Tell Netanyahu that if he goes to war with Iran, he goes alone.

Is Israel preparing to attack Iran?

By David Ignatius, Published: February 2

BRUSSELS WAPO

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has a lot on his mind these days, from cutting the defense budget to managing the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But his biggest worry is the growing possibility that Israel will attack Iran over the next few months.

Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the United States could then stop them militarily.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action, which would be triggered by intelligence that Iran is building a bomb, which it hasn’t done yet.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak may have signaled the prospect of an Israeli attack soon when he asked last month to postpone a planned U.S.-Israel military exercise that would culminate in a live-fire phase in May. Barak apologized that Israel couldn’t devote the resources to the annual exercise this spring.

President Obama and Panetta are said to have cautioned the Israelis that the United States opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful international economic sanctions program and other non-military efforts to stop Iran from crossing the threshold. But the White House hasn’t yet decided precisely how the United States would respond if the Israelis do attack.

The Obama administration is conducting intense discussions about what an Israeli attack would mean for the United States: whether Iran would target U.S. ships in the region or try to close the Strait of Hormuz; and what effect the conflict and a likely spike in oil prices would have on the fragile global economy.

The administration appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets, which would trigger a strong U.S. response.

This U.S. policy — signaling that Israel is acting on its own — might open a breach like the one in 1956, when President Dwight Eisenhower condemned an Israeli-European attack on the Suez Canal. Complicating matters is the 2012 presidential campaign, which has Republicans candidates clamoring for stronger U.S. support of Israel.

Administration officials caution that Tehran shouldn’t misunderstand: The United States has a 60-year commitment to Israeli security, and if Israel’s population centers were hit, the United States could feel obligated to come to Israel’s defense.

Israelis are said to believe that a military strike could be limited and contained. They would bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz and other targets; an attack on the buried enrichment facility at Qom would be harder from the air. Iranians would retaliate, but Israelis doubt that the action would be an overwhelming barrage, with rockets from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. One Israeli estimate is that the Jewish state might have to absorb 500 casualties.

Israelis point to Syria’s lack of response to an Israeli attack on a nuclear reactor there in 2007. Iranians might show similar restraint, because of fear the regime would be endangered by all-out war. Some Israelis have also likened a strike on Iran to the 1976 hostage-rescue raid on Entebbe, Uganda, which was followed by a change of regime in that country.

Israeli leaders are said to accept, and even welcome, the prospect of going it alone and demonstrating their resolve at a time when their security is undermined by the Arab Spring.

“You stay to the side, and let us do it,” one Israeli official is said to have advised the United States. A “short-war” scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire. The Israelis are said to recognize that damage to the nuclear program might be modest, requiring another strike in a few years.

U.S. officials see two possible ways to dissuade the Israelis from such an attack: Tehran could finally open serious negotiations for a formula to verifiably guarantee that its nuclear program will remain a civilian one; or the United States could step up its covert actions to degrade the program so much that Israelis would decide that military action wasn’t necessary.

U.S. officials don’t think that Netanyahu has made a final decision to attack, and they note that top Israeli intelligence officials remain skeptical of the project. But senior Americans doubt that the Israelis are bluffing. They’re worrying about the guns of spring — and the unintended consequences.

davidignatius@washpost.com

All things about Israel and Palestine continued:

Regardless of the post, the conversation here seems to be fixated on the continuing conflict between Arab and Jew in Israel. I freely admit that I do not have the in depth knowledge of every aspect of the history of the area because I am not that interested in the area except as it disrupts the interests of the United States.

It is my belief that the majority of the wars and violence in the Middle East are a result of the disruption of the area by colonialism and a cultural clash between indigenous peoples and European transplants. It is no different than that which has transpired in the Balkans, Ireland and many parts of Africa. The claim that the land in Palestine is the natural home to people from another continent is validated because of their ancient religion is historically absurd. If you think not, apply the same standard to North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Canada and the Celtic regions of Great Britain. No honest person can take such a claim seriously. The myths and and religious culture of the area have no more basis in fact than the myths and cultures of any other human civilization on the planet. To think otherwise is the height of jingoism and cultural triumphalism.

What is true is that might makes right. A superior technology and a political will always trump sentimentality and reason until that monopoly is lost and it always gets lost.

I found this video on the history of the area. It is interesting and helps to put the present unsustainable situation in perspective. History has not been kind or sympathetic to countries that ruled by force of arms and technological superiority. It never lasts and neither will this one.

Leon Panetta Warns Israel About Growing Isolation

Posted at 08:22 PM ET, 12/02/2011

Panetta: Israel should ‘just get to the damn table’ with Palestine

By David Ignatius WASHINGTON POST

Obama administration officials often seem to be walking on eggshells when they talk about issues involving Israel. So it was interesting Friday night to hear Defense Secretary Leon Panetta forcefully caution a U.S.-Israeli audience about the dangers of bombing Iran and tell Israel to “just get to the damn table” in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Panetta was speaking to a gathering of the Saban Forum, an annual U.S.-Israeli dialogue about issues affecting the two countries. He made the comments in a unrehearsed question-and-answer session following what was a fairly cautious and predictable speech. He liked the “just get to the damn table” line so much that he repeated it, for good measure.

The most revealing answer came when Panetta was asked how long an Israel bombing attack on Iran would retard that country’s nuclear program. He argued that because targets are dispersed and hard to destroy, such an attack would likely delay Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon by only one to two years.

Against that meager potential gain, Panetta counterposed the danger of “unanticipated consequences,” including rallying support for a regime that is now isolated; the likelihood that the U.S. would be blamed and might be included in any retaliatory response; and the possibility of “escalation” that could broaden into a larger war in the region. For these reasons, he said, military action against Iran should be a “last resort.”

The audience included senior Israeli officials attending the forum. They gave Panetta a standing ovation at the end of his remarks, as they had at the beginning. He may also have earned an award for “chutzpah,” in voicing comments that are widely shared by U.S. officials but rarely expressed so bluntly in public.

