secret letter

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has responded to overtures from US President Barack Obama amid nuclear talks by sending him a secret letter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Citing an Iranian diplomat, the paper said the Iranian cleric had written to Obama in recent weeks in response to a presidential letter sent in October.

Khamenei's letter was "respectful," it quoted the diplomat as saying.

The White House declined to comment on the president's "private correspondence" when reports surfaced last year of his penning letters to the Iranian leader, and consistently, they declined to comment on this latest report.

But asked whether negotiations between the US administration and Iran were focused exclusively on Iran's nuclear program, or otherwise included discussion of other regional matters, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the focus remained.

"I can confirm that the nuclear negotiations are still focused on the nuclear issue only," Meehan told The Jerusalem Post. "There has been no change to that policy."

According to last years reports, Obama's secret letter to  Khamenei stressed the two countries' shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, and said cooperation between the US and Iran on combating the militant group was tied to a deal being reached between Iran and other nations on its nuclear program.

horrible point

Obama’s submission to Iran is worse than we imagined. It means war. A war of unimaginable proportions. This deal is not a gamechanger, it’s a worldchanger.
It is no wonder that Obama is hellbent on stopping Prime Minister Netanyahu from speaking to the Congress next month. He will reason with them. The truth will expose Obama’s perfidy.
This isn’t politics or partisan gamesmanship. This is life and death, my friends.
Should Obama steamroll over Congress and ram this death deal through, the free world has only one hope – -in the country she has done more to undermine than any other on earth, Israel.
My good friend Paul Schnee has this to say about Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran: “Seldom in American history has the United States and her allies been in such lethal danger as they are in now. President Obama’s agreement with Iran, if concluded, will leave the Iranian mullahs with most of their centrifuges spinning away with the ability to become a nuclear power within a matter of months.
The terms of the agreement are so bad that they are forcing Democrats to choose between safeguarding America’s vital security interests or remaining loyal to a president whose ardent and determined pursuit of his anti-West ideology has placed the country he is supposed to be leading upon a trap-door which could be sprung by Iran almost at any moment.
For her very survival this will leave Israel with little choice but to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to secure not only her own safety but also, ironically enough, the safety of America and the West.
At that point Israel will face ferocious attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah and perhaps from the Palestinian Authority’s militia. Israel will suffer a tremendous loss of life. Iran may then unleash its terrorist cells already operating within the United States murdering many of our citizens and the cry you will hear from Iran will be, “Look what the Jews made us do!!” However, it will be Obama’s suicidal policies which precipitated this disaster placing us teetering on the brink of World War III.
You will notice from the article below that the analytical powers of Henry Kissinger at 91 years of age exceed that of every member of the White House’s national security apparatus combined.
Please contact all of your senators and congressmen and demand that Obama’s deal, which puts us all in mortal peril, be pole-axed and that any future agreement MUST be approved by the Congress of the United States where we, THE PEOPLE, govern.”

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel lends support to Netanyahu's Congress speech

