear ambition but also its regional aspirations.

After noting that “the greatest threat to Israel’s security, to the stability of the region and to the peace of the world” was Iran’s alleged quest for nuclear weapons, Netanyahu pointed to an Iranian “campaign of aggression across the entire Middle East, in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, around our borders on the Golan.”

Speaking at a press conference after his meeting with Steinmeier, the prime minister added, “Today, Iran is sponsoring terrorism across the globe beyond the Middle East, in the Middle East, but also in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas. Iran is building a vast infrastructure of terror.”

He said Iran is “conducting an unprecedented, I would say, conventional arms build-up. It’s developing a huge arms industry, which includes drones, rockets, precision guided missiles, submarines and satellites as well.”

Netanyahu said that he and Steinmeier had discussed “at some length” the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.

“I think the only way to move that is through direct negotiations,” he said. “Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority has moved away from these negotiations, but I believe, I remain committed to the idea that the only way we can achieve a lasting peace is through the concept of two states for two peoples — a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish nation-state of Israel.”

After meeting with Netanyahu, the German foreign minister met with President Reuven Rivlin at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

Picking up where they had left off during Rivlin’s official visit to Germany two weeks ago, the two men spoke about current developments in the region and bilateral ties between Germany and Israel.

During the meeting, Rivlin spoke of the international concern over the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the need for the resumption of talks.

“We do not need to be pressured,” he told the German foreign minister. “The need to rebuild Gaza and the renewal of direct negotiations is very clear to us. The Palestinians’ unilateral actions as we saw for example on Friday in Zurich are unnecessary and a bizarre twist on history — that the successors of those who murdered athletes in Munich should now be promoting a boycott of Israel goes against the ideas of humanity and justice.”

Referring to the fact that Steinmeier would be traveling to the Palestinian Authority later Sunday for a meeting with the PA president, Rivlin said, “We hope that in your meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, you will be able to stress the idea that, for both people, the only way we will be able to bring an end to the conflict is through direct negotiations.”

The German foreign minister thanked Rivlin for his warm welcome, and said, “I remember that when we have met in the past, we often spoke about the crisis in your region, and today we are also discussing the crisis in our region. The calming of the situation in the eastern Ukraine is still very difficult and the ceasefire is still very fragile.

“At the same time, I know that the situation in your region is much more complicated. I just had the opportunity to discuss with Prime Minister Netanyahu the number of crisis regions here — Syria, Iran, and the Palestinians. I still believe in the need to return to negotiations for a two-state solution. The troubled situation in Gaza demands of us to think about concrete steps to improve daily life there — without which, I am afraid, the situation is escalating.”

Steinmeier said during the meeting that he wished to promote concrete measures for the reconstruction of Gaza in order to build confidence between both sides, adding that the discussion had to focus on Gaza as well as on the West Bank.

Both men affirmed that Europe had an important role to play in mediating an end to the conflict