'blaming the Jews and the Jewish state for their enemies’ behavior is what passes for polite conversation among Western elites today.’ - Carloline Glick

With Friends Like These...

By Caroline Glick

The slurs against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voiced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama after last week’s G20 summit were revealing as well as repugnant.

Thinking no one other than Obama could hear him, Sarkozy attacked Netanyahu, saying, “I can’t stand to see him anymore, he’s a liar.”

Obama responded by whining, “You’re fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.”

These statements are interesting both for what they say about the two presidents’ characters and for what they say about the way that Israel is perceived by the West more generally.

To understand why this is the case it is necessary to first ask, when has Netanyahu ever lied to Sarkozy and Obama? This week the UN International Atomic Energy Agency’s report about Iran’s nuclear weapons program made clear that Israel – Netanyahu included – has been telling the truth about Iran and its nuclear ambitions all along. In contrast, world leaders have been lying and burying their heads in the sand.

Since Iran’s nuclear weapons program was first revealed to the public in 2004, Israel has provided in-depth intelligence information proving Iran’s malign intentions to the likes of Sarkozy, Obama and the UN. And for seven years, the US government – Obama included – has claimed that it lacked definitive proof of Iran’s intentions.

Obama wasted the first two years of his administration attempting to charm the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program. He stubbornly ignored the piles of evidence presented to him by Israel that Iran was not interested in cutting a deal.

Perhaps Obama was relying on the US’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As Israel said at the time, and as this week’s IAEA report proves, it was the NIE – which claimed that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 – not Israel that deliberately lied about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the US intelligence community that purposely deceived the American government and people about the gravest immediate threat to US national security.

Israel, including Netanyahu, was telling the truth.

So if Netanyahu never lied about Iran, what might these two major world leaders think he lies about? Why don’t they want to speak with him anymore? Could it be they don’t like the way he is managing their beloved “peace process” with the Palestinians? The fact is that the only times Netanyahu has spoken less than truthfully about the Palestinians were those instances when he sought to appease the likes of Obama and Sarkozy. Only when Netanyahu embraced the false claims of the likes of Obama and Sarkozy that it is possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state west of the Jordan River could it be said that he made false statements.

Because the truth is that Israel never had a chance of achieving peace with the Palestinians.

And the reason this has always been the case has nothing to do with Netanyahu or Israel.

THERE WAS never any chance for peace because the Palestinians have no interest in making peace with Israel. As the West’s favorite Palestinian “moderate,” Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Egypt’s Dream TV on October 23, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I will never recognize the ‘Jewishness’ of the State [of Israel] or a ‘Jewish state.’” That is, Abbas will never make peace with Israel.

Acknowledging this, on Tuesday Netanyahu reportedly told his colleagues that through their recent actions, the Palestinians have abrogated the foundations of the peace process. As he put it, “By boycotting negotiations and by going instead to the United Nations [to achieve independent statehood], they [the Palestinians] have reneged on a central tenet of Oslo.”

That tenet, which formed the basis of the Oslo peace process, was “land for peace.”

As Netanyahu explained, Israel gave up land within the framework of the Oslo Accords. In exchange the Palestinians committed to resolve their conflict with Israel through direct negotiations that would lead to peace. Their UN gambit, like Abbas’s statement to Egyptian television, shows that the Palestinians – not Israel – have been lying all along. They pocketed Israel’s territorial concessions and refused to make peace.

So why do the likes of Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu? Why is he “a liar?” Why don’t they pour out their venom on Abbas, who really does lie to them on a regular basis? The answer is because they prefer to blame Israel rather than acknowledge that their positive assessments of the Palestinians are nothing more than fantasy.

And they are not alone. The Western preference for fantasy over reality was given explicit expression by former US president Bill Clinton in September.

In an ugly diatribe against Netanyahu at his Clinton Global Initiative Conference, Clinton insisted that the PA under Abbas was “pro-peace” and that the only real obstacle to a deal was Netanyahu. Ironically, at the same time Clinton was attacking Israel’s leader for killing the peace process, Abbas was at the UN asking the Security Council to accept as a full member an independent Palestine in a de facto state of war with Israel.

So, too, while Clinton was blaming him for the failure of the peace process, Netanyahu was at the UN using his speech to the General Assembly to issue yet another plea to Abbas to renew peace talks with Israel.

Clinton didn’t exhaust his ammunition on Netanyahu. He saved plenty for the Israeli people as well. Ignoring the inconvenient fact that the Palestinians freely elected Hamas to lead them, Clinton provided his audience with a bigoted taxonomy of the Israeli public through which he differentiated the good, “pro-peace Israelis,” from the bad, “anti-peace,” Israelis.

As he put it, “The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there; third, the Ashkenazis of longstanding, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel’s founding.”

As for the bad Israelis, in the view of the former president, “The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious who believe they’re supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they’re not encumbered by the historical record.”

BY RANKING the worthiness of Israel’s citizens in accordance with whether or not they agree with Clinton and his friends, Clinton was acting in line with what has emerged as standard operating practice of Israel’s “friends” in places such as Europe and the US. Like Clinton, they too think it is their right to pick and choose which Israelis are acceptable and which are unworthy.

On Wednesday we saw this practice put into play by British Ambassador Matthew Gould. This week the Knesset began deliberations on a bill that would prohibit foreign governments and international agencies from contributing more than NIS 20,000 to Israeli nongovernmental organizations. The bill was introduced by Likud MK Ofir Okunis with Netanyahu’s support.

According to Haaretz, Gould issued a thinly veiled threat to Okunis related to the bill. Gould reportedly said that if the bill is passed, it would reflect badly on Israel in the international community.

Last month, Makor Rishon published a British government document titled, “NGOs in the Middle East Funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”

The document showed that in 2010, outside of Iraq, the British government gave a total of £100,000 to pro-democracy NGOs throughout the Arab world.