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel is lending his support to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's March 3 speech to Congress on the dangers of Iran's nuclear program - an address that has antagonized the White House and divided American Jews.
An outspoken New Jersey Orthodox rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, said on Thursday he is placing full-page advertisements in two of the leading U.S. newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, featuring Wiesel's endorsement of Netanyahu's speech.
Blindsided by the invitation that Republicans in Congress extended to Netanyahu, President Barack Obama has declined to meet the Israeli leader, citing what he has said is U.S. protocol not to meet world leaders before national elections, due to take place in Israel on March 17.
The advertisement quotes Wiesel as saying he plans to attend Netanyahu's address "on the catastrophic danger of a nuclear Iran." Awarded the Nobel in 1986, Wiesel asks Obama and others in the ad: "Will you join me in hearing the case for keeping weapons from those who preach death to Israel and America?"
Speaking to Reuters by phone, Boteach said: "There's no personality more respected in the global Jewish community and few in the wider world than Elie Wiesel. He is a living prince of the Jewish people."
"He is the face of the murdered 6 million (Jews killed in the Holocaust). So I think that his view on the prime minister's speech sounding the alarm as to the Iranian nuclear program carries a unique authority that transcends some of the political circus that has affected the speech," Boteach said.
Boteach, the author of books including "Kosher Sex," was the Republican nominee in 2012 for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost to Democratic incumbent Bill Pascrell.
Deep divisions
Wiesel, 86, who has written extensively of his imprisonment in Nazi camps, is the latest to join a fray that has exposed deep divisions among American Jews over the policy and propriety behind a speech in which Netanyahu is expected to criticize Obama's effort to forge an international nuclear deal with Iran.
The United States boasts the largest Jewish population outside Israel. American Jews, who make up roughly 2 percent of the U.S. population, historically have been a strong pro-Israel force in American politics.
John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, invited Netanyahu. Detractors say Netanyahu, who has long warned the West of the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, is working with Republicans to thumb their noses at Obama, a Democrat. Neither Boehner nor Netanyahu consulted the U.S. president.
This week J Street, a Democratic-leaning pro-Israel group, started a petition drive opposed to Netanyahu's speech. Prominent Jewish leader Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League denounced that effort as "inflammatory and repugnant."
The Republican Jewish Coalition lobbying group launched a petition countering J Street's campaign, titled "Stand with Bibi," and has promised to publicize which U.S. lawmakers boycott the speech. 
'Bibi doesn't speak for me'
J Street said it had gathered more than 20,000 signatures for a petition asking Jews to say "Bibi does NOT speak for me," using Netanyahu's nickname, in response to Netanyahu calling himself not just Israel's prime minister but also "a representative of the entire Jewish people."
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, said American Jews had long been divided, with Republican Jews backing Netanyahu's right-wing government and liberal Jews more in line with the Israeli opposition.
"Perhaps the biggest mistake the prime minister has made is allowing his speech to be the wedge that has driven that argument more public," Ben-Ami said.
He said about 70 percent of Jewish Americans vote Democratic and roughly a quarter identifies as Republican.
"But today, with a really divided society on both sides of the ocean, both there and here, it isn't possible any longer for there to be a single voice representing the views of all Jewish Americans," Ben-Ami said.
Some of Netanyahu's critics accuse him of placing ties to Republicans above Israel's relations with the United States, its most important ally. U.S.-born Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to Washington, is a former Republican political operative.
Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and the most senior U.S. senator, said this week he would not attend Netanyahu's speech and accused Republicans of orchestrating what he called "a tawdry and high-handed stunt that has embarrassed not only Israel but the Congress itself."
Matt Brooks, the Republican Jewish Coalition's executive director, countered: "It's important for the Jewish community to know that members of Congress have a choice ... whether they're going to stand with the prime minister of Israel and the Jewish community in opposition to a nuclear Iran, or whether they're going to put partisan politics ahead of that and stand with President Obama." 

The Zionist Union is the poor man’s Likud

The election campaign waged by the Zionist Union belies the declarations of its leaders, Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni, who state their wish to replace the current government. The slogan “It’s us or him” was recently changed to “Only a sucker would vote for Netanyahu,” but the essential message remains unchanged: the problem with the Likud government lies in Benjamin Netanyahu’s personality, not in his destructive policies.
Livni and Herzog are marketing themselves as people who will do a better job than Netanyahu in carrying out the foreign and defense policies of the Likud, covered in a patina of empty promises such as “we’ll return money to the public” or “free land for an apartment of your own.”
This week, Herzog and Livni joined right-wing parties in supporting the disqualification of MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad) from running for the Knesset, thus also aligning themselves with the Likud on issues of democracy, respect for minorities and the guaranteeing of freedom of expression. One could argue that this is only a tactic for luring Likud voters who are disenchanted with Netanyahu, but it increasingly seems that the Zionist Union’s tactics are also its strategy.
The main objective of the right-wing government, led by Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, is the annexation of the West Bank and the consolidation of an apartheid regime in which millions of Palestinians devoid of civil rights live alongside increasing numbers of settlers who conduct themselves as lords of the land.
A secondary objective is the suppression of the political and communal aspirations of Israel’s Arab citizens. Anyone wishing to replace this government must first of all take a strong stand against the transformation of Israel into an apartheid state, while striving to incorporate its Arab citizens into an egalitarian state. These are the fateful issues facing Israel, not the cost of apartments or pre-school child care.
On the Zionist Union’s website, the section dealing with ‘political horizons’ promises to “mobilize the world’s support in our combat against terror and our neighbors” — in other words, to manage the conflict with the Arab world better than Netanyahu. Herzog and Livni have even given up on claiming to strive for peace with the Palestinians, implicitly agreeing with Netanyahu and Bennett that there is no partner and that we need to live with (in Bennett’s words) “shrapnel in our backside.” If these are their positions, it’s no wonder that Netanyahu is beating them in opinion polls. People who support Likud policies prefer the original to the poor imitation offered by Herzog and Livni.

