Officials: Obama coming to Israel to prevent strike on Iran

By JPOST.COM STAFF

The reason behind the urgency of the US president’s trip to Israel in spring – a time flagged by Netanyahu as significant in the Iranian nuclear program – is to tell him to leave the matter to the US, officials tell Army Radio.

The main purpose of US President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel in the spring is to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against attacking Iran, unnamed officials told Army Radio on Sunday.

According to the officials, the urgency of the trip is because in his speech to the United Nations in September, Netanyahu had flagged the spring of 2013 as a significant time in the context of the Iranian nuclear threat.

Therefore, they said, Obama is concerned that the prime minister will decide to attack Iran now when he is backed by a new government and can establish a new security cabinet, without Dan Meridor and Benny Begin, two Likud MKs and alleged opponents of such a strike who lost their Knesset seats in the recent elections.

The officials told Army Radio that the US president subsequently decided to transmit a direct message to Netanyahu: “Don’t attack Iran, let me handle matters with the Iranians according to my understanding, and if necessary I will take action, we have capabilities that you do not.”

At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Netanyahu said that he and Obama, when they spoke last month about the visit, agreed that it would focus on three central issues: Iran’s race toward nuclear weapons; the instability in Syria and how that impacts on regional security, and both Israeli and US interests; and efforts to move forward the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

February 10, 2013 | 60 Comments »

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  3. Honey Bee Said:

    What do you mean voting me down, I thought I was so lovable? Voting me off of what?

    Someone is consistently giving you the thumb down, i am talking about the green thumb and the red thumb that reside at the end of each comment.

    Someone wants you to become snack for lions 🙁

  5. There is a new comment on the post “Israel must pull out of settlements, UN report says”.
    https://www.israpundit.org/archives/52592

    Author: dweller
    Comment:
    @ dweller:

    Another exchange from the same thread:

    â?oYou called Dove boychik. Is that term for males only?â?
    “Yes. It originated amongst Slavic Jews, and is typically assigned with some affection to a young man seen to display more chutzpah than good sense.

    I assumed our correspondent to be male, as he/she presents as a Jew of fairly conventional mien.

    All-the-same, though, I could be wrong about the gender; I rarely give much thought to it anyway, except where matters of common courtesy & essential modesty are concerned. (Then too, when blogging, anybody can post any handle they like.)

    FWIW:
    The Hebrew name, ‘Dov’ (thatâ?Ts the spelling of the usual English transliteration) has the same root as David â?” and, like David, it means ‘beloved.’

    Itâ?Ts pronounced with an ‘almost long o sound [viz., the vowel is somewhat clipped, and more glottal, than it would be in American-accented English], not like the short ‘u’ in the English word represented in the species of bird, ‘Dove.’

    And, in my experience, itâ?Ts always been a Boyâ?Ts name â?” in Hebrew.

    Still, thereâ?Ts nothing sacred about tradition per se, and no reason it couldnâ?Tt be a Girlâ?Ts name.

    In any case, it surely wouldnâ?Tt be the first time we got it wrong on this site about who was who, gender-wise.

    As I recall, a few folks had PresentCompany pegged wrong in the gender dept for quite a while there; whatâ?Ts more, at least one poster also got YoursTruly wrong at first.

    Then too, posting on any blogsite has got to be something akin to having the entire household going for an early morning skinny-dip in the ocean

    â?” when you first come out to dry off, everything that dangles is so shrivelled from the cold water, itâ?Ts hard to tell the boys from the girls.

    So give us the news, Dove, the straight skinny (as it were) â?” once & for all â?” so we can clear it up & get on with more significant matters :

    Have we been â?~blasphemingâ?T a male god, or a female one?”

    DOV IN HEBREW MEANS BEAR!!!! You are an ignorant pompous AH!!!

  8. @ Honey Bee:
    When they come, i’ll move to Israel! (i know the song).
    Honey Bee do you have any idea who might be that is consistently voting you down? I mean it’s funny, someone actually takes the time to do it

  10. @ Honey Bee:
    dionissis mitropoulos Said:

    Your back!!!!!!!!!!! Just so you can insult Texas!!!!!!!!!!

    I retract the allegations against Texas. I admit not only that the Texicans are better than greeks, but also that i was there at the time of the battle and i was the one who was bribed by the Iranians and helped them win the Greeks.

    My name then was Ephialtis