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US Secretary of State Threatens Israeli Boycott, Warns of ‘Deligitimization’ of Israel

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Photo Credit: CBSIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday brushed off U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s warning that Israel faced a growing boycott threat if peace talks with the Palestinians fail, saying the campaign would not achieve its goal.

In the latest flare-up between the two allies, two of Netanyahu’s Cabinet ministers went even further, lashing out at Kerry and accusing him of undermined the Jewish state’s legitimacy and the chances of reaching a peace agreement.

Israel and the Palestinians launched peace talks in July after a long lull and have thus far shown little signs of progress. Facing an April deadline, Israel is working against a backdrop of increasing international pressure to reach a deal, coupled with a growing call for boycotting Israel over its settlements in areas it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

A small but growing number of European businesses and pension funds have begun to drop investments or limit trade with Israeli firms involved in the West Bank settlements. At a security conference in Germany this weekend, Kerry warned that a breakdown in Israeli-Palestinian talks would accelerate this trend and could threaten Israel’s economic prosperity and its safety.

“You see for Israel there’s an increasing de-legitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There are talk of boycotts and other kinds of things,” Kerry said. “Today’s status quo absolutely, to a certainty, I promise you 100 percent, cannot be maintained. It’s not sustainable. It’s illusionary. There’s a momentary prosperity, there’s a momentary peace.”

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Poll: Two Thirds of Israelis Think Obama Will Let Iran Go Nuclear

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Photo Credit: Truth Revolt

Photo Credit: Truth Revolt

According to new poll, a huge majority of Israelis do not trust President Obama with regard to Iran, and believe Obama will allow Iran to go nuclear. Only 22 percent of Israeli voters believed that Obama would “ensure that Iran does not achieve a nuclear weapon.”

Almost two-thirds of Israelis thought that statement was untrue, and 15 percent gave no answer. President Obama has just a 33 percent favorable rating in Israel, as opposed to a 50 percent disapproval rating. Even those who favor Obama are split evenly on whether or not he will prevent Iran from going nuclear.

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Israeli Defense Minister: Kerry is ‘Obsessive,’ ‘Messianic’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Israel’s Defense Minister, Moshe “Boogy” Ya’alon, is facing criticism from the opposition after slamming U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported earlier on Tuesday that the outspoken Ya’alon had said that Kerry, who recently completed his tenth trip to the region in less than a year on the job, “turned up here determined and acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor” for a peace deal.

Ya’alon added: “In reality, there have been no negotiations between us and the Palestinians for all these months –but rather between us and the Americans. The only thing that can ‘save us’ is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace.”

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Israel Successfully Tests Arrow III Missile Shield

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel successfully tested its upgraded Arrow missile interceptor for the second time on Friday, pushing forward work on a U.S.-backed defense against ballistic threats it sees from Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas as well as from Iran and Syria.

One of several elements of an integrated Israeli aerial shield, Arrow III is designed to track and slam into ballistic missiles above the earth’s atmosphere, high enough to safely disintegrate any chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

Iran and Syria have long had such missiles, and Israel believes some are now also possessed by their ally Hezbollah, whose growing arsenal in Lebanon, stocked in part by Damascus, preoccupies the Israelis as their most pressing menace.

Friday’s launch of an Arrow III interceptor missile over the Mediterranean was the second flight of the system, but did not involve the interception of any target, officials said.

Israel deployed the previous version, Arrow II, more than a decade ago, rating its success in live trials at 90 percent.

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Iran Announces Refusal to Recognize Israel at United Nations Session

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Photo Credit: Screenshot

Photo Credit: Screenshot

As the United Nations General Assembly met to approve the credentials of member states on Thursday, Iran took the floor to announce its refusal to recognize the State of Israel.

The only nation to comment for the record on the routine procedure, Iran’s representative said that although the country voted in favor of the motion, it should not be seen as the Islamic Republic’s acknowledgement of Israel’s existence.

“My delegation has just voted in favor of this report, however, we would like to reiterate my government’s position that our support for this document should in no way be considered as the recognition of the Israeli regime,” she said.

In a statement provided to The Algemeiner, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, said that the statement was typical of Iran.

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Iran: Quran has Marked Israelis as ‘Rabid Dogs and Pigs’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller In the wake of news that Israel will send a delegation to Washington, D.C. to influence the Obama administration’s international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the Islamic Republic is stepping up its attacks on the Jewish state.

“This vicious temperament of dogs and pigs is you (Israel),” said Ayatollah Mohammad Imami Kashani, a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that appoints the supreme leader, at Tehran’s interim Friday prayer. “The Quran has marked on your foreheads that you will be humiliated. The Zionist officials are like animals, and truly as rogue thugs they do whatever they want, killing people, creating bloodshed and destroying whatever they want.”