Analysis: Hezbollah fighters, Iranian operatives flowing into southern Syria

Just a few weeks after an air strike killed 12 Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps operatives in southern Syria, recent days’ headlines are again reporting the presence of Iranian-backed Shi’ite forces in the area.

According to international media reports, Israel carried out the January 18 air strike, with Western intelligence sources later saying that the targets were setting up a significant Iranian-Hezbollah terrorist base designed to target Israel.

The Syrian civil war has allowed Hezbollah to extend its reach from its home base in southern Lebanon, into southern Syria.

Today, the same forces appear to be back in the area, but there are two fundamental differences.

Unlike last month, the Shi’ite military forces are currently fully engaged with fighting Sunni rebel organizations, and reclaiming lost territory on behalf of the embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Unlike last month, the Iranian- backed forces have not approached the border with Israel, despite their relative proximity to it.

Yet these conditions may prove to be temporary. Hezbollah and Iran remain committed to setting up a base in southern Syria, with the dual goal of beating back the Syrian rebels and expanding the Iranian front of jihad against Israel, from Lebanon to Syria.

The fact that these forces are waging battle against the rebels today does not rule out the possibility of them turning their guns, missiles and highly trained terrorist squads south, toward Israel tomorrow.

Israel has, according to foreign reports, already demonstrated its willingness to use deadly and accurate firepower to prevent the formation of a new Iranian-backed terrorist base. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that if intelligence data points to a renewed attempt to set up such a base, Israel will strike.

Awareness of that may deter Iran and Hezbollah from trying again anytime soon. But their mere presence so close to the Golan Heights means the situation is tense, and that the stakes are high.

Most Jews in Congress to attend Netanyahu speech

More than half of the Democratic Jewish members of US Congress say they will attend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on March 3, while many of the black members of Congress say they will stay away, according to reports in Washington, where the story continues to attract widespread media attention.

According to a Tuesday story on The Hill website headlined “Netanyahu speech has Jewish Democrats lining up,” 14 of the 27 Jewish senators and congressmen said they would attend the speech to a joint session of Congress.

Two senators – independent Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii – said they would not attend. Six were undecided, and five did not respond to a survey on the matter.

There is only one Republican Jewish congressman, Lee Zeldin from New York.

Among those Jewish Democrats who said they will attend is California Senator Barbara Boxer.

“I’m deeply troubled that politics has been injected into this enduring relationship that has always been above politics, but I plan to go,” she told The Hill.

The website said that Israel had been courting Jewish Democrats in an effort to defuse tension over the matter, with six leading members of Congress meeting last week with Ambassador Ron Dermer.

Schatz said in a statement to The Hill that the invitation by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner was apparently aimed at “undermining President [Barack] Obama’s foreign policy prerogatives.” He said he would not attend because “it does more harm than good to the bipartisan US-Israel alliance.”

In addition to Boxer, the other two Jewish senators who said they would attend were Maryland’s Ben Cardin and New York’s Charles Schumer.

Senators Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut and Dianne Feinstein from California said they had not yet decided, and Al Franken from Minnesota and Ron Wyden of Oregon did not respond to The Hill’s queries.

While the majority of Jewish lawmakers said they would attend, Politico reported that many members of the Congressional Black Caucus said they were planning to skip the speech, viewing it as a slight to Obama.

“To me, it is somewhat of an insult to the president of the United States,” Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) told Politico.

“Barack Obama is my president. He’s the nation’s president, and it is clear, therefore, that I’m not going to be there, as a result of that, not as a result of the good people of Israel.”

