Half of Israelis Back Immediate Strike on Iran
Just over half of Israelis back an immediate attack on the nuclear facilities of arch-foe Iran but the rest want to wait and see the results of US diplomacy, according to a poll released on Sunday.
Fifty-one percent support an immediate Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, while 49 percent believe the Jewish state should await the outcome of efforts by the US administration to engage with the Islamic republic, said the survey published by Tel Aviv University.
But 74 percent of those questioned said they believe that new US President Barack Obama’s efforts will not stop the Islamic republic from acquiring atomic weapons.
Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear armed state, considers Iran its arch-foe after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map.”
Israel and Washington accuse Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.
via Half of Israelis back immediate strike on Iran.
Will Israel Be Forced To Face The World Alone?
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu prepares for his visit to the United States next week, warnings abound that the Obama Administration’s policies will leave Israel to face Iran and Hamas alone.
The warnings are summed up in recent articles by the West’s two main pro-Israel female commentators: Melanie Phillips and Caroline Glick. Writing in the Spectator (United Kingdom) last week, Philips warns that “Obama is attempting to throw Israel under the Islamist bus.” She cites the report that Obama’s National Security Adviser told a European foreign minister that Obama will be ‘forceful’ with Israel, and plans to impose, with the EU and moderate Arab states, “a satisfactory endgame solution” upon Israel.
“This is all not only evil,” Phillips says, “but exceptionally stupid… The Arab states are beside themselves with anxiety about Iran. They want it to be attacked and its nuclear programme stopped. They are desperately fearful that the Obama administration might have decided that it can live with a nuclear Iran… A Palestine state will be Iran, in the sense that it will be run by Hamas as a proxy for the Islamic Republic. The idea that a Palestine state will not compromise Israel’s security is ludicrous.”
American Jewry: Spineless
After expressing incredulity at the American demands for further Israeli concessions in the light of the utter failure of the Disengagement, Phillips writes that U.S. Jews are reacting “with a total absence of spine… Almost eighty per cent of American Jews voted for Obama despite the clear and present danger he posed to Israel. They did so because their liberal self-image was and is more important to them than the Jewish state whose existence and security cannot be allowed to jeopardise their standing with America’s elite.”
Netanyahu must therefore take Israel’s message to “the ordinary American people,” she concludes: “They do value and support Israel. They do understand that if Israel is thrown under that bus, the west is next. And it is they to whom Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu must now appeal, over the heads of the politicians and the media and certainly America’s Jews and everyone else. He must tell the American people the terrible truth, that America is now run by a man who is intent on sacrificing Israel for a reckless and amoral political strategy which will put America and the rest of the free world at risk.”
Peres: Israel Supports Two-State Solution, Iran Engagement
Israel is on board with key elements of President Obama’s agenda in the Middle East, Israeli President Shimon Peres told reporters Tuesday after meeting with Obama at the White House.
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would support a two-state solution to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and that if Obama wants to engage Iran, the Israelis are willing to back him.
“Mr. Netanyahu said he will cooperate (with) the commitments of the previous (Israeli) government. The previous government accepted the roadmap (to Middle East peace). In the roadmap, you’ll find the attitude to the two-state solution,” Peres said.
He said Netanyahu is ready to “start to negotiate right away” and does not want to “govern the Palestinian people.”
The Tuesday sit-down was meant to lay the groundwork for a meeting later this month with Netanyahu which the U.S. president hopes will lead to a resumption of the Middle East peace process.
The White House released a statement Tuesday noting that Peres and Obama discussed issues “including the pursuit of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East and Iran’s nuclear program” and saying Obama looks forward to the meeting with Netanyahu.
Peres, more moderate than Netanyahu, had been downplaying the new Israeli leader’s previous refusal to endorse the “two-state solution” that has been the foundation of U.S. policy since early in the Bush administration.
The push for a two-state solution was also at the heart of a political flap Tuesday over the tone the administration was taking with its top ally in the Middle East.
Peres Wants To Yield Sacred Sites To Vatican
President Shimon Peres is willing to hand over Israeli sovereignty of key Christian holy sites to the Vatican, a proposition that is reportedly opposed by Interior Minister Eli Yishai and that has ruffled feathers among other senior government officials, Army Radio reported on Monday.
Local Catholic community prepares for Papal visit
Beit Hanassi could not be reached for comment on Monday, as it does not issue statements to the press while the president is abroad.
According to the radio report, the president is exerting pressure on the government to give up sovereignty over six sites, including the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Coenaculum on Mount Zion, Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and the Church of the Multiplication on the Kinneret.
Peres: Sooner Or Later World Will Realize Iran’s Intentions
“Sooner or later, the world will realize that Iran wants to rule the Middle East and that it has colonial ambitions,” President Shimon Peres said as he left for a meeting with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger today.
Peres added, “The collision between an Arab-Sunni Middle East and the Iranian minority that is seeking to control it is inevitable.”