In contrast to Britain’s miserly attitude towards Arab civil society organizations, Her Majesty’s Government gave more than £600,000 pounds to farleftist Israeli NGOs. These Israeli groups included the Economic Cooperation Foundation, Yesh Din, Peace Now, Ir Amim and Gisha. All of these groups are far beyond Israeli mainstream opinion.

All seek to use international pressure on Israel to force the government to adopt policies rejected by the vast majority of the public.

So for every pound Britain forked out to cultivate democracy in 20 Arab non-democracies, it spent £6 to undermine democracy in Israel – the region’s only democracy.

And the British couldn’t be more pleased with the return on their investment. Speaking to Parliament last year, Britain’s Minister of Middle East Affairs Alistair Burt said the money has successfully changed Israeli policies. As he put it, “Since we began supporting these programs some significant changes have been made in the Israeli justice system, both civilian and military, and in the decisions they make. They have also raised a significant debate about these matters and we believe these activities will strengthen democracy in Israel.”

In other words, as far as Britain is concerned, “strengthening democracy” in Israel means tipping the scales in favor of marginal groups with no noticeable domestic constituency.

These shockingly hostile statements echo one made by then-presidential candidate Obama from the campaign trail in February 2008. At the time Obama said, “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a[n] unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

Scarcely a day goes by when some foreign leader, commentator or activist doesn’t say that being pro-Israel doesn’t mean being pro-Israeli government. And like Obama’s campaign-trail statement, Clinton’s diatribe, Sarkozy and Obama’s vile gossip about Netanyahu and Britain’s self-congratulatory declarations and veiled threats, those who make a distinction between the Israeli people and the Israeli government ignore two important facts.

First, Israel is a democracy. Its governments reflect the will of the Israeli people and therefore, are inseparable from the people. If you harbor contempt for Israel’s elected leaders, then by definition you harbor contempt for the Israeli public.

And this makes you anti-Israel.

The second fact these statements ignore is that Israel is the US’s and Europe’s stalwart ally. If Sarkozy and Obama had said what they said about Netanyahu in a conversation about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or if Netanyahu had made similar statements about Obama or Sarkozy, the revelation of the statements would have sparked international outcries of indignation and been roundly condemned from all quarters.

And this brings us to the other troubling aspect of Sarkozy and Obama’s nasty exchange about Netanyahu. Their views reflect a wider anti-Israel climate. 

Outside the Jewish world, Sarkozy’s and Obama’s hateful, false statements about their ally provoked no outrage. Indeed, it took the media three days to even report their conversation. This indicates that Obama and Sarkozy aren’t alone in holding Israel to a double standard. They aren’t the only ones blaming Israel for the Palestinians’ bad behavior.

The Western media also holds Israel to a separate standard. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel and its elected leaders for the Palestinians’ duplicity. Like Obama and Sarkozy, the media blame Israel for failing to make their peace fantasies come true.

And that is the real message of the Obama- Sarkozy exchange last week. Through it we learn that blaming the Jews and the Jewish state for their enemies’ behavior is what passes for polite conversation among Western elites today. 

caroline@carolineglick.com

Turkey's Erdogan is Playing a Dangerous Game- No Surprise There

Turkey attempts to rally diplomatic alliance against Israel

Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that the Jewish state's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last year had been "grounds for war".

By Adrian Blomfield, in Jerusalem

8:36PM BST 12 Sep 2011 TELEGRAPH

Mr Erdogan arrived in Cairo last night intent on burnishing his populist credentials after casting himself as a rival to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, as Israel's critic-in-chief in the Middle East.

In what appeared to be a deliberate piece of timing designed to maximise the impact of his visit, Mr Erdogan's office yesterday released a previously unpublished transcript of a redacted interview he gave to Al Jazeera's Arabic language service last week.
In it, Mr Erdogan claimed that Turkey would have been justified in going to war after Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists during the interception of an aid convoy seeking to breach Israel's blockade of Gaza in May last year.

"The attack that took place in international waters did not comply with any international law," he said. "In fact, it was grounds for war. However, befitting Turkey's greatness, we decided to act with patience."

Mr Erdogan's comments appeared to be designed to rile Israel at one of the most strained moments in relations with the Jewish state, which until recently was a close Turkish ally.

Incensed by Israel's refusal to apologise for the raid, Mr Erdogan announced the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ankara earlier this month. He also downgraded diplomatic relations, suspended military ties and announced that warships would in future escort any vessels flying the Turkish flag that attempted to reach Gaza.
Although alarmed by the rapid deterioration of its relationship with one its few friends in the region, Israel has dismissed Mr Erdogan's increasingly bellicose rhetoric as sabre-rattling.

But while few believe Turkey has any wish to engage Israel, with its vastly superior military strength in a war, Mr Erdogan does seem to be intent on attempting to isolate Israel in the Middle East at a time of heightened vulnerability for the Jewish state.

Persistently rebuffed in his attempts to seek European Union membership for Turkey, Mr Erdogan has instead sought to concentrate on projecting power in the Middle East by presenting himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, traditionally the single most emotive issue among ordinary Arabs.

The Palestinian Authority is expected to submit a controversial application for statehood at the United Nations next week, in a move that will further raise tensions across the Middle East.

Mr Erdogan's visit to Egypt, once a part of the Ottoman Empire, is the first by a Turkish leader in 15 years and comes at a time of growing popular discontent against Israel on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere.

Over the weekend, rioters angered by Israel's inadvertent killing of at least three Egyptian border guards last month, ransacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Israel was forced to evacuate its ambassador and nearly all its diplomats from the country.
But Mr Erdogan's visit is reportedly being viewed with considerable mistrust among Egypt's transitional military leadership, which has taken charge of the country after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, the former president, in February.