Kashani said at this week’s Friday prayers sermon in Tehran that whenever Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears on television, “all of the world hates you. You are hated, humiliated and despicable and,” the ayatollah added in a putrid insult to make to a Jew, “have been immersed in the flesh of rabid dogs and pigs.”

Kashani also had harsh words for the Obama administration: “Nations of the world are the enemies of the Zionists and (America’s support of Israel) will have you share the misery of the Zionists.”

Kashani stated that uranium enrichment is Iran’s right and that America, Britain and Israel lie when they say Iran wants the nuclear bomb.

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Ayatollah: Do Not Include Israel in Negotiations, ‘Must be wiped off face of the earth’

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Photo Credit: WND An influential Iranian cleric has warned President Obama not to include Israel in any nuclear negotiations because the Jewish state must be destroyed.

“What is visible is that Obama has agreed to include the fake Zionist regime (Israel) in future negotiations,” said Ayatollah Mohammad Khatami, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts.

“However, we firmly believe [Israel] must be wiped off the face of the earth and we don’t recognize [its existence].” Khatami said according to IRNA, the official news agency of the Islamic Republic.

The Assembly of Experts is responsible for appointing the regime’s supreme leader.

After the six-month interim deal was reached last weekend, Obama asked in a telephone call to Benjamin Netanyahu that the Israeli prime minister “take a breather” in his vocal denunciation of the agreement. In return, the two agreed that Israel would send a delegation, headed by Israeli National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, to Washington to discuss strategy for a permanent agreement.

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Bachmann: Israel ‘May Have to Save World’ From Armageddon

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Photo Credit: WND It was a warning on the perils of appeasement reminiscent of Churchill.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., cut straight to the heart of the matter when WND asked her what the nuclear deal with Iran will mean.

“The major nations of the world have chosen to fail to thwart Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. It is a blunder of such great proportion, history will record it’s folly,” she ruefully predicted.

The congresswoman had an equally dire assessment when asked: Did the deal mean Israel would now have no option but to launch a preemptive strike on Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Israel may have ‘to save the world’

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French President In Joint Press Conf with Israeli PM Netanyahu Vows Tough Iran Stance

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Photo Credit: AP/Ariel SchalitVisiting French President Francois Hollande vowed to maintain his country’s tough stance in upcoming nuclear talks with Iran this week, earning praise from his Israeli hosts Sunday as he began a three-day visit to the Jewish state.

Israel has repeatedly voiced concern that the emerging deal global powers are negotiating with Iran gives it too much, without guaranteeing that the Islamic Republic’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon is eliminated.

Hollande vowed to keep up pressure on Iran and not make any concessions regarding nuclear proliferation.

“If there hadn’t been sanctions, if they hadn’t been enforced, it’s clear that we would never even have had the words from Iran — and I don’t yet speak of actions — that we had in the last few weeks,” he said In a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We have a duty to resolve this problem that has been under discussions for too many years because Iran for too long has participated in discussions without taking actions.”

Netanyahu has been outspoken in his opposition to a potential deal in which the international community would ease some sanctions on Iran in exchange for some curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. The countries fear that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, a charge Iran denies.

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French MP: If Sanctions on Iran are Loosened, Israel Will Attack (+video)

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Photo Credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90By Times of Israel Staff.

A French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday.

“I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.”

France’s Fabius is widely reported to have scuppered the finalizing of the emerging deal late Saturday, leading to the halting of the negotiations with Iran, and an agreement to reconvene on November 20.

Explaining his concerns to reporters in Geneva, Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium.

Habib, the deputy president of the Jewish umbrella organization in France, was elected to the National Assembly in Paris in June, to represent the district of southern Europe, which includes French nationals residing in Israel.

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Iran general: No doubt Israel and America will be attacked

By Reza Kahlili.

Even before the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the 5+1 world powers ended in Geneva early Sunday with no deal, an Iranian general lashed out at America Saturday and warned both the U.S. and Israel that they will be attacked.

According to Fars News Agency, the regime’s outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, said “America’s interests and all of Israel are within the range of the Islamic Republic and there is not the slightest doubt among Iran’s armed forces to confront the American government and the Zionists (Israel).”

Jazayeri said Israel is pulling the strings of Washington and “the American government is one of the most hated and evil governments in the world.”

The general mocked President Obama’s position that the military option remains on the table over Iran’s nuclear development. “If America had the ability and the will for war, it would allow no doubt in attacking Syria. America will soon find out that Iran’s power cannot be ignored.”

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