According to Politico, the negative reaction to the speech by the Congressional Black Caucus “has been particularly potent, striking at the political alliance between Jews and African-Americans that dates to the Civil Rights movement but has grown more fraught over the years.”

It quoted Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) as saying: “It’s not just about disrespect for the president, it’s disrespect for the American people and our system of government for a foreign leader to insert himself into an issue that our policymakers are grappling with. It’s not simply about President Obama being a black man disrespected by a foreign leader. It’s deeper than that.”

The chairman of the caucus, Rep.

G.K. Butterfield (D-North Carolina), said he did not hold Netanyahu responsible.

“I hold Speaker Boehner responsible, but I would hope that Mr.

Netanyahu would not want to get involved,” Butterfield said. “I personally think it is disrespectful.”

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, the only Afro-American senator and a strong Israel supporter, did not comment on whether he would attend.

Netanyahu again addressed the swirling controversy around the speech during a Wednesday visit to Eli, saying he was not going to the US to confront Obama but “to speak out for Israel and not just for Israel, but for the many others here in the Middle East and in the US who understand that [the Iranian regime] presents a great danger to them as well.”

According to Netanyahu, “Iran continues to forge ahead through the rubble of the new Middle East; it has already taken over four capitals, Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad and now Sana’a. Now it wants to open a third front from the Golan Heights.”

Netanyahu said that if that was the way Iran acted without nuclear arms, “imagine what it will do when it has nuclear weapons.”

In a related development, Attorney- General Yehuda Weinstein on Wednesday endorsed the legality of Israeli television stations broadcasting Netanyahu’s congressional speech.

Weinstein said that even if there was a political dimension to the speech, as long as the dominant purpose was to advance Israeli interests, broadcasting could not be blocked. He added that broadcasting it would constitute valid news reporting and that the prime minister was invited by Congress.

Critics had objected to the broadcast, calling the speech political grandstanding since it will fall only two weeks before the March 17 election.

A petition to block the speech was filed by Meretz party leader Zahava Gal-On. Gal-On said she was not surprised that Weinstein rejected her stance because he was “dragging his legs when it comes to investigations of the Netanyahu family.”

Hezbollah, Syrian forces and Iranian officers approach Israeli border in fight against rebels

Hezbollah, Syrian army forces and Iranian officers have drawn close to the border with Israel in the Golan Heights in their fight against Syrian rebels, AFP reported on Wednesday, citing state media reports and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Regime troops and their Hezbollah-led allies are advancing in the area linking Daraa, Quneitra and Damascus provinces," the Observatory stated.

"The operation launched by the Syrian army is being fought in cooperation with... Hezbollah and Iran," a Syrian army officer told state television, in what AFP reported was the first time that Syrian television had acknowledged such cooperation.

The Syrian forces were attempting to gain control of the area from rebels such as the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate, who have made advances in southern Syrian in recent months.

Six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranians, including a general were killed last month in an air strike in the Golan Heights in Syria that was widely attributed to Israel.

Hezbollah has accused Israel of forming ties with rebels in the border region, citing Israeli hospitals treating wounded Syrian rebels as proof.

In the aftermath of the alleged Israeli airstrike on the Hezbollah convoy in January, a Lebanese MP said that the group, along with the Iran and Syria were "working on establishing a resistant society in the Golan Heights."

According to Lebanon's Daily Star, the MP Walid Sukkarieh went on to say that Israel has been trying to establish strategic links with rebel factions fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, specifying in a separate newspaper interview that the Nusra Front is a major beneficiary of these efforts.

Throughout the war, which has raged for nearly four years, Israel has often treated Syrian civilians injured in the fighting. Israel's Health Ministry claims that around 1,000 Syrians - exclusively civilians - have been admitted into nearby hospitals, but other actors such as the UN have reported evidence of Israeli figures meeting with figures east of the Syrian-Israeli border who appeared to be combatants.

Control of the territory near the Quneitra crossing in the Golan Heights has frequently changed hands during the Syrian civil war.

Stray shells from the fighting between Assad's forces and the rebels have occasionally fallen in Israeli territory during the fighting. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon has vowed that Israel will respond to any cross-border shelling, whether it be intentional or not.