Mr Erdogan had been expected last night to address crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the revolution against Mr Mubarak, but his speech was mysteriously cancelled.

In a further sign that Egypt would resist Mr Erdogan's anti-Israel advances, one of the ruling generals said a state of emergency would be expanded because of the storming of the embassy.

The announcement could further incense public opinion, already outraged after three protesters were reportedly shot dead in disturbances outside the embassy and elsewhere in Cairo over the weekend.

"If Israel falls, the West falls. That is why we are all Israel." - Geert Wilders

Wilders urges Israel to annex West Bank

Published on : 6 December 2010

Radio Netherlands

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has called on Israel to settle the West Bank. In a speech Mr Wilders gave in Tel Aviv on Sunday, he urged Israel to build more settlements in Judea and Samaria, as the West Bank is historically known, in defiance of international calls for a construction freeze.

The Freedom Party leader said that Israel needs defendable borders for its own survival and security: "A county that is only 15 kilometres wide is impossible to defend. That is the strategic reason why Jews need to settle Judea and Samaria".

Mr Wilders also said Palestinians should be allowed to voluntarily settle in Jordan. The country could then rename itself Palestine and the Palestinians could "freely elect their own government in Amman." The Dutch politician said there was no reason for the Jordanian king to become nervous: "If the present Hashemite King is still as popular as today, he can remain in power. That is for the people of Palestine to decide in real democratic elections."

He told his audience that the West too often points an accusing finger at Israel, which, according to Mr Wilders "is not to blame for the situation in the Middle East." The Dutch politician said he knew why the Palestinians are a problem in Israel: "Because the Palestinians were not welcomed in the neighbouring Arab countries. There was no Arab solidarity; the refugees were forced into camps and slums, where many of their descendants still linger today."

Mr Wilders also said that the United Nations has not handled the situation well: "Under international definitions the status of refugee or displaced person only applies to first generation refugees. However... descendants of Palestinian refugees are granted the same refugee status as their ancestors. Consequently, the number of so-called Palestinian refugees registered with the UN increased from 711,000 in 1950 to over 4.7 million in 2010. These refugees are being used as a demographic weapon against Israel."

Mr Wilders said the Jews had built new lives for themselves in Israel and that Palestinians should do the same in Jordan. The situation could then slowly return to normal, even though he warned that: "Islam... conditions Muslims to hate Jews. It is a religious duty to do so." He said it made him sick to see how Western leaders refuse to acknowledge that Israel plays a vital role in the region: "If Israel falls, the West falls. That is why we are all Israel."

Unlike his former personal visits to Israel, Wilders was in Tel Aviv on Sunday as the result of an official invitation by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

George W. Bush on George W. Bush

George W Bush ordered Pentagon to plan Iran attack

George W Bush laid plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities as president of the United States, his memoirs have disclosed.

By Heidi Blake Telegraph
Published: 7:05AM GMT 09 Nov 2010

George W Bush planned an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, his memoirs have disclosed Photo: AP

The former president also revealed that he considered a covert attack on Syria at Israel’s request in Decision Points, his 497-page account of his time in office.

Such strikes on the Middle East could have unleashed waves of revenge attacks against British and American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and might have seen Iran retaliate by blocking oil supplies to the west.

Mr Bush wrote on Iran: "I directed the Pentagon to study what would be necessary for a strike." He added: "This would be to stop the bomb clock, at least temporarily."

He disclosed that his national security advisors were split over the proposed attack, with some arguing that destroying "the regime's prized project" – its nuclear facility – would help the Iranian opposition, while others feared it would stir up Iranian nationalism against the US.

The former president said he discussed the plan of attack with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and says he ruled out the possibility of entering negotiations with Tehran.

He wrote: "One thing is certain. The United States should never allow Iran to threaten the world with a nuclear bomb."

Mr Bush also disclosed in the book, published today, that he discussed an air strike or a covert special forces raid on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria at the request of Israel.

"We studied the idea seriously, but the CIA and the military concluded it would be too risky to slip a team into and out of Syria," he wrote.

The Israelis carried out the attack themselves in September 2007.

In the book, Mr Bush also:

• Vigorously defended the use of waterboarding, a kind of simulated drowning that was known as an “enhanced interrogation technique” by the Bush administration but regarded as “torture” by many opponents, some allies and a few internal dissenters.

• Recounts his reaction after a third hijacked plane hit its target, the Pentagon, on September 11th 2001. He writes: “My blood was boiling. We were going to find out who did this, and kick their ass."

• Discloses that he ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• Describes how he considered a covert attack on Syrian nuclear facilities but decided against it when the CIA judged it too risky. Israel carried out a similar attack instead.

• Acknowledges he took "too long" to act over the Hurricane Katrina disaster that engulfed New Orleans in 2005, killing more than 1,800 people, but describes being accused of racism (many victims were black) as the lowest point of his presidency,
.

Should the US be Dragged Into a Third Asian War by Israel?

Netanyahu equates disapproval of Israel with hatred of Jews. He states that Israel is unique in the World in the threat that it faces from a possible nuclear Iran. He argues that Israel can only afford its military prowess by a strong entrepreneurial society that can fund the burden of defense.

Netanyahu argues the birthright of all Jews (in the US) is bound and tied to Israel. He then goes on to define the threat of Iran to the United States, demanding that the US must lead the World community and make clear by word and deed that it will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Netanyahu by implication is making the extraordinary claim that the US is bound to Israel and Israel cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

That sounds like an Israeli claim against the military assets of the US to join Israel in an inevitable showdown with Iran.

The United States, through huge expenditure and extraordinary defense commitments, has adjusted to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by first Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea. It has done so without military action against any of these powers. Netanyahu argues that things are different this time because of the unique threat of Islamic terrorism.

The conclusion to be derived from Netanyahu's argument is that to not be anti-Semitic, to be opposed to militant Islam and against Iranian development of nuclear weapons joint action must be taken and led by the United States. The implied threat is that without such action, Israel will go alone.

