Why Israel Won't Change: Inside Obama's meeting with Netanyahu

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Some things will change for Israel and its chief ally, the United States, when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigns. But most things won't, especially the big things. Israel still faces at least four major strategic choices: how to resolve the faltering peace talks with the Palestinians, how to deal with the growing power of Hezbollah in Lebanon, whether to maintain the fragmentary ceasefire with Hamas, and above all whether to take military action against Iran. And it doesn't much matter who the next prime minister is-or even the next U.S. president: the choices that Israel makes will likely be the same.

Newsweek >>> Why Israel Wont Change: Inside Obamas meeting with Netanyahu



Some exerts below for the available-time-deprived:

Obama agreed with Netanyahu [Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, head of the Likud Party and a fair bet to return to the prime minister's office] that "the paramount and most urgent issue is Iran," and that "a nuclear Iran is unacceptable not only to Israel but to the United States." Netanyahu "also made it clear to him that on the Iranian threat there is no dissension in Israel; this is a national attitude."

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Arad [Netanyahu advisor Uzi Arad—a former Mossad official who was present at the 45-minute talk] told me that he believed that the Democratic candidate for president concurred with Netanyahu as well about the sequence of events that must occur: On Iran "the clocks and centrifuges are clicking and spinning, and not only is time of the essence but the order of things is as well. Should one fail to neutralize that Iranian threat now, it would undercut anything that would be achieved with the Palestinians, Syria or Lebanon."

Obama, for his part, said he was for the use of "more carrots and sticks" and wanted to have dialogue and engagement policy with Iran before taking any other action, according to Arad. "Netanyahu reacted by saying that what is essential here are not means but the ends. … They are in agreement about the overall objective. Then Netanyahu added his considered judgment that the more credible the military option, the more likely it is that diplomacy with sanction will succeed." Obama's "body language conveyed" that he agreed with that as well, Arad said. He added that the two did not discuss whether a President Obama would support Israel if the Jewish state came to think it necessary to strike Iran.

But this source, who requested anonymity in discussing private conversations, said that Obama and Netanyahu "were in complete agreement on the goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon...

Another top adviser who accompanied Obama on the Middle East trip, former U.S. envoy Dennis Ross, said that the candidate met with senior officials from the major Israeli parties, and "I would say that among those within the government the one issue on which there was absolute unanimity was Iran." Obama, Ross added, "basically made it very clear that this was a ... critical national security interest of the United States."

There is also a lingering sense of doubt in Israeli security circles about Obama's firmness on Iran; if it looks like he'll win the presidency, Israel could decide to strike Iran before he's sworn in to assure the necessary support of the Pentagon. But the Democratic candidate seems to be working hard to address those doubts. The most Israel could expect would be marginal U.S. support, even from George W. Bush. The current Defense secretary, Robert Gates, recently wrote that a war with Iran would be "disastrous on a number of levels."

[Dux]

And what about Israel's nukes? what Jewnited Nations have to say about this? can Iran attack Israel to prevent them from having nukes?