Netanyahu to American Jewish leaders: Iran getting closer to crossing nuclear line
(JNS.org) The Iranians are getting ever closer to developing nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Jewish American leaders on Monday in Jerusalem.
“I drew a line at the UN last time I was there,” Netanyahu told leaders from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, referring to the diagram of a bomb he presented to the United Nations General Assembly last September, on which he drew a red line symbolizing the danger of the Iranian quest for nuclear capability, setting a rough deadline of summer 2013 as the date by which Iran could have enough highly enriched material to produce a nuclear bomb.
“They haven’t crossed that line, but what they’re doing is to shorten the time that it will take them to cross that line,” the prime minister said, according to Israel Hayom.
Netanyahu said the way Iran is shortening that time “is by putting in new, faster centrifuges that cut the time by one third.”
“This has to be stopped, for the interest of peace and security, for the interest of the entire world,” he said.
The Conference of Presidents is the central coordinating body for American Jewry, representing 52 national Jewish agencies from across the political and religious spectrums.
To stop Iran’s nuclear progress, according to Netanyahu, “you have to put greater pressure on them.”
“You have to upgrade the sanctions,” he said. “And they have to know that if the sanctions and diplomacy fails, they will face a credible military threat.”
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Pro-Israel groups respond to Houston billboard calling for end to Israel aid
(JNS.org) The pro-Israel education group StandWithUs will counter a billboard in Houston calling for the end to U.S. military aid to Israel.
StandWithUs is partnering with Bridge Houston, a group representing pro-Israel residents of that city, on an advertisement appearing from Feb. 24-March 25 that will state the following: “Tell Congress Not to Support Palestinian Groups Like Hamas Because They Don’t Want Peace.”
“It’s impossible to make peace with a group that teaches its children to hate Jews and that Israel does not exist,” StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein said in a statement. “Blaming Israel alone for the lack of peace ignores Palestinian extremism.”
Bridge Houston and StandWithUs previously collaborated on billboards reading “Save Gaza From Hamas. Teach PEACE Not Hate” in July 2009, which were placed in response to “Pray For Gaza” advertisements in Houston that followed Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2009.
“Groups that misrepresent the struggle for peace in the Middle East, by inaccurately casting blame on Israel, should be placed on notice that organizations such as StandWithUs and Bridge Houston will always respond to one-sided misinformation,” Rothstein and Ira Bleiweiss, founder and director of Bridge Houston, said in a joint statement.
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Iran and Hezbollah build Syrian terror network to prepare for Assad’s fall
(JNS.org) Amid the Syrian civil war, Iran and Hezbollah are building a network of terror militias in Syria in the event of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s downfall, according to U.S. and Arab officials, the Washington Post reported.
Current reports indicate upwards of 50,000 militiamen are fighting in Syria on Assad’s behalf with Iran’s backing. Officials, however, believe their long-term goal is to maintain operatives in Syria if the country collapses.
“One is to support Assad to the hilt, the other is to set the stage for major mischief if he collapses,” an Arab official told the Washington Post.
Syrian remains are a deeply fractured country. The government is controlled by Assad’s minority Alawite clan—an offshoot of Shi’a Islam—and receives support from its Shi’a brethren, Iran and Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the rebellion has largely been driven by Syria’s Sunni majority with support from Sunni Arab oil giants like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But extremist Sunni groups like al-Qaeda have increasingly joined the rebellion as well. Other minorities like the Kurds, Christians and Druze have been caught in the crossfire.
“Syria is basically disintegrating as a nation, similar to how Lebanon disintegrated in the ’70s to ethnic components, and as Iraq did,” said Paul Salem, director of the Middle East Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, according to the Washington Post.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org