This is patent nonsense. Israel is a massive nuclear power in its own right. It has forward deployed nuclear assets capable of destroying any single or combined nuclear threat from any islamic state. Israel also has advanced anti-missile defense systems developed with support of the United States. Israel has an intelligence capability that has riddled every layer of Iranian society. The possibility of Iran being capable of planning and executing a nuclear attack against Israel and Israel being preemptively destroyed by Iran without an Israeli response is an outright fabrication.

Netanyahu boasted at his prowess in chess. He should know that to exchange a queen, two knights and both bishops for a pawn just ain't going to happen. The United States should make it very clear to Israel that if she takes on Iran preemptively there will be no automatic call on US support.

A third Asian war involving the United states will not protect Israel or make it stronger. it would be a calamity and a disaster for the US. It would result in the final assault on overextended and exposed US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and every other place on the planet by inflamed Islamic crazies.

It would be the final straw in the destruction of the US financial system. No US president should ever agree to such a reckless venture. Netanyahu needs to hear that and understand if he goes it alone, he goes it alone.

_____________________________________







U.S., Israel at Odds Over Iran Policy
Published November 08, 2010 | FoxNews.com

Though military action against Iran remains an option, the threat of force is not the only way to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned up pressure on the U.S. to take a tougher line.

Meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday in New Orleans, Netanyahu said that only a ‘credible’ threat of military action will ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons, a senior Israeli official said.

Although sanctions have hurt Iran, Netanyahu told Biden that Tehran will be determined to produce nuclear weapons unless it thinks a military strike is a real option, Israeli media reported Monday.

"Sanctions are important. They are increasing pressure on Iran. But so far there has not been any change in the behavior of Iran and upgrading of international pressure is necessary," Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman, quoted Netanyahu as telling Biden.

If Israel concludes that Tehran is close to a bomb it could launch its own military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities within months.

Speaking in Australia, Gates rejected the notion that Iran will only listen if it thinks it's about to be attacked.

The latest international sanctions are hitting Iran harder than that country's ruling regime had expected, and should be allowed more time, Gates insisted.

President Obama's administration, while not ruling out a military option against Iran, has so far stressed sanctions and diplomacy as its preferred course for dealing with Iran's nuclear program.

Iran insists its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs.

Israel, like the West, disputes Iran's claims that its nuclear program is energy driven. In the past, it has said it prefers to block the Iranian threat through diplomacy, though it has not ruled out a military strike.

Israel sees Iran as its fiercest threat because of its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to Israel's destruction.

The Associated Press and Newscore contributed to this report.

No Young Idealist Should Be Shot and Killed for Protesting.

Allison Krause was 19 when shot dead by US troops at Kent State.

A young American citizen on a civilian ship in international waters was shot and killed during an Israeli assault on the ship. The events that led up to the assault and what happened during are not yet known. Was it necessary for such an assault to have taken place and is there justification for it and the consequential deaths?

It is not the first time that a government overreacting to events made such a mistake. This time is was the Jewish State of Israel that was the government and one of the victims an American citizen of Turkish ancestry. It reminded me of an event years ago when four students were killed by US federal troops.

Three of the students shot to death by US troops at Kent State were of the Jewish tradition.

It was then, and is now, an infamous iconic event. What is not controversial was that four innocent idealistic young people were shot and killed in a protest event.

Today from the autopsy report conducted in Turkey, we learn of the fate of another young American protester:

A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. This time it was an Israeli soldier who did the killing.

To be consistent and intellectually honest is not always easy. At the time of Kent State, I supported the US effort in Viet Nam. I was viscerally opposed to the protestors and sympathetic to the US soldiers that killed them, but their leaders were wrong and the deaths were wrong.

Kent State disgusted many in the US who had previously supported the US war effort. Israel needs friends and allies. This foolish attack in the Mediterranean has cost Israel dearly. Questions need to be answered and the appearance of a cover-up should be avoided to prevent further damage.
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Remembering Kent State as an American Tragedy With a Jewish Face

THE JEWISH DAILY FORWARD
By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published April 28, 2010, issue of May 07, 2010.

KENT, OHIO — At 11 p.m. on May 3, a group of marchers will begin a candlelight vigil at Kent State University in Ohio to recall what is for many a distant echo from another era.

‘The Day the War Came Home’: Clockwise from top left, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer and Jeffrey Miller were killed when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students and bystanders during campus anti-war protests on May 4, 1970. The shootings came after some students hurled rocks at the soldiers.

The killing of four unarmed students by members of the Ohio National Guard during a national wave of campus protests against the Vietnam War will have its 40th anniversary this year. And as they have every year since 1971, those honoring the students’ memory will circle the area where the demonstrations took place and end up in the parking lot where they were killed.

There, the gathering will hear students from the campus Hillel recite the Kaddish.

The Jewish prayer for the dead has been recited regularly at this annual event since the early 1980s — a reflection of the fact that three of the “four dead in Ohio” famously memorialized in song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were Jewish.

Neither at the time of the shootings nor since has anyone looked closely at this odd fact — one that seems odder still for a campus where Jews have never made up more than 5% of those enrolled. Karen Weinberger, a sorority sister of Sandra Scheuer, one of the slain, recalled that back then “it wasn’t anything that was really of great significance. The significance was the fact that you had four students that died and nine that were injured.”

But if the shootings themselves were not a Jewish tragedy, the first commemorations of them were overwhelmingly so. “What happened that day was not a Jewish event,” said Tom Sudow, an alumnus who transferred to Kent State in the fall of 1973. “The response to May 4 in a lot of ways, though, became a Jewish event.”

