Benjamin Netanyahu’s US visit (address on March 3rd on Iran, in joint session of Congress) has stirred controversy in three main areas: Obama didn’t
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Benjamin Netanyahu’s US visit (address on March 3rd on Iran, in joint session of Congress) has stirred controversy in three main areas:
Obama didn’t invite him and doesn’t want him there. The Republican speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu. This created an impression that the Israeli prime minister is teaming up with the Republicans to countermand or subvert President Obama’s strategy on Iran.
Elections are coming up in Israel. Netanyahu speaking just two weeks before a parliamentary poll on March 17, when he will bid for a fourth term, tramples on diplomatic protocol.
Mossad cast doubt on Netanyahu’s ‘they’re-this-close-to-having-the-bomb’ argument. In 2012, at the UN in New York, he insisted Iran was no more than a year away from being able to make a nuclear bomb. However, a secret report was leaked a few weeks later from his own secret service, saying Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”.