Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Obama furious Israel found out Iran nuke deal secrets and told Congress

◼ The back story emerges — Obama hid negotiations and details, from Israel and Congress. - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

The Obama administration has vented its fury at Israel based on Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, and pre-election statements.

None of those issues justified the complete fury coming from the administration. It just didn’t add up.

Now The Wall Street Journal reveals the back story — one in which the Israelis found out about secret negotiations and secret details concealed from Congress, and told Congress. Now the administration is promising long-term damage to Israel that will last beyond this administration.

It also becomes obvious that the meme that Netanyahu has been acting to help his reelection is wrong. There is a long history of Israel trying to stop a disastrous deal being negotiated in secret. Netanyahu’s opposition has been based on security concerns for years, not the recent election.

The Wall Street Journal’s has an article titled ◼ Israel Spied on Iran Talks.

That title, however, is not really the story. The story is that Israel learned not only that Obama was hiding secret Iran nuclear negotiations from Israel, but also later found out details that Israel shared with Congress. The article is lengthy....

...What really set off Obama was that Israel later found out details that Israel shared with Congress, that the Obama administration had not:

  • As secret talks with Iran progressed into 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Israel’s communications to see if the country knew of the negotiations. Mr. Obama didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu until September 2013.

  • Israeli officials, who said they had already learned about the talks through their own channels, told their U.S. counterparts they were upset about being excluded. “ ‘Did the administration really believe we wouldn’t find out?’ ” Israeli officials said, according to a former U.S. official.

  • The episode cemented Mr. Netanyahu’s concern that Mr. Obama was bent on clinching a deal with Iran whether or not it served Israel’s best interests, Israeli officials said. Obama administration officials said the president was committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

  • Mr. Dermer started lobbying U.S. lawmakers just before the U.S. and other powers signed an interim agreement with Iran in November 2013. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Dermer went to Congress after seeing they had little influence on the White House.

  • Before the interim deal was made public, Mr. Dermer gave lawmakers Israel’s analysis: The U.S. offer would dramatically undermine economic sanctions on Iran, according to congressional officials who took part.
From the article:

Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer early this year saw a rapidly closing window to increase pressure on Mr. Obama before a key deadline at the end of March, Israeli officials said.

Using levers of political influence unique to Israel, Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer calculated that a lobbying campaign in Congress before an announcement was made would improve the chances of killing or reshaping any deal. They knew the intervention would damage relations with the White House, Israeli officials said, but decided that was an acceptable cost.

The campaign may not have worked as well as hoped, Israeli officials now say, because it ended up alienating many congressional Democrats whose support Israel was counting on to block a deal.
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◼ What Obama Thinks of Israel - Stanley Kurtz/National Review

Yes. Obama’s break with Israel was both predictable and predicted. Of course it’s easy enough to point back to the years of anti-Israel fulmination Obama sat through in Rev. Wright’s church, or his friendship with prominent Palestinians like Rashid Khalidi, and then say that Obama was tight with critics of Israel.

◼ Pro-Palestinian-in-Chief...Obama’s hard-Left tilt is real. - Stanley Kurtz/National Review







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