Today, the killings are memorialized by no fewer than four separate markers at and around the site. They convey official recognition of what happened there by everyone from the campus administration to the federal government, to the Ohio Historical Society. But in 1971, as the first anniversary of the killings approached, there were no plans to do anything to note the date’s passing. The war in Vietnam was still raging, Richard Nixon was still president, and Kent State seemed unwilling to confront its recent bloody history. “It wasn’t, ‘Cover up,’” Sudow recalled. “It was, ‘If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.’”


‘Four Dead in Ohio’: Mary Ann Vecchio screams as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller during an anti-war demonstration on May 4, 1970.

It was the campus Jewish community that stepped up then. “Hillel was very involved and had a prominent role in commemorating the lives of the four students lost,” said Jennifer Chestnut, the current executive director of Hillel at Kent State.

The Kent State Hillel back then was housed in a rented apartment and had a staff of one: Rabbi Gerald Turk. A charismatic Orthodox rabbi known for his Bukharan yarmulke and his out-of-the-box programming, Turk led the effort to place a simple plaque bearing the names of the four victims on the ground of the parking lot where they died. Dedicated May 4, 1971, it was the first physical marker of the deaths on campus.

In 1974, the plaque was stolen and later returned, riddled with bullet holes. A granite replacement was rededicated by a group of faculty members on May 4, 1975. It remained the only physical memorial on campus until 1990, when the university administration dedicated its own memorial.

The Jewish community on campus still commemorates the events of May 4, often in the context of universitywide events. The candlelight walk and vigil — one of the most distinctive elements of the annual May 4 commemoration — exemplify this.

Initiated in 1971 by then assistant professor of sociology Jerry Lewis, the yearly walk begins in the area of the campus where the protests took place, and ends at midnight in the parking lot where Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder were killed. The midnight vigil continues, in 30-minute shifts, until 12:24 p.m. on May 4 — the exact time of the shootings.

Lewis, now a professor emeritus, has tried, by his own account, to keep the walk and vigil simple. But he did allow for one significant addition: “In the early 1980s, Rabbi Turk came to me and said, ‘Do you mind if I say Kaddish?’ I said, ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ because I knew that three of the students were of the Jewish tradition.”

In the meantime, as tempers have cooled, many of the questions about what happened then have been resolved, but not all.

When Nixon announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970, students on campuses across the country protested. At Kent State, students broke windows of some of the businesses in the city of Kent. And at 5 p.m. the next day, amid rumors of plans to destroy the ROTC building on the campus, the mayor of Kent summoned the National Guard. The ROTC building did go up in flames Saturday evening, May 2, and the guardsmen then cleared students from the area, using tear gas and bayonets.

The next day, Ohio Governor James Rhodes visited the campus — by then wholly occupied by the Guard. Rhodes, who was in a tough race for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, gave a speech designed to cement his position as a law-and-order candidate. He called the students who rioted “worse than the Brown Shirts and the communist element,” and promised to use “whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent.” On Monday, May 4, at a noontime protest, demonstrators defied dispersal orders from the guardsmen, with some of the students hurling rocks at them from a distance. After an extended standoff, 28 guardsmen fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds at a group of unarmed student demonstrators and nearby bystanders. Four were killed; nine were wounded.

Protesters Krause and Miller were both Jewish. Scheuer and Schroeder, were bystanders, Scheuer being the third Jew.

In September 1970, a federal panel established to investigate the Kent State deaths — as well as the killing of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi and campus unrest nationwide —condemned the “indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students” at Kent State as “unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.”

In the years since, numerous articles, books, government inquiries, TV specials and films have attempted to answer some of the difficult questions about “the day the Vietnam War came home.” Were students armed, as was initially reported? (No.) Were guardsmen ordered to fire? (It appears that they were — though no individual was ever clearly identified or held accountable for giving the order.) Were so-called outside agitators responsible for inciting the students to protest? (Possibly, but every one of the dead and wounded was a full-time Kent State student.)

Alan Canfora, a Kent State alumnus who was among the wounded protesters, recalled, “There were about 500 protesters there, and another 1,500 bystanders.” That three of the slain were Jews, he said, was “just an extremely unlikely mathematical probability.” No one believes they were — or could have been — especially targeted.

Few beyond the Kent State campus know about the Jewish connection to the events of May 4. But in 1970, at least some American Jews were aware of their connection to Krause, Miller and Scheuer. “I heard from so many people,” said Elaine Holstein, Miller’s mother, “and I know there were people in the Jewish community. Most people were very supportive.”

Canfora, as director of the Kent May 4 Center, for years has been collecting materials related to the shooting. When the Krause and Scheuer families invited him to retrieve materials from their houses for his archive in the 1990s, he found “numerous letters from synagogues across the country” among the papers. Each family had also received “hundreds of certificates,” Canfora said, “where members of the Jewish community across our country had purchased a tree in Israel and planted it in memory of our martyrs.”

In recent years, the university has become more comfortable with the legacy of May 4. At the urging of students, faculty and alumni, Kent State has established a number of memorials to the slain and wounded students. Earlier this year, part of the campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And later this year, the university will open the May 4 Visitors Center, which tells about the history of the university’s darkest day.

But to all this, Doris Krause, whose daughter, Allison, was 19 when she was killed, responded as any mother would. “I wish it weren’t so,” she said.

Four Turks Amongst the Killed. Israel Orders Diplomat's Families out of Turkey.

Israel Orders Families of Diplomats Out of Turkey
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 2, 2010

Filed at 1:14 a.m. ET

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli media say the Foreign Ministry has ordered the families of its diplomats in Turkey to leave that country because of the uproar over Israel's deadly naval raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

State-run Israel radio and other stations and newspapers say the diplomatic mission itself will remain in Turkey.

A ministry spokesman would neither confirm nor deny Tuesday's reports.

At least four Turkish activists were among the nine killed by Israeli naval commandos in the raid Sunday on an international flotilla bringing aid to Gaza.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of a ''bloody massacre'' and thousands of Turks have protested across the country.

