ISRAELI PAPER DETAILS ALLEGED TENSE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN NETANYAHU AND U.S. AMBASSADOR OVER OBAMA’S IRAN POLICY: ‘LIGHTNING AND SPARKS FLEW

From the Blaze:

The incident took place when Republican congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers visited Netanyahu’s office for an Iran briefing, accompanied by the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Schiffer reports (translated via hard copy by TheBlaze in Israel):

Netanyahu, according to a source who participated in the meeting, was particularly surly and stressed. At the start of the meeting, he opened with a sharp attack on the Obama administration which according to him has not done enough on the Iranian issue. “Instead of effectively pressuring Iran, Obama and his people are pressuring us not to attack the nuclear facilities,” he said, and then moved on to a harsh criticism of the administration’s pronouncements indicating there is still room for diplomacy. “The time has run out,” he said resolutely.

At one point, an anomalous thing occurred in the office, which is very unacceptable in diplomatic code. Ambassador Shapiro who was appointed by President Obama and for years was among his closest advisers decided he’d had enough. Enough is enough. He spoke and answered Netanyahu politely but in a manner that left no room for doubt.

The ambassador in fact accused Netanyahu of distorting Obama’s position. He quoted the president, who promised he would not allow a nuclear Iran and said that all options – including a military strike – are on the table […]

Diplomatic sources who were privy to the incident say that “lightning and sparks flew” in the room, and that the exchange of words became more harsh.

And, then, our petty, self-driven President dramatically scaled back our planned military exercise with Israel:

Seven months ago, Israel and the United States postponed a massive joint military exercise that was originally set to go forward just as concerns were brimming that Israel would launch a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The exercise was rescheduled for late October, and appears likely to go forward on the cusp of the U.S. presidential election. But it won’t be nearly the same exercise. Well-placed sources in both countries have told TIME that Washington has greatly reduced the scale of U.S. participation, slashing by more than two-thirds the number of American troops going to Israel and reducing both the number and potency of missile interception systems at the core of the joint exercise. 

“Basically what the Americans are saying is, ‘We don’t trust you,’” a senior Israeli military official tells TIME. 

The reductions are striking. Instead of the approximately 5,000 U.S. troops originally trumpeted for Austere Challenge 12, as the annual exercise is called, the Pentagon will send only 1,500 service members, and perhaps as few as 1,200.  Patriot anti-missile systems will arrive in Israel as planned, but the crews to operate them will not.  Instead of two Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warships being dispatched to Israeli waters, the new plan is to send one, though even the remaining vessel is listed as a “maybe,” according to officials in both militaries. 

U.S. commanders privately revealed the scaling back to their Israeli counterparts more than two months ago.  The official explanation was budget restrictions.  But the American retreat coincided with growing tensions between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations on Israel’s persistent threats to launch an airstrike on Iran. The Islamic Republic would be expected to retaliate by missile strikes, either through its own intermediate range arsenal or through its proxy, the Hizballah militia, which has more than 40,000 missiles aimed at Israel from neighboring Lebanon. 

In the current political context, the U.S. logic is transparent, says Israeli analyst Efraim Inbar. “I think they don’t want to insinuate that they are preparing something together with the Israelis against Iran – that’s the message,” says Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. “Trust? We don’t trust them. They don’t trust us. All these liberal notions! Even a liberal president like Obama knows better.”

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