Thread: Paper Details Obama Admin’s Alleged Secret Note Sent to Iran: If Israel Attacks, We W

Paper Details Obama Admin’s Alleged Secret Note Sent to Iran: If Israel Attacks, We Won’t Get Involved

September 3, 2012 bySharona Schwartz

The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot published a startling report Monday detailing a message it says was conveyed by the Obama administration – via two European countries – to Iranian officials. The request: if Israel decides to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, the U.S. will not support it and the Islamic Republic should refrain from retaliating on U.S. military installations in the Persian Gulf.


From the report by the well-connected diplomatic correspondent Shimon Schiffer [translated via hard copy by TheBlaze in Israel}

The message that the U.S. conveyed to Iran via the most sensitive secret channels is unequivocal: if Israel attacks, we won’t stand behind her and we won’t be drawn into war.

In recent days, senior American administration officials turned to their Iranian counterparts via two countries in Europe which act as a back-channel during times of crisis. They made clear to the Iranians that the U.S. does not intend to be sucked into a campaign if Israel decides to strike unilaterally and without advance coordination [with the U.S.], and they said that they expect from Iran that it will not attack strategic American targets in the Persian Gulf. That means, among other things, Army bases, Navy ships and aircraft carriers sailing in the region.

Israeli outlet Yediot Ahronot shows strategic U.S. military installments in the Middle East.

Accompanying the article, the newspaper created a graphic map (pictured above) of various U.S. assets in the region including troops in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia as well as U.S. vessels in the Gulf.

The secret contacts with the Iranians combined with a public statement last week by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey that he won’t be “complicit” in an Israeli attack is being interpreted in Israel as a message from the U.S. that the Jewish state is on its own in stopping Iran from obtaining a doomsday weapon with which to threaten the very existence of Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders have articulated a desire to wipe Israel off the map. Schiffer writes:

Israeli sources point to the unprecedented low-point in relations between the U.S. and Israeli defense establishments. It appears that the Obama administration decided to warn decision-makers in Israel of the destructive results of an attack without coordinating with the U.S. […]

If true, the report begs the question: If he truly wants to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability, why is President Obama investing in secret contacts with Iran about an Israeli strike aimed at destroying – or at least setting back – the nuclear program? Wouldn’t his efforts be better focused on warning Ahmadinejad of the dire consequences of his apparently accelerated efforts at one day possessing a military nuclear capability?

The Wall Street Journal may have an answer in an editorial this weekend. Though President Obama likes to say he has Israel’s “back,” “his Administration tries to sell to the public a make-believe world in which Iran’s nuclear intentions are potentially peaceful, sanctions are working and diplomacy hasn’t failed after three and half years.”

Also on Monday, The New York Times reported that President Obama is trying to find non-military ways to stall an Israeli attack and restrain Iran’s nuclear march, including naval exercises and new antimissile systems in the Persian Gulf. The Times reports that Obama officials are also considering implementing previously rejected covert activities as well as a new declaration by the president over what would prompt a U.S. military strike.

Report: Obama Administration Passed Secret Message to Iran: U.S. Won’t Support Strike Against Iran | TheBlaze.com

I wonder what Debbie Wasserman Schutz will tell her constituents...

We have beed 'dragged' into the conflict in Africa.

Liberal Harvard professor finds Democratic platform omissions on Israel ‘deeply troubling’


09/04/2012
By Jamie WeinsteinSenior Editor/CDaily Caller

Liberal Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told The Daily Caller that he finds the 2012 Democratic Party platform’s omissions on Hamas and Palestinian refugees “deeply troubling.”

“I think one shouldn’t give too much weight to platform pronouncements, but in this case, I think the omissions are troubling — particularly the omission about the Palestinian refugee issue and Hamas are, I think, deeply troubling,” he told The Daily Caller, responding to a report in the Washington Free Beacon demonstrating how this year’s Democratic Party platform is not as pro-Israel as in years past.

The Free Beacon report showed how while in 2004 and 2008 the Democratic Party platform called for Palestinian refugees to be settled in a future Palestinian state — and explicitly not in Israel — the 2012 platform makes no mention of the issue. Similarly, the 2012 platform doesn’t take a stand on dealing with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, yet in 2008 the platform declared: “The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements.”

On the issue of Jerusalem, this year’s Democratic platform doesn’t take the stand that the city is the capital of Israel, while in past platforms it was explicitly stated.

Dershowitz said he is concerned that this year’s Democratic Party platform will make Israel a partisan issue, something he thinks is not good for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“My goal is always to keep support for Israel a bi-partisan issue and never make a national election any kind of referendum on Israel,” he said. “I don’t think it is a good thing that the Republican platform seems to be more pro-Israel than the Democratic platform.”

Dershowtiz said that this is not the last the Democratic Party has heard about the platform as he is personally going to get to the bottom of what happened.

As soon as I hang up with you, I will call people I know in the White House and in the Democratic Party and find out what’s going on,” he said. ”But believe me this is not the last the Democrats will have heard about this issue. They will hear from me on this one.”

Dershowitz says while the platform debate could potentially just be chocked up to “carelessness,” he is afraid that anti-Israel extremists within the Democratic Party are having undue influence.

“It’s not the Democratic base. It’s extremists within the Democratic base who may have more influence than they should on platform,” he said. “I think extremists within the base may very well move the Democratic party away from its pro-Israel position.”

Noah Pollak, executive director of the conservative-leaning Emergency Committee for Israel, was less reticent than Dershowitz to tie the platform omissions to President Obama, suggesting that the changes are directly in-line with how the president has treated Israel while in office.

“Before this platform, the Obama administration had taken the Palestinians’ side on Jerusalem (not Israel’s capital), borders (negotiations should start at the 1949 armistice lines), and settlements (they should be frozen),” he emailed The Daily Caller.

“Now it appears Obama is taking the Palestinian side on a fourth issue — refugees.

It’s shocking that the administration would open up this controversy, as if flooding Israel with millions of bogus Arab ‘refugees’ and destroying the Jewish State demographically is up for discussion.”

Read more: Dershowitz finds Democratic Israel platform troubling | The Daily Caller