HAVE NO FEAR. OBAMA IS IN CHARGE:

Israel Attacks Palestinian Relief Ships

14 Deaths Reported as Israel Attacks Aid Flotilla
By ISABEL KERSHNER
Published: May 31, 2010

JERUSALEM — The Israeli Navy attacked a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza on Monday morning, news agencies reported, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 30.

The warships first intercepted the aid flotilla shortly before midnight on Sunday, surprising the boats in international waters, according to activists on one vessel. Israel had vowed not to let the flotilla reach the shores of Gaza, where the Islamic militant group Hamas holds sway.

Named the Freedom Flotilla, and led by the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the convoy of six cargo and passenger boats is the most ambitious attempt yet to break Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza. About 600 passenegers were said to be aboard the vessels, including the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mairead Corrigan-Maguire of Northern Ireland, and a Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, 85.

Channel 10, a private station in Israel, quoted the Israeli Trade Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, as saying between 14 and 16 people had been killed on one of the flotilla ships. He said on Israeli Army Radio that commandos boarded the ship by sliding down on ropes from a hovering helicopter, and were then struck by passengers with “batons and tools.”

“The moment someone tries to snatch your weapon, to steal your weapons, that’s where you begin to lose control,” Mr. Ben-Eliezer said, quoted by Reuters.

An Israeli television station reported 10 deaths, according to Reuters, an account that was confirmed on Army Radio, according to Bloomberg News. Israeli Radio reported three Israeli commandos had been lightly injured.

Three Israeli Navy missile boats left the Haifa naval base in northern Israel a few minutes after 9 p.m. local time on Sunday, planning to intercept the flotilla. After asking the captains of the boats to identify themselves, the navy told them they were approaching a blockaded area and asked them either to proceed to the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, or to return to their countries of origin.

The activists responded that they would continue toward their destination, Gaza.

Speaking by satellite phone from the Challenger 1 boat, which has foreign legislators and other high-profile figures on board, a Free Gaza Movement leader, Huwaida Arraf, said: “We communicated to them clearly that we are unarmed civilians. We asked them not to use violence.”

Earlier Sunday, Ms. Arraf said the boats would keep trying to move forward “until they either disable our boats or jump on board.”

The Israeli Defense Forces said in an earlier statement that if the flotilla members ignored warnings to stop and continued toward Gaza “they will be arrested, brought to Israel’s shores and transferred to the Ministry of Interior and the immigration authorities so they can be sent back to their country of origin.”

“The security forces will take possession of the aid expected to be on board the flotilla,” the statement said, “and following a security check of the goods, the items will be transferred into the Gaza Strip.”

In Ankara, the Turkish capital, local TV stations showed angry protesters confronting police officers outside the Israeli consulate on Monday morning.

Biden Expresses Fealty to Israel then Gets Shanked

NOBODY MESSES WITH JOE

Israel blindsided Vice President Joe Biden's fence-mending mission Tuesday by announcing a settler building boom in East Jerusalem.

The move to expand an Orthodox Jewish settlement by 1,600 units embarrassed Biden, who was trying to jump-start "indirect" talks with the Palestinians.

Biden showed his anger by arriving 90 minutes late for dinner at the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I condemn the decision" by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai to build in the area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel, Biden said in an unusually undiplomatic statement.

He called the announcement "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel."

The flareup came ahead of Biden's visit Wednesday to the West Bank for meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose aides suggested the proposed talks with Israel through U.S. special envoy George Mitchell might now be canceled.

"Israel is not interested in negotiations, nor in peace," Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rudainah told Reuters.

Earlier, Biden pledged an enduring U.S. commitment to Israel's security and to preventing Iran from going nuclear. Netanyahu repeated Israel's longstanding demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Israeli newspapers said the blowup with Biden had effectively scuttled immediate prospects for direct talks with the Palestinians and damaged relations with Israel's closest ally. New York Daily News






First praise, then a rebuke: Biden’s Israel visit turns sour

US Vice-President condemns plans for hundreds of new homes in occupied territory

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Independent

The Israeli government last night managed to overshadow a high-profile visit by the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, with an announcement of controversial and politically highly sensitive plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish residents in Arab East Jerusalem.

The announcement from the Interior Ministry – which drew a sharp and swift rebuke from Mr Biden himself – came only hours after the Vice-President had personally congratulated the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for "taking risks for peace".

The disclosure of the plan, infuriating the Palestinian leadership the day after it had finally agreed to US-brokered indirect "proximity" talks with Israel – followed an explicit appeal on Monday by President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to both sides in the conflict "to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks".

The Vice-President declared last night that he condemned the "substance and timing" of the announcement, "particularly with the launching of proximity talks" as "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel".

The Interior Ministry had said earlier that there would be 60 days to allow appeals against the plan for a substantial expansion of the existing Ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem "neighbourhood" of Ramat Shlomo. Most of the international community, which has never accepted Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem, regards the district as a settlement.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, reacted angrily to news of the expansion. "With such an announcement, how can you build trust?" he said. "This is destroying our efforts to work with Mr Mitchell. It's a really disastrous situation. I hope that this will be an eye-opener for all in the international community about the need to have the Israeli government stop such futile exercises."

Israeli officials indicated last night that the revelation had come as a "surprise" to Mr Netanyahu, who was not consulted about its timing by the right-wing Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, leader of the Sephardic Ultra-Orthodox party Shas, and a key component of Mr Netanyahu's ruling coalition.

In a hasty damage limitation exercise last night, Mr Yishai's spokesman said the meeting of the committee which approved the plan had been "determined in advance" and insisted "there there is no connection to US Vice-President Joe Biden's visit to Israel". His statement added that Mr Yishai had "updated" Mr Netanyahu "this evening".

Nevertheless Palestinian leaders will point to the disclosure as strong evidence of what they see as the relentless growth of Jewish settlement construction in East Jerusalem and a further vindication of the demands they have made – in vain – for a total halt to such expansion in order to improve the atmosphere for negotiations with Israel.

