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      Israeli PM to Make Case Against Iran's Nuclear Ambitions to Congress

   by VOA News

   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to escalate his
   campaign against international diplomatic efforts to reach a nuclear
   deal with Iran during a speech before a joint meeting of Congress in
   Washington Tuesday.

   Netanyahu, who said he is privy to emerging details of the ongoing
   negotiations, fears the U.S. and its other world partners will give
   Iran too many concessions.

   Iran is sponsoring terrorism across the world -- enveloping the world
   with its "tentacles of terror," Netanyahu said Monday during a speech
   to AIPAC, the leading American pro-Israeli lobbying group.

   "Imagine what Iran would do with nuclear weapons," he added.

   Netanyahu is expected to use even harsher rhetoric on Capitol Hill.

   Iran sanctions

   He has said he thinks the so-called P5+1 group of global powers is
   planning to ease international sanctions without the ironclad
   safeguards needed to deny Tehran a nuclear bomb.

   The U.S. administration says that is just not true, and warned that
   Netanyahu could unravel the negotiations if he mobilizes US lawmakers
   in the Republican-held Congress against it.

   The White House is also wary of Netanyahu revealing any of the
   closed-door negotiations designed to curb Iran's nuclear drive.

   State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf warned Netanyahu against
   revealing details of the deal shared in confidence in classified
   briefings with the Israelis.

   "Any release of any kind of information like that would, of course,
   betray that trust," she said Monday.

   President Barack Obama on Monday appeared to wave off any prospect the
   bedrock U.S. alliance with Israel might be ruined by the rancor.

   "I don't think it's permanently destructive," Obama told Reuters in an
   interview. "I think that it is a distraction from what should be our
   focus. And our focus should be, `How do we stop Iran from getting a
   nuclear weapon?' "

   Netanyahu denied his acts had harmed the traditionally close US-Israeli
   alliance.

   "Reports of the demise of the Israeli-US relations are not only
   premature, they're just wrong," he said.

   Upcoming Israeli elections

   Also on Monday, Netanyahu voiced frustration his speech to Congress on
   Tuesday has created such controversy, in Israel and the U.S.

   He insisted his speech to Congress was not meant to show any disrespect
   toward Obama or the Oval Office, nor did he wish to make Israel part of
   a partisan debate.

   "Israel and the United States agree that Iran shouldn't have nuclear
   weapons. But we disagree on the best way to prevent them from
   developing those weapons," Netanyahu said.

   The prime minister said his speech would simply be about his nation's
   survival survival.

   "I plan to speak about an Iranian regime that is threatening to destroy
   Israel, that's devouring country after country in the Middle East,
   that's exporting terror throughout the world and that is developing, as
   we speak, the capacity to make nuclear weapons - lots of them,"
   Netanyahu said Monday.

   Adding to the controversy, the speech comes just two weeks ahead of a
   tight national election in which Netanyahu is fighting to hold onto his
   job.

   Obama does not plan to meet with Netanyahu while he's in Washington,
   saying he wants to avoid any perception that he is meddling in Israel's
   election.

   As many as 40 members of the House and more than a handful of senators
   are expected to skip the speech, which many have labeled a partisan
   political stunt.

   Vice President Joe Biden, president of the Senate, also won't be there.
   He's on a trip to Central America and his seat on the dais will be
   filled by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, president pro tempore.

   Many Democrats will be in the audience, however. Senator Joe Manchin
   from West Virginia said he would attend "to find out more about the
   prime minister's point of view on this."

   Hatch, from Utah, said Monday that Congress should complement the prime
   minister's address with the threat of more sanctions.

   "I am deeply troubled that our president's solution won't work," Hatch
   said. "This administration has opted for a policy of conciliation that
   does nothing to curb this growing threat. And all the while, the threat
   to Israel grows stronger every day."

   Nuclear negotiations

   Thousands of miles from the political storm unfolding in Washington,
   Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad
   Javad Zarif met early Tuesday after two brief negotiating sessions on
   Monday.

   Their morning talks lasted two hours, but they were expected to resume
   again in the afternoon with the negotiations due to stretch into
   Wednesday.

   Both sides said they were making progress.

   "We're working away, productively," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
   told reporters.

   However, a deal with Iran is far from guaranteed, given U.S.
   assessments that more than a decade of carrot-and-stick diplomacy with
   Iran might again fail to clinch a final accord.

   "I would say that it's probably still more likely than not that Iran
   doesn't get to yes," Obama told Reuters. "It is more likely that we
   could get a deal now than perhaps three or five months ago. But there
   are still some big gaps that have to be filled."

   Mark Heller, a political analyst at Israel's Institute for National
   Security Studies, says that after years of warning about the danger of
   a nuclear-armed Iran, it is hard to imagine what new angle Netanyahu
   will pursue on Tuesday.

   "He's been over this ground before many times and... if he doesn't come
   up with something truly explosive it's going to be a big letdown," he
   told the French news agency AFP.

   "I think he's going to have to pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat
   and reveal some information that's not out there in the public domain."

   Material for this report came from Reuters, AFP and AP.
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   gainst-irans-nuclear-ambitions-to-congress/2665829.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/israeli-prime-minister-to-make-case-against-irans-nuclear-ambitions-to-congress/2665829.html