Mr Netanyahu last year rejected the urgings of President Barack Obama for a settlement freeze to help kick-start peace talks and instead announced a 10-month temporary and partial freeze, one which did not stop Israel's announcement on Monday of 112 new homes in the – also Ultra-Orthodox – settlement of Beitar Illit.

The rapid expansion of Ultra-Orthodox housing east of the "green line" that was Israel's border up to the Six Day War in 1967 is driven as much by the desire to accommodate the large families of Israel's rapidly growing Ultra-Orthodox population as by the ideology which informs much of the rest of Jewish settlement in occupied territory.

But that makes little difference to the fears of Palestinians that "facts on the ground" are being created which make it increasingly difficult to envisage the contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza which they regard as the only acceptable outcome of peace talks.

Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem council member for the leftist Meretz Party, said that "the fact that Eli Yishai couldn't restrain himself for another two-three days until Biden left Israel means his intention was to slap the US administration in the face". He added that the announcement was "a provocation to the US and to the Prime Minister".

The latest row will create unwelcome difficulties for a visit in which Mr Biden has been seeking to proclaim strong US loyalty to the security interests of Israel – which is increasingly restive about Iran's nuclear ambitions – as well as helping to kick-start negotiations with the Palestinians.

"Iran is our friend"

So it goes in Iran. They Iranians appear to have supporters in Russia, China and Turkey. Turkey is turning against Israel. You don't have to be weatherman to see which way the wind blows.

___________________


'Iran is our friend,' says Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

• We have no difficulty with Ahmadinejad – Erdogan
• Warning to Europe not to ignore Turkey's strengths
The Guardian

With its stunning vistas and former Ottoman palaces, the banks of the Bosphorus – the strategic waterway that cuts Istanbul in half and divides Europe from Asia – may be the perfect place to distinguish friend from foe and establish where your country's interests lie.

And sitting in his grandiose headquarters beside the strait, long the symbol of Turkey's supposed role as bridge between east and west, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had little doubt about who was a friend and who wasn't.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's radical president whose fiery rhetoric has made him a bête noire of the west? "There is no doubt he is our friend," said Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister for the last six years. "As a friend so far we have very good relations and have had no difficulty at all."

What about Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, who has led European opposition to Turkey's bid to join the EU and, coincidentally, adopted a belligerent tone towards Iran's nuclear programme? Not a friend?

"Among leaders in Europe there are those who have prejudices against Turkey, like France and Germany. Previously under Mr Chirac, we had excellent relations [with France] and he was very positive towards Turkey. But during the time of Mr Sarkozy, this is not the case. It is an unfair attitude. The European Union is violating its own rules.

"Being in the European Union we would be building bridges between the 1.5bn people of Muslim world to the non-Muslim world. They have to see this. If they ignore it, it brings weakness to the EU."

Friendly towards a religious theocratic Iran, covetous and increasingly resentful of a secular but maddeningly dismissive Europe: it seems the perfect summary of Turkey's east-west dichotomy.

Erdogan's partiality towards Ahmadinejad may surprise some in the west who see Turkey as a western-oriented democracy firmly grounded inside Nato. It has been a member of the alliance since 1952. It will be less surprising to Erdogan's secular domestic critics, who believe the prime minister's heart lies in the east and have long suspected his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP) government of plotting to transform Turkey into a religious state resembling Iran.

Erdogan vigorously denies the latter charge, but to his critics he and Ahmadinejad are birds of a feather: devout religious conservatives from humble backgrounds who court popular support by talking the language of the street. After Ahmadinejad's disputed presidential election in June, Erdogan and his ally, the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, were among the first foreign leaders to make congratulatory phone calls, ignoring the mass demonstrations and concerns of western leaders over the result's legitimacy.

Talking to the Guardian, Erdogan called the move a "necessity of bilateral relations". "Mr Ahmadinejad was declared to be the winner, not officially, but with a large vote difference, and since he is someone we have met before, we called to congratulate him," he said.

"Later it was officially declared that he was elected, he got a vote of confidence and we pay special attention to something like this. It is a basic principle of our foreign policy."

The gesture will be remembered when Erdogan arrives in Tehran this week for talks with Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, that will focus on commercial ties, including Turkey's need for Iranian natural gas. Ahmadinejad has voiced his admiration for Erdogan, praising Turkey's recent decision to ban Israel from a planned Nato manoeuvre in protest at last winter's bombardment of Gaza.

Since the election, Iran has witnessed a fierce crackdown on opposition figures that has resulted in activists, students and journalists being imprisoned and publicly tried. Detainees have died in prison, and there have been allegations of torture and rape. Some of those alleging mistreatment have sought refuge in Turkey.

But Erdogan said he would not raise the post-election crackdown with his hosts, saying it would represent "interference" in Iranian domestic affairs.

He poured cold water on western accusations that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, saying: "Iran does not accept it is building a weapon. They are working on nuclear power for the purposes of energy only."

Erdogan has overseen a dramatic improvement in the previously frigid relations between Turkey and Iran, which was viewed with suspicion by the pro-secularist high command of the powerful Turkish military. Trade between the two countries last year was worth an estimated £5.5bn as Iran has developed into a major market for Turkish exports.

Erdogan's views will interest US foreign policy makers, who have long seen his AKP government as a model of a pro-western "moderate Islam" that could be adopted in other Muslim countries. They will also find an audience with President Barack Obama, who signalled Turkey's strategic importance in a visit last April and has invited the prime minister to visit Washington. They are unlikely to impress Israel, which has warned that Erdogan's criticisms risk harming Turkey's relations with the US.

Erdogan dismissed the notion, saying: "I don't think there is any possibility of that. America's policy in this region is not dictated by Israel."

He insisted that the Turkey-Israel strategic alliance – which some AKP insiders have said privately is over – remains alive but chided the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who he said had threatened to use nuclear weapons against Gaza.